Page 6 of The Little Things
“Stayin’ in the city tonight so she can be at the airport on time.”
My head fell back against the rough bark of the tree I always sat against whenever I came out here. “Ah, fuck.”
When my mom came to me a couple days ago, asking for a favor, I hadn’t blinked before telling her yes. It was something I instantly regretted as soon as she told me what the favor was.
An old friend of hers would be shipping her trouble-maker daughter here from California in the hopes that roughing it out here with us might scare her straight or some shit. I didn’t have the time or inclination to deal with some spoiled brat traipsing around my ranch, but despite my mother asking first, I really hadn’t had much choice in the matter.
“Yep.” Pop clapped me on my shoulder, then used his grip on me to shove himself back to his feet with a long groan and a ton of crackling, like his knees were full of marbles. “Figured I’d take your mind off one shitty situation by replacin’ it with another.” He chuckled and shot me a teasing wink over his shoulder, knowing I wasn’t on board with what was happening. “You’ll be fine, son. Just remember, this place is magic when it comes to giving second chances.”
Damn it. With a parting line like that, how could I argue?
Chapter Four
Rae
My stomach sank as the cityscape gave way to long empty country roads surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. For a while it seemed like we were the only car on the road, and with the cell signal dropping in and out, my dread slowly built. It felt like I had been tossed into a horror movie where the victim was driving along in the middle of nowhere, on some desolate backroad where a killer was waiting for a chance to disable the truck she was in so he could drag her back to his lair and use her skin to fashion some kind of coat.
I suddenly regretted making it a habit to exfoliate and moisturize regularly. I was a skin-wearing serial killer’s wet dream, damn it!
“The signal will pick back up as soon as we get into town. It’s not that much farther.”
I looked over at the woman who had picked me up from the airport—an old friend of my mother’s named Rory—and offered her a smile I was sure looked grim as hell. She must have sensed my rising panic and was trying her best to ease my fears. I didn’t bother telling her it wouldn’t work.
She’d been really nice so far, talking about her family, the ranch, and the town I was going to call home for the foreseeable future, but every word out of her mouth was like nails being driven into my skull, a reminder of how far I’d fallen. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to work on a ranch. I kept praying this was a nightmare and I had fallen asleep while watching an episode of Schitt’s Creek that had somehow carried over into my dreams, so I’d wake up any minute now and find myself curled up in bed in my apartment. I actually had bruises on my arm from pinching myself, hoping none of this was real.
When we hit the town limits of Hope Valley, she started pointing out different things she thought I might have interest in: a salon, the local diner, the bar her family owned. I had to admit, it wasn’t quite as bad as I’d been expecting. It was... quaint. The view was impressive, what with the mountains and trees and stuff, and it was nice not seeing a layer of smog painting the horizon in a dingy gray. But I was a city girl. I wasn’t exactly big on nature. The small shops lining the streets were a far cry from Rodeo Drive, and there wasn’t a Sephora or Starbucks in sight. I appreciated what Rory was trying to do, but I seriously doubted a place called Muffin Top was capable of making a half-decent cup of coffee.
I blinked, and just like that, we were through the small downtown area and heading toward the foothills. She made a turn a few minutes later, the faded black asphalt road giving way to gravel as we left civilization behind in the rearview mirror.
The road we were on could barely be called that. It was more of a rocky, bumpy path than an actual road, and the farther we traveled, the tighter the pressure in my chest grew until I worried the only way to release it was screaming bloody murder at the top of my lungs.
“This is it,” Rory said as we drove through a wooden arch with the words Safe Haven Ranch carved into the sign hanging from the top. It was a catchy name, I’d give her that at least.
On my right, cows grazed in a field of emerald green grass, separated from the road by a barbwire fence. “This is all yours?” I asked as I leaned closer to the window, lifting my hand and placing my palm against the glass. As much as I hated to admit it, it was beautiful out here. Flat pastures gave way to forest that rose up into foothills and mountains beyond. It wasn’t anything like the city I’d called home the past few years. When I looked out my window in L.A., all I saw were more buildings, some new, some rundown. The streets below were clogged with cars, and the brownish-gray pollution haze was constant.
There was none of that out here. The sky was a clear baby blue that looked like it went on endlessly, dotted with fat white cotton-candy clouds. The truck’s tires crunching on the gravel was the only sound not from nature. I was sure if I rolled down my window, the air would be fresh and crisp, scented with pine instead of exhaust and the occasional whiff of urine.
“It’s my family’s,” Rory answered. “This ranch has been in my family for generations. My son runs it now. My daughter manages the Tap Room in town. I’m sure you’ll meet her soon enough. She’s actually excited to have another woman her age on the ranch.”
A large, rustic ranch house came into view, the sun catching off the black metal roof and drawing my attention. It was a charming house whose wooden exterior and stone accents made it fit perfectly with its surroundings. Thick wooden beams and stone pillars supported the wide porch that looked like it wrapped around the entirety of the first level, and brown wooden siding made up the rest.
“Is that your house?”
She smiled and shook her head. “No. My husband and I have a house about five miles from here. Still on the ranch, just a different section. But I did grow up there. That was my parents’ place until they had something smaller built a few years back. We’ve been trying to convince Zach to move in since he’s running things now, but he can be an obstinate pain in the ass when he sets his mind to it. Says it’s too much house for just him.” I had so many questions, the biggest being why someone wouldn’t want to live in a house that looked so warm and inviting, but Rory wasn’t finished pointing out different landmarks.
She pointed through the windshield. “That’s the main barn there,” she indicated, drawing my attention to the massive barn about two hundred yards back from the ranch house before moving her arm and tapping the glass on her driver’s side window. “And if you turn left here and follow it to the end, you’ll end up at Second Hope Lodge. My folks also live down that road.”
I turned to face her. “A lodge?” I asked curiously. “My mom didn’t say anything about a lodge.” If this place was some kind of resort, that meant it had to have amenities, right? Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a disaster after all.
“Yeah, we opened the lodge about four years ago.” She gave me a sideways look, like she knew what was running through my head. “It’s a lovely building, but I don’t think it’s going to be what you’re expecting. You won’t find any massages or facials here.”
I faced forward in my seat, my hopes dashed. So much for booking spa treatments.
“You’ll help around the ranch when Zach needs an extra pair of hands, but you’ll also work at the lodge. My mom is in charge of everything, and we have a staff to handle all the rest. You’ll float between the different departments like housekeeping and the waitstaff. Everyone is on rotation to cook dinner for the ranch hands and lodge staff every night, so you’ll be added to that as well.”
My heart shot up into my throat. The extent of my time in a kitchen had started and ended with that fire I’d been trying to put out the night I’d been arrested. I didn’t know the first thing about cooking, but I kept that bit of information to myself. I’d already started off on the wrong foot before I even got here, no sense in tarnishing my poor reputation even further. This might not have been what I wanted, but I was still determined to do my best with what I was handed. My heart still ached at the disappointment I had seen on my parents’ faces. I wanted so badly to prove to them I wasn’t the screwup I’d led them to believe I was. I would suck it up and put on my bravest face, using my time here to show them I could do better. I was sure I could figure out what to do when it came time to cook. I’d watched the chef at home enough times that I had to have picked up a few skills. It couldn’t be that hard, right?
“So I’ll be staying there?” I asked, wondering why we were driving away from the lodge instead of toward it.