“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I beam at her, knowing exactly how to get what I want. To be fair, I’d do the same with her. She says jump, I jump.
“You play dirty, Weston Taylor. Real dirty.” She shakes her head at me, squinting her eyes. Even I can see the relief on her face because she’s getting a break
“When it comes to you, I don’t think I ever play dirty enough.” I wink at her. It’s true, though, there’s twelve years of missed time to make up for. She rolls her eyes.
“Okay, you pervert, get me out of here.” She lifts her arms, and I pull her out of the chair and into my embrace.
“Okay, but we’re gonna stop by the house first. You need to change into something comfortable.” I tap her ass a couple of times before letting her go and linking our hands together.
“You sure are bossy today.”
“Well, I take taking care of my girl very seriously. And it appears I’ve been slacking so I need to make up for it.” I give her hand a quick squeeze.
“You know what you’re right, pamper me, Weston.” She beams up at me, and fuck, I love it. The only thing I wake up wanting to do anymore is put a smile on her face and make her laugh.
“Not sure who told you pampering is done on the back of a horse, but you might want to have a conversation with them,” she says from behind me, her arm wrapped around my torso.
My body shakes with laughter. “You’re the one who brought up pampering. I just mentioned getting the hell out of that office.”
She pokes me in the rib from behind, causing me to fold in on myself. “I’ll make sure to ask more questions next time.”
“Speaking of asking questions, I have a game for us to play. Twenty questions. You’ve got a lot to learn about each other and catch up on. I think this would be a good way to do it.”
“Oh, good, horseback ride and an interrogation," she says with a mischievous smirk.
She may say this isn’t fun, but I know her; she loves being on the back of the horse with the fresh air blowing through your hair. It’s one of the best parts of having all this land. “Don’t lie, I know you love being on the back of the horse.”
“You're right. It is nice being back out here, and I am feeling much better now that I’m not in that office.”
I see my need to start putting the pieces of the past together. “Speaking of office, what's the favorite part of your job?”
“Starting the questions off with a bang, huh? I love watching things all come together. Even when they seem like they won’t, and you’ve got a million different balls bouncing in different courts,somehow things always work out. It’s fun managing the chaos. Do I get asked questions too?”
“Sure, we can make up the rules as we go.”
“Are you liking taking over the ranch?”
I consider her question not because I don’t enjoy it but because I want to answer it honestly. “Yes. But I’m also terrified. I don’t want to be the generation that loses the ranch. And I also want to set it up so that my kids will never have to worry about losing it.”
“I’ve seen the numbers. You guys aren’t in any trouble.”
“Yeah, I know that, but things can get quick. Equipment is expensive. Fires can happen, droughts, all sorts of things. I have a really hard time letting go of the things I can’t control.”
Not being able to let go of things I can’t control got me into this position. I thought I could control her future and make sure she was on a good path, and the only thing that did was break both of our hearts. Guess you could say I learned the lesson the hard way.
“Half the fun is learning how to roll with the punches. You were made to run this ranch. You do it with such joy. I was concerned you would hate it when we were in high school. You didn’t seem to love it here, but something must’ve changed.”
I consider her input, because she wasn’t wrong. In high school, I thought Windy Peaks had nothing to offer. “I can’t say if something really changed or if I learned to find the beauty in the little things and realize life doesn’t have to be all big and grand to be great. Okay, time for my next question. Who is your best friend in New York?”
She stays quiet for a beat longer than normal, and I wonder if I struck a nerve. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked this question. “This is gonna sound really pathetic, but I don’t have one. I have friends, but they’re all surface-level. People I have met in the office who have keptin contact with me after they moved on, and people I met in college. Honestly, the person I’m closest to is my seventy-year-old neighbor,” she says with a self-deprecating laugh. “God, I live a sad life.”
My heart cracks at this revelation. I thought she would have a big friend group, knowing how she is. Willow is kind and funny. She would do anything for anybody. It doesn’t make sense to me that she doesn’t have a whole entourage of friends. It also gives me a more realistic picture of what I set her up for in New York.
“Are people in New York that hard to get along with?” I probe.
“No, I think that there’s a part of me that doesn’t jive well with New York. You know, I’m different there. Not to bring up the past, but when I got to New York, I wasn’t the happiest person, and I think that really set the tone. I was a shell of myself for a long time, and when I finally came out of that depression, I didn’t really have it in me to try and make friends or at least friends like I had here. Maybe I was a little afraid of losing them, too. Like the fewer people I let in, the less I could be disappointed.”
This was supposed to be an adventure to make her feel better, and I feel like I’m weighing it down. I feel terrible knowing she didn’t have the support she could have had here. I’m glad she’s behind me and can’t see the tears in my eyes, like guilt is bubbling up on me and has nowhere to go.
