Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
GABE
It was Friday afternoon, and my baby girl was finally here.
Celeste’s Mercedes kicked up a cloud of dust as it pulled down the gravel drive.
I still had a couple more hours of work left for the day, and since Rory hadn’t been to the ranch since she was a toddler, I had her mom drop her off here instead of meeting us at my house.
The car had barely stopped when the back door flew open and my daughter sprang out of it, strawberry blonde hair trailing wildly behind her as she bolted toward me. Those sapphire blue eyes, so much like mine, locked on me.
“Daddy!” she squealed and jumped into my arms.
“Pumpkin,” I breathed, holding her tightly to my chest, and buried my nose in her hair.
Her nearly orange hair that was damn near the shade of a pumpkin—and reason for her nickname—still smelled like cotton candy, just like I remembered.
“I think you’ve grown since I saw you last,” I said, placing her on her feet and resting my palm flat atop her head.
I moved my hand toward my torso, angling it up ever so slightly until it hit me an inch higher than the last time I “measured” her.
She gasped dramatically. “I knew it!”
Celeste approached, a soft smile playing on her lips as she took in our daughter’s excitement.
I nodded toward her, searching for any lingering feelings of sadness or longing, but there were none.
I’d made my peace with our marriage ending.
Clearly, she had too. She looked happier and more at ease than I’d ever seen her.
“Thanks for bringing her here,” I said, placing my hands on Rory’s shoulders. “I know you don’t like it here, but I really wanted Rory to get to see the ranch.”
“It’s no problem,” she replied before dropping her gaze to Rory. “Why don’t you go grab your bag and Andy’s carrier while I talk to your dad?” she requested, and a twinge of unease settled in my gut.
“Okay,” Rory agreed before skipping back to the car. Celeste waited until she was safely out of earshot before turning to look at me again.
“You know, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t like the ranch,” she began, averting her gaze.
My brows shot up in surprise. She’d always seemed unhappy here and did anything she could to talk me out of visiting.
I truly thought she hated this place. “It was more about what the ranch meant to you and how I knew I’d never measure up,” she continued, and the revelation hit me square in the chest, knocking the air from my lungs.
“This place—the ranch and this town—were home to you, and I took you from it. You came to life whenever we visited, but then when we left, you were sad for days, sometimes even weeks afterward. I knew Dallas would never feel like home to you because this was where your heart longed to be. And I thought maybe if we stopped coming back, it would finally lose its hold on you and you’d forget about it. I can see now how wrong I was.”
Guilt slammed into me. Had I made her feel like our family was second best all these years? Had she been so desperate for my love that she kept me away from the place she believed was more important to me than her and Rory?
“I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice cracking. “It was never my intention to hurt you.” She held her hand up to stop me.
“It wasn’t like that. I knew we weren’t in love, that we were both just trying to make the best of the hand we’d been dealt.
But I wanted so badly to make it happen.
I thought if we tried hard enough, the love would come.
” My shoulders slumped with relief. For a moment I thought she’d been in love with me all this time, and I’d broken her heart.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love you in my own way,” she rushed to add, her lips curving in a tentative smile. “As Aurora’s father and as a friend, but I think that’s all we ever had.”
“I think you’re right,” I agreed. Our conversation ended abruptly when Aurora skidded to a halt next to us, dirt flying up around her.
“I brought Mr. Andy,” she announced, holding a bright pink pet carrier with a clear front window.
Big, dark eyes blinked up at me, and his little whiskers twitched.
He was kind of cute in his own way, though I hadn’t been thrilled with the idea of giving her a rodent for her birthday.
She was dead set on it, though, and it was the only thing she'd asked for. Thankfully Celeste warned me he was coming, so I got him an enclosure and set it up, so he’d have somewhere safe to stay.
“Whoa, who is that?” Rory asked, her arm slowly lowering to her side as she stared at something past my shoulder, her eyes filled with wonder.
I turned to find Jasmine trotting up the lane on Juniper, and I nearly swallowed my tongue.
I hadn’t seen her much since the day I’d watched her practice, but every time I did, it was like a punch to the gut.
“That’s Jasmine,” I replied, trying to sound casual. Stupidly, I glanced at Celeste who was watching me with a curious tilt to her head. Her eyes were assessing, so I schooled my expression. “You remember Woody’s daughter, right?”
“I do,” Celeste replied, still studying my face.
“Is she the barrel racer?” Rory asked. She likely didn’t remember meeting Jasmine since she was so little the last time she saw her, but she’d heard me talk about training her and had even seen a few videos of her racing, though it was hard to tell from a distance that Jasmine and the girl from the grainy videos were one in the same.
And she wasn’t a girl anymore, a fact I couldn’t seem to make myself forget.
“She is,” I replied just as Jasmine looked up and caught sight of us.
She waved, and I tipped my hat in acknowledgment, but that wasn’t good enough for Rory.
She shot her free hand into the air and waved wildly like she’d been shipwrecked on a deserted island and just saw a rescue plane fly by.
Jasmine tugged on her horse’s reins, changing course to head straight toward us.
Rory watched in wide eyed fascination as she approached.
I tried not to watch as she dismounted, averting my gaze just as she swung her leg over the horse’s side, putting her denim-clad ass right in my line of sight.
Unfortunately, my gaze landed on Celeste who watched me with an amused smirk.
She definitely sensed something was up. I’d need to get better at hiding my attraction to Jasmine if I wanted to survive working with her.
“Hey,” Jasmine greeted me with a subtle nod. “Celeste, it’s good to see you again,” she said, offering my ex-wife a polite smile.
“You too,” Celeste replied. “That’s a fine-looking horse you’ve got there. Is she the one you race?”
Jasmine’s brows lifted in surprise, but she quickly schooled her features. “Thank you. She is,” she confirmed. Turning her focus on my daughter, a genuine smile tugged on the corners of her lips. “And who’s this pretty little lady?”
Rory preened under her attention. “My name is Aurora, but all my friends call me Rory.”
“Rory?” she asked in mock surprise. “You can’t be Rory. You’re way too tall and grown up to be the Rory I remember.” My daughter giggled and covered her mouth shyly.
“It’s true. I promise,” Rory said.
“I can’t believe it. Well, you weren’t knee high to a grasshopper the last time I saw you. How’d you grow up so fast?”
I wanted to ask Jasmine the same thing.
“I eat all my fruits and vegetables,” Rory replied proudly.
“That’s great. Every good cowgirl eats her fruits and veggies.”
“Do you think I could be a cowgirl like you?” Rory looked at Jasmine like she hung the moon and stars.
A twinge of guilt speared through my middle at the fact my little girl didn’t already feel like a cowgirl.
Despite my profession, she hadn’t spent nearly enough time on the back of a horse, nor had she received regular riding lessons.
I took her riding when I had time, but those were few and far between.
I felt I’d done her a disservice and now was full of regret over my inadequacies.
And now she was looking to someone else to teach her, when it had been my job all along.
“You could be an even better cowgirl than me,” Jasmine declared.
“You think so?”
“I know so. You probably don’t remember this, but when you were just an itty-bitty thing, your mama and daddy let me give you a few riding lessons.
” Rory’s eyes grew wide. I’d forgotten about the pony rides Jasmine had taken her on.
I wouldn’t call them riding lessons exactly, but I appreciated what she was doing, making Rory feel like a big kid instead of the baby she accused us of treating her like.
“And I have to say, you were a natural,” Jasmine continued, wearing an impressed expression.
“Really?” Rory asked in amazement.
“Really,” Jasmine confirmed. “With a little practice, you’ll be a full-fledged cowgirl in no time,” she assured her.
“And I bet you’d make one heck of a barrel racer.
” Celeste shifted on her feet, and I looked up to catch her tense expression before forcing a smile.
Jasmine caught it too. “That is, if it’s okay with your mom and dad,” she added, her nervous gaze flicking between Celeste and me.
I had no problem with it, but I wanted Celeste to feel comfortable with Rory taking on this new endeavor, so I waited for her to respond.
“Of course,” Celeste said, doing her best to hide her worry. It wasn’t like Rory hadn’t ridden at all in the years since being on that pony, but we never went faster than a trot. Jasmine would likely have her running barrels before the weekend was over and I had to take her back to her mom’s.
“Can we get started now?” Rory asked.
“Sure can. Let’s go find you a horse to ride. I’m sure I’ve got a saddle that’s just the right size for you.”
“Dad, will you watch Andy so I can go for a ride? Please.” Rory clasped her hands together in a pleading gesture. I folded like a cheap suit. Even though I still had work to do, I couldn’t deny my little girl anything.
“Alright, but only for thirty minutes. I’ve gotta finish up here before we can head home.”
“I promise,” she said, holding up her pinky for me to wrap mine around.
I watched as she and Jasmine walked side by side toward the barn, Juniper trailing behind them.
Rory talked animatedly with her hands, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.
I turned to find Celeste watching them too.
Equal parts longing and worry filled her eyes.
“This will be good for her,” I assured her, and she shifted her focus to me.
“You’re right. She’ll be happy here. She has so much of you in her.” She heaved a deep breath, her shoulders rising and falling. Still, the tension never eased from her face. “I just worry she’ll love it here so much, she won’t want to come home.”
I reached for her, planting my hands on her shoulders and giving them a comforting squeeze.
She lifted her watery gaze to mine. “That’s not going to happen.
You know how much she loves Nashville. There’s so much to do there, and she’s a social butterfly.
Plus, she adores you. This way, she gets to split her time between here and the city. She gets the best of both worlds.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Of course I am. When have you ever known me to be wrong?” I asked with a smug grin.
She smacked my stomach with the back of her hand, and I let out an exaggerated “oomph.”
“Cocky bastard,” she muttered, but the corners of her lips twitched.
It was a refreshing sight. She hadn’t been this playful with me in years.
Things had been so tense between us for the last half of our marriage while we tried to force it to work, but now there was an ease between us we hadn’t seen since the early days.
I was glad we could still laugh with each other.
That meant we were making progress. It meant that we were on the right path and that maybe, once the dust settled, we would all be all right.