Chapter 11
JAKE
I pushed my horse, Jimmy, to ride faster through the sagebrush back toward the ranch.
There were fifty head of cattle scattered throughout the Lost River Range, and part of my job was to ride out and check on them whenever I could.
This time, Cade rode with me so we could find and tag the ears of any new calves.
We found a calf, its mother frantically circling it as we drew closer. Range cattle did not appreciate all we did to keep their calves safe and accounted for. She’d just as soon bash our heads in if we got too close to her baby.
“You ready?” Cade asked, his hat on backward, nearly bouncing in his saddle. I wasn’t sure why this man had spent so much time in vet school when he was born to be riding the range.
“Yeah, but this time, I’m tagging it. I’m tired of you always doing the easy stuff.”
Cade grinned, looking entirely in his element as he grabbed for his rope. “I guess it’s about time for me to teach you how to cowboy.”
He drew closer to the frantic mother, fingering the rope as he cautiously moved his horse in position. With the end of the rope tied around his saddle horn, he swung the lasso over his head before flinging it toward the cow. It glanced off her shoulder and fell to the ground.
“What were you about to show me?” I asked, enjoying myself.
“Just get your tag ready.”
The next throw landed perfectly around the cow’s neck, and once Cade had backed his horse up a few feet, the rope taut and the cow unable to crush me, I jumped off Jimmy and knelt down by the calf, tagging its ear quickly before retreating back to the safety of my horse.
Cade loosened the tie around the cow’s neck, and we were on our way again.
“Did you miss all this in the city?” Cade asked as we brought our horses to trot.
“Yeah. I can’t believe Layne’s paying us to do this. You?”
“Yeah.”
“After all your years of vet school, you come home to be a mediocre assistant to a cowboy,” I couldn’t help but goad. “Dreams can come true.”
Cade grinned. “Who’s the assistant, little fella?”
We rode toward the ranch, happily flinging insults each other’s way, when my phone buzzed with a call, letting me know we were back in cell range. Seeing who it was, I silenced it immediately.
As soon as I got back home, I’d block his number. I hadn’t given him the courtesy of putting any sort of name in my phone for him. Nothing sounded right. Dad sounded like we had a relationship, which we didn’t. Father was something I’d only call a priest.
I couldn’t think of his name without hearing how the announcers used to say it on TV during the national rodeos.
The excited tone they’d always use when talking about Cole Evans, the bull rider from Eugene, Idaho, only grated on my nerves.
Names wouldn’t work. Numbers were cold and impersonal. A perfect match.
Another voicemail. Another immediate push of the delete button. I’d seen the movies. If he wanted a chance at some Hail Mary reconciliation, it would take a lot more than a damn phone call.
Cade drew his horse, Dodger, to pace with Jimmy. But Dodger was getting old. And so was Cade. Eager to push thoughts of Cole Evans out of my head, I shot him a grin and a salute before I spurred my horse into action, taking the lead as we raced back toward the ranch.
I loved this.
And I felt guilty for loving it. For leaving my hometown, and ruining my daughter’s life, and then coming back.
I didn’t deserve it. But I knew I’d be a miserable father to Sophie if I kept thinking thoughts like that, so I pushed past those feelings and instead focused on what I was grateful for.
Grateful for the afternoon sun warming my face and breathing in the mountain air.
Grateful to be riding the range with Cade Williams again.
Grateful that Sophie and I were both surrounded by people we loved.
For the first time in a year, I could finally catch my breath.
These past few weeks working the dude ranch had been some of the best I’d had in years.
Our lives were getting back on track. On paper, everything was looking good.
Which was why this gnawing feeling of discontent continued to baffle me.
I tried to ignore it. Pushed it away while I felt grateful for this second chance at life.
But discontent became an itch I couldn’t scratch.
The worst kind of torture. I thought that by moving back home, it would be gone.
The memories of another life would fade.
But they didn’t go away. They amplified.
They picked and clawed and rubbed at my face every day.
The toothbrush holder in our bathroom that holds only two toothbrushes.
The mail addressed to Jake and Miranda Evans that kept finding its way to me, no matter how many times I called the company to change it.
Not knowing how to make Sophie’s favorite pasta just like Miranda used to make it. The empty side of my bed.
I didn’t miss her. So I wasn’t sure what it was about our life together that still kept me up at night.
We slowed to a walk as we left the mountain trail and entered the ranch.
“You doing anything tonight?” Cade asked as we passed the playground by my cabin, waving at the guest kids playing on the swings. Cade had his own stable by his house that he’d built for Kelsey a year earlier. I followed him home to pick up Sophie from Kelsey’s.
“Got a hot date?” He grinned hopefully at me as we passed by Shelby’s cabin.
I had been about to tell him about my exciting plans that included a movie with Sophie before I put her to bed, but his obvious insinuation had me thinking. If I wanted them off my back, maybe telling him Shelby and I would be hanging out later wouldn’t be a bad thing.
“We’re going to watch a movie,” I said, dangling my hook over the water.
He took the bait. “We?”
“Shelby’s coming over.”
Cade’s eyes lit up, and he studied me for a long moment, trying to gauge the truthfulness of my words. I had to play it all carefully. Too far one way or the other, and he’d be on to me.
“Just as friends,” I added.
“Sure, sure,“ he said, adjusting his hat. “Sounds good.” I could tell he wanted to ask more. Actually, no, I could see Kelsey demanding more information when he told her all of this later. But thankfully, his more manly side won out, and he backed off.
“What are you guys doing tonight?” I asked.
He grinned. “I’m going to try my hardest to eat my wife’s dinner without making a face, play with the kids, rock the baby, and watch a show with Kels before we go to bed.”
“Living the dream.” I had wanted that statement to come out like I was joking, teasing even, but what came out was a tone so far from joking it scared me.
As we rode toward Cade’s house, I pushed discontent aside as a better thought came to me.
Tonight, I was planning to make one of Sophie’s favorites, an elite and fancy kind of meal that included mashed potatoes with dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, before putting her to bed.
After that, it was Shelby’s second lesson on flirting.
She just didn’t know it yet.