Chapter Three
Water sloshed in the bucket Noah carried when he stumbled on the uneven floorboards of the stable. He exhaled in relief when he saw none of it had spilled. Right now water was on his mind, and spilling it seemed like a bad omen.
He tuned out the musty smells of hay and animals as he went about tending the horses, thinking back to the night he’d kissed Olivia. Forbidden fruit, indeed. His heart quickened, and he couldn’t tell if it was excitement or anxiety. On the one hand he couldn’t believe Olivia would really go through with it. On the other hand…what if she did—and actually got him out of her system that way? Better not to be with her at all, rather than get a taste of the forbidden and then be banished from the garden forever. He’d lose his mind.
If he didn’t lose his mind over the state of the Flying W first. He sighed, glancing around at the interior of the stable. The crooked beams caught his eye like they always did, and he ached to force them to line up somehow. Which was impossible, of course. The beams were crooked because the weight of the roof had shifted over the years, which had probably happened because snow always accumulated in one corner where the shingles were all torn up. Crooked beams were the least of his worries.
He couldn’t afford repairs like that right now, not if a drought was coming. His family would need to dedicate all their efforts to the cattle in the months to come if it got dry. That didn’t stop him from being frustrated, though. His fingers itched to get right to fixing the stable. It was a project that could be completed, and then he’d have something lasting to show for it. Didn’t matter how much water you gave your cattle today; they’d still be thirsty tomorrow.
He wished his cousin Eli was here to consult with. He could call him later, but it wasn’t quite the same. When he’d been here, Eli had always talked Noah down whenever the responsibilities of running the ranch had piled up too high. His quiet wisdom helped.
But there was nothing to be done about it. Eli was back in Colorado now.
When Noah left the stable, empty bucket swinging, he met Jed and Liam coming in from tending the cattle. Jed’s limp was pronounced today. Noah suspected he was overdoing things.
“Looks like a damn good thing I came back, eh?” Jed tossed his head toward the stable Noah had just come from. “You let the place go all to hell without me around.”
Noah gritted his teeth. He, Liam and their sisters had been doing everything they could, but Jed wouldn’t acknowledge that. “How’s the herd?” he asked, hoping to change the subject.
“Where’d it all go?” Jed asked. “Back in my day the herd stretched from here to the creek.”
Noah doubted that. He caught Liam rolling his eyes and wondered if Jed had been like this all morning.
“Since Dad passed we’ve had to downsize the operation a little. Not enough people working here to keep up with a herd that size, so we sold some off.”
“This one claimed the same thing.” Jed hooked a thumb at Liam. “Sounds like an excuse for laziness to me. Next you’ll buy some of Carl’s robots to run the operation.”
“That isn’t fair,” Noah said against his better judgment. “Given how many people work here now, there’s actually more cattle per person than ever. And that was before the rain stopped.”
Jed made a dismissive sound. “Better get used to it, at any rate.” He indicated the parched grass with a sweep of his hand. “If the Coopers win the Ridley place, things are going to look like this all the time, drought or no drought.”
“We don’t know they would—”
“Don’t worry about the Coopers,” Liam said. “I’ll take care of them.”
Noah didn’t like the sound of that, and he didn’t like the way Liam was trying to prove himself to Jed. Sometime soon he’d need to sit his little brother down and explain that surly old relatives criticized because they had nothing better to do and not for any personal reasons.
They met up with Maya when they reached the main house. She looked tired, but she straightened when she saw them and forced a smile.
“Everything okay?” Noah asked.
“It’s fine.” She didn’t sound fine, though. “I couldn’t sleep last night. Thought we were simply going through a dry spell, but everyone in town yesterday was talking about a drought. How bad do you think it will be?”
“Hard to say at this point.” Noah didn’t even want to think about it.
“At this rate I’m not going to have much produce to sell. I was hoping to turn a profit and help out a bit around here.”
Noah considered the matter. He’d hoped for that, too. “What about selling more baked goods?” he suggested.
Maya frowned. “I’m running a farm stand, not a bakery.”
“It could be both.”
“I guess so.”
Noah hated seeing her so discouraged, but none of them had experienced true adversity before. They’d all have to make sacrifices to keep a roof over their heads. “We need your stand to be profitable. We need more cash. We can barely afford to pay our field hands.”
“We could cut back on the hands if you quit your job.”
Noah shook his hand. “I just told you we need the cash.”
“Of course. You get to hold on to your passion project, but you want me to give up my garden.” Maya folded her arms over her chest.
Noah laughed. “First of all, I didn’t say to give up your garden; I said to bake some pies and cakes, too. Second of all, you think I like being a parole officer?”
“Hell, yeah! You love telling people off when they break the rules. It must be a dream come true.”
“Do not.” Was that really how people saw him? “Look, keep your garden for now, but if our well gets low, we’ll have to set priorities.”
“It won’t get that bad, will it?” Maya asked.
“A drought like this can make a family lose their ranch,” Noah said. Jed was nodding, and Noah realized his uncle would know a thing or two about hard times.
“We’d better be more vigilant. Especially when it comes to the Coopers,” Liam put in.
Noah’s stomach sank. “What do you mean?”
“Remember when Olivia tried to steal the clock that one time?”
Noah winced. Yeah, just the once.
“Good citizens are supposed to report crimes like breaking and entering and attempted theft. It won’t matter what they do to fix the school if we expose them as the criminals they are. Next time Olivia tries to steal it, we’ll catch her and turn her in.”
“You’ll tell Cab?” Noah asked. He didn’t like the idea of Olivia being hauled into the sheriff’s office.
Grinning, Liam picked a newspaper off the table and shook it at Noah.
“We’ll tell everyone.”
“If I had any experience, do you think I’d be looking for a job like this?” Olivia rustled her stack of résumés in frustration.
Allison, a cashier at the local hardware store, frowned. “If it were up to me, I’d give you a chance, but Heather was specific about the requirements. I can call her if you want. Maybe she’ll make an exception.”
“No, don’t do that.” Olivia swiped the résumé out of Allison’s hands. Heather had already volunteered to help her organize a gala. If she asked for any more favors, she’d feel like a beggar. She hoped no one could see her cheeks burning as she left. When she pushed through the front door, however, she blinked against the glare and the dust. Damn drought.
Olivia walked aimlessly through the streets of downtown Chance Creek. She’d checked off the grocery store and the main restaurants, which all asked for references, which she didn’t have. Secretarial jobs were a no-go; she’d barely used a computer in her life and didn’t know any of the software packages. She was beginning to regret taking on this responsibility, even knowing it was the best thing for Thorn Hill and her family.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t worked before. She had—for a restaurant that had gone under several years ago. When she’d tried to track down the owner for a reference, she couldn’t find her.
The post office came into view, and she sighed. Worth a shot.
“First you have to take a government exam. Then comes the background check,” the woman behind the counter said when Olivia asked about employment opportunities.
“Exam?” That would take too long. She needed money now. “Never mind.”
“Hold on, Olivia,” the clerk said as she turned to leave. “We’ve got a package for you.”
At least her visit hadn’t been a total waste of time. The clerk returned with a neatly wrapped parcel with a New Mexico return address. Of course: the book her mother wanted her to return. The package bore a sticker for express shipping. Her mother was serious about tying up this loose end.
Deciding she couldn’t take any more job hunting today, Olivia made the library her next stop. On the way she unwrapped the package and surveyed the battered old book within. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Sounded like the sort of thing her mother would read. Olivia preferred whodunnits, when she had time to read at all.
It hadn’t always been that way, though. Her steps slowed as she approached her truck. Even as a child she’d read far above her age, getting lost in complex and weighty books. It wasn’t until real life got too complex and weighty that she’d started looking for lighter fare between the pages.
She’d created a new version of herself after her father had gone to jail—a cardboard cutout of the girl people expected her to be. She’d dumbed herself down. Made herself small.
Which was… kind of awful, now that she thought about it. Was that why life held little spark these days? Because she wasn’t being the person she could be?
With one hand on the truck’s door handle, Olivia shook her head. This was her life, and she had to accept it. Which meant stopping this pity party and getting to the library.
Deciding a walk would clear her head, she left the truck where it sat and kept going. It was only when she stepped through the front door of the old library that she woke up from her daydreams and looked around. It had once been a huge old house but had contained the library for so long she had no idea who’d lived here. It was dim and quiet, a dusty sanctuary. She hadn’t been here in ages and had forgotten how comfortable a place it was. As a kid, she used to come all the time, escaping the chaos of home and school. She could pick out a book, curl up in some shadowed nook and read for hours, hidden from the world.
Why had she given that up? There were libraries in Idaho, for heaven’s sake.
Although…
A memory rose in her mind. She’d visited the town library near her aunt’s place once, a cold, modern building with security like an airport. Its starkness had unnerved her, and she’d never gone back. She’d let her disappointment steal another source of joy away from her.
Had she been punishing herself all this time?
Olivia shook the uncomfortable thought from her mind and focused again on her surroundings.
Good old Chance Creek didn’t have any security system, and Olivia went straight past the checkout counter; she’d deal with her mother’s book in a minute. First she wanted to get reacquainted with the place.
She walked the aisles between the stacks, running her hand along the spines of the books and losing herself in the memories. She’d volunteered here for a few years, too. She’d loved the work. She paused when her fingers caught on a spine that jutted out from its row. She frowned and nudged it back on the shelf so it was in line with the others. Then she noted another book that had been pushed too far back. She tugged it forward. There were books out of line all over the place. Olivia began to tidy them.
“You’ll be here all day if you try to do all of them.”
Olivia jumped and spun to face the cheerful old lady who had appeared in the aisle beside her. She almost didn’t recognize the woman at first, but as the words she’d spoken echoed in Olivia’s mind, she recognized the silly old in-joke. “Marta? I didn’t know you still worked here!”
Marta embraced her. “Every day. Time was you’d be here every day, too. Was a bit of a shock when you moved away, learning how to get on without you. Never realized how much help you were until it all fell back on my shoulders.”
“Oh, stop.” Olivia found her cheeks warming for the second time that day, blushing at Marta’s kind words. “I was a kid. If anything, I must have gotten in the way.”
“A more helpful child I’ve never had the pleasure to meet,” Marta said solemnly. “Could hardly get my own to help me with the dishes.”
Olivia laughed. “That’s a new one. Most people who remember us Coopers from back then don’t have anything nice to say.”
Marta pursed her lips. “With good reason, some of them. But you are not your parents, Olivia. I knew even then you’d be the one to turn over a new leaf for your clan. Remember how you used to like helping me? Lord knows I could use some help now.”
Olivia lit up. Finally. “You’re hiring?”
“Volunteer help,” Marta clarified. “We’re really strapped for funds right now, and things are falling apart. I know times are hard and a library doesn’t seem so important to folks, but a town needs a library.”
Olivia hated to see the strain on her old friend’s face, but she had her own problems. “I’d love to help,” she told Marta truthfully, “but my family’s having a pretty rough go of things, too. I need a real job so I can help our bottom line, or we’ll all go under. I’m sorry.”
Marta nodded. “Don’t worry, dear. I understand. Best of luck in finding a job.”
“Speaking of that, I’d like to photocopy some résumés while I’m here.” She still had a good stack left, but at this rate she’d need to hand one out to every business in town before she got anywhere.
“Of course. Right this way.”
Olivia handed over a résumé, and Marta fed it into the machine. The librarian tinkered with the copier for a minute, frowning. “Hmm. Might need to restart it. Give me a moment.” She pressed a button, and the lights on the screen died. She pressed it again and plunged the library into darkness.
“Darn it,” Marta said. “Blew a circuit again. Give me a minute.”
“Everything all right up front there?” a man’s voice called from the back.
“Everything’s fine, Allen,” Marta called back. “Sit tight; we’ll have lights back on in a minute.” She hurried away, and Olivia waited patiently. It seemed the patrons were used to it. Olivia could hear several people chatting.
The lights flickered back on. “There we go,” Marta said, returning. A minute later she handed Olivia her new résumés, still warm from printing.
“Thanks,” Olivia said, glancing at her watch. “It was really nice to see you again, but I’ve got to run. Need to get my aunt to her doctor’s appointment.” She sighed, already longing for the days when the nurses at the Prairie Garden took care of all that. “I’ll be back soon, though, I promise—oh, and here.” She handed Marta the book her mother had sent her.
“What’s this?” Marta held it up, then opened it to the page where an old-fashioned system listed the due date by which the book was supposed to be returned. “Well, this is a little overdue, isn’t it?”
“Thirteen years,” Olivia said ruefully. “My mom had it in a storage locker for a long time. She found it a couple of weeks back and sent it to me to return.”
“You tell her thank you. I’ll get this little beauty right back on the shelf where it belongs.”
“You still want it after all this time?” Olivia asked.
“This was a wonderful book back then, and it’s a wonderful book now. I still have a place for it.”
Driving along the parched dirt road toward town, Noah ached to lay on the gas pedal and cut his commute time in half, but the last thing he needed was for Jed to see him being irresponsible. Normally he would have taken it slow, basking in the warmth of the sun and letting the endless blue sky and rolling fields lull him into an almost meditative state.
He doubted Jed had ever even heard of a meditative state. His uncle must be seeing something completely different when he looked out the truck’s windows, because to hear Jed tell it, everything in the world was wrong, and most of it was Noah’s fault. Part of him wanted to stop the truck and tell Jed he could walk to his doctor’s appointment, but another part of him wondered if that was exactly what Jed wanted. His uncle had made it more than clear he’d rather not go to the doctor’s at all.
“You stopped those Coopers from fixing the school yet?” Jed asked, breaking Noah out of his dark musings.
Noah shook his head. How many times did they have to go over this? “Liam’s still working on the newspaper thing. Don’t know what else you expect us to do. You do understand the school board has officially signed on to the Coopers’ plan, right?”
“Guess it’s too much to expect for you to take family matters seriously. What with you spending all your days away from the ranch.”
Noah frowned. “I have a job, Jed.”
“Which I would have expected you to quit by now. What’s the matter with you, boy? Can’t you see the ranch is falling apart?”
Noah wanted to bang his head against the steering wheel. “We need money to fix it,” he forced himself to point out calmly. The old man was nervous, that was all. Noah wanted nothing more than to restore his home to its old glory. It wasn’t his fault things hadn’t gone right in a long time.
“That’s what it’s all about with you kids, isn’t it? Money’s the answer to everything. That’s what brought the Coopers down in the first place, you know that? Money-grubbing little scoundrels. Couldn’t be content with what they had, always wanted just a little more. Wouldn’t be half-surprised if that’s why they want our clock so bad—just to pawn it off to an antique shop.”
Noah wasn’t sure that was true. Thorn Hill had started out as a fairly comparable spread to the Flying W, but the Coopers always seemed to be unlucky. Olivia’s father had been pretty shifty, though. “What do you propose we do about the ranch, then?”
“Don’t need a cent to repair a building, just gotta be willing to work. Cut down the trees yourself, cut the lumber and build whatever you need to build.”
“After you’ve bought the equipment to do that, and after you’ve let the wood cure a few years, and…”
“Back in my day, when people respected the Turner name, any family in Chance Creek would have been honored to lend us a sawmill and a hammer—and a hand to wield it, at that. Excepting those damn Coopers, of course.”
Noah fell silent as they finally pulled into town. For the first time, he thought Jed had hit on a kernel of truth. Despite what Jed might think, people still respected the Turners, and Noah had no doubt they could lean on their community for help in their time of need. What had kept him from even considering that option?
Honor? Integrity?
Pride?
Whatever. It was an idea to keep for the future—if things got worse.
Jed’s attitude didn’t improve during the appointment, but at least for the moment his ire was directed toward the nurses and doctor rather than Noah.
“I want a second opinion,” he snapped when the doctor told him they needed to start looking into surgery for his hip.
“You’re entitled to seek one out, naturally,” the doctor said, not rising to Jed’s bait. “But your hip joint is damaged. There’s not a pill for that. If we don’t replace it, it’s only going to get worse with time.”
“We don’t need a second opinion,” Noah cut in quickly. “I think my uncle’s just a little shocked—”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m some kind of child, boy. And what do you mean ‘we’? Since when are you my spokesman? Figures you’d be all for them putting machine parts in me—trying to turn me into one of those robots you’re so in love with, huh?”
The doctor raised his eyebrows.
“Don’t ask,” Noah mumbled.
The doctor bit back a smile. “I can’t make you go in for surgery, Jed, but I do strongly recommend it. You don’t have to schedule it right now, either—we can wait for the shock to wear off. It’s quite normal to experience anxiety about a procedure like this. If it helps, I can refer you to a counselor who can help you through the process. In fact, seeing as you’re a rancher at heart, I wonder if equine therapy might work well for you. There’s a woman in town—”
Jed shook his head emphatically. “I don’t need no counselor, and I don’t need no equine whatever-it-is.”
“It’s okay to need help, Jed,” Noah told him. “And it’s okay to be afraid.”
“Afraid?” Jed fumed. “To hell with that! What I am is brave enough to tell you I know what’s best for my own body, not like the rest of you cowards too scared to ever question authority.”
Noah took Jed’s arm to stop it from flailing. “Can we schedule another appointment to talk again?” he asked the doctor.
“Sure thing. Any time you’re ready.”
The moment they stepped out into the waiting area, Noah wished they’d stayed in the examining room. “You again!” Jed roared, catching sight of Virginia. “Did you follow me here so you could gloat over my afflictions?” He started toward her so quickly Noah wondered if the doctor had somehow fixed Jed’s hip when he wasn’t looking. “You’ll be sorry to hear I’m fit as a fiddle.”
“A fiddle that hasn’t been tuned in years.” Virginia swung her umbrella to keep him at bay. “I haven’t heard a racket like that since baby Steel tried to build a drum set out of the cookware.”
Despite himself, Noah chuckled. That vision just didn’t mesh with the secretive, intimidating Steel he knew.
“And you!” Jed wheeled on Olivia. “Don’t you have a clock to steal? Or is it too much to hope you came here to apologize?”
Olivia looked at him, slack-jawed. “I, uh, we’re really just here for an appoint—”
“You leave her out of this!” Virginia advanced on Jed and launched another attack with her umbrella.
Jed caught it in a strong, calloused hand. “You think you can tell me what to do? Ha!” He yanked the umbrella from Virginia’s grasp, gripped it in both hands—
And snapped it in half.
“You…you…” Virginia searched for words, and when they didn’t come, she bashed Jed with her pocketbook, staggered backward, caught her balance, lunged forward and bashed him again. Olivia thought she saw tears in her aunt’s eyes, though she couldn’t say if they were from hurt or anger. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. Virginia loved that old umbrella.
This wasn’t the place for a brawl, though. Virginia needed surgery on her ankle, and she couldn’t get it if she was kicked out of the doctor’s office the same way she’d been from the assisted living facility.
As the fight grew louder, she saw a doctor emerge from the back room to see what the ruckus was. He said something to the receptionist, who picked up the phone and dialed.
That couldn’t be good.
“Virginia, please—” she started, but Virginia swung her purse at her before she could continue. Olivia stepped back and looked to Noah. “Help,” she mouthed.
Noah jumped into the middle of the fray and fended off swipes from both Jed and Virginia. “Jed just received some bad news,” he told Virginia, as if that would settle her down.
“Did they explain to him there’s no cure for his personality?”
“What are you here for? An infusion of common sense?” Jed retaliated.
Noah grabbed Jed by the arm and forcibly removed him from Virginia’s vicinity. “We’ll be happy to reimburse you for the umbrella or buy you a new one,” he called back over his shoulder.
Virginia humphed. “Trust a Turner to think everything’s so easily replaceable. That parasol belonged to my grandmother. You want to make it up to me, you can start by returning something else irreplaceable: my clock.”
Jed dropped the broken halves of the umbrella to the floor. “Why, I ought to—”
“Respect the peace and your fellow citizens? Good,” Cab Johnson, the local sheriff, said. “That’s exactly what I hoped you’d say.”
Noah was the first to break the awkward silence that followed his interruption. The sheriff must have been nearby to get here so fast. “Sorry, Cab. This is all a misunderstanding—”
Jed cut him off. “What did I tell you? All you’re good for is sucking up to authority.”
Noah turned on him. “There’s a difference between sucking up and being a responsible—”
“All right, that’s enough out of everyone.” Cab turned his back on Olivia and Virginia, and focused on Noah and Jed. “You know, I might have expected this from the Coopers, but I thought you lot were supposed to be above all this.”
Ouch. Olivia’s first instinct was to give the sheriff a piece of her mind, but that would just prove his point. With great difficulty she bit her tongue and held back. She really needed to rehabilitate her family’s image, which meant she needed to get the school upgrade done. Better talk to the Hall women soon about the gala.
She focused on Cab again.
“You don’t have to like each other,” he was saying. “Don’t even have to pretend to get along. Just stay out of each other’s way, and I think we’ll be fine.”
“Good,” Jed muttered. “Not even Shakespeare could act like he liked that old biddy.”
Virginia rolled her eyes. “Shakespeare wrote the plays; he didn’t act in them, you bitter old coot.”
“Are you or are you not going to keep the peace?” Cab demanded, looking at first one and then the other of them. “Well?”
“We were just leaving.” Noah took Jed’s arm.
“As soon as he’s gone, I’ll be fine.” Virginia nodded toward Jed.
“Then my work here is done.” Cab left with a tip of his hat to no one in particular. Olivia thought Noah would follow, but he lingered.
“I bet Virginia isn’t afraid of surgery,” he said dryly to Jed.
Jed flushed with anger. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, you little ingrate? Ain’t got no problem with surgery.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Would you like to schedule an appointment now?” a doctor said, approaching from one of the nearby offices. He must have listened to the whole fight, Olivia realized.
Jed froze, then nodded stiffly.
“You’ll be called in a just a few minutes,” the doctor told Olivia and Virginia. He turned back to Noah. “This shouldn’t take long. I’ve got some reading material to send home with you. You should read through it together, as soon as possible,” he added to Noah.
Virginia went to gather up the broken pieces of her umbrella, sat down hard in one of the chairs lined up against one wall and smoothed her skirt, looking worn out despite the show she’d just put on. Olivia took the pieces from her hands. “After this we’ll find someone who can fix your umbrella.”
“Humph.” Virginia turned away, and Olivia’s stomach sank. Her aunt wasn’t just tired; she was sad. That umbrella had really meant a lot to her.
Noah and Jed reappeared a few moments later. Jed kept walking, never once glancing their way.
But Noah did. He winked at Olivia, and a private smile curved his lips.
She had no doubt what he was thinking about, and her heart skipped a beat. He still meant to go through with their date, if they ever had a chance.
Good.