VIVIAN REED TURNED around in her front-row seat in the Shelter Creek town hall and swallowed hard. The place was packed. There had to be at least seventy people in the historic clapboard hall. It had probably been built before there were this many people even living in Shelter Creek.
The air pressed close. Everyone was seated elbow to elbow in their metal folding chairs, except for a group of older folks standing in the back. They were waving signs that said We Speak for the Elk and chatting among themselves while they waited for the meeting to start.
Rubbing the ache that had settled in her neck, Vivian faced the front again. This was going to be a strange night. She was here representing the Shelter Creek Wildlife Center, but it was only her second day on the job. And only her third day living in the small Northern California town of Shelter Creek.
Vivian’s boss, Maya Burton, should be here with her, but she’d had to leave town to trap and collar a mountain lion up in Mendocino County. So, at Maya’s request, Vivian had come to this meeting to help resolve a conflict between a rancher named—Vivian glanced down at her notes—Jace Hendricks, and a bunch of locals who felt he was harming local tule elk.
Vivian had never heard of tule elk until yesterday. She tried to recall the facts she’d looked up. Tule elk. A subspecies of elk found only in California. Preferred diet is grass. Calves born with spotted coats. That was all she could remember. She’d been so tired when she was researching last night, she’d drifted off right at her computer. And now she was unprepared. She hated feeling unprepared. Wasn’t used to it. She’d worked for the same field office in New Hampshire for years, doing the same kind of work, with the same people.
Unfortunately, one of those people had also been Colin, her fiancé, which was one of the reasons Vivian had moved three thousand miles away to work at the wildlife center here.
But she wasn’t going to think of Colin. Not tonight when she needed all the self-confidence she could muster. Tonight was not the time to remember that spring morning when she’d stood on the steps of the church with all of their wedding guests inside. With everyone there...except the groom.
He’d sent a note with a friend, apologizing for not ending things earlier. Saying that he couldn’t attach himself to someone with her kind of health issues.
It still hurt, in a dull, achy, down-to-the-bones way. Or maybe that was the lupus. It was kind of hard to know sometimes.
Vivian pushed her fist into her thigh, the pressure bringing her back to the present. Colin was in the past. Something to learn from and let go of. She had new goals now, thanks to him. She’d moved out here to California to become strong and independent. To toughen up, so she could fight this illness that threatened to steal so much from her. And to make sure she’d never feel as weak and lost as she’d felt standing outside the church that day.
She glanced around at the hall full of strangers. Maybe she could look at this meeting as a good opportunity to practice those qualities. It should be pretty simple. Maya had suggested that Vivian offer to study the elk situation. Easing conflict between ranchers and wildlife was one of the main purposes of the brand-new Shelter Creek Wildlife Center.
It had sounded pretty simple in the comfort of their office, which was really a trailer on the construction site of the barely begun wildlife center. But now, scanning the crowd, including the protesters waving signs, Vivian wanted to sneak out a side door.
Buck up, she admonished her cowardly self. You preserved hardwood forests in Vermont. You defused conflicts over wetlands in New Hampshire. You can handle some elk protesters out here in California.
But listening to the noises in the hall around her, the hum of conversation, punctuated by the occasional save-the-elk chant from the folks in the back, Vivian wished she’d prepared herself a little more. She hadn’t thought enough about what this move to California would really be like. She certainly hadn’t expected to be thrown into a town conflict her second day on the job.
She’d just been so desperate to get away, to put the entire continent between herself and Colin’s rejection. And put that same vast distance between herself and her mother.
Ever since Vivian’s diagnosis eight months ago, Mom had taken to coming up to New Hampshire from New York City every weekend. She’d arrive on Vivian’s doorstep, her face twisted into an expression of dread, as if she expected to find her daughter dead every time. Vivian had tried to explain to her mom, over and over, that lupus wasn’t a terminal illness. But no matter what Vivian said, or how many websites she directed her mom to look at, Tori Reed just could not accept that her daughter didn’t need her constant help.
Vivian couldn’t live with her mom’s tear-filled eyes and overly solicitous care every single weekend. It made her feel like she really was about to die.
So when Colin had ended their relationship and Mom had started talking about a permanent move to New Hampshire, Vivian began looking for a way out. She’d seen the ad online for this job and sent her résumé on pure impulse. She’d had no idea where Shelter Creek, California, even was.
It turned out to be a tiny town out in the sun-browned coastal hills of Northern California, a few hours’ drive north of San Francisco. At this time of year, early fall, it was foggy in the mornings, hot in the afternoons and so dry by evening that even the air felt baked and brittle. It was beautiful, but its beauty was the exact opposite of what Vivian was used to. Instead of hardwood forests, sparse oaks stood in lonely relief on the hot, dry hills. Instead of the full, flowing waterways of New England, the creek that gave the town its name had almost completely dried up. Apparently it dried up every single year.
But the barren hills allowed for big empty skies, and all that space eased something in Vivian’s heart that had been crunched up in an anxious ball ever since her diagnosis. As if the big sky had room to absorb even her greatest fears.
“You look lost in thought.”
Vivian glanced up and saw that the woman next to her, an older woman wearing a Western-style dress shirt, was smiling at her. “You wouldn’t be Vivian, would you?”
“Yes, I am.” Vivian studied her, confused. “How do you know my name?”
“I’m Annie Brooks. I’ve got a ranch south of town. Maya told me to look out for you.”
“Oh, is this Vivian?” Another woman peered around from where she sat on the other side of Annie. She had wavy white hair and a warm smile. “Hello. I’m Lillian. Maya’s grandmother.”
“So nice to meet you!” Vivian wondered if Maya had sent these ladies to make sure Vivian didn’t mess things up too much. Then she noticed Lillian’s T-shirt. It was bright blue, with the words Cougars for Cougars splashed across it in white print. She bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud. “I like your shirt.”
Lillian’s lined face broke into a proud smile. “Thank you. It’s from this summer. Maya was just starting up her mountain lion advocacy work around here and the ladies in my book club felt she needed our support.”
Vivian motioned toward the back of the room where the protesters were still congregating. “This town seems to have a lot of activists.”
“Well, we have a lot of wildlife,” Lillian said. “And we all care about the natural beauty around town. It brings in a lot of tourists and the town relies on the money they spend. But I don’t always agree with Bunny Chadwick’s tactics.”
“Bunny Chadwick?”
“Bunny is the leader of that group back there. Habitat Heroes,” Annie explained. “They’re very confrontational. Lots of protesting and things.”
“Oh.” Vivian tried not to smile but it was funny to think that there were rival environmental groups in this tiny town, each similarly made up of older people. “And Annie, are you a part of Cougars for Cougars, too?”
“Well, I mainly enjoy reading the books, but I’ll put my Cougars T-shirt on if need be.”
“Cougars and books,” Vivian mused. “I like it.”
“You should come to our next book club meeting,” Lillian told her. “Maya usually comes, and her friend Trisha has started attending, as well, so you won’t be the only youngster. It’s a week from today. At five. Here.” She pulled out a small notepad and quickly scribbled down the information, including her address, and handed it to Vivian.
“The Book Biddies,” Vivian read. “It’s very kind of you to invite me. I’d love to come.” She folded the paper carefully and tucked it into the outer pocket of her tote bag. She shifted uneasily in her seat. She might not go anywhere but back to New Hampshire if she couldn’t make herself useful at this meeting tonight. “Can you tell me what you know about this conflict?”
“Jace Hendricks is a good man.” Annie answered. “He’s a rodeo cowboy, a former star bull rider, who just moved back here a few months ago.”
A rodeo cowboy? Did they really still have those? Vivian had never given rodeo, or cowboys, much thought, but Annie made it sound totally normal.
“Jace is a nice young man, dealing with a tough situation,” Lillian added.
Vivian suddenly remembered Lillian’s connection to him. “And Jace is good friends with Maya’s fiancé, right? Maya mentioned that to me.”
Lillian’s expression warmed with emotion. “Yes. Caleb, that’s Maya’s fiancé, has been friends with Jace since they were children.”
The room quieted as the members of the town council made their way onto a raised platform in the front of the room and took their seats behind a long table. Vivian counted five council members—three women and two men. Most of them were middle-aged or older, except for a younger woman seated at the center of the table. She rapped her gavel, calling the town council to order.
“That’s Rhianna Lang, the mayor. She’s just a few years older than Maya,” Annie whispered. “But she’s a tough cookie.”
Rhianna ran a sardonic gaze over the crowded hall. “Where are you all when we’re discussing exciting things like parking fees or repairing the water mains?”
A low rumble of laughter went through the crowd, defusing the tension a bit. Wow. She was good.
“Okay, let’s address the most popular agenda item first. The council calls Bunny Chadwick on behalf of Habitat Heroes.” Rhianna looked toward the back of the room. “Bunny, apparently you have a petition?”
“Yes.” A small, sprightly woman in a bright yellow tracksuit and pink sneakers marched up the aisle. She tapped the microphone. “Is this thing on?” Her voice was shrill and tense.
“Yes, Bunny, it’s on.” The weary tone of the young man seated alongside the council, a laptop open in front of him, made Vivian think that Bunny’s visits to the microphone were probably fairly frequent.
“Okay then. As the mayor noted, Habitat Heroes has collected a long list of signatures.” Bunny passed the envelope to the weary young man, who passed it over to Rhianna. “We are concerned that Jace Hendricks’s purchase of North Sky Ranch poses a threat to one of our area’s most vulnerable species, the tule elk.” Bunny pulled out a page of notes and Vivian was sure she could hear a collective sigh in the room. Clearly this was a bad sign.
Unperturbed, Bunny set a pair of reading glasses on her nose and continued. “As I’m sure you know, by the 1870s elk had been hunted to near extinction in California. Their survival is entirely due to one rancher, Henry Miller, who lived down near Bakersfield. He found a small band of tule elk on his land and had the foresight to protect and preserve them.”
“We love you Henry!” someone yelled, as if they were a groupie at a rock concert, and the room erupted in laughter.
Bunny put her hand in the air in a thumbs-up to acknowledge her supporters and continued. “In the 1970s, conservationists, including my late father, advocated for establishing new herds of elk around the state, including the famous herd at Point Reyes National Seashore. We are incredibly fortunate to have free ranging herds around Shelter Creek.”
Annie stifled a yawn and grinned when she caught Vivian’s eye. “Never did do well with lectures,” she whispered with a wink.
Vivian pressed her lips together to hide her smile. She liked Annie and Lillian. She was going to their book club, no matter how tired she was that evening. Lupus wouldn’t keep her from making friends in her new town.
Bunny was still speaking. “Many of our local elk obtain food and water from a portion of Jace’s ranch called Long Valley. Jace recently built a fence around Long Valley, thus blocking the elks’ access to this important segment of their habitat. So we, Habitat Heroes, started the petition you have before you, to make him take down that fence.”
“I see.” Rhianna pulled the pages out of the envelope and leafed through them briefly.
“And furthermore,” Bunny continued, “after consultation with many other conservation associations, the Habitat Heroes believe that Jace should permanently preserve Long Valley as the important wildlife corridor that it is.”
There was silence in the room, and even cool Rhianna Lang seemed at a loss for words. Finally she spoke. “You’re talking about a few hundred acres, right? Probably a significant portion of Jace’s ranch?”
“Yes.” Bunny nodded vigorously. “It’s the right thing to do.”
Rhianna scanned the crowd. “Jace, are you here tonight? Can you please come tell us how you feel about this?” She turned toward Bunny. “Thank you, Bunny. You may sit down now.”
Bunny huffed a little, clearly not thrilled about relinquishing the microphone, but she rejoined her group at the back of the room. Vivian craned her neck to see what would happen next.
A tall man stepped out into the aisle, tipping his cowboy hat to Bunny as she went by. It was a gesture that managed to be respectful and totally insolent at the same time. Then he casually made his way toward the podium.
Born and raised on the East Coast, Vivian had never seen anyone quite like him. Big and broad shouldered, he was dressed exactly as one would expect a cowboy to dress when he was out in town, in dark jeans and dark brown cowboy boots. He had on a neatly pressed, tan button-up shirt with Western trim and a big silver buckle on his belt. On many people his clothing might look silly. But this man had a weathered quality to him, a tall, rangy confidence that made his outfit look just right.
When he reached the microphone and pulled his hat off, Vivian noticed that his hair was dark brown. She wished, suddenly, that she could see his eyes, but even with her front row seat, she’d have to make do with a view of his clean-shaven jaw, prominent cheekbones and a nose that even from here she could tell had been broken at some point.
Vivian reached into her tote bag for her notebook. She shouldn’t be ogling cowboys, no matter how interesting they were. She should be taking notes about what each side wanted in this situation.
“Jace,” Rhianna asked. “Were you aware of this petition?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Jace glared at the group of protesters. “They were considerate enough to hand deliver it to me this past Monday.” His full mouth pressed into a thin line, as if something tasted rotten.
Vivian scribbled Monday, petition in her notebook and wondered how, exactly, that had happened. Clearly just the memory of it made Jace furious.
“And did you recently fence off the portion of your ranch known as Long Valley?”
“I repaired the previously existing fence that had been knocked down at some point.” The cowboy paused for a moment as if considering what to say next. “The former owner had that valley fenced off for a reason. It’s the best acreage on the property.”
“And you plan to use it for cattle.” Rhianna was taking notes, too.
“I do.”
“And were you aware that in the years that your property had been abandoned, Long Valley had become tule elk habitat?”
“Well, I’ve certainly spotted them around. But this land was a ranch for a long time. I assume the elk moved in pretty recently. And I don’t see why they can’t just move back out again.”
“Okay.” Rhianna shifted the papers in her hands and regarded Jace with pursed lips. “Is there anything else you’d like to say to the council tonight?”
“Just that I bought North Sky Ranch to be my place of business as well as a home for my family. So in response to Bunny’s suggestion...” He turned and cast a sarcastic look toward the back of the hall. “Not all of us have the means to donate hundreds of acres to wildlife.”
He faced the council again and his voice was firm. “I mean to turn North Sky back into the working cattle ranch it used to be. And I’m truly sorry if that disappoints some folks in this room or any of you running this town.”
“Amen,” whispered Annie, and when Vivian glanced her way, the older woman added, “Jace is something, isn’t he?”
He sure was. Handsome and furious and another quality Vivian couldn’t quite pinpoint. Sad, maybe? Resigned? She watched as Jace made his way back to his seat, slow and casual, like he was used to being in the public eye. Which he probably was, if he’d competed in rodeo.
It all felt a little surreal, being in a place with cowboys, rodeo and elk. Like Vivian had stepped into the pages of a Western novel.
“Is there a representative from the Shelter Creek Wildlife Center here tonight?” Rhianna asked. “And for those of you who aren’t aware, the wildlife center is a new organization in our town that will work to educate the public about local wildlife and also help resolve human and wildlife conflicts such as this one.”
Vivian froze. This was it. Her first real work at her brand-new job. But, unlike Jace, she wasn’t used to being in the spotlight. She’d always worked alongside Colin, and he’d always insisted on doing any public speaking that came their way.
Her heart hammered against her chest, every beat a reminder of her various inadequacies. She didn’t know the people in this room. She didn’t know enough about the local plant and animal species, ranching or Shelter Creek. She’d never even seen an elk in person and she certainly hadn’t thought of a way to fix this conflict.
“That’s you,” Annie whispered. “Go on up there!”
Lillian reached around Annie and patted Vivian’s knee. “You’ve got this, honey.”
Vivian glanced down at the tattoo she’d gotten the day after Colin dumped her. A songbird in flight and the words Courage to fly scripted on the inside of her right wrist where she could see it always. She sucked in whatever air her paralyzed lungs would allow and stood. “I’m from the wildlife center,” she said in the loudest, firmest voice she could find. Which, unfortunately, due to her current lack of oxygen, wasn’t much more than a squeak.
Her cheeks flamed and she straightened her spine. She could do this. She had to do this. Forcing her reluctant feet forward, she made it to the podium and leaned into the microphone. “How...” The word boomed out over the room, making her jump back in shock and the audience gasp.
Knees trembling, she moved farther away and tried again. “How can I help you? I’m Vivian Reed, wildlife biologist.”