I shrug my shoulders and take a drink of my beer. “I used to suffer from depression when I was a kid, and my Aunt practically forced me into learning how to horseback ride.” And now it’s my turn to look away from him and out the windows of the tree house.
“So, that’s why you take to the horses so well and them to you,” he says as if he’s putting the pieces of a puzzle together.
My gaze swings his direction. Normally when I talk about how I suffered from depression, people ask all sorts of questions. What made you fall into a depression to begin with? Don’t you still suffer from depression? What kind of medication did you take when you were suffering? I can understand people’s curiosity, but after a while, the same repetitive questions begin to become mundane and annoying. I answer truthfully. “It’s the best thing my Aunt ever did for me. I didn’t want to be on medication, and she didn’t want me on it either. When I started to learn how to horseback ride, it was my escape from the past, present, and future. It’s like how people run and their brain just switches off. Horseback riding does the same thing for me.”
“Is being here at the ranch kind of like your way of paying it forward then?”
“I never thought of it like that, but yeah, I guess it is. I might not suffer from the same diseases or disabilities that the kids that come to Operation Love do, but I have suffered, and the smile that I see on their faces makes me feel genuinely happy. It’s like nothing else matters for them, except the here and now. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I love the kids that come here, and I love seeing the bonds they build with the horses. In a way, it’s like I can see myself through their eyes,” I answer.
“Are you happy now?”
I thought so, until you came along.
My eyes search his face. They move over the contours of this Adonis who sits in front of me. I can’t think of one single reason for me not to be happy now. I’ve been getting better with each day that passes. And sitting here staring at Wes, I can’t help but think how much happier I can get. “I am.”
He places his arm over my shoulders and tucks me into his side as he whispers against my temple. “Good.”
A couple of nights ago in the treehouse, we talked until the sun began to rise. Wes told me about how he came into professional bull riding. It all started when he was a part of the 4-H program in his elementary school. At the age of eight, he started raising a calf. By the time he was ten, he’d won first place. He collected his first blue ribbon when he sold that same calf. After that, as Wes grew older, he traveled out to different ranches and help herd cattle. One day, his friend Reid dared him to jump on the bare back of a bull, and the rest was history.
I told him about my life in Conroe. How I grew up living with my aunt. He didn’t ask questions about my parents, where they were, or why I didn’t live with them. He just sat and listened intently. I told him about how the ranch owner where I rode horses approached me about learning how to barrel race. Jim, the owner, told me how he had never seen his horses trust someone the way they trusted me. After his proposal, my mind pondered the idea. I didn’t want to race horses professionally, so, of course, I declined his offer. The connection I shared with them was just fine by me. Now, I look back and wonder if I could have gone through with it. Maybe if I had taken Jim up on his offer, I would have met Wes before now.
“Will you sit and talk with me?” Mrs. Sandy asks as we finish drying the dishes from dinner. “I miss our little talks.” She smiles and nudges me in the arm with her elbow.
“Me too.” I return her smile as I hang the damp dishtowel over the handle on the stove. I ask Mrs. Sandy, who’s already sitting at the table doing something on her phone, “Would you like some tea?”
“Huh?” She looks away from her phone and turns her attention to me.
“Tea?” I hold a glass up in the air.
“Oh yeah. That would be great.”
I open the fridge door to retrieve the pitcher of sweet tea, pour us each a glass before I set the pitcher aside, and head over to the table. As I pull out my chair and take a seat, she says, “So are you excited about the upcoming week? You know, with the kids coming and all?”
My lips turn up in a smile at her question. “I am. I honestly can’t wait to see the kids again.”
“I know what you mean. I can’t wait to see all of their smiling faces. I don’t know if Wes has mentioned to you why we started Operation Love.” A distant look crosses her face as she looks down into her glass of tea.
I nod. “He told me a little bit. I think Colt would be really proud of y’all for doing this in his honor.”
She laughs a small laugh and takes a drink of her tea. “Those boys were inseparable when they were around each other. When they were kids, they would chase each other around this big ol’ house playing cowboys and Indians. If you would’ve seen them together, you would have never guessed they were cousins. They were more like brothers than anything else. Colt got sick often, but no matter what, he always seemed to pull himself right out of it. Come out stronger than the time before. Then, the last time he got sick, we all knew he wasn’t gonna pull through it. He even knew it. Wes, the stubborn boy he was, still is, didn’t believe it, and refused to accept it.”
I reach out, cover her hand with mine, and offer my support as tears glide down her face. “When Colt died, he took a little piece of Wes with him. He lost that spark in his eyes. He would take off on one of the horses for hours at a time, and just disappear. Wes wouldn’t even attend the funeral. Will and I pleaded with him to go, told him he needed the closure, but he shut down. He shut everyone and everything out. After a while, he started coming back around, you know, becoming himself again, but not really himself.”
“I do.” I think I might know just as well as the next person who’s lost someone dear to them. A small piece of you will always be missing; you’ll never truly be whole again.
“When he took up bull riding, his father and I thought, finally. We could tell he loved it. He practiced for hours on end, but we never really saw that same spark again. Until he came here and met you,” she whispers as she cups her hand over mine and looks me in the eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on between you and my son, or if anything at all is going on between y’all. But you should know that I can see that spark reigniting in his eyes again. I will admit that I’ve been talking about you to him for the past year.”
“I kind of figured that,” I reply with an easy smile.
“You’re special, Kenleigh. People gravitate toward you. The kids that come here love you. Hell, we all love you. Your presence alone can bring a smile to anyone’s face. I know you have been faced with the pits of despair, but you fought your way out.”
I nod in acknowledgement of how right she is. There was a time when I was in the deepest depths of my depression, and thought I couldn’t go on, but I fought—I fought hard to find me again.
“You’re good for my boy, and I believe he’s good for you, too,” she says earnestly.
“Thank you.” I push my chair back and stand before I lean down and wrap my arms around her shoulders, enveloping her in a hug. “Thank you so much for those kind words,” I whisper.
“Oh, honey, I didn’t say any of that just to say it. I meant every word,” she whispers in return, as she pats my back in comfort.
Just as I pull back, Wes walks in. He takes in Mrs. Sandy and me sitting at the table. Her cheeks are blotchy from crying, and I’m wearing an easy smile. His eyebrows point down in confusion. “Is everything all right? Did I walk in on something I shouldn’t have?” he asks as he looks from me to his mother.
“No,” Mrs. Sandy answers. “We were just having some girl talk.”
He walks over to his mom, wraps an arm around her shoulders, and asks while looking directly at me, “Do you mind if I steal Kenleigh away for a while?”
She smiles broadly at me. “Not at all. You two kids go and have some fun.”
“Thanks, Mom.” He smiles down at her and s
queezes her to him before he kisses the top of her head, showing her affection that only a son can. “Wanna get out of here?” he asks.
I smile and nod at him. “Sure.” My eyes turn to Mrs. Sandy. “Can we finish our talk later?” I ask.
She waves her hand in dismissal. “Later. Now, you two go and get out of here,” she says, standing from her seat.
I pick up my glass and take a drink of my tea as I walk toward the sink to dump the remnants out.
“Ready?” Wes asks, as I rinse my glass out.
“Yep.”
“So, where are we going?” I ask as we walk behind the barn.
“Over there,” he says, pointing toward an old Chevy pickup truck. The paint is a faded blue color, weathered from the sun. Spots of rust speckle the front and back chrome bumpers. As we walk around the front of the truck, the word Silverado comes into view.
“What year is this?” I ask as he opens the passenger door for me. I climb in and smooth out my navy blue, strapless dress. The heavy metal of the door groans at the hinges as he closes it behind me. The inside is not too bad. The dark blue, leather, bench seat has minor cracks in it, probably from the blistering Texas heat. My eyes flash to the dashboard and semi-new stereo, complete with an audio input. Nothing in this truck is electric, and I love it. The windows roll down manually, and it takes me to a time when I would ride with my dad in a truck similar to this one. Good memories come rushing back to me.
“You all set to go fishin’?” asks my dad.
I turn in my seat, looking up at him. “I can’t wait!” I squeal with joy as my dad starts his newly remodeled 1980 Chevy Silverado. When he bought this truck, we were the only ones who saw the potential it held. It was covered in rust, and more than half of the parts needed to be replaced. Momma thought we were crazy, but it was our thing. Daddy and I would fix them up together. Actually, he fixed it while I watched, handing him a tool every now and then.
“You remembered to get the lures, didn’t you?” he asks, pulling the gear shifter down and into reverse.
“You think I’d forget? I like fishing almost as much as you do, Dad.”
“I was just checkin’. And you are my child, so of course, I knew you’d love fishing,” he replies, edging out of our driveway with a smile.
I lean forward on the newly upholstered, black leather, bench seat and roll down the window. As I lean back, the sun bounces off the polished black paint, blinding me momentarily. I rest my head on the back of the seat and look over at my dad. “You know, I think I just might catch more than you today.”
“Oh, yeah? And what makes you think that?” he asks with a smirk and raised eyebrow.
My arm goes out the window and waves back and forth in the wind as we travel toward the lake. “Because I also brought some worms that I dug up out of Momma’s garden. It’s a fish’s delicacy,” I say with a matter of fact.
“I’m so gonna tell on you,” my dad teases as he reaches over, grabs my knee, and begins tickling me.
I shriek in laughter from his assault. “I won’t share with you if you don’t stop.”
Immediately his hand is gone, and I’m left trying to catch my breath. “We wouldn’t want that, now would we,” my dad says playfully.
A sudden pop jolts me out of my daydream. “What was that?” I ask, looking all around us for the sudden, loud sound.
“The truck just backfired,” Wes answers with a chuckle. “It’s an old truck and hardly ever gets used.”
My face grows red with embarrassment. “Oh.”
“You seemed a little lost there for a few minutes.” He reaches for my hand and gently squeezes it.
I look up at him and take in his curious expression. A slow smile spreads across my face. “Nope. Not lost. Just reminiscing.”
Wes’ hand slides to my thigh and he pulls me across the bench seat. As I nuzzle into the crook of his shoulder, he drapes his arm over the back of the seat. I reach up and interlace our fingers which brings his arm down to drape over my shoulder. When I look up at him, our gazes lock. He leans in and whispers against my lips, “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“Not right now.” I shake my head. “Right now is just about you and me, and this awesome sunset.” Lightly, I brush my lips against his. “So, where ya takin’ me?”
“It’s a surprise, but can you plug this in for me?” he asks as he hands me his iPod.
We drive along the rolling hills, out to where, I’m not sure. Wes likes to keep where he takes me under wraps I’ve noticed. Honestly, after last night at the tree house, he can keep where we go a secret all he wants. No one has ever done anything like that for me before. He is so sweet and completely romantic. If he hadn’t hooked me in the barn when we were on the bale of hay, then he, for sure, would have reeled me in last night.
I scroll through his playlist of old and new country mixed. The perfect song jumps out at me, and I can’t help but think of Wes when I press play. With my bare feet propped up on the dashboard, they bounce in time with Joe Diffie’s Pick Up Man as it comes through the speakers of the old beat up truck. As we cruise along the side of the creek, birds fly above, the clouds move at a slow, steady pace, and the truck bounces and jostles me around in the cab from hitting bumps in the terrain. But I know I’m not going anywhere. Wes has me tucked in the crook of his shoulder, holding me securely to his side.
He smiles at me when I start to laugh at the lyrics. This song is so him. “Good choice.”
With a shrug of my shoulders and smile of my own, I reply, “I thought it fit you perfectly.”
Eventually, we come to a stop next to the boulders where he first took me a few nights ago. I sit up and remove myself from his side. Wes turns the truck around to where the tailgate is facing the creek’s edge. With the windows still rolled down, he turns the key back only enough to where the truck is no longer running but the radio still plays. He reaches for the knob, turning it down. “Come on,” he says as he hops out of the truck.
I follow his lead and shut the door. “What are we doing?”
Already behind the truck, he pulls the tailgate down. He jumps in the back before answering me. “Here, hold this for me please.” Wes hands me a black duffle bag.
My eyebrows shoot up in curiosity. “You didn’t bring me out here to kill me did you?” I ask jokingly.
“No, smart-ass. I didn’t. Open it and hand me the stuff inside would ya?”
The bag isn’t heavy. Slowly, I unzip the duffle bag, the teeth of the zipper parting easily enough. A yellow sheet is the first thing I see. I hand it over to him and he lays it out in the bed of the truck. Next, I hand him a light green quilt, stitched to perfection. Wes lays it down on top of the yellow sheet. The next things I pull out of the bag of curiosity are two small, brown, fluffy pillows. As I hand them over to him, he places them at the top of the bed of the truck. “It was a little presumptuous of you, don’t you think?” I indicate the makeshift pallet he’s laid out for us.
“I thought we could watch the sunset.” He shrugs.
Great. Now I feel like a jackass. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so ru—”
“Rude?” His stare is questioning.
“Yes. Rude. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right. But just so you know, I’m not doing all of this with some ulterior motive in mind.”
“This was very thoughtful,” I reply diffident.
“Don’t thank me just yet. Wait until you taste the dessert I brought.” Wes reaches behind him and picks up a picnic basket that I didn’t know was back here.
How the hell did I miss that? Probably because I was handing him the blankets and pillows out of his black bag of tricks. I watch keenly as he pulls out napkins, forks, a Tupperware container filled with something red, and paper plates. I look over the edge into the back of the truck. “What is it?”
“Come on up and see for yourself.”
I walk around the back of the truck and jump up to hoist myself up onto the tailgate. My flip-flops drop o
n the grass below as I kick them off. When I turn around, my mouth drops open in surprise. On the paper plates sits a picture of perfection. Strawberry shortcakes. Whipped cream and strawberries lie perfectly in between homemade biscuits. The biscuits are dyed a light pink from the juices of the strawberries that have soaked into the fluffy bread. “How did you kn… When did you ha…?” I stammer. I can’t even form a coherent sentence I’m so shocked. “How did you know?” There is no way he could have known.
“Know what?” The bewildered look on his face confirms my theory.
“That strawberry shortcake is my favorite dessert.”
“I didn’t. I asked Mom to whip these up for us earlier while you were out feeding the horses,”
On my hands and knees, I crawl up toward the pillows, turn around, and lean back on one. “Here you go.” I sit up as Wes offers me my plate.
I cut a piece and scoop the tasty concoction onto my fork. Before I take a bite, I decide to give him a glimpse into my past. “When I was a kid, every year my mom would ask me what kind of birthday cake I wanted. One year, I chose strawberry shortcake. She thought it was hilarious that out of all the cakes I could have, that was what I chose. I didn’t choose chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry. I just wanted something simple and sweet.”
My mouth waters with anticipation as I prepare to take my first bite of strawberry shortcake in seven years. The light, airy, sweet taste of the whipped cream clashes with the juicy explosion of the strawberries and the melt-in-your-mouth homemade biscuits. I groan with pleasure. “Oh… my… gosh… This is so good,” I groan around a mouthful of food.
“When’s the last time you had one of these?” He smiles from ear to ear with satisfaction.
“Seven years,” I answer honestly.
“Well, welcome back to the wonderful world of strawberry shortcakes.” Wes bows his head in a mocking grand gesture, and I applaud, laughing at him.
“Thank you. And what a way to be welcomed back.” I take another bite and my eyes roll in the back of my head.
Serenity Falls Page 10