At Any Price(110)
“What—that he’s a chick or something? Or someone famous? Remember when we all used to try to think up what movie star or famous athlete he was?”
I drew in a breath and held it. I wanted to make my voice sound as calm as I could when I told him. It wouldn’t tremble or break—it would be strong, clear. “FallenOne is Adam.” Shit. It had quavered. The moment I’d said his name, I’d heard a slight tremor right at the end of the second syllable.
There was a long stretch of silence. “No shit?” he said, his voice dark.
I nodded. I wished it was all just a joke.
“Well—fuck—that explains a lot, I guess.”
“Like what?”
“Drake always seemed kind of familiar to me. He didn’t to you?”
He’d overwhelmed me. Completely. Like the storm I often likened him to, he’d obliterated everything else around him. I shrugged.
Heath shot me a concerned look. “It really didn’t end well between you two, did it?”
“I’m not going to talk about it.”
He sighed. “Mia, I’m just worried. You don’t look well. Your mom says you aren’t eating much and you work yourself exhausted every day.”
“It’s good for me.”
“Holding on to anger and resentment isn’t.”
I sighed. “You’ve been hanging around my mom too long.”
“What did he do to you?”
I blinked and looked away. “Nothing I didn’t want him to do.”
His brow trembled. “Ah.” Then he cleared his throat. “That’s not what I meant. I mean why are you like this? I’ve known you for ten years and I’ve never ever seen you cry like you did that day in Irvine. You aren’t eating, aren’t acting normal. Are you at least going to retake your MCAT, still?”
I looked away. “The jury’s still out on that decision.”
He scowled. “I hope you don’t give up on your dreams because some dickwad played you.”
“If I don’t, it’s not because of him.” I ground out.
“Okay. please don’t kick my ass when I ask you this…”
I darted a warning glare at him. “If you have to start it out like that then maybe you shouldn’t ask.”
“Mia… did you fall in love with him?”
“No,” I snapped, folding my arms tightly in front of me. “And even if I had, it wouldn’t matter, okay? He’s the one who walked out on me.”
He looked pissed off. “I see.”
I held up a finger and pushed it at his face. “No more talking about this shit, okay? It’s over. It’s the past. I have a life to get on with. No more bringing it up.”
He stared at me for a long moment before he simply nodded and pulled his attention back to his camera, adjusting the tripod.
After Heath went home, falling into my normal routine again comforted me. And a week later, my mom announced gleefully over lunch, “My first Internet reservations are coming in!”
I was pleasantly surprised. Heath had just rebuilt her website the week before but there hadn’t been much traffic on it.
“Yep, some people coming in for the regular rooms starting next week and the week after next, someone booked the best room in the house—Roy Rogers.” The biggest separate cabin, the “luxury suite” of our ranch. Every room we had was named after a famous cowboy or cowgirl. I’d secretly named my bedroom Annie Oakley because there just weren’t enough awesome cowgirls on our list.
As much as I’d shucked my cowgirl identity when I’d gone off to college, I started to feel the comfort my younger self took in being with our animals. It was a healing experience. I didn’t have to worry about lies or bullshit from animals. I didn’t have to worry about being double-crossed. As long as they got their food and their exercise and the occasional bit of human affection, they were happy.
A week later, Mom and I hurriedly made the finishing touches for our new guests and welcomed them in. We’d gone down to nearby Temecula and shopped at the home stores for new bedding and sheets to match our theme for the cabins.
In the Roy Rogers room, the paint smell had faded, mostly because we kept it open and aired morning and night and dusted daily—because on a ranch, there is no shortage of dust. It wasn’t the penthouse suite of the Amstel Amsterdam, or the VIP suite in the Emerald Sky Luxury resort, but it was something.
Because I’d been helping my mom get our first guests checked out, I didn’t get to work with the horses until mid afternoon. I’d decided to give them the day off because making them work during the sweat of the day—and July in Anza was no joke at all—would have been too cruel. But there was still work to be done. Like poop. Because hot or cold, rain or shine, horses made poop. And I had to clean it.