by Taylor Hart
“What, Ryan?” Her voice was soft, vulnerable.
“Nothing.”
She moved beside him. “Are you okay?”
Her vanilla scent momentarily distracted him. “I’ll be fine.”
“Your hands are shaking.”
He willed them to stop and shoved them in his pockets. “It’s no big deal.”
Charlotte touched his forearm. Her warmth on his skin burned fire into his heart. “What happened in that cave, Ryan?”
He pulled back. He saw the sympathy in her eyes, and he couldn’t take it. He shook his head. “You know, the usual story—men captured, men tortured . . . men escape.”
“You brought down one of the largest terrorist cells in Afghanistan?” Charlotte’s voice was tentative.
Ryan closed his eyes. The news made it seem so simple. “The truth is . . . one mistake leads to another.”
Charlotte didn’t respond.
“Why are you drinking Scotch?”
She glared at him.
He glared back. “You have a son to think about.”
She threw her hands up and backed away. “Really? Really? What? Oh, you think I’m an alcoholic? I’m not.” She spit out the last word. “I’m a good mother, but—okay—yesterday I screwed up. Is that what you want to hear?”
He looked down. “No, it’s not what I want to hear.” He looked back up. “Why’d you marry him, Char?”
She continued backing toward the wall they climbed down. “You’re not the only one that knows about where mistakes lead.”
He nodded. “Were we a mistake, too?”
She paused next to the cliff’s edge. “I’m sorry, Ryan, but sometimes you just have to let things go.”
A knowing stab of pain ached into his gut. His head felt like it would implode under the pressure of it all—the past, the present, her wild mass of red hair, he could get lost in all of it. “Yeah.”
His cell buzzed. He reached for it and turned away. “Ryan Hardman.”
“I know.” Alan.
“What?” It came out rough.
He hesitated. “You got it signed?”
Ryan turned around. “No, it doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to buy it.”
“Yes, you are.” Charlotte stepped closer to him.
Ryan held the phone to the side. “What?”
“I want to get the will changed, contest it or something.”
“Let me call you back, Alan.” Ryan hung up.
“I want my mother to sell the land.”
Ryan looked her up and down. “I thought you said over your dead body?”
She shrugged. This idea had been circling inside of her since she’d hopped on Sunny and came to find him. “It should be my mother’s to sell even if I don’t agree with it.”
“But your father’s will put it in a life estate. And she can’t sell it.”
“I realize that.” Charlotte snapped at him.
Ryan lifted his hands. “What do you want to do?”
“I want to figure out a way to sell you the property.”
Her eyes had turned from soft green to a bright, almost blue. It reminded him of a fire in the middle of a snowstorm. He was completely distracted by it.
“What?” She demanded.
Ryan thought of his friend, Richard. He had a knack, a talent, and a lot of his family’s money behind him. If there was a way, Richard would be able to figure it out.
Charlotte studied him and shrugged. “Maybe it can’t be done. I don’t know.”
There was a part of him that wanted to be done with this whole thing. A part of him that wanted to leave Hidden Falls behind and, this time, never look back. A part of him that knew he shouldn’t get involved.
Charlotte bit the inside of her lower lip. “Will you help me?”
It was something Ryan remembered her doing. As a kid, she would get cold sores from doing this, and her mother would get after her about it. “I have to leave.”
“Ryan?” She put her hand on his forearm.
A shiver went through him. He looked at her long, soft fingers.
“Please.”
He looked back to her eyes and he knew—he would do anything she wanted. “I’ll talk to my attorney.”
Her green eyes widened. “Really?”
Warmth filled a tiny part of his heart, and he pushed it away. “I can’t make any promises, but I have a meeting scheduled with him Monday in Charleston.”
“I’m coming.”
He frowned. “No.”
“Ryan, my mother is overwhelmed by this. The end of the month is six days away. I have to help her do this.”
His mind raced.
“Ryan, please.”
He made a quick decision—the kind of decision he had been trained to make in the military. “Fine.” If he was in this, he was in this. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at six. My attorney is having a social Sunday night for his niece. He takes these socials very seriously. I can’t miss it.”
She frowned. “Why can’t we just drive over Monday morning?
Ryan frowned back. “Because that’s the deal.”
“We can leave at five-thirty in the morning Monday morning. We’d get there in plenty of time,” she countered.
He rolled his eyes. “My attorney is also one of my best friends. He will be offended if I’m not at his party.”
She bit at the inside of her lip. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
She went to the rock wall and started to climb up. “I’ll meet you there Monday morning.”
Annoyance flashed through him. He moved to spot her. “No.”
“I got it.” She climbed up without assistance. “I’ll meet you.”
He paused. Why did he care so much? “If you want my help, you go with me tomorrow night.”
She pulled herself up and then looked back. “Why?”
“My help, my rules.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Pick me up at the ranch tomorrow night.”
“Okay.”
“And thanks.”
“For what?”
“For not walking away when the deal got complicated.”
The truth hit a nerve inside of him—a nerve he suppressed. “Bring a dress.”
“Why?”
A tiny ounce of satisfaction stirred inside of him. “I told you, Richard is having a birthday party for his niece.”
“That means a dress?”
He grinned. “For Richard’s parties there is always a dress code.”
She shook her head. “Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He watched her disappear.
She didn’t know it, but she was wrong. The past couldn't be let go of. The past couldn’t be re-written into a nice, pretty news story. The truth of the past was ugly, and if the news had told the real truth, Charlotte wouldn’t want his help at all.
Chapter 21
By the time he made his way back to the ranch, Charlotte’s car was gone. Pretty much everyone was gone.
He knocked on the back screen door and Sara softly called out for him to come in.
Sara sat at the same large wooden-ranch table he’d had dinner at countless times. She held a purple mug and wore a pink bathrobe with pink pajamas.
“I can come back in the morning.”
Sara let out a light sigh. “Heavens, Ryan.” She patted the table beside her. “I’m just unwinding in my cozy pj’s. Sit.”
He sat.
Sara lifted a brow as if asking a question he should already know how to answer.
“Sara?”
She sipped her mug. “Charlotte left Sam here tonight. He’s out in the tree house with a telescope that was anonymously left in front of the bookstore today.”
“Really?”
The edges of Sara’s eyes went into a deep, happy crease. “He’s been up in that tree house all evening. I couldn’t get him down, even when it was time to say goodbye to the guests.
“Hmm, yes.”
Ryan drummed the table.
Sara blinked. “Thank you for helping us with this problem.”
“I’m not going to lie to you, Sara. I just spoke to my attorney, and he’s not too optimistic.”
“Do you remember the day my husband hired you?”
Ryan stopped. His mind flitted back to the first day he’d met Frank Talon. Frank had been tall, large, and intimidating. Ryan had not known he was ex-military, until he’d started talking that is. He could also give a look that felt like he saw all of your sins and knew exactly what kind of butt whipping you deserved. Frank had also been kind and caring and strict. He’d made Ryan toe the line, and he’d demanded excellence. Ryan smiled. “I thought I’d be coming to make an easy couple of bucks from some city people that knew nothing about ranching.”
Ryan had come because his father had told him he needed to earn his keep. By then his dad had been pretty worthless. He and his younger brothers had taken to doing all the chores on their ranch already.
Sara laughed. “I imagine you did. I imagine we’d been the talk of the town—these strangers moving in and taking on this property.”
“Yep.”
Sara held in the sip she’d just taken and then gulped back a swallow. “But Frank liked you. Do you know what he told me after you’d left?”
“What?”
“He said you were young, but you were determined, and you can’t teach determination.”
Ryan smiled. “I think he taught me just as much about life as I taught him about ranching.”
“Yes, we needed you that first year. I was pretty impressed with how much you could do. You were only a boy, but you never acted like it. You were so responsible, and you were so good to Charlotte. We spent many nights walking the ranch and commenting on your good work.”
Ryan didn’t know why her appreciation and praise meant so much to him. The back of his throat stuck with emotion.
Sara touched his arm. “We never knew why you didn’t come back after boot camp.”
Ryan didn’t try to explain.
“Ryan—”
“At first . . . it was . . . well, my dad.” He thought of the wedding invitation. “Then I didn’t because there was no reason to come back.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t realize until later that my mother was enough of a reason to come back for.” His throat felt thick, again. “And my brothers. I should have come back for them.” This was something he’d never admitted to anyone. It had been the burden he’d only allowed himself to carry until now.
Sara closed her eyes for a second and then opened them. “I see.”
He relaxed his hands.
“Then you volunteered for special ops.”
Ryan nodded. “There was a spot open in a special ops task force. I took the first mission they offered. That mission led to the opportunity to join the black ops training. I was sent out again and again until—”
“You were captured.” Her voice was dry. “The news story has gotten around.”
He leaned back. “Small towns.”
“Yes.”
He tried to accept that the whole town knew now. He’d kept it a secret for so long.
Sara’s eyes were compassionate. “Tonight I realized you were stuck in some cave when your poor mom died.”
The way her voice said it, with neither judgment or pain or sympathy, made him grateful. “Yes.”
Sara let out a breath. “When we are young we have no idea where our choices will lead us.”
He got up. “So, I’ll let you know after we talk to my attorney.”
“Thank you for not asking me why Frank had that will written up.”
He turned back to her, and paused. “I know that more often than not, the truth is complicated.”
Sara sucked in a long breath then closed her eyes and blew it out. “You are very wise.”
“No. I’m not.”
She looked up at him. “The truth is—I knew Frank had that will written up. I thought he’d gotten rid of it. It’s . . . Well, who wants to remember the past sometimes, right?” Her cheeks reddened and she coughed.
Ryan felt like he’d just walked in on something he shouldn’t have. The kind of thing that was personal, private, intimate.
She sucked in a long breath. “I . . .” She stood and then quickly sat back down like she was dizzy.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She put a hand on the table. “I trust you, Ryan.”
“But—”
She took a sip from her mug, and the sound of setting it down made a hard thud against the wood. “Frank always hoped you would buy the ranch.”
“Sara, it’s not like that.”
She put her hand over his. “If we can sort this mess out, I want you to buy it.”
The very center of his chest began to reverberate like the sound of a deep echo inside of Hidden Falls Canyon, the kind of echo that didn’t just sound and then stop. The kind that felt like it was never ending. “Then you shouldn’t sell it to us. You know my partner and I are brokering it for a development company.”
Sara squeezed his hand. “Frank and I wanted it to go to you. We wanted it to be in your care. You loved the place at least as much as Frank did.”
The same emotion that had stuck in his throat earlier was back. “But—”
A wide smile stretched across Sara’s lips. Ryan noted the similarity to Charlotte’s smile. It was a smile she’d acquired in the last few years of growing into a woman, with her cheekbones higher and her face thinner. A tear fell down Sara’s cheek. “The past year has been hard. I didn’t know Frank would die, and I didn't realize until recently there were all those past taxes on the place.”
“I’m sorry, Sara.”
A tear fell and then she laughed. “Obviously, he didn’t know he would die, either.” She shook her head. “Ahh, let that be a lesson to you—life is too short to stop living it.” She smiled. “Have faith it will work out, Ryan. I do.”
“Look, I’ll try to get the land freed up, but I don’t want you to sell it to me.”
Sara shook her head. “I have to sell it to pay the taxes anyway. If I don’t get it sold, it will be seized by the government.”
Ryan let out an exasperated sigh.
Sara stood. “Choice. We rarely control if we live or die or what gifts or trials God gives us, but we always have a choice in how we react and what we do next.” She winked at him. “That’s God’s never ending gift to us—the gift to pick the path before us. I believe you’ll do your best, Ryan.”
Before Ryan could argue, Sara moved toward the stairs. “Please tell Sam it’s time to come in. It’s getting late, and he has to be up early for church in the morning.” She cocked her head to the side. “Oddly, his father wants him to go.” She shrugged. “I guess Nathan thinks God will help his campaign image.”
Ryan tried to push away the crazy mix of emotions Sara had stirred inside of him. Didn’t she understand that he didn’t want the ranch? He stalked down the steps and noticed a light on in the big tree house. He’d spent many nights up there with Charlotte. Sometimes his brothers and Star had come over to hang out at the tree house, too. Ryan stood still, staring up into memories.
“Are you going to come up or just tell me to go inside?” Sam poked his head out.
Ryan let out a laugh and moved up the wooden planks nailed into the tree. He hoped they would still hold him. “I guess I’m coming up.”
Sam had the telescope set up. The end of it stuck out of the large, gaping hole in the center of the tree. He gave Ryan an apathetic shrug. “Thanks.”
Ryan didn’t see any point in denying it. He knew Charlotte would have told Sam. He bent down and closed one eye to look into it. “You’re welcome.”
The sky had, Ryan guessed, approximately one million stars this evening. He swung the telescope to the eastern side.
Sam was beside him. “C
an you see Orion’s belt. It’s so cool.” His voice was childlike, soft and excited.
Ryan knew this telescope had meant a lot to Sam. He searched for a second. “I see it.”
Sam spoke quickly. “My teacher said the dog is on his side. I couldn’t believe you can see his dog, but you can. And if you move the telescope to the other side of the ranch, you can see the big and little dippers.”
Ryan swerved the telescope and immediately saw them. He pulled his head up. “Did you know that the North Star is at the very tip of the big dipper?”
Sam pulled the telescope toward him. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve used it.”
Sam picked his head up. “In the military?”
Ryan was surprised that Sam knew anything about him. He didn’t know if he liked it. “Yeah.”
Sam nodded. “I’m not surprised you were in special ops. Mrs. Vanderquist was telling everyone about it at the party tonight.”
Ryan thought of his fourth grade teacher. “Was she?”
Sam let out a sigh. “But I could see how come you were a hero.”
Ryan froze.
Sam’s face stretched into a grin. “You got me the telescope.” He said it as proof.
Ryan let out a long sigh. He backed toward the make-shift planks. “I better get going, and you better go inside.”
Sam nodded. “Okay, and thanks for believing in me.”
“What?”
“Buying all those tickets. It shows you believed I could do it.”
Warmth filled him. “I believe you could do anything, kid.”
Chapter 22
Charlotte sat hazily up in bed. She peered over at the neon clock on her bedside table. Two p.m. She hadn’t meant to sleep that late, but she had to admit she needed it.
She closed her eyes and squeezed them tight, feeling around inside her head for any remnants of the raging migraine that had developed between climbing out of the falls and coming back to the bookstore.
Nothing.
She opened her eyes and tossed back the covers. She would hit the shower and then get things prepared for Sam. Her mother had agreed to keep him while Charlotte and Ryan were in Charleston. She’d asked to keep him last night, too. It had been nice. She loved Sam. She cherished Sam. She lived for Sam. However, one thing that wasn’t Sam’s strong suit was being quiet. Curious by nature, Sam could ask one hundred questions just on the short walk from the bookstore to the school’s playground. If he’d inherited anything from her father, it had been his gift of gab.