Page 50 of Christmas at the Ranch
He looks pained now, shakes his head.
And then, Star stamps her foot and whinnies, losing patience, at the end of her rope over our long conversation. We put on her bridle and he hands me her reins, then he goes to get a lantern.
Soon, I’m on Star’s back, reins in my gloved hands, and Tate is walking beside us. As we head into the woods, I think maybe I should be scared. It’s dark, she’s got a history of spooking on the trail, she has a lantern around her neck but the trail isn’t lit up, and we’re walking into darkness. But the moon is full, lighting our way. And Tate’s voice is soft, comforting as he speaks to Star, telling her how good she is, how brave she is.
We don’t speak anymore as Star moves sedately through the darkness; the light from the lantern on a leather strap, hung loosely around her neck, bobs up and down, casting its light into the trees, and I find myself thinking of the night of the Starlight Ride. The memory is so bittersweet.
“Maybe she really can do the Starlight Ride,” I find myself saying. “Look how well she’s doing.”
“Maybe,” Tate says. Then he looks up at me. “How about you? Should I sign you up?”
“Oh,” I say, startled. “There’s nothing I want more, but the Starlight Ride is on Christmas Eve. My car will be ready. I’m supposed to go to Lani’s.”
Just then, something darts out of the darkness, a marten or a squirrel, I don’t know. It all happens so fast I don’t have time to register what it is or do anything about it; Star gets the bit in her mouth and she’s off down the trail, galloping a few strides before rearing up and tossing me. There’s enough snow to cushion my fall, and the moment I land—on my backside, yet again—I know I’m not hurt, I’ve only added another bruise to my collection. My helmet is firmly on. But still, I feel tears spring to my eyes.
I know what this means for Star. And I know it’s all my fault. I was so caught up in Tate, in my feelings for him, that I forgot about her. I wasn’t careful. And now, even though I’m fine, I know Star will suffer for this.
“Emory! Are you okay?”
Tate runs over, and I stay sitting in the snow, telling him that I’m fine, that he should chase after Star. I watch as he pursues her and finally catches up, grabbing her reins and holding her firmly. He speaks to her, calms her down, walks back toward me.
I need to calm myself down, too. I wipe hastily at the tears on my cheeks and stand, brushing the snow from my pants. When I get close, I see that Tate’s expression is distraught.
“You’re really okay?” he asks me, holding Star’s reins in one hand and running his other over my neck, my back.
“I swear, I’m fine.”
“You didn’t hit your head?”
“No. My helmet stayed put, too. Like last time, it was nothing. You know falls happen.”
“I know,” he says, but there’s something in his voice that feels like maybe he doesn’t believe this right now. And he won’t look at me.
“Maybe you should head back to town,” he says. “I think I need a little time with her. On my own. I need to do some training, so this doesn’t happen again. And I need to be…a bit calmer than I am right now.”
“I can help—” I begin, but he cuts me off.
“No. You should go,” he says. “You can’t ride Star, not anymore. It’s not safe. I’m sorry.”
His words sound so final. So certain. Eventually, he looks at me—but it’s not the same. It’s as if, behind his eyes, and in his heart, a wall has gone up, shutting me out.
It’s not safe,he said—but I know he didn’t just mean riding Star. He was also talking about us. The way that, no matter what, maybe we were just always destined to hurt eachother.
Twenty-Four
I wake up the next morning alone in the apartment, sore, sad, and tired. I know I’m not truly hurt from the fall off of Star. But something inside me feels broken. Last night, out on the trail and at the ranch, it started to feel like magic again with Tate. I let myself pretend that ten years hadn’t passed. I let myself believe we were meant to be, that there had always been an invisible connection tethering us together. I told him things about the way I felt for him and about my life. And it backfired.
In the shower, I turn the water as hot as it will go and let it pound against my shoulders and my neck. As the water drips down my cheeks, I try to pretend I’m not crying. It hurts too much this time, even though we barely started again. Even though all we did was touch hands as we tacked up Star. Stare into each other’s eyes. Talk and talk.
The way we used to.
I can’t deny it anymore: Those moments last nightwere everything I had ever dreamed of for ten years—and then, it was all yanked away in a startling moment I should have seen coming. One second, I was on my favorite horse with a man who was turning out, yet again, to be one of the best people I had ever known.
The next? Tossed into a snowbank—and then, the look on Tate’s face. Like it was allmyfault, somehow. I had started to hope that Tate and I had grown up, that we’d changed. But Tate is still the exact same guy I fell for too hard at eighteen, and that means it’s all too easy for him to write me off, to shut me out again.
And me? Apparently, I still think fairy tales are real.
But before I leave, I will keep all the promises I made here. I will not leave any loose ends. I’ll write the article on Wilder Ranch like I told Tate I would. And the story about the Evergreen Inn, for Reesa and Sam. I’ll help Bruce close out this week’s issue of theEnquirerand I’ll talk to him about a website. I’ll try to teach him some social media tricks he might be able to use to get the newspaper more attention and, thus, get more tourist traffic to Evergreen.
