Chapter 19 #2
Logan comes through the door, takes in Bingo against the wall and Mae in the middle of the floor, and then looks at Sutton and the kitten.
"Is that kitten supposed to be in here?"
"He wanted to come," Sutton says.
"That's not how cats work, bud."
"He was at the steps."
Logan looks at Darla, who is still holding Biscuit. Logan looks at Bingo, who is still against the wall. He looks back at Sutton. "Take him home."
Sutton takes Biscuit from Darla. He makes one more pass around the room because there are two tables he hasn't reached yet. Owen looks up from his plate, and Sutton presents the kitten. Owen puts one finger out, and Biscuit sniffs it.
"His name is Biscuit," Sutton says.
"That's a good name," Owen says, and goes back to his chicken.
Sutton takes Biscuit out. Bingo follows at a pace that makes it clear he was already leaving. Mae sits in the middle of the floor for ten more seconds, then walks out after them.
Logan gets a plate from Darla and drops into the chair Rhea just vacated. He sets his elbows on the table and looks at me.
"How you doin'?"
"I'm fine."
He nods, picks up his fork. "He'll close it out and come back." He says it matter-of-factly. "The ranch is still standing in the meantime."
"I know."
"Good." He takes a bite of chicken. "Darla's chicken is better than last week somehow. Don't tell her I said that or she'll know I noticed."
I almost smile. "She's right behind you."
He doesn't look. "Of course she is."
Kade passes my chair on his way out and puts his hand on my shoulder for one beat without stopping.
From Kade, that's a paragraph.
I sit for a minute after Logan moves on. The dining hall loud around me, fried chicken, sweet tea, Londyn refilling glasses, and the new group finding their rhythm at the tables. These people take care of each other whether you ask them to or not. I didn't ask. They did it anyway.
***
After the clinic's done, I tack Cricket up in the barn and take her to the arena. The new group is settled in their cabins. The arena is empty and quiet with the afternoon light cutting long across the footing.
Cricket walks in loose and forward, ears up. I pick up the reins, and she steps into the contact immediately, soft and forward, already ahead of me. I circle her left, and we work.
Every ask, she's there. She gives me everything. I shift my weight, and she moves with it. I ask her to slow and she comes back soft. I ask her forward, and she opens up. We work through a figure eight. Then I just let her go, sitting quiet, feeling her move.
I don't know when Sawyer comes to the rail. I notice her there between circles, standing with her arms on the top board, watching.
I bring Cricket down to a walk and loop back toward her.
"She's moving well," Sawyer says.
"She always moves well when I'm not in her way."
Sawyer is fighting a smile. "You've been getting out of her way more than you used to."
I let Cricket stretch her neck long on a loose rein. "She does her job."
"She does." Sawyer watches us for a moment. "So do you."
I don't say anything.
"You know I don't hand that out," Sawyer says. Her voice is even. "I hired you because I saw what you could do. What I didn't know was whether you'd let yourself do it. Whether you'd keep waiting for permission you didn't need."
Cricket stands quiet and relaxed.
"You stopped waiting," Sawyer says. "Somewhere in the middle of the barrel clinic. You just started doing the job like it was yours. Because it is."
I look at the arena rail, the barn beyond it, the mountains past that. All of it’s familiar now.
"I know what you came here to figure out," Sawyer says. "Whether you could be seen as yourself and not as your father's daughter. I'm telling you. You are. You've been that since week two. Don't let someone else's doubt talk you out of what you already know."
I look at her.
She holds my gaze for a beat and then nods and pushes off the rail. Then she's gone.
I sit on Cricket at the rail for a minute. The afternoon light is still cutting long across the footing. The ranch is quiet around me. Cricket drops her nose and blows.
I pick up the reins and ask her for one more circle. She gives it to me before I finish asking.
***
I come out to the pasture in the late afternoon and put my arms on the top rail.
The herd is spread across the grass, Stellar and Keeper near the water trough, Jax a little off by himself, and Blitz moving the fence line slowly.
Decker has his head down in the far corner.
I find Cricket off to the left with Copper, the two of them a few lengths from the rest of the herd, grazing side by side with their heads low.
I look at them for a moment. Copper's still here. Cricket right beside him. Something pulls tight in my chest.
I've been turning the same thing over since I watched Levi's truck clear the gate. I'm done turning it.
I came to Whispering Creek to stop being seen as my father's daughter. I've done that. The job is mine. The work is mine. I earned every piece of it, and nobody here has ever looked past me to find Dad first. Not from the beginning. Not once.
That part I claimed a long time ago without noticing I was doing it.
What I haven't claimed is the rest.
I've been doing with Levi exactly what I did with this place when I first got here.
Wanting it before I'd let myself have it.
Holding the door half open because half open felt like something I could step back from if I needed to.
I told myself that was smart. It wasn't smart. It was just scared dressed up as smart.
I've been barrel racing since I was old enough to sit a horse.
I've never once pulled up before a turn because I was afraid of it.
I know what it feels like to go in without a backup plan, to trust the horse and the work and myself and commit to the line.
I know how to do that. I've done it every time I pointed a horse down the alley.
I've been running a backup plan with him since the first week.
I'm done with it.
I'm not Reid's daughter here. I'm not a client who overstayed. I'm the person who said yes before she could talk herself out of it, and that person doesn't protect herself out of something real.
That part isn't in question, whatever he decides in Sadler.
But being done with the backup plan doesn't make me done being scared, and I let myself have that too.
What if he closes it out and doesn't come back?
Not because he doesn't mean to. Just because Sadler is eight hours away.
Garrett is there, and some doors, once you open them, pull harder than you planned for.
I look at Copper standing in the pasture without Levi on his back and let that land.
I look over at the empty lot one more time. I turn back to Cricket, and she's not looking at me anymore. She's looking toward the trees, ears forward, perfectly still. I stand there watching her for a second. Then I walk back to my cabin.