John and Chip weren’t kept at arm’s length, and I’d often hear the rumble of masculine laughter coming from the tractor shed as the men did their best to fix broken engines.
Summer had been kind to Cherry River with endless long, warm, sunny days, and somehow, with Jacob’s smile, the proverbial cloud lifted from this place, and a new chapter began.
One that I hoped wouldn’t just last for one book but for always. This place needed true happiness. The veil of perpetual grief needed to be shredded.
It wasn’t that I didn’t understand or honour the hole left by Ren’s death, but this place couldn’t continue to be a graveyard. Della had to remember how to laugh without tears. Jacob had to learn how to live without fear. And everyone else had to be free to be joyful without drowning in guilt.
A little piece of healing happened.
Life wasn’t as painful.
Or at least, it wasn’t for the Wilds.
For me, though?
The pain only grew worse.
Jacob.
He treated me with such kindness now. His smiles were genuine and his gratefulness true and that made my life that much harder. I had no arguments left to keep my heart safe behind a fence.
There was nothing bad to focus on; only the good to uncover.
Without intending to, Jacob revealed what sort of man was hiding beneath that broken exterior, and I fell hopelessly in love with him.
The day he asked to be my friend, he kept throwing me thankful stares as we worked in the barn together, tossing down hay for customers who came to fill up their own sheds for the winter. It was a long day with blisters on fingers from hauling and blisters on brains from arithmetic and totalling up sales. After the last truck drove away, I fully expected Jacob to leave as he usually did without a backward glance. Him to his place, and me to Della’s. No interaction again until daybreak.
That day, though, he cocked his head and guided me toward the stables where Forrest and a chestnut mare called Gingernut were tied up, waiting for us.
I’d ridden Gingernut before, and out of all the horses here, she was the one I had the best bond with.
I hadn’t told Jacob that. I hadn’t told anyone. Yet he’d chosen that particular horse for me.
He’d read me silently. Knew me intimately. He’d bulldozed past the remaining barriers I had and crushed me into rubble.
That was the first hint of the pain I was about to endure.
The first taste of trouble.
When we tacked up and mounted horses in a splash-perfect pink and tangerine sunset, we didn’t have to speak as Jacob urged Forrest into a gallop and I followed.
We rode for two hours.
He guided me on trails I hadn’t seen and led me through areas of the woods that were horse friendly. Deep dusk decorated tree trunks into skeletal shadows while owls hooted above our heads.
While I rode in a saddle and bridle, Jacob rode in just a halter.
And that symbolism kept me awake that night after we’d put our horses to rest, and I struggled to sleep in his bed. All this time, I’d believed Jacob was too afraid to get close, so he wrapped himself up with barbwire.
But really…he was the most vulnerable.
Just like he was vulnerable when he rode Forrest with no tack. He was vulnerable in life because he had no tricks to protect himself. He couldn’t pretend. He didn’t hide his wounds or deceive those around him into thinking he was anything more than who he could be.
He was honest, raw, and open.
There was nothing counterfeit about him.
And that became obvious as we worked side by side, living in the present rather than the past or future.
A week after our friendship began, Jacob looked at the sky on a scorching summer’s day and turned off the tractor. We’d been patrolling the fence lines, spraying Roundup to kill the weeds creeping high over wire and post.
We weren’t done.
But Jacob merely took my hand and guided me to the pond where I’d watched him stumble from the forest with a concussion.
That seemed an eon ago.
A lifetime ago.
“Ready?” He smirked.
“Ready for what?”
“To swim.” Scooping me up, he threw me jeans-clad and T-shirt wearing into the pond, then cannon-balled after me.
I came up spluttering while he laughed. A happy, deep laugh that made a home in my ears and set up a shrine in my heart.
Droplets danced on my eyelashes as the sun shone on him, turning his dark blond hair honey and distrusting midnight eyes a mystical grey.
He seemed lighter these days too. Not just in mood but in colouring.
As if the shadows that’d hurt him for so long were losing their strenuous grip.
We swam for an hour, slowly peeling off clothes until we were just in our underwear.
When he threw his soaking jeans onto the bank, and his shirtless chest bunched to toss his T-shirt, I sank beneath the surface and screamed.