Homecoming Ranch

by Julia London

  She didn’t quite know how to proceed—how did she go about addressing the issues at hand under these circumstances? Okay, well, generally she found that it was best just to get down to business. Madeline decided the best course of action was to skip over the getting-to-know-you phase and go directly to the necessary business. The quicker the issue of this ranch was resolved, the quicker she could get out of here and go back to her safe world. I wish, I wish, I wish. She gripped her briefcase tighter. “You were saying you lived in California?” she asked, marching up the steps with resolve.

  “Yep. With Emma.”

  “Only a year,” Emma’s voice came at them from an open window. “Libby is from Colorado. Pine River if you want to get right down to it. I am from California.”

  Libby smiled at Madeline and shrugged. “Emma’s always right,” she said airily, but Madeline heard the twinge of sarcasm in her voice.

  Madeline followed Libby inside, her pump hitting the yellow pine floor with a resounding clap. The walls were covered in dated wallpaper, green vines of ivy meandering to the ceiling. The ceilings were tall and the windows cased with dark, polished wood.

  She could see Emma sitting on a rose-colored camelback sofa in a room to her right, her arms folded, her legs crossed, and one foot swinging anxiously. Or with tedium. It was difficult to know.

  The potbellied stove on the interior wall of that room made Madeline wonder if that’s how the place was heated.

  “Let me show you around,” Libby said.

  “That’s okay, I—”

  “No, no, Madeline, you should see what we have here. Emma and I have had a good look.” She glanced at Emma over her shoulder. “Are you coming?”

  “I’ll let you do the guided tour,” Emma said, and yawned.

  Madeline followed Libby around the ground floor. She chatted incessantly, asking questions that only made Madeline tenser. How old are you? Do you like Orlando? Have you ever been to Colorado?

  Madeline answered sparingly and kept her focus on the house. The kitchen was straight out of 1968, complete with what had to be the most ancient microwave she had ever seen. A sunroom overlooked a garden and what Libby called a river, but looked more like a creek to Madeline. It turned out that the room with the flat roof, added to the original house, was the dining room. But what made the ground floor spectacular was the views. From every room, big windows framed another slice of big sky, mountains, and meadows.

  Libby led Madeline upstairs, to a surprisingly wide second floor corridor. There were four bedrooms in all, and even a sewing room, which Madeline guessed was originally a nursery. The sewing machine and a few bolts of cloth were still there, some of the cloth spread across an ironing board, as if someone would appear at any moment to iron.

  Throughout the house, a lot of the furniture had been removed. But the remains of a family’s life had been left behind in bits and scraps. In one room, on a dresser, was a family photo of twenty or so people, dressed in the trappings of the sixties. On the hallway floor was a photo of two young boys in baseball uniforms.

  When they had completed the tour, Emma had peeled herself off the couch and was standing at the door of the living room, her shoulder propped against the frame. She openly took in Madeline’s clothes as she and Libby descended the stairs. Trudi was right again—Madeline felt conspicuously overdressed in comparison to these women. Wardrobe had always been the bane of her existence—she never understood how to dress for different occasions. She couldn’t latch on to ideas like Casual Friday, as there was nothing remotely casual about her Fridays.

  Today, what she’d wanted—what she always wanted—was to present a professional, polished image. It was her shield of armor. But in that moment, looking at a comfortable Libby and a chic Emma, Madeline chided herself for thinking these shoes and this suit were a good idea.

  “Well!” Libby said cheerfully, as if they were having a grand old time, “we’ve had the tour! Madeline, would you like some tea?”

  “What? Oh, no. No thank you.”

  “Water?”

  “I’m good,” Madeline said.

  “Are you hungry? I have some—”

  “God, Libby, stop,” Emma said. She sighed, and Madeline had the impression that this wasn’t the first time Emma had told Libby to stop.

  “Okay.” Libby smiled. But it was not the grin she had met Madeline with. It was much tighter. “Maybe you could tell us a little bit about yourself while we wait, Madeline,” she suggested. “I’ll be honest—I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. I mean, it’s so exciting to find out I have a sister. I want to know everything there is to know about you.”

  Too much, too soon! Madeline wanted to say. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  Libby was not one to take hints, because she suggested, “Well, what sort of things do you like? Do you have any hobbies?”

  Hobbies. Her hobbies were work and taking care of her mother. She once had tried to learn to knit, but had put it down and never picked it up again.

  “Scrapbooking?” Libby offered helpfully. “Sports?”

  “Scrapbooking or sports?” Emma snorted disdainfully.

  “What about siblings?” Libby asked, taking another tack. “Do you have any siblings?”

  Surely she meant besides the two of them. “Ah… no. Just me,” Madeline said.

  “I have two younger brothers. Twins,” Libby said. “Emma has a sister.”

  “Stepsister,” Emma clarified as she studied her nail.

  “Is your mother still alive?” Libby asked.

  Madeline’s head was beginning to pound. Why was she on the hot seat? Why wasn’t she questioning them? She hated this, not knowing what to do. And she wanted to sit—her feet were beginning to hurt. “She is,” Madeline said. “Mind if I sit down?” She didn’t wait for a response. She walked into the living room and sat heavily in a chair.

  “So when is the last time you saw him?” Emma asked without looking up from her nail.

  “Who?” Madeline asked, confused by all the questions and the mention of siblings.

  One of Emma’s carefully sculpted brows rose. “Your father. The reason we are all gathered here today like a litter of puppies. I am curious how well you knew him, because like I said, he never mentioned you.”

  There was no reason that statement should bother Madeline, not after a lifetime of never being mentioned. But it did, and in a surprisingly strong manner.

  “God, Emma, you make it sound like she’s making it up,” Libby sighed.

  “Maybe she is,” Emma said. “I just find it very hard to believe that Dad could keep his mouth shut about her because God knows he couldn’t keep quiet about anything else.”

  Something inside Madeline tipped, and out poured years of carefully controlled feelings about her absent father. “Are you kidding?” she asked.

  Emma merely shrugged.

  “Are you always so blunt?” Madeline asked.

  Oddly enough, that made Emma chuckle with amusement. “Blunt is the least of what I am.”

  “Don’t mind her—”

  “I swear, Libby, if you tell her not to mind me one more time, I’m going to kick you. I have nothing to apologize for. I’m not the one who invited her here.”

  “Wow,” Madeline said, truly taken aback. “Just to put your mind at ease, I didn’t ask for sisters, either. Like I said, I never knew Grant, so if you think I am here to rip your inheritance out of your hands, think again. I never asked for it, never wanted it.” She folded her arms, waiting for them to challenge her.

  But Emma suddenly looked interested. “So this is really out of the blue?”

  “Yes,” Madeline said, angry that she suddenly had to justify her appearance at a place she’d never wanted to come. “It was a complete shock when Jackson showed up in Orlando. I obviously knew I had a father out there in the world somewhere, but I never knew him.”

  “Wow,” Libby said thoughtfully. “I assumed that you didn’t know him as well
as we did,” she said. “I mean, Emma’s right, your name would have at least come up, but still… I thought you at least knew him. Why didn’t you? Did your mom keep you from him?”

  Madeline snorted. Her mother had never kept anything from her, not even the things she should have kept from her. It made Madeline angry with herself and with these women that she suddenly felt guilty, as if she should have known Grant. That not knowing her father should feel like a failure as a daughter and a human being. “Let’s just agree that you are both better acquainted and leave it at that.”

  “More than I wanted to be, that’s for sure,” Emma said, and moved deeper into the living room, her skirt swinging jauntily around her knees.

  It occurred to Madeline in a moment of sheer insanity that she’d never had a skirt swing around her knees like that. Even her skirts were controlled.

  “Emma, don’t say that,” Libby chided her as she followed her into the living room and took a seat on the couch.

  “It’s true,” Emma said as she sat next to Libby. “It’s not like he was a good father, Libby, you of all people should acknowledge that. Don’t worry, Madeline. You didn’t miss out on much.”

  Madeline wondered why Libby of all people should acknowledge that he was a lousy father.

  “Emma!” Libby cried, and glanced sheepishly at Madeline. “He was an okay dad. I don’t know what Emma’s problem is, but he wasn’t that bad.” She looked at Emma again. “I know you didn’t like him, but he was still your dad.”

  “If that’s what you want to call him,” Emma muttered.

  “Could you, just once, be nice?” Libby demanded.

  “What, like you?” Emma said casually. “So people can take advantage of me?”

  Libby gasped and gaped at her sister.

  Emma groaned and held up her hands. “Sorry.”

  “That was mean,” Libby muttered.

  “Yeah, I know. Sorry, Libby.”

  Madeline wanted to run. Endless questions were one thing, but conflict was the worst. Conflict was messy. People said things that they could never take back—she’d heard her mother say enough to know. Madeline didn’t understand what Emma had meant, but judging from Libby’s face, Emma couldn’t take it back.

  And yet, Libby only sighed and sank back against the couch. “Well, I guess I knew Dad the best then,” she said crisply to Madeline.

  Best, how? Had Grant Tyler taken Libby skiing, or to a father-daughter dance? Had he attended her soccer games and waited up for her when she came in from a date? And why did Emma say she knew him more than she’d wanted? What had he done to earn her disdain?

  But the questions stuck in Madeline’s throat. She wasn’t certain she wanted to hear the answers—they wouldn’t change anything. She was still the one he had never bothered to know, and Madeline would still feel awkward and out of place here. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to agree on what was to be done and go home to her ordered world where her so-called father did not exist. Where she didn’t have sisters and no one argued around her.

  “Maybe we should discuss what to do with the inheritance,” Madeline suggested.

  “Jump right to it,” Emma said.

  “We are going to discuss it,” Libby said. “Just as soon as Jackson gets here, which should be any minute.” She suddenly hopped up and went to the window to peer out.

  “Right,” Madeline said, and opened her briefcase. She pulled out a file folder.

  “What’s that?” Emma asked.

  Madeline opened the file. “I jotted down some notes and ideas about how to proceed.”

  Emma frowned. “Proceed with what?”

  Madeline glanced up; she was sitting much lower than Emma and scooched to the edge of her chair. “With the disposition of the ranch.”

  Libby whirled around so quickly that she startled Madeline. “What do you mean?”

  Was it not obvious? “Well… to sell it,” she said.

  Libby’s mouth dropped open.

  “You are jumping to a very presumptuous conclusion, Madeline,” Emma said calmly. “What makes you think we want to sell?”

  Oh no. No, no, no. “Jackson said you live in California, Emma. I’m in Orlando. And Libby, I… it’s so far out here.”

  “I don’t care, I don’t want to sell,” Libby said. “I want to live here. I want to make something of it. We could make this into something huge. We have an incredible opportunity here.”

  That was crazy, full-on crazy. There was nothing they could do with this place in the middle of nowhere. “Make it into what, exactly?” Madeline asked as politely as she could.

  “Exactly like this,” Libby said, gesturing to the windows. “Most people would be very happy to have landed in a spot as gorgeous as this.”

  “Oh my God, I knew it,” Emma said, and stood up. “I want a drink.”

  “Okay,” Libby said, watching Emma move across the room. “What do you want, Emma?”

  “I don’t know what I want,” Emma said with a shrug. “But it will take more than a letter from Jackson Crane and meeting a supposed sister for the first time for me to decide what I want.” She tossed a wry smile over her shoulder as she walked out of the room. “Maybe we should turn it into a spa.”

  “Spas are very hard to get off the ground and become successful,” Madeline said.

  “Are you a spa expert?” Emma shouted from the other room.

  “It’s a ranch. A working ranch,” Libby said firmly. “Why would we mess with that? Look, you two don’t have to be involved if you don’t want. I just thought that maybe.…” She shook her head and looked out the window. “Never mind. You don’t have to be involved. I’ll do it. I’ll take care of everything.”

  “I know what you thought,” Emma said, appearing in the doorway again. “You thought this would turn into a chick flick where we bond as sisters and discover we have all these things in common and we root for each other and marry brothers and raise each other’s children. But that’s not happening, Libby.” She disappeared into the other room again.

  Libby looked so wounded by what Emma had said that Madeline couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. “Libby, I’m sorry… but I don’t… I don’t think this is for me,” she said honestly. “I don’t know why a father I never knew left me anything. My hope was that we could wrap this up as soon as possible.”

  “Wow,” Libby said, her effervescent smile gone. “You just met us. Can you take a moment to decide if you want to know us? Have you considered why Dad left us this place? Maybe it was his way of reaching out, of giving you sisters, Madeline. Of giving me a purpose. Of giving Emma…” she trailed off.

  Emma appeared at the door again. “Go on, Libby. Give Emma what?”

  Libby frowned and looked away from Emma, declining to answer.

  Madeline’s head was pounding. This was not going well at all—she’d never guessed they would want to somehow make this forced partnership work.

  “Here’s what I think, if anyone is interested,” Emma said, and pointed at Madeline. “I don’t care if we are friends.” She cocked a brow, almost daring Madeline to challenge it, knowing that she wouldn’t. “And I’m going back to L.A. in a couple of days.”

  “But we need to make some decisions,” Madeline said.

  “I don’t.” Emma disappeared into the kitchen again.

  Emma, Madeline thought, was a bitch. And Libby was too… eager. But of the three of them, Madeline was the one who had no real business here at all, no ties, no feelings, no history, not like these two apparently had. She wanted only to do what had to be done and leave before Grant could mess up her life any more than he already had. He could have left everything to Libby and Emma, and Madeline would never have known, would never have been the wiser.

  “Then go,” Libby called out to Emma, her feelings clearly hurt. “How stupid of me to think that maybe three sisters could make something of this place. Together.”

  Madeline felt awful. She hadn’t come here to hurt anyone’s feelings. �
��I’m sorry, Libby. I am. But I don’t know how we can be… partners,” she said, discovering that she couldn’t even say sisters. “We don’t know one another. Grant must have known it would be a difficult situation for us, so I don’t know why he left it to us like this.”

  “There is nothing here!” Emma shouted, and that was followed by the banging of a cabinet door. “Nothing!”

  “Because he was our father,” Libby said. “Isn’t that what parents do? Don’t they leave their worldly possessions to their children? And besides, he couldn’t sell it, not with the contract.”

  “The what?” Madeline asked.

  “What contract?” Emma asked, appearing again with a glass of water.

  “Jackson didn’t tell you? There’s a contract Dad’s heirs must honor, and we can’t do anything before we meet the terms of it.”

  Madeline’s pulse began to quicken. If she’d come all this way to find out it was even more complicated and impossible…

  “The Johnson family reunion,” Libby said, enunciating a little more than was necessary, looking at them both. “The contract has been signed. The deposits have been paid and applied to the event. Two hundred Johnsons are going to show up in a matter of days and they are expecting one long weekend of happy family reunion, and we have to honor that commitment.”

  For some reason, Emma actually laughed. “Well if that’s not the topper on the cake.”

  Madeline thought she might pass out. She preferred to know what to expect, and she did not expect a family reunion. “I don’t understand,” she said, and rubbed her temples against the pounding in her head.

  “I can’t believe Jackson didn’t tell you. It was Mr. Kendrick’s idea, a way to make some money. He and Dad were setting this ranch up to host family reunions. The family will camp here, and they will use the kitchen, and the showers in the bunkhouse, and they will do all the things that make Pine River so attractive in the summer, only on private property with private guides. That’s why the Port-A-Johns.”