Return To Marker Ranch

“You know what, Wade? You can pretend you’re different from your family. That you are back here trying to turn this place into a legal business. But right now you’re acting like just one more Hoffman thief. Just like your brothers! Just like your dad!”

Wade froze as if she’d struck him. If she’d had any kind of large, heavy object, she might have. She was that furious.

Jim’s grip tightened on her elbow, and he tugged.

“Let go of me,” she spat out, still glaring at Wade.

“Lori, that is enough!” Jim barked and all but dragged her the rest of the way to the truck.

As soon as they were inside and she had the engine roaring, he turned to her. “You want to tell me what was going on back there?”

“He’s wrong.” She jerked the wheel, trying to get them turned around and away from Wade as fast as possible.

“Yeah, and he probably would have figured that out if you’d given him the time he was asking for. Instead you just drove him into a corner. I’m pretty sure you can say goodbye to that water.”

“Well, he was already making it pretty clear he wouldn’t share it.”

“He was asking for time to think! Don’t you remember how that kid struggled in school? He probably just needs some time to work out the math and make sure it’s all going to be okay. It was a reasonable request.”

Every word Jim said was true. But there was more to it than he knew. And there was no way she could tell him. “I’m sorry I wasted your time today, Jim,” she said stiffly. “I’ll order some water to tide us over until we get this figured out.”

“That’s an expensive choice.”

His words stung with their truth. “Well, right now it’s my only choice, so I’ll just have to make it work.”

“You say you want to lead this ranch. But your dad wouldn’t have...”

She cut him off before he could go further down that road. “My dad isn’t here anymore. I think we both wish he was sometimes. I’ll figure this out, Jim. I promise. And I’m sorry I messed up today.”

He didn’t answer, and they drove the rest of the way back to the ranch in a clouded silence. Lori just hoped Jim didn’t mention any of this to the rest of the staff. The last thing she wanted was for her already skeptical ranch hands to know that she’d totally lost it and called their neighbor a thief. It wouldn’t help earn their respect. She knew that for certain, because right now she was having trouble respecting herself.

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_ff9c0f9b-9391-5f1a-92d0-2241d5957ee4)

WADE HANDED HIS sister the sheet of numbers he’d worked out. Units of water required. Current output from the well. Just like it said in his ranching books. “Thanks for coming by to take a look at this.”

But Nora just set his spreadsheet facedown on the dining room table between them. “You don’t get it. It’s not about the numbers.”

He stared at her in shock. “How can you say that? You’re a scientist. You’re all about the numbers!”

“Mostly, yes.” Nora nodded. “But in this case they don’t matter. You just need to do what’s right. You can’t quantify that.”

He’d asked his sister over to look at the facts, not dish out morality. “So you’re saying I should just give her half of my well water?”

“Yes.” She gave him the calm smile he’d relied on for so much of his life. “I think it’s that simple.”

Nerves twisted in his stomach. “But I can’t afford to. It says it right there on that paper.” Wade picked it up again. He’d done his homework last night—almost all night. “Look, I can’t afford to make a big mistake. We don’t have much capital left.”

“Then find a way to make it work despite the numbers. This isn’t just about the water. It’s about being a good neighbor. It’s about being a part of the community.”

“Those things won’t mean much if I fail and lose the ranch.”

“So don’t fail.”

“How?” He stood up, pacing the floor by the table. “How do I not fail if I make decisions based on being nice? This is water we’re talking about. A key ingredient for a ranch.”

Nora gave him a long look. She’d given him the same look many times when he was a teenager and she wasn’t much older than that, and she was trying to raise him right. “Ranches here are failing left and right. Do you really want Lori to lose hers? After how hard she and her family have worked to keep it going all these years? Even after their mom died?”

He remembered how devastated Lori had been. How she’d drifted, sad and empty, through her sophomore year of high school. How she’d grown up after that, become an adult way before the rest of them had, trying to take care of her father and her sister. He’d watched her back then, wishing he knew how to offer comfort. “Of course I don’t want them to lose their ranch. But it’s a business, right? Everything I’ve read about ranching says it’s a business. And we need that water to make our business a success.”

“Any good book on business should also mention that out of hardship can come innovation. You need to let go of some of that water and then innovate. Figure out a way to get by with less.”

“But...”

Nora cut him off. “Your books won’t help with this issue because they’re not written for people experiencing the worst drought in California’s long history of droughts! But you and Lori are smart. And you’ve got me—how many people can say they have an expert on range management in the family? I’ll go though her pastures as well as ours if you want, and see if I can help.”

“I guess.” Wade set the paper aside, trying to put aside his anxiety with it. He was overly cautious. He knew that. Partly because he’d come back here to prove that he could make this a success.

But also because growing up, ranching was his dream. He’d watched the other families in the area with their cattle and horses and their nice clothes and pickups. He’d seen their barbecues and barn raisings and the way they high-fived and slapped backs at local events. And he’d wanted that life. A normal, hardworking life. He’d wanted it badly, and now he had a small chance at making it happen.

He shook his head, trying to loosen the anxious buzzing there. The voice whispering that no matter what he did about the water, he’d find a way to mess this up because failure was in his DNA. He tried to shush it, to see it for what it really was—the aftereffects of months in combat. The whispers of doubt over the smallest decisions. The intense irritation when things didn’t go his way. It was making him rigid. It had him digging his heels in with Lori and Jim the other day. Had him grimly clinging on to what he felt might be the quickest path to security and survival—no matter what the consequences to others.

Nora stood up and reached for his hand, guiding him back down to his seat at the table. “Little bro, take a breath. It’s going to be okay.”

He raised his brows at her. “Really?”

“I think so. You’re just in survival mode right now. And it’s making you a little frantic.”

“What do you mean?” He’d been in survival mode before. With bullets hitting the dirt around him as he scrabbled for shelter. This wasn’t that.

“I mean how we grew up. Everyday survival. How to get food, how to get clothes, how to make it without a mom, how to stay out of Dad’s way. I think it’s easy to slip back into that way of thinking, where it’s all about trying to get the next meal.”

Wade traced an old water stain on the table. He hated talking about the past. Hated remembering the searing of his dad’s belt on his back and the ache of hunger in his stomach.

“Sometimes I wonder if all that surviving made us a little hard,” Nora said quietly. “Because we had to look out for ourselves, and focus all our energy on just getting by.”

“That’s a good thing,” Wade countered. “We’re not dependent. We take care of ourselves. It’s made us successful.” It had brought him through some scary battles.

“It can be a good thing,” Nora said gently. “But lately I’ve been thinking about how all the independence that saved us when we were kids may not be quite so helpful now that we’re adults. I mean, we can survive on our own, but don’t you want more than survival? Don’t you want friends and neighbors and... I don’t know...love?”

“Love?” He had to tease her. It was his brotherly duty. “I don’t know about that, seeing as you’ve gone all soft on me since you got together with Todd. Where’s the Nora who taught me to look out for myself and make sure I succeeded?”

“All that’s still important. But if that’s all we do, life’s not going to be very rich, is it? I don’t know. Maybe I’m wrong. But you asked for my opinion. And my opinion is to ignore the numbers and share the water.”

“It’s not what I expected you’d say.” He crumpled up the paper in disgust. And because he was still her little brother, he threw it at her.

Nora caught it in one hand and grinned. “Glad I can still surprise you, bro. Trust me on this one, okay?”

“Sure. But if that well runs out of water, you’ll help me figure out what to do next, right?”