Mom presses her fingertips to her lips. Dad, though, narrows his eyes. Then he reaches in the drawer of the side table next to him.
I'm not sure what I'm expecting, but when he pulls out his cigar box, and then takes out two Cubans and hands one to me, I'm honestly pretty damn stunned.
"What's this about?" I ask.
Dad nods. "Well, Ledger, truth is I've been waiting for you to show up here and tell it to me straight. Tell me what you really want. I wanted you to want this ranch."
I lift my eyebrows, looking over at my mother. She smiles back at me. "Really?" I ask. "This was about me showing up here and telling you that what I really want, deep down, is to run this place?"
My dad nods. "I didn't know if you really did. I didn't want to hand over my heart and soul to you if you didn't really care. But now you're coming here and owning your legacy, and well, that changes things. Hell, it changes everything." He clips off his cigar and I clip off mine. We both light them and I take a puff.
"I never smoke these things," I say.
He grins. "Good, they're terrible for you. But this is reason to celebrate."
"Yeah?"
He nods. "Yes, Ledger, it is."
"You'll let me work for you, honestly? You'll let me move back home and do the whole thing?"
My dad smiles. "It's about damn time. Don't you think?"
10
Liv
After my shower, I braid my long hair and put on my most comfortable pair of blue jeans and a sweater, even though it's still warm outside. I slide on a pair of flip-flops and pause in the kitchen.
The cowboys and my aunt and uncle are all at the dining hall, and I'm grateful to be alone in the ranch house. It's quiet and still, and I wonder if Ledger's eating dinner with everyone else, sitting around a table with Jack, chowing down on whatever Aunt Louisa cooked up for tonight.
My heart aches at the thought of what he must think of me.
I exhale, trying to piece together what exactly happened out there today.
Everything about the afternoon was so perfect, so idyllic and memorable. Until it all fell to pieces.
In the refrigerator, I grab an apple and a stick of string cheese. I eat the cheese as I walk out toward the willow tree next to the corral. The only horse that is out is that one angry stallion named Flame that Ledger warned me about. I look into his eyes as he grumbles at the ground, and I wonder about the pain he's been through. When he notices me, he pins his ears back and pinches his nostrils.
I lick my lips, considering the pain that Chestnut went through. I exhale.
I pull my phone from my back pocket, hating the fact that I don't even have Ledger's phone number. I'm not ready to call him even if I did. But I do feel ready to call Catherine. After all, she's been with me through thick and thin. She was the one who was at my side when I lost Ches, and she's been my faithful friend since long before that. I send her a quick text. Can you talk?
My phone rings immediately, and I pick up. "Hey," I say. "You're not busy?"
"Not for you," she says. "What's going on?"
I give her the gist of what my life has been like over the last 48 hours. The way Ledger made me feel after he got me on a horse.
"Gosh," she says. "He must be pretty special."
"Yeah, he is," I tell her. "And on the horse ride, we kissed."
"Okay, details, please, now!" she demands.
I laugh, and I give her a few but not all of them. But enough for her to understand that Ledger is more than just some cowboy I met.
"Okay, this sounds really serious," she says. "Like, are you guys together together? I mean, I know you've never been with a man before, been with anyone, Liv. I can't imagine you'd be with him unless..."
"Yeah," I say, filling in the blank, "unless it was real."
"Exactly."
"There's something here, something really special. I swear to God, I've fallen in love in the space of a day, which would sound literally insane, except it happened."
"Okay, so why are you on the phone with me on the verge of tears?" she asks.
"How do you know I'm on the verge of tears?"
"Because I can practically hear your chin wobbling and you're alone and it's dinnertime and none of this makes sense. What's up, Liv?" she asks.
"You sure you're not too busy?"
"Too busy for this?" she asks. "Liv, why are you acting so weird? I'm your best friend. This is the stuff that matters. This is the stuff of life. I want to know what's happening, just like I wanted you to know what was happening with me the other day at the competition. We've got to be here for one another, for the highs and the lows. Which is kind of confusing because a second ago I could have sworn we were talking about a high, but the way you're sounding right now, it makes me think this is a low. What's wrong?"