Chapter Thirty-Three

The next day I’m feeling better, and Jake and Anna teach me how to wrangle cows.

It’s like that movie City Slickers. We even have a special “Yahoo” cattle call. Jake is awesome, of course. The cows respond to him so easily. Anna, too. I surprise myself by not being half bad, either, some of my earlier skills as a kid falling back into place. I lope after them, raise my arm in the air, give the rope a little spin, and toss it. Half the time it makes its mark, and I jump off my horse and secure the rope on the neck of a partially annoyed cow. All he wants to do is get back to eating. I’m in his way.

“Told ya you were a natural, Cowgirl,” Jake says with a little wink from the top of his ride. I grin, and then dodge his eyes. We don’t mention last night, but then again why would we ruin it by discussing it? Discussing it would make it real, and real doesn’t work. Real doesn’t last.

But he knows, and I know how I stayed in Jake’s arms for a long time by that ledge.

After a while, with me still in the crook of his arm, he told me stories about the ranch and my dad. Funny stories, light stories, stories that made my heart hurt in the best way. I’d never heard him talk that much. I never had someone work so hard to make me feel better without wanting something back in return.

He reached for my hand on our way back—“Can’t see all the rocks on the trail, wouldn’t want you to trip”—and I let him take it. I wound my fingers through his, and we didn’t talk anymore. We just walked. Walked and were. And when we got back to the campfire all that was left were embers flickering off a charbroiled log and a sleeping Anna. I looked down at our entwined fingers and said, “When we get back, if you still want to know, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Only if you want to.”

“I’m afraid—you won’t think the same of me if you know, Jake. I don’t think I could handle that right now.”

The last embers of the fire painted his skin with golden light. “Nah,” he says in a voice that made me believe him. “If you haven’t noticed, I have a weakness for cowgirls.”