Mary makes a heartbroken little noise, and I see her hand twitch on the table. It's like she wants to reach out to me but doesn't know how. Part of me wishes she would. Another part of me says to reach out to her instead. I ignore both.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “I can’t imagine how hard it is to lose someone like that.”
I swallow against the grief that makes it hard to breathe, but it feels a little less oppressive that it usually does. It still aches, but the sharp edge of it has faded just a bit.
“Thanks,” I say, my voice tight. “Anyway. That bonfire was our first date. We got so wrapped up in talking that we didn’t notice how big the fire got, and it almost set the whole forest in flames when the wind came through and blew it back toward the trees.”
Mary’s brows lift in surprise, and she lets out a nervous little laugh as she chews the last of her fries.
“Laura was a lot smarter than me, and she managed to douse the fire before we burned the forest down,” I tell her, with a grin. “I decided that night that I wanted to marry her, and when I finally got the ranch properly up and running, I named it afterthe wood we burned that night. I wanted a permanent reminder of that night… and of Laura.”
Mary’s smile is sweet and soft, tears glistening at the corners of her eyes. Al is the only other person I’ve ever told this story to, and back then, I cried the whole way through it. This time, though, I feel a little lighter, like saying it out loud brought some of that joy back into my life.
“Thank you for telling me,” Mary says quietly.
From anyone else, it would’ve sounded rote or awkward, just something to say to fill the silence. But from her it sounds genuine.
Again I ignore the urge to reach for her hand, but I don’t feel guilty about wanting to this time. This time, I feel like maybe the grief is finally starting to fade, and I might just have a chance at actually living again, rather than just surviving.
Who would’ve thought that a city girl from a marketing firm would make me rethink my whole damn outlook on life?
If Laura’s watching from heaven, I bet she’s laughing her ass off at me.
MARY
I’m being quiet, which is unlike me. Even though Everett hasn’t known me for long, I think he’s picking up on the shift in my mood.
It’s not bad, exactly, just… different.
I know better than to flirt with my clients, or get involved with them at all. Unlike my little sister, I have no interest in marrying rich and living off my husband’s credit card. I’m not here to find a partner or even a friend—I’m here to do my job. Looking at Everett as anything other than a client will put my job at risk, and if I start thinking of him personally, I run the risk of completely ruining all my hard work rebranding the ranch.
My job is to figure out what an outsider wants to see from a business, and deliver that in a neat package to consumers. Developing a connection of any sort will only cloud my judgment.
There’s just something about Everett that keeps him at the front of my mind, no matter how hard I try to ignore it. It’s not just attraction, although I’m not blind or stupid enough to deny that he’s absurdly good looking. I think it has more to do with the softness that he tries so hard to keep buried. He shows thisburly, grumpy frown to the world, but the second he thinks no one is paying attention, he’s nothing but gentle.
Even when he looks so exhausted that I’m surprised he’s on his feet, he’s patient with the cows and chickens and even the people on the ranch. He teaches the youngest ranch hand about the importance of proper feed for all the animals, and he answers every single one of their questions thoroughly, even if he grumbles his way through the explanations. When we walked down the sidewalk together, he walked on the side of traffic, and he offered me his arm when we crossed the street without thinking. His eyes lit up when he was talking about his deceased wife in the diner, and there was something so achingly sweet in the way he said her name.
There’s this tenderness at his core, and it makes me want to brush away the dirt and the pain that surrounds that soft spot. It makes me want to take care of him.
I almost laugh at the idea. This isn’t an old romance movie, and I’d have no idea what I was doing, anyway. I dated one guy for a whopping six months while we were both in college, and we were both so busy that it hardly counts as a relationship. Men my age are either entirely too immature or focused on climbing the corporate ladder, so I made the decision several years back to shelve the idea of dating for now and pursue my own career.
Pursuing anything with Everett, or even trying to, would be flat out idiotic.
It’s a relief when we finally come across a little hotel with a neon sign in the window announcing vacancy.
“Oh, good,” I say with a sigh, looking up to smile at Everett. “We’ll be able to get rooms for the night. I was starting to worry that there weren’t any hotels out here.”
A grin just barely touches the corner of his lips as he pulls the door open for me.
“There’s this place, and there’s also a motel up the road a bit,” he says. “If we’d broken down in the next town over, though, we’d be screwed.”
I offer him a theatrical shudder of horror as I step gratefully into the air conditioned lobby. It’s a small place, boasting cracked linoleum and the set-in stench of cigarette smoke, but it’s definitely better than no hotel at all. I’d probably have had a meltdown if we’d broken down somewhere further away and had to walk to another town for a place to spend the night.
These boots may be comfortable, but they’re not made for walking long distances.
The woman behind the counter glances up as we step inside, her wrinkled face creasing in a well-practiced smile.
“Hello there.” Her voice sounds like she’s been smoking a pack a day for about forty years straight, but she also looks like she’d make a mean apple pie. “Are you two looking for a room for the night?”
