Homecoming Ranch

by Julia London

  “Yes, I am! Because I am really, really angry right now!” Madeline sat down on a stool, braced her hands against her knees. “You can’t just leave people hanging,” she said, her voice a little softer. She was short of breath, her heart beating with frustration and the feeling that things were spiraling out of control already.

  “I don’t disagree with you,” Libby said as she began to mop the kitchen floor. “But one thing is certain—the Johnsons are coming. With or without us, the Johnsons are coming. So I am going to help Jackson get ready for that. You can help too, if you want. Whatever you want to do.”

  “What I want is to settle this and go home,” Madeline muttered.

  Libby paused and looked directly at her. “Nothing is keeping you from going back to your life, Madeline. You can leave now, like everyone else.”

  Madeline was shocked. She’d come all this way, and for what? She tried to read Libby. Why was this all okay with her? “Don’t you need to get back to your life?”

  Libby’s smile faded. She turned around and resumed mopping. With a vengeance.

  “You have a job, right?” Madeline asked.

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize.”

  “I know, because you didn’t bother to ask anything of us yesterday. If you had, I would have told you that I left my job.”

  “That’s not fair,” Madeline said. “I’d just flown in from Orlando. It’s all been a little overwhelming, to be honest.”

  “Yes. For all of us,” Libby agreed. “But at least we tried to get to know you. You just weren’t very receptive.”

  When Libby put it like that, it sounded so rude. “I didn’t—I wasn’t…” Madeline stopped. Any excuse she offered would be seen as that—an excuse. Madeline felt tired all of a sudden, and slumped on the barstool, her chin propped on her fist. “You quit your job yesterday?”

  “Umm…” Libby seemed to hesitate. “No, I left it a few weeks ago. When Jackson told me I had inherited Homecoming Ranch, I decided this would be my job.” She stopped mopping and brushed a stray ringlet from her brow.

  “What job did you leave?” Madeline asked.

  “I was a clerk in the sheriff’s office. I went to work there right out of high school. A very long time ago,” she said, and stabbed the mop into the bucket again.

  To quit a job without another one lined up, for something entirely uncertain, was so far out of Madeline’s world she could not even grasp it.

  “My dad left me a ranch,” Libby said. “And I intend to make something of it.” She started to mop again. “If you don’t want to do that, I totally understand. But I do.”

  “So that’s it?” Madeline demanded. “You stay, Emma takes off without a word, and I do what, pretend I never heard of Homecoming Ranch?”

  “If that’s what you want. Look, Madeline, it seems pretty simple to me,” Libby said, and paused, stacking her hands on top of the handle. “We are committed to the Johnson family reunion. You can stay and help with that, or you can go home. It’s totally up to you. I really do understand where you’re coming from, so go back to Orlando if that’s what you need to do. No one is going to think any less of you.”

  So why then did Libby sound a little accusatory? “I’m not trying to ditch you, Libby,” Madeline insisted.

  “I didn’t say that. It’s just that…” She paused and looked at the window. “I have a different perspective. I’ve had a different life than you. This place,” she said, looking around at the fading wallpaper and the decades of grime, “means something to me. It feels like a place where I could make a difference.”

  “By hosting reunions?” Madeline asked skeptically.

  Libby’s face darkened. “By doing something for me. I don’t expect you to understand. But I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet.”

  Okay. All right. Libby was not budging. Madeline watched Libby resume her work and debated what she should do. She could go, as every fiber in her body was screaming at her to do. Just go now, leave this absurdity. But if she left, that would leave Libby to deal with everything. That would mean Libby would scrub floors without anyone but Jackson Crane to help her.

  Madeline stared at the wall, breathing deeply to quiet her heart, trying to decide what it was she should do.

  “Hand me the paper towels?” Libby asked.

  Madeline sighed. She searched the bags until she found them and handed them to Libby. “Okay,” she said, and shrugged out of her jacket. She unbuttoned the sleeves of her shirt, and rolled them up. “I give in. What can I do?”

  Libby eyed Madeline skeptically. “Are you sure?”

  “Come on, before I change my mind,” Madeline said impatiently.

  “You’re not exactly dressed for it,” Libby pointed out. “Can you put on some jeans first?”

  “I don’t have jeans.”

  “You don’t have jeans?”

  “I have jeans. I don’t have them here. I only flew in to—” Madeline stopped. “I don’t have jeans,” she said flatly.

  “Well…” Libby glanced around, clearly flummoxed by the lack of jeans for Madeline. “You could dust the blinds and the baseboards if you don’t mind a little dust.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  Libby put her mop aside to dig into one of the Walmart sacks. She withdrew a stack of towels held together by a paper sleeve. She pulled one towel out and tossed it at Madeline. “There’s some furniture polish in the garage. I can get it if you are worried about the dogs—”

  “I’m not worried about the dogs,” Madeline said pertly. “I’ll get it.” She walked out of the kitchen, very worried about the dogs.

  THIRTEEN

  Luke noticed that it looked like rain was coming in from the east as he drove up to the ranch house. He pulled into the carport, opened the door of his Bronco and stepped out, and heard a bloodcurdling scream from the garage. It scared the life out of him—he bolted inside, expecting to find body parts or something just as heinous.

  What he found was Madeline, her back against the wall of the garage, wedged in behind the rototiller, the mowing tractor, and several boxes of old tools Luke had once meant to take into Goodwill. He looked wildly about for the intruder or bear or whatever had prompted such a piercing scream. “It’s there!” Madeline shrieked, pointing across the garage to some shelves.

  Roscoe, the beagle, had his nose in the corner. Reggie and Rufus, the littermates, were lying in the middle of the garage absently looking about, as usual. And Reba, his mother’s little terrier, was behind Roscoe, barking fiercely.

  Luke started for the corner.

  “No, wait!” Madeline shouted. “It’s huge! Don’t get too close!”

  What was it, a bear cub? Luke didn’t like to think that, for where there was a bear cub, there was a mama bear close behind. But it seemed a little early in the season for cubs. He stepped over the dogs, moved some old paint cans aside, then a box of his mother’s Tupperware. A rat darted past him, to a hole in the siding, and out of the garage. Roscoe—by far the smartest of the canine pack—raced out the open garage door after it. Reba stayed behind to examine the hole with her nose.

  Luke put the box down and turned around. Madeline’s arms were splayed against the wall, her hair had something that looked like a cobweb in it, and she looked terrified. “It’s okay,” he said. “It was just a rat.”

  “A what?” she shrieked, and somehow managed to press herself even flatter against the wall with such a gasp that Reggie’s tail began to wag.

  Luke held up both hands. “Take a breath,” he said, and Madeline tried to do that. “Take another one. Put your hands on your knees and bend over and catch your breath. And calm down—it was just a rat.”

  “Just a rat?” she said as she bent over. “What do you mean, just a rat! That was no rat, Luke! It was the size of a cat! Where is it? Where did it go?”

  “Outside. You’re safe. He wasn’t going to bother you—you’re a lot bigger than he is.”

&nb
sp; “That,” she said between two gulps of breath, “does not make me feel better.” She made a strange sound, a sort of choking sound. Luke took a step forward. She made the sound again, then slowly straightened, her chest rising and falling with each anxious breath for a long moment. She wasn’t choking. She was trying not to laugh. “I almost died.”

  Luke smiled. “I’m pretty sure you would have survived it.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she said, and pushed her hair back. She looked down at the rototiller in front of her, the box of tools beside her. He could picture her leaping through the air to put herself there when she’d seen the rat, and he couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “What?” she demanded, still smiling.

  “How’d you get back there?” he asked as he offered his hand to help her over the boxes of tools.

  “I don’t know,” she said, and slipped her hand into his. “I was airborne, that’s all I know.” She looked around—but there was no easy way out.

  “Step up on that box,” he said, pointing to a toolbox. “I’ll help you.”

  She did as he said, teetering on the unstable box before he caught her by the waist and swung her down. She landed awkwardly, brushing against him. Everything seemed to freeze around Luke when her body touched his—nothing moved. Not him, not Madeline. Her eyes were on his, her hands gripping his arms. Tight. Something rushed through Luke’s blood. He couldn’t help himself—he brushed a strand of hair away from her face.

  Madeline drew a long breath; her grip seemed to tighten. She stared up at him, her blue eyes glistening in the low light of the garage. “Thanks for saving me,” she said, her gaze flicking to his mouth, making the blood rush faster in his veins.

  “You’re welcome.” He looked at her full, lush lips.

  “But I’m still mad at you,” she said softly.

  “I know,” he said. “But I swear I wasn’t setting you up. That was never my intent. It just came up.” Her hair fell again, and he pushed it away once more, his fingers brushing against her temple.

  Madeline lifted her gaze to his again, her eyes narrowing slightly as she peered at him. “I don’t know if I believe you,” she said uncertainly.

  “Fair enough,” he said.

  “Mmm,” she said, and let go of his arms.

  Luke reluctantly let his hand drop from her waist. “What are you doing in here, anyway?” he asked.

  “I came to get some furniture polish. But the only thing I found was a freakishly monster rodent.” She ran her hands down her pants then glanced up at him. “What are you doing here?”

  “I heard someone screaming.”

  She smiled a little lopsidedly. “I mean here. Again. Showing up where I am.”

  “Well, today I am here to check on the cattle.”

  She laughed. “Nice try. I haven’t seen any cows.”

  “That’s because they’re about a half mile up from here. Our ranch hand is in Albuquerque right now, and someone needs to look in on them.” He couldn’t help himself; he took in her messed hair, her dirty shirt and pants, and her heels, and chuckled again.

  “Okay,” she said, folding her arms. “What’s so funny now?”

  “You are. You’re a wreck.”

  She looked down at herself and smiled sheepishly. “Well, I didn’t get the memo that today was cleaning day.” She glanced up at him; there was a soft flush in her cheeks. “Nothing goes according to plan around here.”

  “That’s the mountains for you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, the mountains,” she said with dubious playfulness. She moved away from him, brushing off her pants. She paused next to a box of things on the hood of his mother’s Pontiac. The box looked new in that it was not covered with the grime of car parts or dust. There were some picture frames peeking out the top. Madeline leaned over and peered in. So did Luke. The box held bathroom items, like a flat iron, bottles of shampoo, soap, and tampons. But no furniture polish.

  Madeline removed one of the pictures from the box and squinted at it. “Is that Libby?”

  Luke glanced at the framed photo. It was Libby all right, around the age of twelve or so. She was standing on an oval hooked rug, and on the wall behind her, he could see someone’s baby pictures. “That’s her.”

  “Who is she with?” Madeline asked, and Luke looked a little closer at the man sitting in the easy chair behind her, smiling up at her. He’d only met Grant Tyler a couple of times, but he would know him anywhere. He was a striking man—tall, black haired, and blue-eyed. The photo was a bad one—a grainy resolution, faded colors. But that was Grant Tyler, smiling charmingly at his daughter. “That’s Grant,” he said.

  He could feel the tension suddenly radiating off of Madeline. When he looked at her, he saw the color had bled from her face, and Luke suddenly realized what had happened. “Madeline… haven’t you ever seen a picture of him?”

  She shook her head, her gaze locked on the picture. “Where was this taken?”

  “I couldn’t tell you,” he said apologetically.

  She stared at the picture. “They look happy, don’t they?” She returned the picture to the box. But she could not seem to take her eyes from the ghost of the man she never knew.

  Luke wondered what that must be like, to be an adult and see a photo of a father for the first time. He felt for her, more than he wanted to feel. He should keep his distance from her, keep his head clear until the issue of the ranch was resolved, but he was having a lot of trouble doing that, obviously, and especially when he saw such vulnerability in her. He thought of what she’d said of her father last night, could see the look of bewilderment on her face now. It was heartwrenching.

  He felt a sudden need to remove them both from this garage, from the box of Libby’s things, from that picture of her father, and away from his mother’s car. “Come on,” he said suddenly, grasping at something, anything, to take them from this garage. “Let’s go check on some cows.”

  Madeline lifted blue, shining eyes to his. “How do you check on cows?”

  “We drive or ride up the mountains to find them and check on them.”

  She frowned at him. “I don’t know how to ride. And besides that, I really am still mad at you—the saving my life part notwithstanding,” she said, waving toward the wall.

  He smiled.

  “Don’t smile,” she warned him. “I don’t trust you, either.”

  His smile only widened. “I know that, too. Come on. It will be fun.” He moved toward the open garage door, hoping she would follow.

  “I think this is a bad idea,” she said. But followed him.

  So did the dogs.

  FOURTEEN

  Madeline let it be known she was not thrilled that the dogs would be riding in the back of the Bronco, especially since the four of them insisted on hanging their heads over the front console next to her head. But she seemed to quickly forget them when Luke started up the bumpy road.

  The Bronco still rocked the old logging roads. Luke didn’t hold back, either—when it came to the mountains, he was still a kid. Madeline held on with one hand pressed against the dash, the other clenching the overhead grip, and made little squeals of alarm when they hit a big hole or rock.

  Halfway up, they encountered a tree that had fallen across the old logging road.

  Madeline said, “Oh, well. I guess we need to go back.”

  “Oh ye of little faith,” Luke said. He got out, grabbed his dad’s old chainsaw, and demolished the section of the tree that covered the road. He returned to the driver’s seat with a good sweat and a smile.

  “Wow,” Madeline said, a little wide-eyed. “That was impressive.”

  He winked at her. “Hang on,” he said.

  They bounced up through ruts and over rocks, taking washed-out corners too close, until they reached ten thousand feet, where a dozen cows steadily mowed their way across a meadow toward snow that had yet to melt in the shadows on the north side of the next rise.

  Luke stopped in the middle of the mead
ow, got out, and opened the back hatch for the dogs. They raced off into the trees.

  Madeline walked away from the Bronco and slowly turned in a circle. “It’s amazing,” she said, taking in the views. “You can see for miles and miles.”

  Luke looked around at the white-tipped blue peaks, the dark clouds building in the east.

  “It’s so vast and so quiet,” she said, her voice full of awe.

  “Yeah, I love it up here,” Luke said. “In the winter, you can hear the snow fall.”

  “I can’t imagine what that is like, hearing snow fall,” she said dreamily.

  She turned around to him, her eyes shining with pleasure—until she noticed the cows lumbering toward them. Madeline started for the truck, but Luke caught her arm. “They think there is something for them in the truck. They’re going to walk right past you,” he said, and watched as the cows didn’t spare Madeline a glance as they meandered by. Finding nothing in the Bronco, they moved on, into the forest, probably sensing the rain moving in.

  And indeed, the wind was picking up; it lifted the end of Madeline’s hair. She wrapped her arms tightly around her, shivering a little as the clouds overhead cast shadows across her face. From the first time Luke had seen her on Sometimes Pass, she seemed to get prettier every time he ran into her. Up here, with her hair loose around her, she seemed almost too pretty, the sort of pretty that made a man look again and again, as if he hadn’t seen it all the first time.

  She was looking around the meadow, but when she turned, her gaze happened to land on Luke. They stood looking at each other for a moment, and Luke could feel something flowing between and around them. It was a little unexpected, a little unnerving, and completely exhilarating.

  “Want to see something?” he asked.

  “Sure!”

  He pointed to the trees, and Madeline walked, picking her way in her clumsy shoes, across the meadow. At the tree line, she paused, and Luke stepped up behind her, leaned down so that his head was on the same level as hers, and put his hands on her shoulders, directing her attention to a stand of aspens. “Do you see it?”