Page 16 of Someday

That makes me feel bad too.

“I have your hay steamer in the trunk. Thank you so much. I’ve invested in a few and it’s making a big difference. And if you’ll tell me how much you charge for house calls, I’ll be sure to pay you right away. I’m good for it.” She smiles and it fades just as fast.

She holds out the pie and I take it. And then she points over her shoulder.

“I’ll just go grab that steamer really quick.”

She turns and my eyes fly to her ass out of habit. One of my many favorite things about her.

Yep, still fucking perfect.

“How did you know where I live now?”

“I ventured out this morning, went over to Clip Clop.” She smirks and my heart takes a nosedive into the grass. “Clip Clop Clive sold you out.”

I smile in spite of myself. I haven’t heard Davis Clive called that in years.

“I had a general idea of where you’d be though. You always said you wanted to live right here.”

That grounds me. Takes me back to the assholery again. Yeah, we’d talked about coming here after college and building our house here, making a family in a place just like the one I fucking built without her.

She looks past me to the house, and I could swear her eyes fill with tears, but she blinks and smiles, and it’s gone. I must still want to see something that isn’t there.

“The house is beautiful, Theo,” she whispers. “I knew it would be.”

“Do you want to see inside?” The words are out before I can stop them, and I try my best to undo them.

“Bad idea,” I’m saying as she says, “I’d love to.”

I shake my head, my hand coming up to the top of my head as I give my hair a good yank, pulling it hard enough to hurt so I can feel the pain somewhere besides my chest and heart and brain and…

“No, it’s okay,” I say. “I don’t know why I said that. Thanks for the pie.”

“Please, Theo. I’d really like to see it.”

“Oh.” I look at her feet, her tall riding boots well-loved.

Something about them makes me fume. I still can’t believe she went from here to another horse ranch in shit-creek Texas. It could be beautiful where she was for all I know, but really? That was her life-altering move to see the great big world out there?

“Okay.” I turn and walk toward the house, and she falls into place next to me.

When we walk in the front door, I pause, suddenly self-conscious about her seeing the way I really did incorporate the things I knew she’d wanted in a house. The open floorplan, vaulted ceilings, wide-plank hardwood floors, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the mountains and the lake.

She gasps when she steps inside. “I can’t believe it, Theo. It’s just how I imagined.” Her eyes fly to mine and her cheeks flush. “I mean, you always knew just how you wanted your place to look. This is even better.”

I’d had big dreams and plenty of ideas as a kid. Most of those dreams had died when she left, but I did manage to hold on to some of them. I’m ashamed to say part of that was because for years I thought she might come back, and I wanted her to see what I’d made of myself.

I wanted to be worthy of her staying.

“How did you pull this off though? It takes such a long time to become a livestock vet. I thought you wouldn’t even be done with your schooling until now.”

“You thought about me, huh?” It’s not exactly a hiss, but it’s not my normal even tone either.

I set the pie down on a side table and run my hand through my hair while I take a deep breath and try to sound less caveman.

“I graduated early, took a heavy load every semester and all the summer classes…it helped that Dr. Baxter wanted to retire, so he helped me every chance he got. And I drove here on the weekends to work on this place. Took my time and had a lot of help from my brothers and a few others in town. I’d worked summers at Happy Cow, so Lar and his brother Steve were a huge help. Mar brought a lot of coffee and pastries over when we were finishing up. It was a good time.”

“I’ve been dying to get over to Happy Cow,” she says.

---