by Liz Isaacson
“Hello,” Adele said, making the two-syllable word into three. “I asked if you were going to put out any more help wanted ads.”
“Yes,” Scarlett said, giving herself a mental shake. She didn’t have room for Hudson in her mind, not with the dozens of tasks she had to complete that day. And up first were those pigs and llamas, and then she had a date with the plastic snow shovel.
“Good, because I need help with the goats, and you need at least three more people to help Gramps with the dogs.”
“Really?”
“Really,” Adele said as she slid off the barstool. “He loves those dogs, sure. But they need more exercise than he can give them, and even the volunteers aren’t enough.”
“Plus, they always seem to be in the cat houses.”
“Well, they’re air conditioned,” Adele said. “That’s where I’d be too.”
“The dog enclosures are temperature regulated,” Scarlett said, going down the back steps.
“Well, they’re supposed to be,” Adele said. “Can your mechanic look into that?” She cast Scarlett one last look before heading for the corner of the house and turning north toward the goat fields and pens.
Scarlett heaved in a deep breath and faced east, where the pigs and llamas lived. When she stepped from grass to dirt road, her phone buzzed in her back pocket. She pulled it out and checked the number, but it wasn’t one she had stored in her phone.
Forever Friends, she thought, and she swiped the phone on a moment later. “Hello?”
“Scarlett?” a man asked—definitely not Jewel Nightingale.
“Yes,” she said slowly. She hadn’t even placed a help wanted ad yet, so who was calling her that wouldn’t be in her phone? She’d wanted to erase everyone she’d worked with and been friends with. Really make a clean break from everything she’d had in her life when she’d been part of Scarlett and Vance, Vance and Scarlett.
But she hadn’t. She’d taken a baby step and left the city. Another one when she’d accepted Gramps’s offer to sign the ranch over to her. Another one every day she stayed here and cleaned and worked and didn’t run back to Los Angeles.
“It’s Hudson,” he said. “And I think you better get down here.”
Chapter 4
“Down where?” The panic in Scarlett’s voice wasn’t hard to hear. “And how did you get my number?”
“I looked up the number of the ranch online,” he said, turning and pacing back toward the mailbox—if it could be called that anymore. “I was working on the mailbox, and….” He didn’t want to say the whole thing had fallen apart, but the whole thing had fallen apart. Hound seemed utterly nonplussed as he lay panting in the grass, but Hudson felt the buzz of energy in his blood.
“I’ll be right there,” she said, and the line went dead.
Hudson let his phone drop to his side, hoping and praying this mailbox wasn’t a family heirloom. But the way it had rusted and fallen apart at his first touch spoke of how long it had been standing at the entrance of this ranch.
Worry gnawed at his stomach in the few minutes it took for Scarlett to arrive. She showed up on a four-wheeler, dirt and rocks skidding under the tires as she braked to a sloppy stop. Hound got up as if she’d come to see him, but she didn’t even glance at him. “What—?”
But she didn’t finish, because she caught sight of the dismembered robot. “Prime.” She took a couple of steps but stopped. “What happened?”
“I literally touched his leg,” Hudson said. “I swear. Just to see how loose it was. Everything fell apart.”
Scarlett looked at him, her eyes blazing. “Well, fix him.”
“I’m not sure—okay,” he said. “I’ll fix him, but he might…not be exactly the same. Some of this metal is rusted clean through.”
“There’s plenty of metal around the ranch,” Scarlett said. “My great-grandfather built that mailbox, and….” She wiped her hand through her hair, smoothing back the wispy pieces that were too short to go into the bun on top of her head. “Get it close to what it looked like before.”
Hudson nodded. “I’ll do that.”
Scarlett stared at him for another moment, and then she stomped over to the ATV, swung her leg over, and practically ran over the robot as she swung wildly around.
Hudson watched her go, his emotion choked up in the back of his throat. Get it close. He could certainly try, and he was glad he’d taken a quick picture with his phone the day before when he’d found the boxer and walked up the road to the ranch.
He pulled out his phone and swiped to find the picture. Really, all he needed was a couple of legs, a gallon of black paint, and a new bottom for the mailbox. That robot couldn’t even hold mail now, and Hudson could see that if he had white and red paint too, he could really bring him back to life.
Prime.
He wondered if Scarlett had named the robot or if someone else had. He wondered a lot of things about her, including if she’d go out with him if he’d ask. But her divorce was only four months old, and Hudson wasn’t sure he quite knew what he wanted himself.
He pulled out his phone and sent a text to the number he’d called. Where might I find some metal?
He had her number now, and she had his, and Hudson smiled as he put her name into his phone. Her response bore her name when it came in, and that made him grin too. There’s a huge pile by the hay barn.
Hudson didn’t ask where the hay barn was. He knew what a barn looked like, and he could enjoy the morning sunshine as he walked. “Come on, Hound,” he said to his dog, and they set off down the road.
After about thirty minutes of wandering around the ranch and all the buildings he could see, he was forced to text Scarlett again. Where might the hay barn be?
It’s out in the middle of LlamaLand, Horse Heaven, and Piggy Paradise. Southeast of the homestead.
“Llama Land?” He looked down at Hound, but the golden retriever didn’t point him in the right direction. Hudson hadn’t gone past the horse…what was it? He checked his phone again. “Horse Heaven.”
He hadn’t gone that way, because it just looked like farmland, pastures, and the wilds for as far as he could see. But he walked south down the road past the homestead now, Hound at his side, and once he got past all the stables and horse stalls, another building came into view.
The hay barn.
Hudson walked between two fences, with horses on his left and llamas on his right, and made it to the hay barn. Sure enough, around one side, there was a pile of metal. What a normal person didn’t know was that not all metals were created equal.
Some could be bent and twisted into spiraled robot legs, and some were meant to hold up tall buildings. He picked through the pieces to find some he could use, but he didn’t have the equipment he needed to complete a job such as this one.
He had a friend down in Pasadena he could call, but Hudson left his phone in his pocket and kept looking through the bin of miscellaneous supplies. Wood scraps and metal rods and old horseshoes. Most of this needed to be thrown away, and Hudson realized he was looking at a very small part of what this ranch had to offer.
Scarlett had said her grandfather was a hoarder, and a sigh passed through his body. So he’d help her get the place cleaned up, he’d rebuild the robot, and he’d get those cars fixed. And if he got to spend time with the beautiful Scarlett Adams while he hauled trash and repaired brakes?
Even better.
He went to find her and found her pushing a wheelbarrow across the lawn toward a dumpster. “Hey, can I help you?”
She gave him an icy look and said, “Nope, I’m fine.” She picked up a snow shovel and started transferring trash from one container to another.
“I don’t think that metal by the hay barn will work,” he said. “I need something a little different.”
She kept working, barely glancing at him. “I don’t have a budget for metal for the mailbox.”
“Tell me about the robot. Prime, you called him?” He watched Hound find a p
atch of shade and flop down.
That got her to stop, and Hudson saw her vulnerability for about half a second before she covered it up again. “My brother named him,” she said. “When we were kids, we used to come up here to the ranch in the summer. My grandparents would keep us for a summer, and it was….” She seemed to realize he still stood there, and she cleared her throat.
“It was what?” he asked.
“Wonderful,” she said. “And that robot has been there, welcoming everyone to Last Chance Ranch, for over a hundred years.” Her chin wobbled slightly. “So I just want you to fix it, because I don’t want Prime to die on my watch.”
“Scarlett,” he said, almost a whisper. “Could I fix it up? Strengthen the joints? Repaint it?”
Their eyes met, and the rest of the world fell away.
Will you go out with me? The words flowed through his mind, but he didn’t say them. She barely seemed to like him, though the attraction between them certainly felt electric.
“It’s okay if you don’t want me to,” he finally said, breaking the connection between them. He fell back a step.
“I do,” she blurted. “Want you…to fix it up. I just don’t want him to disappear.”
“He won’t,” Hudson promised. “And you know, I can help you with all of this.” He gestured to the wheelbarrow.
“After you fix the cars,” she said, lifting the shovel again. “We need to sell those, because well, as I’m sure you noticed as you went traipsing all over the ranch to find that hay barn, this ranch needs the money.”
He suddenly felt like a jerk for demanding sixty percent of the profits.
“And don’t worry about your cut,” she said. “I know what I’m doing, Mister Flannigan.”
He snapped his mouth closed and said, “I need to make a phone call. Then I’ll get on those cars.”
“Hm.” She finished with the last shovel of trash and promptly turned to go back the way she’d come. He watched her walk away, her hips swaying as she walked.
Hudson swallowed, the temperature suddenly a lot hotter than it had been a moment ago. Stop it, he told himself as Scarlett disappeared from view. Focus on the work. After all, he didn’t want to lose this job he’d just gotten.
So he drew in a deep breath and shelved the idea that he could fix the robot that morning, set aside the fact that he did need to call TJ about the metal he needed, and walked toward the row of cars he’d been shown yesterday.
Hudson hadn’t spent much time inland in the past year, or before that. The breeze that had come off the ocean in Santa Monica kept things cool, even in the summer. But there was no breeze here on the ranch.
Sweat ran down Hudson’s face and his back, and he thought he probably looked like he’d been sprayed with a hose. The first car had been an easy fix, with a new set of spark plugs, a fresh oil change, and a replacement timing belt.
The second car needed new tires and new upholstery, as well as a new radiator. He’d made notes on it, but it would take some serious work to get this car in sellable condition.
He currently stood on a step-stool to bend over the engine of the classic truck, sure his sweat was going to cause an explosion when he tried to start this vehicle. The interior was in perfect condition, if a little dusty, and if this truck had new tires and started, Hudson was sure he could get several thousand dollars for it. Maybe even more.
The 1956 Ford wasn’t in immaculate, restored condition. The paint job was probably the original from decades ago, and while there were no rips inside, it wasn’t the leather reupholstering he’d seen in some of these classic trucks.
But someone would pay to have this truck, even in its current condition. And if he could get it running, wash it up, and vacuum away all the dust, maybe he could get some cash for the ranch.
He hadn’t touched his account in a while, though he had plenty of money from the sale of his shop. He lived off the money he made on his odd jobs, because that money felt authentic. It felt good to be able to work and pay for things with his labor.
He knew his thoughts about the millions in his bank account weren’t rational. But they were still his, and he was still working through them.
Scarlett went by with another load of garbage, her face red and glistening. He deliberately kept his head down so he wouldn’t ogle her. Now, if he could just figure out what kind of starter he could get at a contemporary automotive store.
He pulled his hands from the engine and wiped them on a rag he’d found in the shed in the corner of the yard.
“Well, I’m done,” Scarlett announced, and Hudson almost fell off his step-stool at the sound of her voice. He looked at her to find her bracing her hands against her back and stretching.
His mouth went dry, and he couldn’t think of anything to say in response.
“You thirsty?” she asked.
He managed to nod, wondering why he couldn’t get his voice to work. He hadn’t looked at another woman in such a long time, and he didn’t know what to do with all these strange emotions twisting through him.
“Well, come on in,” she said. “It’s so hot today.” She walked away, and Hudson jumped off his stool and whistled to his dog.
Hound lifted his head, and Hudson said, “Come on, bud.” The dog got to his feet and trotted over, going up the back steps and into the house before Hudson.
A blast of air conditioning hit Hudson in the face, cooling the sweat on his skin and providing sweet relief from the bright sun outside. After walking through a utility room, Hudson entered the kitchen, where Scarlett stood in front of the fridge, moving the door open and closed as if fanning herself.
“Soda?” she asked. “Lemonade? Water?”
“Lemonade,” he said, mesmerized by her. “Look, if you need help around the ranch, I’m more than willing to do it. I have experience with horses.”
“Do you? I thought you owned a mechanic shop for twenty years.” Scarlett looked at him and then pulled out a case of pink lemonade.
“I did. But I grew up on a horse ranch.”
“You don’t say.” She leaned her hip into the counter and popped the top on a can of soda. The fizzing sound met his ears as he watched her start to drink.
“So I could help out,” he said. “You’ve got a lot of animals here, and sometimes I need a break from the cars.”
“How’s it going with them?” she asked.
“Good,” he said. “I have a list of things I need to get. I’ll drive down tonight and get them, and we should be able to get a couple of them fixed tomorrow.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Then I’ll wash them, clean out the inside, and we can list them.”
“Wow, I’m impressed.”
Hudson pulled out a can of pink lemonade and looked at it. “I think maybe I changed my mind. What kind of soda have you got?”
“All kinds,” she said. “Adele is kind of a soda freak.” She nodded to the fridge. “Help yourself.”
“You and Adele,” he said, stepping over to the fridge. “You’ve known each other for a long time?”
“Yeah, we were roommates in college.” Scarlett tipped her head back and drank again, and Hudson couldn’t help tracing the curve of her throat with his eyes.
“What was the name of the horse ranch where you grew up?” she asked.
“Thousand Oaks?” he asked, as if she’d know the place. By the blank look on her face, she obviously didn’t. So she was just making small talk. She wasn’t really interested in him. Bitter disappointment cut through him, along with a healthy dose of foolishness.
“Where is it?”
“It’s not too far from here, actually,” he said. “Just about twenty minutes further west.”
She cocked her head as if she had something more to say, but the front door of the house banged open. A blonde woman wearing a straw hat burst in and said, “Gramps started a fire.”
Chapter 5
Scarlett blinked, sure she’d heard Adele wrong. “What?”
&
nbsp; Hudson didn’t wait to get the details. He slammed the fridge closed and strode toward the front door. “Where?” he demanded as he passed her.
“Canine Club,” she said, and that got Scarlett to move.
She hurried after the two of them, saying, “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Adele said, running after Hudson, who suddenly had the longest legs on the planet. “I came out of my cabin because the goats were bleating like crazy, and I saw the smoke. My car,” she called to Hudson. “Get in.”
He detoured to the passenger side, and Adele got behind the wheel. Scarlett barely had time to get in the backseat before Adele backed out of the driveway and skidded down the dirt road.
Scarlett’s stomach flipped over and over, like a child trying to see if their first batch of pancakes were done yet. She couldn’t be the reason a huge wildfire started here. California had so many fires, and what would she do if Last Chance Ranch burned to the ground?
“Please,” she whispered. “Please, God, let it be small. Please.” She hadn’t realized she was speaking out loud until Hudson reached back and curled his fingers around hers.
He didn’t say anything, and he didn’t need to. His presence was calming in a way Scarlett hadn’t anticipated, and as Adele pulled up to the entrance to the Canine Club, a thin trail of smoke lifted into the sky.
“Yes, there’s a fire at Last Chance Ranch,” Hudson said, removing his hand from hers and getting out of the car. She hadn’t even seen him holding his phone to his ear. “I don’t know. We’re here now, and I’ll see. Just wanted to call. Better to be safe than sorry.”
Scarlett went through the gate, calling, “Gramps?” She followed the smoke and found him hitting the ground with a towel he’d obviously taken from one of the dog kennels. The building had water spigots on the outside, but they didn’t keep the hoses out there because some of their pooches liked to chew them up.
