Николас Спаркс - The Longest Ride

“What? You don’t want me to meet her?”

“It’s not that. She’s kind of angry with me this morning.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story.”

Sophia tilted her head up at him. “You said the same thing last night when I asked you why you rode bulls,” she remarked. “I think you say ‘It’s a long story’ when what you really mean is ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Am I right?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She laughed, her face flushing with pleasure. “So what’s next?”

“I guess we can head to the barn,” he said. “You said you wanted to see it.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “You know I really didn’t come here to see the barn, right?”

7

Sophia

Okay, she thought to herself as soon as the words left her mouth. Maybe that was a little too forward.

She blamed it on Marcia. If only Marcia hadn’t pestered her with questions last night and all morning about what had happened the night before and the fact that she was going to the ranch today; if only she hadn’t vetoed the first two outfits that Sophia had selected, all the while repeating, “I can’t believe you’re going riding with that hottie!” then Sophia wouldn’t have been so nervous. Eye candy. Hot. Hottie. Marcia insisted on using those words instead of his name. As in, “So Mr. Eye Candy swooped in and saved you, huh?” or, “What did you and the hottie talk about?” or simply, “He’s so hot!” It was no wonder she’d missed the turn after getting off the highway; by the time she’d pulled in the drive, she could feel a tiny bead of sweat trickling down her rib cage. She wasn’t necessarily anxious, but she was definitely on edge, and whenever that happened she talked a lot and found herself taking cues from people like Marcia and Mary-Kate. But then sometimes her old self would come barreling through and she’d blurt out things better left unsaid. Like today. And last night, when she said she’d like to go horseback riding.

And Luke hadn’t helped matters. He’d walked up to her car in that soft chambray work shirt and jeans, his brown curls trying to escape his hat. He’d barely raised those long-lashed blue eyes, surprising her with his shyness, when she felt her stomach do a little flip. She liked him… really liked him. But more than that, for whatever reason, she trusted him. She had the impression that his world was ordered by a sense of right and wrong, that he had integrity. He wasn’t preoccupied with pretending to be something he wasn’t, and his face was an open book. When she surprised him, she could see it instantly; when she teased him, he laughed easily at himself. By the time he finally mentioned the barn… well, she just couldn’t help herself.

Although she thought she detected something that resembled a blush, he just ducked his head and popped inside to grab another hat. When he returned, they set off side by side, falling into an easy rhythm. Dog ran ahead and then came rushing back to them before darting off in yet another direction, a moving bundle of energy. Little by little, she felt her anxiety dissipate. They skirted the grove of trees that surrounded his house, angling toward the main drive. As the vista opened before her, she took in the main house, with its big covered porch and black shutters, backed by a copse of towering trees. Beyond it stood the aging barn and lush pastures nestled amid green rolling hills. In the distance, the banks of a small lake were dotted with cattle, smoky blue-tipped mountains near the horizon framing the landscape like a postcard. On the opposite side of the drive stood a grove of Christmas trees, planted in neat, straight rows. A breeze moved through the grove, making a soft fluting sound that resembled music.

“I can’t believe you grew up here,” she breathed, taking it all in. She motioned toward the house. “Is that where your mom lives?”

“I was actually born in that farmhouse.”

“What? No horses fast enough to get to the hospital?”

He laughed, seemingly more relaxed since they’d left his house. “A lady on the next ranch over used to be a midwife. She’s a good friend of my mom’s, and it was a way to save some money. She’s like that – my mom, I mean. She’s kind of a hawk when it comes to expenses.”

“Even for childbirth?”

“I’m not sure she was fazed by childbirth. Living on a farm, she’d been around a lot of births. Besides, she was born in the house, too, so she was probably thinking, What’s the big deal?”

Sophia felt the gravel crunching beneath her boots. “How long has your family owned the ranch?” she asked.

“A long time. My great-grandfather bought most of it in the 1920s, and then, when the Depression hit, he was able to add to it. He was a pretty good businessman. From there, it became my grandfather’s, and then my mom’s. She took over when she was twenty-two.”

As he answered, she looked around, amazed at how remote it felt despite its proximity to the highway. They passed the farmhouse, and on the far side there were smaller weather-beaten wooden structures surrounded by fencing. When the wind shifted, Sophia caught the scent of conifer and oak. Everything about the ranch was a refreshing change from the campus where she spent most of her time. Just like Luke, she thought, but she tried not to dwell on the observation. “What are those buildings?” she asked, pointing.

“The closest one is the henhouse, where we keep the chickens. And behind that is where we keep the hogs. Not many, only three or four at a time. Like I mentioned last night, we mainly do cattle here.”

“How many do you have?”

“More than two hundred pair,” he said. “We also have nine bulls.”

She furrowed her brow. “Pair?”

“A mature cow and her calf.”

“Then why don’t you just say you have four hundred?”

“That’s just the way they’re counted, I guess. So you know the size of the herd you can offer for sale that year. We don’t sell the calves. Others do – that’s veal – but we’re known for our grass-fed, organic beef. Our customers are mainly high-end restaurants.”

They followed the fence line, approaching an ancient live oak with massed limbs that spread in all directions like a spider. As they passed beneath the canopy of its limbs, they were greeted with a shrill assortment of bird cries, sounding their warnings. Sophia lifted her gaze to the barn as they neared it, realizing that Luke hadn’t been kidding. It looked abandoned, the entire structure listing slightly and held together by rotting boards. Ivy and kudzu crawled up the sides, and a section of the roof appeared entirely stripped of shingles.

He nodded toward it. “What do you think?”

“I’m wondering if you ever think of razing it, just to show mercy?”

“It’s sturdier than it looks. We just keep it this way for effect.”

“Maybe,” she said with a skeptical expression. “Either that, or you’ve never gotten around to fixing it.”

“What are you talking about? You should have seen it before the repairs.”

She smiled. He thought he was so funny. “Is that where you keep the horses?”

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t put them in that death trap.”

This time, she laughed despite herself. “What do you use the barn for, then?”

“Storage, mostly. The mechanical bull is in there, too, and that’s where I practice, but other than that, it’s mainly filled with broken stuff. A couple of broken-down trucks, a tractor from the fifties, used well pumps, broken heat pumps, stripped engines. Most of it is junk, but like I said, my mom is funny about expenses. Sometimes I can find a part that I need to fix whatever needs fixing.”

“Does that happen a lot? That you find something?”