Sully
“Yes, she’s with me.”
I get behind the wheel and glance over at Sloane, who is pretending to look out the side window. I’m sure she can guess who I have on the phone.
“Oh, thank God.”
My sister blows out a relieved breath and I hear her relay the information to someone there. I assume her boyfriend.
“Yeah. Showed up this morning. She’s fine.”
“Jesus, Sully. I swear, that kid. Now that I know she’s not lying dead in a ditch somewhere, I’m tempted to strangle her myself.”
I bite off a grin and notice from the corner of my eye the subject of our conversation is paying closer attention than she’d like me to think.
“How about you talk to her instead? Here, let me put you on hands-free.”
Ignoring Sloane’s vehement head shake, I turn the key in the ignition and plop my phone in the holder.
“Isobel?”
“Still here.”
Her voice sounds a little echoey over the truck’s sound system.
“Sloane’s right beside me.”
I quickly put the truck in gear and pull away from the curb, afraid my niece might otherwise make a run for it. The tow truck hauling my niece’s piece of junk to Pippa’s shop took off right when my sister called.
“I was worried sick about you, young lady!” Isobel scolds her daughter. “We both were. You should’ve let us know.”
I’m glad my sister can’t hear Sloane’s derisive snort. I throw her a look of warning at which she rolls her eyes. Fuck, if this is what having a daughter is like, I’ve got something to look forward to.
Christ help me.
“I’m twenty-one. I’m not a kid,” is her response, her belligerent tone at odds with her claim.
“Then quit acting like one!” my sister is quick to point out. “I had to find out from your roommate you packed up all your shit in your car and took off. Not a word of warning to me. And then you clearly ignored the dozens of times I tried to call or text you. Did you know Steve spent the past twenty-four hours calling every hospital and police department from Provo to Ogden and in surrounding counties?”
By now my sister is so mad she’s crying, which is unlike her. In the background I hear a deep voice in a soothing tone. Steve, I presume.
Beside me Sloane is staring out the windshield, her face a stoic mask except for the slight twitch of a muscle by the corner of her mouth.
“Come home.” Isobel sounds a little more composed now.
“Pffft, what home?”
“Right here, Sloane. The apartment over the garage is all yours for as long as you want, we told you that.”
“I don’t want to move into Steve’s house,” she says, making it sound like something distasteful. “I want to live with Uncle Sully.”
Whoa. A visit I can handle, but living here? Permanently?
It’s becoming clear why she didn’t call ahead, I would’ve done my damnedest to disavow her from this hairbrained idea.
“Have you asked your uncle about that?”
I sense her looking at me and glance over. Big mistake. She knows I have trouble resisting those big, innocently round blue eyes she turns on me.
Goddammit. I’ve successfully avoided sharing my space with women longer than a few hours at a time for many years. Yet here I am, facing a houseful of them. And only one by invitation. Well, technically one and a half.
“Sully?” Isobel addresses me. “Has she?”
My mind is scrambling. As we speak, Pippa is packing her shit to move in with me, but having my slightly hostile niece move in as well was not part of that plan. But maybe…
“Not in so many words.” Or at all really, but it won’t do any good to fan the flames. “But how about this? Is there any chance for you to come for a visit? We can sit down, like the adults we are,” I add for the sake of my niece, “and talk through the options.”
“What if I don’t want to?” Sloane interjects stubbornly.
“If you want to spend any time here, you’re going to have to.”
“I’ll just go somewhere else.”
I remind myself of what Pippa mentioned earlier this morning when I dropped her off, that Sloane’s afraid of losing her family.
“Can’t stop you if that’s what you want, kid. But make sure you understand that’ll be your choice, not your mother’s or mine. But if you’re the adult you say you are, an honest discussion about your plans and options with family who love you shouldn’t scare you.”
Her face is turned away but her body language betrays a struggle and her almost whispered response confirms it.
“Fine.”
By the time we pull up outside my cabin, we have a temporary plan in place until my sister can get here next weekend. I’ll have to check with Jonas, but I’m sure he won’t mind if I install Sloane in the guest cabin beside mine. There is still Fletch’s old cabin, should anyone else need a place to crash. This way I hope my unexpected family invasion won’t send Pippa running.
“Leave your stuff in my truck for now. You and I need to go have a word with Jonas first.”
I’m not sure my niece realizes what being a grown-up means, and I think it’s time she learned that as an adult you have to work for what you want. There are no free tickets.
She doesn’t say anything but I can hear her footsteps behind me as I walk toward the corral, where I saw Jonas watch Dan working one of our young colts on a lunge line. The ranch hand has taken over a lot of the training. He’s come a long way since Alex took him under her wing.
Jonas turns, leaning his shoulder against the fence as we approach.
“Heard you had a visitor,” he comments, with a hat tip to my niece. “Good to see you, Sloane. How’s school?”
“You too,” she says, proving she hasn’t forgotten her manners. “And I’m done. I handed in my final paper last Thursday.”
“Congrats. So, what’s next for you?”
Rather a loaded question, given the circumstances, but Jonas doesn’t know that. Yet.
Sloane darts a glance my way, looking for a rescue.
“Actually,” I step in. “That’s exactly what we came here to talk to you about.”
He turns his gaze on me, an eyebrow raised. “Oh?”
I shoot him a pointed look I’m trusting he’ll pick up on.
“Yeah. Sloane was hoping to move here. I figure before she makes any decisions, she should have a trial run, but Pippa will be moved in tonight…” That earns me an approving grin from Jonas. “So I was thinking maybe Sloane could take the guest cabin next door, if you’re okay with that, but you may want to fill her in on what would be expected from her, living at the ranch.”
I’m trying hard not to look at my niece to catch her reaction, but the strangled sound beside me tells me enough.
“Sure,” Jonas picks up, a dead-serious expression on his face. “It’s pretty straightforward, everybody pulls their weight around here.”
“What does that mean?”
I have trouble keeping a straight face at the hint of panic in her voice.
“I’m talking daily ranch chores; keeping the grounds, mucking the stables.”
Pippa
I’m still grinning when I hang up the phone.
That was Sully, calling to let me know he had Sloane’s old clunker towed to the Pit Stop. He also filled me in on what was happening with his niece. Sounds like she’ll be around at least for the foreseeable future, depending on how long she lasts. From what he shared, he and Jonas are going to make her work for it, which is what has me grinning.
It actually makes sense to have her take some responsibility. I can see where the adults in her life have sheltered her where they could, after what she went through as a teenager. However, ultimately, she has to find a way forward from that trauma on her own. Giving her the choice to stay—to have the safety of family next door, a roof over her head, and food in her belly—but making her work for it is a good taste of reality for her.
You can’t bank on trauma of the past to sustain you in the future. I’m still learning that lesson myself.
The dogs come bounding toward me as I walk to the barn to check in with Lucy. She came out here after lunch to feed Hope’s foal. I’m gonna miss these dogs. I know they have Max at the ranch, but he’s Jonas’s shadow. I wouldn’t mind a dog of my own.
Another part of the dream I had long given up on.
A dog, a baby, a business I can call my own, and a man who is proving himself to be kind and supportive. A man I have feelings for and not only because he’s the father of my baby.
The same man who is currently on his way over here to pick up the bulk of my stuff, so I don’t have to haul it into town when I go to pick up groceries. Another check mark on a growing list of his qualities is his insightfulness. I didn’t have to ask for his help, he offered, which makes a big difference.
“How is Floyd?”
Lucy looks up. She’s sitting on a hay bale with the foal wedged between her legs. “Getting better at this, thank God. He’s starting to fill out a little, isn’t he?”
I run a hand over the animal’s soft hide, noticing how his spine and ribs aren’t quite as pronounced as they were.
“Handsome boy,” I observe.
“He sure is.”
“I know you’ve got a client coming, so I just wanted to let you know Sully is on his way. We’re gonna load up his truck and as soon as he’s gone, I’ll be heading out too. I have to grab some groceries, is there anything you need? I could drop it off when I pass on my way back.”
“I’m good. It’s gonna be quiet here again.”
“I’m sorry, I kinda feel like I’m abandoning you.”
Lucy snorts and grins up at me. “I wasn’t complaining.”
I’m already on my way back to the house when I realize what she said and I burst out laughing. Lucy is honest to a fault. I love that about her.
When Sully gets here, he won’t let me lift a finger, hauling my things to the back of his truck. It’s packed solid when he drives off fifteen minutes later. There’s nothing left for me to take in my pickup. The only thing I’m leaving here for now is my rig. We can get it another day.
I give the dogs a bit of love and wave at Lucy, who is working with her client on Ladybug. Lucy doesn’t wave but she gives me a barely-there salute when she catches sight of me. She’s not an easy person to get to know, but over the past months I’ve come to consider her a friend. Sure, I’ll miss her, but it’s not like I’m moving that far. I’ll be right down the road and will drive by here every day going to the garage.
The Pit Stop is on my right side on the way into town. I’d already planned to stop and park Sloane’s car inside overnight. I assume the tow truck driver dropped her keys through the slot in the shop door. It’s easier to pull off and do that now than it would doing it heading home.
I immediately notice the damage and slam on the brakes.
My body is almost vibrating with anger as I pull out my phone and dial the Libby Police Department. But it’s not the Libby PD that shows up only minutes later. It’s Sheriff Ewing. Last week I would’ve been relieved to see a familiar face, but after what happened on Friday anyone else would’ve been preferable.
“What happened?” he asks when he walks up to my open driver’s side window.
I pulled in farther but forced myself to stay in the truck, as much as I wanted to go out and check.
“Other than someone broke my brand-new, beautiful sign and smashed in my windows? I don’t know. I haven’t looked.”
“Okay, sit tight here.”
He walks toward the building, brushing the toe of his boot through the debris on the ground. Then he steps over and sticks his head through the hole in the large store window.
While I watch him try the bay doors and head around the side of the building, I call Fletch. When I talked to him earlier, I mentioned I’d be by after lunch, but now I don’t know when I can get there.
“Where are ya?”
“At the shop. I’ve run into a snag and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get out of here.”
I should’ve known my brother-in-law’s antennae would pick up trouble.
“What kind of a snag? I thought you weren’t opening ‘til tomorrow?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” I tell him before distracting him. “How’s my nephew?”
“Good, eating like a champ. Nella is waiting for the doctor to stop in so she can convince him to spring her. She’s itching to get out of here.”
“I bet she is.” I catch sight of the sheriff coming around the other side of the building. “I gotta go, but do me a favor, shoot me a text to let me know if you guys are heading home? And give my sister and my nephew a kiss.”
I hang up before he has a chance to answer, right as Ewing steps up to the window.
“Doesn’t look like anyone went inside.” He cocks a thumb at the rusty Honda Accord parked out front. “Yours?”
“No, a customer’s. Tow truck towed it here just this morning.”
“This morning?”
He pushes away from my door and saunters over to Sloane’s car, picking something off the hood. I slip out from behind the wheel and walk up to him.
“What is that?”
He holds out a shard of plexiglass, which I recognize as part of my sign.
“What time was the car dropped off?”
The words aren’t out of his mouth when the crunch of tires has me turn around to see Sully’s truck pulling in.
“You didn’t call me,” is the first thing from his mouth when he comes rushing up.
“No, I called the police like I’m supposed to, except the sheriff showed up. Who called you?”
Sully points at Ewing.
“He did.”
“I heard the call come in over the radio, was in the neighborhood, so I volunteered to come have a look. I called Sully on my way over,” the sheriff explains. “Now, can we get back to my question? What time was that car dropped off?” he repeats.
I don’t know whether to be pissed with Ewing or grateful he called Sully. It was either infuriatingly sexist, or unexpectedly considerate…and sexist. Either way, I don’t think I’m in the right frame of mind to point out I feel it was inappropriate either way. I’m already pretty steamed and I might say something I regret. I don’t want to get on the sheriff’s bad side.
“I’m not sure. Sully?”
“Probably around ten. I had Joe at Bighorn Towing drop it off here. He might be able to narrow down the time.”
“I’ve got his number. I’ll give him a quick call, check if he saw anything.”
Then Ewing turns to me, his expression stern. Sully immediately takes a step closer and wraps his arm around my waist.
“In the meantime, I’d like you to think long and hard about who might have it in for you.”