Cowboy Crazy

Epilogue



The red ribbon fluttered from Sarah’s hands as she made her fourteenth effort at tying it to a tilting fence post. There was a pretty stiff breeze blowing, promising a late-afternoon rainstorm, but it really wouldn’t be that hard to get the job done if Lane would quit trying to help her.

“I’ve got it.” She shoved him sideways and grabbed the runaway end of the ribbon.

“Do you need some help?” Sarah turned to see Emmy standing beside her, hands clasped shyly behind her back. But her shoulders weren’t slumped, and as Sarah stepped away, she took the ribbon and tied it into a quick, assured bow around the post.

“They teach you that at UW?” Lane teased.

“No. They’re teaching me what kind of formations you look for to find oil, and how to access it, and—oh.” She paused, mortified, and proved her newfound confidence hadn’t affected her ability to blush. “You don’t want to hear about that, do you? You’re against it.”

“Not if it’s done right,” he said. “Just learn how to do it right, and then make sure it happens when you get your first job.” He grinned. “Maybe you could work for Carrigan. What do you think, Bro?”

Eric had taken off his jacket and was carefully rolling his shirtsleeves to the elbow. “Probably. But she’ll be done with graduate school by the time you and I agree on anything.”

“I hope so,” Lane said. “But at least I’ll have one engineer on my side.”

Emmy nodded enthusiastically, then frowned. “I’m on Sarah’s side, though.”

Lane rolled his eyes. “Everybody loves my wife.”

Sarah punched his arm and he winced. “Me most of all.”

Gloria, who was honoring the occasion with a magnificently inappropriate sequined red dress, gave Sarah a friendly nudge with her shoulder. “I told you the cowboy brother was the one for you.” She glanced over at Eric, who had flung his jacket over his shoulder with a GQ flourish. “Opposites attract.”

Lane grinned and settled an arm around Sarah’s shoulders. “Sometimes opposites aren’t as different as they seem,” he said. “Sometimes, deep down, they belong together.”

A crowd gathered gradually. First the poker gang arrived, decked out in their Sunday best. Sarah had never seen most of them in suit jackets before, let alone ties and shiny shoes. Joe was probably wearing his best clothes too, but that just meant there weren’t any holes in his jeans or swear words on his T-shirt.

Kelsey and Mike picked their way across the uneven ground, Mike lugging Katie in his arms. She was almost too big to carry, and she started squirming the moment she saw Lane and Sarah. Mike set her down and she ran across the open field, dodging sagebrush with her arms outstretched. She slammed into Lane’s legs and looked up at Sarah, then at Lane, her smile as wide and sunny as the summer sky.

“Hey, short stuff.” Lane rumpled her hair and the smile widened. Catching sight of Willie, she toddled off to watch as he dug furiously at an old prairie dog hole.

Suze arrived late, but the crowd parted for her like the Red Sea as she made her way to the front where Lane and Sarah were standing by the fence post.

“You all are determined to do this, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

Sarah nodded. “It’s green construction, though. All local materials so it blends with the landscape, and most of the power will be wind and solar.”

She scanned the crowd. Just about everybody in town had showed up, even Eddie, who stood at the back in his ever-present white cap and apron.

“Suze, who’s manning the grill?” Lane asked.

“Nobody.” Suze folded her arms over her ample chest and scowled. “Place is closed for the ceremony.”

“Wow,” Lane said with a glint in his eye. “I don’t think the diner’s ever been closed before. If we’d known the ribbon-cutting was that important to you, we’d have done it after hours.”

“It’s not important to me,” she grunted. “Eddie wanted to come, and when he gets a bug up his butt about something there’s no stopping him.”

“Well, hopefully we’ll have a doctor who can deal with the bug issue,” Lane said.

Suze snorted. “You gonna cut that ribbon or talk all day?”

“Talk all day,” Sarah said. “You can’t have a ribbon-cutting without a speech.”

“Shit,” Suze mumbled, backing into the crowd.

Sarah scanned the crowd and caught sight of Trevor in the front row. He was no longer the rail-thin cowboy she’d met months ago. His shoulders had filled out and his biceps swelled from his shirt. Working at the ranch had done him more good than a year’s worth of physical therapy.

Not that physical therapy wouldn’t help. Especially since he wouldn’t have to go to Casper for it once the clinic was built.

“Speech!” somebody at the back of the crowd yelled.

“Get on with it!” hollered another voice.

Sarah cleared her throat. “I’ll make this quick,” she said.

Cheers rose from the crowd. Small-town folks weren’t much for standing in one place, and she was eager to get to the end of her speech too.

“A lot of you know there was a time in my life when Two Shot wasn’t my favorite place in the world.”

There was a smattering of laughter.

“There was a time in my life I couldn’t get out of this town fast enough,” she continued. “And now there’s no place I’d rather be.” She smiled at Lane, who stood in his typical pose, legs apart, arms folded over his chest, totally unaware that he stood head-and-shoulders above every man in the crowd.

In her eyes, he stood above every man in the world.

“I wanted to leave Two Shot because I felt like I was stuck. Like the town would never change. It would always be Two Shot Wyoming, Population 245. It would never grow, and neither would I.

“I was right about being stuck, but the town wasn’t the problem. I was the one who needed to change. And thanks to Lane and to all of you, I did.

“But Two Shot is changing too,” she said. “We’re getting the Carrigan Clinic built, and soon there’ll be a police station too.” She glanced at Lane. “The Roy Price Memorial Building, named after my stepdad. And there’s one other thing that’s changing.” She scanned the crowd, then focused on Lane as she delivered the last line of her speech.

“In about six months, the population will be two hundred forty-six.” She put a hand on her belly and waited for the news to sink in.

The crowd caught on right away, whooping and cheering, but Lane stood as if he was frozen to the ground despite the summer heat.

“Two hundred forty-six?” he said as the cheers died down.

“Two hundred forty-six,” she said. “And number two hundred forty-six is going to be a little Carrigan cowboy. Or maybe a cowgirl.”

He took a step forward, still looking stunned, and then a smile spread across his face and he swept her into his arms. She clasped her hands around his neck and he lifted her into the air. She watched the landscape whirl past as he spun her in a circle, the landscape and then the crowd, a sea of smiling faces. Her family.

He set her down and Emmy handed her an enormous pair of silver scissors that glinted in the sunlight. With Lane’s arms draped over her shoulders, she snipped the red ribbon and stepped away.

As the bow unfurled and the ribbon fell, she and Lane stepped through the opening and they each grabbed a waiting shovel. As the blades dug into the hard Wyoming earth, she felt like she was breaking ground on much more than a medical clinic or even a new era for Two Shot.

She was breaking ground on a whole new life.