Chapter Fifteen

Hannah….

I spend the evening on my bed with a pizza big enough for two (which reminds me that I’m one person), while thinking through the festival and actually drafting a plan, including staff, timelines, and marketing. I have ideas and obstacles, one of which is simply the age of the kids. I have no idea if I’m catering to college-age students or ten-year-olds or both. We have motels nearby, only about ten minutes from town, a nest of hotels, in fact, with a big rest stop as the centerpiece. But will they be enough? Anyone coming in from Dallas will have to stay the night and there certainly aren’t five-star hotels for anyone to enjoy.

We.

I just said we like Sweetwater was still my place.

It is right now, I remind myself. It is for this festival. I want it to go well. I can’t blow this. This isn’t even about my career. This is personal, no matter how much I might want to say otherwise. This is a good thing that Jason and Roarke are doing. It’s good for the kids. It’s good for the town, and that town was my home growing up. My family lost everything they had there, and while I really don’t know how that happened because it was after I left, and to this day, my parents get upset when I try to talk about it, I have to believe more industry would have helped. Maybe my parents would have expanded into something beyond the crops that were susceptible to everything from weather to the economy.

I set my MacBook aside. I have to call my parents. I dread telling them I’m going back to Sweetwater, and I’m not really sure why, aside from I think the loss they felt there is quite embarrassing and emotional. I debate if this call is better made to my mom or dad and decide on my mom. She is always positive while my father is quite intense. I dial, and after a few rings, I get her voicemail. Great. I need to do this, what with my visit to Sweetwater being tomorrow. I try my dad. He doesn’t answer. This really shouldn’t surprise me. They both hold high-level positions at the Future Farmers of America, and the FFA convention is in two weeks. They lead exciting and busy lives. I’m not sure this Sweetwater stuff really matters anymore, but then, I’m not sure why they won’t ever talk about it, either. I try my mother again and leave a message this time.

My cellphone beeps with a message, and I glance down to find a photo of a bunch of hot firefighters in Santa hats: Use your imagination. Make this a Christmas festival no one forgets.

It’s Linda, and I text her back: You do know this is for kids, right?

Kids have moms, aunts, cousins, and grandmothers, she replies. And moms need motivation to drive to Sweetwater.

I laugh. She forgets that the kids are the moms’ motivation, but she’s not wrong in a broader view of the public and general attendance, but I still don’t know enough about the vision and goals, I realize, to make these kinds of decisions. I really think that a bachelor auction, an adult event, the night before the festival could be good, though. My phone beeps again, and Linda’s still pitching: What about an adult night at the end of the festival? I’ll come check out the goods and spend money at the festival if you promise me a hot man at the end. A hot cowboy sounds good to me.

Aren’t you injured and in pain? I type. How are you thinking of hot cowboys?

Because I need a hot cowboy to come kiss it and make it feel better.

The way I thought Roarke would kiss it and make it feel better last night. And he did. I felt really good until it was over. Now it feels like I stirred a witch’s brew, and the pot is filled with trouble and heartache. Unbidden, my mind goes back to that conversation with him earlier:

“You know what I regret?”

“I don’t want to hear this.”

“You not coming with me last night.”

I wanted to go with him, I think, but I can’t go down this rabbit hole of stupidity. I won’t. I’m not falling for that man again. He cheated. The end. He will not come back from that. We will not come back from that. For all I know, the man has a girlfriend right now, and I’m reading into things anyway. With a twist of my gut at that idea, I scoop up my work, pack it all up, and get ready to leave early tomorrow. I climb underneath the blankets, including the comforter my grandma made for me when she was still with us, and then plug in my phone and turn out the lights. My phone buzzes again instantly, and I cringe. I completely forgot Linda. I grab it, expecting to find a message from her. Instead, I find a shot of a gorgeous white horse: That’s her. She’s uneasy. She needs someone to sing to her.

It’s from Roarke, who clearly got my number from Jessica or Jason, and why wouldn’t he? He’s now one of my bosses. As for the text, he’s talking about me singing to the horses, to all of the animals he was treating. I did it even before we were a couple. It was my thing. I always came to his ranch and sang to the sick animals. I miss that. I miss the animals. I don’t even think about holding back on this. I type my reply: I would love to come sing to that beautiful girl.

My phone rings instantly with his number, and I swallow hard against the nerves and ball of emotion in my throat. “Hey,” I say softly.

“Hey,” he says, and my God, his voice, that deep resonating tone of his, does funny things to my belly. “When are you going to come sing that song?” he asks.

“I’m leaving early in the morning. I’ll be there by lunch.”

“Good,” he says. “You’ll make Snowflake and me happy.”

Snowflake is the horse. I don’t even ask for confirmation. I know how his mind works. The horse is white as a snowflake. How very Christmas of him. Emotion balls in my chest. “Roarke,” I whisper. “You know we—”

“I know a lot of things about us, Hannah, and it’s time you know, too.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Yes, you do, but put that aside for now, and only now, because we need you for this festival.”

“I’m coming. I’m not backing out if that’s what this call is about. You don’t get to make me back out.”

“Good,” he says. “That’s the right answer.”

I don’t know what that means. He’s talking in code, which isn’t Roarke, but then, I’m not asking for details, either. I change the subject. “I forgot to ask how old the kids are at the camp?”

“Middle school and high school. Why?”

“I’m just trying to frame the festival. I need to know who I’m catering to.”

“I think it needs to be about the town, not just the camp. Something people look forward to that has nothing to do with the camp.”

“Right.” I think about the kids. I think about Roarke. “You’re going to be good at this. I’ve seen you online. You’re good with kids.”

His voice softens. “You’ve watched my videos?”

I’m busted, so busted. “There was one of you when you were with a group of kids that went viral on Facebook,” I say, and it’s the truth. It’s the video that made me go to his YouTube channel. “That one at a rodeo. I saw it. The world saw it. You’ll be amazing at this.” My mind starts to play on the past, on him as a father, to some lucky woman’s kids.

“I thought of you that day, filming that video.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because a little girl sang to one of the horses, right before she poured her drink all over her and me.”

I laugh because this is a memory. I was eighteen, and he was twenty-four, home from vet school for the holiday, hotter than ever, but we still weren’t a couple. It was in the air, so in the air then, but it was years later before it really happened. For a moment, I’m back in time, climbing out of his truck at his ranch, a huge fountain drink of Dr. Pepper in my hand, after a run to the store. I’d rounded the truck, and one of his dogs raced to greet me, knocking me over and into him. That Dr. Pepper flew open, and somehow, it all came together in the wrong way. I’d turned to try to protect the drink, and Roarke had grabbed me. The drink exploded all over him. And he’d just laughed. We’d laughed until we cried while Maxwell, the pup in question, had licked the soda off him. I loved that, all of it. I’d known I loved him that day. I’d finally admitted it to myself.

“How is Maxwell?” I ask, of the German Shepherd.

“Lost him last year.” His voice cracks with those words, that sensitive side of him I love ever present.

I tear up. “That hurts my heart.”

“Mine, too, but he was an ancient old boy at that point. He needed to rest.”

“Yeah. I guess so, but it still hurts. I wish I could have said goodbye.”

“Me, too,” he says. “I didn’t know how to reach you. I wanted to tell you.”

I swallow hard. “I better go. It’s an early morning for me.”

“What time will you be here?” he asks. “I’ll meet you in town at the B and B where you’re staying.”

“You don’t need to meet me. I don’t know what time.”

“Call me when you pull into town.”

“I’m not calling you when I get into town,” I say.

“Then I’ll wait for you at the bar next door.”

“Roarke—”

“See you tomorrow, Han.” His voice is low, rough, familiar in an intimate way, and then he hangs up.