“Seth?”
He glanced over his shoulder to see Cull at the rail, his face shadowed by his worn Stetson. Seth coiled the line and crossed the arena, boots crunching on the packed dirt.
“What’s up?”
“We’re expecting freezing temps for the next few nights. Frost warning’s already up.”
“Shit.” Seth ran his good hand through his hair. “Take Ringo and Red up there with you and use the row covers. The heavy canvas ones in the east barn.”
“Alright. I’ll have them gather up as many as they can. I’m sure we have enough to cover all the rows. The corn will be fine since it’s grown, but the oats are barely ankle-high yet.”
“Do what you have to, Cull. We can’t lose a crop. Not this year.”
“Will do. I’ll talk to you later.” Cull pushed away from the rail and walked out of the arena; his silhouette briefly outlined against the light.
Seth shook his head as he led the horse to the middle of the arena. “If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. First, my hand gets busted, and Ryan’s leaving, and now this damn frost.”
After working with the stubborn filly for most of the morning, Seth trudged toward his house, his boots leaving deep imprints in the soft spring soil. Every muscle in his body ached for rest, his stomach growled with emptiness, and the rank smell of his own dried sweat made him long for a scalding hot shower. His T-shirt now clung to his back like a second skin, dark with perspiration from wrestling with the temperamental younghorse who’d spent the morning tossing her mane and rolling her liquid brown eyes at his every request.
As he stepped through the wide barn doors into the open air, the sudden bite of an approaching cold front slapped against his damp skin, raising gooseflesh on his arms. The wind carried the scent of snow and frost, making his instinct twist with worry for the tender green shoots just breaking through the soil in the field. It didn’t matter that it was May, the unpredictable spring weather in this valley could swing from gentle sunshine to killing frost in a matter of hours. The thought of those vulnerable sprouts withering under a blanket of unexpected ice made his stomach knot painfully. Ash trusted him with the planting, and the prospect of failure sat like a stone in his chest.
Seth knew the row covers would protect the oats, but he hoped the freeze didn’t last longer than a few nights.
At the door, he carefully scraped the rich black soil from his boots against the iron scraper, then wiped them on the braided mat. He removed his sweat-stained Stetson and hung it on the peg. The bench beside the door creaked under his weight as he removed his boots.
Seth let his head fall back against the exterior log wall, his eyes drifting closed as Ryan’s face materialized in his mind, those laughing blue eyes and that smile that always appeared at the most unexpected moments. With a heavy sigh, he leaned forward, resting his forearms on his denim-clad thighs, his gaze fixed on the floorboards beneath his sock-covered feet.
With a heavy sigh, Seth got to his feet, entered the laundry room, stripped off his dirty clothes and dropped them onto the floor. He strode from the room, through the kitchen, along the hallway, then entered his bedroom. He removed clean sweatpants and a T-shirt from the dresser, then entered the bathroom. Knowing he had another long, sleepless night ahead of him. Another one of many.
****
Ryan missed him fiercely, his easy smile, the way his cowboy boots crunched on gravel, the scent of hay and saddle leather that lingered on him, and the way those Wranglers hugged his body, yet she hesitated to appear unannounced at his door.
Friday as she sat on the sofa, her thumb hovered over her phone, aching to text him, but she couldn’t bring herself to risk his stubborn refusal. Seth had made it clear they couldn’t be together. She knew he’d never leave Montana, but she would trade her California life in an instant if he’d asked her to stay in this wide-open state. Stubbornness, she reminded herself, ran as deep in him as the mountain rivers, and she knew he would never admit he wanted her to remain.
Shaking off the thought, she realized that if he did ask, she wouldn’t hesitate. She’d been in love before, but never like this. With Seth, every moment felt rooted and true, like the fir trees surrounding his ranch.
“If he’d even talk to you,” she whispered.
Yesterday, she and Alyssa had spent the entire day exploring Clifton, Spring City, and Hartland. Ryan took pictures of everything. The true charm of Clifton came perfectly through the lens.
She headed for the bathroom, anticipating the warm spray of the shower. Carrying her phone with her, she set it on the sink’s edge, turned the shower on and watched as the steam blurred the mirror. A sudden vibration made her catch her breath; Doris’s name lit the screen. With a deep exhale, she answered.
“Hello, Doris,” she said, brushing hair behind her ear.
“Well, you sound better,” Doris replied.
“I am.”
Doris’s voice softened. “You’re going to try to stay there with him, aren’t you?”
Ryan’s chest tightened. “Yes. I’m sorry, but I want to be with him, if he’ll have me.”
“I hate to lose you,” Doris confessed, “but I understand.”
“I changed my flight to Sunday, just in case he still wants me to go. I’m scheduled to check-out of here tomorrow afternoon, but I asked Becca if I could stay one more night. She was fine with it.”
“Alright. Keep me posted?”
