Chapter 45 Magnolia
“That’s my girl,” I whisper to Wanda as I scratch my fingers under her mouth and she laps hungrily at the bottle. She shouldn’t have them anymore, but she’s been so sick that I can’t help myself and baby her a little longer. “Eat it all.”
I’ve been in here all night despite Bode telling me to go back up to the house.
When I wandered out to check on Buck, Dot brought in a blanket, and that along with the warmth from Wanda was enough to keep me from freezing to death.
Selfishly, it would have been a welcome end to the sickness that won’t seem to quit.
It settles a little with the fresh air, but every move I make causes dizziness that I can’t shake.
Part of my brain hints at it being something other than the flu, but the grief seeps in, and the overwhelming sadness takes over to rationalize the crazy faster than I can.
That and the worry are enough to keep my mind busy.
In the darkness, I hear the chaos and smell the smoke rising in the air.
It’s the only hint I have that things have started.
I don’t know if it’s going well or if they’ll all come back.
A part of me is glad they’re so passionate about protecting this place, protecting this family.
It gives me a sense of belonging when I’m still wandering around feeling out of place.
“Do you need anything?” Logan’s voice is a welcome surprise, and I look up to meet her gaze with a tiny head shake. She must sense my weariness because a breath leaves her. “Crew will bring him home.” There’s a soft but confident tone in her voice.
“You’ve been here before?” I ask her and she nods.
“A couple of months ago, Ash’s biological father tried to take him from me.” She leans against the stall with her arms crossed and her expression guarded but reminiscent. “The three of them went into the dark and came back with him, no questions asked.”
“That must have been scary.” I chew on the inside of my cheek.
“I paced up and down the hill to the house for hours until Dot made me sit down.” She smiles. “It was terrifying. Trusting them to do it, especially when I didn’t have much faith in this ranch.”
“Did Crew ever tell you what happened?” I ask.
“He told me what I asked, and I didn’t ask much, all that mattered was that they all came back here,” Logan explains. “And if they’ll do that for a stray like me?” She stands up straighter. “This ranch means a lot to everyone, it’s a home.”
“They’re lucky to have you,” I remind her, and she rolls her eyes.
“I’m just a pain in their ass. Ash is the lucky one.” She winks. “Don’t stay down here too long or Bode will have my head for not being mean to you and making you get into bed.”
“If he asks, I’ll tell him you tried your best,” I tell her as she wanders away.
Eventually, the sound dies, and the sun seeps through the wooden slats of the barn. I do my best to stay awake, unable to sleep well until I know they’re back. My eyes drift close once or twice before I hear the sound of boots on partially thawed gravel in the distance.
I sit up, knocking the blanket off me, and give Wanda a good pat as I wander from the stall.
Bode turns the corner in that ugly black cowboy hat, wearing what he left in.
He’s covered in mud up to his shins, his shirt is rolled to his elbows, and he’s carrying a takeout container with the biggest smile on his face.
“Don’t know why I bothered checking your bed,” he groans. “Should have stopped trying to tell you what to do a long time ago.”
“Is that how you say good morning? Calling me stubborn?” I cross my arms.
“Pancakes.” He holds the container up, and I laugh.
“How quick you are to grovel, Cowboy.” I cock my head to the side, and he sets them down on the barrel by the door before moving into the barn toward me. As he moves, I do the once-over, unable to help myself from searching for any signs of distress or violence.
“Not a scratch on me.” I hear him say it, but I keep doing my own checks. A soft chuckle leaves him as he stops coming chest to chest with me and lifts my chin with his finger. “Problems dealt with.”
I wrap my fingers around the straps of his vest, tuck them in against his chest, and pull him closer when I ask, “What happened?”
I’m not Logan, I don’t have it in me to live blissfully unaware. It doesn’t matter what they did as long as I remember why.
“Plan worked,” he grunts, leaning down to breathe me in. His hat pushes crookedly off his head, but the sun catches in those blue eyes in the most spectacular way. “The rotten supply is gone. We managed to get over a hundred healthy cattle through the fence and…” He stops short.
“And what?” I question.
“We got some information,” Bode grunts, his eyes drifting to a sleepy Wanda in her stall.
“How?” I dare to ask.
“Do you really want to know? ‘Cause…” He swallows.
“It’s my home too,” I grit out, unsure if I really need to know, but I know that if I don’t, the secrets will eat me alive.
“We caught two of the Twelve Acres ranch hands,” he explains.
“And you asked them real politely?” I smile nervously, and Bode chuckles.
“Crew, Ford, and Dylan sure did.” He stares at me, turning a little more serious than before.
My stomach churns at the idea of the violence he’s insinuating.
But there are some questions better left unanswered, and I keep quiet as he opens his mouth to speak again.
“It’s uh-” he stops and clenches his jaw. “It’s Wyatt, Maggie. He’s behind this.”
“What?” I tense. “Are you positive?” The wind outside slaps against the barn loudly, only adding to the panic of the moment. I feel my heart racing as my brain scrambles to figure out a reason why Wyatt would be involved in all of this.
“Ford sure is,” he confirms. “They named him as the Twelve Acres contact.”
“But this…” I stumble over my confusion because it’s such a shock that he could do something like this to his own mother, to his home. “He grew up here, same as Ford…”
“Same as a lot of us,” Bode adds. “Money scrambles even the best of men. Can’t imagine what happened to that rat's brain when he got a taste for it.”
I try to rationalize a world where Wyatt is so far gone that he forgets where he came from, and it just doesn’t seem possible.
He was never much one for the ranching side of things.
Ford was always the first to get dirty and do the jobs that needed to be done but…
to undermine his whole family and for what? Violence.
“So what now?” I ask.
“Ford will deal with that,” Bode tenses, and I don’t exactly know what it means, but I’m sure it won’t be diplomatic if Ford has any say.
“Wanda looks like she’s got her spirit back,” he notes, and I begrudgingly turn my head away from him to look at the calf who’s doing funny circles in the hay to position herself over my discarded blanket.
“You would have that cow sleeping like a toddler,” he sighs. “I ain't buying her blankets, Maggie.” I just smile when he looks back at me, the annoyance on his face loud and clear, but it fades just as quickly.
“You’re buying blankets for my cow,” I chuckle.
“Yeah…” He concedes without convincing, and it makes me laugh harder, but he swallows the sound with a much-needed kiss as his fingers tangle into my hair at the side of my face.
It feels like he’s trying to calm himself down, and if it’s working for me, it’s working for him because my heart slows again, and it’s back to normal as he pulls away. “Hey, I have a surprise for you.”
“For me?” I ask.
He takes me out to the truck, getting me settled inside with my pancakes before wandering around to his side. He doesn’t bother to shower or change, he just pulls off his vest and throws it in the back of the truck as we pull from Whiskey River and drive into town.
I pick at the warm breakfast, eating nibbles of it until my stomach isn’t screaming at me anymore.
I stare at him, unable to help myself. Watching the light brush over his sun-tattered features as he focuses on the road ahead.
I don’t know where we’re going, and for the first time in my entire life, the curiosity is satiated. I don’t care as long as he’s here.
When we pull up to the house, I’m confused.
“What are we doing here?” I ask Bode. But this was the last place I expected to be.
“Just trust me,” he says, and I do, more than I’ve ever trusted anyone in my whole life, I do.
He helps me from the truck, and it takes a moment for my nausea to settle down.
He waits patiently, taking my hand in his and instead of leading me up to the house, he leads me around to the latched gate on the side.
We navigate the narrow path between the fence and the house until we end up in the backyard, and my heart's racing again, just like that.
“Bode…” His name falls off my lips as I take it all in.
The greenhouse had seen better days, the glass was foggy and tarnished, and the door that led inside was rickety and squeaked.
But now… the old, dirty frame is repainted a fresh white.
The old windows that blocked the sun are replaced with pristine glass that soaks it in instead of repelling it.
The door on the front is painted the same butter yellow as Wanda’s stall back on the ranch, and the tears that fall from my eyes are silent but warm against my cold cheeks.
“When did you-” the words die on my lips because the answer doesn’t matter. When he had the time, how did he manage to do it without me knowing? Why did he do it? None of it is important because he just did it.
He pulls me closer, and I notice the tiny, messy wildflowers painted onto the frame of the door. I look over at him, and his cheeks are red but not from the cold. He’s incredibly quiet, and I’m not sure how to take the silence as he pops the door for me and lets me inside.
Every single raised bed has been painted all kinds of soft, pastel colors and filled with bushes of flowers, all wild and of every possible color. “These are…”
“You left the paint cards in the glove compartment,” he finishes the thought for me. All the colors that I didn’t pick for Wanda. The muted pinks, blues, and greens. Bode stands still by the door as I wander inside and run my fingers through blooming petals. He did this all for me.
I wander around, my heart screaming at me to stop, knowing that this is the place I found her, and not sure if I’ll be able to bear the grief that threatens, but it doesn’t come. Tears do, more than before, but not ones overwhelmed with sadness.
I flicker my head over my shoulder to Bode and back to the wheelchair. Mama lived the back half of her life in that thing, and if he had asked me just hours before what I wanted done with it, I would have asked him to burn it, but he did something so much better.
Stepping forward, I sink low on my feet, using the flower bed beside me for balance as I take in his handiwork.
There’s a quilt folded on the seat, new but smells like Joleen, and it’s a patchwork of flowers and bright colors.
Mama would have loved it. Rested against it is a picture of me and her from my high school graduation.
So young, and our smiles matching in brightness.
But the thing that brings pause is pressed into the back, riveted into the worn-out leather.
I run my fingers over the golden plaque, my lip quivering as I read the words engraved on it out loud.
“There’s a reason wildflowers grow in every season, every terrain.
They’re resilient, Magnolia.” I close my eyes, trying to catch my breath as I feel him sink to his feet and wrap himself around me.
“Like you,” he finishes for me, and I collapse into him.
“You heard her that day?” I ask after a while, just trying to contain the hiccuping sobs that still rattle from me as I calm down.
“She made a good point,” he says gently and pushes the rogue strands of hair from my damp cheeks.
“Now this place is yours too, baby.” He kisses my cheek, right below my eye, and I lean into the warmth.
I can’t bring myself to thank him, but he knows.
That much is clear. Bode sits there on the floor with me for only God knows how long before he helps me up and brings me into the house.