He continually scanned the room, careful to appear disinterested. Scattered around the room were ten men, all in their early twenties, grouped in twos and threes, mostly talking about women. He wasn’t interested in talking about tits and asses. He preferred discussions about literature, politics, international relations, or sports. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy women’s company. He did—often—but he was resisting the pull of a long-term commitment. Being tied down wouldn’t fit into his lifestyle or life plan for at least another decade.
An old story had floated around the club for years that if a member hadn’t made his first million by the time he was thirty, the club would give it to him. JC made his first million before he turned sixteen. Since then, as his portfolio expanded enough to put him on the Forbes list of under-thirty multimillionaire philanthropists, he looked for more ways to give it away. That’s why he was meeting with the Manager of Donor Services. He wanted to underwrite another scholarship.
“JC!” a familiar baritone voice called out to him.
“George!” JC pushed to his feet and greeted George with a fist bump/hug combo. He and George met their freshman year, and while their friendship continued through undergrad and law school, they lived in different cities now and only saw each other once or twice a year. But their bond was still strong enough that he would be a groomsman at George’s wedding and vice versa. “Nice surprise.”
“What brings you up here from the hotbed of political discourse?”
JC laughed. “You’ve got that right. I have a meeting on campus first thing in the morning. What about you?”
“I just got out of one meeting and have another one in the morning.” George signaled to a waiter, who glided over and took his order for a beer. “I’m glad I ran into you. I rented a condo in Vale for early December, so block out a few days. I’m trying to get the old crowd together for a ski weekend.”
“I’ll put a hold on the first two weeks of December. Let me know as soon as you have a date.”
“Sure thing.” The waiter returned with the beer and set it on the side table next to George.
“Put it on my tab,” JC said with a nod to the waiter.
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
“Hell, George, we stopped keeping track years ago.” JC tapped his hardball glass against George’s bottle. “Cheers.”
George took a long pull. “Hey, I’m meeting Ensley in an hour. Unless you already have dinner plans, why don’t you join us?”
“Ensley? God, I haven’t seen her since”—he shrugged—“I don’t know when.” George’s drop-dead-gorgeous cousin had been a temptation at one time, but JC never crossed the line with her. Guys never dated their best friend’s sister—or, in this case, cousin. “Thanks, but I don’t want to intrude.”
George gestured with his beer bottle. “Intrude? Come on. Didn’t we eat together almost every night? You won’t be intruding now any more than you were then.”
“It’s different now. We don’t see each other every day. So what’s she doing? Is she still working in New York City?”
“Yeah, but she’s still struggling with losing her mom. It’s been hard on her.”
“I should have called her before now. When you lose your parents, it’s gotta put cracks in your world.”
George nodded. “Dr. Fraser’s in his late seventies. That has to concern you.”
“Dad’s timeless. He beat cancer, recovered from a mini-stroke, and looks younger today than he did when I first came to Cambridge.” Discussing his family’s health with anyone outside the immediate family was off-limits, even with someone as close as George. JC turned the subject back to Ensley. “So what’s she doing about the ranch?”
George rolled the bottle between his palms, looking at JC with sad eyes. “She sold it last week.”
JC hissed air through clenched teeth as the news swept over him. “Damn. That sucks. Why’d she do that? Was it an inheritance tax issue?”
“No, she would have qualified for an extension, but she knew she’d never move back there, and worrying about it would have driven her nuts.”
A memory of Ensley racing across the Badlands, blond hair streaming out behind her, reminded him of the stories he’d heard about Aunt Kit, galloping her Thoroughbred, Stormy, across MacKlenna Farm’s rolling hills. Aunt Kit was as much a part of the farm as the farm was part of her. And it was the same with Ensley and her ranch.
Although she still had lingering issues with her hip replacement following the bull-riding accident she had as a teenager, she loved the ranch. But it was that accident and months of rehab that forced her to reconsider her future. She hung up her spurs for good when Harvard accepted her into its freshman class.
He sipped his drink, aching for the choice Ensley was forced to make, and knowing it hadn’t been an easy one. He stopped reflecting and laughed. “I’ll never forget the campouts and heading to the hunting grounds at five thirty in the morning to duck hunt. Neither one of us could keep up with her.”
“That’s because she returned to the ranch every vacation and kept doing what she’d always done while we traveled abroad.”
“That makes me question her decision to sell even more. She loved that place.” JC took another sip, savoring the whisky’s spicy notes of cloves, ginger, and cinnamon while he thought about the ranch and the joy of riding through the Badlands. “I wish I’d known it was for sale.”
“What the hell would you do with a North Dakota ranch?”
JC shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think there’d be a business opportunity to market a working ranch as a family vacation destination. Maybe even offer seven- to fourteen-day cattle or horse drive adventures.”
“Like the movie City Slickers, where men go to learn how
