Patricia Johns - A Rancher To Remember

“Oh. Sorry. Obviously, we made up.”

“Just barely.” Olivia chuckled. “We had fun, mostly. When you weren’t bossing me around and telling me I’d get myself killed. We were good friends.”

“So, this is your chance to turn the tables, I guess,” he said, sobering. “I’m the one who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“I’m a nicer teacher,” she said with a short laugh. “You don’t have to worry that I’ll take my revenge.”

The coffee maker burbled as it dribbled fresh brew into the pot, and Bella toddled up to her father and held a plastic toy up for his inspection. Sawyer bent down, looked at the toy seriously, then said, “Very nice. I like it.”

Bella looked at the plastic block in her fingers as if seeing it again for the first time. Then she smiled up at Sawyer, her blue eyes glittering.

The girls remembered their father just fine, and they obviously recognized their daddy in this broken version of him. Olivia recognized the old Sawyer in him, too. She always had been able to get him to relax. But there was something different there, as well...something foreign around the edges. When you stripped away someone’s memories, maybe it loosened up other parts of their personality that had been held down.

Or maybe there had been sides to him that she’d never known...that he’d never opened to her. That was possible, too.

But she had been his friend, even if she’d kept her distance in the last few years.

Olivia pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket and glanced down at the screen. No missed calls. That meant that despite all the messages she’d left for her brother, telling him she was going to be in Beaut, Brian hadn’t called her. She’d come back to town for Brian...to try and mend this rift between them. If it weren’t for him, she wouldn’t have returned. Her life here was over—this town couldn’t be home for her again.

“Sawyer, I’m going to go make a call,” she said.

Sawyer looked up from where he crouched next to his daughters. “Sure.”

Olivia slipped out the side door and walked a few paces away from the house. She could hear the growl of a tractor’s engine somewhere in the distance, and the sunlight warmed her shoulders. There was no breeze right now, just sunny warmth, and she dialed her brother’s number once more.

It rang four times, then the voice mail kicked in: “Hi, it’s Brian. You know what to do.”

She hung up. She’d already left three messages.

Lord, what do I do? she prayed. He won’t talk to me, and I’m kind of intimidated here. He’s my little brother, and he can’t stand me. Do I deserve this?

Olivia had said she was leaving Beaut in order to go to school, but there was more than a simple desire for an education and a career that pulled her away. This town was the kind of place that had a long memory. Olivia had always thought of herself as pretty tough, but those rumors had been devastating. People looked at her differently. They whispered when she walked by. It didn’t matter that the rumors weren’t true—they were juicy, so they had spread like wildfire. They had affected the way Olivia saw herself, eroding her sense of self-worth. Just as soon as she and her mother had scraped up enough money for college, she’d left for Montana State University and never looked back.

The problem was, she felt guilty. She’d had good reason to leave Beaut, but she’d left Brian behind, and she’d always been a little extra protective of him. From where Brian stood, Olivia had abandoned both him and their mom. They hadn’t known she was sick yet, and when Olivia left town she’d thought she had decades left with her mother in her life. And now that she wanted to make up with her brother, he wasn’t interested.

Still, Brian didn’t know that she might have a solution to their mutual money problem...

As if on cue, her cell phone rang, and she looked down, hoping to see Brian’s number. It wasn’t—it was the Whites. She sighed and picked up the call.

“Hello?”

“Olivia.” It was Irene. “You must have arrived in Beaut by now.”

“Yes, I’m here,” she said. “I arrived this afternoon.”

“Have you spoken with Sawyer yet? I mean, I hate to hound you, but Wyatt and I are just sitting here waiting, and the wait is worse than when Wyatt was running for office!” Irene laughed at her own little joke.

“Right.” Olivia sighed. “Well, I’m going to need a bit of time. As you know, I haven’t been back to town in years, and I cut a lot of ties when I left, so...”

“Will Sawyer not talk to you?” Irene asked.

“No, it isn’t that, it’s just... I appreciate that you’re willing to help Brian and me with the hospital debt, and believe me, I don’t want to jeopardize that. But I need to be able to do this in my own way.”

“We don’t mean to be demanding, but we are offering you a rather large recompense for your time,” Irene said.

“But it is my time ,” Olivia replied, then tried to soften her tone. “I want to help you reconcile with Sawyer—you know that. But this can’t be rushed.”

“We’d just like a general timeline, so we aren’t jumping at every phone call,” Irene said.

Was that a reasonable request? Probably, but the situation here in Beaut was not what any of them had anticipated, and Olivia suddenly felt tight-lipped about the details.

Sawyer was incredibly vulnerable right now, and he’d asked her to help him remember...not to complicate his life further with his late wife’s parents. If they knew he didn’t remember them, they might seize the moment to press him when he had no ammunition to fight back. She couldn’t let that happen. When his memory returned, she could present their case, but until then, she couldn’t take advantage of his weakness for her own gain—or for the Whites’.

“I’m not playing games. I don’t know how long this will be, but I will call you the second I have news.”

Irene sighed, then there was the muffled sound of her covering the phone and the murmur of voices. Then she came back on the line. “We appreciate anything you can do on our behalf, Olivia. You’re like a daughter to us.”

A daughter who had to do them favors to get one in return...but still. They’d kept Olivia close after Mia’s passing, and in a way, it seemed to keep Mia’s memory alive for all of them.

“I’ll be in touch as soon as I can,” Olivia said. “I promise.”

After saying goodbye, she hung up the phone, and stared at it in her palm for a moment.

The Whites wanted results, and they were used to getting them. Wyatt White was a senator, and his wife had been the financial engine behind his political career. They were used to having to wait on results for things like elections, but not being forced to wait by people like Olivia.

She was putting off the very people who could lift the burden for her and Brian, but her conscience wouldn’t allow her to do any less.

Father, guide me , she prayed. She needed God’s blessing more than she needed the Whites’ money.

* * *

Coffee had been something familiar—making it, waiting for it, listening to the sound of the burbling coffee maker... And Sawyer had so little that was familiar. Olivia said he used to like his coffee sweet and creamy, so he was giving it a try. He took a sip, and made a face. Too sweet, a bit filmy on his tongue.

The screen door clattered shut behind Olivia as she came back into the kitchen.

“Don’t like it?” she asked. “Which one is that?”

“This is cream and sugar,” he replied, and turned to dump the mugful of coffee down the drain. He poured a fresh mug and took a sip of the black coffee. It tasted fresh, bitter, smooth. “Mmm. Yeah. This is good.”