50. Audrey
AUDREY
Ella woke up Saturday morning to find another gift, this time a large box with a pink ribbon around it.
The box was almost as big as her as she carried it into the house.
“Mommy, look!”
I wiped my hands on a dishtowel and came in from the kitchen where I’d been making French toast. “Where did you find that?”
“On the porch. Do you think it’s more animals from Ridge for my farm?”
“Looks a bit big to be more animals,” I said. “Why don’t you open it and see?”
She pulled off the ribbon and lifted the lid on the box, then parted a sea of tissue paper to reveal a pair of tiny boots in camel-colored leather with a pink overlay on the calf, detailed leaves etched into the pink leather.
“They’re boots!” Ella exclaimed. “Like Graham’s!”
“They are!” I said, even though the boots were nothing like Graham’s, which were crafted out of black leather.
Simple and functional, like him.
“Can I try them on?” she asked.
“You have to!” I said.
I helped her on with the boots, and she clomped around the house, then into my room to look in the full-length mirror.
She returned with her eyes shining. “I have to tell Graham thank you!”
I felt the ground slip beneath my feet, all the things I held true about being Ella’s mom colliding in my mind: wanting to keep her from getting hurt, from getting too attached to the men who wouldn’t be in our lives forever, wanting to let her have fun and be innocent and experience new things while also keeping her from getting hurt when we had to leave the ranch at the end of the summer.
“I suppose you do.”
I finished the French toast and we ate on the porch, Ella glancing down at her new boots every few minutes like a teenager looking out the window at their first car.
I put the dishes in the dishwasher and Ella got dressed while I put on shorts and a T-shirt, pulling my hair into a messy bun to keep it out of the way.
I braided Ella’s hair and slipped my feet into sneakers on my way out the door, and we headed up over the little hill that separated the cottage from the main house.
Graham came into view — turning the brown horse called Outlaw in circles in the corral — at the top of the hill, Blue sitting off to the side.
Blue’s head turned, like he could smell Ella, and he took off running under the fence.
This time Graham didn’t even try to stop him from barreling toward Ella.
“Blue!” she shrieked, falling to her knees and hugging the dog like they were best friends. “Do you like my boots, Blue?”
He lapped at her face and I took Ella’s hand to help her off the ground so we could continue down the hill, this time with Blue at our side.
“Why is the horse doing that, Mommy?” Ella asked, watching Graham and the horse, which was tossing its head and fighting against Graham’s control.
“He wants to be free,” I said without thinking.
“Why doesn’t Graham let him go then?”
I thought about the question, wanting to give her an honest answer. “Because Graham needs him on the farm, and he can’t be on the farm unless he learns to follow Graham’s rules.”
“Isn’t being free more important than the rules?” Ella asked.
I thought about Dean, about all the rules I’d broken to be free of him. It was too big for Ella — too much — but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the horse even though I knew the situations were different, knew Graham was a careful and caring steward of his land and his animals.
“Yes,” I said. “But sometimes that’s just not how it is.”
I was relieved when she accepted the answer.
And then Graham looked up, almost like he knew were talking about him and the horse, and all my pondering about Ella and Dean and freedom and life disappeared like vapor when his eyes met mine under the shadow of his cowboy hat.
I had a flash of him at the pool the night before, naked and hungry, looking down at me while I took him in my mouth.
While I made him mine in the only way he’d allow.
I lifted a hand in greeting and he nodded, then eased the horse to a stop.
He approached the horse slowly and stroked his nose before unhooking his bridle.
He rested the leather bridle over the fence and crossed the corral, then leaned against the fence as we approached.
My heart clutched in my chest as Ella ran toward him.
“Thank you for my boots!” she shouted before we even reached him.
“You’re welcome,” he said when we got a bit closer. “You’re going to need proper boots if you’re going to work on the ranch this summer. You ready to help us work the ranch?”
She beamed up at him. “I’m ready.”
“Perfect,” he said. “We could use another set of hands.” I just about fell over dead when he winked at her. “Even little hands like yours.”
She looked at her hands. “My hands are big!”
He tipped his hat in apology. “My mistake. They’re plenty big to help out around here, that’s for sure.”
Ridge came out of the workshop and exclaimed about Ella’s boots, followed by Holden, who told Ella they were the prettiest boots he ever did see, and I spent the rest of the day trailing Ella as Graham taught her how to feed the chickens and the barn cats, how to give the horses chunks of carrots and apple.
Blue was useless to Graham then, following Ella into Ridge’s workshop where he showed her the miniature cows he was carving for her farm, then into the tractor barn, where Holden gave her one of his T-shirts to wear like a dress over her clothes so they wouldn’t get covered with oil when she handed him the tools he asked for, an exercise that required endless patience on Holden’s part — something he seemed to have in spades — as he taught her the names of each one.
We had homemade bread (made by Holden, much to my surprise), fresh cheese and salami made by another local farm, homemade lemonade, and more watermelon for lunch, after which Graham tried to get Blue back to work.
Unfortunately Blue was busy waiting for Ella to weave him a wildflower crown.
Graham scowled when Blue didn’t respond to his whistle. “Time for Blue to go to work.”
“But he’s waiting for his crown,” Ella said.
“He’s a working dog,” Graham said weakly.
I stifled a laugh as Graham stalked off alone to the corral.
It was after noon when everybody went back to work.
I’d been up with Ella since just after six a.m., but I was surprised to feel energized rather than tired.
Work on the ranch felt different from work at the hospital, and I felt the first hint of something terrifying that made me wonder if maybe I hadn’t been living my life at all.
If maybe I’d been meant for something else.
And of all the terrifying things that had happened to me — with Dean and the Hunt and all the other strange twists and turns that had led me to the Calloway ranch — somehow nothing scared me more.