Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
YOU LOOK PRETTY GOOD WITH A LITTLE DIRT ON YOU.
WYATT
By the time the sun rises over the Rockies, I'm driving through Gritstone with only one thing on my mind and she has no idea I’m coming.
As I pull up the long drive, my heart stops clean in my chest.
Kinsley's driving the old Ford flatbed through the south pasture, hay dust trailing behind her, looking like she was born to work this land.
The sight of her behind the wheel of my family's truck gives me a vision of what my life could be with Kinsley in it, and it feels so right it's like God smacked me on the back of the head and told me to pay attention.
I park near the hay field and jog across the stubbled ground, timing my approach as she makes another pass. The truck's moving slow enough for loading, and when I hop up onto the running board and grab the door frame, she does a double-take.
"Wyatt." Her voice carries pure shock and delight as she hits the brakes, the truck lurching to a stop. “Wait.” Worry lines furrow across her brow. "What are you doing here?” She looks me over. “Are you hurt?”
"No," I say, grinning as wonder once again fills her blue eyes.
"But you're supposed to be in Calgary tomorrow night," she says, yet she's already reaching for me through the open window, her hands gripping my collar and pulling me to her.
"Still am," I tell her, leaning through the window to capture her mouth with mine. "Flew home just to see you."
The kiss tastes like hay dust and promise, and when she melts against me despite the awkward angle, pulling me closer with desperate hands, I know it was worth it.
"You flew home for one day?" she whispers against my lips, and the awe in her voice fills me with satisfaction. "Miss me?" she asks against my lips, and the breathless quality of her voice makes heat shoot straight through me.
"Every dang minute," I admit, stealing another kiss. "You look good driving my family's truck, sweetheart."
She grins against my lips.
"Hey!" someone yells from the back where they were throwing hay until Kinsley stopped the truck.
"Don't stop on my account—I'll catch up." I wink and hop down.
She laughs and I watch her drive away with the kind of pride that sits deep in a man's chest. That's my woman, working my family's land like she belongs here. Because she does.
"Quit mooning over your girlfriend and get to work!" Grandpa’s voice carries across the field, gravel-rough and with just enough amusement to take the sting out of the order. "Rest of us been sweating since dawn while you're off kissin' the help."
I grin and jog toward where Grandpa's working.
The field stretches out in neat rows of bales.
Some are being loaded onto trailers, others waiting for hands to stack them.
Trucks rumble between the rows while ranch hands, family, and even a few employees from the feed store work to bring in the last cut of the season.
Dad appears at my elbow, his hat pushed back and sweat darkening his shirt despite the early hour. "Well, look what the cat dragged in," he says. There's affection in his voice if you know how to listen for it. "Figured you'd forgotten how to buck hay."
"Like riding a bike," I tell him, grabbing work gloves from the truck bed and pulling them on. "Though I seem to remember you being prettier the last time we did this."
Dad snorts. "Smart mouth's gonna get you the heavy bales today."
"Wouldn't be the first time," I shoot back, and for a moment we're just father and son ribbing each other over shared work instead of two men who've spent years talking past each other about futures and expectations.
I get to work. The small bales are headed for Brook's feed store customers, families with a few horses who need hay they can handle without equipment and rodeo families that need hay to travel.
These small bales are different from the big round bales we use for our own feed but every bit as important.
Kit looks down at me from where she's stacking on the trailer, her blonde hair escaping from her ponytail and her face flushed with effort. "About time you got here," she says, grinning. "Kinsley's been showing us all up for the past two hours."
I glance across the field to where Kinsley's expertly backing the flatbed up to another stack of bales, her movements sure and confident behind the wheel. "She's something else."
"Yeah, well, don't let it go to your head," Kit says, hefting a bale that probably weighs as much as she does. "She was doing this before you got here, and she'll be doing it after you leave again."
After I leave again. Like it's a given, a foregone conclusion that I'll choose the road over whatever's growing between these mountains.
"Hey!" Brook calls out, waving me toward where she's talking to an old man beside a beat-up Chevy pickup. "Come help Mr. Jenkins load his truck."
I recognize Frank immediately—eighty if he's a day, stubborn as a mule, and possessed of the kind of dry wit that can cut a man down to size or build him up depending on his mood.
He's been buying hay from us forever, always paying cash, always complaining about the price, always coming back because he knows quality when he sees it.
"Well, I'll be darned," Frank says as I approach, his weathered face breaking into what passes for a smile.
"Mr. Jenkins," I say, extending my hand for his surprisingly firm grip. "How's that old mare of yours?"
"Ornery as ever. Just like her owner." His eyes twinkle with mischief. "Brook tells me you're gonna help load my truck. Figured I earned the young man's labor by driving all the way out here myself."
I laugh, remembering how Frank has always worked this system—Brook gives him a discount on hay if he "helps" with the work by driving his truck to the field instead of having it delivered. It's charity wrapped in dignity, and I've always respected the old man for accepting it on those terms.
"Consider it an honor," I tell him, already moving toward the neat stack of bales Brook has set aside for him. "These should see you through the winter if you're not feeding half the county."
"Just the horses that need it," Frank says gruffly, but I know he's fed every hard-luck case in the valley for as long as anyone can remember. "Can't let good animals go hungry just because their owners hit rough times."
Frank's stories flow like grain out of a bucket passing the time it takes to load his truck.
He talks about everything under the sun including horses he's known, trails he’s ridden, changes he's seen in the valley over eight decades of living here.
It's the kind of oral history that disappears when old-timers pass on, and I find myself listening with attention I never had as a kid.
He climbs into his truck as if his body doesn’t know how to bend that way anymore. "That girl of yours fits this place. Be a shame to lose something that good because you're running away from something."
I nod, not sure what to say to him.
The truck rattles away in a cloud of dust, leaving me standing in the hay field with Frank's words echoing in my head.
All afternoon I keep finding excuses to check on Kinsley—bringing her water, making sure she's got something to eat, asking if she needs anything. Can't seem to help myself.
Dad works beside me for a while. When he does talk, it's about practical things—which fields will be ready for cutting next, how the weather's shaping up for the rest of harvest, the logistics of getting product to market.
"Good to have extra hands," he says at one point, adjusting his hat as I wave Kinsley back. She needs to go a little to the right and I point. She makes the correction and ends up spot on. I cut my hand through the air, and she hits the brakes.
"She's incredible." I can't help but stare at the way the sun hit her hair.
"Kinsley's great. But I wasn't talking about her." Dad nods once, like something's been settled between us that doesn't need words.
Kinsley hops out as I help load the last trailer. Hay leaves cling to her hair, and there's a smudge of dirt on her cheek that makes her look downright kissable.
"You've got a little something," I tell her, reaching out to brush the dirt away. The contact sends electricity shooting up my arm and I can't wait to have her all to myself for a while.
"Better?" she asks, her voice soft and a little breathless.
"Perfect," I murmur. "Though you look pretty good with a little dirt on you, too."
Her laugh is pure music. "Flatterer."
"I could get used to coming home to you working my family's land."
Something shifts in her expression at that—surprise, maybe, or hope. "You could?”
"Yeah." The admission comes easier than I expected. "Looks like it suits you."
"It does," she says simply, and the certainty in her voice makes my heart pound.
"Meet me on your porch swing in half an hour?" I ask.
"Deal." Her eyes sparkle and I know she's as excited to just sit with me at the end of a long day as I am to be with her.
The hay operation winds down with the satisfied exhaustion of a job well done. Trailers roll toward town and neighboring ranches, carrying the fruit of our labor to feed animals through the coming winter.
I walk the field one more time as the equipment gets loaded and the hands head home, breathing in air that tastes of dust and grass.
This land is in my blood—I can feel it in the way my boots know every dip and rise, in the way my eyes automatically assess the soil conditions, in the way my heart settles into peace when I'm standing on dirt that's been Halloway ground for five generations.
For the first time in years, I feel peace here.
"Contemplating your roots?" Brook asks, appearing beside me as I stand looking out over the stubbled field.
"Something like that," I admit, surprised by how comfortable the admission feels. "Feels different this time."
"Because of her?" Brook nods toward where Kinsley's talking to Mom.