I shot Sid a look and shrugged my shoulders at my mistake. It was going to take a lot more practice than I thought to remember this new man that I was supposed to be. I had a hard-enough time remembering the man I already was.
“That’s a pity; I think you’d do well there. My daughter, Sarah, will likely be home for a few months very soon. If you’d like, I’ll have her teach you about them and you could be in charge of their care with her.”
“Anything you’d like. I’m here to work, ma’am. I can do anything.”
“Have Walter start him in the horse house tomorrow,” Meredith said to her husband before leading us into the house. “Have a seat; let’s get some lemonade into you and chat for a minute.”
The idea of chatting had turned my blood cold. In my old life, I would have loved to sit down and talk with a nice couple like the Millers. But I could barely remember the name of my cover story, and certainly couldn’t remember any of the facts about this pretend person I was supposed to be.
I was going to need to distract her and quickly. One of my favorite conversation techniques was distraction. When a woman I had been dating for a few weeks started asking about more long term decisions I always distracted her with gifts and trips. It worked surprisingly well, at least for a little while, but eventually they came back to nagging about a commitment.
With a good woman, I had no problem being loyal. I wasn’t a cheater. I liked one woman and would date her exclusively. My issue always came when they started talking about moving in together, getting married, and having babies. I wasn’t ready for all of that. Not with them at least. I knew that someday I would be ready and hoped that I would magically know that it was the right woman. But up until that point in my life, I certainly had not been ready.
“Is this your daughter?” I asked as I looked at the picture on the wall.
“Yes, that’s Sarah.”
“Well I can see where she gets her good looks.”
“Careful, boy,” Sid jokingly replied.
“Why is she coming back home? She looks pretty successful in this photo.”
I watched as Mr. and Mrs. Miller looked at each other and it was clear neither of them wanted to discuss the situation. But at least we weren’t talking about me, for that, I was very grateful.
Their daughter was pretty, but didn’t look happy at all in the photo of her standing in an extremely large office. The background looked like New York City; I had been there many times throughout my own career. But I had enjoyed the climb to becoming a successful CEO; their daughter did not look happy to be on her climb to the top at all. Her face was grimaced and she leaned stiffly against a large desk. Sarah had brown hair that was swept up in a bun and a stiff body position, I could tell even from the photos she was stressed out.
“Politics,” Sid replied. “Everything is always about politics.” We all laughed.
I knew he was joking, but he really wasn’t all that far from the truth. Politics did seem to run the world. It had taken me several years of business to figure that out, but when I finally got my brain around it, I did much better in my business.
Whatever the reasoning for their daughter coming home, it had to be a pretty big deal. All of the people I knew who had large offices in New York had large salaries that went with them. If their daughter was coming home, I had to guess that she was either fired, pregnant, or sick. People just didn’t leave their large salaries to move back home with their parents.
“I’m pretty exhausted; would you all mind if I made my way back to my bunk and got some sleep before work tomorrow?”
“Oh, sure, dear; I’m sure you’re tired. We are happy to have you here and I’ll see you in the morning. Breakfast is served at half after four.”
My face had to have gone as pale as a ghost at those words because both Sid and Mrs. Miller cracked a smile at my reaction. This little trip to a Montana ranch was clearly going to be much more difficult than I had expected. But then again, how was I really to know what to expect?
It had only been 72 hours since I’d agreed to testify against Frank Gordano. I was new to the whole witness protection world and had mistakenly thought I would get to hide out in a luxury cabin at the ends of the earth until the trial came. Actually, I guessed that I wouldn’t be totally comfortable wherever they sent me, but I just hadn’t thought that lack of comfort was going to include a lack of sleep.
Agent Walker, who had been my escort to the house had been surprisingly vague about what it was that I was going to be doing while on the ranch. He had given me my cowboy clothes and laughed at my inability to put them on right. He had put me at ease about how long I’d be at the ranch and even made me think that a good day’s work would be good for me because otherwise I’d be bored.
I didn’t mind work. I honestly did think that working during the day would keep my mind off of everything that was goin
g on. And if I had to start my day at that ungodly hour of the morning, at least I would be done early and would get the afternoons to myself. I hoped to get some books to read and maybe even work on writing my own book. I had wanted to do that for years. Perhaps this was going to be the perfect opportunity to really start writing my dream book.
“Is there an alarm in the bunkhouse?” I asked.
If they wanted me to get up that early, I was certainly going to need some strong alarm clock to pry open my eyelids. I was normally a fairly early riser, but to me, that was getting up at six and heading to the gym. I liked to get a good run in and use the weights before heading to the office. This was going to be a bit of an adjustment for my internal clock to deal with.
“You won’t need one. I’ll see you in the morning,” Mrs. Miller said as she smiled and hugged me one last time and walked me out.
Sid also had a huge smile on his face and I couldn’t help but wonder why it was so funny that I was afraid of getting up that early. Had they worked on a ranch so long that they actually thought that was a normal hour for human beings to be awake?
They clearly didn’t understand just how much I valued my sleep. I was pretty damn sure there was no way I could climb out of my bed in the morning without a swift kick in the ass. But I had to trust her; we were an hour away from the nearest town and I didn’t have the means to get anywhere. Part of the simplicity of being placed at the ranch was that it was so far away from everyone that it made me much harder to find. I needed to avoid going into towns or being seen by anyone else outside of the ranch.
“Thank you again,” I said as I turned back toward the Millers.