by Jade Cary
“Yeah. Anything you care to share?”
I shrugged. “Just day to day, mostly. I don’t understand now why I ignored...silly, really.”
“You were hurt, angry. Makes us do things we usually regret later.” He gave me a sideways glance. I sneered at him and my ass tingled.
“I was afraid they’d draw me home if I read them. Stupid.”
“That was his plan, I think. And what would have been so bad about that?” he asked.
“I wanted to stay angry. I don’t want to anymore,” I whispered, the catch in my throat surprising us both.
“Then don’t.”
I skimmed a rock across the lake, glowing golden now in the dusky light. It skipped four times before it sank for good. Jed skipped one three times, then tried again, and skipped five. I gave him a bitter smirk.
“Dad said in an email he wasn’t keeping Mugsy. He said a hand named him, and that it wasn’t a good idea since he was taking the horse to auction. What happened?”
Jed shrugged. “I don’t know. He just mentioned to me one day that maybe he’d keep Mugsy around for when you came home. Thought you might like him.”
“I do.” My eyes clouded. Jed. Mugsy. The land. Fall coming. “You remember that fight I got into with Ryder McKinney?”
“I do. I come out of the barn and you’re rolling around on the ground with Ryder, and then I think you socked him in the nose. There was blood.”
“Yes. Boy, were you mad.”
“Well, it was no way for a young lady to behave.”
“You said that then, too.”
“Another time you needed the seat of your breeches dusted.”
“He grabbed my boob,” I screeched indignantly.
“You were ten. You didn’t have boobs.”
“I was eleven, and that wasn’t the point.”
“I suppose not. Had I known what he’d done I would have busted his ass good.”
“He’s grown into a fine looking man.” I smiled when I caught the scowl on Jed’s face out of the corner of my eye.
We stared out at the lake until Jed grew restless. Then he pulled me to my feet, laced his hand into my hair, kissed me and turned me toward Mugsy, jettisoning me forward with a sharp slap to my backside.
“That’s for socking Ryder,” he said. “And for thinking he’s fine looking.”
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want him to do it again.
Lady Landowner
Jed and I sat in my father’s office—he behind the desk, and me curled up on the long leather couch along the wall. My mother’s Oscar sat on a wide library shelf in front of some books, right in my father’s sightline as he sat at his desk. A picture of her, taken that spectacular night, sat next to it. Her moss green gown brought out her eyes; it was the first thing one noticed about her, and they were hard to get past.
“You’ve handled things well, Chan,” he said. “I’m proud of you.”
“So have you. Thank you, Jed—for everything.”
“Any time, honey. You know that. You okay?”
“Yes. Better than I thought.”
“Drink?”
“Please.” Jed poured a whiskey and added an ice cube to the heavy-bottomed crystal glass my father favored for dark hued drinks. “Where’s Maria?” I asked, expecting her to join us.
“I wanted to speak to you alone first.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The will was an issue between Maria and your dad…”
“How so?”
“It has to do with Carlos. We’ll get to that. In the mean time, I need to talk about you.”
“All right.”
“Charles has left you the main ranch, the house, all the out buildings, calving barns, training corrals, including grain silos, storage structures, and all the irrigated land, rangeland, pastures and fields. That includes everything up here on the bench. This does not include the Culver and the Indigo.” He shoved the will across the desk. “I can read it aloud if you’d prefer. I can also do it in front of an attorney of your choosing.”
The Culver and Indigo Ranches were properties my father acquired over the years. The Culver was 2,000 acres; the Indigo was 15,000. Quick math told me I’d just been handed 58,000 acres of prime Montana land. What the hell was I expected to do with it all?
I shook my head. “Stop it, Jed.”
“I represent Charles, babe, not you. You need to understand that.”
“All right, I’ll have my attorney look at these.”
“Good.”
“What about the Indigo and Culver?”
“Charles left the Culver to Carlos…”
“And…?”
“And…the Indigo to me. Chandler…”
I smiled. “Oh, Jed, I’m so glad. You deserve that land, and Dad knew how much you loved it.” Dad bought the Indigo Ranch from Daniel Blue Feather, a Native American dairy rancher whose father started with ten acres and two cows about the time my grandfather, William Asher, was coming into his own. Jed brought the potential sale of the ranch to Dad’s attention twenty years ago. I knew Dad did not have one day’s regret over that purchase. It allowed him to grow his beef cattle holdings after changing out equipment and selling the dairy cows for quality Angus stock that Dad bred into the top-quality hybrids the Asher Ranch sold today.
“You sure?”
“God, yes. Jed, you were born for that property.” I looked down at my hands. “I suppose you’ll live there, then.”
He shrugged. “Let’s get through this, huh? I haven’t given myself time to think it over.”
“Bullshit. Daddy must have told you years ago that place would be yours one day.” Jed reddened and looked down into his lap. “Honey, no need for awkward, here. You were a son to him. I’m thrilled you’re staying on…you’re staying on, aren’t you?”
“Of course. If you do.”
“That’s not fair. Buy me out?”
“I oughta drag you over this desk and paddle you,” he growled. “Don’t you even think about it.”
“I have to, Jed. My home is in New York.”
“Can you give it a day, for Christ sake?” he said, his voice rising a few octaves.
“Of course. Please, I don’t want to fight about this.”
“Good. Reason, finally.”
“The Culver? Dad left it to Carlos?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay. Good.”
Jed shrugged.
“What’s…” I mimicked the shoulder lift. “…this?” I got up off the couch and sat in one of the oversized leather chairs in front of the desk. I patted the stack of papers he’d shoved to the front of the desk earlier.
“As I said before, I am Charles’s lawyer, not yours,” Jed went on, “but I am going to offer some advice, if you want to hear it.”
“Sure.”
“I suggest you buy Carlos out.”
“Why?”
“He isn’t…we feel he isn’t capable of caring for the land, or doing much with it.” The Culver was 2,000 acres of feed grain. Alfalfa, corn, wheat and lots of beautiful grazing land took up the bulk of the acreage. The rest was under conservation easement, which meant no building of any kind. A half-mile of wide, well-stocked riverfront ran through the southern border. I’d always loved the Culver Ranch.
“This is what Dad and Maria believe?”
“It’s what Maria believes, yes. Your dad had a different take.”
“And how about you?”
“I don’t know, Chan, I really don’t.”
“Yes you do, Jed. Come on.”
“You’ve just come in on this, and I don’t expect you to know how you feel about Carlos right now. Let’s assume you go back to your life in New York, Maria is here, I am here, the kid is here. Maria goes, I go, and now Carlos has a two-thousand acre feed ranch to cope with. I…” Jed tapped a pen on the desk. “I’ll be honest: I have no idea what he will become when he’s older, what he’s capable of, and how he’ll handle being a
large land owner. I just don’t know.”
“That’s why Dad left him so little.”
“Two-thousand acres of working feed land isn’t a little, Chan.”
“Compared to fifty-eight-freaking-thousand it is. Do you honestly think I’m cut out for that?”
“Absolutely, no question. And whatever you can’t handle, Chandler, you have the wherewithal to hire people who can help. I don’t know if Carlos will be taken advantage of…I’m weighing it all and the chips fall on the side of buying him out. I’m sorry, but that’s my opinion.”
“Where will Maria fit into all this?”
“If you don’t buy him out?”
“Yes, start there.”
“She’ll handle things for him until he comes of age and, of course, I’ll be involved. Charles has left her well off, Chan. Don’t worry. We can improve on the existing house at Culver—it needs updating. They’ll live in it if they want. I don’t know.”
“I want her here in the house, where she lived with Daddy.”
“That’s between the two of you. The house is not part of Maria’s deal.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. This is your house, Chan.”
Tears welled in my eyes. “It’s her home, too,” I whispered.
“Legally, it’s yours and you can do with it what you want.”
“Goddamn him.”
“Stop. I told you this will was a huge bone of contention between them, and the house was a big part of that.”
“Can you share that with me?”
“I shouldn’t.”
“Please. I need to know how to proceed.”
“Charles wanted the house split between you and Maria fifty-fifty. For all intents and purposes, Maria was his wife.”
“Of course. That’s how it should be.”
“She didn’t want that. She felt…feels it’s your home.”
I raised a hand to stop him. “Okay, I got it. I’ll speak to her.”
“Good.”
“If I buy Carlos out of the Culver, how much will that cost me?”
Jed shrugged. “Rough numbers, twenty million. We need to put pencil to paper. Much of what’s grown on that land we use to keep our own stock fed. What we sell comes mostly from this place—we just grow better alfalfa here on the Asher. Once Carlos comes of age, if he decides to sell, it would fetch a good price as a decent sized feed farm. Honestly, your dad wants to keep it all in the family, but you and your brother can’t be forced to hang on to any of it.”
“I want to see it.”
“Sure. No problem.”
“Will you take me to Indigo, too?”
He smiled. “Sure.”
“Has anyone spoken to Carlos about this?”
“Chan…I’m not sure how much he understands here. He’s never shown a passion for the land, and…”
“So, no.”
“Not yet, no.”
“When you do, I’d like to be present.”
“Of course.”
“What has Maria said about all this?”
“It was Maria who told me to suggest you buy him out. She fought your father every step of the way on this damn will. Drove him crazy. A solid year of back-and-forth.”
“Guilt.” I stood and paced, angry. “She feels guilty for loving a man who was not her husband, and she’s refusing anything monetary so she doesn’t feel like a…”
“Whore?” Jed quirked an eyebrow. I spun on him, my eyes blazing.
“I want her here. I want her living here, or there, or wherever she wants! She’s entitled, Jed.”
“I know.”
“I embarrassed her at the viewing, compounding whatever contrived sense of shame she already felt. Feel free to spank me again, Jed. Lord knows, I’ve got it coming.”
The corner of his mouth turned up as he came around the desk. “Shhh…come here.” He took me in his arms and rocked me. “Maria has a different way of looking at things; some of it’s guilt, or shame—maybe. To us, it seems silly and overdone, but not to her.” He moved me away so he could look at me. “I want you to stop taking this on. You couldn’t have changed anything had you stayed. And you certainly won’t move mountains now that you’re back. None of this is your doing, or up to you, or open for discussion if that’s the way Maria wants it. Spanking you again is an option if you can’t get those concepts through your head. Understand?”
“Honey…” I whispered, tears filling my eyes.
“Chan,” he answered in warning. “Do you hear me?”
“Yes.” I hugged him. “God, you’re bossy.”
“I’m sorry. You need bossy sometimes.” He gave me one last squeeze. “Sit, drink, and let’s move this along.”
I took my place in front of the desk, threw back the contents of my glass, allowing the burn to trickle down my throat. I tapped the side of the glass and Jed poured me another.
“Were they close, Jed?”
“Carlos and your dad? Yes, in their own way.”
“What does that mean? You’re being vague.”
“If I answered you, I’d be offering up conjecture laced with my own personal bias, and that’s a no-win for me.”
“So, it’s a no-win for you. Answer me anyway.”
“Chandler…”
“Jed, answer me.”
He sighed. “Charles loved his son—very much. He didn’t know what to do with him.”
“He didn’t know what to do with me, either.”
“That’s not entirely true. He knew he had in you a child who loved the land, loved ranching, loved everything about it, like it was under your skin.”
“And then he sent me away.”
“That he did.”
“And because Charlie’s not…as communicative, my father couldn’t relate to him?”
“I didn’t say that. See, this is where conjecture comes in, and it’ll get me into trouble.”
“Coward.”
His mouth set in a thin line. “Your dad had Carlos, but…”
“But…?”
“He…he didn’t have you. Something was always missing.”
“Whose fucking fault was that?” I shouted, jumping to my feet. Fueled with a bit of good whiskey and some righteous anger, I was revved up again and ready to rumble.
Jed held up his hand. “And now for the bias.” I waited. “You could have come home,” he said finally. “After you finished high school, or college, you could have come home. Really come home, Chandler. Stayed, been present. He asked you a million times.”
“He never…”
“Chandler, I stood next to him while he talked to you on the phone! Did he beg? No, that’s not his way. But he asked—over the phone, in emails, he asked.” I’d rarely heard Jed raise his voice. “Having you here, being a family, you taking part in Carlos…it would have helped, would have changed things, I believe. You could have made sense of this boy who was scared of horses and liked books. You could have made sense of Carlos—for your dad.”
I thought about that for a moment. “And he…they thought I was staying away because of Carlos, otherwise why wouldn’t I have acknowledged him.”
“Your dad mentioned it a time or two.” He sighed. “Look, Chan. Everyone thought what they thought and no one bothered to talk. That shit will not fly again, not while I’m around. It’s over, it’s in the past, your dad is gone. Time to move on from this day. Okay?”
I nodded. “You said a minute ago that I couldn’t have changed things had I come home.”
“Related to Maria and her feelings, you couldn’t have.”
“But for Carlos and Dad…?”
Jed shrugged. “And this is the part where you throw that drink at me.”
I plopped down in the chair. “Well.” God bless him, he said not one more word; otherwise I’d have taken him up on that offer.
I gnawed on a frayed fingernail. Jed was right. What I was faced with now, I’d brought on myself. Years of ignoring my father had forced him into a l
ine of communication that did not require eye contact. The computer. Email. He could play dumb-and-folksy about the ‘blasted contraption’, and none of us were the wiser. Yet, I played the same game, and I was twice as good at it. I ignored it all for the same reasons he’d chosen that path: it was easy. And I wanted to hurt him. I had a brother and my father had a lover. All the letters he sent that I never opened, the emails asking me to come home—not pleading, no; that was not Charles’s way—went unanswered. The one or two phone calls he made to me were short and hurried, superficial in the strictest sense. Sending me an email with the most perfunctory details about Maria and Carlos would have brought me home to him in a flash. One call from me and a little prodding about how life was treating him would have brought it all into the open as well. But none of that happened; I was waiting to be asked home, I mean really asked. And he was waiting for me to get lonely enough for him that I’d drop my life and return to the land—to him. Now he was gone. Now I had no recourse, no do-overs, no reconciliation. All I had now was Maria and Carlos. There was a lesson here. It was time I learned it.
I went to the fireplace and moved logs around, adding another to take the sudden chill out of the room. I sat on the raised hearth.
“Truth is, Jed, I didn’t think I could come home. Care to opine on that?”
“Nope.”
“Sitting here now, fifteen years later, filled with emotion over the loss of a man I’ll never have an opportunity to make amends with, fueled with some fine hooch, I can say with sincerity that I wanted to be begged. I wanted that son-of-a-bitch to beg me to come home.”
“I get it.”
“Yet you judge. And you tell me to stop ‘taking it all on’.”
“And there’s the rub.” He clicked the end of a pen against the desk and did not meet my eyes.
“How long have you hated me for this?”
“Not one second.”
“Been angry, disappointed, then?”
“Sad. That’s the only thing I’ve ever felt, for you and your dad. Profoundly sad.”
“I’m sad, too, and I’m here now.”
“Yes.” This time he looked at me. “Make it count. Forget me. Do it for you.”
I returned to the desk. “Honestly, you’re the worst kind of man. Handsome, generous, truthful.”