𝙵𝙻𝙴𝚂𝙷 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙱𝙾𝙽𝙴 | 𝚃. 𝙾𝚃𝚃𝙾 𐂃

Chapter 8

This chapter took a while but here you go!!

"Excuse me." The polite voice behind her made Cristine falter in her stride and she turned halfway around.

Nick's mother.

Since Charlene's funeral, she hadn't talked or been personally introduced to the teen's mother. Nick didn't resemble his mother in personality at all. He was less guarded and seemed a bit more prone to influence than his mother. Cristine glanced around, making sure she was the one being addressed. The quad keys rolled inside her palm while she looked at the slightly shorter middle aged woman with shoulder length hair. The expression on her face was soft, but the sharpness in her gaze wasn't hard to decipher. She was as equally sociable as cautious. Understandable, but Cristine wasn't quite sure why the woman approached her out of the blue. Therefore she didn't hide her puzzlement and slightly arched her brow.

"I talked to your father, you must be Cristine." She stretched out her arm when introducing herself, a smile on her lips. "I'm Madison, Nick's mother." The sound of her keys stopped, but Cristine made no move to accept the gesture and just pursed her lips together. Madison didn't seem to mind and dropped her hand, the smile still there but less prominent.

"I wanted to personally thank you... you saved Luciana's life and my daughter's. We're grateful." Cristine couldn't help but quirk her lips up as well. Charlene was more or less 'killed' because of her and her family, so Madison had to socialize with the Ranchers and change that image. However, with her it was different. Madison Clark was deliberate and Cristine grasped the reason why Madison approached her. Cristine was one of the founder's next of kin, surprisingly different but still accepted by the community. And as someone who could most likely understand their situation, Madison wanted to bond with the pariah of the Ranch. Or maybe she'd seen Troy and her interact and wanted to use that to her advantage. Cristine's lips tilted upwards, but the emotion didn't reach her eyes. "Don't mention it. It's one of the things I do around here."

There was some hesitation in the woman's face as it morphed into something like curiosity before she voiced her thoughts out loud, "your father told me that you came a few months before us all the way from San Francisco... by yourself."

"I did, I took a chance and was lucky to have made it to my family. My condolences... for Travis, he sounded like a good person," Cristine answered and showed her a light smile of compassion, hopefully the emotion showed.

This time, her response wasn't as exaggeratedly played out and with dewy eyes she nodded her thanks. "You should go and eat breakfast and try to talk to some other people. They might act like a stubborn herd, but without too much of their shepherd's influence, they're fine with anything if you earn your keep and pull your weight."

"Thank you."

"I'll see you around Madison Clark." Cristine waved cordially, jumped into the quad and drove off to the crop fields.

-

Troy smirked when Cristine waltzed passed the fence with some gardening tools at hand and said his greetings, "good afternoon to you too. How's your patient?" He saw her rotate her jaw and continued clipping pieces of barbed wire for the fence of the cabbage field. Upon Cristine's glare, he shrugged innocently and replied. "I'm genuinely worried. I don't want to see you get disappointed if she doesn't make it."

Rolling her eyes, she walked closer to the fence that seemed to have been intentionally ruined. "Then you'll be thrilled to know that she'll make it. Luciana is in the clear soon, so the cuffs won't be necessary."

"Hmm," he hummed in forcef amazement and lowered his head on the pliers, covering the light frown on his face. Cristine was almost tempted to stick it in his face, almost, but kept her mouth shut and gestured at the half eaten cabbages behind him.