Chapter 12 Everett
Chapter twelve
Everett
I’m awake long before the sunrise, eager to start my day and show Ruth around. I don’t expect her to be up for a while yet, but she texts me just as the sky turns orange.
I forgot about the time zones.
I had been idly folding roses out of some old scrapbook paper Mom found in her desk drawer, but the second Ruth’s text lands, I’m out of bed and heading straight for the shower.
I spend an extra few minutes taming my curls and combing the scruff on my face before running out the door without breakfast.
By the time I get to the main house, Ruth is in the kitchen with Mom and Harriet, flipping eggs like she belongs.
Something flickers in my chest, settling over me like some kind of warm blanket.
The way she’s laughing with my family, navigating my childhood home with a practiced ease.
It says maybe this could be her home, too.
Four heads turn as I cross the kitchen threshold.
“Morning, son.” Dad stretches his arms over his head as his voice booms from the long, bench-lined table. Harriet raises a cup of coffee in my direction before taking a sip. Mom rounds the counter to pull me into a hug.
“Good morning, honey,” she says. Her lips twitch with more to say, but with our audience, she keeps those thoughts quiet. No doubt I’ll hear all of them later. Ruth slides an over-easy egg onto a plate with two triangles of buttered toast, before passing it down the counter to Harriet.
That’s my cue. With the spatula sat on the counter, I walk behind Ruth, wrapping my arms around her waist.
“Put me down, you brute!” Her squeals are punctuated with laughter as she bats at my hands, clasped together on her belly. I spin her away from the stovetop, just in time to catch Mom hide a smile behind her coffee cup as a horde of rowdy cowboys descend on her kitchen for breakfast.
“You ready to explore the ranch, Ruth?” I lower her back to the ground, slipping my hand from her waist to tangle my fingers with hers. “I thought maybe I’d take you to see some more of the horses this morning, maybe ride out to see some of the herds. It’s almost time we move them, anyway.”
“Ride? Like, ride a horse?”
“We don’t have to take horses, honey,” I say. There’s fear in her eyes, and it’s unsettling. “We can take the side-by-side instead.”
“Maybe a horse would be okay,” she says after a moment. She’s still uncertain, but I tighten my fingers around hers, and she squeezes back. “If you’re there with me.”
“I’ll be with you as long as you need, honey.”
Although Grover is a gelding with a steady temperament, I choose to let Ruth ride Della, instead. She’s as calm and as loyal as they come, and hand on my heart, there’s no horse I’d trust more—with my life, or with Ruth’s.
“Step up on this block, and then put your left foot in the stirrup,” I instruct. I hold the reins from Della’s right side, while Ruth stands on the left, hesitantly lifting her foot to the concrete block and replacing it on the ground again.
“You’re sure I won’t hurt her?”
“She’s good as gold,” I promise. “I trust this girl with my life. And with yours.”
“God help me. If I die, tell my mother I love her.”
With that, Ruth steps up onto the block and slips her foot into the stirrup in one swift movement.
“Now, swing your right leg over.”
She does as I say, and I catch her foot, guiding it into the stirrup on Della’s right side.
“Okay, now grab these reins.” I hand Ruth the reins, keeping one leather strap in my own hand. I check the fit of the saddle one more time. Ruth sits stiffly, an expression between awe and terror on her face.
“I’m on a horse,” she whispers.
“You’re on a horse, baby girl.”
“Now what?”
I reach up and tap the curve of her waist, right where it dips to her hip. “Loosen your hips, honey.”
“Loosen… my hips?”
“Relax. Open your hips up. Feel Della’s movement and roll into it with her. Keep your back straight, but your hips relaxed.”
Ruth’s entire body jerks awkwardly as she tries to follow my directions. I pinch my lips together to fight a smile. This might take a little more than just one session. I step left, to where Grover is tacked up and ready, drinking from a water trough and snorting quietly.
“Come on, boy,” I murmur to him. It’s not often I ride him, but he’s no stranger to it. I swing myself onto his back with ease and walk him up alongside Della and Ruth.
“Look at the line of my spine and my hips,” I say. I exaggerate my posture just a little. “Open hips, tall back.”
“Wait—whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You’re riding too… you mean I’m riding on my own?”
“You thought this was an only-one-horse trope? Honey, this is Texas. There are plenty of horses to go around.”
“But I don’t know how.”
“Yeah, you do. It’s instinctive. Anything that’s not, Della will teach you.
Here, dig gently with your left heel against her flank.
Like this.” I gesture down at my own left foot, nudging Grover until he begins to trot slowly.
Della follows with a gentle snort. I glance behind me to see Ruth’s white-knuckle grip on the reins as Della catches up and falls into step beside her son.
“Follow her lead, Ruth. Roll where she rolls.”
“It’s kind of peaceful,” she says after a moment. “The motion of it. Her. You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”
“That’s my Delly,” I say, chest puffing out with pride. I dig my heel a little harder, and Grover picks up his pace. Della follows suit, immediately understanding that she’s to follow my lead, despite riding a different horse.
We ride in a wide, slow circle, looping back to the stables where we give both horses a quick groom and a handful of treats.
Then, we head back out in the side-by-side I left parked up around the back of the outbuilding.
We ride that to my cabin, where we swap it in favour of my old Chevy, and head out into town.
We reach Miss Celia’s diner just in time for an early lunch. Miss Celia herself intercepts us as we walk in, greeting me with a wry smile and a hand on her hip, demanding an introduction to my lunch companion. I feel the hair of my mustache brush my upper lip as it twitches into a smile.
“This is my friend, Ruth.”
Miss Celia scoffs. She never was one for subtlety. “Just a friend?”
“It’s new,” Ruth says quietly. A pink flush rises in her cheeks, and I slide my hand to the middle of her back, guiding her fully through the door.
“Don’t have to be old to be more than just friends,” Miss Celia says with a conspiratorial wink. “New things can be more, too.” She whips a menu from somewhere and places it on the nearest table—my favourite window booth—and invites Ruth to take a seat.
“I’ll be right back to take your order,” she promises with a grin, before limping away.
“Is it always like that here?” Ruth asks. She eyes me curiously as I smile after Miss Celia, and then jumps almost out of her skin when an old school friend knocks on the window beside me to wave. I wave back before answering.
“Everyone knows everyone in Skillett. They can sniff out a newcomer from a mile and a half away. If they don’t know you, they will.”
“Very… busybody.”
“It’s their business to know everyone’s business.
Welcome to small town Texas, I guess.” There’s a little piece of me wondering what Ruth thinks of that.
Wondering whether she’s okay with it—with the fact that by now, at least half of the business owners on Skillett’s Main Street will know I’m in here with a woman, and in the next ten minutes, everyone else in the town probably will, too.
There’s a nagging slice of worry that it’s too much for her, that the big city isn’t like that.
But then she hits me with the most breathtaking smile as she lifts the menu from the table and says, “Well, I’m glad they know I’m here with you, and not someone else.”
And that’s when I know for certain.
The other half of my heart has been walking around in Ruth Bevan’s body her whole life, and I’ve never been more sure of anything than I am of this: I want to spend the rest of my days with her, and her heart, right beside me.