Chapter Twenty-One
Maddy
“Dammit, why did I say I had a date?”
I threw my phone down in frustration at myself.
I didn’t have a date, I had barely left Leo’s apartment since he’d gone on tour all those months ago.
I went to work, went to the ranch and came home here and got back into the coziest bed that smelled like my best friend.
Enveloped in his duvet, his comforting scent surrounding me, I imagined being wrapped up in his strong arms, my cheek pressed to his solid chest, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat.
“ARGH!” I cried and kicked my legs like a child having a tantrum.
The dark cloud that had stalked me since Leo left still refused to budge. It didn’t matter what I did, it lingered, following me around. The ache in my chest refusing to fade, and I wanted to claw out my heart from missing him. It was like my soul had been split in two, part of me hollow inside.
It was only now he had left that I realized how empty this town was without him. Everywhere I went, there was the echo of him. Memories flooded me and made my heart ache so hard I thought it would never stop.
My phone beeped and I bolted upright, rooting through the comforter folds to find it, praying it was him.
Daisy: Where are you, homegirl?
“Fuck my life,” I groaned and slumped back down in his bed, throwing my arm over my eyes.
So many times, I’d almost begged Leo to come home. To choose me after all. To admit I’d made a mistake not telling him to stay when he’d asked me to.
But that was selfish.
Selfish and stupid.
And it took everything in me to not be selfish and stupid.
Because I knew if I asked him to come home, he would.
He would give up anything for me. Just like I would give up anything for him.
Which is why I continued to rot and fester in his bed, like a lovesick teenager, just waiting for him to return.
Only three more months, right?
My stomach flipped. He could stay longer.
Get on another tour and fuck off around the world.
Hell, Leo could never come home. He could find a buckle bunny, settle down, buy a house with a white picket fence and raise the two-point-four kids he’d been dreaming about his whole life.
He could build a life in Canada or Texas, anywhere rodeo was huge. I might never see him again.
That thought had a sob-hiccup erupting from me.
“Okay, come on, pull yourself together. You’re a tough bitch and you can do this!”
Except, I didn’t feel like a tough bitch right now. I’d never felt more vulnerable, like I was crumbling and the ground was falling from under me. I was scrabbling just to keep my head above water. So many metaphors but they all fit how I was feeling. My anxiety was on steroids.
I glanced at my phone again, willing him to read my message and reply.
Hours went by and he eventually read it. But he didn’t reply.
Why didn’t he reply?
What was he doing?
Who was he with?
The times we had spoken, he hadn’t mentioned anyone except the other guys he was on tour with. Sounded like they weren’t overly friendly but that suited Leo just fine, he was there to focus on his career, not make friends. Or that’s what he’d told me anyway.
But what if he made another friend?
A female friend.
What if he’d replaced me already?
Eventually my myriad thoughts lulled me to a restless sleep. Nightmares plagued me. Leo coming home. Leo not coming home. Leo coming home with another woman. Each time I pulled myself from one nightmare, I leapt straight into another.
I woke in the morning, my eyes sore and feeling full of grit. I rubbed at them, hoping to ease the sting but I made it worse. I showered, using Leo’s shampoo, conditioner and shower gel, making myself smell like him.
The sun was bright as I walked to the ranch, I had fallen behind on cowgirl duties recently and I felt bad at how much my misery was making me unreliable to my family.
As I walked down the path to the main house, August led Marshmallow out into the corral. I could see her chatting away to him happily. She always spoke to the horses like they could understand everything she was saying.
Pushing open the door to the main house, the scent of bacon and coffee assaulted my senses and comforted me at the same time. Such a familiar smell and my stomach rumbled appreciatively.
“Morning, Cowgirl!” Jack called from the stove where he was nursing the eggs.
“And she comes crawling home, eventually,” Daisy drawled, glancing up from her phone, sat at the dining table. Tilly sat next to her, and, had Tilly gotten taller again? That girl didn’t seem to stop growing.
I shot Daisy a facetious smile coupled with a specific hand gesture, and she snorted into her coffee.
“Where’s Boss Lady?” I asked Jack.
He smiled just at the mention of Kat. “She’s at the bank.”
My heart thudded in worry. “Everything okay?”
His smile widened. “Oh yeah, better than okay. She’s looking at extending the loan so we can build more cabins.”
“And that’s a good thing, more debt?” My tone held a suggestion of doubt.
“He’s smiling, ain’t he?” Daisy quirked her brow, coming to Jack’s defence which was a surprise given how much she used to hate him.
“It’s a great thing. Because we’ve turned the ranch around. It’s worth more, which means there’s more collateral to use to release cash to develop further.”
I shook my head. “Too much finance for this time of morning.”
“Which is why you’re the muscle, not the brains,” Tilly teased.
I narrowed my stare at her. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”
She shoved a bit of toast in her mouth and stood up, taking her plate over to the sink. “Yes, I should, because no one will let me quit and start training to be a bull rider.”
“As soon as you complete your high school education, you’re free to do what you want, Peaches,” Daisy said without looking up from her phone again.
Tilly huffed.
“Only a few more months to go,” I squeezed her shoulder sympathetically.
“When is Leo back? I want him to train me.” Tilly turned her sage green stare on me.
“Soon,” I replied, a lump rising in my throat.
Tilly ughed, then grabbed her backpack from the floor and waved goodbye before heading out.
“You eating?” Jack asked.
“Nope, not got much appetite.”
Daisy arched a black brow at me. “You’re going to need your strength for what we gotta do today.”
“Oh yeah?” I arched a brow back. “What’s that?”
A sly smirk unfurled across Daisy’s wide mouth. “We’ve had a calf escape the herd, it’s in one of the pastures somewhere, just need to find it.”
I understood her smile. Daisy was an expert roper and this was what she lived for.
“Is that right?” I asked, my competitive spirit flared as we had a stare-off.
“Hmm,” she replied, narrowing her eyes at me.
“RACE YOU!” I shouted and spun, running out of the house.
“Dammit, that’s not fair!” she shouted back and I heard her boots clomping on the wooden floor as she ran behind me.
“Who’s going to eat all this food?” Jack grumbled as we charged off.
I ran off the porch and up to the stables, Daisy snapping at my heels.
We both tacked our horses in record time and then we were racing each other across the north pasture.
The pounding of hooves across the ground, the burn in my thighs from the ride, the wind in my hair, it all drove my adrenaline higher which is exactly what I needed right now.
We spotted the herd up ahead, but kept going past them, riding further to where there was a dip into a small valley surrounded by trees. This was likely where the calf had gotten stuck; probably made its way there accidentally and was too tired to get out.
As we approached, I heard the soft lowing and signaled to Daisy.
We changed direction and led the horses down, riding along and scouring the trees and fallen logs.
Eventually I spotted it and I whistled to Daisy who rode behind me.
She rose up out of her saddle, her lasso coiled on her hip and tracked the calf as it made a break from the brush and trotted along.
“I see it!” she yelled back. Swerving out from behind me and urging Sunshine on, she uncoiled the lasso and started spinning it overhead until she was almost in line with the errant calf.
She released the rope and it sailed over the animal.
Daisy tightened it, cinching it so the calf stopped in its tracks, then she pulled Sunshine to a stop and swung off the horse.
Hanging back, I watched as she assessed the calf.
“She looks fine, just muddy and tired!” Daisy called back to me, triumph lighting her face.
We managed to get the calf up out of the valley and slowly led it back to the herd where it immediately found its mother who lowed at it reproachfully.
Daisy and I both laughed. My phone beeped and I pulled it out of my back pocket.
Leo: Sorry we missed each other last night! I’m going to be super busy the next few days so we might struggle to catch up, hope you’re okay!
I re-read the message a few times, confused.
This wasn’t like Leo. It felt like he was giving me the brush off, but I was his best friend.
Why would he be trying to avoid talking to me?
He had never done that before. He had always made time, even if it was just a couple of minutes before he went out in the morning or before he went to bed at night.
Hell, the man used to come over to the ranch, climb up the side of the house and come in through my bedroom window just for a ten minute catch up.
The sinking feeling in my stomach increased. I didn’t know how to reply so I didn’t. I put my phone away and turned my attention back to what we were doing.
As the sun began to lower in the sky, me and Daisy took a slow ride back to the ranch.
“You’re awfully quiet, everything okay?” Daisy asked softly.
“Sure.”
We untacked the horses, giving them a brush down, along with affectionate pats and fresh hay to munch on before shutting them in for the night.
“He’s coming back,” Daisy said as we walked back to the main house.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I was all out of sorts. His message had confused me and made me feel weird. Like he was telling me to back off or trying to set boundaries or some shit. I don’t know, maybe I was overthinking it.
I needed to stop being selfish, he had a lot of work to do. He was there to work on his career and succeed. If he didn’t have time to talk that was perfectly fine. If he got injured because he was talking to me instead of training, I would feel awful.
Then Daisy did something uncharacteristic; she put an arm around my shoulders. I turned to face her.
“He’s. Coming. Back.” She intoned, pressing her forehead to mine.
My eyes filled with tears and I nodded.
“Come on, my little firefighter. Let’s go get shitfaced and find some men to ride.”
I barked out a laugh. “Trust you to be thinking with your vagina.”
“One of us has to,” she scoffed. “Clearly yours went away to Canada when he did.”
She released me as we climbed the porch, kicking the mud from our boots before entering the house. Her words gave me pause. Is that how I was acting? Like I was one of those buckle bunnies who had to kiss their cowboy goodbye while he went off to the rodeo?
Fuck, it was.
This wasn’t me. I didn’t get attached and I was purely no strings with men. Yet I was acting heartbroken from someone who didn’t even have my heart. This was why I didn’t do entanglements with men, because look how much you could lose yourself when they left.
I realized Daisy was right; I needed to go and get laid.