Page 14 of Eighteen Bowties and Counting

And now, the live stream he did every morning under the social media handle Sunrise Cowboy. He had hundreds of followers who joined him for coffee and calmness to watch the sunrise and talk about the cowboy way of life, cattle ranching, and more, and Beau wouldn’t want Charlotte disrupting his filming.

“I better go,” he said. “I’ve got heaps of work on the ranch today, and then I’ve got to clean out a bedroom tonight.”

“This is a big weekend for you,” Garth said. “Move-in on Saturday. Wedding on Sunday.”

Beau had very nearly forgotten about the wedding. With a jolt, he said, “Yeah,” as he got to his feet. “See you tomorrow. Or don’t come. We’ll have lots of help.”

“See you tomorrow,” Garth said, and Beau wouldn’t be surprised if he found Garth in his kitchen at daybreak, a thermos of coffee he could drink during the live stream.

As Beau left, he looked up into the cloudless blue sky, the air so hot he almost held his breath as he hurried to his truck. “Thank you for good friends to calm me,” he murmured to himself as he got behind the wheel.

He did feel calmer now, and in seventy-two hours, the weekend would be over—and Beau would have two major things behind him.

Only seventy-two hours to go.

“What are you doing with that?” Bennett asked as Beau took down one end of the bowtie display.

“I think just storing it in my closet,” Beau said. “Grab that end and lift it off the nail.”

Bennett did, and then Beau moved down the length of it until he could hold it without one end dropping to the floor. “Probably a good idea,” Bennett said. “Lots of questions around the bowties.”

“She’s seen them,” Beau said. “But, it’s….” He didn’t know how to finish the sentence, so he simply took the bowties he’d worn to all the cowboy weddings over the years into his room and stood the board up on its end in the corner of his closet.

“Does the desk stay?” Peter Marshall stuck his head into Beau’s bedroom. “Maybe she’d like a desk in her room.”

“We can leave it for now,” Beau said. “I don’t know what she has.” He moved to follow his friend into the bedroom across the hall from his, where he’d kept his gym equipment and a desktop computer. Some storage bins had been stacked in the closet. Old memorabilia from high school leaned up against the wall.

At least it had.

Now, almost everything had been cleared away. Beau had either moved it into the third bedroom, which he would continue to use, or gotten rid of it. He’d thought about putting it in the loft, but he wanted to offer that space to Charlotte. Perhaps she’d like a small office or place to escape all her own.

Beau’s nerves felt frayed, like someone had taken a pair of scissors and run them along the length of his cells, trying to curl them into ribbons. Everything felt too short, shabby, and in need of a good scrub.

“I’ve got the curtains,” Kelly said, and Beau moved out of the way. “Finn’s here with the vacuum too.”

“Great,” Beau said. “Thanks, Kelly.” She went past him and over to the window, where Garth and Pete helped her hang a rod for the curtains for Charlotte’s bedroom.

“Towels, toiletries, and toilet paper,” someone bellowed from out in the cabin, and Beau went to thank Squire for bringing in extra items ahead of time.

“Going okay?” Squire asked as he passed over a fresh stack of towels.

Beau took them and opened the linen closet behind the door in the bathroom Charlotte would use. “Yeah,” he said. “The room’s cleaned out. Mostly. Finn’s going to vacuum it. They’re hanging curtains now. We left the desk, and all we have to do is load the bed.”

The ranch had bought a new queen-sized mattress for the cabin, as they didn’t have extra bedrooms or furniture at the moment.

“Kel had the sheets and stuff,” Squire said.

“Okay.” Beau put the toilet paper under the bathroom sink, and Squire arranged the shampoo, conditioner, and soap on the counter.

“You okay on dishes?” Squire asked.

“Yeah,” Beau said. “All that’s fine.” He honestly didn’t know what Charlotte would need. The contract included a place to live, and that came with furniture—a bed, couches, dining room table and chairs—and the ranch had upheld their end of that.

Charlotte wouldn’t need any furniture at all, and she’d texted that she didn’t “have much,” she was bringing with her tomorrow. That sounded like a subjective thing, and Beau was simply trying to be prepared.

He knew she hadn’t been living in a place of her own, so he wanted to supply things like towels that she might not bring with her. It was a long way to town, after all.

Beau left the bathroom and called, “We’re bringing in the bed.”

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