Redemption on Rivers Ranch

by Kathy Douglass

  “It’s so pretty,” Sophia whispered. “It looks like a movie.”

  “It’s all right,” Justin said, obviously not impressed by the picturesque scene. “Do you see the boot and hat store? I want a black hat like Carson’s.”

  Justin had been going on and on about riding lessons and how he was going to jump over the fence on his horse. Gabriella didn’t want to burst his bubble by telling him the first lesson would probably consist of him being led around the corral on horseback. It had been so long since Justin had been this enthused about anything. True, he was dedicated to his swim practice and liked being on the team, but sometimes he appeared to swim more out of duty than fun.

  “We should be able to find the color of hats you want,” Gabriella said, hoping that was true.

  “Can we go there first?”

  Getting the hats and boots first seemed the practical thing to do. After all, she had no idea how long it would take for them to make up their minds. She didn’t want to leave food in the car to possibly spoil. Besides, grocery shopping would be less stressful if they weren’t rushing her.

  “That sounds like a plan. All I have to do is find the store.”

  As she’d driven down the street, she’d noticed that there were very few free parking spots. When she spied an empty space, she pulled into it. She had no idea where they were going, but given the compact size of the town, they had to be within walking distance of the store.

  Once she parked, the kids hopped from the car and leaped onto the sidewalk. They seemed delighted by the old-fashioned light pole by the curb, and each grabbed on by one hand, then swung around it several times. Luckily, in addition to the street signs, there were signs with names of the various shops and arrows beneath pointing the direction they should go. The Western wear store was one block away.

  “Ready?” she asked the kids, and they instantly stopped circling the pole and ran over to her. Sophia took her hand and smiled at her. Justin had decided that holding his mom’s hand wasn’t cool, so he shoved his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts just in case Gabriella tried to take his hand, too. She experienced a slight twinge of sorrow at her son’s rejection.

  “Which way?” Justin asked.

  She pointed in front of her. “It should be on the next block.”

  Although it was a weekday morning, there were many people about. Not enough to make the streets crowded, but sufficient people to make business owners happy. In one of their more recent conversations, Aunt Mildred had mentioned that the Sweet Briar mayor had created a two-pronged plan to revitalize the town. He’d worked hard to attract new businesses and to shore up existing ones. Then he’d begun to market the town as a year-round tourist destination. Cleary he’d been successful.

  Despite all of the changes, Sweet Briar retained the friendly feeling she recalled from days gone by. They passed a barbershop where several older gentlemen watched as two others played a game of checkers. One player moved a piece, and the spectators groaned in unison. One of the men was smoking a cigar, and the pungent odor brought back memories of her uncle Bob. He hadn’t been a regular smoker, but every once in a while he’d sit on the front porch swing and puff on a cigar.

  They passed Mabel’s Diner and Gabriella was pleased to see the old restaurant was still around. She couldn’t wait to take the kids there for arguably the best burger and fries they would ever taste.

  When they reached the Western wear shop, Justin hurried to open the door. Sophia released Gabriella’s hand and ran the final few steps to the store, and they all stepped inside.

  The smell of leather surrounded Gabriella, and she immediately had no doubt that the products sold here were authentic and made to last. Clearly, some of the boots, hats and accessories were designed to appeal to vacationers who were shopping for souvenirs, but the majority of the items were geared toward the ranchers who lived in the area.

  The store consisted of one large room divided into several departments. The front was decked out in pretty hats and boots, some of which had sequins and feathers. Sophia instantly gravitated toward the colorful hats, all of which were adult size and much too big for her small head.

  A smiling middle-aged man approached them. “Hi. I’m Travis. How can I help you?”

  “We need cowboy hats and boots,” Justin said. “Real ones, though. Not like these.”

  “I like these,” Sophia piped up, and Justin shook his head.

  “I see. Are these to wear around town or to take back home as souvenirs?”

  Clearly, the salesman thought they were tourists. And in a way, they were. They were only going to be here for the summer. But while they were in North Carolina, they were going to be living on a ranch. They weren’t typical vacationers; nor were they locals. They were somewhere in between, not fitting in either category.

  “We’re staying on my aunt’s ranch for the summer,” Gabriella said. “They’ll be doing some riding, so they’ll need proper boots and hats.”

  He nodded. “And will you be riding, too?”

  Although the notion appealed to her, Gabriella shook her head. She’d loved riding with Carson as a kid, racing across the vast acres of his ranch on sunny days without a care in the world. But those days, as wonderful as they’d been, were over now. Now she was a mother with kids to raise. More than that, she needed to come up with a plan for the rest of her life. She couldn’t do that by trying to relive her youth. Besides, Carson’s offer had been limited to teaching her kids and hadn’t included her.

  “Why not?” Sophia asked. “It’s going to be fun.”

  “And you said you used to ride horses with Carson when you were a kid,” Justin added. “If you forgot how, I’m sure he’ll teach you, too.”

  “Are you talking about Carson Rivers?” asked a man who looked a little bit older than Gabriella. He’d been trying on boots and obviously listening to their conversation. Now he dropped the new boots into the box. Eyes narrowed, he frowned and his face and neck turned beet red.

  “That’s right,” Gabriella said. “He’s a neighbor and a friend.”

  “And he’s going to teach us how to ride horses,” Sophia added.

  The man shoved his feet into well-worn boots, grabbed the box and then stood. He looked pointedly at Gabriella. “Nice kids you have there. If I were you, I’d be careful who I let them be around. Not everyone can be trusted.”

  “Don’t start that again, Rusty,” Travis warned. “You know you can’t judge him by his father’s actions.”

  “The apple don’t fall far from the tree.”

  The salesman grunted and his eyes turned stony. The smile he’d shown to Gabriella and her kids had been replaced with a hard look. He pointed at the box in Rusty’s hands. “Do you want anything besides those boots?”

  Rusty glared, apparently annoyed at being shut down. “No. This is all.”

  “Then let’s get you checked out.” Travis took Rusty’s box, walked to the front of the store and set the box in front of a young cashier.

  Rusty walked over to Gabriella. “Remember what I said. Don’t trust him.” His final warning issued, he went to the cash register and slapped his credit card down on the counter.

  The cashier rung up the sale with impressive speed. Even so, Gabriella didn’t move a muscle until Rusty had left the store, slamming the glass door behind him. Then she blew out a pent-up breath.

  “Ignore Rusty,” Travis said. “He’s a bitter man, disappointed that life didn’t work out the way he wanted it to. Of course, his own actions played a major part in that.”

  Gabriella nodded. The entire conversation confused her. Why had the man spoken so badly about Carson? And what had Carson’s father done? Gabriella hadn’t known Karl Rivers well, but he’d been nice enough to her whenever she’d come over to hang out with Carson.

  “I don’t like that man,” Justin said.

  �
�Me, either,” Sophia added. “He’s mean.”

  “Our children’s section is in the back,” Travis said, as if trying to put an end to the uncomfortable moment and bring the focus back to the reason they’d come to the store in the first place.

  Gabriella and her children followed him to the smaller room. In addition to boots and hats, there were jeans, shirts, belts, jewelry and buckles in a wide array of styles. The boys and girls sections were separated by a row of chairs. Justin picked up a black hat that was a miniature version of the one Carson wore, and Sophia made a beeline for the earrings. She quickly picked up a silver pair shaped like horses and held them up to her ears. “Aren’t these pretty, Mommy?”

  “They are, indeed.”

  Sophia had gotten her ears pierced this past Christmas. Ever since then, she’d been enamored of earrings. She spent several minutes each night before bed selecting the ones she wanted to wear the next day.

  “Do you suppose I could have them?”

  Gabriella nodded. Although they weren’t necessarily shopping for souvenirs, the earrings were pretty and would give Sophia a happy reminder of days spent on the ranch. As an added bonus, she’d actually get some use out of them, unlike most souvenirs from vacations past that had become dust magnets. “I’ll hold them while you try on boots and hats.”

  Justin had placed a hat on his head and was standing in front of a rack of boots. He frowned at the dark brown boots he held in his hands. “I want some like Carson’s, but they don’t have any in the right color.”

  Gabriella studied the options and then pulled out a pair of tan boots. “They were like these.”

  “Those are too light,” Justin countered. “His were darker.”

  “Trust me, they started out this color. That was a lot of dirt and other things on his boots.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yep.” Gabriella didn’t want to think too hard about how she’d noticed what color boots Carson was wearing that morning. Truth be told, she’d been aware of everything about him, from the faded gray T-shirt with long sleeves pushed up to his elbows that had a slight tear near the collar, to the well-worn denims that showcased his muscular thighs. She’d always thought Carson was handsome—if a little on the skinny side—though she’d never been attracted to him when they were younger. When it came to Carson, romance had never crossed her mind. He’d been like the brother she’d never had.

  Now, though, feelings she’d never imagined she’d have for Carson were starting to take root inside her. That was unacceptable. She needed to get rid of them before they began to sprout. She was only here for the summer, so there was no way a relationship between them could ever work. More importantly, she wasn’t ready to trust her heart with any man. Even Carson.

  Oh sure, as a boy, Carson had been completely honorable. She’d never met anyone with quite as much integrity as he had. If he said he was going to be somewhere at a certain time, he’d be there, no matter what. If he promised to do something, he did it. Although time and experience changed people, she didn’t believe they had the ability to alter a person’s true nature. A good person remained good no matter the trials life threw at him.

  But she could be wrong. After all, Reggie had once appeared to be an honest man, vowing to forsake all others for her. That hadn’t happened. Once the woman he’d actually loved for his entire life was free to marry him, those words had proved empty. He’d left Gabriella behind without a second thought. If he’d been forthcoming about why he’d proposed to her in the first place, Gabriella would have been able to make an informed decision. She never would have married him if she’d known he was truly in love with someone else. Which, no doubt, was why he’d kept that information to himself.

  She shoved the troubling thoughts out of her mind. She’d never be able to move forward with her life if she kept reliving the past. And more than anything else, she needed to get on with her life. She shifted focus back to the gear she’d come to buy for her kids.

  After thirty minutes of trying on boots and debating the perfect shade of pink for Sophia’s hat, they finally made their selections. Predictably, although they’d brought jeans with them to Sweet Briar, the kids wanted real cowboy and cowgirl jeans. They’d convinced Gabriela to buy a pair of boots for herself, but she’d drawn the line at a hat or jeans. Although she didn’t intend to ride a horse, the gray boots she’d tried on had been too cute to leave behind.

  Once they gathered their gear, they took everything to the checkout. The cashier smiled at Sophia and Justin, then met Gabriella’s eyes. “Remember, don’t pay any attention to what Rusty said about Carson. Carson is a nice guy. One of the best around. It’s a shame that a few small-minded people want to ruin a good man’s reputation.”

  The cashier’s comment reminded Gabriella of the earlier incident. She’d been busy with her kids and had put the whole thing behind her. She wondered just what was going on, but she didn’t ask. She didn’t want to gossip. Carson deserved better than that. If there was something he wanted her to know, he’d tell her.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Gabriella said as she and the kids grabbed their purchases and left.

  After the events at the Western wear shop, the rest of their shopping trip was blessedly uneventful. The grocery store wasn’t as big as the warehouse club back home where she held a membership, but it carried a surprisingly wide variety of items. And if it wasn’t on the shelves, the manager said she could order anything Gabriella wanted. That was good to know even though she doubted she’d do it.

  While Gabriella enjoyed fancy meals and possessed an adventurous palate, the kids preferred simple foods. They’d happily live on macaroni and cheese and bologna sandwiches if she’d let them. Since it was just the three of them, she imagined they’d be eating the same simple meals here that they ate at home.

  Once they were inside the vehicle, Gabriella decided to drive around the town to see just how much it had changed in her absence. After fifteen or so minutes, she came upon a three-story brick building with a dynamic mural painted on the outside. A prominent sign welcomed them to the Rachel Shields Youth Center. About thirty children were playing in a fenced-in playground on the side of the building while adults supervised.

  “What’s this place?” Justin asked, leaning out the window for a better look.

  “It’s a youth center.”

  “Do you think we can come and play here one day?” Sophia asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask Carson about it later,” Gabriella said as she drove away. It would be nice to find a place where Sophia and Justin could make new friends while they were here. They generally got along well with each other—Justin’s recent behavior notwithstanding—but they needed friends. Gabriella hoped that some of the nearby ranch families had kids around their age, but if they didn’t, the youth center would be a nice alternative.

  Satisfied that she’d gotten a good feel for the town, Gabriella headed for the highway and home. Traffic was light and before long she was pulling into her driveway. She glanced across the road to Carson’s place, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, but he was nowhere in sight. Telling herself that wasn’t disappointment she felt, she opened the back of the SUV so she and the kids could unload the groceries.

  It took several trips between the kitchen and the car, but eventually all of the bags were inside, covering the table, the limited counter space and the floor. As expected, the kids toed off their gym shoes and immediately put on their boots. The salesman had suggested that they break them in. Not that they needed encouragement. They’d be clomping around the house in them for the foreseeable future.

  Although a lot of groceries had to be to put away, once they put the cold food into the refrigerator, Gabriella told the kids to drop their jeans in the laundry room and then go outside to play. If they helped put the food away, she’d never be able to find it. Better to do it alone now and save time later when
she wanted to cook.

  The kids dashed out the back door and into the yard. Their happy laughter filled her with unspeakable joy. Reggie might have lost interest in them, but they still had each other. The three of them were their own little family.

  Once the groceries were put away, she went and sat on the back porch. The breeze wafted through the screens, cooling her skin. Early evening was her favorite time of day. The sun was low in the sky, so it wasn’t quite dusk, and there was the promise of a beautiful starlit night. But as much as she was enjoying the quiet, she couldn’t sit here much longer. Any minute now the kids would be hungry and cranky.

  She went into the kitchen and whipped up a quick meal. Once dinner was ready, she called the kids in to wash their hands. Although she didn’t like the kids wearing shoes in the house, she gave them a pass with their new boots. They were still so excited about what the boots represented—horseback riding—that she didn’t want to steal their joy. Besides, she had to mop the floor after the kids had gone to bed anyway. Given the way they were drooping now, that wouldn’t be long.

  While they ate, the kids told her about their day as if she hadn’t been there with them the entire time. As they swallowed their pork chops, rice and steamed broccoli, they began to pepper her with questions about her childhood and her summers spent here. After she’d told them a few stories, they asked why they hadn’t been allowed to stay with Aunt Mildred like she’d been.

  That was the sixty-four-million-dollar question. Though her former in-laws were basically good people who’d welcomed her with open arms, they could be snobs at times. To them, summers were to be spent at their Martha’s Vineyard compound, not on a dusty ranch in North Carolina. That was the way they’d raised Reggie and his younger brother, and they’d wanted the same for their only grandchildren. And Reggie had always agreed with them. The one time Gabriella had gone to her parents for backup, they’d sided with Reggie and his family. Gabriella’s parents had been happy that she had married into money and that her future was assured, and they hadn’t wanted her rocking the boat. She’d been young and foolish back then, and rather than cause a rift she’d gone along with the program.