Chapter 22
Thundercloud
SADIE
Istare at the page of my book and read the same sentence four times.
I don't retain a single word of it.
You think that because you're young and inexperienced and don't know any better.
Of all the infuriating, condescending, stupid things that man could have said to me.
I've half a mind to march into his room and tell him exactly what I think of his self-sacrificing martyr routine.
The other half of my mind is busy replaying the way his head felt resting against my chest. Heavy and warm and trusting. Walker Rhodes, laid low. Leaning on me.
I close the book. Set it on the nightstand. Reach over and click off the lamp.
The dark doesn't help. If anything it's worse, because now I can just think.
I’d like to tell myself there’s a good reason for his rejection. That all the reasons he gave me are good ones.
Maybe he’s right to do it. Maybe the practical, self-preserving thing to do is put my walls up, just like he’s doing. Survive the next couple of months with my heart in one piece and my reputation intact and a distant memory of the most electric thing that's ever happened to me.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
I'm so tired of being the practical one.
I think about Momma, who spent half her life hinging her entire existence on my father’s unreliable love and support, emotional, financial, all of it.
And it destroyed her.
I think about how I watched it happen and promised myself that I would never repeat her mistake. That I would never depend on a man for his money or his validation or anything.
And I always keep my promises.
That's what I keep reminding myself, anyway, for the rest of the week.
The next Friday, I’m back at Rosemont with all the Rhodes boys. This time, I’m on horseback too.
I'm not the expert rider they are, but I can hold my own. I've been on friends' ranches before, been around horses enough to feel comfortable. I might not be a barrel racer, but I can canter across an open field without embarrassing myself, and right now that feels like enough of a win.
Jonah looks back at me every time he pulls off a trick, checking that I'm watching, and I cheer and holler for him like the number one fan I am. Because I am. That kid could trot in a circle and I'd applaud like he just won a ribbon.
He's an awesome kid.
His father, on the other hand, appears to be unable to pull his head out of his ass, so there's that.
I said my piece. I as much as told Walker I want to start something with him. That I want him to be my introduction to the world of sex and relationships.
It took every ounce of courage I have to admit it to him.
And he turned me down. Twice.
Dressed it up in self-sacrifice and concern for my wellbeing, but at the end of the day a no is a no and I’m not going to twist myself into knots over it.
So I'm not gonna beg. I'm not gonna pine. I'm gonna do my job and move on with my life.
I can still admire him from a distance, even if I'm back to being annoyed by him. And I am annoyed by him.
Especially that he has to look so hot while being so irritating. Black cowboy hat, matching chaps, brooding expression cranked up to eleven ever since our conversation in my bed.
Being annoyed at someone who looks like that is both invigorating and exhausting.
I dismount at the fence line and give myself a moment to regroup. I rest my forehead briefly against my borrowed mare's neck.
The mountains are burnished gold in the summer heat, the sky so blue it almost hurts to look at.
I get to spend my days with a great kid. I get to live in one of the most beautiful places in Montana, if not possibly the whole entire world. Now I get to play cowgirl too.
Maybe not on top of a certain grumpy country music singer, but hey, you can’t have everything.
While I dig in my pocket for the carrot pieces I brought for my mare, I hear boots in the grass. I look up to find a ranch hand approaching. Blonde hair, blue eyes. A face like a model, but with a friendly, bright-white smile instead of a moody look.
“Need a hand there?” he asks.
“I'm good, thanks.” I go back to feeding her nibbles of carrot.
He doesn't leave. I glance up again and catch the dimples deepening in his smile as he registers that I clocked him and looked away.
He's used to a bigger reaction than that, I bet.
Pretty and aware of it isn't really my type. Then again, my type appears to be brooding and self-destructive, so maybe I should expand my criteria.
“You're Jonah's nanny, right?” he says.
“Yep.”
“I'm Travis.” He puts out a hand.
“Sadie.” I shake it.
For the next few minutes, we chat smoothly enough.
He's easy to talk to, I'll give him that.
He's got the kind of unforced friendliness that some people are just born with, the kind that doesn't require anything from you.
We talk about nothing much: the weather, the work on the ranch, how he came up from Texas a few weeks back looking for a change of scenery. He's got a nice laugh and laughs often.
Unlike someone else I could name.
But somewhere in the middle of Travis’s chatter, the back of my neck prickles.
I don't even need to look. But I do, because I'm only human.
Sure enough, I see Walker on his black stallion across the field, staring at me and Travis like we’re a couple of criminals plotting a heist. Jaw tight. Eyes in shadow under the brim of his hat.
I look away.
You don't get to do that, I think, very clearly, in his direction. You don't get to look at me like that.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Travis says.
I pull my attention back. That’s another one of those things people say to me that always sends me on high alert.
“Shoot,” I say.
“Is it true you’re dating Walker Rhodes?”
This shit again. This guy’s only been in town a few weeks and already knows the gossip.
“No,” I say. “Not true.”
“Okay.” He grins, obviously pleased by that answer. “So if I were to ask you to come to Sutton's tomorrow night so I can buy you a drink, I'd have a shot at a yes?”
I look at him properly. Nice smile. Laughing eyes. An easy, charming way about him. He's uncomplicated in a way that might be exactly what I need while I'm still licking my wounds.
“I’ll have to check my schedule,” I say.
His smile widens. He hands me his phone and I type my number in, and the whole time I'm doing it there's this feeling of guilt that I do my best to push away. Because I'm not doing anything wrong. Walker told me himself, you should date other people.
And even after he told me that, he touched me and held me and then pushed me away again.
I don’t have any patience for this hot-and-cold bullshit. Even if I understand where it’s coming from. Even if I understand he’s conflicted and maybe even a little broken. Damaged, like he said.
I don’t mind broken and damaged.
But I do mind being jerked around.
I hand the phone back just as the thunder of hoofbeats announces Walker's arrival. From atop his black stallion, with that dark look on his face, he looks ominous as a thundercloud descending.
The man is literally blocking out the sun.
“Travis.” His voice comes out clipped. “Feed’s running low in the south barn. Should’ve been refilled this morning.”
“Yessir.” Travis straightens. Tips his hat to me. “Sadie. Pleasure.”
“Bye.” I smile at him, and I don't look at Walker until Travis is halfway across the field.
Walker dismounts.
Cowboys come with a lot of hardware. Chaps, spurs, the coiled rope. It gives him the look of a man armored up for battle.
He drops Journey’s reins over the fence post and turns to face me. For a moment we just look at each other.
Stupid, beautiful, infuriating man.
He stares, stern and hard, as he bites out, “You shouldn't be distracting the ranch hands.”
Yeah. Emphasis on the infuriating. The nerve of him. The absolute nerve.
“He came up to me,” I say through my teeth.
“I saw that.”
“Did you.”
It's not a question. We both know he saw it. We both know he watched every second of it from across that field with those dark eyes and that clenched jaw.
I continue, “Then you saw that I was just standing here.”
“What were you talking about?”
“I don't think that's any of your business.”
He rubs a hand along his stubbled jaw, suddenly looking regretful. “Sadie…”
I’ve lost my patience for his moody bullshit.
“The weather,” I say. “Texas. And then he asked me out.”
I hold his gaze and watch it happen: his whole body tensing up. Every muscle in his face tightening just the same.
There it is. Undeniable evidence.
Walker Rhodes is jealous as hell.
And it looks good on him. Unfairly, outrageously good. All that barely leashed tension, that dark energy rolling off him in waves, those green eyes gone practically black under the brim of his hat.
He also looks like a man who made his bed and is just now understanding he has to lie in it. Fine by me. I offered to share mine and he said no, so this is what he gets.
“I gave him my number,” I add.
There’s a silence. Then he blurts, “You can't go on a date.”
I stare at him. How the hell am I supposed to take that?
Has he lost his mind?
Have I?
“What are you talking about?” is all I can eke out.
“It wouldn’t be appropriate. For Jonah’s sake.”
Oh my God. Seriously?
“For Jonah’s sake?” I stare at him, caught between outrage and sheer astonishment. “He won't even be home Saturday night.”
“He will be Sunday morning. And when he sees you getting dropped off at home by some strange guy, what’s he gonna think?”
The sheer audacity.
“I see,” I say. “So you assume I’m gonna be spending the night with this guy on the first date?”
He steps closer. Not crowding me, but close enough that I have to hold my ground deliberately, close enough that I can smell the leather and the mountain air on him and the particular warm scent underneath that I’ve made the mistake of memorizing.
His voice drops lower. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not saying you would…”
I let him dangle with all the rope he’s managed to hang himself with. I’m not rescuing him from this one.
Then he says, through gritted teeth, “Fine. You can go on a date.”
“I didn’t think I needed your permission, Daddy.”
I put my foot in the stirrup and mount up. I ride in the opposite direction, leaving Walker in the dust. I don't look back as I canter away across the field.
But I feel his eyes on me the whole way.
Good.
That night, I text Travis back.
Hey. Full disclosure, I’m not really in a place to date anyone right now. But Sutton’s is a good time on a Saturday night. Me and my friend sometimes go line dancing. Want to get together with us and meet up? Feel free to invite anyone you want. The more the merrier.
There. Honest and direct about only being open to friendship, while still being kind.
A few minutes later, I get a text back.
You’re on, Sadie Sullivan. Still gonna buy you a drink.
A winky-face emoji follows.
I try to imagine Walker texting me any type of emoji whatsoever and nearly burst into laughter.
All right. Well. That interaction with Travis went about as well as I could expect.
Still, I set my phone face-down on the nightstand and stare at the ceiling, feeling depressed for reasons I don’t want to think about.
I close my eyes and I think about the mountains, and the way Jonah hollered when he got his horse across a low jump today, and all the ways my life is good and full and practically speaking, more than enough.
I think about all of that instead.
I'm very, very good at being practical when I need to be.
I just wish it felt better than this.