Chapter 8
Tessa
One Month Later
In the weeks since we visited Loveland Ranch, all my sisters and I have done is argue. It’s what we do best, each of us digging our heels in and coming at a problem with our individual brand of stubbornness.
Sell, renovate, fulfill some ranching dream…
At least the dreams are pleasant, especially the ones that include a cowboy named Fitz.
Apparently, I was really nervous around him because the picture of his driver’s license that I sent to Callie might as well be blurry modern art.
Good thing he turned out to be a good guy. Oh, so much better than good…
The memory of him was the one thing that kept me from losing my lunch on the drive to Oceanside because Dylan thinks she’s Mario Andretti behind the wheel.
I still don’t feel so great, sitting on the worn yellow sofa in our grandparents’ living room, where I’m focusing on the horizon outside their house, which is perched atop a hill in a retirement community. The distant view of the ocean settles my nerves a tiny bit.
“You okay? You look a little green.” Callie leans away to observe me and raises an eyebrow in concern.
“Oh yeah. Fine. But I need to make a pharmacy run for tampons later.”
“Ah, is today the day? I probably have one in my purse.”
I nod. “Cool. Thanks.” It’s probably not helping my stomach that I’m supposed to get my period any day now. My uterus has declared war.
Meanwhile, our grandparents, just back from an Alaskan cruise, only want to talk about puffins.
“They are the cutest little things. Just like on the box,” Grandma Ann says, clasping her hands together and giving us a closed-mouth smile.
“What box?” Callie asks.
Grandma Ann flicks away the question like it’s a bug on her hand. “The cereal. Puffins. You know. Anyway, those little orange beaks are so expressive. And they’re everywhere. They completely made up for the fact that we didn’t see any whales near Seward.”
“Got it,” Dylan says, impatient from the moment we got in the car, hence the holy terror driving. “Can we talk about the ranch now? What do you see us doing with it?”
“Well, it’s yours,” Grandma Ann says, making eye contact with each of us, one at a time, as though she's teaching a class. She sets a tray of sliced chocolate babka on the coffee table, where a rectangular doily is stained with grease from countless previous babkas.
“Yeah,” Gramps says. “It's all in the documents. You five own the property outright, and the mortgage has been paid off, free and clear. All that has to be managed are property taxes and utilities, but we bought so long ago that they’re minimal.”
“Especially minimal when you don’t do a lick to maintain the place,” Hannah grumbles from my other side.
“What’s that, dear?” Grandma Ann asks, cupping her ear with a hand.
I elbow her to keep quiet. “I was just saying it smells so good in here. Did you bake the babka?”
“Nope. That was on special at Trader Joe’s.” She smiles at Gramps, and I wonder whether I’ll have a man to smile at about grocery store savings when I’m in my eighties.
“What do you want us to do with Loveland Ranch? Hold on to it? Sell it?” I ask.
“Yeah, do you want it to be a working ranch with chickens?” Callie asks, hopeful.
“Or should we sell it to the highest bidder and get the heck out of Dodge? That seems smart.” Hazel is nothing if not consistent.
Then Dylan jumps in with her ideas, which have grown exponentially since we sat arguing at the Hitching Post. She envisions a farm-to-table restaurant, a bed-and-breakfast, and a vineyard.
“That’s not something that will build itself.
Even if we agreed to finance it—even if we could finance something like that—are you willing to live up there and oversee everything?
” Hazel leans forward, eyes blazing, but there’s no way she’ll slug Dylan like she did when we were kids.
At least not in front of our grandparents.
Dylan’s face falls. “Well, no. I have projects here. There’s no way.”
“So it’s settled, then.” Hazel’s voice cracks with triumphant glee. “We all live here. No one is willing to move two hours away and make this happen. I already have a list of real estate agents willing to take this on—"
“I agree with Dylan. We should renovate it and build a bed-and-breakfast. How cute would it be to have an inn for guests, and we could offer horseback riding, fishing, crafts…make it like a family camp.” Callie looks giddy with excitement.
Hannah holds up a hand. “Family camps are huge right now, but that’s a big undertaking. We’d need a staff of people to deal with the horses and run the activities.” She puts her index fingers to her temples like her head hurts.
“I’m down for us do it,” Dylan insists.
“You have no time or money,” Hazel chimes in. “What you’re talking about is a big investment. Don’t you think it would be better to sell the place? Then do what you want with your share of the proceeds. Easy, done.” She brushes her hands together.
“We’d be throwing money away if we sell it the way it is. Let’s at least rehab it a little bit so we can get the most out of it,” Hannah says, always pragmatic. She’s probably already running numbers and calculating the return on investment in renovation.
“Not if we find a buyer who sees the potential. The ranch has good bones, but let’s face it, the place is a wreck. I want out.”
Gramps lets out a long, wheezing sigh that stops Hazel from continuing. Eyes turned down toward his lap, he shakes his head. When he looks up at us, his eyes are rimmed with tears, but he presses his lips together as though he’s working hard to push his emotions down.
“It’s a shame.” His voice is a croak. “When we bought the place, we had such a vision. All of you girls running around, riding horses, playing in the fields…”
“We did that a little.” Hannah looks contrite, but we all know the truth. Once our parents died, all of our grandparents’ energy went into raising us. Trips to the ranch became fewer and farther between. And clearly, once we grew up, no one took care of the place at all.
“Think of it—tire swings and lemonade stands, bike rides down pastoral lanes, teaching your kids to drive a tractor before they learn to drive a car.” Gramps rhapsodizes, recalling a childhood we never experienced. Of course we didn’t. We were all raised in Los Angeles.
I imagine what the ranch could become if we did renovate it and preserve it for future generations of Demille kids and grandkids. The idea sounds nice but impossible.
“We know we’ve let you down, allowing the place to fall into disrepair.
But we kept it all these years on a hope and a dream.
That you’d make it your own place for your own kids to escape the city and dig their toes into the earth.
” Grandma Ann fans her eyes and puts a hand over her mouth.
She lays it on thick. I know it’s partly an act, but I can’t help being moved by the idea of what she’s saying.
“Stay strong,” Hannah whispers to me with an elbow to the ribs. “She’s a master manipulator.”
I steal a glance at my grandmother, who has lost a couple of inches in height over the past decade and whose velvety cheeks sag in the right grandmotherly places.
She still gives the best hugs on the planet.
And her fierce blue eyes still sparkle with the kind of mischief that tells me she knows exactly what she’s doing when she lays down the final blow.
“Oh, and I should mention, there’s some business about a lawsuit.
Neighbor busybody accusing us of unlawful water rights or some silly business.
” She eyes me, her eyes blinking innocently.
“I get why you ladies wouldn’t want to mess with that.
It seems like there are two of you who want to keep it and two who want to sell…
Tessa, you’re always the voice of reason. I don’t know your wishes.”
It’s a toothless lawsuit, but I don’t tell them that. All the better that they think I’m a hero when I win it and send this jerk of a neighbor back under the potato bin he came from to dream up some other way to make money.
“I want to keep it.” My mouth betrays my whim before my brain has gotten a grip on what I’m saying. It’s true that the lawsuit has been gnawing at me since I first read the complaint. It’s not the kind of work we handle at the firm, but…
“Tessa Demille for the defense. Citing hundred-year-old case law in California regarding water rights and eminent domain, I assert that the case brought against us is meritless and should be dismissed.”
The judge, serious and intimidating in dark robes, bangs his gavel and rules in our favor, sending the bloviating neighbor scurrying away…
“And obviously, I’d handle whatever legal issues come up.
Easy. Totally in my wheelhouse. My schedule is predictable.
I can drive back and forth on my days off.
I’ll oversee it myself. I think we should give the place a chance.
See if it can give us the future family bonding Gramps is talking about. Even if we end up selling one day.”
The words won’t stop, and I search the faces in the room to see who said them. Looking from one sister to the next, I see each has her mouth hanging open at my sudden willingness to take this on.
My grandparents, on the other hand, look like they’ve seen this coming from a mile away.
Like they knew all they had to do was dangle the idea of tradition, heritage, and family obligation in front of my nose and I’d leap.
Not to mention the challenge of a legal case that just might snap me out of my work doldrums.
I barely make it to the powder room before throwing up. One look in the mirror at my face betrays the truth. I’m in way over my head.