“It’s been nice having help on hand.”
“I bet.” She places her hands on her hips, studying me with a gleam in her eye. I know what she’s thinking. I know exactly what she’s thinking. “Where is Leighton anyway?”
“Back at home.”
“You keeping her busy?” Molly asks.
“She’s sleeping. Had a long weekend.”
Molly frowns. “She okay?”
I nod. I don’t think Leighton would appreciate me sharing her business.
“She’s fine. Just catching up on her rest,” I say, moving toward the chute.
Guy climbs over the chipped metal fence and into the corral, hollering orders at a couple of his boys and whistling for their dog.
Molly stands behind me, readying the piercing gun and stacking tags on an upside down five-gallon bucket. “I really like her, River.”
“Who?”
She rolls her eyes. “Leighton. Who else?”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” she scoffs. “Just okay? That’s all you have to say about her?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.” Molly shrugs. “This woman walks into your life, this beautiful, kind, sweet soul of a woman, and you don’t have anything to say about her?”
Turning away from Molly, I focus on the job at hand. I came here to work, not to stand around waxing poetic about some woman I barely know.
“I have this feeling, River,” she says, keeping a close watch on her boys. “She’s a gift. She’s a gift for you.”
Shaking my head, I brush off her woo-woo comments. She’s always talking about her Native American grandmother and her intuition and her “feelings,” and to be honest, I don’t believe in any of that bullshit, but I care about Molly too much to tell her that.
The first calf comes down the chute.
“She gives me hope, River,” Molly says, positioning herself at the end of the chute. “Hope for you.”
“Don’t go getting your hopes up now.”
“And why not?” She flashes me a challenging smirk.
“Don’t get attached. Don’t get your hopes up. And don’t go sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong,” I share my personal mantra.
“River.” Molly sulks.
“You two done chit-chatting so we can get to work?” Guy yells from the other side of the fence.
“Yep,” I call back, stepping away from Molly. And away from this conversation.
Chapter Thirty
Leighton
An eerie stillness blankets the house this morning, and River’s nowhere to be found. A quick check out the window tells me his truck is gone. He either ran into town or he’s out checking cattle. Either way, it was nice of him not to wake me this morning.
It took me the longest time to fall asleep last night, but once I did, I was down for the count. I’m not sure I’ve ever slept so hard in my life.
Changing into jeans and an old t-shirt, I fix myself a bowl of cold cereal and wait for River to return to give me my list of chores for the day.
An hour passes, then another, and another.
By the time lunch rolls around, the farm is still void of his presence.
Curling up on his sofa, I grab the TV remote and watch some public television show about sustainable agriculture, but the sleepy narrator does little to hold my interest. Rising, I stretch my legs and lift my arms over my head. I need to move around or I could easily find myself sleeping away the rest of the afternoon.
Making my way around the living room, I stop next to a bookshelf filled with old cookbooks, Bibles, an encyclopedia set, and some vintage classics that look more like family heirlooms than garage sale quality hardbacks. A book with a rose-colored spine grabs my attention. It’s thicker than the rest, its jacket made of some kind of soft fabric, and I slide it out.
Flipping the cover, I stop when I see a photograph of Allison. Quickly paging through the rest, I see the entire thing is filled with photos, hundreds of captured memories eternalized on Kodak paper sandwiched inside picture sleeves.
There’s an entire lifetime of precious memories in this book, and I suspect I’m literally holding River’s happiness in my hands.
Taking it to the sofa, I allow curiosity to get the better of me, and I begin to carefully page through a past that doesn’t belong to me.
Photos of the two of them in matching college sweatshirts, young and round-faced, smiling and inseparable, fill the first several pages. Their first Christmas is showcased next, followed by Valentine’s day. Allison sits at a card table set up in the middle of a dorm room, a single red rose and one tall candle resting between plates of sliced pizza. After that is a picture of the two of them on the beach, her riding on his back, laughing, the waves lapping at his feet. The photos continue, seasons and holidays all in chronological order, and I stop when I get to their proposal.
My eyes fill with tears, just like Allison’s in the picture. Her hand covers her mouth. Mine does the same.
I can feel her joy radiating through every part of me.
I can feel the love between them.
I can feel everything, all at once.
He’s on bended knee. She can’t stop crying. Their loved ones surrounding them in the background—Guy and Molly included. This one picture captures so much joy, so much hope.
These two are young, madly in love … and blissfully unaware that fate had other plans for them.
Forcing myself to turn the page, I pore over their wedding shots. Allison was stunning in a simple lacy dress with a crown of purple wildflowers in her wavy, coffee-brown hair and a bouquet to match. River wore a cream-colored suit, his hair longer, his smile unforgettable.
He’s a handsome man, but that smile takes everything to a whole new level. How lucky she was to know that smile for all those years, and to know that smile was always for her.
The pages that follow document Allison’s first pregnancy, the growing bump month-by-month, a photograph of her downing a pint of ice cream, a shot of her lying in a hospital bed with a swaddled baby in her arms and love-fueled exhaustion in her eyes. River is beside her, his baby girl’s hand wrapped around his pinky.
So. Much. Love.
A tear slides down my cheek, landing on the edge of the page, but I brush it off and keep going.
“Her name was Allison.” River’s voice startles the album out of my hands and the air from my lungs.
I hadn’t heard the door.
“River.” I place my hand over my chest, readying an apology when he comes to my side and takes the seat beside me.
Folding the album, he places it on a coffee table before resting his elbows on his knees and forming a triangle with his fingertips.
“Her name was Allison, and she was my wife,” he says.
Pulling in a long breath, I say, “I know.”
He turns to me. “You knew?”
“I found her obituary the other week,” I say, voice low.
“I don’t like to talk about them,” he says. “About what happened.”
Reaching for him, I place my hand over his, pulling it toward me. “Then you don’t have to.”
Our eyes meet.
He says nothing.
I say nothing.
But in this moment, I feel everything.
And judging by the look in his dusky eyes … he does too.
Chapter Thirty-One
River