“Okay,” I said, agreeing before I could think better of it. I’d enjoyed myself at breakfast too much to say no. And, I didn’t want to say no. I was tired of being careful. Right now, I just wanted to be happy.
“Alright then,” he replied, his grin widening even more. “Let’s get to work then.”
I climbed out of the truck with a smile and went to the barn to start the horses on their day.
Chapter Seventeen
Pete
Saturday
I had the grill going, a stack of burgers sitting on the picnic table ready to go, a cooler full of beers on the ground, and some banana pudding inside resting in the fridge that I’d whipped up this morning using my mama’s old family recipe. I had a moment to check I hadn’t forgotten anything before I heard the car coming up the driveway. A few seconds later, the engine cut off, and a car door slammed.
“I’m around back!” I called.
Emma came around the side of the house a little while later, a sweet smile on her face that kicked me hard in the gut to see. She was so damned pretty, wearing a flowered summer dress and sandals, her soft brown hair left loose to flow over her bare shoulders and down her back.
“Howdy,” she said. She lifted the plastic grocery bag dangling from one wrist. “I brought homemade sides. Macaroni salad and baked beans.”
“That was sweet of you. I was just about to put the burgers on.”
While I got the meat going, she busied herself at the table, pulling her plastic Tupperware containers of sides out and arranging them in a way that made some sense to her. She’d brought plastic serving spoons, too. She moved around the bag of hamburger buns and condiments, putting them in order on top of the red checkered tablecloth while I watched, a wide smile on my face.
She came to stand next to me at the grill, bringing that sweet vanilla smell with her, so strong I could smell it over the aroma of grilling burgers. For weeks, I hadn’t been able to smell vanilla without thinking of her. I wanted to bury my face in her neck and just take in as much of that scent as I could, the burgers be damned.
Emma pointed at a shady spot close to the house where Riley was curled up, nose to tail and dead to the world. “Every time I see that dog, he’s asleep. I can’t recall seeing him on his feet once since I started at the ranch.”
I snorted a laugh at that. “He’s one lazy son of a bitch, that’s for sure. But he’s been that way since he was a pup. He ain’t but eight years old.”
She laughed, too, the color high in her cheeks. “We had a few dogs on the farm growing up. But they never sat still. They’d run around the property from morning ‘til night, chasing each other and sticking close to our heels.”
“Riley sure ain’t that way. He sleeps about twenty-three out of every twenty-four hours!”
She laughed again, much deeper this time.
When the burgers were about medium well, I took them off the grill and handed Emma the steaming plate. She took it to the table while I put the cover on the grill and knocked the vents closed with the wooden end of the long metal spatula. I went to join her at the table, taking a paper plate when she handed it to me. I fixed a burger and scooped a few ample spoonfuls of sides onto my plate while she did the same.
“This looks great, Pete,” she said.
“Let’s hope it tastes good, too,” I replied.
She pushed her thick hair back and off her shoulders before digging in. I caught myself watching her too closely and looked down at my own food. I picked up my burger and took a big bite, juices and ketchup dripping down my chin.
“Was it hard at first?” she asked me, after dabbing some ketchup from the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “Running the farm?”
I nodded. “Oh, sure. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.” It sometimes felt like I still didn’t, but I kept at it anyway, trusting things would turn out the way I needed them to in the end. “I grew up on the farm, so I knew how to do a lot of things. But my daddy handled paying all the bills and worrying over money. He died suddenly and wasn’t that old. I never got the chance to learn from him the way I would’ve liked to.”
“My mother died when I was pretty young,” she said in a soft voice. “I don’t really remember her. I know what she looked like because we have pictures. But I don’t recall the sound of her voice or have any clear memories of the two of us together. My sister swears that she does, but I don’t know how that could be when she’s almost two years younger than I am.”
“Do you miss her?” I asked and cursed myself out for being so thick. Of course, she did. I couldn’t have asked a dumber question. But her answer flat out surprised me.
Emma shrugged, her smile shrinking as her green eyes widened, the sadness making them much darker than usual. “I miss the idea of her. Does that make sense?” She paused, chewing her lip, but more to think, not for me to answer, so I just kept quiet and let her continue in her own time. “Growing up, I was jealous of other kids who had their mothers around. I wanted that so bad, but that’s not really the same thing as missing a person. And, my daddy was there. He made things okay for us.”
I took a bite of her macaroni salad. It was really good. I lifted an eyebrow. A girl who knew her way around a ranch — maybe even better than I did — was pretty as a picture, and could cook? I couldn’t believe how lucky I was all of a sudden.
And, more importantly, she was letting the door to that safe creep open again, a little at a time. I didn’t want to do anything to make it slam shut on me again. That had been terrible. I wanted to know everything about her. And, I wanted to tell her whatever I could about myself before she begged me to shut my mouth already and give her poor ears some rest.
“I miss my daddy every day,” I said. We had a nice rhythm going that I didn’t want to lose. She shared something, then I did. “We did so much together on this farm. I see him every place I look.” I glanced at the barn, expecting, as always, to see Daddy out there, still working in the hazy dark.