Page 243 of The Brothers at Horseshoe Ranch

“I don’t know. When I was younger and I’d look at his picture-perfect family and, well, I just wanted the same thing for myself. I think that’s why I spent so much time over at the Hamiltons’ ranch because they had the family life I’d always wanted. But honestly, I don’t even know if I believe in true love anymore. I don’t even know if I truly believe that there’s one person for everyone and that we each have a soulmate out there somewhere.”

“You know what I believe?” Arya said after a pause. “I believe that there are several people that could be the one. There are several people that could be our soulmates. And it’s okay if it doesn’t work out with one of them because they’re not the only one out there for you.”

“What if there’s no one out there for me?”

“Oh, Sadie, why do you think that?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “It’s just that all my life, I’ve always been the ugly duckling. And I know I’m not ugly. I know that many men find me attractive, but I guess I’ve always been in the shadow of the Hamiltons …”

“You know what I think it is?” Arya said.

“No, what?”

“I think is that guys are scared to approach you because you have seven older brothers who would absolutely murder anyone that treated you badly, and no guy wants to be murdered.” She gave me a wry smile. “Trust me. If guys have any sense that you’ve got people backing you up, they back off if they don’t have the right intentions. And let’s be real, guys in high school and guys in college? They often don’t have the right intentions.”

“I know, but,” I sighed, “it just sucks, you know? When is it going to be my time?”

“Have you thought about leaving? Going to live somewhere else?”

“Yes … but I don’t know that I could leave Wyatt and our friendship. He just means so much to me.”

“At the end of the day, Sadie, what do you want more?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you want your friendship with Wyatt, or do you want a man that truly loves you?”

“Can I have both?” I asked. “Can’t they actually both be the same person?”

“So, you do like Wyatt?”

“Yeah, I thought I was pretty obvious about that.”

“Well, I had my suspicions, but when you said you didn’t want to make a big deal out of the kiss, I didn’t really know what to think.”

“I know. I’m all over the place. And I don’t want to be all over the place. I don’t want to make Wyatt feel like he needs to be with me or do something with me just because we kissed.”

“Let’s not talk about Wyatt anymore,” she said. “Let’s think about something else. You wanted to focus on a career, right? You wanted to focus on the big thing in your life aside from love?”

“That’s true.” I took another sip of my wine.

“So, what do you want to do, Sadie Johnson? Who do you want to be? Where do you want to go in life? What do you want to be remembered as? You want to be remembered as a mom? You want to be remembered as a wife? Or do you want to be remembered as someone who changed the world?”

I chuckled. “I never thought about it like that. “Of course, I’d love to be remembered as someone who changed the world, but how would I do that?”

“You can change the world in small ways, not just in big ways. In fact, you can change the world by just helping one person. That one person could go on to do brilliant things and say it was all because of Sadie Johnson.”

“You’re right. I always looked at things in such a micro or macro way, but everything’s not black and white. It’s not all or nothing. I can do something that benefits a small community or a small group of people or …” I paused. “I did have one idea but …”

“What?”

“So, you know when you and Eloise came to Horseshoe Ranch?”

“Yeah?”

“I thought about how horrible it was that you guys were in that position …” I hesitated, not wanting to offend her.

“It’s fine, Sadie. Go on.”

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