The Texas Rancher's Return

by Allie Pleiter

  An hour later, Brooke splashed water on her face in the kitchen sink and forced normality into her eyes as the front door opened. Audie came barreling through the door, still slurping through the straw of a take-out cup from the local barbecue chain. “Hi, Mom. I ate a ton of barbecue, and Mrs. Taylor even let us get pie for dessert. I’m stuffed.”

  Brooke managed a smile at the smears of barbecue sauce and blueberry on Audie’s shirt. She was always of the opinion that messes meant fun, but the current mess of her life felt anything but fun. “Good for you. Any homework?”

  Audie rolled her eyes. “Spelling. It’s the worst.”

  “It’s important.” She accepted the now-empty cup and deposited it in the trash. “But I think you need to take a shower first. You’re sticky just about everywhere.”

  Audie found a smear of pie on her finger and licked it off. “Worth it.”

  “Did you thank Mrs. Taylor?”

  “Yes, Mom,” Audie moaned as she plodded down the hall toward her bedroom. How could a third grader look so much like a teenager some days?

  “Good manners are as important as spelling,” she called as she pulled a new set of towels out of the linen closet. While Audie showered, Brooke threw away the chicken she’d had roasting for her dinner with Gunner—it had overcooked and been sitting out for too long while she sat on the couch in tears. She hadn’t eaten anything yet. While yogurt would have been a good choice, she irresponsibly drowned her sorrows in two slices of the apple pie she’d bought for dessert. She felt bad enough to eat four slices, but that would cause more problems than it solved.

  Audie came out in her pajamas—pink-and-purple stripes with ruffles all over the collar, cuffs and around her ankles—looking like a bedtime princess with her wet hair dark and curling around pink cheeks. “Can we go visit Russet this weekend?” she asked as she pulled her spelling folder from her backpack.

  Brooke was hoping this wouldn’t come up until at least tomorrow. “We’ll see, baby.”

  Audie frowned as she climbed up into a kitchen chair. “We’ll see always means no.”

  Brooke sat down opposite Audie. How could she explain today to an eight-year-old? “Well, you’re right, it might be a while before we get to visit Russet.”

  Audie made a face. “But Grannie Buckton said we could come visit anytime we wanted. I want to see how much he’s grown. Mr. Gunner says he grows fast. What if I miss him growing?”

  Brooke opened the spelling folder, hoping for a distraction. “I’m sure you want to visit Russet, and I’m sure Russet wants to see you.” She held up a worksheet. “Is this the list we are supposed to be working on?”

  Audie nodded, pulling a blank sheet of paper from the stack Brooke kept on the kitchen table for homework use. Audie stuck out her tongue in consideration as she selected a colored marker from the cup beside the stack of papers—every shade of pink and purple imaginable, some of them scented or with glitter in the ink. She suddenly changed her mind. “Oh, I forgot.” She fished in her backpack until she pulled out a colored pencil in a plastic baggie. “Mrs. Cleydon gave it to me in art class. It’s russet.”

  Brooke felt her stomach turn to knots—and it had nothing to do with too much pie. “So you have a new favorite color?”

  “No, I still like pink and purple best, but it’s fun to have this, too.”

  Focusing on the list to dodge Audie’s wide, happy eyes, Brooke read the first word. “High.”

  Audie wrote down the word. “Can we go to Blue Thorn anyway, even if we can’t see Russet?”

  Brooke sighed. There’d be no avoiding this, no matter how much she would have liked to put it off a few days. “Every.”

  Audie wrote it down, forgetting the second e. Brooke took a breath and began. “Mr. Gunner and I had an argument today, Audie. A very big, very grown-up argument.”

  Audie looked up at her. “And you’re mad at him?”

  Brooke went back to the list to buy her a moment to think. “Near.” After Audie wrote, Brooke went on. “It’s more like he’s mad at me. My company did something he didn’t like, something he thought was mean, and he thinks I am part of it.”

  “DelTex was mean to Mr. Gunner? How?”

  Brooke pointed to the list. “West.” Audie wrote. “It’s too complicated to explain. But it has everyone sad and angry, and it might mean we don’t get to visit the Blue Thorn anytime soon. I’m sorry about that, really I am.”

  Audie put down her pencil. “You’d never be mean to Mr. Gunner, would you?”

  “Not on purpose, no. But sometimes big companies have to do things one person doesn’t like. No one is happy that it happens, but sometimes there isn’t anything you can do about it. I wish DelTex didn’t do anything mean to Mr. Gunner, but I don’t really get to say whether or not it happens. Your next word is dress.”

  Audie picked up her russet pencil and wrote the word, putting a little heart next to it. “I like dresses.” She looked up at Brooke. “Can’t you tell your boss not to be mean? Isn’t part of your job to make people like DelTex? Is that why Mr. Gunner is mad at you?”

  Brooke set down the paper. “It isn’t that simple. And I’m very sad Mr. Gunner is mad at me. I like him a lot, and Grannie Buckton, too. I want us to stay friends, and I hope we can be, but it might take a while.”

  Audie slid off the chair and climbed into Brooke’s arms. It took every effort Brooke had not to let the tears return as Audie snuggled down, still damp and soap-scented from her shower. “This is one of those big patience times, isn’t it, Mama?”

  “Yes,” Brooke sighed. “Yes, it is.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I don’t recall asking to see you, Ms. Calder.” Mr. Markham didn’t even look up from the file he was reading.

  “You got the state to pull eminent domain on the Bucktons. Did you ever even plan to have a discussion? Or was I just a convenient last-ditch campaign to make it look like you’d tried everything else?” If she was going to get fired, Brooke didn’t see much point in mincing words.

  “Now, let’s not be harsh. Shut the door and sit down. Let’s try and talk this out like the adults they pay us to be.”

  Brooke knew that tone. She’d heard it at too many public zoning hearings not to recognize it. Markham used it when he had won his point but still thought it worth his while to appear open-minded. For all she knew, he’d already spoken to human resources, and she’d be clearing her desk by lunchtime.

  She shut the door. She sat down. But she made no effort to avoid sounding harsh when she spoke again. “I don’t know what DelTex did to convince the state to launch eminent domain proceedings on the Buckton land, but it had to have been in the works long before yesterday. I think you pulled the trigger on it the minute I walked out of this office.”

  Markham steepled his hands. Brooke had to admire how eerily calm the man was—she was so worked up she couldn’t even pour herself a cup of coffee this morning. “I hadn’t planned for that information to get out just yet. I would have pulled back if you gave me any indication that the Bucktons would bend. I had hope after what I saw at the gala.” He took off his glasses and looked at her. There was no anger in his face. Annoyance perhaps, disappointment, even, but not anger. “But yesterday you gave me no reason for optimism—even you can see that.”

  “Why bother pressuring me, then?”

  “Because, Ms. Calder—” he rose and went to the side table for coffee, pouring himself but not offering her one “—I dislike playing the bully. Contrary to what you may think at the moment, I do care about how DelTex looks to the public. And besides, getting a government to use eminent domain is an expensive thing. We have to call in a lot of chips to make it happen.”

  “You told me you had other options.”

  “I told you we had alternatives that were not your concern. And I do recall
saying things could get ugly. I’m sorry they did.” He sighed as he sat down again. “I’m sorry Nolan felt he had to get all noble on us and fire a shot across the bow before we were ready. Yes, I heard about his phone call. It gets my attention when my first call of the day is Adele Buckton breathing fire. I hope to have that woman’s spirit when I’m her age.”

  Brooke couldn’t put it off any longer. “Are you going to fire me?”

  “I have always liked your directness. No. Not yet. But I’ll be watching how you handle this. We all have to swallow things that don’t taste good in this business, Ms. Calder. It’s not a skill everyone can learn.”

  It’s not a skill I want to learn. Were she young and childless, Brooke might have walked into Markham’s office, resignation in hand. She didn’t have that luxury with Audie in the picture. And if she could put off having to retreat to Oklahoma—uprooting Audie from her home and her friends—if she could hang on here long enough to find someplace else to work, she would. “I don’t like what we’re doing here.”

  “No, I don’t expect you do. Did you genuinely like Gunner and Adele?”

  Brooke couldn’t believe he even had to ask. Did he think what he saw at the gala was an act? Did he think her capable of all those visits to the Blue Thorn purely as DelTex community relations? Worst of all, did he think her capable of using Audie for such an end? “Yes, I did. I do.”

  “Well, then, I suppose I’m sorry all this has cost you that relationship. And your little girl—Adele told me she’d named one of the Blue Thorn calves. Adele’s not taking this well at all, as you can imagine.”

  Brooke could imagine. It was bad enough to have Gunner believe the worst of her, but to have Adele believe it, as well? It made Brooke ill to think of it.

  “I expect either she or Gunner will be calling the papers at some point. We’ll need some press releases drawn up, but you can understand how I might think it best to have someone else handle that.”

  She would never want to write that press release, but even so, it added insult to injury to know Mr. Markham was now shifting work off her desk. Work he didn’t think she was capable of doing properly. She’d get to keep her job—for now—but her career at DelTex had been effectively and permanently stalled. It was exactly what she’d told Gunner at the gala—in a standoff, everyone loses.

  “Is there anything else, Ms. Calder?”

  There wasn’t anything else to say. “No, sir.”

  Brooke rose and walked slowly back to her cubicle. DelTex was ensuring that Gunner would lose his land, and no amount of fighting would stop it. Had she never met Daisy, had she never set foot on Blue Thorn land, she would have probably considered the whole thing a sad and regrettable but inevitable consequence of progress. When did I become the kind of person who could think that way? On the one hand, she was glad she’d not become some sort of callous company executive, but on the other hand, caring hurt. Right now it hurt a lot.

  “Ed from Permits sent these files over,” the staffer in the next cubicle said as he looked at her quizzically. “Something about aerial shots for the sales brochures?”

  Sales brochures. That would be her life from now on. She was off the fast track, and while that stung, it didn’t sting half as bad as the look in Gunner’s eyes.

  I can be okay with sales brochures, she told herself. At least it’s not running to Oklahoma. It’s safer, and maybe safer is good.

  Brooke pulled open the interoffice envelope, a stack of black-and-white aerial photo prints with a Post-it note telling her digital versions had been sent to her by email. She tried to smile at the thought of friendly Ed from Permits and his surprising dancing skills, but thinking of him just brought back all the wonder of that night at the gala. Two of the aerial shots were wide enough scale that they even showed the back of what had to be Blue Thorn Ranch and other neighboring lands.

  Brooke ran her finger down the road that bordered Gunner’s ranch, tapping what looked like the spot where she first met Daisy. With a lump in her throat, she made out the creek running up on the north edge of the land, the creek that started this whole battle. She followed the wandering blue line until it came to the parcel of land that would be Ramble Acres. Would she be able to see that creek when she and Audie lived there? If she and Audie still got the opportunity to live there? Ramble Acres was slated to be an upscale community, and perhaps people who worked only on sales brochures wouldn’t make the cut.

  I’ll never get ahead. I’ll never be able to give Audie everything she deserves. But what she needs most is a mom who isn’t ashamed of what she does, and I have that. Please, Lord, don’t ever let me lose that.

  Absentmindedly, Brooke let her finger follow the creek down along the back of the Blue Thorn, under the little bridge she’d crossed just before meeting Daisy and down through the neighboring rancher’s land.

  Where it stopped.

  The photograph didn’t stop—it went on for what must be another mile, but an area of the photograph lost its image. She looked at it closer, wondering if there was a smudge on the lens or clouds blocking the view.

  There wasn’t. If she wasn’t mistaken, the image had been altered. Blurred out.

  There were lots of reasons to blur an aerial photograph—if there were identifiable people or vehicles in the shot, or an animal carcass, or any number of things. None of those would be as large as the blot in this photograph. Brooke looked at another photograph and noticed the same blur in exactly the same place—and the timestamp on that photograph was a different day, so it wasn’t people or animals needing to be removed.

  What was it, then? And why was it smack-dab on top of the creek everyone was fighting over?

  Brooke shifted over to her computer, bringing up the digital images. They contained the same issue. When she used her photo-viewing program to zoom in on the image, it was clear the photos had been altered. Someone wanted to make sure no one saw whatever was on the creek right there.

  She closed the image files, feeling her pulse jump. Could there be another reason why that creek was so important to DelTex? Only, if that were true, why pressure Gunner and his family instead of the neighboring ranch? This other ranch was even downstream of Gunner’s land, which made no sense at all.

  Before she could talk herself out of it, Brooke copied the images onto a small jump drive and tucked it into her handbag to look over tonight. Something wasn’t right.

  * * *

  Sweat poured down Gunner’s back as he thrust the posthole digger into the earth Wednesday morning. There were machines for this sort of thing, but right now he needed someplace to put all the anger boiling up inside him. Making deep holes in the ground somehow fit his mood. It felt as if all of Blue Thorn was teetering on the edge of some deep hole, and three generations of Bucktons on this land were going to come to an end on his watch.

  He wiped his brow with the hem of his T-shirt and pulled back to sink the double-bladed device into the ground again.

  “Your daddy used to do that when he was good and mad, too.”

  Gunner hadn’t even noticed Billy come up behind him. He looked up as he twisted the digger to create the round hole.

  “I know all about what happened,” Billy said, his black braid bobbing as he inclined his head toward the creek.

  “Talked to Gran, did you?” Gunner yanked the digger and its hunk of sod out of the ground, depositing it by the side of the new hole.

  “More like Miss Adele talked to me. When she’s mad, she talks. When you’re mad, you dig. A lot of talking and digging going on this morning.”

  Gunner pulled a turquoise bandanna from his pocket and wiped his face. “How do we fight this, Billy?”

  “Are you going to fight this?”

  That seemed a crazy question—who wouldn’t fight this? The Blue Thorn belonged to him. It belonged to his siblings, too, he knew that—
but today it felt as if the whole battle rested squarely on his shoulders. It didn’t matter that ranchers almost never won eminent domain battles. Did it?

  Gunner looked out over the land, feeling such a burden for it that it felt as if the herd’s largest bull was standing on his chest. He’d been so bent on leaving this place once, and now he couldn’t imagine life anywhere else. “I can’t just let it go.” And then he dared to say the thing that had been eating him alive since the drive back from Brooke’s last night. “Maybe if I’d have never left, if I’d have stayed on and been here when Dad was going downhill, it wouldn’t have gotten to this.”

  “And if you had never come back, maybe it all would be worse.” Billy reached down and plucked a blade of the tall grass. “Maybe if you had not brought the bison onto the ranch, it would have died much sooner.”

  Billy’s words didn’t calm him; they only burned in Gunner’s throat. “The Blue Thorn isn’t going to die. I won’t let it. They might win the battle, but you and I both know it’s a whole war. I won’t go down without a fight. They may snatch the land out from underneath me one lousy sliver at a time, but I won’t make it easy for them.”

  “And they will not make it easy for you.”

  Gunner sunk the posthole digger again. “Do you think I care about how hard they make it for me?”

  Billy leaned back against the truck Gunner had driven out here. “I think you care about a lot more than bison and land when it comes to what happened.”

  Gunner did not want to have this conversation. He didn’t reply.

  Billy grunted. “Rainbow Sparkle? Really?”

  Gunner pushed up off the blade handles and threw his hands in the air. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.” Did the whole ranch know about that now? He turned to Billy. “Who told you?”

  “Miss Ellie. I heard your grandmother laughing on the phone with her the day after the children visited. But before that, I watched you with the children. Well, with one child. And her mother.”