He put the last of his boxes in the living room of the small furnished apartment. He and Lore had moved a few pieces from Jack\u2019s, no, from her place. His dad\u2019s desk and the bedroom set that had belonged to his mom and dad. They\u2019d swapped those items, along with all the photographs that had hung in the apartment. It had taken all afternoon.
Now he stood in the apartment that existed over the Barn, it was an apartment for the Barn manager. He\u2019d been surprised and gratified when Kivi had said he could stay. \u201cTo see if it works out and they can get past it all\u201d was what she said. He\u2019d been forgiven, now he needed to help make her forget what an ass he\u2019d been. He wanted to make her forget his endless string of bad choices in women. He wanted to make her forget the few men she\u2019d dated. He\u2019d been a fool to let himself feel what he felt. She was supposed to be like a sister, and he had convinced himself of that right up until he caught that coffee mug two months ago in Cali.
Two months ago he let himself think with his heart. Gone was the idea of the perfect woman that he\u2019d created in his head. His last shrink had said it was what he thought his mother would have been. Doc had said he needed to learn to follow his heart. Doc had been right but it\u2019d taken over thirty years to get it.
He\u2019d never been a touchy-feely guy. His dad had been a stoic \u201cMan\u2019s Man.\u201d He\u2019d never lacked care or affection, between his Dad and Kivi\u2019s folks. He was the kind of guy to show you how he felt, and he intended to do just that. With Kivi gone, he had his chance. Lore and he had come up with an equitable split in working the horses. He was the one to get up and feed since he was closer. Lore was taking care of the evening feeding.
As he moved around his place, putting things away and getting acquainted with what was already there, he realized that he was home. He cracked a private smile. It had been his intention to never live here. He\u2019d told his dad early on that he wanted to train horses at a big place on the west coast. He\u2019d been that too, Rancho Santa Fe had been brown, but beautiful in its own way. The farm filled with amazing animals had been his home for nearly a decade and it had been hard to leave. Long talks and interviews to find a suitable replacement. In the end, his 2nd had taken the job of head trainer and he\u2019d left on his quest. Now he was home, and if he had any say this ranch would be where he spend the rest of his life. In a perfect world, he\u2019d spend it here, married to the Locke heir, if she\u2019d have him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He put the last of his boxes in the living room of the small furnished apartment. He and Lore had moved a few pieces from Jack\u2019s, no, from her place. His dad\u2019s desk and the bedroom set that had belonged to his mom and dad. They\u2019d swapped those items, along with all the photographs that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":199,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-fullwide.php","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmullhollanddesign.com\/stories\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmullhollanddesign.com\/stories\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmullhollanddesign.com\/stories\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmullhollanddesign.com\/stories\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmullhollanddesign.com\/stories\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmullhollanddesign.com\/stories\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/196\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmullhollanddesign.com\/stories\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmullhollanddesign.com\/stories\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}