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Ben watched two more cows give birth. Thankfully his assistance wasn’t required with either of them. Then he and his dad arrived at the gate home within minutes of each other.
“Come on, son, your mom will have some lemon squares to have with our coffee.”
Benjamin couldn’t help but laugh at the wistful look on his dad’s face. He had a sweet tooth and enjoyed his wife’s baking.
Drawing to a halt at the barn door, Benjamin jumped down from the saddle and led Thunder into the cool dark building. With saddle and bridle removed he cut him loose out into the pasture so he could roll in the dirt. Ben watched from the fence, a smile sliding onto his face. It was good to be home.
***
Fresh from the shower, Ben sat down at the kitchen table and helped himself to his mom’s baking.
“These lemon squares are delicious, Mom. I’ve sure missed your baking,” Ben said around a mouthful of tarty sweetness.
“And I’ve missed you.” His mom kissed his check and dusted powdered sugar off his chin. “I’m glad you’re home.”
“Me too,” he replied.
Country music played from the radio on the shelf next to the sink. The aroma of fresh coffee filled the room. Benjamin was in heaven. He took another bite from the lemon square, barely suppressing a moan of pleasure.
His mother belied her cooking ability. For all of Ben’s twenty-eight years she had been lean, toned and gorgeous. He was proud of how his mom kept her appearance a priority and how she went for a five mile run every morning at sunrise to start her day before helping out on the ranch. Beth told him that since Rachel died she’d started doing yoga to find peace. Consequently her body was lean and toned as a result.
But she was starting to show her age. Ben had been surprised at the change he had seen in her when he’d arrived yesterday. Her hair was now peppered with grey and although cut in an attractive pixie cut, it showed off the wrinkles on her face. And there was no hiding the dark circles under her eyes. His dad was right; the stress was getting to her. Somehow in the last two years, his mom had shrunk into a shadow of her former self. Ben found it hard to look away from her. He kept expecting her to wash the wrinkles away as though they were Halloween make-up and return to her former glory.
“Come with me, Benjamin.” His father pushed himself up from the table and headed towards the back of the house and his office.
Ben grabbed two more squares and refilled his coffee cup from the pot on the counter before following his dad.
The office was the same as it always had been. The papers piled on the desk didn’t look like they’d been moved for over a decade and the dust on the shelves confirmed that his mom still wasn’t allowed in to clean. He remembered from his childhood that his dad once accused his mother of moving some important papers and as a result had never let her into his sanctuary since. At least not with a broom or duster.
“How do you find anything in this mess?” Ben asked, looking for a place to put down his coffee cup.
“Everything has its place, boy, don’t you worry. Here, grab a seat.” His dad pushed a chair towards him.
Ben carefully set his coffee cup onto a stack of unopened envelopes on the desk, moved the old newspapers off the chair and sat down.
“Dad.” Ben leaned forward and looked his dad in the eye as his old man sat down in the swivel office chair. “Tell me the truth, are we going to be able to save the ranch?” His breath stilled in his chest as he waited for his dad’s answer, a knot tight in his gut.
His dad shuffled some papers and a small cloud of dust rose above the desk.
“With your help, I think we have a shot. I would never have asked you to quit your job and come back here if I thought otherwise. But this place is for you and Beth. I won’t see it go under when there is still a possibility we can turn it around. As you know, your sister has moved into the Old House and she is just about ready to start up her bed and breakfast. She already has a booking for next month.” Lance took a slow sip of coffee. Ben had an idea that his father wasn’t telling him everything yet.
“And…?”
A grin spread across his dad’s face. “We are in a good position at the moment, but I need you help and co-operation.’
“You know you have it.” Ben wished he’d just get to the point.
“I’ve had a phone call last week, and well, we’ve been offered an opportunity we can’t afford to let it pass us by.” His dad took a long drink of his coffee and then stuffed a whole lemon square into his mouth.
Ben could barely contain his frustration.
“Dad! Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Lance smiled through the icing sugar sticking to the stubble covering his face.
“A movie producer called. They want to shoot a film here, on the ranch.”
“Say what?” Surely he hadn’t heard right.
“Brian Hargrave called last week.”
“What? Wait a minute, the Brian Hargrave?”
“The very one! He found the ranch through your sister’s website. You know the one about her bed and breakfast? Well, he found it and he said it was exactly what they’re looking for and he also wants to hire our stock and horses. The amount they have offered us for the duration of the filming is phenomenal. It will be the end of all our troubles. We just have to stay afloat until their first payment.”
“When is that? And more importantly, how much?”
Ben had a tendency to fidget when he was agitated and nervous. Right now he was both. He stood to pace the room but the office was so full of papers there wasn’t much room to move. The ranch must be in a bad way for his dad to hire it out. Ben didn’t want to be beholden to anyone, let alone a big movie corporation.
His dad fished around his desk for a scrap piece of paper and for a pen that worked. After trying several he finally wrote a figure onto the paper and slid it across to Ben.
It was so much money Ben’s teeth hurt. He groped for his chair and sank back into it. That couldn’t possibly be right. But when he looked at his dad’s face the smile he saw there was proof enough that he hadn’t read it incorrectly. It was insane.
“Are you sure that’s right, Dad? It seems like an awful lot of money just to have a film crew here for a few weeks.”
“A few weeks? No son, they’ll be here for almost a year. There’ll be a lot of extra work going into having them here, no doubt about it, but with a figure like that and with how the ranch is financially, we can’t afford for them to go somewhere else. We need this. Here, look at these books. Without Mr. Hargrave and his crew we won’t last the year. It’s either this, Ben, or sell. And I don’t want to sell. This place has been in our family too long to see it go to that greedy son of a bitch down the road.”
Ben stilled and looked at his dad in confusion.
“What son of a bitch?” he asked slowly.
“Franklin.”
“Franklin? Jenna’s dad? What does he want with our ranch?”
“Oh boy, you don’t know, do you?” His dad sighed and ran his fingers through what was left of his hair. “Donald Franklin has been after this piece of dirt since he moved here. He thought he had his hands on it too when you and Jenna were engaged. Lucky for all of us she pulled out of that one.”
“Lucky?” Ben leapt from his seat. “You call it lucky she left me the week my sister died? What kind of luck is that?” Ben picked up the rock masquerading as a paperweight on his dad’s desk, weighed it in his hand and considered throwing it through the window, but by the look of the accounts they won’t be able to afford to replace it.
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t call that any kind of luck, son, but consider it a blessing she left you then and not after you got married and she’d taken half the ranch. That was all I meant.” Lance ran his hand over his head again and settled back into his chair. With his elbows resting on his desk he leaned towards his son and said, “I don’t believe she was ever after this place though. But I do wonder if Donald put her up to marrying you.”
“What, you think it was his idea we get married? It was me who asked her.”
This conversation was going nowhere. Jenna and him were old news. Last he’d heard she’d married some grain farmer from the next town. Her rejection still stung like an open wound. He didn’t allow himself to think about her, much less talk about his almost wedding. Looking back now he knew he was naive to think she would have been happy married to some poor cowboy like him. Beth told him her new husband was a rich farmer set to inherit his family’s farm. Funny, not once while they were together did he ever think of Jenna as a gold digger.
He sighed and pushed thoughts of Jenna into the far reaches of his mind.
“Dad, why is the ranch in such a mess? What happened? I thought this place more than paid for itself before. What’s going on?”
“As I said, having your sister in and out of hospital for so long piled up the bills. The cost of having to stay in a hotel to be near her was enough of a strain, let alone the food, extra hands on the ranch and travel back and forth. At least the treatment was covered. But we survived all that. I made some bad business decisions these last few years and I guess you could say I’ve never had a good head for business. Not like you. I need your brains, Ben, and your muscle. This place is falling apart and I’m afraid without your help we won’t make it. That’s why I asked you to come back home. Besides,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “this is where you belong. Not in some city working behind a desk.”
“I was working at a farm supply store, Dad, not at a desk,” Ben muttered.
“Did you like it?” his dad asked, leaning closer to Ben.
“No, not really,” Ben admitted.
“You would have been wasted there. You were born a rancher, you need to be a rancher. What do you say? Will you stay and help us get ready for this film crew?”
Ben sighed and sat back down in his chair.
“What do you need me to do?”
Chapter 5
Helga threw her keys in the bowl on the side table by her door. Sometimes she wasn’t even sure why she’d bought this apartment; she was never here. She pushed the button on the wall and the blinds wound open. The late afternoon sun streamed into the windows. She walked over to the glass and looked over the New York landscape. Ah yes, this was why she’d bought this place.
Below she could see the park and the tiny figures scurrying from place to place. She loved New York. The atmosphere was electric. The art was fantastic and the theatre, oh the theatre was the best in the world. When she wasn’t working she’d spend her time soaking in the performances on Broadway.
She could still remember the first show she saw not long after she moved here: Annie. It had been magnificent: the crowds, the lights, the music. It was the best New York moment of her life. She loved Broadway and hoped it was something she’d do later in her life.
She sighed, turning her back on the view and went to her fridge to grab an iced tea. A smile played across her lips as she thought of the faces her girlfriends would make if they saw her beverage choice. They preferred manhattans and vodka sliders but she always went for the non-alcoholic variety. She knew too many stars that had gone down the drug and alcohol track and had no wish to follow them.
She was taking the last sip from her glass when her phone rang. For a moment she was tempted to let it ring and then she saw who it was. If she didn’t answer now, she knew he’d just call back.
“Hi Dad. How’s Mom?” Why did she always sound so weary when she talked to him? She could even hear it in her own voice, it sounded as though she hadn’t slept for weeks.
“She’s fine, honey, but that’s not why I’m calling. It’s you I’m worried about.” His gruff voice echoed down the line. A knot grew in her stomach.
“Me? I’m fine, Dad.” Here we go again. She went back to her window and stared down at the park below.
“How can you be with what I’ve read in the papers?” Concern filled his voice, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
“Dad, I’m fine. Really I am. You know you can’t believe everything you read in those magazines.” Helga held back a sigh. Would this day never end? All she wanted was to curl up on the couch and watch a movie. It was either that or cry herself to sleep…again. Oh, who was she kidding? She was going to do that anyway. Tears pricking the back of her eyes she cleared her throat to hold them back.
“Oh…so Myles didn’t cheat on you?” His voice rose at the end of the question in hope. Her dad had really liked Myles.
“Well, yes, Dad he did, but…” The knife twisted in her gut again.
“Why don’t you give it up, Helga? And get a real job? One that doesn’t splash you all over the papers? One that pays well.”
“Dad, this one pays pretty well.” The glass of the window was cool against her forehead. If she just closed her eyes, maybe this would just be a dream when she opened them again.
“No, no, no, I mean one that pays really well. You could be a lawyer like your brother. Or a doctor. You’re smart enough for that.”
His confidence in her was heartening, but she’d had this discussion or one very similar to it too many times to feel anything but betrayed. Why couldn’t he understand that this is what she loved? Okay, so she didn’t love forfeiting her privacy, but she loved acting. And she was good at it, Goddamn it!
“Thanks, Dad. I appreciate your suggestions, but you do realize I make $19 million a film, right? Even my dear brother can’t beat that.”
“Yes but, honey, his name isn’t splashed all over the papers on a weekly basis. And he is happily married, I might add. Your mother and I want grandchildren someday, you know. If you can’t settle down, how are we going to get those?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Dad,” she said, “you have two other children, you know that, right? You just finished pointing out to me that Adrian is happily married, why not call him and tell him to hurry up and have babies?”
“Oh honey, you know Adrian is busy. He’s got a very busy practice to look after; he can’t take the time off to have kids right now. You should know that.”
Helga rubbed her forehead.
“I’m not busy? Dad, I’ve just finished shooting back to back films. I work sixteen to eighteen hours a day. I don’t exactly have time to have kids either! And it’s not like Adrian has to actually have the kids. He only needs to show up for a few minutes, job done. It’s Susan who will have to carry the thing for nine months.”
“Don’t be so crude.” Her father’s voice snapped down the line and her hand clenched the receiver.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. How was it he had the ability to make her feel five years old again? “Dad, we both know Adrian won’t help with raising the child, even if he was at home all the time. It would be beneath him. Poor Susan, I don’t know what she ever saw in him.” Her voice sounded bitter and she now regretted her outburst. Her brother wasn’t all bad, she just struggled to find the good in him sometimes, especially when he started blaming her for their sister’s behavior.
“Helga! That’s enough. Adrian is your brother. I don’t want to hear you speak of him again like that.” Familiar anger radiated down the phone.
As if Adrian ever had anything good to say about her, the thought floated into her head faster than she could stop it. She was trying to work on the principles of the Law of Attraction. So far, not so good. Actually this week had been pretty shit.
“That’s not why I called, honey.” She could hear her dad struggling to bring his voice back under control. “We’re worried about you. This acting phase you’re going through is just not good for you. You’ll have to get a real job one day, pumpkin. Why not go back to vet school? You seemed to like that.”
“Dad, I’m allergic to long-haired animals. I can’t be a vet if I break out in hives and struggle to breathe every time a dog or a cat comes through the door.”
“But, honey…”
“Look, Dad, I’ve got to go.”
Helga pressed the end button before he could say anything else. She hated talking to her family. They just didn’t understand her. They spoke to her as though what she wanted didn’t matter. Sometimes she wondered if they even heard her at all. They have never supported her career choice. Not once. They’d been okay with her modelling to help pay her way through vet college but as soon as she starting picking up acting gigs, the criticizing started. Her dad was the worst. He made her feel worthless.
She grabbed another iced tea from the fridge but then put it back. She had work to do and she couldn’t afford to ingest the sugar with a new job on the horizon. She put on a pot of coffee instead. The aroma filling her apartment eased the tension her day had deposited on her shoulders.
After taking her low-fat milky coffee into the living room she picked up the script Rosie had sent to her apartment. She curled up on her leather couch and savored the first sip. Endorphins rushed through her veins as the caffeine hit her tongue. She flipped the cover and started reading.
When the apartment’s porter had given it to her on her way in, her first instinct was to toss it in the garbage can beside his desk. She’d smiled at him instead and got into the elevator with it still in her hand.
She needed to decide which film to do.
She’d reluctantly accepted that Rosie was right: this one was something she could do blindfolded and after flipping through it on the way up the elevator, she knew it was written exactly for her. She’d felt familiar tingling in her spine the more she read. She’d been disappointed when the elevator had reached her floor and she had to put it away. The storyline was good and she knew right then and there that it wouldn’t be the flop the last two films had been. Plus, she knew it would be fun to make. To give Rosie credit, the part would show her in a slightly different light. It was a romantic comedy but there was some drama as well. This part would ease her into a more serious role.
But there was still the package from Brian sitting on her coffee table. It called her name. And the further she read into the script from Rosie, the harder Brian’s was to ignore.
Finally, halfway through Rosie’s script she tossed it aside and reached for the brown paper package from Brian. She ripped it open and started to read.
Four hours later Helga placed the script gently on the coffee table and picked up her phone. She counted the beats of her heart while it rang on the other end.
“Brian? It’s Helga. I’m in.”
***
Benjamin wiped the sweat from his face and arched his back. The fence he’d been working on for the last week was nearly finished. New wire gleamed in the sun. The whole top wire had needed to be replaced and the other two wires had so many new additions they now looked more new than old as well. He’d finally managed to get around most of the field and only had one more spot to fix.
The preparations for the film crew were almost done as well. They’d repainted the barn, planted more flowers outside the front of the house and moved stock to the back pastures so the grass would be green and lush where they would be filming. However, at the breakfast table this morning his mom and Beth had complained about how Mr. Hargrave’s assistant had sent in another request. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was but they’d been muttering about more flowers and trees. It’d been a dry spring and older tress probably wouldn’t take being moved in this weather. He was glad his mom was looking after organizing the aesthetic side of things. He just needed to make sure the fences were up and the animals were healthy, nothing more than he would be doing anyway.
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