Ruby was confused and scared and grieving in a way that didn’t make sense to her. I kept her home from day care. We skipped barrel lessons. I stayed with her, answering the same questions over and over, holding her through the tears, letting her sleep in my bed when she woke up crying in the middle of the night.
I would do it all again.
But I still hated that Shelby was hurt.
By the time Ruby starts to steady, Thanksgiving is around the corner. And with it comes something I’ve been both dreading and hoping for.
Cheyenne Briggs.
Candy’s little sister.
My dad’s private investigator tracked her down in Florida. After their parents had died, she had gone to live with her best friend’s family. They moved. She moved with them. Now she’s a cheerleader at the University of Miami, studying journalism, living a life that Candy would no doubt have been happy to know she was.
When she found out she had a niece, she didn’t hesitate. She booked a flight to Wyoming to meet Ruby over Thanksgiving.
Ruby is thrilled. Finding out her mother had a sister, that she had an aunt, was a big deal. She needs that connection even if she’s too young to understand it.
I plan to surprise Ruby today when Cheyenne and I both are there to pick her up from day care.
So, now, I’m sitting in The Prairie Pie, staring at the door like a nervous teenager waiting for a blind date.
I spot her the second she walks in.
She looks like Candy. Not exactly, but enough to twist something in my chest. Same hair. Same smile. Just … brighter. Less worn down by life.
I stand as she approaches.
“Waylon?” she asks tentatively.
“That’s me. You must be Cheyenne.”
We shake hands, then sit in a booth and order lunch. She talks—about school, cheer, her friends, her boyfriend, who plays football for the University of Miami Hurricanes. She’s vibrant and funny and full of life.
Everything Candy could have been.
“So, you and my sister?” she asks as she blows on a slice of margarita pizza.
“We were coworkers. Friends, I guess you’d say.”
She raises a brow. “Coworkers?”
“Yeah, she danced at a club I worked at. And we were friendly.”
“Oh,” she says. “I guess that makes sense. The dancing part. Freya danced her whole life.”
“She did?”
She nods as she swallows. “I mean, not that kind of dancing, but jazz, tap, ballet. She loved it.”
“Wow. That’s …” The words die on my tongue.
“She was a cheerleader too. Like me. Only she was better. She was supposed to cheer for the Hoosiers.”
“What happened?” I ask the question I’m dying to know.
She shrugs. “She met a boy the summer before she was supposed to leave for Bloomington. He was cool. Kind of a rebel.”
She grabs another slice. “My parents hated him. Thought he was too old for her. But Freya fell hard and fast. He supposedly had some job lined up in California, and he convinced her to go with him. Mom and Dad were furious. They told her if she left with him, she could never come home.”
