“I try to make it as inviting as possible.” She moved over to the windows and pushed a button. Shades started to lower, and the lamps came on as the room dimmed. “I hope this is okay. I find the light to be so harsh near midday, and I want us to have a relaxing, calm first session.”
“It’s fine,” Briar said. “I really have no idea what to expect. I’ve never been to a counselor before.”
“Are you nervous?”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I barely like talking to people I know.” She laughed lightly, though she wasn’t kidding.
Doctor Margrint smiled a real smile, and that put Briar further at ease. “So tell me why you decided to come see me.”
Briar tried to find the words that would sum up the thirty-one years of her life. How did one do that in only a few sentences? Would it sound like she was making excuses? She didn’t want to do that—she needed to own her own culpability for the person she was, and the life she currently lived.
“That’s a big question,” Briar said. “So I guess I’ll just start with the most basic thing: I’d like to learn how to love myself. See, I have this amazing boyfriend who loves me and wants to marry me, and I don’t think I’m lovable. So I have a hard time believing the things he says, and I want to get to a place where Ican and do believe him—and that I know what it feels like to be loved, and to love another person.”
Doctor Margrint didn’t scoff or smile at her like she was simple. She nodded, made a note on her tablet, and looked at Briar again. “There’s a lot here, so let me start with this. Do you think you can’t recognize love?”
“I can for horses and dogs and friends,” she said. “But romantic love?” She shook her head. “I’ve never experienced it, and I’ve actually had quite a few bad experiences, so….”
The doctor looked at her tablet again. “This says you were a professional stunt rider for years.”
Briar’s throat closed, though she knew she needed to go through this conversation to find closure to the stunt riding. “Yes,” she said.
Just think of Tarr, she coached herself.You’re doing this for yourself, so you can be with Tarr.
Buoyed by that thought, she opened her mouth and started telling the story of the woman she used to be…in the hopes that she could find the things still infecting who she was now and preventing her from becoming who she wanted to be.
forty-two
Tarr rounded the back of the truck and lowered the tailgate, still whistling softly. “Last load, buddy,” he said to Wiggins, who’d followed him out of the cab. If only the dog could help carry in some boxes.
He grinned as he pulled a couple of bins toward him, then groaned under the weight of them as he settled them in his arms and started toward his new house.
He’d been delayed in moving in for an additional couple of weeks, but he’d moved his RV to the cement pad that ran along the side of his house and into the backyard, where he still needed grass and a fence.
“And once I get that fence in, bud, I’m going to get you a doggy friend to play with.” He grinned at Wiggins, whototallyunderstood what Tarr was saying.
He labored up the seven steps to his front porch, which he’d stained himself, and through the open front door. His air conditioner pumped against the rising heat of the May morning, with June only a week away. Tarr loved summer in the Rocky Mountains, and he loved that he could stand on his back deck and see those peaks against a sunset every single evening.
Right now, the house felt like a bunch of scattered pieces that needed to be gone through, sorted, and put together. He’d pulled everything out of storage, packed up his belongings in the RV, and had purchased plenty of new items for his new home too.
“Incoming,” he said, and Briar looked up from the box she was currently elbow-deep into.
“There’s room on the table,” she said quickly, and Tarr quick-stepped past the end of the couch and into the dining area at the back of the house. He slid the boxes onto the surface, instant relief rushing through his shoulders and back.
“Wow, that was too heavy for me.”
“Someone’s gone soft since his rodeo days.”
Tarr found her smiling at him, and she radiated so—much—life. She lifted her hands out of the box, a pair of crystal clear glasses in her possession. “I’ve almost got your new dishes put away,” she said. “Do you want a tour of your own house?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He joined her on the other side of the island, happy to listen to the sound of her voice as she detailed where she put his bowls, plates, and plastic containers for leftovers. She had a reason for all of her placements, but Tarr didn’t much care. He simply loved being with Briar, and talking to Briar, and inhaling the peachy floral scent of Briar.
She’d started counseling a little over a week ago, and she went to town three times a week to talk to a therapist. Tarr still recognized her as the blue-eyed beauty who’d snapped at him with all the strength of a crocodile, but she’d come even more alive since starting her sessions.
He hadn’t asked her what she spoke with her counselor about, choosing instead to let her lead those conversations. She’d told him about the first session, detailing how much she liked the office and the staff, and that the doctor had made her feel like she could say anything and not be judged.
“We started at the beginning,” she said, and she hadn’t said much else after that. Tarr himself was still learning bits and pieces about Briar and her past, though he supposed the same could be said for anyone he knew. Heck, sometimes he thought he knew himself better than he did, and something would come up and he’d have to evaluate what he wanted to do, the person he wanted to be known for, and how to proceed.
Tucker had signed two new cowboys from his open house event, one of them the reigning champion in calf roping.
