by Kristy Tate
Darby’s hearted lifted. “I missed him, too,” she whispered.
“And all that loneliness is so unnecessary!” Bern patted the space on the bed beside him. “Sit down and chat with me, at least until my son and that harpy are done haranguing my grandson.”
Darby perched on the edge of the bed, feeling out of her element. “But Bern, you know I live in Orange County, right? It’s not like I’m right next door.”
“But that can change, can’t it? You’re not locked in an orange cage!”
“My job and home are in Orange County. I love it up here, and I’d come to visit as often as I can, but I still…” Her thoughts drifted back to Benjamin’s accusations. She had been about to say that she often had to work on weekends, but did she really? She usually spent her Saturdays doing laundry, picking up groceries, and catching up on all the chores she ignored throughout the week while she crunched numbers for Hopper and Rhode. Sundays was a family day: church, then Sunday dinner with her parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, nieces and nephews. Did she really have time to run up to Oak Hollow every weekend? For Chad, she would make time. But it would require some juggling.
Her sister’s words floated back to her: A man is not a financial plan.
Could she rearrange her life to make room for Chad, Bern, and this ranch? Would he expect her to?
Why couldn’t Chad rearrange his life to suit hers? Wasn’t that what her sisters were always yammering about? How a woman shouldn’t be an accessory to a man’s life and there should be give and take in every healthy relationship? But looking at Bern, she knew she couldn’t ask Chad to leave his grandfather and move to Orange County. She wouldn’t want him to. One of the things she loved about him…Wait…Did she love him?
She didn’t know. It was too soon. Wasn’t it? Look at what had happened with Benjamin—that had been a disaster.
Her disaster. She’d tried to make him fit into her life and he’d been willing to leave London, travel halfway across the world to join her and even then, she hadn’t carved a space that accommodated him. And now, Chad—or Bern, really—was asking her to…what?
She gazed at Bern, trying to read him and the situation while a hundred questions circled in her head.
#
Elaine towed Chad into the living room and pushed him onto a wingback chair. She took a seat on the down-filled sofa across from him and Bernie sat beside her.
“We need to have him declared mentally incompetent,” Elaine said in a hushed and somber tone.
“No, we don’t,” Cecelia said as she hurried into the room.
“No one invited you to this conversation,” Elaine said.
Cecelia put her hands on her hips. “And why not? I have more of a right to be here than you!”
Elaine spun to Bernie and pinned him with an angry glare. “Are you going to let her talk to me that way?”
Bernie’s nervous gaze flitted between his wife’s rage-face and Cecelia’s jutting out determined chin. “Technically, she’s right,” Bernie said, unwilling to meet his wife’s stare.
“You are almost as impossible as he is!” Elaine flung her arm in the direction of Bernie’s bedroom.
Chad hated conflict almost as much as he hated his stepmother. “This is a pointless conversation. No sane person could ever declare Grandpa incompetent.”
“He’s running this place into the ground!” Elaine announced, without bothering to lower her voice.
Chad glanced over his shoulder. “He can probably hear you.”
“I don’t care.” Elaine bounced off the sofa and began to pace. “I’m tired of pretending that everything is honky-dory when it’s not! We’re on the edge of bankruptcy!”
Chad brow wrinkled and he recalled Darby’s calculations. “No, we’re not. I mean, things aren’t great, but we’re doing better, especially if we lease out the fields…”
“That’s just a Band-aid to staunch the bleeding,” Elaine said. “Don’t you see? We’re missing out on a tremendous opportunity. By doing nothing, sure we’re not necessarily losing money unless you consider what we could gain! And what we could do with those gains! With proper investment, we could generate millions! If any of you had taken any business classes, you would understand what I’m talking about.”
“We don’t need a business degree to know exactly what you’re about!” Cecelia perched on the arm of Chad’s chair. “You don’t care two peas about the ranch or Grandpa. All you want to do is cash in.”
Elaine spun to Cecelia with flaring nostrils. “Sooner or later, we need to sell this place. We might as well do it now when we have a buyer.”
“We have a buyer?” Chad echoed. “What are you talking about?”
“We hadn’t planned on telling you until a few more of the details have been ironed out.” Bernie gave his wife a tired and disappointed look.
“It’s just as well. They need to see reason.” Elaine stood in front of the large picture window, her back to them. “Your dad is just trying to hold onto his glory days, but he needs to come to his senses. Wake up and smell the horse-hockey. This place is going to hell in a hand basket.” She rotated on her heel to face them. “We need to sell it while we still can.”
Cecelia bounced to her feet. “I’m not listening to this!” She threw her dad a disgusted look. “Tell your wife that she’s not selling the ranch. Not now, not ever.”
“Ever?” Bernie asked. “I’m sorry, Cecelia, but you need to be practical.” He gave his wife a conciliatory smile. “Cecelia’s like her mom with her head in the clouds.”
“Dad!” Cecelia wailed. “You have to promise me you won’t sell the ranch as long as Grandpa is alive!”
“I can’t promise you that, baby,” Bernie said.
“Chad?” Cecelia spun to him.
“It doesn’t matter what they say,” Chad told his sister without looking at his parents. “Legally, the ranch belongs to Grandpa. No one can sell it but him.”
Elaine stalked away, muttering, “We’ll just have to see about that.”
Chad restrained himself from going after her. He wanted to know how she’d deleted the texts and probably also blocked Darby’s calls, because he was pretty sure it had been her. He couldn’t think of anyone else who would do such a thing, other than Jessica, and he hadn’t seen Jessica for weeks. But since Darby didn’t seem concerned about the missing text and had clearly forgiven him he decided to let it go.
Besides, he was always happy to let his stepmother go.
#
“How is this going to work?” Darby asked Chad on Sunday afternoon. Thanksgiving weekend had been amazing. Chad, Cecelia, and Darby had all helped prepare a traditional Thanksgiving dinner—Chad the turkey and stuffing, Cecelia the yams and green beans, Darby the rolls, Maria, Paco and Sally the desserts. They had laughed, cooked, and tripped over each other to create one meal that would pretty much feed them for the rest of the weekend. During the days, they had hiked, gone horseback riding, and at night, they’d played Scrabble with Bern, and watched cheesy Christmas movies. After Bern had gone to bed, Darby and Chad sat up every night talking and kissing. But now, it was all about to end.
Darby wanted to ask, what now? But even though the question looped inside her head like an irritating ear-worm, she couldn’t bring herself to actually ask it. Finally, Chad put into words what she couldn’t.
“What happens now?” Chad asked as he dropped her overnight bag into the back of her Camry.
Darby blinked. “I go home. Tomorrow I’ll go to work at Hopper and Rhode and you’ll go to Canterbury to shape young minds.”
“And on the weekend?” Chad pressed.
“It’s the end of the year—a really busy time for most of my clients.”
He nodded. “It’s the school choir concert. I have to be here to help with the school play.”
“Next weekend, then?” Darby asked.
Chad shook his head. “It’s the end of the semester—a crazy time for me.”
Darby look
ed at the gravel beside her shoes and fought at the urge to kick it.
“But after that, the school is closed for two weeks,” he said. “I can come and visit you.”
“I live at home with my parents, three siblings and a handful of nieces and nephews, and one very nosy grandmother,” she said in a strained voice. “You can’t stay with me.”
He ran his fingers along her jawline. “We’ll make this work, I promise.” He kissed her softly goodbye.
Darby floated home, and Chad’s promise and kiss kept her warm all the way to Orange County.
She had crazy dreams that night. A woman with long dark curly hair sat on the edge of her bed. “Listen closely, the woman said, “I’ll tell you how you can save the ranch.”
#
The next morning while Darby sat at her desk, crunching numbers for Mrs. Green’s Nail and Tail House, her phone buzzed with an incoming text. Because of Mr. Hopper’s aversion to phones, she liked to keep hers hidden in her desk’s top drawer. That way, if it buzzed with a silenced call or text, she’d feel its vibrating and could open the drawer with the excuse of looking for a pencil. She opened the drawer and her heart lifted when she read the text from Chad.
Chad: What’s worse than finding a worm in your apple?
Darby scooped up the phone, slipped it in her pocket, and carried it into the restroom before she could respond. She felt Gavin’s gaze on her back as she walked past his cubicle. Inside the bathroom, she stepped into a stall and clicked the door close.
Darby: I don’t know. What?
Chad: genocide.
Darby: Haha. You’re right for once.
Chad: What do you mean, for once?
Darby: Don’t you have girls to teach?
Chad: Don’t you have numbers to crunch?
Darby: Can I call you after work?
Chad: Sure, but here’s something for you to think about until then. What did the scientist give to the surrealist?
Darby: I don’t know. What?
Chad: I’ll tell you after work.
Darby: Mean.
But she smiled as she typed in the text.
Later when she passed by Gavin’s cubicle, she noticed he wasn’t at his desk. She looked over at the large window that separated Mr. Hopper from the rest of the office and saw Gavin sitting in the chair across the desk from Mr. Hopper. Both men gazed back at her, as if she’d grown horns on her head…or they were talking about her.
But why would they do that? She tried to mentally sweep that question beneath the rug, but the thought tickled at the back of her mind. She’d taken two or maybe three personal text messages in the entire five years that she’d been at Hopper and Rhode. They wouldn’t fire her for that, would they?
Darby’s hands slowed as she thought back to when Mr. Hopper hired her. He’d been younger, softer, and he had always ended his sentences by lifting his voice. Over the seven years, his hair had grown thinner, his waist wider, his voice more commanding, and his curiosity about his employees had tripled.
Darby took her seat behind her desk and slipped her phone back into the top drawer. The hours crawled by. Gavin didn’t return to his desk. Shortly after five, Darby stood, collected a few files she would work on at home, deposited them in her briefcase, and reached for her phone. It buzzed in her hand as soon as she touched it. The screen read, Chad.
“Darby!” Chad said even before she could get the phone to her ear. “Why aren’t you here?”
“I miss you, too,” she began.
“No! Grandpa said he called for you, but they sent some other guy!”
“What? Wait, why would your grandpa send for me?”
“He’s had a heart attack. A real one this time. How soon can you get here?” She heard panic in Chad’s voice.
“Rush hour traffic…I don’t know, Chad.”
“You have to come. Grandpa is hysterical.”
“Of course, I’ll come, but I just…
“We’re helicoptering Grandpa to St. Francis Hospital. Please meet us there as soon as you can.”
Darby hung up the phone and slipped it into her pocket just as Mr. Hopper banged out of his office.
“Mr. George sent for me and you sent someone else?” The words blurted out of Darby’s mouth.
Mr. Hopper scowled at her. “That’s right.” He wagged his finger at her. “I heard about your shenanigans.”
Shenanigans?
“At first, I didn’t want to believe it because you’ve always been a model employee.” Mr. Hopper planted himself in front of her, barring her way.
“Believe what? I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“You and Chad George?” His frown deepened as if he’d swallowed a lemon whole. “Don’t try to deny it. I heard about it from his father.”
“You heard what?”
Mr. Hopper shook his head without answering her question. “Very unprofessional. I’m extremely disappointed in you.”
Darby pushed past him, her shoulder contacting his chest as she maneuvered her way out of the cubicle.
Her coworkers in the neighboring cubicles stood to watch. All except Gavin, who was noticeably absent.
“Yeah, and I’m sure Mr. George is extremely disappointed in you, too,” Darby said, over her shoulder as she hurried for the door.
“What do you mean?” Mr. Hopper stalked after her, his long legs keeping up with her shorter ones.
“Bern George had a heart attack today.” Darby didn’t take the time to read how her news fell on Mr. Hopper, but pushed through the wide glass doors and stopped on the steps. A cool wet drizzle fell. The smell of rain on concrete hit her and took her back to a high school English class. Petrichor, Mr. Hyde had said, the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. It was said to be the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology. This thought buoyed her and bolstered her courage. Where is my car?
“Again,” Mr. Hopper said, stopping beside her. “Do you really think that tired ploy is going to work a second time? I heard about the last heart attack.” He smirked. “His son was extremely upset. He cut short his cruise.”
“This one was real,” Darby told him.
“That’s hardly our concern, is it?” He thought for a moment. “If your boyfriend inherits, we should still be able to keep the account. But, of course, the most likely scenario is the ranch—which is, as you know, where all their wealth is tied up—will go to the son, Bernie. That’s why I sent Gavin. Bernie, for some reason, has taken a dislike to you. Something to do with Chad’s old girlfriend?”
Darby looked at Mr. Hopper and realized for the first time that her boss was a gossip. He relished learning about the financial foibles of his clients and found delight in their mistakes. It gave him a sense of superiority to rescue them, which wasn’t all bad, but it was also ugly and self-gratifying. Seeing him in this new light sickened her. “What are you talking about? Bern is not dead!”
“But you just said it was an emergency. He’s had a heart attack. If this one is real, which it could be, he might not survive. We should be prepared for that possibility.”
Darby cast a frantic glance around the parking lot. Where was her car? Panic fluttered in her chest.
“If Bernie inherits, as he believes he will, sending you in this time of need would be a grave tactical error,” Mr. Hopper continued. “We need to appease Mr. George—the middle one.” He paused. The drizzle collected in his bushy eyebrows and threatened to roll down his cheeks. “It must be very inconvenient to have to share your name. At least, Chad, can go by Mr. George the third, or simply, Chad…He paused and caught a glimpse of Darby’s face. “Are you upset? It’s not as if you know the family well.”
He was right, of course, she barely knew any of them. But then she thought she knew her boss and she was finding that she didn’t at all, and furthermore, what she did know she didn’t like. “Mr. Hopper, if what I’m doing upsets you, I’m sorry. But I’m going to St. Francis Hospital.” Even if I have to walk.
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Just then, her car drove into the parking lot with Grandma Betty behind the wheel. Darby waved her down and darted into the parking lot.
“Grandma! What are you doing in my car?”
Grandma Betty rolled to stop at the curb and lowered the window. “Are you done with work already?” She looked at her watch. “This is early for you, isn’t it?”
“How do you know what time I get off?”
“It’s not rocket science,” Grandma muttered.
Darby ran to the driver’s side, pulled open the door, and waited for her grandmother to heft herself out of the seat.
“Now, Darby, remember, you can’t go to the hospital,” Mr. Hopper said. The rain started in earnest. Rain drops rolled off Mr. Hopper’s bald head and gathered in the puffs of hair near his ears. “You can’t go to Rancho de Rio. Mr. George—the middle one—distrusts you. I can’t have you jeopardizing this account with this fling between you and the younger Mr. George. It’s completely unprofessional.”
Darby looked at her phone and noticed she had five missed calls from Chad. “Mr. Hopper, I am going to Rancho de Rio.”
He blinked away the rain rolling down his face. “Darby, you’re a valued employee, a diligent worker, and an asset to our firm, but if you willfully disobey my orders and jeopardize our account with the George family, I’ll have to let you go.” He stuck out his chest. “Mr. George—the middle one—was adamant. He doesn’t want you at the ranch or anywhere near his grandfather.”
“I’m not interested in what Bernie wants. And you know what? I’m not really interested in what you want either. I’m going. To the ranch and if that means I’m leaving Hopper and Toad—that’s what I’m doing.”
She got in the car and slammed her door.
Her grandmother smiled at her from the passenger seat.
“Now, Grandma, do you want to tell me what you’ve been doing in my car?”
His life's seconds numbering,
(tick, tock, tick, tock)
CHAPTER 15
“I just borrowed it.” Grandma Betty stared straight ahead of her, keeping her focus on the shifting cars on the road. “Don’t you think you’re going a little fast?”