Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Mom craned her neck to look at it. “That Tulsa address is for the fairgrounds.”
Rodeos.
Violet was right. Isaac was traveling to rodeos, and he didn’t abandon me. He left me with a list to find him and money to get there.
“It must have fallen out of the guitar case, and I didn’t see it,” I whispered.
“What?” Mom asked.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
“What is it? Whose handwriting is that? It’s not yours,” she prodded.
My gaze lifted to Eve’s wide eyes and parted lips. Then I refocused on the dates. Springfield was in two days, and it was only a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Devil’s Head.
With a shrug, I eyed my mom. “I won’t be at church this weekend.”
She stared at the note again and closed her eyes in realization. “Isaac,” she whispered.
“I love him.”
“Until you get pregnant or worse.” Pain lined her face.
I slowly shook my head. “I’d still love him.”
“Even if he breaks your heart?”
I folded the piece of paper. “Heartbreak is unavoidable if you let yourself fall in love.”
Friday morning, I tracked down Wesley. He was feeding the sheep, sweat already dripping from his forehead as he glanced up at me.
“Hey,” I smiled. “I have a big favor to ask.” I wasn’t happy with him, but he’d been nice to me, so I didn’t have it in me to hate him completely.
“Anything.” He tossed a bucket of feed into the bin.
On one hand, it was awful and gross that Brenda had a relationship with someone so much older than her. But when I looked at Wesley, it was easy to see what Isaac would look like one day—a handsome man with broad shoulders, a strong jaw, thick hair, and intense eyes. And he was kind, even if Violet might not have found his affair so kind.
“I love your son.”
He glanced up at me again, brushing off his gloves and tugging at the fingers to remove them. “Need I ask which one?”
“The one that’s going to be in Springfield at the rodeo tomorrow, and I want to go see him. But I don’t have a car.”
Wesley nodded several times. “I see. So you want to take the truck I loaned you to Springfield?”
“Yeah,” I said softly, wrinkling my nose.
“When will you be back? You have work on Monday.”
I thought about lying, but I couldn’t handle any more lies. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
He lifted an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest. “So you want to borrow my truck for an undetermined amount of time while leaving my farm stand unattended, so you can chase after a boy and his horse?”
Biting my thumbnail, I nodded.
Maybe I should have told one more lie. Did it matter at that point?
“Do your parents know?”
“My mom does.”
“And she’s okay with it?”
“Mr. Cory, I’m eighteen. My parents kicked me out of the house. I think your permission is the only one I need since I do, in fact, need to borrow your truck.”
After a few seconds, he stepped past me to the water spigot. “If anyone asks, I only gave you permission to use it until Sunday.”
I grinned.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
JOURNEY, “FAITHFULLY”
I mapped out my trip to Springfield and laid the highlighted map on the passenger’s seat next to me with my guitar and two bags of clothes shoved onto the floor.
After I arrived in Springfield, I grabbed lunch at KFC and drove to the fairgrounds, where workers were setting up for the rodeo. I was four hours early, and Isaac’s truck wasn’t anywhere in sight, so I parked in a shady spot, ate my lunch, and spent the afternoon playing my guitar, scribbling lyrics into my notebook, and catching a nap.
Eventually, the parking lot filled in around me, and people funneled toward the gates. I put on the cowboy hat and boots Isaac bought me and got in line. The stands and crowd were five times the size of Devil’s Head’s rodeo.
Bright lights.
Music.
And not a familiar soul in sight.
I found a place to sit at the far end, way up in the stands, surrounded by loud fans drinking beer and having a good time. For the next hour, I nervously watched the events. What if I was wrong? What if Isaac accidentally left that list in his guitar case, and it wasn’t for me? It wasn’t a map of his planned travels? Maybe he wasn’t going to every rodeo on the list. Maybe he wasn’t going to any of them.
With a fake smile and a hand on my nervous stomach, I watched the first roper come out of the gate. Then the next … and the next.
Until, he was there.
My heart exploded into tiny pieces of confetti, and I wanted to run into the arena and hug him. It was the first time I watched the whole thing, even when he tied the calf and headed back to his horse with a smile for the crowd while he adjusted his black cowboy hat.