“Good morning.” I find the cup Briggs has taken toleaving out for me every morning. I fix myself a cup of coffee and scoot closer to Shana.
“Sleep well?” She peers over the rim of her glasses at me.
“I did. You?”
“You slept in a lot later than usual. Are you feeling all right?”
I nod around a sip of the good stuff. “I’m good. Life is just starting to catch up with me, I think.” I nod to the list she’s made in her book. “Thank you for helping me with the wedding planning, Shana. I really don’t think I could have done it all without you.”
“You could,” she assures. “But I’m happy to help.”
“You’re a godsend.”
She pulls her glasses off. “I’ve been thinking about something, and I want to ask you before I speak with Briggs.”
Oh no.What could she want to ask me before Briggs?
I swallow my nerves as I slide onto an island stool. “I’m listening.”
“How would you feel if I moved here? To Sunset Falls?”
I nearly choke on my surprise. “You want to move here?”
“With Briggs gone, I have no reason to stay in Alberta. I have every reason to be here. I’ve never seen my son the way he is with you, Lilah. He’s in love. Completely in love with you.” There’s a burn in my throat I’m struggling to swallow, because he’s not inlove with me. He’s just really good at faking. I force a smile that feels brittle. “He wants babies with you. He wants to build a life with you, and I would really love a chance to be a part of that life. So, I’m asking you how you would feel if I asked Briggs for a little slice of land so that I could build a little cottage close enough to be a part of that life you’re building. I’m asking how you’d feel about making me a part of your family, Lilah.”
I want to cry. I want to sob ugly sobs into a vat of caffeine because this game just took a terrible turn, and I got a wrench stuck somewhere in my soul.
Because I want all that she’s saying. It’s the dream life come true. But it’s notmylife. It’s a facade.
So, I give her the only truth I can as I say, “I’d love if you were a part of my life, Shana.”
She beams like she won the sun and the moon combined. “Brilliant!” Her chin quivers with her own emotion. “Just brilliant.” She gazes down at her notes. “I’ve ordered roses for the wedding, just like you asked. Brilliant red ones.”
I findBriggs in his office, where Shana said he went after returning home from his morning ride to find me still in bed. He’s on the phone, talking about something I can’t begin to understand. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to be finished any time soon, though, so I point to the door and mouth, “Horses.”
When he gives me a chin dip, I slip back out the door. I call the building a barn, because it’s been styled to look like one. Though it’s nothing like any barn I’ve ever actually been in. It’s crisply clean with a whole apartment suite for the live-in stable man Daniel Alder hired and Briggs kept on.
I think if Briggs had the time, he’d prefer to do everything with the horses personally. When he talks about his stepfather and the life he’d lived on the farm when he was a boy, I get the sense that there’s a big part of him that longs for the quiet life of long days bumping along in a tractor over a field of crops. Of riding horses down a line of fence. Of late dinners at a farmhouse table and hot coffee with the sunrise.
But here he is, a man far too wealthy with a mind far too busy for a life so quiet.
He might have the soul of a farmer, but he was made for the rush of creation. And so, he creates.
But he gets that farm boy dose of peace every morning when he rides these beautiful beasts I’ve always thought of as crowbait.Thanks, Dad.
I grab an apple from a bucket outside one of the stalls and cluck my tongue to call over the pretty burnished red horse. She comes easily. I think she’s a she. She feels like a she, all regal and such.
I coo, “Hey, pretty girl.”
She blows a breath from her nose, nostrils twitching when I lift the apple.
“You like apples?”
“She loves apples,” Briggs says. He moves in close, grabbing my hand. “Stretch your fingers out. Don’t want her catching them with her teeth.”
I blink wide at him. “What?”
“She’s a gentle girl, but she’s got a bite as strong as any other. Your finger doesn’t feel any different to her than the core of that apple.” He adjusts my hand, and she takes her fruity treat happily. “Just like that.”
