Page 255 of Wild Then Wed
That does it. Ruthie crosses her arms and sticks out her lower lip, full toddler pout in place. I bite back a laugh and shake my head as she huffs dramatically and pivots away.
She makes her way to Vaughn, who’s already got a chatty Nora squirming in his lap. Before she can even say a word, he scoops her up, settling her on his opposite knee and murmuring something low in that cowboy-drawl she finds oddly soothing. She leans into him, arms around his neck, her tiny fingers toying with the edge of his shirt collar like she owns him, and she does.
Ruthie has Vaughn wrapped around her sticky little finger. Just like Nora always has. He acts gruff about it, but we all know the truth. He’s a complete puddle for them both. Seeing it never fails to tug something deep in my chest, and I wonder, not for the first time, if it would’ve been the same with my dad.
If he’d still be riding the fence lines with Ruthie perched on the saddle in front of him. If he’d have taken her for ice cream in town and come home covered in strawberry syrup and big stories. If he’d be one of her people. One of her soft places to land.
I wish he could see her. The way she moves through the world. The way she gathers it up like it’s all hers for the taking. I wish he could see the girl she’s growing into. The woman she’ll one day become.
I still run my training program out of Wilding Ranch, and Ruthie’s there most mornings, trailing after me in dusty pink boots, chirping out questions I only half-answer because I’m too busy making sure she doesn’t try to climb into the feed bin or sneak sugar cubes out of my tack bag for herself and the horses. She loves it, though—loves the horses, the dust, the noise. Especially Ringo and Juniper. She calls them her “best friends.”
This time of year is my favorite. Early July, when the sun doesn’t set until after nine and the air smells like cut grass and distant bonfires. Most afternoons, we drive out to Lake Alderwood with the cousins and let the kids run barefoot along the shore. They eat watermelon slices straight off the rind and chase each other with pool noodles. We pack popsicles thatmelt faster than they can eat them and stay late trying to catch fireflies in mason jars.
Some nights, we roast marshmallows and tell stories. Other nights, it’s just Sawyer’s arm around me and Ruthie asleep in my lap, firelight flickering across the water.
It’s simple. It’s wild. It’s beautiful.
And it’s everything I never knew I could have.
As I watch it all unfold through the window—the picnic blankets and birthday hats, the mingling of Wildings and Harts, Ruthie shrieking as Ridge lifts her by the armpits and spins her in a circle like a tiny helicopter—I think hownoneof this would’ve made sense to my dad.
Not just the peace between our families, but the joy. The warmth. The way Vaughn and Boone are arguing over who forgot to salt the corn, while Mom and Estelle stand shoulder to shoulder decorating a sheet cake like they’ve been doing it together for years.
I wish my dad could see this. Not because it would’ve fixed things, but because maybe it would’ve softened something in him. Maybe he would’ve seen that the past didn’t have to keep us from this. From sticky popsicles and sparklers and picnics in the backyard. From rope swings at Lake Alderwood and cousins squealing over burnt marshmallows. From letting the hard things matter without letting them be theonlythings that mattered.
Maybe then he would’ve known it was okay to lay something down. To let it rest.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Ridge pulling Miller aside. It’s nothing theatrical—just a hand at her elbow, a few words I can’t make out—but something in the way she stands makes me pause. She hesitates before following him, stiff-backed, like she’s bracing for a conversation she didn’t ask for. They walk across the property toward the edge of thetrees, Miller keeping a full two feet of space between them the whole way. My eyebrows lift. I’ve known Miller long enough to recognize when she’s holding her tongue.
Whatever that is—it’s not nothing.
I pick up a fresh sheet of paper and the pen from the corner of my desk. I don’t think too hard about what I’m going to say. I never do.
I just write.
Dear Julia,
It’s summer again. The air buzzes with crickets and the screen door never quite shuts all the way. We’ve got popsicle sticks piling up on the porch and damp towels hanging over every railing, and somehow there’s always a new bruise on Ruthie’s shin I don’t remember her getting.
She’s two now. Spirited and stubborn and so deeply loved I think it radiates out of her.
Sawyer’s good. Really good. You’d be so proud of him. He still talks to Ruthie like she’s a whole person, never in a voice that’s too sweet or too small. And she listens to him like he hung the stars himself. He reads her Goodnight Moon every night, even though she already has it memorized. And sometimes I catch him reading it even when she’s already asleep.
He’s still Sawyer, but lighter. There’s more laughter now. More space. Some days, I look at him and I swear I can see the version of him that existed before everything fell apart. Other days, it’s the version that came after. But always, it’s the man I love.
He started seeing a therapist last fall. At first, I think he did it for Ruthie. To be the kind of dad who shows up with his whole heart. But somewhere along the way, I think he started doing it for himself, too.
And it’s helped. I can see it in the way he breathes easier now. In how he holds the hard things without letting them swallow him whole. In how he lets the joy in without feeling guilty for it.
We’re still here—on this land, in this house, under the same sky that once held more ache than anything else. But now it holds life. Sticky and bold and unpredictable.
And sometimes quiet, too. The good kind. The kind that rests in your chest and tells you you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Thank you for loving him first. For the years you gave him, for the home you built together before I ever came along. I see the fingerprints of that love in everything he does—in how he listens, how he stays. I know you helped shape the man who holds me when I fall apart and who reads Runaway Bunny in voices that make Ruthie laugh. You gave him that gentleness. That heart. And I don’t take it lightly, being the one who gets to carry it now. I promise to take care of him for as long as I get to. Through the long days and the quiet ones, through every version of this life we’re still building. Until we’re old and gray and still dancing barefoot in the kitchen, with the dog barking and the music too loud and the dishes still dirty in the sink.
I’ve got him now. I promise.
I don’t know if you see us, but I like to think you do. That you’d smile at the craziness of it all. At Sawyer in his ridiculous “Grill Sergeant” apron. At Ruthie covered in ketchup, riding Vaughn’s shoulders like a little queen.
