‘Even if she told you she didn’t love you anymore? Didn’t want a life with you?’
‘Yeah. I mean … I guess I’d do exactly what you did. Step back, give her space, but stay as close as possible.’
‘People think I don’t know that there’s a good chance she’ll never take me back. But I do. I’m fully aware. But if that happens, it’s not going to be because I walked – especially when she still needs me.’ Even when he had left, it had been almost a year after their baby’s stillbirth and he’d only gone one state over, to work a ranch in Utah, and he did it because he’d known Sierra had needed the time and space. ‘I know her, Mav. And she can’t go on like this much longer. I need to be close, so that when she breaks, I’m here for her.’
Maverick didn’t argue. ‘I get it.’
Benji bent over his work again. ‘So, you’ll let me know – when you tell her about the baby?’
‘Yeah. Of course.’
‘Thanks.’ And because he had unintentionally soured a really happy occasion, Benji ended with, ‘I’m happy for you, Mav.’
‘Than—’
‘But I really hope the kid looks like Nina.’
Mav snorted. ‘Dick.’
They worked quietly through the rest of the afternoon. While Mav cleaned and oiled tack, Benji took the trail riders out and then gave a lesson. And when Mav started to look tired and pale, Benji shoved him into the Jeep and sent him home under the threat of calling Nina.
Once Mav was gone, Benji wrapped up the day. He helped the wranglers groom, feed, and stall or blanket and turn out the remaining horses.
By six, the sun had gone, leaving the evening inky and blue.
Benji rested against the pasture fence and took a moment to look out at Hunt Ranch. The moon was already out and hung low, nestled between two folds in the distant mountains. The air was cold and fresh. It was quiet but for the occasional nicker or low, long moo.
When his cell phone vibrated in his pocket, he ignored it, enjoying the evening too much to care. But when it stopped and then immediately began again, he sighed and pulled it out of his pocket.
He frowned when he saw Mav’s name flash on the screen. ‘Mav?’
‘Hey, Markus and Nina just got back from dress shopping.’
‘Okay?’
‘Sierra apparently had to leave early for a birthday party at the resort, but I just called, and she never showed. Lucas is handling it, but Si won’t pick up her phone.’
Benji’s skin began to crawl. ‘She probably stopped for a bite to eat or …’Or what?Sierra did not miss resort events. Even when she wasn’t actively running them, she sat in her office and worked while she waited to deal with any emergencies. She had to be in control of everything. It was just how she was.
‘Benji … She found out about the baby. Nina wasn’t drinking at the dress fitting, and Sierra put the pieces together.’
Benji started moving towards his truck immediately.
‘Nina said she seemed okay, but’ – he lowered his voice, sensitive to Nina’s emotions – ‘you and I know that’s not true.’
He opened his truck door, climbed in. ‘I think I know where I might find her.’
Chapter 7
Benji parked outside of The Drifter and turned off his truck.
The bar was a watering hole on the outskirts of Santa Ynez. Unlike the little town, with its neat streets and quaint buildings with their faux western aesthetic, The Drifter was barely a shack. The roof sagged. The porch paint, which may have been white at one time, was chipped and faded. There was no sign, only a neon light that leaned against the inside of the window, facing out, and simply proclaimed: Beer.
While the town’s hotel and restaurant bars, which could whip up any sixteen-dollar cocktail for the city folk that filtered down for the weekend, were designed with tourism in mind, The Drifter was a place where locals came to get drunk. Not to drink. To get drunk. There was a difference.
Benji and Sierra had started meeting at The Drifter when she’d come home between her Junior and Senior years of college. They didn’t agree on it because they liked the ambience or the sticky bar top. They agreed on it because they had wanted to keep their relationship casual and, therefore, secret, and because nobody they knew ever frequented the dive bar.
But over the years it had become their place. Whenever they had wanted to get away from the bubble that was Hunt Ranch, they’d taken a night off and driven to The Drifter. They’d huddled in a booth or sat side by side at the bar and talked beneath the Eighties rock pumping from the old jukebox. Back then, it hadn’t mattered that Sierra was underaged; nobody cared. It hadn’t mattered that the white wine came from a box or that the beer wasn’t craft. Both were cold. And when he and Sierra were alone, neither of them noticed anyway.
