Chapter 78 New Beginnings
As Cody started toward her, Sierra inhaled deeply, the scent of sage filling her lungs, mingling with the faint metallic tang of coffee. She felt the pull of two worlds, each calling her with equal urgency. She realized she didn’t have to choose one over the other, not now. She could work in the gazebo, do what she needed to do for her Manhattan clients, let Chloe run with it, and only go back to the city when her presence was essential for closing a deal. That would allow her to continue being the same woman who could ride a horse at dawn and feel the earth under her boots.
“Mind if I join you?” Cody asked.
“I don’t mind at all,” she smiled. “In fact, I was hoping to talk to you a little bit.”
She closed her laptop with a decisive click.
“Julian wasn’t here long?” Cody commented.
“Just long enough for me to piss him off, I think,” Sierra laughed.
“Yeah, well, it must be nice to be able to fly in from wherever he was, rent a high-end SUV, drive out here for a five-minute conversation, and turn around and go back,” he smirked. “Why didn’t he just call?”
“He called two dozen times in the last 24 hours, and I didn’t answer his calls.”
“Ghosting him, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“Does that mean it’s over with him?”
“Not hardly,” she laughed. “Julian Rossi is the type that gets what he wants. Nobody ever tells him no. He’ll just retreat long enough to come up with a new way to get me to do whatever it is he wants.”
“What does he want?”
“His words, when he gave me this talisman,” she began, pulling the talisman she wore around her neck out of her shirt to show him. “They were something like, ‘I want us to be partners in business and in life’.”
“And you’re not buying it?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing with it.”
“A guy like that can give you anything you want. All the luxury, extravagant parties, and exotic trips. A hell of a lot more exciting than hanging around here to fight brush fires.”
“I’m not sure I want all that,” she mused. “Not that I’m thrilled about fighting brush fires either.”
They were silent for a moment as she thought about the adrenaline-filled hours fighting back the blaze on the north ridge the day before. She could still see the grave faces of the hired hands fighting the blaze, Ryder’s hands arriving to help out, and, of course, Ryder himself. As she considered it, another thought came to her.
The brush fire had been something of a setback, but they’d survived it. There was some fence to fix, and it would be a while before the grass would come back where it had been burned up, but it would come back. It would come back thicker and greener than before once a rainstorm washed it clean. That’s the way it was at Sage Ranch. There had been dozens of wildfires over the decades she’d been alive, and there would be dozens more before she was laid to rest beside her parents. However, after each fire, Sage Ranch thrived. In fact, the flames seemed to make it stronger. A broad smile formed on her lips as another idea popped into her head.
“What has you grinning like a possum eating shit with a hairbrush?”
“Cody!” she laughed, punching him in the shoulder. “That’s disgusting!”
“That’s what your grin looks like,” he countered. “So, what’s it about?”
“I was thinking that we need to do something to celebrate the fire.”
“Have you lost your mind? Nobody celebrates having a hundred or so acres get burned.”
“Celebrate that we got it put out, celebrate the fact that in six months, the north pasture will be covered in new, rich, thick grass, and celebrate that we have such wonderful neighbors to help in a crisis.”
“How do you want to celebrate?”
“Let’s have a pit barbecue, like the ones Daddy and Grandaddy used to have.” Her excitement was contagious.
“That sounds like a damn good idea!” Cody was always up for a party.
“Kind of a bonus for our hands and a thank you to Ryder and his hands,” she said. “Boost morale.”
“Sounds great,” Cody responded. “I’ll get some of the boys to work digging out Grandaddy’s barbecue pit, pick out a steer, and order the booze.”
“I’ll do the invites and organize the sides,” she said. “You suppose Claudia can still do the fixin’s?”
Claudia had been ancient when Sierra was a child, but she was always eager to come and cook whenever her mother threw a party.
“I don’t know if she can, but Sylvia might.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Cody,” she laughed. “Little Sylvia can barely carry an empty pot, let alone one full of beans for this outfit.”
“Si,” Cody chuckled. “Sylvia ain’t a little girl anymore. She’s twenty-something years old and has been helping her grandmother for years now.”
“Seriously?” It was hard to imagine the thin, tanned frame of Sylvia Ramirez as a grown woman.
“You probably haven’t seen her in twenty years, Si.” He couldn’t contain his amusement as he turned. “Better get started on that pit.”
“What day should we have it?” she called out.
He stopped and turned back. “How about Sunday afternoon?”
“Not much time,” she responded.
“It’s enough time for folks around here,” he said, turning to go find the hands he needed to help dig out the pit.
She watched him go, realizing for the first time that the relationship between them was more like it was before their mother passed, and each of them retreated into their own dark shell. Their easy banter and comradery was something she didn’t realize she had missed so much. It was one more solid reason why she was drawn to Sage Ranch. Things would never be the way they were without their parents, but she and Cody could start something new, something that would thrive throughout the years ahead. As she thought about it, their barbecue would launch a new beginning. She could barely contain her excitement as she opened her laptop and started typing out a checklist of everything that needed to be done before their party on Sunday.
The black SUV and its driver had long since left her thoughts. She knew Julian would return, with his polished promises and his desire to control, but she also knew she could walk away from his expectations as easily as she could step back onto the ranch soil. The choice, she realized, wasn’t about rejecting one life for another; it was about weaving both together, letting the steel and concrete of the city merge with the red dirt and sage of the ranch within her.
The breeze picked up, rustling the pine=bows of the Ponderosas, and for a moment, Sierra felt the old rhythm of the ranch, steady, enduring, unyielding, beat in her chest. Her future was uncertain, the path tangled, but she was ready to walk it, one step at a time, under the big sky that had always been her home.