“Did you ever see the movie The Shining?” She nodded, and I raised an eyebrow at her. “Then you remember how they were snowed in at a resort? That’s how it is here. The temperatures drop well below freezing. I think the coldest on record was something like negative fifty-five.”
She bolted upright. “Negative fifty-five?!”
I nodded, chuckling at the sight of her wide, innocent eyes. “My parents would drive us to the end of the ranch’s driveway on a snowmobile so the bus could pick us up for school, but sometimes the conditions were too bad for even Wyoming bus drivers to get out here. We’d just stay home for days, playing cards and fighting with each other until my parents sent us all to our rooms. They seemed to forget that my brothers and I shared a room, and we would just continue the fight in there.”
She smiled at me. “Sounds like Tori and me as kids.”
“By the time Bowie was a young teenager, those long winters became torture for him. Being stuck in close quarters with my father wasn’t easy for any of us kids, but he treated Bowie like a wild horse he was trying to break.”
I got a taste of how demanding and rigid my father could be after college when I came back here to work for him at the ranch. There was no working with my father, only workingforhim, doing exactly what he said, so I moved away to Cheyenne, got my contractor’s license, and built houses. I didn’t think I’d ever come back here to run the ranch myself, but then you never knew what life held for you.
“I can’t blame him for wanting to escape,” she said, “but I’m sure you miss your brother.”
“I do. Can I ask you a question about your life back in New York?” She nodded, and I sat up so I could meet her gaze. “It seems like you’re here to escape from something back home. I can’t help wondering what it could be.”
CHAPTER10
LAUREN
Matthew studied me carefully. “It’s alright if you don’t want to tell me.”
I wasn’t expecting him to confront me so bluntly about my past and why I’d come out here to a remote location by myself, leaving my normal life behind. In all fairness, we’d been having frank discussions about our families almost since I’d met him, so he certainly wasn’t out of line. For two people who didn’t know each other well, our conversations had been deep and vulnerable, and I felt like I could trust him to keep a secret. Could I trust everyone else around us, though? What if he told his brother Sam or a staff member my real name? Would they sell their story to the press and further jeopardize my privacy? I couldn’t risk it.
“It’s nothing illegal or life-threatening or anything like that,” I promised. “I just needed to get away from some drama back home and clear my head. Does that make sense?”
He smiled, even though I was dodging the question. “Best it can without knowing the details. And I’m not asking for any of those. I will say, I’m sure glad that assistant sent you to the wrong place.”
“Me too.” Sounds of the creek filled the silence as I thought about what to say next. I picked a few blades of grass as I formed the words in my head, wanting to make sure I got them right. “I would tell you everything if I could, Matthew, but I can’t right now.”
His expression was more reserved than before he asked the question. “No worries. It was too forward of me to ask. Guests deserve total privacy.”
“It was fine to ask,” I said quickly, “and I hope I’m more than a guest to you. I feel like we’ve become friends.”
“I’d like to be your friend, Lauren.”
The air between us crackled with what felt like way more than “friend” energy, but we were adults who understood that this was all that could exist right now, and we’d take what we could get. For a while, Matthew and I both seemed lost in our thoughts. I wished I could be someone named Lauren Wagonblast, a carefree tourist in Wyoming, not Lauren Cozzi, who was dealing with an ugly divorce and running away from a hungry media cycle. I’d been silly to think I could hide from my real life out here. No matter how far you run, even on the fastest horse in the world (which Alma most certainly was not), your past will always catch up with you.
“Let’s ride some more!” Gigi called out to us. She was already pulling on her socks, having finished her wading adventure in the creek.
“I have an idea,” Matthew said. “Are you up for a gallop across the field?”
My pulse rate quickened. “Maybe? I think so?”
He stood up and extended a hand toward me. “That’s good enough for me.”
Running Alma across an open meadow was an experience I would never forget. An awesome sense of freedom and power surged through me as horse and rider became one, the wind whipping through her mane. She might not have been the fastest horse out there, and I wasn’t the best equestrian, but that didn’t matter one bit. Tears streamed from my eyes and a grin stretched across my face as we pounded across the grass toward an imaginary finish line.
“And you thought it was too late for you to get back on a horse,” Matthew teased as we rode back to the ranch, returning to our slower pace.
“I guess Alma and I both have a few more good years in us.”
“More than a few,” he said.
When we got back to the stable, we hung up our tack in a tidy room with tongue and groove paneled walls made of knotty pine, and then we brushed down the horses before putting them out in the pasture. Once we’d completed those tasks, I assumed we’d all head back to the main buildings together.Instead, Matthew handed Gigi a pitchfork.
“You go on up,” he said. “We’re going to muck stalls for a little while and feed and water the horses.”
Gigi made a sour face. “Yuck. This is the only part of horses I don’t like. The poop.”
