Page 23 of Until Then

Once, I thought Briar would be an over-the-top bridezilla, but she’s proved me wrong.

Her wedding is planned as something simple, intimate, and few outside sources to the actual event.

It means her reception will be those who are involved in the ceremony only, and more of a cocktail party. So, to allow for family friends and people like their former second grade teachers, Tyrell and Briar opted to have a larger dinner the night before.

Even Greer scored a last minute invite after hitting it off with Briar at the party.

I swallow down a bit of sick. All day my stomach has been in tangles of sharp knots, like a thorn vine has slithered around my intestines, squeezing until I can hardly breathe.

Noah’s comment before he left will not leave me.

Do you think I’d ever give my personal phone number to a woman I planned to make a one-night stand?

He meant it to be a slap to the face, and it worked.

The worst part of it all is Noah’s right. I know how high-profile men treat women they use for a bit of pleasure. Non-disclosure agreements are typically handed out before they even step foot in their houses.

They don’t offer to drive them home to help with a sick horse. Some might not even call a car.

They certainly don’t give out their personal phone number. To the high-profile and celebrity types, the anonymity of their contact information is only reserved for their most trusted family and friends.

Noah would’ve simply demanded mine if he wanted me to be some sort of booty call. Or he would’ve used a second number. No doubt he has a few avenues for contact.

He typed his personal cell in my phone.

And I deleted it, crafting imagined betrayal, neglect, and heartache in my mind because of the actions of others.

Then again, nine months ago I wasn’t entirely ready to give up the shattered pieces of my heart. Recent fractures from Jasper hadn’t even started to be healed.

I blow out a breath.

Anyone—Noah included—deserves to have someone all-in, not someone with one foot out the door.

Maybe I ought to apologize.

I frown at my reflection, securing a dainty gold bracelet on one wrist. A rush of annoyance surges through my blood the longer I think of his public actions the last nine months. He behaves as though he was hurt by me ghosting him that night, but how soon after was he spotted in public with another woman?

Then another.

And another.

I doubt he was all that torn up by me disappearing. Maybe his ego, but not his heart.

“Hayley Mae.” Nan hollers from the front door.

My grandma wears a rustic dress that hits just over her worn cowboy boots. Alice Foster is made of iron nails. A woman inching toward eighty-two, but still spry enough to feed cattle and oversee the stalls in the barn. She has her long silver hair braided, as expected.

Her version of dressing up is stepping out of her jeans.

“Coming,” I say and hurry after the two women who raised me.

Well, Pops gets credit too. It still aches without him. He passed just before my high school graduation, nearly ten years ago, and the hole he left behind is still there.

Life has been good with Mom and Nan.

They taught me to work hard, taught me to love the ranch, and both encouraged me to go on and get my degree to combine my passion to help others while keeping close to the horses.

I wish it made a bit more, but marketing and battling insurance companies keeps proving an uphill battle in the realm of equine therapy.

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