Chapter 41
forty-one
“Are you sure we’re okay?” Briar touched her lips to Tarr’s again, despite the fact that his phone had vibrated against her side for the third time in as many minutes.
“Yeah, I’m great.” Tarr kissed her again, sliding his mouth along her jaw and then over the delicate bones along her collar. “Tuck is going to send out a search party, though.” He finally pulled away, and Briar reached up and ran her fingers through his hair.
“Tarr?”
Since she’d been outside all through sunset, her eyes had adjusted to the darkness gradually, and she could see him just fine. Of course, Tarr sort of blended into the night, and oh, how she loved that about him.
“There are so many things I love about you,” she said. “How you seem to be able to say whatever’s on your mind, how you’re so good with horses, how you kiss me.” She remained straight-faced, and he stayed quiet. “Is that the same as being in love with someone?”
“I don’t think so, sweetheart,” he said. “Because I’m fond of how Bobbie Jo loves her goats so fiercely, but I’m not in love with Bobbie Jo.”
Briar nodded, the back of her head grinding against the hard ground. “Maybe if I list the things I love about you every day, there will come a time when I recognize that I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Tarr rolled to her side, his fingers still twined with hers. “There’s no—I don’t want you to feel any pressure, my thorn-filled Briar. You’ll know when you know.”
“But we’re good?”
“You said you envisioned your future with me, and I know you can’t see your own face, but I could.
” He spoke softly, reverently, as if he didn’t want to scare the stars away by speaking too loud.
“And when you said that, I could see that you love me, so yeah. I’m good, and if you’re good, then we’re good. ”
She lay there on her back, her eyes searching the skies, as his words sank into her soul.
He could see the love she held for him on her face—and that never happened.
Perhaps it was a new thing about her that she hadn’t discovered yet.
She could hide almost all of her emotions, but apparently, not love.
A smile touched her lips, and then she rolled too, put her palm on Tarr’s chest, and pushed herself up. He groaned in an over-exaggerated way, and curled into himself. “Let’s go,” she said. “We already have to ride back in the dark, and Tucker’s going to lose his mind.”
“I’ll text him.” Tarr stayed on his side, curled up, as he pulled out his phone. The screen lit up his face as he texted quickly, and then he sat up and got to his feet. “We can walk back,” he said. “The horses will just come with us.”
He bent to pick up his cowboy hat, which he reseated on his head, completing the vision of the perfect cowboy silhouette against the rising moon. “Or can you ride in the dark?”
“I used to be able to ride upside down and with my eyes closed,” she said.
“Yeah, but on a trained horse,” he said.
True, she thought. Stunt-riding horses trained for years, and they were as important as the girls who rode them. They had to hold steady lines, with a constant clip, never missing a step or leaning too far.
Briar had loved her stunt horses with her whole soul, and a powerful wave of nostalgia and missing flowed through her as she joined Tarr at the horses. “I can ride,” she said quietly, telling him she was ready to take another step forward in her healing.
She’d already come so far, but getting back in the saddle—literally—was something she’d never really felt like she needed to do.
Until Tarr hadn’t come back to his cabin, and Briar couldn’t stand the thought of not talking to him for another moment. She’d gone over to the arena, assuming he’d be there, since he hadn’t taken his truck.
She hadn’t found him, and she’d returned to Tarr’s with a heavy heart. Only a minute later, Tuck and Bobbie Jo had pulled up, a big bag of Doritos for Tarr.
Tucker had called Tarr for her, and Briar had become a master in gesturing and mouthing words, so Tuck wouldn’t give away the fact that it was her asking after Tarr. He’d seemed truly surprised when she’d arrived, so she’d had one minor success today, at least.
“Tarr, baby?” She slipped her hand in his as he finished checking his horse’s saddle.
“Mm?” He drew her into his arms and pressed his lips to her forehead.
“I’m really sorry about earlier,” she said with every ounce of sincerity she could muster.
“You already said that.”
“Yeah, but I think you forgave me too fast.”
He chuckled. “Is that something someone can do?”
Frustration flared inside her, but she tamped it down.
“I just want you to understand that I’m really sorry.
I wasn’t just saying it. I feel it throughout my whole body.
I don’t mean to be so snappy with you, and I don’t mean to be so ineffective at communicating.
I am working on myself, and I will get to the point where I can look you straight in the face and tell you I love you. ”
She pulled away and looked up at him. “Okay?”
“Okay.” His mouth barely moved as he spoke the word.
“And hey, I think you just said it.” His lips curved up into a smile, and he lowered his head to kiss her.
Briar stayed in that moment, standing in the darkness within the safe, comforting circle of Tarr’s arms, the stroke of his mouth against hers, and his body heat combining with hers.
She wasn’t sure what love felt like, but she strongly suspected it felt just—like—this.
Briar eyed the three-story office building made of off-white stone. Various business names and logos sat up near the roof, and she saw the one she’d come for.
Premier Family Counseling.
Her heartbeat stuttered in her chest, but Briar turned off her SUV and reached for her purse.
She’d left the farm early today, after telling Bobbie Jo why she needed to leave.
She’d driven herself here. She’d planned to get lunch for her and Tarr on the way home from their favorite gourmet hot dog joint.
She wasn’t going to back out now, when all she had to do was walk inside and give a receptionist her name.
Tarr had offered to come with her to her first therapy session, but something about it felt too…intimate to her. She wanted to be able to talk freely—maybe even about him—and in the end, Briar had decided she needed to handle this appointment herself, from beginning to end.
She waited behind someone on a knee scooter, as the first floor housed a foot and ankle clinic, and then she stepped over to the elevator and pushed the button to go up.
The counseling office waited for her on the third floor, and Briar pushed through the pristine glass doors easily.
She approached the counter there, where a young woman probably five years her junior beamed up at her.
“Good morning,” she said. “Name?”
“Briar Prescott.” She pulled her purse across her body. “I had a referral from my primary care physician.” She plucked the card from the front pocket of her bag in case she needed it.
“Yes, I see that…Doctor Filigree?”
“Yes,” Briar said. “I have an appointment at eleven with Doctor Margrint.”
“Yep.” The woman looked up at her. “Have you been here before?”
Briar shook her head and pressed her lips together. This receptionist wasn’t the therapist, and Briar could tell the doctor about how nervous she was once she got called back.
The receptionist leaned over and picked up a clipboard. “We have all our first-time clients fill this out.” She handed Briar a pen and offered a smile.
Briar couldn’t bring herself to return it. She hated paperwork, because the doctor wasn’t going to look at it. She’d still make Briar say everything out loud anyway, but she hurried through it and returned the clipboard back to the receptionist before retaking a seat in the waiting room.
Her nerves ran through her unbridled, and Briar found herself biting on her fingernails. She forced her hands back to her lap, and thankfully, a woman with lovely auburn hair opened a door, looked right at her, and said, “Briar?”
She stood and went with this new woman, who had to be closer to forty than Briar was.
“We’re right here,” the woman said. “This is Doctor Margrint’s main office, as she’s just finishing up with a group session in the conference area.
” She smiled at Briar as she moved past her, and Briar noticed she didn’t come in the room after her.
Instead, the woman loitered in the doorway. “Feel free to look around. There are snacks over on the counter to your left, and drinks in the little fridge underneath there. Doctor Margrint will be right in; shouldn’t be more than five or six minutes.”
Briar gazed at the huge floor-to-ceiling windows in this office, and the door had nearly clicked closed before she remembered to say, “Thank you.”
Gorgeous landscapes of the Rocky Mountains hung on the walls, and Briar gazed at them with joy singing through her soul.
The doctor had a large, raw-edge wooden desk in front of the windows, but the whole left side of the office felt more like the waiting area she’d sat in with Tarr before their couples’ massage.
The snacks, the ice water with sliced cucumbers in it, the mini-fridge filled with bottles of sparkling water, Gatorade, and Diet Coke.
Briar almost didn’t dare to touch anything, but she admired the gold lamps with cream shades, and the dark mahogany bookshelves that held novels instead of Doctor Margrint’s textbooks.
Several seating options waited for Briar, and she chose a chaise, the way she would’ve at the spa. A blanket lay over the arm of it, and she slid off her shoes and covered herself with it, really sinking into the cushy furniture and sighing out her worries.
“Briar,” a woman said, and Briar practically jumped out of her skin. “Oh, don’t get up.” A brunette strode toward her, her navy pants clearly made from high-quality fabric as they swayed around her legs like dark water.
She arrived at Briar’s side and squeezed her shoulder. “I’m Doctor Margrint, and I’m so glad you found something comfortable for you.”
“This is such a nice place,” Briar said.
“I try to make it as inviting as possible.” She moved over to the windows and pushed a button. Shades started to lower, and the lamps came on as the room dimmed. “I hope this is okay. I find the light to be so harsh near midday, and I want us to have a relaxing, calm first session.”
“It’s fine,” Briar said. “I really have no idea what to expect. I’ve never been to a counselor before.”
“Are you nervous?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I barely like talking to people I know.” She laughed lightly, though she wasn’t kidding.
Doctor Margrint smiled a real smile, and that put Briar further at ease. “So tell me why you decided to come see me.”
Briar tried to find the words that would sum up the thirty-one years of her life. How did one do that in only a few sentences? Would it sound like she was making excuses? She didn’t want to do that—she needed to own her own culpability for the person she was, and the life she currently lived.
“That’s a big question,” Briar said. “So I guess I’ll just start with the most basic thing: I’d like to learn how to love myself.
See, I have this amazing boyfriend who loves me and wants to marry me, and I don’t think I’m lovable.
So I have a hard time believing the things he says, and I want to get to a place where I can and do believe him—and that I know what it feels like to be loved, and to love another person. ”
Doctor Margrint didn’t scoff or smile at her like she was simple. She nodded, made a note on her tablet, and looked at Briar again. “There’s a lot here, so let me start with this. Do you think you can’t recognize love?”
“I can for horses and dogs and friends,” she said. “But romantic love?” She shook her head. “I’ve never experienced it, and I’ve actually had quite a few bad experiences, so….”
The doctor looked at her tablet again. “This says you were a professional stunt rider for years.”
Briar’s throat closed, though she knew she needed to go through this conversation to find closure to the stunt riding. “Yes,” she said.
Just think of Tarr, she coached herself. You’re doing this for yourself, so you can be with Tarr.
Buoyed by that thought, she opened her mouth and started telling the story of the woman she used to be…in the hopes that she could find the things still infecting who she was now and preventing her from becoming who she wanted to be.