Home on the Ranch

by Trish Milburn

  When she reached the wall and tried to open the window, it didn’t budge. Panic exploded within her. She shoved up again, banging on the frame. “Come on, please!”

  Finally, the window slid up so fast that she fell forward and banged her mouth against the bottom window rail. The coppery taste of blood mixed with the layer of ashy residue caused by the smoke.

  Her mouth throbbing and her heart about to beat out of her chest, she crawled through the window and dropped down to the ground, scratching her exposed skin on the sad shrubbery lining the front of the house. She crawled away from the house and collapsed in the middle of the yard, sucking in great gulps of fresh air.

  Though she was still coughing some and her throat was scratchy, she lifted herself to a sitting position and looked back toward her home. Through the open window she could see the flames, being fed by the rush of fresh oxygen. It looked like they’d made it to the bedroom. She was losing everything. Tears pooled in her eyes, but she blinked them back. Now she needed to get help. She reached into her purse for her phone, but the feel of the empty side pocket reminded her that the phone was in the charger on the kitchen counter. Already gone.

  She glanced down the road toward the nearest house, a quarter mile away. But as she dragged herself to her feet and headed toward the road, a vehicle slowed and pulled into the driveway.

  “You okay?” a male voice called out.

  She couldn’t see more than a dark silhouette beyond his headlights, but he sounded like an older man.

  “Call 911.”

  She knew it probably didn’t take long, but it seemed like forever before the fire trucks showed up. Standing at the edge of the yard watching as the flames shot out the windows and licked up the side of the house, she’d never felt so helpless, so incredibly alone.

  Everything she’d worked for, everything she’d built, gone in a matter of minutes. She thought of all those long hours she’d worked hauling things from the Bryant ranch, days in which she’d fallen for Austin. All of it had been for nothing. Now she was homeless, alone and brokenhearted, and she hated it with every cell in her body. This wasn’t who she was, but right now it was hard to make lemonade out of life’s lemons. The only thing she wanted was to curl up and cry until she couldn’t cry anymore.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks, and despite the fact that her yard was full of fire trucks and emergency personnel, she dropped to the ground and finally let the sobs break free.

  * * *

  AUSTIN SAT IN yet another meeting of department heads and had to concentrate much harder than normal to keep track of the conversation. His gaze kept drifting to the slice of blue sky he could see outside the conference room window.

  “What are your thoughts, Austin?”

  He jerked his attention back toward the head of the table, where Mr. Lealand was staring at him with an expectant and slightly annoyed expression on his face.

  “I’m sorry,” Austin said, even though a voice somewhere in his head was saying that no, he wasn’t. In fact, he didn’t give a hairy rat’s ass about the items on today’s agenda. That should shock him, but it didn’t. But what was he going to do about it?

  Until he figured that out, he fumbled his way through an answer that seemed to only halfway satisfy his boss. And again, he didn’t care. He still hadn’t let go of how ticked he’d been by Lealand’s halfhearted condolences followed immediately by his sending Austin a to-do list that was filled with asinine, bullet-pointed tasks—things that could be done a better way if Lealand just kept to his lofty office and let the managers do the real work or things that didn’t need attention at all.

  “You okay?” his assistant, Miranda, asked softly as they left the meeting.

  “Honestly, I don’t know.” She followed him into his office, where he went to stand beside the window. Thank God he wasn’t still trapped in cubicle hell. Not being able to see outside had not played nicely with his claustrophobia.

  “You’ve not been the same since you got back. Is there anything I can do?”

  He leaned his hands against the window ledge. “No, this is something I have to figure out on my own.” He looked over his shoulder. “But thank you.”

  She smiled then walked back out to her desk, leaving him alone. Miranda was good like that, being able to detect what he needed and when, reading his moods, saying the right thing at the right time. If only he had a fraction of her ability. He thought about asking her what to get for a woman when he wanted to apologize after really messing up, but then remembered that Ella wasn’t the typical woman. She’d likely be happier with a truckload of old machinery parts than flowers and chocolates. Though she had appeared pleased by the bouquet he’d brought her that last day.

  The sudden, powerful need to hear her voice hit him square in his chest. If nothing else, he needed to apologize for fleeing her house as if she were living in squalor.

  He closed the door to his office and grabbed his cell off the edge of his desk. But when he called her number, it went to voice mail. Either she was busy or she was ignoring him. He could easily see the first and wouldn’t blame her for the second. When the voice mail message started, he listened to her cheery message but hung up before the beep, not willing to say what he needed to say on a recording she might just erase without listening to it.

  Since his workload wasn’t getting any smaller with him just standing around, he forced himself to sit and start making some headway. He’d never had such a difficult time concentrating. Every time he started an email, he’d think about how nice it had been to get astride a horse again. While signing forms, he remembered the burn of muscles as he’d stripped the paint off the ranch house. As he ate take-out Chinese for lunch, he actually ached to be back on that patchwork quilt eating sandwiches with Ella.

  He leaned back in his chair and ran a hand over his face. When was he going to start feeling normal again?

  The fortune cookie that had come with his black pepper chicken sat on his desk. He hated fortune cookies and normally just tossed them in the trash unopened. But since he wasn’t really able to concentrate anyway, what the heck? He ripped open the plastic wrapper and cracked the cookie open. Who actually liked those things? He smoothed the crumbs off the little slip of paper and read the words it contained.

  You cannot love your life until you live the life you love.

  Even the fortune cookie knew what he’d been fighting ever since he’d come back to Dallas. This wasn’t the place for him, not anymore. He couldn’t believe such a brief return to his boyhood home had changed his outlook on what he wanted out of life so drastically. He’d thought he was happy here at Lealand, in his sparse apartment, with his casual relationships. But those days in Blue Falls, on the ranch, with Ella had shown him exactly how much was missing from his life.

  But would she forgive him if she wouldn’t even answer the phone when he called?

  All he knew was that he had to tell her how he felt, that he cared for her. No, that wasn’t quite right. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly as he admitted to himself that he loved her. And if he had to beg her for a second chance, that’s what he’d do.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ella twirled her French fry through the blob of ketchup on her plate. Considering everything that had happened lately and how she’d missed several meals, she should be hungry. Only she wasn’t. She ate because she had to, but she spent most of her time working with what few supplies were left to her. At least a dozen times a day she had to remind herself that things could be so much worse. She could have been seriously injured, burned, even died in the fire. The flames could have spread to the shed, consuming every last bit of her available materials, her ability to make a living.

  It could have leaped to her truck and taken what had now become her temporary home. Turned out renting a new place was hard when you couldn’t prove a steady incom
e and your last home had burned down. She felt like taking out a full-page ad in the paper to announce the fire marshal’s findings that the fire had been caused by faulty wiring, that it hadn’t been deliberate or even negligent on her part.

  No, it wasn’t all bad. Her friends and neighbors had been kind, offering to let her stay in an extra room and organizing donations of clothing and other necessities. She knew she’d eventually land on her feet, but right now the ground and her nerves felt pretty shaky.

  Unbidden, an image of Austin’s strong arms holding her up formed in her mind. Sense memory had her remembering exactly how it felt to be held by those arms. Damn it, why couldn’t she forget him?

  “Feel like a piece of pie? The chocolate meringue looks really good.”

  Ella pulled herself up out of the quagmire of her thoughts and looked across the table at her mom. Around them, the locals and tourists filled the Primrose’s every table. “No, thanks. But you have some.”

  “Maybe later. I think what I really need is to walk off what I just ate.”

  Ella glanced at her plate where two-thirds of her grilled ham and cheese and fries remained untouched. So different from how she’d devoured every morsel at Mizuumi, had soaked up every moment with Austin.

  “A walk sounds good,” she said as she stood so suddenly her chair almost tipped backward. She caught it in time and gave an apologetic smile to the woman at the next table who was sporting a T-shirt covered in bluebonnets.

  Ella somehow managed to say the right things at the appropriate parts of the conversation as they walked down Main Street, stopping to window-shop in front of India Parrish’s Yesterwear clothing boutique and going into Devon Newberry’s A Good Yarn knitting shop to browse.

  “I think I might try my hand at knitting,” her mom said. “Maybe I’ll get really good at it and open myself one of those little online stores.”

  It sounded too much like what her stepdad, Jerry, would say about one of his new ventures, and it was the straw that broke Ella’s emotional back.

  “I’ll be outside.” Without waiting for a response, Ella retreated to the sidewalk.

  But she didn’t stop there. Though it was rude and inconsiderate, she kept walking. She couldn’t stand still, couldn’t utter one more word of meaningless small talk. What her mind and body cried out for was to run until her legs couldn’t carry her one more step, scream until her voice failed her. But she did neither of those things. Instead, she walked toward the lake, all the way to the edge where the lapping water almost touched her toes. She watched a sailboat with a red-and-white-striped sail glide across the surface of the water, appearing as carefree as she wished she could feel.

  Unable to hold in the latest batch of tears any longer, she sank onto a nearby bench and dropped her face into her hands and cried.

  She recognized the approaching footsteps even before her mom sat beside her and wrapped her familiar arm around Ella’s shoulders. Needing her mother’s comfort, she let her mom pull her close.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart.” Her mom rubbed up and down Ella’s arm in a gesture Ella could remember from her earliest memories.

  Her mom had done this same comforting ritual whenever Ella would grow scared of what might be under the bed or in her closet, or when she was sick, when nasty Teddy Lanham had picked on her in the third grade, when their next-door neighbor’s teenage son had accidentally backed over Ella’s bike the first day he had his driver’s license. She only wished her current problems could be fixed as easily as nonexistent monsters or elementary school bullies.

  “I know it’s hard,” her mom said. “But you’re strong. You always have been. You’ll get through this.”

  If it were only the fire, maybe, but it seemed as if everything had hit her all at once, crushing even her normal personality.

  Ella sat up and wiped the remnants of her tears off her cheeks.

  Her mom took Ella’s hand between hers. “Come back to San Antonio with me. You can work from anywhere.”

  For a moment, Ella almost agreed. At least in San Antonio, she wouldn’t see reminders of Austin everywhere she went. But she knew running wasn’t the answer. She’d put too much into making a life here. Her rental house hadn’t been her life. Her friends, this town, the business she was building were.

  “I appreciate it, Mom, really I do, but this is my home now.”

  To her credit, her mom didn’t argue with her, though Ella detected sadness in the way her mom looked out across the lake.

  “You’ve always been so strong,” her mom said. “Not like me.”

  “Mom—”

  “No, it’s true. I may be late to being independent, but I’m going to take inspiration from you, my strong girl.”

  Ella shifted on the bench to face her mom. Something was off, something that had nothing to do with Ella. “What do you mean?”

  “I left Jerry.”

  “What?”

  Her mom patted Ella’s hand. “It’s okay, really. It’s been coming for a long time.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Her mom sighed but then gave Ella a shaky smile. “I’ll be fine.”

  Ella leaned back against the bench. “Men suck.”

  “There it is, the real reason you’re so upset. What’s his name, and what did he do?” She sounded as if she might round up a posse and track him down for some Mom-style justice.

  “You don’t want to hear this.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I’m your mother. I’ll always want to know what’s going on with you, how I can help. I know we went through our difficult years, but you’re the most important person in my life and I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  She feared repeating the story of her brief but powerful relationship with Austin would make her heart finish shattering, but the words, like her tears, wouldn’t be denied. Her mom listened without interrupting. When Ella finally shared the part about Austin’s reaction to her home and how he’d fled, Ella had difficulty getting the words out past the lump in her throat. It felt as though she’d swallowed a lemon, and it had gotten stuck halfway down.

  “I never fully understood what heartbreak felt like until that moment. I mean, of course I was heartbroken when Dad died, but—”

  “It’s a different kind of love, a different kind of heartbreak.” Her mom knew it intimately, having lost the love of her life.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

  “Don’t apologize. You’ve never talked to me about boys, and I know why. You were trying to protect me, even though I’d hurt you by marrying Jerry so quickly.” She shook her head. “I knew from the beginning that it didn’t feel right, but I think I was searching for anything that might take away the pain.”

  Ella understood that need now like she never could before. And yet... “I feel bad even comparing what you went through to what happened with Austin. You and Dad were together for years. I barely knew Austin.”

  Even speaking about him in the past tense hurt her heart.

  “Sweetie, I knew the day I met your father that I was going to fall in love with him. Sometimes there is just a connection that is so powerful it cannot be denied.”

  That really wasn’t what Ella needed to hear. What she wanted more than anything was to have her mom tell her that soon the pain would go away and she’d be able to return to her normal, happy self. That Austin would just be a memory of a few fun days.

  “Maybe I should go back with you. We could get a place together.”

  Even before she finished speaking, her mother was shaking her head. “You thought you were just telling me about loving Austin—”

  “I didn’t say I loved him.”

  “Yes, you did. And it’s obvious you love this town, the people here, the life you’ve built for yourself. It’s a life worth
fighting for, worth rebuilding. I’ll help you any way I can, but I think it’s time I finally stand on my own two feet, too.”

  They sat and talked for a long time, and Ella wondered if she and her mother had ever had such a lengthy, heart-to-heart conversation. Despite the fact her heart still felt banged up and bruised, she drew some comfort from a strengthening of her relationship with her mom.

  When she walked her mom back to her car, a part of her wanted to beg her to stay, to not leave her alone. But she realized her mother was right—they both had to be strong and deal with their own problems, rebuild their own lives.

  “You should try the knitting,” Ella said. “There are tons of how-to videos online. I bet you’ll be good at it.”

  Her mom reached up and cupped Ella’s cheek. “My beautiful baby girl. If I find I have a hundredth of the talent you possess, I’ll count myself a lucky woman.”

  Ella felt like crying again as she hugged her mom and watched her drive away down Main Street heading south. Not wanting to field questions about how she was doing from the well-meaning citizens of Blue Falls, Ella hurried to her truck and drove back out to where her house used to be.

  She’d finished a project that morning when she couldn’t sleep, so she went digging through the materials crammed into the little storage shed. But the inspiration that was usually there refused to make an appearance. Probably because every damn thing she picked up made her relive the look on Austin’s face right before he’d run out of her life. With each item she picked up, be it a strip of lace or a piece of crockery, she grew a little angrier at Austin.

  Angry at the way he’d left, angry that he’d made her fall for him, angry that he’d turned her life upside down. And most of all, angry that he’d broken her heart so completely.

  Maybe the key to surviving and coming out the other side of this emotional funk was to focus on the anger and not the heartache. Anger wasn’t normally part of her makeup either, but it was a hell of a lot better than feeling as if the sadness and loneliness were going to consume her heart.