Page 4 of 11 Cowboys

“I’ll take one for the road.”

The house is exactly as it’s always been: messy, loud, overflowing with love, and laundry in every stage of cleanliness. Foster kids are everywhere, toys cover every surface. Someone’s crying, someone’s laughing, and someone’s smearing peanut butter on the fridge. I pick up a few discarded socks, quickly braid Josie’s hair, and correct Davy’s footwear.

It’s second nature. Familiar.

And still exhausting.

By the time I leave, I’m smiling, but it’s the kind that’s stretched thin.

I love kids. I grew up loving kids. But I also remember what it feels like to get lost in all that noise. To give and give and still feel like a background character in your own life.

This ranch gig? It’s for five days. I can handle anything for five days.

I tell myself that as I drive away, windows down, relief blowing across my skin.

Although my new life is chaotic in many ways, it’s orderly in the ways that matter, and it’ll stay that way if I have anything to say about it.

2

GRACE

A delayed flight, six hours of driving, three gas station bathrooms, two cups of liquid tar masquerading as coffee, one questionable sandwich, and approximately nine million square miles ofnothing that hums with a silent warning.

I’ve officially reached the middle of nowhere. Or the end. Who the hell knows?

The GPS gave up twenty minutes ago, and my cell signal died an hour before that. Now I’m crawling down a dusty road that looks like it leads to the end of the earth or maybe into the heart of a true crime documentary.

The rental SUV rattles like it’s got whooping cough, and my heels have passed out in the passenger footwell, abandoned in favor of my ‘emergency pumps.’ They’re still too city for this place. Everything here is too big, too wide, too dusty, and toodamned quiet.

Then, the Cooper Hill Ranch comes into view.

It’s a sprawling two-story farmhouse, with the paint faded to soft white, hunter-green shutters, and an expansive wraparound porch that belongs in a country song or awhiskey ad. The roof is tin, the fence is wire and wood, and the whole thing looks like it’s been through hell and heartbreak and come out stronger.

There’s a tire swing in the front yard, a half-filled clothesline of man-sized shirts and tiny, brightly colored clothes, and a porch swing swaying eerily even though there’s no wind.

And boots.

So many boots.

At least eleven pairs lined up like a battalion across the porch. Jumbled. Well-worn. Scuffed by work, not for fashion.

It’s the most lived-in-looking home I’ve ever seen.

I step out of the car, and the wind kicks up a puff of dust that sticks to my calves and gets into my hair and scarlet lipstick. The air smells like hay, dry earth, sunbaked wood, and something vaguely smoky, like a fire pit or a wood-burning stove.

Then I hear it.

Laughter.

Low, masculine, andwarm.

And kids.

Little voices that screech and whine at max volume.

The front door creaks open, and one by one, the occupants of this remote home emerge. Some are wearing flannel. A few are in T-shirts marked with sweat and dirt. One has a bandana hanging from his pocket, and another grips a wooden spoon as if it were an extension of his arm. Three are shirtless, their crumpled upper garments tucked into their belts or discarded somewhere along the way. They look like trouble. Sun-kissed, slow-smiling, muscle-built, hat-wearing trouble, lining up on the porch like some kind of sexy cowboy calendar: eleven men, enough for January to November, all height and denim, broad chests, ropey forearms, thick thighs andGod help me,confident smirks with appraising gazes and jaws that belong on paperback covers.

And then, in perfect synchronization, they say, “Afternoon, ma’am.”