He stopped though. Stopped, looked back at Johnny, and with what looked like a “come on!” jerk of his head toward Johnny that sent his floppy ears flying, he turned and bolted after her.

And I sat frozen in agony on a picnic blanket dappled with sun on a summer day, holding my nephew as I felt the sudden movement beside me when, without a word, Johnny Gamble surged to his feet and sprinted after the both of them.

A Memory

Izzy

I WAS ON the back porch pulling on my wellies the next morning when the door to the house opened.

I looked up and saw my sister standing there with bed hair, in her jammies, looking both just woken up and still tired, with an expression on her face that I was sure I wore the night she arrived and the morning after when I’d looked at her.

“Hey,” she said gently.

“Hey,” I replied strongly.

“You okay?” she asked.

No.

No, I was not okay.

“I’m fine,” I lied.

Her hand came up and in it was my phone.

“He’s calling again,” she said.

She’d turned the ringer back on.

I wished she hadn’t done that.

I didn’t even look at the phone.

“I’m going out to feed the horses and let them loose. I didn’t get to muck their stalls yesterday morning so I’ll come back in, make you guys breakfast, change, but then I have to go back out and do that.”

“I’ll help you when you do.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I will,” she stated firmly.

“Someone has to look after Brooks,” I reminded her.

“He can hang in a stable. Kids for millennia have been hanging around horses and eating dirt and whatever and they survived. Plus his favorite place on earth is with his mom and his Auntie Izzy, so that’s where he’s gonna be.”

I shrugged, bent to my boots and finished putting them on, saying, “If it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me.”

I started toward the screen door of the back porch when she called my name.

I turned to her.

“You should talk to him,” she urged quietly.

Not going to happen.

She liked him. A brief conversation on a picnic blanket and she’d liked him.

This was unsurprising.

He was Johnny.

I nodded, muttered, “Maybe later,” and took off out the screen door.

I headed to the stables trying not to think about the fact that Johnny had called when we were in the car on the way home from the festival yesterday. And we’d headed home from the festival approximately ten point eight seconds after he’d hauled ass after Shandra.

Worse, we’d packed up and hightailed it out under the kind and sympathetic eyes of the many spectators to the reunion of Johnny and Shandra, a reunion that was mere minutes after he’d been cuddling on a picnic blanket with me.

A reunion where he’d raced after her, not looking back.

I didn’t take the call because I knew why he was calling.

He was Johnny. He was sweet. He was a gentleman. In the throes of the situation, he could forget me. But he’d see to me when it hit him what he’d done, and he’d be as kindhearted about it as he could when he explained the way things needed to be.

But I didn’t need that.

I knew where I stood even before that happened.

It was nice and all, but unnecessary.

I had to admit, the text that came in seconds after I didn’t answer his call was a surprise.

I also had to admit the repeated calls and texts, none of which I took or looked at, were a surprise too.

However, after I’d phoned Deanna and Charlie and lied through my teeth that I was hungover, couldn’t hack the crowd, noise, smells and heat and we’d headed home so we wouldn’t meet them when they hit the festival later as planned, I’d turned my ringer off so I wouldn’t have the constant reminder that I’d been smart not to let myself think I could have Johnny.

But knowing now without any doubt I couldn’t have Johnny still hurt way, way, way more than it should.

Addie had tried once to coax me to pick up the phone and talk to him. But when I refused, she let it go. Do onto others as you would have them do onto you, our mother taught us the old proverb and she’d done it frequently. Addie lived that, as I did too.

I hit my stables, went through the gate, latched it behind me and set about feeding my horses.

I was dog-tired. I’d slept even less the night before. Still hungover but mostly sick to my stomach about what had happened, not to mention the whole town (well, some of it) witnessing it. Thinking it was not (exactly) what it was. Not knowing I hadn’t let myself get in too deep (though, if I was honest, I had). Thinking I was just another one who’d fallen hard then gotten burned in the aftermath of Johnny and Shandra.

The last one, but still.

I’d be the object of compassion, I was sure. And that would not be fun, seeing as it would serve as a reminder of what had happened whenever I’d hit Macy’s Flower Shop or the grocery store, or if I ever (which I probably wouldn’t, at least for a while) hit Home again.

But I’d endure.

I’d get through it.

I’d get over it.

And I’d carry on.

Like my mom, in the many and varied ways life could bring me to my knees, I was just going to get back up and keep going.

Mostly because I had no choice.

After I fed my babies, I decided to check supplies of feed and hay. I always carefully calculated the needs of both, because I bought in bulk due to the discount I could get and also bought them both at the same time due to the fact the feed store delivered at a flat rate no matter how much you ordered.

I was low on feed but had plenty of hay.

I could stack extra outside and put a tarp around it, use it first so I didn’t have to haul it in and put in the hay room only to haul it back out again for the horses.

After closing the door on the hay room, I turned to go to Serengeti to see if she was finished eating and ready to head out to her paddock and stopped dead.

Johnny was standing inside the closed gate, his eyes locked to me.

This could not happen and it could not happen for a number or reasons.

First, I couldn’t deal with it. Not then. I needed at least a whole day, more like a hundred of them.

Second, this wasn’t fair. I knew he wanted to do right by me, let me down easy, explain his head was messed up and that was why he was leading me on, try to make me understand in order to make himself feel better while doing it.

But it was my thought in this particular scenario that I got to pick the time that would happen, if it happened at all.

And last, in a fit of heartbroken stupidity I refused to allow myself to dwell on considering it had only been three dinners, two breakfasts, several phone and text conversations but not years of togetherness and a path of broken promises, I’d gone to bed wearing the T-shirt he’d given me.

Therefore right then I was standing before him wearing that tee, an old, threadbare pair of men’s pajama bottoms that I’d cut off at the knees and pulled on to go to the stables, and my wellies.

My hair was a mess.

And I knew I had to look fatigued and perhaps was wearing my heart on my (actually his) sleeve.

So this wasn’t just too soon and unfair.

It was a disaster.

I tore my eyes from him, immediately started moving to the tack room for reasons unknown since I didn’t have to go to the tack room, I had to go to Serengeti, doing this shaking my head and talking.