Sunset Ranch Read online

  Stephen braked suddenly as a strange little animal toddled onto the pavement in front of us. It was covered with some kind of armorlike skin and looked like a cross between a pig and a rat.

  “Armadillos. They’re everywhere out here.” Stephen braked and we watched the armadillo snuffle its way across the pavement and disappear into the rough underbrush. “They crash around in the bushes and sound just like a person. It can freak you out to see this little guy wander out instead.”

  We passed a shuttered gas station, then a few deerlike animals bounding in the grass. Stephen turned off the highway and onto a small side road. The asphalt unspooled before us, broken only by the dotted yellow line in the middle. We were leaving the dry sagebrush country behind, and now slender trees with soft white bark lined the road on either side—aspens, I thought. Grass grew underneath, soft as a carpet, the sun flickering through the cool leaves.

  Then the aspens were behind us and waves of grass spread out all around, deep golden, russet, dark green, rustling endlessly in the wind, the colors a stark, almost jarring, contrast to the ­jewel-blue sky. I rolled down the window the rest of the way. “Is this the prairie?” That sounded very Laura Ingalls Wilder.

  “I guess it used to be.” Stephen slowed. “It’s ranchland now. Here we are.”

  Two tall pine poles supported a wooden arch with NICKEL RIVER RANCH painted on it in bold white letters. Tubs of bright red flowers were on either side of the narrow gravel drive. I sat up straight, leaning forward as the rocks sprayed from under the truck wheels. We passed a few buildings, all of dark brown wood, set far apart and close to the ground, as if they were huddling from the wind that whipped straight and strong over everything. On either side, chestnut, white, and gray horses grazed in knee-deep pastures behind the wire-and-post fences, their manes and tails fluttering. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. A couple of Appaloosas lifted their heads as the truck passed, then ran along beside us, easily keeping up.

  “Oh, look!” I breathed. The animals ran as gracefully as music, their legs barely seeming to touch the earth, chins high and muscles rippling, white and brown manes streaming out behind them. “It’s like they could keep going forever.”

  “That’s Mickey and Jim,” Stephen explained. “They think they’re dogs—chase every car that comes onto the place, even ours.” He pointed. “There’s the ranch house. I’ll just drop you guys off—I’m supposed to park in the back.”

  He stopped the truck and I shoved open my door and climbed down. The wind smacked me full in the face, whipping my long hair behind me—twisting it into unmanageable dreadlocks, no doubt. Behind me, Zach jumped out of the backseat, easily shouldering his bag. Stephen handed me my duffel, then waved and drove off around the building.

  A low-slung house of the same brown boards I’d seen in the pasture stood before us, painted with cheerful red trim that matched the bright red rockers on the broad porch. Another low building with double doors, which I guessed was the stable, stood a short distance away, and various other outbuildings stood scattered around. A big yellow dog lying in the shade of the porch lifted its head as we approached and regarded us sleepily, its black nose sniffing the air.

  The door opened and a powerfully built, white-haired man stepped out on the porch, wiping his hands on a blue bandanna, which he then stuck in his pocket. “Welcome to Colorado!” he boomed. “How was your trip?” He tramped down the steps and offered his hand, which felt like a piece of leather gear. “I’m Jack, the owner of this place.” His face was rough and deeply lined, and his sharp eyes were surrounded by webs of wrinkles. His fingernails were neatly trimmed but rimmed with black, as if he’d been working on an engine. Corded forearms showed beneath the rolled-up cuffs of his denim shirt.

  “Chloe.” I felt suddenly shy, like I always did in front of big, hearty men.

  “Hurt yourself there?” He was looking at my bandaged forehead.

  “Er—”

  “She had an interview with a door,” Zach volunteered, grinning merrily at me.

  I resisted the urge to kick Zach in the ankle. “I’m fine now,” I said hastily. It would be just my luck if my new boss thought I was a klutz within five minutes of meeting me.

  Jack’s eyebrows lifted as he looked from me to Zach and back again. “Ah. Well. Let’s get you all settled. Zach, why don’t you come with me? I’ll show you around, and we’ll leave Chloe with Stephen.”

  Thank you, Jack. Thank you very much. Stephen appeared around the side of the house, looking like a red-haired, ­windblown Adonis. His plaid shirt clung to his broad shoulders, and he walked with a long, easy stride.

  Shouldering his duffel again, Zach followed Jack off the porch. “See you later, Private,” he called over his shoulder.

  I rolled my eyes and focused on Stephen. “Are you going to show me around?” I asked in what I hoped was a casually ­flirtatious way.

  “Sure.” He hoisted my bag onto the porch. “We can just leave that for a bit. We’ll do the outside first; then I’ll show you the bunkhouse.”

  He led me around the side of the house. Following him, I admired the way his bulky shoulders stretched his shirt. He wore jeans that were skinnier than the ones guys at home wore, and scuffed, dusty cowboy boots, the kind that looked like he actually rode horses in them.

  Stephen stopped in front of the long stable. The big doors were propped open. “So, this is the stable for our section of the ranch. We’ve got about twenty-five horses in our herd, and the others are pastured in the western and northern sections.” He gestured to the prairie, and in the distance I spotted two other clusters of dark-brown buildings huddling low to the ground.

  “Oh right, that’s where the other guests are?” I remembered back to the information packet they’d sent in the spring. The ranch was divided into three sections, each with its own staff and living quarters and five to ten guests. “How many people are staying right now?” I asked as we wandered down the long empty aisle of stalls.

  “Um, let’s see.” He crinkled up his forehead. “There’s the ­Taylors—parents and two little girls. The kids are kind of crazy. And a lady, Mrs. Coleman. Her husband just died, and this is her first trip without him.”

  “Oh, that’s so sad! What happened to him?”

  “Heart attack. He was playing basketball and just fell over.”

  I winced and he nodded in sympathy. “It seems really rough for her. She cries all the time. Sandra—she’s Jack’s wife—gave her the best room to kind of help her along. All the guests just got here yesterday—you and Zach are the last staff to arrive.”

  We walked out the other end of the stable, and Stephen led the way to a little cluster of cabins situated prettily in an aspen grove away from the other buildings. On the porch of one, a young dark-haired woman was reading a book while two snarly-haired little girls whacked each other with sticks. “So, what do we have to do with them?” I asked. “Like, bring them drinks on a tray?” I kept my voice low, though we were far enough away that the woman couldn’t possibly have heard us.

  “Nah, nothing like that. They have their own little section back here. Mostly, you and I will be working with the horses, and Dana will too. She’s the only girl wrangler. I think you’re rooming with her. The rest of the wranglers have their own bunkhouse.” We wandered away from the guest cabins toward the vast pasture lined with acres of fencing. The wind whipped my hair, bringing the faint scent of snow and pine from the mountains. “It’s mostly cleaning stalls, feeding and grooming, tacking up for trail rides, and going along to ride when we need extra help. Dana and Rick—he’s my older brother—do most of the heavy horse stuff, like helping the guests, teaching them lessons, leading the rides. Training up new horses.” He sighed a little.

  “What is it?”

  “Huh?” He looked down at me. “Oh. Nothing. It’s just—my brother.” A corner of his mouth quirked up. “I’ve been doing t
he trail-ride-stall-cleaning-horse-care job for three summers now. He keeps saying he’ll promote me to assistant trainer once I show him I’m ready.” He stared across the pasture as I studied his perfect profile. “I just don’t know if he’ll ever think I’m ready.”

  We leaned our arms on the fence, and I gazed at the horses grazing peacefully in the sun, the mountains forming an impossibly beautiful backdrop. The breeze lifted their manes and carried over the faint sound of contented chewing. This was it. I was really here, looking at the mountains, an amazingly nice and cute boy right beside me. A whole summer of horses ahead.

  “So, have you ever been away for the summer before?” Stephen asked. He bent down and snapped off a long grass stem, then hopped up on the top fence rail. Leaning over, he extended a hand to me. I grasped his warm, rough fingers and pulled myself up to sit beside him. I balanced on the rail, bracing with my sneakered feet. We were sitting close enough that our arms just brushed.

  “No,” I confessed. “I usually stay home. Last summer I worked at this diner near our house. I had to wear pantyhose and these orthopedic shoes—they even told us exactly what kind to buy. They looked like my grandma’s.”

  Stephen laughed. “God, I’m sorry.”

  “Did you ever go to camp?” I ran my fingertips back and forth along the splintery wood of the fence, the sun hot on the top of my head.

  He nodded. “Yeah, I used to. My parents sent me to this farm camp when I was nine, and I’d never slept away from home before, except for sleepovers at my friends’. Anyway, this place was run by these farmers who weren’t Amish but basically lived like they were. So there wasn’t any electricity or plumbing—there was an outhouse made of wood, and every time you used it, you threw in a handful of sawdust from this big bucket when you were done.”

  “No way!”

  “Yes, seriously. And they had all these adopted kids from different countries, and when you got there, some of the teenagers would go through your bag and take out anything you weren’t supposed to have.” He smiled a little at the memory, as if seeing his nine-year-old self standing in front of him. “And I’d had some problems with bees—I’d been stung and they weren’t sure if I was allergic to bees or not. But either way, I had to take Benadryl every six hours, including the middle of the night. So my mom had given me a little alarm clock so I could set it and wake up to take my medicine.” He paused.

  “And?” I prompted.

  He sighed and looked down at his knees. “And one of the teenage kids, who was Russian, I think, and didn’t speak much English, found the alarm clock when he was going through my bag and took it away and I started crying. . . .” He looked sheepish at the memory.

  It was hard for me to balance this big, square-jawed guy next to me with the small, scared boy in the story. “They shouldn’t have been so mean about taking your stuff away.”

  He grinned. “I know, right? Can you see I’m still scarred?” He hopped down from the fence. “Come on, I’ll show you the rest of the place.”

  At the main house, Stephen caught up my duffel bag from the porch and pushed open the screen door. “So, this is where we eat, hang out, everything.” We stepped into a large room, dusky and cool after the outdoors. An old wooden table with benches was pushed in the middle and a series of squashy old couches lined the walls. There was a staircase at either end. I glimpsed a kitchen through another doorway. All around, the walls were hung with various western paraphernalia—some kind of polished animal horns, different kinds of antlers, a shelf of old cowboy boots, cracked leather ropes hanging in neat coils, all very satisfyingly cowboylike. Nothing in Cincinnati looked anything like this.

  “We eat here all together,” Stephen said. “Nora and Miguel, the cooks, go back and forth between the sections. The food’s really good—Miguel makes great tortillas.” He clumped up the right-hand staircase in the far corner. “This is the girls’ side. Guys are on the other side.”

  At the top of the stairs, Stephen knocked at a partially open door. “Hey,” he called. “I’ve got your roomie.”

  “Come on in,” a gravelly voice called.

  A rangy girl was sprawled on one of two metal beds, a journal open on the bed in front of her, a pen in her hand. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Dana. Do you care which bed? I just took this one because it’s closer to the door. I have to get up at like four in the morning to round up the herd.”

  “No, either’s fine.” I took my duffel from Stephen and placed it on the bed, then propped my guitar case by the door. It all sounded so western—wranglers and rounding up herds. Would that be horses or cows? Horses, I decided. I remembered that the ranch only kept a few cows to teach roping and cutting to the guests.

  “Okay, well, Rick’s expecting me over at the far pasture,” Stephen said. “We’re going to get the guests’ horses cleaned up for tomorrow—they’re riding for the first time.” He rolled his eyes and I giggled. At the door, he turned. “By the way, staff meeting tonight after dinner. Jack wants to give everyone the rundown, work assignments, tell them about the rules.”

  “See you then?” I tried to keep my voice casual.

  He looked right in my eyes and I froze momentarily. Then he nodded. “Definitely.”

  As his footsteps disappeared down the stairs, Dana raised her eyebrows. “I see you and Stephen are already friends.”

  “Oh . . . well . . .” I fumbled around, my face hot. “Anyway . . .” I cleared my throat and hoisted my duffel on to the bed.

  “So, where’re you from?” Dana asked as Stephen’s footsteps faded down the stairs. She sat up and brushed her ­caramel-streaked blond hair from her face. “Is this your first time on a ranch? I’m guessing yes.” She pointed to my sneakers.

  I nodded, relieved at the change of subject. “Yeah, is it that obvious? I’m from Cincinnati. It’s a long way from here. I guess you can tell.”

  Dana laughed and bounced up from her mattress. “It’s okay, I’ve got you covered.” She tugged with difficulty at a closet door, then rummaged around on the floor. “I only got here yesterday, and my stuff’s already totally disorganized.” She surfaced from the closet with a pair of battered cowboy boots in her hand and a dust ball hanging from her hair. “Here, are you an eight?”

  “Seven and a half.” I took the boots and looked at them with satisfaction. They were coated with a layer of seasons-old muck and dust and the heels were worn down. Very authentic cowboy. “You don’t need these?”

  “Nah.” Dana motioned to the brown boots lying on the floor by her bed. “I’ve got these for this summer. I wore those last year. Unless you brought your own with you . . . ?”

  “No, just some hiking boots.” I pulled on Dana’s boots and stood up. They felt odd on my feet, the heels unexpectedly high, but as I stamped around the room experimentally, I felt like I already had the proper western swagger in my step. I turned and, with a sudden warm impulse, hugged Dana quickly. “Thanks.”

  She squeezed back, seeming surprised but pleased. “No problem.” I looked in a spotted full-length mirror hung on the back of the door. My long, dark hair was windblown and the circles around my blue eyes made them look even bigger than usual, but with the boots, I felt like I already belonged out here on the range.

  ChapterThree

  “Mind some company?”

  The voice came from behind me as I wandered down the long driveway that night after dinner. The staff meeting was supposed to start any minute, but I couldn’t resist the cool allure of the air and the sunset that flung ruby, rose, gold, and lavender across the sky in a lavish array.

  I turned around. Stephen was walking up rapidly behind me, a little out of breath. He must have trotted from the main house when he saw me leaving. His face shone faintly with perspiration. He’d changed his shirt into a soft blue button-down, sleeves rolled up. The auburn hair at his temples and around his forehead was damp, as if he’d just washed
his face.

  “Of course not.” I smiled at him, pushing away the faintest stab of annoyance at being interrupted.

  Stephen fell in step beside me. “I found these by the side of the bunkhouse.” He proffered a slightly wilted bouquet of daisies and black-eyed Susans.

  “Aw, that’s so sweet.” I smiled at him and took the flowers, which were warm from being clutched in his hand. I looked around, but of course I’d have to carry them. I couldn’t just lay them down by the side of the road.

  “We shouldn’t walk too far. Rick doesn’t like anyone being late for meetings.” Stephen stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  “No, I wasn’t going to.” Quietly, I transferred the flowers to my other hand and wiped my free palm on my shorts. The stems were bleeding green juice.

  A silence fell between us—a little awkward in a way we hadn’t been earlier by the pasture. The only sound was our feet scuffling in the dirt. I heard Stephen swallow with a little click. He cleared his throat, then took his hand out of his pocket. It swung loosely by his side, and I became aware of my hand swinging too—near his. He was going to try to hold my hand; I could sense it. We walked a little further. My hand felt like a piece of meat hanging at the end of my arm. Never had I felt so aware of an ordinary part of my own body.

  Then I felt him swipe at my fingers like he was trying to capture an elusive bug, and he caught my hand in his. I tried not to break my pace or look down. Nothing obvious like that. Instead I moistened my lips and stared straight ahead at the end of the driveway, where the gray ribbon of the asphalt was just visible. Stephen’s hand was hot and a little sticky—like my four-year-old cousin’s. I tried to change my grip, to combat the stickiness.

  “Maybe we should turn around,” he said, before I could. We did a sort of awkward about-face, still holding hands, as if we were a drill team. It must have looked absurd to anyone watching from the porch—which I sincerely hoped no one was.