Chapter 33
Catherine
“That looks amazing!” I gushed as a young girl with braided buns showed off the seed starter she had made. “Great job.”
She beamed back at me.
At the next table over, kids were shaking bags of milk, sugar, and vanilla that were surrounded by ice to make their own ice cream.
Giggles filled the room as they shook and shimmied the bags until the mixture began to freeze.
A volunteer manned the topping bar set up along the wall as excited participants chose from sprinkles, fruit, and crushed cookies to add to their ice cream.
I peered out the window and spotted Levi at his farrier station. It was more kid friendly and hands-on than the one he had run last night. Elvis stood tall and proud as Levi showed off the horseshoes that protected his feet.
Peals of laughter and gasps of awe carried from the pasture where Mason demonstrated how to milk a cow. Blanche was skittish around adults but warmed up easily to kids.
Dorothy, however, loved everyone.
Heavy footfalls cut through the shrill delight of children having the best Saturday ever. I looked up and found Hayes, dressed in boots, jeans, and his cowboy hat.
“Look at you,” I said with appreciation as he sidled up to me and wrapped his arm around my waist.
“How’s it going in here?” he asked as he surveyed the controlled chaos.
“Good, I think.” As much as I was enjoying the fruits of my labor, I kept watching the clock as it ticked closer and closer to the end of the event.
After the adults-only party last night, the impromptu FBI raid, Lewis’s arrest, and staying up late to clear the cottage property and flip it for the kids’ event today, I was exhausted.
By the time we made it to bed last night, we were too tired to talk. I had fallen asleep before Hayes made it out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth.
“Miss Catherine.”
I snapped around at the sound of Zach’s voice. “What’s up?”
He lifted the empty syrup bottles from the snow cone station. “We’re out of cherry and blue raspberry.”
I took the empties from him. “Well, we had better get those replaced before we have a riot on our hands.”
Zach grinned, and it made me feel ten feet tall. He was starting to come out of his shell and had even accepted our invitation to spend an upcoming weekend with Hayes and me in DC.
“Anything else you need?” I asked as I grabbed two new bottles from one of the cabinets.
He glanced out the window at the growing line in front of the snow cone table. “Nah. I’ve got it.”
I handed over the syrups. “Thanks for pitching in.”
Zach offered a bashful smile and dashed out the door. Hayes and I watched as he slid back behind the snow cone maker and breezed through the line.
“You two get along well,” Hayes said.
“He makes it easy,” I said as I grabbed a paper towel to clean up a small spill. “Zach’s a great kid.”
“Seems like you get along with most kids,” Hayes mused.
Nerves danced along my fingertips as I tossed the paper towel in the trash. “I like kids.”
He draped his arm around my shoulders. “This is what the estate was missing.”
I laughed. “Chaos?”
His eyes creased at the corners. “Joy.”
The volume reached a fever pitch as volunteers passed out spoons and the kids tasted their ice cream for the first time.
Hayes clapped his hands together. “But it’s a little loud for me, so I’m going to enjoy the joy from afar.”
As the clock ticked steadily toward the end of the event, the questions began to swirl.
Since Lewis was out of the picture, were Hayes and I going to start the annulment process?
Was the estate fully his at last?
How awkward was it going to be when our sham of a marriage was over? Hallie had been one of my closest friends before I moved to the estate. Surely, Hayes wouldn’t expect me to stop coming around the house when we ended things.
But what if he did?
What if he started dating other women?
The Learning Cottage property was mine, but was I expected to make myself scarce? What if he did expect me to stay away? What then?
Two months ago, we had reconnected after decades. We had been legally married for almost as long. That wasn’t enough time for this to be real. Was it?
Surely, we couldn’t both have fallen head over heels like this.
But it had been two months of long conversations. Two months of leaning on each other. Two months of partnership.
I knew in my soul that what I felt for Hayes was real. But was it real because of the circumstances, or would it still be real now that all the reasons why we had to be together were stripped away?
The job offer, the contract, and the lingering comment that had stuck with me after the interview had all been pushed aside because of the weekend’s events. Now that things were beginning to slow down, they were all I could think about.
Finally, the last of the children went home, tuckered out from running around the fields, consuming copious amounts of sugar, and loving on the animals. When the last little one left, the quiet set in. With it came all of my fears.
“Let me get that.” Hayes startled me out of my thoughts as I tied up a garbage bag.
“Oh. Thanks.” I wiped my hands on the front of my jeans. “You didn’t have to stick around for the cleanup. I could have handled it.”
He chuckled. “Sweetheart, I wasn’t going to leave you to clean up everything. Besides, the faster we clean up, the faster we can get out of here.”
I let out a tired laugh. “No arguments here.”
The two of us worked in tandem, cleaning up the cottage while Hallie, Mason, Levi, and Zach tackled the outdoor stations.
It didn’t take long for us all to be done, but my feet were already aching. By the time we turned off the lights and locked up, I just wanted to crawl into bed.
Blanche and Dorothy were curled up together, snoozing in their shelter. But what surprised me most was Maisey and Elvis standing just outside the cottage door, outfitted to ride.
“Looks like we need to take a trip to the stables,” I said as I smoothed my hand up and down Maisey’s neck.
“Actually, I asked Mason to leave them up here so we could go on a ride.”
I turned around and found Hayes behind me. “I thought you’d want some peace and quiet.”
He chuckled. “I do. But there’s nothing that says I have to enjoy that peace and quiet alone.”
Since there was no mounting block out here, Hayes kept a steady hand on my back as I shoved my foot into the stirrup and swung my leg over Elvis’s back. There was a benefit to being tall, but I liked that he stayed close, just in case.
“You know, one of these days we’re going to have to take a ride during the day,” I said when Hayes had hopped onto Maisey’s back. We took off, heading across the valley.
He chuckled. “Maybe. But I like riding at night the best.”
“Why’s that?”
“The world is quiet. Everyone is settled. There’s nothing else that needs to be done. Nothing to distract me from appreciating the land and the stars. I love the stars.”
We rounded the outside corner of the rodeo practice ring and eased between it and the hunter-jumper arena. The racetrack was dark as we headed toward the east side of the estate, taking the long way around the property.
A hazy gold was cast across the valley as Hayes and I rode along the foothills, listening to the crickets and cicadas perform an evening symphony. The gentle breathing from the horses and the press of their hooves into the grass was the percussion.
“Summer’s halfway over,” Hayes said out of the blue as we neared Levi’s house. The lights were on, which meant he had probably gone home. “Time flew by.”
I melted into the slow side-to-side rock of the saddle. “I didn’t know what would happen this summer, but I definitely didn’t expect any of this.”
“You mean to tell me you didn’t plan on getting married this year?” he teased.
The two of us shared sheepish smiles. “Can’t say I did.”
“So, what’s next for the cottage?” he asked.
I loosened my grip on the reins. “I’ll be spending the next month working out the kinks in the program before the school year starts.
I have a meeting next week with the instructors to build a monthly curriculum.
That way we aren’t totally winging it. I mean, we’ll probably still be winging it for the first year, but this way there’s a method to the madness that we can tweak as we go and build on for next year. ”
“And then what?” he pressed.
I released a breath. The sharp exhale floated into the universe, carrying my wishes. “And then I step back and trust the teachers to teach. I start looking at what works and keep raising funds to replicate what we did here in other districts.”
And I start a new job. But I didn’t say that part out loud. It was one of the two unspoken things that neither of us had the courage to bring up. My job, and the end of our marriage.
Maisey edged in front of Elvis. I hung back, watching the rock of Hayes’s hips as he rode comfortably. There was an ease about him that hadn’t been here at the beginning of the summer.
Maybe it was because he had worked through the early stages of grieving his granddad. Maybe it was because he had settled after the upheaval of leaving his home in Maryland.
But I wanted to believe it was because of something else.
“Do you think you’ll ever move back to Bethesda?” I asked.
“No.” His answer was quick and decisive. “This is where I’m supposed to be.”
Elvis picked up his pace and matched Maisey’s as we neared the trailhead to the kissing rock.
“What about you?” he asked. “Richmond’s not exactly a quick commute from Honey Hollow.”
I knew that he was baiting me—probably to see where my head was at—but I wasn’t biting.
“Did they give you a remote option?” he asked. “Most jobs can be done from home these days. I never understood why companies make people get on video meetings when they’re in the same building.” His brows furrowed. “Just let people work where they’re comfortable and save money on overhead.”
“I’d like to stay around here,” I admitted as we neared the hitching post. “But no. The hospital job would mean I have to move to Richmond.”