Page 58 of Total Jane Wreck

The leather smell is thick in here, and the single bulb overhead makes everything look like an old photograph. Chet breathes in, nostrils flaring. “You’re just going to have to trust me, Jane.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue: Someone was watching us through the barn window. But I feel the conversation close like a fist. Instead, I say, “Alright.”

Later, he finds me in the paddock with Rosie, one of the retired horses that Birdy adopted before I came to Resilience Ranch.

“Hey,” Chet says. “Show me again how you keep your palm flat while giving her a carrot?”

“Sure.”

I demonstrate it for him, and, like a pro, Chet gives Rosie another carrot.

Then, he softly says my name and kisses my temple. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs into my hair. “I handled that badly before, in the tack room. Forgive me?”

I nod and let him hold me. But I don’t say it’s okay, because I’m not sure yet that it is.

Before he leaves, River finds me. “Tomorrow’s the day,” he says. “Gonna start hiking the Colorado Trail. Wish me luck.” His face does something I can only describe as reverent.

I let out a wistful sigh. “Good luck. I hope you have a great time. Whenever you can, please send pictures.”

He grins. With his sun-kissed skin, golden-brown waves, and large, unblinking green eyes, River is part cherub, part Adonis. “You could still come.”

Randomly, a line from Escape from the Springs plays through my mind: To walk for miles with no purpose—but the walking is to remember, briefly, who you were before your bad choices and big mistakes . . .

For a second, more than anything, I want to remember who I was before all my bad choices and big mistakes. And I’m sure that backpacking along the Colorado Trail is how to do that—the thin air, the ache in my legs, the total absence of barn windows and faces that may or may not exist.

River’s looking at me, hope etched into his features.

“Someone has to stay and be complicated,” I tell him.

“I understand,” he says. “Guess this is goodbye for now.”

He hugs me, his sunscreen and cedar scent filling my nostrils. I hold on a beat too long.

Chapter Twenty-Four

It is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly knotted to your little frame. And if that will be snapt I should bleed inwardly. As for you—you'd forget me.

My trailer, with its double bed, braided rug, and gingham curtains, is small, simple, and charming. Plus, you know what they say—location, location, location. I’ve got close proximity to the horse barn and the main house’s porch entrance. Sure, my windows rattle whenever the wind picks up, but my front step catches the sunrise just right—ideal for sitting and sipping coffee as the world wakes up.

Of course, the “backyard” is its biggest perk—all of the ranch, with the San Juan Mountains as a backdrop.

That’s the little sales pitch I deliver to Chet just before I announce my plans for tonight. “After I ride Betty, and then Miss Adele,” I say, “I’m taking some alone time.”

It’s late afternoon. Chet’s perched on his porch, laptop open. The sun’s beating down, and he’s retreated into the blessed shade of the overhang, nursing a water bottle stamped with “ShopSpot.”

“I understand,” Chet murmurs. “But you’d tell me if you were still mad about earlier, right?”

His tone, husky yet wry, tugs at the tiny hairs on the back of my neck. He’s propping his boots up on a footstool, a little rip at the knee of his jeans, wearing a crisp white V-neck, reading glasses perched on his nose. Somehow, here in the quiet afternoon, that combination is overpowering.

“Would I need to? After all, I’m the ‘most transparent’ person you know.” I use air quotes. He gestures for me to sit on a wicker chair, and I do.

“That’s right,” Chet says. “And I can tell when you’re upset. Is it Mason? Or something else?”

I sigh. For too long, I’ve tried to forget that face, watching Chet and me in the barn. “Last week, when we were—you know—in the barn, I thought I saw someone watching us through the window.”

Chet looks like he’s weighing his words. “You thought you saw someone? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because we were in the middle of things, and, well, it was all so surreal. At first, I blinked, and I was sorta surprised and bewildered, but also really close to an orgasm. So perhaps I imagined it?”