CHAPTER 37
Summer
It’s been two weeks since the word got out about Declan and me, but we’ve refused to divulge how it happened.
Or why.
I’m still trying to understand the why, and I’m the wife.
But I can’t deny that I’m glad it happened. Crazy-happy-thrilled it happened, because it’s good. Better than I could have imagined. Declan tells me he loves me all the time, but it’s kind of overkill.
Because he shows me he loves me even more. And I show him I love him right back.
We’ve settled into a married-couple routine. We make love for hours until we fall asleep. I’ve learned a lot in the last couple of weeks, thanks to my patient and creative teacher.
I get up way before sunrise to get to work, and while I’m getting ready, Declan makes me coffee for the road. He hands me my thermos mug, kisses me, and tells me to have a good day.
While I’m working, Declan is either doing his StellaR Tech thing with his brothers or he’s flying somewhere for the business. But he always manages to get back in time to meet me after work.
We do one of three things for supper: go into town to the diner, eat with Phyllis and Jamie, or head to my place where Emma has left a dinner basket for us on my front porch with a sweet note.
We’ve fallen into a rhythm of taking care of one another. And everyone at Yosemite Ranch takes care of us.
Life couldn’t be any better.
So far, we’ve always stayed at my place. I don’t know if that’s because Declan wants me to feel comfortable and ease into our relationship, or if he wants us to be far away from his family so we can have a little privacy.
His family.
My family.
I have a family now, and I’m so incredibly lucky.
A real family. As the only child of a married couple, I suppose that technically, I’ve always had a family. I had parents. Still have them, I guess, if they’re still alive. But it wasn’t a real family, or a good one.
I’ve told Declan some of the story, but it may take me years to share the whole awful truth with him. How my parents got hooked on oxy and fentanyl when I was younger than Jasmine, and how I never really knew them as Mom and Dad.
They were just Steve and Lurlene Stevens, who would lock me in a closet when they had distributors or buyers stopping by the trailer for a drug deal. And if they started using their own supply, which they often did, they’d sometimes forget until the next day that their kid was in the closet.
It wasn’t exactly Little House on the Prairie. It was more like Little Meth House on the Prairie. And it was nothing like Yosemite Ranch.
And that’s why I know I’m lucky. If they’d been better at parenting, and if they hadn’t wound up in prison, I’d never have come looking for work at Yosemite Ranch. I’d never loved and married Declan, and I’d never become one of the MacLaines.
So. Damn. Lucky.
“I don’t think you should ride.”
Special K tells me this as we meet up outside the stables in the early afternoon sunshine. We’ve just saddled and mounted our horses, ready to head to the east foothills to check on the steers.
“What do you mean I shouldn’t ride?”
“You’re distracted,” Joe offers.
I can’t decide who I should chew out first, but since it’s been only a few hours since I laid into Special K, I decide to address my right-hand dude, Joe Valencia.
He’s the first person I met when I came to Sweetbriar.
He told Jamie I had a way with horses and advised him to hire me on the spot.
And we’ve worked side by side ever since. He’s a dear friend.
“Imma have to kick your ass,” I tell him.
Joe smiles and shrugs. “Kevin’s right. We’ve both noticed that you seem a little off your game lately. We’re just looking out for you.”
“You’re both nuts. I can ride distracted. I can ride backwards. I can ride with no hands. I can ride saddled or bareback or deaf or blind or hungover or—”
“We get it,” Special K says. “You’ve been on a horse a few times. It’s just not wise for you to be on this horse at this particular moment.”
It’s colder than a witch’s tit today, and our breath hangs in the air as we argue. Declan texted me an hour ago saying he’s on his way back from San Diego. I can’t wait until I sit in front of the fire with him, snug in my little cabin.
Our little cabin.
What I’m hearing is that Joe and Special K are worried about the four-year-old stallion I’ve saddled up for work.
He’s definitely a handful, which may be why Finn named him BeelzeBob.
But I’ve been riding bad-mannered horses since I was four years old, and I’m not scared of temperamental Bob here, even if he’s been giving me a hard time for a while now.
He’s a stallion who’s too strong—and strong-willed—for his own good. And since we returned from Las Vegas, Bob’s become a complete butthead. He now thinks that because I weigh so much less than Special K or Finn or Joe, he doesn’t have to take me seriously.
He’s wrong about that, of course, and I don’t mind showing him just how much he’s misjudged me.
They’re both staring at me.
“I’m going with you two. Do you know why?”
K sighs. He knows what’s coming.
“Because I’m the one who decides if I’m too distracted to work, not you two bozos,” I tell them.