“I don’t want to start your time home with trouble, but we got this in the mail today. It’s not the first one. I thought you should see it.”
I opened the envelope and pulled out a letter on fancy paper with “Stark Associates” emblazoned in gold on the letterhead.
“It’s an offer to buy the ranch,” she said.
“That can’t possibly be a fair price,” I said after scanning the letter.
“No, but if you read further, it seems to say that if we don’t sell at this price, the private prison they’re building will devalue the land and we’ll end up with less.”
I looked at her, wondering why she brought me home if she was considering this. “You could take the money to start a new life.”
She sighed as she looked out over the land and then looked down, and I got the feeling I wasn’t going to like what she was going to say.
“This is my home, Wyatt. But even if it wasn’t, I can’t sell. It’s your father’s. He will probably want to sell the property, but I don’t want to.”
“Your name isn’t on the deed?”
She shook her head. “This land has been in your father’s family for over a century. Passed down generation to generation. If it’s going to be sold, I feel like you’re the one who needs to make that decision.”
I couldn’t understand what she was saying. “I’m not on the deed.”
“The terms of land transfer are from son to son, or daughter if there isn’t a son. As long as a Jones lives on and works the land, it can’t be sold. By your being here, it can’t be sold unless you agree to it. It was set up by your six-time great grandfather when he got this land. Back then, land and ranching were considered a job that would never end. That would always be lucrative.”
I’d come home because I needed to be here. It pissed me off that some big-city asshole would be trying to intimidate my mother. She was right in that my father would likely want to sell, which I supposed was why it was important for her that I come home. Not just to help work the ranch, but to prevent my father from selling the place that she loved.
It was strange how a home that held so many hurtful moments could be considered home for her or me. But standing on the porch, I did feel peace. I did feel like I was home. And now this Stark Company threatened that.
“I’ll take care of this.” I patted her shoulder to assure her. “I’m going to go for a ride.”
She smiled. “Can you still ride?”
I laughed. “Oh, I can ride, but I don’t doubt my ass will hurt tomorrow.” I shoved the letter in my pocket with a plan to shove it up Simon Stark’s ass when I went to visit him. I headed to the barn, saddled up a quarter-horse, and headed out into the fields.
I took in the fresh air, tilting my head up to feel the sun on my face. I’d thought coming home would be easier. Not perfect. But I saw it as a chance to fix old wrongs. To finally fi
nd the happiness I thought I was on the path to having.
Sinclair.
Good Christ how I loved her. I remembered talking about Sinclair with one of my superiors who had taken me under his wing when I first joined the Army. I’d started missing her before I left. I felt like shit for how I left. He’d told me that I was young. He acknowledged that while my feelings were real and strong, that over time, they’d wane. That lasting love would come later.
He was a great friend and mentor, but he was wrong about that. While my heart didn’t feel like there was a knife protruding from it anymore, it didn’t feel whole. Not like it had that summer when I’d given in to my feelings for her.
We’d started planning a future that summer. A part of me knew it wouldn’t come to pass. She was going to college. Chances were she’d meet smarter, more sophisticated men and forget about me. But for that summer, because I loved her, and I loved the idea of a life with her, I went along with it.
But I’d been right that it was a fantasy. That reality hit me square in the face the night my father hit my mother in front of me, and I stepped in to push back. My father was always a tank of a man. At eighteen, I wasn’t quite what I would be, but I was big enough to take him. It helped that I was sober, while he was sauced up pretty good.
When I had him pinned to the ground, his lip bleeding and his eye already showing signs of a shiner, he told me he was going to call the cops. One thing about my dad, he was the world’s biggest hypocrite considering the number of shiners my mother bore through the years. He was also a man of his word. I had no doubt he’d press charges.
Deciding I wasn’t going to go to jail, and that I’d had enough, I packed a bag and headed to Sinclair’s. She’d said she loved me. She wanted a life with me. She gave me her innocence. Armed with that, I climbed up an old tree outside her bedroom and softly rapped on the window.
Her smile was as bright as the sun when she saw me. “Wyatt. What are you doing?”
“I’m leaving. You can pack your things and we can run off together.”
“Where to?” She stared at me like she thought I’d been drinking. But I was stone-cold sober.
“Anywhere you want, baby. We can live that life we planned, but we have to do it somewhere else. I can’t stay in Salvation one minute more.”