Last Chance Llama Ranch (40 page)

“Meredith! Is that what you think of us?”

“She did kinda hit the nail on the head, Mom,” Marcus said, chomping more bacon.

Merry shot him a look. “
Not
helping, Banana Hammock.”

“Just sayin'.”

“Marcus, this is between your sister and us. You've already made your decision about
your
bequest.”

“Cool,” he said, rising from the table with lazy grace. “I'll be off then. Got about ten thousand crunches to do if I'm going to work off all those pancakes. Great grub, Dolls,” he said, flashing Dolly his signature smile as he made to leave.

“Marcus, stay,” Pierce said in his nonnegotiable voice. “Merry, we'll discuss this with the gravity it deserves—and in private—
after
the holiday.”

“There's nothing to discuss, Dad,” Merry said. Her hands were shaking, her breath coming fast and tight. She felt as if she were standing at the top of some insanely steep chute she'd never skied before, preparing to hurl herself into the unknown.
Come and get me, debt collectors
, she thought.
Here goes nothing!
“I've made my decision,” she told them. “I'm not taking the money. And I'm not coming home.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Meredith. You need this!” Gwendolyn snapped. Then she shut her mouth, mortified at having been caught arguing over something so gauche as money in front of outsiders. “Pierce, talk some sense into your daughter.”

“We'll have plenty of time to talk everything over at the appropriate time and place,” he said soothingly. “Right now, how about we focus on accepting the gracious hospitality of our hosts while we're at the Last Chance?”

“We're happy to extend it, for as long as you care to stay.” Sam slugged back the last of his coffee and rose from the table, freeing them all from the awkward tableau. “Delicious breakfast, Aunt Dolly. How about I help clear?”

“No, you go on and look in on the critters.” Dolly paused. “Actually, now that I think on it, since we've got the morning unexpectedly free, why don't we all show Merry's folks around the ranch? Jane'll be here in a moment to check on little Bill.”

Merry winced. After the scene she'd just made, she'd rather hide in a pile of llama beans than hang around with her parents in Dolly's barnyard. “Oh, I'm sure they wouldn't care to…I mean, Mother hasn't got the shoes for it, and I'm sure Dad wouldn't want to slog around…”

“We'd be delighted, Mrs. Cassidy,” Pierce answered for all of them.

This will not end well
, Merry thought.

“Alright then, go get suited up for the outdoors, folks. Looks to be a beautiful day for it.”

“Beautiful day for what?” asked a voice from the doorway.

“Jane—right on time.” Dolly smiled at her friend. “Everybody, this-here's Jane Kraslowski, our resident vet, and the reason my fluffies stay that way. Jane, these are Merry's parents, Pierce and Gwennie—”

“Gwendolyn,” Gwendolyn gritted.

“I didn't know you had parents, Merry.” Jane grinned.

“Seems I do,” Merry said, cheered by the sight of her friend. “A brother too. That spaz over there is Marcus.”

“Right, I think you mentioned him once.” Jane's gaze barely glanced off the supermodel. “C'mon, let's go see about that cria.”

And out they trooped, into the barnyard.

T
hanksgiving might have started with an unfortunate incident, but there soon proved something to be grateful for. A mystery was solved this morning. And it was my darling brother Marcus who proved the catalyst.

“Merry, can I ask you something?” he whispered to me. We were touring the ranch with our parents, Dolly, Jane, and Sam leading the way, but Marcus held me back with a hand on my arm as the others kept going. “You're going to think I'm crazy, but…is that cabin haunted?”

My mouth dropped open. “Why, what did you see?”

“It wasn't seeing, so much, as, um…I don't know…smelling. Hearing things.” My sibling shook his head. “It was dark, so I couldn't tell what was going on, but, ah, something was definitely with me overnight. I could hear some sort of…snuffling. And something stank. And when I woke up, all…” He stopped.

“All what?” (I couldn't wait to hear.)

He squirmed. “All my, er, underwear was gone.”

I stifled a laugh. “The 2(x)ist samples they sent you?” (Marcus was to be the face—and more importantly body—of their newest campaign.)

Marcus blushed. “Um, yeah. I mean, they weren't my favorite or anything—even I think there should be limits on how teeny a guy's bikini should be—but it's kinda freaky, don't you think?”

“Yes, I'd say that qualifies as freaky,” I replied. “But not as freaky as that.” I pointed to the goat pen we were approaching.

And to the baby goats who were, with evident delight, munching on his multicolored banana hammocks.

In the midst of her offspring, proud as a mama could be, stood Betty White.

Wearing a pair of Marcus's panties on her head.

It all made sense now. It wasn't a poltergeist who'd been haunting the cabin. It was a polter
goat
.

“You doing alright, honey?” Sam asked, pulling her aside as they continued their rounds. The sun was beaming down on a scene of such bucolic splendor one could almost hear Edvard Grieg's
Peer Gynt
playing. The alpacas were frolicking, the goats were pronking, and the llamas looked on languidly as they chewed their cud. The air was fresh and crisp as only New Mexico could scrub it, and snow frosted the distant mountains, sharp against the cloudless blue sky.

Ah, go fuck yourself
, Merry told the day.

“Not even a little bit,” she told Sam. She dug her hands into her hair, ready to tear out chunks. “Jesus, Sam, why did they have to come here? I was
just
starting to feel good about myself. It's like they've got a sixth sense that tells them when I'm about to have some self-esteem, so they can swoop in and obliterate it.” She kicked a clump of cholla, then regretted it when the spines stuck in her boot.

“It can't be that bad, can it?”

“Remind me to tell you about the time my mother offered to buy me a boob job for Christmas,” Merry said.

Sam shuddered. “Thank God she didn't succeed. I'm rather partial to your boobs the way they are.” He slid his arm around her and copped a gentle feel.

Merry smiled wryly. “Apparently they weren't ‘proportional' to my great height, or so my mother claimed.”

“Oh, honey.” Sam tightened his arm around her as they walked.

“Anyhow, thanks for not freaking out about the money.”

“About you having it, or you not accepting it?”

Merry sighed. “Either, I guess.”

“Why would either one freak me out?”

“In my experience, people tend to have a lot of opinions about what one should do with money—my mother being a prime example. But Sam, I need you to know something…”

“What's that, honey?”

“I wanted to use mine to help you and Dolly. I offered it to her when John first threatened the ranch. And I'd still do it in a heartbeat, if Dolly would let me.”

“I can see why she wouldn't,” Sam said. “Don't get me wrong—a bailout would make life around here much easier, for the animals as well as ourselves. But we didn't come here for an
easy
life; we came here for a life we could live with—and we want no less for you, Merry.” He stroked her cheek with one rough thumb. “Whatever path you walk, it's got to be one that suits your soul, not someone else's idea of who you should be. I learned that one the hard way.”

Merry looked down at Sam's bare feet, thinking of how he walked his path with such commitment, such honesty. She wanted that for herself. “It's just so hard to remember who I am when they're around,” she confessed. “I revert back to some stammering sixteen-year-old lummox the minute they arrive. Which is why I tend to avoid them whenever possible.”

“Do you think maybe they came here to make amends? Start over?”

Merry thought about how her mother had given her such honest advice about fund-raising a few weeks back, how she'd seemed completely up to date on her doings—almost as if she truly cared. It would be so nice to think they could have a grown-up relationship, without threats, bribes, or coercion. “Maybe,” she said dubiously.

“Well, how about you give them the benefit of the doubt while they're here? Worst comes to worst,” he joked, “we'll sic the llamas on 'em.”

“It may come to that.”

It did.

“Meredith,” her mother said. “I'd like a word.”

I get pulled into any more sidebar conferences
, Merry thought,
and I'm going to have to change my career again—this time to attorney.

The hand Gwendolyn placed on her daughter's arm was light enough scarcely to be felt through Merry's borrowed coat, yet enough to stop her in her tracks. Again, she watched the others outpace her, Pierce with hands in his greatcoat, studying the livestock soberly, Marcus tucking stray panties in his pockets as Sam and Dolly expounded on the animals' admirable qualities and Jane checked them over to be sure all were operating at full fluff.

She'd have given a great deal to be with the others right now. But she knew that look. Gwendolyn would have her say. “What is it, Mother?”

Gwendolyn paced a few steps forward, her fur collar turned up to her chin, stiletto heels somehow not catching in the grass the way a lesser mortal's might. She paused delicately. “Darling, what I'm about to say is for your benefit, so I do hope you will hear me out without your customary hysterics.” She looked up at Merry as if daring her to engage in said hysterics. “It's all well and good, your helping these people out. Clearly they need it, and I raised you to know your duty. But if I were you, I wouldn't get too…close…to anyone here.”

“You mean, to Sam.” Merry's face grew stony, though her cheeks had gone red. The borrowed union suit had not gone unnoticed then.

Gwendolyn didn't try to deny it. “Yes, Meredith, that is what I mean. A man like him…well, I'll grant he's a strapping specimen, and we all have needs…but, darling, let's be realistic. He's got no real prospects. You've as much as said he'll be out of a job if the ranch folds. And maybe
he
can pitch a tent in the woods and live off the land—I will admit his survival skills seem impressive if your column is to be believed—but he'd never be able to take care of you properly. You'd always be scraping by, never afforded the privileges you were raised to enjoy. Surely that can't be what you want for yourself. A woman of your breeding, your background…well, you were never meant to make a life with someone like that, in a place like this.” She placed her hand back on Merry's arm. “Please, Meredith, reconsider your rashness, and accept my mother's bequest.”

There's the mother I know.

The politeness she'd displayed at breakfast might mask her true feelings in front of the others, but Merry knew better. People like Dolly, Jane, and Sam were no more than peons to Gwendolyn—peons who ought to be grateful she deigned to grace them with her presence.

Anger flared. “What if I
did
make a life here, Mother? What if this is
exactly
the place I'm meant to be, and Sam Cassidy is the man I'm meant to be with?” In truth, Merry's thoughts hadn't gone that far yet—she and Sam were just beginning to enjoy each other—but once she entertained it, the notion felt
right
.

To me, maybe. But not to Mother.
Gwendolyn was pursing her lips, looking past her daughter at the sturdy rancher. Sam was leaning against a fence post, laughingly letting Fauntleroy lip his hair as he extolled the llama's virtues to her father and brother. Merry saw him as her mother must—as she herself had done when first she arrived. Scruffy. Unrefined…

Then she saw him with her own two eyes. As the man she'd fallen for.

Yup. She was crazy about every last scruffy, unrefined inch of Sam Cassidy. He was perfect for her—a man who saw her worth, not her size or outward accomplishments. And maybe that was exactly what her subconscious had been trying to tell her all along, the reason she'd found it impossible to say a bad word about him in her column. Now, she didn't want to
hear
a bad word about him—from her mother or anyone else.

“You know what, Mother?” Merry rounded on Gwendolyn. “You are an inveterate snob. These people have been nothing but kind to you, and all you can do is look down your patrician little nose at them and say they're not good enough for a daughter bearing your pedigree.”

“I am
not
a snob, Meredith…”

“It's
Merry
!”

“I'm not a snob,
Merry
. And I have nothing against the Cassidys. They seem like quite decent people. But you're still finding your feet after the accident, darling. You can't possibly know what you want, what's best for you. As your mother, it's my responsibility to ensure you don't make a terrible mistake.”

“A
mistake
? Rejecting Granny's money isn't a mistake—in fact, it's probably the most rational thing I've ever done! You know what my
real
mistake has been? Trying to please
you
.” Merry raked a hand through her hair, determined not to let tears fall. “Because obviously it'll never happen. And certainly not since I stopped being the precious little Olympian you could trot out at parties decked in gold medals!”

“Darling, keep your voice down,” Gwendolyn shushed, eyes darting about to see who might have heard her daughter's overloud rant. But Merry didn't care. She was done worrying about Gwendolyn Manning's delicate sensibilities.

“You want to know the first thing I felt when I woke up from that coma two years ago, Mother?” she demanded. “It was
relief
. Relief! Because I knew I would never have to please you again. I'd never be
able
to please you again. And then maybe you'd leave me alone.”

Gwendolyn's face went ashen. “Never
please
me? Good God, is that what you think I care about? Your pleasing me? Merry, I didn't care about your medals because of how they reflected on
me
. I cared because they meant you'd found something you were passionate about—a place to fit in, to excel. I only pushed you toward skiing in the first place because I thought it would give you a sense of pride, of accomplishment…”

“It
did
, but…”

“Let me finish, if you please.”

Merry instinctively obeyed her mother's tone, though her blood was boiling to pursue this long-overdue fight.

“From the time you were little, I knew you weren't well suited for the life I had to offer, but I simply didn't know how to help you. It was never about your height, or your appearance; it was about how
you
felt about them. How you seemed to set yourself apart from the rest of us. Please try to understand where I was coming from, Merry. I only knew my own way, the way the women in my family have done things for generations. It was my duty to provide that upbringing for you, but over the years you've made it abundantly clear you have nothing but contempt for the life we live.”

“
I
have contempt? You're the one who was disappointed with me all the time.”

“I wasn't
disappointed
, Merry…or if I was, it wasn't with you.” She passed a hand across her cheek, swiping away a tear, and suddenly, to Merry, Gwendolyn looked her age. “It was with
myself
. Frankly, I didn't know what to do with a daughter like you. Marcus? Well, he was easy. He's always moved in our circles seamlessly. I didn't have to worry about him. But you were so unhappy, and I knew it was because I was failing you. It broke my heart to see you miserable every day. I thought if I pushed you harder, provided more opportunities, you'd find a way to fit in. But that day of your sweet sixteen, when you told me you'd tried to harm yourself just to get out of a little party…I saw that I was going about things all wrong.”