Chapter 6
LAUREL
Igrab Beck’s flannel off the bedpost and inhale his scent as I’m getting dressed. It smells like fire, straw, and his heady musk.
I “forgot” to return it after we got back to the cabin, but I’m not sorry.
We’d slept in that shack until the morning, when the rain stopped and he could get down the mountain with the truck and I could ride Riot safely.
The morning light through the side-pasture window is a soft blue-gold, and for one whole, perfect minute I let myself stay in the bubble we’d created.
The shack. The fire. The way I rode him until we both came apart.
I think about him holding me on his chest after, his heart pounding against my cheek. And how he said I love you, in that ruined voice, while I rifled through his bag for a condom in nothing but his wool socks.
I know it was just an off-the-cuff slip, but it still felt good to hear.
My phone starts buzzing on the nightstand like a hornet in a Mason jar.
I pick it up and see notifications for three missed calls and six texts. And the little red bubble on my mail icon is in the double digits, which is enough to give me hives.
It's barely seven a.m.!
Then again, maybe these are finally coming through from yesterday’s loss of connection.
The first text is from Lark.
ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?
OR DID YOUR BOSS KILL YOU WITH HIS DICK?
I close my eyes. Jesus, Lark. How did she—? I’d only sent a quick text the first night, and it only mentioned Beck in passing.
Man, she’s good.
Laurel
Laurel
Laurel
LAUREL
I send back: alive. talk later. and switch to email before she can demand more.
The first one is from the owner of Walker Performance Horses in Marble Falls, Texas. The subject line says: OFFICIAL OFFER OF EMPLOYMENT
They’re offering me a job!
I'd put my name in the hat for them six months ago when I was newly separated, half-drunk on box wine, and convinced I needed to firebomb my entire life.
They'd called twice in the spring. We'd had two interviews.
Then it had gone quiet, the way these things can, and I'd assumed I was out of the running.
But they want me as head trainer at their barn!
And with a salary that makes me actually choke on my spit.
I’d be housed on the property and have health insurance!
Plus, there’s a signing bonus that covers the cost of my divorce attorney's bill.
Their string includes two NCHA futurity hopefuls, a stallion I have followed on Instagram like other women follow celebrities, and a bunch of clients who fly in from three different countries to ride with the Walkers, personally.
This is the job.
Beck’s flannel slides down my shoulder, and his smell hits me again.
Suddenly, my eyes sting. "Stop it," I tell them. "Stop it right now."
I skim down the rest of the letter.
They want me on the property in three weeks for orientation. They need an answer in seven days.
That’s enough time to finish out the month here with Beck and Riot. It works out so cleanly it feels as if the universe is telling me something.
Take the job. Start your life.
It's the kind of offer I’d normally have answered before my coffee got cold.
But now, I’m sitting here in a man's flannel, my heart creeping into my throat, thinking about how we made love last night.
I need to get out for a bit.
I slip out after a quick shower, leaving a note on the coffee pot that says:
Errands. Be back later. — L.
Riot is standing at his fence as I cross to my truck. He blows a low breath at me that sounds suspiciously like a question.
"Don’t worry, I’ll be back for a ride," I tell him.
He flicks an ear, unconvinced.
The drive into town is a blur of pines and dirt roads.
But soon, I make it to Main Street. I swear, Hollow Peak is a postcard come to life, with its three blocks of brick and timber storefronts, cinnamon-roll smells from the Switchback Cafe drifting out onto the sidewalk, an old man in suspenders waving at someone across the street, and a woman in a long denim apron watering window boxes outside the bookstore.
I don’t really have any errands.
But I park anyway, and walk, because it’s what I do when I need to think.
Eventually, I duck into a store wedged between the bookstore and an art gallery that I noticed on my first drive through, and the window display is mixing turquoise jewelry with practical wool sweaters and one truly inadvisable pair of leather pants.
I push the door open and the air inside smells like dried lavender and old wood.
There's no pretending I came in here for anything specific, but I make a brave attempt at it. I head straight for a rack of flannels and start flipping through them. Buffalo plaid. Smaller buffalo plaid.
"Those just came in last week."
The woman who's appeared next to me is mid-fifties, maybe early sixties, with long wavy gray hair and a turquoise cuff so big it could double as a weapon.
She's attractive in that weathered, unbothered way I'd like to be when I’m her age.
She's also looking at me with a small, knowing smile that has every single hair on my arms standing up.
"They're nice," I say, because what can you say about flannel?
"They're for the tourists." She tips her head toward the back of the store. "Real flannel's in the bin under the window. Pendletons."
"Ah. Thanks."
She doesn't move. Her eyes do that small-town flick I've already learned to recognize—the one that takes inventory of you based on your clothes, hair, and all that.
"You must be the new one I’m hearing about," she says.
The flannel I'm holding suddenly feels very heavy.
"The new what?"
"Beck's new fling."
There it is.
Her tone isn't mean. And that almost makes it worse. It's the same tone you'd use to identify a bird at a feeder. Oh look, a lonely chickadee. Friendly. Faintly amused. Slightly pitying. As if the species is well-known and this particular specimen is just passing through.
"I'm working with his horse," I say.
"Mmhm." She nods as if that confirms something for her. "Well, he's a charmer, that one." She pats my arm gently, as if she’s petting a skittish dog. "You take care of yourself, honey."
She drifts toward the cash register, and I’m reeling.
The new one.
Like there's a list. Like there's been a steady parade of them. Like in a few weeks some other woman will be standing in this exact aisle while this woman says the same thing to her.
I know Beck told me last night, sober and shaking, that he’s not that man anymore, and every cell in my body believed him while we were tucked into wool blankets in front of a fire.
But here, in the cold light of day, that other voice pipes right up.
You’ve been in this situation before, Laurel. Remember?
Cole was charming…until you found out he was a lying cheat.
It takes me four tries to get the stupid flannel on the hanger straight, which is humiliating for a woman of my organizational caliber.
And I leave without saying a word.
I open my email and read the offer again. I think about how my mother used to say a woman should always be able to leave with what she came in with. She’d meant money, but I think it applies to a lot of things.
I drive back up the mountain.
Beck is on the porch when I pull in. He's in his rocker with his foot up and a coffee mug in his hand and he watches me park.
I get out and cross the yard slowly. My boots feel as if they have weights in them. Riot lifts his head over the paddock fence to track me as I walk, and even he looks worried.
I climb the porch steps. Beck shifts his foot down off the crate so I can sit on the railing across from him.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey."
The wooden planks creak under me.
"Just say it, darlin’," he says, quietly, as if he knows me that well already.
"I got a job offer this morning."
His face doesn't move. "Okay."
"As a head trainer at Walker Performance Horses in Texas. It's…" My voice wavers a little. "It's the job, Beck. It’s the one I’ve been waiting for. They want me there in three weeks."
He nods. He sets the coffee mug down on the side table, carefully, like it's full of something more important than coffee.
"That sounds like a hell of an offer. You gonna take it?"
I take a deep breath. "Yes. I'll finish out the rest of my time here, and then I'll go."
“Congrats, Laurel. That’s amazing.” He drops his elbows down onto his knees.
“Thank you.”
He clears his throat. "But I do need to tell you something.”
I nod, my heart pounding.
He looks straight up at me and his eyes are so brown in the morning light it’s breathtaking.
"I love you,” he says.
I blink back at him. This time, it’s not a cute slip.
"I'm not just saying that 'cause you're leavin’,” he says. "I know what it looks like, me sayin' that to you after barely a week. And I know what this town's gonna think. But I had to tell you what's in here." He taps his chest, just once.
My throat is on fire.
"So if Texas is what you want—if that job is the one—you take it. That part's not even a question." He swallows. "I'll visit. I'll fly down on weekends. We can make it work, Laurel. That's what people who love each other do."
People who love each other.
He's making it so easy. He's holding the door open with one hand and reaching out with the other, and all I have to do is step through.
But that's how it started last time, too.
The thought walks into my head uninvited, and I hate it.
Six months in he asked me to quit training. Said the travel was hard on him.
I quit that part of my life because I loved my ex-husband and he was charming and he had a plan, and I trusted his plan over mine, and by the time I noticed I'd handed him the steering wheel I was already in the passenger seat of my own life.
I am not getting back in that seat. Not for anybody.
"I can’t do that," I say.
His brow begins to furrow.
"I can't do it that way, Beck." My voice is shaking and I don’t have the energy to hide it. "I’m not in a place where I can make a decision this big with a man—even a good one. The last time I let a man have an opinion about my life, I lost two years of it. I can't risk it."
"Laurel—"
"If I'm gonna rebuild myself, I have to do it by myself. I have to know it's mine. Otherwise it's just another life I built with somebody else in control, and one day I'll wake up and not know which parts of it are me anymore."
He's so quiet it hurts. The rocker doesn't even squeak.
Then he nods, once and glances down at his hands.
"Okay, darlin'." He scrubs one palm down his scruffy jaw. "I hear you. And I respect your decision. I don't like it. But I respect it."
He looks up and his dark eyes are wet. It nearly makes me crumble on the spot.
"I also think you should go today," he says. “Maybe after one last ride on Riot.”
“But—”
"If we sit here for the rest of the month, pretendin' nothin's changed, I'll just fall harder, and you'll just feel worse, and we'll do the same goodbye then that we're doin' now, with even more damage on top of it.
There's no use in doing that to either of us.
" He gives me a weak smile. "Might as well pull the bandage clean off, darlin'. "
"So you're firing me?" I ask, trying to make a joke.
"No, I'm letting you go," he says, and I hear the lump in his throat.
"Okay," I say, fighting the tears. "I'll go pack and then take Riot out."
I open the screen door before he says, "Laurel."
I turn around. “For what it's worth…I think you're makin' the right call. For you."
"Thanks," I whisper, and I open the door before he can say anything else and make me collapse right here on the floor.