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Beth sat in her new office peering over at the glass on the door, reading the backwards lettering that said “Governor’s Chief of Staff”. Oh how she wished her father would’ve just given the other guy a chance. This is not the role she had envisioned herself in for the next four years. All she wanted was to go home to her husband, but now she had a mountain of paperwork, hours of reading and learning the job.
Swiveling a 180 in her plush office chair, Beth opened a drawer behind her to find a bottle of whiskey and some glasses. She chuckled to herself and grabbed it, screwing the cap open and drinking straight from the bottle. That’s when her phone rang.
A pang of worry washed through her when she saw Carter’s name flashing across the screen. Earlier this morning while still laying in bed at the hotel she’d been staying in, phone to her ear, determined to spend what little time she could that morning talking to her husband… Rip had told her he planned to take Carter out with them to bring the pairs closer to the barn. That it was about time for him to start tagging along and getting some more cowboying experience. She prayed he wasn’t hurt.
“Hey.” She answered, trying to sound as optimistic as possible.
“Beth,” Carter sounded out of breath. “I can’t find my insurance card. Do you know where it is?”
“It’s in my wallet.” She told him, a hint of confusion in her tone. The only thing that boy has in his wallet are his learner’s permit and some cash. Beth might not have the most parenting experience, but she knew better than to trust a teenage boy with important documents. “What do you need it for?”
“Could you send me a picture of it?” He asked her, and this time she could hear a lot of bustling and other people talking in the background. “Oh-“ He caught himself remembering that she’d asked him a question. “I broke my arm. Jake brought me to the hospital, but they need my insurance stuff.”
Beth’s chest tightened. How the fuck did this happen, and where the hell was Rip? Why is Jake there instead of him? “I’ll fax it over to the hospital, baby.” She assured him. “Tell me what happened.” Carter explained everything and then had to go when ortho showed up to splint his arm, but not before she assured him that she would be home later that evening, and spoke with Jake, thanking him for taking care of the boy for them.
Sitting her phone down in front of her, Beth rested her elbows on the desk and hung her head in her hands taking a deep breath. There was a choice, call Rip right now and chew him out, or do it in person when she gets home… Though she feared the time lapse might take the edge off her anger and she might not get her point across as clearly as she intended so… She grabbed her phone and tapped his name before standing and pacing the room.
Rip answered on the second ring, “Hey, Sweetheart.” He sounded happy to hear from her. Boy, was she about to burst his bubble.
“Why aren’t you at the hospital with Carter?”
A pause.
“Because I’m busy, Beth. We’re calving. And now I’ve got a d-“
Beth cut him off before he could spout anymore excuses. “He’s a kid, and he’s hurt! We’re responsible for him. Not Jake. Not any other wrangler. Us, Rip.”
“Honey, he’s fine. They’re gonna slap a cast on him and send him home.”
“Rip, that is so beside the point!” Beth pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers, annoyed with how callous he was about the situation. Her heart clenched in her chest when she imagined how Carter must feel being hurt and not having either one of them there with him. “You have to be there for him. He has to be a priority when shit like this happens. You can’t just dump him off and make him someone else’s problem.”
“That wasn’t my intention, Beth, and you know that.” Rip told her, sensing this was about a little bit more than Carter’s broken arm.
Those words sounded so familiar. Almost like she’d been through this before and then she remembered…
The day of her mother’s death was mostly a blur, but one of the things Beth would never forget was sitting in that hospital, scared out of her mind. Some new wrangler she’d never even met before sat awkwardly in the corner of the small room.
She tried her best to hide the tears. To stop the shaking. Taking deep breaths trying to calm her racing heart. At that point she didn’t yet know for sure if her mother had survived or not. By the time Lee helped her back onto her horse John and the other men were already riding into the horizon to find Kayce and their mom.
Beth remembered being terrified for little Kayce, being left alone with their mother who might not even be alive anymore… Later that night when she finally got home she found Kayce sitting alone on the porch in the pitch black dark. He’d looked up at her, eyes red and puffy and whimpered, “She’s dead.”
The two of them sat huddled together on the steps crying for hours. Lee eventually found them and brought them both to his room where they all slept on a pallet in the floor, each of them afraid of being alone.
None of them saw John for two days. It was a couple hours before the funeral when he finally showed his face. He was dressed in a suit, beard trimmed, dress hat and poker face on. He made sure each of the kids were properly dressed and that was it. No comforting words, no hugs. Nothing.
After the funeral Beth found him in his office and before she could utter a word he’d screamed at her to get out of his sight. She was convinced then, that he would hate her for the rest of her life.
Everyday after that she spent trying to make herself as invisible as possible. She stopped eating dinner with the family. Stopped eating almost altogether. If John was in the lodge she didn’t leave her room.
Rip offered a nice distraction until their feelings for each other started to grow. Until she took that pregnancy test and asked Jamie for help. After that every time she saw Rip’s face he was just a reminder of everything she could never have.
A few months before her high school graduation is when the college acceptance letters started flooding in. Her father told her that he saw her “going places” with a degree in finance, so… Out of a thick stack of choices she chose NYU. About as far away as she could get from the ranch without leaving the country.
After college she got her first job, in California of all places, and stayed there for a few years before meeting Bob and moving to Salt Lake. She came home once a year, if that. Content with hiding away from the place that stole everything from her.
“Yes, but I’m not there. So you have to be. You have to be there for him, Rip.” She absolutely loathed repeating herself, but she was just at a loss for how to get this through to Rip. “I know he looks grown, but he’s fucking not. He’s just a kid. He needs to know he’s not alone.”
Holding the phone away from her face she took a deep, shaky breath and prayed Rip didn’t hear it. He must’ve heard it anyway though because she could hear him speaking as she held the phone back to her ear.
“-and call me when you get to the hotel tonight…”
“No.” She breathed, immediately feeling guilty for not being more clear when she could just feel his hurt through the phone. “I’m coming home tonight. I’ll have to leave in the morning, but… I just-“ She fiddled with a piece of peeling paint in the window sill. “I need to see you.”
“Alright, darlin’ I’ll see you tonight then. I love you.”
She smiled just like she always did every time he said those three words. “I love you too, baby.”
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After their meeting at the Deerfield club, John and Beth came home to find Carter alone in the great room, patiently waiting on supper. He told them Rip was still down at the barn fixing something one of the new hands had fucked up.
Beth talked with him about what happened and how he felt about it, feeling so relieved to hear her father tell him he’s more important than that multi-million dollar horse. It meant the world to her for Carter to know his worth from someone other than her or Rip. Resigned to missing supper in favor of time alone with her husband, Beth left Carter with her father and went to her room.
Finding the house to be just a little too quiet, Beth connected her phone to the Bluetooth speaker in the bathroom and drew herself a bath. She’d been so stressed ever since… Well fuck, she couldn’t remember the last time she wasn’t stressed about something.
Beth undressed and slipped into one of her favorite silk robes while waiting for the tub to fill up. She stopped to drop some jasmine bath melts into the water, then clipped her hair up in a messy bun and poured herself a whiskey before hanging her robe and sinking into the welcoming warmth of the tub.
Letting out a deep sigh she sunk all the way up to her chin, closing her eyes and letting the hot water relax every muscle in her body. She stayed that way until she heard the familiar thud of boots on the floor, making their way toward her.
A smile stretched across her face before she even opened her eyes to see her cowboy standing over her, a smile of his own gracing his face.
Rip knelt down next to the large soaking tub and kissed her forehead. “Oh, darlin’, it’s so good to see you.”
“I’ve only been gone a couple days.” Beth pushed herself out of the water just enough to kiss him properly.
His hand rested on her cheek, the other bracing himself on the edge of the tub. “I don’t like going to sleep without you next to me, or waking up without you.”
“Hm…” Beth smirked and raised an eyebrow at him. “I think there’s room in here for one more.” She lifted a leg out of the water seductively, resting her foot on the faucet and arching her back to push her chest forward, successfully gaining Rip’s full attention.
Beth watched with greedy eyes as Rip stood and undressed. He was so fucking hot and she couldn’t wait to feel his skin against hers and just sink into his comforting presence. She pulled herself to the front of the tub and let him settle in behind her before leaning back against him, her head falling to his shoulder as his arms snaked around her.
“Mmm…” Rip hummed at the relief the too hot water gave his aching muscles. He pulled Beth as close to him as possible and kissed her cheek. “You feel better after seeing him just now?” He asked, referring to Carter and the way she’d reacted earlier.
“Yeah.” She smiled, thinking of the kid downstairs who was only worried about the horse he killed and how his cast would effect his roping and riding. “I’m sorry I got so upset earlier. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No.” Rip rested his head against the tall edge of the tub. “You were right, sweetheart. I should’ve been there for him.”
“Hey.” Beth brushed a gentle hand back against his cheek before carefully spinning around to face him, her long slender legs wrapping around his back, arms around his neck. “Let’s not do that.”
“Do what?” He brushed some hair away from her face and rested his hands under the water at her waist. He knew exactly why Carter being hurt and Rip not being there for him affected her the way it did, but that didn’t make it an irrational or invalid concern.
“List every single thing we did wrong.” She told him, threading her fingers through his dark curls. “Neither of us know what we’re doing. All we know is to not fuck up the way our parents did, but unlucky for us… there’s a thousand other ways to fuck up. Parenting is an arduous journey and knowing us we’re gonna learn every single lesson the hard way.”
“As long as I’m learning with you.” Rip said, placing soft chaste kiss to her lips. It made him immeasurably happy to her her use words like ‘us’ and ‘we’. It’s something he spent the better part of his life convinced he’d never have with her.
Beth pressed her forehead to his and smiled. “Always, baby.”
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