by Lila Felix
We both rose to our feet and kept in step with her until we reached the end of a long hallway where a small conference room was located. Ranger allowed me to go in first. He gently placed his hand on the small of my back. It was a gesture he’s done a hundred times before, but now it made my blood boil. I reigned in my emotions because I really didn’t want to cause a scene at the attorney’s office. At least not yet.
“May I get you something to drink? Water? Coffee?” She smiled at us.
“I’m fine. Thank you.” I told her.
“No thanks,” Ranger said and sat across from me.
“Mr. Anderson will be here in a moment.” She nodded and exited the room.
The only sound in the silent room was the slow hum of air coming from the vent above us. I picked at a stray thread on my purse, making sure not to look up.
“You look nice.” He spoke softly.
I scoffed and dramatically rolled my eyes at him. “Do I look someone who’s in the mood for small talk? Or for that matter any talking?”
“We need to—”
“Nothing. We need to do nothing but listen to whatever Mr. Anderson has to say and then leave each other alone.” I huffed and crossed my arms. I was trying to protect my heart again. It has been shattered one too many times from him already, and I wasn’t certain I could handle it again.
He wanted to say something else, but Mr. Anderson walked into the conference room. “Hero, nice to see you again. You must be Ranger.” He extended his hand to him. They shook hands and then both sat down. “I know you both are wondering why you’re here. I must say it would have been sooner, however, Mr. Bronson, you’re a difficult man to find.”
Ranger simply nodded.
“Garrison has a unique request in his will. Not the strangest one I’ve ever seen but he felt it was important to be done.”
I moved closer to the table and listened more intently as did Ranger.
“Garrison was very good with money. Actually, extremely good and he’s leaving it to you both – under one condition.”
“What is it?” I asked. I knew Garrison had a little nest egg but nothing of any significance.
He glanced at me and then at Ranger. He actually looked nervous. Whatever was about to come had to be more serious than anything I could think of. I’ve known Mr. Anderson for a long time, and I was certain he was aware of Ranger’s and my past relationship. If nothing else Garrison had to have told him since we’re both here now.
He cleared his throat, shuffled the papers and then said, “For the next six weeks, you’re to spend as much time together as possible. Garrison wanted you to rebuild your friendship and your relationship. In return, if you both fall back in love and convince me you have, then you’ll receive your portion of the estate.”
My mouth fell to the floor. This couldn’t be real. This had to be some sick practical joke. However, Garrison was never comedic. Everything to him was serious.
“What?” I breathed out my question. “There has to be a catch.”
Mr. Anderson shook his head. “No catch.”
“What if we don’t fall in love? What if we don’t want to spend the time together?” The questions kept firing out of me.
“Then the money goes elsewhere.” He simply stated.
I looked at Ranger. I didn’t care about the money and I certainly didn’t want to spend time with him. “There’s no way I’m doing this. Goodbye, Ranger. Best of luck.”
Chapter Two
Ranger
HERO HAD GOTTEN up and out of instinct or perhaps desperation, I reached out and grabbed her hand. There were more callouses on it than I remembered. Then again, she’d been working the farm by herself, along with her brothers.
I spoke to her gently, like I’d speak to a wild stallion. “Let’s just hear him out. There’s got to be a way out of this. We can work this out.”
She jerked her hand from mine but stayed standing giving the attorney a good dose of stink eye. I could see she was torn between running for her life and punching me again.
She sucker-punches like a heavyweight champion in a back alley. Her eyes closed for a moment. She’d made her decision.
“Fine. Let’s hear him out.” She did an awful impression of me, but still I had to quell a smile at her attempt.
While the lawyer looked up and down at the documents, I couldn’t help but look at the woman she’d become in my absence. Long gone was the almost scrawny Hero who could barely pick up a rope and in her place was a woman who aimed a shotgun like a pro and filled out her Wranglers in a way I definitely didn’t remember.
“Gettin’ a good look there?” she said, but when I looked up, her blue eyes were trained on the lawyer.
The balding man cleared his throat and motioned for Hero to sit down. I thought maybe he was afraid of her.
“The term is six weeks. You two must be seen in public on a date a minimum of three times. You must sit down and talk about what happened at length and if nothing else, decide to be friends again. There’s a stipulation about not knowing if Ranger was married or had a girlfriend. If he did, then the deal was null and void. And you both would share the money equally.”
Hero threw her hands in the air while doing a little shimmy in her seat. “Well praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. Tell the man you’re married, or tell him you’ve got a girlfriend and let’s be done with this.” She turned to me with a smile and I knew that smile – it was the victorious one – as if she’d won something.
I could just do it. I could tell this man I had a girlfriend at home. Make some woman say she was if he asked for proof. It would be easy.
Getting away from everything attached to my brother and the broken heart that was Hero would be as easy as pie.
Except, I was no liar. I may have been a lot of things in my life, but a liar wasn’t one of them.
“I can’t lie. I won’t lie to my brother. I don’t have anyone.”
Hero slapped herself in the forehead but from the force of it, I would bet she meant it for me. “Are you kidding me right now? I know you know how to lie.”
She was one to talk. She’d been with my brother for who knows how long while I was in another country, throat filled with sand, defending my country with a picture of her in the pocket next to my heart.
“Oh, I thought that was you.”
Good comeback, idiot.
Hero turned her wrath back on the lawyer. “What’s the way out? Don’t lawyers specialize in getting out of things? Because I’m telling you right now making me do anything with this one would be considered a crime in all fifty states.”
The man across from us sputtered and choked on his laughter. She still had her sass, I’d give her that.
There was a time when I lived for her sass.
The lawyer finally got a hold of himself. “I’m afraid not. The only way out of your brother’s wishes is to give up. Maybe neither one of you needs the money.”
Hero flinched at his statement. I’d seen the farm. It wasn’t the best of farms, but it wasn’t the worst either. The porch looked run down and I was sure that taking care of my brother and her grammy, plus with her brothers hanging around, wasn’t cheap. I’d seen her brothers eat and there wasn’t a restaurant owner in town that didn’t groan when they came in.
As much as I hated to admit it, I needed the money too. The mention of us giving up made me squirm in my seat. I’d spent most of my money traveling around the country, anywhere Hero wasn’t.
“We’ll do it.” I blurted. Hero gasped and the attorney clapped his hands in some kind of joy.
“The heck we will.”
She looked as if she was ready to throttle me like the time I threw her into the pond when she was wearing her prom dress. Damn, I’d once thought that was one of the best nights of my life.
“No, Ranger. Grammy made me this dress.”
“So take it off. I won’t look.” My eyebrows waggled. I would so look.
“I’m not taking this dress
off, Ranger. I won’t be one of those prom clichés. Get over it.”
I shrugged off my tux jacket and undid my bowtie.
“You’re going in that pond one way or the other. I’m choosing the other.”
I threw her into the pond – prom dress, two hour updo and all. It made me love her more than ever.
“Can we have a minute?” I asked the man who was smiling from ear to ear. He must’ve been getting a cut.
“Have you completely lost your mind? Is this some post-military insanity?”
I scolded her. “Don’t joke about that.”
She sat back in her chair. “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean that. You know I say inappropriate things when I’m upset.” Her eyes zeroed in on me. “Why would you want to do this? You didn’t come home – made it clear that you didn’t want me.”
Hero talked differently – softer almost. She used to be the girl who would do anything. We’d jumped from bridges and went skinny dipping more times than I could count. If there was anyone who had a crazy idea, she would be the first to volunteer.
Now, she looked tired. There were dark crescents under her eyes and she’d yawned twice since getting to the office. Almost as if she was running on fumes.
I don’t even remember her yawning when we were kids.
“It can’t be that bad, right? Six weeks we pretend to like each other in public. I buy you a few meals in town. Then we tell people we are friends. After that, I go away and you are happy again.”
She snorted and looked at the ceiling. “You go away and I’m happy again.”
“Seems like a win-win. It worked before. I go away – instant Hero happiness.”
That comment seemed to sting her. I didn’t care. She deserved it.
“What do you get out of it?”
I shrugged. “I get to spend six weeks at home, getting caught up, mourning my brother.”
“Won’t this be hard for you, for me, for us?” Her voice cracked and for a split second, I thought she might cry.
No, because that would require caring about me.
“Life is hard, Hero. Choose your hard.”
She was quiet for so long it made me uncomfortable like she was planning on making a shank from the tiny piece of wood coming loose from the table we were sitting at and taking my eye out.
Out of nowhere she sat up and got close to my face, so close that our noses were almost tip to tip. “No touching, no kissing, no hugging, no pranks, no riding my horses and no shenanigans.”
It all came out in one long sentence and I barely got all of it.
“Can you write that down? You still talk too fast for me to understand anything other than the first word and the last word.”
“You always were too slow to catch a cold.” She snapped back. She bent over the table and grabbed a pen and an advertising notebook from the center of the table. She scribbled for a few minutes before shoving the thing at me. It was a contract of our own, signed at the bottom by her with a line for me to sign.
“You added one.”
“I sure did. I’m not gonna be ogled like a steak dinner. Keep your eyeballs in.”
“Fine.” I scratched my name onto the paper, folded it up and slid it back to her. With a nod of her head, she got up and started to leave again.
“You can give that man the news. You and I are officially trying to rekindle a fire the devil himself couldn’t even bring back to life. The six weeks starts today.”
I kept my laughter in until she shut the door.
I used to love her sass.
THE NEXT MORNING, I showed up at her farm at four. It had been a while since I’d gotten up that early. But if there was something you could set your clock to, it was Hero getting up at the crack of dawn, even if she’d almost met it at the door.
If she thought this would be easy for me, she had another thing coming. Being here with her, knowing that she and my own brother…I shuddered at the thought. The last thing I wanted was to be reminded of Hero’s betrayal.
She spoke up first, one of her hands fisted on her hip. “This ain’t part of the deal. It’s too early for your – you.”
She was ready for work in a grungy pair of jeans along with one of her old rodeo tshirts. The collar had been cut out, and it was faded so badly the words weren’t readable.
Over her metal gate, I held up two to go cups of coffee from the diner in town. There was something about that place’s coffee. Rumor was they put liquor in it. Whatever it was, it did the trick and all my years away it hadn’t changed.
“That’s cheating.”
Under my breath, I mumbled. “You would know.”
If she hadn’t already been flirting with the cup I handed her, she probably would’ve told me to go home.
We stood there for a few minutes, not saying anything. She was looking around, drinking her coffee and I was drinking my second cup.
“What are you here for? This isn’t public.”
“I just wanted to help. You know, if anyone asks me about what you’re doing or how you’re doing, I should be able to tell them – for appearance’s sake.
She took the chain off the metal gate. I could tell she was hesitant. Her eyes never met mine.
“We could always use help around here. Grammy is useless as a tit on a boar hog.”
She knew her grandmother was approaching from behind her. The two of them always had a relationship that went beyond the norm. They were connected somehow. I always thought they had come from the same mold.
“I can still whip you, little girl.”
She smiled but then realized I was watching her. “The stables need to be cleaned – unless you are too good for that now.”
I tipped my hat at the both of them. “No, ma’am. Not too big for my britches.”
Chapter Three
Hero
IF THE COFFEE wasn’t delicious I would have gladly run over him with my truck. Instead, I loudly groaned at Grammy’s suggestion and stomped off toward the stables. I loved working with our horses, even though we’d sold a few in the past year. It broke my heart to let them go, but we needed the money. Life on the ranch was a simple one, but even that costs money. I wished I had more of it to help out my family, but I have very little.
At times, I used to feel like a bum, but there’s no one else to be with my grandparents twenty-four hours a day. My brothers had their own lives, leaving me to handle them. I didn’t mind. Grammy and Gramps put their lives on hold for us when we had to move in. They never complained either. Now I felt it was my duty to be on the ranch. The bright side of it all is being here…I loved it. The smell of the grass, hay, and fresh air filled me with elation every time.
“Where do you want me to start?” Ranger asked breaking me from my reverie.
“Have you forgotten what to do?” I snapped, storming past him going toward where the shovels, pitchfork, and wheelbarrow were stored.
I grabbed the shovel first and stalked over to Donut’s stall still avoiding his eyes. I could feel them on me, but I wouldn’t give him a second glance. No matter how badly I wanted to. I kissed my horse’s nose before moving him out and into an empty stall.
“I see he stills listens to you.” Ranger commented.
“Of course, he’s my horse.” I gruffly quipped.
I began to shovel the dirty sawdust and manure into the wheelbarrow. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Ranger move about the barn. He did it with such ease. Then again, we both grew up on this ranch. Well, he may as well have. My memories of him here were as many as I have with my family.
“How ya doin’, Boots?” He spoke to the horse two stalls down from me. “It’s been a long time.”
I rolled my eyes as I finished shoveling the last bit. “Maybe you shouldn’t be gone so long and it wouldn’t be a long time.”
He made no remark in return. He simply began working on moving Boots to an empty stall.
When I came back from emptying the contents of the wheelbarrow, I loaded it up with fres
h sawdust.
“It looks heavy. Do you need help?”
“No.” I snarled. “I’m a grown woman who does this every single day. I don’t need any male assistance. Especially yours.” I felt my blood beginning to boil. The poor sawdust was the victim of my wrath as I tossed and kicked it around the stall. Using the shovel was pointless now as my boots helped level it out. I changed out the water bucket and gave Donut some extra oats and hay. I guided him back in and moved onto Gramp’s horse, Sundance.
“Where are the rest of the horses?” he asked with a cautious tone. He probably figured I would blow up at him again. Which was highly possible.
“Sold them.” I stated with no explanation.
“How come?”
“Well, genius, why do people sell livestock?” I busted open a bale of hay and began to spread it around.
“Are you still working at the diner?” He doesn’t answer my original smart mouth question.
“A couple days a week or if they’re short staffed.”
Falling back into silence, we continue our task at hand. There were times I blatantly stared at him as he easily picked up bales of hay. His muscles are outlined perfectly under his tight gray t-shirt.
“Gramps kept all the saddles.” He nodded over to the far side of the wall, where the saddles were lined up. “I figured you would have shredded mine.” He smirked at me.
I turned back to my task. “Gramps is a hoarder. He doesn’t get rid of anything. Don’t get all sentimental.”
I doubted Gramps even knew Ranger’s old saddle still hung in the barn. The truth was I couldn’t get rid of it. Ranger and I rode a lot together. I recalled many of our talks were about what the future held. Most of them were on the back of a horse. We were always together in our talks of the future. Sometimes married, sometimes with kids, but always on a ranch and happily together. I held onto those memories tightly when I felt the most alone. He’ll never know how much he hurt me. I took a deep breath and pushed away from the emotions bubbling up.
“What’s next?” He closed the final stall door.
