Chapter 11
Tessa
One Week Later
The drive from my office in LA to the ranch seems shorter than the last time I came here. I have high hopes that a hundred miles on the highway will be a good way to clear my head since all I’ve done is mull over the news that I am indeed seven weeks pregnant.
The open road helps a little, but I’m still slightly dreading what I’ll find at the ranch when I arrive.
We sent a cleaning crew in to give the place a once-over, and Mel promised to put sheets on the beds, but none of that changes the property's overall state of disrepair. The house is practically falling down, and I need to take some photos before meeting with Dylan’s architect friend to talk about options.
Without my sisters griping about what’s wrong with the ranch house, I’m sure I can come up with a plan.
I also want to knock on the neighbor’s door and talk about the lawsuit now that I’ve learned about groundwater laws, unregulated use, and the invisible private property in California.
Under a groundwater management act, local farmers are supposed to reduce their water use by 60 percent, but the act excludes big corporations. It doesn’t seem fair.
No wonder all the farmers in Willow Springs are suing each other for water rights. Their water is essentially handed over to corporations that can afford to hire lawyers and go to court. The individual farmer has no chance.
If I can explain to the neighbor that he’s wasting his time suing me, maybe I can make the whole issue go away.
As soon as I get out of the San Fernando Valley and start heading north, I turn on my old reliable playlist, the one I listen to on weekends when I’m consciously letting my work frustrations filter from my brain.
It doesn’t take long before I’ve run through the available options in my head.
I’m pro-choice, and I always imagined I’d have no trouble terminating an unplanned pregnancy.
But that was before I found myself pregnant at thirty-five with a biological clock thumping like a rabbit’s foot.
I think about what I want at this stage of my life, given that I haven’t put motherhood on my bingo card for this year. Or maybe ever.
Middle of the night feedings, putting another tiny person’s needs before my own…it seems like a lot.
I have plenty of friends with kids, and I watched how Hannah’s free time vanished after she had Dexter. I can only take on parenthood if I’m all in. One hundred percent. Total life change.
Unexpectedly, I feel protective of the tiny dividing cells in my body, a mothering instinct I didn’t know I possessed. Maybe life is offering me a last-ditch chance at something I’ve thought about in the abstract but didn’t know I wanted until now.
The longer I drive, the more my scattered thoughts began to congeal into something like acceptance. No, more than that. Excitement?
No. Outright panic. With a side of excitement.
I feel the familiar pangs of tension and stress wrap around me just as I pull up to Loveland Ranch and inhale my first breath of fresh air out here.
As I park my Jeep in the driveway, I notice the tall shade tree whose branches are in dire need of trimming. But that’s not what strikes me. A tiny yellow bird sits up on a high branch, fanning out its feathers and poking around with its beak.
Getting out of the car, I stay focused on the bird, which doesn’t fly away even though I’m close enough for it to feel threatened. “Hi, little guy.”
That earns me a tiny chirp, which warms my soul.
Is it my imagination, or are the birds at home too skittish or busy to stay on a branch and look right back at me while I observe them?
Things are looking better already here at the ranch.
Maybe this city girl needs a little time away to think about her life.
“You’re six weeks along,” Dr. Robbins said last week, her cheerful tone telling me this is a good thing. Is it a good thing when the father is a guy I may never see again? A guy I don’t even know how to find?
Not to mention that I’m still working hard to make partner, and I won’t be able to take a long maternity leave, not if I want to keep up with my fellow associates who are men. And when do I tell my bosses?
“Will I need to scale back at work?” I asked, as though Dr. Robbins knows about my caseload, much less my ambitions.
“That’s your call. I want to do everything we can to have a healthy outcome, and that will help you make the rest of your plans.”
Plans? What plans? Other than racking up billable hours, I sure don’t have any. Except that I need to get this renovation moving because driving back and forth to some small town is not a long-term proposition.
I don’t even know where Fitz lives, well, unless his home is the tiny room where we had sex. If so, it’s certainly not big enough to share with a baby, if he even wants one.
“Breathe,” I tell myself. Maybe it’s a good thing I’ll be spending some time out here, away from the grind of my job and the intensity of downtown LA.
Perhaps there’s a silver lining to being here now with a little time to think things through without my sisters yapping in my ear all the time.
No, I haven’t told them. Not until I at least make a valiant effort to find Fitz…
whatever his last name is, and let him know.
Guess I’ll be stopping by the Hitching Post later in case that’s his regular hangout.
But first things first—I want to walk the property. See what we actually inherited.
Last time, everyone was so focused on the cracks and broken windows. I want to explore the grounds. Mel promised me a fat-tired bike to navigate the dirt pathways between the gnarled, overgrown trees. Sounds fun. A little bike ride in the countryside.
Unfortunately, my deposition ran an hour longer than I’d planned, putting me behind schedule. I wanted to hit the highway before two in the afternoon to avoid traffic heading out of LA, which meant no time to stop at home or change clothes.
A pencil skirt, silk blouse, and low-heeled pumps aren’t ideal for tromping around the ranch property, but I’m not fussy. If I get a little dust on my shoes, so be it.
I say goodbye to the yellow bird and follow the path around the side of the house. As promised, there are not one but two bikes in a shed. Choosing the red bike, I wheel it out onto the gravel path and adjust the seat to the lowest setting.
The pedals are big and flat, so it’s easy to use the flat toe box of my shoes to push down and ride.
I have to hike my skirt up around my thighs to give me enough leeway to pedal, but fortunately, it’s a stretchy fabric, so it gives.
I’m the only one out here, and I don’t think the birds care if I look ridiculous.
“Here goes,” I tell myself. Then I push down on a pedal and ride.
The tires squelch through mud, and I relish the burn in my quads, which makes my heart beat faster and reminds me there’s a humming world outside of legal briefs, billable hours, and pantsuits.
I’d forgotten how much I like being outdoors. I guess that’s what happens when a person works twelve hour days. I sometimes forget to eat dinner because I’m so absorbed in a case. Instead of thinking it’s a sign I need a life, the workaholic state fuels me. I stay later, work harder, aim higher.
And right now, I’m wondering why. Not why I chose the job I did, but why I’ve been letting it take over my life so much that I’ve forgotten to touch grass. It wasn’t intentional, but it became a habit.
I’d like bike riding to become a habit, especially a ride like this one under an aqua sky—which I can sort of see through the overgrown tree branches that look like they might fall on my head with a stiff wind.
It’s a good thing the tires are knobby because the path is bumpy and untamed. I start a mental list of things that will need work around here, and the vastness of the property confirms how overwhelming it will be to take on renovation and motherhood at the same time.
Oh yeah, and my career.
I stop pedaling and grab my phone from the basket to make a video call to Callie. Even though her head is in the clouds most of the time, I can use her enthusiasm about renovating this place. And she’s always had my back.
“Hey!” Her face fills the screen, and I can’t help smiling at the cherubic roundness with deeper dimples than mine. I have an upward view of her face as she looks at her computer screen and types.
“Callie, look down for a sec.” Her green eyes grow wide, and she flips her straight brown hair over her shoulders.
“Oh! You’re there. How is it without all the negative energy from Haze?”
I laugh, loving how she has no problem calling any of us out on our shortcomings. The beauty of being the youngest is that she gets away with it.
“It’s really great, Cal. I think the place has potential.”
“I’m here to help as soon as I get through the next couple of weeks of weddings.”
“I’m not worried. I know where to find you.”
“Yes, you do, only you’re gonna need to find me later because I have two brides barking at me today.”
“Understood. Just wanted you to see the view.”
“Love it. Love you.”
I shove the phone into my pocket and start riding again, the bike’s tires bumping over clods of dirt. No one has done any gardening out here for years, and I’m cognizant of my pregnant state, which feels weird to think. But I’ll have to get used to it.
Riding slowly, I notice the overgrown trees and dead plants that may once have been crops or flowers.
I wish I’d taken this tour of the property when we were here for my birthday weekend.
Before I got pregnant. Before I opened my mouth and told my sisters I wanted to be in charge of renovating the ranch.
A laugh chokes out as I think back to that crossroads, which would have put me in a very different place today. I’d like to follow the other version of Tessa Demille around for a few days and see how her life feels.
And just as quickly, I realize I don’t want her life. Even though I’m on new terrain—literally—I like it. My predictable, safe, worry-filled life has taken me this far, but maybe I’m due for a little more adventure.
“Well, you’re sure getting it,” I mutter to myself. “And then some.”
At the edge of the property, the terrain changes. What was dry a few yards behind me is now well watered. Even lush.
It’s like I rode from an arid desert climate zone to a lush tropical one by pedaling a few extra feet. Something to learn about as a new ranch co-owner, I decide.
The trail disappears. All I see are knee-high green plants. If I’d paid attention in the one botany class I took in college, I might have a chance at identifying what’s here, but it was an easy A without paying attention, and now I know nothing.
I can’t ride farther, so I tip the bike onto its side and leave it behind. It’s easier to tromp through the plants on foot, and I still want to get to the edge of the property, which seems to be just up ahead where a berm juts up.
Checking the soles of my pumps, I decide they’re as good as anything for scrambling up a little hill, so I proceed through the plants, one shoe or the other getting stuck periodically in mud.
Scrambling a bit and holding my arms out for balance, I make my way up the rise.
At the top, I suck in a breath. Just beyond where I’m standing is the most gorgeous spread of land I’ve ever seen.
The trees, all in bloom with lemons and oranges, wind in a path that shades acre after acre of crop gardens, all of them teeming with hearty green plants.
Tiny bits of red punctuate rows of green, strawberries for as far as the eye can see.
Large swaths of flowers with yellows, whites, and purples bouncing in the sun.
I see greenhouses and compost heaps, corn growing in rows, miles of greenery, and curving swirls that remind me of the Palace of Versailles.
The land is the very definition of “manicured,” and I wonder if there’s any chance that our property could look half as nice with a little TLC.
Or a lot. Maybe there’s a world in which I convince this neighbor to drop the lawsuit and offer some gardening tips. A girl can dream.
I really should be looking where I’m stepping.
There are crags and clumps of plants and loose rocks underfoot as I scramble along the top of the dirt hill, which is covered in soft shrubs.
Branches stick out at odd angles, and I find myself ducking and dodging to avoid jagged plants that look like spiky stars growing waist high.
Maybe I should have given more thought to climbing this hill in the wrong shoes, but in my defense, I hadn’t planned on tromping through plants when I got on the bike.
I hear a rustle in the bushes a couple of feet away and flinch, expecting a cute squirrel to pop its head out and reassure me that I’m not as out of touch with nature as I feel. But it turns out to be a bug so large it might as well be a bird.
I jump back, and my foot twists in a hole. I lurch forward, grabbing at anything to steady myself, and ending up with a fistful of spiky shards that slice into my palm as I yelp.
Still unable to steady myself, I windmill my arms, but there’s nothing to grab, and I feel my feet sliding forward. Struggling to gain purchase, I trip over a bushy branch, which sends me flailing down the embankment on the other side of the berm.
My hands scrape against more prickly plants, and every part of me lands hard on the dirt as I cartwheel down the hill, kicking up dust and leaves as I go.
When I finally stop moving, my hand goes to my belly in a flash of panic.
I want to believe it’s fine this early on, but what do I know?
As my heart throttles my chest, I remind myself that I didn’t land on my stomach.
My ankle and scraped-up hands and forearms took the brunt of my fall.
Apparently, the human body is designed to protect a baby even in moments like this.
My ankle throbs, and my skin stings. Not to mention the sharp electric zing I felt when I slid down the embankment into some sort of invisible demon fence trying to kill me.
The only saving grace is that no one was here to see my ignominious face-plant.
Then again, there’s no one here to help me get back up.