Claire McEwen - Return To Marker Ranch

“I’m sorry, Lori. I promise I’ll look the numbers over this week and get back to you.” Wade stood up a little straighter, as if letting them know the conversation was over.

There had to be a way to make him see reason. “Wade, if this is about the other day...”

“Hang on, Lori.” Jim set a warning hand on her arm. “We appreciate it, Wade. We really do. We’ll look forward to hearing from you.” Jim reached out and shook Wade’s hand and then took Lori firmly by the elbow, steering her to the truck.

Fury seethed inside. She hated this. Hated that Wade had only been on Marker Ranch for a few weeks and he was already causing her trouble. Once again he showed up in her life and destroyed it in one cool, detached move. She turned, ignoring Jim’s murmured warning.

“I take back that apology.”

“I figured you might.” Wade’s jaw was set and stubborn. “Just say your piece, Lori. Then we can both get on with our day.”

She’d heard the term seeing red before. Now she knew what it meant. Anger colored everything. Her, Wade and his damn ranch were all on fire. “What you’re doing is wrong. Wrong! You took our water!”

“I didn’t...”

She didn’t want to hear his excuses. About anything. “There’s a right way to ranch and a wrong way to ranch. And you don’t seem to know the difference. You should listen to people who do know right from wrong. Like Jim here!”

Jim put up a hand in protest, as if telling her to leave him out of her tirade. She was beyond caring.

“You know what, Wade? You can pretend you’re different from your family. That you are back here trying to turn this place into a legal business. But right now you’re acting like just one more Hoffman thief. Just like your brothers! Just like your dad!”

Wade froze as if she’d struck him. If she’d had any kind of large, heavy object, she might have. She was that furious.

Jim’s grip tightened on her elbow, and he tugged.

“Let go of me,” she spat out, still glaring at Wade.

“Lori, that is enough!” Jim barked and all but dragged her the rest of the way to the truck.

As soon as they were inside and she had the engine roaring, he turned to her. “You want to tell me what was going on back there?”

“He’s wrong.” She jerked the wheel, trying to get them turned around and away from Wade as fast as possible.

“Yeah, and he probably would have figured that out if you’d given him the time he was asking for. Instead you just drove him into a corner. I’m pretty sure you can say goodbye to that water.”

“Well, he was already making it pretty clear he wouldn’t share it.”

“He was asking for time to think! Don’t you remember how that kid struggled in school? He probably just needs some time to work out the math and make sure it’s all going to be okay. It was a reasonable request.”

Every word Jim said was true. But there was more to it than he knew. And there was no way she could tell him. “I’m sorry I wasted your time today, Jim,” she said stiffly. “I’ll order some water to tide us over until we get this figured out.”

“That’s an expensive choice.”

His words stung with their truth. “Well, right now it’s my only choice, so I’ll just have to make it work.”

“You say you want to lead this ranch. But your dad wouldn’t have...”

She cut him off before he could go further down that road. “My dad isn’t here anymore. I think we both wish he was sometimes. I’ll figure this out, Jim. I promise. And I’m sorry I messed up today.”

He didn’t answer, and they drove the rest of the way back to the ranch in a clouded silence. Lori just hoped Jim didn’t mention any of this to the rest of the staff. The last thing she wanted was for her already skeptical ranch hands to know that she’d totally lost it and called their neighbor a thief. It wouldn’t help earn their respect. She knew that for certain, because right now she was having trouble respecting herself.

CHAPTER SIX

WADE HANDED HIS sister the sheet of numbers he’d worked out. Units of water required. Current output from the well. Just like it said in his ranching books. “Thanks for coming by to take a look at this.”

But Nora just set his spreadsheet facedown on the dining room table between them. “You don’t get it. It’s not about the numbers.”

He stared at her in shock. “How can you say that? You’re a scientist. You’re all about the numbers!”

“Mostly, yes.” Nora nodded. “But in this case they don’t matter. You just need to do what’s right. You can’t quantify that.”

He’d asked his sister over to look at the facts, not dish out morality. “So you’re saying I should just give her half of my well water?”

“Yes.” She gave him the calm smile he’d relied on for so much of his life. “I think it’s that simple.”

Nerves twisted in his stomach. “But I can’t afford to. It says it right there on that paper.” Wade picked it up again. He’d done his homework last night—almost all night. “Look, I can’t afford to make a big mistake. We don’t have much capital left.”

“Then find a way to make it work despite the numbers. This isn’t just about the water. It’s about being a good neighbor. It’s about being a part of the community.”

“Those things won’t mean much if I fail and lose the ranch.”

“So don’t fail.”

“How?” He stood up, pacing the floor by the table. “How do I not fail if I make decisions based on being nice? This is water we’re talking about. A key ingredient for a ranch.”

Nora gave him a long look. She’d given him the same look many times when he was a teenager and she wasn’t much older than that, and she was trying to raise him right. “Ranches here are failing left and right. Do you really want Lori to lose hers? After how hard she and her family have worked to keep it going all these years? Even after their mom died?”

He remembered how devastated Lori had been. How she’d drifted, sad and empty, through her sophomore year of high school. How she’d grown up after that, become an adult way before the rest of them had, trying to take care of her father and her sister. He’d watched her back then, wishing he knew how to offer comfort. “Of course I don’t want them to lose their ranch. But it’s a business, right? Everything I’ve read about ranching says it’s a business. And we need that water to make our business a success.”

“Any good book on business should also mention that out of hardship can come innovation. You need to let go of some of that water and then innovate. Figure out a way to get by with less.”

“But...”

Nora cut him off. “Your books won’t help with this issue because they’re not written for people experiencing the worst drought in California’s long history of droughts! But you and Lori are smart. And you’ve got me—how many people can say they have an expert on range management in the family? I’ll go though her pastures as well as ours if you want, and see if I can help.”

“I guess.” Wade set the paper aside, trying to put aside his anxiety with it. He was overly cautious. He knew that. Partly because he’d come back here to prove that he could make this a success.

But also because growing up, ranching was his dream. He’d watched the other families in the area with their cattle and horses and their nice clothes and pickups. He’d seen their barbecues and barn raisings and the way they high-fived and slapped backs at local events. And he’d wanted that life. A normal, hardworking life. He’d wanted it badly, and now he had a small chance at making it happen.

He shook his head, trying to loosen the anxious buzzing there. The voice whispering that no matter what he did about the water, he’d find a way to mess this up because failure was in his DNA. He tried to shush it, to see it for what it really was—the aftereffects of months in combat. The whispers of doubt over the smallest decisions. The intense irritation when things didn’t go his way. It was making him rigid. It had him digging his heels in with Lori and Jim the other day. Had him grimly clinging on to what he felt might be the quickest path to security and survival—no matter what the consequences to others.