J Fox Bedford Books

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These Boots

Where will your boots take you?

The words are lyrics to a song that is part of our American persona — These Boots are Made for Walkin’, written by Lee Hazlewood in 1965. The words express, defiantly, the assurance you can’t hurt me and as a matter of fact not only am I gonna leave, but I’m gonna walk over you on my way out. These words shout a promise and that promise is I’m gonna survive, you can’t hurt me even if you try. I am strong, stronger than you. I’m gonna walk right out of here and not even look back. Because I don’t care. If you don’t need me or want me, then I don’t need you. It’s your loss.

It’s not always easy to leave, though. There are complications. You love your house. You love the little ranch it took years to afford. It’s a place where your horses look over the fence as they wait for you to come home from work and head out to the barn, feed buckets dangling from each hand. You pause, you hesitate. Wait, let’s think about this. Maybe I’m better off if I just stay here and put up with the sadness. Where will I take my horses? Can I make it on my own? Maybe I just won’t let it get to me.

Time to think, so you pull on your boots. You go out and saddle up your horse, turn out of the pasture, give him a good nudge with your boot heel and lope down the hill. You follow a trail layered with years of hoofprints. You’ve ridden this trail many times and nothing has changed. You realize you are the change; the change is in you.

It’s time to do some walkin’.

In Breakaway, the first book in the Silver Ranch series, Charlie decides she has to do exactly that. In order to salvage her future, she has to get those boots on and walk out of an abusive relationship. She leaves a beautiful home she designed herself, a home that overlooks her barn and fields where her horses, Cayenne and Concho, graze. She gives it all up because if she doesn’t have peace, if she doesn’t have the freedom to be herself, then she has nothing.

On the day she left, Charlie opened the passenger door of her truck and Sebastian, her German Shepherd, jumped in. She checked the hitch one last time, and patted each horse on the nose through the windows. She stepped up into the truck, threw it in gear and headed down the dusty driveway. Her husband Ross was in her rearview mirror, where he belonged, and Silver Ranch receded from view forever.

From: Breakaway – Book 1 in The Silver Ranch Series

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