Today I want to journal my thoughts–empty my brain, if you will. It will be interesting to look back on it in a few months after Blair has been here for a while. I have no doubt that she’ll fit in with us though. Call it a gut feeling.
Sitting down on the big handmade bench Will made from old Oak offcuts he found stored in Gramps’s underground bunker, I pull out my small leather-bound notebook I found amongst Gramps’s belongings when we first arrived. I haven’t shown it to anyone because it was hidden amongst papers in his old desk and had my name etched into it.
That same desk still sits pride of place in my bedroom and the journal is always with me. It’s like I’m keeping Gramps close to me.
Gramps always understood me, even when I was a moody kid who was sick of being scared of everything all the time. He never made me feel less for having an anxiety disorder, and as with everything he did for us kids, he just wanted to make life easier for me in any way he could.
Gramps picked up on my anxiety during one of the many summer trips my siblings and I made here while growing up. Where my brothers would be adventurous and curious about everything the mountain, the ranch,andthe town had to offer, I held back.
Slowly but surely, he encouraged me to embrace my thoughts, worries, and constant overthinking and take little steps out of my comfort zone. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. Ridley Cooper was a mountain man born and bred. He was tough, he was strict, and to a lot of people on the outside looking in, a little… eccentric.
To me, he was a hard shell with a soft, gooey center. And yes, different to anyone else I’d ever met. My love, adoration, and respect for the man that helped shape the person I am today.
So, when his lawyer told us the land, its holdings, and half of the mountain ridge would be ours if me and my brothers all moved to the ranch, I didn’t flinch. I missed my brothers, and our lives had all pulled us in different directions. Gramps somehow knew we needed to reconnect and be together again. I knewIneeded to be back with my family again too.
We’ve been here six months now, and it wasn’t long after we arrived that we knew we could never leave this place. Even before Will met Birdie, the mayor’s daughter, and before Case reunited with Birdie’s best friend, Isla, who he’d unknowingly met and forged a connection with the night before Gramps’s willreading. Now both couples are engaged and are having a double wedding in four weeks’ time here on the ranch.
There’s also a family lore at play which helped bring Birdie and Isla into Will and Case’s lives. The belief is that a spirit living deep within the mountain calls soulmates to those linked to the Cooper bloodline as a reward for protecting and caring for her lands.
It seemed unbelievable at first, but witnessing the mountain’s Call for ourselves, first with Will and Birdie, then with Case and Isla, it’s impossiblenotto put our trust in fate. We’ve even met the author of many books that chronicle the prophesy, Aster Hollingsworth.
That’s not to say I’m sitting here waiting for my soulmate to suddenly burst into my life and announce herself. For all we knowJudecould be next in line to meet the love of his life.
With a pen in hand, I open the cover and run my fingers over the quote written in my grandfather’s unmistakable penmanship.
"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it." - Maya Angelou
Then I lose myself in the page, writing down my thoughts about the day that’s just past and the one ahead of me, my feelings right now and the anticipation of meeting Blair. I want her stay here to be the best it could possibly be. I want her to feel included, like one of the family.
Once my head is clear, I carefully pack the notebook away and stand up and close my eyes for a moment. Taking a deep breath, I savor the fresh and clean mountain air and let the familiar whispers of wind sneaking through the bamboo ground me.
That’s when I hear it, a high-pitched screech in the distance followed by the unmistakable grating bray of Grumps the donkey. Muffled yells and squawks get closer and louder, then Ihear the heavy thud of hooves hitting the ground at a quick pace.Too quick. Too close.
A sense of foreboding replaces my calm and before I can grab my stuff to go investigate, the bamboo stalks shake and suddenly the verylastperson I ever thought I’d see on the mountain–my mountain–appears in front of me.
So much so, I consider the possibility that I’ve slipped into a fugue state and somehow time-traveled back to the Boston University quad more than ten years earlier.
That’s because the woman I never met but felt an intense connection to, a stranger who lit up the space around her from half a football field away and who changed the trajectory of my life forever, is standing wide-eyed and mussed up in front of me wearing a pair of pink polka-dot pajamas.
It’sher. My Boston crush. The gorgeous stranger I could never speak to. She’shere.
I shake my head and close my eyes before opening them again, hoping to reset my brain. It doesn’t work though because she’s still standing there, and she’s looking at me like she already knows me.
“Hey, Case. Sorry to disturb your meditation. Did that donkey of yours trample this way? He stole my…” Her eyes go from wide (and beautiful) to warm (and beautiful) before her gaze narrows. Meanwhile, I stand there completely motionless, just staring at her.
Did I hit my head or something?Because I swear that the girl I always wished I could talk to not only just spoke to me, she thinks I’m my brother…Seriously. Is the universe laughing at me or what?
“Uh…” Yep, that’s the only word I manage to say. I shake my head again.
She looks at me and tilts her head. “Right, not a morning person. Got it. I’m not either usually, but it got light real earlytoday and I decided I should try and acclimatize rather than stick to my old time zone, you know?”
I count backward in my head as I try to regather my scattered thoughts.
Here I was thinking I was strong and steady andnothingcould rattle me now, let alone take me back to the twenty-somethin’ college student who struggled to get out of his head in social situations.
Then it hits me and I freeze. There’s only one person at the ranch right now that I haven’t met.
Blair. My gorgeous blonde secret crush with splatters of sun-kissed streaks in her hair and a smile that could bring world peace… her name is Blair.
