Wild Horses
“But I hate that I’m a part of your deception. By asking me to keep quiet about what you did, you make me a part of your illegal activities.”
He nodded. “I get it. And I appreciate your help.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. Then Todd leaned forward. “Tell me what you were doing out there.” He took a sip of his beer, and his gaze on her was as intense as she’d remembered it.
She forced herself to remember that this was just a onetime drink. A conversation—nothing more. “You won’t like it. I’m working for the government, for the Department of Range Management.”
“So that’s why you were at the station. I couldn’t figure it out.”
Nora couldn’t help a wry smile. “Must have been like seeing the Ghost of Relationships Past.”
“It was pretty shocking.”
She took a deep breath and said the last words he’d want to hear. “I was hired to do a study on the impact of wild horses on native plant populations.”
He flinched, just as she’d expected. “And I take it the impact isn’t exactly positive?”
“I’ve only been working on it for a few weeks. But from what I’ve seen so far, that’s putting it mildly.”
“But you know the reasons the land is so overgrazed, right?” Todd leaned forward eagerly and in an instant he was the idealistic boy she’d known in college. Time seemed to jump back years again.
Nora caught her breath, momentarily disoriented. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“There are too many horses for the land provided. But that’s because the government is opening up all their grazing lands for fracking, for cattle, for minerals. So the mustangs have been crammed into a smaller space than can sustain them, and of course the native plants suffer. All the plants do. If we’d give them back their range, you wouldn’t see these kinds of impacts.”
“Well, sadly, I’m not able to give back their land. And, frankly, there won’t be too many native plants left if we keep the horses at the current population.”
“But the horses aren’t the real problem.”
She glared at him. “Todd, I know all this. But the fact is, at this time, the DRM has a certain amount of land allotted for the horses. And the native plants on that land are being destroyed. My job is to go in and study the damage. Once my study is finished, the department will use the data to figure out how many horses can be allowed to roam free.”
“And you didn’t feel bad signing on to this study knowing it’s based on a false premise? Because they’ve already taken away the horses’ normal rangeland?”
She bristled. “I was hired to do a study on their current range, and I’m doing that study.”
His voice was tinged with bitterness. “You never could get out of that scientific side of your head, could you? It’s all data and facts with you.”
“It’s not just that,” she protested.
“Well, what is it? The money?”
Nora’s stomach did a sticky, nauseating flip. “You didn’t just say that.” At least her rising outrage steadied her voice. “Some things never change.”
“What are you talking about?” Todd looked genuinely confused.
Was it really possible that he was this dense? “You have no right to judge me.”
“I’m not judging. I just think you’re working for the wrong side on this issue.”
The words were spinning like a tornado in her head, there were so many she wanted to throw at him. “How’s your family, Todd?” she spat out.
His eyes went wide. “What does my family have to do with anything?”
“Because they’re wealthy. You’re wealthy. And you sit there, safe in the lap of your moneyed family, and you judge people like me. People who need to have a regular job.”
“I’m not—”
She cut him off, spewing words that she’d wanted to say years ago. Back then she hadn’t had the courage. “Has it ever occurred to you that some of us need steady work to make a living? Or that jobs for a plant biologist aren’t easy to find? We don’t all have enough money in our trust funds to run off and work for free in the rain forest.”
Nora stood up, feeling shaky and sick. She shouldn’t have come here, shouldn’t have thought she’d have the self-control to keep the past in the past.
Understanding dawned in Todd’s eyes. But she didn’t want to hear his reasons why she was wrong. Or to feel the weight of his judgment for one more second. “I need to go. I’ve got to work early. To get some more of that money I’m in it for. Thanks for the drink.”
“Nora, hang on.” He stood up, too, leaned a little across the table with his hand out, palm open, as if pleading for her to stay.
“No.” She took a deep breath and forced herself to look right at him and end this conversation for good. “Look. It’s a strange coincidence that we ran into each other like we did, and that we’re in the same town. But that doesn’t mean we have to be friends. Let’s just agree to be polite and we’ll both be fine. I won’t be in Benson forever anyway.”
“But...”
“I’ll see you around, Todd.” There was all that old anguish in her—burning deep and low—that she didn’t want to feel and, most of all, didn’t want him to see.
Nora pushed through the double doors of the bar and into the summer night, inhaling the cool air with relief. She jumped into her Jeep and gunned the engine out of the parking lot, not stopping until she was outside town, until the streetlights were gone and the lights of Benson had faded and she could see every star, horizon to horizon.
She parked her car and stepped out, feeling the dry soil compress beneath her, letting the sensation ground her. Leaning against the driver’s-side door, she looked up at the glittering sky.
How was it possible that Todd had the power to make her crazy after all these years? She was a rational person. She always had been—except when it came to him.
He said he’d changed, but he was still the clueless rich kid who’d never had to struggle to put a roof over his head.
Nora took a deep breath of the clean air and let it out slowly. She just wanted all of her feelings about him to be gone. To live her life without the burden of her old, dusty love for him. Because, despite his ignorance, despite their differences, he still haunted her.
She kept the memories at bay during the daytime—she’d had years of practice at that. But at night he came to her in dreams so vivid that she woke in the morning genuinely shocked to open her eyes and find him not there.
And now he was here, as opinionated and idealistic and idiotic as ever. The guy she’d dreamed of, who’d never dreamed of her. And somehow she would have to figure out how to keep going forward and living her life, knowing Todd wasn’t just in her dreams anymore. He was in the machine shop in town, and at a ranch down the road. He was here in her hometown, judging her and finding her lacking.
Dreams were easy. They faded in the daylight. Reality was a lot more difficult.
CHAPTER SIX
TODD TURNED IN to the driveway of Marker Ranch, half wondering if Nora would be at the other end with a shotgun, ready to run him off her land. He probably deserved it after his lame comment about money last night.
He slowed his truck at the sight of the potholes in the dirt road that led slightly downhill. The road was in desperate need of work, and he wondered if he could get someone in here to grade it for Nora and Wade. Though they probably wouldn’t let him. Nora would tell him to take his rich-boy charity and shove it.
Not that he was rich these days.
He hit the brakes and eased his truck over a large bump in the road. He glanced at the broken fences lining the drive and the weed-choked pastures that on second glance seemed to be filled with...cars? He stopped his truck and looked around. All through the fields were the skeletons of rusted-out cars, trucks and a few tractors. Marker Ranch resembled a junkyard more than a cattle ranch.
He let out a low whistle. This place was beyond run-down. It was a crime to see land this poorly treated.
But apparently trashing things had been the Hoffman way of life. He’d done a little sleuthing at his shop this morning. It hadn’t been hard to get his customers to talk about Nora’s family. The Hoffmans were the stuff of local legend. A mother who’d left when Nora and Wade were still young, marrying their father’s best friend and fleeing to Europe with him to escape sentencing for fraud charges. A father who’d chosen a life of crime and swindled most of his neighbors at one time or another. People said he was hiding down in Mexico with the sons he’d dragged into his criminal ways.
And now Nora and Wade had come back to town to face all that history.
Todd felt heavy with the knowledge. He should have asked Nora more questions back in college, should have tried harder to win her trust and know her better. He’d had no idea how she’d grown up or what she’d been through. And now, here on Marker Ranch, surrounded by the remains of all her family had stolen, he felt as if he was looking directly at the skeletons in her closet.
He touched the accelerator again and kept going, glancing down at the new iPhone in a box next to him. He’d driven all the way to Gardnerville and back to get it. It was the least he could do after tossing hers.
Nora’s words from the bar last night rang with truth. He’d been a sheltered rich kid with enough money to do whatever kind of work he felt like pursuing, whether it paid or not. He’d headed off to his job in Brazil after graduation full of righteous indignation that Nora wouldn’t go with him. He’d never considered that working for an activist’s paltry wage might be impossible for her. Now it was obvious how totally ludicrous his invitation to the rain forest must have seemed.
Seeing this ranch made it clear to him that even if Nora’s dad had made money from his crimes, he certainly hadn’t invested it in his kids or his home. Nora had grown up in poverty and squalor. And he’d sat there last night criticizing the job that was helping her rise above all this.
He pulled up to the house and stopped, staring at the dilapidated building. It was quiet. One big pine, half-brown from the drought, stood next to the neglected old farmhouse. It was a two-story from the Victorian era with great bones, but so run-down it looked like a haunted mansion at a theme park.
A huge contrast to his family’s neatly manicured minimansion on the outskirts of Seattle. Everything in his childhood home was neat and tidy. His mom had seen to that. Rooms looked like stills from a furniture catalog. A team of gardeners kept the pool and grounds free of any weeds or excess dirt. Everything had been perfectly put together.
He stepped carefully up to the porch, avoiding a spot where the boards were missing, and knocked, knowing from the quiet around him that there would be no answer. He set the box on an old chair near the door. He’d wrapped it in brown paper and taped a note on, so at least she’d get it with the apology she deserved.
“Welcome to Marker Ranch.”
He just about jumped out of his skin at Wade’s voice. Todd turned to see him standing a few feet away from the porch.
Wade had obviously been working. Dirt smeared his T-shirt and jeans. His straw cowboy hat shadowed his face, but Todd could see the sweat there.
“Didn’t hear you come up. Is that some kind of army trick?” Todd left the porch, glad that the box housing the phone looked a lot like a book now that it was wrapped.
“One of the few skills I left with that actually has a use in real life,” Wade said, and Todd recognized Nora’s dry humor in her brother. Wade gestured around vaguely with his arm. “What do you think of the place?”
“I think you’re a guy who’s not afraid of hard work.” Todd looked back at the pastures that lined the driveway. “I know someone who could haul those cars out for you.”
“I’d appreciate his number,” Wade said. “This ranch is a junkyard, and all the junk stolen.” His smile was devoid of humor. “It’s the family legacy. Even the ranch was stolen, or so the story goes. By my great-great-grandfather.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup. It’s an old Benson legend. Supposedly, he won the ranch in a poker game. The guy who lost it accused him of playing with marked cards. Of course my ancestor swore up and down that he hadn’t been cheating. But a year or two later, he named the property Marker Ranch.”
“And the name stuck? No upstanding descendant wanted to change it?”
Wade gave a bark of laughter. “There’s never been any upstanding descendants. Until Nora and me.” He looked around bemusedly.
Marker Ranch was set in a long, narrow valley. Behind Wade, Todd noticed all kinds of outbuildings, some wood, some old prefabricated metal or plastic, staggered alongside the dirt road that cut through the ranch. He wondered what was in them. Wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“Nora and I haven’t ever talked about changing the name,” Wade said. “But maybe once we get it all cleaned up and it’s a real working ranch, we can decide.”
“I kind of like the name, but I didn’t grow up here.”
“No,” Wade said hollowly. “You didn’t. Count yourself lucky for that.”
“But you came back.” Todd wondered, briefly, what life circumstances would induce him to make his family home his own. He couldn’t think of any.
“For the land.” Wade gestured up, toward the valley sides that rose steeply to meet the first slopes of the Sierras. Out here the mountains seemed to push straight out of the hills, their sheer granite slopes steep and forbidding and breathtakingly beautiful. “I love it out here. The mountains, the high desert. If I can just fix this place up, I’ll have my own piece of paradise. It’s worth facing the past for that.”
“Makes sense to me,” Todd assured him. They were the same reasons he’d been drawn to the area.
“So did you come out here to apologize to my sister?”
Did Nora tell her brother everything? Todd felt his face flush and was glad the brim of his hat shaded his face. “Yeah.”
“She’s doing fieldwork today,” Wade told him.
“Right. Well, I left her something on the porch. As part of that apology.”
Wade shifted uncomfortably. “Look, I’m not really used to talking about this stuff. And I don’t know much about what went on between you two. Nora never even told me about you.”
He paused and Todd just waited. It seemed better to say nothing than say something wrong.
“But the thing is,” Wade went on, kicking at the dust under his boot, “I lived with her right after you left. She was pretty upset for a long time. And I saw her come home pretty upset again last night.”
Todd knew the only way he’d earn Wade’s respect was through honesty. “Yeah, maybe that drink was a bad idea. It didn’t go so well. And it ended with my foot wedged so far in my mouth I don’t know if I’ll ever get it out.”
Wade gave a grim smile at that. “Look, I like you. Hell knows I could use a buddy out here. But don’t cause my sister trouble, okay? She’s a good person—a great person. She’s my only family and she gave up a lot to look out for me. I don’t want to see her hurt again.”
Todd didn’t know if the sick feeling in his throat was more embarrassment or disappointment. He’d sat across from Nora last night just trying to take her in. She’d always been pretty, but now she was so much more. Grown-up and strong and fiery underneath that same veneer of calm. Her gray eyes were darker than he remembered. Stormier. Her brown hair was longer, wavy and bleached by the sun, framing her face, which had lost some of its girlish fullness. The new angles suited her. She’d been furious with him in the bar last night, and remote, determined to hold him at a distance. And he knew he should respect that. But her down-to-earth beauty had grabbed him by the heart and twisted, wringing out all those memories he’d tried to lay to rest. He’d loved her. And while talking with her last night he’d vividly remembered all the heat that had been between them once. They’d been so alive, so in the moment together. Devouring knowledge, wandering mountains, exploring the world and never, ever getting enough of each other.
Until he’d learned the truth about his own family. And in his anger and rebellion, he’d messed up everything.
And now it didn’t matter what he might want. Clearly there could be nothing between them anymore. Nora despised him. She saw him as the pampered trust-fund kid he used to be. Which was exactly how he’d come across.
“I won’t cause her any more trouble,” he promised. “I screwed up back in college and I screwed up last night. I won’t mess up a third time. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Wade looked relieved. He pulled his cowboy hat down over his shaggy hair. Evidently he was growing out his military buzz cut. “Good,” he said. “Now that we got that over with, do you want go fishing this weekend?”
Now, that was the perfect way to end an awkward conversation. Todd grinned—part relief, part excitement. “That would be great. These past couple years have been so busy, getting the machine repair business going, and my ranch set up. I haven’t had much time to get to know many different fishing holes. It’d be awesome to get out there with a local.”
“Well, my knowledge is a little dated,” Wade admitted. “I’ve only been back a couple weeks and there hasn’t been time for fishing. But probably not much has changed. How about I swing by and pick you up from your work Sunday evening? That’ll give us a couple hours of daylight to nab a few trout.”
“Sounds good,” Todd said. He turned back to his truck, then paused. “You want any help grading this driveway?”
He saw Wade’s shoulders stiffen a little, wary of anything that smacked of charity. “Maybe eventually,” he said. “Right now I kind of like it. Keeps the nosy folks of Benson from paying any calls.”
Todd laughed. “You’re probably right about that. But it’s also hard on your truck. Think about it. I’m happy to help.”
“I appreciate that,” Wade said.
“And I’m not sure Nora mentioned it, but I work with mustangs. I adopt horses caught in government roundups and I train them to be good stock horses.”
“She didn’t say anything, no.”
Relief shot through him. If Nora hadn’t told her brother he worked with mustangs, she wouldn’t have mentioned the other night when he’d set a bunch of them free. “Well, I sell them for the original adoption fee I paid the Department of Range Management. If you need horses, you can’t beat the price. And you’ll be giving a mustang a new lease on life.”
“That doesn’t seem like a sound business plan you’ve got going on there,” Wade said, studying him.
“It’s not meant to be a business. Just something I care a lot about. When you get to a point where you’re ready for some horses, I hope you’ll consider mine.”
“I’d be happy to,” Wade said. “Sounds like a good cause and a great bargain.” He gave a wave and then walked off down the lane, heading toward the ramshackle row of sheds.
Todd climbed into his truck. Fishing. It might be a little awkward at first, hanging out with Nora’s brother. But he liked the guy already.
He’d just have to keep things peaceful with Nora. Though that might be hard, seeing as they were on opposite sides of the wild horses issue.
Plus, she didn’t make him feel peaceful. Quite the opposite. Despite her being so pissed at him last night, she’d changed something inside him. He’d walked out of that bar feeling as if his blood was moving faster, his heart beating stronger. He’d felt more alive than he could remember feeling since college.
He didn’t want peaceful with Nora. He wanted what they’d had before. He wanted to take her by the hand and explore the east side of the Sierras—to swim with her in the ice-cold lakes and go find the secret hot springs that trickled from deep in the earth. He wanted to lose himself in her the way he used to.
He understood that he couldn’t have it, but it didn’t stop him wanting it.
He steered his truck carefully back along the rutted drive. It was heartbreaking, this evidence of such neglect and waste. Nora’s dad had been careless with his ranch and his family.
And Todd had been careless, too—with Nora. He’d loved her for three years, and it shocked him now to look back and realize he’d never asked much about where she’d come from. He’d been too much of an egotistical college boy to talk about much besides himself. Though that had probably suited Nora fine, since she hadn’t wanted to talk about her past. And now he understood why. If he’d grown up here on this depressing ranch, he’d want to pretend none of it existed, too.
A rusted-out Ford pickup, vintage 1970s, stared at him from behind a mesquite, challenging him with its broken headlight eyes. And Todd felt resolve building inside him. He’d find a way to help clean up this mess. The mess he could see around him on Marker Ranch, and the one he’d made with Nora last night. And maybe, if he worked hard enough, he could even do something about the mess he’d made when he walked out on her, all those years ago.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“HEY, NORA, DO you have a minute?”
Nora looked up from lacing her hiking boots to see Lee Ellison, the DRM station manager, walking toward her. “Sure, what’s up?”
Sometimes Lee liked to check in on the progress of her study, even though he wasn’t her actual boss. She’d been hired by his supervisor, Trent Nixon, up in Reno. But Lee’s background was in plant biology and Nora suspected he was a little envious of her job. As a government bureaucrat, he didn’t do much science. So he often sought her out to have a chat, which Nora enjoyed. It was nice to talk with someone else who knew the difference between a stamen and a petal.
Lee sat down on the log next to her, but instead of asking about her recent survey results or her plans for the day, he just rested his arms on his knees and stared at his folded hands. Finally he spoke. “Have you heard about the horses?”
“No.” Nora tried to keep her voice casual—hard to do when she was lying. “Did something happen?”
“They’re gone.”
“What do you mean, they’re gone?” Nora twisted her head as if she was trying to see the corrals from where she sat. She couldn’t, but it seemed like something someone who had just learned about the horses’ disappearance would do. She was a terrible actress and she knew it, mentally cursing Todd every way she knew how for putting her in this position. She looked back at Lee, eyebrows raised in what she hoped was a surprised and worried look. “What happened?”
Lee sighed. “We don’t know. When Vince stopped by to feed them on Saturday, the gate was still latched, but they were gone.”
“Is a fence broken?” She was pathetic at pretending. She just hoped this discussion ended soon.
“Nope.” Lee looked at her carefully. “So you didn’t see anything?”
“No, I didn’t.” Was her protest too strong? Nora’s stomach was in knots.
“It’s just that I’ve checked with everyone else, and they all say your Jeep was the last car in the parking lot that evening.”
“They’re right about that. I got back really late Friday. I’d stayed down in Johnson’s Wash way too long, lost the light and hiked back here after dark.” Had she said too much? Did she sound as if she was trying to give an alibi?
“And you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?”
“Honestly, everything seemed quiet. And it didn’t occur to me to go look at the horses. I was exhausted. I just wanted to get home.” Honestly. She couldn’t believe she’d used that word. And she couldn’t believe she was lying outright, for Todd Williams.
Lee sighed. “Look, while you’re out there today, just try to think about that night and whether you remember anything. You’re kind of my last hope here. Trent Nixon called and he’s pissed as hell. I’d love to offer him some kind of explanation. I just hope he doesn’t fire me over this.”
Nora stared at the dust around her feet. It would be awful if Lee got fired. He had three kids, two already at college and one heading there soon. Losing his job would be catastrophic for his entire family. “He can’t fire you for something that happened when you weren’t even here.”