Page 24 of The Runaway and the Rugged (Dusty Meadows #1)

EMELIA

W alking into the cabin with a plate of breakfast and my heart racing a million beats per second, I found Clarke sitting up in the bed with tired eyes.

Makeup smudged and her multicolored hair hanging chaotically down her shoulders, her stare connected with mine, then dropped to the plate in my hand.

Her sapphire eyes immediately sprung to life.

“Oh, thank God, I thought I was going to starve to death in here,” she groaned before popping onto her feet and racing over toward me.

“I grabbed a little bit of everything,” I chuckled as she snatched three strips of bacon and a plain biscuit off the plate and shoved them into her mouth.

She moaned.

“This might be the best bacon I’ve ever had,” she muttered contentedly between bites.

As she fell into a chair that was tucked in beside a small dinette table, I hesitantly took the spot beside her. I realized I wasn’t hungry anymore, not when I was moments away from revealing my biggest twist yet to her, and already I was bracing for arguments against it.

“Courtesy of Mother Calhoun.”

Her gaze pinned me down.

“Wow, you met the whole family this morning, huh?” she asked with a giggle, insinuating much more than was needed.

“Just their mom and Garth’s daughter, Grace.”

“He has a daughter?” Her dark brow lifted.

“Yeah, she came by earlier this morning wanting to see if I was real.” I laughed, capturing Clarke’s confused glance. “Turns out, someone told her I was staying in the cabin and she wanted to see if they were telling the truth about a ‘bride’ staying here.”

“And what’s she like?”

“Twelve going on eighteen, but she seems like a sweet kid. Reminds me a little of you.”

She nodded with an impish smile.

“Ah, so he has his hands full. And the other Calhoun sibling? Did he make an appearance?”

“No, I don’t think he’s much of a people person.” I watched as she devoured the biscuit, dipping pieces into the gravy before taking bites.

“Hmm,” she mumbled beneath her breath before settling back into the chair and lifting a foot onto the seat cushion. “Well, once I’m finished eating we can get out of here—try to get a cab or have someone drive us to the airport.”

My heart catapulted in my chest.

“Uh, well, about that.” I chuckled anxiously while tucking my hair back behind my ear. “I actually don’t need to find a way… well, back. I’ve… I’ve decided I’m going to stay here.”

Instinctively, I winced, preparing for the worst. Even my eyes squinted in anticipation as if too nervous to fully face her reaction.

“Stay here? What do you mean stay here? Like, as in, stay another night here?” She hadn’t stopped eating, but it was evident in her tone that she wasn’t quite grasping what I had said.

Wonderful.

“No…” I drew out the word nervously. “Not just tonight. I mean until further notice.”

Her chewing immediately halted and like a pin had just dropped, a heavy silence had fallen over us until the only thing I heard was the erratic thumping of my heart.

I could barely sustain eye contact without a wave of remorse hitting me, and when I did finally catch her gaze, she looked at me like I had completely lost my mind.

“Clarke…”

Before I could finish, she dropped her foot onto the ground and leaned in close to lay the back of her palm onto my forehead.

“You aren’t sick, are you?” Her concern was genuine, a little dramatic to say the least but it wasn’t like me to make rash decisions like this.

“No, I’m not sick, I feel fine.” I smiled as her hand slowly fell from my head and laid back down into her lap.

“Then what do you mean you’re staying here until further notice? As in Hideaway Haven Ranch, Dusty Meadows, Texas?”

I swallowed hard.

“Yes.”

Her eyebrows slammed together firmly.

“Wait,” she said through a hesitant laugh. “You’re just trying to be funny, right? You aren’t actually planning to stay here?”

My palms, now clammy with sweat, clasped together in my lap while her piercing gaze scanned me like lasers searching for the truth.

“No, I’m not trying to be funny…”

Her eyes had widened to the point they no longer looked tired.

“How on earth did you come up with that plan?” she questioned incredulously. “A ranch? In the middle of Texas? Where you almost got married? Why the hell would you want to stay here!?”

She didn’t appear upset, but more so confused and taken aback.

“You can stay with me, Millie. I thought you would have already known you’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”

Of course I already knew she’d let me stay with her, and that was one of the many reasons why she was the best person I knew. She’d do anything for me just as I would for her.

“And I’m so grateful that you’d let me stay with you, but I can’t,” I admitted, her eyes not once straying from mine.

“I can’t go back home. It’s all I know, and honestly, I’m so tired, so damn exhausted that I feel like it's all I’ve ever known.

I need to stop living for others and take control of my own life and for once, I feel like I might be able to take the reins, even if that means being somewhere new…

” I leaned forward with sincerity thick in my expression. “I need new, Clarke.”

Her eyes glimmered a little too brightly to be considered misty. She wasn’t a crier, but she appeared to be on the verge.

“And this is about as new as it gets.” I chuckled, hoping to sway her in my decision, but she looked hesitant to accept it. “Open spaces, a small town, a place I can call my own until I get on my feet…”

“A hot single dad cowboy who told you that you’re more than welcome to stay on his ranch?” she added as the corner of her mouth gradually lifted, sparking my face to go red hot.

“That’s definitely not a reason why I’m going to stay!” I defended a little too loudly that even I found it hard to believe my words. “He’s simply a kind and considerate man, who happens to be a dad and lives on a ranch.”

She raised an eyebrow in skepticism.

“And has offered me to stay in the cabin while I work to get back on my feet.”

This time, her other brow lifted parallel to the other.

“Oh, so it wasn’t your idea to stay, it was Garth’s?” she asked, and instantly I knew what I was about to be up against.

“No, of course it wasn’t… it wasn’t just his idea.” I scoffed at the ridiculous idea although it was partly true. “He simply just offered me a place to stay and in return I helped around the ranch, doing… ranch things.”

She laughed.

“Ranch things? What’s the first thing you know about working on a ranch?”

I inwardly groaned.

“Obviously nothing, but I’m willing to learn.”

“Scooping up horse shit? You’re okay with that?” She continued to laugh knowing I’d never even cleaned up dog crap a day in my life.

“Yeah, I mean, if they can do it, I can too, right?” I shrugged past the terrible tremors that the vision had left me with.

“Says the person who hasn’t had to work since she was sixteen,” she teased, eliciting a surge of guilt to hit me.

“And that’s why I need to do this. For so long I’ve been stuck in this bubble surrounded by all things Nathanel, and for once, I want to work toward something, to experience that feeling of ‘I did it all myself, without anyone else’s help’ and I can’t do that if I go back home.

” My eyes dipped down low before peering off into the distance.

“My parents wouldn’t have wanted this for me.

A twenty-five-year-old with no goals, ambitions, or direction in life.

Could you imagine what their faces would have looked like if I had actually married Nathaniel? How disappointed they’d be?”

“Don’t say that, Millie. They would not have been disappointed in you,” she said in her authoritative, “you better listen to me” tone. Even her face held the same forceful spirit as her words did.

I rarely brought up my parents, not because I didn’t want to but because I knew just how disappointed they’d be in how my life had turned out.

From an early age, they instilled in me the values of independence and courage to be your own person.

And for the longest time, their words were just simply ignored.

I never wanted to acknowledge the truth. I couldn’t accept that I was a failure, until now.

“Besides, they wouldn’t have let it get this far anyway.”

“I just want to have a life for myself that they would have been proud of,” I confessed from the depths of my heart, another truth that had long seemed impossible to voice out loud.

“They're proud of you now, Millie. I can promise you that.” Clarke readjusted in her chair and reached for my hands. “No matter what you do, how you do it, or where you end up.”

A choked cry fell past my lips as I tightened my fingers around hers.

“I hope you’re not even more pissed off at me because of this. I know I’ve sprung a lot onto you in the past day than I have the entirety of our friendship.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve done it more times than I can count, so I think we're pretty even now.” She chuckled through her tears.

“Who knows, I might just last a week here anyway,” I chuckled through tears.

Clarke scoffed with a disbelieving gaze. “Or you’ll end up falling head over heels for a cowboy.”

Let’s hope not.