Chapter Thirty-Two
“Blue’s gone!” I yell, grabbing Emery by the shoulders and shaking her awake.
“What are you doing?” she mumbles in a daze. “I’m trying to sleep.”
“Do you hear me?”
Mom wakes up and turns on her lamp. “Dahlia?”
I pace alongside the bed, trying to convince myself not to be so angry. I can’t control it. I kick the bedframe and stub my toe.
Emery finally wakes up. “What’s going on?”
Cash appears at the door and steps towards me, but Mom holds up her hand, telling him to give me space.
I look at the ceiling, my face hot with anger, tears pooling in my eyes. “Let me catch you up, Emery. There was supposed to be a little party with a few friends, which turned into a giant mess – because there was this little thing called a fire that killed all my cherry trees. And now Blue’s gone!”
“What?”
I collapse to the floor and bury my face in my arms, sobbing and screaming.
Emery meets me on the floor and runs her hand down my hair. “You can plant new trees,” she says. “I’ll help you. And I promise, as soon as the sun is up, we’ll find Blue, OK?”
It takes me a second to process her comment. I stop. She’s got to be joking. Silence fills the room.
“Are you kidding me?” My whole world turns crimson. “I can’t just plant new trees.”
“I … didn’t mean anything by it.” She sits back. “Dahlia, this isn’t the end.”
Fury reddens my gaze. Emery’s eyes widen. All I feel is anger. All I hear is my heart pounding in my ears.
I go to push her, but Cash’s arms are round me first. He scoops me off the floor and holds me tightly. I’d fight him if I had any more strength.
“Dahlia?” He says my name like it pains him to see me this way. “Can you talk to me?”
I gasp out a choking sob and point out the window with my bandaged hand. It’s not yet dawn, but the sky isn’t black any more. I try to get words out through my heaving chest. I push my face into Cash’s shoulder.
“Blue … I can’t find him.” Cash pulls my sticky hair away from my face with both his hands.
I’ve soaked his shoulder with tears. “I went to check on him.” I shake my head.
“I put on a headlamp and whistled.” My chest jerks with stilted breaths.
“But he’s not out there. The trees are gone and so is Blue. ”
Cash kisses my forehead. “I’ll help you look for him. Maybe he’s in the back corner and you couldn’t see him in the dark.”
“I don’t think so,” I sniffle. “Cash, what if the bees are gone too?”
Before we leave to look for Blue, Cash checks on the bees, and I hang back by the cottonwoods along the edge of the pond, trying to focus on one breath at a time.
He comes back and tells me they’re doing great. Only one hive, the one closest to the orchard, has bees huddled up inside. The smoke calms their alarm pheromones, and Cash said they looked a little sleepy.
As he tells me this, a jeep comes up the road, driving faster than anyone should on our dirt road. There’s an Uber sticker on the windshield, and Dad gets out on the passenger side. He walks straight towards us, clenching a bundle of papers.
“Dad?”
“Here.” He holds out the papers, which I take. At the top is written, Listing Agreement. “I have things in order for you to sell this place. I’m going to help get you out of this mess, ASAP.”
Cash crosses his arms, his fists clenched.
I’m in a mess for sure, but I’m not going to admit that to Dad. “What are you talking about?”
He glares at Cash. “I’d like to speak about this in private, son.”
I frown. “There’s nothing we need to talk about, especially in private,” I tell Dad, handing back the papers.
He looks at me. “Dahlia, I know about the debt.”
I stare, feeling even angrier than ever. “I see. Emery told you.”
My sister, who I will always love but do not always like, did it again. She promised me she wouldn’t tell Dad about the debt. She even “crossed her heart”.
“She’s worried about you,” he pleads, without an ounce of emotion.
I wave a bandaged hand towards the black trees. “And yet this never would have happened if she hadn’t invited so many people to the party.”
“The bottom line is you can’t afford to wait this out. I have an investor friend who I told about this place.” He smiles. My dad actually smiles. “And, Dahlia, he’s interested in paying above market value to develop forty-acre ranchettes.”
My jaw drops. “Absolutely not!”
“You have no idea what it takes to get out of debt. Dahl –” he tries again to butter me up – “taking this deal could be the opportunity of a lifetime.”
I work my jaw sideways. “What percentage will you get if I sell to this guy?” I know my dad is always looking for the next deal, this time at my expense.
“That’s completely irrelevant.”
“But you would be getting a percentage?”
“It will be discussed.”
“You’re unbelievable,” I say, my blood boiling. “You were trying to get me to sell this whole time. Now, after finding out about the debt, you thought, it’s time to pounce. Well, guess what, Dad? I am not selling. I am not going anywhere. But you are. You need to leave!”
“Why don’t you step away now?” Dad tells Cash tightly.
“Cash isn’t going anywhere either.” I grit my teeth.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s not.” Dad puffs out his chest. “Now that the ranch is yours. I bet he’d love to have his hand in all this. He probably had a hand in the fire too.” He speaks under his breath like a coward.
Cash takes a step sideways to leave, but I put my hand out and stop him.
I do my best not to scream. “He has a hand in the ranch because I want him to. And he had nothing to do with the fire. Are you kidding me?”
I’m about to walk away, then stop. I spin on my heel and decide to finally speak my truth.
“I’ve spent so much of my life doubting myself.
With you, I can’t ever be a dreamer or be messy or say what’s on my mind.
Well, I’m sick of second-guessing every choice I make – will it make you happy?
Am I doing it right?” I throw my hands in the air.
“Do you have any idea how much time and energy I spend thinking through every interaction with you?
I anticipate your every reaction, trying to stay one step ahead.
I do things the way you would do them, so I never disappoint.
“Well, I want to know what will happen if I follow my gut. I’m much more capable than you give me credit for. People like what I do, Dad. They like … liked the cherries with honey. And that came from me not doing things the way everyone else has always done them.
“You don’t have to believe I can do this. I don’t know if I can, but I’m going to try, because it’s what feels right to me.” I slap my palm against my chest. “I won’t have regrets if I try, but I will if I give up.”
I realize in this moment of speaking up for myself that he has never once asked why I want the ranch. It’s the same old story – it’s all about what he wants for me. Always what he wants, what he wants, what he wants.
“Wow,” Dad says. “This is the thanks I get for everything I’ve ever done for you? You don’t understand because you live in your little world of believing things will always work out and that everyone has good in their heart, but that’s not real life, Dahlia.”
I scrunch my face in frustration. “I just lost my whole orchard. So, yeah, I know things don’t always work out. Even if I’m forced to sell in the end, you’re not getting one cent.”
“Well, let’s see how that works out for you.”
He turns coldly, gets in the Uber and leaves, throwing the listing agreement out of the window.
Adrenalin rushes through me. “He’s unbelievable!”
Cash gently takes my unbandaged hand and gives it a squeeze. “I know that wasn’t easy, but you were really brave, Dahlia. Come on, let’s go find Blue.”
We follow Blue’s hoofprints and step carefully over the mangled barbed wire he tore down as he escaped.
He doesn’t have shoes on, which makes tracking him a little harder.
The sun is sweltering and exacerbates the pain in my throbbing head and hand.
Thankfully, there’s no sign the fire came close to his paddock.
I pull strands of his black tail from the barbs on the wire, but can’t grasp them with my bandages.
“Here,” Cash says, taking the strands and stuffing them in his pocket. He uses a thumb to steal the tears from my cheeks and gives me another hug before we start up the steep hill behind the ranch.
Dense scrub oak claws at our skin, scratching our arms and backs as we duck under and fight through branches.
We follow the tracks up on to the ditch trail.
Water flows in the opposite direction of the ranch, down the ditch in a steady, beautiful stream.
Part of me wishes I would be OK with myself if I busted the dam and diverted the water.
“Cash, look at this.” I point to where the ground is sloped and creased.
He puts his hands on his hips, winded from walking uphill, and gazes at the long crease in the ground.
He lets out a long breath through rounded lips. “Look at how the plants are growing along it. They’re chokecherry and willow. Those grow around water.”
I shadow my eyes and walk the line a little further. The ranch, no matter how barren and burnt, still looks beautiful to me from up here.
“I’ve never been up here before. It looks like an old ditch.”
“Sure does. If your family used to hay the fields, they must have had water rights. Daisy and Joaquin never would have gotten the cherry trees started without water.”
“Why wouldn’t the ranch have water rights any more?”
Cash’s eyes narrow and he picks a chokecherry. It’s small and dark and wild. Nothing like my cherries, but they make my heart ache all the same.
“Sometimes they get sold off.”
Cash and I trudge on as the sun gets higher and hotter in the sky. It looms above, burning my eyes. I hold my hand up to block the light. It’s so bright it’s making it difficult to look for Blue across the heatwaves.
“Cash?” I say, my voice catching. “Do you think we’ll find him?”
He stops and stands in front of me, his tall, lean body blocking the sun.