Her Last Make-Believe Marriage

by Liz Isaacson

  She’d known then that she wanted him in her life long-term. But she’d also realized that she wasn’t ready for such a commitment, not without some serious attitude shifts.

  In the resulting days, she’d struggled mightily with God to learn what she needed to do in order to get that attitude toward marriage and family to a place where she could see she and Sawyer as husband and wife—and maybe a family.

  She’d finally come to the conclusion that she needed to go all the way back to her first marriage and family. The origin of all of her opinions about such things.

  Thus, the trip to Eugene. She hadn’t been able to articulate all of that to Sawyer, and what she had said had turned out terribly.

  Looking around at everyone gathered for a meal to express their gratitude, Jeri wanted to do the same.

  Thank you, she prayed silently. Please help me do what’s right.

  She realized now she should’ve been praying for that all this time, but she’d been so focused on rebuilding what she’d lost. So focused on herself.

  “All right,” Scarlett said, trying to talk above all the chatter. “All right.”

  Hudson put his fingers in his mouth and whistled, which got everyone to be quiet. He looked at her, smiled, and nodded as if to say, Go ahead, sweetheart. She beamed back at him with such love in her eyes.

  Again, Jeri marveled at their love—and she desperately wanted it for herself. She looked at Sawyer again, but he stood in the kitchen with Cache, Dave, and Lance, his eyes trained on Scarlett.

  So she’d make things right with Howie and Randy, and then she’d see if her heart had any open doors for Sawyer.

  She sure hoped it would.

  Please, she prayed this time, not able to add anything else to her plea to the Lord.

  Chapter 18

  Sawyer understood now why Carson had left the ranch. Being in the same room with Jeri was an exquisite form of torture that took his appetite from him and made his mood surly. He stayed in the kitchen with his new friends, trying not to gnash his teeth while he listened to Scarlett thank them all for being there.

  “The ranch couldn’t be what it is without all of you.” She gazed around at them, so much gratitude oozing from her that Sawyer could feel it way down in his toes. He was grateful for her, that she’d come to this failing ranch and revived it when he and Gramps hadn’t been able to do the same.

  “So let’s eat,” she said. “I know Adele’s not here, and she would’ve done such a better job than I did. But we managed to get a couple of turkeys done, mashed potatoes, gravy….” She continued listing off the food, as if everyone couldn’t figure out what each pan or bowl held. “And Karla made pies.”

  “Jeri helped,” Karla said, stepping next to Scarlett. Sawyer looked at Jeri, the way everyone else did. She smiled and stood off to the side, and Sawyer glanced away, once again angry that his heart pulsed for her. Only her. Why had he allowed himself to fall in love with her? Kiss her? Make love to her?

  He’d known their relationship was on fragile ground—make-believe ground. Pretend, fake, not-really-there ground. He’d known it, and he hadn’t acknowledged it, because he didn’t want it to be true.

  He swallowed hard, his throat so dry and his humiliation rising up to choke him. He had to get out of this house. Away from this ranch. From her.

  Scarlett said, “Let’s eat,” and chaos erupted. Since he was in the kitchen, if he didn’t go through the line and get out of the way, he’d be clogging the limited space. And everyone would pass by him, including Jeri. So while he didn’t really want to eat, and he certainly didn’t want to be one of the first, he got in line behind Cache anyway.

  “You okay?” the other cowboy asked him, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Fine,” Sawyer said, not willing to talk about anything of importance right now, in front of all these people. There were at least twenty people here—anyone who didn’t have somewhere else to go. Cowboys and volunteers alike. He did have somewhere else to go, but he hadn’t wanted to make the two-hour drive to his parents’ in Newport and show up unannounced—and alone.

  There would be so many questions, his mind spun just thinking about it. So he put turkey and potatoes and stuffing on his plate and got out of the kitchen. He took a seat at the very end of the table beside Cache, with Dave and Lance across from them. They talked about their music and the band, and Sawyer could handle that. Sort of. He was still a bit stung they hadn’t asked him to be in their little group, but at least he didn’t have to look at Jeri or talk about Jeri.

  “So Sawyer,” Cache said, twisting toward him slightly. “We wanted to ask you to be in the band.”

  “What?” Sawyer looked at him and then the other two cowboys. “Are you serious?”

  Cache grinned and nodded. “Yeah, you’re good, and we’d love to have you.”

  “Yeah,” Dave said. “Cache said you played guitar, but you were so busy with Jeri….” He trailed off and cleared his throat. “What do you think?”

  “I’m in,” Sawyer said, a smile touching his face that felt real and good.

  “Awesome,” Dave said.

  “We’re practicing this afternoon,” Cache added. “So don’t load up on turkey and then fall asleep.”

  They all laughed, and Sawyer couldn’t wait to tell—

  His good mood evaporated with the fact that he didn’t have anyone to share his good news with. Not anymore.

  He kept the smile on his face, though, wondering if it was as hard for Jeri as it was for him. She’d told him that she’d learned to smile through any situation, and he stole a glance at her.

  She sat far away, practically as far from him as she could, Karla on one side of her and Amber on the other. Her back faced him, and she didn’t seem to be bothered that he was in the same room with her.

  Maybe he could stay here and live next door to her and not have her. The idea felt completely wrong, and yet he didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  After lunch and before band practice, Sawyer loaded Blue in the back of his truck and went down the road to town. He drove around a bit, glad for the sunshine and the breeze. He somehow ended up at the gray brick building where he went to church, and he parked and got out.

  “C’mon, Blue,” he said to the dog, who jumped out of the back and trotted over to the grass to sniff around. Sawyer started walking down the path that circled the bluff, thinking of Jeri up on it, on the ranch.

  “What do I do about her?” he asked the Lord. He drew in a deep breath, trying to find his center. Not much came to mind, and his gut certainly didn’t settle. The ache there could’ve been from the huge serving of sweet potato casserole he’d eaten, but he somehow didn’t think so.

  He continued to walk, letting Blue roam and explore, until he had to get back to the ranch for band practice. As he whistled to Blue to come back, Sawyer had the distinct thought that he should go see Gramps.

  For so long, it had just been him and Gramps on the ranch. Sawyer had done everything he could for the large animals, and he’d checked on Gramps’s work with the cats and dogs once a week to make sure they were getting cared for.

  They’d struggled. They’d spent evenings together. He’d listened to Gramps tell stories of his wife, stories about his kids, stories about the ranch, stories about his grandkids. He realized that since he’d started seeing Jeri, he’d stopped visiting Gramps.

  His truck came back into view, and Sawyer resolved to get over to Gramps’s cabin before the sun set that night.

  But first, he had his very first official practice with the Last Chance Cowboys, and he couldn’t miss that.

  Sawyer didn’t go see Gramps that night. Or the next. Or the next. Something always came up, and the thought faded to the back of his mind, where it hung out. It only poked him at the most inconvenient times, when he couldn’t drop everything and go find the old man.

  After all, he couldn’t call Gramps at ten o’clock at night, when the thought suddenly came forward as Sawyer went to be
d. Or in the middle of holding a horse so Cache could shoe it. Or out on the range while he mapped out their agriculture plan for the next year with Jackson, a new cowboy Scarlett had hired to oversee all the farming and feeding needs on the ranch.

  Days passed and became a week. Sawyer kept himself busy in new ways now that Jeri stayed away in the evenings again. In fact, sometimes her car was gone when he got home, and he’d never finished work before her in the past.

  He wondered where she was going, but he didn’t ask. He got up earlier so his morning routine of sipping coffee on the porch was over before she walked by. Sometimes, in a moment of weakness, he stood at the window and watched for her to walk by.

  She always looked up to his steps, and a button of hope pinned itself to his heart. Maybe she would come back to him. Maybe she’d find a way to accept that she could trust him and that they could build a strong, real marriage out of this mess.

  Then he’d remind himself that she didn’t want a family, and he never could get past that sticky point.

  One morning close to Christmas, he still sat on his porch when her front door opened. He almost jumped to his feet and darted inside, but something told him to stay very still. So he did, watching as she brought a suitcase down her steps and put it in the trunk of her car.

  She didn’t glance his way as she got behind the wheel, and she pulled out and went around the U toward the other road, the one that didn’t pass directly in front of his house. He watched the dust lift into the air behind her tires, watched her drive away from the ranch, from him.

  “Good luck, sweetheart,” he whispered to her, hoping the Lord would somehow, some way, help her with whatever she felt like she had to do in Eugene. Part of him wanted to be with her, but another part understood that she had some demons in her past she had to face herself.

  All he could do now was pray that she’d be strong enough to defeat them, and that she’d hurry back to the ranch—and him.

  Sighing, he decided that this morning would be a perfect time to finally go see Gramps. It wouldn’t be too early, as the old man had often told Sawyer he got up at four-thirty every morning. When Sawyer had asked him why, Gramps had claimed it was just his old body completing an old habit.

  Sawyer took Blue, as Gramps’s second love on this Earth behind his late wife was a dog. Any dog. Didn’t even have to be a good one, though Blue was the best.

  “We’re goin’ to see Gramps,” he said. “It’s been a while, so don’t go all nuts when you see him.”

  Past the homestead and across the lawn, Blue stayed right next to Sawyer, who finally rapped lightly on Gramps’s door.

  “It’s open,” the man called from inside, and Sawyer twisted the doorknob.

  “Hey, Gramps,” he said, entering the cabin. Gramps had a bit of a hoarding problem, but Scarlett had helped him clean out a lot of stuff. There were still piles on almost every surface, and the scent of old newspaper mixed with the slight odor of spoiled milk.

  “Sawyer,” he said, pushing himself out of his recliner with a groan. “And Blue.” He grinned as he bent over to pat the dog. Blue had forgotten Sawyer’s lecture about not going nuts, and his whole body wagged as Gramps tried to stroke him with his shaking hands. He chuckled, his voice rusty, and then he trained his watery blue eyes on Sawyer.

  “It’s been a while.”

  “Yeah,” Sawyer said, following Blue and bending to give the old man a hug. “Things have been crazy around here.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Gramps stutter-stepped into the kitchen. “I’ve got coffee.”

  “Sure,” Sawyer said, though he didn’t need more caffeine. He’d learned when he’d first come to the ranch not to refuse coffee from Gramps—it had actually been Grams who’d made it back then.

  He’d tried, and they’d insisted so vehemently, that he’d given in. That was just how it was with them. Sawyer breathed in deeply, the memories of his time here sweet and sad and everything in between.

  He supposed that was what life was. Sweet and sad and everything in between. “How’ve you been?” he asked, accepting the mug from Gramps. “Scarlett still letting you feed the dogs?”

  “Oh, she’s got people for everything now,” Gramps said, somewhat huffily, as he collapsed back into his recliner. “That Genevieve lets me into the yard, but she doesn’t leave me alone for long.”

  Sawyer grinned, recalling a fire Gramps had started not that long ago, before Genevieve had come to the ranch to oversee the quality of care in the Canine Club. “Well, at least you can still get in.”

  “Right? It’s like I’ve never fed a dog before.” He scoffed and waved one wrinkled hand. “Anyway, that’s about all I do these days. My bones hurt all the time.”

  Concern ran through Sawyer. “They do? Have you told Scarlett?”

  “Oh, she’s busy,” Gramps said. “Her wedding is just a few months off, and I’m fine.”

  “I haven’t seen you around the ranch,” Sawyer said.

  “I go for a walk every day,” Gramps said. “Blue usually finds me.”

  “Does he?” Sawyer didn’t know that, but it was true that Blue didn’t stay by his side all day while he worked.

  “And I’ve been assigned to get the eggs from that new coop,” he said with a hint of pride in his voice. “Those two things about do me in.” He laughed again, the sound morphing into a cough that once again sent worry through Sawyer.

  He thought about the chores he had to do that day, and his bones started to ache too. “Well, I—”

  “Heard you got hitched,” Gramps said, those eyes sharp now and hooking right into Sawyer.

  “Well, kind of,” Sawyer said.

  “I didn’t get invited?” Gramps asked.

  No one had been invited, but Sawyer didn’t say that. “It was a spur of the moment thing.”

  “And where is Jeri?”

  “Um, Eugene.”

  He nodded as if Sawyer had indeed given the right answer. “Why didn’t you go with her?” Gramps seemed to know all the answers to his questions, and Sawyer squirmed on the couch.

  “Honestly, Gramps, we’re not together anymore,” Sawyer said. “She filed for divorce and everything.”

  Surprise lit Gramps’s face, and Sawyer realized that not all the news had circulated around the ranch yet. Sure, Cache, Dave, and Lance knew he and Jeri had broken up. Surely Scarlett, Amber, Karla, and Sissy did too. Everyone probably did. Heck, even Genevieve who didn’t live on the ranch full-time had known he and Jeri were married.

  But maybe they hadn’t known she’d filed for divorce.

  “It takes six months to go through,” Sawyer said, clearing his throat afterward.

  “So is she gone for good?”

  “I hope not,” Sawyer said.

  Gramps cocked his head and looked at Sawyer. “You’re still in love with her.”

  Sawyer wanted to leave. Grow wings and fly away, anything so he didn’t have to have this conversation. Didn’t have to admit to anything.

  “Love is a powerful thing,” he said. “Did I ever tell you how Janice and I met?”

  “No, sir,” Sawyer said. He’d heard a lot of stories, but not that one.

  “There was a dance,” he said. “She was on the committee for it, and the first time I saw her, she was halfway up a ladder, trying to get the end of a banner to stick to the wall.” He wore such a look of bliss on his face, Sawyer could almost imagine the scene before him.

  “I was in my Navy uniform, and I was shipping out in the morning. But I had to know who she was. I hurried over to help her, and we talked and danced all night. I kissed her that night.”

  “Gramps,” Sawyer said with a smile. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to kiss and tell?”

  He chuckled. “Times were different then, I suppose. Anyway.” He took a big breath and continued. “I left the next morning, and we wrote to each other. It was hard to get mail on the ship, so I’d usually get four or five letters at once, and send her several back with the ma
il delivery copter. When I got back to California, I looked her up. I hadn’t heard from her in a while.”

  “Oh?” Sawyer asked, more interested in this story than he probably should’ve been. He had pigs to feed and cows to check on and surely Cache would be wondering where he was by now. But he leaned forward and watched the love and happiness roll across Gramps’s face.

  “She was dating someone else,” he said, a frown marring his expression. “I told her we were meant for each other, and I don’t know why, but she agreed.” He shook his head and chuckled. “We were married a few weeks later, right before I had to ship out again.”

  “Wow,” Sawyer said. “So you didn’t see each other much.”

  “No,” Gramps said. “And when I got back from that tour, my service was over. I left the Navy, and we came up here to this ranch. Been here ever since.”

  “And you were happy here?” Sawyer asked, though he knew the answer to that question.

  “There were a lot of hard times,” Gramps said, his voice choking. “The first couple of years we were here, living together and trying to build a life—so hard. I realized then that I barely knew her, and she barely knew me, and some days all we had were the memories that we loved each other. Somehow, we stayed together and made things work.”

  Sawyer nodded, his phone buzzing in his back pocket. “That’s an amazing story, Gramps.”

  “It’s not just a story, son,” he said as Sawyer pulled out his phone to see who’d texted. “It’s called real life.”

  Cache had asked Sawyer where he was, and he stood up. “I have to run, Gramps. One of the other cowboys is lookin’ for me.”

  Gramps got up too and hobbled with Sawyer to the front door of the cabin. “Thanks for stopping by,” he said.

  “Of course,” Sawyer said. “I’ll be back sooner next time.”

  Gramps held open the door and said, “Looks like Blue’s gonna stay with me.”

  “You keep ‘im,” Sawyer said with a smile.