“There’s someone I have to talk to.” Rowan set the mostly full beer down on the coffee table and stood.
Her dad nodded and, with a knowing grin, said, “Go get the girl.”
❊ ❊ ❊
Kate hammered in the final nail and stood back, taking in the ramp that she’d built with Owen and Dean.
“Is that it?” she asked, not sure she believed they’d actually finished the project.
“That’s it,” Dean confirmed.
She stepped on the ramp and jumped up and down a couple of times, as if not believing it could actually bear weight. Then she grinned and high-fived both of her ranch hands. “I can’t wait to show him!”
Kate went into the barn and took in all of the changes that had been made. They’d lowered hooks and shelves so feed buckets, brushes and other horse-care accessories were within arm’s reach for her dad, and he’d be able to wheel himself in and out. She’d also ordered a front-wheel wheelchair attachment, which would allow him to navigate over the rougher terrain on the farm, giving him a lot more mobility and freedom at home.
She didn’t expect him to be able to leap in and take over any of the ranch work, but at least now he’d be able to be involved. He could be around the animals again. She knew that just getting to be in the barn with the horses would lift her dad’s spirits. He didn’t belong in the house.
She walked through the barn, peering into the stalls where the horses rested, stopping when she reached the second-to-last stall at the end. Pip stood in his stall, sleepy, eyes lidded. After her dad’s accident, Kate had wanted to sell the old horse. He was a good horse, and it hadn’t been his fault, but still, she didn’t see the need to keep Pip on the ranch. Her dad, however refused to let her sell the horse, and so she’d had Owen and Dean care for Pip and take him out riding.
Kate stuck her hand into the stall, and Pip pressed his nose against her palm. He wasn’t a violent or reactive horse. He just got frightened one day.
She thought, once more, about the conversation she’d had with her dad about Rowan.
“Was she the bucking bronco who was always going to toss you, or was she the gentle gelding who got spooked one day?”
Truthfully, Kate didn’t know. Maybe, no matter what she did, Rowan would never be happy in Texas. Rowan had made it plenty clear how little she thought of the state. And Kate couldn’t leave Texas. She had her dad and the ranch to take care of. Maybe she and Rowan were simply not meant to be.
But maybe Rowan was frightened. Texas was a sacrifice for her and a bit of a gamble. She’d risked everything for a job that hadn’t worked out, and Kate had expected her to risk it all for a relationship without even offering Rowan the reassurance of her own investment in the two of them. Rather than help calm Rowan’s fears, Kate had responded with her own.
It was no wonder she’d landed in the dirt.
She scratched behind Pip’s ears. She knew what she needed to do now.
Chapter Twenty
Rowan drove the now-familiar dusty road toward Landreth Ranch. With its rolling hills and wide-open fields, she found the drive every bit as pretty as that first morning when she’d first headed out to a Texas cattle ranch, nervous and excited and having no idea what course that drive would set her on. She’d had no idea that the drive would come to feel like her drive home.
She turned the car into the ranch, so scared she could hardly breathe. The setting sun cast a wildfire blaze of reds and oranges across the sky over the pastures. She saw Kate silhouetted in one of the fields and got out of her car to head in that direction.
Please let her forgive me, Rowan thought desperately. She’d had nearly an hour’s drive to try to formulate words, but the perfect eloquent apology hadn’t come to her, and she prayed the words would find her once she saw Kate.
As she neared the field, she slid the cowboy hat Kate had insisted she buy onto her head.
Kate didn’t see her approaching. She had her back to Rowan, tending to one of the cows.
“Kate Landreth, I need to talk to you,” Rowan called as she approached.
Kate turned at the sound of her voice and met her gaze. Rowan desperately searched her face for a clue as to whether or not she would be willing to speak to her, but Kate’s expression remained unreadable.
Rowan swallowed the fresh wave of fear that bubbled up her throat. She climbed through the large slats in the metal gate separating her from Kate.
“I need to talk to you,” she said again, softly this time, pleading.
“What are you doing here?” Kate asked. “You’re supposed to be in Portland.”
“Kate—”
“And take that thing off your head,” Kate added, gesturing to the cowboy hat. “You and I both know it’s not you.”
Kate’s tone wasn’t harsh, but the words sent an icy chill through Rowan anyway, even in the sweltering heat.
“What if I want it to be me?” she asked. She ran her fingers over the brim of the hat.
Kate stepped closer. “You don’t have to change for me, Rowan. That’s not what I want.”
“What about what I want?” she asked. “What if I want to wear cowboy hats and ride horses and do all of those Texas things? What if I want to do it all with you?”
Kate shook her head, but her gaze was gentle and her body language warm. She didn’t seem like she was trying to push Rowan away, and yet she wasn’t exactly letting Rowan in, either.
Rowan took a chance and continued. “No. Not ‘what if.’ Kate, I want all of that. I want to watch sunsets with you. Sunrises even— since you’d be able to wake me up in time to see them. I want to cook you fancy dinners, and I want you to force me to try ridiculous cowboy things. I want to go to the state fair with you and ride every ride until we’re sick. I want to learn to milk cows and two-step.”
“I understand why you had to leave,” Kate said. “I—”
Rowan interrupted her. She didn’t want to hear Kate’s arguments. She needed her to know how serious she was. “I went back to Portland, and I was empty without you. I spent months missing Portland. I missed my friends and my family. But when I got there, I felt more homesick than ever. You’re home to me, Kate, everything I thought I needed. I was wrong. It’s all here, standing in front of me. Maybe Texas isn’t everything I dreamed of, but you are.”
“Rowan.” Kate teared up.
This time she waited for Kate to say more, unable to tell if she wanted her to stay or go.
“I bought a plane ticket to Portland,” Kate said at last.
Of all the words Rowan had expected to hear, she never would have anticipated those, and her head spun as she tried to make sure she’d heard Kate correctly.
“I can’t move to Portland,” Kate said. “I know I’m asking more from you than I can offer myself. But I want a life with you, Rowan. Stay here in Texas with me, but show me Portland. Take me with you to visit. Introduce me to your parents. And take off the cowboy hat. You don’t need it. Be you. We can find things you love in Texas. This state isn’t all country music and rodeos. We can go see bands that you love and taste-test all of the local food trucks, and you can teach me to cook.”
Kate took Rowan’s hands, and traced her fingers over Rowan’s, gazing at her with a pleading look in her eyes.
Rowan’s heart was so full it hurt, and she struggled to find words around the lump in her throat. “You’d really come to Portland with me?”
“I told you, I already bought the ticket,” Kate said. “I was planning to come try to win you back. You just had to upstage my grand gesture.”
Rowan gave a nonchalant shrug. “You should have figured out your feelings a little sooner then.”
Kate laughed, a warm, rich sound Rowan wanted to hear for years to come.
“I couldn’t wait for you to come win me back,” Rowan said. “I love you and missed you too much.”
“Say that again.” There was no longer laughter in Kate’s green eyes, which were wide with emotion.
�
��I love you,” Rowan said.
She took Kate’s chin in her hand to hold her gaze before saying it once more. “I love you, Kate.”
Kate leaned in and kissed her— a light, sweet kiss that carried the promise of so much more, the answer to all of Rowan’s hopes.
“I love you, too,” Kate said against Rowan’s mouth.
She wrapped her arms around Kate and pulled her close, deepening the kiss.
Kate smelled of sunshine and hay and strawberries, and Rowan breathed in, feeling the hole in her heart mend itself.
When they finally broke apart, Rowan pulled the hat off her head and looked down at it.
“Do you really think it’s not me?” she asked. “I thought I looked quite dashing in it.”
“You do,” Kate agreed, and she took the hat and placed it back atop Rowan’s head. “You look incredible.”
Rowan smiled. “Good. Because it’s kinda growing on me. A little like Texas.”
Epilogue
The server called out orders, and Rowan worked diligently to fill them. She had been in the new kitchen for a couple of weeks, and while she no longer felt the intense need to prove herself, she remained determined to make a good impression. Her neighbors, Betty and Randall, had been gracious enough to offer her a job at their largely family-run restaurant, serving good old-fashioned Texas cuisine and comfort food. The restaurant didn’t have the glamour of working at On the Range. She wouldn’t be a celebrity chef, making waves in the culinary community, but Rowan was learning the secret to cooking the creamiest mashed potatoes she’d ever had in her life and perfectly crispy buttermilk fried chicken, which had the most satisfying crunch when she bit into it. She was learning how to season catfish to perfection and how to make true Southern grits. More importantly, she felt like she was a part of the team, and she was able to cook food she was passionate about.
“You’re doing great,” Betty called, dipping a spoon into Rowan’s sausage gravy to taste it. “Mmm. Yes. That tastes just like my mama used to make it.”
Rowan smiled and kept whisking the gravy as it thickened.
She was working the Saturday morning brunch shift. Bacon sizzled from the cooktop beside her, and she heard the satisfying sizzle of eggs hitting the hot pan at the station behind her. Betty was teaching her everything there was to know about Southern cuisine, and she brought with her all of her grill knowledge and her connection to locally sourced beef through Landreth Ranch. The Down Home Diner had been popular before, but was suddenly earning new accolades for their perfect steak and eggs and grits.
“You know,” Rowan said to Betty as she worked, “until I moved to Texas, I had never had biscuits and gravy in my life.”
“Well now, that’s just a damn shame,” Betty answered. “Biscuits and gravy are one of God’s greatest gifts. I swear nothing warms the soul more than a good breakfast of biscuits and gravy. It’s my favorite dish to have on a cold winter day.”
Rowan laughed. “I’m still not convinced Texans actually know the meaning of the word ‘cold.’”
“Just you wait, darlin’. Come January, you’ll be eating those words. Now, we’re never going to get feet of snow or anything, but it gets cold here.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Rowan answered, although she had to admit the temperature had started dropping ever so slightly.
The timer went off on the oven and she pulled out the tray of fluffy biscuits. She cut the biscuits in half and set them onto plates before spooning the sausage gravy over them and passing them down the line for bacon, eggs, and fruit to be added.
The morning went by quickly. She talked and laughed with her coworkers as she filled orders. She was almost sad when her shift came to an end.
Six months ago if Rowan had been told she would be working in this small family-run diner, she’d probably have turned her nose up. She wanted a high-pressure, high-stakes kitchen. She wanted to work with the best in the industry. She wanted to be the best in the industry. It wasn’t until she was working in this comfortable kitchen that she realized how unhappy the other kitchen made her. This job challenged her. She was learning new food she’d never cooked before. She was given more autonomy than she’d ever had in a kitchen. More importantly, cooking was fun again.
She had a smile on her face as she packed up to go home at the end of the day.
“Keep up the great work,” Betty called as Rowan headed out for the day. “Will we be seeing you and Kate tomorrow evening?”
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Rowan said. Sunday evening grilling by the pool with Betty, Randall, Dave, and Cindy had become a weekly tradition.
She waved good-bye and headed out to her car, eager to see Kate. She had promised she’d get to the ranch as soon as possible once her shift ended. It was a big day for Kate and her dad, and Rowan needed to be there.
She drove out to the ranch, singing along with the country song that played on the radio, her windows rolled down so she could enjoy the warm breeze.
When she got to the ranch, she found Kate tying Mickey to the fence inside of the small riding pasture.
Rowan parked her car and went to her.
“Hi you.” Kate smiled as Rowan stepped into the pasture and slid her arms around Kate’s back.
“Hi,” Rowan said with a slow smile before she leaned in to kiss Kate.
It didn’t matter how many times they kissed. She still felt her stomach tighten at the feel of Kate’s lips on her own.
“Are you ready for today?” Rowan asked.
A smile lit up Kate’s face as she nodded. “I can’t wait. This is huge, Rowan. I can’t believe you were able to make this work.”
Rowan gave a shrug. She hadn’t done much. She’d made a few phone calls. That was it.
“Don’t downplay this,” Kate said. “What you did for us was amazing and thoughtful.”
Rowan didn’t have to answer because another car drove into the lot and parked.
A minute later a woman joined her and Kate out in the pasture where Mickey stood. She introduced herself as Sandy, the equine therapist Rowan had contacted a couple weeks earlier. Kate had been so excited when Rowan told her she’d found someone who used horses as a form of physical rehabilitation. Rowan had called to ensure that the treatment was appropriate for patients in wheelchairs, and Sandy had excitedly told her about all of the physical benefits of equine therapy in developing core strength and balance in patients with paralysis. Rowan had passed on the information to Kate, but she knew the physical benefits didn’t matter to Kate nearly as much as the possibility of her dad being on a horse again.
Owen joined them all in the field while Dean helped Warren maneuver his wheelchair over the gravel path to the pasture, which they were looking into getting paved for him.
“Today’s the big day, Daddy,” Kate said.
Rowan could see the apprehension on his face, but there was excitement there as well.
She held Kate while Sandy talked with Warren, explaining the process to him. Kate leaned back in Rowan’s arms, and Rowan breathed in her soft scent. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was that Kate had given her a second chance.
“I love you,” Kate whispered.
Rowan kissed her ear. “I love you, too.”
Then it was time. Owen and Dean helped Warren up onto Mickey and spotted him as Kate and Sandy led the horse through the field. Rowan leaned against the fence and took in the happiness that radiated from Kate, who beamed with pride as they led her dad, who was on a horse for the first time since his accident, around the pasture.
Rowan’s emotions caught in her throat. It would be a long road for Warren, and he was far from being able to ride on his own. But he had started taking over some simple tasks around the ranch, and the possibility of riding horses again, even if way down the line, would open a number of doors for them. Kate was considering picking up an evening class or two in the fall. Rowan couldn’t have been prouder of both of them.
She watched as they reached the far
end of the pasture and turned back toward where she stood. Kate smiled and waved.
Her heart warmed as she waved back.
There was no longer a doubt in her mind about where she belonged.
She was home.
Acknowledgments
When I moved to Texas for graduate school, I was unprepared for how homesick I would be, and I am forever grateful to my friends who welcomed me, showed me their state, and made me feel at home there. A part of my heart will always live in Texas with y’all.
Thank you, Salem West and the team at Bywater Books, for helping bring this book to life, not just by taking my words and putting them in print, but by providing such incredible care and dedication to quality. I feel so blessed to have had Rachel Spangler as the content editor for this book. Rachel, you were once again a wonderful editor to work with, and your feedback reined me in every time I started thinking that I needed to delete the entire draft and start from scratch.
Thank you, Susan X Meagher, for your mentorship and feedback on the very first drafts of this book. You helped me take my initial idea and shape it into a real book with your sharp eye for character, motivation, and story arcs.
Mom, the only reason this book was finished on time was because you helped me with Addison so that I could sneak off for a couple of hours here and there to work on my edits. Thank you for your unending support and love for both myself and for Addison. We love you.
Sandra, if you ever get tired of being a paramedic, I suspect you could have a career in editing. Thank you for reading drafts of this book over and over again, and pushing me each time to add details and character motivation. You’ve been so incredibly supportive of my writing, and I consider myself lucky to have you in my corner.
And last, but definitely not least, a big thank you to my Addison for teaching me the true meaning of love. You’ve mostly been a distraction when it comes to my writing, but I can’t imagine my life without your big grin and happy babbles. My life is so much brighter with you in it.
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