Page 19 of Christmas at the Ranch
“It’s okay,” he says. “Really.”
I breathe in, then out. I try hard to seem pulled together and reasonable—like someone who is wearing pants instead of just a T-shirt that reads “Do you have the balls to try the Fit-mas Tree?” in jolly red letters.
But I can’t. I’m not ready for this. This is the guy I once loved, who broke my heart into tiny pieces, exactly like the glass I just threw at him. We were kids, but right now it feels like it happened yesterday.
“Let’s just deal with what’s happening here,” he says. He’s holding a mop now, gliding it across the floor.
But whatishappening here? I feel like I’m livingthrough one of those dreams where you realize you’re onstage and forgot to put pants on. When Tate leaves the room without a word, I stand, still and awkward, until he returns with a Shop-Vac. The loud whirring of the machine makes it possible for me to take a few shuddering breaths. My head clears a little from the increased oxygen.
But my body is a different story. Every inch of my exposed skin is covered in goosebumps he will hopefully attribute to the cold—and not my rebellious body, so full of sudden and inexplicable want. I have to clasp my arms around my torso, keeping up the pretense of being cold, so I don’t reach for him. I close my eyes, but that doesn’t help; I’m swept with a vertiginous sense of falling. All I can do is watch as he vacuums up the glass, his gray Wilder Ranch T-shirt straining against his biceps, riding up when he bends over. I drag my eyes away from his body—but then I’m just watching his reflection in the windows, which gives me a view of his muscled back, how good he looks in his jeans. Not at all helpful.
Eventually, he shuts off the vacuum. “You’re okay?” he asks, taking a few steps back. This feels like a safer distance.
We stand still, looking at each other, the silence between us somehow even louder than the roar of the vacuum was. But as the stillness settles around us, I realize what was happening before, the visceral reaction I was having to his nearness, was probably just some sort of scent, or emotional, memory. We have nothing to say to each other, I realize. We’re different people now.
“I’m just going to go and…” I back away, grab my gym bag from where I left it on the floor beside his couch, and walk toward the bathroom as gracefully as it’s possible to walk while wearing no pants in a situation where pants are definitely required.
Once the door is closed and locked, I pull on my only pair of jeans, then check myself out in the mirror. Totally hopeless. My hair has dried in tangled clumps, and when I take my brush out of my bag to drag it through the snarls, it doesn’t help. Finally, I just scrape my hair back into a ponytail, pulling on it so hard it feels like a punishment, before venturing out again to face Tate.
He’s standing in the middle of his living room, staring at the couch, a look on his face that is impossible for me to decode. He’s a stranger to me, I remind myself. The ghost of the teenage girl who still seems to live inside me thinks he means something to her. But he doesn’t. Not anymore.
He turns, swallows, rubs a hand over his angular jaw with its unfamiliar beard. He’s not smiling now, but there are smile lines around his eyes. Ten years’ worth.
“What made you come here?” he asks quietly.
Doesn’t he already know about my father, about all of it? Maybe not. I can’t help but assume he’s not the group chat type—or really the chatty type at all. So I lie.
“It was for work. I’m a journalist. I had issues with my car, and I happened to run into your dad. He helped me out. I’m really…” There are too many words to describe what I am right now.“Embarrassed,” I finish, and this, at least, makes sense. “I didn’t think you’d be coming home.”
But a shadow passes across his face now. “You mentioned that,” he says, looking away. Then he glances down at the couch I had planned to sleep on before he unexpectedly arrived. “I’ll take the couch.” I open my mouth to protest, but he shakes his head. “Stay in my room. I’ll be up early anyway for morning chores, so you probably won’t see me before you leave.”
“Okay,” I say haltingly. “So that’s that, I guess.”
“I guess so. Yeah.” I still can’t read his expression. And I’m done trying.
I turn away. “Thank you,” I say over my shoulder. “Good night.”
A long silence. I think he’s not even going to answer me. I hear him click off the lamp beside the couch.
And then, “Good night, Emory,” he says softly into the darkness.
I step into his bedroom alone and close the door, suddenly glad humans don’t have that same sense horses do, the one that allows them to feel heartbeats from several feet away. It’s a small mercy I cling to as I climb into his bed with a galloping heart, the smell of him settling all around me.
Dear Diary,
This morning, I walked over to the stable because Tate and I had planned an early trail ride—but the vet wasthere, checking up on Mistletoe, and so Tate was busy inside. I walked out to the south paddock to say hello to Walt and give him a carrot while I waited for Tate. Charlie, Tate’s dad, was out there, fixing a fence post—and we met formally for the first time.
He looks a lot like Tate, but taller, older, of course. He has the same smile, the same way of speaking, but in a gruffer sort of voice. “So, you’re the famous City Girl,” he said, which made me blush. And I wasn’t sure how he meant it, calling me City Girl. Was he thinking I was just some tourist, using his son for a good time? But Charlie was watching me closely—again, reminding me of his son—and he added, “He speaks very highly of you, Emory. And I trust my son’s judgment on a person. Even if they are from the city.” He winked. Then he took off his work gloves and shook my hand. It was just like with Tate; he felt so familiar. Like an old friend, not someone I had just met.
I helped him for a while, first with the fence post and then with bringing some of the other horses out to their paddocks for the day. I was closing one of the gates when I heard a familiar voice.
“I thought you said you were taking riding lessons over here—not working.” It was my mom, and I could tell she was horrified to see me covered in dirt, looking like a stable hand.
At that moment, Tate came out of the barn, smiling, so happy to see me, the way he always is. “Hey, City Girl…” He hadn’t noticed my mom yet. I smiled right back and probably started blushing. If I could have playedit cool, I would have. I have no power over myself when Tate is around, though.
My feelings were obvious. My mom looked at Tate, then at me, and pursed her lips as if she had just tasted something too sour. “Well, then,” she said under her breath. “This explains your sudden reinterest in horses.”
I could tell she was hurt I had kept this from her. She’s always trying to get us to be closer, mostly by us going and doing things she likes to do, like salon visits or shopping trips, but it wasn’t just that. Tate, with his dusty boots and beat-up Stetson, his plaid flannel jacket and his work-calloused hands, wasn’t up to her standards.
