Chapter Thirty-Seven
I couldn’t believe it.
I was going to pass out.
I was in the middle of the crowd, unable to move, and my heart had completely stopped.
We had spent the day in the heart of Stephenville, enjoying their Heritage Week festivities.
The boys drove into town and dropped me off at the beginning of the parade.
I needed to make sure everything was perfect with the Agri-Corp equipment that was going to be a part of it.
Luckily, they looked perfect. They had done a perfect job of spit-shining the machines until they sparkled.
They even had their candy ready to throw without me having to go buy more.
I caught up with the Nashes right before the parade started, and we watched the whole thing.
Dennis wrapped his arm around me when the Agri-Corp equipment drove by. The boys whooped, and Jo whistled. I’m sure they were just supporting their dad’s business, but it felt good that they were happy with how it turned out.
After the parade, we all got lunch. There was a parking lot full of food trucks, and the boys went crazy.
Seriously, I don’t know how Jo kept them all fed without breaking the bank when they all lived under her roof.
There was some live music on a little stage a few blocks down the road, so after lunch, we all walked toward it. We had twenty minutes or so before Colton had to get ready for the rodeo.
Alan, Dean, and Jimmy hadn’t qualified to make this rodeo. They had found out late last night.
Of course, they hadn’t been competing to be a part of it, but I’m sure it was still hard on their spirits.
They were going to the show to support Colton, but after that, they were taking one of the trucks and trailers back home to their families.
Though it was devastating not to make it to the rodeo, I know Jimmy and Alan were so excited to go back to Oklahoma to see the kids. I could hear them most nights, FaceTiming for so long they had to sit by an outlet when their phones started to die.
Colton kept his arm around me or held my hand almost all day.
Now that we had both declared our love, I think he felt a lot less nervous about showing his affection. He kissed me whenever he felt like it and didn’t want to be more than a few feet away.
I was not complaining. His presence was calming, and his excitement for Stephenville was almost contagious.
The live band was actually pretty good. They had the whole shabang of instruments, including a fiddle and a steel guitar.
We were in Texas after all.
My watch buzzed, alerting me that I was getting a call. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see Intern Sarah calling.
Oh crap. I looked up. “Um, I’ll be right back,” I yelled to Colton over the pumping music.
He looked down at my phone and back up to me. “Yeah, for sure!”
I wandered out of the crowd and down the street for a minute before I answered the call, wanting to be sure I would be able to hear. “Hi, Sarah!”
“Allegra! I just tried to open the file to put in the presentation, as you asked, and I don’t know what I did, but it’s glitching!” The young girl screamed. “It’s supposed to be submitted in an hour! What do I do?”
I had sent at least ten files to my team last night, wanting them to get working on putting them into the slideshow so I could be ready for the presentation.
She was right. Today was my deadline for my reports and all the pictures and videos Billy had put together over the past few weeks.
I had stayed up half the night on my laptop, staring at the words till I felt like I was going cross-eyed, but it had paid off. Everything was perfect. All that was left was for the team to put it together and submit it.
I wanted to panic, but this could be an easy fix. “Go to the cloud backup, check the raw metadata, and call Billy’s phone. Don’t tell Sterling we have a glitch. We can figure this out.” It was getting loud again as another band was setting up on the corner.
“Wait but-wh-a”
I could barely hear her. I walked into the first building I could and pressed my phone hard to my ear. “Sorry, say that again.”
“I said I called Billy! She’s not picking up!”
I was in a museum, dimly lit with glass cases and black-and-white photographs covering the walls. “Take a breath,” I said calmly.
All of the pictures were of rodeos, surely for the festivities this week, and the glass cases were old saddles, sponsor vests, and vintage rodeo equipment.
“Can you have Jonas call Billy again while you stay on the line with me?”
“Yes.”
“Good, now let’s try the raw metadata, okay?”
“It’s not working!”
I kept wandering down the hall, pacing, keeping myself from freaking out with her. “If the Amarillo footage is clipped, we use the raw B-roll from Oklahoma.”
I heard the clicking of keys and a few hushed whispers as they did as I asked. I leaned against a wall and started chewing my nails, Sarah’s stress starting to be contagious.
“I got it! I mean, the IT guy did.”
I pushed off the wall, turning to face another glass case, this one from floor to ceiling with deep mahogany wood. “Thank goodne-”
I dropped the phone.
A huge, grainy photo was staring back at me. The man in the picture had hair as black as night, but we had the same “baby blues,” the same freckles, the same high cheekbones.
He was dusty from his ride, his hat lying in the dirt beside him, and a huge smile on his face.
The same smile Colton got after a ride.
Clay Ford- 1998 Stephenville Champion
There he was. Not the ghost that haunted my mother’s house, and not the man I’d tried to bury under a mountain of spreadsheets.
There he was in his prime.
His face was changing, morphing, and twisting until I no longer saw my father; I saw Colton.
It was like I had been punched in the gut.
I turned on my heel and stormed out of the museum, barely remembering at the last second to grab my phone off the ground.
I shoved the door open hard and squinted in the sudden bright sun.
I needed to find a trash can.
“Hey! How was your call?”
Colton was waiting outside the museum for me.
I clenched my jaw, my emotions overtook me, and I pushed him. “I can’t take it anymore!” I yelled.
Colton gave me a hurt, confused look. “Ally, what-”
I was exploding. I raised my finger and pointed it in his face. “I love you too much to let you be in the rodeo!”
He was bewildered, understandable as this came out of nowhere for him. “Ally, please, what-” He reached for my hands, but I ripped them away.
“I can’t watch you kill yourself!” I screamed, losing my mind.
“I’m not going to-”
“You can’t promise that!” I was out of control, people were staring, but I couldn’t stop. “You can’t promise that you’ll never get hurt or that you won’t kill yourself!”
“Ally, what’s going-”
I put my hands on my head as sobs started to overtake my body. He pulled me away from the crowds of people, ducking behind the museum under the shade of willow trees.
Colton was beyond confused, but he grabbed my shoulders and forced me to look at him. “Ally. I’m not going to die, I promise!”
“You can’t promise that!” I shrieked back, barely able to breathe anymore.
“Yes, I can!”
“No, you can’t! Because my dad promised, and I watched him die!”