Tarr fell a little bit more in love with Briar every single day, though he’d been trying to hold himself back. She called him on the way home from every one of her watercolor classes—three weeks running now—and he loved listening to her talk about all she’d learned and then seeing the product in her studio later that day.
“Did you cancel your doctor’s appointment?” he asked. “I thought that was today.”
“It’s next week,” Briar said, some of her shininess fading. “And I’m going to be bringing home dinner that night, so will you have a roaring fire going in your RV?”
“You want to eat at my place?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. You’re going to have Wiggy already, and I’ll bring dinner, and we can put a movie on your big screen.” She grinned at him, and Tarr simply shook his head.
“I’m so sick of you making fun of me about that TV,” he said. “It works, and itisbig for the wall it’s on.”
Briar tipped her head back and laughed, revealing that slender throat that, oh, Tarr loved to kiss.
“All right, well, I should be home anytime after two-thirty,” she said. “Soup will be ready by four.”
“Four o’clock,” Tarr said, glad to have a mini-date on the horizon, though he saw Briar every single day. They usually spent evenings together in her cabin, which was far bigger and more functional than his RV.
Sometimes he cooked and sometimes she did, or sometimes they made a meal together. Then they’d play cards, or she’d show him her paintings and she’d paint while he ran through social media and answered emails. Sometimes she put on a movie while he made notes about his horses, or he’d watch one of his documentaries while she transcribed her veterinary notes.
He’d taken her on formal dates to restaurants and movie theaters, but it was cold, and neither one of them minded staying home and simply spending time with one another.
Briar started to get down from the fence, and Tarr’s heartbeat skipped and bounced at him. “Hey, real quick,” he said.
She turned back to him, her expression open and unassuming.
“I was thinking, since you’re so caught up,” he said. “Maybe you’d want to come to church with me this weekend.”
She’d have to get pretty far behind in only one day to not be able to go with him, and yet she hesitated. Tarr could go to church by himself, and he did. He also knew a relationship would be easier if their religious beliefs were the same, and she could encourage him when he didn’t want to attend church, and he would do the same for her. Having to be the strong one all the time wore on him, and while Briar supported him in lots of other ways, he wanted his faith to be included on that list.
“All right,” she said, her voice pitching up into a slightly higher octave. “I think I can probably go.”
“You’ve got lots of real pretty dresses,” he said, as if that would help her decide.
She nodded and pressed her lips together. “I’ve heard you and Tuck talk about the pastor, so maybe it’ll actually be good.”
“It varies,” Tarr admitted. “But most of the time it’s great, and it’s only an hour, and I’ll get to hold your hand.” He grinned at her.
Briar smiled back. “All right. See you later.” With that, she swiped her clipboard up from the bottom bench in the bleachers, tossed a wave over her shoulder, and continued toward the stables.
Tarr went that way too, entering through a different gate and taking his time as he went through Daisy Chain’s cool down andaftercare. He finally put her in her stable with a bag of oats and fresh straw, and then he went to stand at Tuck’s side and watch Rosie ride. It wasn’t surprising to him at all that she’d won Female Rookie of the Year and been the barrel-racing champion. She was incredible in the saddle, and her horses trusted her explicitly. She never made a mistake, and as she finished her ride, Tarr said, “How do you even train her?”
Tucker sighed. “I have to look stuff up on the internet, man.” Then he ducked through the fence and started walking toward her, calling, “That was good, but your left elbow is coming up too much when you make that second turn.”
Tarr chuckled to himself. “Left elbow.” No barrel racer needed to be told about theirleft elbow. But Rosie was paying Tuck good money to be here to train and to become the best, and Tucker did know how to bring that out in a rider.
Tarr left the arena, automatically falling into a prayer. First, that everyone at the farm would be kept safe, animal and human alike, and second, that he and Briar would have an amazing afternoon and evening together.
“Bless her to like me,” he whispered as he got behind the wheel. It was something he’d asked God for several times in the past, but as Tarr uttered the words, something dark entered his mind.
This was not the thing he should be asking for.
He couldn’t make Briar like him any more than God could, and he didn’t want her to be coerced anyway. He frowned to himself as he adjusted the heater, pressed the button to get his seat warming up, and backed away from the arena.
“I just feel like she’s such a match for me,” he said, starting to puzzle through his feelings by speaking out loud. “And why would I feel like that if she’s not meant to feel the same?”
God, of course, did not answer him, but Tarr continued to talk, telling the Lord, “I do want to get married and havea family, whatever that looks like. And not only because my momma wants me to, Lord, but because it feels like whatIwant. And you know, I want it with her.”
He looked left and right when he reached the stop sign and then pulled out onto the highway, heading for the grocery store to get the bread bowls and broccoli salad that Briar liked. “She’s a good woman,” he said next. “And that’s all I need: someone good who can keep me in line and remind me that I want to be good too. She gives me someone to work for, because I want to be the man she deserves. That’s not bad, is it?”
