Page 53 of The Cowboy and the Stray

Then he kissed me.

The kiss was slow and sweet at first, his lips soft against mine while his other hand slipped from my belt loop to cup the side of my face. It felt like forever before he pulled away. "You're something else," he murmured.

I couldn't speak, couldn't look away as he pushed a lock of hair behind my ear and trailed his fingers down my neck. The heat between us was almost palpable, and I had to remind myself that this wasn't just about self-defense anymore. This was getting complicated.

With a final glance at the fencepost, now reduced to splinters from our target practice, Calder led me back toward the house. We stopped at the porch steps where we sat down, side by side, our backs against the railing as we watched the dusty yard stretch out before us. The sun was high overhead now, beating down on us mercilessly but doing nothing to dampen the electricity crackling between us.

"So," I started hesitantly, "What's⁠—"

"Are you going to sit there all morning, Tess, or come up and help me?" Midge’s yell crashed the quiet.

Calder chuckled beside me.

"Guess that's my cue," I said and stretched.

He gave me a look that made my stomach flip, and I headed for the front door. The smell of coffee hit me as I went inside, and I hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, half-thinking I could pretend I hadn’t heard.

"You coming, girl?" Midge yelled again.

Of course I was. I headed straight upstairs to her room.

“Come on in here.”

I did, brushing the hair out of my eyes and hoping my hesitation didn’t show. Midge gave me a quick once-over as I sank into the chair beside her. The little woman’s approval was important to me, and I didn’t want to mess it up.

Old photo boxes were piled on a low table, a sea of dusty sepia. I bit my lip, trying to read Midge’s expression.

Stacks of photos made a thick blanket across the table.

“Help me with these." She gestured toward the photos.

I glanced around the room. Family quilts lined the walls; every corner held a lifetime of keepsakes. It hit me, hard, how little I had of my own past, even if I could eventually get my stuff back from Lance. My mom and I had left everything behind so many times that I didn’t even know where my baby pictures were, if they even existed. We’d run so many times without packing a single memory. I hadn’t owned a photo album in years. I was a blank, a person with no roots.

The weight of the realization turned my gut inside out.

“Don’t just sit there starin’. Get to work,” Midge said.

I reached for a stack, trying to ignore the twinge.

There was one photo that caught my eye. A wild-eyed woman, maybe in her twenties, perched on a fence rail, sitting next to a broad-shouldered man with an intense gaze. He had a crooked smile, like it didn’t fit quite right on his face. It was Midge, pre-wrinkles.

“That’s my Boone,” Midge said, voice rougher than before. “Died before Calder and Sloane were born, but I still hear him stomping around the barn some mornings.”

The thought of Midge at my age made me pause. It should have made me think of Calder, of what I was doing here, of what the hell came next. But instead it just made me think about loss, about leaving behind the only people who had ever meant anything. “Did you know,” I said softly, “how bad you’d miss him?”

Midge got quiet. It was a big question. I was pushing the boundaries of whatever unspoken friendship was growing between us. She watched me, eyes narrow and thoughtful, and I wanted to tell her never mind, that it was nothing, that I didn’t need to know after all.

Instead, she tapped the side of her nose with one finger. “He was stubborn as hell,” she said, “but so was I. When he died, it was like…” She shook her head. “Well. When you lose someone you’ve had forever, it leaves a mark. But it leaves a mark to have them, too. I’d do it all over again, even knowing how bad it would hurt at the end.” She tilted her head at me. “Why you holdin’ that one so close, girl?” she asked, breaking the spell and nodding toward my chest.

I looked down and realized I had a photo of baby Calder clutched tight in my hand, based on the name scrawled on the back of the photo. Round face, wild hair, an impish look that said he knew more than he was letting on. The start of that grin was already there.

“God, he’s always been a handful,” Midge said. “Was hoping he’d grow out of it.”

I put the photo back in the stack and reached for another one, pretending to be fascinated by pictures of prize cattle. Midge’s dry chuckle told me I wasn’t fooling anyone.

“Boone’d come back to haunt me if I didn’t keep his name alive,” she said, shifting gears with an easy smile. “That man could fight off a grizzly with a fence post. Did once, I think.”

I laughed, but it sounded thin even to me. It was like a boulder in my gut, the idea of having roots, of staying put.