Page 20 of Christmas at the Ranch
I regret this, but I stepped away from him then. It was just one step, but it felt like I put miles between us.
I said, “This is Tate, my new friend,” and could see hurt flicker across his expression.
Charlie was glancing back and forth between me, in my mud-spattered jeans, and my mother in her Hunter boots and Burberry puffer, as if searching for a resemblance, and finding it.
I wished I could tell them both that even though I look like my mother, I’m not like her at all. That I stepped away from Tate so her senses would go off high alert and she’d leave us be. That I just needed the moment to be over.
“What are you doing here, Mom?” I asked her.
She said Bitsy wasn’t feeling well today—not a surprise to me; drinking a half dozen martinis a night must be catching up with her—and she had thought she’d come over and see if she and I could go for a trail ride together.
I didn’t want to share Tate, or Wilder’s, with anyone. But I knew I couldn’t say that out loud, either. Meanwhile, my mom was asking Charlie if he had any “well-bred horses” she could ride, one eyebrow skeptically cocked, as if she expected him to say they had only mules. Charlie seemed impervious to the snobbish undercurrent of her voice. He led her off toward a paddock, pointing out Jax and a horse named Stormy, both Thoroughbreds, and a big beautiful Dutch warmblood named Inez, with a dappled gray coat.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Tate.
“For what?” Tate said.
“We had plans.”
He just shrugged, said, “It’s fine,” suddenly sounding distant and not meeting my eye. “If it’s all the same to you, I might pass on the ride now,” he went on. “Let Charlie take you two out on the trails, while I stay back and keep an eye on Mistletoe.”
I tried to think of ways to explain why I had seemed embarrassed by him, when really it was my mother who had embarrassed me. But it suddenly felt like a wall had gone up between us, like even if I thought of the right words, he didn’t want to hear them right now. “What did the vet say?” I ventured.
He shook his head. “I’ll tell you later. I need to get back to Mistletoe.”
Then he walked away without saying goodbye, and all I could do was watch him go.
During the trail ride, I was impervious to the gorgeous, snowy trails, the blue sky, the peaceful setting.My mother went on and on about what a surprisingly lovely place this was, and when I asked her why she was so surprised, she said, “Well, you know, darling. We’re out in the middle of nowhere.” As if small-town standards could never measure up to hers. I was counting the seconds until I could get back, see Tate, find a way to apologize that would get through to him, and find out what was wrong with Mistletoe.
When we finally returned, Tate came out to greet us, though his expression was strained, and I became more worried than ever about his horse. And about us. My mother dismounted and handed her horse’s reins to Tate like he was a hired hand. I wanted to call her on it, but I also didn’t want her to stick around and help get her own horse untacked. She then tried to hand Charlie a few hundreds, but he wouldn’t take them.
“Emory’s been so helpful,” he said, while my mother glanced at my muddy, disheveled state and said under her breath, “Clearly.”
Charlie pretended not to hear. “We owe her. Ride’s on the house, and come back anytime.”
When my mother was gone, I turned to Tate. “Mistletoe,” I began. “Is she…” But he shook his head and looked away. I stepped closer to him. And he finally looked at me—which is when I remembered: I can tell him anything. So, I did.
I took a deep breath and told him how I felt within my family. Like an imposter, an outsider. I told him that here at Wilder Ranch, I finally felt at home—and that my reaction when my mother was here was not because I wasashamed of him or this place, but because it felt to me like my mother had no place here. But that I did. I wanted to. And I was desperate to know if Mistletoe was going to be okay.
He listened to me so carefully, the way he always does. His expression slowly relaxed—then became agonized. “I’m sorry, too,” he said, interrupting me. “You don’t have to keep explaining. I know I overreacted. I was being a jerk.” He sighed and ran one hand through his soft, messy hair; his Stetson was off, he was holding it in his other hand. “It’s just, I like you so much.”
“I like you, too,” I began, but he shook his head, kept going.
“I feel like I’m the one who is an outsider in your life. Like I don’t belong in it. Like after this holiday is over I’ll wake up and you’ll just…be gone.”
“No,” I said. “I promise. Tate, we’re going to find a way.”
We were standing close again, and then his hands were on my waist and I felt so relieved to be back where I belonged. “Tell me about Mistletoe,” I whispered. “Please.” He explained that she’d been restless all day and the night before, raising her tail a lot, too—all signs of her potentially fixing to go into labor too early, the vet said. He didn’t find any issue with the foal inside her, not that he could tell everything by feeling her flank and using an equine fetal heart monitor, but he wants to be extra cautious. So now Mistletoe can’t be turned out with the other horses in the paddock. She has to stay in her stall.
We went to see her and found her absolutely miserable. Just standing and staring out her tiny stall window.
“She’s going to be okay,” I told Tate, and he turned to me.
“What is it about you that makes me believe that could be true?” he said.
“Why wouldn’t you believe it?”
He shook his head sadly. “It’s just that sometimes, you can really love someone and want them to stay, or be all right, and no amount of wishing or praying is going to change what’s meant to happen.”
