2. Plus-One, Minus Emotional Availability #3
She broke into a man’s backyard who had dogs chained up to a tree with no food and water to “liberate” them.
When the police showed up and started asking me questions, I told them I didn’t know where we got the dogs from.
It was true, I hadn’t. My mom told me later.
When I asked why she hadn’t told me so I could have helped her, she explained plausible deniability.
“Your mom sounds like a legend.”
I nodded. “She is.”
The tour continued, past the pig pen and the sheep fold, where Angie spent a long minute telling a particularly majestic ram that he was, in her words, “an absolute king.” Then we hit the cattle paddock, where the longhorns grazed with slow, heavy dignity, and Angie took in the massive, spiraling horns with something close to awe.
“They’re like dinosaurs,” she said.
“They’re jerks,” I corrected.
Her eyes twinkled with delight. “Even better.”
While we watched, one of the calves ambled up to the fence, eyes enormous and ears on high alert. Angie stuck her hand through the mesh and let the calf sniff her fingers. “Do they all have names?”
“Yep, that’s Cowlvin. Mom names every animal on the property. Even the chickens.”
She smiled, but there was a softness to it now. “That’s sweet.”
“She believes every living creature deserves to feel seen and respected. This is her way of doing that.”
Angie nodded, I could tell she was genuinely impressed.
We left the animals and cut back toward the main house, shoes dusted with hay and dirt. She paused at the vineyard’s edge and looked back over the patchwork of fields and barns, the silvered underside of the bay beyond, and the hills cradling the whole crazy operation.
“I don’t think I’d ever get tired of this view,” she breathed in awe.
We walked through the first two rows of grapevines—the pinot noir block—while I filled in the basic story of the ranch.
Four generations, starting with my great-great-grandfather ran longhorns up and down the coast until the price of beef collapsed.
The family pivoted to a working dude ranch for city people looking to cosplay as cowboys for a weekend.
My grandfather saw that was doing well and wanted to expand.
So he did. The problem was, he was smack dab in the middle of expansion/renovations when he passed away from a brain aneurysm.
Then it was my dad’s turn to take hold of the reins.
Sadly, he nearly ran the entire business into the ground.
He’s great at big ideas, not so much day-to-day tasks that need to be done.
Thankfully, my mom saved it by transforming the business into the vineyard/luxury resort/animal refuge it was now.
Angie listened, shifting her gaze from row to row. Her eyes widened when she caught sight of a wild turkey waddling through the cover crop between vines.
“So you grew up here? On all of this?”
“I did.”
“And now you work here every day, with your brothers?”
“I do.”
“You’re really lucky.”
I knew I was, but sometimes, most of the time, it felt like none of this mattered without the person I’d planned on sharing it with. No. I was not going to think of her today. I pushed Sadie out of my mind.
We reached the guest bungalows, twenty-eight luxury-rustic units laid out in neat rows, each with its own porch swing and view of the ocean.
The first five were original to the ranch—my dad built them himself, with help from his brothers, in the seventies.
They were dark, cramped, and smelled like pine-scented bleach, but guests loved them.
My mom added the rest over two decades, each more elaborate than the last. The newest one had a copper bathtub and a fireplace that lit with a remote control.
Angie ran a hand over the porch railing as we passed. “Did you ever live in one of these?”
Nope, but I lost my virginity in one. I didn’t feel the need to share that with her.
“No, these are for guests only. Mom runs a tight ship.”
We circled back toward the front of the property, detouring past the spa, which could have easily been in Malibu or Napa Valley. All glass and raw timber, it gleamed in the sun like a high-end resort with its own Zen garden and a koi pond the size of my entire childhood bedroom.
“Is this place for real?” Angie asked, stopping to gape at the reflecting pool and the stone fountains.
“Very real,” I assured her. “My mom built it after she realized the best way to get brides to book this place was to promise them luxury treatments.”
Angie grinned. “That’s pretty genius.”
“Yep.”
She let that one hang in the air, then said, softer, “You’re proud of her.”
I nodded. “She’s a force, that’s for sure.”
It was great when that force was focused on external things, the problem came when that energy turned inward. Once she got her mind set on something, she was like a dog with a bone, and there was no stopping her.
Lately, it was one of her sons settling down and giving her grandchildren. Thankfully, Deacon showed up and took some of the pressure off. He had his own daughter, Tabitha, and a stepdaughter, Blake, who Mom was loving spoiling.
I had reservations regarding her reaction to me bringing Angie today. I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. We weren’t even exclusive. I knew for a fact she was seeing other people, and if I wanted to, I could as well.
“I can’t wait to meet her, your mom.” Angie beamed as we headed toward the ceremony area where everyone was gathered before the main event.
I smiled back, despite the growing knot of anxiety in my stomach. This was a mistake. We weren’t together. This was casual. Bringing someone as a date to a family wedding was not casual. I fucked up.