Swift and Saddled: A Rebel Blue Ranch Novel

On Thursday, I had come back to the Big House to feed Loretta before heading back out to the ranch when my phone rang.

It was Ada.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I said in greeting.

“Hi, cowboy.” The sound of her voice made my heart do a backflip. If I was half in love with Ada a couple of weeks ago, I was all the way in love with her now.

But she didn’t need to know that. Not yet.

“What’s up? Everything okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, do you think you’ll be able to stop by the site today? There are a few things I want to run by you before we start moving furniture in next week.” I couldn’t believe it was already that time. There was about a month left to go on the project, and Ada was busy. She’d been leaving Baby Blue later and later each day. I knew she was tired, and I wished there was something I could do for her.

But lately, she’d started crawling into bed with me a few nights a week when she was really beat, and I’d hold her in my arms and trace my fingers up and down her back until she fell asleep.

“I can come by Baby Blue now,” I said.

Ada was quiet on the other end of the phone. Shit. What did I do? “Weston?” she said. “Did you just refer to the job site as Baby Blue?” Shit. I was only supposed to call it that in my head.

“Um, yeah,” I said.

“Have you been calling it that in your head this whole time?”

I swallowed. “Yeah.”

She was quiet again for a few seconds before she said, “That is without a doubt the most perfect thing I have ever heard. I can’t believe you were keeping that all to yourself!”

“I’m sorry?”

“You should be! Now get your leather-chap-wearing ass over to Baby Blue so I can be mad at you in person.” She hung up before I could answer. I’d ridden Ziggy back to the Big House today, so instead of driving down to Baby Blue, I took Ziggy along the trails, and Waylon ran alongside us. I hadn’t been riding as much as I normally did while the renovation was happening. It was easier to drive.

Plus, driving meant guaranteed time with Ada in the evenings.

I wondered if Ada had ever been on a horse—something told me no. I thought about riding with her, having my thighs bracket her hips and having her pressed up against me.

I was going to have to make that happen now.

When Ziggy and I arrived, six members of the crew were carefully carrying a giant rectangle into the house. I assumed it was the island countertop—Ada had decided on emerald-green marble, and I could see it peeking through the cloth that covered the slab to protect it.

With Ziggy secured to a post outside, I followed them in. Evan was directing them, shouting “Easy does it” and “Slow down,” and finally “Good” as the crew lowered the marble to its forever home.

I hadn’t been here in a few days, and I was amazed at how quickly things were moving. Especially after all the hiccups last week.

The floors were in—even though they were covered right now—and the drywall was up and ready for paint. The right cabinets were supposed to be here tomorrow, and Evan had finished installing the built-ins around the living room. The beams were in on the vaulted ceiling and the exposed brick wall had been power washed.

My favorite feature, though, was the fireplace. It used to have just a wooden mantel, but I showed Ada a photo of it that I’d found in the attic last year in which it looked like stone. She had painstakingly disassembled the wooden mantel after seeing that photo. Now the stone fireplace, with its vintage marble border and gold inlay, was beautifully restored and a focal point of the room.

Everything had that “almost finished” feeling, and it made my heart swell. I was proud of what this house had become, but I was even more proud of the woman who’d led the charge. I was more than happy to be an accessory to her greatness.

Speaking of that woman, she was standing in the corner, with a pen behind each ear and her stylus in her mouth, looking at something on her iPad.

As if she could sense that I was looking at her, she glanced up from her iPad. When she saw me, she hit me with the quiet smile that had become my favorite. When she smiled at me that way, it was like sharing a secret that only the two of us knew.

I walked over to her and, without thinking, leaned in and gave her a kiss on the temple. She didn’t seem to mind.

“What are you so caught up in over here?” I asked.

She flipped her iPad around to show me a digital rendering of the space we were standing in. “We’re doing the wainscoting tomorrow,” she explained, pointing across the room to where two men were applying blue-and-white floral wallpaper to the top half of the wall. The blue was light, subtle. I liked it. “I think I want it tall,” she said. “Maybe two-thirds up the wall. What do you think?”

“Is it going to be that same blue that’s in the wallpaper?” I asked.

“A little darker,” she said. “But not by much.”

“Then I think two-thirds up the wall is perfect,” I responded. “The counter looks amazing,” I said, gesturing at the marble. “All of the colors in here make it feel so”—I tried to think of the right word—“homey.”

Ada smiled. “That’s the point, cowboy. Let me show you the bedrooms,” she said, and started walking toward the back of the house. “I wanted to stick with a vintage color palette, so there’s lots of powder blue—obviously—some greens, and some pinks to pay homage to that bathroom tile we love.”

I liked the way she said “we.” Ada led me through all six of the bedrooms. They weren’t furnished yet, but they were finished otherwise. They had a mix of paint, wallpaper, and wainscoting. One of them shared the exposed-brick living room wall. They all felt unique and different—something you would expect in an antiquey bed-and-breakfast—but still fresh and clean, not cluttered or fussy.

The primary suite had French doors that opened onto a small patio that had been refinished. I knew landscaping was on the docket for next week and the week after, but it already looked great.

The French doors were bracketed by white linen curtains that looked like they had a field of wildflowers painted on them. Roses too. “Where did you get those?” I asked, pointing to the curtains. “I like them.”

Ada’s cheeks turned pink—something that didn’t happen very often. “We made them. Emmy, Teddy, Cam, and I. That’s what we did that night a few weeks ago. They’re wildflowers from around the ranch and roses from the bushes outside the Big House.”

My mom’s rosebushes. “They’re amazing,” I said, loving them even more now.

“I saved the wildflowers we used and dried them. I poured resin coasters with them and modpodged them onto candles, jars, glasses, and tea lights. It could come off kitschy, but I’m hopeful. And that brings up the other thing I wanted to talk to you about,” she said. “Are there any specific decor items—art, trinkets, books, anything—that you want to incorporate down here? Pieces of Rebel Blue that might need a new life at a new home?”

“We can search the attic at the Big House,” I said. “That’s where most of the original stuff from this place ended up. But…” I paused, feeling a lump form in my throat over what I was about to say.

“But what?” Ada asked softly.

“There are a few things for sure that I know I want in here,” I said. Ada nodded, waiting. “My mom was a painter. A brilliant painter, really. We have stacks of her paintings in the attic. They’ve been covered for so long, and I think”—I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, but that fucker wouldn’t budge—“I think she would be happy to have them here.”

Ada wrapped her arms around my waist and laid her head on my chest. “I think that sounds perfect, Wes.”