San Antonio.
Visiting friends.
Making homemade bread.
The words ran through his mind on a constant loop, and he knew he was missing something.
“You’ve got to focus when you’re in the saddle,” Nate said, and Ted blinked his way out of his own mind. Because Emma couldn’t teach him to ride, Ted had asked Nate to do it. The ranch did horseback riding lessons on weekends too, but not after noon. So Ted and Nate had taken care of the horses from the lessons that morning, and then Nate had taught Ted how to saddle a horse and how to get on.
“Sorry,” Ted said. He squinted into the bright sunlight, grateful for his cowboy hat. “I’m paying attention.”
Nate went through how to balance, and how to get the horse to move and how to command him to stop. Nate had given Ted a pretty gray horse named Enterprise, and he’d learned that Ginger named all of the horses on the ranch, and apparently, she liked Star Trek.
“Now you try,” Nate said, and Ted nodded.
He held the reins loosely in his hand, and he moved his heels back. “Go,” he said, and to his great surprise, Enterprise started walking. A smile spread across Ted’s face, and he looked at Nate like he’d just done something great.
“Let’s go,” Nate said, and he brought his horse around to walk side-by-side with Ted and the four blue heelers. Nate rode a brown horse with a black mane and tail. It was a special type of horse that Ted had forgotten the name of. But he was beautiful, and his name was Painted Desert.
Nate led them down the road Ted had walked on with Emma several times. There would be some shade up ahead. The steady rhythm of the horse’s hooves soothed Ted, so he was off-guard when Nate said, “Ginger wants to have the wedding out here.”
Ted swung his attention to Nate. “She does?”
Nate nodded, his cowboy hat doing a poor job of hiding his displeasure.
“Why aren’t you happy about that?”
“In September? Out here? It’s going to be as hot as Hades.”
Ted let a beat of silence pass, and then he burst out laughing. “That’s what you’re worried about?” He continued to chuckle as he shook his head. “Nate, you have a ton of money. Buy some misters and fans. Get some big tents set up, and air condition them. It’ll be fine.”
Nate looked at him, new hope entering his eyes. “That’s not a bad idea.”
“Of course it’s not,” Ted said. “When you’re rich, you don’t have to be hot, even outside in September.”
Nate rolled his eyes and looked forward again.
“What?” Ted asked. “I’m right.”
“I was hot in River Bay.”
“Yeah, well.” Ted thought quickly. “We only got a hundred and fifty dollars a month.” Yes, he knew even the rich went to prison. Dallas was a great example, as the man had been a renowned surgeon before he’d been convicted of insurance fraud and medical misconduct.
Nate didn’t respond, but Ted didn’t want to go back into his own thoughts. There were simply too many of them, and he couldn’t sort through them well enough to know which ones he should worry about and which ones he shouldn’t.
“Are you excited to get married?”
“Yes,” Nate said. “I’d get married tomorrow, if Ginger would do it.” He glanced at Ted. “But she wants everyone there. Her parents. Her sisters and her brother. All of that.”
“You don’t sound happy about that either.”
“I don’t know,” Nate said. “Of course her family should be there, but she doesn’t seem to be that close to them in the first place. Just pick a date and tell them. If they can come, great. If not, well, we’ll save them some cake. You know?” He glanced at Ted. “I’m trying to be neutral about it. Let her do what she wants. But she doesn’t want that either.”
“What does she want?”
“She wants me to voice my opinion. Says I have a say.” Nate shook his head. “It’s not really true, because when I tell her what I think, she just argues back with me.” He clicked at his horse as it tried to stall and get a bite of the sweet grass along the side of the road. “It’s fine. We’re fine. Planning a wedding and running a ranch is a lot of work all at once.” Nate tossed a smile at Ted. “How are you and Emma?”
“Okay,” Ted said, his voice pitching up a little bit.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“She’s got secrets,” Ted said. “She doesn’t want to tell me.”
“Ah, I see.”
They continued down the road, and Ted was impressed with himself that he hadn’t fallen off his horse yet. In fact, he made it all the way back to the stable without even slipping in the saddle.
“You did great,” Nate said with a smile. “You want to go out to the marshes with me? I need to check a couple of cabins that were used this week.”
“Sure.”
After they’d brushed down their horses and watered them, they turned them out into the pasture and went to the equipment shed. Ted’s blue heelers were never far from him, and two of them even jumped up onto the back seat of the ATV.
“Oh, you want to go for a ride?” He grinned at them, and caught the key Nate threw to him. “I guess you can.” He swung his leg over the seat of the ATV, and the dogs adjusted themselves so they were balanced.
He followed Nate, who’d fired up a side-by-side, down the road, his friend going much faster than Ted felt comfortable going. He hadn’t driven a vehicle in a very long time, and certainly not one with two dogs on the back of it.
He pulled up to the cabins several seconds after Nate, who’d already gone inside. He came out with a trash bag in one hand and a wad of sheets in the other. Ted realized
