Maren pulled back, her hand on the door handle. “I love that you always take such good care of me. Sometimes I think I don’t deserve it.”
Grady sighed when she exited the truck. Truth was, that girl deserved more than he could ever offer her.
3
Maren
Summer – Age Nineteen
“You’re not leaving the house dressed in that.”
Maren spun around on her heel, expecting to see her father looming in the doorway, arms across his burly chest. But he wasn’t there. She shouldn’t have been surprised, really. When her dad commanded something, he didn’t feel the need to stick around to enforce it. His no was a solid no. No arguing, even if his instructions were muttered under a quiet breath in passing. It all bore the same weight.
Her gaze swung back to the closet, to the clothes that spilled out from it like sorority girls tumbling from a cab. Mateless socks littered the floor in lonely, cotton piles. She had rummaged through her dresser, her suitcase, and every other inch of her room, but couldn’t locate her favorite red and white gingham swimsuit. The one she wore now was from her final year of high school, and after just completing her freshman year of college in San Francisco, it was clear her figure was not the same. She’d finally filled out in the areas every young woman hoped to, while she’d slimmed down in others. It was hard to judge the change, really, since she saw herself everyday in the mirror, but her father’s disapproval regarding this particular suit led her to believe it was a noticeable enough difference.
Maren groaned and walked out of her room. Light sliced into the hallway through her younger sister’s open door. Their gray tabby cat, Wiggles, sprawled onto the warm hardwood, his body stretched to full length. Maren had to toe the cat out of the way with a bare foot, but it didn’t disrupt his motor-like purring. She rapped on the door frame and rubbed Wiggle’s fuzzy belly with her heel as she said, “Knock, knock?”
Josephine heard her, but didn’t look up. Her sister was bent at the waist, tugging on her leather boots one at a time. Maren’s boots, actually. Another stolen item from her room. Maren would need to pick her battles today.
Josie had been nothing but bristly since Maren’s train arrived. She clearly hadn’t wanted to accompany their mother and Carly, their youngest sister, to the station, but Walt had gotten into town late after being away on the rodeo circuit for a few weeks and their mother wanted the house kept quiet so he could rest. Not that a cowboy even knew the real meaning of rest, but the gesture was nice. Their mother sure took good care of her man.
When Maren stepped off the train, it was an instant tangle of arms, like being squeezed by an octopus. Carly and her mama started in with “we’ve missed you” and “how was your ride?” but Josie remained on the periphery, her attention given instead to the board listing departures and arrivals lit up in greens and reds. But Maren caught her gaze. Her sister had diverted her eyes immediately. It was hurtful to be so intentionally and intensely avoided, down to mere eye contact.
Maren’s main goal for this first summer home was to make right her relationships. There were a few that needed mending. She knew she had her work cut out for her. Small towns often had very long memories. There was something to be said for that, she supposed. When everyone knew everyone else, it formed a bond that couldn’t easily be explained to a person who grew up in a bustling city full of nameless neighbors.
They were Riverburn, they weren’t just from Riverburn.
But she had to forge her own future. To Maren, it was the difference between being forever caged and finally learning to fly.
Coming home from school for the summer, though? It strangely felt like her wings had been clipped.
Josie shoved past, her shoulder meeting Maren’s without apology. Maren turned to watch her sister stomp down the hall. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail that peeked out the bottom of her ball cap and she was dressed in work clothes that hinted she’d be out in the pasture with the horses for the day. Josie had recently begun an apprenticeship under a local farrier, learning how to trim and shoe horses, and of the three sisters, she always took the greatest interest in their herd.
A small, nostalgic piece of Maren wanted to join her down at the barn. It had been so long since she had pressed her face into the mane of a horse and inhaled the scent that coated her childhood memories. The pull of a horse was nearly irresistible.
But the pull to see Grady again after their first year apart was undeniably stronger.
With Josie out of the room, Maren rustled around and located her swimsuit right where she suspected it would be: buried under a pile of dirty clothes in the far corner of Josie’s closet like it was hers to lose rather than return. Its checkered fabric was faded pink, but would have to do. Maren balled it up in her hands and headed to her room to change. She pulled on a pair of cut off jeans over the bottoms and slipped a slouchy gray shirt over the top. Giving herself a quick once over in the mirror, her fingers nimbly twisted a loose braid into her hair as the finishing touch. She grabbed her bag and waltzed out from the back of the house.
The sight that greeted her was one she’d seen dozens of times, but it still brought warmth to her chest. Her parents were sitting at the kitchen table. Her mother had her hands wrapped around her father’s bicep and her head resting thoughtfully on his shoulder. They always sat close like this, like her mama couldn’t get enough of him. Maren’s father was equally affectionate, but in a subtler way. Maren admired their love and display of it. She felt like she could learn from it.
Her father’s eyes lifted. “Better,” was all he said at first and she knew it was about this outfit as opposed to the previous one that didn’t pass inspection. “Come over here, Maren. You gotta see our boy.”
Her dad often referred to Grady this way, but it still made Maren’s stomach twist. The father to only girls, her dad had formed a strong relationship with their neighbor. Maren knew the relationship was necessary on both ends. Grady’s dad had been absent since he was little. He used to show up for the important dates—birthdays and holidays and the sorts of milestones that were written down in baby books—but once Grady started kindergarten, that small amount of interest dissolved completely. He hadn’t seen him since.
Maren had a feeling Mr. Cutter’s new family got in the way of spending time with his old one.
“Cutter’s gone viral,” Maren’s dad chuckled heartily. “Here, Maren. Watch this.” Pushing his cell phone across the table, he nodded for her to pick it up. “First video on there.”
Maren scooped the device into her hands and swiped the screen with her index finger. Tapping the Play button, the video began. At the bottom of the frame were the words, “Everybody loves a pickup man” and music that had too much bass to be called country looped over the footage.
Someone had compiled a series of recent rodeo events, mostly bareback riding and some saddle bronc, but the camera remained zoomed in on Grady and his buckskin horse throughout all of the rides. He’d started working as a pickup man at local rodeos, one of two men on horseback who were responsible for the safety of all riders and livestock that set foot in the arena. When the time limit expired on an event, Grady was the one to swoop in and pull the rider to safety, as well as guide the bucking horse—or sometimes even bull—through the exit gate.