Chapter 51

Ryan

Checking back into the small brick hotel in Bonanza felt strangely right. I had been back at my penthouse, in my sanctuary as I used to call it, but it still hadn’t felt as right as my little room with the claw foot tub had felt there in Bonanza. It was an odd thought, especially since I had spent my entire life in New York. I had called it home since I had been born, and my penthouse had always been the place I knew I could go and get away from the world. Thinking about it while standing in that hotel made me feel almost stressed at the thought of going back to it. Normally, I would fight myself being that far away from home, but I didn’t even want to question the feeling I got when I came back to this small town. It felt right. That was all there was to it, and instead of questioning myself over and over, I was just going to accept it.

My life was changing. It had been ever since the first time I came to this little town in the middle of Oregon. Everything had been so chaotic in my life between the sale of that app, starting a new business, getting involved with Natasha, and the story that had come out about my past. I felt like I had never just taken a deep breath, that I was constantly forced to be on the go, to think about everything I did and said, and I felt like there had never been anyone there for me. I was starting to think that this change, this thing that was happening without my ability to control it, was a really good thing.

I put my bags down in the room and walked over to the small table by the window. I glanced down at the paper and flipped it open, rolling my eyes at my face on the front page. The media was still having a complete field day about my revelations, and it was definitely affecting everything in my life. Already, some of my partners and investors were either backing off or starting to question whether they should. The information given to them by my old best friend from high school had damned me. They took my past as a confirmation that I could be involved in shady dealings in the present, even though most of them knew me and my character very well. Before I’d left the city, I had sat in my office thinking long and hard about trying to convince them I was honest and true. Then it hit me, and I had to say my PR agent wasn’t too thrilled about my thoughts. If my tour of every newsworthy television show out there hadn’t been enough to show my character was top-notch, there was nothing I could say to them in person to make them change their minds. They were always going to have that question in the back of their minds of whether they could trust me or not. So I threw up my hands, figuring there was no way I was going to bend over backward for these assholes, not after all the press I had done.

The fact was, I was who I was. There was no changing that, and there was nothing I could do to convince others of that fact. My past might have helped shape the man I had turned into, that was true, but I was pretty confident I had taken the bad and learned from it, doing the opposite every chance I got. The past did not define the man I had turned into, but it had shown me exactly who I could trust and who would be there even through the tough times. It wasn’t the money hungry investors, and I was finally okay with letting them walk off into the sunset.

I had plenty of money, more money than I could spend in three lifetimes, even with the lifestyle I kept back in New York. The reality of it was, those guys pulling out their support or falling back on projects we had started together wasn’t going to hurt me in any appreciable way. Financially, I would be fine, and I could still continue to do what I wanted when it came to my personal finances and my businesses. The only thing it did affect was my pride, and I could feel the sting on that every time I got a call from my agent or passed by a newsstand full of headlines with my name and face on it.

I put my suitcase down and opened it up, grabbing some pajama pants and a T-shirt out. It was late, too late to go out and get anything to eat, so I figured why not relax and get a good night’s sleep? As I lay on the bed staring up at the ceiling, I thought about the future. Maybe it was time for a change, something that took me in a direction that would calm my life down a bit. Maybe it was time to give up New York and the lifestyle of a rich and famous loner. I had never enjoyed it, and I was tired of constantly beating my head against a wall trying to convince myself it was what I wanted. Maybe I could finally settle down in a small town like Bonanza. I could have a couple of kids, raise them the right way, show them there was more to life than money. But for anything you wanted, you had to work hard for it. A town like Bonanza would be just the place to do that.

I didn’t want to raise kids in the same place I grew up, even if I was way higher up and completely across town. It was time I gave up the race with the other rats for a while and brought my feet back to the ground. There was nothing special about living that way, but there was definitely something special about living the way these folks in Bonanza lived. They appreciated everything, put in blood, sweat, and tears for the things they had, and above all else, most of them were beyond honest in the life they led. Those were the kinds of people I wanted to fight to have in my life, not the kind of men who would drop me on a dime because they didn’t like where I came from, who judged me without even knowing who I was or why I did the things I had done.

All that was left to do was try to convince Sara I wasn’t one of those rats anymore, which might be harder than it seemed. She had seen me at my worst, and I needed to show her me at my best, and it wasn’t in that penthouse or at those fancy galas. I fell asleep that night thinking about Sara and hoping for a brighter future. The next day, I woke up and got dressed, walking across the street to grab a bagel and coffee before heading out. I jumped in my SUV and started through the town, smiling at all the shops and people milling around. I had missed this place and now understood a lot better why Sara was so in love with her hometown. I stopped at the stop sign in the center of town and looked two blocks up. Coming down the street was the mobile vet van, and I chuckled, watching as it turned the corner and disappeared out of sight.

I nodded my head up and down with a smile on my face. I was glad to know she was using the thing. I knew it was vital to growing her business and would really help out the community a lot. Normally, I would have chased her down, but I wasn’t ready for that yet. I needed a plan, and I wasn’t anywhere even close to having one yet. However, as I sat there thinking, still sitting at that stop sign, I looked over to see Grange Hall where I had first met Sara. That was when I realized I may not have a plan, but I sure did know of someone who could help me come up with one.

I picked up my coffee and took another sip before pulling away from the stop sign. I headed out of town and drove toward the stables. I hadn’t been there before, but I had passed it a couple of times when I was staying in Bonanza the last time. It was the horse rescue that Sara loved so much, the place where she spent all her time she wasn’t at her practice. Her best friend, Alison, owned the place, and if there was anyone who knew Sara even better than I did, it would be her. I wasn’t sure how she would react to me, but I had to give it my best shot.

I took a right at the sign for the stables and headed up the long dirt road. On each side of me were fenced pastures, one I could tell had recently been fixed. It must have been the one that had been damaged, letting out the horses. Finally, I made it up the hill and to the front area where the large barns were located and where the farmhouse sat. I parked my SUV and got out, looking around at the lush green fields. As I scanned the area, my eyes fell on Alison, who was looking over at me with a surprised look on her face. She was working with a horse in the small paddock near the barn, so I nodded at her and made my way over.

“Alison?” I said.

“Hello, Ryan,” she said, looking over at me.

“You remember me.” I smiled.

“Of course,” she said. “What can I do for you today? Sara isn’t here.”

“I know. I saw her driving through town,” I said. “I actually came to talk to you. If you have a few minutes, I really want to try to work things out with Sara, and I was hoping you would have some advice on how I could win her back.”

She put her hand over her eyes, shielding them from the sun as she looked at me with mistrust. She pulled the horse over to the side and walked out of the gate, wiping her hands on her pants. She walked up to me and leaned against the fence.

“I care about her,” I said. “I miss her.”

“Well,” she said finally. “You have to treat Sara with respect and realize that she’s got a life here in Bonanza, a life that she loves very much. She’s not going to drop everything to move to New York City just because you have enough money to buy the entirety of this town.”

“Right,” I said. “Would it help if I did buy the town?”

She looked at me for a minute and then smiled, bursting into laughter.