Chapter 3

The next morning, a pair of nurses from the home health care agency Hollis had contracted arrived to inspect the room before my mother’s arrival. We had just finished lunch when we heard the steady beat of helicopter rotor blades.

“Ah, here she is, now.”

“A helicopter?” I rose from the table and stared at him.

He flashed the same grin he’d given me at the hospital. “A friend owed me a favor.”

We walked outside in the brisk air, and watched as the Agusta A-109, clad in blue and white livery, touched down on the broad open area between the house and the bunkhouse. The doors opened, and soon the crew had carried out on a stretcher, and into the house. Ten minutes later, the helicopter lifted off and turned back to the north as it climbed away.

“Well, that was interesting,” said as she settled into her new bed. “My first flight in a helicopter, and in a small jet, and all in the same day.”

Hollis shook his head. “A car trip was out of the question, so we made other arrangements.”

She looked at the pair of nurses. “And these folk are my new keepers?” She smiled at them to take the offense from her words.

“We are,” the taller woman said. “I’m Kelly, and this is Rita. We’ll be your primary caregivers, and we have others on staff who’ll come in when we’re off duty. The nurse practitioner will visit in the morning, and you can ask him anything about your care. We also have a doctor on staff, and she will visit once every other week, and other times as needed. We will do our best to make you comfortable.”

“Thank you,” replied. “I really do appreciate it.”

So, we all settled into a routine for the next two months. I learned the job of helping Hollis run the ranch. There were ranch hands to manage, along with crops and livestock. We also planned to restart the resort, which involved more contracts, regulations, and meetings.

Hollis and I settled into a partnership, in that we worked well together. He wasn’t condescending when he explained something to me, and I did my best to not require too many explanations after the first one. We were together from daylight until dark most days, and apparently it showed.

My mother sat outside in her favorite spot on the porch as Hollis and I arrived home from a meeting in town. I set my purse down, and went to hug her, while Hollis waved and went inside. “How was the meeting?”

“It was good,” I said with a smile. I looked her over with concern. “How are you feeling?”

“Surprisingly well,” she said with a small shrug. “They’re still working on my pain med dosages, but I’m feeling more lively.” She tilted her head slightly. “How are you and Hollis getting along?”

“We’re doing fine, I think,” I said with a question in my tone.

She waved her hand. “Oh, I’m just asking.”

“Hm.” I smiled crookedly. “Is that all?”

“He is a very nice young man, you know.”

“And he’s closer to your age than mine, Mother.”

She nodded. “Yes, that is true. Eleven years is an age gap. It’s not insurmountable, though.”

I mentally sorted through all of the responses I could have given, and settled for something neutral. “We do work well together.”

Mother ruminated for a moment. “How do you feel when you’re around him?”

“I haven’t thought about it,” I said frankly. “We’ve been busy.”

“Maybe you can think about it, and tell me about it later?”

“Of course. For now, though, I need to think about dinner, since it’s my turn to cook.”

As I made the evening meal for the four of usme, Hollis, my mother, and the working the evening shift, I considered what my mother had asked. It wasn’t in my nature to bristle at her questions; my father and I had some tough conversations about life’s issues, too.

He taught me that love was a series of choices, and that people sometimes make the wrong ones. He pointed out that, while he loved my mother, she had made her choice to leave. It was hurtful, and it may have been a bad choice, but it was hers to make. There was no point being bitter, and he really wasn’t.

We had conversations about sex and relationships, too. My hormones hit me hard when I entered puberty, so there was always some boy or another I just loooooved. Dad put the whole mess into perspective mostly by telling me to not waste my time with unproductive relationships. The farm, and its livestock, provided ample fodder for some truly embarrassing but memorable examples.

In the end, though, it saved me a lot of heartache. I saw other girls, and boys, too, who entangled themselves in other people, and it was a bad thing more often than not. By the start of my sophomore year, I was done with chasing and being chased by boys.

The problem was, Hollis wasn’t a boy. He was a wealthy business owner who had placed a lot of faith in a teenaged girl to help him run that business. He was older than me, but he certainly wasn’t unhealthy, and I didn’t get a “dad” or an “uncle” vibe from him. I smiled a bit as I filled a pan with water for pasta. No, there wasn’t one of those vibes, at all.

“What?” Hollis asked as he looked up from chopping salad ingredients.

I felt my face heat. “Oh, nothing, I was just woolgathering.”

He eyed me for a moment, and then he shrugged. “Okay.” He went back to his chopping.

I turned away before I made a complete fool of myself, but my thoughts continued along those lines as I cooked and ate dinner. I wasn’t naïve enough to not see what my mother was asking me to consider. I also wasn’t so prideful as to not seriously consider just what my relationship with Hollis was.

One of the lessons my dad taught me about boys and men was that they didn’t long hang around unless the girl or woman had something they wanted. This state of affairs wasn’t always bad – if the female in question also wanted what the male had. If these conditions were met, then the couple generally got together and stayed together. Of course, that relationship might not be acceptable to the world at large; Bonnie and Clyde and the Lolita stories were cases in point, and those factors might change, as that was what happened in divorces.

I battled with the calculus of what I wanted, and what Hollis might want from me. He really had been a perfect gentleman while we were together. Oh, I’d seen him upset a few times, to be sure. He’d walked around one of the ranch’s trucks, straight into a board hanging off the back of the bed. He’d said a few choice words, but that was all. Then, there was the feed vendor who’d shorted us and the oil speculator who was pushy about buying some of the leases.

I had also contributed to his woes by miscalculating some of our projected expenses in a bid for repairs on the bunkhouse. This gaffe resulted in an incorrect bid, so another proposal that had to be resubmitted, and then the contractor had declined the job over it. He wasn’t happy, but he simply went back over the calculations with me, and set about finding another contractor. He didn’t bring it up again, and his demeanor towards me didn’t change.

As I ate, other events came to my mind. As we went about our daily routines, I had occasion to meet the other people in the area, and observe how they interacted with Hollis. The most telling of these interactions were with the women he knew. I definitely had gotten the evil eye from one woman close to his age that worked at the feed vendor, and that was before we found the billing error. On balance, though, they all had that “uh-huh” look in degrees ranging from “bitch” to “lookit you”. Come to think of it, I’d gotten the male version of that look a few times, too.

“Mel?”

Hollis’ voice startled me, and I jerked upright and looked to where he was seated on my left. “Huh? Uh, sorry, what were you saying?”

While Hollis and I conversed about whatever the subject was, I couldn’t help but notice my mother’s smug grin from across the table. A look, mind you, that was duplicated on the caregiver’s face. I mentally banished both of them to someplace unpleasant while I struggled to talk with Hollis and keep my composure while doing it.

After dinner, Hollis cleared the table, and, since it was his turn to wash dishes, I saw my chance. “I’m going to make sure I shut the master off on the One-Fifty,” I called out. I had been checking the comm radio earlier that day (yep, it was still dead), so it was a convenient reason to go outside. I pulled on my jacket and beat a hasty retreat to the makeshift hangar. I opened the door, fitted my long legs into the tiny cabin, and settled into my familiar seat.

I’d still not decided to order the magneto, so I hadn’t flown for myself since the evening I landed here. The wind picked up for a moment, causing the ailerons to chafe against the gust lock and wiggle the control yoke a bit. The old plane seemed eager to fly, and I lightly touched the yoke as it twitched back and forth, touching the wind itself through the controls. I sat there until the evening cold began to soak through my jeans, and then, after making sure the master switch really was off, I climbed out and went back inside.

The next day dawned warm and sunny, so Hollis said it was a good time to ride out and check one of the fences we’d recently repaired. The spot was about a mile from the house, and required that we either walk or ride a horse to reach it over the rough ground between there and the ranch house. I saddled one of the gentler horses, a tall Tennessee Walker mare, and Hollis took his favorite, a roan gelding with an attitude for everyone but him.

We rode out, letting the horses pick their way along the broken ground. The fence was still in good shape, and we sat our horses on a rise that overlooked the easternmost part of the ranch. A herd of pump jacks shared a large pasture with a herd of Hereford cattle, both of whom dipped their heads to feed from the land as we watched.