“I was thinking president of the United States, but hey, why limit her powers to just one country?”
They laughed, then fell into the comfortable and comforting routine.
They’d moved on from plates to glassware when Vivi asked, “What are your plans when Wyatt heads off to save the whales, or some exotic plant in Bora-Bora?” She sent a side look to Chey as she scrubbed out another glass.
“I don’t know,” Chey said, with complete and utter honesty.
Vivi leaned into Chey, pressed the side of her head to Chey’s. “You know if you want to go with him—”
“I know,” Chey said, and saw she’d surprised Vivi by not immediately stating she would never dream of leaving them, or Lavender Blue. “I know I could go off and blaze trails with him, and probably have a life full of experiences most could only dream about.”
They continued in silence for another few minutes, and then Vivi said, “You’ve already done plenty of that while growing up.”
“Yep,” Chey said succinctly. “And I know what I do here isn’t as important as the difference he’s making—” She talked over Vivi’s immediate rebuttal. “He was the one who told me that if we make any positive change, even if it’s one horse rescued, or one life resurrected—or four, by building this farm—then good is being put out into the world.”
“You can’t save it all, but your effort can make the world of difference to the ones being helped,” Vivi said. “He’s right.”
Chey nodded. “And that’s something.” She picked up another glass. “It’s more than that, though. I know my life is here just like he knows his life is out there. This isn’t a way station for me. I’m not searching anymore. What I do here matters, to me, to us, to those horses out in the field. But more than that, it helps me. I’m the one being saved. I feel settled, and good.” She looked at Vivi. “I didn’t think I ever would again. That’s important, too, right?”
“Most important,” Vivi agreed. “Maybe it’s just as well you two didn’t cross paths any sooner. Maybe you were meant to find your way, find your meaning, while he found his, without anything else clouding your judgment. Anyone else.” She handed another glass to Chey. “Now, whatever you decide, you’ll be making choices with the full knowledge of what you want, what compromises you’re willing to make.”
Chey put the last glass up in the cupboard and closed the glass-front doors. She tossed her damp towel over her shoulder and turned to lean against the counter. “Is it wrong that I think it sucks that we have to make compromises at all?”
“Sometimes the best things take a little work. Or a lot of work.” Vivi let her gaze wander the room, then land back on Chey. “We, of all people, know the truth of that.”
Chey pushed away from the counter and went into Vivi’s arms for a hug. It was a rare thing for her to want. Maybe Wyatt had broken down that wall, too. Because this felt really good, and she wondered why she’d deprived herself of the comfort of something so easily given, and so easily received, for so long.
Vivi pressed a kiss to the side of her head and let her go. “The things we need to feel happy, and settled, and joyful are ever changing. Life isn’t stagnant—it keeps changing, too. Some good, some bad, some awful, some perfect. And we change along with it. It’s impossible not to. We’re not the same women we were before we experienced the losses we did. And we can’t go back to how we were before that, because we’ve been changed by it.”
Chey nodded, agreeing with her.
“That’s a major change,” Vivi went on, “but there are dozens of tiny ones, too. And they all change the course of the river we’re flowing along, cher.” Her New Orleans drawl snuck into her voice as she draped her arm around Chey’s shoulders and leaned her head to the side until it touched Chey’s. “Would you have ever imagined yourself here? If someone said you were going to have to pick between barrel racing and runnin’ a lavender farm back when you and Tory were busting your adolescent little tushies beating the snot out of each other in the ring? What would you have said?”
Chey snickered at Vivi’s colorful description and Vivi squeezed her shoulder in a light hug. “I’d have been making a deposit in the swear jar,” Chey answered, and they both laughed again.
“When you were seventeen, if someone told you that you would willingly choose to live on a farm with three women, without a single sexy, dashing cowboy in sight, you’d have called them crazy.” Vivi glanced at her. “Am I right?”
Chey laughed. “All true. I guess I never thought of it that way.”
Vivi let go and slipped the towel off Chey’s shoulder as she straightened and stepped away. “Now things are changing again. You had to make compromises to be here, to do this. Living in the middle of nowhere, cutting yourself off from a social life with people your own age.”
Chey laughed. “Oh, after rodeo life, I was perfectly happy to be around as few people as possible.”
“Exactly,” Vivi said. “It was a compromise, but it was an easy one to make.” She smiled. “Maybe when the time comes, your choices won’t feel so hard. Given you’ll be choosing happiness either way.”
Chey nodded and turned to scoop up her phone, then jumped with a squeal when Vivi snapped the towel against her rear end. “Hey now,” she said, but she was laughing as she turned. “Careful where you aim that thing.”
“Just whipping your behind a little. Now get on out there with Mr. Planet and stop worrying about this old woman.”
Chey’s expression sobered. “I came in here to help you and, as usual, you do all the helping.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that, cher. Sometimes talking things out for someone else’s benefit ends up being exactly the thing you needed to hear yourself.”
“Good,” Chey said, wishing she believed that. “If you want or need anything tomorrow, before, during, or after, you just give us a shout.” She grabbed her hat and walked to the side door that led to the veranda. “And don’t you forget that umbrella, you hear?”
She left with Vivi’s laughter following her out the door.
She met up with Wyatt as she crossed the yard, Vivi’s advice still echoing in her ears. You’ll be choosing happiness either way. Now she just had to figure out how to do that without getting her heart shattered in the process.
“How are the goats?” she asked with a smile.
“So very small,” he said. “I have to tell you their goat tender is one very impressive twelve-year-old.”
“She’ll be a teenager this fall. I don’t know if we’re ready. Bailey is a force to be reckoned with, for sure. Young dynamo and old soul, all wrapped into one. With Addie Pearl as her guardian and guide it’s anyone’s guess what kind of world and how many of them she will go on to conquer.”
Wyatt chuckled. “I didn’t know whether to be awestruck or terrified.”
“Get used to it,” Chey said with a laugh. “That feeling never goes away.”
He slipped his hand into hers as they walked toward her house. She liked that he just naturally did that, she liked feeling the warmth of his palm pressed to hers, the strength of his fingers woven through hers. Tiny little things that change the course of your river. She thought that this connection, so basic, simple, like one of Vivi’s hugs, was one of those little things. “Vivi was saying she could see Bailey doing what you do, blazing new trails, saving the world.”
“You’re giving me too much credit,” he said. “Bailey though? Most definitely. Superhero in the making. I just find things that need a little help and try to leave them better than I found them. It’s not different really from what’s happening here with the lake. No more important in the grand scheme of things, but vital to the people whose lives it will affect.” He grinned. “I just find my battles in some really off the wall places.”
They got to the front of the house and he took her by the hips and swung her up to the porch.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re a manhandler?” she said.
He hopped up after
her, then back-walked her until she was up against the door, all without touching her. He tipped the brim of her cowboy hat up and smiled down at her. “No, ma’am, I generally avoid handling men.”
“A woman handler then?” she said, her pulse already doing a two-step when he leaned his mouth closer to hers.
“You want me to keep my hands to myself—is that what you’re saying?”
She met his gaze, knowing she had a stupid, giddy smile on her face, and not giving a single damn about it. She shook her head.
“You want me to stop picking you up and carrying you off with me?” he asked, his lips drawing closer to hers, his voice a baritone rasp. “Just say the word.”
She was already quivering, just knowing where this was heading. She shook her head, her gaze dropping from his darkening eyes to his lips. That mouth of his had done some amazing things to her earlier that day. “Suddenly my knees are feeling a bit weak,” she said in barely more than a whisper.
“Is that so,” he said. “Well, seems only right then, me being the guy who saves things.” He scooped her up easily, and she didn’t think she’d ever tire of it.
“Hold on to me,” he said, and reached behind her to open the door. He kicked it shut behind him. “Leftover breakfast for dinner?” he murmured against the side of her neck as she threw her hat in the general direction of the kitchen table.
“It’s barely past two in the afternoon,” she said, tilting her head to the side, moaning softly and squirming against him as he kissed his way down her neck.
“I know.” He walked them to the bedroom. “I figure we should be coming up for air right about then.”
She didn’t tell him he was wrong. Didn’t tell him she had a million things to do that afternoon. Not a single one of them seemed remotely important to her at the moment. “You know, I wasn’t planning on paying Tory back for the low-down, dirty rotten trick she pulled on us by making her do all her chores and mine, too.” She squealed when Wyatt tossed her into the middle of the bed. “But I’m not saying I feel bad about it, either.”
“And here I was thinking about erecting a statue to honor her heroic deed in the middle of the town square.” He climbed on the bed and started unbuttoning her shirt. “Do you have a town square?”
“You say tomahto,” Chey said, then looked down at his hands as he parted her shirt, then back up at him.
He paused. “Oh, I’m sorry, is this what you meant by manhandling?” His fingers traced down the edges of her open shirt, trailing softly over her nipples.
She gasped and arched up into his touch.
He shifted his weight and moved down. “Maybe if I don’t use my hands?” He flicked a tongue over her nipple, making her moan.
“Turns out I’m okay with the handling,” she said breathlessly, then grabbed the front of his shirt and rolled him to his back. She smiled down at him and flicked open the first button. “My turn.”
* * *
Chey decided that reheated omelets and hash browns at midnight were the best things she’d ever tasted. She was curled up at one end of her deep leather couch and Wyatt was stretched out at the other end, with his boots propped on the overstuffed ottoman.
“Thanks for the help in the barn tonight,” she told him.
He lifted his mug of coffee in her direction. “My pleasure. I haven’t been around horses in any regular way in a good long while. I planned to get at least two for my farm, but I don’t spend enough time there to make it fair.”
“Any other livestock plans?” She was proud of herself for talking about his farm an ocean away, and the fact that he’d be going back to it, as if it was no big deal.
“If you’re asking whether I plan to raise any Welsh bulls, the answer is no,” he said with a wry laugh. “Although Bailey has me half talked into getting a few goats to clear my fields. Also turns out she raises and breeds a type of Welsh sheep. Herdwicks. I’ve been invited out to see them.”
“Careful, she’ll have you shipping crates of them back home, too.”
He smiled. “I wouldn’t doubt it.” He set his mug and empty plate on the ottoman and turned to face her. “I wanted to talk to you this morning, before the meeting, about the call I was on when you woke up.”
She waved an empty fork. “You don’t need to explain—”
“No, this part is about you. Well, about us, at any rate.”
She lowered her fork back to her plate, surprised. “Us, how?”
“In any other realm, this would seem incredibly forward, but this is us, and I think we’ve been up front about what we mean to each other, what this means.”
She leaned down and set her plate on the floor, suddenly no longer hungry. She wasn’t ready for decision making. Vivi had been right—with time, decisions might be easier to make, when she knew what she was reaching for as well as what she’d have to leave behind. They weren’t even close to that yet. How long did you think you’d have?
She supposed at least as long as it took to come up with a working plan for the lake and the town. Maybe he thought they’d done that today. Trying to quell the knot that was forming in her gut, she said, “You’ve decided where you’re going to go next?” She sat up, pulled her knees to her chest, and looped her arms around her legs, well aware it was a defensive posture, but she needed the support. “Wy, I’m not ready yet to make any—”
“I’m not asking you to make any choices,” he said. “Not now. Or ever. We’ll make decisions together when the time comes. Whatever they are.”
She almost went limp with relief. When the time comes. So not now. Thank God. “So what realm are you referring to?”
“The one where I ask the woman in my life if it’s okay that I move in for a bit.” His smile was sweet and adorable, pure old Wyatt, only with a hint of that sexy new grin flirting around the corners. “Like for the summer?”
Her mouth fell open. That was so much more time than she thought they’d have before those hard choices had to be made. Her heart filled right up with joy. Which answers a few things about what you want right there. “Really?”
He gave her his best new Wyatt grin. “If you’ll have me.”
Oh, would she ever. “Consider yourself had,” she said with a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows. “Repeatedly.”
“Why, ma’am,” he said, in his best cowboy drawl. “Whatever might you be implying?”
“Exactly what you hope I’m implying,” she said with a laugh.
He wiped his brow. “Whew, I was worried there for a moment.”
She laughed with him. “So . . . how is this happening? The whole summer?”
“I called Dom—my assistant, production chief, and all around get-it-done guy—to tell him what we might be doing here, get him on the horn to the rest of the crew, see what we could work out in case I end up streaming from here. He was sending me a bunch of stuff from the Nepal event to edit, as well as some promotional material we’re putting together for donors, and wanted to know where to send it. So, I got him to set up a post office box in town here and then I thought, well, why not just get him to pack up whatever else I need and ship that, too. Anything I was going to do on my farm this summer I could do on this one just as well.”
Chey took in everything he was saying, thrilled that he was going to do this, and at the same time, sort of sitting back and watching, listening to him be this guy he was now. A guy who had production chiefs and a global crew.
“I should have talked to you first. I didn’t start the call with that in mind; it just sort of happened. Then we were late for the meeting because—”
“Manhandling,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows over the rim of her coffee mug.
“I’m pretty sure the woman handling part of it played an equal role.”
Her smile turned smug. “I will own that.”
“As you should. You’re quite good at it.”
She sketched a little bow, holding one arm out and dipping her chin. After settling back in the cushions and pillows, sh
e said, “I should have told you this sooner, but you were truly incredible today.”
“Yeah, I got that you might have been okay with it by the kiss you laid on me there at the end.”
She grinned, not a bit sorry for that public display. “That too. But it was fun getting to see Reed Planet in action. You and Vivi cut right to the heart of things; then you got us organized and focused on a path forward, on a solution. By the time it was over, I was thinking we might even be able to do this without your having to go to all that trouble with the livestream.” She smiled. “Unless that means you’d leave sooner. Then we absolutely need you to go to the trouble.”
He chuckled. “I’m glad to see you’re putting the needs of the many over the needs of a few.”
“Oh, there are needs all right,” she said, and loved how his eyes immediately went dark with desire. This was all so very easy. Planning together, working together, be it on her couch, out in the barn, or walking the fields. She liked sipping coffee and talking with him into the wee hours. This wasn’t anything like their life before. They’d been kids then, and the circumstances, the lifestyle, so utterly different. But it still felt like the most natural thing in the world now. Vivi was right, Chey couldn’t have imagined this with Wyatt, even though she’d spent every day with him in her previous life.
Now it was his turn to wiggle his eyebrows over the edge of his coffee mug, making her giggle. “Yes, well, I believe we’ll be addressing those needs again later.”
Cheyenne McCafferty. Giggling. It felt . . . glorious. Freeing. She looked at him and knew she didn’t want this to end, knew there were going to be compromises in her future. Choosing happiness, either way. She’d have to remember that, focus on that.
“I put things into motion before the meeting, because if we do need to do a stream, it would need to happen fast, and these things take time to set up. But I agree, maybe it won’t be necessary now that Vivi has the ball already rolling with a lead on another developer. If we get set up here and discover it’s not necessary, well . . . we’ll see what else might be worth our time on this continent. It won’t be a loss.”
Under a Firefly Moon Page 18