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I know he doesn’t understand a word I’m saying, but if I talk, I distract him, and that’s what I need if I have any chance of saving him surrounded by this smoke.
Moving slowly, my hand runs along his side and up his neck, trailing my damp bandana as I go.
“There you go, boy. That’s good. Just stay still.”
Everything goes well until I go to put the damp cloth over his eyes, causing him to rear back.
“Fuck!” I use both hands to pull back on his reins, holding him close to me.
The cows are starting to move erratically, their moos getting louder as they become more agitated.
The heat of the fire is close to unbearable. Sweat soaks every inch of my shirt. The urge to shed off my layers is hard to ignore, but I have to. If the fire gets any closer, I’ll need everything I can to keep it away from my skin.
I won’t run and leave these animals, not unless there’s no hope of saving any of them.
Even then, I’m not sure I could ever leave Duke.
Which brings me back to my task of getting this wet bandana around his eyes.
Taking a shallow breath, I will us all to just calm the fuck down.
“Come on, Duke. Just let me put this on you. It’s best you don’t see it. Hell, I wish I couldn’t.” I stroke my hand along his coat. “This is just my luck, isn’t it? I finally start to do what everyone in town wants me to do—what Dad wanted me to do—and I’m about to lose it all. The ranch. The rodeo. Dakota.”
My hand stops moving as a pang shoots through my heart.
I’m going to lose Dakota.
Or more accurately, she’s going to lose me.
Duke whinnies and starts to pull back, but I hold firm on the reins and start petting him again.
“It’s fine. She’ll move on. I was never part of the long term plan for her, anyway. Who was I to even think I could do the forever kind of stuff? I’m not built for that.”
Or, I didn’t think I was. Not until I started seeing her as anything other than a sassy annoyance. But then she made me open up to her. She made me talk to her about things that weren’t superficial.
She made me care.
“At least Mom’s ring is safe,” I add, slowly moving my way from Duke’s side and petting his neck, making sure to wet the hair of his mane. “I guess it’s hers now. No one else to give it to.”
But maybe it was always going to be hers.
I hadn’t thought about what would happen to the ring once we decided to try ‘us’ for real. Not that it had felt fake at all since the weekend of the gala.
“What do you think, Duke? Would I have proposed for real if we didn’t get stuck here?”
Duke huffs.
“You’re right. I would have found some excuse not to.”
I look over my shoulder, seeing the fire burning near the edge of the clearing, moving fast as it tears through the last of the barrier.
I had spent a good half an hour trying to saw through the cow fencing with the knife I had grabbed from the barn, but I wasn’t able to make it through. If I had thought more clearly, I would have grabbed the bolt cutters instead of grabbing the first thing I saw.
“I guess none of it matters now. That fire isn’t going anywhere, and neither are we.” Moving slowly, I keep talking while I move my hand closer to his head, making sure to rub his ears. “There’s a lot of ‘would haves’ when you have time to look back on things, I guess. Like how I should have come to my senses about Dakota earlier instead of spending so much fucking time pushing her away. I probably shouldn’t have spent so much time with women I don’t remember just to forget everything I’d fucking failed at.” I move slowly, cover his eyes with the bandana, and sigh with relief when I tuck it into his harness, holding it in place.
He shifts uncomfortably, getting used to his blindness, but doesn’t rear back again. I move my hand down his neck, petting his hair to keep him calm.
“I guess if this is it, at least we’re here together, huh? I couldn’t have asked for a better horse. You’ve been with me through a lot.” I think back to the rides we took when I couldn’t handle any more of Dad’s lectures on how I needed to get my life together, and how I wasn’t going to be able to run a ranch if I was out sleeping with half the town.
