My Husband Exiled Me to the Ranch of My Dreams novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Walt

Jed shows Audra her grandfather's grave and learns she never got his letters; that night her husband admits he hid Walt's death, and at dawn his first wife pulls up the lane.

Jed walked me up the rise behind the house without saying where we were going.

I knew anyway.

There was a cottonwood at the top with a flat gray stone under it.

WALTER DUNNING, the stone said, and two dates.

The second one was eight years ago in March.

I sat down on the dry grass because my legs wouldn't hold.

Jed stood a few steps off with his hat in his hands.

"He went in the cabin by the creek," he said. "He wouldn't leave it. I sat with him the last two nights."

"Did he say anything?"

"He asked if you'd come."

I put my hand over my mouth.

"I told him the roads were bad," Jed said. "I didn't know what else to say."

"I didn't know he was dead."

"I wrote you three times."

"I know. I'm holding all three."

He looked down at the box in my other hand.

The hard line of his jaw loosened slightly.

"I figured you read them and decided it wasn't worth the drive," he said. "I've been angry at you for eight years."

"I'd have been angry too."

"It's hard to stay angry now."

"Try," I said. "I'm angry enough for both of us."

He made a short sound that was nearly a laugh.

Then he put his hat back on and held out one hand.

I let him pull me up.

His palm was rough, and warm, and he let go the moment I was on my feet.

The house was colder inside than it was out.

Dust sheets covered the furniture, and the kitchen smelled of mice and old wood smoke.

"The well pump works," Jed said. "The wiring's older than I am. The stove in here is the only thing in the house I'd trust."

He hauled in an armload of split pine from his truck and knelt at the iron stove.

I watched his hands as he laid the kindling.

They were steady, and quick, and careful with every piece.

"You're going to ask me why I keep the place up," he said, without turning around.

"I wasn't."

"Your grandfather paid me a dollar a year to run my cows on his north pasture. I never took the dollar."

"That's not an answer."

"No," he said. "It isn't."

The fire caught and the iron ticked as it warmed.

He stood up, wiped his hands on his jeans, and looked at the porch roof through the kitchen window.

"I'll bring tarps in the morning. It rains here at night."

"I can't pay you."

"I didn't ask you to."

"I don't take things I can't pay back."

"Then pay me in coffee," he said, and went out.

I sat at my grandfather's table in my coat and listened to his truck go down the lane.

At nine, my phone finally found one bar of signal on the windowsill.

Curtis called.

"Did you get there?" He sounded bored. "Dina's asking if you've seen the ranch yet. Everyone wants to know you're all right."

"He died eight years ago."

He said nothing for a few seconds.

"Audra, you were in no shape. Sierra was in the hospital that month. I wasn't going to put that on you too."

"You returned the letters."

"What letters?"

"The ones a man named Jed wrote me. You wrote refused on them. I'm holding them."

He made a sharp, impatient sound.

"I protected you, and now you're making it sound like something else. This is exactly what I meant about you getting dramatic."

I looked at the iron stove glowing against the dark window.

"Who pays the property taxes on this ranch?"

"I do. I told you that. I always have."

"Then you can send me the receipts."

"For what? It's all handled." His voice sharpened. "Sign the agreement, Audra, and stop doing this to everybody."

"I'll send you my lawyer's name in the morning."

He hung up first.

I did not sleep.

Near dawn, headlights came up the lane and swept across the kitchen wall.

I went to the window.

It wasn't Jed's truck.

A white SUV rolled to a stop in front of the broken porch.

A woman in a cream coat got out of the driver's side and walked toward the steps, stepping around the loose boards without once looking down.

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