Ethan and Cricket came to stand in front of my stall with their horses.
“Ready?” Ethan asked me.
I nodded.
Everyone mounted their horses and I followed suit, a little bit nervous, and very unaware of what I was supposed to do. I had that same sensation you get when you were new to a school and had no idea who anyone was in your lunch period. You’d take your lunch tray and sort of stand around for a moment looking for a good spot to take a seat, but the entire time you’re searching, all you can feel is everyone’s eyes on you. That’s a shitty feeling.
I sat there on my horse, completely clueless as to who I was supposed to follow. I heard a whistle to my left. It was Cricket.
“Yo, greenhorn, you’re with me today.”
My heart kicked into high gear. I trotted my horse to side by hers, relieved beyond belief. Not because it was Cricket. Because I had a destination. Yeah, that’s it. “What are we doing?” I asked her beautiful face, unable to keep myself from staring.
“We’re going to count head, get a reading on any stragglers in my section, direct them toward the herd again. We’re bringing the entire herd in closer to the ranch.”
“What for?”
“It makes it easier for us to prepare and react to births. We can keep a close eye on them.” She turned away from me. “Eugie, come.”
That old, cantankerous shepherd mix followed behind her.
We started for the pasture. The leather creaked and pulled beneath me. My horse’s tail swished back and forth, its breath fogged the air in front of me. It was freezing out, but I felt comfortable enough thanks to Cricket’s suggestions at the outfitters.
I followed her for a good fifteen minutes, mesmerized by her backside. She was so easy on a horse, not a single movement felt superfluous. She was born to be on that horse.
We were quiet, neither one of us knowing what to say to the other. It was awkward, yet I couldn’t complain, not with the view it afforded me.
Finally, we reached our destination, a rise near the base of Bitterroot Mountain, above Lake Gossamer. We emerged between a wide copse of trees dusted with snow and I took in the sight before me. My senses felt overwhelmed, blasted with an intense beauty. The lake was so blue it didn’t look natural and was so clear you could see all the way to the bottom. It was flanked by two sharp, rocky cliff sides that eventually graduated to peak after peak—a sea of daunting yet beautiful mountains. At the base stood hundred-foot pine trees. They littered the shoreline save for ten feet of varying gray rock peppered with a few red, yellow and green ones, smoothed by thousands of years’ worth of running water. Round and perfect, I absently noted that my mother would have paid tens of thousands for them to line her drive.
“Yes,” I said.
“I-I didn’t say anything,” Cricket responded, furrowing her brows in confusion.
“Yes, this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to. You were going to ask that, weren’t you? How could you not?” I gestured to the nature surrounding us. My gloved hand creaked against the leather as I laid it back on the saddle’s horn.
“Undeniably beautiful,” she conceded as I stared at her. No argument there.
I continued to stare at her and my gut began to ache again. All I could think was the scene, the moment, would have made for the perfect first kiss. And my God did I want to kiss her. My eyes drifted to her lips and she licked them, sending me spiraling.
“Stop that,” she said, biting them together, as if that would blunt her uneasiness.
“Stop what?” I asked, swallowing hard. This time wishing she was biting my lip instead of her own.
My lids felt so heavy, I very nearly closed them.
“That,” she answered. “Whatever it is that you’re doing. I-I...this was a bad idea,” she breathed the last part.
“What is?” I asked softly, my tongue feeling as heavy as my lids.
“Us pairing off. Ethan didn’t like it but Pop Pop insisted.”
I waited a moment before asking, “Why?”
“He thought I could teach you the best. That you would respond best to me.”
“Why would he think that, Cricket?”
“I’m not sure,” she lied.
We sat silent.
“I think you know why.”
Her eyes bored into mine, her chest rose rapidly with her breaths. “No, I don’t.”
“Oh, I think you do,” I said, sidling my horse closer to hers and leaning over, grabbing her saddle’s horn and bringing her within inches of my face.
She became flustered, turned away from me and started counting the cattle in the open pasture south of the lake.
“We’re missing seven head.”
I sat up in my saddle and took a deep breath, still staring at her. You can’t have her. Stop. Become her friend. Only her friend.
I sighed and let her horse go. “Can you spot them?” I asked.
“There,” she said, pointing her gloved hand just east of the lake. “There’s five there.”
“The other two?” I asked again. We searched the lake perimeter in silence. This time I spotted the remaining two. “There,” I said, answering my own question.
“Come on,” she said, her saddle protesting beneath her as she directed her horse back down the ridge.
I kept pace with her. “What’s your favorite thing in the world?” I asked her.
She looked at me skeptically. “Why?”
“Cricket, I don’t have ulterior motives. I just figure I’m going to be here a while, we’re partners or whatever and it’d be nice if I knew a little about you.”
She cleared her throat. “My favorite thing in the world? Let’s see,” she began, pulling a little at her bottom lip. I checked the gut ache yet again. “Besides my family?”
“Besides your family.”
“Eugie,” she said, smiling and glancing at the earth below her.
When she said his name, Eugie peered up at her, tongue lolling and eager to do her bidding.
“Not Ethan?” I asked, unable to help myself.
“Ethan is part of my family, Spencer.”
“Fair enough. Do you have any hobbies?”
“I may dabble a little in sculpture,” she said, her cheeks flaming red.
“Sculpture, eh? And your medium of choice?”
“I take scrap metal we used to recycle around the ranch and whatever I can find and make crazy things out of them.”
“That’s bad ass,” I said, genuinely impressed. “What do you make?”
She looked on me strangely. “Do you really want to hear this?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know. It’s-It’s just not a lot of people around here think it’s an efficient use of time.”
“Who are these people?”
“Oh, no one really,” she evaded.
Ethan. Ethan was “the people” she was talking about.
“Why do they think this?” I asked.
We rounded the horses around the base of the ridge we’d traversed down and headed for the two cattle at the north of the lake.
“I guess because I could be, I don’t know, doing necessary repairs or whatever instead.” She looked at me with a smile. “There’s always something to do on a ranch.”
“Exactly,” I agreed.
“Hmm?”
“There’s always something to do here. Proof that life does not wait, so why not carve yourself out a little bit of happiness. Granted, I know this is fulfilling work because it helps your family survive.” I sighed. “It’s definitely exhausting work, but why does it have to be what defines you?”
“Trust me,” she said, cryptically, “no one defines me by the work I do here.”
I studied her, but her face gave nothing more away. I could tell it was one subject that was off limits with her so I kept my mouth shut.
“You never answered my question.”
“Which one?” she asked.
“What do you make with this scrap metal you happen upon.”
She smiled down at her hands then looked up at me once more. My heart stopped. She made my heart stop. “I make unusual things. For instance, I’ve always been fascinated by Churchill.”
“Interesting,” I said, laughing a little.
She ignored me. “So I created this exaggerated version of his head using odds and ends. I stamped his quote, ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going,’ onto his forehead. I loved it. The others, not so much.” She sat thoughtfully for a second. “Except for Jonah! Jonah loves my sculptures.”
“And August?”
“Thinks they’re a waste of time.”
“And Ethan?”
She looked at me but didn’t utter a word.
“I think I’d like to see these sculptures of yours, Cricket Hunt.”
“Caroline,” she corrected with a smile.
“Your real name?” I asked.
“Yeah, you can keep calling me Cricket if you want though, but if we’re going to be partners, as you said, you should know my real name is Caroline.”
“Caroline’s a beautiful name.”
“Thank you.” She smiled that heart-stopping smile. “My dead mama picked it out.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I saw her picture in the main house. You seem to carry an awful lot of her likeness. Seems to me she lives on just fine.”
She smiled at me. This time it reached glassy eyes. “Thank you.”
Chapter Nineteen
We reached the two grazing cattle, both fat with calf, and began to lead them toward the five on the east side of the lake. Cricket and I tried to continue our conversation, but the heifers made it impossible—one or both of them getting skittish and trying to flee into the woods. It was hard to guide our horses, let alone the cows through the trees.
It took almost an hour just to reach the five on the east bank. We sat there with all seven for a moment to catch our breath.
“We’ve got to keep them out of the woods,” she said. “I want you to keep the rear here and prevent them from turning around. I’ll flank their left and prevent them from scaring off. We’ll use the lake to our advantage. They’ll avoid the deeper water.”
I nodded.
My job was fairly easy, pulling left or right to prevent them from turning but Cricket? Cricket was like flipping Houdini. One second she was casually setting a single heifer back into line, the next she was corralling all seven with what seemed like a single surge of her horse. Every single movement was calculated with not a single waste of energy, and she did it all flawlessly. She made it look effortless, when I know for a fact it was an orchestrated and anticipated dance. She was incredible. She was impressive. She was undeniably the most fascinating creature I’d ever known.
When we drew close to the herd, Cricket ran the strays toward the mass, and they seemed happy to be back. She turned around and met me.
“Is that Emmett on a horse?” I asked.
“Yeah, he always helps with the drives. No one save for Jonah has his instincts, and Jonah’s are premature. He can practically draw out the herd’s reactions on a piece of paper before we even set out.”