11. Olivia
OLIVIA
Tomorrow is the auction and my nerves are shot.
I’m used to persevering under pressure, but this is a whole new level.
My father pushed so hard to keep the place running, but with the last couple of rough years, he couldn’t keep up with the taxes and overhead.
His pride kept him from telling me he needed help.
I have to win this for him. This ranch is everything he worked so hard for - to hand down to me one day - and just like that it might go to someone else.
But that’s not going to happen. I’m more determined than ever to win the auction.
And I’ll do whatever it takes to keep it in my family.
I come down the stairs, the sunlight billowing through the windows, and notice he’s not in his normal spot.
Weird. I walk to the kitchen and grab my coffee cup and fill it up.
He must be outside already. His mood has shifted in the last couple of days, and I know this is scaring him as much as me. Though, he won’t talk about it.
I take my coffee out to the porch, wanting to enjoy the sunrise. There’s just nothing like it in Lawson Ridge. The colors are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Jeremy heads over from the fields in a rush. “Hey! Have you seen your dad? He’s never late and I can’t find him anywhere on the property.”
My heart sinks. “I thought he beat me out here. I’ll go inside and check.”
I sit my cup down and head upstairs. “Dad?” I knock on his door, but no response. “Dad, Jeremy’s waiting for you. It’s not like you to sleep in.”
There is no sound coming from inside the room. “I’m coming in.”
I open the door, and sink to the floor. My father is laying in his bed, all the color drained from his face. “Dad!” A gut-wrenching scream erupts from my throat and Jeremy rushes inside.
“Oh my God,” Jeremy says, rushing past me to my father’s bedside.
I can’t move. My limbs feel like they’re made of lead, and a high-pitched ringing fills my ears. This can’t be happening. Not Dad. Not now.
Jeremy presses two fingers against my father’s neck, his face grim with concentration. “Call 911,” he says, his voice eerily calm.
The words snap me back to reality. I fumble for my phone, my hands shaking so badly I can barely dial the numbers. When the dispatcher answers, my words come out in broken sobs.
“My father... he’s not... he won’t wake up.”
Jeremy has already started CPR, his rhythmic compressions making the bed creak. I watch, helpless, as he tries to breathe life back into my father’s still form. The dispatcher is saying something about an ambulance, about staying on the line, but her voice sounds far away, underwater.
Time stretches and contracts. It feels like hours before I hear sirens in the distance, but the clock on Dad’s nightstand says only seven minutes have passed. Seven minutes that have changed everything.
The paramedics burst through the front door, their heavy footsteps pounding up the stairs. They swarm around my father’s bed with practiced efficiency, speaking in clipped, urgent tones. Jeremy pulls me back, his arm around my shoulders the only thing keeping me upright.
“No pulse. How long has been like this?”
“I don’t know,” I stammer, my voice barely audible. “He was fine last night. We had dinner together. He seemed normal.”
One paramedic is attaching electrodes to my father’s chest.
The machine beeps, a flat, monotonous sound that tears through me like physical pain.
“Clear,” someone shouts, and my father’s body jerks violently as electricity courses through him. I turn away, burying my face in Jeremy’s chest. His heartbeat is strong and steady against my ear, a cruel contrast to my father’s silence.
They try again. And again. Each attempt followed by urgent murmurs and the shuffling of equipment.
I can’t look anymore. Instead, I focus on the photographs lining my father’s dresser—fishing trips, my college graduation, Mom’s funeral three years ago.
Had his heart been quietly breaking all this time?
“I’m sorry,” the paramedic finally says, her voice gentle but final. “We’ve done everything we can.”
The words don’t make sense at first. They hover in the air like foreign objects, refusing to penetrate my understanding.
“What do you mean?” I ask, though I already know.
“Your father has passed away. Based on body temperature, it was likely sometime during the night. Possibly a heart attack or stroke, but we won’t know for certain until?—”
“No.” The word escapes me like a wounded animal. “No, he can’t be. We were supposed to go fishing this weekend.”
Jeremy’s arms tighten around me as my knees finally give way. The paramedics move with practiced respect, preparing my father’s body, speaking of coroners and arrangements in hushed tones.
Through my tears, I notice my father’s reading glasses on the nightstand, a half-finished novel splayed open beside them. The bookmark—a faded photograph of me as a child—has fallen to the floor. Such a small detail, but it shatters something deep inside me.
He died alone, reading himself to sleep.
The next hours blur into a montage of grief and people in and out.
Jeremy handles most of it, stepping in when my voice fails me, which is often.
“Do you want to call anyone?” he asks gently after the paramedics leave, my father’s body with them.
I stare at the indentation on the pillow where my father’s head had rested. “I don’t know who to call. There’s no one left.”
It’s true. After Mom died, Dad became more reclusive. His fishing buddies drifted away. His siblings are gone. It’s just been the two of us for so long.
“What about your aunt in Colorado?”
“She and Dad hadn’t spoken in years.” I run my fingers along the edge of the nightstand, feeling the worn wood where my father’s hand had rested countless times. “God, Jeremy, I don’t know how to do this.”
“You don’t have to know right now.” He sits beside me on the edge of the bed, the mattress still warm. “One step at a time.”
How am I going to do this without him? I still have so much to learn. Running a ranch is hard work and even with all the time I’ve had with him, it’s not enough.
“Let’s go downstairs. I’ve called Serena. She’ll be here any minute.”
Jeremy is a good man. He’s worked for my father for twenty years, but there’s nothing he can say or do right now. How does one deal with the loss of a parent? How am I going to live without both my parents?
I follow him down the staircase, and find Serena at the bottom, arms out, and as soon as I’m in them, the dam bursts. My father and I had the type of relationship that every girl dreams of. He has always been my biggest supporter, my bet friend, the person I can tell anything… and now he’s gone.
“I just don’t understand. It’s so sudden. He’s not that old.” I say to Serena, but notice Jeremy cowering. “What? What do you know?”
He rubs his chin. “Your father didn’t want you to know. He just wanted to enjoy the time he had left.”
“What are you fucking talking about? Didn’t want me to know what, Jeremy?”
“He had cancer. Found out about six months ago. Instead of doing treatments, he said he’d rather enjoy the time he had left on the ranch with you. He didn’t want to be stuck in a hospital.”
He kept this from me? Didn’t even give me the option to say goodbye? Now my grief turns into anger. How fucking dare he? We could have done so much more if I knew my time with him was limited. And now, he’s just gone.