Homecoming Ranch (35 page)

But this morning, Madeline felt so empty, too. She truly missed Luke. She missed him standing at the bottom of the trail when she
came down, missed him building showers and latrines in tight T-shirts and jeans. She missed the way he smiled at her and the way he made her feel when they made love.

Where
was
he?

The despair she felt for him was so much more powerful than the despair she’d felt when other people had disappeared from her life. Before, she’d felt lonely and undeserving. This despair was something altogether different; it was abrading, chipping away at her soul. She debated driving by his house and actually inquiring, but then she thought of the conversation between Patti and Marisol, and the talk of Julie Daugherty coming around.

Maybe that was it. Maybe Luke had reconciled with Julie. She would hope that he would mention it, but then again, why would he? Madeline had made it clear—
too
clear—that this would end. She’d been so fearful of it she had done what she always did and backed too far away. She hadn’t even found the courage to tell him. He must believe she didn’t care.

Madeline was lost in thought when she heard the sound of heavy footfall. She stopped on the trail. The dogs stopped behind her, their snouts in the air. One of them, the big one, turned and ran down the trail.

How interesting, Madeline thought, that she didn’t fear a bear. She felt for her whistle around her neck, but she didn’t lift it to her mouth. She stood on the trail, waiting, listening to the sounds of the thing moving closer. And then, just ahead of her, an elk emerged from the woods. The animal was huge, standing as tall as she. The spread of its horns had to be five feet across. It snorted, lifting its head, and eyed Madeline. The smaller dogs began to bark, but the elk didn’t notice or didn’t care. It dipped its head, sniffed at the ground, then slowly, laboriously, moved on, stepping into the woods on the other side of the trail and disappearing into them.

It felt almost like a dream. A majestic, magnificent creature drifting through her morning, appearing from nowhere, disappearing into nothing.

Just like Luke.

She had the strange urge to run after the beast, to catch it. But she was frozen, looking at the point she’d last seen it, wishing she had done something different, had moved to touch it before it disappeared.

Madeline was so lost in the image of that elk, in missing Luke, that she didn’t at first register the sounds from below. Several moments passed before she recognized her name. Libby was calling her.

The first wave of Johnsons had arrived.

The first thing Luke noticed was the sign hanging over the entry: W
ELCOME
J
OHNSON
F
AMILY
R
EUNION
. He couldn’t miss it—it covered up the H
OMECOMING
R
ANCH
sign that had hung over the gate for decades. He took a deep breath and drove up the road, over the little bridge and into Tent City, where pads, spaced precisely apart in the meadow, housed tents that looked like red alien pods. There were two RVs parked in the far end of the meadow, too, their awnings already extended. This wasn’t camping. This was pretend camping.

Wandering in and out of the big circus tent erected for their meeting place, were Johnsons in matching red T-shirts that said J
OHNSON
F
AMILY
R
EUNION
, T
HE
R
OCKIES
.

Luke tried not to look at the invasion of tomatoes. It made him feel helpless, and he didn’t need any help in that department—Dan Broadstreet had done a pretty good job of telling him just how helpless he was. “Why are you even here?” Dan Broadstreet had rumbled as he sat with him in his office. “Just this checking in with me is costing you money.”

“Because I need to talk,” Luke said.

They had talked, all right. “A written agreement, even on the back of a cocktail napkin, is one thing,” Dan said. “It’s defensible. But a verbal agreement? Unless there are a bunch of witnesses, that’s a much
tougher thing to sell. At first blush, I said I didn’t think you could. Now, I’ve looked into it, and I’m going to tell you straight up—you’re wasting your money. You can’t stop this, Luke. You have nothing to file, no standing. Soon as the ranch is out of probate, it’s theirs to do with what they want. You’d be better off dealing directly with them than trying to find some legal maneuver.”

Deep down, Luke had known that. He’d known it the first night he’d sat with his father at the kitchen table. But when he’d left Dan’s office that afternoon, he had accepted that he was truly defeated. He couldn’t come up with the money. He couldn’t stop a sale. It was done.

He’d also stopped in at his borrowed office while he was in Denver and learned there were problems with his house. The plumbing lines hadn’t passed inspection. It had taken him a couple of days to straighten it all out.

And then he’d gone home to collect a few things, take care of a few things. In his mailbox, he’d found the usual stack of bills, but also a letter from his professor telling him that as he had missed the exam, he had no choice but to fail him. He was giving Luke the opportunity to withdraw from class.

Inside his house, things remained as he and Madeline had left them the last time he was in town. There were beer bottles on the hearth and the floor pillows on the floor. It was a stinging reminder of how foolish he’d been to believe that something magical had happened that night. God, he could be such a sorry sap at times.

He drove back to Pine River and Homecoming Ranch in a sour mood. He could scarcely bear to come up to the ranch and see strangers milling about. He’d meant what he’d said to Jackson—this ranch was the Kendrick legacy.

However, he had to grudgingly admit that Jackson was right, too. He knew it was becoming increasingly difficult to turn a profit up here. He knew Dad was between a rock and a hard place. And he knew that if he’d come home a year or so ago, he might have been able to help Dad turn it around. But what about his houses? What about the work he’d put into his degree, into making his brand-new company work? What about all the hopes and dreams that he’d had for
himself, that had been steadily picked off, one by one, as his family faltered?

He didn’t know what to do, and the fact that he’d scarcely been able to think of anything other than Madeline had made him crazy. It reminded him of his high school buddy Brad Levitt, a big nose tackle on the football team. When Allison Rangold broke up with him, Brad had moped around for days and had topped off the humiliation of letting a girl get under his skin by crying on the school bus after a big loss. The guys never let him live it down, and Luke had privately thought him weak.

Now Luke knew that he was weak, too. He still didn’t get it completely, didn’t understand how Madeline had managed to capture him like she had, but he had that woman firmly rooted under his skin.

At the ranch, Luke parked his Bronco in its usual spot. He got out and greeted the dogs, who seemed more excited than usual. They hadn’t had this much activity since Mom died and streams of people had driven out for the memorial service, which was held in the meadow.

Luke walked up to the house, almost colliding with a little tomato that went flying by. Inside, he found Libby in the dining room with three middle-aged women. They were studying what looked like a map.

“Luke! Hey!” Libby said brightly when she saw him. To the women, she said, “This is Luke Kendrick. He’s our…” She stumbled there, trying to think of the correct word.

“Hand,” Luke said, and extended his hand to the Johnsons. That’s what he was now—a ranch hand.

The ladies exclaimed about the property, how beautiful it was, how excited they were about the dance tomorrow evening—the first Luke had heard of a dance—and the shopping in Pine River. One of them warned Libby and Luke to be sure and keep an eye out for Uncle Belo, who was known to wander, sometimes without key articles of clothing.

Luke promised and excused himself. He walked into the kitchen and stopped in the middle, looking around. Something was different.
He finally figured out what it was—his mother had stitched four pictures of teapots, and had put them up between the cabinets and the back door. Those pictures—along with any pictures of the Kendricks, anything that would say this house had once belonged to them—were gone.

He had to get out of there, and strode out the back door, down the steps, and through the little herb garden on his way to the trail that led up into the woods. He passed the family picnic area, where three tomatoes were sitting at one of the tables with several beer bottles between them, laughing and talking.

Luke stepped onto the trail and turned into the little path that led to his mother’s garden. The trees had begun to leaf out, covering the entrance, and once he stepped through them, he felt alone. He stood on the tranquil patch of earth, staring up at the sky.
Mom, what do I do now?

His life was changing again, rushing down a new riverbed, carrying him along in its wake. The familiar, the places in his life where his soul found comfort, were dissolving and shifting out of sight.

Luke didn’t fear the change. What he feared was that he would never recover from this blow. Julie, his mom, Leo’s illness—from those blows, he had recovered. But losing Homecoming Ranch? That felt impossible to withstand.

“You came back.”

Luke whirled around; he hadn’t heard Madeline come through the trees. She looked prettier to him than she lived in his memory, her eyes glittering in the sunlight, her hair, heavy silk. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

She smiled wryly. “I didn’t
think
so—I was certain you wouldn’t. I’m really glad you did.” She suddenly moved, running forward, leaping into his arms, her mouth landing on his.

Luke caught her, stumbling back one step to keep them from crashing to the ground. She kissed him with urgency, with the desire he had felt these last few days boiling in him.

Madeline lifted her head. “Where did you go?” she asked breathlessly, and kissed him again, arousing all his desires, all the demons in
him that wouldn’t stop until he’d had all of her. He twirled around, and fell with her onto the hammock, his hands skimming her body, the trim waist, the flare of her hips.

“You left and didn’t tell me,” she said as her hands explored him just as eagerly.

“Had to go, baby,” he said, and kissed her again. He didn’t want to talk—right now, he just wanted her. One last time, he wanted to be with her. He kissed her face, her neck, finding his way to her breasts. He’d just freed one from the bra beneath her T-shirt when voices reached them.

“Delores, you are
not
going into those woods alone!” they heard someone say sternly. “You know what kind of wildcats and bears are in there?”

Luke and Madeline swung in the hammock, with Luke’s hand over Madeline’s mouth as she shook with laughter.

“There are no wildcats up here!” Delores protested. “Maybe some bears, but not
wildcats
!”

A small laugh escaped Madeline, and Luke, trying hard not to laugh out loud himself, held a finger up to his lips.

“What do you think this is?” the first woman demanded. “Looks like a statue or something.”

“Probably some Indian thing.”

Luke realized they were talking about one of his mother’s neglected craft projects. It was a fence post that she had tried some paints on, with the idea of carving something, or perhaps making a birdcage. But she’d lost interest and let it stand there, weathering away during the harsh winters and mild summers. He was overcome with laughter and buried his face in Madeline’s shoulder. They struggled to stay quiet until Delores and whoever her companion was had moved away, and only then did Luke laugh so hard that he and Madeline rolled out of the hammock, landing on the soft grass just below them.

He gathered Madeline up in his arms, kissed her face. “God, I want you,” he murmured.

“Me, too.”

“Tonight,” he said. “Come into town. We’ll have dinner, find a place…”

“We will?” she asked hopefully.

“Leave it to me.” He had no idea how, but he’d figure it out. He had to figure it out. He had to have one last moment with her before it all went to hell.

Madeline’s smile was luminous. “I can’t
wait.
I need to be with you, to talk to you—”

More voices filtered in to them and they stilled, listening. When it seemed that no one was coming, Luke said, “We better go and give Libby a hand.” He rolled Madeline over onto her back, kissing her once more, before he grabbed her hand and helped her up.

Two vanloads of Johnsons, arriving from the Durango airport, descended on Homecoming Ranch at the same time that one of the extra ovens Ernest had installed was found to be malfunctioning. Luke and Ernest spent an hour repairing that problem, and when Luke was finally free of it, he walked outside and saw Madeline with a group of children. She was down on one knee and was actually introducing the dogs to them. Who could believe this was the same reserved, shy woman who had shown up in a suit and pumps?