Free Homecoming Ranch by Julia London Page B

little girl with an envelope stuffed full of magazine cutouts all over again. This moment reminded her of one of the many times she’d been transferred to a new school. It was her third class that year because Brad hadn’t worked out for Mom, but David had. At the new school, Madeline had told some girls that she liked the Backstreet Boys. They’d looked at her as if she’d said something really wrong, and Madeline could recall how awkward she’d felt in that moment, like the only person not in on the joke. She felt thatway now, as if she’d said something to keep her standing outside their little circle.
    She didn’t quite know how to proceed—how did she go about addressing the issues at hand under these circumstances? Okay, well, generally she found that it was best just to get down to business. Madeline decided the best course of action was to skip over the getting-to-know-you phase and go directly to the necessary business. The quicker the issue of this ranch was resolved, the quicker she could get out of here and go back to her safe world.
I wish, I wish, I wish
. She gripped her briefcase tighter. “You were saying you lived in California?” she asked, marching up the steps with resolve.
    “Yep. With Emma.”
    “Only a year,” Emma’s voice came at them from an open window. “Libby is from Colorado. Pine River if you want to get right down to it.
I
am from California.”
    Libby smiled at Madeline and shrugged. “Emma’s always right,” she said airily, but Madeline heard the twinge of sarcasm in her voice.
    Madeline followed Libby inside, her pump hitting the yellow pine floor with a resounding clap. The walls were covered in dated wallpaper, green vines of ivy meandering to the ceiling. The ceilings were tall and the windows cased with dark, polished wood.
    She could see Emma sitting on a rose-colored camelback sofa in a room to her right, her arms folded, her legs crossed, and one foot swinging anxiously. Or with tedium. It was difficult to know.
    The potbellied stove on the interior wall of that room made Madeline wonder if that’s how the place was heated.
    “Let me show you around,” Libby said.
    “That’s okay, I—”
    “No, no, Madeline, you should see what we have here. Emma and I have had a good look.” She glanced at Emma over her shoulder. “Are you coming?”
    “I’ll let you do the guided tour,” Emma said, and yawned.
    Madeline followed Libby around the ground floor. She chatted incessantly, asking questions that only made Madeline tenser.
How old are you? Do you like Orlando? Have you ever been to Colorado?
    Madeline answered sparingly and kept her focus on the house. The kitchen was straight out of 1968, complete with what had to be the most ancient microwave she had ever seen. A sunroom overlooked a garden and what Libby called a river, but looked more like a creek to Madeline. It turned out that the room with the flat roof, added to the original house, was the dining room. But what made the ground floor spectacular was the views. From every room, big windows framed another slice of big sky, mountains, and meadows.
    Libby led Madeline upstairs, to a surprisingly wide second floor corridor. There were four bedrooms in all, and even a sewing room, which Madeline guessed was originally a nursery. The sewing machine and a few bolts of cloth were still there, some of the cloth spread across an ironing board, as if someone would appear at any moment to iron.
    Throughout the house, a lot of the furniture had been removed. But the remains of a family’s life had been left behind in bits and scraps. In one room, on a dresser, was a family photo of twenty or so people, dressed in the trappings of the sixties. On the hallway floor was a photo of two young boys in baseball uniforms.
    When they had completed the tour, Emma had peeled herself off the couch and was standing at the door of the living room, her shoulder propped against the frame. She openly took in Madeline’s clothes as