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“You can’t do that,” she said.
“Amy.” Gerty turned back to her. “Come sit by me, okay?” Her sister turned toward her with unrest in her eyes. “Don’t make Daddy mad on my birthday.” She glanced at her father, who did look one breath away from dealing out a punishment.
“Fine.” Amy moved away from Daddy, who looked relieved.
“Walt,” Gerty said as she moved through the door Cord held open. “You come sit by me too, okay?”
“Be right there,” he said, though he hadn’t joined the line yet.
Gerty sat with Mike, and as people came outside, they crowded around her. Finally, Amy, Walt, Daddy, and Mom arrived, and they brought a huge, brown barrel of ice cream with them.
“Gerty’s favorite flavor is cookies and cream,” Daddy said. “I’m going to start dishing it up, and Amy or Walt will bring you a bowl.”
Gerty wasn’t sure how she’d hit the Father Jackpot, but she knew she had. She leaned into Mike, who put his arm around her and whispered, “Should I go get the presents and bring them out here too?”
She giggled as she watched Amy start to serve the bowls of ice cream. She was probably going crazy inside her skin. “I think that’s Amy’s job,” she said. “Better let her do it.”
“Mm.” He pressed his lips against the tender spot below her ear, and the hum from his voice strummed through her bloodstream. “Maybe you want seconds of something?”
She handed him her plate. “All of it,” she said.
“Your wish is my command,” he said, and he stood, picked up her plate, and headed around the corner to get her more food.
Gerty could handle being at her own birthday party without him, but with him gone—even just to get her more food—she realized how much she wanted him at her side. She wanted to hold his hand on every major holiday, all the minor ones, and just on an ordinary Tuesday. She wanted him to be the one to go with her when she was interested in buying another horse. She wanted to make hot lunches for him, so they could eat together after working in the stables.
He’s not going to work in the stables for much longer, she thought, and boy, wasn’t that the truth? He’d already started going into the city more and more, and she hadn’t realized how much she missed seeing him at Pony Power until that moment.
19
Boone Whettstein could watch his daughter laugh with her younger half-siblings all day and all night. Once the ice cream had been dished and served, people had made room for Walter and Amy around Gerty, and she’d been entertaining everyone with tales from her time in the rodeo.
She’d only rode for a single season, and because she possessed a bit of a hot streak, she’d become a barrel racer on a dare. He’d learned quickly raising her not to dare her to do something, because she’d do it. No matter what, she’d do it.
His heart felt fuller than it ever had, because while he and Gerty had been close over the years, he knew things had shifted when he’d married Cosette. Gerty loved her too; they’d made a strong family unit together, the three of them.
Then, Boone and Cosette had gotten pregnant, and Walt had been born only a few months before Gerty’s sixteenth birthday. She’d never called it his second family, but Boone had often thought about his younger kids that way. He’d kept them separate from Gerty, because they were. She was his; she always would be. But she’d come from someone else, no matter how completely and perfectly Cosette loved her.
Just looking at the three of them would tell anyone that. Gerty, with her white-gold hair, and then Walt and Amy with their darker locks. With Cosette being a brunette like him, their family existed in shades of dark red, brown, and black. Gerty was the opposite of that, and anyone with eyes could see it.
Still, they fit together, and Boone knew that families came in all shapes and sizes. They didn’t even have to be related by blood to feel like family, a fact he knew every time he looked at Gray Hammond or Travis Thatcher. He loved those two men and their families as if they were Matt and his.
He glanced over to his brother now, noting how tired Matt looked. He still put a smile on his face and raised his eyebrows at Boone.
“Presents,” Boone said, reaching over and slapping the table near his kids. “Amy, go get the presents and bring them out.”
“Yay!” His ten-year-old scampered away from the table like it had caught on fire, and Cosette and Gloria went to help her.
He then eyed Michael Hammond as he leaned down and whispered something in Gerty’s ear. Boone hated whispering in public, especially when it made his daughter turn twice as bright as before.
“He’s not a bad kid,” Matt said as if he could read Boone’s thoughts.
“No, I know.” In fact, Mike was a very good kid. And not a kid at all anymore. He’d been over to the house a few times since both he and Gerty had arrived at the farm on the same day. He could speak intelligently and easily to Boone and Cosette. He’d had a decorated career in the Marines, and he was currently training to be the CEO of the Hammond’s multi-billion-dollar company in downtown Denver.
He was a very, very good man, and Boone wasn’t sure why he didn’t simply embrace Gerty’s relationship with him.
“Why are you so sour on him then?” Matt asked. “I’ve been begging Keith to find someone to settle down with.”
“I’m not sour,” Boone said, finally turning away from Gerty right as she looked his way. “You realize she was engaged only a month before she returned to the farm, don’t you? I just think she might not be ready for this relationship.”
