Their Wander Canyon Wish

by Allie Pleiter

  “Well.” Wyatt leaned back against the deck rail. “Now I’ll definitely be charging you. And you can’t afford me.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Like I said, the company’s got deep pockets.” His face lost its teasing expression. “Get on board, man. Now. I’m telling you, this is your ticket.”

  Wyatt ran one hand through his hair. “Me? Working for a corporation? Come on, can you really see that?”

  “You’d be running your own garage, essentially.”

  “Yeah, of golf carts.”

  Tim laughed. “Well, okay, there’s some of that, but only some. You’d be handling all the resort’s maintenance vehicles, mostly. Think about it—your own garage, but only one customer.”

  That certainly had advantages. “Less paperwork,” he said almost to himself, remembering the standoff with Marilyn yesterday. Anything with less paperwork had to be a good thing.

  Tim winced. “Yeah, well, not exactly. It is a corporation, after all. I’ve done more paperwork in a month at Mountain Vista than in a whole year at my old landscaping business, actually.”

  He caught Wyatt’s reaction. “Pay’s worth it,” he added. “Totally. Come on board now, while I can pull you in easily, and you’ll be sitting pretty in no time.”

  It was getting hard to keep stalling on Tim’s offer. He was running out of reasons not to, except that something felt funny. The high salaries and easy hiring gave him a weird red-flag feeling. And then there was the trouble of leaving Manny in a lurch, which he would never do.

  “So how much grief are you getting for it?” he asked, even though he knew the answer. “Toting a Mountain Vista business card?” Tim had proudly displayed the cards identifying him as “Grounds Manager” when he first got them.

  Tim only gave Wyatt a dismissive look. “Some. But since when has that ever worried you?”

  “Doesn’t.” For some reason his memory brought up the icy look Marilyn’s mother had given him the day she dropped off the twins. Since when was someone like Katie Ralton worth one scrap of his regard?

  “They’re gonna win,” Tim said. “They’re already here. It’s only a question of how big they grow.”

  That much Wyatt already knew. He’d told Dad as much. Dad’s operation was too big to worry about the expansion touching him, but there were plenty of struggling smaller ranches over by Mountain Vista that would get eaten up. Maybe not right away, but soon enough. Was the smart move getting in on the ground floor like Tim had done?

  It struck him at that moment, as the sizzle of the burgers hitting the grill filled the air. Tim was the last. All of his high school buddies had established themselves in careers. As in professional trajectories that were better than jobs.

  And he still had a job. A job he loved, but just a job, nonetheless.

  So why didn’t he just extend his hand right this moment and sign on for the golden opportunity Tim kept dangling in front of him?

  Wyatt hated the answer that came to him. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t reputation or status or even ambition.

  He was spooked by one word: paperwork.

  * * *

  “Pleeeeeease?”

  Marilyn looked in her rearview mirror Wednesday morning at the pair of pleading faces in the backseat of her car. There were days every mother of young children was sure there was no weapon on earth as lethal as a persistent kindergartener’s whine. Times two, she moaned to herself.

  They were pleading to go visit Mr. Wyatt at the garage.

  Dropping by the garage to visit Wyatt was the last thing she wanted to do today. Not after the last visit. The girls, thankfully, had no idea it had ended the way it had. They were oblivious to the tension between her and Wyatt. To them, he was still the Carousel Man who let them sit in his fascinating garage and bought them cupcakes. As such, she was having little success explaining why it wasn’t such a good idea to bring Wyatt the special drawings they had made at Solos last night. Even though they were adorable.

  “I told you, we can mail them,” she persisted, smiling at the girls. “Wouldn’t that be special for Mr. Wyatt to receive a great big envelope from you?”

  Her suggestion was received with dual pouts. “No,” Margie said in the tiny-but-oh-so-matter-of-fact voice she often wielded.

  “We’re going into town anyway. Why can’t we visit?” Maddie made it sound like the best idea ever. Which it most certainly was not.

  There was no hope for it. She was going to have to admit what had happened. Marilyn pulled over to the side of the road and turned around to face the girls. “Mr. Wyatt and I had...sort of an argument.”

  Maddie’s eyes widened. “You fought with Mr. Wyatt?” It was almost amusing how impossible she found the idea. As if no one, ever, could find reason to lock horns with Wyatt. That was the blessing—and the struggle—of a child’s viewpoint. They saw the best in everyone.

  “We didn’t have a fight. We had a disagreement.” A great big disagreement.

  Maddie folded her hands in her lap as if she had all of life’s answers. “So, you gotta go fix it. That’s what you always tell us.”

  And right there was another challenge of parenthood—a mother’s advice could come around to haunt her. “You gotta go fix it” was often the pronouncement she made when the girls bickered with each other.

  “You can use our bench,” Margie offered. The time-out bench—intentionally big enough for two—had traveled with them to the new house, and was where she sent the girls to work out their petty squabbles.

  The hysterical picture of her squeezed onto the tiny bench with a scowling Wyatt next to her almost made her laugh. “That’s very kind of you, Margie, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” This was a lot more complicated than “I saw it first” or “She won’t take turns.” Somehow “I meddled and Wyatt’s denying his problem” didn’t translate to the simplicities of a stint on a time-out bench.

  Margie held up her drawing. She was gifted in that respect, even at her age. She could already draw things better than most adults. “Our drawings’ll help. Don’tcha think?”

  She had always tried to teach the girls to help whenever and wherever they felt they could. Now they were offering their little gifts in service to her, sure everything could be solved that simply. What would it say if she refused? After all, it couldn’t make things any worse, could it?

  “I suppose we’ll have to find out.”

  “Yay!” came the cheers from the backseat.

  Marilyn turned the corner toward Manny’s garage, saying a guilty prayer that Wyatt’s truck wouldn’t be parked out front. But, of course, it was. “We can’t stay long, though.” Please, Lord, don’t let this end badly. The girls’ enthusiasm as they piled out of the car tugged at Marilyn’s heart.

  “Mr. Wyatt! Mr. Wyatt!” the girls called as Margie rushed to pull open the door. They piled up against each other in a halt just inside the threshold. “Where’s our yellow line?”

  Marilyn looked in to see that Wyatt had, in fact, pulled up the tape that showed the girls the safe place to walk. That said everything, didn’t it?

  Wyatt came walking up holding an open shipping box and an unreadable expression. A wrong order? A correct one? She almost held her breath for not knowing which way this would go.

  “Hi,” she said before he spoke, hoping the hint of pleading in her voice would say everything from this wasn’t my idea to let’s just get through this as quickly as we can.

  Maddie took charge. “Where’d our lines go?”

  Wyatt set down the box. “I didn’t think you were coming back.”

  “Why’d you think that?” Margie balked. “We’re your helpers.”

  Wyatt shot Marilyn a look over the girls’ heads, clearly looking for a hint as to how she wanted to play this. I have no idea, she thought.

  “We know you and Mom had a fight,” Maddie declared with enti
rely too much ease.

  “But we made these drawings for you, so we’re here.” Margie held out her drawing. “It’s you. Fixing the carousel.” She had, in fact, drawn a charming scene of a smiling Wyatt standing beside the carousel as it went around. Complete with her and her sister riding their favorite animals.

  “I just drew you with a cow,” Maddie said, holding out her drawing. Her cow was the classic black-and-white heifer variety, not the unique, longhaired Scottish Highland cattle the Wander Canyon Ranch was famous for, but it was adorable nonetheless.

  Wyatt, to his credit, hunched down and accepted the artwork with true appreciation. “These are amazing. I love ’em. And Pastor Newton gave me the one you made earlier. Now we’ve got to find someplace special to hang all three.”

  “Where’d you put the one I gave Pastor?” Margie asked.

  “On my fridge, of course.” Wyatt pivoted back to squint at the small square fridge that sat next to the coffeepot.

  Something in Marilyn’s heart pinched at the sight of Wyatt hanging her daughter’s artwork on his refrigerator. He was so sweet to the girls. He genuinely liked them, and they knew it. Had her meddling put an end to all that? Or could they find a way around this?

  “Gram puts ours on the fridge, too,” Margie boasted. It was true; the refrigerator at home was covered top to bottom with the girls’ drawings.

  “But that little fridge is way too small to hold all three. These two will have to go upstairs on the fridge in the kitchen where I live.”

  Maddie looked up in astonishment. “You live here?”

  “Well, not here in the garage.” How they hadn’t broached this topic before, Marilyn couldn’t say. Actually, yes she could. They’d steered very deliberately away from any talk of Wyatt’s personal life. “I live in the apartment upstairs.”

  “Can we see?” Margie asked, craning her neck up as if she could see through the garage bay roof.

  Marilyn winced. This was beyond awkward, but at least it wasn’t an argument.

  “Nah, not today,” Wyatt said with a smirk. “It’s super messy.” His gaze lifted to Marilyn for a second. “And you know your mom...”

  Both girls laughed while Marilyn counted the reasons why this visit had been a bad idea. She was glad Margie and Maddie seemed oblivious to the tension between her and Wyatt. If only the adult version of “go fix it” was as easy as they thought.

  Margie pointed to the drawing Wyatt held. “So, is it fixed?”

  Marilyn sucked in a cringing breath, and it was an awkward moment before Wyatt replied, “My argument with your mom?”

  “No, silly, the carousel.”

  “Not yet,” Wyatt admitted. He straightened up and pointed to the box he’d set on the counter. “But this part came in yesterday. Correct and on time. So maybe soon.” He looked at Marilyn, but she still couldn’t read his expression. Gratitude or defiance?

  “So we did help,” Maddie asserted with pint-sized glee.

  Marilyn waited to see what he would say to that.

  “Well.” Wyatt stuffed his hands in his pockets. “How could two adorable assistants like you not help?” A very clever evasion, Marilyn thought. If he felt the correct arrival of the parts they’d ordered together was any proof of his having dyslexia, he wasn’t admitting anything. At least not today.

  “We’re still gonna get the first ride when it’s fixed, right?” Margie had no idea the weight of her question. Marilyn dared to hold Wyatt’s gaze, silently pleading for him not to take their conflict out on the girls.

  His eyes locked with hers for a moment, challenge sharpening his expression. Would he keep the girls out of this? Or would he penalize them for what Marilyn was sure he considered her meddling?

  Wyatt squatted back down to Margie and Maddie’s level. “Now, do I look like the kind of guy to go back on a promise like that?”

  Marilyn’s heart loosened in relief as the girls replied in unison, “No, sir.”

  He playfully poked each of their noses, bringing forth peals of giggles. “That first ride is yours, guaranteed.”

  That high note seemed like the perfect place to make an exit. “Time to go, girls. I’m sure Mr. Wyatt has lots to do today. And so do we.”

  * * *

  Wyatt watched Marilyn put the girls into their booster seats in the backseat of the car. His reaction to the surprise visit stumped him. He’d hated pulling the yellow tape up off the floor. It left him with an aching sensation in his chest that returned when the twins tumbled into his shop. He liked having them here. And that was as far from a classic Wyatt response as you could get.

  He was sorry he’d squared off against Marilyn. Oh, he still resented her intrusion, her know-it-all declaration of his problem. The doubts that had crept up over the Mountain Vista job, however, wouldn’t settle. The persistent, annoying, unwelcome notion that she might be right was chasing him like a hungry dog.

  He couldn’t escape the fact that the first three orders to come in right in weeks had been the ones she’d helped him make. The latest one was sitting there on the counter, brazenly correct, staring at him from inside a mound of packing peanuts. The fact that it was the carousel part just seemed to make the whole thing harder to ignore.

  He didn’t want to let her leave now without saying something, but what on earth was there to say? He wasn’t ready to admit anything to her, didn’t want her to stay and poke her nose further into his life, but at the same time he felt irritated and sour about her leaving. When she closed the girls’ car door, Wyatt felt his breath hitch, knowing she’d climb in the front and drive off in a matter of seconds.

  He didn’t know where to file the sensation he felt when Marilyn hesitated with her hand on the door handle, then turned back toward the garage and walked inside.

  “Thank you,” she said. Her voice had a lost, doubtful tone that pushed on his chest.

  “For what?” he asked, even though he knew why.

  She tilted her head in the direction of the car behind her. “For not letting them know how ticked off you are at me.”

  He had been ticked off at her, at first. Since last night, as the cloud of Tim’s offer had hovered over his mood and his sleep, his doubts had diluted. Now they were a moat of wary defensiveness that made it hard to know how to answer her. “It’s nothing.” That felt far from the truth on a bunch of levels.

  “I’m glad your orders came in right.”

  “They did.” He expected her to claim that as some kind of victory, or justification, but she didn’t. Wyatt glanced over at the desk, where two piles of papers still sat. Now there was also a new stack of mail and receipts growing next to the old piles. It had been so calming, so easy to work through the papers with Marilyn, that he’d avoided tackling any new paperwork without her.

  He couldn’t believe what he was about to do, but it was as if the question escaped out of him before he could stop it. “So, you...um... You want to come finish?” He stuffed both hands in his pockets, practically cringing from the lack of confidence in his voice. Why did this woman and her girls pull the rug out from underneath him like this? He threw a quick glance in the direction of the desk. “Those, I mean.”

  Two words that Wyatt never uttered were help me. Still, there was no denying the request hidden in his words. It made his whole body—perhaps his whole soul—itch to say them.

  It seemed like an hour before a small smile crept across her face and she said, “How about Saturday?”

  He didn’t know if he’d admit to anything about her theory. He didn’t know if he’d read the papers she left. He didn’t even know if they’d end up in another argument Saturday morning. He just knew that reaching into his tool drawer to hold up the roll of yellow tape gave her all the answer she needed.

  Chapter Ten

  As they sat having coffee at Yvonne’s bakery Friday morning, Wyatt decided to take the risk of t
esting Chaz’s view on a Walker working at Mountain Vista.

  He got exactly the response he predicted. “You can’t be serious.” His stepbrother’s face darkened almost immediately at the suggestion Wyatt was even considering the offer.

  Wyatt stirred his coffee, glad he’d opted to have this conversation off the ranch. “Well, I get they’re not exactly popular.”

  “As in, everyone hates them,” Chaz pronounced. “They’re gobbling up Wander’s smaller ranches. We’re trying to fight it and you want to sign on to help? Seriously?”

  “Wander’s smaller ranches are failing. Or on the brink of failing. If Mountain Vista doesn’t buy them, they’ll end up as housing developments. At least as golf courses they stay open spaces.”

  “A golf course hardly counts as a consolation prize.” Chaz scowled as he ate another of the oatmeal raisin cookies that had always been his favorite. A sensible contrast to Wyatt’s sweet tooth. “I can’t believe you’re actually considering this.”

  “It’s a really good offer. Not everyone is doing as well as you and Dad.”

  It was a poor choice of words, and Wyatt could just see Chaz biting back a comment about how the only reason Wyatt wasn’t doing as well was because he’d chosen to walk away from Wander Canyon Ranch.

  I’d rather be broke on my own terms, he reminded himself. Some nights, when he couldn’t sleep, Wyatt would pick at that old familial wound. He was Hank Walker’s biological child. Chaz had been adopted through Dad’s second marriage after Wyatt’s mother had died. He’d always found his lack of talent and passion for ranch management to be a cruel joke. The sour irony was that the stepbrother sitting across the table from him was ten times the Walker he’d ever be, no matter what blood ran through his veins.

  There was a time when people thought of Chaz as the more sullen Walker brother. Not anymore. Chaz was so happy and settled now it made Wyatt’s teeth hurt worse than Yvonne’s sweetest fudge.

  “You can’t go work for them,” Chaz pressed.