Excerpt of Lost and Found Family by Jennifer Ryan

“When I was young, I lived on my uncle’s ranch. Not a ranch as nice as yours, but a run-down place. The barn was falling apart, the house and outbuildings were all dilapidated, but the horses were well tended. My uncle raised them and sold them to keep the ranch, but he never seemed to profit. He spent his life trying to hold on.”

He couldn’t believe she’d open up about the one thing he really wanted to know about without him prompting her.

 She sighed. “It made him mean, that constant battle to keep the bank from taking everything.” She kissed Ace on the nose and stared into his eyes. “Anyway, one of the ranch hands had a radio he brought to work each day. I’d listen to the songs and sing along. It was the only form of entertainment I had. I loved music.” Wistfulness filled her voice. She went quiet for a moment. “When he got fired, I missed the music, but I had a knack for remembering the songs, so I would sing while I worked. It gave me comfort. The horses never seemed to mind if I got a lyric wrong, or couldn’t hit a note.” She gave Luke a half smile over her shoulder.

“Why’d the guy get fired?”

“For bringing the radio and making me happy.” The matter-of-fact way she said it didn’t hide the anger and resentment and remorse. “Like I said, my uncle was a mean man.”

Luke wanted to ask how mean. He wanted to know if he’d hurt Sarah.

The answer was clear in the way she spoke.

“When he found out the guy liked my singing and I liked the music, he got rid of both. He said I was distracting his men. I needed to concentrate on my job, and not some fanciful pastime. Since I’d cost him a worker, too, I had to do my job and his.”

“How old were you?”

Her hand stopped brushing Ace and her eyes stared back into the past. “Thirteen. There was never any more music on the ranch. I only sang when I was alone at night in the barn with the horses.”

“Why were you in the barn at night?” He hazarded a guess, but he wanted to hear her say it.

“I slept in a small room on the floor in the back of the barn.” Not in the warm house, in her own room, in a soft bed.

His throat went tight with sadness. “Did you go to school?”

“Why do you care?”

Because it kills me to think of you living in a crap barn, cold and lonely with no music. Those words wouldn’t come out of his mouth. “Because I want to know who you really are.”

Why did you burn the place down?

She stared at him. “I’m not who Margaret described to you.”

“It appears you’re not.”

She pressed her lips together, then answered. “My first three foster families sent me to school, but when I was eight, my uncle showed up and took me to the ranch. He needed me to take care of the horses. I didn’t go back to a real school again until I was eighteen. Senior year at MIT, I met Sean.”

“Where were your parents?”

“My mother drank herself to death when I was four. My father didn’t know I existed until I was sixteen.”

Wow! “That must have been really hard.”

She nodded. “It was.” The way she said it meant he hadn’t even scratched the surface of how she felt about her tragic childhood.

“Did you like living on the ranch?”

“I liked the horses. They were all I had growing up.” Sadness filled those words. Not anger or rage.

It didn’t add up to her setting fire to the ranch.

She set the brush on the nearby workbench. “I’ve got to get back before the kids wake up. Sorry I caused you so much trouble this morning.”

He stepped in front of her before she retreated. “Why did you burn the ranch to the ground?” He had to ask. She’d had a rotten childhood, but that didn’t justify what she did.

She slowly looked up and right into his eyes. “Didn’t Margaret tell you why I did it? Of course, I never even told Sean, so I can only imagine the explanation she gave you, besides her general opinion of me, which is that I’m evil and therefore I do evil things. Right? I burned down the ranch. I killed her son. I took his business. I keep her grandchildren from her. Everything I do is just for spite and my own selfishness.”

So, she’d never told Sean why she’d done it. It surprised him, and made him want to get the answer all the more.

“It wasn’t some whim. You had a reason. And don’t tell me it was because your uncle sold the horses like the police report says. That’s bullshit.”

Her head tilted and her eyes filled with anger. “You got my sealed records?”

Shit. “Yes.” What else could he say?

“Let me guess, so you can use it against me in court to take my kids from me. You want to and make my whole life about something I did when I was just a hopeless kid.”

No he didn’t. He wanted to know the truth. “Why did you do it? What would make you do something so drastic?” He demanded the answer with the urgency of his questions.

“Because I was in a rage!” Her whole body vibrated with anger and resentment that he’d insist on an answer and that he’d violated her privacy based on an unsubstantiated claim from Margaret. “I couldn’t take one more thing being snatched away from me.”