Page 40 of Hung Up (Shadow Ridge #1)

ASPEN CREEK

I can’t believe she’s really here

Me

I have a proposition for you.

Sweetheart

Uh oh, that sounds ominous.

Me

Come stay with me in Aspen Creek.

Sweetheart

Are you asking me or telling me?

Me

Asking. Unless you say no, then I’m telling you.

Sweetheart

What’s in it for me?

Me

The smell of horse manure, farm animals, and sweaty cowboys.

Me

Oh, and my mom’s apple pie.

Sweetheart

You had me at horse manure.

I’ve spent the last two days rereading her text, still unable to wrap my head around the fact that she agreed to stay with me for two days before we head into Billings.

My house is the cleanest it’s ever been, my fridge fully stocked as if I anticipated us getting snowed in for a month.

Nash is mad at me for not helping around the ranch while I’m home, but I have better things to do.

I need to make sure that Faith loves her time here.

Ever since our talk in the bar—which I still can’t believe we had such an intimate and serious talk in a crowded sports bar—I’ve had this sneaky suspicion that my feelings aren’t just one-sided.

I know she feels something for me, even if she’s fighting it and refuses to accept it.

Her admitting that she was disappointed when I said I wanted to end our weekend endeavors, and how upset she was that she thought I had given up on her, proves to me that, deep down, she might just be falling for me, too.

That means if I’m going to get through to her and make her see just how right we could be for each other, I need to pull out all the stops from here on out.

It’s time to show Faith just how serious I am.

“You’ve moped that spot four fucking times now,” Stevie tells me from her spot on my couch, her feet kicked up on my coffee table. “You’re starting to freak me out.”

“Come on, Stevie,” I groan, setting down the mop. I walk up to her and grab her ankles, rotating her so her legs are resting on the couch. “You know how important this is.”

She nods her head, laying flat on the couch with her hands behind her head. “I know, I know. If Cinderelly can have a spotless house, his reporter girl will fall in love with him and they’ll live happily ever after.” She turns her head to look up at me with an unenthused expression. “I get it.”

“Go easy on your brother,” my mother calls out from down the hallway. “He can’t help it. Love makes you do crazy things.”

“Yeah, like clean your house for the first time in three years.” I grab a pillow off the other couch and throw it at her. “God, lighten up, will you? You’re such a stick in the mud when you’re like this.” She leaps to her feet and saunters past me, heading for the kitchen. “I don’t like it.”

Picking the mop back up, I trail after her only to find her eating one of the apples I had placed in the fruit bowl on the counter. “Just wait ‘til you have feelings for someone. Then you’ll know what it’s like.”

“Oh, please,” she huffs, tucking her dark brown hair behind her ear. “I’m very happy with my random weekend hookups, thank you very much. You can keep that love bug to yourself.”

“I didn’t need to hear that.” Our mother comes walking into the room, the duster in one hand and an empty vase in the other. “The last thing I want to hear about are my children’s sexual habits.”

Stevie and I exchange a look before a grin grows on her face. “Are you sure? Because there was this one guy?—”

“Out,” Mom says, pointing toward the front door. “If you’re done helping, then head back to the barn. The veterinarian is supposed to be by to check up on Finley.”

“What happened to your horse?”

Stevie’s expression turns bleak. “He has a suspensory ligament injury. He’s on stall rest for a month, but since Bradly had to quit, I don’t know what that means for his long-term recovery.”

“Bradly quit?” My mom nods. Suddenly, I recall a conversation I had with Dean a few weeks back. “I might have someone who would be perfect. He works for the Pbr, but he’s looking to go back to ranch work.”

“If he can help me get Finley healed and ready to go back out for next season, then you better drag him by his ear if he says no. My boy needs the best, Jesse. I expect nothing less.”

I raise a brow. “I can’t really attest how good of a vet he is, but considering he’s helped animals from chickens to bulls, I’d think he’s pretty good.”

“Pretty good isn’t good enough.” She turns and walks toward the door, pulling it open before she glances back at me. “You better make sure he’s perfect.”

Once the door closes behind her, I turn to my mother to see her already staring at me.

She’s got this way of extracting your thoughts from your head and laying them bare before you even know you had the thought, which is both eerie and annoying.

And that look in her eye tells me she has a lot that she wants to dissect.

And when she pats one of the barstools, signaling for me to sit, I suddenly feel like I’m a kid again, about to get a life lesson.

“Did I ever tell you how your father and I met?” The question catches me off guard, so I shake my head.

I’ve heard Dad’s version, but I’ve never heard hers.

“I was twenty-two years old and had just broken off my engagement. In a desperate attempt to leave my life behind in Los Angeles, I got in the car with only my duffel bag and my chihuahua, Lenny. I didn’t know where I was going; I had no destination in mind. I just knew I couldn’t stay there.”

She pulls out the stool next to me and sits down, resting an elbow on the island countertop and setting her head in her hand.

“I stalled on a random dirt road, and the map I was using had blown out the window hours before this.

So there I sat, on the hood of my car with my dog, waiting for someone, anyone, to drive by. And then your father did.

“He pulled up in his pickup with that brown cowboy hat he loved so much, only at this time it was brand new, his country drawl so thick I struggled to understand him at first. And boy oh boy did he judge me. My hippie clothes and my chihuahua weren’t exactly selling points for him.

But he gave me a ride into Aspen Creek and dropped me off at The Tumbleweed so I could call for a tow truck.

“Your father was so judgmental for someone who screamed ‘stereotypical country boy’, it irked me like you wouldn’t believe.

So, when I was told they couldn’t get my vehicle ‘til the next day and, based on what I told him, he said it’d probably take a few days to fix, I hitched a ride here, to your father’s ranch. ”

She laughs as she relives the memory. “To say he wasn’t happy with my arrival is an understatement, but I figured, hey, if I’m stuck here for a few days, I might as well have some fun with my time.

At the time, in my mind, the most fun I would have was annoying the hell out of him.

But at some point over those few days, he warmed up to me and started sharing his life with me.

He even taught me how to ride a horse.” My eyebrows raise in surprise.

“I know, I used to love riding horses, if you would believe that.”

“So what happened?”

“My car was fixed, he took me to pick it up, and I went on my merry way.”

My brows furrow. “Wait, you left?”

“Yup.” She lets her hand fall away from her face, her hands intertwined together to rest on the marble.

“Went all the way to Chicago, spent a year and a half there, and decided I was done with city life. I hated my job and missed the peace I found here, the calm only a small town can give you. So, I got in my car and came back here. But you know what I found when I rolled up to the ranch?” I shake my head. “Your father was seeing someone.”

“He was seeing someone?” I think back to all the stories he used to tell us when we were kids before he passed. “Dad always said you were the first woman he ever loved.”

“I was.” She smiles, a genuine, happy smile.

“It just took him a while to see that.” Her eyes drift to look out the window, almost like she’s seeing it unfold before her.

“I ended up getting a job at The Tumbleweed and always insisted on working late so I could see him when he came in. We’d talk, but it never went anywhere.

Until one day, when his girlfriend came into the bar and tried to start a fight with me. ”

“Why’d she do that?”

Her cheeks turn a light shade of crimson. “Well, your father told her he couldn’t see her anymore because he was in love with me. Of course she took that to mean he had been cheating on her, but he really hadn’t been. We grew to love each other without ever really having one another.”

She looks at me after she says that last part with a knowing smile, reaching for my hands resting on the countertop and giving them a squeeze. I suddenly understand why she decided to tell me this story, but I wait for her to say what I know she wants to.

Sometimes, a little motherly advice is the best advice.

“There are people in this world who are meant to be in your life, and sometimes they take a while to show up. And when they do, it may not always go the way you think it’s going to go.

” She lifts one hand and pushes some curls out of my face, tapping my cheek gently before letting it fall back on top of mine.

“But sometimes that road you didn’t think you’d have to travel to get to them is the one you were destined to take. ”

Her advice hits me hard, a lump growing in my throat.

In my moments of doubt, I wondered if I was crazy.

If I should just throw in the towel because having to go through all this emotional turmoil and strain is too much for anybody.

But then I would think back to what she said, about how she thought she was too difficult to love, and then I realized the effort I had been putting in was exactly what she needed.

Faith Thompson needs someone who would move the moon if she asked them to, and if she asked me, I would be insane enough to try.

Faith needs someone like me.