by Joanna Sims
“I call her Oak Tree Hill,” Hunter said of his place.
The cluster of hundred-year-old oak trees, with their thick trunks and far-reaching, glorious canopies, beckoned to her. Surrounding the trees was unfenced pastureland lush with grass and indigenous wildflowers. Beneath the trees, the temperature was cooler and the sun was almost entirely blocked.
“Hunter.” Skyler stopped beneath one of the oak trees. “This is paradise.”
The smile he sent her was different from the others; he appreciated that she loved his spot in the world.
“No one else wanted this spot.” Hunter leaned back against one of the trees. “Too far out, too hard to build.”
“The harder you have to work, the more you appreciate it.” Skyler wandered deeper beneath the tree canopy. “That’s what my father always says.”
Tucked away in the cluster of giant trees was a small camper with an overhang. Nearby there was a firepit.
“This is where you come when you leave me?” she asked, taking it all in, processing the information.
“Every night,” he said. “I’ve got a vision in my head of what it could be one day.”
Skyler opened her arms, titled her head back, spun around and breathed in the scent of the trees. They had a unique, sweet smell that was concentrated in that one area because of the density and age of the trees.
She stopped and opened her eyes; Hunter was watching her. “This is heaven on earth, Hunter.”
Hunter ducked his head for a moment before he looked up with a sideways glance. “You think so?”
She leaned down to pick up an acorn, a large seed from the oldest of the group, and put it in her pocket. “I know so. What a gift you will have to give to your wife one day. What an incredible, beautiful gift.”
Chapter Five
That night, after he left Skyler at Liam’s cabin, Hunter did something that he never did: he searched social media for images of Skyler. There was a guilty knot in his stomach; he wasn’t exactly tied to Brandy McGregor and there hadn’t been any promises made, but before the pandemic had changed everything about their lives, things were moving in a certain kind of direction with her. Their families approved of the match; in fact, both patriarchs thought it would be legacy building to have a marriage join the massive property holdings of the Brands and the McGregors. And if that marriage should produce a grandchild that could one day oversee a conglomeration of the two sets of property? Jock and Beau McGregor, Brandy’s father, were salivating at the prospect. Still, Hunter had his doubts. If the pandemic hadn’t happened, would he still be with Brandy? She was sweet and beautiful, yet a bit dull.
“There you are.” Hunter had to create a new Instagram account, his first, in order to scroll through Skyler’s history.
“Now who’s the stalker?” he asked himself, enlarging a picture of Skyler before she had cancer. Before she lost her hair, it had been wispy and shoulder-length, a lovely golden, strawberry color that set off her lavender eyes in the most unusual way. With her hair just barely growing in, she reminded him of one of his mother’s favorite actresses, Audrey Hepburn. Skyler had that same petite frame and sassy attitude. She was cute in the best sense of the word. Hunter imagined that it would be impossible, in general, to dislike Skyler. He’d certainly tried and failed rather quickly.
He was looking through Skyler’s posted cancer journey when his best, and oldest, friend, Chase Rockwell, called.
“What’s going on, man?” Chase asked him when he answered the phone.
“Just workin’, what about you?”
“Same,” his friend answered. Chase had inherited his family’s farm and had been doing everything he could to keep it afloat. Chase had grown into one of the hardest-working men he’d ever known. Unfortunately, prior to his death, Chase’s father had leveraged every piece of equipment on the farm and had taken out a second mortgage on the property.
“How’s it going with the tourist?” Hunter hadn’t had time to give his friend an update on Skyler.
“I don’t really call her that,” he said, feeling bad that he’d ever put that label out there.
“Huh. What do you call her?”
“Skyler.”
“Give me her last name, man. I’m gonna look her up right now and see why you’ve done a one-eighty on this woman.”
“Sinclair.” Hunter didn’t bother to play possum with his friend. Chase would just text someone in the family if he didn’t give it to him. “I’m just going to send you a link to her Instagram page.”
Hunter sent the information to his friend.
“Hold up. Since when are you on Instagram?”
“Since today.”
Hunter didn’t need to say anything more to Chase; the fact that he had broken his steadfast rule to avoid all things social media following the explosion of press, good and bad, after Cowboy Up! told his friend everything he needed to know. Skyler was different. His newfound interest in Skyler was different.
“She’s cute. Not like your usual.”
“No.” He had always gone for tall, lanky, sun-kissed brunettes with rodeo and ranch credentials.
“Her friend Molly is...someone special...” Chase’s voice trailed off and then after several seconds of silence, he said, “Ask Skyler to introduce us.”
Hunter was floored. Chase hadn’t shown much interest in dating since he’d lost Sarah. “You want to have a virtual date with a woman on the other side of the country?”
“Yeah. Why not? I can’t do any worse than I’m doing here.”
“Why not? I don’t know. Maybe the fact that the two of you will most likely never be in the same place at the same time?”
“Maybe that will work in my favor,” his friend joked. Then he added more seriously, “I’m tired of being alone. Everyone here knows my history. Everyone here knows about...” Chase stopped before he said her name. Everyone knows about Sarah.
There was some silence on the other end of the line while Chase moved through Skyler’s social footprint.
“She had cancer?” His friend’s voice had changed.
“Yeah, she did.”
Chase let his breath out. “Man.”
“I know,” Hunter said. “I didn’t get why Dad agreed to have a stranger come to the ranch especially during all of this COVID crap going on.”
“Makes sense now.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“Sarah...” Chase said the name that was often spoken silently between them and thought of frequently, but rarely mentioned aloud.
“Sarah,” Hunter echoed.
Sarah James had been the daughter of Jock’s best friend. The story was that Hunter and Sarah were born a day apart, in the same hospital room, and they shared everything, including a playpen while their fathers played poker. As they grew up, Sarah became a second sister to him. He had never been able to see her as more than a sister, but all of his friends had crushes on her at one time or another. She was beautiful in an approachable, Jennifer Aniston kind of way—an athletic tomboy who felt just as comfortable in a cocktail dress, with a really loud, infectious laugh. But Sarah had only had eyes for Chase and the feeling was mutual.
“It’s hard to believe that she’s been gone ten years.” Chase cleared his throat several times, and Hunter knew him well enough to know that he was fighting back emotion over a loss that was still raw for both of them.
During filming of the last season of Cowboy Up!, when Sarah made occasional appearances as Chase’s girlfriend, she was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer called neuroblastoma. The cancer had been vicious, unrelenting and deadly. Hunter still felt the trauma of watching Sarah deteriorate so quickly and lose her battle with cancer in less than six months. They all did.
Jamie James, Sarah’s father, whom everyone called J.J., took his daughter’s death the hardest. He drank, he gambled and he got
divorced. No one was surprised when J.J. had a catastrophic stroke and followed his daughter into the grave the following year. For Jock, the losses of J.J. and Sarah had been devastating; his father was a man cut from old-fashioned stock and didn’t believe that men should ever cry. But Jock would get tears in his eyes at the mention of Sarah and he couldn’t even say J.J.’s name without getting choked up.
“Man,” Chase said again with a cough and a throat clear. “Heavy stuff.”
“Yeah. I know. I’m sorry, Chase.” Hunter wanted to redirect the conversation. “How are things going on your end? Did you get that tractor fixed?”
“Aw, I don’t know, man.” His friend sighed. “I think I’m gonna have to start selling off body parts. Do you know anyone in the market for a kidney?”
* * *
Everything hurt. Absolutely everything. Her inner thighs were sore, her butt cheeks were sore, her fingers were stiff from holding a pitchfork and her feet were dotted with blisters from breaking in her new boots. Skyler had taken to walking bow-legged inside of the cabin, hobbling about tenderly, groaning and saying “ouch” as she moved slowly from one room to the next.
“I thought this trip was supposed to make you feel better, not worse,” Chester Sinclair said after his daughter ran down the list of ailments from working on the ranch.
“I feel better,” she said with a laugh. “And worse.”
Hunter had dug several splinters out of her hands before she finally remembered to put on her gloves when they tore down the remaining section of fence. She had also developed a heat rash under her arms that was itchy and burned all the time. At night she tucked washcloths with ice cubes wrapped inside under her arms for some relief. It seemed like she was a walking list of ailments, and yet she felt incredible mentally. She felt more powerful, more in control over her own destiny. She had torn down a fence with her bare hands!
“I’m getting stronger every day.” She lifted up her arm and made a muscle for her father to see in the video chat. “Look. A baby muscle! When I got here, I couldn’t lift a bale of hay. Now I can actually lift and carry it a couple of feet at a time. Just imagine how strong I’m going to be by the end of summer. You’ll have to enter me in an iron-woman competition.”
Chester smiled in spite of himself; even now, Skyler knew he wasn’t convinced that Montana for the entire summer was the right choice.
“You could have done the same thing right here in the home gym with me,” he countered, still smiling a bit.
“Anyway, I am excited for the family cookout,” Skyler said, turning the conversation to a new topic.
“Well,” Chester grumbled, “have fun. Be safe.”
“I’ll be safe. Don’t worry.”
“I always worry about you.”
Skyler smiled. “And I love you for it.”
* * *
“Have you ever driven a skid steer before?” Hunter smiled a bit at the way Skyler was walking—like an old, rickety cowboy.
“No.”
“Well, hop on up. I’m going to show you right now.”
The gravel for the main drive had been delivered, and between the two of them, the job was going to get done today.
“Okay,” he said, once Skyler was seated in the skid steer and had the safety bar pulled down. “This is going to move just like the zero-turn lawn mower and the bucket is going to work like the bucket on the tractor. Basically, you know how to drive this thing already.”
Skyler nodded; he had taught her how to tie a bandanna around her head so it would catch the sweat and stop if from dripping down into her eyes. Savannah had a spare hat, a dark brown Stetson that turned out to be a perfect fit for Skyler. Today, only two weeks after her arrival in Montana, Skyler looked like a different woman. She had put on some weight—good weight, the kind that came with building muscle. The grayish, pasty hue of her skin had been replaced by a golden, rosy glow. She had taken to wearing tank tops that defined her waist and showed off her slender, petite figure. Her jeans, roughed up and dirty from farm work, hugged her shapely bottom in a way that he found very sexy. In fact, he had to remind himself to focus on the work and not on how kissable he was finding her lips.
“See the green button overhead? Push that,” he instructed. He was standing on the bucket of the skid steer, holding on to the safety handles, so close to her really that he could just lean forward and kiss her. It was mighty tempting but he knew it would be a stupid move. Jock would shoot him, stuff him and mount him over the fireplace if he screwed up with Skyler.
“Now turn the key.”
Skyler started the skid steer and an elated smile lit up her face. Such a pretty face.
“Cool!” she exclaimed.
While he was standing on the bucket, Hunter had her practice both moving the skid steer forward and backward, and turning it from left to right.
“It’s super easy,” Skyler told him.
“Now, with your left foot, push your toe down to lift the bucket.”
“With you on it?”
He nodded.
“I hope I don’t fling you off,” she said, biting her lip.
“You’ll be fine,” he reassured her. She carefully pressed down her left toe and jerked the bucket upward. Hunter held on to the handles tightly while he instructed her to lower the bucket by pressing down her left heel.
“It’s counterintuitive,” she observed.
“It takes some getting used to, but once you get it, it’ll feel natural.”
Hunter jumped off the bucket, then taught her how to pick up rock and then relocate it. It didn’t take much practice before Skyler was barreling off in the skid steer, picking up gravel and dumping it in the washed-out areas of the long, main drive into Sugar Creek. With the tractor, he took a blade attachment and smoothed out the rock. They repeated this action time and again, working together, until all of the major potholes were filled in.
“My fingertips feel numb.” Skyler hopped out of the skid steer after the job was done.
“It’s from the vibration. It’ll go away.” He handed her a bottle of water.
She gulped down the water and then poured some of it on the back of her neck. There was dirt in the crease of her neck and dust covering both of her arms. Her tank top was soaked with sweat, her boots caked with dust and mud. In that moment, Skyler looked like a bona fide ranch woman and Hunter liked what he saw.
“I need one of these.” Skyler patted the skid steer with her hand. “I don’t know what the heck I would do with it in the city, or where I would park it. But I just really need one.”
“You could always park it in the garage.”
Skyler laughed. “I live in the garage. So that is not an option.”
They climbed into his truck and he drove them back toward Liam’s cabin.
“Look at this!” his companion said to him. “Look what we accomplished. This road isn’t making me seasick anymore.”
Her enthusiasm over the smallest of accomplishments on the ranch amused him. He’d never taken much pride in filling potholes with gravel—maybe he should start.
“I might’ve made it a bit worse on you than it needed to be,” he admitted.
“I know.” Skyler frowned at him playfully. “You wanted me gone in the worst way.”
They rode in silence until they reached the turnoff toward the cabin. He slowed down so Skyler could enjoy the ride through the canopy of trees, something she had mentioned to him that she enjoyed.
“I don’t feel that way anymore, you know.” He didn’t want her to think that he wanted her gone. He didn’t.
Skyler glanced over at him with a shyness he wasn’t used to seeing in her. “You don’t?”
“No.” He looked straight ahead through the windshield. “You’ve been a big help to me.”
“Really?” She turned her body toward him...as much as the seat
belt would allow. “Is that true?”
He nodded. It was true. That fence had been taken down a whole heck of a lot faster with her help, and filling in the potholes had gone quickly. Even when she had to take extended breaks, having her company made the jobs go by faster for him.
She seemed pleased with his confession. “Well, I’m glad. Because I’m having the time of my life.”
Hunter dropped her off at the cabin with a promise to pick her up in two hours for the cookout; he watched her walk stiffly away from him. While he was watching, Skyler spotted a rock on the ground, bent down gingerly, picked it up, examined it and then put it in her pocket. She turned her head, caught him watching her, smiled and waved her hand, then continued her short journey to the cabin.
Hunter cranked the engine of the truck and then said to his phone, “Call Brandy.”
“Call Brandy? Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Calling Brandy.”
As he turned the truck back to the main road, the phone rang twice and then Brandy picked up.
“Hey!” She sounded happy to hear from him. “I was just thinking about you.”
Hunter drove under the canopy of trees and he looked up at the branches and the leaves. Being with Skyler had just made him more attentive to the beauty unfolding all around him on the ranch. Before her, he never would have bothered paying attention to the branches and leaves in the canopy.
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I called,” he said to Brandy. “Because I was just thinking about you, too.”
* * *
“What do you think?” Skyler stepped in front of her phone camera so Molly could see the shift dress she had put on. “Too much?”
“This is just like a romantic-movie montage. You change into a bunch of different outfits and I shake my head and make a horrible face until we land on just the right outfit,” her friend said, leaning forward to get a better look at the outfit.