Red Hot Rancher. Maureen Child
And everything her sister was saying jabbed at her like hot needles. She’d had time to look around the ranch this morning and Gracie was right. The place looked as though it was struggling and their father was grayer and slower then she remembered. But even as she felt that quick jolt of guilt, she defended herself.
“You never told me Dad was sick,” she countered. And worry twisted with guilt inside her.
“He wasn’t,” her sister retorted. “Isn’t. He just gave up. Because you walked away.”
That hurt and she really hoped it wasn’t true. But it felt true and Emma’s pain rose up to choke her. She hadn’t meant to leave a trail of destruction in her wake when she left. Hadn’t meant a lot of things. And that changed nothing. “You should have told me.”
“In an email?” Gracie asked hotly. “Or one of your famous two-minute phone calls? Yeah, lots of time for a chat then, huh, Em?”
More guilt. Great.
“You can’t lay this all on me, Gracie,” Emma argued. “You were here. You knew what was happening.”
“And couldn’t change it,” her sister said as tears filled her eyes. She took a deep breath, blinked the tears away and when she spoke again, her voice was low, but controlled. “I was trying to hold the ranch together and all Dad could do was worry about you. ‘All alone in California.’ While I was all alone right here.”
Stung, Emma swayed at the impact of her sister’s words. It was true that she hadn’t thought about what would happen here at home when she left. Maybe she hadn’t allowed herself to think of it.
Five years ago, she’d seen her future laid out in front of her and something inside her had just snapped. She’d had to go. Had to try.
“Gracie...” She didn’t know what she might have said, but it didn’t matter when her sister cut her off.
“Don’t say you’re sorry. It doesn’t matter and besides, you’re really not.” She swiped away a solitary angry tear. “You did what you wanted to do. Just like you always have.”
For the first time in this conversation, Emma felt a quick blast of anger. She was willing to take a little bit of bitterness from her sister, but damned if she’d stand there and be a target for whatever Gracie wanted to throw at her.
“Seriously? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Emma moved in closer, kept her voice low so their father wouldn’t overhear them. “When Mom died, who was it who held this place together, taking care of you and Dad? Besides, you don’t do what you want? Since when? You stole Dad’s truck for a joyride, remember? And, you ditched school and hitched a ride to a concert in Billings—”
“When I was a kid,” Gracie cut her off. “Don’t have any new stories to tell, though, do you, Em? Because you weren’t here.”
This was getting old, fast. “A lot of people leave home, Gracie.”
“Most of them at least visit.”
“If they can afford it,” Emma argued.
“You were on TV,” Gracie shot back.
“For one season,” Emma reminded her and on one level, she couldn’t believe they were having this argument. God, she hadn’t even been home for twenty-four hours.
Apparently Thomas Wolfe was wrong. You could go home again, you just couldn’t make anyone happy to see you.
For some reason, Emma had expected it to be easier to slide back into her old life. While she was in Hollywood, this ranch, her family, had become her mental security blanket. When she was worried or scared or whatever, she’d close her eyes and let her memories soothe her.
This was home. It was the one place she’d told herself that was there, waiting for her if the world turned on her. She’d always told herself that she could go home if her dreams crashed and burned. But home wasn’t what it had been when she left five years ago. Now that she was back in Cache, she had to admit that it wasn’t what she’d remembered. What she’d hoped to find. But even as that thought settled in her mind, Emma wondered if that was true. Maybe it wasn’t home that had changed, after all. It was her.
But how could she not? So much had happened to her in California that Montana had begun to seem like a dream world to her. She’d written and emailed and video chatted, but the longer she was away, the bigger the chasm between her and her family had grown. And how could it have been different, when she wasn’t really telling them what her life was like in California? She didn’t want them worried about her making rent on that dumpy little apartment in Hollywood. Didn’t want them knowing that she was hungry often and anxious all the time. So she’d been bright and happy and brief in those calls that had become less and less frequent.
Her father, Frank, had always been happy to hear from her. But Gracie had slowly shut down, pulled away. And now her little sister could barely stand to be in the same room with her.
And maybe she had it coming. Emma’s world was now divided into two separate entities. Before she left Montana and now. She preferred the before because dealing with the now was harder than anything she’d ever done. Now meant she had a sick father, a sister who hated her and a baby who depended on her.
What felt like boulders dropped onto Emma’s shoulders and she almost sagged under the emotional weight of it all. But the truth was, none of those burdens were as crushing as the knowledge that she still had to see Caden again. And everything in her was torn.
It had been five years since she’d seen him and five minutes since she’d thought of him. He’d been in her mind forever. Since the moment they’d met in high school, Caden Hale was all she’d been able to see. All she’d wanted to see. Until the night he had laid out their future together. Marriage, kids, the ranch, everything they used to talk about. Everything that Emma had come to believe was somehow destined.
But that same night, it had become clear to her that if she stayed in Montana with him and never tried to chase down her own dreams, she’d end up resenting him and hating herself. So she’d left. Walked away. And she had the feeling he’d be even less happy to see her than Gracie was.
Since the evening before, when she’d walked in the door of her family home, Emma had been dreading and anticipating the moment when she’d face him again.
“Emma! Come on in here.” Her father’s voice splintered her thoughts and dragged her back to the moment.
“Coming, Dad!”
“Bring a bottle,” he shouted, “I think my granddaughter’s getting hungry!”
Emma frowned as one more weight settled on her shoulders, but she told herself that was a problem for another day. She looked at her sister and said, “We’ll finish this later.”
“Oh,” Gracie told her, “we’re finished.”
Taking a breath, hoping for patience, Emma headed to the kitchen.
* * *
The drive from the Double H ranch to the Williamses’ place only took about twenty minutes. Once upon a time, he and Emma had talked about one day cutting a road directly across their adjoining fields, to directly link the ranches. But that, like so many other things, had never happened.
At any other time, Caden might have noticed the fall colors erupting on the trees lining the wide road. But now, all he could see were the images replaying in his mind, of Emma’s eyes the night she said goodbye.
* * *
“I have to go, Caden,” she said plaintively, trying to make him understand. “I have to try. I can’t do what my mom did. She gave up on her dreams. You remember what a great singer she was, right?”
“I do, but—”