long fingers. In the summer all grew green and beautiful, but when the weather turned cold and the bare branches crossed over one another like a framed wonderland in blacks and grays she had to come close.
Some people might love the spring, some the summer or even the fall, but for Reagan her heart beat strongest in winter. She loved the raging storms and the silent snow. She loved her land as though she had been born to it.
The orchard bordered Lone Oak Road on one side and the Matheson Ranch on the other. Late Wednesday afternoon she walked and enjoyed her time alone. Somehow, Reagan felt she belonged here in this unfinished world with its beginnings and endings mixing together without forming a complete canopy. Her whole life seemed like that. Starts and stops forming like ribs around a body lean of meat.
Smiling, she remembered how her uncle always said she needed to grow roots. At sixteen she’d had nothing, been nothing but a runaway with no place to run to. Now, at twenty Reagan felt like her very blood pumped through this land . . . her land. She’d poured her sweat in it along with her love. She’d even risk her life fighting a prairie fire to save this farm. It was as much a part of her as she was of it. She felt like her adopted uncle did: She’d never sell, never.
After a deep breath, she turned, knowing it was time to get back to the house. Uncle Jeremiah was probably already in the kitchen. He liked to watch her cook, though he’d grown so thin she wasn’t sure he ever ate more than a few bites. His mind was still sharp, but his body was failing him. Reagan did all she could, taking over the running of the farm, and the maintenance of his established orchard and her new one. Hank Matheson, the rancher next door, often told her she was doing too much. But how much was too much to give an old man who’d taken her in as his own when no one else in the world wanted her?
She’d hired a couple who were both nurses and moved them in upstairs. Foster took care of Uncle Jeremiah, doing all the things her uncle wouldn’t allow her to help with and Cindi, Foster’s wife, monitored the old man’s medicines. To Reagan’s surprise, her uncle didn’t seem to mind having them around. After a few days, he even stopped telling Foster that being a nurse wasn’t a good job for a man.
As she walked toward the little golf cart–sized truck she used on the trails between the fruit trees, Reagan was mentally planning dinner when her cell phone rang.
She slid behind the wheel and flipped the phone open.
“Hi, Rea,��� came Noah’s familiar voice. “You asleep yet?”
She laughed. “It’s not even dark, Preacher, what time zone are you in and how much have you been drinking?”
“I’m in North Carolina, I think. I didn’t win any money the last ride.” She heard his long exhale of breath. “The rodeos aren’t much fun when you don’t make the eight seconds.”
She didn’t miss that he hadn’t answered the second question. More and more when Noah called from the road she had a feeling he wasn’t sober. Maybe he only got homesick when he drank. Maybe he needed the whiskey to give him enough courage to talk about going on. Somewhere along the way the boy she’d known in high school had lost his big dreams and, in so doing, had lost himself.
His easy laugh came over the phone. “What are you up to, Rea? No. Let me guess. Sitting in the yard with your uncle waiting for the sunset or maybe walking in that forest you call an orchard. One of these days you’ll fall over a tree root and we won’t find your bones until spring.”
“You know me pretty well,” she said, figuring he knew her better than anyone else alive. “You planning on making it home before spring?”
“Sorry, Rea, I don’t think so, but I’ll call. I promise. No matter where I am, I’ll call. There’s always a rodeo somewhere and, as long as I’ve got the gas and the fee, I’ll be riding.”
He was the first real friend she’d ever had. He’d been the first boy to kiss her, her first date, her first heartbreak. “Take care of yourself, Preacher.”
He laughed without much humor. “No one on the circuit calls me that anymore.”