Jubilee had spent the day listening for the sound of a truck, hoping her boxes of clothes, favorite books and office supplies would arrive today. Since her first year of college she’d always kept a home office. No matter what a mess her world was in, everything had its place in file folders or drawer organizers.
Only between noon and the storm she’d only seen one car, a sheriff’s cruiser, driving down the road in front of her place. She wasn’t sure if it made her feel safer to know her ranch was part of his route or not. Surely very few vehicles headed her way, except the moving truck that was supposed to come today, of course.
Jubilee never realized how little she had worth moving. The old pots and pans she’d had since her freshman year in college had gone to Goodwill a year ago when she moved in with David and he had a fully stocked kitchen. He’d furnished every room of their apartment except for one table. The used dining table she’d bought fit perfectly in the corner. It was so wobbly she had to prop it up with a book under one corner, but he’d thought it rustic.
When she’d left Washington, it simply went to the trash.
In the end, she’d had fewer than a dozen boxes to move.
The memories of a life she’d thought mattered lingered in the shadows of her mind like gray ghosts. If she could have she would have tossed them out, as well. How could she have lived twenty-six years and had so little worth keeping? For the five years since college, nothing mattered but her job, and in the end, it didn’t really matter, either.
She was one of those people whose name could be wiped off the whiteboard of life and no one would notice. David hadn’t called since he moved out months ago. Her parents hadn’t bothered to check to see if she’d made it safely to Texas. If she disappeared, there would be no one to fill out a missing person report.
Jubilee guessed if she’d been able to mark her growth with lines on a doorframe, her chart would be heading down, not up. When she’d left what she’d thought would be a brilliant career, not one person had dropped by to shake her hand. No farewell cake. Not even a card.
As she stood in the doorway of her great-grandfather’s house that was now her only home, she wondered if things could get much worse. The man she’d hired as foreman on the place had said at breakfast—cereal and milk—that he’d finish moving in today and they’d walk the land tomorrow. But, with the downpour turning everything to mud, she doubted they’d be able to start for a week.
Not that it mattered. She’d planned her last life and look how it had crumbled. Why bother to plan this one?
Maybe she should take the opposite of her mother’s parting advice and go goalless for a while. She had forty thousand dollars in her bank account plus what she’d inherited. She could coast, at least for a while. Maybe she’d simply wait until a goal bumped into her for a change.
She had no idea what she was doing out here in Texas. For all she knew the foreman, Charley Collins, was the local serial killer. He might not have stolen her card; murder might be his thing. Think about it, Jub, she almost said aloud. What are the chances that the man delivering groceries and working at the local bar knows how to run a farm? Correction, he’d called it a ranch.
He did have his own horse, though. She had no idea if that was good or bad. What was a guy doing with a horse when he lived over a bar? Logic probably wasn’t his strong suit. He was easy on the eyes, though. The kind of guy who broke every heart he passed.
Only not hers. Three of her four serious boyfriends had told her she didn’t have a heart. Majority vote.
After breakfast, her new foreman disappeared for most of the day, then drove up midafternoon with his pickup full of boxes. He was pulling a trailer filled with a huge horse and a cute pony.
Since she had nothing else to do, Jubilee interrupted her breakdown long enough to watch him move into the little house by the corral. He had an easy way of moving, like a man comfortable in his own body.
She’d thought of going outside to stare at him or even help, but all her clothes were three wearings past dirty. The man in worn boots and a patched shirt had actually frowned when she’d greeted him at breakfast wearing a clean pair of old Levy’s socks and one of his long-sleeved shirts tied at her waist. Just to be proper she used a pair of her great-grandfather’s brand new boxer shorts as her shorts.
Charley looked as though he’d never seen the fashion.
She’d tried to explain that almost everything she owned was packed, but she doubted he’d like her navy suits any better. Three pairs of jeans and half a dozen tops were all the casual clothes she owned. And they were spotted with drippings from meals on the road or wrinkled beyond wearing.
Tomorrow morning she planned to ask him to turn on the water to the washer out back. Levy probably turned it off every month after he used it, and who knew where the dryer had run off to? Jubilee had a faint memory of the old guy hanging his laundry on a line somewhere.
She’d watched Charley unhitch his trailer and park it beside the barn, and then he’d left again just before the rain started. Jubilee finally moved out on the porch and studied the storm. At this point in her day of doing nothing, she wasn’t sure her life was afloat. No career. No friends. No family who would speak to her.
She wasn’t even sure if this ranch was a blessing or a curse. If she hadn’t inherited it, she would have had to pull herself up and start over. Now, she could just hide out for a while.
Slowly, her mind began to dance with the storm as the sky darkened, and her troubles started to drift away. She watched the rain form tiny rivers in the ruts that Charley’s truck had made. The sound of the horses in the barn blended with the tapping of rain falling off the roof into dead flowerbeds. Even as the world grew black except for the one light in the house by the corral, she refused to move or turn on a light.
She needed the night to surround her. For once she wanted to wrap up in the nothingness of her world. She wanted to be invisible for a while.
The rain finally slowed to a silent dribble. The storm was over. But still Jubilee didn’t move.
Truck lights turned toward her place. The white pickup her foreman drove rocked back and forth as it moved toward her on a road in desperate need of repair.
When he stopped beside the corral and cut his lights, she knew he couldn’t see her even if he looked her direction.
She watched his tall frame unfold. He stood in the lingering rain and raked his rust-colored hair back before putting on his hat. Within seconds his shirt was plastered against his body. Even in the low light she could tell there wasn’t an ounce of fat on the man. Just from the way he moved around the truck told her he was solid rock-hard muscle. Tall and lean and beautiful as only a cowboy can look.
She smiled. He’s definitely not too bright, she decided. No raincoat. No umbrella. Hopefully he’d know more about running a ranch than he did about coming in from out of the rain.
He opened the side door to his truck and reached in.
For a moment she wondered what one last thing he’d carry inside. What had he gone back into town for on this rainy night?
He lifted something out slowly, carefully, wrapped in his work coat. The bundle leaned over his shoulder, molding against his form.
In wide, slow steps he walked through the mud. One hand tucked beneath the bundle. One hand placed in the middle as if holding his treasure close to his heart.
Jubilee stood and watched, surprised and touched as she saw thin pale arms slip from beneath the coat and wrap around his neck.
He’d mentioned a daughter when he’d asked if a school bus passed her place.
In the last blink of faraway lightning, Jubilee saw Charley Collins in a whole new light. He might not have much. His clothes were worn. His pickup old. But the man obviously had one thing he treasured. His daughter.
Charley