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“Dad, what are you doing?”
“Look.”
He pointed across the road.
“What’s that?” Chelsea asked.
“That, my dear child, is your heritage.”
“That’s Gramps’s amusement park?”
He heard the doubt in her voice. It echoed in his chest.
Gramps might have raved about his fairgrounds during his visits, but it looked bad. Most of the rides were rusty. A few were in the process of being updated and fixed. One was being dismantled by a couple of old men with a pair of tractors.
Far off to the right and back from the road a fair distance was Gramps’s house but Gramps was no longer there.
Sam had never seen the house but he recognized it from his grandfather’s descriptions and old photographs. Some of those had been black-and-white, shot in the days when the fairgrounds were brand-new more than a century ago, and built by Gramps’s father.
A tidal wave of emotion swept through him, longing, need and anger culminating in one word: mine.
He owned a beautiful apartment in the city overlooking Central Park and a huge home in upstate New York. So why should a plain two-story brick home with tilting front steps affect him so? With its modest proportions, two windows on the first floor and three above, the ordinary house didn’t compare well to the showstopper he owned with ten spacious bedrooms. This one had, what? Three? Four, maybe?
Yet he wanted it.
That house, these fairgrounds, leased now to a bunch of locals intent on making a profit from his grandfather’s belongings, were out of Sam’s reach.
An old saying or song lyric, Sam couldn’t remember which, thrummed through him. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Wasn’t that the truth?
Throughout the busy years, thoughts of Rodeo had been stored in a far corner of his mind, taken out only at Christmas when Gramps came to visit. In all of those years, he had thought the town, and the fairgrounds, would be here waiting for him.
Then his life had changed. Drastically.
Last year, it had taken a crazy turn. Now he was about to start a new business in New York.
Success is the best revenge.
The idea consumed him. Even so, a part of him yearned for the house, toward knowing and understanding his rural heritage.
But, for the short time he would be here, he wouldn’t be able to get to know it.
At least for the next year, those women had control of Sam’s heritage. Worse, Gramps couldn’t remember how long he’d agreed to make the lease. What if it was two, three, five years before Sam got it back?
“Dad, isn’t it beautiful?” Chelsea’s voice whispered out on a breathy sigh. “It’s awesome.”
The fairgrounds? Maybe after a massive amount of work. But now? Awesome? No.
She pointed to something and his eyes adjusted focus from the distant house to the foreground, to a ride right in front of him—a carousel that had been rejuvenated with colorful paint.
Chelsea was right. Awesome was a good word for it, all fresh and spit shined. Did the machine work? Were the women planning to give rides on it?
If so, it looked like Chelsea might be first in line.
Hope and potential all rolled into one, it stood in the weak March sunlight proudly declaring “If I can be saved, so can the rest of this old place.”
A powerful sentiment.
“It’s got really weird animals,” Chelsea said, but he detected no disdain.
“You’re right. Is that a bull?”
“Yeah, and a couple of sheep.”
“Bighorn sheep, I’m pretty sure.”
“There’s a bison! And a cow.” She giggled, the sound sweet on the cool breeze. “What are those?”
“An elk and two white-tailed deer.”
“Their saddles are so beautiful. So ornate. I want to ride all of them.” She peered up at him. “Will we still be here when the fair is on?”
Apparently, they planned to launch in August and it was only March. Sam’s next business venture started in one month. He had only thirty days to get this problem sorted out so he could hightail it home.
No way was he losing out on the opportunity to make serious money with his new investment firm, Carmichael, Jones and Raven. Between the three partners, their experience totaled fifty years. Sam planned to take the industry by storm.
If, along the way, he showed up his ex-wife and father-in-law and the company they’d wrestled away from him during the divorce, all the better. Answering Chelsea’s question about attending the fair, he said, “It isn’t likely, possum.”
His nickname for his daughter slipped out before thought or caution. For some reason, as a little girl, Chelsea had taken a liking to Dame Edna and had giggled every time possum was used as an endearment.
Sam had called her possum once and she’d rolled on the floor laughing. The name had stuck.
Sometimes at night, he could hear her accessing YouTube on her laptop and watching old shows she must know by heart.
Entranced by the carousel, she didn’t call him to task for the nickname she, these days, called stupid.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen here.”
“If you have your way, there won’t even be a fair.” How could one young girl hold so much bitterness? Had the divorce harmed her beyond repair?
He hoped not, with a fierceness that shocked him.
“You know what? This place looks bad now, but I can see the potential. I can see what Gramps and his father built.”
Chelsea nodded. “Yeah, it must have been really cool years ago.”
“I agree.” Dad must have spent a fair bit of time every summer working here. Then he’d walked away from it all and never looked back.
Sam couldn’t get enough of the place. He could stand here for hours checking it out. Even better, he’d like to walk the land. It might be derelict now, but it must have been magical in its day.
“I should ask Gramps if I can get in to look around.”
“Can I come, too?”
“Of course.”
Sighing, he straightened away from the fence.
“Let’s go visit Gramps and then find this ranch I’m supposed to be working on.”
Chelsea snorted. He ignored it. It had been a long trip. He’d had plenty of practice ignoring her.
On second thought...
He pulled out the change purse, opened it and held it out to her. “Snorting.”
“It’s not really snorting, Dad,” she said in her best disdainful teenage voice. “Nobody really snorts.”
Sam imitated a pig by letting out a huge snort. Chelsea tried not to giggle.
“I don’t walk around sounding like a pig. It’s more like humphing.”
“I know, but it has the same effect. Lack of respect. Pay up.”
She snorted again, rummaged in her pocket and came up with a quarter.
Chapter Three (#uc4c5f52a-067d-5c51-b82d-f75aa4ed876c)
At the seniors’ residence, Sam parked and they got out of the car.
Sam had come to Rodeo to check out this place along with the women.
Gramps had been admitted nine or so months ago, when much of Sam’s life had still been in a state of flux, with visits to the lawyer’s office almost a daily occurrence.
Sam had seen many horror stories about elder abuse on the news. He hadn’t known what to expect, but the two-story residence looked homey. Wide windows on the first floor looked out on golden fields and gray mountains in the distance.
“This doesn’t look so bad,” Sam said.
Sam corresponded with Gramps regularly, but hadn’t seen him in a couple of years thanks to his messy divorce. Whatever had been happening in his own life, he should have taken the time to come see his grandfather, to make sure everything was okay.
Considering that Gramps had visited every year since Sam was born, his canceled trips had been a real cause for concern.
Then again, he was pushing ninety.
At the reception desk, they got his room number. Sam found the pace of his steps quickening the farther down the hallway he strode and the closer he got to his grandfather.
As a child, Sam’s life with Mom and Dad had been formal and less than affectionate. But Gramps had been all about hugs, kisses and effusive expressions of love. Sweet balm to a lonely kid.
They rounded the corner into his room and Chelsea bounded over to the frail man in the wheelchair beside the window.
“Chelsea! Sam!” Gramps clung to his great-granddaughter with closed eyes. When he opened them, they were watery.
“You’ve grown.” His voice, anything but frail, jumped with love and his irreverent humor. “You’re a young woman. What’s all of this?”
He studied the black nail polish. He feathered a touch over the spider’s web of mascara obscuring her pretty blue eyes.
“Where did all of this come from? Where’s my little Chelsea?”
Chelsea shoved her hands behind her back. She shrugged, moody again.
Gramps touched her cheek and smiled. “You’re still my beautiful girl.”
He turned his gimlet gaze on Sam. “What’s with the hat and boots? You’ve never worn cowboy boots in your life.”
Sam surged forward to shake his hand. Still surprisingly strong, Gramps pulled him down for a hug. Sam hung on, love rushing through him like a clear mountain stream. His vision misted.
“It’s good to see you,” Sam said and then cleared his throat. When he straightened, he kept his grandfather’s hand clutched in his own.
This, this, was why he was here, to protect this dear old guy. Heaven help this town if they cheated his grandfather.
Gramps’s eyes were damp again, too. They’d struck up this magical bond through the annual visits Gramps had made to New York City.
When finally old enough to understand how much Gramps hated the city, Sam realized the sacrifice Gramps made in spending every Christmas with Sam instead of in his beloved town.
His love for his only grandchild was clear.
It served to cement Sam’s love for him all the more.
“We’re here incognito, Gramps,” Chelsea blurted. Sam wished she hadn’t. He’d planned to ease into the particular form of subterfuge he’d originally hoped he wouldn’t have to use.
Gramps came to attention. “You’re here to fix my problem?”
“Yes. I told you I was coming to help.”
“Yeah, but what’s this about being incognito?” Gramps frowned. “What does Chelsea mean?”
No help for it now. He might as well jump in.
“She’s right,” Sam admitted. “I’m not using Carmichael. We’re here as the Michaelses. We’re Sam and Chelsea Michaels.”
“Why?” Gramps sounded frail.
“To find out exactly what’s going on with the fair those women in town are putting on this summer.”
“I asked you to make sure they aren’t cheating me. I thought you would come here to confront them directly.”
“I decided this was better.”
“You want to be dishonest.”
