Rancher’s Return

Chapter Four

T his was the most wholesome thing he had ever done in his life. Sure, he might have spent the past twenty years trying to find balance. He might have even tried his hand at being one of the good guys. But wholesome? That wasn’t really in his wheelhouse. Which made him a good father figure for misguided teenage boys, he thought. Because after all the life experiences they’d had, wholesome was out of their reach too. At least, he had thought it might be.

But here they all were, dressed in their Sunday best, about ready to go to a school carnival of all things.

“You will make sure to get the dirt out from under your nails?” he asked, looking at the boys.

“I’m not an animal,” Colton said.

“At least not an armadillo. Since there are no armadillos here,” Marcus said.

“Shut up,” Colton said.

“Yeah, you all look like you pass muster to me,” Buck said. It wasn’t like he made a habit of scrubbing his own nails or anything like that.

He thought about Marigold and ignored the tension stretching across his shoulders.

It had taken him a couple of hours after she left to realize how pretty she was. And to start to wonder about her. Really wonder. Not in terms of her being an emblem of potential salvation, but as a human being. Who had a seventeen-year-old daughter. His friend’s little sister had always been a small, sunny presence, and she had been annoying. Chipper and buzzing around like a fly. He hadn’t given her much thought. He had been nice, because you couldn’t be mean to somebody else’s brother or sister, that was just a rule. But she had been young, and primarily inconsequential to him. But she was a grown woman now. And it was strange on a few levels.

The first being that he hadn’t seen Jason’s family in all the years since the accident. Well, not since Marigold had yelled at him in the street. And the second being that because of the accident, Jason and his family had sort of frozen in place in Buck’s mind. Because Jason was dead, so he hadn’t gotten to grow or change or age. He was eighteen forever. Buck often found it strange that his friends were frozen forever in that place, graduation night, with a lifetime of possibilities ahead of them, while he was...getting old.

He had lines on his face. Calluses on his hands. New scars, in and out, that had torn through his flesh or his soul in all the years since his friends had been gone.

And Marigold was no different. She had grown, and she had changed. She wasn’t the same person she had been all that time ago. She wasn’t a child anymore. She was a mother herself.

It was a wrenching sort of joyous realization. Because at least Jason’s parents had her, had a granddaughter.

And Buck’s son was working on defiling her, apparently.

He’d had a pretty stern talk with Colton about possible consequences. Yet he had felt like an imposter, because he had practiced few of those things he was ranting against when he was a seventeen-year-old boy. Sex had been a game. It was a small town; there wasn’t shit else to do. He had been part of the wilder group of kids.

The truth was, there was a narrative that he had somehow led those more upstanding boys into that wild space, but they had done a good job taking themselves there.

It wasn’t that part of it that left him feeling guilty. It was being involved at all.

It was being the one who survived.

Because what he did wonder was if any of his friends would’ve done more than he did. For the world. For themselves.

If they were supposed to fall in love and get married and have children.

If they were supposed to cure cancer or climb the tallest mountain. Or maybe they wouldn’t have done shit.

It was impossible to say. But it was the not knowing that got to him. It was the not knowing, and never being able to know. That was what kept him awake at night.

It was just a damned hard pill to swallow.

And then... there was the fact that she was pretty.

She was damned pretty. And he had done his best to ignore that. Because there was pretty, the kind you could appreciate, and then there was pretty . The kind that hooked its way deep in your gut, made you feel something down beneath your skin. Something that was more than just aesthetic appreciation. Attraction.

That was the dumbest thing he had ever thought. But it was rattling around inside himself.

He could not be attracted to Marigold Rivers.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s head out.”

The boys loaded into the truck, and they started toward town.

The carnival was right off the main street with booths lining the sidewalk and string lights woven overhead. There were balloons and streamers and all manner of jaunty decor strung up about the place. It was a Fall Festival, early September so not Halloween as much as apples, gingham and myriad other things he’d never much associated with.

It was... It was like a small-town TV show. Or a Hallmark movie.

The Historic Main Street was looking brighter and more vibrant since he’d left twenty years before, with many of the buildings restored, including an old bed-and-breakfast at the very end of the street that belonged to his brother and his new wife. His sister-in-law also owned the saloon in town. The whole main street was practically a Carson parade.

He parked his truck up against the curb, and they all got out. He took out his wallet, and some cash, and handed it to the boys. “You can go meet school friends. And this is your money to spend.”

“Gee thanks, Dad,” said Reggie.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

It didn’t bother him that they only called him dad when they were being sarcastic.

“Colton, you’re on notice.”

“What did he do?” Marcus asked.

Buck hadn’t made a big song and dance about what Colton had gotten caught doing, because he didn’t want to expose Lily to any kind of gossip, and on top of that, he hadn’t wanted them to think Colton was cool.

“None of your business,” he said, planting his hand flat on top of Reggie’s head and giving it a scrub. “Just go about your business.”

“Are you going to babysit me?” Colton asked, once his younger siblings had cantered off.

“I don’t intend to. But I imagine I ought to be there when we meet up with Lily and her mother. Since you made a very bad first impression.”

“So you realistically think teenagers are just not going to have sex?”

“It’s not about what I think or don’t think,” he said. “But what I expect is that you will treat this place we’ve moved to with some kind of respect. That you’ll consider Lily, her feelings, her future. Because you know what? I was the kind of ass who didn’t. When you make consequences for somebody else, Colton, that’s not something a good person can just walk away from. And you’re a good person.”

“You really think so?” Colton was looking at him with skepticism.

“Yes. I do. And you know...about my past. You know about the damage I caused here.”

“Yeah. But it’s not really the same thing.”

“Maybe not. But you know what it’s about, it’s about prioritizing having fun in the moment over thinking about what that fun could cost. And I want you to be better than that. I want you to be different than that. I know you can be. I want you to be better than me. Because when I was your age, I did sleep around, and I didn’t care if girls got their feelings hurt. I didn’t care that my dad was busy. He was traveling around with the rodeo. My mom was...dealing with things. She had lost one of her kids. And then had another baby kind of late... It just... Nobody was really paying attention to what I was doing. There were too many kids and too many other things going on... At the very least, I want you to put her mom at ease. Show some damned respect.”

“Yes, sir,” Colton said, mumbling. But Buck counted that as a win.

They started walking toward the festivities, and he saw Marigold and Lily standing right there.

“Hi there,” he said. “Good to see you again.”

Marigold looked...beautiful, her red curly hair spilling down her shoulders in loose waves, her amber eyes glistening. She didn’t exactly look thrilled to see him. But she had shown up. She had done that for her daughter, he was confident.

Her daughter looked a lot like her. Red hair, freckles. She reminded Buck a lot of her mother when she had been young. She reminded Buck a lot of the Marigold who had stood in front of him yelling and hollering and basically telling him he was a murderer.

A stark contrast to the woman who stood in front of him now.

“Go have a wholesome date,” Marigold said.

“All right,” Lily said, taking Colton’s hand and leading him into the carnival.

“They seem unhappy with us,” Buck said.

“Well. Too bad for her. I guess I’m not totally used to being in opposition to my daughter, but there’s a first time for everything.”

“Yeah. I guess I haven’t been in opposition to the boys much. But that’s a real thing with foster kids... They either test you and try to drive you away, or you end up in a honeymoon phase where they’re trying to be good so they don’t lose you. I would say the boys have been much more on the honeymoon track. So I guess this is kind of my trial by fire. At least, I hope it is.”

He felt silly, and a bit naive, saying that. Because he knew full well that all three of those boys had been in much bigger trouble than being caught in a girl’s bedroom.

“They’ve been through a lot,” he said. “Colton... Listen, Colton’s story is his to tell. He’s a good kid. If I thought he was going to be a danger to your daughter in any way...”

“It’s weird,” Marigold said, taking a step back from him. “I have a hard time looking at you and seeing who you were. But if I think too hard about the Buck Carson I used to know, all of this feels like pretty strange things for you to say.”

“I know. I get that. I don’t exactly know why you would trust me. But I’m not lying to you. He’s a good kid. Twenty years is a long time.”

“Yes it is. It’s a very long time. A lifetime. It’s more years than my brother lived. We might as well address that. Because it is the elephant in the room, whether we want it to be or not.”

“I have no problem hearing you out. If there’s something you need to say.” He hadn’t exactly anticipated having this conversation standing at the edge of this carnival, but whatever needed to happen, he was just going to let it happen.

“I’m not angry at you. At least, I didn’t think I was. But... I guess theoretical forgiveness is a lot easier when the person isn’t around. But here you are. My brother is gone and you’ve had twenty more years on this earth.” She shook her head. “So have I. And... I can’t say that I feel entirely neutral about you. But I have a better appreciation now for how young you were. When I was thirteen you seemed like a grown man. But now my daughter is seventeen, and I know that eighteen is not grown. And I don’t think you should have to suffer for something that happened all those years ago.”

“But Jason did,” Buck replied. “Jason, Ryan and Joey did. That’s what it comes down to. We made a mistake. A youthful mistake. And because of that mistake they died, and I got a second chance. It was all a matter of being in a different car. Choosing to drive myself because I didn’t want to sit in the back seat. Or whatever the reason was, I don’t really remember. But I do know that what happened was not fair. You are right about that. There is nothing at all fair about the fact that a mistake for them was final, while for me it wasn’t.”

“You really have changed.”

“I have. Because in the aftermath of their deaths, when you came and yelled at me in the street, it confirmed what I already thought about myself. And if I was the bad guy, then it meant I got to go off and continue to be the bad guy. I got to go off and continue to serve myself. Which was what I did. For a number of years, Marigold, I’m not going to lie about that. But one night I picked myself up, and I decided to change the way I was doing things. I decided to make living matter. I needed living to matter. I needed their lives to matter. I needed their deaths to matter. That’s why I’m here now. That’s why I have the boys.”

“Three boys.”

He nodded. “That’s why.”

“It feels so complicated.”

“It is. But I came back because I thought it was all right for me to be back here now.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“When I left, it was because I thought staying meant visiting hardship on my family that I didn’t want them to go through. At least that’s the story I tell myself to try and make it seem like I’m not totally selfish. But the truth is, there was an element of selfishness to it. Of course there was. I wanted to lick my wounds. And leaving allowed me to do it in a place where there was no accountability. I didn’t want to come back until I knew I wasn’t using my family simply as accountability. If that makes sense.”

“It does,” she said.

There. He had gone and vented his guts out after having been back for five seconds. “None of that is your responsibility,” he said. “You don’t have to forgive me, no matter what you said before.”

“All right. I’ll remember that. But I think we might have to be cordial because it seems our children like each other an awful lot.”

“Yeah. They do. Colton was pretty mad at me for lecturing him. My one concern, and I am going to be really honest with you, is that Colton is not a small-town kid. He was not as well protected as I assume your daughter is.”

She nodded slowly. Not for the first time, he looked down at her left hand. She didn’t have a ring. He looked back up, and she was studying him.

“I’m not married,” she said.

His mouth quirked upward. “You must be used to men looking at your left hand.”

“I am. At least, enough that I know to recognize the question when it’s being nonverbally asked. Her dad has never been in the picture.”

“I see.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I should work harder at reaching out to him again. Because he went off to college. Or rather, he went back to college. I did let him know, but of course at the time...he didn’t want to be a dad. It just seemed easier to let it go. So, from that standpoint, I understand what you’re saying. Sometimes it does seem easier to just let go completely.”

“Yeah. That’s it exactly.” He paused. “I don’t have the whole world to offer those boys. I do have a trust fund from my father and a whole mess of extended family, and that seemed like something. Seemed like a good offering. A real offering. So I decided to come back. I’m not sure that I’m loving all the connections, though.”

She laughed. “I imagine not.”

“We can agree that this is not a comfortable situation.”

“No it’s not.” She had a feeling they were talking about more than Colton and Lily, so she deliberately turned the subject back to their kids. “With Colton, what you’re basically telling me is that you’re worried he’s more experienced than Lily?”

“Yes.”

“He probably is. Lily has never dated anyone before. She has a mother who got pregnant at sixteen. The paranoia runs a little high in our household.”

“If you don’t want them dating, I can tell him...”

“No. I think what we discussed earlier stands. If we turn them into Romeo and Juliet, it’s only going to get worse. I’m just going to have to try to keep talking to Lily. Keep her communicating with me. It’s the best I can do.”

“You have every right to yell at me, you know,” he said.

“Would that make you more comfortable?”

“Yeah. Now that you ask.”

“Then I’m definitely not going to yell at you.”

His lips twitched. They regarded each other for a moment.

“So. Want to...walk around the carnival?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“What else are we going to do? Anyway, then we can keep an eye on the kids.”

That was true, but really he wanted to keep talking to her. She was right; he almost would’ve been more comfortable if she had yelled at him again. If she’d have picked up right where she left off years ago. Mainly because there was some part of him that still wanted to feel that guilt. That still wanted to feel that culpability for the accident. Because that guilt was his comfort zone. For a long time, he had acted out of a self-destructive place with that guilt. But he had stopped, and he had learned to use it as fuel. So maybe part of him was looking for more. Along with that extra bit of absolution. She felt linked to all that. He didn’t want to lose touch with her.

“All right,” she said.

The booths were set up on the sidewalks, in front of businesses. There were games and snacks and other things designed to appeal to teens, and all the proceeds went to fundraising for the school. There were caramel apples and balloon dart games. The kind of thing he never the hell would’ve gone to when he was in high school. He wondered if the boys were secretly enjoying this carnival, or if it felt really cheesy to them. But then, wasn’t having something light and cheesy in your life a privilege?

Twenty years ago, he had been reeling from the death of his little sister. He had let it take the joy away from him. It was that loss that had put him on the road when his friends died.

So he had learned that the pain a person carried could hurt other people. No one was an island.

He had also learned that the ability to be happy was a gift.

“Candy apple?” he asked now.

“Oh sure,” she said. “Why not?” She paused. “We’re not on a date.”

“No,” he said. “We are not.”

“Good. Just making sure.”

“I don’t think you can accidentally go on a date,” he said.

“Well, I hope not. I’d hate to break my seventeen-year dateless streak.”

“Seventeen years?”

“I have a kid. And yes, you can date when you have kids. But I decided that I didn’t want to take the risk. Of having her get attached to somebody, and then having it not work out between us. It just always felt too volatile. I admire the people who do it. Who try to make that work. I just couldn’t... I’d already had too many losses. And I didn’t want to visit any on my daughter. At least none that I could help.”

“Right.” He felt sad for a second, because he knew the weight of those losses. He knew exactly what she was talking about. He had been part of that.

“Platonic candy apple,” he said.

“That is allowed.”

He bought the sticky, bright red apple for her, plus one for himself, and it was like being in an out-of-body experience. This strange kind of small-town moment he had never really experienced before. By the time his family had moved full-time to Lone Rock, he’d already been destroyed by the loss of his sister. So he had never really...done anything like this. Had never walked down the street with a pretty girl eating a candy apple.

He shouldn’t be thinking of it that way now.

“So, what are your plans once Lily leaves home?”

“If you expect me to say get a date ... Well. Maybe. It’s not off the table. But the other big thing would be that I want to open a storefront for my business.”

“What do you do?”

“Meal prep. I would really like to open a facility where people could come in and use it to do their own meal prep. I make the plan, they do the preparation. And I’d have a place to store more prepared meals so people could buy them for the week rather than being on my regular rotation. Which is what I do now—there are a certain number of families in the area who have me make their dinners for the week. I deliver them at a set time, and they don’t have to worry about it. They just have to cook.”

“That’s pretty clever. I’ll tell you, when I lived on the ranch for troubled kids, there was a cook. Three square meals a day, and I didn’t have to think about buying the food, preparing the food, or what the food was going to be. That has been one of the harshest realities of adopting these kids and taking them away from the institution. I have to figure out what to cook for them.”

“A lot of people hate it. I love it. I like figuring out how to work on a budget, how to make it as cost-effective and affordable as possible.”

“That’s great. So you’re looking for a building?”

“Yes. I... I mean, that’s what I want to do. Because I need to do something with my time once Lily is away. But it’s going to take... I don’t know. A pretty substantial loan, and that scares me. When Lily was younger, I never wanted to get into anything like that because it would mean putting our house at risk. I would never do that, not when she was little. But I feel like I can maybe branch out now. Take more risks.”

“You have a place in mind?”

She shrugged. “There’s a building, just up the street. It’s been empty for a while. I would have it completely gutted and renovated, and it would be so expensive—”

“You need an investor.”

“Okaaay...”

“Yeah. Somebody to assume the risk up-front, and help you get this going.”

“That sounds like a great idea. I have no idea how I would go about finding one.”

“I could be one.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Yeah. Why don’t you let me be your investor?”