“You do want it, and you’re doing it.”
I shook my head. “That was before I knew I could have you.”
He was a stubborn thing; I didn’t even think he heard my last statement.
“I’m not letting you give this up for me.”
“Well, I’m not letting you give up this ranch for me,” I countered.
Just then, my phone began to buzz. I snagged it and leapt out of his lap. Jake grabbed my ankle, holding me captive for a moment.
“Tuck, I need you to say yes.” His eyes pleaded with me. “We’ll go wherever you go.”
I stared at him for a long moment, aware of the buzzing phone in my hand. “I love you too, Jake. So much.”
And then I turned and walked back toward the house.
“Hey!” Jake was on his feet in a flash, but I had already locked the door behind me.
“Shelb! You are not giving this up for me!” He banged on the door for effect.
“I love you too!” I called back, moving swiftly into my bedroom to quiet the agitated cowboy on the other side.
I answered the phone a little breathless. And a bit nervous. It was a strange thing to suddenly not care about something I’d cared about just last week. It wasn’t that I didn’t love photography; it was that there was no way I was moving to Boise to take this job. It all felt wrong. Jake didn’t belong there. Sophie didn’t belong there. And if they weren’t there, I didn’t belong there. There would be other jobs. There was no debate. I was turning it down.
“Hi, is this Shelby?”
“Yes.”
“Hi, this is Heather withWild Horizon. How are you?”
“I’m good, thanks,” I said, mentally calculating how to turn down a job I’d barely received when she went on.
“Well, first of all, I have to apologize. I’m sorry for the late email last night. I always forget about the time difference. I promise we don’t make our employees work all hours of the night, okay!” She laughed, a soft, tinkly sound in my ear.
My brow furrowed. “Time difference? Are you…out of town somewhere?”
“No, I live in Hawaii. Sometimes I get working late here, and I forget you guys are three hours ahead of us. But anyway, we’re so excited to welcome you aboard. The team in Boise was blown away by the images you sent.”
I drew in a breath; my mind was suddenly grappling with an idea. One that might satisfy Jake and be good for me. “Wait. I’m sorry. Are all the positions remote?”
Heather paused in her speech. “Um…no, not all of them. But quite a few are, actually. They can be, anyway, now that I think about it.”
“Because I’ve had a couple of changes in my circumstances since earlier this summer, and I was actually going to turn the job down, but if there is a chance it could be remote and I could live and work here, I’d love that.”
I heard the sound of shuffling through papers on her desk. “Well, let’s see. I don’t see why that wouldn’t work. I know there are a couple of other photographers who work from home. But they live in the area they’re assigned. But your area would cover a good portion of Idaho and western Montana, and that’s where you’re located, correct?”
“Yes.” I couldn’t keep the hope out of my voice.
Heather went on. “I’ll have to double-check with our managing editor, but I think I can confidently say it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Relief and excitement coursed through my body. I would have given it all up for Jake Evans. Without a moment’s doubt or hesitation. And I knew, without a doubt, he would have disrupted his and Sophie’s lives all over again for me.
This solved everything.
“You’ll have to come up to Boise a handful of times throughout the year for meetings and things like that. But it sounds like that might be worth it for you?”
A relieved grin crossed my face as I paced in my bedroom. “Yes. That all sounds perfect.”
