It was also the way I wondered if I’d be moving to Boise with a broken heart.
And then, an email arrived, lighting up my phone. I’d been obsessively checking it lately, so I’d turned on all notifications. It was too late for it to be a work email, but while Jake was talking with Sophie, I clicked. I was wrong. It was from Heather atWild Horizon. Five seconds later, my hand covered my mouth as I read the words.
Ms. Tucker,
I’m happy to write that our team loved your pictures and were all impressed by your interview. We would love to offer you the position as a photographer for ourWestern Montana and Idaho division. Congratulations! I will call you tomorrow morning with more details.
I sat there,frozen. Initial excitement washed over me, only to be drowned out by the fact that I no longer wanted to move. So much had changed since I’d begun working at the ranch. I’d become greedy. I’d discovered an abundance of things I now wanted in my life that had nothing to do with photography.
On one hand, I was proud that my work improving my craft all summer had paid off in this way.
On the other, much more important, hand, I was wearing Jake’s hat, and one of his pinky fingers from his hand currently resting on the stick shift was lightly touching my leg. Jake was touching my leg.
Emotions were a confusing business.
We pulled in front of our cabins, and Jake turned off the truck. He and Sophie slid out while I sat there for a moment longer in a daze. Jake noticed and came around to my side and opened my door.
We stared at each other, me sitting in his truck, him holding his daughter and my door—both of us waiting. Something unfinished between us. His eyes swept over me in a way that had me shivering in the warm night air that smelled like rain.
He held out a hand, which I took and jumped to the ground. The move brought our bodies closer. Only inches between us. His dark eyes were hooded and lit only from the glow of my soft porch light.
“I got the job,” I blurted softly, unable to keep this to myself.
Jake, who had been about to close the truck door behind me, stilled, pausing to look at me. “What?”
“I got the job. In Boise,” I added, in case he needed a reminder.
A lot of emotions crossed his face just then, and for a moment, some of them gave me hope, but it was the final one that delivered the most powerful blow.
A proud smile settled across his face as he pulled me in for a side hug, with Sophie still in his other arm. “That’s awesome, Shelb. You deserve it. Must have been all those indecent pictures of me that did it.”
I couldn’t even smile; my heart was a riot of fire and confusion. I stepped backward, out of his arms.
“Daddy, I’m thirsty!” Sophie said, breaking into the moment.
Jake stepped back, allowing me to pass by him, and closed the truck door.
I needed space. I needed to think. If I was going to cry, I would do it in the privacy of my cabin. My feet moved me in a crushing daze toward my front door, taking me away from them both when Jake called out, “Hey, Tuck?”
I paused. When he didn’t say anything else, I turned to face him, being careful to hide any trace of emotion from my face. “Yeah?”
He was watching me through narrowed eyes. “I think I do need that haircut.”
My brow furrowed. “Now?”
“Yeah.”
I motioned to the darkened sky, the stars hidden by clouds. “It’s probably going to rain.”
“Then I won’t have to shower after.”
There was something in his voice. Something in his eyes that sparked a tiny flame of hope inside of me. A hope my heart desperately needed to take a chance on.
I shrugged and checked my wrist, which did not, in fact, hold any sort of watch. “It’s kind of late, but I could probably squeeze you in.”
My whole body seemed to sigh at the smile that lit his face. The normalcy of our teasing brought an air of calm to my frayed heart.
“Let me get Sophie to bed real quick,” he mumbled, walking backward toward his doorway with a now squirming four-year-old. “Let’s do it outside, but if I walk away with a bowl cut, I get to cut your hair afterward.”