The Long Way Home

by Liz Isaacson

  Archer glared at her with more menace than she knew he possessed. He’d always been nice to her, probably nicer than he should’ve been given how little attention she’d given him over the years. He brought her garbage can in when it snowed heavily, and he’d fixed her fence when the gate slammed into it.

  He could’ve said all kinds of things in this situation. Breathed threats at her. Delved into a long lecture about his disgust for her. All of it was plain to see right there in his deep, dark eyes. Eyes that had always sucked at Emery’s resolve, always beckoned that if she just dove in, she’d like what happened after that.

  He said nothing. Just marched past her and out the door.

  Sneak Peek! Christmas at the Ranch Chapter Two

  Fury boiled in Archer’s gut, and he did not like it. No, he did not like it, not one little bit. Somehow he managed to navigate his toy-sized truck down the canyon without smashing into a cement barrier or going off the road and hitting a tree. A small miracle, really, given the level of annoyance altering his vision.

  By the time he pulled into his driveway, the smell of hot rubber and the sharp metallic scent of his engine filled the cab. He really couldn’t push his truck like that; it was barely hanging on to the last days of its life. And Archer had no way to pay to replace it or repair it. He would not be asking his father, who had talent under the hood of a vehicle.

  Still, he practically gunned the engine once the garage door lifted, nearly crashed right into the deep freezer he had against the back wall, which held a box of corndogs and several cartons of pistachio ice cream.

  He snatched the corndogs on his way inside and threw them on the counter, startling Carrot Cake. The little dog whined, and Archer softened. “Sorry, bud. But you would not believe that woman.” He spun to turn on the oven, nearly knocking over the high-powered blender that he used every morning for his protein shakes.

  “I can’t believe her. I—just—can’t—believe—” He stopped talking, his frustration so foul he couldn’t even form coherent words. He put three corndogs on a baking tray and slammed it into the still-warming-up oven. He made loud cracks! and bangs! as he got out the ketchup and mayo and mixed up a dipping sauce for his meager lunch.

  His mother would caution him to put something green on the plate. “Or some grapes, Arch. Something from the plant family.” Her voice rebounded through his head. At least she only lectured him about his dietary choices. His father lectured him about all of his choices, and Archer pulled an apple from the fridge and chomped into it while he waited for the rest of his food to cook.

  The full twenty minutes for the corndogs to bake passed before Archer felt his fury fade. He didn’t want to be home when Emery returned, so he packed everything onto a plate and went back out to his truck. He managed to leave his house and get down the street without seeing her. Thankfully. He couldn’t predict what he’d do next time he came face-to-face with her.

  Moments later, he pulled into the parking lot at the waterfalls and got out. With school starting last week, there were noticeably less families here, and he found a table easily. Desperation coated his tongue along with the grease from the corndogs. What would he do if he lost another job to Emery Ender?

  His mind imploded at the very thought of it. He’d have to move. And not just across town. But out of state.

  She’d never rubbed in the fact that she’d been hired at Silver Creek over him, but Archer’s pride wouldn’t allow him to live next door to her if she got this job and he didn’t. No way. Couldn’t happen.

  He needed this job, and not only because it was a job that would pay the bills. He needed it to start his career. He needed it to show his father he wasn’t going to bounce from temp job to temp job for the next twenty years. He needed it to boost his own confidence, which seemed to have fallen in the gutter last Christmas and made a permanent home there.

  The interview had gone great. Archer had practically floated toward the front of the administration lodge—until his gaze had landed on Emery. Everything inside him had revved up and then shut down, almost within the same breath. He’d learned from his father that sometimes saying nothing was more hurtful than yelling, so he’d strode out without a backward glance.

  “Better get a back-up plan, Arch,” he told himself. He pulled out his phone and navigated to the online job boards for Gold Valley. He’d have better luck securing a more long-term job in a bigger city, but he loved the town where he’d grown up. His parents still lived in the four-bedroom blue house in Monkeytown, and both of his brothers had left for their careers, leaving him with the responsibility of looking after the house and his parents as everything aged.

  Archer didn’t mind. He didn’t have a fancy computer science degree like Charlie; didn’t design the biggest video games on the market while sipping skinny mocha lattes and wearing hippie sandals around Bellevue, Washington. Archer also didn’t have a highfalutin engineering degree like Xan, who lived in Huntsville, Alabama and worked for NASA.

  Seriously, NASA? How was Archer supposed to compete with that?

  But compete his father expected. So when Archer had dropped out of college and moved into a townhome he could barely make the payment on, his father’s disappointment carried on the wind from his house across town.

  Archer had been looking for something he could do as a career and not have a degree for. He loved hiking, being outside with the fresh air and the scent of pines. He loved horses, and had thought for a couple of weeks there that he could make a career out of working with wayward boys and horses.

  That hadn’t worked out, but Archer had learned that he was supposed to be a cowboy. He just needed a ranch that was hiring. He’d checked the job boards every day for seventy-three days before a job came up at Horseshoe Home.

  He got to his feet and tossed his trash in the nearby can. And that blasted Emery Ender had honed in on his job, had dared to call and get an interview that very morning. He shook his head, wanting to be angry, but his emotions had been spent.

  Still unwilling to go home until he knew Emery would be at work, he went to McCall’s, the gas station that used to mark the edge of town, back before all the new housing developments closer to the falls and the mouth of the canyon had been built.

  “Afternoon, Arch,” Myron said from his perch on the counter-high stool just inside the convenience store. He sat in the window and watched all the comings and goings of Gold Valley. Archer had never seen the man wear anything but jean overalls with either a blue, a yellow, or a white shirt underneath. And Myron always chewed a piece of peppermint gum. “Keeps my breath minty,” he’d told Archer when he’d asked about it.

  “Afternoon.” Archer went over to the cooler and pulled out a sports drink. He paid and then sagged his weight against the counter, the indentation there from the countless people who’d come to the gas station for refills and refreshment and gotten it in more ways than one.

  “What’s eatin’ you?”

  “Nothing.” Archer took a swing from his bottle.

  “Right.” Myron cocked one eyebrow at him, and Archer whipped off his hat to mimic the action.

  Myron ducked his left and seemed to get his right all the way to his hairline. Archer smiled as he repeated the action. He wiggled one up and down while the other stayed still. Myron filled the convenience store with laughter and waved one hand. “You win.”

  “I always do.” He sobered when he realized how untrue the words really were. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’ve owned this station and store for a while, right?”

  “Forty-seven years. My daddy owned it before that.”

  Archer actually envied that kind of stability. The idea that Myron knew what his life would be and had embraced it. “Exactly.”

  “Exactly what?”

  “I applied for a job today,” Archer said, not really sure where he was going with the conversation. “I really want it.”

  Myron simply waited, his eyes watching
the gas pumps and his lips smacking as he chewed, chewed, chewed that gum.

  “So if you had a job you really wanted, what would you do to get it?” Archer asked.

  Myron took a long time to lift one of his beefy shoulders, today’s yellow shirt bunching where his arm met his body. He wore a dark gray cowboy hat—the same one Archer had seen dozens of times before.

  “Yeah, I don’t know either,” Archer said. He glanced around the old store, appreciating the vintage signs, the way the coolers kept on humming, the scent of nacho cheese and warming hot dogs on rollers.

  “Oh, I know,” Myron said just as the bell on the door chimed and a mother entered with her two preschool-age children.

  Archer glanced at them but focused quickly back on Myron when he said, “I’d fight for it. Do everything I could to get it.” He shrugged his other shoulder this time. “I mean, if it was what I wanted.”

  Nodding, Archer stepped out of the way so the woman could buy her gas and her children’s suckers.

  He couldn’t make Jace give him the job. Archer would get a phone call with a decision. How was he supposed to fight that?

  Emery was not expecting to see anyone sitting on her front porch when her headlights cut a swath of light across the front lawn she shared with Archer. She pulled all the way into her garage, her heart tip-tapping out an irregular beat.

  She kept Jenny running and the doors locked while she waited for the garage door to come down. Only then did she dare turn off the car and go into her house. Seconds later, someone knocked.

  A man, judging by the heavy fistfalls.

  Emery knew who it was. And she knew Archer wouldn’t go away. She’d really hoped to avoid this confrontation. She’d been relieved when she’d returned home from her interview to find his place silent, dormant. And at nine-thirty-five PM, after her shift at Silver Creek, she honestly hadn’t expected he’d want to do this tonight.

  “C’mon, Emery,” he called through the door. “I know you’re in there.”

  She deposited her purse and keys on the kitchen counter and went to the door, yanking it open right when he was about to beat on it again.

  He lowered his fist and then stuck it in his pocket. He wore jeans that hugged his thighs in all the right ways, that delicious cowboy hat, and a shirt the color of apricots. She wanted to laugh at him about the shirt, but he made the soft peachy color look sexy, and all she could do was lick her lips and wait for him to chew her out.

  She deserved it. She shouldn’t have looked up his job and applied for it. Regret had been lancing through her all afternoon, especially when Dr. Richards had given a lesson on integrity to all the girls right before their riding lesson. Apparently, he’d been having a problem with theft at Silver Creek, and he wanted the girls to know that integrity was about more than just being honest.

  Before Archer could say anything, Emery said, “I’m sorry, Archie. I shouldn’t have gone up there this morning.”

  He blinked at her, his strong jaw muscle twitching as his teeth ground together. She sighed and stepped back, a clear invitation for him to enter her house. He didn’t, and she was glad he didn’t. She’d never invited him inside before, and she didn’t know why she’d thought now would be a good idea.

  “I can’t even do that job,” she said. “Jace asked me about lifting a hay bale, and wrestling with a full-grown cow to give medication.” She gave a mirthless laugh to go with this miserable day. “And there’s no way I can set a fence post by myself. He said cowhands often do that kind of stuff.” Sure, she had some experience from her childhood, but she simply wasn’t as strong as a man.

  Archer just stood there, and she wondered how long he’d been waiting on her porch, and why he wouldn’t say something.

  She finally asked, “What do you want?”

  “Why do you need this job so badly?” he asked.

  “I have bills to pay.” She folded her arms across her chest, as if that would somehow keep the truth inside.

  He shook his head slowly, everything about him a shadow from his raven hair, those dark diamond eyes, and his black cowboy hat. “There has to be more than that going on here.”

  “Why’s that?” She cleared her throat when her voice strayed into an upper octave.

  “You just admitted that you’ve applied for a job you can’t do. Why don’t you go, oh, I don’t know. Waitress or work at the elementary school or be a checker at the grocery store?”

  She settled her weight onto her back foot, the fight in her rearing to the front of her skull. “Oh, and leave the real work to the men, is that it?”

  “No.”

  “You do realize there are male waiters, right? And teachers too, shockingly.”

  “Of course. I just meant—”

  “I know what you meant.”

  “No, you don’t,” he argued. “I meant that—just—why apply for a job you can’t do when there are tons you can?”

  The dull ache behind her eyes she’d been fighting for hours started to throb. She needed to eat and take some painkiller and get to bed. She couldn’t stand here in her doorway for much longer, breathing in the woodsy quality of Archer’s skin or the fresh waterfall scent of his clothes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’ll call up to the ranch in the morning and tell Belle I can’t do it, that they shouldn’t consider me.”

  “They?” Archer asked.

  “Yeah, Belle came into my interview too.” She frowned and leaned forward to peer at him. He seemed genuinely confused. “She wasn’t at yours?”

  “No.” He clipped out the word like a bullet, and she had the distinct feeling he really disliked her. That’s good, she told herself even though she wanted the opposite. So maybe she’d dreamt of him banging on her door in the dead of night—but for an entirely different reason.

  She shook her head to clear it. Having fantasies about her sexy next-door neighbor wouldn’t make sure Glenna’s heat stayed on this winter.

  “She was already in Jace’s office when I got back there,” she said. “I assumed she’d helped him with all the interviews.”

  Archer glared at her. He must practice for an hour every morning with how he’d perfected the narrow squint of his eyes and the extreme distaste pouring from every pore of his skin.

  “Whatever,” he finally said. “I just wanted you to know that I think you did a lousy thing today.”

  Her heart flopped like a fish on dry land. “I know I did, Archie. I’m sorry.”

  “Sometimes sorry—” He cut off as his phone sounded in tandem with hers. Her simple, factory-chosen chime didn’t mesh with his custom twill-a-will! that echoed through the night sky after it finally finished.

  He glanced at his phone; she at hers. Anything for a distraction.

  This is Jace Lovell. Can you come for a second interview tomorrow at nine o’clock?

  Her pulse catapulted around various points of her body, finally landing back in its rightful place in her chest. A smile pulled at the corners of her mouth, and she glanced up at Archer, who wore a grin so delightful she wondered what it felt like to be that happy.

  “I have a second interview tomorrow,” he said.

  “Me too.” She twisted her phone so he could see the message from Jace.

  His smile vanished, replaced by a scowl and then a frown of confusion. “Mine’s at nine too. That makes no sense.”

  “Maybe it’s a group interview?” she guessed.

  He wandered around the partition separating their front doors, his attention on his phone. He went inside without saying anything, almost like he’d forgotten Emery even stood there. With the final click of his door, she pushed hers closed too, her headache now pounding through her whole body.

  She could only hope and pray he’d forgive her, just like she’d been hoping and praying he’d finally wake up and see her standing right where she’d always been—next door.

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