Swift and Saddled (Rebel Blue Ranch, #2)

by Lyla Sage

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, Ada. And your stupid prize is looking like an idiot on the first day of your new job.

Logically, I had the depression bull by the horns. But depression wasn’t a logical disease. It was an unexpected cold front in the middle of July. It was impossible to predict, which meant that I spent much of my time worrying about when the other shoe was going to drop. Not if, but when I would sink into another dark hole and have to decide to claw my way out of it. Even when I was happy, I was thinking about when I wouldn’t be.

But I guess depression wasn’t really about what you looked like or how you appeared but more about what you felt like.

and for the first time in a long time, I wondered what it might be like to be not just liked but loved.

“I see you, Ada. I always see you, even when you won’t look at me.”

He was like the sun. No matter what, he would keep coming up.

It wasn’t his words that got me—it was his eyes. From the first time he looked at me until now, I felt Weston Ryder saw me, no matter how hard I tried to hide.

I’ll be grateful to that dog for the rest of my life. He is my tether. It doesn’t matter what is going on, when Waylon’s big head finds its way under my hand, I feel better—at least for a minute.

At his core, Weston Ryder was gentle, and I thought that was the best thing that a man could be.

“If you like who you are, why is it so hard to believe that other people do too?”

“Oh, so that’s what you’re trying to do, push me away.” Yes, I thought. “Well, guess what, sweetheart? You can push all you want, but I’m not going anywhere.”

“The little things are the big things, Ada. They’re the things all the big things are made of. I might not know you all the way, but I want to, and I’m just asking you to give me a chance to do that.”

“I’m the moon?” I asked sarcastically. “You’re the moon,” he said. “And I’m the tides. You pull me in without even trying, and I come to you willingly. I always will.”

I would never have to wonder what it was like to be loved, because Weston Ryder would love me all the way.

Wes once said to me that I was the moon, and I’d scoffed at him. But he was right. I was the moon, and the moon couldn’t glow without the sun. And my sun was in Meadowlark, Wyoming.

Thirty years of waiting was a lot, but I’d do it all over again to have her at the end of it. And I did. Have her. We were a forever sort of thing.