Chapter 1
Amelia Banks
~
Deer Lodge, Montana
Late March
"It's still a quarter-mile until we turn, Ty. Keep going all the way down this road," I said, feeling my sister slowing down as she was driving. I was staring at the map on my phone and could see that it wasn't time to turn yet. "We're still far from the address. Wait, why are you turning here?"
"Because there was literally a sign that said that ranch guests should go this way," Ty said. "It was right back there. We're ranch guests, so I'm following the sign. You can turn that off since we're here."
My sister sounded assured even though, according to the address on my map, we should have gone straight for another 900 yards.
"I'm serious, you can turn it off, we're fine. This whole place is the ranch. We're here."
I hadn't seen the sign she was talking about, but she seemed so confident that I believed her and set down my phone. "Oh, yeah, whoa," I said, leaning to peer out of the front windowand seeing a large wooden sign coming up on our right. It was parallel to the road we were on, so it took me a second to make it out.
As we approached it, I could see that it connected two fenced pasture areas and stretched across a dirt road. My sister didn't hesitate to turn and drive under the sign. The words Sutter Farms Cattle Ranch were etched in large lettering and a bold font. The sign itself was a solid log of wood that must've weighed a ton.
"What have you gotten me into?" Ty said as we drove under it.
"I bought the Rancher for the Weekend package. I don't know exactly what we're doing. I know they have chickens and horses, and a tallow business. I don't know what you do on a ranch, honestly. I saw the place where we'll be staying, and it's nice inside, like a hotel. This looks pretty ranch-y so far, though," I said, looking out at the barns and fenced pastures.
"Like Hidden Valley," Ty said, making me smile and shake my head.
There was a home in the distance and a few other finished structures that were a little closer to us. We drove toward them.
"Why did you choose that package?" she asked, with disappointment in her tone. "I don't want to be a rancher."
"It's their best package," I said. "It comes with meals, and I got an upgrade."
"To slop?" Ty asked. "From porridge to oatmeal?"
"No. It looked good in the pictures. It looked like home-cooked meals with mashed potatoes and fried chicken."
"Still, I don't want to come here to be a worker. There were some perfectly nice hotels in Missoula. I liked it there. We could stay there and have a regular hotel experience and then come here and take a tour of the place. We could become acquainted with it from a distance."
"That's not how you get acquainted with something. We have to do research for our roles, Ty. We're going to be out here filming later this summer, and we're not professional actresses."
"Exactly, which is why we're not being held to that standard. Alex knows what he's getting with us. And besides, I know we'll do great. We've known Alex since we were kids. He knows us. He knows what we can do. He wouldn't have asked us if he didn't think we could do it."
"Yeah, but even if all that's true, we still need to work at it and try hard, Trinity."
"Okay, Mom."
"Why? Because I used your full name?"
"No, because you're being so serious about all this. I need to be at home. I have homework, and Eddie's birthday party is this weekend. Jacob's freaking out about me not being there. I'm the party girl. That's my element. We don't need to come over here and get treated like farmhands to be able to do our job for Alex. He said he'll help us through it."
Jacob was Ty's boyfriend, and Eddie was Jacob's best friend. Ty had a more interesting social life than I did, and she kept me updated about all of these people. I knew it was Eddie's birthday this weekend. She had already mentioned missing it several times since I planned this trip. I had begged her to come so that I could see what my surroundings would be in a couple of months when we began filming.
I breathed a sigh. "Well, we're here now," I said plainly. "I have things I left back home, too. I don't want to be apart from PJ this long. I really think we're going to grow from this and do better at our roles because of it."
"You're just nervous about doing the series."
"So?" I said, not caring that she was right.
