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My palms had been sweaty, and my heart was in my throat all morning. When I opened the box, the stack of bills and junk mail went into the seat of the side-by-side. What I cared about was rolled innocently at the bottom of the box—the December issue ofStockman’s Magazine.
I flipped to the table of contents and found the section devoted to “Cowboy Sayings,” the reader submissions page. That was where my poem would be. The slick pages melted away from my fingers, and I held my breath. Almost…
That was when my phone rang.
My hand twitched like a kid caught in the cookie jar, and the pages slipped. I'd have let it ring if it was one of my brothers or anyone else. But it was my dad’s ringtone. I sighed and tossed the magazine in the side-by-side as I hit the answer button.
“Hi, Dad.”
He sounded like he was in a restaurant or somewhere busy. There were lots of voices in the background. “Are you headed to town today?”
“I was planning on it. Need something?”
“Yeah, can you pick up some teriyaki sauce? I’m going to make another batch of jerky.”
I frowned. “Sure, but why now? You should have like five pounds of it.”
“Gave it all away, need to make more. You’re going today, right?”
“You sound like you’re already in town. You could get it faster than I could.”
“Tied up till later, won’t have time to stop. You sure you can?”
I squinted at the horizon. Dad was acting weird lately—hardly ever home, and on his phone all the time when he was. Like a teenager. “I guess, but that’s a lot of jerky. Who did you give it to?”
“Tell you later. Oh, pick up some Worcestershire, too. Gotta go!” And he hung up.
That left me staring at my blank screen. Ihadbeen planning to go to town, it was true, but it wasn’t to run ranch errands. I promised I’d stop by Austen’s place this afternoon, but first, I wanted to see Jess. Talking to her dad had inspired me to take a chance, to throw caution to the wind. I was going to ask Jess if I could ever have a chance with her.
I’d put it off for two days. Whenever I thought of it, my skin broke out with goosebumps, and I got dizzy. What if she wasn’t interested? What if other people saw me getting shot down?What if she had already fallen for Luke?
But what if I did nothing?
I’d been brave enough to send my poem out into the world. Granted, I didn’t plan on letting my family see it. I’d be tearing the back out of that magazine as soon as I got half a chance.Maybe.
I swallowed and looked at the page. My fingers itched to tear it out, but what if I waited? What if I just let someone find it? My family would finally know the truth.
It was time for me to tell Jess the truth, too.
“Jess? She’s out this morning. Her dog had a vet checkup or something.” The guy at the body shop was wearing a pair of coveralls with “Will” on the chest. He and about three others had dropped what they were doing to stare at me the second I said her name.
I swallowed. Of course, I picked the one day all week when she wasn’t there. And now I looked like a disappointed idiot, asking where she was in front of a bunch of guys who had probably seen a dozen men walk into that shop looking for her.
“I see. Do you know when she’ll be back?”
Will shook his head. “Maybe later. Maybe tomorrow. You could ask the boss,” he said, gesturing to the office.
“Thanks.”
I wandered to the office and looked through the glass at Jed Thompkins, sitting at the desk. His back was turned, and he was adjusting a pair of reading glasses as he held up a sheet of paper, squinting by turns at it, then his computer screen. Occasionally, he’d tap some numbers in with his index finger, then recheck the paper.
I knocked on the window, and he swiveled around and pulled off his glasses. “Dusty! Come on in.”
I inched my way through the door. “Morning, sir.”
He surveyed me under bushy eyebrows. “You’re not going to tell me you came here looking for me again, are you?”
“Uh…” I cleared my throat. “I guess not.”
