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6
CARTER
Iknow Sadie was only joking when she called me Dad, but the reality is, I liked it. It felt comfortable, her calling me that.
If all of this works out how I hope it will, I’m going to raise that little girl as if she’s always been my own.
After the exhilaration of the hot air balloon ride this morning, the three of us have been enjoying some leisure time at the house. It’s rare for me to kick back like this, and it’s difficult for me to not think about work, but I trust my ranch hands to keep things under control while I’m spending this time away from my usual duties. They’re always telling me I work too much, anyway.
Right now, I’m showing Sadie how I polish my boots. Meanwhile, Andrea is sitting on the couch a few feet away, cozied up under an heirloom quilt as she watches us. Every time I glance over at her, our eyes catch and something fierce courses through me.
I can’t stop picturing her with a ring on her finger and a big, beautiful pregnant belly.
“Mom, can I have some cowboy boots for my birthday?” Sadie asks, looking over her shoulder.
“Instead of the rollerblades you’ve been wanting, you mean?” Andrea asks.
Sadie’s lips twist as she thinks it over. “Do I have to pick?”
A beat passes before Andrea answers. “Well, let’s talk about it later, sweetie.”
Can Andrea not afford to buy her daughter both things? Or is this more of an issue of not wanting to spoil her? I hope it’s the latter, but if that’s the case, I wonder ifI’vebeen spoiling Sadie too much. Fuck. I didn’t even think about that.
My mind is going over the other activities I have planned for the next few days when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I dig it out, see that my ranch foreman is calling, and answer the call.
“Boss, we’ve got a problem,” he says.
He proceeds to tell me about the wolves. I’m instantly on my feet, all the muscles in my body tense. I quickly wrap up the call, then say to Andrea, “I’ve gotta go. I’ve got a stampede on my hands.”
Andrea’s eyes go wide. She pushes the quilt off her lap and stands up, too. “Oh, no. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No. Stay here.”
“Please be safe, Carter.”
I step toward her and plant a quick kiss on her forehead. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
7
ANDREA
Ican’t stop worrying about him. I know he’s dealt with stampedes before and he knows what he’s doing. But when he told me about those previous stampedes, I learned about them after the fact in one of his letters, and I knew he was safe. It’s completely different this time.
“Is he going to be okay?” Sadie asks, looking at me with worried eyes.
“I’m sure he will be, sweetie,” I say, trying to reassure myself as much as I’m reassuring her. “He’s been doing this for a long time.”
I look around, searching for something that we can distract ourselves with while we wait. There’s a large television mounted on the wall, but when I search around for a remote, I can’t find one anywhere. My eyes drift over to his bookshelves next, but right now I feel too jittery to read.
God, my stomach hurts. I’m worrying myself sick. Wincing, I grab my phone and hand it to Sadie.
“You can watch something on it,” I tell her. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”
Sadie nods, looking at me with anxiousness as she accepts the phone. I wince again as I make my way out of the living room and down the hallway to the nearest bathroom.
There, I lean against the edge of the sink and concentrate on taking several slow, long breaths. That helps with the pain in my stomach, but it doesn’t fully alleviate my worry.
I can’t stop imagining unruly cattle charging at Carter.
