Chapter 18
Because he had promised Poppy that he would take her for a ride, Benji headed back to the barn from the wrangler’s bunkhouse after he had changed his clothes, even though he had taken the day off.
He saddled Diablo and Zeph as Skye groomed and tacked up Smokey and four other horses for a trail ride at the hitching post next to him. Benji made conversation as they worked. ‘How did the barrel lesson go?’
‘It was good. Sierra gave me some really helpful tips and some drills to tighten the pocket around each barrel. I’m hoping I can practise a bit and then get her to come watch again.’
‘She’s the best we’ve got.’
‘Why doesn’t she ride anymore?’ Skye’s tone was cautious. She stopped brushing Smokey to give him her full attention. ‘I keep meaning to ask, but she’s a little scary. She’s not someone you can make personal conversation with right away …’
Benji’s grin was quick. ‘She is a little scary when you don’t know her,’ he affirmed. ‘But only because she’s had to learn how to be strong. On the inside – all marshmallow.’
‘Nah.’ Skye shook her head. ‘I don’t see it.’ She went back to brushing her horse’s legs, added, ‘You didn’t answer my question.’
‘If she wants to tell you, she will,’ Benji replied. Mostly because once people found out about the baby, they started looking at you differently, and Sierra hated the pity just as much as he did. But also, because he couldn’t quite say the words ‘Our baby died’. They were still too heavy. Too raw.
At some point, they would both have to start working through all that grief, but Benji didn’t want to push Sierra too hard, too fast. He was afraid that if he did, she would snap and push him away again. So, instead, he tiptoed around it, tiptoed around her.
For now.
But it was coming.
Even though things between them had finally shifted, Benji could feel the water rising and pressing against that dam wall Sierra had built around herself. He could feel the weight of it – of them – in all the things that had gone unsaid.
But even knowing it didn’t stop that punch of love when Sierra and Poppy pulled up in the golf cart.
Poppy was in jeans, a huge fleece jacket, and her Western riding boots.
Sierra wore flared blue jeans, a white blouse, and a blue sport coat even though it was cold.
Despite the relative casualness of the outfit, a pair of heels, these ones blue and white striped stilettos, still adorned her feet.
Although she had always liked her fancy shoes, Benji couldn’t help but see these ones as a calculated defensive measure.
They practically screamed ‘I won’t be riding’.
‘Ladies,’ he greeted them as they approached.
Poppy ran up to him with all the exuberance of a kid about to do her favourite thing in the world. She threw herself at him, and Benji scooped her off the ground and spun her in a circle until she was laughing loudly.
‘You ready, Pops?’ he asked the moment his head had stopped spinning.
‘Yes!’
He carried her to where Zephyr stood, patiently waiting with Poppy’s small saddle on.
‘On three,’ he said, and because it was their little ritual, he swung Poppy back and forth so that she almost touched the saddle with each count.
‘One.’ She laughed. ‘Two.’ She squealed, and the sound was pure joy. ‘Three.’
Benji exhaled a winded breath once she was finally seated.
Who knew that time would go by so fast, and that one day soon he’d be unable to lift his goddaughter onto a horse?
He reached for her booted foot to put it into the stirrup, but, as if to prove his point, Poppy shouted, ‘No! I got it, Uncle Benji.’
He held his hands up, palms outwards, and stepped back as Poppy reached down and adjusted her own stirrups – and it was hard. To leave her to it. To watch her growing up so freaking fast.
‘All right, remember how to hold your reins?’
‘I know,’ she said sassily and picked up the reins. But instead of holding them with both hands like they’d taught her, she gripped the Western split reins in her right hand and let her left fall loosely to her side. Like a damn cowgirl.
Benji only shook his head and held up her bright pink riding hat. ‘Let’s put this on and then we’ll get going.’
For a long moment, Poppy looked like she was going to argue.
But before she could open her mouth to say anything, Sierra spoke up from behind them, ‘Poppy, no hat, no riding.’ And her tone was steel.
It was Mom Voice, and, for only a moment, it reminded Benji of Ava Hunt and of all the things they’d lost.
Poppy’s lip wobbled. ‘But you and Daddy don’t wear riding hats,’ she insisted, those big Hunt eyes turned on Benji.
‘Sweetheart, your dad and I are really old,’ Benji attempted to justify it, even as he thought shit. ‘When you’ve been riding for thirty more years, you can choose to not wear a hard hat.’
Poppy’s mouth dropped open. ‘Thirty years? That’s a really long time, Uncle Benji.’
‘Okay, how about ten years?’ Benji asked, somehow negotiating when, if it had been up to him, she would have worn a riding hat every time she was on horseback irrespective of how old she was or how good in the saddle she got.
Poppy sighed, but she turned, and only one look at Sierra’s cool expression was enough to have her saying, ‘Fine.’
‘Atta girl.’ Benji gently put her hat on and clipped the buckle under her chin, being careful not to accidentally catch her hair. And because Poppy was still grumpy, he said the one thing that was bound to make her smile. ‘You look stylish – like Sisi.’
Poppy sat up straighter in the saddle and used both hands to adjust the pink hat, this time with a little pride. ‘Sisi got me this hat,’ she informed him. ‘Because we like pink. She has one too, but she doesn’t use it ’cause she doesn’t like horses anymore.’
Benji might have laughed at how similar Poppy and Sierra were if Poppy had said anything else. But the words, from the mouth of someone too young to conceptualize all the reasons why her aunt didn’t ride anymore, saddened him.
Behind him, Sierra was eerily quiet. She didn’t snap, didn’t defend herself against Poppy’s attitude – because the five-year-old had meant to be sassy.
‘Sisi loves horses,’ he said gently. ‘She’s just taking a break until she feels good again.’ And because he couldn’t bear for Poppy to say more on the off chance it hurt Sierra, he hurried to distract her. ‘You ready?’
Poppy nodded and gave him the biggest grin, her attitude completely forgotten in her excitement. ‘Yeah!’
‘Okay, give me one second.’ He left her on Zephyr, tied to the hitching post, and turned to face Sierra.
She was pale, her eyes so sad. She didn’t say anything, didn’t move from her spot off to the side, both arms wrapped around herself.
Benji went to her. He opened his jacket and waited for her to step into him and wrap her arms around his waist before he closed it around both of them, keeping her warm. He kissed the side of her head. ‘You okay?’
She didn’t reply, only nodded against his chest.
‘Uncle Benji, hurry!’ Poppy demanded.
Sierra laughed, and she stepped back. ‘Are you sure you want a bunch of them?’
Benji didn’t let her get away with the casual teasing. He replied, ‘Heck yeah.’ But because she needed lightness just then too, he added, ‘Your Mom Voice kinda turns me on,’ in a whisper.
Sierra laughed. She broke his gaze and shook her head. ‘Benji, I …’
He waited in silence, his breath trapped in his chest.
‘I … Watching you with Poppy … It makes me feel so much.’ Before his heart could soar, she added, ‘Including guilty. Because there is a good chance that I’ll never be ready. And then you’ll be stuck here, in Purgatory, with me.’ She put her palm over his heart, whispered, ‘I want you to be happy.’
Benji had heard iterations of those particular words from her numerous times over the past few weeks.
And even though he had meant it every time he’d told her that she was enough, she clearly didn’t believe it.
But to his mind, all he had to do was keep showing up, keep showing her that he would stick through it all even if they revised the future they’d always planned for.
So, he said, ‘You’re more than I deserve.
’ And he kissed her one last time, added, ‘You’re all I need.
And if I have to stick around until your ovaries shrivel up and you’re grumpy with hot flashes, then that’s what I’ll do.
’ When she tried to look away, he took her face in both his hands, gently directed her eyes back to his. ‘I adore you, Sierra. You.’
Her eyes glimmered with tears. But she forced a tight smile, said, ‘I love you, Benji. I just hope you know what you’re doing.’
She watched as they rode out at a walk together, the little girl in the bright pink riding hat and the rugged cowboy in his ancient ball cap. Even though Poppy rode Zephyr all by herself, Benji stayed close beside her on Diablo. And as she watched, she yearned.
She’d been teasing when she’d asked him if he was sure he wanted a bunch, but when he’d replied yes, she’d been about to say ‘Me too’.
And then her memories, those reminders of how everything could go so wrong had risen.
And they’d stolen the confession from her throat before she could give him that hope.
Because more than she yearned, she feared.
So much could go wrong. So much had gone wrong. And the only thing Sierra was certain of was that she wouldn’t survive any more loss.
The world was so heavy already.
Because they’d be out riding for at least an hour, Sierra went back to her office to get some work done.
She didn’t have to check with Benji to know that he would bring Poppy up to the office when they were done.
He was responsible and reliable – and he knew Sierra well enough to know she’d be waiting for them to get back.
She immersed herself in the employee timesheets, and she had just found her flow when Paul, the resort manager, knocked on her open office door.