'Til you Can't

Cowgirls Don't Cry

Naomi's POV:

My life hasn't always been a series of hit and runs, but lately, I felt like I was getting smacked by a Peterbilt every time I blinked. First it had been the sudden loss of my father that had wrecked me, breaking my heart in a way that I knew would never completely heal. Another blow to my already fragile heart had been finding out that my husband of the past 3 years had decided that the up-and-coming-twenty-some-year-old artist that he was working with was more his type than the woman who was the mother of his 2-year-old child, Knox. Next was the nasty divorce that ensued where he had tried with all his might to make me out to be a lousy mom, even as going as far as accusing me of neglecting my son in hopes that a judge would give him full custody. But the look on his face when sole custody was denied was something that I would remember for the rest of my life.

Luckily, Knox and I ended up with the home and didn't have to worry about moving. But that didn't mean it hadn't been weighing on my heart for quite some time now. Home was calling me, damn near begging me to bring my butt back to Oklahoma and lick my wounds. Lord knows I wanted to. I couldn't think of anything better than going back to my hometown, population 532, and just reanalyzing my life. But with the divorce only finalized a couple of months ago and Liam and I still trying to work the kinks out with how often he saw Knox, I just couldn't bring myself to move. At least not yet. But when my aunt called and said she was home for a few weeks and wanted to spend some time with Knox and I, I jumped at the chance.

Making the long drive from Nashville to McAlester, Oklahoma with a two-year-old hadn't been an easy trek but it was well worth it. It was almost as if every mile I put between me and Nashville had the tension that had taken permanent residence in my shoulders evaporating. Relief washed over me the longer I drove. And by the time I hit the Oklahoma state line, I was almost completely relaxed, almost none of the drama that has been my life the past few months weighing me down. Rolling the windows down, I let the fresh air of home wash over, enveloping me like fuzzy blanket, taking away the last remaining bits of my worry and sorrow. Then, as if it was sign, my aunts voice came over the radio, singing one of her very well-known songs. There was only one way to listen to this one and that was wide open while singing at the top of your lungs!

I remember being a little girl and wondering if the words in the song were true; had her mama really brought her a red dress with a slit clean up to the hip, basically turning her into a prostitute in hopes that she made a better life for herself? I remember the day I got the nerve to ask her if the lyrics were true and the full bellied laugh that had come from the feisty red head. Even now, almost 20 years later, Aunt Reba won't let me live that one down. She brings it up at every family function and even started calling me Fancy because of it. At first, I had hated the nickname because of the meaning of the song but now, but it has grown on me over the years so much so that I find it strange when she calls me by my legal name.

When I reached the ranch, I drove through the gates and headed up the gravel path that led to the house. Most people would expect Aunt Reba to have this big, extravagant house but she had never been one to flaunt her money. When she'd built this place, she had modeled it after the house her grandparents had spent their entire married life in. Even going as far as painting the house the same shade of soft yellow with light blue shutters. But it was the porch that was the real gem of the place. Wrapping all the way around the first story and the second story, you could sit anywhere on this porch and gaze out over the pastures or watch the farm hands as they went about their day-to-day tasks. As a little girl, I'd spent countless hours watching the guys work the cutting horses and the girls who were training to be barrel racers.

Spent the summer I turned 18 learning how to barrel race from none other than Aunt Reba herself. She told me back then that I was a natural. Even considered trying to make a career out of it like she had in the beginning, but Mama and Daddy put the kibosh on that pretty quickly. Daddy claimed it was because he had watched Aunt Reba take come pretty nasty falls over the years while mama had claimed that barrel racing wasn't something that a lady was supposed to do. Said that she had never heard anything good come out of anybody's mouth when they talked about barrel racers and that no daughter of hers was going to be lumped into that category of 'wild'. Daddy and Aunt Reba had a big falling out about it but just like siblings always do, they figured it out and even laughed about it now.