Chapter 31 #3
“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” Grace throws her hands up, edging closer to full-on hysteria.
“I kept quiet because I didn’t want to leave, and because I didn’t think you or anyone would be in any real danger, and both of those things ended up happening anyway.
I shouldn’t have called his bluff. I should’ve known he would do whatever he could to get back at me for telling you about the scams.” A sob wracks her body, and she hunches forward, resting her face in her palm.
“Halcyon was like a dream to me. More than a ranch, more than a paycheck and place to stay.” She shakes her head against her hand, voice watery and thick.
“Crew, the hands, you and Clint and Cooper.” She sits up, and she can feel the swelling beneath her eyes growing worse.
She can barely see Renata through the haze of her tears, but she recognizes that look of patience, of acceptance.
It makes her want to cry harder. “Halcyon—you all—felt like home. You felt like mine. I’ve never known that feeling before. ”
It’s quiet between them for a beat, save for Grace’s sniffles, and then she feels a hand cover hers and squeeze.
She blinks away a few more tears, her vision clearing enough to see Renata opening her mouth to speak.
“Grace, have I ever told you about the conversation I had with Maryann? I know when we first met, I told you she’d mentioned a horse trainer in need of a job.
But have I ever actually told you what she said? ”
Grace shakes her head.
Renata leans farther into her pillows, pulling Grace’s hand into her lap, which brings her slightly farther down the bed, and brings them closer.
At this distance, Grace can smell the subtle hints of cherry, rose, and sandalwood in Renata’s perfume, masked slightly by the hundreds of flowers surrounding them, but still there.
Familiar and warm and perfectly her. “You know, I hadn’t talked to her in years.
We had a little spat when she left Halcyon—I couldn’t understand why she wanted to leave after almost a decade with us, but she was adamant.
There was something she needed to tend to out in Everlake County, wherever the hell that was.
Ronnie was distraught to lose her—she’d learned everything she knew from Maryann.
Anyway, I learned a few years later that she’d taken a job at Braxton, and I was beside myself.
That place? Over Halcyon? I couldn’t believe it.
I called her up that same day and gave her a piece of my mind—I was a bit hot under the collar back then—and she just took it.
Didn’t argue with me, didn’t deny anything.
Once I was all red-faced and done with my rant, she very calmly and patiently told me the reason she left.
And wouldn’t you know it—it was for a man. ”
At this, Grace smiles. She tries to picture Renata and Maryann in their thirties, bickering in the Halcyon kitchen.
It’s difficult to turn back the clock and imagine them younger, softer, more impulsive; she’s only ever known them as two formidable women who seem to have the answer to every question.
“Except it wasn’t that simple. Nothing ever is,” Renata continues, and then she leans forward slightly, squeezing Grace’s hand again.
“The man’s name was Hal, and he was some kinda horse-training magician.
I don’t know the specifics, but they’d apparently had an ongoing thing, hot and heavy here and there, but nothing serious ever came of it.
Cowboys and all that,” Renata says, only slightly derisively.
“But then, out of the blue, he called up Maryann and asked her to come to Braxton. When she told me that, I gave her a whole rash of shit for it. I couldn’t believe she’d just uproot her entire life and go to live on that backwater ranch for some guy who was never going to commit to her.
And that’s when she said—after calling me an impatient, interrupting bitch—that Hal had told her about a teenage girl who’d started living at Braxton.
” The smile on Grace’s face drops off in an instant, and her heart seizes in her chest. Renata lets the statement rest for a moment and then continues.
“A spindly little thing that life had chewed up and spit out were his exact words, if I recall correctly. The niece of the proprietor, but that kind of family tie didn’t mean much.
Hal told Maryann he’d gotten Whitlock’s permission to take the girl under his wing, but he didn’t know his ass from his elbow when it came to teenage girls, and she was practically mute for the first two months.
So, he asked if Maryann would come to Braxton.
To be with him, for them to be together in the same place, and to help with the girl. Grace.”
The knot that’s formed in Grace’s stomach while listening to the story tightens at the sound of her name.
Shock, disbelief, awe—all of it courses through her like a tidal wave.
That someone had been looking out for her back then, had been concerned enough to call on an old friend for help—Grace is helpless but to give in to the new batch of tears that fall down her cheeks.
Hal, grumpy, intelligent, forgiving, cigar-stenched Hal. Her teacher, her savior.
“I didn’t know,” Grace says, though it’s more of a blubber than a statement. “She—they never told me.”
“I know they didn’t. And the only reason I’m telling you now is because you need to understand something. You deserved to have people in your corner, Grace—back then, and right now. You deserve love, safety, and care. You deserve a place to call home, just as much as anyone else. More, really.”
It still doesn’t quite make sense, doesn’t quite penetrate, even if Grace wants it to.
Even if all she wants is to accept Renata’s words as law, to go back to Halcyon and call it her own.
It isn’t as simple as flipping a switch and rewriting an entire lifetime of unease.
She wishes it were—wishes she could close the book on that darkness once and for all.
Renata’s hand leaves hers and reaches upward, landing gently on Grace’s cheek.
She leans in, and she must sense Grace’s stubborn hesitation, because she waits for Grace to look her in the eye before she continues.
Her tone at once firm and warm, inarguable and soft.
“You’ve become so much lighter since I met you, and that kind of thing is infectious.
You brought my son back to life with that light, and I’m thankful to you for that. ”
Grace notices a shine in Renata’s eyes and leans her cheek lightly into her palm.
“Maybe this will be hard for you to hear, and even harder for you to accept, but I’m going to say it to you anyway: If it’s forgiveness that you need to come home, you have it.
A million times over. You’ve always had it.
But more importantly, I need you to understand something,” Renata says, and Grace simply listens, caught up in a whirlwind of unfathomable emotion.
“Halcyon is your home, Grace. Maybe you don’t believe that right now, and you don’t have to. But know that it’s the truth. Halcyon is your home, and we are your family.”
Without another word, Renata pulls Grace forward and wraps her tightly in her arms. Grace goes willingly, carefully, and lets Renata cradle her.
She starts to cry once again—if she ever even stopped—and tries harder than she’s ever tried in her life to let the words be true.
To let her heart take them in, to let her brain believe them.
It doesn’t happen instantly, but there’s an unexpected little give—a flicker of flexibility in those carefully crafted, steel-reinforced walls.
And while in this exact moment she can’t fully accept the fact that she’s found a place where she belongs, a person to share her life with, and a family that loves her, wants her, and will protect her—she knows now that one day, sooner rather than later, she finally will.