Page 94 of Cherry Tree Ranch

“I wish my mom had told me about Earl.” She lets out a gasping sob. “She didn’t need to carry the burden of our ancestor being a murderer on her own.” She pauses. “Oh my gosh, did she know he swindled you out of your water rights? She – I swear, she wasn’t like that.”

Kaylee’s grief is tangible, too much on top of my own, but I will not reinforce any doubt about her mom. “We can’t know exactly what your mom knew. She might not have known that was the only part of my land with water rights. Maybe she didn’t even know the notebook was in the desk. We didn’t see it. And nothing looks off about the deed, except that he didn’t pay anything for it. She could have just heard stories about Earl from your family. My family didn’t tell me about Daisy dying either.”

She falls into the desk chair. “Why?”

I walk to the door, desperate to tell Cash and escape these overwhelming emotions. “My mom said she wanted to protect me.”

Kaylee wads the tissue into a ball. “My mom…” She begins to sob. “Maybe she was protecting me too, huh?”

I walk to her and kneel. “Yes, because this wasn’t your burden to bear. It wasn’t hers either, but that’s what she chose because she must have loved you so damn much.”

She looks up at me. “I hate that I’m related to Earl.”

I dip my head. “Sometimes, when my dad says awful things, I hate that I’m related to him too. But I’m not my dad, and you’re not Earl.”

One of the horses whinnies outside, drawing our attention to the barn door. It’s Blue. He whinnies again and again.

I find Blue whinnying anxiously and pawing the ground outside. I rub the bronze horse in my pocket with my thumb. Kaylee’s horse is half asleep, and Luna is tied up next to him. I spin in a circle. Hands grasp my shoulders and stop my dizzying whirl.

“Dahlia,” Cash says, and spins me to face him. He pulls me into his chest.

“Cash! What are you doing here?” He squeezes me tight, holding me for longer than I expect.

“I was concerned when you didn’t write more about being here, and I’m sorry, Dahlia,” he says, concerned. “I should have told my mom about you a long time ago. I was afraid. I love her and didn’t want to hurt her, but I hurt someone else I love instead.”

Someone else he loves. My heart skips a beat. But there’s little time to enjoy his words.

“She told me some things you ought to know,” he says with a heavy heart.

“OK, there are some things you ought to know too.”

He releases his grip and holds me out at arm’s length. He’s stricken. “What are you saying?”

“I started the fire, Cash.” Kaylee walks out behind me. “It was an accident.”

Cash starts angrily towards her, but I throw my hand to his chest, stopping him. “Don’t.”

“Don’t? Dahlia, don’t you hear what she’s saying? She did this to you.”

Kaylee winces at his words. I step closer to her.

“And it gets worse,” I say. “The real curse of my ranch are the pains from the past, and we need to tell you some hard truths. I don’t want the past to define my ranch, or me. Cash, do you have your handkerchief?”

He pulls it out of his back pocket and I wipe Kaylee’s tears. “You can’t let what Earl did define you, either. It wasn’t your fault.”

Cash looks back and forth between us. “Who’s Earl?”

“But the fire was my fault,” she whimpers.

I pause, anger brewing in my chest at the memory of the fire, at the thought of losing the ranch. I want to hate her, but I don’t. I can’t. I have the choice to forgive her, to forgive Earl. Because if I don’t my ranch’s curse will last forever.

“I know,” I tell Kaylee, “and if you really do want to make it up to me, I have a plan.”

*

Kaylee and I bring Cash up to speed on everything we’ve discovered. Cash tells us his mom said: Cash’s dad’s great-great-uncle, Joaquin, died on the ranch. The woman he loved told his family how it happened, but then she died too. Daisy and Dottie’s credibility was tarnished by rumours. A man named Earl told anyone who’d listen that Daisy was totally negligent and Joaquin died in a farming accident because of an equipment failure. After that, she took her own life out of guilt, haunting the ranch with her grief.

Cash’s family didn’t know what to believe. They had recently immigrated and didn’t know who to trust. People told stories about the ranch over the many decades, and superstition about the cliffs turning red changed to fear. It seemed nothing good could come from the ranch and that’s why his mom didn’t want him there.