More Than a Rancher

by Claire McEwen

  She reached up and kissed his cheek. He looked at her then and cradled her face in his big hands and kissed her gently on the mouth. Jenna wanted so much more. She pulled away.

  “Goodbye,” she told him.

  “Jenna, wait.”

  “I’m right here.” She stopped, that little piece of hope coming alive again until she heard his words.

  “I’m sorry I can’t be the guy you need. The guy you deserve.”

  She wouldn’t cry. She tried to keep her voice steady but it trembled anyway. “Maybe you were the guy I needed...at the time.”

  He smiled slightly. “Sent by the universe, you mean?”

  “Well, you sure taught me a lot of lessons, so yes, maybe.” Although right now all those lessons, the ones about letting go of expectations and living in the moment, weren’t providing her with a single scrap of wisdom or perspective. Instead a voice inside of her was screaming that she couldn’t possibly let go of this man. That she wasn’t strong enough to say goodbye.

  Jenna took a deep breath. Accept, she commanded herself. Accept that he was on his path and she was on hers. They were lucky and blessed to have run into each other on their journeys.

  “Take care, Sandro, and thanks—I have no regrets about any of it.”

  He didn’t stop her. She wanted him to. She wanted him to call out for her, to run after her and jump into her tiny Mini and zip off with her to San Francisco to live happily ever after. But he didn’t, so she drove away, allowing herself one glance in the rearview mirror to see him standing there, hands at his sides, fists clenched, staring after her.

  She was barely able to follow the long driveway back to Highway 395 because of the tears pouring down her face. Finally she gave up, pulled over on the gravel shoulder and cried. She sat with her sobs almost doubling her over and the massive mountains looming above her tiny car, completely indifferent to her insignificant suffering.

  Part of the loss and sadness was for herself, knowing she’d never be with him again as she had last night. And part of her sadness was for him. She could see that deep down he still had so much ambition, so much joy in cooking. She’d seen the envy on his face that night at Oliva. The wistful look that came when you saw someone else living your dream. What if he was never truly happy in Benson?

  She’d thought she could handle this. She thought it would be worth the heartache just to have more time with him. But right now the scales of love and heartache just wouldn’t balance.

  She got out and leaned on her car, sniffling and watching the mountains, noticing the way they rolled so abruptly into the high desert. Eventually she noticed the smaller things, the way the last chill of the night was gone and the world was warming around her, the way a lizard had crawled out from under a rock and was sunning itself just below the verge of the road, and the way the higher peaks lost their pinkish morning color and became pure gray.

  Calm enough to drive, Jenna got back into her car and opened the sunroof, hoping the bright light would keep her spirits high enough to get her back to San Francisco.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  JENNA HIT TRAFFIC outside of Sacramento, which meant she wouldn’t have enough time to go home and change before her lessons started. Instead she pulled over at a convenience store and asked for a cup of ice, which she held against her eyes as she navigated her car along the crowded highway toward San Francisco. By the time she got to the Bay Bridge, her eyes had depuffed a little and she willed herself to think only positive thoughts so the tears wouldn’t start up again.

  Praising the parking gods as she grabbed a miraculous space right in front of the ballroom, Jenna grabbed her bag of emergency dance clothes from the back of her car and hustled inside. She had five minutes to get changed before her first lesson.

  “Oh, Jenna,” Marlene said as she rushed through the ballroom door, “didn’t Nicole call you? Your three o’clock student canceled.”

  This was why she hated private lessons, and this is why she was starting to hate Nicole. “No, she didn’t.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, hon. She must have forgotten.”

  “Sure,” Jenna said, weariness from the long drive and the emotions of the morning taking over. “I’m sure that’s what it was.”

  Jenna glanced at the clock. Her next lesson wasn’t until four. Maybe she’d just put her bag in the dressing room and go get a coffee and something to eat. She had private lessons until nine. It was going to be a long night—assuming they all showed up. This was why teachers coveted group classes. The lesson went on, and you got paid, no matter who attended and who didn’t on any particular night.

  Well, it was just a rough day. Her heart felt as if it had been torn out and left behind in Benson. In comparison to that, a canceled lesson was nothing.

  She pushed open the dressing room door with her shoulder and turned to go in. And stopped in her tracks. Brent was in the women’s dressing room, shirtless, and his hands were roaming over a half-naked Nicole.

  “Ugh!” The noise escaped before she could muffle it and they both started and turned, catching sight of Jenna before the door swung closed between them. She walked in a fog over to the DJ booth and sat down heavily. The main ballroom was empty and she stared out over the dance floor trying to figure out what to do next. And what might erase that image from her head.

  She was just picking up her bag again to drop it in her car while she went to get her coffee when the dressing room door opened and Brent came out, fully dressed now, thank goodness.

  “Hey, sorry about that,” he said. “I guess we got carried away. You know what it’s like when you’re first dating someone.”

  “You’re dating?” Jenna tried to hide her surprise. Brent had always laughed at Nicole’s attentions and treated her like a little kid. Obviously he considered her all grown up now.

  “I guess so.” He practically scuffed his feet, he looked so sheepish.

  “For how long?” Were you seeing her when you were flirting with me?

  “A couple weeks now. Ever since the competition.”

  Well, at least there was that. He’d stopped flirting with Jenna after he’d come upon her and Sandro plastered up against the hotel wall that night. Ouch. She didn’t want to think about that.

  “Well...” Jenna tried to muster up some enthusiasm. “Great!” she said, and it sounded as fake as it felt.

  “Look, there’s something else I want to talk to you about. It’s sort of related.” Brent sat down in the chair next to her.

  “Okay,” Jenna said, mystified. Brent wasn’t exactly the heart-to-heart-talk kind of guy.

  “I want to partner with Nicole.”

  There were moments in life when everything froze. When a person truly was that proverbial deer in the headlights. A marriage beginning or ending, a life starting or ending—moments that were so big people counted time from them. This day was one of her big ones. The day she lost Sandro and her dance partner. Her calendar would start again from here.

  Even while Brent sat there waiting for an answer, the words from this moment on, everything will be different whispered and echoed off the hollow shell where Jenna’s brain used to be. She hadn’t seen this coming. They’d danced together for almost a decade.

  “Jenna?” Brent finally asked. “Are you okay?”

  She took a shaky breath. Then another. And finally trusted herself to speak without losing her composure. Because at any moment, Nicole would walk out of that dressing room with a smirk of triumph on her face, and there was no way Jenna would be a mess when she did. “Are you sure? Just because you’re dating Nicole, doesn’t mean you have to give up what we have!”

  He looked uncomfortable and understanding dawned. “Nicole insists?” she asked.

  “Well, she wants it, and it makes sense.” He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, and loo
ked at his hands, not her. “We really like each other and we want to spend more time together.”

  “But you’ve dated other dancers before and never wanted us to end. Why now?”

  He sighed. “I guess I really like her. I want to try to make it work.”

  It made sense in a way. Nicole worshipped him. She’d pursued him for ages, and Brent loved that. Until he got bored and moved on. But maybe this time would be different.

  If he wanted a new partner, she couldn’t make him stay. Her heart hurt. Despite their difficulties, she’d loved dancing with Brent. It was the end of an era and she wasn’t ready for it.

  She tried to keep her voice steady but there was a lump in her throat—an enormous sticky lump that was part Brent, part Sandro and part panic that her world was changing so much in one small weekend. “How soon do you want to do this?”

  “Well, it’s the beginning of the month. We’ve got our group classes organized already. So I figure we’ll see out this month, and Nicole and I will work with Marlene to figure out how to schedule next month.”

  How could she be upbeat with Brent and teach as well as she always did, knowing they were just going through the motions until the end of the month?

  One month. The full extent of this disaster hit her. One month to find a new partner or face the bleak fact that she’d have to eke out a living giving private lessons. With no partner, Jenna would be stuck without group classes—stuck watching Brent teach their classes with Nicole. Her classes—the ones she’d worked years to build.

  Her stomach tightened and Jenna thought she might throw up.

  Maybe she could find some other ballroom to work for. The Golden Gate was the biggest, most popular ballroom in the city. Where else could she go? Her own studio was the obvious answer. But she didn’t have enough money yet.

  There wasn’t really anything else to say to Brent, who was sitting there looking at her quizzically. Innocently? As if he hadn’t just dropped a bomb into her life and blown it to a shambles. “I’d better go get some coffee,” she mumbled, and left the ballroom.

  But she didn’t get coffee. She got into her car, drove a few blocks to an empty parking lot and stopped. And sat and cried for the second time that day, feeling as though life had just taken away all that she valued most. She hadn’t thought she had any tears left after leaving Sandro this morning. But it seemed that when it came to love and dance, she had an endless supply.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “WHAT’S GOING TO happen with you and Dad?”

  Jenna’s mother looked out the window of the small visiting room and Jenna followed her glance. The open hillsides that surrounded the rehab center were golden-brown after the dry summer. Oak trees stood out as oases of bottle-green shade. A few cows clustered under the branches of one of the biggest.

  “I told him it was over.”

  Jenna thought she’d feel sad when her parents’ marriage finally ended. She wasn’t expecting a sense of peace. “Are you okay, Mom?”

  Her mother’s smile was sad but also less tense than Jenna could remember. “I am. I mean, it’s one day at a time, right? I’m sure I’ll have a lot of feelings to get through. But all his lying and all those affairs just ate up my self-esteem. I wish I’d left him years ago.”

  It was liberating to set down the burden of anxiety Jenna had been carrying. Of course there was a chance her mom would relapse, but at least now, in this moment, she was safe and doing well. “I ran into him, you know. A few weeks ago, at a hotel with someone else.” As soon as the words were out, Jenna doubted the wisdom of saying them.

  Her mom suddenly looked a little more frail. “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I should have told you. I was trying to get up my nerve, but I was also trying to give him time to tell you himself.”

  “You mean you spoke with him?”

  “Told him off. Yelled. In the middle of the lobby.” Jenna still didn’t know if she should feel embarrassed or triumphant about that moment.

  Her mother closed her eyes briefly, as if looking for composure. When she opened them, she looked surprisingly serene. She was obviously learning some coping skills here. “I kind of wish I could have seen you do it.” She smiled as if imagining the scene.

  “It wasn’t pretty,” Jenna assured her.

  “What he was doing wasn’t pretty. Thank you for standing up to him. But I wish you hadn’t had to. We’ve set such a terrible example for you, Jenna. I’m sorry.”

  “You tried to work it out with the person you love, Mom. That’s an admirable thing.”

  “To a point, I suppose.” Her mother sighed. “I just feel like there’s all this time I wasted, and I’ll never get it back.”

  Jenna didn’t know what to say. She resented that wasted time, too. And the stress she’d lived with for so long. But all they could do was go forward. “You’re doing something about it now, Mom. And I’m proud of you.” She stood up and went to sit beside her mother on the old sofa. It had probably seen a whole lot of family drama over the years. She hugged her mom. “I have to go. I teach tonight.”

  “Can you come again next weekend, Jenna? For family day? I hate to keep asking, but Shelley and Daniel... Well, they won’t come.”

  Jenna made a mental note to call her siblings and give them a piece of her mind. “I can try, Mom. But I can’t afford to miss too many of my classes right now.” Because she was losing her partner and a huge chunk of her income. Tears started. She looked away quickly but her mother noticed.

  “What is it? Jenna, is all this too much? Your dad? Me? I’ll pay for as much therapy as you need.” That was one of the problems with a sober mom, Jenna thought cynically. She actually noticed things. And wanted to help.

  “No, Mom, it’s just work stuff.”

  “What happened?”

  She didn’t want to tell her. Didn’t want to hear the I told you so she knew her mother would think, if not say. But they were being honest now, so she spit it out. “My dance partner ended our partnership a couple weeks ago.”

  “Brent?”

  She was surprised her mother remembered his name. She’d seen so little of Jenna’s dancing. “Yes. He’s gotten involved with another dancer. She’s a very ambitious girl who’s been really competitive with me at the ballroom. And the owner of the ballroom is her aunt, which doesn’t help, either. I’m going to lose all my classes.”

  “Oh, Jenna, I’m so sorry.”

  Jenna scrutinized her mother’s face, trying to tell if her words were genuine. Looking for the relief and the triumph. All she saw was sympathy.

  “What about your plans for a studio of your own?” her mother asked. “You’ve mentioned that a few times.”

  Jenna could almost see her beautiful ballroom fading away. “I was really close, but I needed a few more months, at least, to get the money together. Now I’m going to need what I’ve saved just to pay my bills until I find a new job or another partner.”

  A shrewd look crossed her mother’s face. Jenna had seen it before when they’d gone shopping or her mother was making plans to redecorate. “Do you have a business plan for this ballroom you want to open?”

  “Yes, of course. But—”

  “What about a location?”

  “There’s a place I love, but I can’t—”

  “Jenna.” Her mother turned to face her on the sofa and took both her hands in her own. “I’ve been terrible about your dancing. Most parents would be so proud to have a daughter as talented as you, and I’ve done nothing but discourage you. I was talking about it with a therapist here, and she said that maybe I was jealous. I was so stuck, and you were pushing forward, pursuing your dreams. I think maybe she was right.”

  Her mother had discouraged her. She’d been mean and condescending. Jenna couldn’t say that it was all oka
y now that she’d apologized, but her mother didn’t seem to need her to say anything.

  “I’d like to help you. Call it making amends, call it me realizing what an idiot I’ve been. I’ve got tons of money—family money, separate from whatever your father makes. Let me help you get your studio off the ground.”

  Jenna swallowed. Of course she wanted money. It would mean everything to her career. It would turn this despairing time into a triumph. But she’d always refused to take money from her parents. There were way too many strings attached. “I can’t, Mom. It would make things complicated between us.” It almost physically hurt to say it, even if it was the right decision.

  Her mother sighed. “I can see why you’d feel that way, but it makes me sad.” She paused, then continued. “It’s my fault. Your father’s fault, too. You’ve had to do absolutely everything on your own with no support from us.”

  Jenna stared down at her hands, twisting the small silver ring she wore on her pinkie, wondering how to respond.

  “We sent your brother through medical school and your sister through law school. We spent thousands of dollars on them and gave you nothing. We had money set aside for your college. As far as I know, it’s still in an account somewhere. Why not use it?”

  Jenna felt her resolve faltering. She could lease the studio tomorrow and start cleaning, decorating and advertising immediately. It would give her time to find a new dance partner—the right partner.

  “Just a minute.” Her mother got up and left the room. Jenna heard her footsteps growing fainter along the corridor. She stared back out at the bucolic view. Her mother felt guilty. Was this her way of buying herself out of that guilt? Because if it was, Jenna should say no. The only way for her mom to get healthy was to actually deal with her feelings.

  Her mother came back in and sat down. She handed Jenna a check for $50,000. “Will this help?” she asked softly.

  That was an insane amount of money—at least for a broke dancer, it was. Jenna had a feeling that for her parents, it was petty cash. “Why are you doing this, Mom?” she asked, not reaching for the check.