Page 51 of The Surprise

“Did you hear me? I said just the ranch.”

“Oh, I heard you boy. You lied and said it was just the ranch.” She pats the sofa next to her chair. “Sit.”

“I’ve got an entire carload of—”

“Ethan Brooks, sit down.”

I sit.

“What else is going on this month in particular?”

I haven’t told anyone about Beth. At first, it was because it was kind of exciting to have a secret. But then, it was like it was too late. You can’t really get sympathy for a loss no one knows you had. If I’d been more honest at the start, I might have a support system in dealing with my not-breakup.

I mean, I told Mom I like Beth.

But she thinks it’s the same way I like Ford F-150s. Or the same as I like chocolate cake. Or how Gabe likes Legos.

She doesn’t know I like her like she likes Dr. Archer.

That was my one hope, really. That she might want to stick around for him. I guess he’s a little bummed about not being enough, too.

“It’s that Ellingson girl, ain’t it?”

I nearly jump out of my skin. “Are you telepathic?”

She cackles, and I swear, she sounds scarier than any witch on any Halloween movie I’ve ever seen. When she slaps her leg, I can’t quite keep from shifting away from her by a few inches on the sofa.

“I knew it.”

She’s pretty insightful for a woman who lived next to the love of her life for fifty plus years without ever telling him, much less kissing him.

“So you’re upset because you like that girl, and now her daddy lost you the ranch and you’re moving. You mad at her? Or just yourself?”

“Neither.”

“Your mom, then.”

I shake my head. “I mean, I know she tried.”

“But your mom doesn’t try. Shewins.”

I look at my feet.

“And she let you down.”

“I’m a jerk for even thinking it,” I say. “I know that. I love her, and I know she did her best.”

“Maybe,” Amanda Saddler says. “You know, this isn’t really her fault, though.”

“No?” I meet her unsettling gaze. “Whose fault is it? Beth’s dad?”

Amanda Saddler shrugs. “Snakes bite. It’s what they do. Blaming them is a waste of time. But old Jed really screwed this one up royally. What that idiot was thinking, I will never know.”

“If he’d just given it to us, like everyone thinks he should have, we’d have just sold it.”

She stares at me for a moment. “You’re smarter than you look.”

“I look stupid?” I can’t help being a little offended about that.

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