Chapter 13
13
AURORA
“You know, this entire neighbourhood garage sale thing is very outdated,” I grumble, ducking my head into the hole in the attic in preparation to shove myself up.
It smells like dust and mothballs in here. This house is far too old for any of us to be coming up here so often. The floor is going to collapse one of these times.
“You know how Susan is. She’s ever the poster woman for a perfect community. You should have heard her at church last Sunday,” Mom says from the ground beneath me.
The top two rungs of the pull-down ladder aren’t all that sturdy anymore. I try to keep as still as possible while eyeing the attic and the white cloths draped over the several furniture pieces stashed up here. Half expecting the sheet to be tugged from the mirror in the corner of the room and a half-rotted face to appear in front of me, I keep my body tense and at the ready.
“Your first problem is continuing to go to that church in the first place, Mom. Susan is the nicest person there, and that says a lot.”
“I’ve been going there since I was a little girl. No number of gossiping hags are going to chase me away,” she replies stubbornly. I don’t have to look down to know she has her hands planted on her hips and a scowl on her face .
“Alright,” I huff out before slithering my arms up through the hole in the ceiling and pulling myself into the attic.
It’s a tight fit that’s only gotten tighter as the years have gone on, and I’ve grown from a little girl into a woman with boobs as big as two cantaloupes.
“Do you see the chair? I’m thinking of donating it this year!”
“No, I don’t see the chair. I’m not even fully up yet.”
“Okay, watch the attitude!”
“How about you come up here, then?”
I tune out her reply when it comes. I was in a terrible mood when I arrived this morning, and I’m in an even worse one now with my hips rubbed raw from the attic entrance and my fear of spiders flaring to life at the sight of cobwebs all around me.
Pushing to my feet, I brush my hands off on my thighs. There’s so much shit up here that it feels like an impossible feat to find the armchair she’s talking about. Years—no, decades—of family history are tucked away up here. A lifetime of insight that I couldn’t care less about. As far as I’m concerned, my “family” doesn’t extend past my mother.
“You should just sell everything up here this year. There isn’t anything worth keeping,” I shout.
Mom laughs tightly. “You say that because you don’t have anything up there that means much to you.”
“And you do?”
The stacks of boxes along the one wall are lined with dust that’s collected since this time last year. Beside them stands the creepy mirror and a dresser with missing knobs. There’s the typical spooky attic window on the opposite wall that faces out to the busy cul-de-sac and an old easel on its left that’s never seen the light of day. It belonged to my great-great-aunt Juniper, or so I’ve been told. Personally, I think my mom just bought it at one of these stupid garage sales and shoved it up here when she realized she hated painting.
“You don’t have to believe me, Aurora. It makes no difference,” she calls back .
I roll my eyes and make my way toward the stack of boxes. My guess is this chair has been lost behind the mountain of them.
With a steep exhale, I begin moving the boxes. Dust fills the air in puffs and coats my skin and clothes as I lift and then drop each one. Some are labelled, and some aren’t. There’s duct tape across the tops of a few, while the others have been folded to stay shut. It’s the latter ones that start to piss me off.
Cardboard flaps start popping open when I drop the boxes on the ground. More dust fills the air and my lungs as I cough and turn my head in the opposite direction. My eyes water as I blink and kick the box closest to me.
“This place is a death trap!” I shout while using the hem of my shirt to wipe at my eyes.
“What are you doing? There’s glass in some of those boxes!”
“There isn’t anymore!”
“Aurora Jean!”
I ignore her again. Not because I don’t want to reply but because I can’t. Something slimy slithers through my veins as I peer down at the contents of the open box in front of me.
Words like Cherry Peak , Return To Sender , and Unable To Forward bounce in my vision. I drop to a crouch and shove my hand inside the box, feeling the stacks of thick letters and the silk texture of photographs.
With my hand full, I yank it free and drop to sit on my ass on the filthy floor. Intrigue has me laser focused on doing nothing more than examining what I’ve found. The first letter in the stack I grabbed is addressed to a name that has me stiffening with uncertainty.
Lee Rose
125 1st Cherry Street
Cherry Peak, Alberta
Canada
The bold black letters stamped over the address read Return To Sender. My brows knit together as I toss the envelope to the side and grab another. The address is the same. Everything about it is.
I grab another, and another, and another, before digging my fingernail into the next and tearing it open without a care of being tossed into jail for committing mail fraud. The messy scrawl written not only on the centre of the envelope but in the top left corner where the return address sits confirms that it was my mother who sent these letters.
My pulse pounds in my ears, the sound of it so horrendously loud that for a moment, I worry that they’ll start to bleed.
With the envelope torn open at the top, I tug the letter free from inside before unfolding it. When I read the first sentence, I stop hearing my pulse. And when I get to the bottom of the page . . . I stop feeling my lungs inflate too.
Scrolling down the computer screen, I nurse my coffee and tap my foot anxiously. The clock on the top right of the screen tells me it’s only been one minute since the last time I looked over my shoulder at the door to the office that I left open. I can’t help but risk another peek.
There’s still nobody there, and I feel like an idiot immediately for hoping otherwise. It doesn’t matter , I remind myself. We didn’t actually agree on a date. It was just a joke. A way for us to fill the silence. I roll my shoulders and collect myself with a reassuring inhale.
Opening back up the budget file for last quarter, I ignore the instant blast of alarm at the number spent and remind myself that things here work differently than I’m used to, even in the corporate world. The money going in is still four or five times the sum going out, and that’s . . . well, that’s incredible. Steele Ranch is a marvel in and of itself. Learning the inner workings of an organization like this is turning out to come with quite a learning curve, but I’m more than ready for the challenge.
It keeps me busy too. I enjoy the focus .
“I should have known that you were hiding away in here again.”
Eliza’s words are calm enough not to scare me. I spin out from the desk and toward the doorway. She’s frowning at me, but I pay it no mind.
“I told you that I won’t be going out there to spend my lunch break with all those loud men,” I say.
She wipes her palms over the white lace of her apron that hugs her stomach. “I’ve warned them to be quiet when you’re out there. They’ll be on their best behaviour.”
I cock my head, levelling her with a disbelieving stare. “Is that so?”
“Okay, fine. Maybe they’ll still be a bit loud. But I don’t want you in here by yourself all day. You need to eat before they leave you with the scraps.”
“I assure you that I haven’t been going hungry, Eliza.”
She hums, a no-good smile flashing back at me. “Oh? And who has been keeping you fed, my sweet?”
“You’re a shit disturber, Eliza Steele.”
“And you’re an expert question avoider, but I don’t pick on you about that, hmm?”
I roll my eyes. “You do pick on me about it.”
“It must be my old age, then. Silly me. I forget things so often,” she says with a dramatic sigh.
“Maybe that’s why I heard Brody asking Wade about which old folks’ home he was going to stick you in before he left.”
Her gasp is loud enough I wouldn’t doubt the cattle in the furthest pasture could hear it. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing at her disturbed expression and remind myself that she so deserves this teeny tiny fib.
“You’re lyin’,” she declares, a hand to her mouth.
“Do I look like a liar?”
Squinting her eyes, she leans forward an inch as if inspecting me before saying, “Yes.”
“Eliza!” I cry, mouth parted wide .
The lines beside her mouth become more prominent when she grins wide and laughs. “You started it, my dear. As if my boys would ever consider sending me to a home. If anyone is going to go to a home, it’ll be Wade for how often he gives me sass for my farmers’ market hauls.”
“Alright, well, that sounds fair, at least. Does he know that he’s tempting his fate when he does that?”
“Of course he does. Stubborn man thinks he can spend damn near a half million at an auction, but when I come home with three bags of jam, that’s a problem?” She clucks her tongue as if she’s annoyed, but the light in her eyes is bright, betraying her.
“What do you need three bags of jam for?”
She waves me off with a dainty hand in the air. “Oh no. Not you too. Keep teasing me and I won’t tell you where your missing lunch date is.”
My cheeks heat instantly. “What?”
“I wasn’t born yesterday, my girl.”
I have my smartass reply locked and loaded on my tongue, but she cuts me off with a laugh and a finger pointed in my direction. “Don’t even think about it.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“Well, in that case. I’ll tell you that Johnny won’t be back here for a couple of hours still. He’s out working with a herd. Probably will be for a while if I know him as well as I think I do.”
I wish I didn’t feel the instant disappointment at her words. It’s not like I needed the company today. I didn’t.
Fuck, I wanted it, though.
“Is he always this busy?” I ask before giving myself a mental kick in the ass for bothering. It shouldn’t matter . The busier, the better, right?
“He’s one of the hardest workers on the ranch. Has been from the moment he begged Wade to hire him. Sometimes people are born for this life.”
“And Johnny’s one of them? ”
“Damn right he is. Nobody loved it here as much as he does. Well, no one other than my husband, that is.”
I nod, tucking my hair behind my ear when the breeze from the open window sends it blowing into my face. “Where is he right now?”
“Mm, I think he’s in the north pasture. A group of them are working on desensitizing the calves from the spring.”
“Right.”
“I could take you up there if you want,” she offers, her expression strained as she avoids grinning.
“I have work to do here still,” I say.
“Leave it for now. What better way to learn more about the ranch than to see it with your own eyes? To feel the grass beneath your feet and smell the fresh air?”
“Are you sure it’s fresh air I’ll be smelling?”
Her smile breaks through. “Would you still go if I told you otherwise?”
It’s alarming how easily my reply comes. “Maybe.”
“Come on, then, Rory. Let’s give you a proper introduction to Steele Ranch.”