The Long Ride Home (Cowboys & Cowgirls) Read Free Page A

good merger then,” her father said, understanding. Elena didn’t know what they were talking about.
    “ A merger? A marriage is hardly a merger,” Elena said, wanting to know what her father was getting at.
    “Adjoining land, young lady. Ranching is about land, and my land has been in my family for years.”
    “Yeah, but…”
    “Where’s your mother? Why isn’t she here?”
    Elena’s eyes filled with tears now, and she looked at Holton for help. Holton grabbed the old man’s shoulder and smiled. “She just went out. She’s been here waiting for you to wake up. You know, ranching women. She had to make sure everything was running all right.”
    Elena looked into Holton’s eyes and smiled.
    “Sounds like my Claire. Now, you, you can get going,” he said, looking at Elena. Then he looked at Holton. “Take care of my daughter, young man,” he said.
    “I will.”
    And that was the last thing she heard from her father. He died that night in his sleep. The swelling didn’t stop and he bled out.
    ***
    The whole next week was much of a blur with funeral preparations, announcements, and obituaries and will readings. Elena could hardly believe that it was just last week that she was worrying about her finals. She had one week of school left until Christmas break and then she was off for three more weeks. She had to go back to take her finals and then take the long way home once more. Several times that week she thought maybe she would just forget finals all together, but knew her father would not have liked that.
    “Elena, are you in here?” Ho lton asked as he came into the house. He walked into the living room and found her sitting alone on the couch. She was wearing a black dress and a string of pearls around her neck.
    “Honey?”
    Elena looked up with tears in her eyes. “I still can’t believe he’s gone. I…what’s going to happen? I have to go back to school and I don’t know how I’m going to do it.”
    “We’ll talk about that when we get back, sweetheart. Everything is going to be fine. You’ll see.”
    Elena nodded and stood up, holding on to Holton’s hand. He led her out to the car and helped her in. The drive to the cemetery only took a few minutes from the house.

Chapter 4
     
    “ E lena, I’m so sorry about your father,” Joe Thomas said, coming up to them at the start of the funeral.
    “Thank you.”
    “Elena, I went to school with your father,” a man that Elena didn’t know came up to her and shook her hand. “He was a very good man.”
    Elena smiled and nodded. “Thank you, he was.”
    There were many condolences throughout the service, and many of them, like at her mother’s funeral, were from people that she had never met before. She hadn’t realized before how many people her father touched during his life. He was a good man, one that she was proud to call father.
    After Pastor Mike gave the final prayer, she placed a white rose on his casket and they lowered it to the ground. She cried and Holton held her and soothed her until the last person left the cemetery.
     
    “I can’t stop thinking about what my father would want. I can’t stop thinking about my mother and when she died. My father, he wanted me to concentrate on going to school. She died my freshman year, just when I started, and now I’m in my final year and this happens to my father. I know what he would want.  I have to go back to school, Holton. I have next week. As soon as I’m finished on Friday, I’ll come back and figure out what I’m going to do with the house.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “What do you think? I promised my parents I would finish college. I need to finish, I just don’t know what I am going to do for money. It’s either the house or…I don’t know. I only have one more year left.”
    “You can’t…you aren’t selling the ranch.”
    Elena looked up and shook her head. “No, I don’t want to. It has been in my dad’s family for years…you heard him. But