Dark Night #2
“I believe it,” Maria said. This news would devastate Tim. He had protected the ranch around the clock. No wonder he seemed tired so often, patrolling as foreman by day and the Montana Rider by night. He was going to hate this more than anything.
“What’s happening with everything else?” Maria asked.
“Well, I think it takes a while to get these things done,” Savannah said. “They haven’t signed the paperwork yet. They’re still thinking and planning, and Dad’s doing a lot of computer stuff. And Grandma told the ranch hands not to tell anybody about the sale until it’s final.”
“Uh-huh.” Maria was hardly listening. A lot was going on in her mind. “So Grandma Austin really decided to give up the ranch on her own?”
“Yeah,” Savannah said. “Dad says you can’t push Grandma into things. She does what she wants. Even when the rest of the family technically owns the business too.”
That, Maria believed. But had Grandma Austin gotten frustrated and decided to give up? Or had she had a change of heart? The first seemed more likely, but maybe—just maybe—she did care for her grandchildren.
Savannah was still talking, and Maria tried to listen.
“I wish the Montana Rider would come back,” she said.
“Those bad guys won’t stay away forever.
But I haven’t seen him in days. The guys at the bunkhouse say they haven’t seen him either.
It’s weird. You’d think he would have been around after Tim got hurt, keeping an eye on things! ”
“Mm.” Maria couldn’t let out any information about that. “Well, maybe he’ll be back soon.”
Savannah left with a promise to come over to Jessie and Rob’s house that evening to hang out.
It would be good for her. And it was Maria’s last evening there.
Maria would miss Savannah, even if she missed nobody else.
Wow, that would be a lot of upheaval around here, selling the ranch.
She wondered where the family would go. Maybe Uncle Russell would be able to start that new family business, but Maria couldn’t imagine Annabelle and Elijah staying put in the area.
After all, if they sold the ranch, they’d be rich.
Not her, of course. Not that she cared about being rich.
Maria went back to her dishes, but she found herself zoning out, wiping the same dish over and over.
Patricia was taking so much care for Tim, making sure she didn’t stress him out at the hospital with the news of the ranch sale. Maria had never understood Tim’s relationship with Patricia. The grandma that everyone else saw as a dragon or a porcupine, Tim saw as a teddy bear.
Grandma Austin agreeing to sell the ranch—because she didn’t want anybody else to get hurt or to tear the family apart—revealed a chink in her carefully crafted armor. Tim’s affection for her revealed another chink. Somewhere, deep down, Grandma Austin had a heart.
The more she thought about it, Maria had always assumed her grandma’s coldness.
When Grandma Austin didn’t hug her at their first meeting, Maria hadn’t tried to hug her either.
When Grandma Austin acted distant and businesslike, Maria hadn’t tried to grow close.
When Tim hinted that her grandma wasn’t as awful as she seemed, Maria hadn’t believed him.
And when Grandma Austin said those cutting things the other night, Maria hadn’t told her her true feelings.
She’d never told Grandma Austin how badly it had affected her, growing up being estranged from her mom’s whole family.
She hadn’t had the courage to see if her grandma—or most of the other Austins—would really change.
In Maria’s dealings with her relatives, she had been passive. She hadn’t spoken up. She had tried to help behind the scenes, not disturbing the status quo. She should have tried harder to build bridges. Instead, a lot of the time, she had just stood by and watched.
Well, she wasn’t going to stand by and watch anymore. She might be leaving tomorrow, but she could still try to make a difference while she was here.
Jessie had just come in from the walk-in. It was a slow time anyway. Maria wasn’t getting anything done standing around.
“Jessie,” Maria said, breathless, “I’ve got a favor to ask. Again. Would it be okay if I took a break for a while? I’ve got something urgent to talk to my grandma about.”
“Sure. I’m glad you’re going to talk to her before you go. You both need that.”
“I think you’re right,” Maria said. “I’m going to go now.”
Like the wind, she flew to her ATV and up to the house. She burst in the front door. Nobody there.
“Grandma Austin?” Maria called. “Grandma?”
Her voice echoed off the high ceiling, but there was no answer.
Maybe Grandma was in the offices. Maria raced through the house. “Grandma?”
“In here,” a voice said from Grandma Austin’s office. Slowly, Maria pushed the door open.
Her grandmother sat at her desk, but she wasn’t doing paperwork. Her reading glasses were sitting in front of her, and she was looking at something in a frame. She seemed tired and older than Maria remembered.
“Maria?” Grandma Austin looked up. “What is it?”
She spoke as though Maria had just been out for a stroll, not hiding away for days. It wasn’t a promising beginning. But Maria plunged into what she had to say.
“Grandma,” she said, “I want to talk to you. And it’s not really about the other night. That’s part of it. But I have a lot of things I should have told you from the beginning, and I was afraid.”
Grandma Austin folded her hands on the desk. “Go ahead.”
All the things Maria had wanted to say to her grandma came tumbling over each other.
How she had always wondered what her mom’s family was like.
How she had been afraid they wouldn’t like her.
How she had come out here, not just to see what her mom’s life had been growing up, but to reconcile the two halves of the family.
But she had been bitterly disappointed meeting the family.
Her grandmother’s offer of a share in the ranch had just caused a dilemma.
What point would there be in becoming rich and inheriting the ranch, if she had to leave the only people who actually cared about her?
Grandma Austin listened quietly, not interrupting, with her eyes fixed steadily on her granddaughter.
Finally, Maria came to an end. “I know a lot of this might not make sense to you.” She twisted her hands together.
“I’m trying my best. And when I heard about you deciding to sell the ranch—I hate the thought of you selling it, but I thought maybe—just maybe—you really did care about somebody else more than you cared about the ranch. ”
She stopped, adrenaline coursing through her, almost breathless.
“Do you know,” Grandma Austin said, “you do look a little like your mother.”
“What? How?”
“When you’re passionate,” Grandma Austin said, “a light comes into your eyes. You look just like Amy when it does. She was kind and courageous—my only daughter!”
Were those tears in Grandma Austin’s eyes?
“I was wrong,” Grandma Austin said. “All those years, sending all those cards, never getting to know my own granddaughter. Even when Tim convinced me to invite you here, I did all the wrong things.”
Tim had convinced Grandma Austin to invite her? How had Tim learned she existed?
“When you came, I wanted you to stay from the beginning,” Grandma Austin said.
“But I went about it the wrong way. I tried to give you the things that seemed important—a share in the ranch, status in the community. I never got to know my own granddaughter.” She shook her head.
“I thought if you fell in love with the ranch you would stay. I fell in love with it, the minute your grandfather showed it to me. But not everyone is the same. And I shouldn’t have tried to make you choose between the ranch and your father’s family. ”
“I do love the ranch,” Maria said. “And I hate to see it sold. But—”
“The people are more important,” Grandma Austin said.
“I wanted this ranch so badly that I was willing to hurt other people to keep it. Tim got injured trying to protect this place. Who knows who could get hurt next? Who knows when Russell and Steph and their kids will get fed up with running the place? I’m not going to put the ranch ahead of my family anymore. ”
Maria nodded. “I’m glad.”
Grandma Austin smiled, a rusty smile, but a real one. “Come here,” she said.
Slowly, Maria came around the desk. There was the frame Grandma Austin had been looking at when she had come into the room. It was an old, faded photo of four people—two parents and two children. The children were teenagers, blond and tanned from the western sun.
That had to be Grandma and Grandpa Austin and their kids. Maria didn’t think she had ever seen a teenage picture of her mom. She looked a little like Savannah did now. Uncle Russell looked so different, Maria could hardly believe it was him.
“I’ve never seen that picture before,” Maria said.