Snow Melts in Spring - By Deborah Vogts Page 0,100
surround herself with memories of him and to force herself to stay in touch? “Does Gil know about this?”
“It’s my land to do with as I please.”
She shook her head. It would be too painful. “I can’t do it.”
John nodded. “Think long and hard before you say no. You abandoned Gil for these hills. It’d be a shame for you to give them up as well . . . especially when they’re right here at your fingertips.”
LATE THAT EVENING, MATTIE PRESSED THE SPEED DIAL ON HER CELL phone, hoping she wouldn’t get the answering machine again.
She didn’t. This time her dad picked up.
“Hi, Daddy.” Her voice came out a soft whimper. “Can I come home? I need to talk to you.”
FIFTY-ONE
GIL SAT ON THE TOP RAIL OF DUSTY’S PEN AND STARED INTO THE moonlight. The fence work now complete, all that remained was packing his father’s belongings. Then he could get back to his life in California — and start getting over a certain lady veterinarian.
The first three truckloads of cattle would soon ship to their pastures for summer grazing, but by then, he and his dad should be gone. Jake and two hired hands would serve as pasturemen for the season. Every detail had been attended to, including assigning Mattie as trustee for the ranch — if she agreed.
He rubbed the muscles of his neck, which ached from long hours of building fence. It boggled his mind that his dad asked Mattie to serve as custodian, but he guessed it made sense. She would stay on at the ranch, and he would leave.
You’re still running.
Mattie’s accusation haunted him. He remembered the morning he’d wrestled with the bull when she’d called him a coward. Nearly a month had passed since he’d proposed to her, and other than a brief hello at church on Sundays, the two of them hadn’t spoken. His heart ached for her, but what could he do? She was too stubborn to see that he couldn’t live here.
Or was he really a coward?
The shuffling sound of boots in the grass prompted him to glance behind into the darkness.
“I thought it might be you out here.” Jake came up beside him and rested his arms on the top rail. A full moon shown above and cast an ethereal glow on the old man and his cowboy hat.
“Am I wrong to take Dad from this land?” Gil asked.
Jake spit a stream of tobacco to the ground. “You really wanna know what I think?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
“Seems to me you’re carrying a world of hurt inside you. Been carrying it a lot of years now. For some reason, these hills don’t offer you the medicine they do for others. Don’t know why, exactly.”
“You believe I’m running too?”
“There are those who love these hills, and those who can’t wait to get away.” Dusty came up to the fence, and Jake reached out to pet the horse’s nose. “When I first started work here, I remember a youngster who couldn’t wait to go outside and help his dad, whether that meant mucking stalls in the barn or working cattle in the pasture. That boy wanted to throw a rope and ride his pony, eager for the day and mad at night when his mama made him come in for a bath and supper.” The ranch hand grinned, his smile lit by the moonlight.
“He once told me he’d never leave this ranch — couldn’t pry him from it with a fence post,” Jake added. “You’re all grown up now, but I reckon that boy’s inside you yet.”
Gil zoomed back to the days of his youth, before Jenna, before they lost Frank, to a time when he’d been content following his dad through the many chores on the ranch. He remembered his mama wrapping her arms around him after they’d said their bedtime prayers, and then there was Frank, the big brother Gil looked up to and whose footsteps he wanted to follow.
He closed his eyes and let himself remember.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, MATTIE SAT ON HER PARENTS’ TERRACE WITH her father, having left Travis in charge of her patients for the entire weekend.
“It’s going to be nice having you here,” he said. “We’ve been worried about you, Mattie girl. You sounded quite upset last night when you called.”
Mattie’s face heated, embarrassed at her display of emotion.
He stretched his arm along the back of the gliding bench, and Mattie rested her head against it. She gazed at her mother’s patio flowers —