by Cora Seton
“Besides, she’s an awful influence,” Maya agreed. “Look at you. You never fight.”
“Maybe he should try it more often,” Liam said, clapping Noah on the back. “He’s good at it. Should have seen the way he beat down those Cooper bastards.”
“Fuck off.” Noah shoved his brother away just as Jed came into the room.
“What’s all this racket?”
“Noah’s got the hots for Olivia Cooper.” Maya sat down on the couch. Stella joined her.
Jed scowled. “Wish I could say I didn’t believe it. But I wouldn’t put it past you. Always were a shifty one.”
Liam narrowed his eyes at Noah. “Jed’s right. Can’t help but wonder how much you’re actually working that parole officer job and how much time you’ve been sneaking off to see Olivia.”
“I haven’t—”
“Look at you!” Jed interrupted him. “Those Coopers really beat you down, didn’t they? Thought I raised you to fight better than that.”
“You didn’t raise us,” Noah snapped. He wasn’t going to sit here and take all this. Jed was part of the problem. “Dad did, and he didn’t teach us to fight. He raised us to help people, not hurt them. The Coopers haven’t done squat to us.”
“They were the ones who started that brawl,” Liam argued. He was still standing up, pacing back and forth.
“We chose to fight back. There wouldn’t have been a brawl if we’d just left.” Noah wasn’t sure that was true, but he wasn’t going to give Liam an inch right now.
“Olivia tried to steal our clock!” Maya put in.
“Because she thinks it’s hers. Hell, the only reason the Coopers care about the clock is because of the way we rub their noses in it, and honestly, I think the only reason we care about the clock is so we can lord it over the Coopers. When was the last time anyone set the damn thing? It’s been stopped for as long as I can remember. If it wasn’t for the feud, that clock would probably be rotting in the attic by now.”
“What about the school?” Jed demanded. “We’re the ones who built it, and now they’re trying to take all the glory away from us.”
“No matter how they upgrade it, they can’t change the fact we built it in the first place,” Noah pointed out. “We set the bedrock, and the Coopers are adding to it. Maybe they can’t build something from the ground up like we did, but we couldn’t either right now. If our families worked together, who knew what we could accomplish.”
He caught Stella nodding thoughtfully, but the rest of his family exploded.
“Are you crazy?” Liam asked.
“Did Olivia brainwash you?” Maya exclaimed.
“She’s leading you around by the apron strings already,” Jed said darkly.
“Look, I’m not saying we have to work with the Coopers. It’s like Cab said, we don’t even have to like the Coopers. All we have to do is stay out of their way. We can’t tear apart this town for our own stupid vendetta.”
No one looked convinced.
“What about you? Did you learn your lesson?” Jed challenged him. “You going to leave that Cooper girl alone from now on?”
“That’s none of your business.” And just like that he lost the room again.
Liam crossed over to confront him. “It is our business. Olivia can bring us all down by going through you.”
“He’s right,” Jed said solemnly. For once he didn’t sound angry or spiteful, and Noah was surprised by the faraway look in his eyes. “Maybe you think you can change her, boy, but you can’t. Coopers are trouble. Always have been, always will be.”
“Know what?” Noah stood. “That’s baloney. The Coopers never had a bad reputation in this town until the Turners gave them one.”
“You know Virginia will kill you if she finds out you were with Noah,” Lance hissed at Olivia as they slipped in the front door of the main house at Thorn Hill.
Olivia only shrugged, continuing to press a Ziploc bag of ice she’d gotten from the bartender to her nose. Lance had been like this the whole way back from town. She’d hoped his fury might fade during the long drive, but if anything he’d only worked himself up even more. Steel, as usual, had kept quiet, but Olivia thought he was pissed, too.
When they reached home, Olivia hopped out, hoping to escape to her room, but inside Lance confronted her again.
“Why are all the Cooper women like this? Betraying the family when it suits you, cutting and running at the first opportunity. I guess you and Tory can’t help being messed up with the example Mom set for you.”
“Lance!”
“It’s true.”
Olivia got in his face. “Don’t you dare talk about Mom that way. She did her best.”
“Her best wasn’t very good, was it? Your best ain’t all that hot, either. You’re the reason she left in the first place, after all.”
Olivia shoved him, dropping the bag of ice on the floor.
He shoved her back.
Steel got between them. “That’s enough. Go to bed, both of you.”
“Gladly.” Olivia scooped up the bag of ice and headed for the stairs.
“We aren’t done talking about this,” Lance yelled after her.
“Yes, we are,” she called back over her shoulder.
As she lay in bed that night, though, she found it impossible to get comfortable, her thoughts buzzing like flies in her brain. It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t started this conflict. Neither had Noah. They weren’t to blame for what their ancestors had done, so why did they have to pay the price?
The trouble was, she was dependent on her family—and this ranch—for everything, which made it impossible to get away from the feud—or to influence how it went. Oliva sat up, scooted closer to the headboard and plumped her pillows behind her. She’d always wanted to base her life around her home and family. But she’d never realized before how that tied her hands. Lance and Steel were the ones who really ran the ranch. She only helped on the periphery. That gave her little standing when it came to making decisions. Was that why she was attracted to Noah? Was she going through her own rebellious phase?
She knew one thing for sure: she wanted to feel proud of herself when she looked in the mirror.
How long had it been since that was the case?
Olivia thought back—and back—and back. Probably not since she was a little girl, unaware of her father’s brushes with the law and her mother’s discontentment with her lot. Before everyone else’s actions had crushed the pride out of her. Before her own actions had ruined everything.
Olivia stopped the familiar train of thought and rewound. It hadn’t occurred to her before that while she’d inadvertently led the sheriff to her father’s hunting cabin years ago, she’d already been suffering the consequences of other people’s actions. She’d gone to report the field of marijuana plants because she’d been afraid her own family would be blamed—because her father tended to do things that were against the law.
That was his fault; not hers.
She thought back over her early years. There’d been so many unspoken rules in her house about what you could share with outsiders and what you couldn’t. So many secrets and lies. So many arguments. The feeling—
The feeling it was the Coopers against the world.
That feeling had run her life, Olivia realized.
It was still running her life.
Pretty soon it would stop her from being with Noah. Was she willing to sacrifice her happiness to uphold her family’s beliefs?
What was the alternative?
Independence, Olivia realized. The ability to really feel she could make good decisions for herself and carry them through, no matter what the rest of her family thought.
Suddenly she understood her mother and Tory in a way she never had before. It wasn’t that they’d left in order to hurt her; they’d left in order to break free of the prison of being a Cooper.
Could she blame them?
Should she leave, too?
She drew her knees to her
chest and wrapped her arms around them, wondering what it would be like to be free of all of this. She would be able to make decisions without worrying what everyone else thought. Work, school, life—all of it could be sorted out in a jiffy. She’d have so much more energy for the things she wanted to do.
Leaving Thorn Hill—and Chance Creek—felt like a betrayal, though. Not just of her family, but of herself. This was where she pictured herself when she thought about the life she wanted to live.
Did she have to leave to be free of the past?
It would certainly make things easier, she mused, but that didn’t mean it was impossible to stay and still make changes.
Mostly, she needed to change her mind.
Olivia got up and paced the room. She had to stop drifting along. She needed to make a few simple decisions and then stick to her guns about them. If she wanted independence, she needed a job, which meant she needed something on her résumé to prove she deserved to be hired.
Why not start by volunteering at the library? She could work there every chance she got, rack up some hours and earn a reference from Marta, who’d be happy to help her get back on her feet. At the same time, she’d figure out what she really wanted to be and what steps she’d need to make to accomplish that.
She’d make a real plan. Become her own woman. On her way, she’d learn to make enough money to help make Thorn Hill a going concern again. That would take the pressure off Lance, and maybe he’d settle down. Meanwhile, she’d do what she could to fix up their home. Take a page from the Halls’ book and keep the place tidier. Plant some flowers out front, maybe.
She’d spent far too much time feeling like a victim and waiting for someone else to fix her problems. That stopped right now. She was ready to solve them herself.
Olivia woke the next morning filled with determination. Her nose was still a little tender, but not too bad, and the bruising around it was barely noticeable. She took her coffee outside and, when she was done, left her cup on the back porch while she went for a walk to clear her mind. She stopped by the banks of Pittance Creek, lost in thought until a noise penetrated her concentration.
No, not a noise—
A lack of one.
Usually the water in Pittance Creek burbled and chuckled over its rocky bed.
Now all she heard was the quiet ripple of water.
The creek—
Olivia stared in shock. She’d never seen the water running this low.
“It’s pretty bad.” Lance came up beside her. “We’re not getting near enough water in the channel.”
Which meant they’d need to bring in water for the cattle, who usually drank from a channel that forked off from Pittance Creek. Which would put more load on their well. “That’s not good.”
“Not good at all.” Lance surveyed the creek. “Bet the Turners are diverting plenty.”
Both families had dug side channels decades ago to divert water for their needs, the Coopers to water their stock, the Turners to irrigate their fields. Fences prevented the animals at Thorn Hill from walking right down to the main branch of the creek and fouling it. That ensured that Pittance Creek remained a healthy waterway, supported fish stock and didn’t erode. Cattle could do a number on a creek bed.
The Turners’ irrigation channel started upstream from the Coopers’ channel.
“You think they’re taking more than their share?”
“Come and see.”
Fifteen minutes later, they stood across from the opening to the Turners’ channel. Lance was right; plenty of water fed into it, but Olivia didn’t think that was because of some nefarious action Noah’s family had taken. The way the creek ran and the positioning of the opening of their channel looked exactly the same as it always did. It was a quirk of the creek bed here that kept the smaller waterway full, while the water level in their own channel was dwindling.
“We’ve got to fix this,” Lance said.
“What do you mean?”
“We can shift that rock and dig a little there.” He pointed, and Olivia’s stomach sank.
“Divert their flow? How is that going to help us?”
“Less for them means more for us.”
“It’s not their fault our channel isn’t deep enough; that’s what we need to fix.”
“What we need to fix is the Turners always getting in our way.”
“How are they getting in our way?” she demanded.
“Come on, I don’t need to explain this to you. You’re a Cooper.” He stalked off back toward the barn. Olivia followed him.
“We need to dig our own channel deeper,” she said again. “Let’s get the tractor.”
“Tractor’s busted. Everything’s busted around here. Every time we start to dig ourselves out of trouble, the goddamn walls cave in again! We can’t catch a fucking break!”
Lance’s outburst slowed her steps to a halt, and she watched her brother keep striding away. She hadn’t realized Lance’s anger was so tied to the health of the ranch. She gazed around her and took in the brownish cast to the land, the desiccated pastures and the dust devils whipping in the light breeze.
There was a lot of summer ahead of them, and while she’d been buried in her private worries, Lance had borne the brunt of the concerns about the ranch.
She hurried to catch up with him again. “What would Steel say to do?”
Lance shrugged and increased the pace. “Ask him—if you can find him. He’s never around when I need him these days.” He kept walking, and Olivia kept following, but with every step she felt she was moving farther away from the future she wanted.
This summer could break her family.
Was she really going to turn her back on them just when things got really tough?
He hadn’t heard a peep from Olivia. Hadn’t dared to text or call her yet. Noah was going crazy trying to figure out what to do next. There wasn’t much he could do for the next couple of hours, he thought as he followed Maya into the Chance Creek Reformed Church. He probably wouldn’t see her here.
He’d come because he and his family needed to shore up their image, which he was afraid his behavior—and Liam’s—had damaged fighting at the Dancing Boot. It hadn’t been difficult to convince Stella and Maya to come along, but Liam had refused to fall in line with the idea. He said he had nothing to be ashamed of and was far too busy to take time out to listen to a sermon. Noah thought he was making a mistake, but he let it go; he couldn’t force his brother to come along. Jed acquiesced as if going to church was a weekly event for him, although it had been some time since that was the case. As they entered the building, he led the way.
Noah took his place in a pew near the front beside Jed and his sisters, and tried to remember when his attendance at church had been more regular. He supposed that was years ago. Recently he was lucky to make it once a month. He’d become sloppy about it, the way he’d become sloppy about a lot of things, and that made him more like his uncle than he cared to admit. It embarrassed Noah to realize he’d begun to think he deserved people’s respect simply because he was a Turner, not because he was doing anything worthy of it.
It was time to change his ways, starting with more regular attendance here on Sundays and more participation in the rest of civic life in Chance Creek.
That decision made, Noah sighed as he took in the plain white walls and high ceiling of the church. He’d always liked its peaceful simplicity. A man could think here. Clear his head. Find a better path. Looking around, he noted the Coopers were conspicuous by their absence. But the small church was full, and people were definitely noticing his family.
He faced front again. He had to admit he’d hoped for a glimpse of Olivia. He couldn’t believe they’d come so close to being together—and how their evening had ended instead.
But that was life, wasn’t it? You fought for what you wanted, but you didn’t always get it.
When Reverend Joe Halpern ascended to the lectern, Noah was still thinking about Olivia, wondering what it
would be like to stand up before the preacher to marry her.
Was that even possible in a world where Turners and Coopers hated each other?
He didn’t know. Besides, it was way too soon to think about marriage.
Noah couldn’t lie to himself, though; he was thinking about it. He’d always been a man who wanted to share his life with a partner—a woman who’d help him bring the Flying W back to its glory. If you took away the Turner–Cooper feud, Olivia fit the bill. She worked hard. Loved Chance Creek. And even if they hadn’t talked about it, he was sure she had ambition. She certainly had grit and intelligence. All qualities that made her compatible with him.
Reverend Halpern braced his hands on either side of the lectern and swept his gaze across the congregation.
“Forgiveness,” he boomed suddenly. Noah straightened his spine, and he noticed everyone else sat up, too. Halpern usually wasn’t so direct.
“That’s what we’re going to talk about today. When was the last time you forgave someone? Truly forgave them, not just gave lip service to the idea?”
Noah shot a look Jed’s way. His uncle’s baleful expression told him forgiveness was the last thing on his mind. Beside him, Maya sighed, not in a sympathetic way, but in a fashion that told him she wasn’t interested in forgiveness either. Only Stella was nodding.
“You are responsible for your actions. No matter what anyone else does, no matter what feelings you experience in response to it, you are the one in control of your body—and your thoughts.” Halpern waited to see if everyone was listening. “If you think angry thoughts, you have decided to think angry thoughts. If you think about revenge, it’s because you’ve decided to be vengeful. There is always another alternative.”
Noah glanced at Jed again. His uncle had leaned forward and was glaring across the aisle—
At Virginia, Noah realized with a shock. He hadn’t seen her enter the building. She was alone—
And she was glaring right back at Jed.
“Remember that pride goeth before a fall,” Halpern continued.