Page 115 of Bailey

Bailey was sure of it too, and she didn’t find a single problem with any of the horses Cash had bought and transported back to his ranch.

“Oh, brother,” he said as she finished up.

“What?” Bailey found him eyeing his phone, and she hoped nothing too serious had happened.

“Nothing,” Cash said. “It’s just—well, I guess it’s something.” He grinned over to Lark as she ducked through the rungs of the fence. “Joey and Adam had their baby.”

Lark sucked in a breath, and she immediately dug in her jeans pocket for her phone. “They did? What did they name her?”

Bailey wanted to know too, as she felt some older-sister feelings for Joey. She shouldn’t, she knew, but her emotions surrounding the Youngs had always been confusing at best, and downright impossible to figure out most of the time.

“Eliza Eden,” Cash said, his thumbs zipping across his screen.

“That’s so stinking cute.” Lark’s focus remained on her phone too, and Bailey suddenly felt completely out of place. “Oh.” The word fell from Lark’s mouth. “She’s beautiful.”

Bailey couldn’t help hearing how wistful Lark sounded—or realizing how she’d just used the same word for a horse and not a baby.

She pulled out her phone to see what price she’d told Cash for today’s exam—and her heartbeat stopped right there in her chest.

She had over forty messages too, and she quickly tapped her fingerprint to the screen to get her phone open. Another tap, and the breath left her body.

“I’ve been added to the Young Family Good News Thread.” She looked up, having just read verbatim from Adam’s initial text message. She held up her phone, as if Lark or Cash would be able to confirm or deny what now sounded like an accusation in her own ears.

Cash drew closer, his eyes blitzing around as he looked at her screen. “Sure looks like you have. I didn’t even realize Adam had started a new thread.”

“His parents are on it too,” Lark said. “You must not have gotten to their messages yet.”

“Nope.” Cash didn’t seem concerned that there were literally over one hundred people in the group message, but as his text popped up in Bailey’s notifications, she sure was.

She’d also gotten a text from Reeves, and that made her pulse bounce in a strange way too. She backed out of the Good News Thread and over to his message.

I’m in a group message with all the Youngs?

PS, you are too. Joey had her baby, and Adam started it and apparently included both of us.

She smiled, because she could only imagine Reeves’s surprise at being included. She’d tried to tell him the Youngs didn’t set great boundaries. Once you were in with them, they didn’t let go. Ever.

I tried to warn you about them, she sent to him. How was the drive to Colter Bay?

I’m almost there, he said. It’s cloudier than I’d like, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.

They’d had Stockton and Ronnie over for dinner a couple of nights ago, and while Bailey had told Reeves she needed time, she still didn’t know what for. She didn’t want to break-up with him, but she also felt stuck.

Yes, that was the best word for how Bailey felt. Stuck. She didn’t want to go backward with Reeves, but she wasn’t sure how to move forward.

She tapped over to her maps and found Reeves’s pin. He seemed on top of Colter Bay Village, where he’d be camping along the banks of Jackson Lake this weekend. Just another overnight trip, but Bailey worried about him, despite the roads there and back being paved, his satellite capabilities, and literally being able to see where he was twenty-four-seven.

Stay safe, and come home quick, she sent to him, her thoughts once again flowing toward what home meant to her. Somewhere warm and dry, safe from the outside elements, sure. But also safe from the cares of the world, the expectations of others, the heaviness of life.

She lifted her head and turned back toward Cash and Lark. “I’ll send you an invoice,” she said.

Cash lowered his phone and tucked it away. “Thanks so much, Bailey.” He moved right into her and hugged her. “I’m sure you could ride horses at Uncle Tex’s or Bryce’s any time you wanted.”

She smiled as she stepped out of his big cowboy embrace. He put one arm around Lark, and the two of them smiled at her. “I’m sure,” she said, though she wasn’t going to do any such thing. “You two have a good weekend.”

“You too,” they said together, and Bailey left them in the pasture with their trio of new horses. She got behind the wheel of her SUV, only a few minutes from home. She really should head back to the clinic and finish up some paperwork, but she couldn’t make herself continue straight once she left Cousins Creek.

She went right instead, easing onto the northern highway, and arrived at her house only a few minutes later. Rather, she went past her driveway to Reeves’s, and pulled all the way to the end of his lane, his house on Bailey’s left.