Page 15 of A Forever Kind of Rancher

“Sure,” said Sadie, casually.

Because why would she care? This was definitely Wendy’s issue, not her kids’.

“Yeah,” Mikey said, reinforcing that thought.

The girls climbed into the back seats of the crew cab pickup, and Wendy got into the passenger seat. Suddenly, when he closed the door, the cab felt tiny, and she tried to remember if she’d ever been in such close proximity to Boone before.

She hadn’t. She’d remember.

She did remember being at Juniper and Chance’s wedding, because Daniel knew Chance from the rodeo and they’d been invited, and it had an open bar, he’d joked. She’d been sure then that he really wanted to support his friend’s love and happiness. Now she thought it might have really been about the bar.

She remembered Daniel being out drinking and being alone at the big wedding reception.

She remembered looking up and seeing Boone. Looking at her.

Not just looking at her, though, it had been something hotter. Something deeper.

It had stolen her breath and made it impossible to breathe.

It had made her feel...

She had to stop thinking about that now.

She had to.

She kept her eyes fixed on the two-lane road and tried not to let the silence in the truck swallow her whole.

“Well, if you need anything or you need me to come get you, you can text me,” she said, addressing both her daughters with an edgy desperation because she needed something to take over her awkwardness, even if it was a random comment she hadn’t needed to make.

“Thanks, Mom. I’m sure we’ll be fine,” said Sadie.

“Or we won’t be,” Mikey said. “And it will either be a story of great triumph of the human spirit, or our villain origin story.”

“I think we know which one it would be for you, Mikey,” Boone said.

“Villain, for sure,” Mikey said, happily.

The middle school came first.

As they drove away after Mikey got out, Wendy was struck by a feeling of loss and a sense of weird wrongness. She always felt that after summer break, and apparently a new school did that to her too. This weird feeling that she was leaving her kids with strangers. They weren’t strangers. She’d had video meetings with the teachers before they’d come here, and the kids had had a chance to meet them too. But it didn’t make it feel less weird.

She had the same feeling after dropping Sadie off.

But it was replaced instantly by the electric shock of realizing she was alone with Boone.

Alone with Boone, without her wedding rings. Without her kids.

Without anything keeping her from...

“So, what do you need done today?” she asked, because filling the horrible silence with words, any words, was all she knew to do.

“Oh, I’m easy,” he said, slow and lazy and she felt it between her legs.

What was wrong with her?

Was this a trauma response to discovering her husband was a ho?

She would be able to write it off as that much more easily if Boone wasn’t a preexisting condition.

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