“So,” he murmured, moving his fingers down her arm, “you’re focused on children and helping them? Is that where your heart is at?”
She gave him a sad look. “I’ve taken a lot of lives, Gabe. Now? Maybe because of my age or maturity I want to do something positive, something hopeful and healing for our children. Every man I killed had been a little boy at some point. I often wondered what his story was: Was he poor? Starving? Had no way to make a living other than enter crime? Children have always been a priority in my life. My mother has done much to help the poor and starving people of my country. She has created many avenues to help children be educated, especially little girls. I grew up with it and as I got to be older, around twelve, I saw how rich and well off I was compared to those who lived in the cities. My mother often took me on trips around the country with her so that I could see the poverty, the terrible living conditions these children grew up in. I thought everyone had a bed like mine, but I was never so wrong. These kids slept on hard-packed dirt floors with a rug wrapped around them. That was their bed.”
“I saw it all the time when I was undercover,” he said, frowning. “It hurts to see it. I wanted to do something, but couldn’t.”
“Well, maybe we can, now. At some point, my mother will be old and need more care and attention. Maybe I can talk her into allowing our estancia to become a beacon of hope for children in my country.”
“Maybe she could come and live up here with us at some point?”
“I’d like that, but that’s a few decades off. I’m not sure my mother would like eight months of snow and cold.”
“Maybe Florida then, eh?” he teased.
Laughing, Anna nodded. “I think we could talk my mother into that. We could always have her stay with us during the summers. That’s three months. And then she could fly back to Florida for the rest of the year.”
“We could visit her every other Christmas or other major holidays and spend the other half here with my parents?”
“That works for me. My mother has missed me so much, so our ideas will sound like heaven to her. At the right time, I’ll call her and start the conversation, find out what she would like.”
He sat up, arranged the pillows, and leaned against the headboard. “Come here,” he urged, pulling Anna into his arms, settling her across his lap.
“Mmmm, this is nice,” she murmured, sliding her arm around his shoulder and neck, brow against his jaw. “I like being in love with you, Cowboy.”
Chuckling, he kissed her hair and moved his hand against her hip, holding her close to him. “So do I. My dreams never matched this reality. I like this one even more.”
“So?” she said, leaning back, holding his gaze. “Are we going to set a date to get married? My mother would never accept us living together. She’s very old-fashioned. I feel your parents believe similarly?”
“Yes, they do.” He kissed her brow. “Want to go down to the local jewelry store sometime later this afternoon? Choose something you like for a wedding ring set?”
“And you will put the engagement ring on my finger?” She watched him grin, his eyes alight and shining with love for her. Heart swelling, she savored this precious moment. Never had she dreamed of getting married, much less like this! Life was full of surprises, and sometimes, they were wonderful ones, just like this moment. “Well?” she prodded archly.
Laughing, he hugged her tightly, holding her, just holding her.
“That’s a yes,” she said, kissing his corded neck, her arms around his shoulders.
“Yes,” he said roughly, laughter in his voice.
“Then,” she said, scooting off his lap and bed, standing and facing him, “let’s do this. Help me make a big breakfast. I’m starving! And I’ll bet Ace is hungry, too! We’ll make him some eggs and bacon. He’ll love it.”
* * *
It was seven P.M. and they had just sat down with Maud and Steve at the dinner table at the ranch. Gabe sat next to Anna, Maud and Steve at the ends of it. Ace was sitting in the living room. Sally brought out beef stroganoff, buttered green beans, and garlic and Parmesan French bread browned from the oven. For tonight’s dinner, there was a glass of red wine for each of them. Maud thanked Sally and she got ready to leave for the evening.
“I don’t know what we’d do without Sally,” Maud admitted, digging into the tender beef smothered with a light brown sauce that was fragrant with rosemary.
Gabe nodded. “She’s a gem. A part of our family. She helped raise us.”
“That she did,” Steve volunteered, using the bread to soak up some of the delicious sauce. “Mom number two, for sure.”
“While we eat,” Gabe suggested, “we’d like to tell you all that’s happened today.”
“I can hardly wait!” Maud confessed.
“Go for it,” Steve invited, smiling.
Gabe launched into the DEA part and he saw his parents’ faces sag with relief that he had resigned. Anna then told them their idea of working at the ranch, learning the ropes of ranching from them. Again, he saw delight in their expressions, almost shock. Why?
“How do you feel about this?” Gabe asked his parents. “Do you think we’re up to it? Learning the business of ranching?”
“Oh,” Maud gushed, “of course we are, honey! I guess I am in serious shock that you wanted to do it, was all. We thought the four of you would fly to the four winds as adults. Steve and I never expected any of you to take over the ranch.”
“But we want to,” Anna said, “with your blessing and help.”
“You have our blessing, believe me,” Steve said, serious. “I’ve been gone a lot and Maud has handled this primarily by herself. We’re older now. I’m no longer traveling as much, but the ranch still falls squarely on her shoulders. I’d like to see that pressure and stress taken off her. She has other ideas, other dreams she’d like to tend to and if you two want to handle the ranch, that would be a godsend and a blessing.”
Maud became emotional. “For so long, I had hoped one of our children would WANT to become the next owners of our ranch. You have no idea how many times I cried about this to Steve. We wanted to leave it in family hands, but it looked like all of our children were very happy in their careers. We couldn’t ask any of you to come back here and work hard to keep this ranch flourishing, to keep it the hub of the Wind River Valley.” She sniffed and pulled out a tissue from her pocket, daubing her eyes, giving them a look of apology. “This is a dream come true for me . . . for us. I’ve loved every minute of being out West. My spirit wanted to be here even though I was born back on the East Coast.” She gave Steve a look of pure love. “And when this cowboy walked into Princeton proudly wearing his black Stetson and wrangler outfit, upending the tradition of wearing a blazer, tie, and pants at that university? I fell in love with him. And I’m still in love with him to this day.”
Anna gave her a wobbly smile. “That’s so beautiful,” she said, and she looked up at Gabe. “That’s what we want, too. I know marriages nowadays are throwaways within five years.”
“Or, people just live together and never marry,” Steve said, regret in his tone.
“Anna and I want to get married,” Gabe said. “You want to tell them we’ve settled on a date?”
Smiling, Anna said, “Gabe proposed to me on the way this afternoon to the jewelry store. All I wanted was a plain gold wedding band, something that wouldn’t get hooked on something and the diamond pulled out of its setting.” She held out her hand toward Maud so she could see it.
“That’s so wise of you,” Maud said, holding her hand and noticing the band had tiny leaves with a stem connecting each one etched in it. “It’s beautiful and functional.”
“I really liked it,” Anna said.
“I’ll show you the wedding band after dinner,” Gabe said. “It has flat, rectangular diamonds so they can’t get caught on anything, either.”
“That sounds beautiful,” Steve said. “Being an architect, I always wanted to marry beauty
with commonsense construction.”
“We wanted to talk with you about a wedding next June, here, at the ranch,” Anna ventured. “We want to live together, if that’s okay with you two. Maybe live nearby on ranch property?”
Maud sighed. “Am I dreaming, Steve? Can I believe what we’re hearing?” she asked, and she smiled at her husband.
“I can believe what you heard, sweetheart,” Steve said. “Music to my ears, too.”
“Oh, good!” Anna said.
“Double that,” Gabe agreed, smiling. “We were thinking this coming weekend, on Sunday, when you have the family dinner here, we’d announce our engagement. We can let Andy, Sky, and Luke know what has happened. They know nothing about any of this.”
“We’ll make it happen,” Maud promised, gushing with joy.
“After dinner tonight,” Steve suggested, “let’s go into the living room for coffee and dessert, and we can hammer out more details there.”
“Yes,” Anna said, pointing her fork at her plate, “or our food is going to get cold!”
* * *
“Gabe mentioned that your other children showed no interest in running this ranch,” Anna said to Maud as they sat in the living room with their coffee and a slice of chocolate cake for dessert. Sally had brought Ace a huge Milk-Bone as a treat, and he promptly chowed down on it at the end of the couch where his people sat.
“That’s right,” Maud said.
“Do you think there will be any ill will about Gabe and me taking over the ranch eventually?”
Maud shook her head. “No, there won’t be. In our will, each child will receive a very large sum of money when we are gone. They will not want for anything. There’s no reason to fight over the ranch, which is now very successful. Each child will go their own way in life but never have to worry about having enough to carry them on to the end of their lives.”
Anna felt relief. “That’s good to know. Gabe and I were concerned that it might be a point of contention among them.”
“There will be no jealousy or competition for the ranch,” Steve assured them, slicing into his cake. “We didn’t raise our children to be like that. We raised them to set them free to do and be who they wanted to be. We never made any of them feel like they had to hang around us or the ranch.”
Maud’s eyes glimmered with joy. “Somehow, and don’t ask me how, I always knew, Gabe, that there was the earth in your blood, the land. I had admitted this to Steve off and on over the years. In my heart of hearts, I hoped that you would come home to us, Gabe.”
Gabe shook his head. “You have always had a powerful intuition,” he told her.
“When did you realize all of this?” Steve asked him.
“Shortly after I met Anna,” he admitted. “I was tired and run-down from the continual stress of being undercover. I wanted my life back and I wanted to come home. It was really driving me.”
“Maybe the land was calling you home,” Anna whispered, touched.
“Of all our children,” Maud told her, “Gabe was the one who was always out with the wranglers, on the land, riding and working. The other three kids, not so much. It was then that I wondered if, someday, he might want to run the ranch.”
“Anna? How do you see yourself fitting into ranch life?” Steve wondered.
“I want to work with Maud. Her ideas, visions, and goals have lifted this valley out of poverty. I love children and I’d like to see more welcoming of them to your ranch. I grew up on an estancia and had a similar experience. But I see too many children in cities who are disconnected from nature, from the beauty and energy of life that we live with here in the Wind River Valley. I’d like to share that with them.”
Maud made a happy sound, setting her empty plate on the coffee table. The wood in the fireplace, which was behind a glass enclosure, snapped and crackled. “Anna, you and I are far more alike than I could ever imagine! On my vision board in my office, I have plans that I’m going to begin this winter, to take a part of our ranch, about five hundred acres, and make it into a children’s educational area. There will be all sorts of features to lure the children to try hands-on activities and see if they like it. My mother, Martha, is working right now with underprivileged children of color, whether black, Latino, Asian, or Native American, and coordinating with them. I’m asking each of these groups to give me their ideas. And with those ideas, I can move forward in creating a children’s ranch of sorts. And for those who don’t want to know about ranching, I’m going to have one on farming, gardening, and how to grow organic food for our community. Like you, I feel our children are our future. We want to support them and allow them to discover the rest of the world they know nothing of.”
“I love the whole concept!” Anna whispered, her hand against her throat, tears brimming in her eyes. “I’ve dreamed the same dream, Maud. We have the same issues in Guatemala.”
“Then,” Maud whispered, her voice low with feeling, “let’s you and I dream it together. Gabe will be very adept at running the ranch. We can bring the ideas to fruition. We can give children a whole new view of reality, a much better one than the squalor of living in inner-city areas.”
“This is unbelievable!” Anna said happily. “And you’re going to have the organizations who are sponsoring them pay for each child’s visit?”
“Yes, my mother is working on some mega donators she knows to underwrite it all, so that our ranch doesn’t lose money providing the services. She feels strongly they will come through with nearly a billion dollars. With that kind of money, you and I will dream really big for the children. I’ve even let my imagination roll forward, and I’m thinking that we keep each child for a full week. And in that week, they’ll have indoor classes, demonstrations, experiments, and then take it into the outside world to watch their ideas at work. I want this as imaginative as possible for them.”
“And with that kind of funding,” Anna agreed, “you can bring in the best teachers in each area, to educate the kids.”
“Yes, and they will be paid what they’re really worth,” Maud said darkly. “Teachers need to be paid a LOT more than they are receiving right now. Martha is working with a number of lawmakers in Washington, DC, to have a law passed on this issue. No more teachers’ strikes. No more teachers buying items for their children in their classrooms. The school should be paying for it and so should the taxpayers. Without our children truly being given a good, all-around education, they won’t flourish, the economy flattens, and it’s a loss to the world at large, as well. We want our kids prepared fully for the twenty-first century.”
“I’m in full agreement,” Anna said.
“Pretty soon,” Steve deadpanned to Gabe, “this ranch will become a new type of educational center that can be mimicked around the world. Maud has a way of cloning her ideas, and they always take off for the good of this country and our world, in general.”
Gabe chuckled. “Mom has always been a wild horse with her tail on fire.”
Steve joined him. “We’ll reach out to our other kids and we’ll have a wonderful Sunday dinner together.”
Anna gave Gabe a smile. “You’re home, Cowboy. My nickname for you has come true. I can hardly wait to see their faces when they all find out you’re the new sheriff in town.”
Chapter Sixteen
June 5
“OMG!” Andy exclaimed, holding Anna’s left hand, looking at her simple engagement ring. “This is so beautiful! I love the vine with leaves etched into it,” she said, smiling, and she released her fingers.
Anna smiled. “Thanks, Andy.” She liked the genuine happiness dancing in her green eyes for her and Gabe.
Andy stood with Dev in the center of the living room where the family was gathering for their weekly Sunday dinner with Maud and Steve. Ace knew his place at the end of couch in the living room, alertly watching everything going on. Maud and Sally were busy putting on the final touches for the coming meal in the dining room. Steve was hobnobbing with Luke and Sky. Luke had arrived e
arly this morning, here to take the wildfire assistant manager job over at the airport. That meant he’d be staying permanently in the valley. And, because he was in management, Luke would be remaining in the office, not fighting fires as a hotshot anymore. That made Maud and Steve very happy.
Sally had brought out small mugs of apple cider with ice cubes earlier, placing them on the huge coffee table in the center of the room. Even though it was early June, the weather in this part of western Wyoming could be below freezing in the morning, warm up to the sixties during the day, and drop back to the high thirties by late evening. Right now, it was in the fifties and everyone was dressed up and wearing clothing for semi-chilly temperatures.
Dev gave Anna a smile. “So, when’s the big day, gang?”
Gabe, who stood next to Anna, said, “We’re looking at June twentieth, next year, when it’s a little warmer for an outdoor wedding here at the ranch. We’re marrying each other, and it’s symbolic for the two of us to marry on the ranch, promising to take it forward to the next generation.”
Clasping her hands to her heart, Andy said, “That’s so wonderful! You know? Luke, Sky, and I never wanted to be ranchers. I don’t know why, but we just didn’t. We all worried if it would be passed on down through our generation or not.”
“It will be in the family now,” Dev said, a nod toward Gabe and Anna.
Gabe smiled and placed his arm around Anna’s shoulders, giving her a quick hug and then releasing her. “It’s going to stay in the family, for sure. When you two decide to have kids of your own, they’ll be able to come over here for visits and be on the ranch, know its history, and who knows, maybe one of them might be interested in being a wrangler someday.”
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