Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jason stopped in the barn doorway and watched Tate work for a second. The wedding, the honeymoon, and the move into Rylee’s farmhouse seemed to all happen in a flash. Now here he was, back like the tide, whistling.
“Morning,” Tate said. “Figured I’d take the Colton kids first thing, if that works. What’d I miss?”
Jason had been waiting for that question. He’d decided that when it finally came he wasn’t going to soften the answer.
“Sixty-one lessons,” he said. “Nine cancellations, two of them the Baileys, who rescheduled twice and then wanted a discount for the inconvenience. Brent worked his days off. The feed order changed because the mill stopped carrying the pellets, so I switched us to the supplier out of Billings, which is cheaper anyway. The gate on the east paddock is fixed. Onyx picks up his feet now.”
Tate had stopped saddling at about the Baileys. He stood there with the cinch strap in his hand and let the rest of it land. To his credit, he didn’t reach for a joke.
“That’s what you missed,” Jason said. “I’m not asking for anything. You were exactly where you were supposed to be. But you asked, and you deserved the whole answer.”
“Jason.” Tate hung the strap over the rail. “I’m sorry. I kept saying tomorrow.”
“You said it quite a few times.”
“I know I did.” He dragged a hand down his face, and when it came away he was the brother Jason had run a business with for six years instead of a man floating two feet off the ground. “What do you need?”
And there it was. The opening Jason had been walking toward. “I need you to take the client list back. Because I’m starting the horse work. I registered the business.”
Tate blinked. “You registered it.”
“Paperwork’s on the desk. Insurance quote’s under it.
I’ve got two horses lined up, Onyx and a mare out at the Bailey place, which is half of why they get to be rude about scheduling a while longer.
Brent keeps his hours. You take back the lessons.
I’ll carry my share of the mornings until the training pays for itself. ”
“You’ve been busy,” Tate said.
“You told me in the summer to build a client base.” Jason shrugged. “I got started on it.”
A grin started in the middle of Tate’s face and took over the rest of it. “You really did it.”
“I really did.”
“I’m proud of you, man. You know that?”
“You mentioned it once.” Jason picked up the saddle Tate had abandoned and swung it onto the rail. “There’s one more thing you should know. And I’d rather you hear it from me, standing here, than from anybody else in this town.”
“Okay.”
“I’m seeing someone. It isn’t new, and it isn’t casual.” He breathed out. “Her name is Cecelia Williams.”
The barn went very quiet. A horse stamped down the row.
“Williams,” Tate said.
“Reginald Williams is her father. She runs his public relations. You’ve met her.”
“I’ve met her.” Tate had gone flat and careful. “In a hotel lobby, on the worst week of my life. She talked me out of doing something stupid, and I never even thanked her for it.” He looked at Jason for a long moment. “How long?”
“Since just after your wedding. She was there, as it happens. Roxy invited them.”
Tate turned and looked out the barn door at the land to the east, the parcel the town had spent a season fighting over, and Jason let him look.
He knew what was turning over in his brother’s head, because it had turned over in his own a hundred times.
The petitions Tate had carried door to door.
The meetings. The photograph that had nearly cost him Rylee.
“The town finds out who she is,” Tate said, “the same week you hang out a shingle asking those same people to trust you with their horses.”
“I know.”
“That’s not me telling you to stop.” He faced Jason again. “I stood in front of a photograph once and said nothing, because explaining it meant admitting what I’d done. It nearly cost me everything I’ve got. So I’m only going to ask you one question.”
“Ask it.”
“Does she make you happy?”
“Yes.” No pause, no hedging, because there was nothing to hedge. “She makes me feel like myself.”
Tate nodded, the nod of a man setting a load down. “Then I hope this town is kinder than I think it is.” He picked the saddle back up. “Bring her to dinner. Rylee will want to know her before the town does. And Jason?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you. For all of it.”
Jason gave him a curt nod and went to get Onyx. It was going to be a good morning.
Cece was waiting at the side of the lodge, at the spot where the trail bent away from the parking lot, and she knew before he said a word. He could tell by how she stopped walking and looked at him.
“What?” she said.
“I told him.”
Her whole body went still. “Told him what, exactly?”
“Everything. The business. Us. Your name.”
“Jason.” She pressed a hand flat against her stomach as if holding it in place. “You were supposed to wait until things settled. Until the meeting mess was over. Until I’d figured out how to be less of a liability.”
“You’re not a liability.”
“Your brother led the fight against my father.” She wasn’t angry. She was scared, which was worse. “What did he say?”
“He asked if you make me happy. I said yes. He said to bring you to dinner.”
Cece stared at him. “Dinner.”
“Rylee’s cooking. There will be a pig present. Socially, not on the menu.”
She laughed, one surprised note of it, and then her eyes were wet and she turned toward the trail so he wouldn’t see. He caught her hand and kept it.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she said.
“I don’t do things I have to do,” Jason said. “I do things I mean.”
She held onto his hand the whole way up the trail, and if she held it tighter than usual, neither of them mentioned it.