Chapter 2
Tillman Snyder walked down the street in Rockerton, North Dakota. He was supposed to meet his new boss at noon, and he had a few errands he needed to run in what he understood to be the closest large town to Sweet Water, which was the location of the ranch where he had been hired to coordinate a rodeo. The job was right up his alley; rodeos ran in his blood. But he was used to owning his own ranch, not working for someone else.
His divorce had changed the financial situation in which he saw himself. His wife had insisted on splitting everything right down the middle, and he hadn’t had the financial resources to buy the ranch outright nor save his prized herd of horses. The alimony agreement had wiped him out.
So he sold his horses and the ranch as well. It pained him to lose everything he’d worked all his life for, but what good was a ranch if he had no family to share it with?
He flexed his jaw and continued down the sidewalk, glancing across the street at a lawyer’s office beside a dentist and financial services.
On his side of the street, the jail loomed up, the old building perched at the top of about six steps.
A woman had started down the steps, and he slowed his stride almost imperceptibly so that she would pass in front of him, and neither of them would have to stop.
Focusing on the items that he needed to get done before he started his new job, he almost missed the blur of motion as the woman, apparently still tipsy from her lockup the night before, lost her balance on the steps, her arms windmilling as she took two steps in quick succession, trying to catch her balance as she careened down the steps.
He moved without thinking about it, lunging forward, reaching his arms out, and grabbing the woman before she crashed to the sidewalk.
It looked like they let her out a little too soon. She could have used a few more hours to sober up.
Except she didn’t smell like alcohol. She smelled like apples in spring and laughter around the campfire.
He blinked, shaking his head a little, as he carefully steadied her before dropping his hands and stepping back.
“I’m so sorry!” the woman said, her cheeks pink, her eyes horrified. He would assume from the expression on her face that she didn’t typically get so drunk that she couldn’t walk a straight line or keep her balance.
“No problem, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat. He intended to go around her, but she swayed, and while he was tempted to roll his eyes and fought to tamp down his irritation, he still couldn’t let a woman fall down in front of him, no matter how inebriated she was.
Nor should it matter how good she smelled.
In fact, the better she smelled, the more he would be tempted to walk away from her. Nicole always smelled good.
But not like this woman. His ex did not have the fresh, wholesome scent of western sky and rain on flower petals.
Still, he didn’t know why her scent moved him so much when her actions irritated him beyond words. Nicole enjoyed her alcohol as well.
Her shoulder bumped against his chest, and if possible, her cheeks burned even brighter than they had before.
“I’m so sorry. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me, other than I guess I was sitting too long.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much, then you won’t have such a hard time sleeping it off.”
He didn’t mean to sound surly, but he supposed he probably did. She acted like he wouldn’t know she was drunk.
Of course, he didn’t smell alcohol. When his dad had come home smashed, he’d always been able to smell it on him.
The woman froze, her eyes shooting to his as she placed a hand solidly on his chest and pushed off him.
“I don’t drink,” she said, but her voice sounded confused, like she was asking a question instead of making a statement.
His lips pressed together at the obvious lie.
“Of course you don’t,” he said, giving her another couple of seconds to make sure she had her feet under her that time before he tipped his hat again. “Have a nice day, ma’am.”
He didn’t want to have an argument, and he didn’t want to get into a fight with a stranger on the street. Especially a drunk stranger. Especially a drunk female stranger.
He didn’t want to have anything to do with females, drunk or otherwise.
Not after what Nicole had done to him.
Pain shot through him at the thought of his two children. They were seven and nine, and he’d had such plans for the things they would do together as they grew.
He wanted to swear and use Nicole’s name in the middle of it, but he pressed his lips even tighter together as he strode away.
He wasn’t going to blame the bad things that happened in his life on anyone but himself.
Of course, he’d done everything he could to stop Nicole from divorcing him, but he was the one who had chosen her to begin with. He should have known someone that beautiful wouldn’t have been able to stay with just one man. He’d been so honored when she chose him, but his life would have gone a much different and better direction if she’d passed over him for someone else.
He finished doing the things he’d come to town for, opening a checking account and getting his driver’s license changed from Montana to North Dakota, and then headed out to the Sweet View Ranch.
It was still raw, losing his own ranch, and felt a bit like a comedown in the world to be working on someone else’s, rather than making decisions on his own spread.
Lord, I didn’t realize that I needed so many lessons in humility. I’d really like to learn my lessons this time, so You don’t feel like You need to put me through this again.
He stopped at the gate, looking at the arch that said Sweet View Ranch in burnt metal, dark against the bright blue sky as he hooked his truck in gear and drove under.
It was the same kind of gate that he had at his own ranch, high enough for a tractor to go under and both a welcome and an announcement for everyone who came.
Shoving the bitter feelings aside, he focused on the job he was here to do. His dream of owning his own ranch had been yanked away from him, for now. Who knew how the Lord would work, and even if he never owned his own spread again, at least he hadn’t had to take a job behind a desk under fluorescent lights in an office with no windows somewhere in a concrete jungle.
He still got to work outside, under the wide North Dakota sky, feel the wind ruffle through his hair and the heat of the sun on his face. Smell the pureness of the country air and work with his hands doing what he loved.
Even if Nicole had ripped his life away from him, God had been good.
Sorry for complaining, Lord. Help me to be an asset to this ranch. Help me to be the kind of worker that I would have wanted to hire. Help me to give a full day’s work, and more, for what I get paid. Thank you for the opportunity. Help me to be grateful, and...help me to forgive.
He definitely needed help with that last one. He couldn’t even think about Nicole without bitterness rising up in his throat.
There was a sign that said “office” and pointed toward the big farmhouse that sat a small distance from the other outbuildings. A smaller house sat directly behind it. Perhaps someone’s residence.
He shut his pickup off, the one thing from his farm that he’d been able to afford to purchase when Nicole had insisted they auction everything off, and got out, taking the steps two at a time and debating for half a second before he opened the door and walked in.
“Hello, the house,” he said, realizing that he had walked into someone’s living room.
The sign had said office.
“Come on in,” a female voice called from down the hall, from what he assumed was the kitchen.
“Sorry, ma’am. I thought the office pointed here.”
“It does. We live here, too.”
“If I’d have known that, I would have knocked.”
“It’s no big deal. We’re expecting you,” she said, coming out of the kitchen with one hand out, the other hand holding a tea towel. “I am Alaska, and you must be Tillman.”
“I am. Good to meet you, Alaska,” he said, recognizing her as the woman he talked to a couple of times on the phone.
Ezra’s wife.
Ezra and he had been good friends and roommates in college. He had to admit he was a little surprised by the way Alaska looked. Not that there was anything wrong with her, she just didn’t look like the kind of woman that his straightlaced, serious, line-walking friend from school would have dated, let alone married.
Maybe it was the tattoo sleeves, or the piercings, or the fact that the ends of her hair were platinum blond while darker roots grew in. Regardless, she seemed friendly and welcoming, and he figured she must have a character that was above reproach, if Ezra had fallen for her.
“Ezra will be here shortly, he was helping the guys with a couple of calves who’d gotten tangled up in some wire.”
“All right,” he said.
“If you want to come on into the kitchen and sit down, you’re welcome to. I have some cookies cooling on the counter, and you’re welcome to help yourself.”
“Thanks, but if it’s okay with you, I’ll walk back out and wait on the porch. It’s a nice day out. I won’t go nosing around, but I’ll see what I can see from there.”
He didn’t want to be stuck in the kitchen with Alaska, didn’t want to eat cookies and feel like he was part of the family. It might be healing and peaceful for someone else, but for him, it would just feel like acid on an open wound.
That was what he had wanted. That was what he thought he was getting when he got married to Nicole. He’d had a rude awakening, because that was definitely not what he had gotten.
Alaska’s face did not fall, and her smile stayed in place. She wasn’t offended that he preferred to go outside. Maybe she even understood. Alaska knew a little bit about his background, at least the fact that he lost his ranch in his divorce and was looking for a place to work, something steady so that he could go back to the judge and try to get the custody arrangement changed. Since he had lost his job when they sold the ranch, the judge had given him visitation but no actual time to have the children. It would be kind of hard to do that when he didn’t even have a house.
He could have made it work, though. And he tried to tell the judge that, but Nicole had been very convincing, that not only was he a terrible husband, but he was an awful father as well. He had wanted to prove her right, at times, by leaping over the table and grabbing her by the throat.
Her smug looks, her gloating when she had won, like their children were something that they should have been fighting over to begin with. He hadn’t been able to reason with her, and nothing he had said had made a difference. You’d have thought she was trying to show off for her new boyfriend, Elbert.
Because of her, he’d lost the ranch that he worked for his whole life. But more than that, he lost his children as well. Sure, he had visitation, but considering that he lived six hours away from them now, they could hardly come over for an evening after school, and even spending the weekend with them would be hard.
He wanted to go back to court and redo the visitation, since trying to talk to his ex was virtually useless.
His whole life, up in smoke. And through no fault or desire of his own. He had wanted to make things work, he had been willing to do whatever it took, but she hadn’t been interested. She tossed him away like an old shoe, blew up his life without a second thought, and went to do whatever made herself happy.
He realized his hands gripped the railing so tightly his knuckles were white.
He deliberately loosened his hands and looked out over the wide expanse of the North Dakota landscape. Beyond the buildings of the ranch, grass blew in the wind as far as he could see until it met the long, low line of the sky in the distance.
There was something about that view that stirred his heart and soul and made him want to be better. In some small way. It also made him feel very small. Tiny, useless almost. And part of him wanted to acknowledge the majesty and glory of the Creator who made and controlled such a vast area. An area which was, in the grand scheme of things, quite small.
But if God controlled everything, why had He allowed his wife to walk away? Why was He allowing his children to grow up without him? Why had He allowed the ranch that had been the one dream in his life to be ripped away from him and sold?
Now, he was relegated to working for someone else, because the only thing he knew how to do was ranch and rodeo.
Swallowing hard, he turned away from the view, the desire to move forcing him to turn and start pacing across the porch.
He couldn’t help it, his stride stopped abruptly when he saw his friend Ezra walking beside the woman who had run into him outside of the jail earlier that morning.
Figures.
That was the way his life was going lately. Of course she would be on the ranch for some reason. Hopefully she didn’t work here.
Maybe she was a guest, one who was hopefully leaving soon.
Ezra said something, and she laughed, and Ezra, his taciturn and very serious friend, cracked a smile. Life had been hard for Ezra, with his parents dying and leaving twelve children with no mother or father and a huge ranch that needed to be taken care of, and all of the duties had fallen squarely on Ezra’s shoulders, but it looked like he’d come full circle and maybe gotten some peace.
Maybe that had something to do with getting married. Tillman had heard that such a thing was possible. When a man got married, his work was halved, he had a partner to share his life with, share the burden with, someone to walk beside him, to ease her burden while she eased his, and somehow that made life easier for both of them.
That had not been his experience. Getting married had been the worst mistake he’d ever made in his entire life, and he could guarantee anyone that he would not be going down that trail again.
“Tillman! I thought you’d be inside with my wife eating cookies. She likes to load anyone who comes up with sugar if they step foot into her kitchen.”
“She tried. You know me. I’d rather be outside.”
He couldn’t stand the stifling, happy family atmosphere of the house. Not with his own dreams of home and family still smoldering in ashes around his feet.
“That’s part of what makes you good at what you do,” Ezra said, having no problem understanding Tillman would prefer to be outside, never questioning it.
Ezra had known Tillman before he had been burned, multiple times, by his wife. And before Tillman had gotten bitter about everything. He didn’t want to be bitter, didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in bitterness, but he had never really sat down and thought about what it would take for him to not feel bitter anymore.
It wasn’t like he could go back and redo the past. All he could do is all he could ever do, just keep moving forward. So he supposed, if he were to really think about it, there would be no solution.