Rocky Mountain Daddy

by Lois Richer

  “No, it isn’t—” She dragged her phone from her pocket and stared at it. “It’s dead again.”

  “You need a new one.” Nothing like stating the obvious, cowboy.

  “This is the second new battery I’ve put in it. I’ll order a new one tomorrow.” She shoved it back in her pocket. “Skylar again. I thought that kid was up to something.”

  “Wish I’d—” Gabe cut himself off when the doctor appeared.

  “Emmet’s fine. He’ll have a bump on his noggin, though. I want him to rest for another fifteen minutes before he leaves. The nurse will give you a list of things to watch for. Nothing serious, just precautionary.”

  Gabe listened as Olivia extensively questioned the medical professional, like an overprotective mother. He finally intervened so the doctor could answer a page.

  “Emmet’s fine.” He blinked in surprise when strong, capable Olivia’s face crumpled. She threw herself into his arms and started crying. “Hey. It’s okay,” he murmured, smoothing a hand down her shiny hair. “It’s all good.”

  “It’s not good at all,” she sobbed against his chest. “I knew Skylar was up to something.”

  “You couldn’t know that, Olivia,” he protested, loving the way she fit in his arms. Where she belonged.

  “I knew. He has this way of looking at you,” she asserted, lifting her head to frown at him. “When Skylar’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes, trouble always follows. I’ve seen it before and I should have warned you.”

  “Olivia.” She moved as if to pull away, but Gabe held her arms.

  “Yes?” She looked at him in puzzlement.

  “How could you have warned me?” He had to reassure her that no one could have foreseen the boy’s actions. “What would you have said? Be careful. Watch out?”

  “Maybe.” Frustration chewed at the edges of her response.

  “But we were already doing that. Every time we allow someone to sit on our horses we do that. We check and double-check. We always watch as closely as we can,” he insisted.

  “I know. But—”

  “No.” Gabe shook his head. “You can’t be their babysitter, and neither can we, Liv. They have to follow the rules. Unfortunately, they suffer the consequences if they don’t.”

  “But that’s just it. It’s not Skylar suffering,” she shot back with a glare.

  “Isn’t he?” Gabe raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t that why he keeps acting out? Because somewhere inside him something hurts, and he can’t make it better? Because he needs you and The Haven to help him figure it out?”

  “I’m not good at figuring out kids or trying to be a parent.” Tears streaked her lovely face as she gazed at him. Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I want to be. I wish so desperately that I could be like their mother and protect them. But I’m not. I’ll never be a mother.”

  That threw Gabe off balance. He’d never suspected to hear such a depth of longing in Olivia’s voice, never suspected that she yearned to be a mom.

  “Why not?” he demanded. “You’re great with Eli. You’re great with the kids at The Haven. Just because you had a tough childhood doesn’t mean you wouldn’t make a great mother, Olivia.”

  “Two kids died, Gabe.”

  “Stop,” he snapped, hating to see her suffer. “Both were accidents. Let go of the past.” The funny little smile tilting up the corners of her mouth surprised him. “What’s funny?”

  “This advice of yours.” She shook her head, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Earlier today I was thinking the same thing about you.”

  “Huh?” Olivia thought about him?

  “Do you remember when Eli started to tell you about his mom and you cut him off? Your anger at Eve always gets in the way between you and him,” Olivia said in a very quiet tone. “I’m wondering why you don’t let the past go, just as you’ve told me to do.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Isn’t it?” Her honest stare made him flinch. “Things happen to all of us. But I’m learning the past is past. You and I can’t change it. If you want a future with Eli, you have to let the past go.” Her smile darted back to her lips. “I do, too.”

  He loved that about Olivia, her chipper, take-it-on-the-shoulder-and-come-back-fighting air that squared her posture and lifted her determined chin. But it was her silver-gray eyes that wouldn’t let him off the hook.

  “I can’t. It keeps coming back,” he muttered.

  “Because you let it.” She eased away from him, tossed her head and blew her nose. “I’ve been doing the same thing with my fears. But I’m not doing it anymore. Life’s too short to be constantly living in the past.”

  “Meaning?” He didn’t think he liked where this was going.

  “I have a job to do for as long as I’m here. Then I’ll move on. I believe that’s God’s plan for me and until He shows me differently, I’m committed to obeying Him. The aunties texted me a verse this morning. ‘For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an unexpected end.’” She tugged her shirt and straightened her shoulders. “I’ve got to believe God will keep His word. So no more weeping, no more whining over the past for me. It’s time, past time, for me to trust God completely.”

  “That’s what I love about you, Olivia.” The words tumbled out of Gabe before he could stop them. Stunned and a little embarrassed by them, he hurried on. “You never run away from challenges. You keep pushing forward. You’re an admirable woman.”

  He stared at her, mesmerized by her quiet beauty. Then, without conscious thought and following an overwhelming impulse, Gabe leaned forward and kissed her the way his heart had been demanding for weeks now. Olivia startled, then eagerly responded. Gabe eased his arm around her waist and drew her closer, deepening the kiss as he tried to show her how much she meant to him, completely forgetting his vow not to love.

  When Olivia’s arms twined around his neck. Gabe thought he’d never been happier, until someone cleared their throat.

  “Sorry.” The amused nurse couldn’t conceal the glimmer in her eyes. She winked at the boy standing beside her. “Emmet has been discharged. You may take him home.”

  “Thank you.” Olivia slipped away from Gabe and knelt beside the little boy. “I’m so sorry this happened, Emmet.”

  “It was Skylar’s fault,” the boy insisted quietly.

  Gabe frowned. Emmet didn’t sound angry or upset with Skylar. He wondered why. Apparently, Olivia did, too.

  “What do you think I should do about that?” she asked.

  Emmet took his time considering while the nurse ushered them out of the hospital. He walked between Gabe and Olivia across the parking lot, his dark eyes narrowed.

  “You gotta talk to him and find out what’s making him so mad,” Emmet finally suggested. “’Cause that’s why he does stuff.”

  “You are a very smart boy, Emmet.” Olivia brushed her hand over his bristly hair. She smiled at Gabe, then her eyes widened. “Oh. Your truck. My car.”

  “Yeah. How about if you take Emmet back to The Haven. I need to get to the ranch. I’ve got stuff to do.” Not that he wanted to leave Olivia. But Gabe needed some time and distance from her to think about that kiss, about what it implied.

  About where he wanted it to go. And where it couldn’t.

  “Sure. Thanks, Gabe.” She pointed to her car. “Over here, Emmet.”

  “Thank you for helping me, Gabe,” the little boy said.

  “My pleasure. Feel better, okay?” Gabe smiled as the kid nodded.

  Olivia shepherded Emmet into her car and ensured his seat belt was fastened before she opened her door. After a moment’s thought she turned and called, “See you later?”

  “I’ll be there to pick up Eli, as usual.” But man, Gabe wanted to go with her now, to sneak a few more moments holding her, k
issing her again. His brain held him back.

  Remember Eve, cowboy? Think carefully about what you’re about to do, about where this could leave you.

  “Then thanks again.” Olivia gave him a big smile before she got into her car and drove away.

  Gabe figured there were probably a hundred jobs waiting for him back at the Double M, but he stood exactly where he was for several minutes, watching Olivia’s car disappear.

  He couldn’t love Olivia. But he did. He wanted to be with her, listen to her dreams and fears, tell her about his own. He wanted to ask her opinion about his birthday party idea for Eli and make sure she’d be there for it.

  He wanted her to stay. Forever.

  But loving Olivia scared him. To be so dependent? To need someone as badly as he needed her in his world, to once again invest himself in love? What if it didn’t work out? What if she couldn’t or wouldn’t stay? What if loving him wasn’t what she wanted?

  His phone chimed with a text from his boss. How long will you be?

  On the way, Gabe texted back. Thrusting away all thoughts of Olivia and what they might share if she loved him, he drove back to the ranch and concentrated on work for the rest of the day. But Livvie was never far from his thoughts.

  * * *

  Olivia’s one-on-one with Skylar produced several results. But the best one was that after apologizing to Emmet, the two became best friends. Emmet made Skylar face his feelings instead of brushing them off. And Skylar taught Emmet confidence.

  Three days later, watching the two of them roasting marshmallows, Olivia knew she’d been right not to send the boy home. Her heart sang with joy at the changes God was working in her kids.

  Funny how they’d become hers, each one special, unique and loved. She’d taken the aunts’ advice and initiated these smaller-sized get-togethers, times to sit around a campfire and talk about what returning home would be like for them. Slowly their deepest fears emerged.

  Olivia’s heart ached as they discussed how scary it felt to be moved from a familiar place to a new one where no one understood anything about you. She could empathize with those who spoke of how hard it was to be the only one who felt they didn’t belong. Their pain touched her deepest soul as she whispered a prayer for those who’d lost families or couldn’t find the love they longed for. Most of all she prayed they’d experience a deepening of the faith in God they were just learning about. Sometimes kids begged her to let them stay. Those were the hardest times of all for Olivia.

  “Everyone at The Haven loves you so much, kids,” she said gently, forcing back tears as she studied the faces peering at her so trustingly. “That’s why we wanted to make your vacation here special. But soon you’ll be leaving because—” she paused, imprinting each face on her mind to pray for later “—vacations don’t last forever.”

  “They do for you,” Skylar yelled. Olivia had just learned that Skylar was in a horrible home situation where he was basically ignored. He needed attention, any kind of attention to acknowledge him. “You belong here.”

  “You’re wrong, Skylar.” Olivia smiled at his astonished look. “I came here for a visit before I start my new job in Edmonton. I’m just helping out until my foster sister Victoria gets better.”

  “You mean you were a foster kid, too?” Tyler and the rest of the group stared at her in disbelief.

  Never once had Olivia felt comfortable sharing her past. But tonight her heart went out to these kids. They thought they were alone in the world. They’d leave tomorrow and perhaps never return. This would be her last intimate interaction with them as a group, and she longed to send them away with hope, to show them they weren’t alone.

  She wanted them to know that she had gone through the same longing and survived. No, better than that. She’d flourished. Maybe if she let God’s light shine on them, her fears would be healed. For good.

  “I was a foster child,” she said. A sense of peace filled her and somehow it was okay to admit the truth, to let out all the awful secrets that had bound her spirit for so long. “When I was just a few days old, I was left in a hospital with only my name pinned to my blanket. I never knew my parents. I don’t know if I ever had a family.”

  “But you got to come here,” Skylar pressed.

  “I came to The Haven when I was twelve.” Olivia gazed at their sweet faces. “But before that I lived in lots of different homes. Some bad things happened to me along the way. Maybe things have happened to you, too.”

  “You never told us this before,” Skylar accused. Not all the hard edges had been softened from him, but at least now Olivia understood a little of where he was coming from.

  “No,” she admitted.

  “Why not?” He glared at her.

  “I don’t like to talk about my past. It hurts.” No going back now. “Foster kids learn how to do lots of things, don’t we? We learn not to cause a fuss. Maybe then we’ll get to stay. That didn’t work for me.”

  No child moved. Eyes remained on her face, and oddly enough that gave Olivia the freedom she needed.

  “I became really good at being the babysitter, the one in charge, the person my foster parents asked to help with everything and depended on. But then something bad happened.”

  “What did you do wrong?” a little girl named Esther asked.

  “I don’t know.” For the first time in eons, Olivia let herself relive that awful inability to free her foster sibling. Was there something she’d forgotten to do, something she’d missed? Despair hovered like a blanket waiting to drop.

  “Livvie didn’t do anything wrong.” Gabe’s quiet voice came from behind her. He sat down on the tree stump beside her, cradling a sleeping Eli on his knee while his other hand clasped hers. “Sometimes things happen that aren’t anyone’s fault.”

  “But you get blamed.” Skylar nodded, his face miserable. “I know about that.”

  Esther ignored him. “What happened, Livvie?”

  “A fire.” Olivia clung to Gabe’s hand as a flood of memories cascaded into her brain. Let me say it, Lord. If it will help even one of these children, I need to say it. “I got out of the house, but I couldn’t save my foster brother. He died.”

  “Where were his mom and dad?” Skylar demanded.

  “I—I don’t remember.” She glanced at Gabe, surprised by a new thought. “I don’t remember them being there.”

  “Did they go somewhere and leave you in charge?” he asked, squeezing her fingers as she searched the awful memories for an answer.

  “I don’t know. It was night and I wasn’t old enough to babysit. I was just a kid. Like you guys.” Olivia squeezed her eyes closed, framing that horrible time in her mind. “The parents came after,” she said, slightly bemused by this revelation. “They were angry. They asked me how I got out and he didn’t.”

  Gabe met her stare while truth filtered through her brain. In that moment those parents had wished her dead, but not because she was bad or because she’d let him die. They were just bereft parents aching to have their beloved son back.

  “It was grief talking, Olivia. Grief.”

  She nodded with new understanding. But she couldn’t speak. Not yet.

  Esther knelt and laid her head on Olivia’s knees. “I wish I could take away the hurt like you sometimes take our hurts.”

  “Thank you, Esther.” Olivia’s heart overflowed with love for this dear child. For all of them. “Thank you for listening. God is still taking away my hurt. I’m learning that sometimes if we talk to other people about the bad things that have happened to us, that also helps heal our hurt. Does anyone want to talk?”

  It was as if a dam broke. One by one, in hushed voices with halting sentences the children began to reveal bad things they’d experienced, feared and endured. As if sensing the preciousness of this moment, no one interrupted. Each child waited, listened and comforted. For Esther that was th
rough touch. For Skylar that was by encouragement. For Emmet that was simply sitting next to the sufferer, being there.

  Through it all, Gabe’s hand held hers, an anchor in a storm of emotion Olivia had neither anticipated nor prepared for. All she could do was silently pray.

  Complete darkness had fallen when the last child’s story died away. The group sat silent, contemplative and yet at peace, as if nothing could ever be so bad again.

  “When you go home, and life seems too hard to bear, I want you to remember this evening,” Olivia said into the tender silence. “I want you to remember that we are never, ever alone. We have a heavenly Father who loves us more than we can ever imagine. We can always talk to Him and He will always listen. He knows all the sad, hurt things about you, and He knows how to make it better.”

  If they were so precious to her, how much more so to God?

  “I always kept my hurt and fear tied up inside. Don’t do that. When you need to tell your story to someone, do it. Tell your foster parents, or your social worker or your teacher. If nobody else will listen, I’ll always listen. You all know how to email The Haven?”

  Nods all around.

  “If no one will listen, email me,” she told them. “I will listen. I promise.”

  “Olivia.” Gabe’s hand tightened, his tone full of warning.

  But Olivia was tired of holding back.

  “Thank you all for sharing. You’ve made this a wonderful evening I will never forget. Now it’s time for bed.”

  Counsellors shepherded their groups to their cabins. Olivia heaved a sigh.

  “That was amazing,” she said, feeling lighter, freer than she had in years. She hugged Gabe, careful not to disturb Eli. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”

  “But—”

  “Hi, Livvie.” Eli’s eyelashes fluttered up. A big smile stretched across his face. “I was having this dream about my mom—” Seeing Gabe’s mouth tighten into a forbidding line, he froze.