Swift and Saddled

❛❛ I see you, Ada. I always see you, even when you won’t look at me.❜❜

”I liked her.
which was an all-consuming, daydreaming, slightly annoying way.”

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

”I made myself so small that I didn’t know who I was anymore.”

"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."

“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.”

Gus shook his head. “Honestly, I’m worried about [Cam].”
“Did she get her bar results back?” Teddy asked him. The sarcastic and condescending tone she normally employed when speaking to Gus was gone—concern for Cam took over.
“She hasn’t mentioned it,” Gus said… Teddy reached her hand out and squeezed Gus’s arm. Gus looked at her, but by the time I’d blinked, Teddy’s hand was back at her side and Gus was looking away.

before [Dusty] went out the door, he turned back to Cam and said, “You look good, Ash.” Then he was gone.
I looked at Cam. “Ash?”
She swallowed and shrugged. “Old nickname. My last name is Ashwood.”

“You told me you would never stand in the way of following my dreams. You’re my dream, Wes... I followed my dreams, and they led me back to you.”

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

“I’d been awake since half past four, so I’d been waiting for her to wake up for almost an hour. At this point, I was pretty sure I’d been waiting for her my whole life, so an hour was easy.”

When he saw me, his dimples appeared with a big smile, and he made a show of bringing his fist up to his mouth and biting his index finger, as if looking at me frustrated him— not in a bad way, but in a way that showed me how much he wanted me. “God, you’re pretty,”

“Every time we saw each other, it was like we had this moment of remembering that the other was real.”

”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.”

after this book i can easily say that i have a thing for cowboys.🤠 am i ashamed of it? abso-fucking-lutely not. this series is so cute and hot at the same time that makes me want a cowboy for myself.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I said in greeting.
“Hi, cowboy.”

”My whole life, I’ve been described as icy, bitchy, and rude. I know I’m not super warm or overly kind, but the truth is, I’m just shy. I don’t think I’m a people person, certainly not in the way this entire family seems to be. They make being nice look so damn easy. Whereas I don’t seem to know how to talk to people in a way that makes them like me or keep coming back for more. I seem to always turn out to be a disappointment, so why bother?”

”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. Honestly, it was exhausting. It took up so much of my brain even though I recognized that there wasn’t very much I could do about it. That’s what I meant when I said that my brain didn’t feel like my own sometimes. It felt like it belonged to my mental illness instead. And, frankly, that sucked.”

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

My favorite spots were the places where the snow had melted enough that you could see the greens and browns underneath. It felt like a promise—that no winter could last forever.

I wanted to know what songs she listened to when she was having a bad day, or a good one, and what her favorite food was.

“You know,” she said, “I think I’m actually good. Thank you for offering, but it’s not urgent. I don’t want to derail your day.”
Derail my day? I’d drive my truck off a cliff if it meant that I got a few moments alone with her, but she didn’t need to know that.

Honestly, I never would’ve guessed that was something he dealt with. Wes looked so happy. But I guess depression wasn’t really about what you looked like or how you appeared but more about what you felt like.

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

“How does everyone feel about a little Taylor Swift this evening?” Both Teddy and Cam nodded enthusiastically. “Ada?” she said, waiting for me to answer. “Sure,” I said. In my “not like other girls” phase, I’d actively disliked Taylor Swift. Now I was just indifferent. After telling people that I didn’t like her for so long, I never really got into her music after that point in my life had passed. Emmy looked at me for a second before she said, “Even if you don’t like her now, you will before you leave Rebel Blue.”

When you’re treated a certain way for so long, you start to believe that’s how you should be treated. It left me feeling like there wasn’t anything about me that someone could love.

“You are earnest and talented, tenacious and funny.” I couldn’t have looked away from him if I’d tried. His green eyes gripped me and wouldn’t let go. “I would never insult you by calling you something as generic as nice.”

Kissing Wes was the closest thing I’d ever had to a religious experience. It felt like the sky opened up and stars started falling around us, like lightning struck every place where our skin touched and like my heartbeat had turned into a thunderstorm.

My dad made sure all of us knew cooking basics, especially Gus and me. From the time we were little, he told us that someday we might have to share a home with someone, and when that happened, it would be important to split labor—whether that was cooking, cleaning, or whatever.

She paused for a second when she saw me with Loretta on my lap. “The way you look right now is enough for me to want to drag you back upstairs and have my way with you,” she said. “Are you seriously shirtless and bottle-feeding a baby cow right now?”

“I love you, Ada. I’ll keep showing you, but I needed to tell you too.” I kissed him again.
“And if you ever feel like you need to run again,” he said, “can I request that you at least stay inside the county line?”

The last time I’d really looked at myself in a mirror was in that motel on my first full day in Meadowlark. I didn’t look very different than I did then—a few freckles had appeared because I was spending more time in the sun, my bangs had grown out more, my cheeks looked fuller—a sign of life—but I felt like an entirely different woman. The woman I saw in the mirror was comfortable. She still enjoyed solitude, but she didn’t feel lonely anymore, and for someone who’d felt lonely her entire life, that was worth everything. It wasn’t that I grew up feeling like I didn’t belong, but like I didn’t belong where I was but might belong elsewhere. Maybe I could belong here. With Wes. And Emmy, and Teddy, and Cam. With Amos too.