I let the whiskey swim in my head, a dull, warm fog.
Finally, I crawl into bed, the exhaustion of the day finally catching up with me. The scent of her—vanilla and honey and almond—clings to the air, a ghost in my room. I close my eyes, and I can still see her, standing in the moonlight in a white robe, her hair a wild halo around her face.
And I hate that a part of me, a part I thought was long dead, is glad she’s back.
The dream starts in an alleyway. It always does.
The stench of rot and stale beer fills my nose, thick enough to taste. Concrete is cold and rough against my cheek. My knuckles are split, burning.
A glint of steel flashes under the single, flickering streetlamp.
Run.That’s the only thought in my head.Run or die.
Then the scene shifts, a violent, nauseating lurch. The alley dissolves, replaced by the endless, sun-baked expanse of Meadowlark Ranch. But the fear stays, clinging to me like a second skin. The air is thick with dust, the heat a physical weight on my shoulders. I’m seventeen again, all angles and anger, a duffel bag slung over my shoulder containing everything I own in the world. Which isn’t much.
A truck is parked in front of a weathered barn. A man stands next to it, his arms crossed over his chest. He’s older, his face a roadmap of hard living, but he stands straight, his shoulders squared. He looks like he was carved from the same rock as the mountains behind him.
Anthony Cruz.
He’s not looking at me with pity, but with a kind of gruff appraisal, like he’s sizing up a wild horse he’s thinking about breaking.
“This ain’t a hotel, kid,” he says. “You work, you eat. You cause trouble, you’re gone. Understand?”
I just nod, my throat too tight to speak. I’ve heard that speech before. From social workers, from foster parents, from cops. It always ends the same way. With me leaving.
Then another man is there, stepping out from behind the barn. He’s younger than Anthony, with kind green eyes and a gentle way about him. Henry. Saramaria’s father. He’s holding a sandwich, and he holds it out to me.
“You must be hungry,” he says, his voice soft. It’s the first time anyone’s offered me anything in I don’t know how long.
I take the sandwich, my fingers brushing against his. The bread is soft, the meat real. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.
This is Anthony’s halfway house, though he’d never call it that. It was just his way. He saw kids like me, kids teetering on the edge, and he gave them a hand up instead of a kick down. Henry had ended up here years ago, a city boy with no idea how to work the land, but a willingness to learn. Anthony had seen that, had seen the good heart beneath the uncertainty, and had taken him in. Henry had become his right-hand man, his friend, the son he’d never had.
Until he betrayed him by getting Anthony’s only daughter pregnant.
Anthony was disappointed and angry and shut his ranch down, refusing to help anyone else.
And yet, he’s thinking of helping me.
The dream shifts again, faster this time. A montage of moments. Me, fumbling with a fence post, my hands raw and blistered. Henry showing me how to do it right, his patient voice explaining that you fix things, you don’t just throw them away.
Me, learning to ride, my body aching in muscles I didn’t know I had. Anthony watching from the porch, a rare, small smile on his face as I finally stayed on a bucking bronco for more than three seconds. Me, sitting at their table for the first time, eating a meal that didn’t come from a can, while a little girl with bright red hair and green eyes watched me suspiciously from across the room.
Saramaria’s face in the dream changes. The curiosity is gone, replaced by the cold, hard look she gave me yesterday. The suit she was wearing bleeds into the image, stark and gray against the dusty backdrop of the ranch.
“This is my property,” she says, her voice echoing in the vast emptiness of the dream. “You’re trespassing.”
The alleyway comes rushing back. The glint of steel. The fear. It’s all mixed up with her face, with her words, with the smell of dust and the taste of the best sandwich I ever had.
I wake up gasping, my heart thudding against my ribs like it’s trying to break free. I’m tangled in the sheets, my body slick with sweat as I sit up, my breath coming in ragged, painful gulps. I look around the dark room, at the familiar log walls, the stack of rodeo magazines, the worn quilt on my bed.
I’m home. I’m safe.
But the adrenaline is still coursing through me, my body convinced the threat is real. I haven’t had a nightmare that bad in years. Not since the first few months after I got here.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, my feet finding the cool wood floor. Saramaria might not think this is her home, but it is. It’s mine. This place, these four walls, this land. This is what saved me. If Anthony hadn’t picked me up that day, if Henry hadn’t shown me a little kindness, I’d be dead or in jail by now. I owe the Cruz family everything. My life.
And now she wants to sell it. To tear it all down for a profit.
