Chapter Thirty
Maddy
“Please can I watch it with you?” Tilly begged me.
I sighed, stopping to face her. Her nose was dotted with freckles from the sun.
She’d spent more time helping on the ranch now that she was older.
Her face shape had become more defined, nose raised at the tip, cheekbones sharp, blond hair falling in enviable beachy waves and eyes light with life.
She really looked like our mother. It took my breath away and made my throat close with emotion thinking about how proud Mom would have been of Tilly.
She was strong, she didn’t take shit and she loved hard. She was fierce, even at seventeen.
“Only if you don’t start going on about everyone’s stats like an annoying know-it-all,” I replied and continued on to the farthest stall in the stables, to stow the saddles from the day.
“Okay, what about if I promise to try reallllly hard not to?” Tilly offered, not giving up.
I turned and faced her again, narrowing my eyes. “Really, really hard?”
Relief brightened the teen’s eyes. “SO HARD!”
I shrugged. “Fine,” I relented.
Tilly jumped up and down. “Yes! Thank you, thank youuuu. Best sister ever.”
I snorted. “I know. Now go help August bring the horses in for the night.”
Tilly squealed with excitement and then was gone again.
I don’t know what excited her more though, coming with me to the bar to watch Leo’s bull riding or the fact that she would see Max.
Either way, as long as she stayed out of mischief I didn’t mind.
I enjoyed spending time with her. I hated that she’d grown up without our mother, didn’t have the memories that we got to replay.
And then losing our father two years ago had been another blow in her young life.
Us sisters were busy trying to get a handle on our lives, but I always wanted to make sure we had time for Tilly.
Walking back to the main house, I raised my eyes to the setting sun, watching it paint the sky in pinks and oranges, and a peacefulness nestled into my chest. I checked my phone but no reply from Leo.
Hopefully his run was over, and he was busy celebrating a successful semi-final with the other riders who would’ve taken him out to celebrate.
I’d catch the highlights later at the bar.
Soon Stampede would be finished, and Leo would be home and here with me. I couldn’t wait to start life with him now that we were in this new phase. Waking up together, going to bed together, dating even.
I wrinkled my nose as I thought about Leo taking me out for dinner.
“So weird,” I chuckled.
Weird but also exciting. I was thinking about our immediate future.
Would I move into his apartment, or would he want to live here at the ranch?
The ranch was closer to the arena, so it made more sense for him to be here.
Plus, he loved life at the ranch, being close with my sisters and Jack too.
They could bro together all day long, and with Tate who’d swing by to check on the animals and steal Gertie away. It would be amazing.
Eventually we’d build another cottage on the land, and we could move into it together. It would need to be pretty big if we were to stay and start a famil—
“Stop,” I huffed at myself.
My intrusive thoughts kept winning at the moment.
My heart tangled with my head. My head said not to get too attached, I’d seen what happened when things went wrong.
How people never recovered after loss. My heart just didn’t seem to get the memo though.
It was why I still couldn’t tell Leo I loved him.
Couldn’t commit the words, just in case.
That didn’t stop me late at night, when I gave myself permission, to dream about what a future would look like, married to Leo with our children running around the ranch.
Imagining him playing with them, tossing them up in the air and them begging him to go higher like little daredevils with shrieks of again, again!
Daisy thudding up the porch steps distracted me. She was kicking off her butter yellow cowgirl boots when I reached her.
“Where are you coming back from?” I asked. She turned to me and I noticed the dark circles that had set up home under her eyes.
“Work,” she grunted.
“You got a job? That’s amazing!” I enthused. “Where at?”
“Not a new job, I’m still at one of the ranches,” she muttered, turning and heading for the stairs, shuffling her feet like she barely had the energy to lift her legs.
I followed her. “Which one?”
“Does it matter?” she snapped, before shaking her head and muttering an apology.
I didn’t rise to her tone. “Want any dinner?”
“No, thank you. I need sleep.” With that, she stumbled up the stairs and disappeared into her bedroom.
“Was that Daisy?” Kat asked, peering around the kitchen archway.
“Uh huh.”
Kat’s brow furrowed. “Has she gone to bed?”
“I think so.” I followed Kat back into the kitchen and started rummaging in the fridge to prep the salad for dinner. “What is with her these days?”
Kat continued slicing potatoes as we talked. “I think she’s just tired from work. I would be too if that was my boss.”
“Who? Where is she working?”
Kat glanced over her shoulder to check no one else was around. “Raleigh Ranch.”
I dropped the vegetables on the countertop. “She’s stuck working for Dickhead Duke? No way.”
“Way.”
“But why? Surely, she doesn’t need a job that badly? We have plenty to do here?”
Kat shook her head. “I can’t afford to pay her any more than I am. Plus…”
“Plus?” I prompted when Kat didn’t say any more.
“It’s all my fault,” Kat whispered.
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“She’s working at his stupid-ass ranch because he loaned the money to clear our debt. It’s my fault she’s having to suffer working for him.”
Kat’s shoulders slumped in like the weight of that was crushing her. I put the knife down and faced her, folding my arms over my chest.
“Hey, none of that. We did the Blame Game last year and we’re not continuing it. It’s not your fault the ranch got into debt, and hell, look what you’ve done with the place! It won’t be much longer until we’ve expanded.”
A small smile lifted her lip. “That’s true, not much longer. Then she can quit working for that dick-tator and set up her own little PR management agency.” The smile dropped when she added. “And probably move away because what would she do here in that line of work?”
My stomach clenched. “You think she’d leave?”
Kat shrugged, gesturing with a potato. “What choice would she have? She’s always been vocal about wanting to get away. I don’t like it either. I love having us all here and I don’t want to lose anyone else.”
There was silence while we both chopped veg, lost in our thoughts. I’d been thinking more and more about Leo, our life together and what it could all mean. But I still couldn’t reconcile my fear.
“How do you cope with loving Jack when you could lose him? Like Dad lost Mom?” I asked, my voice rough with emotion.
Kat paused, putting the knife down and turned towards me. “What do you want to hear?”
I spun away, pacing the kitchen in frustration. “I don’t know!”
“Is that what you’re scared of?”
I nodded.
“That’s what’s kept you and Leo apart for all these years?”
“Well no. I didn’t know he cared about me like that until recently. And I didn’t realize my own feelings either.”
“It’s a good job you’re both pretty because you sure are dumb,” Kat snorted.
I rolled my eyes. “Not helpful.”
Kat went back to chopping, oblivious to my anxiety.
Then she shrugged and faced me. “I just tell myself that if I lost him, at least I’d had the chance to love him.
You think Daddy would have stayed away from Mom knowing he would lose her?
No. He would have held on even tighter because those memories are what makes the pain endurable.
You think it would hurt any less to lose Leo just because you fought being together?
No, Maddy, it’ll hurt the same but you’ll have the memories to comfort you. ”
Her words, similar to something Leo had also said, rotated around my brain. I mulled them over while we finished dinner prep, while we ate and while Gertie dished up ice cream for dessert.
All through dinner, I watched Kat and Jack; the gentle touches, the soft stares full of love and affection. The tenderness in Jack’s expression was one I recognized from when Leo stared at me.
Then Tate turned up to steal Gertie away and I thought about everything they both faced to get their happily ever after. Gertie facing her fear and leaving her abusive ex-husband to come home and be reunited with her forgotten friends and family.
Tate, facing up to his fear of abandonment enough to let Gertie in and overcome his mental health and OCD struggles. Look how happy they were. So loved, so cherished and so full of blissful contentment at what facing that fear had given them.
“Ready to go? We’ll miss it if you don’t hurry up!” Tilly urged me up out of my chair. I drove us to the bar on autopilot while Tilly chatted away about different bull rider stats and Leo’s chances of a successful run.
We arrived at The Lonely Bison and greeted Max who already had the rodeo highlights playing. It was the barrel racing to start, so we settled onto our barstools and ordered some drinks.
Turns out Tilly was equally as excited about the bull riding as she was about seeing Max. Meanwhile, Max was very excited about watching the highlights, not just to support his friend but to, as it became obviously clear, catch glimpses of Tori.
“She’s good, you know,” I said to Max when Tilly left for a bathroom break.
“Who?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Maximillian. Tori.”
His cheeks actually went red. “I wasn’t…she’s just…”
“You love herrrr,” I teased.
He scoffed. “I don’t love her. She’s hot and good in bed.”
“Ah, you’re hooked on that pussy then?”
Max blanched. “Don’t do guy talk, it’s gross.”
I laughed. “Sorry, just trying to be one of the guys. I know you’re missing Leo.”
“Leo wouldn’t say shit like that.”
I smiled to myself. “No, he wouldn’t.”