“Oh, God, I’m so sorry.” I placed my hands on his arms. “I wouldn’t ride if it was that big of a risk.” Riding horses while pregnant was controversial in equestrian sports. Some people had no issue with it, while others were firmly against it.
“Good,” he answered with conviction. “So, you’ll come with me?”
I weighed my options. I really didn’t have a lot of time to decide. He was leaving in three days. The only person I needed to discuss this with was my dad. But he would lose his mind if he found out I was pregnant. He would lecture me about being irresponsible and try to guilt me into getting rid of the baby.
I couldn’t handle that right now. I needed to make those decisions with the father of my baby, and no one else. I would just…leave out the fact that I was pregnant for now. He could handle being on his own. He did it during my four years of college.
This was my decision. My life. I needed to trust myself and take a leap of faith before this little town swallowed me whole. There was an entire world out there, and Jack was offering it to me with both hands. This was my chance.
So, I took a deep breath and said the words I knew would change the rest of my life. “Yes, Jack. I’ll come to Wyoming with you.”
Chapter six
Jack
Everything about tonight had thrown me for a loop. No, it threw me into a bottomless pit of quicksand where I felt like I would drown if I didn’t say the right thing. It felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders with the baby bomb Maggie dropped. And now she was moving with me to Wyoming. Her andourbaby. I had no idea how I had gotten into this situation. Well, I did—but I sure as hell didn’t expect her birth control to fail. I was unsure about everything in my life, but I was adamant about staying with Maggie through it all, mistake or not.
Between that and not being able to reach my mom in the last two months, my anxiety was running high. I wanted it to feel unfamiliar since it had been dormant for a few months, but it came back like a storm I couldn’t escape. This called for a lot of beer and even more alone time. While I was scared out of my fucking mind, a very, very small part of this whole situation comforted me knowing I was sharing the heaviness of everything with someone I knew and trusted. Someone I had known forever. Maggie and I had become closer friends whileshe worked for me. She was enjoyable company, and someone I liked myself around. She was just…familiar.
We were two days from packing up my trailer—and our entire lives—and making the almost 2,000-mile trip to Golden Meadow, Wyoming. With ten horses, most everything Maggie and I owned, and a baby on the way, those two days were stressful as shit. If I didn’t believe you couldn’t make plans without God laughing at you before, I sure believed it now. Turned out a packing list for the trailer would have been helpful before I decided to shove everything in the tack room and pretend I had my shit figured out. It wasn’t until Luis looked in the barn at my pile of things stacked everywhere that he shook his head and helped me pack everything in an organized fashion. I wasn’t sure how much room I needed to make for all of Maggie’s things, so I allotted over half the space in the tack room for her and kept the backseat of my truck open. And, because I was afraid I wasn’t doing enough, I bought a car pillow for the passenger seat, a soft blanket, and her favorite snack and drink from when we were kids for the road trip.
I was in the barn looking through a folder of my horses’ medical records and agricultural documents when my dad appeared, two open Pilsners in hand. He offered one to me when I looked up. “How is everything going?”
“Pretty good,” I replied. “Once Luis helped me figure out what was mine and what was yours—you have a lot of my tack just hidden in boxes by the way—packing it all in the trailer was easy. Now it’s just my clothes I have to pack.”
“And Maggie’s coming with you as well, right?” His heavy German accent reminded me to cover my own a little more. My dad raised his eyebrows.
As much as it looked like we had intentions other than work for going to Wyoming together—because let’s face it, leaving so abruptly looked suspicious as hell—it was very common forgrooms to follow their employer wherever they traveled to play. And since whatever tournaments Maggie had lined up to play here were down the drain, she may as well have come with me.
“Yes, she is. I guess she just couldn’t resist working for me.” I winked.
We had decided to keep our pregnancy a secret for the time being. We didn’t want anyone to think we were running away because of some crazy mistake, even though that was exactly what we were doing.
Was it smart? Probably not.
Was it realistic? Fuck no.
But Maggie and I were swimming in a sea of uncertainty, and if we could keep other people’s opinions out of the boat for just a little while, we would do it. We were overwhelmed enough as it was.
“And Richard is okay with that, too?”
“She’s a big girl, Dad. I don’t think she needs his permission to go somewhere else.” I sipped my beer.
“I mean, going away with you. In the times we’ve talked about it, he never seemed too giddy to put you two together.”
My dad was a smart man, and while he wouldn’t put together Maggie’s and my real situation, I needed to diffuse the possibility in his mind of us ever being romantic. “This is a strictly professional relationship. I don’t want to mess up what I have with such a good partner. She knows her stuff, and I’d like to keep her around.”
He clapped me on the shoulder and shook it. “I am damn proud to hear you say that, son. I know your eyes like to wander, but I’m glad you’ve managed to keep this relationship friendly.” I choked on my beer.
“Yeah, nice and friendly.” My gut twisted in shame at his compliment about my lie.
My dad walked down the aisle of the barn, inspecting each stall. He was a perfectionist, nitpicking at every small detail and ensuring everything was perfect for his horses. He did the same thing when I was younger, after he told me to clean my room. Dad would point out every single thing that wasn’t tidy in its place.
“Have you talked to your mother lately?” he asked, staring absently into one of the stalls.
I shook my head after another gulp of beer. My panic and worry formed an impending cloud of doom above me, waiting to take me down at any second. Even after the excitement of figuring out the details with Mike, I called my mother countless times, only to be met by her voicemail. It wasn’t unusual for her to disappear off the face of the earth, but she had never been silent for this long. I tried to push my worry away with the knowledge that she had somehow managed to survive hundreds of dangerous adventures. What were a few more?
“I’ve called her a bunch.” Dad squinted his eyes and pinched his forehead. “I know she likes her space, but I can’t help thinking she’s gone off the grid for good.”
