Page 13 of Christmas at the Ranch

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 was there, 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 played it 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.

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 was ashamed 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.”

I realized he wasn’t just talking about Mistletoe; he was also talking about his mom’s death. I stepped closer to him, wrapped my arms around him. “Just because one bad thing happened, doesn’t mean more will,” I said.

“You make it sound so simple, City Girl,” he murmured, but he was smiling again, faintly, but there.

I looked up into his eyes and still saw sadness. “You miss her so much, don’t you?” He leaned into me, put his face on my shoulder. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I never talk about it.”

“You can talk to me.”

A long pause. “I know. That’s one of the things I like so much about you.” I held him closer, rubbed his back gently. “I miss having my mom around. This time of year especially.”

“I bet she was wonderful,” I said.

“She really was.” His voice was so soft now, I could barely hear him, almost a whisper when he said, “I wish you could have met her.”

“I wish I could have, too,” I said, holding him tighter.

Then he pulled away. His eyes were shining. “So, hey, are you too tired from your ride with your mom, or do you want to come out on the trail with me and help hang up the rest of the lanterns for the Starlight Ride? We can double on Walt.”

I told him of course I wasn’t too tired.

We got Walt ready and then headed out. I sat behind Tate, my head leaning against his back, my cheek against the soft flannel of his jacket.

Our breathing began to match in pace as our bodies adjusted to Walt’s gait as one.

We forgot about any sadness we had been feeling earlier, any insecurity about what was going to happen with us after the holidays.

About our families—about there being any such thing in the world as heartache.

I could feel his mood lift even more as we headed deeper into the woods.

Mine did, too. How could anything go wrong in a place like this?

How could it not be true that we were being bound together by magic, by alchemy?

I listened to the beat of his heart, slow and steady.

It felt like mine began to beat in rhythm with his.

Like our hearts were connected, somehow.

It made me think that no matter what happens after I leave, I’ll still feel this way and so will he.

That we’re going to be together, no matter what. For always.