Homecoming Ranch

by Julia London

  Madeline had everything covered.

  She always did.

  Trudi had taken her to the airport at the last minute. Madeline’s mother had forgotten to pick her up much like she used to forget to pay rent or buy milk or come to Madeline’s school functions. Trudi chattered the whole way, something about rodeos, which normally would have caught Madeline’s attention. But her mind was a good thousand miles away, the little knot in her belly beginning to morph into a watermelon. She didn’t like stepping into the unknown, didn’t like uncertainty in any shape or form.

  At the airport, Trudi got out to hug her good-bye in front of the departures terminal. “I’m really proud of you, Mad. I think it will really help if you know more about him.”

  “Help what?”

  “God, you’re hopeless,” Trudi groaned. “Everything! Oh, and one last thing. I feel that as your friend, I should point out that you might enjoy the trip a little more if you’d worn some jeans or something a little more casual.” Trudi glanced down at Madeline’s suit. “You look so… official.”

  Madeline was wearing her best suit, the one she’d worn to the closing of the Freemont Drive property, her first really big property sale. She had a briefcase-slash-purse slung over her shoulder, a neck pillow hooked onto the handle, and Jackson Crane’s number in her pocket. She had one small carry-on bag containing a couple of mix-and-match separates, because she did not expect to be gone more than a couple of days.

  “It’s a business meeting, not a family reunion,” she said, and swallowed down another attack of nerves.

  “Right,” Trudi said, seeing right through her as usual. “Just keep an open mind, okay?”

  “I have an open mind!”

  “No you don’t. When it comes to Sperm Donor, you are locked down like Fort Knox.” Trudi hugged Madeline tight, then let go, and walked around to the driver’s side of her car. “Call me!” she shouted, and disappeared into her car and drove away.

  Madeline would be calling her, all right. In about two days, from this very airport.

  Madeline had to admit that Colorado was a lot cleaner looking than Florida, what with its dark blue mountains, its crisp, cool air, and the bright blue sky with fat white clouds above shimmering gold plains. It looked a lot better in person than it did in the pictures she’d found online. Apparently, she’d have plenty of time to study the breathtaking scenery, because her usual high standard of planning every moment of the day had not exactly meshed with the logistics of getting to this ranch. To say that she did not like surprises was a gross understatement. Madeline liked symmetry in her routine and to know what to expect and when to expect it.

  What she did not like was to hear phrases such as “lost your rental reservation” or “four-hour drive from here.” She liked to believe people when they said, “I’ll meet you,” as Jackson Crane had said, that they would mean the most obvious and most logical, “I’ll meet you at the airport,” instead of, “I’ll meet you in Pine River.”

  But Madeline had regrouped, because that was the other thing she did extremely well. Her mother had gone through boyfriends like cheap dish towels, and they’d moved many times. When Madeline had to attend a new school, or miss a party she’d looked forward to because her mother woke her in the middle of the night, throwing clothes at her, telling her to pack, Madeline had learned how to regroup when it mattered most.

  She had a map of Colorado in her right hand, the keys to her rental car in the left—the last rental car, the chubby-cheeked chatterbox behind the counter had said after cheerfully informing her they’d lost her reservation.

  She marched out into the vast open that surrounded the Denver airport, determined to be undaunted by a few early bumps, and above all, to not freak out.

  And she was not going to mope because the car was only a little larger than a circus clown car.

  With her jaw clenched, Madeline wedged her carry-on into the backseat, then spread the map of Colorado on the hood. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a yellow highlighter—not to be confused with the pink highlighter, which she kept for work-related documents—and traced it along the route she would take to Pine River. She folded the map so that she could see the entire route at a glance, opened the passenger door, and arranged the map on the passenger seat. She put herself in the driver seat, put her phone in the seat console for easy reach, and dug out a bottle of water from her bag, loosened the top, and set it into the cup holder.

  She was ready.

  Madeline put her foot to the gas and pointed south. Or maybe west. Her sense of direction was not great.

  THREE

  Denver, Colorado

  Luke was lost well before his date ever mentioned Q-forms. He’d met Jennifer at a barbeque and had liked her blond hair, her expressive brown eyes, and her earnest way of speaking. This was only his second date with her, and while talk of Q-forms and office politics was a little on the boring side—okay, a lot on the boring side—he was making his best effort to listen attentively and commit to memory some of the names she was tossing out.

  But the vibrating of his cell phone was making it very hard to pay attention.

  He’d surreptitiously glanced at it moments before he’d asked how work was going for her, and saw that it was his Aunt Patti. Patti never called unless something was wrong.

  Ignore, ignore, ignore.

  “I mean, I don’t get the big deal, you know? We’re all grown-ups. We ought to be able to work these things out, right?”

  “Right.” It could be his dad. It could be his brother, Leo. It could be anything. Or maybe nothing at all. Ignore, ignore.

  “But Mallory, she’s…” Jennifer paused, and pushed a thick lock of blond hair over her shoulder. “I don’t like to talk bad about anyone, but Mallory is kind of arrogant, you know? She thinks her way is the only way. She drives me crazy.”

  “Ah,” Luke said. Remember Mallory. He had a feeling her name would come up more than once if he continued to see Jennifer.

  His cell phone vibrated again. Ignore.

  “I mean she’s really smart, and she has great ideas, but sometimes, I just want to say, ‘Look, Mallory, you’re not the only with great ideas and sometimes, you might want to listen to other opinions.’”

  It had to be an emergency. Patti would just leave a message if it wasn’t an emergency.

  “Does that ever happen to you?” Jennifer asked.

  The question startled Luke. “What?”

  A look came over Jennifer’s face that Luke read as annoyance. “Is that your cell phone buzzing?” she asked coolly.

  “It is,” he said truthfully. “Jen, could you give me one minute? I don’t think I can ignore this call.”

  “Since when am I Jen?” she said, and sank back. “Sure,” she said, flicking her hand at his phone. “Do what you need to do.” She picked up her house specialty drink. The Nightingale, the waitress had called it. It was about two feet tall and blue.

  Luke phoned his aunt. Patti answered on the first ring. “Patti?”

  “Hi, Luke, thank God. I’m worried sick about Bob and Leo,” she said in that pragmatic way she had of speaking, skipping over any standard greeting. It reminded Luke of his late mother, Patti’s sister. “I drove out to the ranch today and it’s closed up tight as a drum. They haven’t been there in days, Luke, and I can’t get hold of Bob.”

  Luke closed his eyes and resisted the urge to drop his forehead to the table. Not now, not when I have three new builds lined up. They were big jobs. Construction jobs for custom homes in a tony part of Denver.

  “Where are you? It sounds like a party. Am I interrupting?”

  “No, you’re not interrupting,” he said, and noticed the slight narrowing of Jennifer’s eyes. “I’ll call him and let you know what’s going on.”

  “Please do. I don’t do anything but worry about those two.”

  So did Luke. He clicked off and smiled at Jennifer. She arched her brows in question. “I’ve got to call my dad,” he said
apologetically. “My aunt can’t get hold of him.”

  “So Patti is your aunt?” she asked, watching him closely.

  “Yep. Listen, I’m just going to step out and make this call. It will be quick, I promise. Why don’t you order us an appetizer?”

  She shrugged and picked up the menu. “I don’t even know what you like.”

  “Anything,” he assured her, and made a quick retreat out onto the street.

  His father did not pick up the call. Luke didn’t read too much into that—Dad couldn’t hear his cell phone half the time. But then again, there had been times in the past that Dad hadn’t answered the phone because he was avoiding Luke.

  Luke called his brother.

  “Romeo speaking,” Leo answered cheerfully after one ring.

  Luke couldn’t help but smile. “What’s up, Romeo? Everything okay?”

  “No, everything is not okay. I just found out that the Broncos traded the only cornerback we have that’s worth a damn. We are seriously going to have to put the pass defense on every milk carton in America and hope to Jesus we find it before training camp. What’s up with you?”

  “Not much. So what else is going on, Leo?”

  “Are you trying to get in my business? I’ve been beating off the hot babes as usual. I could use a new bat.”

  “I didn’t know there were so many hot babes in Pine River.”

  “You’d be surprised, bro, you’d be so surprised.”

  “Leo—what’s up with Dad?”

  “Dad? Nothing,” Leo said. “Hey, I think we might have a chance at getting that free agent defensive back out of Miami. Holgenstizer, or something like it.”

  Stalling. No one knew Leo like Luke, and Luke knew when his little brother was stalling. “Nothing, huh? So why did Aunt Patti call? Why does she say you guys haven’t been out at the ranch in days?”

  “Shit,” Leo muttered. “Look, everything is going to be fine,” he said, the cheerfulness gone out of his voice. “We’ve got it all under control.”

  Now Luke worried. “Got what under control?”

  “We found a place in town that works just fine. Little house, and I can roll right out onto the park—”

  “A place in town?” Luke exclaimed, and his heart caught. “What the hell, Leo? Why aren’t you at the ranch? Where’s Dad?”

  “Look Luke, I’ll be straight. It’s not the end of the world, but Dad did something kind of stupid. Well, not kind of. Definitely.”

  No, no, no. The thirty years of Luke’s life went skipping by him. All the times his life had been derailed because of his family, all the plans shot to hell because of them. He closed his eyes, sinking his fingers into the corners, rubbing hard. “Do I need to come home?”

  Leo didn’t say anything for a moment, then said quietly, “Yeah, I think you should.”

  FOUR

  The only good thing about the drive to Pine River was Luke’s vintage 1975 Ford Bronco, a fully restored jeep with leather seats and a Hemi engine Luke had rebuilt by hand. It was a sweet ride, and until only recently, it had sat unused, untouched, in the Kendrick family garage. Luke had bought it four years ago on a whim during one of the many times he’d had to uproot his life and come home to fix things. Only that time, he couldn’t fix things. That time, his mother had called to tell him she’d been diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. She said she’d never noticed the lump until about three months prior, and then, she was so busy, she couldn’t get around to seeing a doctor about it.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Luke had helplessly demanded.

  “I didn’t want to bother you,” Mom had said. “You’re right in the middle of classes.”

  Mom had done the best she could for as long as she could, but Dad and Leo were hopeless, and she’d finally been forced to call Luke home. “I’m so sorry, honey,” she’d said, wearing the scarf around her head to hide what the chemo had done to her. She’d been sorry that she was dying and interfering with his school.

  Of course Luke had come home. He’d come home to pay the bills and to cook for Dad and Leo and to make sure everything was running on the ranch when his mother couldn’t do it anymore. He’d come home to keep track of her meds and help her in and out of bed and drive her to her oncology appointments in Durango.

  The Bronco purchase had happened during one of those trips to Durango. The doctors had wanted new tests, and they’d kept his mother longer than either of them had anticipated. The waiting was the worst part about his mother’s illness, all that time spent standing around, feeling helpless. So Luke had left the hospital and had ended up buying the Bronco on a whim.

  With Dad’s help, he’d managed to get it home. The truck had given him something to do, something to take his mind off the fact that his mother was dying and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He’d spent long evenings working under a single bulb in the garage, restoring the hell out of the Bronco. He’d even hand polished the lug nuts.

  Two years ago, Luke had finished restoring the truck. Three weeks later, Cathy Kendrick finally gave in to the pain and the loss of dignity cancer had inflicted upon her. It seemed almost as if she were waiting for him to finish the Bronco, to come to terms with the fact that he couldn’t fix everything. She’d died, leaving a husband of thirty-two years, two sons, four dogs, and a void in the lives of those who knew her.

  For two years, Luke thought of that void every time he saw the Bronco in the garage.

  After a time, when he was sure Dad and Leo could make it on their own, Luke had left the Bronco and his family behind and had returned to Denver for a third time. He’d finished school, earned his architecture degree, started his own fledgling business. He’d quickly realized that he needed to know how to run a business, and had enrolled in graduate school to earn an MBA. He was in his second semester.

  A few months ago, on a cloudless, blue-sky afternoon, he’d come home to see his dad and Leo, and he’d looked at the Bronco in the garage and thought, okay, it’s time. The pain of his mother’s death had receded into a shallow, slow-running stream. He didn’t think of the void now, he thought of her laugh and her smile, of the way she tucked her hair behind her ears and ran her hand over his head, even when he stood several inches taller than her.

  The Bronco purred along today, a testament to Luke’s great skills as a mechanic and Leo’s greater skills at coming up with ideas of how to repair the old engine.

  It was a beautiful day, the sort of crisp, clear mountain-air day, with a deep blue sky and a breeze so slight that it scarcely moved a leaf on the cottonwoods. Luke took a short cut over an old mining road called Sometimes Pass. In the winter, the state put big metal gates across it, as there was no money to keep the road cleared. That meant in the winter, if you were driving from Denver to Pine River, you had to swing down to Colorado Springs and over, adding an hour to the trip.

  The road wound its way up past hiking trails and forest service roads. As Luke came around one turn, he noticed a small car parked on one of the many shoulder pull-offs. A woman was standing beside it. He squinted; it looked as if she had taken the spare tire and tire kit out of the trunk. She was leaning up against the bumper reading a book that looked like a manual. And holding a highlighter.

  Luke slowed down as he passed. She was dressed in a dark suit and her hair was held up by one of those hair claws that looked like the hand of Grok. But what really caught his attention was that highlighter. It seemed like an odd thing on the side of a mountain road.

  At the next point in the shoulder where he could pull off, Luke turned around and drove back to where she was.

  The woman quickly straightened up as he pulled up in front of her little car. She eyed him warily under dark bangs as he got out of his truck, shifting backward to the railing, presumably to get a better look at him.

  “Don’t jump,” Luke advised.

  Beneath those dark bangs, eyes the color of a Caribbean sea rounded with horror. “No!”

  “I’m kidding. Looks like y
ou’re having some car trouble.”

  She folded her arms across her middle and glanced irritably at the car. “Flat tire. This car is a cheap tin can.”

  Luke looked at the car. “I wouldn’t give it that much credit.”

  The woman smiled. She was pretty when she smiled; her eyes seemed to glitter. Yeah, very pretty.

  “Want me to change it for you?”

  “I… do you mind?” she asked. “I have Triple A, and I called to make sure that I had coverage here, but my cell isn’t working.” She held it up to him as if to prove it. She definitely didn’t look like the sort of person one usually saw on these roads. Typically the women tromping around here wore hiking boots, backpacks, and bandannas tied around their necks. This one wore a thin gold chain around a slender neck.

  “You’re just below the tree line here,” he said. “You have to be in Pine River, or a little higher in elevation to get a cell signal. I’d be happy to help.”

  “I can pay you,” she suggested.

  “Not necessary. I’m happy to do it.” It wasn’t often that he got to help good-looking women, and this woman was very appealing to the guy in him. Yes, she looked a little too much like a headmistress in that dark suit and primly buttoned shirt, but he could see that she had some shapely legs and some very nice curves.

  “Thank you.” She sounded relieved. “That’s really nice of you. I thought I was going to have to walk!” She laughed.

  He glanced at her shoes. “I don’t know—it’s a long way to town in heels.”

  “Oh, I wear them all the time. I have Dr. Scholl’s inserts.”

  Was she kidding? Walking in the mountains was a little different than walking down sidewalks.

  Luke stepped past her in the narrow space between the car and railing. He noticed the gold chain around her neck was holding a little letter M in the hollow of her throat. He opened the driver door and reached in to pop the trunk, and saw the map spread out on the passenger seat. He couldn’t help noticing the yellow highlighted roads from Denver, or that two of the highlighted roads had been x-ed out with pen. “Where are you headed?” he asked as he shut the car door.