Chapter 32
Time is a fickle, funny thing. Minutes can stretch into eternities; days can pass in the blink of an eye.
Time follows no rulebook. Its moods are arbitrary and unpredictable.
For instance, the first time Grace sat in the passenger seat of this truck, the drive to Halcyon seemed to take days and not the four hours she knew it to be.
The empty fields surrounding the two-lane highway had been like endless oceans of grass and wheat and dirt, and it seemed to matter little that the wheels were spinning and the engine was propelling them forward—she’d felt suspended in time, fated to never arrive at her destination.
Now, as she sits in that very same spot, beside that very same man, the truck seems to devour the miles instead of nipping at them crumb by crumb.
And it’s funny and fickle that Crew—who’d given her so little in their first encounter, who’d hardly smiled and spent more time picking sunflower seeds out of his teeth than he did talking to her—is now the furthest thing from a stranger.
It doesn’t make sense, and maybe it never will, but it feels like she’s known Crew her entire life.
Like even before they were physically in the same place, seeing each other for the very first time, some part of her always knew him.
The way he made her body, her mind, her heart come alive—there was no other explanation for that kind of thing.
Maybe they didn’t know each other back then, but they were never truly strangers.
They pull in through the north entrance right after five, and though it’s probably just her brain playing tricks on her, Grace swears everything looks brighter as they roll down the gravel road.
The grassy fields are more vibrant, the wildflowers are oversaturated and taller than when she left.
Crew’s hand on her thigh squeezes gently, and she looks over to find him with a contented little half smile on his lips.
Grace grins, covering his hand with her own. “What?”
“Your eyes are lighting up,” he says, glancing at her. “The same way they did when I first drove you down this road.”
She stares at him, and as soon as he’s pulled the truck over to the right of the house to join the line of identical F-350s and put it in park, Grace unbuckles her seat belt and stretches over the center console to press a kiss to his cheek.
Crew turns and catches her mouth, chuckling into her lips.
“I love it here,” Grace says in answer, stroking his coarse facial hair with her fingertips. “I always have.”
They share a long, intense look, and then the sound of a door swinging open pulls their attention away from each other.
Crew looks up into the rearview mirror and hums—the sound landing somewhere between annoyed and unsurprised—as he shuts off the engine.
He looks back to Grace, then to the passenger window. “Incoming.”
Grace turns just as Caia appears, mouth gaping in excitement.
When Caia tries to yank open the passenger door and finds it locked, her expression tempers, and her eyes dart to her brother.
“Unlock it,” she says, voice muffled by the thick glass window.
For the next twenty seconds, Crew decides to be a little shit and unlocks the door, only to quickly relock it as soon as Caia pulls on the handle.
She pulls and sighs, pulls and sighs, and eventually smacks the truck with her hand.
“You’re such a dick,” she huffs, then turns and walks away.
Grace looks over to Crew to find him with a shit-eating boyish grin, and she rolls her eyes before opening the door herself and climbing out of the cab.
Cooper sits on one of the rocking chairs that line the wraparound porch, and he waves excitedly when Grace comes into view.
“You’re home,” he calls out, and Grace’s heart clenches in her chest. How easy those two words seemed to be coming out of his mouth—she wonders if he has any idea, any inkling at all, that they mean everything to her.
The smell of garlic and tomato and basil hits Grace’s nose as she approaches the house, Crew following close behind with their bags slung over his shoulders.
She inhales deeply, already transfixed by whatever beautiful creation is being cooked up in the kitchen, and Cooper chuckles when he notices.
“You’re just in time for Ronnie’s lasagna,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows.
“It smells incredible,” Grace says.
“It is incredible,” Caia says, hoisting herself up onto the porch railing. Her legs swing back and forth as she surveys Grace, then gives an approving nod. With a wink to Grace, she says, “Glad to see you didn’t mess up our masterpiece too much.”
“Your mom might have helped me clean up some of the mascara that came off while I was crying,” Grace says a little sheepishly.
Caia nods. “Of course she did.”
Crew sets their bags down near the top of the stairs and stretches his arms out and up, then leans over to do the same for his back.
He grunts as various joints in his body click when he moves, sounding very much like a man far older than thirty.
When he’s sufficiently stretched, he looks around, then at his sister, his eyes narrowing. “Where is—”
Like something out of a sitcom, the door swings open, and Crew looks over and nods in a There you are kind of gesture.
A man Grace somewhat recognizes but has never met walks out of the house, hitting the wood slats of the porch like he’s punching each one of them with his heavy bootheels.
Grace’s eyes trail downward to find black ostrich Luccheses, shiny enough to see her own reflection, and she knows that pair must’ve cost him a good ten grand, if not more, and that’s just what’s on his feet.
The rest of him is equally sharply dressed—and by the looks of his sparkly clean nails, his effortlessly coiffed hair, and his precisely trimmed beard, he hasn’t worked a day on this ranch or any other in years. Maybe ever.
The man walks right up to Grace and smiles, and it’s undeniably a movie star kind of smile—blindingly white, perfectly straight teeth. Behind her, she hears Caia groan. He doesn’t spare her a glance and instead keeps his eyes locked on Grace as he holds out a hand.
“You must be Grace,” he says, and his shake is firm when Grace gives him her good hand in return. “Easton Beckett. It’s a pleasure. I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s not every day our little Crew-bear falls in love,” he says with a wink.
Grace’s lips part, and she can’t help it—she turns to look at Crew over her shoulder, eyebrows hiking toward her hairline. “Crew-bear?”
The look Crew gives Easton in response is nothing less than scathing.
“You know,” Easton continues. “Like Pooh Bear. His mom used to call him that because he’d run around the house without any pants on.”
“All right, East,” Crew warns, and while his intimidating foreman voice may work on most, it seems to be completely lost on Easton, whose smile remains wide and relentless, like he’s just getting started.
“It’s really great to meet you, Easton,” Grace says, turning back to him. “I’ve heard a lot about you, too.”
“Oh?” He straightens a little, putting a hand to his heart. “I hope only lovely, kind, true things.”
Caia deadpans, “Well, that would be rather difficult, wouldn’t it?
” Then she hops off the rail and walks over to Grace.
With Caia shoulder to shoulder with Easton, it occurs to Grace that they make a really, kind of ridiculously attractive couple.
But from the face Caia’s making, and the way said face seems to turn even more unpleasant the closer she gets to him, perhaps they’re not…
like that. If anything, they look like two equal forces that are actively repelling each other.
Caia folds her arms firmly over her chest and looks at Grace, and only Grace, as she says, “You don’t need to butter him up.
His ego is already the biggest thing about him. ”
Easton barks out a laugh, then throws an arm around Caia’s neck. “Spitfire,” he drawls, the word sounding well-worn and familiar on his tongue. He folds himself over slightly to catch her eye and says, “Don’t talk about me like that when I’m standing right here. You’re gonna make me blush.”
Caia rolls her eyes and pushes him off, taking a large step to her left and leaving a wide gap between them.
“Please,” she hisses. The pure, unadulterated disgust on her face shifts into something much kinder and softer when she looks at Grace and says, “Grace, let’s get away from all this testosterone and go wash up. ”
“Actually,” Crew cuts in, and he’s suddenly at Grace’s side, and his strong, comforting hand finds the small of her back. “I want to show Grace something before dinner. Can y’all let Ronnie know we’ll be a few minutes?”
Caia looks up at her brother, stares for a moment, and then a realization seems to kick in, because a smile folds into her lips and she starts nodding, more enthusiastic than Grace has ever seen her. “Right! Yes,” she says, shooing them away with two hands. “Go. We’ll keep Ronnie at bay.”
Crew slips his hand into Grace’s, their fingers interlocking. He looks down at her and smiles, nodding in the direction of the stables. “Come on.”
Hand in hand, they walk under a sky that is cloudless and the most perfect shade of evening blue, stretching out over the ranch like a giant azure tent.
The smell of freshly mowed grass mixes with the familiar scents of horses, and Grace feels tears welling in her eyes as they approach the stables.
It doesn’t seem real yet, that she’s here, she’s back.
She’s holding hands with Crew, and she’s about to see the horses—and her horse—for the first time in what feels like years.
She wonders if Waylon’s missed her, if he’s even noticed she’s been gone, or if he’s been spending all his time following Duke around like a lost puppy.
It seems the answer is a little bit of both, if the whicker Waylon lets out upon setting eyes on her is any indication.
All the way at the opposite side of the ring, he stands—unsurprisingly—next to Duke, but as soon as he spots Grace, he’s trotting over, vocalizing more and louder with each step.
He seems to have a lot to say about her absence, and Grace laughs as he comes to stand right in front of her, a tear slipping down her cheek.
“I missed you, too,” she says, petting his nose. “There must’ve been someone else around to give you carrots, though.”
Waylon disagrees, or, at least, he must not think he’s been given enough carrots, because he snorts and shakes his head.
“Dramatic,” she says, then presses her forehead against his muzzle and closes her eyes. “I promise to make it up to you. A million carrots are in your future. Maybe some apples and bananas, too, if you’re not difficult.”
Another snuffle, a tentative agreement.
Crew chuckles from where he stands, watching them, and Grace keeps her face connected to Waylon as she turns to look at him. “Don’t get me wrong,” she says, “I love this horse more than I love most people. But I think we could’ve waited for this until after lasagna.”
A slow, easy smile spreads on his lips, and he holds out his hand. “This— He wasn’t what I wanted to show you.”
Somehow, like the incorrigible animal that he is, Waylon seems to understand Crew’s statement and lets out a grunt to tell them he does not appreciate it.
They both smile at him as Grace takes Crew’s hand and he leads her to the other end of the pasture where the rest of the horses are grazing. She glances up at Crew as they walk, still unsure where he’s leading her, but he keeps his eyes fixed ahead, that smile still present on his lips.
“What are you up to?” Grace asks affectionately.
He glances downward, and her belly swoops at the look he gives her.
How one look can contain so much love, admiration, and devotion will never fail to amaze her.
Grace bites her lip, entranced, and then she has to force her gaze away from Crew to keep from tearing up yet again, but any effort she’s making to not cry goes completely to hell as they approach the back corner of the pasture.
Grace stops in her tracks, frozen. Every particle of air leaves her body in a stuttering exhale, and her legs instantly feel like they’re made of Jell-O.
She looks up at Crew, not fully believing what she’s seeing. The look on his face, that smile spreading into a grin—confirms it.
She looks back to the pasture as tears start to fall in earnest. Because standing at the back fence, eyes fixed on the western sky, is Vesta.
Grace is overcome. She can’t move—can’t go to her.
She can only stare at Vesta’s majesty, the beauty so uniquely hers that Grace had been sure she’d never again witness.
Her stomach is tied up in a thousand knots as she utters, “Crew.” It’s hardly intelligible through the sobs that are building in her throat. “How?”
“I made some calls,” he says, squeezing her hand. “My dad and Forty helped, too. Turns out she wasn’t far away, and the ranch she was at wasn’t a bad place, either. They were taking good care of her.”
Grace cries then, lets a sob free in lieu of thanking him, but she knows he’ll understand.
He’ll understand that she’ll never be able to put into words how grateful she is not only to have Vesta here, safe, but to also know that she wasn’t suffering or being mistreated in the place she’d ended up.
A weight Grace hadn’t realized had settled onto her shoulders lifts, and she is immediately lighter.
She floats on air as she walks into Crew’s arms, sobbing into the material of his shirt.
“But we had to go get her,” he says, resting his lips against the top of her head. “She needed to come home.”
Grace wraps her arms around him, gripping him as tightly as she can with the constraints of her cast. Vesta’s sweet, familiar whinny sounds from behind her, and through her sobs, Grace laughs.
A broken, watery sound made of pure, unencumbered happiness.
She picks up her head, cranes her neck to look at Crew, and finds his eyes wet and his cheeks slightly splotchy.
For so long, Grace’s life had been devoid of hope. She used to think about the future and feel only dread; she used to wonder if this was it for her, if despair was simply her lot in life, predestined and unchangeable.
But as she holds on tight to Crew and looks into his eyes, she sees all the love and reverence he carries for her.
She listens to the sound of her horse’s happy nicker in the distance, and she knows something else to be true.
She digs her heels into Halcyon dirt and knows, deep in her soul, that she’d endure every heartbreak, every bruise, every hateful sneer in her direction all over again.
Because all those terrible, hopeless roads were leading her in one direction.
Home.