This time, I have to win. I don’t care about the clout, the title, the cheers—I don’t care about anything but that paycheck signed to me, so I can save this ranch and keep my baby’s home intact.
Later, Tate’s comin’ by and we’re workin’ on me getting somewhere with Ten, his roughstock stallion. I’ve pulled out all my old gear—stovepipe chaps that have saved me from spurs and rough landings, my vest complete with a built-in neck roll, and even my old hat, the old felt Biggs. Not sure any of this will stand up to the PRCA rules when it comes down to it, but for practice, I’ll be square.
A little arranged marriage after breakfast, followed by anold man attempting to ride for eight seconds to save his life as he knows it. Not your average Sunday, but here we are.
“I like Quinn livin’ here with us,” Sadie says, kicking her feet as she sits on the side of my bed, watching me argue with my bolo tie.
“Yeah,” I tell her, fumbling with the tie I’ve tied and worn a hundred times. Somehow, my hands aren’t working right and I know it’s from too many hours training this week. A memory flashes through my mind of Quinn and Sadie rubbing antiseptic ointment on my hands where a blister gave way to a nasty tear. Hurt like a motherfucker, but with those two treating my hand like a damn lace doily, I managed to forget for a while.
It ain’t as hard as I thought it would be, seeing Sadie warm up to another woman who isn’t Amelia. I guess because I didn’t get to see Amelia with her own daughter much, I don’t have painful memories constantly contrasting with the present. Nonetheless, I’m surprised at how much happiness fills me when I watch Sadie and Quinn together.
Last week, after our talk, we went back to Sable Sky Inn and broke the news of our impending nuptials to Mabel. Obviously Mabel is much like Tate and Love, meaning we can’t lie to her because she’s been there for every step of our actual relationship, which has so far just been filmmaker and the old guy she’s filming.
She agreed that not only was the short-lived secret safe with her, but that she'd bear witness to us fake falling in love. Normally I’d never ask someone to lie for me or on my behalf, but with what’s at stake, asking is simple.
We also agreed that today we’d talk to Sadie. It took us a week of chatting on the back porch long after Sadie’s bedtime, watching the sun set as we made plans, ironing outdetails we both weren’t sure would even come up but wanting to be safe.
I learned her favorite color is pink, her dad and mom split when her sister was a newborn, her mom’s name is Diane and her sister’s name is Lane, she played volleyball in high school and her sister is following in those footsteps, she’s been making movies since her mom let her get YouTube at age thirteen, and she’s never lived anywhere but the Bay Area in California.
I told her I don’t have a favorite color because I’m a grown man (blue, obviously), told her both my folks were old and passed when I was young, dug out the old yearbook and showed her photos of a very young Tate and me in the rodeo club, crooked, youthful smiles staring up at us. I explained how the ranch earns money (that,she asked about), told her Sadie was nine months old when she tried walking, and that her first word was duck, even though that’s the one animal we don’t have on Vaughn Ranch.
On Thursday night, Big Bertha got a hair up her ass and started a fight in the coop, which led to a battery of squawking. On that particular evening, Quinn and I settled onto the couch together, no cushion between us. Instead of talking, we watched three reruns of a sitcom together. Neither of us laughed, nor even moved, and I don’t know what was going through her mind, but in mine, I was fully freaking out.
This marriage and my win will give me everything I’ve been killing myself to save for six years. Literally rolling around sleeplessly in my bed, alone, fucking exhausted every single night. And now I’m within months of having that struggle behind me, even if bartered under aslightfalse pretense. There’s no harm in it… except for the fact that when all is said and done, it may kill me.
I like Quinn, thepass a note in class, rig a game of sevenminutes in heaven to be with youtype of like. And it’s been so long since I’ve felt this way, or even imagined life beyond the day-to-day.
Quinn is learning about herself out here, maybe learning that nature isn’t the enemy, maybe even deciding that she does want to be a mom one day, and discovering she can make any film she wants to make, as long as she shows up with her characteristic focus and determination.
Today, after another Sunday service with Quinn tucked between me and Sadie, it’s time for the talk. Not the birds and the bees, since Sadie’s just six, but rather, the whole “your dad’s getting fake married” talk. I may be the first generation for this one.
Quinn has been offering to cook dinner or make breakfast for weeks, but since she moved in last weekend, she simply began taking over some of the household chores, like cooking, cleaning, and she’s even done Sadie’s laundry a few times when mending fences in the sun turned to mending fences beneath the moon.
Last week, we told Sadie that Miss Mabel had a new guest coming, and that Miss Quinn would be staying with us for the remainder of the filming project. She had zero questions about that but instead was excited and begging me to let Quinn tell her bedtime stories. “I only get her for a few months, let her do it, Daddy! You always tell me stories!”
I wanted to say no for the same reason I didn’t want Quinn using terms of endearment or affection. But I’ve asked such a big favor of Quinn, it hardly seems fair to dictate how she makes this little act work out. I just have to be very clear and cautious with Sadie, whose little heart and mind can’t possibly understand a temporary marriage of convenience. Not when she’s fallin’ for Quinn, too.
Quinn plates pot roast over a healthy dollop of herhomemade mashed potatoes, and passes one to Sadie, then to me. She’s started getting groceries on her own, and I want so much to offer to pay her back, but I can’t, so I sit silently grateful. It’s smelled good in here all day, and it turns out she put meat in the slow cooker before church and every time I came inside for a cool glass of water, my mouth watered. I cook, and I do it well. But her cooking smells like heaven.
After making sure our water glasses are full, Quinn joins us at the table with her plate stacked just as high as mine.
“Did you wash your hands?” I ask Sadie, who winces, then slips from her chair, sounding like Daisy as she runs down the hall toward the bathroom.
Quinn stares down at her plate, then cuts her eyes my way. “I wasn’t sure how the talk was gonna go, so I supplied myself with an emotional outlet,” she explains, pointing the tines of her fork toward her mashed potatoes.
I stroke my hand through my hair, then scratch the side of my jaw, counting down the seconds till Sadie’s back and I can finally eat this food that’s been edging me all day. “It ain’t this talk I’m concerned with,” I admit, my stomach grumbling so loud that Quinn grins.
Her fingers play with the ends of the linen napkin, the one my mama handsewn when she was a newlywed, living in this house with my pop. She looks up, and her fingers trace the edges of my pinkie and ring finger, and a moment later, she’s squeezing my hand and our eyes are tangled in a silent heat that has me wondering if I’m not about to save my daughter and my ranch, but destroy my own heart.
“Thank you for trusting me enough to do this favor for you. I know it’s not just about making a judge happy. I know that you must believe I’m a good person if you let me around Sadie, and that means a lot to me, your trust and… your belief in me.” Her bottom lip wobbles for a moment, but she smiles, takes her hand back, and adds, “But if this talk isn’t worrying you, which is?”
My eyes never leave hers. I love the flecks of gold swimming in her emerald irises, it’s unique and gorgeous, and not anything I’ve ever seen before. “The talk we’ll have the day you leave.”
She tips her head back, the ends of her long hair swaying against the back of the old kitchen chair as she shakes her head. “I don’t want to cry,” she whispers, then tips her head forward again, searching for composure as she blots at the corners of her eyes with the napkin. “But I’m not looking forward to that day.”
“No?” This is news to me. I would have thought she’s itchin’ to get back to the city, and to wake up somewhere where a devilish rooster isn’t waiting to take you out at the ankle. Or in a house that has an air conditioner, or, hell, I picture her wanting to be anywhere but here.
Quinn shakes her head as Sadie runs back down the hall toward us. She doesn’t get to put words to that head shake, but I put a pin in it, reminding myself to ask her again later.
