Page 21 of Long Past Dawn
“I shoulda been lookin’ after her.” I pounded my fist into the side of the barn, shaking out the pain in my knuckles from the collision with the wood. “I should have pushed her!”
Heaven grabbed my upper arm and held it tightly. “Beau, I’m not telling you this to make you feel guilty. I’m telling you this because she needs a friend right now. She acts strong and brave, but she’s weak and scared. Weak in body, I should clarify. She will never show weakness, but she’s scared for her future, and she’s afraid no one is ever going to love her now.”
“How does Dawn being sick equate to no one ever loving her?” I was so confused I wondered if I’d been drinking and didn’t remember hitting the bottle. “Just tell me, is she eventually going to die, Miss Heaven?”
“Eventually,” she said, smirking, “when she’s eighty or ninety, at least physically. Emotionally, she’s already dying on the vine, Beau.”
“You’re her friend, and you know the truth. Is she ignoring your advice or something?”
“No, she’s trying to downplay it because,” she motioned at her arm, “she thinks my problems are so much worse, so she shouldn’t complain.”
I swiped at the dust on my jeans to avoid making eye contact with her. “I hate it when people do that. My momma used to do that. She had this friend who was in a wheelchair after a car accident broke her back. Momma would always say, well, I have lupus, but I’m still walking, so it’s not so bad. The thing is, it was bad sometimes. I think she did it to make me feel better, but I still always felt bad.” I snapped my lips shut to keep from saying more. I could see in Heaven’s eyes that she was about to launch into a whole load of questions.
“That’s the first time you’ve ever told me a story about your mom. I think you should do that more often, Beau. It sounds like she was a great lady. She raised you, so I know she was. What was her name?”
“Samantha,” I said wistfully. “She was beautiful. She died almost twenty years ago now. She raised me until I was ten, but then Blaze’s momma took over. I have a whole book of stories about her, did you know that?”
Heaven shook her head, but she didn’t let go of my arm. “I didn’t know, but that’s sweet, Beau.”
I shrugged, embarrassed to be discussing this with her out of the blue. I was out of my element and secretly ashamed that I didn’t talk about my momma more. I probably should, but it was still too painful even after all these years. “I suppose now that I’m a thirty-year-old man, protecting a book that I wrote as a child makes me sound like one. I started right after she died because my foster family told me I’d eventually fa—fa—forget her. I didn’t want that to happen, so I had a secret notebook where I wrote down stories about her every na—night. When I moved in with Blaze, I didn’t have to keep it a secret anymore. I haven’t looked at that notebook in ya—ears, but it’s comforting to know I have it.” I paused and cleared my throat of the stutter, concentrating on holding my jaw the right way. I was upset, so I knew the stutter would only get worse if I didn’t. “I keep it at the bank so it can’t ever get wet or burned up in a fire. I want to be able to read those stories about her to my kids.”
“I seriously love that idea. My daddy hasn’t been gone for very many years, but I am starting to forget some of the funny things he used to say or do. Maybe I should start a notebook, too. If you wanted to, you could type those stories up, and then you wouldn’t have to worry about the physical notebook being damaged.”
I shook my head, hooking my thumbs in my belt loops. “I can’t work a computer for nothing, Miss Heaven. You know that.”
“I do know that, but do you know who is fantastic at the computer?” I shook my head to the negative. “Dawn.” She winked, turned, and walked toward the door. “I’ll see you tonight for dinner, Beau. Be prepared to stay late. Dawn might need to talk.”
Heaven disappeared through the door and left me standing there alone.
Be prepared to stay late.
I was prepared to stay forever, but I couldn’t find a way to tell Dawn that. A little voice told me if I could find a way, I just might find redemption on this cold, unforgiving ridge after all.
Six
I stacked the dishes in the dishwasher, my mind a jumbled mess. I was caught in a haze, and I didn’t know which way was up. All my focus was on one thing: becoming part-owner of a dude ranch in the middle of northern Wisconsin. Yesterday, I was worried the ranch would fall apart after Heaven got married. Today, I found out that I’d be running it. Heaven wants me to take over her position as the guest services manager. For now, she will continue to do the bookwork, but once I’m ready, she wants me to learn that, too. Heaven will continue to hold thirty-four percent of the shares in the ranch, while Tex and I both own thirty-three. She wants less to do with the day-to-day operations once she gets married, and I can’t blame her, considering they also have Bison Ridge to run. It still feels like she’s putting a lot of trust in me to keep her family’s legacy alive when I know nothing about dude ranches.
I lowered myself to a seat at the table and stared at the dishwasher as it started the wash cycle. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Hard to take it all in, isn’t it?” Tex asked from the doorway. “A year ago, we didn’t think this cattle ranch was going to be here, much less be converting it to a dude ranch and becoming full partners.” He made the mind-blown motion with his hands as he pushed off the door and walked into the kitchen.
I cleared my throat before I spoke to ensure my voice didn’t sound as unsure as I felt about the situation. “Are you going to sign on the dotted line?”
“Well, of course, Miss Dawn. I’d be crazy not to. I get to keep doing what I love, but now I’ll own rights to the place. I never wanted to leave Heavenly Lane, and now I don’t have to. I’ve never been prouder in my whole life.”
I smiled at the man in front of me. He was young at barely twenty-four, but he’d put his heart and soul into this land for the last six years. “I can tell by the way your chest is all puffed out, Tex. You do most of the work here, and you deserve to have a piece of it.”
“You do the rest of the work, Miss Dawn. I don’t know why you aren’t equally as proud. We turned this place around for Miss Heaven. She knows it, too. That’s why she’s rewarding us for it. Simple as.”
I couldn’t meet his gaze when I nodded. It wasn’t his fault I was torn up and unsure about the extent of my future here. “You’re absolutely right. I am proud, but I don’t know that Heaven should be giving up so much of her rights to this place, you know? Heavenly Lane has always been her daddy’s land and her granddaddy’s before that. It feels wrong to me to take something that isn’t mine.”
He nodded pensively and tapped the table while he thought about it. “I guess you’re right, but Heaven does protect herself in the deal. We must sell our shares back to her if we want out, so she retains ownership anyway. She’s also got the controlling interest, so she’s not going to lose her daddy’s ranch no matter what. We also can’t make decisions without the full board voting, so it’s not like anyone can get power-hungry and try to make changes without full approval. From what I can see, they’ve put enough fail-safes in place that Miss Heaven and Blaze will always be protected. This land was her daddy’s, that’s true. Over the last year, though, she made it her own. She saw that things had to change, and she couldn’t keep doing what her daddy and granddaddy did without a lot of success. Maybe Heaven turned the ranch on its ear, but she made it hers. Now, she’s making it ours. I think that’s pretty cool. I’ll take part-ownership for what it is, but I won’t change how I do things around here. I love working with the guests and the animals. I’m not going to sit at a desk and bark orders. That’s not who I am.”
I squeezed his shoulder with a heartfelt grin on my lips. “That thought never crossed my mind, Tex,” I said, chuckling. “I’m torn about taking the ownership rights from Heaven, but at the same time, I’m thinking about ways I can add to the guests’ experience if I’m doing nothing but the guest service job. That’s exciting since my background is in hospitality.”
“There are a lot of things we could change and implement if you have someone else doing the grunt work, Miss Dawn. I thought maybe you could offer retreats for those church groups and such since this house is so big. They could come and do all that team-building and personal introspection stuff. You could organize trail rides for them and campfires.”
I tipped my head to the left in surprise. “Tex, that’s a brilliant idea. I bet if we offered something like that, we’d have the upstairs booked every week. I’m going to talk to Heaven about it. I’m giving you credit for it, though.”
