Reuniting with the Rancher

Regardless, now he was tied to this woman by Martha, who for reasons he couldn’t begin to understand had made him executor of her will. Not that there was a lot to carry out. And there was Holly, a woman even more beautiful than at twenty, now part of his life again whether he liked it or not. He didn’t like it.

What had Martha been thinking? He was grateful to her for protecting his leases. It would have killed his ranching operation to give up all that land. But what was with the ten years? And the stuff about Holly following her dream?

Not that he cared about Holly’s dreams. Holly’s dreams had nearly killed him once. To his way of thinking, she wasn’t trustworthy. Maybe Martha felt the same, and had put the leases in her will to ensure Holly didn’t kick him off the land. But damn, this was going to be miserable. He needed that woman like he needed a hole in his head.

But for all he had wanted to think Holly was an uncaring witch, nothing could make him believe those tears weren’t real.

He didn’t get any of this, but he supposed it didn’t matter. Martha had gone her own way, quirky and delightful and always surprising. Why should she end her life any differently?

He watched Holly decline to go to the church for a covered-dish supper. Martha had wanted no memorial, but others were going to give it to her anyway. How that would have made her laugh.

But her niece seemed determined to follow her aunt’s wishes. He watched her walk to her car, a slender woman with beautiful auburn hair and blue eyes, and thought how utterly alone she looked. And how very sexy. Since those thoughts had gotten him in trouble once before, he clamped down on them hard, and wished them to hell.

No way was he going to fall for that blue-eyed seductress again.

With any luck, Holly Heflin would blow back out of town as fast as she had blown in, taking whatever funds Martha had left her and leaving the ranch to rot. She was a city girl, after all.

He wondered if she’d let the house and barn turn to dust. He certainly wasn’t going to do all the maintenance for her as he had done for Martha. He didn’t owe her that and she wouldn’t even qualify as a neighbor.

Damn, he felt angry for no good reason that he could figure out. He’d had a low opinion about Holly for years, so no shock there. Absolutely no reason to be angry all over again.

Cussing under his breath anyway, he skipped the potluck and headed home. He had a ranch to take care of and only one task remaining as far as Martha went: to take her niece to the bank and see that the accounts got turned over to her.

And, he supposed, to ensure she didn’t try to sell the ranch. It didn’t look as if she would care, so what the hell.

Trying to get himself into a better mood, he turned on some music on the radio, discovered a sad country song and turned it off again.

Damn, he thought. “Martha, why do I get the feeling you left me a mess and I don’t even know how bad it is yet?”

Of course there was no answer.

* * *

Holly arrived at the ranch with sand in her eyes and lead in her heart. She climbed out of the car and looked around, memories whispering to her on the breeze. As a child she had absolutely loved coming out here. As a young woman, after Cliff, the charm had rested entirely with her aunt’s company.

Turning, she surveyed the changes. Cliff must have rented damn near all the land, to judge by how close the fences were now. But he’d also kept the place up for Martha, and sooner or later she was going to have to thank him for that no matter how the words stuck in her craw.

Memories wafted over her. She’d spent some summers here as a small child, then when she’d grown up her visits had been shorter because she had a job, but still she had come, for Martha. With one exception, every memory was good. Time and frequent visits, at least, had mostly cleared Cliff from her memories of this place. It almost seemed that only Martha remained here.

Great-Aunt Martha had been the kind of woman that Holly hoped she’d grow up to be: tough, independent, doing things pretty much her own way, but kind and loving to the core.

She made herself brush away her reaction to Cliff and climbed the steps of the porch to the front door. Her key still worked and she stepped into the past, into familiar smells that carried her back over the years, into familiar sights, into a place that had always been her second home.

In that instant, knowing she would never see Martha again, she burst into the tears she’d been trying to hold back.

She’d always felt close to Martha, despite the miles that had separated them for so long, and it hurt to realize she could never again pick up the phone and hear her aunt’s voice.

Never again.

* * *

Keeping busy seemed to be the only answer. Holly was used to being busy all the time, and sitting around her aunt’s house weeping and doing nothing went against her grain. Martha, thank goodness, hadn’t been sick. She had died suddenly and unexpectedly of a stroke, a merciful way to go, for which Holly was grateful. But it also meant the house was in pretty good shape inside as well as out. Not a whole lot of housework to occupy her, other than putting away the groceries she had bought and changing bed linens.

That left going through things. Martha had been a minimalist most of her life, buying very little, keeping very little that she didn’t use. But in going through drawers and looking at photos, Holly found plenty to carry her into memory. Pictures of her visits here, pictures of her parents, photos of Martha’s own parents and grandparents. She wasn’t awash in photos, as Martha hadn’t been one for taking very many, but there were enough to be cherished.

The furnishings showed their age and use but were still serviceable. The house seemed to be ready for her, and she wondered if Martha had intended that. Maybe.

She certainly hadn’t left any unfinished chores behind her.

Finally, unable to bear any more, she headed for the bedroom she had used during her visits. The big stuffed teddy bear Martha had given her as a child still occupied the rocker in the corner. Holly fell asleep hugging it and thinking of her aunt, the last of her family.

* * *

Morning brought no relief. Sleep had been disturbed, and she hardly felt any more rested than yesterday.

Then she remembered something Martha had been definite about. “You want to do something for me? Plant a tree.”

So she decided, after choking down her breakfast, that today she would go find a tree to plant just for Martha. Its importance grew in her mind as she thought about it. Martha had wanted it, and Martha would get it.

After she finished washing her dishes, Holly gripped the edge of the counter, closed her eyes, and tried not to hear the empty silence of the house around her. She couldn’t believe she wouldn’t hear Martha’s voice at any moment. Couldn’t believe that Martha was really gone.

God, it was beginning to hit. Numbness had begun wearing off yesterday, but now it seemed to be deserting her completely.

Hot tears rolled down her cheeks, and her heart ached as if a vise gripped it. She had known it would hurt to lose her aunt, but she hadn’t imagined this. It was every bit as bad as when her parents died in the car crash. Every bit, and that grief still haunted her.

Martha had been her anchor ever since, her family, the person who kept her from feeling like an orphan, and now Martha was gone.

Never had Holly felt so utterly alone.

She wept until she could weep no more, until fatigue weighed her down and her sides hurt from sobbing. But at last quiet returned to her mind and heart. Temporarily, anyway. She fixated on getting that tree, the one wish of her aunt’s that she could still carry out.

She washed up, dressed in jeans and a hoodie, the clothes she wore when she was working with the children, and stared almost blindly at her reflection in the mirror.

Who was she? It almost seemed as if she had become a stranger to herself, as if grief were sweeping huge parts of her aside. Closing her eyes, she thought of the kids she worked with back home in Chicago, kids who were always hungry, often cold, flotsam in a sea beyond their control.

Thinking of them grounded her again, reminding her she had a purpose, and purpose was the most important thing of all.

When she finally stepped outside to face the day’s duties, she paused in the drive, feeling the spring breeze of Conard County, Wyoming, whisper all around her. Here the air was almost never still, and it seemed to carry barely heard words on it, as if it were alive.

She opened herself to it, letting it wash over her like a tender touch, the kind of tenderness she wouldn’t feel again, the tenderness of mother, father, aunt.

She took time to walk around the house taking in the small changes, having random thoughts about what she could do with this place. Her job as a social worker lay back in Chicago, but as she strolled around she realized that an ever-present tension had begun to evaporate. Today she didn’t have to walk on those streets; she didn’t have to visit tiny apartments in public housing where despair seemed to paint the walls. She didn’t have to deal with the problems of too-skinny children who were having trouble in school or at home. She didn’t have to wage a battle against desperation and hopelessness. Not today.

Then, squaring her shoulders, she strode to the car. A tree. She needed to get a tree.

She saw a vehicle coming up her driveway. A dusty but relatively recent pickup of some kind. Who could possibly be coming out here?

She didn’t have to wait long for her answer. She quickly recognized Cliff’s silhouette behind the wheel. A few seconds later he pulled up beside her.