Wrapped around your heart - Post Malone

8

"What is it, darlin'?" he asks softly taking her hand in his. The thing is with Austin, he will be hard and difficult with everyone but if Hazel asks for his attention he will give it to her immediately. He will soften for her no matter who is around. He once told her that cowboys ride hard and love soft - he has remained true to his words. "I know you always insist I come with you on the cattle drives and I want to come, even when I was pregnant...even with our daughters as newborn babies. But, please may I stay this time? CD...I don't want to leave him...I don't know how much time I have left with him and if he...if he...while we are gone, oh baby, I just can't bear the thought," she says trying to stop her chin from wobbling as she blinks back the tears. Austin moves quickly, grabbing her and placing her on his lap as he wraps his arms around her, she buries her head in his chest as her tears fall. "Hush, darlin'. No one will separate you from your turkey. It's time girls," he says. Harper and Dixie jump up from the table and run outside then appear again with a huge box, placing it down in front of their parents.

"You may stay if you like, darlin', and if you ask I will stay with you. But, the girls have made you something," he says. Hazel sits up and looks at the box. "We made it for Christmas dinner, it sits snugly on the back of my four-wheeler. I will drive carefully," Dixie says. "We lined it with soft cushion and made a little sunroof so he is in the shade, there is a screen that attaches here in the front so the wind does not bug him," Harper says. Hazel throws her arms around both girls and hugs them tight. "Thank you both so much, he will love it," she whispers, crying now for a different reason. They have their father's stubborn streak, but they also have his beautiful kind heart.

She pulls back and wipes her tears when Ava calls for her from the top of the stairs. Austin stands and fetches Christmas dinner and then they walk down to the barn. Christmas dinner walks slower than he normally does and Hazel wonders if taking him on the cattle drive is a good idea. "The cattle drive is long, baby, do you think it's a good idea to take him?" she asks softly. "I hope I feel the wind in my face, the grass on my boots, a horse between my legs, and your beautiful face in my vision as I breathe my last breath on my dying day. I think it's no different for that dam turkey," Austin says softly and Hazel knows he is right.

Christmas dinner only makes it halfway back to the ranch house this time and a little piece of Hazel's heart breaks away.

The next morning Hazel is preparing for the cattle drive, Christmas dinner already snuggled in his box. Everyone is out on the ranch wrapping up last-minute tasks. She carries out some supplies and stops when she sees Jimmy in the yard with a clipboard standing next to his horse with a deep frown on his face. "Everything alright, Jimmy?" she asks. He looks up at her and then shakes his head. "We are short two horses, ma'am," he says. Hazel takes the clipboard and scans over it.

"No, this is right. Dixie rides a four-wheeler, she does not have a horse."

"She can not ride?"

"She can. She just chooses not to."

"Why?"

"Our children chose their own path."

"And the second horse?"

"I ride with the rancher on the cattle drives."

Jimmy looks at her with a curious face. It's not normal, she knows, and most ranchers would not be able to maneuver their cattle well with two riders on one horse but Austin is not most ranchers. She rides with him, it's the way it has always been.

"I have a question, ma'am. I have been taught that for a rancher the cattle always come first. Cottonwood is respected, even in Texas. His reputation as a hard-working rancher is never challenged. But last night he said he would stay if you just asked...by a rancher's standards that's deathly to his reputation. If the ranch hands heard that their respect for him would waver. Why would he do that?"

Hazel smiles at Jimmy, she thinks that in time he will make a good rancher. He has a lot of life lessons that only a woman can teach him though. He is young, only eighteen. When Austin was the same age he had to make several mistakes before he found his path - Jimmy is no different.

"I suspect he would do that for the same reason you have chosen to leave your family and work the land that sits under the shadow of that mountain...mount Eve," she says watching as his eyes sparkle at the mention of the mountain so closely connected to Evelyn. "You will learn a lot from my rancher, I suggest you watch very carefully," she says then turns and walks back inside. Evelyn, as with all her girls will have very high expectations when it comes to choosing a partner in life. They have watched how Austin has treated her, the land he works, the animals, and themselves. They will accept nothing less than what their father has shown them. Austin is a man who does not rattle off expectations, it's by his actions that they learn. He expects them to work the land hard and so he works the land hard. He expects them to respect the animals on their land and so he respects the animals. He expects them to one day choose a partner who will honor, love, and respect them and so he honors, loves, and respects their mother.

If Jimmy hopes to stand a chance with Evelyn when she comes back one day it will serve him well to do as Evelyn and her sisters have done and learn to be a man from the best man Hazel knows - the rancher of Cottonwood, and maybe, just maybe, while Jimmy is discovering himself, Austin may learn a few things too.