One Night with a Cowboy - Sara Richardson Page 0,9
but now that Jane had taken over the ranch, she would get to spend ten whole days with her friend.
“Is she the one who got married?” Ryan asked, straining against his seat belt to lean between the seats.
“Yes, last October.” It had been a beautiful ceremony, but also a quick weekend trip Thea had made by herself. Since the kids couldn’t miss school, her parents had come to stay. “I can’t wait for you two to meet her.” Thea had roomed with Jane for only one semester before she’d gotten pregnant and had to drop out of school, but they’d hit it off right away and had managed to stay in close touch. Despite the fact that Thea was a few years older when she finally went off to college, she and Jane had bonded over the struggle to navigate a whole new world. They’d taken different paths, that was for sure. Thea had fallen into the party lifestyle, while Jane preferred to spend most of her time studying, but they’d spent every Sunday night together, eating pizza and watching rom-coms. Those were some of her best memories from her short college stint.
“Well, I can’t wait to get out of this car.” Liv added a hearty huff to the end of her sentence.
“You’re in luck, my dear.” Excitement rose through Thea. “Our turn is right up there.”
Just ahead, a large banner stretched over the highway: SILVERADO LAKE WELCOMES YOU TO GOLD RUSH DAYS.
“Gold?” Her son leaned between the seats again. “Do we get to find gold while we’re here?”
“No, dum-dum.” Olivia rolled her eyes. “That’s just the name of the festival or whatever.”
“Exactly.” Thea turned off the highway and slowed the car as they approached Main Street. “It wasn’t a dumb question, either,” she said with a stern look at her daughter. “This week, the town is celebrating their mining history with fun activities like a parade and a carnival. There might even be some gold panning too. That’s why Jane and I thought this would be a good time for the trip.” Every year, coordinating the trip dates for different families proved to be a challenge, but this year everyone’s schedule had happened to line up with visiting the ranch during a good old small-town festival.
“I like parades.” Ryan settled back into his seat. “Do you think they throw out candy?”
“I’ll bet they do.” Thea navigated the streets from memory. Not much ever seemed to change in Silverado Lake. There was the castle-like library—the fanciest attraction in town. The rest of the square brick buildings lined up in rows exactly like they had been back in the Old West. Thea slowed the car as they passed an antique shop, a local artisan gallery, and a bar that looked like an old saloon, complete with wooden swinging doors.
The only difference in the town now was the decorations. There seemed to be flowerpots everywhere—along with banners and gold and silver balloons tied to every lamppost.
At the end of the block, she took a right. A colony of white tents had been set up in the town’s main park, which was adjacent to the local high school.
“This is going to be amazing!” Ryan had pressed his face against his window, gawking at the carnival that had been set up on the football field. “Look! A Ferris wheel! And bumper cars! And a Tilt-A-Whirl!”
Thea found his enthusiasm contagious. “Jane and I set aside a whole afternoon in the schedule to have fun at the carnival.” She glanced at her daughter, who still bore the marks of a scowl. “I’m sure Preston will be going.”
That perked Liv up. “He’s nice.”
“And he seems like a good kid too,” Thea added. The entire evening he’d been at their house, Preston had been nothing but respectful and polite. Which was more than she could say for some of her daughter’s other friends.
They rolled closer to the outskirts of town, where the houses grew sparse and the lot sizes grew larger. Thea had always seen Silverado Lake as a haven. She’d often dreamed of living in a place like this, but growing up near Dallas and then living near Fort Bliss, that had never been an option. Even now…she could never take the kids away from the house they’d shared with their father. She did everything she could to keep his memory alive for them.
She flicked off the air conditioner and buzzed down their windows instead. “Smell that clean mountain air.” The breeze had a fresh piney scent.