I guess I drank the crazy in the water too.
Reed, a girl I went to school with, a few years my elder and who also owns the bar, comes over and slides two menus onto the table.
“Nice to see you again, cowboy.” She nods towards Branson.
I fist my hands into my dress at their encounter.
“I see you found what you’re looking for.” She laughs, tossing her red hair over her shoulder and shaking her head.
“It was only a matter of time,” he responds. “I’m not a patient man.”
My jealousy is overtaken by the clear understanding that there’s an underlying conversation happening in front of me. Well, that, and it’s obvious they’ve met before.
“London.” She turns her attention towards me, and I’m suddenly aware of how beautiful she is. “Nice to see you’re still alive after last night.”
Last night.
“Oh, God,” I groan. “I’m sorry if I caused any trouble.”
She waves me off, chuckling. “You’re perfectly fine. I understand.” There’s sympathy in her eyes, and while I do appreciate it, I hate when people look at me like someone just kicked my puppy. “What can I get y’all to drink?”
I settle on iced tea, my favorite, and Branson orders black coffee. Just when I thought he couldn’t get any manlier than he is, he surprises me.
“How do you know Reed?” I blurt out. I suppose subtlety has never been my strong suit.
Smirking at my outburst, he rests his forearms onto the table. “I stayed at the hotel in town last night and came by for a drink.”
“Ah,” I mumble lamely before my eyes widen. “Please tell me you didn’t . . .”
“Oh, I did,” he finishes for me, and I really, really want to bang my head on the table.
You just had to ask, I think, cursing my mouth with no filter. “This is so embarrassing.”
Reed returns with our drinks, saving me from any further discussion on my drunken escapades, and takes our orders before leaving me alone with my lunch date.
My date.
“I want to know everything about you,” he states, bringing the coffee to his lips.
I haven’t been on a date in Lord knows how long. It was likely back when dating was watching a movie at your parents’ house with the door open. It dawns on me that I don’t have much of a clue about what dating as an adult looks like. I was always too busy training with Chil to have much spare time for the whims of romance, certainly not with someone like Branson.
As he watches me over the rim of his mug, he ripples intensity and radiates intimidation. While he is both beautiful and kind, he seems somewhat unapproachable. Nonetheless, I find myself wracking my brain for something to tell him.
As I fidget in my seat, he gently leads me into the conversation.
“What made you choose dressage? I’ll admit, having met your family briefly, it seems like an odd choice.”
I twirl the straw in my tea, pushing the ice cubes around. “I love the discipline,” I breathe out, my tone a mix of awestruck wonder balanced by the hint of sadness that still lingers there. “I crave the way the harsh structure and its little tolerance for error transforms into a thing of seemingly effortless beauty.” When I look up, he’s set his cup down, giving me his utmost attention. Thus, I feel compelled to offer up my truth. “I gave my life to the sport”—I move another ice cube in my drink—“and it protected me. It was my safe haven,” I whisper, twirling the straw one more time, mirroring the whirlpool of emotions swimming in my chest. “Until now.”
“What did it protect you from?” He speaks with want of understanding in his voice. It’s a multitude of shades different than the tone most people use where my career, or current lack thereof, is concerned.
While it didn’t occur to me that he’d home in on the most personal part of my description, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise to me either. The man seems to miss very little.
“It protected me . . .” I pause. It seems odd to share so much so quickly with someone who’s still a perfect stranger, but the hesitation is fleeting and the words fall from my lips without any more thought. “It protected me from myself.”
“Hmm,” he hums. “I care only to know so much about your riding, because the passion you harbor there is painted on your face each time I watch you with a horse. There’s a tether between you and the sport, London. Why would you need it to protect you from yourself?”
Momma always said the common misconception in relationships was that people got so caught up in finding someone who understood them when, in reality, all they needed was someone who wanted to understand them. With the right person, that would be more than enough.
“Simply put?” I ask. “I’m that girl.” I drench the word in heaviness. “The girl who bleeds dry for the things she loves. While that’s most certainly something I am not ashamed of, I’m not particularly well equipped to deal with the emotional fallout that comes with caring for something or someone to that degree or magnitude. As such, the sport laid claim to my heart and I deemed it best to give everything I had to the thing I loved most. My momma always made sure to remind us how important the breaks in our hearts are. I just chose to control mine as best as I could, but I never imagined . . .”
“It is always the things we love without abandon that have the power to truly cripple us.” He rests his elbows on the table.
“That’s a terribly scary notion,” I concede, leaning back against the booth.
“Pain comes with heartbreak, and fear often comes with change, but growth is ensured in both. There’s hardly anything wrong with being that girl.” He hovers on the word, much like I did. “In fact, being that girl is one of the very things I like so much about you. People are too coy in the pursuit of their passions, and few would so bravely line up to defend them. Your mother sounds like a smart woman.”
My heart swells in response to the way his words seem to fill the spaces I didn’t realize were empty. “She was,” I say. “I think she’d have liked you.”
“May I ask what happened to her?” He seems unsure of the question, even as each word leaves his full lips.
“It’s perfectly all right to ask.” I smile, hoping to ease some of his discomfort. “She died when I was sixteen after losing a long battle with pancreatic cancer. I’m blessed to have been raised by such a strong woman. I can only hope to emulate half the love she did.”
He gently lays his arm over one of my hands. “I’m sorry for your loss. I would have very much enjoyed meeting her.”
I swallow against the lump forming in my throat. The raw quality of our conversation is both a filling and a purging of the soul. “Tell me about your family?” It comes out as more of a request than an actual question, but amidst the depth between us, I wish to get to know him with equal if not matching intensity.
He draws his hand back and wraps it around the mug, engulfing the white ceramic with its size. I am momentarily envious that he’s now holding it as opposed to me, but I bury my envy in curiosity.
“My parents, Ashley and Charles Tucker, still live on the ranch I grew up on in Coal Hill. Much to my mother’s dismay, she had three boys and no girls.” He laughs at some memory I’m unaware of, but the light it brings to his handsome face is contagious, and I beam back at him as he continues, “Heath, my older brother, is the COO at the company. He married his high school sweetheart, Kailee, and they have two boys. Greg, my younger brother, is a sports photographer and single father. His daughter, Katie, is, as it stands, the only Tucker girl my family has ever had, spouses excluded of course.” He smirks as if the last statement were abundantly obvious.
“Do you want kids?”
Perhaps it’s not typical to ask that on a first date—if that’s what this is. Then again, not much of today has been typical.