Chapter 19 Hayden
CHAPTER NINETEEN
hayden
PRESENT DAY
Our impromptu fishing trip seemed to work, because by the time we had to get back on the road for the next rodeo, a little bit of Sierra’s spark appeared to have come back.
She came out of the house as I was packing up the pickup and horse trailer. A baggy T-shirt hung loose off her shoulders, and she had on a pair of bootcut Wranglers.
“Morning,” I greeted her.
She shielded her eyes from the sun. “Anything I can help you with?”
“If you want to grab Lucky’s tack from the shed and load it into the horse trailer, that’s about all I had left to do besides loading the horses. We’ll be set to hit the road pretty shortly. Are you packed up?”
She threw out a thumbs-up since she already had her back turned to me, making her way over to the tack room.
Our trip to Oregon was one of our longer ones, lasting a full week before we immediately drove over to North Dakota.
This was also one of the few trips we’d be boarding our horses at the rodeo site and staying in a hotel nearby.
Since Sierra normally stayed in her trailer at an RV park, she hadn’t been able to book a hotel, but I’d booked a double queen room.
Jake was going to stay with me, but given the circumstances, he got booted to Mikey’s room.
We’d also be leaving Pancho behind on this trip. Liv had offered to dog sit while we were gone, so on the way out of town, we’d have to drop him off at her house. He was already waiting in the backseat of the truck. The windows were slightly rolled down, so he was peeking his nose out.
“Ready to go?” I double-checked with Sierra after she dragged two duffel bags and a backpack out of the front door. “We’re only going to be gone a week, you know.”
She dropped the bags on the ground, huffing out a few labored breaths. “I’d rather be prepared and not need everything than need something and not be prepared.”
I lifted one of the bags, thinking it’d be easy to toss it into the back of the pickup, but it was heavier than I expected. “What the hell do you have in here? Bricks?”
“No, just my entire rock collection,” she deadpanned, rolling her eyes.
“Well, at least we’ll have something to hold down the bed of the truck,” I teased, tossing her second bag into the bed.
“Anything can happen on these types of trips.” She shrugged. “If we somehow happen to get stranded on the side of the road, I have plenty of layers.”
“If you say so. All right, Princess, let’s get on the road.” That nickname earned me a glare sharp enough to cut through bone.
She climbed up into the passenger seat, sparing me one more glance over her shoulder as she scolded me. “Never call me that again. I can handle Skip, but Princess is too far.”
“Noted.” I chuckled as I shut her door and made my way over to the driver’s side.
The plan was to meet up with the rest of the group in Missoula, but a few hours into the drive, our text group was blowing up with notifications.
The Silver Creek Cowboys (and Ellison)
(plus Isa and June)
Jake
Not gonna make it in time to meet up guys
Ellison
What happened?
Jake
Flat tire. Had to stop in Livingston
Colter
You guys alright if we just keep going then? We’re almost to Butte.
That’s fine. Sierra and I are right behind you, but we might still stop somewhere
It was about an hour past noon, and Sierra’s stomach had rumbled a few times between Bozeman and where we currently were. I was starting to get a bit hungry myself, and I didn’t want to wait much longer to eat.
Mikey
We’ll see you all in Pendleton, then I suppose.
Ellison
Drive safe. Send us updates plz!
“Guess we’re not meeting up in Missoula anymore. Jake and Mikey got a flat outside of Livingston, so they had to stop. Colter, Reid, and Ellison are ahead of us, but they said they were just going to keep going,” I explained, putting my phone back in the center console.
“What’s our plan then?” she asked as her stomach growled. “Can we still stop?”
A chuckle rumbled low in my chest as I said, “Yeah, Skip, we can stop. I’m getting hungry, too.”
About thirty minutes later, I pulled off the interstate into the parking lot of a small mom-and-pop diner.
The building itself was small, with a red roof and a big, farmhouse-style sign that read Ma’s Roadside Diner.
A vintage flatbed truck sat out front, its dark teal body completely spotless and free from rust.
“What do you think?” I looked at Sierra for her approval.
She nodded, pressing her lips together in a pout like she was thinking. “Looks cute. Kind of reminds me of Ranger’s. Let’s do it.”
I killed the ignition, and we made our way to the front entrance. Bells jingled as we stepped inside, signaling our arrival. A sign instructing us to seat ourselves was placed near the hostess stand, and a big dining room with a variety of tables greeted us.
We found a table for two near a window and sat down. Not too long after, a waitress with silver hair, round glasses, and a gingham apron strode up to our table with menus and two glasses of water.
“Welcome to Ma’s! I’m Shellie, and I’ll be helping you out today. Take your time to look at the menu, and I’ll be right back to get some drink orders.”
“Thank you very much, Shellie.” I offered her a genuine smile before picking up my menu. “What have we got here?”
It was your classic American diner menu, with sandwiches, burgers, and an all-day breakfast.
“Look, they’ve got Elvis pancakes on the menu.” I pointed out the breakfast item to Sierra. The pancakes had peanut butter, bananas, and bacon, just like Elvis Presley’s favorite sandwich.
She tilted her head. “You know I can’t pass up some good peanut butter pancakes, but the turkey bacon club looks really good, too. I’m guessing you’re going to have the mushroom Swiss burger?”
She had me there. Like I’d told her a few weeks ago, old habits died hard. And I was nothing if not a man of habit. Why fix something that isn’t broken?
“Are you two ready to get some drinks in?” Shellie popped back around to our table after helping the few other groups in the dining room. The place wasn’t too busy for one thirty in the afternoon.
“I’ll do a Coke,” Sierra told her.
“Make that two.” I gestured with my hands. “I think we’re also ready to order, right?” I glanced at Sierra for approval, and she nodded.
“Sounds good! Are you wanting to put any appetizers in? Also, our special today is a steak sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy.” Shellie looked at me, but I pointed to Sierra to let her order first.
“I don’t think we’re going to do an appetizer, so I’ll just have an order of the Elvis pancakes.” Her eyes flicked up to mine, a blush creeping into her cheeks.
“And for you, darling?”
“I’ll do the mushroom Swiss burger, please. With french fries.” I handed Shellie both our menus as she scribbled down our orders on a notepad.
“I’ll put those orders in and be right back with those sodas for you.”
“Thank you so much.” I dipped my chin in acknowledgment. Resting my forearms on the table, I leaned forward slightly. “So…”
Sierra’s brows shot up. “So?”
“You always said you were going to get out of Goldfinch. Where’d you end up traveling to?” I’d resisted asking the question for this long.
I had to know where she’d been all those years, why she never reached out to me.
I thought after the last time I’d seen her that maybe we were…
something, anything. I didn’t know. Maybe I was just a dumb kid with his heart on his sleeve and stars in his eyes, but the way she’d looked at me that night made me believe she felt the same way.
Sierra took a slow sip of her water before placing it back on the table, her eyes averting to the ice clinking around in the glass. “Everywhere. I wanted to see everything I could.”
Everywhere but home.
“What was your favorite place you traveled to?”
She rolled her lips between her teeth. “It was this little town in Colorado called Cedar Bluffs. It reminded me a lot of Silver Creek, actually. It was small and close-knit, but the environment was rare. Everyone tended to mind their own business instead of getting involved in the gossip mill. It was nice.”
I was sure she loved that. People in Goldfinch loved to talk. I couldn’t exactly blame her for leaving after everything that had happened and the way the town reacted. Finding solace in a small town where who you were didn’t matter was probably a nice reprieve.
“Would you ever want to go back?” My question came with a subtle tone of Are you planning on leaving again?, without actually saying it outright.
Her gaze flicked toward the ceiling this time. “Hmm… I’m not sure. Probably not. There’s still so much out there I haven’t seen, but I don’t know, maybe…” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t know if I’m ready to settle, but part of me wants to. Part of me wants to stop—”
“Here are those Cokes. Your food’s on the way.” Shellie interrupted Sierra’s sentence, but I thought I had an idea of what she might have been trying to say, or at least what I hoped she was trying to say.
Part of me wants to stop running away.
“Well, I remember you always said you wanted to make it to Houston, Cheyenne, Pendleton, and Vegas. You’ve done Houston and Cheyenne.”
She’d been at Cheyenne Frontier Days a couple years ago, and I thought I’d imagined her out in the arena.
I wasn’t able to work up the courage to approach her out of fear that I’d somehow scare her away.
Honestly, if Pancho hadn’t run up to me that day in Goldfinch, I didn’t know if I would have had the guts to talk to her a month ago.
It wasn’t that I was avoiding her. In truth, whenever we were in the same place over the years, all I wanted to do was reunite with her.
But I think a small part of me knew that, for Sierra, coming back had to be on her terms. She had to be the one to choose to stay, and I wasn’t going to take that power away from her.
Even though the notion was painful, I was willing to be patient and meet her wherever she was. Be whoever she needed me to be.
“We’re on our way to Pendleton now,” I pointed out. “All that’s left is Vegas.”
She nodded, finally making eye contact with me, her emerald eyes shining with emotions. I hoped pride was one of them, because if nothing else, Sierra should have been very proud of herself and how far she’d come.
“Hey, Sierra?” I murmured, low and so soft I wasn’t even sure she’d be able to hear.
“Hmm?”
“I’m really proud of you.”
“Could we just get the check?” After we’d scarfed down our food—without too much conversation because we were both starving—I flashed a smile at our server, and she nodded, rushing away to grab the bill.
When she came back, she placed it on the table. Sierra reached for it, but I stopped her, placing my hand atop hers before handing my credit card to Shellie.
“Aw, how sweet. I just adore young love. You two look so good together,” Shellie gushed as she took my card and whisked away before Sierra could correct her, “Oh, we aren’t a couple,” already falling off her lips.
Her cheeks flamed, and her eyes widened.
I shrugged, mischievous thoughts rolling through my mind. “Can’t deny it, Skip. We do look good together.”
Shellie brought back my card faster than I’d ever seen, and she gave us her thanks for coming in. “You and your honey drive safe now.” She winked.
Sierra ignored Shellie’s statement, pushing back her chair to stand as I added a tip and signed the receipt. “Let’s get back on the road or we’ll end up getting to Oregon super late.”
“I can drive the next few hours so you can get some sleep,” she offered after I yawned on our way through the parking lot.
“Okay, yeah sure. That’d be great.” A memory resurfaced, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to give her a hard time. “Just don’t crash, okay? I don’t think I can take the fall this time.”
“Hey!” She scoffed, tilting her chin upward like a petulant child. “You promised you wouldn’t hold that against me!”
I chuckled, shoulders shaking in pure glee, replaying the first time Sierra tried to drive—after a bit of convincing—in my head.