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John carried her down to his truck and sat her in the back seat of his double-cab Chevvy Silverado, then turned to me as I rested the bike in the back. A strange fire flickered in his eyes as he reached out and wrapped me into a warm hug, holding me tighter than I had been held in a long time. I could feel the soft trembles in his arms as he held me. It was as if he could siphon his strength from me. It took me a moment, but I hugged him back.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice raw and ragged. “Thank you.”
I swallowed. “I’m just happy to help. If I can ask, how old was Samantha when she passed?”
“She was six,” John replied.
Six was an age when a girl had a firm bond with her mother and could remember her.
“I don’t want to open a can of worms, but how did Emily die?” I asked.
“She had an undiagnosed heart condition,” he replied. “A hole in her heart that worsened after giving birth to Harper. A blood clot traveled to her head, and she had a severe stroke while we thought she was recovering. By the time I got to the hospital, it was all over.”
I reached over to console him and held his hand. “I am so sorry.”
He held my hand tight and let out a long sigh. “I am so mad at her, but I know yelling won’t help.”
I looked over my shoulder to make sure Sam was still asleep. Even though she was, I still dropped my voice. “I know it’s hard, but when you can speak with her, try and keep calm. Tell her how worried you were and everyone here who cared for her. Make her understand what she did was unacceptable, and she must be punished.”
“But she is already on punishment,” John replied through grit teeth. “Clearly, it is not working.”
For the first time in a long while, I was genuinely stumped. “Maybe this time, if she tells you why she ran off without anyone knowing, you can ease her punishment a little?”
“I don’t know, Rayna,” John replied, starting the truck and heading to the street.
“Why don’t you let me talk to her?” I offered. “It’s why I came this way anyway.”
“That would be best,” he replied. “I don’t think I can talk to her anytime soon. I have a lot of steam to blow off.”
When John drove us back to the ranch, I kept my questions measured and stable, turning the attention from Sam. “How big is your ranch?”
“Five thousand acres,” he replied. “It may sound very small; trust me, I know. Last week I went to a massive seventeen-thousand-acre ranch in Dallas with bulls as plentiful as the sand on Galveston Beach, but my business isn’t about supplying beef. It’s about making sure the supply of it is the best. We do selective breeding from bloodlines rich in genetic reliability.
“But our land has more than beefy boys; we’ve got a petting zoo for kids, a lake stocked with seasonal fish because some people come here to fish, and we have hiking trails all around,” he said while turning off to the secluded ranch road. “While there isn’t an off-season, semen is always in demand worldwide at various times of the year. We have those to give back to the community who supported us in the worst years. School trips, out-of-towners, tourists, they all come round at a time or two, and they don’t spend a penny on those attractions.”
“That’s…” I paused. “Very generous of you and good business too.”
He grinned. “I’d like to think so.”
When we got to the house, John carried Sam into the house and to her room. He rested her on the bed but gently shook her awake while I stood behind them. “Sam, wake up. We need to talk.”
She rubbed her eyes and sat up. I could see the fright in her eyes. “…Dad?”
“Sam, explain to me why you thought taking off in the middle of the day, without tellinganyone, was smart?” John asked. As calmly as he stated the question, I could hear his anger behind it.
“I—” she bit her lip. “I didn’t think I’d take that long.”
“Sam, that is not the point,” he said tightly. “Why did you run off at all?”
John was getting angry, and I had to jump in. “Mister Maxwell, why don’t you let me handle this,” I asked. “Let Sam and me talk for a while?”
The tick in his jaw reappeared, but I didn’t focus on it; the moment he left the room, I took his place on the side of the bed. Call me crazy—or hypervigilant—but Ifelthe had not gone far. He was probably just outside the door, listening in.
“Hey, Sam,” I said, friendly.
She blinked. “Miss Everett? W-what are you doing here?”
“Your dad asked me to stop by and chat with you,” I replied. “I might not look like it, but I’m a big ol’ tomboy myself. I rode horses, fished for dinner, helped my dad feed our foals and pigs, and picked a lot of peaches, and I mean alot.”
