Page 33 of When It Reins (Three Rivers Trevors Ranch #5)

mitch

Riding deep into the mountains with my family and friends around me is an experience that I don’t want to take for granted. The sun is pitched high, heading back down over the western mountains as we curve along, mooing cattle in a herd between all of us.

Juniper is doing amazing. She’s never ridden before, and to me, and probably the large margin of us, it is obvious in the way she sits or overcorrects her horse.

However, she is determined and spent the entire drive following my lead and asking questions that related to what we were doing so she could better understand it.

She amazes me. All of the time, she consistently makes me see how incredible she is.

The looming reality of our future together isn’t lost on me. There is a very good and strong possibility that she is leaving here soon. Where and when, we don’t know.

I’m not letting her go, though. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her as mine, even if that means a long-distance thing.

If there is one thing I know, it’s that I trust Juniper with my life. She is never going to do something to betray or break that trust, not with me, not with anyone. The loyalty that runs through her rivals the purity of her heart.

Juniper laughs as she gets a little speed up on her horse. Her long brown hair is back in two braids, and someone found a cowboy hat for her. My money is on Bonnie. But fuck if she doesn’t look like a dream come true out here, riding with me and having a blast doing it.

She was nervous when she started, but now she is starting to look like a natural.

CT whistles up ahead, announcing our almost arrival to the pasture we’re pushing to, and I glance at the sun now, working its way down behind the mountain range.

We have a little time to get camp set up before it’s pitch black out here, so CT had some good timing on when we needed to leave this morning.

I ride up next to Juniper, keeping my eyes on the cattle, and feel her hand grab mine. I glance down at it before looking to her, a smirk on my lips. Her smile is wide and unashamedly so as she looks back at me.

“This was way more fun than I expected,” she says, as if it’s not written all over her. Her energy, her relaxed posture, the grin splattered across her gorgeous face.

“I’m glad you had fun,” I say, squeezing her hand and sidling my horse up close to hers. “I’m glad you came.”

“Me too!” she says, glancing down at her horse. “I really think me and Sally have bonded too.”

I smile at her and nod. “Sure.” I clear my throat and say, “Pretty sure his name is Sully, though.”

She blinks at me, and then back to her horse, clearly surprised by the new information. Letting go of my hand, she rubs it over the horse’s neck. “I can’t believe I’ve been calling you Sally. I’m so sorry, boy.”

I laugh at her apology, and she leans forward, hugging the horse. He is so broke that none of this even phased him, but he is a good horse for putting up with it.

“I feel awful. I’m a horrible human being.”

I watch her, still holding the horse’s neck, and say, “I don’t think that’s even possible.”

“I can’t believe it, though! Who doesn’t know what gender horse they’re riding?”

I smirk as I untack the horses, making sure they have everything they need to get through the night.

We all packed what we needed for them in our packs and found a nice camping spot near the river that runs through the ranch, so the horses could drink from it.

I take them one by one to the creek for a drink, and Juniper rants about her misgendering of her horse to Thea, who is laughing at her little sister.

Everyone is pitching in to help set up our campsite. CT, Stetson, and Jax are pitching tents while Logan, Bonnie, Dani, and Felicity are getting the campfire and dinner ready. Thea and Juniper are helping me with the horses because they volunteered to do so.

Seems the Weaver sisters are discovering a new side of themselves.

I watch Juniper and Thea talking a few feet away, the horse I rode all day getting a much-needed drink beside me. The sun is nearly gone, and the light is shit, and somehow Juniper still glows. She is laughing and chatting, using her hands to explain something and making Thea laugh.

It’s then that I know what she is doing.

Before we left, Thea was stressed about leaving their son for her first overnight trip. It had made her emotional, and as we mounted up this morning, she was crying as she did so. Enough that Logan offered to stay behind if she wasn’t ready.

Colter, their son, is safe and sound with his big half sister, his grandma, and his little cousin. But I understand how tough it might be to leave your kid for the first time.

So, now watching the sisters’ interactions, it all makes sense why Juniper was doing what she was. She is distracting her.

I shake my head, amazed once again at the woman I love.

After the horses are taken care of and the food is ready, we all sit around the bonfire, enjoying the quiet night. The cattle are safe in their pasture, so we don’t have to keep a night watch on them and can just enjoy the night.

We pass around food, and the group chats like we’ve all done this a hundred times. No one who saw this group would believe this had never happened. That in the last few years, us brothers and our cousin, Dani, have only just found our ways into settling down.

The thought crosses my mind in a quick blur, and I snatch it, holding it in my hands. Settling down.

I look over at Juniper, who throws her head back and laughs at something one of my brothers says. The firelight gives her a glow as she laughs, and I feel my heart thud in my chest.

Settling down with her would be a breeze for me. I realize it’s as true as the flames of that fire in front of me are hot. There would be no fear or doubt if she asked me to take that next step, if she wanted to make that commitment with me.

I don’t deserve it, or her, but I would take it, hold it in my hand, and bury her love in my chest if I could.

She leans against me, and I move my arm around her, holding her close. I smell the scent of her and lean over, pressing my mouth to the top of her head and kissing her there. I feel her take a deep breath and relax further into me.

“Stets, you need a sippy cup, buddy?” Logan’s teasing words snap my attention up, and I smirk when I see my youngest brother wiping the beer off of his chin.

Dani laughs and says, “You guys remember when beer shot out of his nose?”

Laughter spills through the group as the memory hits us, and Bonnie gasps. “No! When did that happen?”

“When the dummy was fifteen,” I reply, remembering my little brother trying beer for the first time.

“I didn’t expect her to walk in right after I took the sip!” Stetson defends himself, wisely setting his beer on the ground.

“Okay, wait. There’s a story here, and I want to know it,” Thea declares, grinning and looking much more relaxed leaning against my brother than she had earlier.

“Okay, well, when little Stetsy?—”

“Don’t fucking call me that,” he snaps at Jax.

“Was fifteen, he begged Logan to let him try his beer.” Jax snickers and shakes his head. “Logan was only twenty, but we were all home without Mom.”

“Lue was a baby?” Thea asks Logan, who nods his head in confirmation.

“Just barely one,” he replies, smirking at Stetson. “I had a beer every now and then, and Stetson wasn’t old enough to go off to the bonfires yet.”

I lean closer to Juniper. “We used to have these bonfires when we were teens. The parents knew about them, but some parents had a set age where they allowed it.”

“Mom’s wasn’t until seventeen,” Jax says, having heard me.

“So Stets wanted to try beer. He was the only one who hadn’t. Logan said he shouldn’t let him without Mom’s approval, but Stetson couldn’t wait.”

“I remember this,” Felicity says, covering her mouth.

Felicity and Jax were at peak high school sweethearts during this time. It would have been a year before she left for LA.

“Okay, wait.” Stetson steps in, probably wanting to make sure all the bases are covered. “I wanted to taste it. I wasn’t going to get drunk, first of all.”

Bonnie snickers beside him, and I love seeing that he has a partner who will bust his balls. He looks over at her and smirks, though he widens his eyes as if he’s appalled.

“Second,” he says to her, “It’s not my fault.”

“He takes the first sip, which we all know can go one of two ways.”

Murmurs of agreement to Jax’s statement pass through the group, and Juniper says, “Yeah, I hate beer.”

I squeeze her closer and chuckle.

“Then, right as he does so, our mother walks into the kitchen, finding all of us standing around watching Stetson, and instead of swallowing the beer down, he clamps up and slams the beer bottle into the kitchen sink.”

“It was like a fucking rocket. I still don’t know how it happened.”

Logan laughs and nods at me. “The fucking pressure from him slamming it made the beer explode all over the kitchen, and then, to top it off, the beer shot out of his nose.”

Laughter explodes from the group, and Stetson grabs his nose as if he can still feel the burn he must have felt that day.

“What did Didi say?” Thea asks Stetson, still giggling. Bonnie was laughing so hard that it was now silent, her mouth open as her hand holds her stomach, and she leans back in her camping chair.

Stetson just shakes his head at her, but there is something in his expression that tells me he loves her like that, even at his own expense.

“‘Boy, you better clean up this damn mess. And there better be a beer left for me!’” Stetson’s high-pitched voice does us all in. Bonnie falls off her seat from laughing so hard, and Stetson looks at her, appalled that his girlfriend is delighting in his misfortune.

A while later, most of the couples head off to bed, leaving Juniper and me by the fire. She doesn’t move to leave and neither do I, appreciating the quiet the night gives us. I could sit here forever and never be bothered to move.

“I have a question for you.” Juniper’s soft voice reaches me after a few moments, and I turn to her, seeing her stare at the fire.

“What’s that?”

She swallows and turns to me. “I hope you don’t get mad at the question or take it in any other way than thinking I’m just curious.”

“Starling, you can ask me anything you want.”

Juniper nods and says, “Okay, then. Do you know where David went?” My brows furrow at the question, and Juniper rushes to finish. “I just…it’s like he fell off the planet.”

Now, there’s a thought. Too bad it’s not the case. “I don’t want to see him or anything like that. It’s just that I feel like there’s something unsettled there. He just gave up? That makes no sense.”

I nod my head, thinking over how much I should say. Technically speaking, I have no idea where David is. But I do think I have a hand in getting him to make himself scarce.

“I just want to know if I’m in danger, if anyone I love is in danger, or is he gone…for good.” Her phrasing has me making eye contact with her again, my face a mask of confusion.

“Juniper,” I start, unsure how to say this. Was I offended? I honestly couldn’t tell. “He’s gone. We scared him off.”

Her eyes go back and forth between mine, and she seems to be acting cautious in her phrasing. “Is he… gone gone?”

I lick my lips, a laugh threatening to escape me when I finally realize what she’s asking. But she is being so serious that I know I can’t straight out laugh. “I didn’t kill him, Little Starling, if that’s what you’re asking.”

She blows out a breath, her whole body relaxing at the words, and I do let out a laugh then. “You thought I killed your ex-boyfriend?”

Wanting to and actually doing it are two different things.

“No,” she squeaks, then clears her throat. “No,” she inflects. “I just wanted to be sure.”

“Well, rest assured, I’ve never murdered anyone.”

“David was a bad guy,” Juniper says, her eyes on the fire now. I don’t bother correcting his name, since it doesn’t fucking matter, anyway. “He used me. I’m sure of that now. And he was doing some bad things to a lot of good, innocent people. But I don’t want that on your soul.”

I lift a brow, wondering if anyone, aside from my blood relatives, has ever cared about my soul. “You worried about me, Little Starling?”

She looks at me then and lets out a breath as if she was working up the nerve to say whatever it is she needs to. Her eyes stay connected with mine, and there’s a determination there that I’ve seen before. “I love you, Mitch Cash.”

Her words knock the smirk off my face and the breath from my lungs. Not because I didn’t know that already. I had a feeling. But having the feeling and hearing the words out loud from the person you love? That is a different game altogether.

“And because of that love, I don’t want you to have to do anything you’d ever regret.”

I take her in and lift my hand up until my rough hands are holding her chin, directing her attention to me and looking her deep in the eyes. “I will never regret doing anything that would protect you, Starling.”

She looks almost mad when she says, “You love me?”

“You know I do.” I say the words easily, my voice hard.

“Then don’t do anything that will take you away from me.”