Chapter Nineteen
Cash and I cover our heads and scramble to gather our cherry supplies and the camera.
While we speed-walk, holding our cherries tight, the real storm starts and the raindrops become small water balloons. They explode in our faces, and in no time we’re soaked. We run through the open barn door and let out huge sighs as we get inside.
“Whoa!” I say. “That was crazy.”
“Yeah, it came out of nowhere,” he says.
“I don’t remember the last time we’ve had rain on the ranch. Storms always swirl around us and go down the canyon…” The last few words come out slow. My gaze snags on his broad shoulders underneath his now transparent shirt.
“That’s a big smile.” He touches underneath my chin and smiles too. The warm touch of his finger is enough to make me melt.
Then I notice my shirt is just as wet. My light-blue button-up has done absolutely nothing to conceal my hot-pink bra. Cash stares. As I pull my shirt away from my chest, the dye from the pink bra remains on my shirt – I now have two pink circles.
My face turns the same shade as my bra. “Umm.” I turn away and blow at the fabric.
“How’s it going over there? Drying off real quick?” he jokes.
“Not exactly,” I say, turning only my head and laughing.
“I have an idea, though. Come here.” I walk him to the side of the barn where Daisy’s saddle sits on the rack.
I pull the blanket off and wrap it around Cash’s shoulders.
Then I find a lantern and click it on. It creates a soft glow of light around us.
“Hey, this is Peruvian,” he says, looking closely at the embroidery.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I say, shivering.
He nods. “My dad has a similar one. But you’re freezing – we should go to the house.”
“My mom’s sleeping,” I say, and he pulls the side of the blanket around me.
“OK, then.” Cash inhales deeply and gives the blanket to me. Then he pulls his clinging shirt over his head.
“Uh, what are you doing?”
“We won’t warm up being wet,” he says pragmatically. “You should take yours off too.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Yeah … sure I should.”
He wrings the water out of his shirt and, as he twists, his chest muscles squeeze together in a very distracting way.
Water splatters dirt up on to his boots, and I turn my attention down.
The long sinewy muscles at his waist taper down into a V.
He hangs his shirt on a hook and comes back under the blanket with me.
I keep the side of my shoulder from touching his, but I’m close enough to feel his warmth.
I shiver so hard my chest hurts. As crazy as it sounds, maybe I should take off my shirt. I fumble with my top button. My hand is stiff from the cold and I’m holding the blanket with my other hand. I let out a frustrated huff.
“Sure you don’t want to go inside?” Cash asks.
“Yeah, my mom had a hard day health-wise. I’d hate to risk waking her up.”
“I can make a run for my truck,” he says.
My teeth chatter and I shake my head. “No, don’t do that. It’s fine.” I tug at the button again, but it won’t pop through the hole.
“Would you mind holding the blanket up? I’m struggling to do this with one hand.”
“Sure,” he says reaching for my side of the blanket. His knuckles graze my shoulder like a feather and I shiver, this time not from the cold.
My breath is caught in my chest, but I begin unbuttoning.
He doesn’t look down at me. Instead, he closes his eyes and tilts his head up.
When I’m at the bottom I try not to bump him with my elbows as I pull one arm out at a time.
I throw my shirt over a saddle horn and pull the blanket round my exposed shoulder.
I tug too hard and end up pulling Cash my way.
We end up too close. His warm naked chest is only inches away from my almost naked chest. The tangible electricity is unnerving.
“Warming up?” he asks.
I’m warming up in more ways than one, if I’m being honest. I tilt my head up. “Yeah. You?”
He nods and his eyes meet mine. We’re so close I think for a moment he might kiss me, but then he clears his throat.
“Dahlia…” he starts, looking deeply into my eyes. “I—”
“Random storm, huh?” I say awkwardly, trying to break the tension.
“Yeah… At least we got the cherries.”
I take a shaky breath out and tell him all about the competition, the gorgeous label Emery created and my mediocre ideas for a pitch. He tells me about the rough stock he’s heard will be at the rodeo and which bronc he hopes to draw.
When we walk under the blanket to check our shirts, I secretly crave their damp touch, hoping to have a few more moments only a breath away from his bare skin. Neither of them are dry but he needs to go so we slip them back on. I wrap the blanket round me again, wishing this didn’t have to end.
The magical sky distracts me as we emerge from the barn. The Milky Way is a river of stars. My fingers long to touch it, to swirl around in it, to be a part of something bigger than myself. Cash stops and gazes up with me.
“It’s beautiful,” he says gently.
“Sure is.”
“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“About life and what it’s all about?” I say, looking at the crescent moon, my favourite.
“Exactly.” He turns and I can only make out the edges of his face because of the porch light. “What do you think it’s all about?”
I sigh. “I think we’re all here to just learn, fall apart, put things back together. You know, the messy stuff of being human. And it’s about finding passion for what we love and sharing it with others. What do you think?”
“My parents would tell you our purpose here is to serve God, but I believe there’s a lot more to it than that. Even though my mom’s Catholic, we have a bunch of Kachina dolls in our house. Do you know what those are?”
“I’ve heard of them. They’re really colourful and decorated, right?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Honestly, I wish I knew more about that part of my heritage. My grandma told me the Kachina dolls represent the belief that everything on earth carries a life force. I’ve always felt connected to that.
I’m most myself when I’m in nature and with animals.
So I think life is about connection to ourselves and others. To life force.”
“Why don’t you know much about that part of your heritage?”
“It’s a long story, but when my grandparents moved to Colorado from New Mexico they did everything they could to learn English and get jobs. They faced a lot of discrimination, and because of that they unintentionally repressed their way of life,” he explains.
“Like their traditions, you mean?”
“Yeah, but they didn’t necessarily call them that. It was just who they were, how they lived.”
“That’s sad,” I say, thinking of how much I’m enjoying learning about my ancestors.
“It is, but my grandparents are cool as shit. They basically raised me until I was ten when my mom was starting her businesses. I learned how to work hard and take care of myself because of them. They did everything they could to help me be successful. They never wanted me to be taken advantage of like they were.”
“What happened?”
“People they worked for wouldn’t pay them what they said they would.
They worked fourteen to sixteen hours every day.
My mom told me a story about them being kicked out of a rental for a white family in the first month, even though they had paid first and last month’s rent.
I could go on; they were taken advantage of constantly. ”
“That was your mom’s family, right? Where is your dad’s family from?”
Cash takes his cherry bag off his shoulder. “Peru and Germany, but they’ve been here for a long time.”
“In Colorado, you mean?”
“Yeah. My dad’s great-great-uncle and great-grandfather came from Peru as shepherds and his great-grandma travelled through Asia to escape Germany.”
“Wow, cool. My family were German on my dad’s side, Irish on my mom’s.” I look at his tall figure silhouetted by the starry sky. “My grandparents were important to me too, especially my grandpa. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss him or wish he was here to talk to.”
We watch the stars for a moment more and then I bring the cherries very quietly into the house. As his truck crunches down the gravel drive, I realize I didn’t get a chance to delete more of the photos of him from the camera. After overthinking whether I should text him about it, I decide not to.
Instead I bring my phone under my covers with me, feeling like I’m thirteen again and down bad for a boy.
I open my messages and type: You were right. I’m seriously in trouble with this cowboy, Lani.