Their little meeting in the Goatel broke up, and with Bobbie Jo and Tucker ducking outside first, Briar stayed inside and pulled out her phone, happiness streaming through her in a way she hadn’t experienced in a long, long time. She’d been smiling so much more since Thanksgiving, and she knew it had everything to do with Tarr.
Good news,she texted to him.I just signed an open-ended contract to stay on here at the farm!
Wow, that’s amazing, sweetheart,he sent back immediately.
Yeah, so you can’t get rid of me now.
I don’t want to get rid of you.
Briar sighed and smiled, and she could just hear Tarr saying that in his soft, Texan drawl. She imagined his hand sneaking around to her lower back and bringing her closer, and the scent of his skin and cologne in her nose. A flicker of panic moved through her that she’d started to feel so comfortable with him, and that he’d gotten in so close. She pushed it away, because today was a happy day, and she wanted Tarr in her life.
“You do,” she told herself, that becoming her truth for the day. “I want Tarr Olson in my life, and that’s the truth.”
Now, she just had to figure out how to believe it, live it, breathe it, without falling into full panic mode.
eleven
“Go on, Davy.” Tarr patted the horse’s rump to get him to move out of the stall. He’d been rearranging animals for a couple of hours now in anticipation of Rosie Young’s arrival at the facilities.
She’d been set to show up yesterday afternoon, but the storm had delayed her. Then her daddy had decided last minute to simply meet her in Las Vegas for the NPR finals, so she would be traveling with her older brother, Cole, and his wife, Rachel, instead.
Tucker and Bobbie Jo had been making appropriate preparations at the mansion for the past twenty-four hours, and that left Tarr and Ashton to prep the facilities, as Rosie would want to ride the moment she stepped out of the truck.
She reminded him so much of himself—travel wasn’t his favorite part of being on the rodeo circuit, and that he sometimes itched for the wide open sky and the feel of a horse underneath him.
“Go on, you lazy thing. You’re not even being ridden today, so stop complaining.” Tarr grinned as Davy finally started to move, and he strode along the length of the horse’s body to his neck,grabbing the lead rope so Davy couldn’t dictate where he wanted to go. The horse was one of their most stubborn, but Tarr loved him for it.
Rosie would be riding Pumpkin Spice, a pretty dark-orange horse, as well as a gray who knew how to cut close to the barrels. Tarr had been training them both for about a year now, and having a pro barrel racer here to work them would show him what they could really do. His own anticipation climbed as he got Davy settled in his new stall and went to get Cocoa Pebbles.
Rosie was bringing two horses with her, but it was a long drive from Coral Canyon, Wyoming, down to the Deerfield area of Colorado, and her horses would have been trailered for about ten hours by the time they arrived. Briar should be on-site to check them while Tuck, Bobbie Jo, and Tarr handled greeting the rodeo stars.
Cole Young had never ridden in the rodeo, but he worked at his wife’s family’s animal training facility—a ranch called Whispering Pines just north of Coral Canyon. They did all the same things that Tarr and Tuck were trying to do here: train animals for the rodeo.
Rachel’s two older brothers, another man named Cole, and Warren both rode in the rodeo, retreating to their wintry farm for rest in the off-season. She had another brother named Harrison, who did manual labor around their facility and taught music lessons in town.
The Walkers were a huge rodeo family stemming from Wyatt Walker himself—the Rodeo King and one of the most winning cowboys ever to ride. Tarr had grown upidolizingWyatt Walker, wearing his clothes and cologne and watching all of his videos. It took a special personality to be in the rodeo, because one not only had to have talent, but also charisma and presence—and Wyatt Walker possessed both in spades.
Tarr could still see the man’s double-handed wave as he pulled off his cowboy hat and waved both it and his free hand to the cameras. He’d later told reporters that he did that special wave to tell his momma and daddyhello, I love you, and thank you, and Tarr loved the man’s family values as much as he liked watching him ride.
Tarr’s heartbeat bumped through his body, because he hadn’t been this close to the rodeo in a long time. Tucker had been going to Texas to train Rosie for weeks on end. Sometimes Bobbie Jo went with him, especially now that they were married. Everyone would be leaving the farm by the weekend to get down to Las Vegas for the NPR finals, which started the following week.
Tarr had been checking the weather, and the ten-day forecast was barely out. So far—no snow. Having to deal with the farm and all the animals in a snowstorm like what they’d just gotten would be nearly impossible for him, Briar, and Ashton to handle by themselves.
Tuck had said they could call on the cowboys at the Hammond Family Farm, but it was over an hour for them to get here, and with snow covering everything, it would take even longer.
Tarr had simply been praying the weather would hold and the snow would melt until Tuck and Bobbie Jo returned.
He pulled a butterscotch candy out of his pocket and gave it to Cocoa Pebbles before even attempting to move her out of her stall. Once properly treated, the horse would do anything he wanted, and sure enough, she followed him without a lead rope into the stall down on the end.
The snow had melted a little bit more since Saturday, and his and Briar’s snowman was looking pretty pathetic. Grasses had started to poke through in the fields again, and once Rosie arrived and everything was situated with her, Tarr would let theanimals out to graze while Tuck ran Rosie through exercises and Tarr made notes on his horses’ performance.
He finished up with the horses and washed his hands in the barn sink, turning just as Tucker and Bobbie Jo entered.
Bobbie Jo had grown up on a corn farm in Oklahoma and claimed not to know much about rodeo or animals, but she certainly knew how to work hard. Tarr admired her for jumping into whatever task was necessary around the house and farm. He’d grown up on a big farm like this, sans the rodeo facilities, and it had taken them both months to figure out all the chores and maintenance that needed to be done and how to accomplish it.
Tarr much preferred physical work over sitting at any kind of desk and looking at any kind of paperwork. Therefore he’d never gone to college, and he’d been riding in saddles since he was three years old.
“How’s it looking out here?” Tuck asked.
