2
(Cara Cavanaugh)
Maybe this was a mistake.
And not just the decision that brought me to this tiny town in Colorado, but everything—all the choices I’ve made over the past few months that led to this moment.
Like six months ago, when I broke up with my foregone-conclusion-but-not-quite-yet fiancé, the same man I’d been with for years. Or the one where I walked away from what I always thought would be my dream job at a major newspaper, then accepted a freelance writing gig that was based three states away from my home in Chicago.
That one was a doozy.
Not that I quit my corporate journalism job impulsively. Not at all. I did what I always do. I sat down and brought up the handy pros-and-cons worksheet I have saved on my desktop—with its perfectly sized columns and rows strategically designed to put my world in order by way of Microsoft Excel. I hashed it out until I was sure that while I hated my job, I still wanted to write as much as I always did. I just didn’t want to file one hundred stories a month, most of which were nothing more than words churned out of a journalistic meat grinder and cited Facebook as a source more often that I care to admit. I also didn’t want to read the daily reports from management that detailed my online stories’ Google Analytics. Because writers often survive on the very idea that someone, somewhere, is reading their words and feeling something—and when know-it-all Google informs you that your audience spends an average of ninety-three seconds “reading” your articles, the delusional ruse of affecting a reader becomes a little hard to keep up.
What I did want to do was write comprehensive pieces on people and places and things that mattered, the sort of stories that were worth more than ninety-three seconds of someone’s time.
Enter the slightly self-righteous, impossibly niche, and wonderfully in-depth world of a quarterly journal called Purpose & Provisions based out of Asheville, North Carolina. I’d been stalking the job listings on a freelancers’ site for months already, hoping to find a post that might justify leaving corporate news for something I could sink my heart into.
And one day, there it was:
WRITER NEEDED. CAPOTES, NOT COURICS, PLEASE. MUST BE WILLING TO RELOCATE.
Looking for a spirited and heartfelt writer to report on the changing face of agriculture in the Grand Valley area of southwestern Colorado. This diverse region is home to both traditional ranching families, organic and conventional farmers, plus a host of fruit orchards and vineyards. Yet the graying of the American ag producer is as much a threat to land use here as it is in the cornfields of Iowa or the wheat fields of Kansas. The right candidate for this assignment will immerse themselves in the Grand Valley community for up to eight weeks, provide weekly updates to our editor, and return with a long-form piece worthy of our publication’s discerning readership.
Purpose & Provisions is dedicated to a sincere appreciation of all things crafted and created—and the narratives we owe those artisans. We aren’t beholden by word counts and believe white space always trumps advertising space.
Forward a cover letter with writing samples to [email protected]
A little research and I found that while they might take themselves just a little too seriously, Purpose & Provisions was also exactly what I had been looking for. The articles were evocative and interesting, the design was modern but warm, and once I had my hands on a print copy, I sort of wanted to sleep with it under my pillow and wait for the writing fairy to work her magic.
I sent off my cover letter and two spec pieces I’d written on northern Illinois food producers. The editor replied hours later, we Skyped the next morning, and he offered me the assignment one day after that. I gave my notice at the paper, trudged through my two weeks, and started making a plan for my temporary relocation to Colorado.
Fast-forward one month and here I am. Trying on a new life so different from the one I mapped out for myself since I was twelve that it’s no wonder I’m having trouble with the most basic tasks.
Like opening a stupid padlock.
My dad insisted on having my stuff shipped out here from Chicago in one of those transportable storage pods, which arrived in Hotchkiss yesterday. I wanted to rent one of those cute U-Haul tow-behind trailers—an idea my mother claimed would make me look like a vagabond, and vetoed before I could argue my point any further. I have the only key for the lock I affixed to the metal box after loading it full with a microwave, boxes of clothes and shoes, and assorted kitchen goods, plus my Pilates reformer unit. But somewhere between Illinois and here, the lock seems to have amassed enough dirt to make it now impossible to open.
Although perhaps some of the problem is all the inconvenient hormones zinging through my body. Any strength I might derive from proper blood flow has reoriented itself toward the more erogenous areas of my body—brought on by a roadside encounter with a guy I suspect possessed a set of abdominal muscles you could easily round out a zydeco band with.
Wash. Board.
There was a moment when I considered reaching out and lifting Garrett’s shirt to see if I was right. Even without my laptop and worksheet handy, I was still able to pro-and-con the scenario in my head.
PRO: Technically, it would be research. A way to get to know the locals . . . to immerse myself in the community.
CON: It’s also a way to firmly establish myself as crazy on my first day in town. Or get arrested.
PRO: I’ve never actually seen abs before. As in, multiple muscles that are defined from one another and exist without flexing or filtering. Not in real life.
CON: I wouldn’t know what to do with the reality of a six-pack, anyway. Pet it with the flat of my hand? Poke it with my index finger to assess its durability? Take a picture?
Abs aside, Garrett seemed like a guy who could, with one night, permanently obliterate all memory of the tepid sex I’ve experienced to date. Because his truck was both jacked up and broken down, his body appeared as if it had been corn-fed and well worked, and his hazel eyes were puppy-dog soft and bedroom trouble. All of this meant I spent most of our roadside conversation letting my eyes drift where my mind wandered, even after he claimed the “Flower Duet” from Lakmé sounded like feral cats going at it or something.
Cats.
And I still couldn’t stop thinking about what he looked like underneath that battered T-shirt he was wearing. He, on the other hand, seemed to know I was lost, overwhelmed, and attracted to him—and he was enjoying every minute of it, right up to the moment when he climbed back in his truck, gave a slow grin and casual wave my way, then drove off—leaving me with only the directions he’d provided and a slightly confusing case of lust-itis.
I give the padlock another good yank, hoping a little exertion might cure my lust-itis affliction, while bracing my entire body against the pod to see if that provides the leverage I need. Nothing. I shake it back and forth. Whack it against the metal a few times. Still nothing.
Just before I land a frustrated kick against the box and inevitably break a toe, my phone rings. I drop my head to the cool metal and tug my cell out from the center pocket on my pullover and put it to my ear.
“Hello?”
“Cara Jane! Can you hear me all the way out West there? Are you safe?”
My sister. I’m convinced she possesses a finely tuned meltdown radar, because no matter where I am or what I’m fretting over, she will call or show up exactly when I need her to. She insists it’s not radar, rather the result of simply being my baby sister. She spent so many years watching me and itemizing my every personality quirk that she’s like one of those dogs that can sniff out their owner’s seizures before they happen. Either that or she’s clairvoyant. A Narciso Rodriguez–clad, Fendi bag–carrying clairvoyant.
“Amie Jane, I think you’re a witch.” I say, “Like Fairuza Balk in The Craft, but prettier and not bonkers. But just as unnerving. How do you always know when I need you?”
My sister and I share the same middle name, which we enjoy making use of whenever possible. Jane, for our great-grandmother on our father’s side. He’d insisted, likely prompted by the fact she’d established sizable trust funds for both Amie and me before we were even born. Regardless, our mother hates it. She’s convinced people will think it means she was either too lazy or too dim to come up with different middle names—or worse, that she was attempting to be ironic, and my mother simply does not do irony.
Amie laughs in her utterly feminine way, light but full-bodied, somehow sweet while never sounding silly. “I’ve explained this to you before, my Cara Jane. My earlobes itch when you’re in trouble.”
“Oh, yes. The earlobe thing. Nothing at all witchy or weird about that.”
“I prefer to think of myself as more of a fairy godmother. Cinderella style.”
“Well, if you could bibbidi-bobbidi-boo this padlock off my storage pod, I would appreciate it. I’m about ten seconds away from driving back into town and buying a lock cutter. But my first trip through town was eventful enough.”
She snorts into the phone. Just like her laugh, even her snort is cute. Yet another disparity between us, as my laugh and snort are, let’s say, heartier.
As sisters go, I’m sure our DNA matches up, but at first glance anyone with eyeballs can see we’re cut from two very different patterns. Amie’s follows my mother’s: golden, sun-kissed complexion and honey-blonde hair, button nose and green eyes, with petite measurements that fulfill all the ideals of traditional femininity. I—in keeping with my father’s side of the family—trump all their lovely porcelain doll traits with dark eyes and even darker hair, and an Olive Oyl–esque frame that made junior high boatloads of fun.
“ ‘Eventful’? Were there cows blocking the road or something equally rural? A tractor dawdling along the shoulder with a hot cowboy operating it?”
“No tractors, no cows.”
“What about the hot cowboy?”
Garrett and his abs launch themselves to the forefront of my mind again. No Stetson, no shiny belt buckle, and I couldn’t quite picture him on a horse. The jeans were cut the way you might expect, but the boots were lace-up work boots. So “cowboy” isn’t the word I’d use to describe him.
“He wasn’t a cowboy. More . . . redneck?”
Amie lets out a dejected groan. “Ugh. Like Duck Dynasty?”
“No?”
There’s a pause on the line before Amie lets out a tinkling laugh.
“Oh, wow. My earlobes are itching again. Must be the way you said ‘no’ but phrased it as a question. Sounds like you found yourself some trouble already, Cara Jane.”
Her tone is teasing, but it sends a rush of heat to my cheeks.
The reason why is simple: My ex-boyfriend, Will Cahill, has a twin brother named Tayer. And Tayer is engaged to Amie—so any talk of Garrett’s trouble-like qualities feels like some sort of betrayal to the Cahill boys. Our Cahill boys.
From country day schools to cotillions, our family histories were so intertwined it was as if there were no other choice but for us to pair off. First, it was Amie and Tayer, followed by Will and me, a year later. I was nearly finished with my undergrad in journalism at Northwestern while Will was basking in his acceptance to Yale Law, and under the haze of too much celebratory prosecco, we looked at each other and things felt . . . inevitable.
And for five years, not much changed.
Except for one thing: I finally realized how much I didn’t want to become my mother. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the sort of woman Will would eventually need in his life. When he inevitably left the law for politics—as his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had done—he would need a flawless society wife, a woman with poise and grace to spare.
And unlike my mother and my baby sister, poise and grace do not come naturally to me. I have to focus my attention on every detail of how I walk and talk and breathe, when life calls on me to be the Cara Cavanaugh my family expects. Because we come from the sort of money that has so many strings attached it’s like being ensnared in a spiderweb of expectation. Those trusts Granny Jane set up for Amie and me? All part of what started out six generations ago as a steel baron’s money, earned with hard work, ambition, and resourcefulness—the same traits expected of us as inheritors now.
But while our family holds to an industrious code of conduct, in the Cahill clan, women simply don’t have careers. They might dabble for a few years after college, but that’s about it. And whether Will would admit it or not, he doesn’t stray far from the Cahill norm on that topic.
So I broke up with Will because, in the same way I knew I hated my job but still loved to write, I knew I would hate the woman I’d become if I tried to be who Will needed to love. And just like everything else that happened during the time we were together, Will and I parted ways dispassionately—no hard feelings, no awkwardness between our families, so much that it’s been easy for us to fall back into friendship.
Amie finally tires of how I’ve gone quiet, breaking into my lost thoughts with a laugh.
“Silence, huh? This guy must be some seriously excellent trouble.”
I force my own laugh, hoping it sounds effortless and unaffected, then slip down and flop cross-legged onto the dirt driveway in front of the farmhouse.
“I have no idea if he’s trouble or not. We had a five-minute conversation. He insulted Lakmé and gave me directions. But in a plot twist only to be found in small towns, it turns out this farm used to be his. He’s about our age, so I’m guessing he grew up here or something.”
“No. Way.” Amie hums in thought. “Tayer said that his uncle Davis bought it from an estate; the family couldn’t afford to keep it. Davis snapped it up without even seeing it because it’s apparently a good area for their supposed elk hunting trips. But I think all they’re really hunting for are more excuses to plow through their precious bottles of Pappy Van Winkle without any nagging women around.”
Because the history between the Cahill and Cavanaugh families mimics that of a backwoods holler in Kentucky, the man who owns the farmhouse I’m staying in—Garrett’s former home—happens to be Tayer and Will’s uncle.
Davis Cahill has more money than he quite knows what to do with, and even after Will and I parted ways, Davis insisted that I was as much family as always. When word made its way to his ears about my freelance assignment, he offered this place as a base. At the time, the fact that he owned a house in the area seemed like divine intervention confirming I was on the right track.
As Amie continues to extol the many reasons she believes the Cahills like bourbon whiskey more than big game, my eyes land on the farmhouse.
Faded white paint covers everything but the wide front porch, which is flanked by dark stacked-fieldstone pillars. The same stones form the foundation and patches of decades-old limescale speak to how many years have gone by since this house was built. A window shutter on the second floor appears to be hanging by a solitary nail set in one corner, the rest of the wood rattling loosely against the siding. Beyond the house, I spot the edge of what I think is a long-neglected hayfield, a few Canada Thistle peeking tall above the stalks of overgrown yellowing grasses. The entire property shows its age, neglected in a way that looks lonely and forsaken.
Amie finally ends her rant. “Anyhoo, I expect a full report if the hot redneck causes you any trouble worth discussing, OK?”
I give up one of my hearty snorts. “Doubtful. But I’ll be sure to keep you updated.”
“I’ve got to go, Tayer’s home. There’s an arts league benefit tonight and we’re going to be late as it is, which won’t look good seeing as I’m on the board.”
In the background, there is the faint clink of ice hitting a glass. I can picture Tayer in the kitchen of their condo, pouring himself a drink before settling into his spot on the couch, happy to know Amie is his and contented enough to wait it out, no matter how late she makes them.
“And, Cara?”
Homesickness settles deep in my belly. “Yeah?”
“Try the lock again. I’ve sent some good juju your way.”
When we hang up, I stare down the lock and take a deep breath.
Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. The lock slides open, so effortlessly only a fairy godmother could be to blame.