Page 25 of We Drank the Dawn

“Nope, not yet. Tag’s probationary period with the Alliance is two full years. He’ll get a yes or no sometime next month. They are running professional rodeos, but only on trial. So they have the insane schedule without the benefits yet.”

Why did Sarah sound like an employee? She was a lot more educated about Meadowbrook’s rodeo status than I would’ve expected. It made me feel out of touch—like an outsider.

“I guess you talk to Bea and Hollie a good bit,” I said.

She hummed. “Once a week-ish. And all us girls are in a group chat.”

All us girls—meaning my wife and my four sisters.

When silence fell again, she said, “I wanted to leave Sunday morning at 4 a.m. so we could beat traffic and arrive at a reasonable hour. But, due to our setbacks, we will have to get a hotel.”

“Okay.”

“You aren’t mad at me?”

“I mean, I don’t really get the point of traveling nine hundred miles to talk and snuggle, but I’m not mad. I don’t want you to have unrealistic expectations though.”

“Like what?”

“That I’m suddenly going to be going on backwoods excursions just because the sunshine and fresh air did me good.”

She didn’t respond.

I breathed out a soft laugh. “That’s exactly what you’re expecting, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. I just…want to be with you and not be miserable for once.” Inwardly, I winced. How did we go from giddy with love to boiling with resentment? Sarah wasn’t wrong. We were both so miserable we were hardly breathing anymore.

She continued, giving a humorless laugh. “My expectations are things like enjoying each other's company, having a little fun, going on a leisurely walk, or”—she laughed again, the sound almost manic—“here’s a crazy idea…maybe we could have sex! But you’re right! All of that is totally unrealistic. My bad.”

There were so many flaws in what she said. I wanted to point them out, but I bit my tongue.

We needed to stop fighting anyway.

It would be a long drive.

EIGHT

Sarah

Iscanned the tree line for the Meadowbrook sign, my eyelids stinging with every blink. Even though I’d caught a second wind as I drove through Comfort, I was so ready to get out of the car. And even more ready to end the forced proximity with Peter. If our argument on I-50 hadn’t caused me to regret this decision, the late-night argument in our hotel room did.

Stony silence permeated the car all day.

My heart sagged with relief when I saw the wooden sign at the end of the long, gravel driveway. I would never tell Peter that his sisters had to scramble to accommodate us. That the fifth wheel was supposed to be on the road this week. That Hollie, Jesse, and the kids would be separated all week because of our imposition. When Bea alluded to the fact that the Holmes might be using the fifth wheel and she’d have to check with them, I tried to back out and offer to come at a more convenient time.

She would not hear of it.

And Hollie immediately agreed to stay home.

I felt bad, but my desperation choked out my manners.

The tires spit gravel onto the undercarriage of the car, my Subaru almost sinking into the layer of white rocks. It looked like they’d poured fresh gravel recently. On either side of the driveway were fenced pastures, each with a little hut that held a cage full of hay and feed buckets. Sun reflected off the brown pond and the barn loomed in the distance. From here, I could see a couple men standing in the training ring with a few horses waiting in the corrals.

I’d been to Meadowbrook twice now, and I had to say, I loved it.

Every visit brought it dearer to my heart.

The ranch drummed up an ache of nostalgia deep in my gut. Arriving always felt like a tiny homecoming—not because it was my home, but because it felt like a family. A huge family that sucked you in no matter who you were or where you came from. The location felt other-wordly, or maybe like another time in history. The life here was fast-paced, yes, but simple. Everyone worked hard, ate together, and had a common goal. So different from the big city we were used to, where you could see an infinite amount of people yet never utter a single greeting.