by Anne Jolin
Looked like I wasn’t the only one.
My riding boots were placed in the middle of the aisle way, each filled to the brim with wild flowers.
“Looks like you’ve got yourself an admirer, baby girl.” Glitch whistled low, coming up to stand behind us.
If only he knew.
My heart did a small somersault.
“I’m going to put these in some water in Grant’s office.” I spun around to tell Josh, only to find him aptly paying attention to me and not begrudgingly, either.
What a very peculiar day.
“If you wouldn’t mind getting started in the back paddock, I’ll be there shortly.” I gave him a cautious smile.
He grunted and moseyed by me on the way to where the wheelbarrows were stored.
And he was back, kind of.
I picked up the boots and headed toward the small kitchen just off Grant’s office that the volunteers used. With my hands full, I used my back and butt to push open the door and screamed when I nearly fell face first into Rhys on the other side.
“You scared the living daylights out of me,” I chastised him, though there really was very little unhappiness in my tone.
I missed him constantly.
His hair was disheveled in a way that stole all my daydreams, and the hard cut of his jaw seemed to relax when he looked at me.
He didn’t say anything. Instead he took the boots with their flowers from my hands and put them on the counter. Next, his arms came around my waist, and he buried his face into my neck.
The way he did it made it seem like he felt safe there, wrapped around me.
“I miss you,” he whispered, planting a kiss on the underside of my jaw.
My hands wrapped around his middle, and I hugged him.
There was never a time a hug had felt more intimate than it did with Rhys. It was as if our bodies were anchoring to each other physically, as if we needed to do so to make it through the rest of the day.
“Me, too.” I smiled to myself, though I was sure he knew I was, too.
Rhys held me like that just a minute longer before he lifted his head and planted a kiss on my lips.
We were only twenty-five and somehow this connection we shared seemed both so young, the way first loves do, and yet so wise beyond our years.
“Meet me after dinner in the place where you first heard my voice,” he whispered against my cheek.
“Okay,” I promised.
His mouth tipped up in the corner on one side. “Will you wear the yellow dress?” he asked.
I blushed and reached out for him as he started to back away.
“I will.”
He held my hand in the air between us and bending at the waist, he left a kiss there.
Then, like a shadow at daybreak, he disappeared.
I felt like my body might break in two just so one half could be with him as he left.
My fingers pressed against my lips where he’d only just been, and it was so far beyond impossible to deny myself the smile that grew there.
When my breathing began to even out, I busied myself putting the flowers in a vase, mostly because I needed my riding boots or else I’d have left them there. Then, I tore myself away from waiting daydreams to muck horse poo in the heat with Josh.
Life, as a girl, really had some terribly comical punishments when all you wanted to do was spend the day with a boy.
Despite my fear that the day would pass slowly in anticipation for my date with Rhys, it actually went by rather quickly, and considering it was with Josh, remarkably painless as well. We’d finished the afternoon off with a trail ride around the property and for once, Josh seemed like maybe he didn’t hate it so much after all.
This only lifted my spirits higher. To work with a boy like Josh and see even the slightest change in him during a short period of time was a monumental success.
Successes like those were of the kind Rhys encouraged me to celebrate.
They were my accomplishments.
I’d eaten dinner faster than I had ever eaten in all my years on this earth. I hadn’t even waited for my hair to dry after my shower before I left to meet him.
I needed to see him.
I wore my yellow sundress, the one Rhys had asked for, and wandered through the trees to the riding ring where I’d first heard his voice. I hoped that he’d meant here and not the barn where I’d heard him reading.
It had only been one word, a pained one, when he scolded Josh, but in the back riding ring was the first time I had heard him.
Just through the clearing, I saw something bright with lights in the center of the arena and standing outside of it was Rhys.
His features were riddled with nerves.
“Do you like it?” he asked as I walked through the gate.
I had barely been able to keep walking at the sight of what he had done for me.
In the center of the riding arena, using the poles and stands used to erect horse jumps, Rhys had built a fort, an honest to goodness fort.
It was made of blankets of all colors, some with patterns and some just white. They hung everywhere, making up the walls and the ceiling. He left only one side open, the side that looked over the barn where the sun would set in a few hours.
It had likely taken him all afternoon to keep the sheets from blowing away in the wind.
The thought of him chasing sheets through the hills was a magnificent one.
As though this wouldn’t be enough, with quite possibly the longest extension cord in the world, Rhys had strung a single strand of twinkle lights from the roof of the fort.
I started to cry.
I couldn’t explain why, and it was only when he winced that I started to run toward him.
He caught me mid-air, spinning us a little before setting my feet back on the ground.
“Did I do something wrong?” The boyhood in his manly voice was terribly self-conscious of his vulnerable act. I could feel it in the way he cupped my face with his hands.
“There are books inside,” he rushed out. “Just some that I found in The Shed, nothing special but...”
His eyes were violently scanning mine for reassurance.
“I thought maybe you could pick one.” He rested his forehead on mine. “I could read it to you until the sun sets.”
My voice finally broke through the tears. “It’s p-p-perfect, R-Rhys,” I stammered.
The sound of his heart rejoicing in his chest soothed the tender ache in mine.
“You look beautiful in that dress,” he whispered.
The wind blew by, and the wet ends of my hair caused a momentary shiver to fall over my skin.
“When you walk my way in that dress”—he swallowed against something in his throat—“I feel like a man, rich with a thousand private sunrises.”
My soul crept out and wrapped itself up in his.
“Will you show me the books?” I asked.
He nodded, taking my hand in his.
We ducked under a chevron-printed sheet, falling forward onto the floor of pillows Rhys had built beneath us.
It was like something out of a seventeen-year-old boy’s heart built with a man’s hands.
Something built for me by him.
I thumbed through the old paperbacks in a pile beside a pitcher of tea, and when I read the title, I knew it was the book he would read to me today.
Picking up the book, I hid the cover against my chest and turned toward him slowly. “I just figured, since we had a theme…”
His smile enveloped the entire room when I showed him the cover.
Lying down, he put an arm under his head, the book folded open in his other hand, and as he started to read, I rested my head just above the beat of his heart.
“Black Beauty,” his voice began, and my eyes fluttered shut. “By Anna Sewell.”
Rhys read to me, and I was sure that the sound of his voice was the only comfort I’d ever need.
He read as the sun set.
He read as
the air cooled with the night.
He read until the last lines of the book left his lips.
“My troubles are all over, and I am at home; and often before I am quite awake, I fancy I am still in the orchard at Birtwick, standing with my old friends under the apple-trees.”
My tears spilled over my cheeks and onto the black of his shirt.
Home.
MY LUNGS ACHED.
I was too nervous to breathe.
“You need to chill out, dude.” Fun Bobby shook his head in my doorway.
There were many things my body could do, but at that moment, chilling was not one of them.
“I feel like a damn show pony,” Dirt growled, appearing next to him and tugging at the collar of his tuxedo.
Fun Bobby burst out laughing. “That’s what you’re wearing?”
“Piss off,” Dirt hissed. “It’s all I got.”
I understood the feeling. I was practically drowning in the suit Fun Bobby had lent me.
I didn’t own a suit. I’d never needed one before this.
Today was the Saturday of Grant’s fundraiser. According to the gossip among the volunteers, it was where he got a substantial amount of the funding to keep Equine for Hearts’ doors open.
Watching my hands move in the small mirror on my dresser, I growled.
I couldn’t tie this fucking tie even if my hands weren’t shaking.
“Let me do it.” Glitch pushed past the other two men into my bedroom.
I looked at him bewildered but eventually pulled the black tie from around my neck and passed it to him.
“This right here is a classic knot.” He rolled his shoulders before putting the tie around his own neck.
The rest of us just stared at him.
“You know, like the kind James Bond wears,” he urged.
None of us answered.
“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes. “First off, you gotta cross this here fat end over the skinny end.” His hands moved while he rattled off the words. “Then you gotta slip the fat end up between the tie and the collar like so, droppin’ it back down.”
If my anxiety hadn’t been rattling around so loudly in my skull, I would have been more impressed.
“Then you gotta wrap the fat end behind the skinny end, makin’ sure you’re goin’ right to left.” He started shaking his head. “Don’t wanna go left to right if you know what I’m sayin’. Big mistake.”
Looking over Glitch’s head, I was shocked to find Fun Bobby was keeping it together after this display.
“Then bring the fat end in front and over the loop here.” He gestured to the space between the collar of his shirt and the tie. “Then you see, you gotta wrap the fat end around the skinny part one more time and slip it up through that there loop again.”
He made it look like it was something he could do in his sleep. I’d been fumbling with it for nearly forty-five minutes.
“Make sure that knot ain’t goin’ anywhere by slippin’ the fat end through it.” He lifted what now actually resembled a proper tie over his head and passed it to me. “Flip up your collar.”
I did and Glitch slid the tie around my neck.
“Center the dimple there and tighten.”
He stepped back, admiring his handiwork. It was only then that he realized the rest of us were staring at him.
“What?” He shrugged. “Grandma liked us boys lookin’ fit at church, so what?”
That was when Fun Bobby lost it. He keeled over in laughter and Dirt was right behind him.
“Funniest shit I’ve ever seen.” Fun Bobby wheezed. “Fat end, skinny end.” He backed out of my doorway and continued mumbling as he walked down the hall. “Fuckin’ priceless.”
My hands resumed the tremble they’d found since last night, and I shoved them in the front pockets of my black dress pants.
“You nervous?” Glitch asked, and my eyes flew up to his.
I nodded.
“She won’t let nothin’ happen to you.” He winked before joining the other two guys in the living room.
Glitch was a complete basket case, but people overlooked how observant he could be.
I prayed on everything that he was right.
“Let’s go, Crow!” Fun Bobby hollered. “It’s show time.”
The sound of my heart pounding in my head had me watching the ground while I walked. I was supposed to meet Aurora’s family today, and every time my mind sat on the idea for too long, I felt like I was going to be sick.
She was already here somewhere. I’d left her at the house a few hours ago when she went to get ready.
It was probably the best thing she could have done, because if it weren’t for the promise of meeting her here tonight, I’d have locked us both away in my room until the entire thing was over.
We walked up toward the main house where white tents had been erected across the entire expanse of the lawn. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The landscape of this display and its guests looked like a live recording of an episode of the old TV show Dallas.
The tie Glitch tied strangled my throat, and I felt my palms begin to sweat in my pockets.
We reached the edge of the lawn, and that’s when I saw her.
The length of her hair had been twisted up on the top of her head, and a white dress exposed nearly her entire back. Wind blew around her, picking up the ends of the long, thin fabric and it blew just enough to show that under all the shine, she was barefoot.
Even dressed to the nines, Aurora’s feet were still firmly planted on the ground.
She turned her head, scanning the crowd, and her eyes warmed when they found me.
It was a sight that would never grow old, not in a thousand years.
My stomach took a nosedive off a very high cliff, and it took all the strength I had to walk toward her in this crowd of people. As though she knew I might not make it all the way there without her, she started to move across the grass.
The white fabric went up to the base of her throat in the front and was held together by a circular gold band.
She was breathtaking, and again, she was walking my way.
How lucky was I to so often be rescued by an angel?
“Hi,” she whispered when her feet stopped just before me.
I blinked against the late afternoon sun. “Hi.”
I wanted to reach out and hold her like I had just hours ago, but I was scared. She seemed so unreachable on the top of this hill surrounded by all these people I had nothing in common with.
“You look very handsome.” Her eyes burned over the length of my body.
My cheeks burned. “It’s a little big.” I tugged awkwardly on the pockets of the pants that only stayed up because of the belt I’d cinched around my waist.
“You look perfect to me,” she said without the slightest hesitation in her voice.
I reached forward and ran my thumb along the curve of her jaw. “You look like dawn after the eve of war.”
My heart ran toward her as I spoke, repeatedly crashing itself along her shore.
“Thank you.” She smiled.
That smile, the worlds I would conquer just to see it.
And today, I would conquer this one standing next to her.
“Aurora.” A female voice called from behind her, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off her.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
My insecurities bucked and roared inside my skull, but my body betrayed them and I nodded.
The hand at her jaw fell to my side, and I stood there awkwardly unsure of what to do.
She lifted her arm between us and held the palm of her hand open to me. “Just hold my hand,” she whispered. “It’ll be okay.”
Her bravery would move so many mountains in her lifetime. It was impossible for someone so pure to be so incredibly fearless and yet, she was.
In this place, with these people, her family among them, only she would take the bloody hands of a man who didn’t deserve her and walk throug
h them like a warrior.
I was in awe of her.
She didn’t care who saw us or what they might think, and I envied her bravery. I felt like a coward to be concerned with the opinions of others, especially her family and Grant.
Leaning forward, I pressed my lips against her forehand and interlaced my fingers with hers.
“Ready when you are, angel.”
Her steady hands eased the fear in mine, and she led me up toward the patio. There, between Grant and his friends, was her family. Even from a distance, it was obvious they were of the same blood.
“Daddy,” Aurora spoke to a man nearly my height but twice as large. “This is Rhys.”
Her father assessed me like I imagined hunters did before they considered shooting their prey to put it out of its misery.
No one spoke around us, and I felt like I could crawl into a hole and die a repeated death.
That’s why it surprised me when he reached out his hand. “Larry Daniels,” he said, his voice gruff.
I practically tripped over the hand-me-down dress shoes I was wearing to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
My voice came out with more ease than I expected, and I tried to meet his handshake with the same firm vigor with which he’d met mine.
“I’m London.” A slender woman with eyes and hair the same as Aurora’s stepped in front of her father. “I’m Aurora’s sister and this”—she lifted the bundle in her arms—“is my son, Christopher.”
I nodded. Words seemed to die on my tongue before they came out.
“My husband couldn’t it make it, but I’m sure you’ll meet him another time.” She laughed, her eyes sliding over to Aurora.
The man next to her wore a ten-gallon hat and a hard stare. His eyes fell to where mine and Aurora’s hands were still joined.
“Owen.” Aurora’s voice was cool, and if I had to guess, just the slightest bit threatening.
He growled and held out his hand. “Owen Daniels.”
“Our over-protective brother,” London added for what I assumed was comic relief and good measure.
The three of them, or if I was to include the sleeping child, the four of them seemed wary of me.
Polite, but wary.
“Don’t you get hot wearing so much black?” My eyes moved to see a pretty brunette girl with wild hair pressed against Aurora’s brother’s leg.