“What if they say nothing at all?” she wondered aloud as she watched Tarr circle the hood to get behind the wheel. How did he put up with that rejection day after day? Briar wasn’t sure she could, and she realized then that one of the reasons she hadn’t tried to get in touch with her parents was because it would hurt too badly if what she suspected was true—that they really were done with her.
A fresh wave of hurt ran through her even as Tarr asked, “Hey, you okay, sweetheart?”
She nodded. For right here, in this moment, she was okay. Overall, she was okay. When she thought of her parents ignoring her the way Wayne did Tarr, she wasn’t okay.
“How do you deal with the rejection?” she asked him.
Tarr glanced over to her, his eyes searching hers in a silent show of questioning.
“The rejection from your brother,” she said. “Tarr, what if my parents don’t respond the way Wayne hasn’t? What if theydorespond and say they don’t want to talk to me or don’t want to come to the wedding?”
A troubled look crossed Tarr’s face, and to his credit, he didn’t immediately answer. After several seconds, he said, “There’s only a few things I know, and one of them is that just like I get to make my own choices, so does everyone else on this planet. I can’t choose for them, and I can’t change them. So sometimes the problem is with us, and we have to fix what we’ve done wrong. We can apologize, we can send cards, we can try to make it right. But in the end, the other person gets to decide what to do with all of that. They get to decide what to do with theI’m sorryand the restitution. We don’t get to decide that, so we have to do the best we can and get to a place where we know we’ve done all we can do.”
“But how do you know that?” Briar asked.
“God tells me,” Tarr said simply. “And after a couple of weeks, when I think of Wayne again, and I ask,Should I text him again?If God says yes, then I do it. I’m still new at it too, especially when it comes to Wayne, but I’m getting better at listening to my gut and asking for help and then doing what feels right, even if it’s uncomfortable.”
Briar nodded, her thoughts moving in several directions now. Before she knew it, they had arrived at the HammondFamily Farm, a place that Briar had been several times since Thanksgiving. She smiled as Tarr rounded the bend past the big pine tree that stood sentinel over the farm.
“Man, I love this place,” Tarr said.
“Yeah?” Briar asked. “Why is that?”
“I was in rough shape when Tuck brought me here,” Tarr said. “And this place provided the exact refuge that I needed in my eleventh hour.” He sighed, gazing out his side window. “It saved me in a lot of ways.”
He glanced over to her. “Do you have a place like that?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Deerfield.”
Tarr nodded. “Then you get it.”
“Yeah, I think I do,” she said.
The farm she’d visited casually suddenly looked different now that she knew what it meant to Tarr.
He pulled up to the red barn, where several other cars and trucks had already parked. “Looks like the party’s already started,” he said jovially, as he loved nothing more than a good party.
Briar wasn’t as fond of them as he was, but she sure enjoyed his boyish enthusiasm, and she let him come collect her from the passenger side. She linked her arm through his and followed the signs and the balloons around the side of the red barn to a meadow on the west, where the afternoon sun painted everything in glorious hues of gold and warmth.
Cowboys mingled in jackets and boots and hats, most of them holding flutes of sparkly liquid in their hands. Briar and Tarr joined Tuck and Bobbie Jo, who stood with Tucker’s brother, Deacon, and an older couple that Briar had not met.
“This is my momma and daddy,” Tuck said, indicating the people at his side. “This is our vet tech. She works a ton with Bobbie Jo and the goats, but she checks on our rodeo horses every single day too.”
“It’s great to meet you,” Briar said. “I didn’t catch your names.”
“Gray,” the older man said, reaching out to shake Briar’s hand. “And my wife, Elise.”
She looked at Tucker, who seemed to be made of half of each of them, and then Deacon, who’d definitely come from his daddy but sure didn’t have a lot of his momma’s lighter features.
“Deac’s looking to build himself a new house here,” Tarr said, his voice entering the conversation easily. “Because Gray and Elise here are planning to move back to Ivory Peaks.”
He beamed at them like they’d made a great choice. “Is that still the plan?”
“Yep,” Deacon said, while Gray and Elise simply nodded along.
“It’s a beautiful day for a wedding,” Briar said into the somewhat awkward silence.
“It sure is.” Elise smiled at her and added, “Tuck and Bobbie Jo speak very highly of you.” She shot a glance over to Bobbie Jo herself.
