Page 89 of Pumpkin Spice Promises

I rested my forearms against the fence. “My dad undersold you.” She glanced at me. “James undersold you.”

She shrugged and her mouth relaxed. “What did you watch?”

“A few runs.”

“How many is a few?”

I thought about the hour I’d spent on my couch. “Enough.”

“That sounds creepy.”

“It does now.”

Her hand moved slowly along Blueberry’s nose. “Which ones?”

“Tennessee.”

That got her attention. “Which Tennessee?”

“There were multiple?”

“Four that season.”

“Oh.” I turn around so my back is to the fence. “The one where you almost lost the second barrel.”

“I didn’t almost lose it.”

“You were sideways.”

“Blueberry came in too tight.”

“You looked sideways.”

“She corrected.”

“You corrected.”

“We both did.”

There she was.

I smiled. For the first time since I’d met Carson, she wasn’t choosing every word before she spoke.

“That run wasn’t even that good,” she continued. “Everyone loves it because the time was good, but we were sloppy going into two. I should’ve given her another half step before asking for the turn.”

I knew almost nothing about barrel racing beyond what I’d learned last night. But it didn't matter. I listened as she spoke. Carson’s hands moved while she talked, suddenly so animated I felt like I was meeting another version of the woman.

She pointed toward Blueberry as she explained how the mare used to anticipate turns if Carson let her see the barrel too early. How they’d spent months correcting a tendency to drift left. How James used to set barrels in different patterns at home so Blueberry wouldn’t start running on memory instead of listening to Carson.

Her entire face changed. Not into the twenty-year-old woman I’d watched on my phone. That woman was gone. But pieces of her were still here. Buried beneath five years of responsibility.

“You really watched all that?” The realization seemed to embarrass her.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

I looked toward Blueberry. “I wanted to see what everyone kept talking about.”