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After we compare calendars and come up with a plan to meet later this week to brainstorm photo shoot ideas and “happy couple proof,” I leave Luke to grunt at someone other than me.
It’s only a twenty-minute drive to Loveland Ranch, and I spend the time looking at the landscape with a new perspective, thinking about how to sell these wide open spaces, horse pastures, winding trails, and fresh air to people who need to get away from the city.
It shouldn’t be hard—I can already feel the appeal when I inhale a whiff of rosemary and sage from the surrounding shrubbery and gaze toward the yolk of sun sitting on a mountaintop.
Pulling up to Loveland Ranch, I have so many new ideas for marketing campaigns that I race into the house to share my vision with Tessa. I’m already thinking about how to get Hannah away from editing her latest thriller at the publishing house for a photo shoot. And Dylan, who actually does marketing for a living, needs to build our social media reach. Even Hazel, who never met a spreadsheet she didn’t love, could be part of the website, showing each of us doing something unique ranch-y to highlight our sisterly bond and all the amenities we’ll offer when people come to vacation here.
Tessa isn’t inside the main house, so I go out to the food garden. Tessa grows seasonal vegetables on a rotating basis so there’s always something ripe for picking. A true farm-to-table lifestyle. This is what we need to offer to guests. I see the vision for the place. And I see rows of kale and tomatoes climbing up metal cages.
But I don’t see my sister.
Me:
Where you at?
Tessa:
In the barn. Come
I should have figured. My sister spent most of her life terrified of horses, but once she met hunky Fitz, she learned to love every last animal on his ranch, including the most cantankerous ones. Now she has two ponies at Loveland Ranch, and we’re planning to have a large petting zoo for ranch guests.
I make my way past an empty chicken coop and a little pen with two pot-bellied pigs who root around in the dirt and grunt when I reach down to pet them.
Rounding a small orchard of baby orange trees, I inhale deeply, smelling the tiny blossoms which have a long way to go until they’re fully developed oranges. I can relate. It doesn’t bother me at all to be bouncing between jobs. Nothing worse than the feeling at a new job when the novelty washes away, and I feel trapped.
Right now, with an empty ranch in need of a cool vibe and a fake fiancé to teach me about ranch life, I’m in my happy place—everything is new, and nothing is binding.
In the horse pasture, Tessa is chasing Charlotte, who turned one a few months ago and has graduated to a full-on run.
“Go, Char. She’s gaining on you,” I call, causing my niece to stop in her tracks and squint at me in the distance. It only takes a second of recognition before she takes off running in my direction, arms outstretched.
“Auntie C!” Words come out on top of each other, so my name sounds like “aniseed.”
“Char Char.” I envelop her in a hug and swing her in a circle. When I set her down in the lush grass, she totters back toward Tessa, who lumbers along like she’s exhausted. Sweat beads on her forehead and her cheeks are hot pink. My thoughts go back to Luke, appreciating how hard it must be to be a single dad running a ranch.
“Bet you never sweat much in court,” I say. “And neither did I. Got off with traffic school and no fine.”
“How in the world did you manage that?”
“Long story. Ended well.”
She pulls her phone out to check the time. “How is it already three? Lemme put Charlotte down for her nap, and then we can eat.”
“Awesome.”
While my sister shuttles her daughter into the house, I wander around, taking in the scents of the various wildflowers growing and marveling at how Fitz and Tessa have turned this place around. When my four sisters and I inherited the place from our grandparents a couple of years ago, it was a dump.
Shutters falling off hinges, peeling paint, smells we couldn’t identify, and dust covering the dust bunnies.
We didn’t have much of a vision at the time, only vague memories of what it felt like to come up here when we were kids. A tire swing hung from a tree, horses grazed in a pasture behind the main house, and acres of wildflowers scrambled across the property.
It’s on its way back to its former glory. A crew of contractors rehung the shutters, sanded down the splintering wood, and painted the ranch a gleaming white with dark green trim. Fitz has farming in his blood, so he’s been coaxing some native trees and plants in a healthier direction, and Tessa has worked magic in the food garden.
But between Tessa’s job and the care of Charlotte, she barely has time to brush her teeth. And Fitz has to manage his own ranch. They’re tapped out. I’m the first to admit I haven’t done a very good job of pitching in.
Now that I’ve promised Luke I’ll be around for a while, I see potential in every direction I look. We need a round of seed money to build out the rest of the ranch and turn it into a real family resort. Hazel’s in charge of the numbers and wooing investors, but I know I can make her job easier by building a gorgeous website and creating a beautiful slide deck that shows what our dream ranch will look like.
I snap a few photos of the rows of carrots, their orange roots bulging at the soil's surface. Garlic chives grow alongside them, and off in the distance, a field of sunflowers bobs in the breezy air. It’s all so photogenic, especially the sugar snap peas winding their way up a trellis with pink-and-white flowers blooming alongside the pea shoots.
