Chapter Twenty-Five

Now

By the time I stumble into the stable area, Jake is readying an old gelding.

“I’m impressed,” he says, a wry look on his face.

“With what?”

I take another sip of cowboy coffee Anna handed me as she shoved me out the door, half comatose, five minutes ago at 5:25 a.m.

“You got out of bed.”

“Haha,” I said. “I didn’t think it was exactly optional.”

“Wasn’t. Still.” He grinned. “I’m impressed.”

“Well, thank you.”

“Well, you’re welcome.”

His look makes me wonder how in the world I’ll make it through an overnight with this blue-eyed cowboy.

I pat the horse’s big spotted ass and redirect the conversation. “Who’s this?”

“Ole’ Blue.”

“What about that one?” I say, gesturing to my red-gold beauty in the corral, angrily dashing back and forth like a bee is in her bridal.

Jake makes this laugh-snort sound and shakes his head.

“What?”

“She’s not even broke.”

I shrug.

“Do you remember anything about riding, Cowgirl?”

“It’s just like getting back on a horse, I hear.”

“Haha,” he mimics. He readies the saddle, the bridle, and the bit. Yanks on this, adjusts that. Leans his shoulder into the horse.

He explains how to adjust the bridle, pull in the reins. Adjust the bit. Cowboys are the kind of teachers who show you something once and expect you to have it down. I figured Jake would be the same way. That if I don’t understand something, he’d expect me to speak up and ask. In this specific case I didn’t need to be shown anything. I remembered clearly, but I could tell he was getting a little pleasure in showing me what to do. “Here you go,” he says, tapping the top of my boot. “Put your foot here, and hop on up.”

“I remember how to get on a horse, Jake.”

“Uh-huh,” he mutters.

“What? I do. It’s not like it’s something you forget.”

“You wanted to get up on a wild ‘stang your first time back out. Don’t take this the wrong way, Cowgirl, but let me take the lead when it comes to the horses. You break your back, Anna breaks my face.”

“Duly noted.”

Jake’s face was perfectly imperfect. It was becoming the image I saw every time I closed my eyes, the image of something good in my messed-up world, and it would be a damn shame if harm came to it. Especially of the Anna variety. I bet she packs a mean punch.

I grip the horn with both hands. Slivers of dirt and sweat rub off on my palms as I place my left heel into the stirrup and heave myself up and onto the saddle.

“Toes up in the stirrups, good,” Jake says. “Heels down.”

“Got it.”

“Well, why aren’t you doing it, then?” He lifts my foot gently into the stirrup, and adjusts it the way he sees fit. “Might as well get it right out the gate.”

He meets my eyes, talking about more than a stirrup, I think.

I blink. “That’s not as easy as the cliché makes it sound.”

I adjust my ankle in the metal as he directs me to.

“Better,” he says.

He takes the lead rope, a rich blue color, and leads me out of the corral.

“Where’s your mount?” I ask.

He smiles then. I’m not sure if it’s because of the word itself or the fact that I know it. “I’m not going with you.”

“I thought we were all going?”

“This is your practice ride, Cowgirl. Find your sea legs again.”

My heart seizes, and I inadvertently yank on the reins. The horse whinnies and rears back its head. Jake touches the horse’s face to calm it down. “Hey, easy, there, old man. Ease up on the reins, Paige. Listen, you’ll be fine. Just hug the reins in tight when you want him to stop but keep them loose as he walks along. Blue here is an old guy. He’s not up for more than a walk anyhow. Stick to the trail loop and—”

“Jake. I haven’t been on a horse in years. What if—”

“Don’t worry. If you ain’t back in a half hour, I’ll come for you. I have to finish getting the supplies ready for the trip. Ready the other horses.”

The graying gelding with the coarse white mane sneezes. At least I think it was a sneeze; it may have been a protest. Then, he shakes his head again when I pull the reins back.

“It’ll be fun.” He takes my hand and readjusts it on the reins. “Not so tight. Here like this.” He twists his hand around the thin straps of leather, shows me, and then wraps my fingers around the soft leather the right way. “Like you’re holding an ice cream cone, see? Let a bit of it fall over like this.”

About six inches of thin leather flapped over the side, dusting against my tight fist. “I think mine’s dripping.”

“You got it, then.”

“But, Jake,” I say, nervously. “I think Anna meant for you to come along.”

“If Anna’d meant for me to go along, Anna’d told me to go along. Now get,” he says, with a slap on the gelding’s butt. “I got stuff to do. Don’t look back, Paige, look on ahead.”

Blue breaks into this awkward trot-walk thing and I pull back on the reins. “Jake?”

“Let him know who’s in charge. Keep the reins in tight, but not too tight. Keep your eyes on the trail and you’ll be fine.”

“What if we get lost?”

“Sometimes you got to do stuff that scares you, Paige. That’s how you know you’re alive,” he calls to me in the wind.

Jake is right about Ole’ Blue.

He is as unmotivated as all get out, and after that initial burst of energy, I can barely keep him going. At every green bush, he sticks out his velvety nose, opens those huge chompers, and goes to town. I have to yank his neck back every few feet to keep him on the trail. I feel right up here, though. Natural. Like after a rainy suburban winter, getting back on my bike on that first sunny day and just riding and riding with nothing but the wind in my hair and a song in my head.

I remember this trail.

It’s the loop-de-loop beginner trail. The one the Kids’ Club would go on at the ranch. After a bit, I even remember this old horse. He was younger then, obviously, but always a calm one. Good with kids—gentle.

We mosey along for a while in this routine that reminds me of mine and Anna’s: a quiet understanding that we were stuck with each other, so we best just get along.

Critters crackle through the bushes, a chipmunk spins circles in the dirt, and a huge osprey appears out of nowhere, diving toward a small lake, hunting for his breakfast as songbirds twitter their morning tunes.

Other than the creatures, the only noise is the breath of the horse, the sound of his hooves on the hard-dirt trail, and the heart in my chest adjusting to being alone.

“I see you survived,” Jake says, with a wry smile as we mosey back into the corral maybe twenty minutes later. My gelding heads straight for the large trough. When he lowers his head to lap up the water, I lean forward, too. “Ole’ Blue,” he says with appreciation for the horse. “She treated you all right, didn’t she?”

“Indeed,” I say. “We got along fine. Can I get down now?”

“Sure enough.”

This time he reaches out and offers me a hand, and I accept it, swinging my leg over and landing with a thump on the dirt. His hands fall on either side of my waist, steadying me. My right hand on that hard-soft spot between his chest and shoulder.

“Oh,” I say. If we were somewhere else, if we were somebody else, we could be dancing. My body tenses up, and he quickly lets go, wiping his palms on his cowboy pants.

“So how was it?” he asks, to fill the space with something other than our closeness.

“Good,” I say. “Fine,” I say. But was anything fine?

Nodding, like he knows it’s not fine, but knows it’s definitely something, he lifts off his hat, scratches a fake itch, and puts it back on.

I like the way his hands feel on me, that’s obvious. Denying it is a fool’s game, but I can’t get close to Jake like this. I’m not ready. I may never be ready again. How was I going to handle the overnight?

“You’ll be ready in a half hour then?”

“Sure,” I say. “I’ll just run in and say bye to my dad.”

“Hm.” He examines me the way he did when we first met by his Jeep.

“What?”

“Think there might be hope for you after all,” he says and laughs when I slug him.