A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing. Joan Johnston

      It had seemed like such a good idea, when she had gotten the letter from John Wilkinson, to come to the Boulder River Valley and learn how to run great-uncle Cyrus’s sheep ranch. She loved animals and she loved being out-of-doors and she loved the mountains—she had heard that southwestern Montana had a lot of beautiful mountains. She’d expected opposition to such a move from her family, so she’d carefully chosen the moment to let them know about her decision.

      No Alistair ever argued at the dinner table. So, sitting at the elegant antique table that had been handed down from Alistair to Alistair for generations, she had waited patiently for a break in the dinner conversation and calmly announced, “I’ve decided to take advantage of my inheritance from great-uncle Cyrus. I’ll be leaving for Montana at the end of the week.”

      “But you can’t possibly manage a sheep ranch on your own, Harriet,” her mother admonished in a cultured voice. “And since you’re bound to fail, darling, I can’t understand why you would even want to give it a try. Besides,” she added, “think of the smell!”

      Harry—her mother cringed every time she heard the masculine nickname—had turned her compelling brown eyes to her father, looking for an encouraging word.

      “Your mother is right, sweetheart,” Terence Waverly Alistair said. “My daughter, a sheep farmer?” His thick white brows lowered until they nearly met at the bridge of his nose. “I’m afraid I can’t lend my support to such a move. You haven’t succeeded at a single job I’ve found for you, sweetheart. Not the one as a teller in my bank, not the one as a secretary, nor the the one as a medical receptionist. You’ve gotten yourself fired for ineptness at every single one. It’s foolhardy to go so far—Montana is a long way from Virginia, my dear—merely to fail yet again. Besides,” he added, “think of the cold!”

      Harry turned her solemn gaze toward her older brother, Charles. He had been her champion in the past. He had even unbent so far as to call her Harry when their parents weren’t around. Now she needed his support. Wanted his support. Begged with her eyes for his support.

      “I’m afraid I have to agree with Mom and Dad, Harriet.”

      “But, Charles—”

      “Let me finish,” he said in a determined voice. Harry met her brother’s sympathetic gaze as he continued. “You’re only setting yourself up for disappointment. You’ll be a lot happier if you learn to accept your limitations.”

      “Meaning?” Harry managed to whisper past the ache in her throat.

      “Meaning you just aren’t clever enough to pull it off, Harriet. Besides,” he added, “think of all that manual labor!”

      Harry felt the weight of a lifetime of previous failures in every concerned but discouraging word her family had offered. They didn’t believe she could do it. She took a deep breath and let it out. She could hardly blame them for their opinion of her. To be perfectly honest, she had never given them any reason to think otherwise. So why was she so certain that this time things would be different? Why was she so certain that this time she would succeed? Because she knew something they didn’t: she had done all that failing in the past on purpose.

      Harry was paying now for years of deception. It had started innocently enough when she was a child and her mother had wanted her to take ballet lessons. At six Harry had already towered over her friends. Gawky and gangly, she knew she was never going to make a graceful prima ballerina. One look at her mother’s face, however, and Harry had known she couldn’t say, “No, thank you. I’d rather be playing basketball.”

      Instead, she’d simply acquired two left feet. It had worked. Her ballet instructor had quickly labeled her irretrievably clumsy and advised Isabella Alistair that she would only be throwing her money away if Harriet continued in the class. Isabella was forced to admit defeat. Thus, unbeknownst to her parents, Harry had discovered at a very early age a passive way of resisting them.

      Over the years Harry had never said no to her parents. It had been easier simply to go along with whatever they had planned. Piano lessons were thwarted with a deaf ear; embroidery had been abandoned as too bloody; and her brief attempt at tennis had resulted in a broken leg.

      As she had gotten older, the stakes had gotten higher. She had only barely avoided a plan to send her away to college at Radcliffe by getting entrance exam scores so low that they had astonished the teachers who had watched her get straight A’s through high school. She had been elated when her distraught parents had allowed her to enroll at the same local university her friends from high school were attending.

      Harry knew she should have made some overt effort to resist each time her father had gotten her one of those awful jobs after graduation, simply stood up to him and said, “No, I’d rather be pursuing a career that I’ve chosen for myself.” But old habits were hard to break. It had been easier to prove inept at each and every one.

      When her parents chose a husband for her, she’d resorted to even more drastic measures. She’d concealed what looks she had, made a point of reciting her flaws to her suitor and resisted his amorous advances like a starched-up prude. She had led the young man to contemplate life with a plain, clumsy, cold-natured, brown-eyed, brown-haired, freckle-faced failure. He had beat a hasty retreat.

      Now a lifetime of purposeful failure had come home to roost. She couldn’t very well convince her parents she was ready to let go of the apron strings when she had so carefully convinced them of her inability to succeed at a single thing they had set for her to do. She might have tried to explain to them her failure had only been a childish game that had been carried on too long, but that would mean admitting she’d spent her entire life deceiving them. She couldn’t bear to hurt them like that. Anyway, she didn’t think they’d believe her if she told them her whole inept life had been a sham.

      Now Harry could see, with the clarity of twenty-twenty hindsight, that she’d hurt herself even more than her parents by the choices she’d made. But the method of dealing with her parents’ manipulation, which she’d started as a child and continued as a teenager, she’d found impossible to reverse as an adult. Until now. At twenty-six she finally had the perfect opportunity to break the pattern of failure she’d pursued for a lifetime. She only hoped she hadn’t waited too long.

      Harry was certain she could manage her great-uncle Cyrus’s sheep ranch. She was certain she could do anything she set her brilliant mind to do. After all, it had taken brilliance to fail as magnificently, and selectively, as she had all these years. So now, when she was determined to succeed at last, she’d wanted her family’s support. It was clear she wasn’t going to get it. And she could hardly blame them for it. She was merely reaping what she had so carefully sowed.

      Harry had a momentary qualm when she wondered whether they might be right. Maybe she was biting off more than she could chew. After all, what did she know about sheep or sheep ranching? Then her chin tilted up and she clenched her hands in her lap under the table. They were wrong. She wouldn’t fail. She could learn what she didn’t know. And she would succeed.

      Harriet Elizabeth Alistair was convinced in her heart that she wasn’t a failure. Surely, once she made up her mind to stop failing, she could. Once she was doing something she had chosen for herself, she was bound to succeed. She would show them all. She wasn’t what they thought her—someone who had to be watched and protected from herself and the cold, cruel world around her. Rather, she was a woman with hopes and dreams, none of which she’d been allowed—or rather, allowed herself—to pursue.

      Like a pioneer of old, Harry wanted to go west to build a new life. She was prepared for hard work, for frigid winter mornings and searing summer days. She welcomed the opportunity to build her fortune with the sweat of her brow and the labor of her back. Harry couldn’t expect her family to understand why she wanted to try to make it on her own in a cold, smelly, faraway place where she would have to indulge in manual labor. She had something to prove to herself. This venture was the Boston Tea Party and the Alamo and Custer’s Last Stand all rolled into one. In the short run she might lose a few battles, but she was determined to win the war.

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