Homecoming Ranch

by Julia London

  “Dude, I’m okay,” Leo called up to him from somewhere on the floor.

  One of the paramedics turned around. “Hey, Luke!”

  It was Greg Durbin, a big lovable oaf of a guy Luke had known from his high school days. He was a paramedic now, and he stood up, hoisting his bag onto his back. “How the hell are you, man? Back in town for good or just visiting?”

  “I—what happened?” Luke asked.

  “Oh, sorry,” Greg said, and glanced over his shoulder. “It’s all good now, but Leo had another seizure.”

  “I like to call it an interpretive dance,” Leo said.

  Greg shifted; Luke could see Leo on the floor, his useless legs bent at weird angles, his arms crossed like chicken wings across his chest. The other paramedic was checking his blood pressure. Luke’s dad, with his jaw tightly clenched, was on the floor with Leo, holding his head.

  Luke knelt by his brother, seeking a bent hand.

  “I guess we need to get you to Durango, buddy,” Dad bit out.

  “Excellent! A road trip,” Leo said. “Okay, okay, Dad, you can let go now. It’s over. Fellas, as much as I’ve enjoyed this little party down here on a carpet that smells like cat piss, it’s time for Project Runway.”

  With Greg and the other paramedic’s help, they picked Leo off the floor and strapped him back into his chair. His muscles had atrophied, but he was still a big guy, and it was not an easy task, especially in a small, crowded room.

  When Leo was secure, and the television was on, Luke followed Greg out onto the porch. “What do you mean, another seizure?” he asked Greg, dragging his fingers through his hair. “How many times have you been here?”

  “Lemme think.” Greg squinted across the yard. “Seems to happen about once every three or four weeks. It’s a tricky thing, getting that antiseizure medicine right,” he said, shifting his gaze to Luke again. “You really ought to get him to see someone in Durango about it. These doctors in Pine River, they don’t deal with stuff as complicated as Leo.” He leaned in and said low, “Between you and me? I’m not sure your old man gets it, you know?”

  Yes, Luke knew. It wasn’t that his dad didn’t get it—but sometimes, he had a hard time facing the truth.

  “You really have to get those meds straightened out, Luke.”

  Luke sighed. “We will,” he promised.

  They chatted for a few minutes, catching up. When Greg left, Luke went back inside the house. He could see his father in the kitchen at the tiny little table, his elbows on the table, his head between his hands.

  “You are not going to send that down the runway,” Leo said to the TV.

  As Leo was clearly occupied, Luke slipped into the kitchen. He put his hand on his dad’s shoulder as he walked by on his way to the fridge. He retrieved two beers, handed one to his father, drank from the other and said, “So that’s been happening a lot? Grand mal seizures in the living room?”

  “Some,” his dad admitted. “It’s a problem with his medicine. Some of what they are giving him for the MND can cause seizures. So then they give him antiseizure medicine. It’s a balancing act. I don’t know why they can’t get it right.” His father tipped the beer bottle back into his mouth. “Gotta get him to Durango, that’s for sure.” He stood up, pushing back his chair and moved into the tiny kitchen and began to clear a space in the sink. “Right now, I need to get him something to eat.”

  Luke stepped out of the kitchen and stood in the doorway, watching his father, waiting for him to say more, to ask for help. When he didn’t, Luke asked, “Do you want me to take him to Durango?”

  His father paused, braced his hands against the edge of the sink and stared down a moment. “No, Luke,” he said calmly, and turned his head to look at his son. “I don’t want you to take him anywhere. What I want is for you to go back to Denver. I want you to go back to your life. You can’t fix things here. And I don’t want us to feel like a burden to you.”

  A tiny but sharp twinge of guilt flashed hot through Luke. He looked at the back of Leo’s head, just visible over the back of his chair. “You’re not a burden.” He said it without thinking, just as he’d said it many times before. Families weren’t burdens. Families were the most important things in the world. They had each other’s back. Okay, usually Luke had theirs, but still.

  “Yeah, we are,” his father said firmly. He turned fully around from the sink, folded his arms across his big chest and stared at Luke as if he was silently daring him to deny it. “You may not say it right to my face, but everything about you says that we are a burden.”

  “What are you talking about?” Luke demanded. He’d been so careful not let anything like that show—

  “You know what I’m talking about. All your life, you’ve had to come home and save the day. When you were in high school, you missed the state title because we had cows stuck up at eleven thousand feet dropping from altitude sickness. Ernest and Leo and I couldn’t get them all down by ourselves. We needed you. You had to drop out of college for a time when Leo got sick because God knows your mother and I couldn’t deal with it. And then there wasn’t any money to put you back in, so you had to get a job on top of your studies. Then your mother got sick, and here you came again, to clean up after me and make sure Leo was cared for. I was useless, I know it. Those are just the big moments that come to mind, but there have been so many other times in between that I can’t even count them anymore. I just know that you have always been the one who had to uproot your life, leave your dreams and ambitions behind to take care of us. And the toll that’s taken on you is beginning to show.”

  “I haven’t complained,” Luke said defensively.

  “Maybe you should have,” his dad said stubbornly. “Think about it, son. Because of us, it took you six years to finish your degree—a degree I couldn’t even help you with. And now, you’ve started a business, you’re working on your MBA, but here you had to come again, and it’s in the tone of your voice, the way you carry yourself. We’re a burden and it’s starting to show on you. So I want you to go on home. I can get Leo to Durango. Patti will come around and help when I need her.”

  “Maybe you see yourself as a burden, but I never said that,” Luke snapped.

  His father sighed wearily and stood a moment as if he wasn’t sure what to say. But then he walked to where Luke stood, put both hands on Luke’s shoulders and said softly, “Look here, Luke, I don’t need you here. Now don’t get me wrong, son—I love you and I want to see you. But I don’t want to see the resentment grow any more than it has. I don’t need you to come down here and save the day.”

  Luke was stunned. His father squeezed his shoulders then moved back to the sink. As Luke watched, his dad found the bowl he was looking for in the sink and turned on the water, squirted dish soap into it, and began to scrub it down.

  Luke was hardly aware that he had turned around and had walked into the living room. He found himself staring out the window, his mind whirling through all the times he’d dropped everything to come home to save the day as his father had said. Yes, Luke was angry. And he would have been a whole lot angrier had it not been for one thought: His father was right.

  He did resent it.

  It wasn’t that Luke didn’t love his family—God no, he loved them more than anything in this world. The resentment had more to do with what he’d missed because of them, with the fact that so much had befallen them and yet he remained unscathed. He resented that his aunt had called him while he was on a date, and he resented himself for having the balls to resent her for it. But mostly, mostly he resented the hell out of the fact that his family had been steadily disintegrating for the last ten years and the universe would not let up.

  But the resentment that welled up in him was tamped back down when he looked at the back of Leo’s bent head. Maybe life hadn’t been fair to them, but Luke would do anything for Dad and Leo. He truly feared for his family, with the loss of Leo looming so large before them. It was like a dark shadow following them ar
ound, always there, spreading just a little more each day.

  As if he knew Luke was standing behind him, warring with his conscience, Leo said, “Come on, Luke, you have to see this! Tonight is unconventional materials night. I hate the unconventional materials challenge, but you know what I love? Heidi Klum.” He grinned as Luke walked around and sat in Dad’s La-Z-Boy beside him. “Lay down on ze bed,” he said in an awful German accent. “I will have my vay vith you.”

  “Is that supposed to be Heidi?”

  “That’s supposed to be Heidi with me,” Leo said, and turned his gaze to a string of models strutting down the runway in what looked like glass dresses. “So how was the Stakeout?”

  “Okay. The food still sucks.”

  “Any women?”

  Luke honestly hadn’t really noticed, which was unusual for him. “I saw one of Grant’s daughters. The one from Orlando.” Funny how she was still on his mind.

  “Who, Blue Eyes?”

  Luke looked at his brother. “How do you remember everything?”

  “Dude, I keep telling you—my brain is a machine. Here’s the way I see it—they sent the attractive daughters in to mess with our heads.”

  “What, you think they have some ugly stepsisters lurking in the background?”

  Leo laughed. “You never know. So it was Blue Eyes, huh?”

  Luke smiled. Leo definitely had a steel-trap of a memory. “Yes, Blue Eyes, also known as Madeline Pruett.”

  “So what does she look like?” Leo asked. “And don’t leave out a single detail. Start with her boobs.”

  Luke playfully swatted his brother’s arm. “You’re such a damn pig, Leo.”

  “Calling me names will not remove the swagger from this swine! Okay, tell me—and don’t hold out on me.”

  Luke sighed. He looked at his little brother’s shining blue eyes. “She has a respectable rack and a nice ass,” he obliged him. That much was true. Her derriere was heart-shaped and a little bouncy, just like Luke liked them.

  “Excellent!” Leo said, his eyes lighting. “What else? Thin? Round mound of fun? What’s her personality like?”

  “She’s average build,” Luke said. “Pretty.” She had dark, shiny hair that she had released from the death grip of Grok’s claw. He’d had an insane urge to touch it tonight. But as to what she was like? He still didn’t know. She was private. Maybe a little standoffish, but not in a bad way—more like a kid who didn’t know which group to join on a playground. “She’s a little uptight,” he said.

  “That’s the best kind,” Leo said instantly. “You get to peel back one delicious layer at a time. Fun for everyone.”

  “I’m not peeling any layers,” Luke said, shooting Leo a look.

  “What about the rest of her?”

  “She’s pretty,” Luke admitted. She had intelligent blue eyes and an expressive mouth. But it was the eyes, shrewd and a little innocent at the same time, that he kept thinking about. When she smiled, they glittered. “She’s obviously got some issues.”

  Leo snorted. “Don’t we all.”

  “And I don’t think she’s letting go of the ranch without a fight. Neither is Libby, for that matter,” he added with a shrug. “Emma? I think she could take it or leave it.”

  Just then, their father appeared carrying a jug with a big silly straw.

  “Dinner is served!” Leo said happily. “What’s it tonight, Dad? Liquid mac and cheese?”

  “It’s a protein shake,” his father said, and attached the jug to a strap he’d rigged onto the side of Leo’s chair.

  “Bo-ring!” Leo sang out, but clamped his mouth down onto the end of the silly straw that looped and twisted right up to his mouth. He took a long drink as his father settled in on the couch, his gaze on the television screen as more models paraded down the runway.

  “Anyone else there tonight?” Leo asked.

  “As a matter of fact, Julie Daugherty showed up.”

  “Ho! There’s a blast from the past!”

  “Not a good one,” Dad muttered.

  “So? Did you check her hands?” Leo asked.

  “What?”

  “Her hands,” Leo said again, and waved his lobster claw of a hand at Luke. “Her ring finger.”

  “No, I didn’t check it—why?”

  “Dude.” Leo waggled his brows. “You mean you haven’t heard? Word is that she and Brandon are on the skids.”

  Luke snorted. Brandon would have to be a complete moron to mess that up. “You are my sole source of information, Leo. So where’d you hear that? From Dani?”

  “No, actually, from Marisol,” Leo said, pausing to sip from his straw. “She says Brandon is a prick and was hitting on her at her son’s Little League game. I want to withhold judgment, because every guy wants to hit on Marisol, right? But she seemed pretty adamant that he is a player and has something going on the side. And Julie isn’t putting up with that. I hear she kicked him out.”

  Julie, free again? Luke’s head began to spin with just the idea.

  His father heaved himself off the couch, frowned down at Leo and said, “On that note, I’m going out to the shed.”

  “Thanks for the totally nutritious but boring dinner, Dad!” Leo called out after his father.

  Dad muttered something under his breath; a moment later they heard the back door slam.

  “We’ll come back to Julie. What about the ranch?” Leo asked, his joviality suddenly gone.

  Luke sighed and shook his head. “It’s a huge mess, Leo. I think we might have to face the fact that it’s a lost cause and move on. We haven’t any legal leg to stand on.”

  “Move on? Who are you and what have you done with my brother?” Leo demanded. “You can’t give up, Luke. What about Dad?”

  “What do you mean, what about Dad?”

  Leo groaned as Heidi Klum’s face danced across the television screen. “Look, I’m eventually going to get sick of this house and Project Runway and the Denver Broncos, and that’s it, man, I’m outta here. Dad can’t live here, no way. He’d go nuts. You have to try again.”

  Luke’s chest constricted at Leo’s way of stating that he would not live as long as his father. He could scarcely bear to think of that day. “I’m doing the best I know to do,” he said.

  “You gotta mix it up then.”

  Luke rolled his eyes. “I want to mix it up all right.”

  Leo nodded in that crooked way of his. He turned his attention to the television. “Hey, do you remember that classic Super Bowl between the Cowboys and the Dolphins?”

  “No,” Luke said.

  “The seventies,” Leo reminded him.

  “No, I don’t remember a Super Bowl from the seventies. I wasn’t alive in the seventies.”

  “Okay, so the Dolphins lost,” Leo blithely continued. “You know what happened to the Dolphins after they lost that one, right?”

  Leo had an annoying habit of changing directions midstream. He was also fond of reliving great moments in sports in minute detail. Luke shook his head.

  “Okay, well, they had a decent running game, but the passing game sucked. They made it to the Super Bowl on the strength of their defense.”

  “That’s great,” Luke muttered.

  “No, no, you don’t get it. They were playing these teams that had sucky offenses and their defense was kick-ass. But then they got to the Super Bowl and went up against the Cowboys, and they found out what a really good offense was like. I mean, Roger Staubach, anyone? And when the Cowboy offense shut down the Dolphin defense, all they had left was this Mickey Mouse offense that wasn’t working. So the next year, they said, wait, we’re going about this all wrong! We have to do what those guys are doing and build an offense! We have to bow to a superior defense and learn to win with a new offense.”

  “Are we going somewhere with this?” Luke asked.

  Leo sighed as if Luke were taxing him with limited intelligence. “Dude, they had to change their game plan if they were going to win the big one. They had to
go on offense instead of defense. Hello—Homecoming Ranch? Now do you get it?”

  “Did they win?”

  “No!” Leo said. “But they had the right idea.”

  A slow grin spread across Luke’s face. “You’re bat-shit crazy, you know that?” he asked. “Yeah, I get it. In your own ridiculous way, you are telling me I need to change the way I am approaching the heirs. Why couldn’t you just say that?”

  “That’s no fun,” Leo said, grinning again. “Glad to see some sunlight got down in the weeds growing in your head. Okay, now shut up—Heidi’s going to tell us who is on the chopping block.”

  As Heidi Klum announced someone would be out, Luke looked at his little brother.

  Man, he loved that guy.

  TWELVE

  The ringtone of Madeline’s phone went off so loudly and so close to her ear that her heart almost went through her chest. She fumbled with her black sleeping mask, tearing it off her head so quickly that she took what felt like a hank of hair along with it. She found the offending phone on the pillow next to her head, where she must have dropped it last night when she’d collapsed like a rag doll into bed.

  “Hello,” she said, her voice hoarse with sleep.

  “Mad!” Trudi shouted. “What are you doing?”

  “Sleeping,” Madeline croaked, and sat up. She’d pulled the lodge draperies shut last night, and only a thin beam of light was breaking through the dark. She leaned over and flipped on the bedside light. “How did you get through? I couldn’t get a signal all day yesterday.”

  “I dunno. I have you on speed dial,” Trudi said, as if that explained the technology behind cell phones. “Are you still in bed?”

  “Yes. Why do you say it like that?”

  “It’s noon, Madeline!”

  Madeline gasped and threw the covers back. “It’s noon?” They were supposed to meet at one o’clock at the ranch to pick up where they’d left off yesterday.

  “Not where you are, silly! It’s ten in Colorado. Why are you so out of it?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been so tired.”

  “Stress, obviously! Well? I am dying to know—did you meet your sisters?”