Carry Me Home (Lodestar Ranch #5)

Prologue

JANIE

Twenty Years Ago

I stretched my arms as wide as they could go and stared at the sky until it became my whole world. The breeze lifted my hair from my neck and tickled my fingertips. Feathers. I was made of feathers. I was a bird. A bird couldn’t be bad because it was just a bird doing bird things.

“You shouldn’t be here,” a boy’s voice rudely intruded.

It stole the wind from my wings. I wasn’t a bird who belonged in the sky. I was a girl, and I shouldn’t be here.

I lowered my arms and turned. The boy was taller than me and older than me. He stood there with his arms folded across his chest, his legs wide to take up space, his lips turned down in a frown.

I didn’t like boys.

“Good,” I said. “I’m supposed to be bad.”

His scowl shifted to curiosity. He considered me in that irritating way boys had like I was a bug he wanted to poke with a stick just to see what I would do about it.

“I’m Jack Price,” he said. “Who are you?”

Oh, he was one of the Price twins. They lived in one of the small houses on the other side of Aspen Springs, but I knew of them on account of how my mom liked to whisper with her friends at church.

Twins before she graduated high school! That’s the price you pay for having relations before marriage.

And then they would all giggle, like they were happy about something bad happening to her.

“I’m Janie Belmont,” I said.

He nodded and I knew he recognized my name like I had his. Everyone knew the Belmonts, for a different reason than everyone knew the Prices. We had the biggest cattle ranch in this part of Colorado.

“Well, Janie Belmont, why are you supposed to be bad?” Jack asked.

“Mom said I needed to go get all my bad out before the party tonight,” I explained. “So I don’t ruin everything.”

Jack eyed me. “You can’t have that much bad in you. You’re too little.”

I sighed with my whole chest. “Maybe that’s the problem. My body is too small to hold all this bad inside me. It comes exploding out.” I circled my arms to show what I meant. “Like, boom!” I shouted.

He didn’t look impressed. “Oh, your mom means you’re loud. That’s different from bad.”

“I wasn’t loud when I dropped a dead lizard down Mrs. O’Keefe’s neck at church. I was as quiet as…” I scrunched my nose, thinking.

“A mouse?” he suggested.

“As a dead lizard.” I grinned.

He laughed. There was no blue on this earth quite like the blue of Jack’s eyes when he laughed. I still didn’t like boys, but I liked his laugh.

“Why’d you drop a dead lizard on her neck?” he asked.

“Well, I couldn’t use a live one, could I? It might have gotten hurt.”

“No, I mean—” He rolled his lips together, like he was holding back another laugh. I wished he’d let it out. “Why Mrs. O’Keefe? What did she do to you?”

My cheeks felt hot. I turned away to hide my red face and kicked a rock, sending it flying with a cloud of dust. “I just don’t like her, that’s all,” I muttered.

He didn’t say anything, but when I peeked at him over my shoulder, he was looking at me like he knew.

But he didn’t know. No one had been in the supply closet but me and Mrs. O’Keefe when she had given my hair a sharp tug and said, Only hussies have red hair.

Be mindful that you don’t let your red hair cause problems for a nice boy.

I didn’t know what she meant, but I knew I didn’t like it.

“Jack,” I said, “do you know what a hussy is?”

It was something bad. I could tell by the look on his face. Now I wasn’t even a little sorry about the lizard. Between here and moseying river were several rocks where snakes liked to hide. I bet I could find a skin. Mrs. O’Keefe would hate that more than the lizard.

“She call you that?” Jack asked. “Don’t you pay her no mind. It’s better to be a hussy than a mean old bitch who’s jealous of anyone who isn’t as miserable as she is. Anyway, you’re too young to be a hussy.”

I set my chin. “I’ll be a hussy when I’m older. Just to spite her.”

Jack’s mouth didn’t laugh, but his eyes did and that was even better. He sat down on the biggest boulder and linked his arms around his bent knees. “I didn’t think anyone would be here, but I guess I don’t mind that it’s you.”

“I guess I don’t mind that you’re here, either, even though you’re a boy,” I said.

“Oh, you think boys have cooties?” he asked.

“No. They’re just annoying.”

“Well,” he allowed, “that’s fair.”

He watched the river and I watched him, sneaking peeks while I looked for the prettiest pebbles. I couldn’t say what drew my attention to him time and time again. I just liked looking at him.

“My dad said he’s going to visit today.” Jack kept his gaze on the river as he talked. “He won’t, though. He never shows up when he says he will. He’ll surprise us in a week or two when we’re not expecting it. Try to pull us out of school or something.”

I nibbled my lip. I would love someone to surprise me by getting me out of school. Jack didn’t look like he felt the same way.

“Essie’s gonna cry about it.” He heaved a beleaguered sigh. “I hate it when Essie cries.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Crying is for babies.”

He shook his head. “It’s not that. She’s my twin, you know? When she cries, I have to make it better somehow. I have to fix it. But our dad…I don’t know how to fix that.”

I nudged a rock with my toe and chewed my lip again. I wasn’t great at solving problems. I was better at making them. Anyway, this seemed like a grownup problem and I was just a kid. So was Jack, though. But fourteen was almost a grownup, right? Maybe that was why he had to fix adult problems.

The crinkle of a plastic wrapper in my pocket reminded me that I had swiped a snack from the secret stash I shared with our housekeeper, Maria. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the packet of M&Ms. “Here. You can give it to Essie. Maybe it will make her feel better.”

He looked from me to the candy and back to my face. “Okay. Thank you.”

I nodded. “I have to go now. My parents will worry.”

“Wait.” He tilted his head. “Did you get your bad out?”

“I did my best.” I wrinkled my nose. It wasn’t like I ever tried to ruin everything. It just…happened.

“Goodbye, Janie. Thanks for the candy.”

“Bye, Jack.”

Shortly after that, Mrs. O’Keefe had a string of unfortunate incidents. It wasn’t me that slid a dead fish through her car window while she was in the grocery store. I didn’t leave a clump of horse manure on her front porch for her to step in, either.

Jack Price didn’t do things like that. He was the kid everyone pointed to and said, that’s a good one. He’s going places. He would never prank someone.

But still…I wondered if maybe Jack sometimes had to get his bad out, too.