Page 48 of Wrangling Nash

“What do you mean?”

“Stay for another seven months and sell so we can build your dream non-profit and move somewhere else. Either way, I’m not letting you leave without me.”

I thought for a moment about Nash’s words and then concluded what I’d known all along in my heart. Ashwood Ranch would always be a part of my family, and I wasn’t ready to part with it yet.

“I have an even better idea.”

Chapter 41: Nash

Eight months later…

“So, you’re picking me up at the San Angelo airport at 11, right?” Jovie asked on the phone.

“Yes, I’ll see you in one hour, babe. I’m about to head there now.”

She sighed on the other line, “I can’t wait to see you. I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

I hung up and smiled before heading out to my truck to make the trek to the airport. It had only been one week since Jovie left for Austin, but the longest we’d been apart since we met almost one year ago, and I was desperate to be in the same city with her again.

Jovie never returned to Houston after I blocked the pass with the cattle. She told me that before leaving for the city, she’d checked her email and found out that a large tech startup was recruiting her for a VP of Finance position in Austin. When she reached out to them, they were so thrilled that she had finally responded they offered her full-time remote work so that she could stay in Lonestar Junction with the commitment to visiting their Austin offices once a month. Jovie had obliged and said it’d felt like a compromise where she’d still live in both a city and the country.

This past week had been her first visit, and though I was grateful to have her home with me most days, the week had been long, and the bed cold without her next to me.

Three months ago, I bought a ring and I’d been carrying it around waiting for the right moment to ask her to marry me. I didn’t want to propose until her year on her grandfather’s ranch was up, so that it wouldn’t sway her decision to sell. However, after a night of orgasms that started in the pool and ended in the shower, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. I loved her more every day with every fiber of my being, and I needed her to be mine.

Seven months into her stay, right after Valentine’s Day, I got down on one knee and asked her for forever. She’d cried like a baby and asked if I would take over her grandfather’s ranch, so she didn’t have to sell it. I didn’t even hesitate. And when it came to changing the name, we agreed to leave it as Ashwood Ranch, in memory of her grandfather, the one who had finally brought our families together.

One month into assuming operations of Ashwood Ranch, we sold off three acres of the property to my dad, which we used to fund Jovie’s dream. Nourish Texas Co-op, a food delivery service non-profit that receives donations from neighboring farms of fruit, vegetables, and other produce. The non-profit will deliver this produce weekly to underserved communities in rural Texas, providing fresh food to nourish these families.

The sale of the land provided enough for a physical storefront where Savannah, a culinary school graduate, would provide weekly in-person and virtual teaching cooking classes for those families that received the produce sent out each week.

Clay finally pulled his head out of his ass and realized that Savannah was into him, and they started casually dating. At the same time, I made him my first in command over Ashwood ranch so that I could have my evenings off with Jovie.

Stevie joined the non-profit one month ago after Jovie begged her when she returned to Houston. She was now the chief operating officer and co-owner of the co-op managing everything from marketing, sales, operations, and deliveries and though it seemed like Wylie and Stevie were constantly at odds, I felt there was something deeper underlying their tension that they needed to work out.

As I made the drive to the airport in silence, I smiled thinking about our upcoming summer nuptials, I couldn’t feel more content. I’d spent a lot of my late twenties bitter and angry at the way my life had gone. I missed my mom and felt jaded from the trust I’d lost with Brooke. Jovie had healed all of it. She’d even knit together parts of Clay and Wylie that had been missing and brought out a side of my dad that I’d never seen before, showing him what it was like to have a daughter.

I pulled up to the curb of the airport pick-up where Jovie had just exited the terminal. She bounded out the doors, a wide grin on her face as she planted a kiss on my lips.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” she spoke with a smile as we hit the road for the hour drive back to Lonestar Junction. “Hey, can we pull over to that diner? I’m starving and want something to eat before we make this drive,” she said.

“Sure, babe.”

We pulled over, went inside to order, and then slid into a booth opposite each other as she dug into her burger.

“How long until you have to go back to Austin again?” I asked.

“Four weeks.”

“Good,” I nodded, “just warning you, you might be ’sick’ in four weeks and unable to travel so that you can’t go back. One week apart from you was too long.”

Jovie smiled, her eyes with a hint of mischief behind them, “Well… that little white lie may actually be true.”

I cocked my head to the side as I took a long sip of my Coca-Cola. “You planning on catching a cold?”

She beamed as she reached into her pocket and handed me a folded up black and white piece of paper.

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