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We left the house and walked for the barn, her hand slipping sweetly into mine. She pressed against me the whole way, my arm sliding around her waist and tugging her close. I saddled up my sweetest horse I had. Pixie, we called her. All white horse with a blond mane and tail and the prettiest blue eyes anyone had ever seen.
I saddled up my trusty stallion, Lightning. A dark brown horse with a jagged white line running down his nose that looked like a lightning bolt and accented the black mane and tail he had. He was my rough and tumble horse. The moody one. There were times where I was the only one who could handle him, and I preferred it that way.
“How many acres do you have?” Delia asked.
“Two hundred,” I said.
“And it’s all surrounded by forest?” she asked.
“It is. Horses get their own space, chickens are by the house. Cows got their own space as well, then the rest is for hay bailing and growin’ crops. I got enough land to rotate my twenty-acre patches, so only one hundred acres are used in a given season. Paul takes care of the tilling of the soil and readying it for the seasonal hires to sew seeds, and I take care of replenishing the unused acres with nutrients it needs for the next season.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
“And takes a lot of money. Paul’s my only full-time hire, but I do a lot of seasonal hiring so he’s got help when harvest time comes. It’s one of the many reasons why I started my music career. You know, besides the fact that I enjoy singing.”
“I still don’t know how you juggle those two lives,” she said. “They seem so different.”
“They are. It’s what I love about ‘em. The ranch and all the farm work here is nice. Tedious. Repetitive. Hard work, but always with wonderful rewards to reap. Then there’s the touring and the fans and the music. That’s my party hard life. You know, for workin’ so hard on the ranch. Least it was.”
“You know you can party and enjoy yourself without alcohol, right?” she asked.
“I know. It’s just gonna take some time to convince me of it. The booze and the women and the music went hand in hand for years. But I’m learning that there are much better things in life,” I said.
We rode the edge of the ranch and it gave me time to look things over. Paul was out in the middle of one of the fields doing something and he raised his hand to wave. Delia giggled and waved back as I tipped my hat to the man. But then a sound caught my ear.
A sound that made me divert off our beaten path and into the woods after all.
“Where are we headed?” Delia asked.
“You’ll see. Come on,” I said.
We rode the horses half a mile back into the forest. The creek was running higher than it usually was this time of the year and the horses stopped to drink. I dismounted and went to help Delia down, taking her in my arms as she slid off the saddle. She dropped down and stumbled, falling into me with giggles dripping from her lips.
“Sorry,” she said.
“No need to be. It’s why I came around to help ya,” I said.
“This creek is beautiful. Is it always flowing like this?” she asked.
“It’s not usually this high. I heard it all the way from the edge of the property. That doesn’t usually happen.”
“Do you come back here often?”
“Not as much as I used to. My momma and I came back here a lot. Reminds me of her whenever I do venture out here.”
“Do you want to go back to the house?” she asked.
“Nope. Consider this as me introducing you to one of my parents. My momma loved it back here. It’s covered in memories of her.”
“I bet she was a beautiful woman.”
“She was. Beautiful, smart, and strong as hell. Ran this house on a schedule, and we paid a price if we didn’t keep it. She was tough, but always forgiving. Kind, but blunt.”
“Blunt?” she asked.
“My momma always told ya like it was. She was k
ind. She would always make sure you had what you needed. But when it came time to get real, she always did.”
