Weston
Monday rolls around faster than I can come to terms with. I helped deliver three calves in the middle of the night. Eight hours of sleep in the last three days has my eyelids feeling like sandpaper every time I blink. I need a stiff drink and a good night's sleep. Maybe I can convince Rhett to take the night shift with Maverick tonight. Sometimes I wonder how my old man did this when we were kids: up with babies or calves and still showing up as the best dad in the world.
My drive down the road is short. Usually, I get breakfast at the house, but I’m already running late, so I let my mom know I’ll just be heading straight to the office. I can grab a bite to eat after I meet up with the consultant Aspen hired. It feels foreign to have to delegate like this. My dad has always figured it all out on his own, but I decided to branch into something new for all of us in my first year because, apparently, I love to make my life more complicated.
The gravel rolls under my tires as I pull to a stop in front of the barn. I grab my thermos full of coffee and head on in. Maybe I can talk Aspen into putting in an IV and getting this shit straight into my veins. I’ve only got thirty minutes to prepare for the guy coming today. Aspen hasn’t given me a whole lot of information, which is right on par with her. I’m just grateful she got this set up. Hopefully, after working with this consultant, it won’t feel so chaotic, and I’ll be able to wrangle this ranch a little easier.
Looking around the desk, I try to make it look less like a clusterfuck of invoices, bills, and receipts. I don’t want this guy to walk in and think I don’t have my shit together. Which, in reality, I don’t, but he doesn’t need to know that immediately upon meeting me. They should find that out on their own, like everyone else.
I hear the unmistakable sound of tires coming down the road and I start to panic. Everyone who could potentially be coming up to the house is accounted for, which means the consultant is running early, and I’m going to have to shove this stack of papers into the desk and hide them instead of organizing them like I wanted.
Standing up from my chair, I stretch and shake out my hands, suddenly feeling a bit nervous. This is a huge step, and I don’t want to let my family down. Maverick is investing a lot of money to make this happen, and I don’t want my dumbass self to screw it up. I love this ranch, and I know I can run it successfully, but that doesn’t stop the turmoil churning in me.
When I step out of the barn, I see Vern’s old truck coming down the road, which is weird. It’s been a long time since that old man has been here. Probably since I was in high school, when his granddaughter spent more time at the ranch with me than she did in her own home. We visit frequently, but I’m always the one to drive to him since his vision has gone to shit. Call it my public service: keeping other drivers safe on the road.
I wave, my hat doing a shit job of keeping the sun out of my eyes, so I lean against the old wooden ranch rail fence, waiting for the beaten-up Chevy to come to a stop. When I see a high-heeled foot swing out of the truck instead of a worn-down boot, my heart starts to race. I know without a doubt that it is Vern's truck. My head snaps up to catch sightof the girl stepping out of the truck. Or I should say woman. There is nothing girlish about her.
Willow.
My Willow. My girl. Until I broke her heart the day before she was leaving town, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since.
But now she’s here, and she’s different. The softness of her features has faded, and her cheekbones now sit high on her face. Her brown hair is cut shorter, the natural curl gone, and instead it lays straight to her shoulders. You never would have caught her dead in a dress before. T-shirts and blue jeans are what she lived in, but now she’s rocking a dress that clings to the curves of her body, curves that were not there twelve years ago, and heels. Not her boots,heels.
That light that has always drawn me to her is still there. I can feel it. It’s like a beacon that calls me to her. It's been twelve damn years, and I can still feel it in my bones. The love I had for her. Who am I kidding,have, because the love I have for her is not in the past. The way my body reacts to being in her presence tells me I haven't done nearly as good a job of forgetting her as I had hoped. I’ve done everything in my power to squander the embers, but it seems the fire for her still burns.
While I am shocked to see her, I feel like my brain is short-circuiting, unable to form an entire thought. She doesn’t look surprised to see me. She takes a big, deep breath before coming to me. Her heels wobble across the uneven ground, and when she gets to me, she holds her hand out to me to shake, like I haven’t known her my whole life.
I take a moment to appreciate her up close. And damn it, she’s even more beautiful now. My fingers twitch at my sides, itching to reach out and cup her face, draw her near me. God, does it feel good to be close to her again. What I wouldn’t give for things to be different.
“Weston, nice to see you. I’m a little early for my eight o’clock meeting with you, but I wasn’t sure if the truck would even make it out here.” She looks over her shoulder at it, clearly avoiding my gaze.
I stand like an idiot, trying to form words, trying to comprehend how she’s here, and how she’s my eight o'clock. There are so many things I want to say to her. How I’ve regretted letting her go every single day since she left. How a piece of me has felt wrong and broken.
“What are you doing here?” is what I manage to spit out instead. I can barely hear anything over my pulse thumping in my ears.
She looks irritated, and I see that professional demeanor of hers slip for half a second as she takes in what I say. “As I said, I’m here for the meeting. I’m with the consulting company you hired to help you with updating the cabins and books.”
I shake my head, trying to get a grasp of the situation. “You’re a consultant?”
“I prefer the term project manager, but sure.” Her voice lacks all the softness I’m accustomed to her having, and I hate it. Standing in front of someone you miss with your whole being, only to miss them more, is a special kind of torture. A torture I’d gladly put myself through if it means getting to see her again. Even worse, she seems so unbothered. She isn’t really looking at me, but looking through me as if we didn’t spend the majority of our lives at each other's sides.
The summer breeze blows a few strands of her perfectly styled hair into her face, and it’s then that I see it. A fucking ring. She’s wearing a ring. How did I not know about this? My world feels like it’s collapsing in on me as I stare at it, the way it shines in the morning light. I hate it. My heart hasn’t ached like this in twelve fucking years, since we were on Vern’s front steps and I thought I was doing the right thing. God, if I only knew.
“Okay, well,” I start, struggling to find the words, “let’s head to my office and we can discuss what you need from me to get started.” I use the short walk to try and form a cohesive thought. And to figure out how I’m going to survive this summer. We walk in silence. When we reach the barn, I pull the door open and usher her inside. Her eyes sweep over the barn; it’s hard to call it that, because while it does have space to work and store the animals, it’s also where our office is. It used to just have the corral and stalls, but as we grew, Dad added on to the barn. Now it houses a small office space, a place where we can load and store hay to keep it safe from the elements and wildlife, and park our bigger equipment. “Can I get you something to drink?” I ask as she continues looking over the place.
“Wow, it looks so different in here,” she remarks. It’s the first mention that she even remembers being a part of this place. She’s so transfixed that she didn’t seem to hear my earlier question.
“Willow,” I try again, a little louder. “Can I get you something to drink?”
The tiniest furrow of her brow is the only indicator that hearing her name come out of my mouth stirred something in her. She starts shaking her head before saying, “No, I’m okay, thank you. Where is the office?” she asks, reminding me she’s here strictly on business.
I usher her toward the door on the left side, and we make our way in. I look around and scratch the back of my head. “It’s not much, but Mom was about ready to kill Dad with all of his papers stacked on the kitchen table, so he decided to add on to the barn and make it more of a shop-barn combo.”
The office is about ten by ten feet, and on the walls hang pictures of cattle and some of our family during our summer barbecues when we brand cattle. The desk sits by a small window toward our back, whereyou can look out at the trees and a small pasture. It lets just enough light in that the place doesn’t feel dreary. There are a couple of chairs for meetings or for the boys and me to hide from work and drink a couple of beers when a day has been particularly rough.
Willow takes in the space, revealing nothing in those green eyes of hers. “It’ll work just fine, thanks. Let’s take a seat. Today, I’d like to go over your expectations so I can better understand what you need from me. I’d like to be as detailed as possible so I can start work right away and ensure we hit the three-month deadline.”
In short, she wants to talk to me as little as possible. I can’t say I blame her. I always told myself if I ever saw her again, the first words out of my mouth would be I'm sorry. That I messed up and have regretted it every minute of every day since, but I get the feeling that wouldn’t go over too well right now, especially since she’s engaged. Maybe by the end of this, she won’t hate me, and I guess that’ll have to be enough.
