Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
After a mostly sleepless night, Cole was at loose ends. He liked keeping busy. Having nothing to do was his worst nightmare.
Well, maybe not his worst one, but it made the list. Being dumped by the woman of his dreams while also out of projects would have driven him to drink in the past.
Except he wasn’t doing that anymore. An occasional beer or two was his limit. Cleaning the loft from top to bottom took exactly two hours and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.
He considered copying Mila’s idea and going for a long ride along a snowy trail. But although he’d talked to Luis about snow pads he’d never bought any and he could cause Sparky a problem if he rode without them.
Then he remembered the arena. Luis and Jordie wouldn’t be using it this week. He’d only ridden Sparky once in there and they’d both loved it. Nobody would care as long as he got out the tractor and raked it afterward.
He'd done that job several times for his sister and brother-in-law, who’d been crunched for time as the training clinics gained popularity. They considered it a favor. He considered it the fulfillment of a little boy’s dream.
Riding Sparky in that arena would be a twofer. He’d lope around that space like the fudging Lone Ranger and then drive that John Deere like Old MacDonald.
Within ten minutes he’d tacked up Sparky and was leading him over to the arena. They’d chosen a plot of land to the right of the pasture and about thirty yards behind the two casitas. Someone had shoveled the path to the front entrance and taken a horse along it, too.
He wasn’t the only one with this idea, but he kinda hoped they’d been and gone. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation.
The sound of hoofbeats reached him as he drew closer to the open double doors. Well, damn. Either he could put on his cheerful face and brave it through or take his horse back to the barn.
Sparky was prancing with eagerness, so that settled it. He couldn’t disappoint his horse. As for small talk, he’d say Mila and Claudie were making Christmas fudge today so he was using the time to give Sparky some exercise. Both things were true, as far as they went.
As he reached the doorway and peered inside, he chuckled. Should’ve known.
Jordie slowed Fudge from a trot to a walk as she rode over to greet him. “Hey, big brother! Great minds, huh?”
“Guess so. How come you’re out here alone?”
“I’m not alone. I have Fudgie.” She leaned down and patted the horse’s neck.
“Good point.”
“Come on in. I’ve only been here about fifteen minutes. I must’ve just missed you at the barn.”
“Yep. I didn’t notice Fudge was gone when I fetched Sparky.” He swung into the saddle. “I would’ve taken a trail ride, but I don’t have any snow pads.”
“I do, if you want to change your mind.”
“Nah, this looks like more fun.” She was the one person he could stand to be with right now. “We can go faster.”
“That’s what I decided.” She smiled. “Besides, I like this place.”
“Because of your wedding?”
“Definitely that, but also because you built it. Every time I come in here I think of how hard you worked on it.”
“Not just me.” But he loved hearing that she connected him to this building.
“Mostly you.”
He gave her a smile. “So where’s Luis?”
“He’s working on the sleigh with Rio. They think the snow will still be good enough on Christmas Day to take it out.”
“You didn’t want to help get it ready?”
“They invited me, but they need some brotherly time together. And I could use a break from hearing about all the fun they’ve had in past Christmases.”
“Yeah, I heard a lot of those stories yesterday during the poker game. It gets old.”
She gazed at him. “How’re you doing?”
“Fine.”
“Hm.” She studied him for a moment. Then she glanced at Sparky, who continued to prance. “He’s getting impatient. We should do this. How fast do you want to go?”
“I thought I’d switch off between a lope and a trot, but you were here first. Your call. And you get to lead.”
She laughed. “That was never up for debate. Let’s go.” She reined Fudge around and nudged him with her heels. The black gelding took off at a brisk trot.
His heart lifted as he mounted up and followed on Sparky, holding him back a little to give her plenty of room to maneuver. They couldn’t race in this confined space, but it reminded him of how they used to on their rusty old bikes. She’d been a scrappy competitor.
He could still picture those races, her blonde hair pulled through the back of her baseball cap like a pennant flapping in the wind as she leaned forward and pedaled like crazy. He hadn’t let her win every time, but a lot of the time.
Watching Fudge circling the arena was a pleasure, too. Thanks to Monty’s doctoring, he’d completely recovered from the hoof abscess he’d developed in July. Having a vet in the family was a big perk of living at Laughing Creek Ranch.
Hell, there were so many perks he couldn’t count them all. Like today for instance, he had the privilege of hanging out with Jordie while riding a great horse he’d been given by her generous husband.
A few days ago his future had sparkled with promise. But now the magic was slipping through his fingers and he didn’t know how to stop it from happening.
They rode without trying to talk over the echo of pounding hooves on the sandy surface. The steady rhythm of the horse under him didn’t require his full attention, which gave him plenty of time to think about Mila’s clear challenge.
Did she understand what she’d asked of him? And how things would change if he complied?
But they’d already changed and he couldn’t see a way back to what he’d had. The thought of giving her what she wanted made his stomach pitch. He might break down. She’d never see him the same way again.
But if he continued to refuse, he’d lose her. Could he stand to live here, knowing she was only steps away, knowing he could run into her at any moment?
On the flip side, could he stand to leave? What about Jordie and this family he’d grown to love? What about Sparky? Even if Luis let him take the horse, he'd have no business doing that.
He’d have to say goodbye to the loft he’d created. And the Beaver Bunch. He could teach someone to run the program, but would they even want that display? Everything he’d built here — the relationships, the loft, the animatronics, even this arena would be lost to him.
He went over it again and again, getting no answers but unable to escape his spiraling thoughts.
“Ready to call it?”
He dragged himself out of the pit of despair he was drowning in. “You bet!” His voice sounded strained to him. Hopefully not to her. He slowed Sparky to a trot.
“We should walk them around a few times.”
“Right.”
She turned in her saddle. “You don’t have to stay back there.”
“Right.” His vocabulary seemed to be shrinking along with his prospects. He guided Sparky up next to Fudge.
“Okay, what’s wrong?”
He glanced at her and couldn’t come up with what to say.
“It’s Mila, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
“Is she upset because you’re not into Christmas?”
“Not exactly.” He cleared his throat. “She doesn’t like…” He cleared it again. “How I deal with it.”
“How do you deal with it?”
“I block it out.”
Her eyes widened. “How long have you been doing that?”
“A long time.”
“Oh, Cole.”
He sucked in a breath. “It works, damn it.”
“Could you break that habit?”
“Don’t know.”
“Well, you need to. I can see why it would bother her.”
He sighed. “I…yeah, I could break it. Wouldn’t be easy, but… I’d give it a shot.” He took another breath. “But that’s not all.”
“Oh.”
“She wants to hear about….” He made a vague gesture. “Everything.”
Her breathing hitched.
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t want to tell her.”
“Right.”
“That sounds like you.”
He glanced at her. She was looking at him with such kindness that his throat closed up.
“Cole, you need to talk to her.”
“But I—”
“I know it’s hard. I know you don’t want to.”
“Jordie, you don’t—”
“I didn’t want to, either. I tried to convince Luis it was pointless.”
“You told him?”
“I did. And so should you.”
He shook his head. “It’s so ugly. I don’t want anybody to hear it, most of all her.”
“She’s not just anybody. She’s Mila, the one you’re supposed to be with, the one who will understand. She needs to know you, all of you, or it’ll never work.”
“That’s what she said.”
“That’s what Luis said, too.”
“When?”
“Back in September, when we were planning the wedding. He asked me to tell him everything. It was important to him, so I forced myself to do it.”
“And?”
“I’ve never felt so much relief in my life. It was important to me. Later he confessed that if I’d refused, he would have called off the wedding.”
“No, he wouldn’t. He loves you so much that he—”
“Oh, I think he would have. Mila loves you very much, too. That’s why she’s asking this.”
Heart thumping, he met her gaze. “I’ll think about it.” He knew his sister’s story, and if he had a similar one….
But he didn’t. Even she didn’t know that. He couldn’t imagine unloading the truth on Mila and watching her face as she absorbed it. How could he ask the woman he loved to share his nightmare?
When the horses were cooled down, Jordie made him a deal. Since he loved driving the tractor and she didn’t much care for it, she’d take the horses back and unsaddle them while he raked the arena.
Consequently he had even more time to think. The task had a Zen quality, like a giant version of a tabletop rock garden. First he slowly raked down the middle. Then he started on the outside and drove in concentric ovals, creating a neat pattern of grooves in the sand.
As he drove, he came up with a partial solution to his problem. It wasn’t what Mila had asked for and he wasn’t sure he could do it. The idea gave him cold chills.
But with his back against the wall, he had no choice but to act.