“Well, you can come home whenever you want to, or need to,” Kate said simply. Gemma hated to think of it as home again. It seemed like a giant twenty-year step backward if she were to wind up back in the Santa Ynez Valley. She’d played hard for the last ten years and spent a lot of money. She cringed every time she thought of it now. She wished she had listened to her father and saved some, but she thought the show, and the gravy train, would go on forever. Now the ride was over. And in four months, she’d have no income.
She stayed and had another glass of wine with Kate after Caroline and her children went back to her cottage, and Juliette had left to go to bed. She wasn’t leaving for France until July, so she had another month on the ranch, to help Kate with the books and prepare for their summer auction in July. They had a Thoroughbred auction then too, as well as their livestock auctions, which usually brought in a lot of money.
“I didn’t think I’d have to do it, but if I can’t find work, I may have to sell you and Caroline my share of the ranch in the not-too-distant future. When Dad died, I thought I was secure, and now I’m ass over tits on the ground, and the money will run out eventually.” Very soon in fact. September was only three months away.
“Thad said he might be interested if you or Caroline decides to sell your share of the ranch. With the money Dad left him, and his savings, he thinks he could manage it.”
“That would be interesting. How would you feel about his owning a third of the ranch?” She knew how possessive Kate and their father were about it, and how proud he was of owning ten thousand acres, after starting from nothing.
“I’d rather hang on to all of it, like Dad, and keep it in the family. But if you need the money soon, I’d have a hard time coming up with it in a hurry. I might be able to buy half your share, and Thad could buy the other half. Then I wouldn’t be giving up so much, and I wouldn’t have to sell bonds. I don’t think Caroline will buy it from you. She’s more likely to sell too, to free up the money. Neither of you comes here much, although I wish you would. Anyway, let me know how it’s going, and if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“Dad always used to help me when I got in a jam,” she said in a small voice. She had never admitted it to her sisters before.
“Yeah, I kind of thought he did. Daddy’s Girl, and all that.”
“He hasn’t had to for a long time. I made great money on the show, and blew it all,” she admitted. “Art, furniture, the house, trips, chartering yachts, flying private. It’s amazing how fast it goes.” Instead, their father had bought Thoroughbreds for his breeding operation, and pastureland for his livestock, which always seemed less glamorous to Gemma. “I guess I was really stupid. I’ll sell the house if I have to,” but it was mortgaged to the hilt so she wasn’t going to get as much from it as she should have. “I’d hate to do it, but if I have to, I will. That would tide me over for a while. Don’t say anything to Thad yet.”
“I won’t,” Kate promised. She could see that her sister looked shell-shocked. “Have you thought any more about contacting our mother?” Kate asked her.
“Not really. I’ve been going crazy trying to figure out what to get rid of, ever since I heard the show was canceled.” They were wrapping in a week. The end had come quickly. “We probably won’t have time this trip anyway. Maybe this summer?” Kate nodded. She half wanted to rush into it, and meet her and get the straight story, and she was half afraid to. Caroline still didn’t want to see their mother at all.
“Dad was an odd guy. I think he always had secrets. There was only so much he wanted anyone to know. He almost never talked about his youth in Texas, except that he grew up dirt poor, and came out here with nothing except three little girls and a truck full of diapers. It took him a year to tell us he was serious about Juliette, and he didn’t tell us she’d moved in with him till we came home for Christmas, so who knows what really happened between him and our mother. If we hadn’t found that envelope, we’d never have known. He probably intended to destroy it, and forgot to,” she said, and Kate agreed. He would have had a fit if he’d thought they were contemplating looking up their mother and meeting her, since he had claimed she’d been dead for the last thirty-nine years.
Gemma left a little while later, to go back to her cottage. The three of them met the next day at the main house. Juliette had strong coffee and homemade croissants waiting, and then she went to the office, to let them do what they wanted. She had already taken the things that were meaningful to her, and had given Kate a list of them, some books, two paintings she and Jimmy had bought together, an antique silver samovar Juliette had given him, the things she’d bought for the house, and the rack of cowboy hats he wore every day. Jimmy had no possessions of great value, except the ranch itself.
They went through his clothes, his desk, his papers. Kate boxed up what they needed to send to the office. They packed up his clothes for Juliette so she didn’t have to, and the girls took a few things they had given him or made for him, including the ceramics Caroline had made for him in camp. She was surprised that he still had them. They did the inventory that the lawyer wanted for the appraisal. The only things of any value were those Juliette had had sent from France, a rug of her grandmother’s, a small desk, some horn chairs. The girls only took things that were of sentimental value to them. They didn’t want to disrupt his house. It was Juliette’s home now too.
They drove into town for lunch afterward, and ate at a cowboy bar their father had liked. It reminded them of him, and they had always liked it too.
“I never thought he’d die so young,” Gemma said softly halfway through lunch.
“Neither did I,” Kate agreed with her. It still seemed unreal to all of them, especially here on the ranch, where they were used to seeing him walking around, riding his horse, or coming out of the barn, talking to Thad. The ranch seemed empty now without him. Kate was happy that Caroline’s children were enjoying being there. They added new life to the place, and another generation. Thad was keeping them busy on horses all day long, and had them mucking out stalls, and hooking up milking machines in the dairy.
“If you came more often, you could write here,” Kate suggested. It’s a good place to walk and think, and get back in touch with yourself.”
“Is that what you do here?” Gemma asked her and Kate laughed.
“No, I work my ass off. It’ll be different now without Dad,” she said. “I’ll have to work even harder and so will Thad. He already is,” and so was she, but she enjoyed it.
“Yeah, maybe you’ll get to do things your way, for a change,” Gemma commented. “Is there anything you want to do, now that he’s not looking over your shoulder telling you that everything you do is wrong?” Gemma always got right to the point, without frills.
“He came around eventually. It just took some talking to him,” Kate said gently, still making excuses for him, as she always did. She rarely criticized their father.
“He only came around if it suited him. I’ve never known anyone more headstrong, stubborn, and self-centered, except maybe me,” Gemma said, and all three of them laughed. There was some truth to it. “I always think I’m right too.”
“I wish I did. I always think everyone else knows better than I do, like you two,” Caroline said wistfully. She was the meekest of the three of them, and yet she had gone after what she wanted too, fearlessly, and with determination, but quietly. She just had to get away from the ranch and her father to do it.
“We don’t know any better than you do,” Gemma assured her. “In fact, you’re smarter and better educated. You have a master’s degree,” she reminded her. “What’s Peter up to these days? I hardly spoke to him at the funeral.” Peter was never overly chatty with Caroline’s sisters, but Gemma usually managed to draw him out.
“He’s working on a big deal. He’ll only be with us for a week in Aspen. He has to go back to San Francisco. The kids don�
��t know yet, he just told me. They’re going to be disappointed. Billy loves to go fishing with him. So I guess I’ll be the one going fishing, and putting the worms on the hooks,” she said with a grimace and her sisters smiled at her. She really was the perfect mother; and now their own mother had turned up. She had been far from perfect if she’d given up her parental rights and abandoned them. What she’d done was worse than dying, and Gemma and Kate wanted to know about it, and how she justified it. Caroline said it didn’t matter. Whatever the reason, she hadn’t been around for them, and it was too late for her to make up for it now. She particularly had hated growing up without a mother, which was why she was so devoted to her kids and would do anything for them, and for Peter.
They left the restaurant and went back to the ranch, and the kids were just coming out of the barn with Thad. They’d had a long, full day and they were tired. They were city kids, and not used to all the fresh air and exercise. He had worn them out since early morning. He smiled at Kate when he saw her.
“They’re going to sleep well tonight,” he said, and she laughed. “We’ve been riding most of the day. They won’t be able to walk tomorrow,” he told Caroline, and she laughed too. She had known Thad since he’d come to the ranch at eighteen, when she was twenty. She’d had a crush on him for about five minutes, and then she got involved with Jock Thompson the summer of her junior year in college. They broke up at the end of the summer when she went back to Berkeley, and by Christmas when she came home, Jock had gotten a local girl pregnant and married her.
The girls reminisced about their teenage romances that night over dinner and laughed about them. Gemma had had a million boyfriends and flirted with everyone. Caroline had had two or three serious boyfriends in high school. And Kate had dated the captain of the football team at the local high school until she left for college. He’d gone to college in the East and never came back to California, then his family had moved away, and she’d lost track of him.
“So who are you dating now?” Gemma asked Kate. She hadn’t heard about a man in Kate’s life in a long time.
“There’s no one to date around here,” she said matter-of-factly, “and I’d probably fall asleep if anyone took me to dinner. I get up at four-thirty in the morning.” She had substituted work on the ranch for relationships for many years. Her father had kept her too busy to date.
“There must be someone,” Caroline chimed in.
“Not that I know of. The boys we grew up with have kids in college. Some of them are grandfathers. Now there’s a scary thought. They either left to work somewhere else, went to college and never came back, or married their high school sweethearts, and have been married for twenty-four years by now, since I went to school with them,” Kate said and didn’t seem to care.
“Jesus, that’s depressing,” Gemma commented. “You should get out of here.”
“I don’t want to. I like it here. I’m running this place for the three of us now. Before I was running it for Dad.”
“Isn’t there a cute cowboy around or something?” Gemma asked, sorry for her older sister. It seemed like a sad life to her, but Kate was happy.
“I’ll have to sign up for the rodeo again,” she said, laughing, “and find me a guy who rides the broncos, or ropes steers.” She was describing their father. The idea of marrying anyone they’d gone to high school with sounded pathetic to all three of them, but it was what most people did. It was a far cry from Gemma’s glamorous life in L.A., or Caroline’s suburban life in Marin. But this was the life Kate had chosen, at first to please her father, and now it pleased her. She was happy here, as hard as that was for them to understand. Gemma had never settled down either, after one very serious romance that went sour, and after that, countless meaningless affairs. Gemma wasn’t desperate to marry either. All she wanted now was a good part, money in the bank, and her career back on track.
The three of them had a nice weekend together, and Caroline’s children loved it. Caroline and Gemma left on Sunday afternoon. Gemma had a week of shooting left before they wrapped the show, and she had to figure out what to do now. Caroline said she’d think about bringing the kids back for a few days before they left for Aspen, if she and Peter didn’t have too much to do. She wanted to spend time with him before Aspen, but he had already warned her that he had a heavy work schedule all summer. With Peter, his work always came first, but they always got closer when they spent time together. He wasn’t good at expressing emotions, but underneath his cool exterior and serious work ethic, she knew he loved her, and their marriage was solid after seventeen years.
He was at the office when she came home on Sunday, he texted her that he’d be home in a few hours, and suggested that she and the kids go out to dinner in Mill Valley, which they did. It was nice to be back in their suburban life, which seemed a million miles from the Santa Ynez Valley, much to her relief. Everything about their life in Marin was home to her now, not the ranch.
* * *
—
Thad dropped by to see Kate that night. She had a few of her father’s things put aside for him, some jackets, his roping gear, and his rodeo chaps which Thad had wanted.
“Thank you for being so nice to the kids,” she said with a smile.
“I enjoyed them. They’re so bright. Morgan says she wants to be a writer or a lawyer, and Billy wants to be a soccer star or an entrepreneur. I couldn’t even pronounce that word at his age.” They both knew he had options that Thad had never dreamed of. But like her father, she could easily see Thad having his own ranch one day. He had that kind of determination and drive and was willing to work hard. He was as bright as her father, which was why they had gotten along so well. Jimmy had seen that in him at eighteen, when he was just a kid. “They’re nice children.”
“They are,” Kate agreed. “And Caroline’s a great mom.” She didn’t tell him about Gemma’s financial difficulties. She didn’t want to get his hopes up. Gemma wasn’t ready to sell her share of the ranch. She would only do it in extremis, out of respect for their dad, and she would probably have a starring role in another show in a few months, and she’d be making big money again. She was resourceful, and Kate wasn’t worried about her, yet.
“Do you want to go into town for dinner?” he asked her. It was quiet after her sisters left, and they did that sometimes, went out for a burger, to talk about what they were doing on the ranch. He had an active dating life with the local girls, and he only invited Kate to dinner when he didn’t have more exciting plans. He was a busy guy. It was easy to understand. He was a good-looking man, and had a gentlemanly style with women. It was an old-fashioned way of treating women that some cowboys had. Her father had treated Juliette that way, except that he was more domineering. Thad was more modern than that, but his relationships never lasted long, since he didn’t want to get tied down. He never misled them, and described himself as not being a “commitment kind of guy,” except to the ranch. She suspected it came from the way he’d grown up, being bounced from one foster home to the next, until he was old enough to be emancipated at sixteen. Now he was careful never to get too attached.
They talked about ranch business all through dinner. He insisted on paying the check, and then he drove her home.
“Are you doing okay, Kate?” he asked when they stopped in front of her house. “I know it’s different without your dad.” She had been missing him terribly and suspected that Thad was too.
“He could be such a pain in the ass sometimes,” she said with a wistful smile. “But there was nobody like him.”
“You know, he didn’t say it much, but he admired you. He said you’d do a great job with the ranch one day, and he was right. You can do everything he did. You can make this place grow even bigger, if you want to.”
“I’d like to try,” she said, touched by what he’d told her about her father admiring her. It was news to her.
“I’d like t
o help you. JT didn’t want to go past a certain point. He didn’t want it to get any bigger than he could manage, he knew his limits, which was one of his strengths. But there are some things we could modernize to get better results. We should sit down sometime and talk about it.”
“I’d like that.” She had the feeling that he wanted to be a manager, and not just an employee or a foreman, and she had no doubt that he was capable of it.
“Thank you for giving me the chance, Kate.” Just as her father had kept her in her place, he had kept Thad in his. There was no question about who ran the ranch when JT was alive, but there was room for growth now, and change. Kate was open to it, and so was Thad. “I hope I get to buy a piece of the operation one day.” She realized that if he didn’t, he’d start a ranch of his own. He had the money to do that now, but he was waiting to see if the opportunity came up with her, and it might. It was too soon to know. Her father had just died and she didn’t know if her sisters were going to sell their shares eventually and want her to buy them out.
She got out of his truck then, and he walked her to the door.
“Are you going to be moving into the big house?” he asked her, curious, and she shook her head.
“That’s for Juliette. I don’t need it. I’m fine here.” She knew it would be hers one day. She was in no rush. Like her father, she was more interested in the land, and the functioning of her ranch, than her home. She always said that she didn’t have that gene. She left that to her sisters. She was more like her dad. And she knew Thad was the same way, in his tiny cabin, that he said was all he needed. Even if he was the foreman, he wasn’t interested in the trimmings, just in the job he did. And the job was the bond between them.
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