Page 91 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

We stayed two nights only because Jake had to get back to work—at his own insistence—and I needed to return to Denver to pack up my apartment, hand in my notice about the lease, and figure out where I was going to put everything in the small bunkhouse.

Once at the apartment, amidst a litter of packing paper and piles of boxes I’d laboriously assembled, I wasn’t sure I needed any of what I owned. Except maybe the fancy coffee maker, because Jake would like it. Or the electric foot warmer, because I suspected Jake would like it. And my small book collection which, oddly, included a paperback copy ofLonesome Dove, which I had never read. Maybe I would now.

Girding my loins, I packed two suitcases full of clothes and sundry items that I would probably end up getting rid of, but which, in that moment, I couldn’t imagine living without. I also packed up the books and my winter boots and winter sweaters in boxes, taped those shut, and arranged for movers to come get the rest and haul it to the U-Store-It that I’d found at short notice. All of which seemed dry and uninteresting whencompared to my life with Jake. Upcoming. New. Scary. At least a little scary.

Jake’s voice over the phone during our daily calls was a lifeline, the conversation full of updates about the calves and the barn cats, and how Jake had been looking at properties in the area, though they were way above what he could afford, and when I got back, would I like to take a drive around and see one or two of them?

“Yes, of course,” I said, thinking of the salary I used to earn but which I no longer did and the nice 401K nest-egg I’d put by and whether or not Jake would like it if I put down the lion’s share of the down payment were we to find a place we both liked? I’d never looked for a place to buy, let alone property in the country, though I suspected Jake had been keeping watch for years.

“Will I see you tonight?” Jake asked, and all of a sudden every other worry or concern melted away.

“I’ll leave at four,” I said. “Maybe we can get burgers at the saloon?”

“You can count on it,” Jake said, his voice strong and sure in a way that made me feel comfortable that everything was going to work out.

I finished packing and waited for the moving team. When they arrived, I tipped them each twenty bucks, even though they’d not yet started work, because they offered to haul my suitcases and five small boxes down to my car.

I supervised the loading of my furniture and all the boxes into their mid-sized truck, and handed them the keys to the storage place and the code to get into the gate. The owner of the storage place was aware that the movers were coming, and I could wash my hands of the rest of it.

“Thank you, guys,” I said, and waved them off. Got in my car, stuffed to the brim, and drove back to Snow Creek Ranch. Drovehometo Jake.

The drive seemed to take forever, as I’d hit rush hour traffic rather than avoiding it, and by the time the familiar loops in the road and the low, pine-tree covered hills came into view, I was just about hyperventilating.

My body settled down when I arrived at the five-mile section of the road that led up to the entrance to Snow Creek. And there, standing in the shadow of the barn, was Jake. I parked my car, even though it really wasn’t an area for parking, and fell out of the car and raced into his arms.

“Bring all your stuff?” he asked me, whispering against my neck, his arms around me like warm steel bands.

“Too much stuff,” I huffed against his chest.

“No such thing,” he said, a laugh behind the words.

“Missed you,” he whispered.

“Missed you, too,” I whispered back.

Jake helped me unload my car (I re-parked it near the bunkhouse); he put the boxes on a wooden pallet by his bunkhouse and secured a tarp over the pile to keep it safe from rain and weather. Then we got into Daybreak and went into town to get triple-patty cheeseburgers and tall glasses of ice-cold beer.

“Got something to show you,” Jake said after he’d wiped his mouth on a napkin, and we flipped a coin to see who would pay the bill.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked. Next time, I would fight harder to be the one paying the tab, but for right now, I was willing to go anywhere Jake wanted to lead.

Outside the saloon, the shadows were long between the trees. We got into Daybreak and Jake started driving west of town, up a narrow two-lane blacktop road. The foothills rose gently around us, and the puffy clouds over them signaled a maybe-kind-of-rain, which, though holding back for now, added a nice, green scent to the air.

“Where we headed?” I asked him. The windows were rolled down, as usual, and the breeze in the cabin swirled my hair around and tugged at Jake’s cowboy hat.

“I lied,” he said, casting a glance at me that let me know he was rather ashamed, though he shouldn’t be.

“About what?” I asked.

“There’s only one place I been looking at.” He sighed, as though troubled by the fact that maybe he’d let me down, only wanting this one place.

My heart beat a little faster at that thought, that Jake had focused in on the place he wanted, and when he took a left onto a little dirt road, I knew what that place was. Land. Just land. Not a house, not even one that needed fixing up. Just land.

Which, in this case, as he shortly pulled up to another dirt road, this one fence-lined on one side, was a beautiful piece of land that was topped at the north end by a craggy, granite outcrop, and which sloped south into a small valley of green grasses speckled with Columbine flowers.

“This here’s it,” he said. He turned off Daybreak’s engine, worked the steering wheel with his fingers, and then looked at me fully. “Twenty-three acres. Not good for crops beyond a small garden. Maybe some alfalfa hay. We could graze horses, cattle, goats, even, if you wanted ‘em.”

“I just want you,” I said. “And whatever you want.”