Page 41 of The Rancher’s One and Only

He did his best not to think about that while he had dinner. And he tried to be entirely normal while he made conversation with Rowdy and Dakota around the table. About floodplains and inspectors. And the kinds of things that he should be thinking about rather than the status of Ernestine’s virginity. And when it fell dark out, it was time for him to go do the stargazing, and he felt… It was a strange kind of anticipation he couldn’t remember ever feeling before. Something like he guessed it might feel like to meet up with a prom date. Which was crazy, because this wasn’t a date. And he’d never been that innocent.

He shook his head as he pulled his truck up to the glass cabin and got out. She was already outside, standing there underneath the veil of glittering silver stars, a ski cap on top of her head. He could vaguely make out the shape of it in the dim light. He could also see her glasses, glinting in the moonlight. “It’s a beautiful night,” she said, chipper.

“Yes. It is.”

“I love the stars.”

“I was raised in the city. Didn’t used to get see a lot of them. And then I did a lot of my fights in Vegas. I was pretty much based there for a long time. It’s very…it’s very different.”

“Yes,” she said. “I was raised in the suburbs, so I didn’t have any stars like this. Even now, I live in the Portland metro. So, not a lot of stars like this.”

“Yeah. I remember the first time I came out here. After Rowdy moved here. This is… It’s familiar to him. Not so much to me.”

“And what did you think?”

“Oh, it felt like home. Like the place I was always supposed to be. My home with my family never really felt like that.”

Ernestine sounded almost keen when she spoke. “Oh, I relate to that feeling very much. My mom just… She doesn’t seem to like me very much, if I’m honest.”

“My mom… She was good. She did her best. But everything with my dad was so… He took over everything. His entire presence was a shadow that nobody can ever get around. He was just terrible. All-around awful.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “When I talk about not fitting in it’s not the same thing.”

“I don’t need you to do that. I don’t need you to minimize the things you’ve been through. We’ve been through things. And here we are, out underneath the sky. Both of us feel at home here. Again. We’re a lot more alike than you want to pretend.”

“It just doesn’t seem… I can’t imagine how I have something in common with an MMA fighter turned cowboy.”

“Well, I can’t imagine what I have in common with a bone scientist.”

“A paleontologist.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“Not really. Not… No. Because paleo means… Never mind.”

“It’s physically painful for you to not finish that correction, isn’t it?”

Even in the twilight, he could see the way that her lips were practically buttoned shut.

He smiled. Then he turned his focus to the telescope. “All right. What can you show me here?”

“Oh, we should have a great view of some planets tonight. Jupiter, Mercury and Saturn are all visible.”

“Wow. That sounds interesting.”

“Yes. And they should be…” She looked up at the stars, then oriented herself before bending down, and turning the telescope. “Oh,” she said, sounding excited. “There.” She pointed up, and gestured for him to look down into the telescope.

He was shocked to see a red planet filling up the lens. “Oh. That’s…that’s actually a planet.”

“Yes,” she said. “I really love the way it feels to look up at another planet. To realize how small we are. How small all of our pursuits are.”

“You sound awfully cheerful about your own insignificance.”

“Oh, I am.” She sounded genuinely pleased. “Because sometimes everything inside of me feels too big. And it’s such a great reminder that I’m not the most important thing out there. I’m just a blip on this timeline. And more than that, a tiny speck in the universe even in the present. Even in this moment when I do exist. I’m nothing. And I might make discoveries and contributions, but they feed into this wider river of all the things humanity has ever done. And whenever I feel too overwhelmed, bogged down by my own brain. By all of my feelings. By how uncomfortable my sock feels sliding down in my shoe, I remember that. That at the end of the day, I’m a speck on this planet, and the untold vastness of the universe. So impossibly small as to vanish entirely into the void. But then, so are we all. And in that way, we are infinite.”

He wasn’t sure he fully understood even half of what she was trying to say. But it was beautiful. It flowed over him in a strange way, made him feel vaguely emotional. Made him feel like maybe his mom was standing somewhere in the stars, looking back at him. Made him feel like every moment in his life was happening all at once, zoomed out like this. Because he was on a planet just like the one he could see through the telescope, and zoomed out like this you could see everything everywhere all at once. It was all happening. All of it. In its infinite vastness right in one breath, and that meant it would be over quickly, but also never end. She was right.

“It’s why I believe in the possibility of everything,” she said. “It’s why science makes things feel more magic to me.” She shifted the telescope. “Jupiter,” she said.