Then there’s me.
I've been in Montana since March, working the spring rush at a dude ranch outside Bozeman, and before that a kids' equine camp in New Mexico, and before that a llama farm in Oregon. I have a lot of family in Montana—my parents, three siblings, and a herd of little nieces and nephews. But I don't really have a home. I have a truck, a duffel bag, and a phone full of friends in twenty different zip codes. It works for me. It’s always worked for me.
This week is for Laurel, though. We’re scraping the last of the ex-husband residue off her. She’ll be eating barbecue, getting drunk, swimming, horseback riding, hiking, whatever she fucking wants…as long as she’s laughing so hard while she’s doing it that she forgets what the asshole’s voice sounds like.
That's the assignment. And Lyla and I have been text-scheming about it for a month.
"Oh shit," Laurel breathes, and I turn my head forward again.
The main lodge has come into view at the end of the drive, and—okay, fine. I see why people come here. It's a big sprawling timber thing with a wraparound porch and stone chimneys and a hitching rail out front. Beyond it the land justopens, rolls out gold and green and silver-blue all the way to a horizon dotted with live oaks. A little stream glitters off to the left. Somewhere a big bell rings. And there are wildflowers growing along the drive in drifts of orange and purple.
It’s beautiful.
As we pull up and park, the owner, Lucinda Davis, is waiting for us on the porch as if she's been watching for our dust cloud. She's short, like me, and all curves in a floral shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She’s got long black hair in a braid thicker than Lyla's, and the second Laurel gets out of the driver's seat, Lucinda puts a sweating glass of lemonade in her hand.
"Y'all lookparched," she says. "Drink, drink, drink."
"Ma'am, I?—"
"Drink, honey."
Laurel drinks and her eyes close. "Oh mygod,this is amazing."
"I use mint from our cabin’s garden out back." Lucinda beams and shoves a second glass at me. “My husband will be along with the last glass for you, hon,” she says to Lyla.
Lucinda has warm brown eyes and lipstick on her front tooth and I already love her. "You must be the three here for the girls’ trip. Which of you has the birthday?"
"Her." Lyla and I point in unison.
"You come here, you." Lucinda pulls Laurel in for a hug like they've known each other for forty years, and Laurel—type-A and itinerary-wielding—justmeltsinto it. Over Lucinda's shoulder she makes wide eyes at me, pretending she wants help,but I just smile back. She needs this kind of mom energy, and I want her to soak it in.
A man steps out of the lodge behind her. He’s tall, with salt-and-pepper hair, and lean in that jeans-and-a-tucked-in-shirt way, eyes so blue and so crinkled at the corners I want to ask him to tell me a bedtime story. He tips his hat to us, which should not still make me sigh internally at thirty-four, but it does.
"Carl Davis," he says, handing Lyla her own glass of lemonade. "Welcome to Wild Vista. My wife's already fixin' to adopt y'all, so I apologize in advance."
"She can have me," Laurel says into Lucinda's shoulder, muffled.
Over by the corral, two cowboys cut across the yard with their heads down under their hats, one in a faded blue shirt and one in something plaid, both of them long-legged and dusty and walking with that rolling bowlegged gait that I have a hard time looking away from.
Lyla elbows me in the ribs. "You're gonna be insufferable this week, aren't you."
"I'malreadyinsufferable."
"Oh geez…we’re enteringadvancedinsufferable territory."
"Baby, you have no idea."
She snorts.
Lucinda is herding us toward the check-in desk inside, still talking, the cold lemonade glass dripping in my hand, and it really is delicious. It would be even better spiked with whiskey…but that’ll come later.
Under the clean, sharp aroma of the mint, I can still smell the horses, and something metallic and hot drifting in from across the property.
Forge smoke.
Our cabin is the third one down a little cedar-lined path, set back just enough to feel private, with a porch big enough for three rocking chairs and a view that makes Laurel set down her rolling suitcase and juststare.
The vistas really do sweep. That's the only word.Sweep…with wide swaths of gold grass, dark oaks, that milky far-off blue where the sky meets the hills.