Swift and Saddled: A Rebel Blue Ranch Novel

It would’ve been a hell of a lot easier to drive this stupid old truck out of town if I didn’t hear Wes’s voice in my head say “Clutch, sweetheart” every time I had to shift or stop or do anything with the stupid fucking clutch.

It also would’ve been easier if I’d had the foresight to turn my phone off before Wes started calling me.

I thought about Wes, standing in the kitchen with his family and having to tell them I wasn’t there and that I wasn’t coming.

I was just about to pass the welcome to meadowlark sign, except now I saw the back of it. The sign informed me that I was now leaving Meadowlark.

My whole body reacted as I passed the border. It shuddered and went weak.

Even though I really didn’t want to, I thought about what Emmy had said—not to treat Wes like a final destination if I was going to leave anyway.

My heart lurched in my chest because that’s exactly what I’d done.

I’d spent the last few weeks falling deeper and deeper into whatever it was between Wes and me when I should’ve been trying to keep some distance between us.

Because leaving him fucking hurt.

Why hadn’t I done what I said I was going to do? Why hadn’t I just stayed away from him? Why had I gotten us into a situation where both of us were going to end up hurt when I left?

Because I wanted Wes. Even if it was just for a short time.

But in that short time, I’d gotten more than I’d bargained for.

So I’d left without a word.

Just like Chance had done to me.

I hadn’t realized that that’s what I was doing. I didn’t think I was doing it on purpose, but in the quiet cab of the truck, with only the sound of the engine and my heartbeat to keep me company, I started to feel like the worst person alive.

By leaving without telling him, I didn’t have to endure his fighting to keep me. I could get the best of both worlds, and I wouldn’t have to pick up any of the pieces.

This way, the wreckage that I left behind wasn’t my responsibility.

That thought hit me like a freight train, and it hurt. The realization that I was doing to Wes what someone had done to me made me want to vomit.

I pulled the truck off the road onto the dirt shoulder. I forgot to push the clutch in when I stopped, so the truck shuddered and died—fitting for how I was feeling.

Tears leaked out of my eyes like a badly patched roof, and I collapsed, my head landing on the steering wheel.

My body was racked with sobs. How could I fuck things up so royally in less than a few hours? How did I go from wanting someone to leaving him? From feeling at home to fleeing? From happy to brokenhearted?

Was I really so scared of my feelings for Wes that I was willing to become a person I didn’t like? Did I really want to live with the fact that I’d abandoned the man that I loved because the possibility of my happiness looked different than I expected it to?

No, I didn’t want to live with that.

I wanted Wes.

I didn’t want to call him out of the blue nearly two years later and hope that he answered. I still didn’t know why Chance had called me—I didn’t care—but I hated that he felt like he could. I didn’t want to be that person for Wes.

And this was the shittiest part of it all: When it came down to it, I knew Wes would forgive me. I knew if I left now and showed back up in a few months, a year, he’d forgive me. He would take away the burden and the guilt that I felt for leaving by giving me absolution.

He’d let everything be okay.

Because he was deeply caring, kind, and gentle. He often carried the things that were too heavy for others by himself. Not for any sort of recognition or praise—simply because he cared.

I couldn’t let him do that. Not for me, not for this.

Because this—leaving—was the dumbest thing I’d ever done.

Wes once said to me that I was the moon, and I’d scoffed at him. But he was right. I was the moon, and the moon couldn’t glow without the sun.

And my sun was in Meadowlark, Wyoming.

This was a mistake.

I had to go back. I couldn’t follow through on leaving him. I didn’t want to.

Rebel Blue Ranch was my home now. It was the first place that had ever felt like it, and I was an idiot for even thinking about leaving.

I pushed in the clutch, started the engine, and whipped the truck off the shoulder. Dirt and rocks went flying, and I sent a silent thank-you to the sky that I’d never once seen a cop car in Meadowlark.

Once I was headed in the right direction, I took a second to admire the world around me. The mountains and trees in Wyoming felt like my friends. It felt like they were cheering for me—that they’d told the wind to blow behind me so I could get to Wes faster.

I’d made it farther out of town than I thought. It took nearly thirty minutes of mountains and the sun setting behind them for me to see the welcome to meadowlark sign in the distance.

As I approached, I noticed a familiar truck right in front of the sign.

It couldn’t be.

But it was. A cowboy was sitting on the hood of the truck, and a ball of white fluff was sitting on the ground next to him.

I’d know that cowboy, and his dog, anywhere.

For the second time today, I pulled the truck onto the shoulder. As I brought it to a stop, I could feel Wes’s eyes on me.

I took a deep breath before I raised mine to meet them. I was worried he would look angry or sad. He didn’t.

He was smiling. Dimples on full display.

I got out of my truck at the same time he slid off the hood of his, and Waylon ran toward me. When he got to me, I reached down to scratch his big, fluffy head.

“He has a thing for beautiful women,” Wes said, still smiling.

I remembered he’d said that the night we met, so I responded the same way I did then: “Has that line ever worked for you?”

“You came back, didn’t you?”

We didn’t run to each other. We didn’t collide in some extraordinary cosmic moment. We took slow, ordinary steps toward each other, and we met in the middle.

“Hi,” I breathed.

“Hi.” He was still smiling.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. There was no way he could have known I would come back.

“I was waiting for you.” But somehow I guess he did.

I didn’t know what to say, so I figured I’d start with an apology. “I’m sorry I ran away.” Wes nodded but didn’t respond right away.

His smile faded a little. He looked like he was thinking—a small line formed between his brows. “Ada”—his voice was hesitant—“I’m sorry if I made you think that I was the type of guy who would be okay with you not doing something you wanted.”

Now I was the one who probably looked confused.

“I want you to go to Arizona. I want you to take that job if that’s what you want,” he said.

I did want that. I felt like I’d learned so much at Rebel Blue, and I wanted to try to do the same thing somewhere else. I wanted to bring things back to life and create spaces where people felt like they could belong.

But there was something else I wanted more.

“I want you,” I said. “I want to be with you.”

Wes studied me like he didn’t understand. After a few beats, he said, “You can have both. You don’t have to choose between me and the job. You don’t have to give something up to get another thing in return.”

I blinked slowly.

“You can go to Arizona. You can go anywhere you want,” he said. “And I’ll come to you when I can. And then, when your project is over, you can come home—like everyone else does when they’re done with work.”

“We can’t do that forever,” I said, letting him know that I wanted to be with him that long.

“I know.” He nodded. He lifted his hand to tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. “Something will have to give eventually, but it doesn’t have to give right now, so there’s no need to force it to.”

I threw my arms around him. He held me there, a hand cupping the back of my head. “Do you mean that?” I said into his shoulder.

“Every word,” he said. I felt his lips in my hair.

I pulled back and looked up at Wes. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “I love you,” and as soon as the words left my mouth, I felt shock color my features.

Wes’s dimples grew and his green eyes glittered. “I wanted to say that first,” he said.

“You didn’t have to say it.” I shrugged. “You showed me.”

He kissed me then, slowly and deliberately—like we had all the time in the world. And in so many ways, we did. Because this was the start of my life. This was what I was on the precipice of when I came to Wyoming.

We pressed our foreheads together, and Wes said, “I love you, Ada. I’ll keep showing you, but I needed to tell you too.” I kissed him again. “And if you ever feel like you need to run again,” he said, “can I request that you at least stay inside the county line?”

I laughed. From the first time our eyes met at the bar, I felt like Wes could see me in a way that no one else could, and that question proved it. He knew I was scared, and he loved me anyway.

He saw me for exactly who I was, and he loved me because of it, not in spite of it.

And as far as lifetimes went, basking in the warmth of the sun seemed like a pretty damn good way to spend one.