Chapter Six – Vivianne
Vivianne
My first day on Ladd’s family ranch was probably one of the best days of my life.
After I insisted on helping with the cleanup, Ladd showed me the rest of the house.
It was a six-bedroom, five-bathroom house with a smaller bathroom downstairs.
Ladd’s parents’ room was also downstairs, leaving five bedrooms upstairs.
The house had one large living room, a smaller family room that Gus used as an office, and a sunroom at the back of the house with a stunning view of the mountains.
There was also a small pond in the distance that wasn’t part of the river that ran through the ranch.
According to Ladd, they’d all learned how to ice skate on that pond.
“This house is so charming, Ladd. I think my favorite thing is the wraparound porch. The porch swings and chairs all look so inviting.”
“Not so much in the dead of winter, but in spring and summertime, you can find my mother out here. Either reading, working on a quilt, or knitting something. She even brings her work out and sits at that table.”
“Does she work for the ranch or does she have another job?”
“She does all the bookkeeping for the ranch. That’s something I plan on doing once I get out of school. She’s been showing me the ropes the last few summers when I’m home.”
“You don’t like doing the manual labor stuff?”
“I love doing it, but running the ranch isn’t my dream, as I mentioned.”
“What about your three brothers?”
Ladd sighed. “David plans on staying and working the ranch alongside my father. Mike and Jason, I’m not sure.
They’re still in high school. Jason’s a senior this year and has big dreams of playing football in college.
Mike is a mini version of my dad, so I’d honestly be surprised if he went to college.
My parents will want him to, but I could see him preferring to dive into working alongside Dad. ”
I wrapped my arms around my body and stared out the glass windows of the sunroom at the view in front of me. Snow-covered pastures seemed to go on forever with the mountains in the distance. It was so beautiful it looked fake.
“Did you need to unpack anything in your room?” Ladd asked.
“I do have a couple of dresses I brought for the Christmas Eve church service, and Christmas Day. I should unpack those.”
He took my hand in his and led us back upstairs.
“Do I get to see your bedroom?” I asked, bumping my shoulder into his.
Laughing, he said, “You’re just a couple doors down from me, but this is my room.”
He stopped outside a bedroom door, then opened it. I walked in and smiled. “Why am I not surprised it’s neat, clean, and organized?”
Ladd leaned against the doorframe as I walked around his room.
“You don’t have anything up on your walls.”
“Like what?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, a poster of Duran Duran or something.”
He laughed. “Duran Duran? That’s who you think I should have on my walls?”
I chuckled. “It was the first band I thought of.”
“You couldn’t have said Boston or Foreigner.”
Lifting my hands, I rolled my eyes. “My mistake.”
I sat down on his bed and ran my hand over the Christmas quilt. “Did your mother make this?”
“My grandmother. She made one for all of us when we were younger. Mom puts them on our beds on December first every year.”
Sighing, I looked at him. I wanted to share a bit more about my past and my parents, but how much?
With a soft smile, I said, “You’re so lucky you grew up in a normal house with loving parents.
My mother and father were always so worried about what other people thought, that our house always looked like it was a show home.
Nothing could ever be out of place or heads would roll.
I wasn’t even allowed to have friends over to play. ”
He frowned. “Did you go to their houses to play?”
I shrugged. “Sometimes. But they had to be approved by my father.”
“The kids?” he asked in a surprised voice.
Shaking my head, I replied, “No, the parents.” I stood. “Enough of my depressing life. I should go unpack before those dresses wrinkle any more.”
Ladd pushed off the doorframe and walked over to me. He cupped my face in his hands and leaned down to brush a soft kiss over my lips. He drew back and rested his forehead against mine.
“I love you, Viv. With my entire heart and soul. You know that, right?”
My hands lifted to his arms, and I squeezed them. “I know, and I love you, too, Ladd. So very much.”
He reached for my hand, and we made our way out of his room and down the hall to the guest bedroom. When he opened the door, I drew in a sharp breath.
The first thing I saw was the large picture window with a view of the mountains in the distance.
“Oh wow!” I said, walking straight to the window. “Look at that view.”
“This part of the house faces east, so if you feel like waking up early, you can get an amazing view of the sunrise. Mom took the previous windows out and had this bigger window put in just because of the view.”
“That was smart of her.”
Turning, I took in the room itself. “Your mother sure knows how to make a guest feel like they’re at a five-star hotel. Ladd, this room is amazing!”
Against the opposite wall from the window was a queen-size bed with a beautiful antique four-poster frame and a canopy. The fabric on the canopy was a pale blue and yellow that draped down each poster. It was fringed with beautiful silver beading.
“That bed is…I don’t even have words for it.”
“The bed came from Scotland. My great-grandmother, Sarah, was from Scotland, and her family brought it over with them when they came to America. She lived in Boston before marrying my great-grandfather, and they moved to Colorado to establish the cattle ranch. The fabric isn’t original, but Mom found a piece of it up in the attic, along with the bed, and had it reproduced. ”
I slowly shook my head. “I feel like I’ve stepped back in time. Are all the pieces in this room from Sarah?”
“They are. Once Sarah passed away, my great-grandfather, Lawrence, had most of her things moved into the attic. My grandfather Flint and Grandmother Lilith never brought it back down. My mother found it all shortly after marrying Dad. By then, Flint had passed away and it was only my grandmother living here with my father, so after they got married, they, of course, moved into this house. Then my grandmother eventually moved to her cabin. Anyway, after Mom moved in, she asked if she could bring the furniture down and make up a guest bedroom. It was probably a good thing my grandfather never did find it.”
“Why is that?” I asked as I walked over to an old writing desk. On the parallel wall was a beautiful chest of drawers. All of the furniture was of the same wood and the same finish.
“He would have sold it if he thought he could get any money for it.”
I frowned. “That’s terrible. These were his mother’s things.”
Ladd shrugged. “He didn’t care. He sold off most of the items that belonged to his mother, or at least the ones that my great-grandfather had left here in the house.
Sarah came from a very wealthy family, and some of her descendants still live in Boston.
When she agreed to move out west with Lawrence, she wanted to bring her things with her.
From what I’ve heard, her father spent a lot of money back then to send it all on the train, then by horse and carriage to the ranch. ”
“Is there anything else left of hers?”
“Mom has some items scattered throughout the house, but she said there are travel trunks up in the attic that belonged to Sarah. She’s gone through some of them, but others she hasn’t touched.
My grandmother thinks that some of the travel trunks were never even unpacked.
Most likely just loaded up here into the attic. ”
I grinned. “That would be so fun to go through them and see what’s up there.”
“I’ll let her know you’d like to do that.”
“No!” I gasped. “She’ll think I’m being nosy.”
He laughed. “She won’t, and it’ll be a good excuse for her to finally go through everything up there. We used to play up in the attic as kids, and there’s a lot of shit up there.”
I walked over to my small suitcase and was about to pick it up and put it on the bed when Ladd beat me to it.
Opening it, I took out the few nicer items I’d brought and hung them up in the closet while Ladd lay back on the bed, his feet hanging off so he didn’t get the quilt dirty.
“That quilt looks older than yours. Was it Sarah’s as well?”
He glanced down at it. “I’m not sure. Mom will know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was found with her things as well.”
After putting all of my bathroom things away in the guest bathroom, I walked back into the room. “Why did your great-grandfather pack away all of Sarah’s things?”
He sat up. “According to my dad, who asked his dad, Great-Grandpa Lawrence was so heartbroken when Sarah died, he couldn’t stand to see any reminders of her in the house. So, he had it all packed up and put where he couldn’t see it.”
My heart broke for a man I never knew. “That is so sad. You would think he’d want reminders of her, if he loved her so much.”
Ladd nodded. “The Wilde men are a strange bunch.”
“You’re telling me this now?”
He stood…and suddenly became very serious as he studied me.
“I think our emotions run very deep. My grandmother told Mom something once, about Grandpa Flint dying before she did. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I was sitting in the pantry, hiding because David and I were playing hide and seek. I couldn’t have been more than ten years old, but I remember that conversation that I was in no way supposed to hear. ”
Intrigued by the story, I asked, “What did they say?”