At Any Price(111)

I was out in the stalls and then in the barn, battling flies and bored horse—Snowball, who was not interested in having poop taken out but was very interested in love from his favorite person. And who was I to resist? But after twenty minutes of this, I was getting impatient, shoving him aside to get at the poop in the sawdust.

I was hot, sweaty, bedraggled, smelling of horse crap and covered with sawdust shavings. So of course this was the moment when Mom decided to pass through the barns with our new suite guest—who had apparently just checked in—on a tour of the facility.

“Snowball, move your fat ass,” I growled at the horse, giving him a good-natured slap on the bum.

“Mia, are you in here?”

“No,” I answered between gritted teeth. What the hell? She had just heard me yelling at the horse.

“Our new guest is here. Come on, I just want to introduce you.”

I sighed. Snowball was going to have to live with the remaining bits of poop for another day. I huffed out of the stall, placing the rake against the door but not removing my giant gardening gloves. I’d make this quick, give him a smile, a few words of welcome and a nod and be about my work. I approached my mom standing beside a tall man. As they were backlit by the afternoon sunlight, I didn’t get a good look until I was too close to turn away.

But when I did finally see his face, my feet grew instant roots into the ground and I almost flopped on my face from the momentum. Because towering over my mom, a subdued smile on his face, stood Adam.

He had on jeans, tennis shoes, a casual button-down shirt and he was as gorgeous as ever. I hadn’t spoken to him in over a month. Since that last heated night in St. Lucia. I’d thought I’d never see him again. Yet here he was, looking down at me with benign eyes that missed nothing. Not even the snowfall of sawdust in my hair.

My heart began to thump at the base of my throat and I swallowed, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe. What the hell was he doing here? Was he posing as my mom’s newest guest? Cold panic rose up from my tight stomach. How on earth could I hide this reaction from my mom? The blood was draining from my face—I knew that much. Was he here to torment me with regret for the things I had said to him? Was he here to try and make amends?

I didn’t know what to feel. So many emotions swirled inside me. I was loath to admit that one of them was a complete heart-charging thrill at seeing him again. Another was a dread, a fear. Would he expose me to my mom? Tell her about the auction—about what a terrible, bitter, child-person I was?

Mom’s voice cut through my buzzing thoughts. “Here she is—this is my daughter, Mia.”

Adam’s gaze shot to mine like a bolt of lightning and I suddenly felt myself starting to sweat. A heat built inside me so quickly, it felt like I would combust from the inside out.

“Hi, Mia,” Adam said. And I was at least thankful he didn’t carry out a ruse that we didn’t know each other. No false “nice to meet you.” I jerked my eyes from his, which speared me, and dropped them to the ground in front of my feet.

Mom continued, completely oblivious to the tension thickening the air. “This is Mr. Drake. He’ll be with us for the next week. He’s preparing to hike a segment of the Pacific Crest Trail from here to Yosemite. Sometime soon.”

The Pacific Crest Trail stretched from the Mexican border to Canada, tracing the crests of all the mountain ranges of the three states in between: California, Oregon and Washington. The hearty people who hiked it were either “thru-hikers,” doing the entire run in seven or so months straight, or “segment-hikers” who pieced up the trail into bits and did it a little at a time, sometimes over the span of many years.

So this was the story that Adam had given my mother. He was going to do a segment hike of the PCT? What a load of bullshit. My eyes flicked back to Adam, whose smile had faded but whose face bore a certain grim self-satisfaction.

The breath I’d just drawn flew right out of me again. I shifted, putting my hands on my hips because I had no idea what else to do with them.

“Hey, Mr. Drake,” I croaked out. “Welcome.” My mom frowned. She’d finally noticed my weird reaction and there would be questions later, no doubt. But I feared being alone with her much less than being alone with him so I resolved to stick near my mom’s side all night—and probably find lots of excuses to drive into Anza proper or even down the mountain for the next few days.

“Dinner is in two hours and I’ve asked Mr. Drake to join us,” Mom said, throwing a pointed look at my grubby clothes.

I only nodded. I had no other words. I didn’t look at Adam again—didn’t have the courage for it. And as he followed my mom out of the barn, he darted one last glance my way before turning out of my view.