Chapter 3
aria
The house smells like cinnamon and some exotic cheese, as if someone tried to dress mourning up in sugar and charcuterie trays.
The furniture’s been redone since I was here. We have white throws, decorative pillows, and fake hydrangeas on the sideboard. Back then, the ranch house smelled like tobacco, leather, and beef stew.
Papa allowed Mama to mess with parts of the house, but not the living room, and definitely not his office.
This is Celine’s and Mama’s version of a home. Pretty, polished, and hollow as hell.
When I mentioned it to Nadine, she rolled her eyes. “She nagged Rami to death, and as he got sicker, he just gave up. If nothing else, Celine is tenacious, succeeded where even your Mama didn’t. Spent money we don’t have—and for what? So, we can look like we’re on the set of Marie Antoinette?”
I find my sister in the center of the living room—which looks more French than ranch, as Nadine indicated—holding court.
I’ve been met with polite and distant nods, some whispers, both loud and quiet.
“Is she back for the funeral or for good?”
“Only to get the money from the sale.”
“What a mercenary bitch!”
“She’s not someone you notice, is she?”
“Very plain and average.”
“She looks like the bitch Celine says she is. Doesn’t talk, doesn’t smile.”
“She looks nothing like Celine.”
The comments don’t surprise me. But hearing them after a decade away touches me differently, though truth be told, they were pretty standard when I was growing up here.
I left so many years ago, and while I was here, I didn’t have many friends, just Bree and a few others who are no longer in Wildflower Canyon.
I am an introvert, and this kind of thing, a wake, where you’re supposed to be hanging out socially with people and making small talk, isn’t something I’m comfortable with.
“I have bourbon for Papa, but I have wine for Mama,” Celine is showing off to Tate Pryor, who is smiling at her.
Tate is my age, but he always looked at Celine, like he does now, as if she hung the moon. Probably crushed him when she married Hudson.
As I think about Celine and Hudson, my heart doesn’t do the usual somersaults it used to when I was away.
Seeing them together seems to have had the opposite impact than the one I assumed it would have. Instead of being reminded of the heartache and the humiliation of losing my fiancée to my baby sister, I feel nothing for Hudson. Not even disdain—just a numbness.
This is a man I used to know, but no longer do, and I don’t care to know him either.
He’s not the kind of person I like to spend time with anymore. He’s vain. Cares too much about how he looks and what he wears.
He is not loyal—obviously, since he knocked up my sister after asking me to marry him. He couldn’t reuse the ring, either—Celine insisted on something bigger. Probably sold mine to fund hers.
I could’ve saved a lot of money on therapy if I’d just come back, I think wryly. On the other hand, it wasn’t his or Celine’s betrayal that struck at my heart; it was Papa’s.
He told me to leave. Asked me to stay away. Never invited me back home.
I step outside onto the porch, let the cold air hit me.
The sky is bright blue—the sun is sharp like it is in the winter here. I hug Nadine’s cardigan, which I borrowed, around me.
“Let’s discuss this after the will reading,” I hear a voice say.
“Well, I know what’s in the will, Mav,” Celine says.
I sigh. The voices are coming through the dining room window that opens onto the wraparound porch.
“I know, but you believe your father left half to your sister.” I assume that is Maverick Kincaid—the man who wants to buy Longhorn Ranch.
“She’s going to sell,” Hudson slurs.
Yeah, that man is three sheets to the wind!
“She hates it here,” Hudson adds.
“You know what bothers me?” There are tears in Celine’s tone. Fake obviously. “She wasn’t even here with Papa, and now she expects his money.”
Drama queen!
I lean against the wall, pretending to relax in case anyone walks by, but I am recklessly and guiltlessly eavesdropping.
“I need another drink,” Hudson mumbles. I hear his footsteps recede.
“Mav, darlin’, you look so tired. You work too hard, baby.”
Oh my God!
I can’t see them, but I can hear her loud and clear.
She’s flirting with him.
“Celine, your husband is here.” He sounds indulgent, not annoyed. He’s probably still sleeping with her.
“I know.” A giggle.
“Tell me about your sister.”
My ears perk up.
“What’s there to say?” I can hear the huff in Celine’s voice. “She’s back for the funeral. She’ll grab the money with both hands and go back to California. Good riddance.”
My fingers trace the wall as sadness once again engulfs me.
I’ve lost all my birth family with Papa gone.
Celine doesn’t count, hasn’t for a long time.
It started with Mama, who liked Celine better.
I know they say parents love their children equally, but I don’t think that’s true.
Mama preferred Celine to me. She always wanted me to be more like her.
More feminine. More beautiful. Thinner. Prettier. Cheerful. Extrovert. You name it!
I used to think that since I was like Papa—and we loved the same things, the land, growing produce and animals on it, riding horses—I was his favorite.
But after Mama passed, Celine became his favorite, too.
I see the rocking chair on the porch. Celine didn’t get rid of it. It was Papa’s favorite.
“You should go, Aria. She’s marrying Hudson, and it’ll be awkward havin’ you here,” Papa says as he smokes his pipe, rocking on his chair on the porch.
I stand, leaning against the railing, facing him.
My life has just fallen apart, and he’s kicking me out of my home. “Papa, maybe she and Hudson can move to Los Angeles. His family is there, and I—”
He shakes his head. Implacable. “Celine’s family is here. She wants to have the baby here. It’s the right thing to do.”
I want to cry, but I know he won’t like it, so I hold the tears back.
I want to beg, but he’ll lose respect for me, so I have to try to convince him to let me stay in my home without pleading.
“Papa—”
“Look, you’re almost a college graduate, just find a job and…if you need money, I’ll see what I can do to help.” His tone is dismissive.
My breath catches in my chest. My stomach hurts like when I got kicked by Pretty Boy, my horse.
“Just like that?” I whisper, barely able to get the words out.
He doesn’t look at me. “It’s for the best. She’s pregnant, and that’s that.”
I never saw Papa after that.
I left the next day and returned to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, where I had a semester left before completing my bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Science. I had had dreams of working on Longhorn, running the ranch with Papa.
Celine made sure that didn’t happen.
“I’ve been holding this place together. She gets to play the grieving daughter, but I’ve been here.” Celine’s acid words hurt my heart, as does the memory of the last time I talked to Papa on this very porch.
“Well, like you said, she’ll be leaving soon.” Mav seems to be placating her.
“Not fast enough. I did ask Papa to change his will and give me everything…I hope he did that.”
Maverick says something that I can’t catch. New voices join my sister and her lover.
I walk back into the house, bracing myself, hoping I can go straight to the guestroom upstairs, the room that used to be mine.
I didn’t ask Celine for permission to stay; I just put my suitcase there and settled in the best I could.
This house is technically as much mine as hers, unless she did convince Papa to write me out of his will.
I spoke with him at least three times a year every year.
I called him. He never called me.
On his birthday. On mine. On Christmas Eve.
He was polite but short. Papa didn’t like talking on the phone.
Nadine told me how he was doing. She was the one who informed me that Celine had a miscarriage.
I never understood why Celine wanted Hudson. Sure, he was handsome, had an MBA from Stanford, and came from a wealthy enough family. He was a catch. But he was not her type. She liked them rugged with muscles.
Like Maverick Kincaid.
But, according to Nadine, everyone who is mine is Celine’s type.
I step into my bedroom, but before I can close the door, Hudson catches it with one hand and pushes himself in. He shuts it quietly behind him.
He’s grown old, is my first thought as I see him up close and personal.
“Aria,” he says, his eyes unfocused.
Since I got here, I’ve been ignoring him. Hard to do that when he’s constantly in my personal space.
I remove the cardigan I’m wearing and use it as an excuse to go to the other side of the large room, where there is a small seating area.
I don’t want to be anywhere near a bed with this man—it gives me the creeps.
“What?” I ask as I sit in what I assume is a daybed in purple velvet.
For the love of God! Celine has turned this house into a French brothel instead of what it used to be, a fucking ranch house.
He steps toward me and sits, or rather flops onto an armchair next to me, sprawled out. His eyes are red-rimmed and not because of grief. He’s been drinking.
There was a time when he was everything I wanted. But now, he’s balding like his daddy. He has a beer belly. Sure, he’s dressed like a catalog cowboy, freshly trimmed beard, boots polished to a high shine—but it looks fake and misplaced on him.
California boy is not cowboy material.
He leans close. I can smell the bourbon on his breath. I don’t recoil. I don’t soften either. I look at him like he’s a stranger—because he is.
“How are you, darling girl?”
In my imagination, when I’d hear him use that endearment again, it would tear open something inside me. But the truth is that I feel nothing. I wonder if my psyche is pretending not to be affected, or if I really am free of him.
“Hudson, if you’re here to make small talk, I’m not in the mood. I was going to take a power nap. It’s been a long day.” My tone is clipped.
He studies me with shifting eyes for a long moment. “I miss you.”