Homecoming Ranch

by Julia London

  Two hundred Johnsons. And just like that, Grant Tyler had complicated Madeline’s life even more.

  Emma laughed again. “He’s dead and he’s still a prick. God, I need a drink.”

  NINE

  Luke felt a surprising swell of nostalgia when he turned into the ranch’s entrance. He and little brother Leo, separated by three years, had spent their childhood in a patch of heaven. In the winter, they would ski and snowboard, or, if necessary, use trash-can lids to careen down the grassy slope behind the house. Their summers consisted of hiking, fishing, building forts, and bear tracking, the latter much to their mother’s chagrin.

  When they were older, they’d joined their father in working cattle. It’s what the Kendricks did—they were, and had long been, high altitude cattle ranchers.

  But the rhythm of their lives had revolved around Luke’s mother. She’d been there to feed them home-cooked meals after a hard day of play or work, to remind them to bathe when they had more important things on their mind, and to soothe the injuries, both emotional and physical, two boys tended to suffer. She kept the books for the ranch, sang in the church choir, and never missed a school event.

  Dad didn’t miss one, either. Mom had been their anchor, but Dad had taught them how to be men. He taught them how to cast a fly-fishing line, how to saddle a horse, and chop wood. To build things, to breed cows, to respect women.

  Maybe Luke had taken all that for granted. Maybe he’d thought that even after Mom died, when the ranch had started to look and feel different from the one of his youth, it would always be there for him. He never saw this coming, never dreamed it would all slip from their grasp. He’d always believed that one day, when Dad was gone, he’d be here, carrying on the tradition.

  He’d not realized how much it would hurt to lose the ranch. It felt as if the blocks of his life were being kicked out from beneath him, one at a time.

  It still looked the same as the magical place of his childhood—with the exception of the Port-A-Johns, and Luke was sure he didn’t want to know what that was about. He stopped just inside the gate, got out of his jeep, and walked across the meadow to the hillside. He studied the trees a moment, then walked straight for a Ponderosa pine. He pulled away the vines that had grown up onto the rocks beneath the pine, and smiled when he saw it—the fort he and Leo had built with river rocks, its entrance carefully concealed for spying. Luke had learned about the importance of proper engineering in building that fort. It had taken several tries and consultations with Dad before they got it right, but there it stood, maybe three feet by three feet, the best fort in America.

  He and Leo would hide here, watching cows meander by, watching Dad and Ernest work. They brought pellet guns and shot at grouse and pheasant… until Mom found out what they were doing and took their guns away that summer. One Christmas, they’d made Dad a toolbox, and they’d hid it in here so he wouldn’t find it.

  Luke re-covered the entrance with the vines. He’d always assumed that he would bring his son to this fort. Then again, he assumed his mother would be here and Leo would be healthy and Julie would be his wife.…

  “Anh,” he muttered, silently chastising himself. There was no point in reliving that heartache again.

  He drove on to the house, bouncing over the little bridge Dad and Ernest had built over the mountain stream that ran through their property. The stream eventually widened and met up with Pine River, where they used to shoot the rapids.

  As he pulled into the drive, Luke noticed things were looking a little worn, a little weathered. Repairs to the place had begun to suffer when his mother had gotten sick, but what he saw was nothing that he couldn’t fix up in a couple of weeks. He would do that, Luke thought. He would fix things for Dad. He would make some wheelchair-accessible entries—there was only one at present, in the back of the house—maybe modify one of the rooms downstairs for his little brother so he wasn’t living twenty-four-seven in the den. On the weekends, he could come up here and turn this into a home again.

  Luke was used to seeing Dad’s old pickup and Mom’s Pontiac in the drive and was not used to seeing strange cars parked there. Mom’s Pontiac was a beast of a car that could have ascended Pikes Peak. It still ran. It was in the garage, gathering a new layer of dust. The cars in the drive were the cars of strangers, of people who had slipped in and stolen his childhood right out from under him.

  That little car with the donut spare in particular made him irrationally crazy. It was front and center, the car of the woman with long dark hair and blue eyes and a yellow highlighter. A woman who wore Dr. Scholl’s inserts and suite to the mountains. She was definitely cute. And definitely quirky. And she was now, officially, on his shit list.

  Luke pulled around, sliding into a spot beneath a canopy beside the garage. By the time he’d gotten out of his Bronco and returned to the drive, Libby Tyler had walked out onto the porch as if she owned the place.

  She was another one on his list.

  He had known Libby most of his life—or known of her. She was younger than him, Leo’s age. Luke guessed everyone in town knew that she’d broken up with Ryan Spangler and then shortly after that lost her job at the sheriff’s department. Leo said there was some trouble with Ryan after they broke up, although he didn’t know what. But never mind all that. Libby Tyler was in his house. Not her house. His.

  “Luke?” she said, her voice full of surprise as he walked toward the house. “Wow! It’s been ages since I last saw you!” She smiled and extended her hand. “How are you? How’s Leo?”

  “We’re all doing great, thanks,” he said. He held her hand a long moment, looking into her eyes for any flicker of understanding, any recognition of what her father had done to his. He saw none.

  “What brings you out?” she asked cheerfully, conveniently forgetting, perhaps, that this had been his home. Maybe that helped her to settle in.

  “A little unfinished business.”

  She looked confused by that. “Jackson didn’t mention anything.”

  “No?” Luke said as amicably as he could.

  The screen door banged; Libby jumped a little as a woman with long blond hair and brown boots sauntered out onto the porch. She was as pretty as Libby was cute, sultry where Libby was fresh. But there was a resemblance between them, around the eyes. The third heir, he supposed.

  “Well hello,” she said, eyeing him, a hint of a smile on her face.

  “Luke, this is my sister, Emma Tyler,” Libby said, and to Emma, “This is Luke Kendrick. He and his brother, Leo, used to live here. I went to school with Leo.”

  Emma’s smile deepened. “Hello, Luke Kendrick.”

  Luke knew women like Emma—she was the type to know exactly what affect she had on men and how to use that to her advantage. But he wasn’t biting. “Hello,” he said.

  Emma deliberately flicked her gaze over the length of him, but Luke was distracted. Behind her, Blue Eyes walked out onto the porch in her conservative suit, her hair clipped to the back of her head. She was staring at him, clearly trying to work out why he was here. “It’s you.”

  Luke smiled. “It’s me.”

  “You guys know each other?” Libby asked incredulously.

  “No!” she said quickly, firmly. But she was blushing and her fingers fluttered nervously around that little M at her throat.

  “We met only briefly,” Luke said. “Up on Sometimes Pass. I changed her tire.”

  Madeline’s blue eyes were fixed on Luke, and she pointed in the general direction of her car and, presumably, the spare. “It was a nail. Construction site.” She cocked her head to one side to peer at him. “Why are you here, again?”

  “Yeah, why?” Emma echoed curiously.

  “Jackson Crane invited me. Is he around?”

  “He’s late,” Libby said. “No, wait—there he is.”

  The four of them turned around to see a four-wheel drive F-250 truck barreling up the road. It slid into the drive and Jackson hopped out, all smiles. He’d chang
ed clothes since Luke had last seen him, preferring hiking boots and cargo pants for the trip out to the ranch.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said to them all, and held up a six-pack of diet coke and a bag of potato chips. “I brought snacks.”

  The four of them stared in disbelief at Jackson.

  Jackson grinned, unfazed by them. “So, did you gals—and Luke,” he amended with a nod, “have a chance to get acquainted?”

  Luke wanted to kick him. With the point of his boots, right between the eyes. It wasn’t as if they’d signed up for a class, here—they had some serious issues to address.

  “Jackson, what is going on?” Libby asked.

  “I’m sure you have a lot of questions, and I’ll answer them all, I promise. So what do you think, Madeline?” Jackson asked breezily. “Not as bad as you thought, right?”

  The other two women jerked their gazes to Madeline, who looked startled. “What? I didn’t think it was bad,” she tried, but looked as if she were about to twist right out of her shoes.

  “Hmm. From the look of things, you guys didn’t get at as acquainted as I’d hoped,” Jackson said, as if they’d somehow failed him. “No worries! Let’s go sit at one of the picnic tables and discuss a few things.” He began striding across the lawn.

  Emma looked at Libby, then followed Jackson to the west lawn. Libby was close on her heels.

  Madeline looked at Luke. “This is weird,” she said.

  “Tell me about it.” Luke gestured for her to precede him. Madeline hesitated, but then reluctantly began to walk.

  Jackson had chosen the longest picnic table, one that Luke’s grandfather had built. Perhaps he wanted to make sure there was plenty of distance between everyone in case the fists actually began to fly. He passed out cans of warm Diet Coke, opened the bag of chips, and tossed them to the middle of the picnic table. The only person Luke knew who would be comfortable with such an approach to serious business was Leo.

  “Okay, so let me fill in some background information,” Jackson said as he popped the top of one of the Diet Cokes. “Ladies, when Grant passed, he’d just ended his fifth marriage, and to put it bluntly, he lost his shirt in that one. All he really had left was this ranch.”

  “When did he get this ranch?” Libby asked.

  “He took possession about a year ago,” Jackson said and took a long swig of soda.

  There was an interesting turn of phrase, took possession. As if Grant had wrested it from Dad’s grasp—which wasn’t too far from the way Luke pictured it had happened.

  “At the time of his death, he was upside down on the mortgage,” Jackson added.

  That was so shocking, so impossible, that Luke spoke without thinking. “There’s no way,” he said. “He bought it far under market value. How could he owe more than it was worth?”

  Suddenly, all three women were staring at him.

  “Oh…,” Jackson said casually, “… I should probably have mentioned that Grant Tyler bought the ranch from Luke’s father, Bob Kendrick. And he did indeed get one helluva deal.”

  “Right,” Luke said. “Some might say he took advantage of my dad.”

  “Well, that’s one interpretation,” Jackson said cheerfully. “But while he was waiting for your dad to live up to his end of their agreement, he divorced and he needed money. So he took out a second mortgage on this ranch, and unfortunately, the real estate market took a hit, and he found himself upside down by fifteen thousand dollars. Which, of course, does not include realtor fees. Right, Madeline?”

  Madeline blinked. “Well, I… I don’t know—”

  “Oh—Madeline is a realtor,” Jackson added.

  “No wonder you want to sell,” Libby muttered.

  “No!” Madeline protested. “My wanting to sell has nothing to do with that.” She looked at Luke, but his heart had lodged itself in his throat. A realtor. There it was, no denying, no pretending that he wasn’t going to face an uphill battle in which the odds were stacked against him.

  “But you have to admit, your being a realtor could come in handy,” Jackson observed casually.

  Madeline didn’t say anything. She slowly leaned forward, put her forehead on the table, and Luke thought he heard her suck in a long, deep breath. He also thought he heard her whisper something that sounded like lunatic.

  “Can we backtrack to what he said?” Libby asked, pointing at Luke. “He said Dad took advantage of his dad. What does that mean? What’s he talking about?”

  “We’ll get to that,” Jackson said. “But first, let me tell you that Luke’s dad had a great idea for how to make that money back and Grant was totally onboard. He had the idea to make this the destination in the Colorado Rockies for homecomings, reunions, and weddings. And he thought that you girls were just the team to make it happen.” He threw up his hands as if the problem were solved.

  “Jesus, this is a chick flick,” Emma said incredulously. She stood up. “Do you have any bourbon to go with that Coke?”

  “I wish,” Jackson said apologetically. “Listen, I know this is all a bit of a surprise. But I think it could work. Before Grant died, he spent what he had left on advertising this great retreat. The Johnson family—they’re out of Texas—was looking for a place just like this to have their family reunion. A place where they can camp, and the kids can raft and hike, and the men can barbeque, and honestly, I don’t know what all. But I drew up a contract and they signed, and so did Grant, and they paid their deposit, and the estate must honor that contract. It would cost you more to try and get out of it than to just do it.”

  “Do what?” Madeline demanded, lifting her head.

  “Now don’t get upset, ladies. There is still a lot to be done,” Jackson said. He took another long drink of his soda and crushed the can, the first outward sign that he was as uncomfortable as they were. “Ernest will be back this week, and he can do a lot of it. But we might need to hire some of the work out.”

  “Such as?” Luke asked.

  “For starters, we have the bunkhouse showers—”

  “Shower,” Luke corrected him.

  “Shower, right, at least at this moment. We need to build a separation for men and women and maybe add a few temporary showers. Maybe a few. We need to round up horses for horseback riding, move the cattle up to lease grazing, and hopefully make a deal with some river guides for rafting. The good news is I’ve already done a lot. The tents will be delivered tomorrow. Barbeque pits come next week. But we’ll need someone here to manage it all. Which could be one of you!” he said, as if he were a game-show host.

  “Where’d you get the money for that?” Luke asked.

  Jackson shrugged. “I sold his Porsche. It was a classic. I got enough to cover the initial improvements.”

  Emma slowly resumed her seat. “Is it just me, or does anyone else notice how screwed up this is?”

  “Me,” Madeline said, raising her hand. “This is… this is not what I thought, Jackson. I can’t stick around for this. I have a life and a business in Orlando. There has to be another way.”

  “No,” Jackson said quickly and firmly. “Unfortunately, no, at least not in the immediate future. And there are a few other issues that Luke alluded to we should probably discuss at another time. You know, once you’ve had a chance to absorb this.”

  Madeline rubbed her temples. “This is crazy. Crazy! There is no plan, no organization.…”

  No highlighter, Luke thought.

  “What other issues?” Emma asked. “Get them out. I don’t want to hear about them later, I want to know what the hell is going on here now. All of it, Jackson.”

  Jackson looked at Luke.

  So did the women, three pairs of suspicious female eyes trained on him.

  Luke sighed. “There were some mitigating circumstances in the deal our fathers made. They were friends, supposedly—or at least my dad believes that they were—and he believed that your dad was helping him out.” He shook his head. He was making it more complicated than it had to be.
“So Grant gave my dad the cash he needed for some financial issues, and the deal was that when my dad repaid the loan, he’d get the place back. At the same price.”

  Libby and Emma looked at him blankly. But Madeline’s brows dipped.

  “It was a gentleman’s agreement. Mine needed some cash. Grant had some cash and offered to help him out.”

  “He didn’t have as much cash as he thought,” Jackson muttered.

  “Nevertheless, the agreement was that as soon as my dad could pay him back, Grant would sell the ranch back to him at the same cost. But then Grant died and left my dad in a bind.”

  “Is there a contract for that agreement?” Madeline asked.

  “Nope,” Jackson said, clearly knowing where she was going with it.

  “Not to put too fine a point on it…” Luke said, “but this is my family’s home. This is where I grew up.”

  Madeline suddenly smiled. “Well then, great! That solves our problem, doesn’t it? You can buy it back.”

  Luke clenched his jaw. “Can’t buy it yet,” he said tightly and stared into Madeline’s blue eyes. She held his gaze, but her expression went from hopeful to stoic. She understood. She was a realtor, a negotiator, she was used to this. And Luke guessed she was not the type to be swayed by sentimentality.

  “Well!” Jackson said brightly. “Like I said, lots to sort out.”

  “For God’s sake,” Emma said, and got up, sauntering off with a Diet Coke in hand, apparently in search of bourbon.

  TEN

  It was almost dusk when Madeline made her way back to Pine River. She was exhausted, light-headed, her head pounding and her stomach rumbling with hunger almost to the point of nausea.

  It was true that she did not deal well with stress. Not her own, anyway. She was great at talking Trudi off a ledge, and soothing little girls who felt slighted on the soccer field. But her own stress was a different matter entirely. She tended to internalize it.