The Stars in the Sky (Giving You ... #2) (25 page)

"Nope."

Shit.

Cuddling with my cowboy, I took a moment to acknowledge how good it felt to be in the arms of this good man that I loved—yes, loved, but who also could work my body the way he did.

It felt like I had completely shed myself of a layer of old, dead skin that didn't fit me anymore. Sure, there were more layers underneath, but it felt like I had unburdened myself from some of my crap. And to know that he loved me back, and had been showing it practically since we met? Awesome.

And I was thrilled beyond belief to find out what he planned next. We went to sleep and when we woke up, we spent most of the rest of the weekend together. He did the rounds of the ranch Saturday morning, and we both checked on Happy, for whom the crisis had passed, although we were still on alert.

Saturday afternoon, after lunch with his parents, he took me for a walk along the beach with Trixie. He brought a tennis ball with him and threw it for Trixie to catch. At one point, he threw it, and Trixie ran in the water on her way to catch it and got totally wet, coming back and shaking all over us. We kept our hands off of each other, but I'll admit that it was harder than usual to do so, seeing him all wet in a white t-shirt sticking to his farm boy sculpted torso.

Later on, we drove to Ryan's beach house to join him and Amelia for dinner, taking advantage of the classic California summer evening, clear and comfortable at the beach, with a slight breeze. I didn't know how Amelia hooked one who could cook and liked to do so, but Ryan cooked for all of us while Amelia and I sat outside on the deck, gossiping, catching up, watching the surf and surfers, and drinking chilled white wine. Ryan cooked barbecued chicken. He was so sweet, though, because the rest of the meal was vegan, with a lentil salad, herbed rice, a huge green salad, and a vegan cake from Trader Joe's, a place that was apparently an obsession of his. He also refused help from anyone. While the girls were outside, Trixie curled up at Will's feet, who sat on a bar stool inside, drinking beer and talking to Ryan about farming.

Amelia went on for at least twenty minutes about the table settings for her wedding, but she didn't seem to care too much about the dress, cake, guest list, or anything else. That was my girl.

"So you're going to be my maid of honor, right?" she finally asked me.

"Girl? I thought you'd never ask. Although that's not really asking, that's telling. You've been hanging around a bossy guy too long."

She laughed. "Bossy guys can be hot if they love you." Then she continued. "I'm so glad you got your head out of your ass, girl. What the fuck? How come you took so long to get it about your cowboy god? I knew it when we visited."

"At first I didn't want to because he can be such an asshole. And then I didn't want to because he’s a Republican asshole, and that's worse. And then I didn't want to because, well, I didn't. I don't know. I started thinking that if I really liked him, I had to leave at the end of summer and I didn't want to fall for someone that hard if it's just a summer thing."

"Ever since I've known you," she said, "you've been the crazy party girl that everyone adored, but no one really knew. I got in there early and I've stayed there. No one else that I know of has. I'm glad that Will broke through. He's a keeper."

I nodded. He was.

Trust

"JUST FIVE MORE DAYS," I whispered Sunday night, lying in bed, leaning up against Will. "The kids leave after breakfast on Friday."

"Yeah," he answered, in his low rumble, against my neck, as he sucked on it, gliding his fingers up and down my bare arm. Letting out a sigh, he wrapped his arms around me in a big bear hug. "They gotta get here first, though." He squeezed me tight. "We got this." I relaxed and enjoyed his comforting warmth, trying to not think any more about the self-imposed sexual moratorium, and then drifted to sleep.

The next morning, a group of kids arrived at Headlands. They were entirely different than any previous group. This time we had twenty-five twelve and thirteen year olds from a Boys and Girls Club in East Los Angeles. Given the demographics of the area, I expected that they would all be Hispanic like me, and they were.

When the bus arrived, the children and leaders spilled out and I repeated the drill that I had done with the other groups, waving and enthusiastically greeting them. I noticed, immediately, that this group seemed quieter than the group from Oakland, the kids keeping amongst themselves, not chattering as much, and giving each other space, rather than mingling together.

One nervous-looking girl came up to me in the bunkhouse hall after she had set her duffle bag, sleeping bag, and pillow on a bottom bunk in the room. "I don't want to leave my things here. The door to the room doesn't lock."

"It’ll be safe, don't worry," I said.

She just looked at me. "Don't you have someplace, you know, safe, I can put them?"

"They'll be safe here," I repeated, and she looked at me skeptically and took off back down to the room. But she made me think. What would it be like if I didn't feel safe? If I didn't trust? Like how I trusted Will?

When they finished we went outside.

"Okay, guys," I said. "We are going to play a name game so that I can know who you are and what you like to do." I explained the game. We would go around in a circle and take turns saying our name and our favorite hobby. "I'm Marie and I like to eat vegan food."

The girl next to me, pretty, with shoulder length dark hair and glasses, said, "I'm Josephine and I like to listen to music, and this is Marie and she likes to eat vegan food." Then we continued with the next child, and so on.

Once we had gotten most of the way around the circle, the kids were starting to giggle at everyone's hobbies: "I like to eat gummy bears," "I like to play video games," "I like to watch YouTube," "I like to sleep in." Will walked by toward the end and I invited him to join us. Because he came in late to the game, he didn't have the advantage of hearing everyone repeating all the names twenty times. He tried to remember the children's names and failed miserably. "This is, uh, Danny—"

"David!" piped up a tiny boy in a Dodger t-shirt.

"Yeah, David, and he likes to play baseball—"

"No, play football."

I could see Will trying not to swear.

But he played along, asking David why he wore a baseball shirt if he liked football.

"Because it’s baseball season."

God, I loved my cowboy.

When we were done, I strode over to Will and whispered in his ear, "I think that participation in a name game earns you an extra treat on Friday."

"Holdin' you to that one," he responded, looking me in the eye, making me shiver even though it was hot out, and then sauntering to his truck.

"FOUR DAYS, DARLIN',"
Will whispered in my ear that night as he spooned behind me. His breath against my neck set off a chain reaction of sensations in my body that wound up making me tense between my legs. "Nice work with the campfire tonight."

"Thanks," I whispered back. I flopped over and ran my fingers over his nipples and his pecs. But then he kissed me and that got a little out of control, tongues touching tongues, and we both had to pull back, breathing heavy.

We looked at each other.

"Night," I said hastily, at the same time that he said, "Night." He tucked me into him to go to sleep, both of us ignoring the feelings that were building: I had a wet throbbing between my legs and my breasts were heavy, and I could feel him poking me in the back, poor guy. I sighed and went to sleep.

The next day after breakfast, I took the kids to the corrals and they rode the horses under the watch of the wranglers.

I needed a break, so I ran into the ranch house, wandered down the hall, and opened the bathroom door to use it and collided into a naked, wet, William Charles Thrash III, owner of Headlands Ranch, standing, dripping shower water on a bath mat.

Figured.

He took one look at me, and his immediate pissed off look morphed into a full-on, out of control, male laugh, making him hold his toned tummy.

"You ever gonna learn to fucking knock?" he finally managed, wrapping a towel around his pelvis and then pulling me close to him. "Shit."

I’d lost control laughing, too, and hugged him back, probably drying him off in the process. "I don't think so. Especially not if these are the goodies I'm gonna get. Just lock the door if you don't want me barging in."

"Wish I could lock the door right now.”

I had received a good eyeful of Mr. Will and I could tell that he was starting to get ideas. Or he had them already. It wasn’t getting any easier to stay away from him. So I kissed him quickly, wriggled out of his grasp, and hightailed it out of there, finding the other bathroom.

On Wednesday morning, I sat next to Will in the chow hall for breakfast, Josephine sitting across from me and David sitting next to her. They were chattering about their favorite horses. As usual, Will pressed his leg against mine the entire meal, although he did glance disgustedly at my muesli and soy milk, shaking his head.

The schedule was horses in the morning, lunch, and then a group games session. "Alright everyone, gather around," I called to the kids. "We're going to do something called a trust fall."

Grouping the children and leaders into two units, I instructed them. "We are going to take turns experiencing what it feels like to fall and have someone catch you. You are going to close your eyes, cross your arms over your chest, and fall backwards, trusting that everyone will keep you from falling. Have any of you ever done that before?"

I received some blank stares and a few heads shaking.

"It will be a new experience, then, but I think it's important to try it. And it's important to know that everyone here will support everyone else. Josephine, if David asked you if you would let him fall, would you?"

"No," she answered. "I would catch him if I could."

"Good," I said. "You will have help. You don't have to do it alone. Now, this is scary. It is normal for it to feel scary. It will feel like you are free falling. You have to trust. But I want everyone to tell me, individually, that you will catch whoever is going to fall."

"David, would you catch whoever is going to fall?"

"Yes."

We did it. The feeling of having to trust, having to close your eyes, and just fall—I figured that these kids had never experienced that before. I did it too, going into one group, and falling backwards, feeling a dozen pairs of hands hold me up.

Hands held every individual up.

Exactly the way Will held me up.

Exactly the way we all need to hold each other up and learn to trust. Learn to earn that trust and learn to accept that trust.

When the hands returned a person gently to a standing position, almost everyone had a look of delight on his or her face.

Awesomesauce. They were starting to bond.

By Thursday afternoon, the kids were grooming horses, feeding chickens, mucking out stalls, and running free. They laughed, told stories, teased each other, made tie-dyes, and helped. It was a good week.

But I couldn't wait for it to be over.

On Friday morning, everyone packed up, and they left after breakfast, smiling and waving goodbye.

Then the staff who had days off took off. All I could think about was my cowboy.

And then I went to find Will over by the barns, my heart rate elevated, my panties wet, from thinking all morning about what he was going to do. He wasn't in the barn when I called, so I went over to the tack room, but he wasn't in there either. As I went to leave, I saw him standing in the doorway, a look on his face that I could only describe as desire.

Our two weeks were up.