Page 29 of Bloom

“Is he your boyfriend?”

I choke out an emphatic refusal as fast as my mouth will let me. Keeping my gaze firmly fixed on the inquisitive ten-year-old and not the smirking Italian or the undoubtedly frowning cowboy, I almost correct Chiara by introducing Hunter as my friend. But I’m not sure we are friends, and I learned my lesson about assuming those kinds of things.

Luckily, Chiara moves on quickly. “You’re big,” she states bluntly, and her father snickers. “How tall are you?”

Hunter shifts, and I can’t tell whether it’s the question that’s made him uncomfortable, or the young, curious tone that implies it won’t be the last. “Six-foot-six.”

“Woah.”

Woah, indeed. Guess my‘he definitely has a whole foot on me’hypothesis wasn’t that far off.

“Are you a cowboy?”

Hunter shrugs and mumbles, “I guess,” at the same time Aldo leans towards me.

“Boyisn’t the word that comes to mind,” he whispers—freakingbarely. “I wouldn’t want my cousin’s number either.”

I pinch his forearm in a silent plea to shut up.

“So you have horses?”

“They’re notmyhorses,” Hunter clarifies, but Chiara doesn’t care—horses are horses, and she is a well-educated little girl; of courseSpiritis her favorite movie.

“Can I see them?”

When Hunter shifts his gaze to Aldo, Chiara pounces on her father. “Can I,papa? Please?”

“I don’t know,bambina.” Stroking his daughter’s hair, Aldo shoots me a look. “Ask yourzia.”

“Please, Lina.”

If there’s a person alive capable of saying no to big, brown, pleading eyes, it certainly isn’t me. “I’ll ask Lux, okay?”

Her excited squeal echoes around the store. “Today?”

Aldo pats her head, muttering something I don’t catch. Not because it’s in a language I don’t speak, but because the man sidling up to the counter, sliding a piece of paper across it, distracts me. “Just came to drop this off.”

Right. The list of upcoming orders for the ranch; a list I always get about halfway through the month detailing what Lux needs for the month following. Usually, she’s the one to drop it off.

I ask about it. Make a light, joking comment about Hunter drawing the short straw, getting stuck with the crap job, having to come all the way out here to hand over a list Lux easily could’ve texted me.

In that gruff, no-nonsense voice, Hunter says, “I volunteered,” before waltzing out the door.

There's music coming from the barn.

As I get closer, I recognize the song, and I smile. My mom loved this song. It was on the playlist she played every Sunday morning while we made breakfast together, the soundtrack of some of my most distinct memories of her—the two of us, side by side, ladling pancake batter onto a sizzling pan or cutting fruit or frying bacon, belting out the lyrics. Dad would come crashing into the room, ears covered, cracking a joke about dying cats, and we would all laugh and hug, and everything wasgood.

I haven’t listened to that playlist in a long time. I can’t remember the last time my dad laughed. As for things being good, well, I’m getting there. I’m trying.

Quietly as I can, I peer around the edge of the ajar barn doors, curious to know who’s humming along to Nina Simone. The culprit is… surprising, to say the least.

Hunter has his back to me as he brushes down a black Shire—the newest addition to the ranch. Even larger than the Clydesdale in the next stall over, the mare is so big, she makes Hunter look regular-sized. She might match him for temperament too; while she begrudgingly huffs her contentment as he meticulously runs a wire brush across her flank, she nudges her nose against his hip impatiently, the equine command to hurry up.

Talk about a match made in heaven.

A colossal, muscled match.

“You need somethin’?”

---