by Stacy Finz
“You look nice,” he said as she took off her coat and draped it over one of the breakfast table chairs.
“I kind of over did it.” Why not just put it out there? “I was nervous about making a good impression.” The last months of their marriage, she’d rarely washed her hair. Most days she was lucky to summon enough energy to put on an old set of scrubs.
“You could come in a gunny sack. It wouldn’t make a difference to Roni.”
She wasn’t trying to impress Roni.
“It is what it is.” She Vanna Whited her hands over the red dress. “Next time I’ll wear jeans.”
“Wear whatever makes you comfortable, Joey.”
She wanted to tell him to stop being so agreeable. She wasn’t going to break, or worse, sneak through his drawers, searching for pills, if he looked at her sideways. Yes, she had bad days. All addicts did. But she was committed to her recovery.
“Let’s get this party started,” she said, wanting to change the topic.
He reached up and unhooked a pasta pot from the rack. The kitchen was twice as large as the one they’d had in Reno. Joey suspected Alma had had a say in the design. For all her faults, Ethan’s stepmother was an amazing cook. Joey was more of the make-it-from-a-box or stick-it-in-the-slow-cooker kind.
The whole house was gorgeous. Much posher than what Joey would’ve expected from Ethan, who was a no-frills guy. Even though he made crap loads of money, he’d always liked to live light on the land. He wasn’t stingy or cheap, mind you. Just not showy.
After they’d had Roni, she’d bought herself a seventy-five-thousand-dollar Mercedes GLS 450. Her push present to herself. He hadn’t complained about the price. But he’d asked her to keep it in the garage. Not for security reasons but because he was embarrassed of the SUV. He thought it was loud.
They’d both been raised land rich, cash poor, though Ethan’s family had made a killing in the beef cattle industry. Her reaction to their newfound prosperity had been to spend with wild abandon. His was to live exactly the way he had growing up.
The Circle D Ranch was a departure from that. It was exactly what you would expect from a world-renowned surgeon.
She used the fancy pot filler and put the water up to boil. Roni raced up to her room to get her own surprise for Joey. Ethan sat at the counter on his phone, texting as nimbly as a teen. It reminded her of what his fingers—and hands—were capable of in and out of the operating room.
“What’s going on?” She gestured at his phone.
“Nothing.” He quickly put it away as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. “Just a patient.”
“The little boy at the cottage?” It was just a weird gut feeling.
“Uh, no. Someone else.”
She was pretty sure he was lying. It was the little stutter in his voice. Ethan had never been duplicitous, never one of those husbands who played around on the side. But occasionally he’d circumvent the truth to avoid an argument when it came to him choosing work over her.
“How is he?”
“Who?”
She pierced him with a look.
“Good but hurting from a bone marrow harvest on Wednesday. But you know I really shouldn’t talk about it.”
She nodded. Even when she’d been a practicing nurse, he’d been tightlipped about his patients, a stickler for HIPPA compliance.
“You hear anything about your license yet?” he asked.
“Nope. I’m starting to think I should give up, find a new vocation.”
“Would you go back to the hospital if the board reinstates you?”
“I don’t think so.” She’d actually been giving it considerable thought. First, there was the mortification of facing her former colleagues. Then, there was the stress of those long, demanding shifts. But mostly it was for the sake of Ethan. After what she’d done to him, working at Renown again would surely make him uncomfortable. “I’ve been looking into home nursing care. There’s a big need, it pays well, and I might have better control over my schedule.” To be with Roni. She didn’t say it but she knew she’d gotten her point across.
“Sounds like a decent plan. And what are you considering if the board rejects your appeal?”
She blew out a breath. “Don’t know. Pharmacist?” It was joke of course. But Ethan didn’t laugh.
Roni bustled in, carrying a booklet out of folded construction paper. “I made you this, Mommy.” She hopped up next to Ethan and began turning the pages. “Thee, it’s our family.” She’d drawn a series of stick-figure pictures of her, Ethan and Joey. One with them under a big yellow sun, another with them standing next to a brown house with a dog. Presumably Simba.
“These are beautiful, Roni. And this is for me?”
“You can thare it with Daddy.” She swiveled her stool to face Ethan. “Daddy, can Henry come over for dinner?”
“Nah, honey. Henry’s with his mom and needs to rest.”
“I’m going to make him a card.” She jumped down from the stool and ran off, looking for Crayons.
Joey flipped through Roni’s booklet. This is what she’d missed. Whole chunks of her daughter’s life. “I’m keeping it.”
Ethan laughed and bobbed his head at the refrigerator door covered in Roni’s artwork.
The water boiled and Joey poured the penne in and got to work on the salad. “You want to eat in here or the dining room?”
“It’s up to you.”
She chose the dining room. It was more formal and she wanted her dinner to make an impact. Not the meal so much as the statement it made. She was back in her daughter’s life for good. And if Ethan let her, she could be back in his, too.
She hunted through the cupboards to set the table.
“What are you looking for?” Ethan got up to help.
“Our wedding china.”
After a long silence, Ethan said, “I boxed them up and put them in storage. If you want them, they’re yours. If not, I’ll save the dishes for Roni.”
She didn’t say anything at first. It shouldn’t have surprised her. What single man had use of fine china? Especially Ethan, who had scoffed at the idea of registering for them in the first place—“What do we need china for?” But the fact that he’d packed them away was more of a metaphor of his feelings toward her. She’d been relegated to the dusty attic like an old toy.
“That’s fine. I guess I don’t have any use for them either. I’ll just use these.” She stacked four white plates from the cupboard that could’ve come from anywhere. They seemed well made and practical, exactly the kind of thing Ethan went for.
She made the table look as nice as she could with the plain Jane ironstone, kicking herself for not picking up flowers. Dinner was served and she noticed that Ethan paid more attention to his phone than he did to her meal or contributing to the conversation. She and Veronica kept up a steady stream of chatter, though.
Her daughter spoke in stream of consciousness, veering from the topic of school to getting a pony without taking a breath. Joey loved every minute of it.
“Did you like the pasta?” she asked Ethan as she cleared the table.
“It was great. Thanks for making it.”
She hadn’t expected him to go into raptures over her dinner. But there were a lot of memories wrapped up in that pasta dish. They’d practically lived on it in their first few years together. It became an inside joke whenever one of them asked what they were having for dinner. Even still, Ethan swore that he would never tire of it.
She had hoped that by making the dish tonight, it would evoke those memories and remind him of the good times. The fun they’d had before everything went to shit. But no. He frankly seemed distracted, like his mind was somewhere else altogether.
“Is everything okay?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” He loaded the plates into the dishwa
sher while she rinsed.
“I don’t know. You just seem absorbed by something.”
“Just work stuff.” He didn’t elaborate. There was a time when he used to confide in her, even if it was only in vague terms to protect a patient’s privacy.
She surprised him with the coconut cream pie and Roni with the butterfly cupcake. After dessert, she played a game of Candy Land with Veronica. Ethan disappeared into his office and shut the door.
The night wasn’t going as she’d planned and she tried not to let disappointment ruin her time with Roni. She’d won a major victory, getting an extra day of visitation with her daughter. Stay focused on that, she told herself.
Yet, when the hour grew late she pressed her luck and tapped on Ethan’s door. “Hey, I was wondering if instead of me driving all the way to Reno, only to come back first thing tomorrow to spend the day with Roni, if you wouldn’t mind if I stayed the night?”
He looked taken aback by the request and didn’t answer right away. Then came around. “Yeah, okay. You want to bunk with Roni or take the guest room?”
“Um . . . I’ll stay in Roni’s room on the trundle.” It wasn’t the bed she’d been hoping for but she still added it to her victory list.
* * * *
On Saturday, Henry spent most of the day on the couch either watching TV or reading books. Brynn’s assistant had the forethought to send them with Henry’s clothes. Another reason she loved Zena.
By Sunday, she was climbing the walls. She went outside for a short walk, afraid to leave Henry alone in the cottage too long and noticed the red Ford Edge that had been parked in Ethan’s driveway since Friday evening hadn’t moved. And there’d been no sign of Ethan.
She reprimanded herself for being ridiculous. It wasn’t Henry’s surgeon’s job to keep them entertained.
There was smoke coming from the big house’s chimney. It was definitely a day for curling up by a fire. Cold and gray. Still, the ranch was beautiful. Green and lush. She walked along the river’s edge. There was an old frayed rope tied from a heavy branch of a huge tree where the river had formed a natural pool.
“My dad put it up thirty years ago.”
Brynn jumped, caught off guard by Ethan’s voice behind her. “How’d you sneak up on me like that?”
“Sorry. I should’ve made my presence known. You were off in your own little world.” He sat down on a big flat rock near the tree and skipped a stone across the water. “I saw you from my office, walking, and came down to ask about Henry.”
She tucked a strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail behind her ear. “It’s what you predicted. He’s sore and sleepy.”
“Sleep’s good. By tomorrow he should be feeling a little better and likely get some of his energy back. How ‘bout you? How are you holding up?”
“Fine.” She found a spot near him on another smooth boulder and sat. “This place has healing powers. All morning I watched three deer outside the window. And the squirrels are twice as fat as the ones in New York.”
“Yep. Unlike everyone else in California, they don’t eat kale and own a Peloton.”
She laughed, then turned her attention to the big tree. “Why’d your dad hang the rope?”
“We used to move the cattle here in the summer. He put the rope up so my sister, brother and I could swing into the river . . . cool off after riding fences. Looking back, it was probably a bribe to get us to help out.” He grinned at the memory, accentuating the cleft in his chin. “Maybe this summer I’ll replace it with a new one for Roni.”
“It must be a wonderful way to grow up, having all this space.”
“I liked it.” He glanced over at her, holding her gaze. “I wanted to apologize about Friday. My ex-wife offered to make dinner and . . . it made my daughter happy.”
“What about you? Did it make you happy?” The question was too personal, Brynn knew it the moment she asked. But it was too late to take it back now.
“That’s a tough one. I’m thankful Joey’s better and I’m thankful Roni has her mother back. So the abridged answer to that question is yeah, it made me happy to have her here.”
It seemed like a convoluted answer to Brynn, peppered with ambiguity. But it wasn’t her place to press. “I’m glad she’s better, too. Your ex seems like a lovely woman,” she said and he gave an imperceptible nod.
“You cold?” He must’ve seen her shiver.
There was a thin layer of frost on the rock and it had bled through her jeans. But she shook her head no, afraid that saying yes would result in him suggesting that they both return to their respective homes.
He moved over to her rock, stripped off his field coat, and draped it around her shoulders. It was still warm from his body heat and large enough to wrap around her twice.
She tried to hand it back. “You’ll freeze.”
“Nah, I’ve got thermals on and thick skin.”
She motioned for him to lift up, took off her woolen shawl and used it as a cushion for the both of them. He found that amusing, she could tell.
“I should’ve brought folding chairs.”
“I don’t know, this is pretty comfortable.” She wiggled into the soft, warm cashmere of her scarf.
They were so close now that their arms touched. And for a long time they didn’t say anything, just stared out over the river, listening to the sounds of nature.
She sensed that he wanted to tell her something but was holding back. Intuitively, she knew not to broach whatever it was. That if she did, it would put an end to this thing they were feeling toward each other and weren’t supposed to.
“I should get back,” he finally said.
“Me too.” But neither of them attempted to get up.
She inhaled his smell, a combination of soap and leather from the cowboy boots he had on. Their hands inched closer. And she wondered if he realized what effect he was having on her.
The sound of a vehicle coming up the driveway broke the spell and Ethan quickly got to his feet. “I better see who that is.” He held his hand out for Brynn and swiped her scarf off the rock.
“Let me give this back to you.” She started to shrug out of his jacket but he stopped her.
Fastening the top three buttons, he said, “I’ll get it from you later.”
Although she had her shawl, she didn’t argue with him, hoping it was an excuse for him to come to the cottage soon.
He walked her home, stopped at the door, and waited for her go inside. She stood at the window, watched him crest the hill, and tried to keep her heart from racing.
Chapter 11
The Ford Edge was gone. It was the first thing Brynn noticed Monday when she and Henry passed Ethan’s house on their way out to get breakfast.
“Mom, can I get a new book?”
Dismissing her absurd obsession with Joey’s car, she turned her attention to Henry. “Of course you can. I didn’t see a bookstore in town, though. Did you?”
Henry shook his head. Ethan had been right about Henry. He was feeling much better today. In fact, it was Henry’s idea to go to the Ponderosa.
“Maybe there’s a library nearby.” If not they could always go in search of a mall. There had to be something local.
The Ponderosa had a good crowd. For fun, Brynn counted the number of cowboy hats hanging from the hooks on the wall. It appeared that they’d walked into some kind of meeting.
“Plumas County Cattlemen’s breakfast,” Mariah said as she followed Brynn’s gaze to the wall. “Third Monday of every month. Good to see you again.”
She settled them at a quiet booth in the corner. Without having to be reminded, Henry took off his hat and carefully hung it on a lower rack already littered with Stetsons. His mouth tipped up in a small confident smile.
Clay waved to them from across the dining room and Brynn waved back. It was as if she
and Henry were part of this little town.
A waitress came and took their orders and returned a few minutes later with coffee for Brynn and juice for Henry. As soon as Mariah sat the party behind Brynn and Henry, she dropped by their table to chat.
“Is there a bookstore around here?” Brynn asked.
“No, but we’ve got a small library next to the Western Pacific Railroad Museum.” Mariah gave her directions and ran off to seat the next wave of diners.
Their food came and Brynn was heartened to see Henry demolish his pancakes. He’d barely eaten over the weekend. They idled over coffee and hot cocoa, watching the people who came into the restaurant. Her son couldn’t take his eyes off the group of men. She supposed all little boys loved cowboys.
After paying their bill, they went in search of the library. It wasn’t far from the grocery store. She parked as close as she could and she and Henry went inside. It was a newer building that didn’t match the Western flavor of the town. Just a non-descript two-story wooden structure filled with books.
The librarian pointed them to the children’s section, a ten-by-ten area with a small table, a few chairs and a couple of large stuffed animals that toddlers could sit on. It was cheery enough but Henry groused at the lack of selection.
They went to the front desk where Henry applied for a California library card. And in the end, he left with two books and a promise to return soon.
On the way back to the cottage, she took a detour.
“Where are we going, Mom?”
“I want to take a look at those houses the man at the barbershop told us about. Just a quick drive by.”
She’d managed to get an address off the real estate classified ad she’d found online and plugged it into her GPS. A short time later, she came to an empty guard kiosk and an open security gate with a “no trespassing” sign next to the one that read “Sierra Heights.”
“Should we go through?”
Henry shrugged. “Will we go to jail if we get caught?” Her son was the ultimate rule follower.
