Page 8 of A Forever Kind of Rancher

“It’s pretty,” said Sadie.

She had expected her daughters to be a little bit angrier about leaving California than they were.

They’d lived in Bakersfield, and it didn’t often feel like there was a lot happening there but heat and drought. They complained about both, often. And they seemed to be in places with friends where they were glad for a fresh start and a change of scenery. She couldn’t help but wonder if some of it was the pain of having Daniel break up their family. And maybe leaving rather than having to tell everyone about it was easier. At least, that’s how it was for her.

Their life had been quiet and stable. He might’ve been out chasing glory, but she hadn’t been. To her, their life had been glory.

But it hadn’t been enough for him.

She should’ve known.

He wasn’t home all that much. When he was, they’d had a healthy sex life, but she had honestly just imagined that he was like her. That he turned it off when she wasn’t there, like she did with him.

That’s oversimplifying things, isn’t it?

She gritted her teeth.

Maybe.

Maybe it was.

But she was happy for oversimplification right now. She needed it.

As if simplification didn’t cause some of this mess in the first place.

So she started up the car engine and continued down the road that would take her to Boone’s house.

When the house came into view, her stomach twisted. It was weird, because it was Boone. And she didn’t need to go getting wound up about her own inferiority complexes, or her memories of growing up poor. Her memories of being a have-not in a sea of haves. Of her mother being the one who cleaned and now she was...

It wasn’t the same.

Not because she was ashamed of her mother. She wasn’t. She never had been. The difference wasn’t in the work, it was in the person needing the work done.

Those people had all fancied themselves better than her mother. And that wasn’t Boone. And it never would be. It wasn’t why he had asked her to come.

He felt guilty, she knew that.

She also wondered how much he had known for all those years...

Well. You have plenty of time to talk.

Seeing as she would be living on his property and cleaning his house.

“Wow,” said Sadie.

The house was beautiful. Even more beautiful than the one they had left behind in Bakersfield.

Their house had been elaborate. Because it was the kind of fancy Daniel liked. It had been positioned across from a field that was just empty.

And now she kind of felt like it was a metaphor. A dream house surrounded by a whole lot of nothing.

Empty. Like his promises.

She ached, and she couldn’t quite work out exactly what she was feeling. If it was heartbreak or the sting of having been tricked. If it was betrayal or the loss of her marriage. Or simply the loss of her life.

She didn’t know. Maybe it was all those things. It seemed like each moment one of those things felt more prominent than another. And then it would shift.

She didn’t have time to think about anything shifting at the moment. What she needed to do was get her game face on.

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