Wild Horses by Claire McEwen Page A

the fields were the skeletons of rusted-out cars, trucks and a few tractors. Marker Ranch resembled a junkyard more than a cattle ranch.
    He let out a low whistle. This place was beyond run-down. It was a crime to see land this poorly treated.
    But apparently trashing things had been the Hoffman way of life. He’d done a little sleuthing at his shop this morning. It hadn’t been hard to get his customers to talk about Nora’s family. The Hoffmans were the stuff of local legend. A mother who’d left when Nora and Wade were still young, marrying their father’s best friend and fleeing to Europe with him to escape sentencing for fraud charges. A father who’d chosen a life of crime and swindled most of his neighbors at one time or another. People said he was hiding down in Mexico with the sons he’d dragged into his criminal ways.
    And now Nora and Wade had come back to town to face all that history.
    Todd felt heavy with the knowledge. He should have asked Nora more questions back in college, should have tried harder to win her trust and know her better. He’d had no idea how she’d grown up or what she’d been through. And now, here on Marker Ranch, surrounded by the remains of all her family had stolen, he felt as if he was looking directly at the skeletons in her closet.
    He touched the accelerator again and kept going, glancing down at the new iPhone in a box next to him. He’d driven all the way to Gardnerville and back to get it. It was the least he could do after tossing hers.
    Nora’s words from the bar last night rang with truth. He’d been a sheltered rich kid with enough money to do whatever kind of work he felt like pursuing, whether it paid or not. He’d headed off to his job in Brazil after graduation full of righteous indignation that Nora wouldn’t go with him. He’d never considered that working for an activist’s paltry wage might be impossible for her. Now it was obvious how totally ludicrous his invitation to the rain forest must have seemed.
    Seeing this ranch made it clear to him that even if Nora’s dad had made money from his crimes, he certainly hadn’t invested it in his kids or his home. Nora had grown up in poverty and squalor. And he’d sat there last night criticizing the job that was helping her rise above all this.
    He pulled up to the house and stopped, staring at the dilapidated building. It was quiet. One big pine, half-brown from the drought, stood next to the neglected old farmhouse. It was a two-story from the Victorian era with great bones, but so run-down it looked like a haunted mansion at a theme park.
    A huge contrast to his family’s neatly manicured minimansion on the outskirts of Seattle. Everything in his childhood home was neat and tidy. His mom had seen to that. Rooms looked like stills from a furniture catalog. A team of gardeners kept the pool and grounds free of any weeds or excess dirt. Everything had been perfectly put together.
    He stepped carefully up to the porch, avoiding a spot where the boards were missing, and knocked, knowing from the quiet around him that there would be no answer. He set the box on an old chair near the door. He’d wrapped it in brown paper and taped a note on, so at least she’d get it with the apology she deserved.
    â€œWelcome to Marker Ranch.”
    He just about jumped out of his skin at Wade’s voice. Todd turned to see him standing a few feet away from the porch.
    Wade had obviously been working. Dirt smeared his T-shirt and jeans. His straw cowboy hat shadowed his face, but Todd could see the sweat there.
    â€œDidn’t hear you come up. Is that some kind of army trick?” Todd left the porch, glad that the box housing the phone looked a lot like a book now that it was wrapped.
    â€œOne of the few skills I left with that actually has a use in real life,” Wade said, and Todd recognized Nora’s dry humor in her brother. Wade