Chapter Sixty

Now

The smell of bacon frying normally fills me with joyful breakfast bliss. Not today. Not after that nightmare. I leap out of bed, flinging covers onto the ground, and yank open the first door. But instead of finding a toilet, I find a row of plaid shirts, blue jeans, and on the floor, four pairs of cowboy boots.

A man’s closet.

My eyes fly to the rumpled sheets and my mind whirls over last night’s events, how I ended up here. Which is…where, exactly?

Then I remember.

Jake’s bed. Jake’s cabin.

“Jake?”

Glancing down, I’m startled to discover I’m wearing a plaid button down flannel shirt that must be Jake’s. I must’ve puked on mine. I have a memory of puking.

“Jake?”

The tidy cabin is flooded with natural light. Framed photographs hang in rustic frames on the knotty pine walls. A wooden chair sits in the corner.

“You finally up, lazy bones?”

My heart and stomach compete for the biggest reaction to Jake’s playful voice.

When I round the corner, I know I’m still passed out and dreaming because Jake’s standing in front of an antique cooking stove in an unbuttoned plaid shirt and jeans. His eyes linger on mine a second too long and grease leaps up from the pan, snapping his wrist. He flicks it off his skin and, with a spatula, flips the egg frying in another cast iron pan. “Over easy, if I remember correctly?”

I nod. Blinking. I felt sick before, didn’t I? Now I was hungry. Starved, even. This whole scene left me wanting, wanting, wanting. I blink again, hardly able to trust my eyes. It’s too good to be—“Oh, God. Do Dad and Anna know I’m here?”

“I’m sure they know I’m taking care of you. I couldn’t hear her on the phone last night, but I let her know I had you. Post-rodeo things tend to get a little wild.”

Wild? I look down at my naked legs. How wild did things get with us? The last thing I remember was curling up on Jake’s arm, snuggling into his chest. I remember feeling his heartbeat pounding through his shirt. I remember starting to confess everything and then getting interrupted. Starting to tell him, and then him confessing to me. Everyone had dark secrets, even Jake. Maybe this would be okay after all, because what I’m looking at right now, how I felt like last night, were moments I never want to give up.

“Good to know there are post-rodeo expectations for drunken debauchery around these parts.”

“Debauchery?” he asks with a sly grin, glancing back at me. “Don’t know if I’d go that far.”

How far would you go? I glance back down at what I’m wearing. I tilt my knees in toward each other and gaze at my bare thighs. What happened between us last night?

I remember kissing. I remember a whole lot of kissing.

The way Jake’s looking at me tells me he remembers, too. “Coffee?”

“Please.”

I plop onto a chair and tuck my legs under the little wooden table.

Sauntering over, he sets a mug in front of me and then, from a pot, pours the black liquid. “Careful, it’s hot,” he says. “And strong, just how you like it. Cream and sugar right here along with a couple ibuprofen.” His grin is devilish—if the devil was the most thoughtful and attractive cowboy on earth.

“You’re a gem.”

He narrows his eyes, his way of shoving off the compliment, but I can tell he’s pleased I think so.

“A gem I couldn’t afford even if I won All Things Rodeo,” I add.

“You did get third place. Maybe that’s me.”

I grin, but it’s shaky. He’s worth more than any dollar amount, but my feelings for Jake, his feelings for me, aren’t going to save the ranch.

“Speaking of rodeo. Where is my shirt from last night?”

“Didn’t want you puking on it.”

“So you…helped me out of it?” We exchange a look. “How very practical of you.”

I catch the side of his smile as he turns back to his hot stove.

I lock this moment away like it’s a photograph: me sitting in Jake’s kitchen watching him cook, the feel of my bare feet on his cool, chipped wood floor, wearing a shirt that smells like him.

I scan the cabin, taking it all in. I’ve wanted to see the inside for so long, and now I’m here. How people keep their space, or what they choose to keep, tells their story: the knotty pine bookshelves look homemade—Did he build them himself? The spare kitchen where everything has a place, the thick red blanket folded neatly over the back of his worn, leather couch. “I like your place,” I say. It’s tidy and warm, like Jake himself.

“Thanks.”

He moves the bacon around the cast iron pan with a fork. “I don’t have a lot to make a mess with,” he says without turning around.

“But what you have seems to count.”

Now he looks, quick and over his shoulder—no more than a glance into my eyes. “Suppose that’s how it should be, right?”

“I suppose.”

Moseying over to his bookshelves, I pore over the mostly paperback titles. The classics are widely represented: a couple of Hemingways—The Old Man and the Sea and The Sun Also Rises; Steinbeck’s East of Eden, The Pearl, Of Mice and Men; a very old leather covered copy of a St. James Bible; a thick, multiple dog-eared paperback copy of Lonesome Dove (my favorite mini-series ever, which Jake knows); and…a few business books? Louis L’Amour I’d expect, sure, but business books?

“I’m taking a few classes at the local community college.” His head peeks around the corner before disappearing again.

Does he ever miss a beat? “Oh, really?”

“Just things to help the ranch run more efficiently.”

I round the corner, closing the space between us, padding barefoot back into the small kitchen.

“That’s awesome, Jake.”

“No big deal.”

I hold up the book in my hand. “No, it’s a really big deal. You’ve invested so much of your time helping Dad and Anna and…the ranch.” And me. “I appreciate it, Jake. We all do.” I’m glad he’s facing the stove. Glad he can’t see the honesty, the naked truth of this confession, cross my face. “You have no idea how much.”

He glances over his shoulder, and there goes my attempt to appear casual. I suppose it’s too late for that anyway. I’m walking around his cabin in his plaid shirt and my underwear.

He cooks the way he drives, the way he rides, the way he listens, the way he sets up a mountain camp: mindful of every detail, his brain two steps ahead of his body. In a flash, two white plates are filled with crispy bacon, eggs over easy, and whole-wheat toast topped with melty pats of butter.

This is easy, Jake and me. I could see us doing this every day. Every morning. Every evening. I could see us doing this forever.

“Do you think I should stay?” I ask him.

“Instead of going to college?”

“Yeah.”

He shakes his head. “You have an amazing chance, here. I would’ve killed to go away to school. The only college we have is a two-bit community college with mostly older ladies. That’s not for you. You need to get on out of here and do your thing.”

“I—I thought you’d be happy. Especially after last night.”

He squats in front of me and sets his palms on my thighs. “I’m happy you want to stay. You know I like you a helluva lot, but I’ll be damned if me or your daddy will stand by and let you not get your education.”

“Oh.”

He stands and plops a plate of food in front of me. “Go on now, eat up. You want some jam? I have some of Anna’s good stuff, the canned strawberry.” He flips open the refrigerator door. The appliance is red and stocky, a foot shorter than him, and usually I’d laugh at how ridiculous he looks rooting around inside.

But I’m not laughing, and I sure as hell don’t want to eat anymore.

Jake doesn’t want me to stay, and he doesn’t even know about Ty yet.