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Chapter Fourteen

“Miranda!” Gracie screamed in excitement, flying at her older sister and tackling her in a hug. “I’m so glad you’re back! Did you have a good honeymoon? Was it…romantic?” she asked, batting her eyelashes and pretending to swoon.

“I'm not answering that until you are much, much older,” Miranda answered with a shocked laugh. She was most surprised by the change in Gracie’s whole personality, for the better of course. The mousy girl who’d been through one horrible ordeal after another in her short life had been replaced by this exuberant, bouncy cowgirl. We’ll live on this cattle drive year-round for all I care, if it will keep that smile on Gracie’s face, She thought. “Have you had a good time? Did you behave yourself?”

“Yes, and yes,” Gracie answered soundly with a firm nod. She grinned broadly, lighting up her sun-kissed face. “So are you guys gonna finish the drive with us?”

“That we are! We’re here ‘til the end of the line!” Casey said, coming up behind Miranda and pulling her in a passionate hug that made Gracie stick her tongue out.

“Ewwwww, it’s not gonna be like that the whole rest of the trip, is it? They only feed us so many meals a day, and if I puke…”

“We promise to behave ourselves,” Miranda promised with a sly smile. “At least when impressionable children are around! Weren’t you the one who was just asking me for juicy details?” Casey stiffened behind her, the look of embarrassed horror on his face enough to send Gracie into fits of giggles.

“I’m out! Girl talk can commence upon my departure!” He walked away with a wave behind him, headed off to check on their horses and to load their gear for the ride. Gracie turned to her older sister with a serious look.

“Miranda, are you really happy?” She asked, cringing a little bit. “I mean, I know you only came out here because of me, because of what…that guy…did to me.” Miranda didn’t need any reminders of finding her drunken ex-boyfriend trying to force himself on her little sister, because the memory of that image would be burned in her brain until the day she died. She took both of Gracie’s hands in hers and beamed.

“Gracie, we didn’t come out west because of you. We came because we both needed a fresh start and a new outlook on life. But to answer your question, yes, I’m one hundred percent, ecstatically happy!” Miranda pulled her baby sister into a hug and held her, rubbing small, reassuring circles on her back. When they stepped apart, there were tears in the big sister’s eyes, brilliant happiness showing in the younger.

“Ready to go?” Gracie asked, eager to get back on her beloved horse and keep moving. This whole experience had been less about empowering her and more about just letting her be a typical teenage girl who loved horses. So what if she’d been sleeping on the ground and eating her food off her lap? It was a small price to pay for this kind of freedom.

They walked arm in arm to the temporary corral to saddle up, Miranda telling Gracie the limited details about where they went, how nice the hotel had been, and other harmless specifics like that. Gracie shared the news from the drive, that first Carey had gone back home to look after the ranch because of some problem—she didn’t know what—and then Joseph had been taken to the hospital after being thrown from his horse, meaning Bernard had gone with him.

“I thought all this only happened yesterday! So you’ve been here alone this whole time?” Miranda shrieked before lowering her voice.

“Puh-lease,” Gracie answered, rolling her eyes. “You call this alone? There’s, like, forty people running around!”

“But none of them were part of the family! We left you with strangers!” Miranda’s expression turned from shocked to horrified as her mind raced with the possibilities of everything that could have gone wrong.

“No, silly, I stayed with Emily the whole time. I was fine!” Gracie beamed proudly. “Besides, you needed to get away. You’ve been taking care of me for so long that you probably forgot how to be a regular person.”

Miranda was somewhat relieved when she remembered that the Carson’s head cook, Emily, had promised to take care of Gracie, but her heart still raced at the thought of her little sister traveling halfway across the country without so much as a distant cousin she was related to.

“Well, I’m here now. And I’ll be sure not to abandon you again,” Miranda said in a serious voice.

“Oh, goody. You’re not going to turn all-weird and possessive, are you? I mean, you’ll want to spend some time with your new husband, right?” Gracie hinted, her own fears of being smothered and mollycoddled showing through.

“Nice try, kiddo. There’s time for ‘spending time with my new husband’ when we’re all safely back home. And to answer your question, yes, as a matter of fact, I am going to be all weirdly protective.” The look of surprise on Gracie’s face made Miranda laugh. “Yeah, mind reading is this skill adults develop when they suddenly find themselves in charge of teenage girls! Come on, let’s get going.”

They climbed up on their horses after checking that their carry bags were strapped firmly in place behind their saddles, and then followed the line of cowboys and temporary ranchers away from the campsite. As they helped guide the herd along winding trails, Miranda couldn’t help but feel a small sense of connection to the generations who’d done this for hundreds of years, knowing that for many of those years, it was Carson ancestors who led their herds to market across an open, dangerous landscape. It made her appreciate Bernard all over again, first that he chose to conduct his farm in the old ways but also for his conniving interference that had brought her here. She said a quick prayer of gratitude for the old man and for his entire family, especially her new husband.

A husband! She thought to herself, her breath hitching for only a second. Oh my God, I’m married. A smile of blissful disbelief broke out across her face and she looked down so no one would catch her giddy expression. But one person saw her before she could turn away.

“Whatcha smiling about, wife?” Casey asked teasingly, bringing his horse up beside hers. “From the looks of that gorgeous smile, it’s something good!”

“Oh, it is. It’s very good,” she said, meeting his gaze with a knowing look. “I was actually just thinking about you, and I couldn’t help myself. Realizing for a second that this is real and that we’re really married just made me smile for some reason.”

Casey reached over and took her hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing her warmly before looking at her with a serious expression. “You make me smile, for every reason. I love you, Miranda.”

She grinned again and blew him a kiss before answering, “I love you, too.” He gave her his best heart stopping smile and kicked his horse forward, rejoining the lead riders who would watch out for the herd. Beside her, Gracie made obnoxious gagging noises at their sappy display. Miranda couldn’t help but laugh. “Just wait, missy, you’ll know what this feels like someday!”

“I can only hope,” the girl said with a sigh. “But I’m looking around and seeing nothing but cows. You know I really do love it here, but how am I supposed to go on dates or go to my prom and do normal kid things like that? There’s not even a mall here!”

“Luckily for both of us, we have a few years until finding your soulmate is an appropriate cause for concern! But I know what you mean about a social life, I’ve been a little worried about that, too. I want you to have a normal life, so we’ll just have to work together to come up with what ‘normal’ means around here. In the meantime, there’s school and work on the ranch. I mean, it’s not like there aren’t any kids close to your age.”

“I know,” Gracie said, trying really hard not to whine. “But there aren’t any girls. Who am I supposed to swap secret crush stories with, and talk about hair and clothes? The boys? Give me a break!” Her good mood was gone, just like that, replaced by slumped shoulders and a self-pitying scowl.

“Gracie, I promise it'll be okay. We’ll just have to take lots of trips to do our shopping and socializing, and you’ll make friends online. Have you even checked in with your friends back home?”

“What’s the point? It’s not like I can invite them over for a 'spend the night' party,” she answered grumpily. “Besides, what would I tell them? ‘Hey! Guess what I did today? I brushed a horse and chased some cows! Yeah, I know I totally did that yesterday, but now it’s today!’ No, thanks.”

Miranda was quiet for a minute as they rode along, the two of them shouldering some members of the herd back in line with their mounts. She couldn’t be sure how much of Gracie’s attitude was from being left alone while she went on her honeymoon, and how much was from genuinely missing out on some of the normal teenage things she should be doing at her age.

“Do you want us to leave?” She asked her sister quietly. Her heart almost stopped when Gracie didn’t answer right away, afraid that she was going to have to make a costly decision where her sister was concerned.

“No,” she finally answered. “I really wish I could stay here forever. I just want to have both worlds, one where there’s normal stuff happening, and one where I get to live at the ranch. I know it’s not possible, so it just makes me frustrated.” Gracie blew her hair out of her eyes with an angry sigh.

“Are you sure? This isn’t about anything else, is it?” She asked, ducking down to meet her sister’s eye.

“Like what?” Gracie asked, looking up in confusion.

“Well…you’re sure it’s not about me suddenly being a member of their family and making you feel like an outsider, is it?” Miranda asked, genuinely worried about how her sister would feel as the outsider on the ranch, not exactly part of the nuclear family, and not part of the beloved staff.

“No! Everyone’s been super nice, whether I’m family or not!” The girl insisted.

“Oh, sweetie, that’s the thing…you are family! The day I married Casey, I became a Carson. That makes you their sister-in-law. You went from having no one in the world but me, to having a huge family, all when I said, ‘I do’. You’re not an outsider!”

Gracie didn’t look convinced. She stared down at her hands, where they sat folded on her saddle horn, watching them move on their own as her horse swayed side to side. “Where am I going to live?” She whispered softly, a tear sliding down her cheek and splashing on her pants leg.

“What do you mean?” Miranda asked in surprise, reaching over and lifting the front of Gracie’s hat to see her face.

“When you and Casey go live in your little love nest, where am I supposed to go? I can’t go with you because I’d just be in the way. Am I supposed to just stay at the Carson’s ranch with strangers?” Her lower lip trembled in a way that broke Miranda’s heart.

“You are never in the way, Gracie! You and I are a package deal, and I made sure the Carsons knew it before we ever set foot on that bus. And everyone here adores you. Did you know that they used to have a baby sister?” Gracie looked at her sister in shock before shaking her head, her curls flying out at angles from her hat. “She died at birth. That’s when they lost their mom. They didn’t just lose the best mother anyone ever had; they lost their sister, too. You’re their chance to have a little sister again, and they know it.”

“They didn’t lose the best mother in the world...I did.” It was Miranda’s turn to stare, open-mouthed and dumbfounded, at her sister’s words. Gracie never talked about their mother, especially not about the day she’d come home from school and found their mother dead of a heart attack on the living room floor. “Mom was the best. She was perfect.”

Miranda reached her hand out and took her sister’s fingers in her own, giving them a loving squeeze and letting Gracie just talk. The girl spoke, at last. About the things she'd kept buried inside for the past year, building up to the moment of truth: she’d fought with her mother the last time they’d spoken.

“I said evil, hurtful, horrible things to her before I left for school that morning,” Gracie said, a fresh set of tears spilling from her sad eyes. “I told her I wished I didn’t have to live there anymore, that I wanted…that I wanted to live with you.” She buried her head on her sister’s shoulder as she spoke, releasing the secret guilt she’d carried all alone since her mother’s death.

“Gracie, I know. Mom called me after you left for school that morning. She told me about your argument and even asked if you could stay with me for a little while.”

“She was actually going to kick me out?” Gracie cried in alarm.

“No, no! She was trying to give you what you wanted! She thought maybe you needed a little time away, some time to go be a big girl with her older sister, that’s all. She only meant for the Christmas holidays, because my office closed when the boss’ kids were out of school.

“But, honey, not once did she ever sound upset or angry, or sound like she didn’t love you. She adored you, and lived her whole life for you. Nothing you could have ever said or done would change that.”

Gracie wiped her nose on the thin cotton sleeve of her shirt, nodding thoughtfully. “I think, deep down, I knew that but I kept it right underneath the feeling that I made her have that heart attack when I was so horrible to her.”

“Gracie…sweetie…it doesn’t work that way. You didn’t do that. And Mom would certainly not want you to beat yourself up all the time. You’re an amazing, wonderful girl, and I’m proud you’re my sister. And the Carsons are proud to know you, too. It’s all going to be okay, you’ll see!”

“Promise?” Gracie asked with a residual sniffle.

“I promise.”

“Pinkie promise?”

“One hundred percent. Both pinkies, even,” Miranda answered with a supportive smile. She tugged on her sister’s stray curls and leaned over slightly in her saddle so she could link her arm through Gracie’s. She let Gracie fill her in on everything she’d missed on the drive, and then answered a few questions about what their plans were now that she and Casey were back home.

Home, Miranda thought as Gracie rambled on. It certainly means something different for me now than it used to. She, too, had lost her mom, even if the pain of that loss wasn’t as sharp as it was for Gracie. Miranda had been out on her own and on her own two feet for a few years when Mom had died, but Gracie was still so young that she needed a mother. Miranda had tried her best to make a home for Gracie, but it was a pathetic home at best.

Now, she and Gracie had their best chance in years to be a part of a real family, one where different people came in and out all day long, laughing and supporting each other. Loving her very own rugged cowboy was just an added benefit to being a part of this family.

Miranda spotted Casey up ahead and admired the effortless way he rode, as though being a cowboy was so much a part of him that it was impossible to separate it from him. Her heart thudded in her chest when she realized he was checking on his wife—oh my God, I’m his wife, she remembered for the hundredth time—as he turned in his saddle and looked back in her direction, giving her a thumbs up sign to see if she was okay back there.

I can’t believe it, she thought, an involuntary, giddy smile breaking out on her face. This is real. He’s really mine…