Chapter 32
SHELBY
I once wondered what it would feel like to wake up knowing Jake Evans was mine.
I was happy to report that it was even better than I had imagined.
I had gone back to my own cabin, on cloud nine, sometime in the middle of the night.
We had eventually fallen asleep on his couch, and when I slipped away, he attempted to stop me.
He claimed he could only sleep well with me next to him, but I squirreled away and told him to get in bed.
He ignored me.
Instead, he walked me to my door, kissed me good night, and was attempting to pull me back to his cabin before I escaped and shut the door on his laughing face.
I was exhausted by the time my head hit my pillow, but somehow, I still managed to re-live every second of the night for another hour after.
Thankfully, it was a Saturday, and the guests on the ranch were packing to leave.
Other than showing our faces sometime at breakfast, we didn’t have any responsibilities in that regard.
Jake had to feed and check the cows, but so far, after peeking out my window by my bed, I hadn’t seen any movement next door.
So I lounged until well after eight in the morning in what I could only describe as a complete state of bliss.
A knock sounded at my door, and I opened it with anticipation. A rumpled, bed-headed Jake leaned against the door frame, his arms folded and a smile on his face.
“Tuck.”
“Nancy.”
We were now just two idiots in love, smiling at each other.
“Can I help you, Cowboy?” I finally asked.
“Yeah, I had a really distracted barber last night, and I was wondering if I could get this fixed.” He pointed toward the long, uneven cuts at the front of his hair, which I’d neglected to finish cutting.
“It’s not my fault,” I protested cheerfully. “You interrupted me.”
“It is your fault,” he insisted lowly, staring at me in a way that made my heart rate gallop.
“I kind of like it,” I said.
He sighed playfully. “I guess I should be glad it wasn’t a bowl cut.”
My eyes lit up. “We still have time. You and my dad could match.”
My breath caught as Jake stepped forward into my space and pulled me into his arms. After a good long while, he stepped back.
“Soph and I were about ready to sit down to a big bowl of Froot Loops, and we wondered if you wanted to join us.”
I smiled, happiness bursting from every pore in my body.
“Yeah. I do.”
“Great. Bring your scissors.”
Apparently, the world doesn’t stop when you’re in love. Eventually, Jake had to go check the cattle, which meant he had to remove his hand from resting on my leg under the table throughout breakfast.
Such a tragic ending to such a promising beginning.
He and Sophie left soon after. Sophie was spending the morning with Kelsey while Jake did his chores. I also kept busy, having found a few more pictures of guest activities I’d forgotten to add to the ranch website.
Now, with Jake not in reaching distance, my looming move to Boise was back in the forefront of my mind.
The only problem with Jake and me finally admitting feelings was that it was done days before I was supposedly moving.
Was I still moving?
Did Jake want me to go?
Would we try long distance?
Did Jake want me to stay?
All of those questions were the kind that I needed Jake to answer. But since we had been officially dating for about twelve hours, it felt a bit...premature.
Necessary. But premature.
It was lunchtime now. Heather had said she’d call in the morning, and I wasn’t sure what to think. Maybe she’d forgotten? Maybe she’d accidentally emailed the wrong person?
Jake came home not long after, found me on my porch step, and sat next to me, rudely moving the computer off of my legs and pulling me onto his lap, where he proceeded to eat half of my sandwich.
After a few minutes, I finally worked up the courage to say what I needed to say.
“So…Boise is going to be calling me soon about that job.”
Jake took a long swig of my ice water before he set the cup down with a satisfied sigh.
“Good.”
I looked at him incredulously. “Good?” I asked.
“Yeah, I’m getting kind of tired of you.”
I smacked his chest while he situated me closer on his lap.
“What do I do?” I said. “I don’t want to leave, but I need you to tell me to stay.”
He breathed out a laugh, pulling me close. “Tuck, I’m in love with you. Have I told you that yet?” His voice melted over me like ice cream on a warm day.
I curled in closer. “No. You’ve been holding out on me.”
“Well, I am. And if that means we move to Boise to take this job, then that’s what we’ll do.”
I had to wade through the word ‘we’ and all the sweetness before I shook my head adamantly. “You can’t move.”
“I can.”
“You’d hate it there.” I couldn’t imagine Jake living anywhere else but right here.
“I’d find a way to love it. I don’t want you to regret anything with us. If you want this job, then I want you to have it.”
“It’s a city.”
He smiled. “I know.”
“You need to be by your mom.”
A flash of worry crossed his face just then. “We’ll work it out. It’s not that far away. We’re going, Tuck. You’re too good a photographer to waste this chance. I’ll be fine.”
And then I knew what this was. Jake’s greatest fear was coming into play. His ex-wife had left him for something she thought was better. His dad had left him for something he had deemed better. Deep down, he was worried I’d do the same.
“What if I don’t want it anymore?” I pressed.
“You do want it, and you’re doing it.”
I shook my head. “That was before I knew I could have you.”
He was a stubborn thing; I didn’t even think he heard my last statement.
“I’m not letting you give this up for me.”
“Well, I’m not letting you give up this ranch for me,” I countered.
Just then, my phone began to buzz. I snagged it and leapt out of his lap. Jake grabbed my ankle, holding me captive for a moment.
“Tuck, I need you to say yes.” His eyes pleaded with me. “We’ll go wherever you go.”
I stared at him for a long moment, aware of the buzzing phone in my hand. “I love you too, Jake. So much.”
And then I turned and walked back toward the house.
“Hey!” Jake was on his feet in a flash, but I had already locked the door behind me.
“Shelb! You are not giving this up for me!” He banged on the door for effect.
“I love you too!” I called back, moving swiftly into my bedroom to quiet the agitated cowboy on the other side.
I answered the phone a little breathless.
And a bit nervous. It was a strange thing to suddenly not care about something I’d cared about just last week.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love photography; it was that there was no way I was moving to Boise to take this job.
It all felt wrong. Jake didn’t belong there.
Sophie didn’t belong there. And if they weren’t there, I didn’t belong there.
There would be other jobs. There was no debate. I was turning it down.
“Hi, is this Shelby?”
“Yes.”
“Hi, this is Heather with Wild Horizon. How are you?”
“I’m good, thanks,” I said, mentally calculating how to turn down a job I’d barely received when she went on.
“Well, first of all, I have to apologize. I’m sorry for the late email last night. I always forget about the time difference. I promise we don’t make our employees work all hours of the night, okay!” She laughed, a soft, tinkly sound in my ear.
My brow furrowed. “Time difference? Are you…out of town somewhere?”
“No, I live in Hawaii. Sometimes I get working late here, and I forget you guys are three hours ahead of us. But anyway, we’re so excited to welcome you aboard. The team in Boise was blown away by the images you sent.”
I drew in a breath; my mind was suddenly grappling with an idea. One that might satisfy Jake and be good for me. “Wait. I’m sorry. Are all the positions remote?”
Heather paused in her speech. “Um…no, not all of them. But quite a few are, actually. They can be, anyway, now that I think about it.”
“Because I’ve had a couple of changes in my circumstances since earlier this summer, and I was actually going to turn the job down, but if there is a chance it could be remote and I could live and work here, I’d love that.”
I heard the sound of shuffling through papers on her desk.
“Well, let’s see. I don’t see why that wouldn’t work.
I know there are a couple of other photographers who work from home.
But they live in the area they’re assigned.
But your area would cover a good portion of Idaho and western Montana, and that’s where you’re located, correct? ”
“Yes.” I couldn’t keep the hope out of my voice.
Heather went on. “I’ll have to double-check with our managing editor, but I think I can confidently say it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Relief and excitement coursed through my body. I would have given it all up for Jake Evans. Without a moment’s doubt or hesitation. And I knew, without a doubt, he would have disrupted his and Sophie’s lives all over again for me.
This solved everything.
“You’ll have to come up to Boise a handful of times throughout the year for meetings and things like that. But it sounds like that might be worth it for you?”
A relieved grin crossed my face as I paced in my bedroom. “Yes. That all sounds perfect.”
“Good. I’m glad we get to keep you. They showed me the pictures on a Zoom call.
They were all so lovely. But it was actually the cowboy pictures we all loved.
They had so much emotion. So much story.
I loved the subtle change in his images and how the colors went from dark to light.
It got us thinking that we’d love to do a piece on the modern American cowboy and possibly feature most of your images—and more, if you’ve got them. ”
I laughed. “I’d love that.”
When I stepped back outside a few minutes later, I found Jake stretched out on my porch, his legs crossed and his cowboy hat covering his face.
It was too inviting a scene to let go, so I sat down and snuggled into his side.
His arm snaked around my shoulders, tucking me in close while my head found its home on his chest.
“About time,” he said. “You know I can’t get a decent nap without you right here.”
“This is a strange place for a nap.”
“When are we moving?”
I smiled into his chest. “We’re staying right here.”
He tensed, pulling the hat from his face to look at me. “Tuck, tell me you didn’t—”
“It’s now a remote position,” I broke in.
His eyes softened in question as they took me in.
“The lady interviewing me lives in Hawaii. She said a lot of the photographers live in their area and just work so many hours a week from home. I’ll have to go to Boise to be trained next week, and I’ll have meetings there several times a year, but I can live—”
He rose up on his elbow before his hand found the back of my neck, bringing me up to meet him. His lips were soft and hungry.
“I was about to call them and beg for your job back,” he said, a moment later.
He would have. Maybe this insecurity of his, this fear, would never fully go away, but I vowed to do my best to convince him every day that he would always be enough for me.
Starting now.
“Jake Nancy Evans.” I pulled back and stared into his eyes.
“You are not a consolation prize. You are the grand prize. My grand prize. I would have turned this job down a thousand times over to be with you. I told you that you being on the table changed everything, and I meant it. This life with you is what I want. I want to live on this ranch with you and Sophie. I want to raise our babies with our friends down the road. I want to go fishing and ride the trails. I want to have a shooting competition every day to determine whose TV show we’re watching that night. ”
His eyes widened as a teasing grin crossed his face. “Raise our babies? Tuck, did I miss something? I didn’t even know you knew how—”
I jabbed at his stomach, feeling my face flush. “Jake!!”
He only laughed and brought me back down to his chest.
“Of course that’s what you’d get from all of that,” I said.
We lay there for a long moment, feeling the warm summer breeze on our faces. And then he spoke.
“I want all that too. You’re the sun, Tuck. My whole earth went out of whack without you. Now you’re here, and things are right again. Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be.”