that, Dylan. I do.” She tried to think of a way to say the rest without offending him. “But I’d rather do it alone. I’m just still not at peace with this.” She wasn’t at peace with a lot of things. Unease and anxiety were her ruling emotions these days, along with a good dose of anger and resentment.
“Of course.” Dylan reached for her hand. “You take whatever time you need.”
A faint clap sounded in the distance, almost like a gunshot. She pulled her hand away. “What was that?”
“Probably thunder. A storm is moving in.” He looked around the living room. “You cleaned.”
“I hope to stay a couple of days.”
A frown creased his forehead, then disappeared the next second. “You know you can stay with us. Molly would love to have you.”
She gave a tired smile as she shook her head. She needed time alone.
“Then stay at my place in Hullett.” He kept an apartment in town, a two-bedroom bachelor pad where he took his dates. Molly was a single mom with an impressionable eight-year-old. And Dylan liked to keep his private business private, anyway.
She thought she saw a glint in his eyes, some emotion she couldn’t identify. Was he remembering how it had been between them more than a decade ago? They did have good times.
Seemed as if a lifetime had passed since. The hotshot young football player had grown into an attractive man. A successful man. His pale blue eyes watched her with interest.
“How is business?” she asked to change the subject and the train of her thoughts. “I hope the ranch is good to you.”
She and her brother had inherited the place after their grandfather’s death. Tommy’s illness had been bad enough by then that he’d had to leave the army. But he’d still had enough left in him to work the land for a couple of years before he had to move into Edinburg, closer to medical care, and then around the clock help toward the end.
Dylan renting the place was a tremendous relief. She needed the income to pay the taxes on the property, plus Tommy’s medical bills. She’d even wondered, at times, if Dylan only rented because he knew she needed the money. Maybe it was his way of helping. For old time’s sake.
“Business is fine,” he said, with a look that told her he wasn’t done with trying to talk her out of her solitude yet.
“I drove around when I got in. Doesn’t look like you have any crops planted.” It didn’t look as if he’d planted anything last year, either. The land hadn’t been worked in a while, scraggy weeds taking over the endless fields.
“Can’t make a living from farming anymore.” A hint of sadness settled on his face. “I have a deal with a company who does corporate retreats here. Survival training for business managers, a team building thing—they come from all over the country. They sleep in tents, learn how to get from point A to point B without GPS, deal with the elements, make their own food over an open fire. They even climb up and down the ravine.”
Unease flashed through her at the thought of the steep ravine on the remote south edge of the property. “Somebody could get hurt.”
“They’re fully insured. They rappel up and down in hundred-degree heat, lose a couple of pounds and pay me a load of money for setting it all up, clearing bush when needed and trucking in supplies.”
He grinned, and she could suddenly see the old Dylan in that smile. A wave of nostalgia hit her, for a time when everything was so much simpler, a time when she still had Gramps and Tommy.
The dull, ever-present ache in her chest intensified. Think of something else.
“I hope they’re not hunting.” She’d spent considerable time years ago posting signs to make sure everyone knew that absolutely no hunting was allowed on the property. She had a safe-haven agreement with Wildlife Protection. The ranch included over two hundred acres of dense brushland that gave home to some ocelots, a highly endangered species slowly disappearing from South Texas.
She liked the idea of saving them. Saving something. She sure hadn’t been able to save her grandfather or Tommy.
“They wouldn’t know what to do with a rifle. Bunch of city slickers. But the trainers like to keep that sense of isolation for them, to better develop interdependence or whatever. So if you wouldn’t mind…”
“I won’t go anywhere near the ravine.” She wouldn’t have, anyway. She had a nice meadow picked for Tommy’s ashes, not far from the house, a place where her brother had taught her horseback riding back in the day. Good memories. Focusing on those was the key.
Dylan settled deeper into the couch, apparently comfortable. “My offer to buy the ranch still stands.”
A fine offer. And she had no intention of moving back here. Yet something held her back from agreeing to the sale. “I’m thinking about it.”
“Good.” He gave a quick smile. “How is work?”
“Busy.”
She perched on the edge of her chair and felt guilty for wishing him gone. He’d always been a good friend to her, but she wanted to be alone tonight, her first night back.
“You got your own practice yet?”
“Almost.” She put a smile on her face. “I have my last batch of veterinary exams coming up soon.” For which she’d brought some books. Not that she had it in her to drag them out tonight.
“Could have gone to med school with the same effort and be a human doctor. Pays better. You were a medic in the army. You already know half the stuff.”
“Couldn’t afford med school if I sold both my kidneys.” And the truth was she couldn’t handle any more people dying in her arms.
A yawn stretched her face against her will. “Sorry. I spent most of the day driving and walking around. I guess I’m not used to all this good country air anymore.”
“A shame,” he said as he stood, taking the hint. “Come back to Hullett with me. At least I have a working air conditioner.”
“Thanks, but I’m fine here. Really.”
He opened his mouth but was distracted by a mangy old cat that padded forward cautiously from the laundry room.
“Came scratching at the door as soon as I arrived,” she said, maybe a little too defensively. “Might be one of the descendants of Gramps’s batch of barn cats. I’ll find her a good home before I go. You don’t have to worry about her.” The cat had had some badly infected thorns in her hind leg, which she’d taken care of already.
“You know why they call them barn cats, right? Because they’re supposed to stay in the barn.” He shook his head with a look that said he thought she was hopeless. “Whatever you do, don’t name her.”
She would leave that honor to whoever was going to take the cat. “I’ve managed to resist.”
He looked skeptical.
“Say hi to Molly for me. I’ll stop in to see her, I promise.”
She walked him to the door, where he hesitated for a second before giving her a quick hug. She hugged him back then watched him walk to his brand-new Chevy truck, glanced up at the clouds that were rushing in to block out the moon. She hoped he’d get home before the storm hit.
The cat meowed behind her, but didn’t step a foot outside. She didn’t seem to want to get too far from the bowl of milk in the kitchen. Grace passed by her then closed the door and went around turning off the lights, alone at last in the old house that brought back way too many memories.
“Focus on the good,” she told the cat, but meant the words for herself.
She picked up a box of Twinkie snacks from the counter, something she’d grabbed at the last gas station she’d stopped at on her way