Page 47 of Play For Me

I point at the mounting block. “Get on the horse, Ransome.”

She’s biting back a grin as she follows my instructions. Once she’s up and secure, I head over to Solitaire and mount him from the ground. “Show off,” Cecelia mutters, and it’s my turn to bite back a grin. Ofcourseshe’s going to be competitive about this, too.

I lead her out past the paddocks and out-buildings, the sounds from the ranch slowly fading away behind us. Cecelia is fairly steady on the horse, but Pappy doesn’t require a lot of direction—she’s more than happy to follow Solitaire wherever he leads. The farther we get out from the barn, the more comfortable Cecelia looks, like some of the calming magic of this place is seeping into her veins, the way it always does for me.

“Wow,” she murmurs when we stop along the ridge. The whole ranch is spread out below us across the expanse of sunbaked earth dotted by sagebrush, with dramatic mountains slashing across the sky in the distance. “This is really beautiful, Sol.”

“Best view on earth,” I agree, breathing in deep, the smell of leather tack, horses, and eucalyptus in my nose.

“It’s such a different landscape from the farm in Tennessee,” she muses. “But something about itfeelsthe same.”

“The quiet, maybe,” I suggest.

She makes a face. “Not a lot of quiet when my family is around.” She looks out at the mountains and I’m struck, once again, by how beautiful she is. You’d think I’d get used to it at some point, but it always hits me square in the chest.

“Maybe it feels…safe,” she goes on, sounding a little bashful, like she’s embarrassed to express the thought. “Far away from everything bad in the world.”

That’s certainly how I would describe this place. The first and only place I ever really felt safe in my life. “The farm in Tennessee feels safe to you?”

She nods, still looking at the mountains. “There’s something about knowing there won’t be any press there,” she says. “No fans. My dad and my uncles can just be themselves. It’s like the world can’t affect us there.”

I let that thought settle around us as I try to decide how much I want to say. “This was always my favorite place,” I tell her. “My grandpa, the horses, Jay and Em living right up the road. The ranch is busy, but it never felt stressful.” I swallow. “You may have noticed that I have a tendency to get anxious.” She doesn’t laugh or roll her eyes or make any response that indicates she thinks my words are an understatement, so I continue. “That kind of thing never seemed as bad here. I felt…peaceful.”

“I get that,” she says softly.

“Anyway,” I go on, figuring I may as well get to the point of why I brought her here in the first place. “I was particularly grateful for this place—and for my grandpa—when I had that accident I told you about.”

“In baseball? The pitch to your face?”

“Yeah. I was having trouble taking pitches after that. I was always in my head, always scared. I couldn’t stop second-guessing.”

“And your grandpa helped you with that?”

“He did.” I smile at the memory. “He put me on a horse.”

She looks confused. “Had you not ridden before?”

“Nah, he had me riding before I could even walk. But that year, when I was having such a hard time, he started insisting that we go for rides together every day. First thing in the morning, and another after my practices. He never talked to me or asked me questions—just made sure I got out on a horse every day.”

Her voice is skeptical. “And riding a horse magically made you feel better?”

I chuckle. “Nah. But it did help me feel relaxed enough to admit that I was scared.”

She lets those words settle over us, her gaze once again fixed out past the ranch. It’s quiet for so long that I startle when she finally speaks.

“I have no idea who I am without soccer,” she says, voice flat. “I’ve been playing since I could walk.” I remain silent, letting her work through whatever she wants to say. “I always knew I was good. When I started getting invites to the U-13 national camps, I wasn’t even surprised. And I don’t care how egotistical that sounds—being good at soccer was just who I was.”

I wonder if I should point out that she’s more than just what she can do with a soccer ball, but I decide to bite my tongue. I think she might need to say all of this out loud.

“And I worked my ass off for it. Sacrificed my free time, my sleep, relationships.” Her expression turns grim. “I used to love skateboarding. I was good at it, too. I never had time to get into competitions, but it was definitely my favorite thing to do in my free time.” She pauses for a beat. “Then I twisted an ankle doinga trick and that was all it took for me to be done with it. No way was I gonna risk getting injured on a skateboard and have to sit out soccer. So I gave it up, even though I loved it, because I wasn’t taking any chances.”

“You’ve been dedicated to your sport for a long time.”

She snorts. “All Ieverwanted was to make the US Women’s National Team. My parents took me and my brothers to the World Cup when I was a kid, and I just knew I was going to be on that field someday. When I got hurt last year…it was like I realized for the first time that it might not all be a given, you know? Maybe it wasn’t my destiny to be on that team.” Another long pause. “But the worst part was realizing that hard work couldn’t get me there. Not if my body didn’t cooperate.”

She lets out a long breath. “You think I need to admit that I’m afraid in order to get better?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. She just turns to me, her beautiful blue eyes wide and filled with emotion I can’t read. “I’m fucking terrified, Solomon. I’m terrified that everything I’ve done for my entire life will be for nothing and I’ll never get back to the playing shape that got me national attention. I’m terrified I’ll get hurt again and it will all be over. I’m terrified that I won’t have any idea how to live without soccer if it all goes to shit. I’m just…” her jaw clenches. “I’m just fucking terrified, all day, every day, for the last ten months.”

I hold her gaze. “Okay.”