Wild Horses (5 page)

CHAPTER SIX

T
ODD
TURNED
IN
to the driveway of Marker Ranch, half wondering if Nora would be at the other end with a shotgun, ready to run him off her land. He probably deserved it after his lame comment about money last night.

He slowed his truck at the sight of the potholes in the dirt road that led slightly downhill. The road was in desperate need of work, and he wondered if he could get someone in here to grade it for Nora and Wade. Though they probably wouldn't let him. Nora would tell him to take his rich-boy charity and shove it.

Not that he was rich these days.

He hit the brakes and eased his truck over a large bump in the road. He glanced at the broken fences lining the drive and the weed-choked pastures that on second glance seemed to be filled with...cars? He stopped his truck and looked around. All through the fields were the skeletons of rusted-out cars, trucks and a few tractors. Marker Ranch resembled a junkyard more than a cattle ranch.

He let out a low whistle. This place was beyond run-down. It was a crime to see land this poorly treated.

But apparently trashing things had been the Hoffman way of life. He'd done a little sleuthing at his shop this morning. It hadn't been hard to get his customers to talk about Nora's family. The Hoffmans were the stuff of local legend. A mother who'd left when Nora and Wade were still young, marrying their father's best friend and fleeing to Europe with him to escape sentencing for fraud charges. A father who'd chosen a life of crime and swindled most of his neighbors at one time or another. People said he was hiding down in Mexico with the sons he'd dragged into his criminal ways.

And now Nora and Wade had come back to town to face all that history.

Todd felt heavy with the knowledge. He should have asked Nora more questions back in college, should have tried harder to win her trust and know her better. He'd had no idea how she'd grown up or what she'd been through. And now, here on Marker Ranch, surrounded by the remains of all her family had stolen, he felt as if he was looking directly at the skeletons in her closet.

He touched the accelerator again and kept going, glancing down at the new iPhone in a box next to him. He'd driven all the way to Gardnerville and back to get it. It was the least he could do after tossing hers.

Nora's words from the bar last night rang with truth. He'd been a sheltered rich kid with enough money to do whatever kind of work he felt like pursuing, whether it paid or not. He'd headed off to his job in Brazil after graduation full of righteous indignation that Nora wouldn't go with him. He'd never considered that working for an activist's paltry wage might be impossible for her. Now it was obvious how totally ludicrous his invitation to the rain forest must have seemed.

Seeing this ranch made it clear to him that even if Nora's dad had made money from his crimes, he certainly hadn't invested it in his kids or his home. Nora had grown up in poverty and squalor. And he'd sat there last night criticizing the job that was helping her rise above all this.

He pulled up to the house and stopped, staring at the dilapidated building. It was quiet. One big pine, half-brown from the drought, stood next to the neglected old farmhouse. It was a two-story from the Victorian era with great bones, but so run-down it looked like a haunted mansion at a theme park.

A huge contrast to his family's neatly manicured minimansion on the outskirts of Seattle. Everything in his childhood home was neat and tidy. His mom had seen to that. Rooms looked like stills from a furniture catalog. A team of gardeners kept the pool and grounds free of any weeds or excess dirt. Everything had been perfectly put together.

He stepped carefully up to the porch, avoiding a spot where the boards were missing, and knocked, knowing from the quiet around him that there would be no answer. He set the box on an old chair near the door. He'd wrapped it in brown paper and taped a note on, so at least she'd get it with the apology she deserved.

“Welcome to Marker Ranch.”

He just about jumped out of his skin at Wade's voice. Todd turned to see him standing a few feet away from the porch.

Wade had obviously been working. Dirt smeared his T-shirt and jeans. His straw cowboy hat shadowed his face, but Todd could see the sweat there.

“Didn't hear you come up. Is that some kind of army trick?” Todd left the porch, glad that the box housing the phone looked a lot like a book now that it was wrapped.

“One of the few skills I left with that actually has a use in real life,” Wade said, and Todd recognized Nora's dry humor in her brother. Wade gestured around vaguely with his arm. “What do you think of the place?”

“I think you're a guy who's not afraid of hard work.” Todd looked back at the pastures that lined the driveway. “I know someone who could haul those cars out for you.”

“I'd appreciate his number,” Wade said. “This ranch is a junkyard, and all the junk stolen.” His smile was devoid of humor. “It's the family legacy. Even the ranch was stolen, or so the story goes. By my great-great-grandfather.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup. It's an old Benson legend. Supposedly, he won the ranch in a poker game. The guy who lost it accused him of playing with marked cards. Of course my ancestor swore up and down that he hadn't been cheating. But a year or two later, he named the property Marker Ranch.”

“And the name stuck? No upstanding descendant wanted to change it?”

Wade gave a bark of laughter. “There's never been any upstanding descendants. Until Nora and me.” He looked around bemusedly.

Marker Ranch was set in a long, narrow valley. Behind Wade, Todd noticed all kinds of outbuildings, some wood, some old prefabricated metal or plastic, staggered alongside the dirt road that cut through the ranch. He wondered what was in them. Wasn't sure he wanted to know.

“Nora and I haven't ever talked about changing the name,” Wade said. “But maybe once we get it all cleaned up and it's a real working ranch, we can decide.”

“I kind of like the name, but I didn't grow up here.”

“No,” Wade said hollowly. “You didn't. Count yourself lucky for that.”

“But you came back.” Todd wondered, briefly, what life circumstances would induce
him
to make his family home his own. He couldn't think of any.

“For the land.” Wade gestured up, toward the valley sides that rose steeply to meet the first slopes of the Sierras. Out here the mountains seemed to push straight out of the hills, their sheer granite slopes steep and forbidding and breathtakingly beautiful. “I love it out here. The mountains, the high desert. If I can just fix this place up, I'll have my own piece of paradise. It's worth facing the past for that.”

“Makes sense to me,” Todd assured him. They were the same reasons he'd been drawn to the area.

“So did you come out here to apologize to my sister?”

Did Nora tell her brother
everything
? Todd felt his face flush and was glad the brim of his hat shaded his face. “Yeah.”

“She's doing fieldwork today,” Wade told him.

“Right. Well, I left her something on the porch. As part of that apology.”

Wade shifted uncomfortably. “Look, I'm not really used to talking about this stuff. And I don't know much about what went on between you two. Nora never even told me about you.”

He paused and Todd just waited. It seemed better to say nothing than say something wrong.

“But the thing is,” Wade went on, kicking at the dust under his boot, “I lived with her right after you left. She was pretty upset for a long time. And I saw her come home pretty upset again last night.”

Todd knew the only way he'd earn Wade's respect was through honesty. “Yeah, maybe that drink was a bad idea. It didn't go so well. And it ended with my foot wedged so far in my mouth I don't know if I'll ever get it out.”

Wade gave a grim smile at that. “Look, I like you. Hell knows I could use a buddy out here. But don't cause my sister trouble, okay? She's a good person—a great person. She's my only family and she gave up a lot to look out for me. I don't want to see her hurt again.”

Todd didn't know if the sick feeling in his throat was more embarrassment or disappointment. He'd sat across from Nora last night just trying to take her in. She'd always been pretty, but now she was so much more. Grown-up and strong and fiery underneath that same veneer of calm. Her gray eyes were darker than he remembered. Stormier. Her brown hair was longer, wavy and bleached by the sun, framing her face, which had lost some of its girlish fullness. The new angles suited her. She'd been furious with him in the bar last night, and remote, determined to hold him at a distance. And he knew he should respect that. But her down-to-earth beauty had grabbed him by the heart and twisted, wringing out all those memories he'd tried to lay to rest. He'd loved her. And while talking with her last night he'd vividly remembered all the heat that had been between them once. They'd been so alive, so in the moment together. Devouring knowledge, wandering mountains, exploring the world and never, ever getting enough of each other.

Until he'd learned the truth about his own family. And in his anger and rebellion, he'd messed up everything.

And now it didn't matter what he might want. Clearly there could be nothing between them anymore. Nora despised him. She saw him as the pampered trust-fund kid he used to be. Which was exactly how he'd come across.

“I won't cause her any more trouble,” he promised. “I screwed up back in college and I screwed up last night. I won't mess up a third time. There's nothing to worry about.”

Wade looked relieved. He pulled his cowboy hat down over his shaggy hair. Evidently he was growing out his military buzz cut. “Good,” he said. “Now that we got that over with, do you want go fishing this weekend?”

Now, that was the perfect way to end an awkward conversation. Todd grinned—part relief, part excitement. “That would be great. These past couple years have been so busy, getting the machine repair business going, and my ranch set up. I haven't had much time to get to know many different fishing holes. It'd be awesome to get out there with a local.”

“Well, my knowledge is a little dated,” Wade admitted. “I've only been back a couple weeks and there hasn't been time for fishing. But probably not much has changed. How about I swing by and pick you up from your work Sunday evening? That'll give us a couple hours of daylight to nab a few trout.”

“Sounds good,” Todd said. He turned back to his truck, then paused. “You want any help grading this driveway?”

He saw Wade's shoulders stiffen a little, wary of anything that smacked of charity. “Maybe eventually,” he said. “Right now I kind of like it. Keeps the nosy folks of Benson from paying any calls.”

Todd laughed. “You're probably right about that. But it's also hard on your truck. Think about it. I'm happy to help.”

“I appreciate that,” Wade said.

“And I'm not sure Nora mentioned it, but I work with mustangs. I adopt horses caught in government roundups and I train them to be good stock horses.”

“She didn't say anything, no.”

Relief shot through him. If Nora hadn't told her brother he worked with mustangs, she wouldn't have mentioned the other night when he'd set a bunch of them free. “Well, I sell them for the original adoption fee I paid the Department of Range Management. If you need horses, you can't beat the price. And you'll be giving a mustang a new lease on life.”

“That doesn't seem like a sound business plan you've got going on there,” Wade said, studying him.

“It's not meant to be a business. Just something I care a lot about. When you get to a point where you're ready for some horses, I hope you'll consider mine.”

“I'd be happy to,” Wade said. “Sounds like a good cause and a great bargain.” He gave a wave and then walked off down the lane, heading toward the ramshackle row of sheds.

Todd climbed into his truck. Fishing. It might be a little awkward at first, hanging out with Nora's brother. But he liked the guy already.

He'd just have to keep things peaceful with Nora. Though that might be hard, seeing as they were on opposite sides of the wild horses issue.

Plus, she didn't make him feel
peaceful
. Quite the opposite. Despite her being so pissed at him last night, she'd changed something inside him. He'd walked out of that bar feeling as if his blood was moving faster, his heart beating stronger. He'd felt more alive than he could remember feeling since college.

He didn't want peaceful with Nora. He wanted what they'd had before. He wanted to take her by the hand and explore the east side of the Sierras—to swim with her in the ice-cold lakes and go find the secret hot springs that trickled from deep in the earth. He wanted to lose himself in her the way he used to.

He understood that he couldn't have it, but it didn't stop him wanting it.

He steered his truck carefully back along the rutted drive. It was heartbreaking, this evidence of such neglect and waste. Nora's dad had been careless with his ranch and his family.

And Todd had been careless, too—with Nora. He'd loved her for three years, and it shocked him now to look back and realize he'd never asked much about where she'd come from. He'd been too much of an egotistical college boy to talk about much besides himself. Though that had probably suited Nora fine, since she hadn't wanted to talk about her past. And now he understood why. If he'd grown up here on this depressing ranch, he'd want to pretend none of it existed, too.

A rusted-out Ford pickup, vintage 1970s, stared at him from behind a mesquite, challenging him with its broken headlight eyes. And Todd felt resolve building inside him. He'd find a way to help clean up this mess. The mess he could see around him on Marker Ranch, and the one he'd made with Nora last night. And maybe, if he worked hard enough, he could even do something about the mess he'd made when he walked out on her, all those years ago.