The Ranch She Left Behind (9 page)

“Well, I’m going into fifth,” she said. “And these earrings are definitely mine. My mother gave them to me. It can’t have gone far, but the grass is so high….”

She got back on her knees and started ruffling her palm over the grass, inch by inch. “It’s important.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “It’s real,” she said. Then, in case a cowboy kid wouldn’t know what that meant, she added, “like, I mean…real gold.”

He nodded, dropped to his knees and started combing the grass, too. He was working an area much closer to where she’d been sitting, and she suddenly realized that was smarter. The earring wouldn’t have flown this far.

She subtly worked her way back toward him, but her hopes were fading. This was like the old cliche—finding a needle in a haystack. The thatch of golden-brown dead grass below the new growth was almost exactly the same color as the earring.

And it would be dark soon.

“So will your mom be super mad? Will you get in trouble if we don’t find it?”

She glanced over at the boy. It was nice, him saying
we
like that, as if they were partners in the hunt. He didn’t have to help. He could have walked away and gone home.

“Not trouble from my mom.” She bent her head again. “My mom died. Almost a year ago.”

“Aw. Dang.” The boy paused and looked at her. “I’m sorry about that.”

She didn’t respond. If her eyes got blurry with tears, she wouldn’t have any chance at all of spotting the circle of gold in the grass.

“Got it!” The boy suddenly jumped to his feet, his fist in the air triumphantly.

Relief washed through her. She stood, too, holding out her hand.

He deposited the earring in her palm with a flourish. “There you go!”

It felt cold, from lying on the ground. She closed her fingers, as if to chafe warmth back into it. She looked up at him, so grateful she forgot to play cool.

“Thank you. Thank you so much….”

“Alec.” The boy grinned. “Alec Garwood, rancher, wrangler and part-time treasure hunter.”

She grinned back. She couldn’t help it. She was so happy that she hadn’t lost the only thing her mother had given her directly, with her own hands. And his smile was that kind of smile. The kind you could catch, like a cold.

“I’m Ellen Thorpe. We moved in today. We’re renting the yellow cottage over there.”

“No kidding!” Alec glanced at the cottage. “That’s a cool place. So you’ve just moved here? Where from?”

“We haven’t exactly
moved.
We’re taking a year off while my dad works on a resort he’s building.” She didn’t feel the need to mention the shoplifting, the bad grades, the arguments with her dad. “It’s more like a long vacation. But I still
live
in Chicago.”

He frowned, as if he might quarrel with that way of seeing things, but then he shrugged. “Whatever. Anyhow, those are pierced earrings. No wonder you lost them. Why don’t you get your ears pierced, so they won’t fall off?”

She straightened. “Maybe I don’t want to get my ears pierced.”

He looked skeptical about that, too. “All girls want their ears pierced,” he said reasonably. “Oh. I see. You’re scared to?”

“Of course not. It’s just that my dad won’t let me.”

Alec looked confused. “So?”

She stared at him. “What do you mean,
so?
”

“I mean…so what? How can he stop you?” Alec grinned. “My theory is I’d rather ask forgiveness than permission.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “You didn’t make that line up. That’s famous.”

“I didn’t say I made it up. I said that’s what I do. Grown-ups don’t ever want you to do anything fun. They’re afraid you’ll get hurt.” He sighed. “But you gotta do what you gotta do, you know? If you get in trouble for it, well, whatever. They can’t eat you, right?”

“Um.” She wasn’t sure what the correct answer was to that. Even Stephanie wasn’t this honest about being bad. Stephanie generally pretended she’d misunderstood the rules, or someone else made her do it. For a fraction of a second, Ellen could see that Alec’s honest civil disobedience had a certain nobility to it. “I guess not.”

He pulled out another candy. “Well, anyhow, maybe you’re really just scared. That’s okay. Everybody’s scared of something. But if you wanted me to, I could pierce them for you sometime.”

Again, she was speechless. Again, even Stephanie…

It suddenly struck Ellen as kind of ironic that her dad had brought her here to get her away from Stephanie’s “bad influence,” and the first person she met was this troublemaker who casually assumed all rules were made to be broken.

“I—” She squeezed the earrings. This was ridiculous. She wasn’t used to being tongue-tied. She always had a comeback. That was why Stephanie had invited her into the group. Stephanie admired people who were chill and sarcastic. “I—”

But then, luckily, she spotted her dad walking toward them across the playground.

“That’s my father,” she said. “I gotta go.”

She moved quickly, hoping she’d meet her dad halfway. She didn’t want him to see Alec. He would be impossible about it. He’d probably say a hundred times, “Isn’t it great that you’ve made a friend already?”

He wouldn’t see that Alec’s being in fourth grade made it impossible for them to be friends.

But after a few yards, she realized it sort of stunk to ditch Alec that way, after he’d been so nice about helping.

She turned. “Thanks ag—”

Alec had already disappeared. She glanced up into the tree, but not a single branch was swaying.

He was just plain gone. She wondered how he did it. He might be only ten, but he was…interesting. Kind of cool. Though not in any way her Chicago friends would understand.

She repeated his name in her head, so she’d remember it.
Alec Garwood.
Cowboy, wrangler, treasure hunter…and, apparently, ninja.

* * *

B
Y
TEN
O’CLOCK
, Penny had done everything she could—at least until the furniture arrived in the morning. It had taken her a couple of hours to shoo away the family, and then she’d emptied the car, hung up her clothes, washed the dishes and investigated every closet, cabinet and cupboard the tiny space had to offer.

After that, as darkness settled over Silverdell like indigo watercolor applied with a thick brush, she grew restless.

It had been seventeen years since she’d moved to a new house—and all of a sudden, though she was exhausted, she couldn’t imagine settling down.

The blow-up mattress was ready on the floor, but even with all the extra pillows and blankets Bree and Ro had scattered around, it looked completely uninviting. She’d have to be a lot more tired before she crawled in there.

She stepped onto the back deck, where she could hear the subtle burble of the creek. Though only a few inches deep, it moved quickly. Through the aspen branches, starlight winked like broken crystal on its ripples.

Gradually, she felt herself relaxing into the familiar scents and sounds of a crisp Colorado night. It was comforting to realize that this tiny tributary, which probably would dry up entirely once winter came, was an offshoot of Bell River. The silver thread of the river bound her to her sisters, but with enough room between for Penny to breathe.

“Long day, wasn’t it?”

She whirled at the sound of Max Thorpe’s voice coming from his deck, which was separated from hers only by an artificial railing. Back when the house had been one residence, this must have been one deck.

He stood at the far corner, leaning against the wooden balustrade, as if he’d been watching the creek, too. The night was fairly clear, with a bright moon, and only about fifteen feet of cedarwood planks lay between them, so she could tell he was smiling.

“Very long.” She walked over to the center rail so that she didn’t have to talk loudly. The backyard led only to the creek, and then to a small grove that bordered the elementary school playground, but she did have neighbors on either side, and she didn’t know whether they considered 10:00 p.m. late or not.

She glanced around his deck and saw that he was alone. “I hope everything in the house is…”

She didn’t want to say
satisfactory.
That sounded so stilted. But she didn’t know landlady vocabulary yet. “Is set up the way you like it. Jenny—she’s the real estate agent—promised she’d have it ready, but I know you arrived a little early, so…”

“Everything’s terrific,” he said. “Considering we gave her almost no warning, it’s fantastic.”

She hoped he didn’t think she was complaining that he’d come ahead of schedule. She could use extra rent, even a week’s worth, to help defray costs. Ruth’s town house had brought a decent price, but most of that was set aside to contribute to the Bell River expansion. The rest was in savings, for the day when she could open her studio.

She was determined to support herself. If she could figure out exactly how that would be done….

“Jenny has been Silverdell’s real estate agent since the Gold Rush,” she said, smiling. “In fact, I bought this place sight unseen. On just Jenny’s word and half a dozen ‘virtual-tour’ photos she’d uploaded on to her site.”

She was babbling. What did he care how she’d decided to buy the duplex? But she wanted very much to be on relaxed terms with her tenant—even if she had made
relaxed
almost impossible with that impulsive kiss this morning.

She should have known word would get back to Bell River. She felt terrible about how peculiar everyone had acted toward him. Rowena had given Max the evil eye so hard that, if he’d been a less confident man, he would have turned to stone.

“Well, she did a great job. We’ve got everything we could possibly need. In fact, we could probably loan you anything you don’t have yet.” He glanced toward her side, where the curtainless windows exposed the empty rooms. “I’m surprised you’re staying here tonight.”

“I remember thinking it would be fun,” she said ruefully. “Like camping out. Instead, it’s kind of…strange.”

Actually, it was more than strange. It felt painfully rootless—like being a vagrant who belonged nowhere.

“I got the feeling your sisters would have liked you to stay with them. I’m sure they’d still be glad to see you, if you changed your mind.”

He didn’t make any reference to how suspicious they’d been of him, which she appreciated.

“They’re terribly protective,” she said, wondering how to approach the subject, herself.

She hadn’t forgotten she owed him an explanation for that kiss. But how much should she reveal? People often felt self-conscious after they found out Penny’s father was a convicted murderer. Or even nervous, as if she could inherit the madness. When she clarified that her father’s violence had probably been the result of a brain tumor, they rarely seemed reassured.

And why should they be? Even Johnny Wright’s daughters had always carried that doubt inside. What if it wasn’t all caused by the brain tumor? What if he was insane? What did that make them?

“Our family…well, things were rocky at home, to say the least. I was the youngest, and Rowena and Bree got in the habit of taking care of me. It’s going to be a while before they can create new patterns.”

He nodded. “I suppose it’s not easy for you, either.”

She lifted her chin. Did she seem lonely? Afraid? She wasn’t. Not one bit. She fought the urge to tell him how she’d single-handedly fought off an intruder with a can of wasp spray.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I know everyone still thinks of me as an eleven-year-old, but—”

“I don’t.” He smiled slightly. “Believe me, I think of you as very much a grown woman. I just meant…it’s a tightrope walk, surely. Breaking free without appearing ungrateful. Turning down all that TLC without hurt feelings.”

Her shoulders relaxed. Once again she was struck with the fact that he was such a
nice
man. She felt again his easy, tolerant vibe—the same laid-back personality that had so appealed to her in the ice-cream store.

He was listening—not judging.

And it was time for him to listen to that explanation she’d been promising.

“I’m awfully sorry about this morning. I put you in a difficult situation. I got the gossip machine buzzing about you, on your very first day….”

She bit her lip. “I hope you know that if I’d had any idea you were my new tenant…or if I’d thought we would be connected in any way, I certainly wouldn’t have done it.”

He tilted his head. The moonlight touched the amber of his eyes and glistened against the white teeth as he smiled again. “You specifically wanted to kiss a stranger?”

He sounded curious, not shocked. She’d been turning over various half-truths, wondering how she could explain her eccentric behavior without revealing too much. But to her surprise it seemed easy to tell the truth.

“Actually, yes.” She sighed. “It was on my list.”

His smile broadened. “Really.”

“Yes. I have this…list. Not a bucket list, exactly. But a…” She couldn’t bring herself to say “Risk-it List,” which suddenly sounded too cute.

“Just a list of some things I’ve always wanted to do but never got the chance. Or never had the courage.”

He nodded, but he didn’t respond. He simply watched her, waiting, with the murmuring creek in the background. An owl hooted into the silence, and then must have launched into flight, because suddenly the branches above them shimmered and whispered.

He was a good listener. Funny, she’d never realized how much Aunt Ruth had chattered. Their daily ritual had consisted of Ruth talking, reminiscing, teaching, reading—and Penny as the quiet handmaiden, the receptive vessel into which Ruth’s wisdom was poured.

“I’ve lived a very sheltered life,” she said, going on as if it was perfectly natural to be telling him these things. Either he was that type, the type who developed easy intimacy with everyone he met, or their kiss had accelerated the acquaintance, skipping over the early, stilted steps.

“Our family went through a tragedy when I was very young, and the result was that my sisters and I were sent to different homes around the country. I became a caretaker to my elderly aunt in San Francisco. She was a bit of a recluse. So I’ve essentially spent the past seventeen years like a hermit. In a cocoon. A very loving and comfortable cocoon but—”