Page 77 of The Rancher's Wedding

He walked toward the door.

“Michael, wait,” Jacob said, standing up.

Michael ignored him. He’d said his piece and closed the door behind him. Whatever it was Jacob wanted to say he could have said weeks ago if it was so important.

***

Michael continued walking around the ranch, until he made his way to the sheep. They were getting to the point where they were in need of a shear, but that wasn’t his business today. It would have to wait, just like almost everything here. For the first time in his life, at least for as long as he could remember, he didn’t much feel like tending to the farm or doing his daily duties.

There just didn’t seem to be a point to it all. Every day, he fed the animals, tended to the crops, milked the cows, and worried about the hundreds of other little things that helped keep the ranch working properly. He had done it partially for himself, though there were easier ways to make a living, but mostly to ensure Jacob was taken care of and the family tradition continued. After all, his parents were farmers and their parents before them. It was the reason the Holdens initially traveled west: millions of acres of land, free for the taking.

When the ranch burnt down and nearly all of Michael’s family died, he took it in stride: everything was a test. He could keep on moving forward. After all, there was still plenty of land for the taking in Utah. He didn’t even need to travel very far to get it.

With Estelle, Michael finally thought he knew where his life was headed. He’d passed all the tests and now he could move forward, enjoying life day by day. Of course, what he didn’t realize is that his entire existence on Earth was a test. It wasn’t until he eventually left that he would reap his rewards.

And there was another thought he considered:

What if he wasn’t being tested? What if God was trying to tell him something else? Maybe this was all a sign that, though ranching was important in his family’s past, it wasn’t the right path for him. He could go out on his own and live off the land for as long as it took for him to discover what his true calling was.

The problem is, if he was to be honest with himself, Estelle felt like his true calling. And though she had kept an important secret, in effect lying to him, he still more than anything wanted to be with her.

What he needed right now was guidance, and he knew exactly where to find it.

He returned to the stables and grabbed Orion, allowing Buttercup the day to reset, then rode out to the old ranch, the one burnt down. It was a long way to go, but he needed the ride to help clear his head.

Upon arriving at his former home, full of ash and crumbled remains of his childhood, he walked to his mother’s and father’s graves, each marked by a crude wooden cross formed with two thick sticks. The home had been taken over by the cacti and vultures in the short time since he left. It had only been three years and change, but it looked as though nobody had lived there for decades.

He took a knee in front of the graves and closed his eyes.

“Mother, Father,” he began, “I’m sorry for not visiting you more often. As you know, even if I’m not physically here, you’re always on my mind and, in everything I do, I ask myself if it would make you proud.

“I married a woman. A beautiful woman named Estelle. I think you’d both love her. She’s kind and caring and one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met. She went from city girl to rancher in a matter of only two months.”

Michael knew his parents were listening, but also that they couldn’t respond directly. The best he could hope for was a sign and, even then, the message would often come through ambiguously, in ways that were difficult to interpret.

“I can’t imagine being with anybody else,” he said, then paused on the thought. “I don’t want to be with anybody else.” He paused again as the thought came fully formed into his mind: “I refuse to be with anybody else.”

Estelle wasn’t just somebody whose company he enjoyed or who made life better. She made life worth living and he couldn’t keep going unless she was with him.

Maybe he didn’t need a sign. Maybe all he needed to do was focus on what mattered. “I suppose that means the decision’s already been made then. I’ll accept any outcome and any sacrifice I need to so long as, in the end, the two of us end up together.”

He tipped his hat to the graves of his parents.

“I miss you, Ma,” he said. “I miss you, Pa.”

Michael mounted himself back on the back of Orion and headed back to the ranch, prepared to lose everything so long as it meant staying with Estelle.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Michael had walked out of the stables, leaving Estelle to think over what had just happened, still holding the box with the necklace in her hand. It was worse than she could have possibly imagined.Why?she asked herself.Why did Ethan have to arrive at just that moment?

She was just about to tell Michael everything so that it wasn’t sprung on him. It was true that she had probably waited much too long, but why couldn’t Ethan have been delayed by even a few minutes so that Michael could hear the words from her rather than from him? Why couldn’t she have explained everything?

Estelle could have told Michael how the agreement was from a very early age, when she was just a little girl. She could have let Michael know how downright repulsive this man was and how she had left nearly everything behind, including her father and all of his wealth, not to mention her best friend, just to avoid being Ethan’s wife.

Yes, it was true that she ended up marrying Michael, the best man she could ever hope to spend her life with, but she was still willing to marry someone practically at random in a state where didn’t live, just to get away from this awful man who her father was forcing her to marry.

Could he possibly understand what that meant?

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