Chapter 2
I can’t stop thinking about Guy and Emma Maple. Even as I arrive back home and find there’s one very important speckled brown head missing from my cattle pen, they’re still on my mind.
Cattle fencing lines one side of the two-mile-long drive from the main road to my family’s cabin, existing both as a physical barrier for the herd and as a visual cue for when the snowdrifts get too deep to find the gravel road. Usually this time of year, I’ve taken a day to tie large red-and-green-plaid bows on the fencing, but my heart hasn’t been in the decorating spirit this year.
Besides, knowing Jerkface—my bull—he’d probably try to eat them.
The cattle have spent the summer up in higher country, and I think Jerkface is resenting his loss of freedom more than most. Cattle are tough, and they can push hard against fencing, taking it down if they want to badly enough. This bull is special because he’s a fence hopper. I’ve never actually caught him at it, but he’s jumped my gate twice since I moved the herd down closer to the cabin, and the sucker is seven feet high.
I’d be impressed if it weren’t such a massive pain to go find him again.
Today is mail delivery day, and while I have an actual mailbox on the main road, a lot of folks deep enough in the Frank Church Wilderness can only get their mail dropped by plane. I doubt Jerkface has gotten far, so I dial the tiny airport that services this area of the country. Most of their work is flying white-water rafters or hunting parties deeper into the wilderness, but with the wildfires we’ve been getting these last several years, they fly firefighters in and out a lot too.
Last summer was bad, with over 130,000 acres to the north of town burning for four months before anyone could successfully put it out. The problem with a place like this is you can’t fight fires on steep mountains, not when the whole countryside is too thick with smoke to see where you’re flying.
A lot of people lost livestock, including myself. Of the hundred-head herd Micah left on the ranch after we knew how the livestock would be split up, I’m down to sixty-one now. Sixty, since Jerkface decided to take a sightseeing trip.
I can’t afford to lose my bull.
When no one at the airport answers my first call, I dial one of the regular delivery pilots directly. Jake answers his cell phone on the third ring, his voice muffled as if he’s doing some sort of repair work in an enclosed space. Probably in one of the planes.
“Not a good time, Sienna,” he says by way of greeting. The gruff, “don’t bother me when I’m working” tone is normal around these parts, but the fact that Jake did pick up means something to me. When you’re part of a very public breakup in a small town, people don’t just treat your failed marriage as fodder for the gossip mill. They also tend to choose sides. Micah’s got a lot of weight in this town, and he likes to talk. Me? Not so much. I retreated to my ranch, nursing my broken heart in silence and in as much privacy as possible, but I can feel the eyes on me and the quiet when I go into a room in town.
Another reason the ad in the paper made me smile despite being embarrassed is that Jess is firmly Team Sienna, and they’re not afraid to let everyone know it.
“It’s not a great time for me either,” I joke tiredly. “Jerkface took another flying leap today while I was in town. I don’t suppose you had eyes on my bull during your morning flight?”
“Sorry, Sienna, I didn’t notice any strays, but I wasn’t really looking. You know how it gets.”
I do know. Everyone has a lot on their plates, and one big cow butt is going to look like another.
“Hold on, let me radio it out. Charley’s making a run right now. He might have seen something.”
Considering Jake and Charley are two of Micah’s closest friends, I appreciate that they are trying to help me. We might have known each other all our lives, but divorce has a way of forcing people to choose sides. Micah’s not been quiet about how mad he is over our divorce settlement.
Jake hangs up without saying goodbye, but a couple minutes later, he calls me back. “Sienna, Charley asked if it’s the monster one with the speckled face.”
“That’s him.” Monster is an understatement. Jerkface is big enough, even I give him some side-eye. He isn’t the best product of years of my and Micah’s careful stock breeding programs, but the bull is incredibly important to my little ranch. He’s not mean per se—at least not more than any other bull—but he’s a fast sucker for how big he is, and I’m always extra careful around him.
“Charley made an extra loop over your place and spotted him down by the river. South of the bend just past the big rockslide from last year.”
“Thanks, Jake.” I exhale a sigh of relief. “Tell Charley he’s a lifesaver.”
It’s the truth, in more ways than one. A sweet guy I’ve known since grade school, Charley’s the first to volunteer when someone needs evacuating or the firefighters need a ride over the mountains. He’s the last out there still looking if someone is hurt or lost in the woods. He’s always been quiet and a little shy, but he’s one of the bravest, most kindhearted people I know.
“Uh, Charley wants me to ask you if the ad is serious? Jess made a run past the hangar today and posted it to the board.”
I groan into my hand. “No, but he’ll be on my good list if he throws it in the trash.”
Jake chuckles, a rare sound from the crabby pilot. “Charley’s had it bad for you since freshman year. You’ll have to tell him yourself because I’m not breaking my buddy’s heart. We’ve got too much to get done today.”
Charley’s heart will have to wait, even if I’m sure Jake’s just teasing me. My already busy day just got a lot busier. If I grab my truck and stock trailer and drive across the river, it wouldn’t be far to my bull’s last known location. Unfortunately, that would put me on the wrong side of the water, and there’s no way I’m taking a horse or my bull through the partially frozen Salmon River two weeks before Christmas. It’s just far too cold. I’m going to need some help.
My twelve-year-old golden retriever Barley agrees to rouse himself and accompany me outside today, but he takes two steps in the cold and turns his once-red head to give me a look that speaks volumes.
“You didn’t complain this much when you were a puppy,” I remind him as we head across the property to the barn. “You’re too young to be this crotchety.”
Barley abandons me for a bale of hay, but he knows what it means when I pull out a worn, tan Carhartt dog jacket for him. Barley stays on the hay as I grab a saddle and head to the horse pen, but despite staring at me relentlessly with his disappointed eyes, his tail thumps once in acknowledgment. I know he’s ready to work.
Compared to how full the horse pen used to be, it feels very scarce now. Instead of a small herd of horses, I’ve only got one mare, two donkeys, and one very moody mule, the latter of which is trying his best to remain unnoticed as he lips at the remaining bits of this morning’s hay. Unlike Barley, Legs is refusing to make eye contact. He shuffles a little behind the closest donkey, as if I could possibly avoid seeing the seventeen-hand-tall mule. His extra-long ears flick backward, and he turns again, keeping his rear end pointed my way.
“That’s too big and handsome of a butt for me not to notice you, buddy.”
Legs’s ears turn at the sound of my voice before he remembers himself and goes back in hiding mode.
“Let me guess, you don’t want to ride the fences today and would rather hang out with the ladies?”
Typical guy, ignoring the hand that feeds him for the pretty sorrel in the corner.
As mules go, Legs is particularly ugly. He’s also smarter than is technically safe, and I have to keep an eye out when I ride him. Just because a mule of his caliber can walk a razor-edge cliffside trail without a single misstep doesn’t mean he doesn’t find it fun to drop me like a sack of flour if I’m not paying attention.
I think it’s why I like him so much. I prefer people not to go easy on me, and my mule? He is definitely people.
“I hate to not disappoint you for once,” I tell Legs, patting his shoulder as I move past him. “But I need Lulu on this one.”
Unlike Legs, Lulu doesn’t complain as I saddle her up, standing with the docile acceptance that makes her breed such good work horses. Lulu’s a sweetheart of a Quarter Horse, and I appreciate the shorter stretch for my legs as I swing up on her back.
Barley watches me disconsolately from the barn door, and when I whistle twice, he sighs and rises to his paws.
The river gurgles beneath its crust of ice as I ride along the shore, Barley following at a slow pace. I hate having to ask him to come out here today; the old retriever has paid his dues and should be in retirement. Like too many things in my life, he’s been dusted off and asked to give a little more. A good cattle dog takes a long time to train, and even though his breed isn’t as commonly used as the shepherds and border collies that work these herds, Barley was one of the best.
I can’t get the bull in by myself, and since Micah got the rest of the working dogs in the divorce, today I need Barley. I’ll make it up to him tonight with an extra treat and some serious belly-rubbing time. But for now, we have to make the best of what we’ve got.
Guy and Emma Maple flash through my mind unbidden as I follow the river south, scanning the landscape. Starting over has been tough, but there are worse things than a bull who likes to pretend he’s an Olympic show jumper. Like being desperate enough to reply to a fake marriage ad. Like being four years old and having stage five chronic kidney disease with dialysis not working well.
I don’t even know exactly what it means, other than Guy’s little girl needs a transplant to live.
I give Lulu her head and let her pick her way along the snowy ground, weaving in and out of thick brush, thicker snowbanks, and tall evergreens. When people think about Idaho, they think about potatoes, but what most people don’t realize is how much of my home state is wilderness. Take a picture of my backyard, and you’ll see nothing but snow-covered mountains, steep wooded hills, and the Salmon River.
This river is like a marriage. Sometimes it’s beautiful, glittering in the sunshine as it rushes past, filling your ears with the low, reassuring cadence of water. But one wrong step and you’re in it deep, frozen and drowning, with no one to grab your hand as you reach for help.
I love this river, but I loved my ex-husband too.
The Naples Ranch butts up to the Frank Church Wilderness about thirty minutes outside town. The farther north and west you go, the rougher and tougher this country gets. The land isn’t ours, even though there’s a sign hanging over the driveway for the last several generations with the Naples name on it. This is Nez Perce/Nimiipuu land, cruelly stolen from them by white settlers, then passed back and forth for several decades until my great-grandmother won it in a card game.
She used to say, even back then, this wasn’t ours to own; we were just caretakers of it for a little while. There’ve been a lot of times over the years when it would have been easy to split it up and sell it, but we Naples are a strong-willed lot. In a world of half-acre tract homes, the Naples Ranch is still a thousand acres of wilderness, with just enough cleared for our cabin, our barn, and a paddock to work the horses or sort the herd of cattle we keep.
It used to upset my ex-husband so much that we could sell some of the acreage and just…didn’t. He used to refer to it as being married to an heiress with a bucket over her head, determined to eat cheeseburgers instead of filet mignon.
Micah never got it. You don’t sell what doesn’t belong to you in the first place.
Considering the fact that the property isn’t within the Frank Church Wilderness, the State of Idaho disagrees. It took nine years of marriage for Micah to decide he was done with us but another year of arguing with lawyers to realize I was going to drain our joint bank account digging my heels in, fighting for the ranch to stay in one piece. Honestly, it would have broken my heart, but I would have even signed over my half of the property rights if it had been written he couldn’t parcel up the property. Micah caved, but I sure paid for it. If I wanted the ranch? Whole and unharmed? No problem. Then he was going to take every single thing we’d built together.
He got it all. Down to the antique silver in my great-grandmother’s kitchen hutch. I signed away my rights to any of the inheritance from his family, all the local businesses we’d started together, all the investments we’d made, and nearly every penny in our shared bank accounts. I got to keep Legs, Lulu, the donkeys, and a small herd of cattle to start over again. It was almost…almost…enough to cover the difference between what Micah’s theoretical half of the ranch was valued at if he’d been allowed to butcher it into chunks. So now he’s got what he needs, and I have the peace of mind knowing I’m not the Naples who let everyone else in my family down.
Barley lets out a soft woof, pulling me from my thoughts. I follow his sight line toward the stand of trees a hundred or so yards ahead of us, and there he is: the jerk face himself.
The massive brown bull turns and lows, a loud, miserable sound. As if it’s my fault he’s out here alone without a round bale of hay in front of him.
“Don’t complain to me,” I say to Jerkface. “You’re the one who decided to be a pain in the butt today.”
Barley lowers his head, focusing on the bull before us. Lulu’s ears perk up, and I keep the reins loose in my hand. We’re a motley crew, but we know how to do our jobs. Mine is to not get in Lulu’s or Barley’s ways. Barley’s not as fast as he used to be, and this bull might make cute little calves, but he’s a problem on a good day. With some exceptions, bulls don’t tend to like being told where to go or what to do.
He snorts, breath condensing in the cold winter air. When he wheels and starts to dart around me, Lulu drops into a lower stance, cutting off his path, then swinging sideways to do it again as the bull tries to dart around our other side.
A cutting horse like Lulu comes around once in a blue moon, and I need her a lot more for the babies she’s going to make than to get this guy back in the corral. But man, is she beautiful when she works. Like a crouching cat, liquid smooth as she swings back and forth, frustrating the bull and holding it in place until he spins the way we want him to move. We trot after him, with Barley barking and nipping at Jerkface’s heels to keep him going toward the ranch.
I don’t like to move my cattle very quickly. The process sometimes stresses them out, but this bull is young enough to be full of extra energy. Between Barley and Lulu, we keep him headed back toward the homestead, but the deep snow is tough on Barley, and even though it’s her job, I cringe every time Lulu cuts back and forth on this kind of ground.
“Safe and sound,” I mutter to the animals I love, even Jerkface. “Let’s all just get home safe and sound.”
Finally, we get my bull into the corral, and I side pass Lulu over to the gate to close it as fast as possible. Barley pants longer than he should, and I wait for him to catch his breath before riding to the barn. Working dogs are complex creatures. I don’t want to hurt his feelings by leaving him when we always used to return together, with Barley a few steps ahead of me.
When he’s ready, Barley pads off toward the barn, and I follow. “Good boy,” I tell him as I dismount, bending down to scratch behind his graying ears before tending to Lulu.
I still have a truck bed of grain to unload and everyone to feed. By the time I’m done, the sun has slipped behind the mountains, leaving a soft glow on the snow. Chilled and tired from the day, I let Barley into the cabin in front of me.
The house is too quiet. I’ve learned to appreciate the soft snores of my dog, the lowing of the cattle outside, or the occasional whinny or bray. Even the soft crackle of the fireplace in the living room. If it weren’t for the animals in my life, I would be surrounded by nothing but silence.
I haven’t even bothered to try to decorate for Christmas. There doesn’t seem to be any point.
I try not to hate it. This is the life I fought to keep, and it’s mine now. Me. The cabin. The coffee maker. This is as good as it’s going to get. I don’t miss my marriage. I miss the man I thought I married, and I miss the life I hoped we were going to have together.
I miss when this cabin was more than my house; it was my family’s home.
Micah used to feel like this place was too small for the three of us when Dad was here. Even when it was just the two of us, he found it confining. But my whole life, these hand-hewn log walls were full. Full of my mother’s laughter and my father playing his guitar in the evenings. I’m still not used to the silence from his garage-size workshop, where I heard metal thumping on metal or a muttered curse of annoyance every single day of my life.
I’ve never lived anywhere but this cabin. I was my parents’ rainbow baby, after a lot of years of trying and almost giving up on having children. There are a lot of benefits to having mature parents, but there’s one fairly rough negative: watching them get older. We lost Mom to breast cancer before I hit high school, and I didn’t want to leave Dad alone, even after Micah and I got married. Micah always tried to be understanding, although the worse Dad’s dementia got, the harder it was on everyone.
Dad is the one who decided he wasn’t going to stay, choosing to sign over the property to both of us and sell the bulk of his cattle to cover the cost of a long-term care facility. He didn’t want to be a burden on us, and considering how far his illness has progressed recently, it was a brave decision by a brave man to protect his family.
Thinking about medical expenses makes me think about Guy and Emma Maple again. I fix myself a cup of coffee and start to do some research. Guy’s social media presence is sparse but there. His pictures are private, but the fundraising posts to cover medical expenses and posts thanking friends and family for the well wishes for Emma go back three years.
The whole situation is gut-wrenching. If the child is four, she’s been sick three-quarters of her life.
I look up chronic kidney disease on the internet, my heart sinking with every sentence I read. I wish I could give Guy a job, and I think about who might be hiring right now. The man was just so stressed, so desperate, and I’m starting to understand why. If Emma’s dialysis isn’t working as well anymore, then getting a new kidney is her only option. Without it, Emma has a death sentence.
“That poor little girl,” I murmur, shaking my head. “That poor family .” And right at Christmastime too.
Something pops into my head, but it’s absurd. Sheer, unadulterated absurdity. If I didn’t know I had decaf coffee in my hands, I would say I’d had too many glasses of wine.
“It’s ridiculous, right?” I ask Barley, earning a single eye opening before lazily closing again.
Except…it’s logical ridiculousness if someone looked at the entire situation with dispassionate eyes. I sit there, my brain rolling around all the reasons why this is a bad idea. Then it keeps coming back to how Guy stood there today, desperate for anything to help his daughter.
I think about how, for the first time in a long time, I honestly have no one whose opinion matters to me. How I have nothing to lose.
“Screw it,” I mutter, and I reach for my phone. I scroll to Guy’s contact, and when the option for a video call shows on my screen, I lean my phone against my desk and hit the button. This is the kind of conversation you have face-to-face.
The call rings several times, and I almost chicken out and end it, then Guy’s face pops up on the screen. He gives me a quick smile of greeting. “Sienna? Hey.”
The man is just as handsome as he was this morning, although he’s a bit wild-eyed. I suppose I would be too if I were him. He probably thinks I’m calling him about work.
“Hey, sorry to surprise you. This isn’t a work call thing. It’s another…thing.”
He almost manages to cover being disappointed. “If it’s a coffee shop thing, I’m going to say yes. That was the best breakfast I’ve had in years.”
Oh. Ooooooh. He thinks I’m calling to ask him out on a date. Sorry, I’m jumping a few steps here.
“Daddy, who is it?” a child’s voice asks cheerfully in the background.
“It’s a new friend I made today, Em. Her name is Sienna.” Guy turns his head from the phone, and I don’t hear what Emma says next, but I do catch Guy’s murmurs. “Not now, baby. I’m not sure why she’s calling.”
Yep, I’m in a full-blown panic attack here. I know why I’m calling, but I’m not sure about it at all.
“Emma says hi,” Guy tells me in a fond voice. “I told her earlier that you were very nice, and now she wants to meet you. So, what can I do for you, Sienna?”
“Well, okay. This is a little awkward. Is it possible for you to go somewhere Emma can’t hear?”
Guy’s expression is puzzled, but he nods. “Yeah, gimme a sec.” To his credit, he covers the camera on his phone with his thumb so I don’t have to see a dizzying pattern of wall and floor as he goes to a more private place. I hear the soft shut of a door, and when he removes his finger, it looks like he’s outside a brick building. Maybe it’s a motel room.
“I’ve got to warn you that I’m not really into this kind of thing.” He’s trying to be kind, whatever he means, but firm too. “Especially not with my daughter in the other room.”
Suddenly I understand, and I spit my coffee onto my phone. “Oh no ! Oh no, not that. I’m not… Noooo.”
I frantically wipe the coffee spit off the screen, revealing a chuckling Guy. He flashes me a knee-melting smile. “I’m open to getting to know each other though,” he says, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was flirting with me.
I sputter and try to recompose myself. “Okay, why I called was not about…that. It is about getting to know each other though. I mean, it would kind of be a given, I suppose.”
Blue eyes blink at me, and his head tilts slightly. He clearly has no idea what I’m talking about.
“I don’t have work for you, but I’ve been thinking about you and Emma a lot today. And I was thinking I do have really good insurance. Part of my divorce settlement included me being able to stay on our company’s plan, either single or remarried, so I can’t get kicked off the insurance no matter what.” One of the few things I didn’t lose in the divorce. My eyes drop as I stare at the coffee in between my hands. “If we did get married, it would cover you both.”
The silence between us is deafening. I don’t have to look at the phone to know he’s staring at me like I’ve sprouted a second head. I mean, pretty much no one marries someone they just met, unless Vegas and copious amounts of alcohol are involved. Or it’s a love-at-first-sight kind of romance—not that I believe those exist anymore.
“I remembered you said you need to show financial stability to keep Emma on the transplant list, right? I’m land poor: I have a lot of physical property without any actual cash to my name. I’ll never sell the ranch, but all the bank—” I pause and add dryly, “And my ex-husband see is over a thousand acres of possible liquifiable assets. It should be more than enough to cover what you said the transplant board needed to see.”
Guy inhales a tight breath. “Sienna, are you saying you want to get married?”
“I’m saying I want Emma to get a kidney.” I glance back at the phone. “This would kind of be like a…marriage of convenience thing, I guess?”
“What would you want out of it?” Guy asks me quietly, staring at the phone so intensely it makes my heart start racing. “This is a big deal you’re talking about.”
“I guess…it’s been a bad year. And it’s almost Christmas. I wouldn’t have to actually pay for the anti-rejection medication, correct? Just show we have the financial stability to cover them when she gets the kidney.”
Guy closes his eyes, and I see him take a deep, steadying breath. “No, I would pay for everything. I’ll sign whatever you’d need me to sign so you don’t worry.”
“I would want you to sign a prenup. I fought too hard for this ranch to stay whole, and I can’t risk it now. And I guess…that’s it. I don’t need anything from you. I just want to help.” My words sound so flimsy, so inadequate, and I wonder if he thinks I’m lying to him. “We don’t even have to see each other beyond the paperwork. Maybe we could get coffee sometimes and you can tell me how she’s doing.”
“You just want coffee?”
Guy’s holding the phone in his hands, and I have his complete, utter attention. I don’t know if I’ve ever had that kind of attention from someone, the way he’s looking at me.
“Maybe breakfast with the coffee?” I joke awkwardly. “Umm, yeah. That’s all.”
There’s another long moment of silence, and then Guy says in a whisper, “If you’re willing to do this for us, I promise I’ll be a good husband to you, Sienna. I won’t lie to you, I won’t cheat on you, and I’ll do my best never to hurt you.” Guy’s voice catches, then he clears his throat. “I can’t promise I’ll love you, but when I give my word, I mean it. I’ll work hard, and I’ll always have your back. And when you want out, I’ll do that too. Whatever you need.”
“Same deal for both of us, okay? If you want out, then we’ll call it,” I tell him. “You don’t know me. Two weeks in, you could end up hating my guts and regretting this.”
“I highly doubt it,” Guy tells me quietly. “And you don’t know me either, but I know I’ll do anything to keep my daughter on the transplant list.”
“Even meet me at the courthouse tomorrow? Nine thirty?” I met the man at 9:30 this morning. Might as well make it a full twenty-four hours before getting married to him.
A flicker of the muscles in his jaw is the only thing telling me this hits him hard. Guy blinks rapidly, turning his face away to look at the brick wall next to him. I have the feeling Emma is on the other side of the wall. Then he says in an even quieter voice, “We both will.”
I end the call and sit back in my chair, my heart pounding in my chest.
“It isn’t real,” I tell Barley, who’s snoring softly and no longer listening. “It isn’t a real marriage.”
This is a marriage of convenience. A way to help someone take care of his dying child. This isn’t love. If I’ve learned anything the hard way, marriage for love might exist, but not for me. But doing a good thing? I can still have that.
Assuming I’m brave enough…and reckless enough…to take the leap.