{A Little Home - Rascal Flatts}
...Sometimes you just need a little home, a little let you know you're not alone, to carry in your heart, and keep your spirit strong, sometimes you just need a little home...
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The sun beats down over the frontier stores as Scarlett walks me to the mayor's office, grocery bags in hand. My skin is coated with a thin layer of sweat from the heat in its relentless constancy. In the late afternoon sun, I would much rather be in a pool or sunbathing with some kind of ice-cold drink beside me. All I see are the dust roads and frontier stores, with their nearly broken fans blowing small slivers of air into the windless heat of this summer day.
Scarlett jabbers on in her fast-paced southern drawl while I listen, updating me on how she has been working in the superstore for the past few months until she can make enough money to head to college. I can see she's exhausted as she recounts the long hours spent working, but I feel nothing but pride for how hard she works. Still, it's hard to get much of a word in when she speaks at a million miles an hour. She always did talk the most out of the two of us. Her words curl and snap in their delicious tone, like sweet sherbet with a sudden sour twist.
"I need to be back in about a half an hour, or my manager will have my guts up on the meat racks," she laughs as she looks back at the large store we have just walked from.
"How far is it to the Mayor's office?" I ask, sweltering in the heat.
"It's not far, just down this road," she replies, stopping intermittently to look at the trinkets on display in each of the frontier stores, her eyes focusing on them as she continues to talk. "Do you remember we used to come here all the time?"
"And we'd run around the fountain," I nod over to the large marble fountain in the middle of the square. "And Mr Lieberman would let us pet his dog for hours!"
"Mitzy," Scarlett smiles. "She's still kicking', y'know."
"Really?" Mitzy must have been a fully grown dog all those years ago. Amazingly, she's still alive, a memory remains, unchanged.
"My Momma took her in when Mr Lieberman passed away last year," she tells me. "Mitzy's doing great."
"And how's your Mom?" I ask, memories of Scarlett's mother flashing into my mind.
Scarlett's mother, Deena, worked all her life as a waitress. She and my Uncle were childhood friends and was the Maid of Honour at My Aunt and Uncle's wedding. I remember her long fingers playing the piano whenever she came over to the ranch, like the sight of the keys beckoned her near. Her face is like a distant familiar memory in my mind. Still, looking at Scarlett, it's easier to remember her.
"She's alright," Scarlett replies quickly, taking a quick inhale as she moves away from the trinkets on the rack, her eyes focusing down the road. "C'mon, the Mayor's office ain't that far."
Something about the way her back straightened when I asked about her Mom makes me feel like I pressed a tender spot. Worry begins to settle within my stomach, but then again, I know I'm usually one to 'make something out of nothing'. No, stop saying that.
I don't mention anything else to do with her Mom again, instead laughing and joking with her about our childhood antics as we walk all the way down the road, passing Uncle Deacon's empty truck, to a set of french doors opened wide as it faces the path we have just walked down, to the Mayor's Office.
The outside looks exactly like the frontier shops with the paint and glass on the wooden doors and the wooden beamed porch on the few steps up to the entrance. But inside it looks like any other corporate office or courthouse. What with Laurel Valley being such a small town, the jail, court and legal offices all reside inside the one building, or so Scarlett tells me as we clamber up the steps. This building.
"So your Uncle is in here?" She asks, looking around the cool air-conditioned building and its quiet calmness.
There is only the sight of a few employees, all with stacks and stacks of paperwork gathered up into their arms, empty chairs along the walls like some waiting area near the large stone reception desk, empty and unmanned. There are doors upon doors leading into what I can only assume are offices, none of which lead me to what I need to find. Uncle Deacon.
A small gold bell sits like something from a hotel reception on the stone desk in front of me. I look at Scarlett, gesturing to it as if to say 'Should I?' Before I have a chance to think of a reason why I shouldn't just wait here quietly until Uncle Deacon might emerge from one of the rooms with their closed doors, Scarlett taps the bell sending a shockingly loud 'ding' to ring around the walls of the reception. She laughs as I scowl at her, wishing to run away and sit down at the seats near the wall where she has wandered over to, I turn back to see the face from below my window staring back at me.
Harley.
"Can I help you, Miss?" He asks, his voice low and polite. There is a recognition in his face as we both silently ignore our familiarity with one another.
"Yes," I nod, trying to buy time and think of some coherent response. "I'm looking for my uncle. He came to see the Mayor today."
"His name?" Harley opens a book of records, his pen poised as he waits for me to answer.
"Deacon Taylor," I say quietly. He does not write.
"He is in a meeting with the mayor as we speak," Harley smiles at me, sweeping his hair back from his face. "Shouldn't be too long."
"Can I sit here and wait for him?"
"Better in here than out in that heat," he replies before walking back into the room he emerged from.
I plant myself down on one of the wooden seats next to Scarlett, my cheeks surely bright red. I place the groceries at my feet. It is cool and refreshing here, with a water dispenser sitting right next to me which I take full advantage of.
"Who is that?" I whisper to Scarlett, sure that her all-knowing eyes will have surely looked upon him more than they did a few moments ago.
"Harley Rucker, Mayor's son," she replies quietly, her eyes glancing over to the spot near the door he walked through.
"He was at the ranch last night," I say. "Uncle Deacon told him to leave, but he had a for-sale sign," my voice wavers slightly when I think about it.
"The Rucker's are trying to get a hold of all the land they can to boost the profit of the town," Scarlett tells me, her face contorting into a disapproving scowl. "Harley's nice, it's his Dad who's the one to watch."
"Really? Why?"
"Your Uncle's ranch has a lot of property value," Scarlett places a hand on my forearm. "You need to make sure your Uncle doesn't lose it. He can't lose any more. Not since..."
"Aunt Rita," I confirm, her name making a knot rise in my throat.
"Now that you're here, he'll have more of an incentive to keep the place, y'know?" She tells me, and I can't help feeling that, if Scarlett hadn't told me, Uncle Deacon might want to keep it that way.
----
Time ticks on and on as the sky turns from a cloudless blue into a vibrant warm summer sunset, Scarlett leaving me to go back to work as I count the tiles on the floor over and over, feeling the hands on the clock slowing in their movements.
Harley works on and on flitting in and out of the room as he works, my eyes catching him glancing over now and then with a quick smile.
From the wall behind me, I can hear arguing, starting as a small fire but suddenly escalating into a wild uproar. One of the voices is definitely that of Uncle Deacon. Both Harley and I try to ignore it, awkwardness filling the room we co-exist in.
"So," he says suddenly, placing files down on the desk in front of him. "Deacon's your uncle? I never knew he had any other family."
"I moved here yesterday," I inform him.
"I see," he replies, his eyes perusing his files, flipping pages to and fro, clearly looking for something. "And your name is?"
"Ruby," I smile. "Yours?"
"Harley."
"...All I'm asking is for a few more months, I've lived here my whole life, we both have..." Uncle Deacon's voice pleads from beyond the wall.
"So why did you move here?" I hear Harley say to me, as I try to ignore the arguing.
"Why do you want to know?" My instinctive response flies out before I have a chance to catch it.
"...I've given you time, plenty of it, but time waits for no man..."
"Just making polite conversation," he laughs awkwardly, and I immediately regret my aggression.
"Sorry, I just... I..." I could always tell the truth. Thrown out. Abandoned. Sent away.
"No need to apologise, darlin'. You don't have to answer," he interjects, setting me at ease.
"I was... Sent here." I finally answer.
"Where from?" He continues, more tentatively this time.
"The east coast, I lived in Virginia before," before it all went so wrong.
"Pretty far to travel," he observes.
"Two whole days on a bus," I reply, boasting slightly.
"I'm surprised you survived in this heat," he laughs, a playful edge to his voice, although I can't help but agree, remembering the beads of sweat that trickled down my back on the bus as I travelled.
"...Three months Taylor, last chance, if you can't bring the ranch back from the brink, you're done..."
With that, the door at my back flies open and out storms Uncle Deacon, almost stopping in his tracks as I stand to greet him. Harley also stands, all of us on edge as the lack of arguing brought us all to attention.
"Let's go, darlin'," Uncle Deacon grumbles.
I stand, watching Uncle Deacon stalk off towards the truck, the sun setting like a harsh and striking light on the horizon, burning into the ground. My mouth lies open, wordless and unable to find the right way to end this conversation.
"Sorry," I say hurriedly, grabbing the grocery bags before turning to leave.
"Later, Ruby," he shouts to me as I turn back to see him wave goodbye. I wave back before rushing off into the sunset.
I have more chances to talk to Harley, I tell myself. Right now, I have to catch up to Uncle Deacon before he drives away in the truck without me.
----
The tyres race over the dirt road near the ranch, the entire ride home in silence only comforted by the sound of the radio. I look at the rolling hills and wheat fields, their gentle majesty in the darkening evening sky so peaceful in contrast to the tension thick inside the car.
"I met Scarlett Montgomery today," I tell him, trying to make conversation, my eyes not leaving the window and the sights outside.
"She still working at the superstore?" He asks.
"Yeah," I confirm. "How's she been doing?"
"Just working away, she never stops, just like her mother," he sighs.
"She said that Deena's looking after Mr Lieberman's dog now," I laugh. "Mitzy."
"They can barely afford to keep themselves going never mind looking after the damn dog," he shakes his head.
At least I know why Scarlett didn't want to talk.
"How was your meeting with the Mayor?"
"He forgets his roots, that's what power does to people," he scoffs, rolling down the window and letting in some air.
"So?"
"You're gonna have to start helping out on the ranch, with the horses," he states plainly.
"Okay," I don't argue. If there's one thing I learned as a kid. You don't argue with Uncle Deacon.
"We've got three months to bring the ranch back to the way it was," he reiterates to me, unaware that I could hear it all. "Or I lose the ranch."
"I won't let that happen," I state. "I'm here to help, whatever you need."
The truck rolls up to the house, stopping just near the old bushes I planted as a kid with Aunt Rita.
I head to to the trunk to grab the grocery bags, my body tired from being out in the sun for so long, when out of the corner of my eye, I see a figure pass by the window of the kitchen, and my heart goes dead.
"Uncle Deacon! Someone's in the house!" I half-whisper, grabbing my Uncle's attention.
Uncle Deacon turns, facing the window, barely batting an eyelid. I'm already trying to find a phone or a baseball bat.
"Calm down, kiddo, it's only Beau." He laughs, heading up the porch steps.
"Who?" I ask, calming down slightly as I hesitate to follow.
"Come inside," he gestures to me. "It's about time you two met."
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