The Rancher's Request

Gracia must have been watching for her arrival because as soon as she parked several yards from the house and climbed out of her car, the girl was already there to greet her with a tight hug.

“I should’ve told you to drive down to the barn where we’re having the party,” she told Juliet. “I forgot. But we can walk.”

Juliet reached back inside the car and pulled out the gift box. Handing it to Gracia, she said, “Happy birthday, sweetie.”

Gracia looked at the box in complete wonder. “Gosh, I didn’t mean for you to get me a gift. I should have told you that the party wasn’t going to be a gift thing.”

Smiling impishly, Juliet said, “Well, if you want me to I can take it back.”

Gracia quickly shoved the package beneath her armpit and out of the way of Juliet’s extended hand. “Oh no! Since you’ve already bought it, the polite thing to do is keep it.” She rose on tiptoe and kissed Juliet’s cheek. “Thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

Looping her arm through Juliet’s, she beamed up at her as they began to walk slowly toward the ranch yard and large group of barns and outbuildings.

“Gosh, you look beautiful,” the girl told her. “More beautiful than anybody I’ve ever seen.”

Juliet could actually feel herself blushing. “Not really, Gracia. But thank you for the compliment. You’re very pretty yourself. I’ll bet your mother was a beautiful woman and you took after her.”

Gracia’s head tilted back and forth as she thought about Juliet’s comment. “I remember her being pretty, but I was so little back before she died that now her face just looks sorta blurry when I try to remember it in my mind. I keep a picture of her in my room, though. She had lots of red hair and her skin was really pale. I guess that’s why I’m not as dark as Daddy.”

So Matt’s wife had apparently been white rather than Hispanic, Juliet thought. The fact surprised her a little. He seemed such a straight and narrow traditionalist.

“Mommy was a model, did you know that? She worked in New York and Paris and all those places. But after I was born I think she quit all that.”

Juliet was more than surprised by this revelation. She’d not known that Matt Sanchez had been married to a career woman. And she would have never guessed he’d marry a fragile model who made a living off her looks. But love was a strange thing. So far in her young life it had caused her to make several out-of-the-ordinary choices that ultimately turned disastrous.

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