Gravel Road

by Walls, Stephie

  “Ah, shut up, Charity.” I’d have to apologize for that later. Hopefully before Brock found me to turn my face into a punching bag for speaking to his wife that way.

  Miranda had heard her and pushed open the door with all the strength she could muster. The bell rang wildly, and I took off after her.

  “Miranda!”

  The last thing either of us needed was another scene, especially in the middle of town. “What?” She spun and then screamed, “What do you want, Austin? To humiliate me? Are you out for blood? Tell me what you need so I can make it happen. I’ll do anything you ask. I just need this to end.” Tears ran down her cheeks, her shoulders shook, but she held her ground.

  I didn’t have an answer, because I didn’t know.

  “That’s what I thought,” she murmured in defeat.

  The light on Main Street flickered overhead, and I was at a loss for words. She was beautiful under the yellow hue, despite all the changes I hated. Before I could beg her to go somewhere we wouldn’t be disturbed, a place we could yell or cry or hug or laugh, Sheriff Patton’s car pulled up to the curb next to her. He said something I couldn’t hear. She glanced at me, then back at him, and nodded.

  In a split second, she was in the cruiser and gone. And once again, I was left in her wake, alone on the streets of Mason Belle, drowning in Miranda Adams’s monsoon.

  12

  Miranda

  I hated that he’d gotten the best of me, that he’d made me cry. The cruiser idled a few feet away, and I dropped my shoulders when Sheriff Patton leaned over the passenger seat.

  “Miranda, darlin’”—I still hated that term and every memory that came with it—“you need a ride home?”

  At first, I didn’t answer and instead, I glanced at Austin. I’d begged him to tell me what he wanted me to do, what punishment would suffice, and in return, he’d stared at me, bewildered. Without a response, without an end to this insipid feud, I chose what I believed to be an out that had presented itself unexpectedly.

  It wasn’t exactly home, but Cross Acres would have to do for tonight. So, I nodded and took the ride he had offered. Yet sitting alongside the man who’d delivered the news that had brought my world crashing to the ground, I wondered if I would have fared better with Austin.

  “Gotta say, I’m surprised to see you back in these parts.” He shifted his attention from the road to me, I assumed, expecting a reaction. “What with all that happened, I mean.”

  Yes, I knew exactly what he meant. I just refused to discuss it with him. “Yes, sir.” It wasn’t an answer.

  “Kinda like ol’ times seein’ you and Austin together again.” He chuckled, as if the tears he’d witnessed had been part of a fond homecoming or a great trip down memory lane.

  I didn’t bother to hide my confusion, but the sheriff kept his eyes on the road and missed my disdain. He kept talking. I only listened enough to nod or grunt at appropriate times. I just had to make it ten miles. And when he turned into Cross Acres, I thanked God I’d made it back without engaging in any discussion about where I’d been or why I was back.

  That was until my daddy and Sarah came into view. It was late, and he should have been in bed. I had no idea why my sister was still here. When I grabbed the handle, I questioned which fate was worse: the sheriff or my family. “Thank you for the ride.”

  He patted my shoulder from behind. “Anytime. Don’t be a stranger, now. Ya hear?”

  “Yes, sir.” The effort it took to remain polite when all I wanted to do was cry—or sleep, I’d take either—was monumental. “Have a nice night.”

  Thankfully, he didn’t stop to chitchat with my dad and sister. If he’d gotten out of the car, I might have lost my mind right there in the driveway. As it stood, sanity remained questionable.

  I dragged myself up the stairs and onto the front porch. With only a few remaining steps until I reached the door, my sister foiled my escape.

  “Miranda, come talk to us.” Her usual cheer rang into the night. “I’ve got an extra glass of tea.” She held up the cup to entice me to join them, and I wondered how she knew I’d be home. There wasn’t even any condensation on the outside.

  Refusing to talk or to take the drink would only prolong the evening. I just wanted to go to bed and pretend Austin hadn’t shown up at the diner and that I hadn’t begged him to free me from the slavery of my mistakes. So, I took the glass she offered but not the seat. Instead, I leaned with my lower back against the rail and faced them. “How’d you know I’d be here?”

  My dad chimed in. “Austin called your sister.” Of course, he did.

  That just confirmed they weren’t on the porch shooting the breeze. They were on the porch waiting. “It was nice of Sheriff Patton to bring me back.”

  The ceiling fan swirled shadows along the side of the house and moved warm air. I wished the rocking chairs were still beside the door. No matter how far I got from here, there was nothing that compared to rocking under the stars and the quiet of the country. New York didn’t have a view that even came close, and the city never slept. I sipped the tea and thought of the women I’d shared this porch with and how much I’d missed them over the years. Nothing would ever bring Memaw or Mama back, or—

  “Randi?” My father’s voice jerked me from my thoughts.

  I wished he’d call me Miranda. I wasn’t that girl anymore, but I’d corrected him once, and he’d chosen to continue with the hillbilly nickname instead. “Yes, sir?”

  “You look a million miles away.” Just like his voice sounded.

  There was a time when my father had held the world at his fingertips just waiting for me to take hold. Now, he seemed to have as much interest in me and my whereabouts as he did my mama’s.

  “Just thinking.”

  Sarah leaned forward, and her long hair fell over her shoulder in a sea of curls. We’d both been blessed with gorgeous locks. “Penny for your thoughts.”

  “I miss the rocking chairs.”

  My dad’s eyes sprang up in surprise. He straightened his spine and squared his shoulders. I couldn’t imagine why he’d be shocked that his removal of my memories bothered me.

  “And Mama.” I thought for a second and realized there was something else missing. “And the sounds of frogs and crickets. Where’d they go?” Nature’s nighttime music seemed to have taken a permanent vacation.

  Daddy crossed his legs and relaxed against the bench back. The rustle of his breath reminded me of how close we’d come to losing him and how, despite everything that had changed, it was all still the same. “Fires. What they didn’t kill, they ran off. It’ll take a bit for things to return to normal.”

  The irony in that statement wasn’t lost on me. I wondered if wildlife felt the same loss of home that I had when they were displaced, or if that was an emotion only humans carried. “I suppose that’s the cycle of life. The landscape is forever changing.” I stared out over the open fields—not that I could see anything other than what the moon highlighted.

  The silence between us was stifling. I doubted it would ever be normal again. Maybe this was the new normal. Uncomfortable conversations that led nowhere, ill-timed visits we all wanted to avoid, and relationships that could never be mended. While nothing had been said, my mind was too heavy. I didn’t have the energy for Mason Belle.

  “Sarah, thanks for the tea.” I set the glass down on the table. “I think I’m going to head upstairs. Be careful driving home.” I turned to my father and wished like hell things were different. “Goodnight, Daddy.”

  My sister stood abruptly. “Wait.” Indecision clung to her cheeks and pity lingered in her eyes. “We wanted to talk to you.” Or maybe I’d seen regret.

  I didn’t have a clue what time it was; regardless, it was too late for any discussion they could want to have as a family. I might not provide the level of support around the ranch that the hired hands did, but four thirty still came early, and I wasn’t great at manual labor. There was no disguising the exhausted sigh I relea
sed or the way my shoulders slumped. “Okay…”

  “Maybe you should get a chair,” she suggested.

  If the rockers were still there, I wouldn’t have to. “It’s fine. I can stand. What did you want to talk about?” I leaned against the doorframe, hoping they’d see how tired I was and not keep me from bed much longer.

  My father uncrossed his legs and put his hands on his knees. When he took a deep breath, his lungs rattled, and he coughed several times. He swatted Sarah’s hands away when she rubbed his back like a child. “I wanna talk about the ranch.”

  I pursed my lips and chewed on the bottom one. Since I didn’t know what in particular they wanted to discuss, I couldn’t help propel the conversation to a faster end.

  “Daddy is meeting with his lawyer tomorrow and—”

  “I can speak for myself. I may be fallin’ apart, but my mouth still works.” My dad didn’t normally cut Sarah off.

  I raised my brow at my sister, who rolled her eyes behind my father’s back. Never, in all the years I’d been alive, had I witnessed that gesture from Sarah Adams. She hated it when I did it, and she’d told me how stupid it made me appear. A bit of a giggle passed my lips when she sat back in her seat and made goofy faces at the back of Daddy’s head. She wasn’t even aware she did it, which made it that much more humorous…until it registered that she’d said something about a lawyer.

  Daddy stared me straight in the eye when he spoke. “Sarah’s takin’ me into Laredo tomorrow to have some paperwork taken care of.”

  I pushed off the door and stuck my hands in my back pockets to keep myself from balling them into fists. “Are you selling land to pay for the damage?” There was no way on God’s green earth one acre of this land was leaving my family. “That’s crazy. I don’t have a lot, but I’ll give you my savings until Austin can sell some of the cattle.” It sounded stupid, even to me. The few thousand I had in the bank wouldn’t put a dent in the resources needed.

  He shook his head to quiet my argument. “I’m not selling the land.”

  “Then I don’t understand.” My gaze darted between my sister and my father for an answer.

  Pity could be defined by the blue color of Sarah’s eyes, and determination marked my daddy’s brow.

  Sarah stood, her leg stiff. It took a couple of steps before it loosened up enough for her to walk without a noticeable gait. “Miranda, why don’t you sit down. The two of you need to talk.” She squeezed my arm as she ambled by me.

  “Where are you going?” I practically cried the words.

  If I’d never known Mama, the expression on Sarah’s face would have been foreign. Since I had, I remembered it from my childhood, and not fondly. Whatever was coming wouldn’t be fun, but she believed it was best in the long run. Which meant, I’d hate it.

  Sarah opened the door as she answered. “To get my purse. And then I’m going home. I’ll be back in the morning to pick up Daddy. You’re welcome to ride with us.” She glanced at our father, tapped her fingers on the wood, and then disappeared inside.

  I hadn’t been alone with my father since I’d gotten here. Any time I’d been at the hospital, Eason had been there, and Daddy wasn’t awake. A chill slid up my spine like a snake slithering through grass, and it coiled around my neck, threatening to choke me.

  “Sit down, Miranda. I ain’t gonna bite.” There was a softness to his gruff tenor.

  The porch creaked beneath my weight as I moved to take the seat Sarah had vacated moments earlier. No sooner had I sat down than my sister strolled out the door and waved over her shoulder.

  I tried to focus on my father and ignore the gravel as Sarah walked to her SUV. I hated how old and tired he looked. His hair had greyed entirely since I’d left, and wrinkles hung where crow’s feet used to stand. Even his neck had aged, and the skin dangled beneath his chin like a turkey.

  “What did you want to talk about, Daddy?” Even though I was exhausted, I tried to keep my tone inviting.

  He scrunched the side of his face and then scratched his temple as if he were pondering what to say or how to say it. “Ain’t no way to say this that ain’t gonna fire you up.”

  “Then just say it.”

  He swallowed and bobbed his head. “I’m turnin’ the ranch over to Austin.”

  The force of that blow couldn’t have hit me any harder if it had been delivered with a rock upside the head. My dad searched my face, likely for some sign of emotion, but I doubted he saw anything other than shock.

  “Burin?” As if there were another Austin roaming the pastures.

  “Now, before you go gettin’ all worked up, you need to hear me out.”

  But I didn’t. That was just it. This entire trip, everything about it, just brought clarity and confirmation to what I’d believed to be true for years. “You don’t have to explain anything.” There was no point.

  Nothing he could say would justify giving the Adams’ family farm to someone who wasn’t an Adams. Generations of heritage and lineage roamed these fields, and that’s the way it should stay. But I didn’t get a vote in that decision, and apparently, my sister agreed with our father, regardless.

  “Humor an ol’ man then, huh?” He waited for me to connect with him—meet him eye to eye—before he continued. “Austin’s spent a lot of years here. He works hard.”

  So did lots of men who’d worked at Cross Acres in the past. It didn’t mean they should own an acre, much less the whole dang thing.

  “He’s a good man. He loves ranchin’, and he loves Cross Acres.” My father stopped speaking when I dropped my focus to the porch beneath my feet. “Randi.” Again, he waited for me. “I can’t do it anymore. Don’t you see that?”

  I didn’t see it. “I don’t guess so, Daddy. You’ve been sick the whole time I’ve been here. Nobody expects you to work in your condition.” Admitting my father couldn’t handle the workload equated to accepting his mortality. I wasn’t prepared for either, despite the discontent between us.

  He reached over and patted my knee. His hand didn’t linger or give me a reassuring squeeze. It was probably for the best. “I made poor decisions that night. It coulda cost me a lot more than the cows. If Austin hadn’t found me, I’d have died in the field with ’em.”

  “That’s still not a reason to give him a ranch that’s worth millions.” I wouldn’t budge on that stance, even if I tried to remain calm about it. “None of this makes any sense.” I’d tried to hold back. I hadn’t wanted to release any of this because I would just come off bitter, and that wasn’t the case. But I lost that struggle. “I don’t understand where the money went. I don’t understand why you didn’t have insurance. I don’t understand why you’re selling cattle and—”

  “The money’s gone, Randi!” His voice echoed across the porch and got lost in the night. “It’s been gone. I was doing fine until the droughts, and I thought I’d recover…then this happened.” He flipped his hand toward the pastures.

  “But…where did it go?” I whispered. “You should have been set. There should have been plenty for generations. That’s how Memaw left things.” At that point, I talked more to myself than my father.

  The sigh he let out when he sat back against the bench caught my attention. “Sarah’s medical bills mostly. We didn’t have no insurance, and I couldn’t burden her with that debt when she needed to focus on gettin’ better. I just been payin’ what I could. We had a tough winter, and I forgot the property insurance. But it wouldn’t a mattered. There wasn’t nothin’ left to pay it, no how.”

  He almost sounded relieved to give me that information, yet it wasn’t possible that he’d spent that much money after her accident. I didn’t have a response, so I sat in silence. Eventually, he kept explaining.

  “She was in the hospital a long time, Randi. Lots of physical therapy once she got out. The car insurance company took care of most of that part.” He raked his hand through his hair. “But then she got pregnant.” He was as lost in his thoughts as I’d been in mine. “I lo
ve those younguns, but she wasn’t ready for any of them. Doctors warned her. And it cost a fortune to get ’em into the world safe. The twins were preemies. Bills just kept pilin’ up.”

  “So you bailed them out…”

  He pressed his lips together. I couldn’t tell if he regretted that decision or had resigned himself to the choice he’d made.

  “I’m surprised she let you do it.” And pissed at her, too.

  Sarah had never been that selfish. I hadn’t been to her house, but I could tell by her SUV that she and Charlie weren’t hurting for cash. And while I’d never asked, I was confident she’d gotten a settlement from the accident. There was no reason why they shouldn’t have paid their own bills.

  “She don’t know.”

  My mouth gaped. Sarah couldn’t possibly have believed childbirth and a stay for two in the NICU had been free. I didn’t understand any of it. My guilt of my own indiscretions turned into anger. It was hard to face the series of events—the domino effect that I’d started by running out that door. One decision, one mistake, and six years later, everyone paid for it.

  “And I don’t aim for her to.” It was noble, although incredibly dumb. He should have protected his assets and worried about his debts later. But that wasn’t how a Southern man was raised. You paid people what you owed, you worked hard, and the good Lord provided.

  “This is insane. You spent all your money paying Sarah’s medical bills? And now you’re going to give away everything you have left, so the Burins have it all?” There had to be more to the story. “What am I missing?” Regardless of my part in this situation, I couldn’t let go of the hurt I felt—about everything.

  He shook his head slowly. “I’d hoped you’d understand.”

  “Clearly, I don’t.”

  “Austin’s the closest thing I got to family to pass it on to.”

  I’d just thought the blow I’d felt earlier had been damaging. But this one took me out. “I see.”

  Defeated.

  I surrendered.