Chapter Ten #2
The same reason he had yet to go down to the brothers’ wing at the ranch house where their bedrooms were and instead chose to sleep on the couch in the family room.
The treehouse was abandoned. Same as the brothers abandoned each other to follow their own paths.
It was not right or wrong. It just was. There was no sense looking back now.
He asked, “Have you returned to your special garden?”
She shook her head. “It became a vegetable garden and stayed that way until my grandfather died.”
“And now?” he pressed.
“It’s overgrown with weeds. I can’t see the path anymore,” she said then added, “And the truth is I haven’t taken the time to try.”
“Same here.” Asher extended his arms over the stall door and held his palms out, inviting the colt to come to him. “I don’t have the time to go chasing days gone by.” And so he kept looking ahead. Always.
“All the same, it was nice to revisit just now.” She bumped her shoulder against Asher’s. “It reminded me how much I could use a proper vegetable garden right about now.”
He grinned. “You should talk to Edwina. She used to tend to the garden my mom started near the staff quarters. I’m sure Edie would share if she has anything growing there.”
“I will track down Edie tomorrow.” Kelley reached into her pocket and pulled out the spearmint leaves. “Speaking of garden fresh, maybe we should see if Pride might like some organic mint.”
Asher shifted his attention back to the colt and away from Kelley and things not meant for him. He said, “Let’s try and see.”
Kelley rubbed a leaf over her palms, then set another one in her hand and reached over the stall door. Her words were soothing and calm. “You want to move, don’t you, Pride? But you’re not sure who to trust. I know that feeling.”
Pride’s ears perked up. His nostrils flared.
“Who don’t you trust?” Asher asked Kelley and watched Pride extend his head toward her.
“Myself,” Kelley said, then worked to soothe Pride before Asher could ask her more.
That, he supposed, was as it should be.
Kelley continued, “You can trust me, Pride. I won’t hurt you.”
Asher did not want to hurt his cowgirl. The only way to do that was to get her out of his head. He trusted himself to do that. Because he could not be trusted with a cowgirl’s heart as big and tender as hers.
Pride breathed heavily and took a tentative step toward Kelley, who held herself in place. Her focus remained fixed on the colt. “He’s coming to me.” There was a smile in her words. “You can do it, Pride.”
One minute there was no connection. And the next, the colt was nuzzling Kelley’s palm while Kelley cheered him on. She chuckled. “He likes it.”
The next thing Asher knew, Kelley was pressed up against him, crushing a spearmint leaf against his hands and explaining to Pride that Asher was one of the good ones, too.
Asher very much wanted to be, if only for his cowgirl. And a good one would know when to let go and walk away. Pride searched Asher’s palms for more spearmint and Asher said, “Let’s open the door and see if Pride will let me in.”
Another spearmint branch and Asher was inside Pride’s stall.
Kelley stayed on the other side and rubbed her fingers over Pride’s muzzle.
Asher ran his hand over Pride’s back, noted the still tense muscles and set out to give the colt a massage that he’d seen his father treat his horses to after a hard-won race.
A short while later, Kelley said, “I think the spearmint and massage are working. Pride is looking much more at ease.”
Asher was feeling the same. There was something soothing yet energizing about winning over the racehorse. He heard Pride breathe heavily on Kelley and smiled. “He likes you.”
Kelley said, “That is because Pride knows I understand him. We get each other.”
“What do you mean?” Asher smoothed his hands in a circular motion over Pride’s hind leg.
“His world went from traveling to one racetrack after another to this tiny stall,” Kelley explained. “Now Pride is scared and unsure. That was how I felt after I got divorced and lost my restaurant.”
It was not lost on Asher that the more Pride relaxed, the more Kelley did, too.
Both the colt and his cowgirl were starting to trust him.
Heady stuff for sure. Asher would need to tread carefully.
He picked up a grooming brush from the bucket and asked, “Do you mind if I ask what happened between you and your ex-husband?”
“We should have worked,” she said. “We did work on paper. We were aligned in our culinary passion and goals. We cared for each other.”
“But,” he pressed.
“I realized I lost myself in pursuit of some vision I could no longer see,” she explained.
“My ex-husband enhanced the menu so much, he edited me out. Still, I was convinced he loved me, and he was making the right decisions for us as a team and for our future, not just his own success. Turned out I was wrong.”
“So, you came home, rather than reset in the city,” he said, his words casual.
She nodded. “The city is his place, not mine.”
Asher wanted to argue. The city was a place of opportunity.
There was room for Kelley. With him. It could be their place, too.
Now Asher sounded like he wanted a relationship.
With her. Coming home certainly turned him around in more ways than one.
Nothing he couldn’t straighten out once his boots hit the hard pavement alone like he preferred.
Frowning, Asher worked the brush over Pride’s back.
“My ex-husband is thriving in New York,” she stated, her words flat and indifferent.
“He is with an investment company that is more interested in profit margins than culinary experiences for their group of restaurants. From what I’ve heard, he is making quite the name for himself and surpassing their expectations. ”
Asher was not all that interested in her ex-husband’s achievements. It was his cowgirl who fascinated him. He asked, “What do you want to do now?”
“I want to do something that matters. That has an impact.” She paused and shifted to look around Pride’s head. She met Asher’s gaze. “You’re going to tell me that’s what everyone wants.”
He finished brushing Pride’s tail and gave her his own truth. “That was not what I wanted when I moved to New York permanently.”
“What did you want?” She searched his face.
He considered her, considered even more keeping the next truth to himself.
But it was best if she understood exactly the kind of cowboy he was.
Driven. Singularly focused. Selfish and emotionally unavailable.
Those were only a few of the things his ex-girlfriends accused him of.
He said, “I only wanted to prove my father wrong.”
“And have you?” she asked tentatively, then more boldly. “Have you proven your dad wrong?”
“He’s not here to ask so you’ll have to tell me.” Asher dropped the comb into the grooming bucket and reached for the halter and lead rope hanging from a hook on the wall. “My father warned me I would never become anything without the Blackwell name and his stables to lean on.”
“So, you went to New York where the Blackwell name carries no weight and became successful on your own terms,” she said, approval clear in her tone. Her grin was playful, her mood light. “It is safe for me to assume you are successful, aren’t you?”
His chuckle was short and abrupt. “According to the partners at the investment firm, I’m the best they’ve got.
” That was not by accident. It came from hard work and an uncompromising resolve.
“According to the articles written about me, I’m at the top of my financial game. ” Where he had fought to be.
Her eyebrows winged up.
He held her gaze and said, “If financial security for myself, my family and future generations is a criterion, I have that, too.”
Because it was not enough to prove Walter wrong. It was about standing as his father’s equal and providing for himself and his own, rendering his father’s so-called goodwill unnecessary.
“Impressive,” Kelley murmured. “I would have to say you achieved your goal.”
“I’m not even sure it matters now.” The words slipped out before he could stop them and yet he continued to spill his truths, “Dylan isn’t here.
Walter is gone, too.” As was the reason Asher pushed himself.
He never wanted to give his dad a reason to tell him that he should have—or could have—accomplished more.
Now Asher was more alone and more restless than ever.
“What is next for you?” Kelley asked.
Asher slipped the halter on Pride’s head and paused to give the colt a moment to adjust. He said, “When I finish up here, it’s back to the city and my job.
” Where he would certainly find his new reason to keep moving forward like always.
He took hold of the lead rope. “Right now, it’s time to get Pride someplace he can run like he’s meant to. ”
“You look like you have a place in mind.” Kelley opened the stall door.
“There’s a trio of retirees out in the farthest pasture,” Asher said, then guided Pride from the stable and straight outside into the evening. “They’ll teach Pride how to be a horse again.”
Kelley walked beside them and smiled. “I like that idea. Pride has earned the freedom to enjoy himself.”
Asher could not deny he was enjoying himself. It was a far cry from his fast-paced days of back-to-back meetings, conference calls and heated negotiations where he chased improved bottom lines, and business came before all else.
The night air was cool, and the hum of nature surrounded them. And for the first time in a long while, Asher was content in the silence.
It was just a cowboy, a cowgirl and a horse.
Suddenly, Asher wondered what more he could ever want.