Chapter Four – Vivianne #2
We were five miles out from town, and I was dying to see what it looked like.
Ladd talked about his hometown a lot, and I knew it meant the world to him.
The drive was insanely beautiful. We had lucked out with clear skies and no snow, but the surrounding mountaintops and some of the fields were covered in snow.
It was stunning against the clear blue sky.
“Where do you think you’ll want to open your sporting goods store?”
He looked my way and smiled before focusing back on the road.
“I’d like for it to be as close to Main Street as possible, if not on Main Street.
There’s a large building at the corner of Main and Mountain View that now houses a department store.
According to a friend of mine, whose father works on the city council, their lease is up next year, and they don’t plan on renewing.
The current family isn’t interested in taking over the store that their grandparents have run for years.
That could be my chance. I’ve got my business plan ready to go, and I can tweak if need be. ”
“And your father’s still okay with you wanting to open a store and not work on the ranch?”
He let out a soft sigh. “He’s supportive, and I can’t ask for anything more than that. I’m sure he would love for me to work full time on the ranch, but he also understands I have a dream I want to follow, so he won’t hold me back from that.”
I glanced down at my hands that were folded in my lap. “You’re lucky you have supportive parents.”
Ladd reached for my hand and laced his fingers with mine. “You know, Viv, you can tell me what happened with your parents. I wouldn’t hold any judgment against you or them.”
I closed my eyes. “It’s not that easy, Ladd.”
“Why not? Did they do something bad to you?”
Turning, I stared out the window as the scenery raced by. A river was running adjacent to the road, and I wondered if it was the same river that ran through the River Falls Ranch.
Seeing a change of topic at my disposal, I said, “Does this river run through your family ranch?”
“It does, yes. The river is called River Falls.”
Something felt strange between us, and I knew I needed to address it. I could only push him away so many times when he asked about my parents.
“I want to tell you, Ladd. I really do, and there have been so many times I’ve tried to tell you, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.”
He nodded and quickly looked my way. “You know that nothing that has ever happened to you in your past could make me not love you.”
I closed my eyes and whispered, “I know. And I love you for that.”
Ladd kissed the back of my hand. “Whenever you’re ready, Viv, I’ll be here.”
“Thank you.”
Ladd held my hand until we reached the gated entrance of River Falls Ranch.
“What happened to driving through town?” I asked.
“I just wanted to get home quickly so I can get out of this car and hold you in my arms.”
My heart fluttered in my chest, and I smiled. “I’m not sure what I ever did to deserve you, but I’m sure glad I did it.”
“I think that should be the other way around.”
He rolled down the window and typed in a code on a keypad. As the huge gate rolled open, I placed a hand over my chest.
“Tell me you’re not nervous? You did the hard part already!”
“Meeting your parents?” I asked.
Laughing, he replied, “Yes.”
“Ladd, I have the rest of your family to meet. Your brothers, grandparents, and who knows who else.”
“Everyone else is going to love you, Viv. Trust me. You’re hard not to love.”
I blinked back tears and looked out the window as I tried not to think about how the two people who should have loved me didn’t.
Pushing all thoughts of my parents away, I smiled at the sight before me. “Oh, this is beautiful, Ladd.”
“This is my home.”
The drive was flanked by pastures covered in snow.
To my right, I saw a small group of horses, each wearing a blanket and walking in a straight line in the same direction we were driving.
On the other side, there was a sprinkling of cattle.
Their black coloring stood out against the backdrop of the snow.
A few of them lifted their heads to see who was driving down the road before they started walking in the same direction as the horses.
“It’s feeding time, clearly,” Ladd laughed.
Ahead of us was a bridge that went over what I was guessing was the river. It wasn’t as wide as what we had seen earlier.
“This is the same river you asked about. It goes through the ranch and down through town. Hence the name of the town and our ranch.”
“Is there a waterfall close by?”
“There are a few. Even one here on the ranch. Maybe once the snow melts and the temperatures warm up, we can come back and hike up to see it. It’s beautiful.”
“This whole place is beautiful.”
Ladd grinned as he replied, “It is.”
“How do the cows and horses get over the river?” I asked.
“There are spots on the ranch where we have something called Fords. We reinforce the bottom with filtered fabric and gravel to provide a firm footing. They aren’t used often, and only in places where they cross infrequently.
We have crossings strategically placed throughout the ranch that are located on straight, narrow sections of the river.
The cattle, and horses, can use them without entering the water at all.
Trust me, they’re smart. In the winter they’re usually on the other side of the river and placed in fenced pastures, but there are some that are out here as well.
I’m guessing this week my father will have us round up the rest of these cattle and bring them closer to the barns. ”
“Wow, that is amazing that the animals know where to go to cross.”
He smiled and nodded.
As we drove down the drive, a few side roads sprang off in different directions.
“Where do these roads take you?”
“To different parts of the ranch. Let me show you something.”
He turned to the left and started to drive down a road that had also been plowed.
“Does someone live down this way? Is that why it’s been plowed?”
“No, but this is the west side of the ranch, and the ranch hands make weekly trips around the ranch to check the fence. The last thing you want is your cattle to get out or someone else’s to get in. This is my favorite part of the ranch, and someday I plan on building a house here.”
I took it all in. “How much land does your family own?”
“A thousand acres, but there’s BLM land, which means Bureau of Land Management, to the south of the ranch, so we’re able to have the cattle graze on that as well.
That gives us an additional few hundred acres.
You see that mountain right there? We own part of that.
That’s usually where the cattle will go in the summer to graze, if not on the BLM land, so that we can grow the fields on the ranch to stock up for winter. ”
“Wow. That’s a lot of land. And you own part of a mountain!”
His smile faded. “It was a lot more, but my grandfather sold off the land that the BLM owns when he got into some financial trouble. My father also had to sell some of it off to keep the ranch going. It about killed him to do it. This ranch has been in the family since my great-grandfather started it in 1887.”
“That is so sad he had to sell it off.”
“Yeah, I know it was hard for him to do. My grandfather, Flint Wilde, didn’t have a head for business.
He was the only son of my great-grandfather, Lawrence Wilde.
Flint liked to spend money faster than it came in and was a gambler.
By the time my father got control of the ranch, we were in debt.
Big time. So he made the hard decision to sell off over five-hundred acres to the state of Colorado like his father did.
They turned it into BLM land and gave us grazing rights.
Some other ranchers have grazing rights as well, and my father has sold a few grazing permits to a couple of smaller cattle ranches near ours, for the higher elevations, and that money also helps a lot. ”
“I’m sorry your family had to sell so much land.”
“It didn’t hurt me or my brothers any, we never grew up with all that land, but my father did. By doing what he did, though, he was able to pay off all of the ranch’s debts and still have some left over to make improvements.
“My grandfather died of a heart attack while playing poker. During that game, he’d put up the deed to the farmhouse where his wife, my grandmother Lilith, had been born.
He lost, of course. I think the knowledge that he’d gambled away the house was too much, and his heart gave out.
The only thing was, it wasn’t his to gamble.
It was given to his wife when her parents passed.
My father thinks it was more likely he was scared to death…
because if Grandmother had found out what he’d done, she would have killed him. ”
“Did she lose the house?”
Ladd smiled. “No. Flint’s name wasn’t included on the deed, so it wasn’t his to give away. He died of a heart attack for no reason at all…of course, unless his heart really was that bad.”
“Or it’s like your father said, scared to death…literally.”
Laughing, Ladd nodded. “I never met him. He died before any of us were born. My father took over the ranch when he was pretty young. He had to run this place, plus take care of his mother.”
“That’s crazy. Does your grandmother still live on the ranch?”
“She lives in her ancestral cabin, the one that Flint tried to use for the poker game. It was on a ranch next to ours. When her father gave it to her as a wedding present, he gifted her the land as well, which wasn’t much since it was on the property line pretty much with our ranch.
He wanted her to have a part of the ranch she grew up on.
My father bought the rest of the ranch when my grandmother’s parents could no longer run it.
He put it in Gram’s name along with the hundred acres that surrounds her cabin, which was once her family ranch.
Grams lives in the cabin now. She has a separate entrance to her place that was the original ranch road for her family’s place, and my dad had another road built that takes her to the main ranch of River Falls Cattle. ”
“I think it’s lovely that she lives in the house she was born in.”
Ladd nodded. “Grams just turned seventy-seven but acts like she’s thirty-seven. She walks every day, tends to her garden, and every Thursday, she plays cards with a group of ladies she grew up with.”
I chuckled. “I love that.”
“You’ll really like her, and she’ll adore you.”
“Why do you think she’ll adore me?”
He winked. “She’ll be the first to tell you that any woman who falls for a Wilde man is indeed a treasure from God, because we’re all stubborn and in need of a good woman to keep us in line.”
“She does not say that.”
He laughed. “I swear, she’ll say that to you!”
Ladd pulled up and parked where the road had leveled at the top of a hill and was about to start back down. You could see a huge pasture down below. Cows sprinkled the area, and I asked, “What kind of cattle do you guys raise? These look different from the ones I saw when we first drove in.”
“Those were black Angus, and these are Hereford. They’re a deep red with white faces and white markings on their bodies.”
“They are so cute. And the horses?”
“Mostly just quarter horses for now. My mother loves horses and gives riding lessons.”
“I adore your mom. Remember I mentioned that I’ve never ridden a horse but have always wanted to.”
“Yes, and we’re going to make that happen this week.”
“Are we?” I asked on a laugh.
“Nothing is more magical than riding a horse in the snow.”
I glanced out over the pastureland. “This is a gorgeous spot, Ladd.”
He exhaled. “Yeah. It is. This is where I want to build my future house. See that small cabin off in the distance?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the old hunter’s cabin, but it was the original cabin my great-grandfather built when he bought the ranch.
He lived there alone for a bit until my great-grandmother Sarah married him and moved here.
Lawrence was in the process of building the house that my great-grandfather Flint was born in.
My father was of course born there as well. ”
“So the original cabin is that cabin down there, so why is it called the hunter’s cabin?” I asked.
“After Lawrence and Sarah moved out, they only used the cabin when they were hunting this side of the ranch. It was easier to stay there rather than go back to the main house.”
I nodded. “That makes sense.”
“My father said I can live there once school’s done. It’s two bedrooms and just one bathroom, but it’ll be perfect.”
I glanced down and smiled. “It looks like a perfect little home. I can’t wait to see the inside.”
“I can’t wait to show you soon,” he said, a lightness to his voice that hadn’t been there a few moments ago. Had he been worried about showing me where he planned on living? I’d count myself lucky to be able to live in that little cabin, on this beautiful ranch, surrounded by family.
We sat there in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Ladd glanced at me. “We should head to the house. Mom’s expecting us.”
I nodded and drew in a deep breath. This was it. I was going to meet the entire Wilde family, and I was excited and terrified at the same time.