by Emma Sutton
“What do you think?” I ask MJ in all earnest.
“I think a part of me can finally breathe right again. There’s hope on the horizon.” She continues rocking and closes her eyes, smiling.
I nod, completely satisfied with her answer. As I take another sip from my lemonade, the cold glass now sweating in my hand, Mary Jo turns to me, halfway on high alert like she’s just remembered something.
“How are things with Hattie, honey?”
With a simple shake of my head, I blink at her. “Sorry to disappoint. There’s nothing anymore.”
MJ’s lips form a perpendicular line, her brow knitting in distress.
I hadn’t told anyone. Not even Mason, though I’m sure over the past few days he’d noticed me spending less and less time away from him and the cattle, and more time rattling on about work projects. I had to throw my mind into something to get me out of my momentary misery of missing her.
“Yeah, I know. I think I started it. But she changed her mind on what she wanted, and so I have to respect it. I don’t blame her, MJ.”
“Sometimes people do things for strange reasons. And other times, though the reasons may seem odd enough to us, they’re warranted.”
“Yeah,” I agree, inhaling the warm breeze that kicks up the scent of MJ’s nearby flowers. “Just wish I could’ve been enough for her to change her mind on the subject.”
“Oh, no no no. On the contrary,” she says, pointing at me with a shaky finger. “Maybe she has changed her mind but that terrifies her. People run back to their old lives when they’re scared of the possibility of a new one. And anything worth having in this life takes some fear to acquire.”
I let out a sigh of realization. “Like this place?” I ask, looking out onto the land. A few of the dogs— Sophie, Tikki, and Horton— all dart across the grass as if they’d been listening to this very conversation. Woodford hurries to tag along but then beelines it for the watering trough on the other side of the porch. Alexis’ voice still floats just out of our frame.
“Truth be told, this place scared the daylights out of me. The only thing that got me through was having Charles by my side.”
Focusing in on a lizard that scampers to the edge of the whitewashed porch, I plant my boots in place and stop rocking. “What happens when the thing that scares you is the person you want to spend your life with?”
Mary Jo chuckles. “Scary is good. Scary is uncomfortable. Otherwise, you grow bored in life. Try her again if your heart still beats for her.”
Rubbing a palm down my face, I close my eyes. “What if it ruins our work dynamic?”
MJ pushes out a sharp laugh. “You two never really did get along well on the work front. At least that’s my understanding of it.”
I chuckle, remember every spat we’d ever shared.
“Give her her space. But after a while, if you really want her, you’ve got to let her know. That’s the only way she’ll consider what she’s lost. It’s worth the fear.”
Clenching my jaw at the thought of more uncomfortable nights spent trying to forget the connection we’d found in one another, I bite the inside of my cheek. “You really believe that?” I ask after a few seconds.
“Yes. When the time comes, Walker, you engrave that on my headstone. MJ Reinhardt, Worth the Fear.”
“Sorry about that,” Alexis says, climbing the stairs. “Someone forgot the brand binder,” she beams.
“You won’t need that binder much longer,” Mary Jo laughs. “Hopefully you’ll consider your place here with us soon enough.”
“Yeah, you know?” She tilts her head and turns to look back out at the land as she grabs her lemonade. “I feel some kind of change coming.”
“What do you think, Walker?” MJ asks, sitting back in her rocker again, relaxing into the late Wyoming morning.
“I think MJ’s right. I think you could be a great asset to the ranch, Alexis.”
Chapter Nineteen
Hattie
“Sorry, behind you,” I call as I pass Garrett, Jack, and Zoey where they stand at their spots at Mary Jo’s granite countertop. The huge kitchen is buzzing with energy, full of staffers as we all chop, stir, dice, bake, and brew goodies for tonight’s barbecue by the lake.
Every month on the grounds, we try to have a huge cookout for staff which is quite different than the weekly barbecues we throw for guests. Most of the Lone Oak workers show up for free food, drinks, swimming, and fun as the sun sets over Lake Douglas that sits down on the east side of the ranch. Mary Jo and Charles called it that for all the firs that surround the lake.
For the barbecues, we all bring a dish, the majority of us cooking in the massive kitchen of the main house as it’s part of the camaraderie that MJ invites. Aside from that, I think she insists we use her space as opposed to the kitchens in the lodges or the cafe because she gets lonely up here all by herself for too long of a stretch. And of course, this is one of her favorite nights of the month as she gets to see and spend time with every single one of us all together.
I grab the bag of shredded cheese from her oversized refrigerator. I’d brought all the ingredients with me from where I stored them in the lodge kitchen. Sprinkling two handfuls of cheddar into the doughy, garlic-speckled biscuit mix I’ve made, I incorporate it. This week, I decided to go with something simple but delicious— cheddar and garlic drop biscuits.
Eliza is mixing up a huge bowl of Cowboy Caviar to my right— a tasty mix of beans, corn, peppers, onions, spices, and dressing. “A few of the guys are still smoking that pork shoulder,” she grins, waggling her eyebrows at me. “Word on the ranch is it’s their best one yet.”
“Really?” I laugh at her obvious enthusiasm.
When Lennon walks in and fashionably announces herself, Sophie is hot on her heels. The pup races into the kitchen and prances around for a few turns, her claws tip-tapping against the tiles in excitement.
“You smell all the good smells, Sophie girl?” someone calls to her.
“Has anyone seen Walker?” another person suddenly asks, yanking me from my momentary calm.
As I can’t help but jerk my eyes in the direction of the voice, I find Brooke poking her head around from the great room.
Walker.
Call me inattentive, but I haven’t heard his name mentioned in at least a week, and every time I do hear about him, see him from afar, or happen upon his baby Sophie living her best life on the ranch, I can’t help but grow two shades sadder on account of not wanting us to have to choose to be apart due to the future of this place while everything lies in the delicate balance.
“No,” someone says to the tune of the oven door banging shut. “He might be out by the smoker with Mason or August. Why?”
“Mary Jo is looking for him. The new girl’s here,” she says, more hushed than before.
“Alexis? Invite her in,” I reply, speaking up and finally pulling my concentration from the biscuits as I drop the last of them onto the second baking sheet.
“Okay.”
“Hey,” Eliza hisses, elbowing me as she scoots closer. “Speaking of Walker, have you two still been— you know. I haven’t heard you mention him in a while.”
I shake my head. “No. We’re not doing that anymore.”
“Ew, really? What’d he do?” she frowns.
With an overbearing sigh, I close my eyes, not really wanting to launch into it right here in front of everybody. But I know if I don’t give her an answer, she’ll just question me about it later. “He didn’t do anything,” I whisper, sprinkling a touch of sea salt on top of each cheesy biscuit. “I told him I wasn’t interested in a relationship anymore.”
“What?” she gasps. Pouring the last can of drained black beans into her metal bowl, she stirs vigorously with a wooden spoon like she’s taking out aggression at the bomb I’d just dropped. “Seriously? Why’d you go and do that?”
“Because I want to be alone.”
Eliza bursts out into a theatrical laugh, drawing the at
tention of Cohen and Jess from across the counter. “Be real. Nobody wants to be alone,” she hisses.
“Well, I do.”
“I have news for you, Hattie. If you’re that set on being alone, you better make sure of it. Because as soon as someone else sees what you saw in Walker, they’ll snatch him up on the quick.”
“So let them,” I respond, now totally annoyed at her insistence of how much of a mistake it apparently was for me to break off the relationship. And there’s a chance she’s right, but still.
“Look, I know you’ve got some stuff going on, whatever it is because you don’t really tell anyone your secrets. But Walker was good for you— you finally opened up to someone outside of our circle. Wasn’t that a nice feeling?”
Turning, I shove the two baking sheets of biscuits into the bottom part of the double oven that’s stationed on the wall behind me with a little too much force. As I wipe up the crumbs of flour and herbs from the portion of the counter I was using and gather the dirty bowl and spatula, I shake my head at Eliza. “My lack of relationship isn’t up for debate. I’m fine being alone. The world as a whole shouldn’t be afraid of being alone once in a while. I’ve been that way most of my life, and I think I’ve turned out pretty okay.”
Eliza turns and glares at me. “Yes, you turned out wonderful. But—” she sighs.
“Besides, if the ranch fails, we wouldn’t have worked out anyway.”
Heading to the sink, I hand the dirty dishes I’d used to Kyle who swears he can’t cook and has deemed himself human dishwasher at nearly every gathering like this since I’ve come to Lone Oak.
As I pass back through the kitchen on my way to the living room to wait the twelve minutes for the biscuits to bake, Eliza hooks a finger onto the back of my overalls. “Hey. If you’re stifling your love life on the account of this ranch fizzling out into nothing, then you’d better come up with a different plan.”
Staving off a laugh, I shake my head and cross my arms over my chest, now feeling snarky.
“Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?” she asks.
Shaking my head at why she seems to care so much about my relationship status, I grin. “I don’t care how ridiculous it sounds, Eliza. It’s the truth. And that’s that.”
The new girl, Alexis, suddenly comes shuffling through the living room and into the kitchen with Brooke.
I politely wave at her and wonder if Eliza’s not right. Alexis had been friends with Walker through his ex-wife. What if he started growing close to Alexis now, too? Just like he’d done with me?
I’d seen them together more times than I can count in the past few weeks— tours of the ranch, visiting the animals and garden, seeing the trails, talking to MJ on the porch, meeting with a few of the other staffers, all of it.
Now emotionally stewing and too hot from the heat of the kitchen that’s now at-capacity, I hurry through the screen door and plant myself in a rocker on the front porch, breathing deep. The fresh air keeps me sane as I focus on my breaths, not wanting to overreact at all the thoughts coursing through my mind.
I know Eliza’s right on all accounts. It is completely absurd that I gave up something so good, so untouched by anything I’ve ever experienced in my life due to my deep-seated fear of being torn from him in any which way— especially with the unforeseen future of the ranch hanging on the horizon.
Isn’t that something we could work out though? Together?
Regardless, it doesn’t matter now. The damage is done, thanks to no one else but me. We’d already reverted back to acquaintances who act a little more friendly than we did back when I was forced to merely tolerate him.
I’d broken up with him during one of my riding lessons with a guest, and we hadn’t spoken since. Even so, I realize how miserable of a person that makes me.
Sitting here, I start to think about how much pain I’d probably inflicted upon him, too. In fact, I’d done the equivalent of what his ex-wife had— straight-up abandoned him. The thought of me breaking him is enough to wreck me for as long as I have to continue being around him here on the ranch. Seeing his handsome face, hearing his voice that I love so much, having to take the occasional order from him. All of it.
I deserve the pain I’ve brought upon myself. But Walker? He doesn’t deserve any of that. He deserves so much more than I’d given him.
As I continue rocking myself into a state of understanding, the wood of the chair creaking out underneath me with every roll, I decide I know what I need to do for Walker, and I know what I need to say. I just don’t know when it’ll be the right time to say it.
Chapter Twenty
Walker
Shoving a fork full of barbecue into my mouth, I turn my attention towards Mary Jo who stands at the head of the crowd beside the picnic tables that hold the food.
“To all my favorite people in the world,” she smiles as she waves at everyone as if we all hadn’t been swarming and breaking bread with her over the past hour-and-a-half.
The sun has nearly set over the lake, throwing glints of orange and purples into the water as the rest of the Lone Oak crew quiets their chatter and puts their food aside to pay MJ full attention.
“You know these are one of my particularly favorite nights here with you guys and gals. Enjoying all your smiling faces with beautiful food and wonderful conversation. I can’t get enough of it. And now,” she says, reaching over to where Alexis stands next to her. Putting her arm around her shoulder, she leads the girl closer to the helm. “Now we have another one to add to our gracious family. This is Alexis Grant, and she’ll be joining us as our Marketing Director. Welcome, Alexis.”
“Thanks,” she beams as everyone starts in on a sea of clapping. “I’m thrilled to be here.”
“I wanted to let you all know as a family that we made the decision a few weeks ago to hire her, and we’re incredibly happy to finally have her here with us. Though you may have already seen her as she’s been around a few afternoons here and there, her first official day will be Monday. Let’s please all welcome her with open arms.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Mason and Hattie standing next to each other, their concentration both aimed at Mary Jo. Hattie holds her water bottle with a hint of a smile tracing her lips. She runs a hand through her hair, and as I hear Alexis and Mary Jo carry on with their words in the background of my mind, I can’t pull myself from Hattie’s magnetic draw.
Mary Jo had talked a flood of sense into me regarding my relationship with Hattie a few weeks ago as I introduced her to Alexis. But some umpteen days later, her important words still pick at the threads of hope that swim my insides.
Give her space, but tell her how you feel.
Isn’t that how it should be? Always and forever? Give the one you love space when she needs it. But always tell her how you feel.
The surge of romantic chaos the past few months had brought into my life, the season I’d needed to give Hattie to separate from me, the words I’ve been wanting to say to her for so long now, it all forms a rock in my gut as I realize where I’ve gone wrong, and what I need to do to correct my course.
Finishing my last bite of biscuit, I toss the paper plate into the nearest trash can and make my way toward the back of the party.
Jack nudges me as I pass him. Shooting me a grin and waggling his eyebrows as Alexis starts talking again, I furrow my expression and keep barreling my way toward Hattie.
She’s my only mission right now even though I’m unsure if this will actually remedy our being together or just make the tension worse. Regardless, I have to try something. Anything.
I’d not even been sleeping well knowing I may not ever get to see her in the same light I once did. How I saw her up on Lone Oak Hill. The way she faced her ichthyophobia, or whatever that fear of fish is, head-on like she did down by Whipple River. The way she danced in the downpour with me just before our first kiss. The shining of her eyes as we shared popsicles and secrets under the Wyoming moon on the bed of my truc
k. The memories of it all pierce my heart like a knife, itching me to make things right. To try to correct the course on which we’d found ourselves stuck as star-crossed lovers of the sort.
When I reach Hattie, I touch the back of her arm with my knuckles. “Hey,” I whisper.
Snapping her head in my direction, she’s clearly surprised to see me. “Oh, hi.”
“How are you?”
Mary Jo and Alexis still linger at the front of the crowd as everyone else has mostly resumed their chatter with one another.
“I’m okay.” She inhales as her eyes bore into me. She presses her lips together and tucks her honey-kissed hair behind her ear.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” I admit as low as I can. “I know I’ve said that before, but I mean it now, too.”
Her lips part as her eyes flicker down to my mouth then back up to my own gaze.
My heart rages with the force of a stampede of horses. “Can we please talk?” I ask, my voice sounding gravelly and incomplete. “Somewhere private.”
She nods and glances to her right where Mason still lingers. But before she can say anything, I take her hand in mine and lead her from the crowd, pulling her from the pack like my life depends on it. Maybe because, in a roundabout way, it kind of does.
“Where are we going?” she asks, concern brewing in the back of her voice as I continue leading her across the field toward the Paisley Barn and out of eyeshot of everyone else.
“Here,” I say, rounding the back left corner of the barn and finding the two wooden benches that are stationed there in the shade of the oaks. “Have a seat.”