Chapter 13
INDYA
Age Sixteen
“I missed this place. It’s been too long.” Dad sipped his coffee at the dining room table in the Beartooth Chalet. “Feels good to be back here, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess.” I dropped to a crouch to tie my shoes. It would have felt better on any other week this summer.
“I know you wanted to go with your friends. I’m sorry.”
I shrugged.
My whole soccer team was at a camp this week. And instead of staying with them, I was in Montana because when Dad had called for a last-minute reservation, this was the only opening for the chalet.
Mom wanted the chalet. Dad wanted Montana. And I wanted
soccer.
Two against one.
Me being here with my parents made them happy.
We were running short on happy lately, so I was missing camp with my friends.
“Grant?” Mom called from the bathroom. “Did you take your pills?”
“Not yet. I was drinking my coffee first.”
“I’ll bring them out.”
Dad sighed. “Okay.”
Mom was the ruthless dictator of his medication schedule. When she said it was time for his pills, it was time for his pills. Dad knew better than to argue.
While he filled a water glass from the kitchen tap, I finished tying my shoes and stood, tugging down the hems of my running shorts. “I’m
going to go before it gets too hot.”
“Want some company?” he asked.
Before I could say yes, Mom emerged from the bathroom with a palmful of pills.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “You can’t go running with Indya.”
“The doctor said I should keep in shape.”
“He said to ease into exercise. That means you’re not running five miles with your sixteen-year-old daughter at Montana elevations.”
Dad frowned and took the pills from her hand, then tossed them back with a gulp of water. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”
“I’ll probably do ten miles today, anyway,” I said. “Coach said that since I’m not at camp, to work on endurance instead.”
“Ten miles.” Dad cringed. “Yep, you’re on your own.”
“Be careful,” Mom said. “Where are you going?”
“Just down the gravel road five miles and back.”
“No detours.”
“No detours. Promise.” I walked over to kiss Mom’s cheek, then hugged Dad before fitting my sport headphones around the shells of my ears.
With my phone in my armband, I walked out of the chalet, pulled up my running playlist, and jogged down the stairs, heading straight for the road that wound away from the ranch.
My muscles were stiff from too many hours traveling yesterday, so I started at an easy pace, getting used to the feel of gravel beneath my shoes.
The air was cool. Goose bumps coated the skin on my arms during my first mile. By the second, my body felt warm, and sweat beaded at my temples. By the third, I was running at a seven-minute-mile pace, pushing hard through the burn in my lungs. It got easier after the third mile.
Except as I finished mile four, the tang of blood in my mouth hadn’t gone away. The fire in my lungs seemed only hotter. Was it the altitude?
The dry air?
Or was the lump in my throat because I always felt like crying these days?
Dad told me not to cry. He told me it would just be harder if we were sad.
Except I was sad. I was really freaking sad.
Tears swam in my eyes, but I blinked them away. No crying.
I ran faster.
I ran so fast it didn’t matter that I was sad. I ran so fast all I could think about was the burn in my thighs and the fire in my lungs.
I ran so fast that when a truck rolled up beside me, I yelped, nearly stumbling into the grassy ditch off the gravel road.
By some miracle, I managed to keep my balance and slowed to a stop, pulling the headphones from my ears as the cloud of dust from the tires blew past me down the lane.
“You okay?” West called from behind the wheel.
“You scared me.” My chest heaved as I planted my hands on my hips.
“Sorry.” A grin tugged at his mouth. “Hey, Indya.”
“Hey, West.”
Wow, he was hot. I was glad my cheeks were already red from running so he wouldn’t notice me blushing.
He’d always been cute. But he was, like, hot. Really hot. His dark hair was messy, like he’d combed it with his fingers. His white T-shirt was tight against his biceps as he leaned forward on the wheel. And that smile.
White and easy and slightly crooked. It tipped up higher on his left side than it did on his right. My belly flipped as he smiled wider.
Maybe this trip wasn’t that bad of an idea, after all.
“Long time,” he said, his gaze roving down my bare stomach.
I was only in a red sports bra and matching shorts.
“I wondered if you’d come back.”
“Yep. We’re here for the week.”
“You don’t seem too excited about that.”
I shrugged.
There was a lot in that shrug. Like how miserable the past few years had been. How hard it was to stay positive. How much I wanted to cry but wasn’t going to let myself because if I did start crying, I wasn’t sure how I’d stop.
My shrugs said everything I wasn’t quite sure how to voice.
I shrugged a lot.
“Want to keep running?” West asked. “Or go for a ride?”
“Like on a horse?”
“No.” He laughed. “Like in this truck.”
I tore my gaze from his hazel eyes and took a long assessing look at his truck. It was dark green with rust spots around the wheel wells. It was dusty and old with only one bench seat. The back had a coffee can full of tools and a roll of barbed wire.
“Where are you going?”
“To count cattle.”
“Why do you count them?”
“So we know we’ve got them all before we move them to a different pasture.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” Did he think I was stupid because I didn’t
know anything about ranching?
“So are you coming along or not?”
The road stretched over the miles I should run.
I climbed in his truck.
“There’s no seat belt.”
West just chuckled and put the truck in drive, then headed down the
road.
He wasn’t wearing a seat belt either.
I just wouldn’t tell Mom.
The cab smelled like dust and oil and West’s laundry soap. I drew it in, holding it for a heartbeat before relaxing into my seat.
The air whipped through the open window, cooling my hot face and drying the sweat on my skin. My hair was tight in a ponytail, but a few curls blew loose, flying across my forehead.
West slowed, turning off onto a side road that was more like two dirt tracks through the grass. “How’s life?”
I shrugged.
“That bad?”
“My dad’s cancer came back.” My voice cracked.
It wasn’t the first time I’d told someone. My friends and teachers all knew. But it felt harder to choke out the words today. Like Montana was our safe space, Dad’s special escape, and now it was tainted with cancer too.
“Shit.” West gave me a sad smile. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“I don’t, uh . . . this is a stupid question. But what’s that mean?”
“He had to have another surgery. And now he’s on medication.”
Medication to extend his life.
Medication to delay his death.
“The medication is good, and doctors are always making it better.
Sometimes patients will be on it for decades.”
Or sometimes it lasted less.
My parents had been honest with me. They’d shared the facts, some good and some bad. Cancer, I had learned, was all about statistics. I
hated percentages. I hated the odds.
All we could do was wait.
And hope.
I leaned my arms on the window, letting the air rush over my face.
The sting of tears was so sharp I had to breathe through my nose.
No crying.
Don’t cry.
“Remember when we were kids and you fell and scraped your knee?” West asked as we bounced through a field.
“Yeah. You told me that girls cry.”
“They do. It’s okay. If you want to cry.”
“I don’t,” I lied. The pressure in my chest was too tight, like my sports bra was three sizes too small.
West reached for a tin of Altoids in a compartment of the dash. He opened the lid and popped a mint into his mouth. “Want one?”
“Sure.” I sucked on it until the urge to cry faded.
“I saw your dad’s name on the list for tomorrow’s trail ride,” he said. “I’m taking people out. You’re not going?”
“Nah.”
“Bet I can change your mind.” He flashed me a smile that made it a little easier to breathe.
I kept my head out the window as we made our way through a pasture. And when we reached the cattle, he counted the cows on his side of the truck while I counted the cows on mine.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Want me to drop you off on the road so you can keep running?”
“Not really.”
He put the truck in park and shut it off, shifting so one of his arms was draped over the back of the seat. Then he just stared at me with a smile toying on his mouth.
It was unsettling. No boy had ever stared at me like that. My face felt hot. But I didn’t want him to think I was a chicken or something, so I stared right back until, finally, I broke first.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He flicked the end of my ponytail. “How’s school?”
“Good.”
“You’re going to be a junior?”
“Yeah. Are you going to college?”
He nodded. “Montana State.”
“I’m going to Baylor. That’s where my parents went.”
“You know that already?”
“Yeah. I really want to be on their soccer team, but I don’t know if I’m good enough.” I wasn’t the worst person on our club team anymore.
I wasn’t the best, either, but I wasn’t the worst. I’d worked really, really hard not to be the worst.
“You still play soccer? Are you still clumsy too?”
“Stop.” I swatted at his arm. “I’m not that clumsy.”
He smirked. “Says the girl who almost fell into the ditch earlier.”
“Oh my God.” I giggled. “You scared me. Anyone would trip.”
“How loud was that music if you couldn’t hear a truck come up behind you?”
“Not that loud.” I rolled my eyes, my cheeks pinching as I fought a
smile.
“What were you listening to?”
“Music.”
“No shit.” West laughed, and it was the best sound ever. “What music?”
“I don’t know. Workout music.” It was loud and sort of angry, and there were a lot of curse words. I didn’t want him to hear it.
“Let me listen.” He reached for my phone still in my armband.
“Not on your life.” I shifted, trying to move away, but he just laughed and kept after me.
“Hand it over, Indy.” He shifted closer, moving across the bench seat. But when he couldn’t get my phone out of the band, he tickled my ribs until I was squirming, trapped against the truck’s door.
“West!” I laughed so hard it hurt. “Stop.”
“Fine.” He held up his hands, and when I looked over, a huge smile
stretched across his face.
It was beyond hot.
West Haven was gorgeous.
His hazel eyes sparkled as they dropped to my mouth.
Oh. My. God. Was he going to kiss me? He looked like he might kiss me. Did I want him to kiss me? Yes.
“Have you ever been kissed?”
I swallowed hard, sitting up straighter. “Yes.”
Last year, one of the guys on the boys’ soccer team had asked me on a date. Dad still didn’t want me to have a boyfriend, so I’d had to say no. But after practice one day, when we were the last two on the field, he sat with me while I stretched. And before Mom came to get me, he’d kissed me.
I had kind of gotten embarrassed and run away. The week after that, he began dating one of the other girls on the team.
“Indy.” West leaned in closer, his hand sliding into my ponytail. “I
want to kiss you. Is that okay?”
I nodded and closed my eyes.
His other hand came to my face first, his palm warm against my jaw. Then he dropped his mouth to mine, and God, his lips were soft.
A flutter stirred in my belly. My heart felt like it was doing somersaults.
That boy from soccer hadn’t given me somersaults.
This should have been my first kiss. I should have waited for West.
He moved his lips over mine, trailing them from one corner to the other. It was gentle. Thrilling. Every time I thought he’d stop, he kept going. And when his tongue darted out to lick my bottom lip, I felt every bone in my body turn to mush.
He smiled against my mouth, then leaned away.
I didn’t know where to look or what to do, so I just stared at him while he stared at me. He had the prettiest eyes. The green and gold and
brown were perfectly blended together, and the longer I stared, the more the colors seemed to move, like paint swirling.
“Are you going to go on the trail ride tomorrow?” he asked, twirling a finger around one of my curls.
“I guess.”
He chuckled. “Told you I could change your mind.”
“Maybe I’ll change my mind again.”
West kissed me again.
The next day, when Dad went to go on his trail ride, I went too.
And that night, while my parents were sitting around the campfire at the lodge, I sneaked off to meet West in the barn.
He kissed me twelve times over the week.
And when we left Montana, I didn’t care so much that I’d missed soccer camp.
