Rider’s Block

33. Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter thirty-three

"I'm Gonna Getcha Good," Shania Twain

T wo days later, a plane ticket shows up in the mail. An honest to God, printed out plane ticket with an information packet and a note from Eric that simply says, “See you in four days, Red.”

This man. This gorgeous, thoughtful cowboy, who needs to learn about email and digital tickets, made the decision for me. He had two other rodeos since I left. I watched what I could from whatever channel I could connect to, but he let me have my time. Christine and Penny gave me the guilt trip for not attending those.

Penny, who is now openly admitting to falling in love with Dean.

We’ve talked on the phone two or three times a week, and we spend most of our time going over every interaction the two of them have. She’s still been going to the ranch dinners while I’ve been away, and apparently Dean’s taken full advantage of that as an opportunity to win her over. So, she wastes no time in telling me that I should be sitting next to her and Christine at the two rodeo events I missed.

To my credit, both of those rodeos have been far away from any accessible airport. This is the first rodeo close to an airport big enough to get to in only two stops.

But as I stare at the airplane ticket in my hand, I can feel Eric’s impatience through his handwritten note. He wants to see me. And I cannot deny I’m dying to see him. I want to see him.

Talking on the phone every night, he’s become, in a weird way, equivalent to a diary entry for me. He knows every aspect of my day. What I’ve eaten, how I’ve worked out, how I feel while I wait to hear back from the publishers. He knows it all. He listens to it all. He’s my sanity through it all.

The thought of getting to see him in person again has me giddy. It hasn’t even been a full month since he kissed me goodbye, but man do I want one of his hugs.

I text him a photo of the ticket with a link to an article titled “Digital Airline Tickets for Dummies” and he replies with a simple “I’m not sure who’s more excited, me or Roper?” with a photo of him and my favorite horse on the planet. My first thought is to make the photo my background, but I let that thought peter out before acting on it. But Eric looks so good, and Roper looks so sweet.

I’m staring at the photo for far longer than I’d like to admit when I see a notification at the top of my phone pop up for an email that just hit my inbox.

From my agent.

I haven’t heard from her for a week. And that’s a lot longer than usual.

The email is simple: “Call me when you’re free.”

And that kind of lead-up has me calling her immediately.

“Well,” Sarah says from the other side of the line, after only two dial tones, “I wasn’t expecting a call this fast, but I’m glad you did.” Then with a dramatic pause that should earn her an Emmy, she finally says, “Amelia, you’re in a bidding war. I’ve got three of the Big Five that want this one.”

It takes everything in me not to pass out on the spot

***

Sarah and I go over the pros and cons of each offer, and ultimately it takes us the three days leading up to the trip to Montana to decide on which one to accept.

I haven’t told Eric yet. I’m waiting to see him in person. When I confirmed that I’d come see him in Montana he sent over a two-day itinerary of activities he’s planning to take me on. I told him he’d better schedule some time for practice, but he simply said he was a natural and had nothing to worry about. I wish I could have given him a hard time for such a cocky statement, but he’s not wrong. He’s won. Every time. It’s almost uncomfortable how much of a winning streak he’s on right now. I know if I were in his shoes I’d be nervous, but he couldn’t seem more content every time I’ve talked to him about it.

Apparently, the other aspect of him, Trevor, and Dean working out the responsibilities of the ranch included him passing off most of the ranching duties to his two brothers while he works to grow the horse training side of the family business. He already has a great reputation, but the more he wins the more his name gets out there. He says he wants to train racehorses someday if he can, but that’s an entirely different segment to break into.

There’s a feeling of excitement going into the weekend. Sarah and I send over our acceptance letter, and I get the confirmation as I’m packing my carry-on for a weekend in Montana with a guy I may or may not be falling in love with, and a group of people that feel like family.

I’m sipping my smoothie at my bistro table when there’s a knock at my front door. I don’t get many visitors at 10 a.m. on a Wednesday, so I assume it must be a neighbor who accidentally got another one of the packages Eric sent me or something.

It’s not.

It’s my father.

***

It’s only good breeding and manners that prompt me to invite him inside for a cup of coffee. I move around my kitchen silently. I have nothing left to say to the man. I’m not sure why he’s here, but I would be lying if I wasn’t curious as hell.

Chester is leery of him, too. I see my angel of a cat sneak in from around the corner to sit at my feet. He’s been a lot more of a cuddler recently, and I’m all for it. And my attempts to plump him up are finally hitting. He’s a lovely, rotund loaf of bread and I love him.

I set a steaming cup of dark roast in front of my father. I won’t start the conversation, so I’m waiting for him to. I’m still not sure how he got this address. I’ve never so much as sent him a Christmas card. I’ve never felt inclined to. I can only assume he got the address from my mom, and that thought has me souring immediately.

I’m about to kick him out of my tiny little bungalow when he finally clears his throat. “Mia—” He’s cut off when he sees the Eric Randall–approved facial expression sent directly to him. “Amelia. I wanted to talk to you about what you saw.”

“About which part, exactly?”

“The um,” he looks immediately uncomfortable, “the part about how you do have a half-sister.”

“No shit.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t mean to have her, that does nothing to help—”

“I didn’t mean for you to find out that way.”

“Well, sorry to ruin your big announcement after, what, four years? Is that how old she is?’

“She’ll be five in three months.”

“Right, and her mom, who I hope you’re actually helping out, is my age?”

“She’s older than you…” He has the decency to appear shy with his statement.

“Yeah, but not by much. I just need to know, are you going to stay around for them?”

“Yes.”

I don’t know whether that helps or hurts to hear. All I do know is my patience is gone. “Then why the hell are you here?” He looks around for a while, trying to decide on what to say next. He opens and closes his mouth a few times.

“This probably wasn’t a good idea.”

“Then why did you come?”

“Amanda said she’d leave me if I didn’t try.”

“Amanda being the woman who is of the age to be my sister, but who mothered my actual half-sister, I’m assuming?”

“Yes—” Every ounce of confidence is shriveled from this man. But he came here, to do this, for a woman. Not my mom, my sweet, innocent mother. But someone else. I want to throw up.

“I need you to leave.”

“Amelia, come on. Quit being dramatic—”

“Leave.”

“She wants you to come to dinner!”

“You can politely tell her I told you to get out of my house. Go. Please. You’re just making it worse.”

“But—”

“I don’t care if she leaves you! I don’t care that you fucked up another family! I need you to leave. And I need you to not come back. I’m done.”

My pathetic excuse for a father looks irate as he stands from my small bistro table and walks to my front door. I don’t care. Steam could be coming out of his ears, and I wouldn’t care. He’s only digging a deeper grave at this point.

By the time I’ve shut the door right at his heels, I find myself a blubbering mess again. This man. This careless jackass. How could he think an invitation to dinner with a family he left ours for would fix anything? I hope Mandy packs her bags and leaves him.

***

I didn’t know I was scared of small planes until boarding a comparatively smaller vessel to get to my final destination. You really can feel every bump. And there were many, many bumps. Thankfully I had a window seat, courtesy of Eric, and the view made up for my impending sense of doom.

With my afternoon flight, I only had four hours to recuperate after seeing the waste of my father. And I haven’t gotten to talk to Eric all day. He’s been driving. I don’t want him distracted and it took me those four hours to speak without a quiver in my voice, anyways.

But the view out the window…it is lovely.

Vast plains broken up with some of the most beautiful snow-capped mountains I’ve ever seen weave their way along the landscape as we dip in and out of the clouds for viewing. Montana is peppered with more lakes than I realized, and I’m excited to see Flathead Lake, which Eric’s been talking about for the past week.

And I’m excited to see Eric, I really am, but seeing my dad threw me off. On one hand I desperately want one of his hugs. I need one of his hugs. And on the other hand, that need terrifies me.

The upside to small planes is that they’re only used for short flights, so I’ve barely had enough time to get fully motion sick before we’re landing again. I sprint out of my seat to collect my things, grateful that I didn’t check a bag, and make my way to the gate.

Penny and Christine spot me immediately, but I spot their sign first. Their big, obnoxious sign that reads: “In Search Of: Our Favorite Californian In Red Boots.”

And yeah, I’m wearing the red boots.

I’m wrapped up in a cowgirl sandwich before I can blink an eye, and my spirits lift ever so slightly.

It takes us a while to walk to the truck we’ll be riding in to meet everyone else. They all got here earlier this afternoon, but we’re all staying at one Airbnb that’s right on the lake, apparently. Penny and Christine talk on and on about how gorgeous the place is. They overheard a conversation between George and Nancy, and apparently for Nancy this place was a love at first sight kind of thing, and she wants it.

“Would she leave the ranch?” I ask, shocked that any house could compare to the ranch house.

“Not permanently, but I think they want to pass off some of the responsibility as part of their early retirement,” Christine clarifies. She spends the most time with them, so of all of us she’d know the most.

“Is it early if they’re already sixty?” Penny asks in a whisper, like if she says it too loud, they’ll hear from across town and get offended.

“Nancy doesn’t turn sixty for another year, and if you remind her of that she’ll quit inviting you to dinner for a week. Trust me.” Christine absently places a hand on her stomach before diving in to tell us about how when she tried to throw Nancy a fifty-fifth birthday party a few years back, it didn’t go how she planned it. Nancy apparently had been keeping her age under wraps and didn’t fully appreciate it being in big letters on a birthday banner. Not actually mad, Christine was quick to clarify, but just enough to be comically passive-aggressive for two weeks.

Penny gives us the lowdown on the best restaurants and bars in the area. She looked everything up online yesterday so that she’d have a back pocket of answers when everyone inevitably doesn’t know where to eat every night. But in total it’s only three nights, so it shouldn’t be all that bad.

The minute we turn down a tree-lined gravel road, I understand immediately why Nancy would want to live in this place. It’s equal parts grand but somehow cozy—not too big, but it looks like it was built to host a good time in an intimate way. The porch wraps around the entirety of the house, and it looks like a few of the bedrooms have balconies of their own. I never thought I was a person who appreciates landscape, but the way the trees steer you in the direction of the home has me swooning a little bit. Because of course, the trees are changing leaves, and that just makes everything a little bit more magical.

I’m surprised to see a horse pen next to a classic red barn to the left of the home, a little further away from the lake, but I’m also not surprised at all. Of course, there’d be a red barn so cute and perfect it’s almost a cliché. I’m a little in love.

Popping out of the back seat, I meander my way over to take a few pictures of the barn against the backdrop of the fall-colored trees next to a crystal-clear blue lake. It’s unreal. I’ve filled my camera roll with a few dozen photos when I hear the crunch of boots get closer to me, and I feel the crash of a mountainous human tackle me practically to the ground. I don’t actually fall. Eric spins me around and swoops me up into a hug before I truly lose my balance. But his leather and clean soap scent does make me dizzy.

“You made it!” Then dropping me down to my feet, he looks me in the eyes for a split second before bending down to kiss me in a way that removes the little equilibrium I had left. This man missed me. He really, truly did.

I’m not ready for him to pull back, but he does. Keeping one arm around me—fingers weaved into my belt loop as I’ve learned he likes to do—he walks us to the truck that has my bag and asks all about my flight. He wants every detail, so I tell him all about my travels. I don’t tell him about seeing my dad this morning, though, and I can tell he knows something is a little off. I just don’t want to ruin this setting on wasted emotion for that douche.

As we walk into the house, Nancy wastes no time in bypassing Eric to commandeer my time and show me the kitchen, in great detail, because she knows I’ll appreciate it as much as she does. To her absolute delight, there’s not just a Wolf stove, but it’s a double range. We ooh and ahh over it for no less than thirty minutes and plan to do at least one meal in the house while we’re here so we can both stand at the stove and work together instead of taking turns like we would at the ranch.

Eric steals me back to show me the rest of the house. He didn’t leave me alone in the kitchen with his mother, mind you. No, he just had to stand there, leaning against one of the most gorgeous slabs of marble I’ve ever seen on an island, all handsome and imposing as he watched his mom and me gush over an appliance. I’m surprised he let us go on for as long as he did. His shoulders were brimming with impatience.

When Nancy finally released me back into his guided tour, he wasted no time in looping his fingers through my belt loop and guiding me room by room. For how much of a presence the exterior of the home had, it actually didn’t have that much wasted square footage. Most of the living space is carefully laid out to be accessible but pocketed out, so you feel like it’s an open concept, but there are little areas specifically designed to feel like their own space. There’s the main living space, a dining room that somehow makes a twelve-seat table feel cozy, and an office fully lined with bookshelves that makes me feel right at home. Eric yanks me over to excitedly point to a row of my books. I swoon a little more.

By the time we get to the bedrooms upstairs, I’m a little surprised to see there are only four doors. Two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a bunk room.

“Mom and Dad get the primary, obviously, and we thought it’d be wrong to make Christine crawl up a ladder in her condition, so the rest of us are bunking up in here,” he says as he pushes open a door to a room that would have made my eight-year-old-self’s day, but my thirty-two-year-old self is internally laughing at the concept of four grown-ass adults sharing such a crowded bunk room. A bunk room with a balcony, at least. And its own attached bathroom.

“So much room for activities” spits out of my mouth before I can help it. I can’t see a bunk bed and not quote Will Ferrell, despite the fact that’s not actually the real quote from the movie. It catches Eric off guard though and sends him into one of his fits of silent laughter as he throws my suitcase on one of the top bunks.

We walk out to the balcony, and I take in the view of the lake in all of its glory. It’s stunning. The water is so clear I can see straight down to know it’s a rock-bottom lake, but what really sets the whole thing off for me is the backdrop of those snowcapped mountains. I’m leaning against the railing when I feel Eric come up behind me, caging me in with his arms and setting his chin on my shoulder.

“It’s one of the clearest lakes on the planet.”

“How is it so clean?”

“The water comes directly from those mountains,” he says, pointing over my shoulder to the range I was just admiring. “Every time we come here, I want to stay a little longer. Looks like Mom’s finally got the bug too. I hope they do buy this house.”

“I think it was the stove more than this view.”

I feel his breath against my neck as he huffs out a quiet laugh. “I think you might be right, Red. I don’t care what convinces her though, I hope they do it. It’s just hard for ranchers to get away from their land. The fact that Dad’s even giving it a serious thought means he’s closer to handing over the reins than I thought.”

“Does that make you nervous?” I turn to look at him, my cheek lightly scratching against his mid-afternoon stubble.

“Not anymore. When I thought it’d just be me, it scared the hell out of me. But now that Trevor, Dean, and I finally got over our pride and started talking, we’re all kind of excited.”

“Have you started training the new palomino yet?” He got another horse dropped off to train last week. King is still at the ranch getting trained, but passing off the other duties the way he has finally opened up his time to take on more horses.

“She’s got a good soul, but she’s a little feisty. And resistant. Sort of reminds me of another pretty blonde I know.” I swear I feel the ghost of a playful nip at my ear, but when I turn around to see if it was what I think it was, all I see is my favorite cowboy with a cute little contented grin on his face.

He could win a medal for the patience he has shown me, and has continued to show me. I know it. I’m thankful for it. I send my elbow back to lightly, lovingly, jab him in the ribs as I try to ignore the memory of my dad sitting at my bistro table this morning. We go downstairs to meet everyone on the back lawn as I try to not think about how my angel of a mother would react to knowing that my asshat of a father moved on less than a year after leaving us. I try to get my facial expression under control so that Eric doesn’t try to do any more digging into why I’m resistant tonight. I don’t want to think about those things. What I want to do is go to a fun restaurant with this group of people that makes me irrationally content and talk about a topic I had an embarrassingly low understanding of four months ago, but now feel perfectly confident participating in.

And that’s exactly what I do.