24. Audrey
AUDREY
I put on Ella’s favorite album — The Very Best of Dolly Parton — on the way to the ranch and forced myself to belt out Jolene and Here You Come Again to keep the tears at bay.
Then when I hit the long stretch of road leading to the ranch, I turned off the music and told her my surprise: that we were spending the summer on a real life farm, one with horses and cows and a dog named Blue.
“Really, Mommy?”
“Really! It’ll be so fun!”
I almost felt bad seeing her grin in the rearview mirror. We were in this position because of me, because I’d joined the Hunt in an effort to keep her safe from Dean. Now I was making up stories, trying to make it okay for her when I’d destabilized the carefully contained situation with Dean.
The Hunt had seemed like the best thing at the time, but now I couldn’t help wondering if it had all been a huge mistake.
I pushed the thought from my mind. What was done, was done.
I’d just have to figure it out. One step at a time.
Pulling in to the ranch for the first time on my own brought everything home: this was real. I really was going to live here for the next three months.
But instead of feeling trapped when I pulled through the gate, the Calloway ranch symbol overhead, I felt a strange sense of relief.
It was a false sense of security — Dean could reach me anywhere, he’d made that clear — but right now I needed all the security I could get, false or otherwise.
I was about to park the car next to the row of motorcycles out front when Graham appeared on the porch.
He kept his distance, waving me toward a freshly mowed strip in the long grass leading behind the house.
It took me a minute to realize that someone had mowed a pathway to the cottage so I wouldn’t have to park by the main house and walk the rest of the way with Ella.
I pulled slowly forward, traveling easily over the mowed field, dusk settling soft and smoky over the picturesque landscape.
“Mommy, I see fireflies!” Ella said from the backseat.
“I see them too, sweetheart.” They were all around us, lighting up the field like they were lighting our way home.
The path had been mowed all the way to the cottage, and an additional area had been cleared around the tiny house, enough room for Ella to play, for me to park the car.
I shook my head. Had Graham done this? And why were these men being so nice to me?
A cynical voice in my head — the voice that had believed in Dean’s promises, that had believed in Dean — told me the reason was obvious: the Bulls wanted to fuck me.
That was all.
But that didn’t make sense. They’d already won the right to do that. I was here, prepared to accept the consequences of my loss.
They didn’t have to be nice to me. They didn’t have to mow a path to the cottage. They didn’t have to intervene with Dean (although at some point we’d have to talk about the fact that they’d followed me to the donut shop).
And yet, they had.
I pulled next to the house, turned off the engine, and got Ella out of the car.
“This is our house?!” Her eyes shone as she looked at the little yellow house, and my heart broke for what she’d lost: the family I’d wanted to give her with Dean, the big house where Dean now brought his “special friends.”
“For the summer,” I said. “It sure is.”
She ran to the edge of the cleared front yard and held her hands out, trying to catch the fireflies that flitted in the field’s long wild grass.
“Come get your backpack, El.”
She ran over and took her backpack from my hands, and I started up the porch steps with the first of our things from the apartment.
Inside the house, I turned on the lights and set Ella up in the bigger of the two bedrooms. Then I unpacked my own stuff in the smaller room while Ella took a bath, singing Islands in the Stream a cappella.
I investigated my reflection in the mirror over the antique dresser in the bedroom. Bright red lines striped my throat where Dean’s hands had been around my neck, and I hurried to cover it with concealer so Ella wouldn’t notice.
“Mommy, I’m done!” she called from the bath.
“Did you have dinner with Daddy?” I asked while I helped her dry off.
“We had a snack,” she said.
“Sounds like you need dinner then.” Shit. I’d been so upset by the incident with Dean that I hadn’t thought to stop at the store. “Go put your nightgown on while I try to rustle something up.”
I opened the fridge, hoping for a load of bread, maybe some peanut butter in the cupboard.
Except the fridge was full.
Really full.
There was bread, but there was also eggs and milk, vegetables and fruit, meat and cheese, even condiments and a bottle of wine.
I opened the freezer and found frozen pizzas and ice cream, chicken tenders and frozen waffles.
Shaking my head, I walked to the cupboards. And this time I wasn’t even surprised to find peanut butter and olive oil, rice and pasta, jarred sauce and canned soup.
For a long moment, I just stared at the open cupboard, trying to get my head around the fact that one — or all — of the Bulls had done this for me.
For Ella.
“Is there food?” Ella asked from behind me.
I turned around and my heart melted at the sight of her small body in her Bluey nightgown, her hair damp from the bath, feet bare on the kitchen’s old linoleum floors.
“Food?” I asked the question in an exaggerated way. “Who needs food when you can have…” I went to the freezer and flung it open, “pizza!”
She jumped up and down. “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”
“And not just pizza but ice cream!” I said.
Her eyes widened. “Pizza and ice cream?”
I was usually pretty careful not to overdue the nutritionally bankrupt foods, but I was definitely in need of them tonight.
“Yep, pizza and ice cream to kick off our summer farm adventure.”
“I love it here!” she said.
I laughed. “It’s only day one, kiddo. Let’s not get crazy.”
I put her Dolly album on while the pizza cooked and made a salad to assuage my mom guilt over the pizza and ice cream.
We ate at the little wood table in the kitchen, and I was surprised to realize it already felt like home.
I knew it wasn’t the cottage — Ella was my home — but the cute little house glowing with light from the table lamps in the living room, the windows open to the sound of crickets, definitely didn’t hurt.
I crawled into bed with her and read her favorite book, an old paperback copy of A Wrinkle in Time that had been mine when I was a kid, while sea animals from her projector light swam across her walls.
Because of the nap, it took a little longer than usual for her eyelids to get heavy, but half an hour later she was out, Bun-Bun clutched against her side.
I tucked her in and crept from the room, leaving the door halfway open, and stretched on my way to the kitchen.
I did the dishes in silence, the scene with Dean playing over in my mind. Holden and Ridge hadn’t said anything that would make Dean think I knew them. Could I pass them off as strangers stepping in to help a frightened woman?
Did I want to?
The truth was, I was tired of hiding from Dean. Tired of tiptoeing around him, waiting for that scythe to fall onto my neck.
Knowing I was living on the ranch with three men — even in a separate house — would give Dean ammunition against me in a custody battle.
But I had information of my own. Eventually, I’d have to use it.
I was drying the last of the dishes — no dishwasher — when my phone buzzed from the counter.
It was a text from a number I didn’t recognize.
My heart skipped a beat when I read the words on the screen.
It’s Ridge. Can you come out?