Unfortunately, the gift didn’t extend to automobiles.
“Are you sure this thing isn’t going to leave me stranded on the side of the road?” Carma asked, casting a dubious look at the vehicle parked in front of her parents’ house.
“Never has before.” Her uncle Tony gave the buckskin-colored hood of his eighties-era van a fond pat. “Unless you get caught in a blizzard. It isn’t worth a shit in snow.”
Which didn’t matter to Tony since the powwows where he was a drum singer were held mostly in the summer. And with her intentionally flexible itinerary, Carma wouldn’t have to push on if the roads got bad. At the moment, they stood basking in the sunny side of Montana’s disposition, with temperatures in the sixties. It would inevitably turn bitter, though, probably just in time for calving season to start.
“I still think I should wait until at least the middle of April,” Carma told her mother.
“We’ll be fine.” Her mom gave one of Tony’s braids a tug. “This one’s a real-good night man, ’cuz he likes to sleep all day.”
He grinned. “Long as I got my ol’ gray mare. She can sniff out a newborn calf in the pitch-dark.”
“And you promised your grandmother,” Carma’s mother pointed out—again. “December might seem like a long way off, but your brother’s enlistment will be up before we know it.”
The best any of them had been able to do was make him promise to wait until the last possible moment to sign away another four years of his life to the U.S. Army. Give them a chance to find a better option. Eddie insisted that he had two families—this one and the military—and he didn’t want to be separated from both. Since he had no interest in being a rancher and there were no other jobs around home to suit him, the army kept winning.
While Eddie lost. More of the sparkle in his eyes. More of the laughter. Each time he came home from a deployment—and there had been so many Carma had lost count—she could feel the added weight of death and disillusion on his soul.
They all feared that eventually it would drag him under.
After his too-short, too-quiet visit while on leave over the holidays, Grandma White Elk had decided to take charge, sitting Carma down and shoving a check into her hand. “You take that and go find what it will take to keep Eddie safe.”
Forty thousand dollars? Carma gaped at her. “And I’m supposed to use this to do what?”
“I’ve been looking into programs for veterans who’re disabled or having mental issues. Lord knows with so many of our people serving, we need something for them right here. Plus, Bing sent me this.”
She dropped a copy of Amarillo Country magazine into Carma’s lap. The glossy cover was a photo of two soldiers in jeans and camo T-shirts, smiling on horseback. The woman was missing an arm from just above the elbow. The man had no visible injuries, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t deeply wounded.
Beside them, a handsome sixtysomething man had an arm thrown over a younger woman’s shoulders. The headline read Patterson Foundation’s Equine-Based Therapy Program Provides Much-Needed Therapy to Recovering Soldiers.
Everyone in the country who’d watched the news in the past decade knew former U.S. Senator and Texas billionaire Richard Patterson. Before abruptly leaving politics, he’d been the most likely conservative candidate for the next presidential election. He was also CEO of the family’s business empire, including one of the oldest and largest ranches in Texas where he kept an eye on their legendary Quarter Horse breeding program.
His daughter was not a public figure. Tori Patterson had chosen to keep a low profile, working as a physical therapist at a respected but hardly famous clinic in Amarillo. In fact, there was only one reason Carma recognized her on sight.
She was now Tori Patterson-Sanchez. Delon Sanchez’s wife. Gil’s sister-in-law.
Carma flipped to the feature article, intensely aware of her grandmother’s all-too-knowing scrutiny. Of course she’d heard that Carma had left the Stockman’s Bar with Gil back in November. Half a dozen friends and relatives had called to tattle before Carma crawled out of bed the next morning.
Grandma had not been pleased to hear why Carma had cut the encounter short. “You finally meet a man with potential, and you let Jolene ruin it?”
Carma could have argued that the potential was limited to an hour in a truck sleeper. Or she could have admitted that there was a good chance she would have chickened out anyway, after that kiss. It was like opening a box of what she thought were firecrackers and finding dynamite. This was not a man to play around with. Gil Sanchez had the power to rock her world.
But after Bing called on Christmas morning to share all their joyous news, Carma hadn’t been able to resist making contact. Just a text. A joke. He probably wouldn’t even answer.
Then he did, and it had started…something. The texts were random, infrequent, and never more than GIFs, memes, and emojis, as if they’d established the rules with that first exchange. She certainly couldn’t call them conversations. Maybe that was the point. Connection, but from a safe distance.
For Carma at least, it was easier to let the pictures speak for her.
She smoothed the pages of the magazine. Wow. The arena alone was stunning—two hundred feet wide, three hundred feet long, fully handicapped accessible. A state-of-the-art physical therapy clinic built right in; a mental health program in development. All provided without cost to anyone whose insurance didn’t cover their treatment.
“This is amazing,” Carma said. “But I still don’t understand…”
Her grandmother tapped a photo of a soldier grinning as he sent his horse over a small jump. “This is what we need. If you went there and learned what they do, you could persuade Eddie to stay home and help start our own program.”
Carma gave a stupefied laugh. “We couldn’t do a fraction of this. The equipment alone…”
“I bet Eddie could build even better stuff. Maybe sell his designs to bring in more money.”
And immerse himself in the challenge, using his engineering skills that were not otherwise in high demand in ranch country. Oh yeah. This woman knew her grandson well. But Carma…
“I can’t just walk in there and demand to be hired.”
“Who better?” Grandma leaned back and folded her bony arms. “You’ve got schooling in counseling. You can handle horses, and these patients can’t be any harder than the idiot actors you’ve had to work with. Plus you can teach them trick roping. That’d be great therapy. And that’s not even counting the other.”
The other. Even Grandma had never found a name for what Carma was…and did. She’d failed miserably at fitting the mold of a traditional holy woman. Even the more progressive sects of the Blackfeet religion felt restrictive. Like having someone tell her how to breathe.
Carma never had been good with rules and rituals. She’d flunked out of Sunday school when the teachers got tired of her asking, “But why do you have to tell us how to talk to God? Can’t we just go outside and listen instead?”
Religion didn’t exactly agree with her version of spirituality.
A place like the Patterson Clinic would have a lot of rules. And the kind of people who weren’t likely to be open to her particular style of therapy.
“What about you and Grandpa?” she asked.
“His youngest sister is moving home from Missoula, now that she lost her husband. She needs family and all.” Her eyes softened as she squeezed Carma’s knee. “You’ve done your part for us. Lord knows you’ve wasted enough of your life on Jayden. And if the man of your dreams was anywhere around here, you would’ve met him by now.”
Carma’s eyes filled as she laid her hand over her grandmother’s papery fingers. “What if people like me don’t get to live happily ever after?”
“I won’t lie, Carmelita. This gift has never made life easier for those who bear it.” Her expression hardened. “But you
will not go sour like Norma. You have to find your own happiness. Look at Bing. She barely hit Texas before she landed herself a good-lookin’ cowboy who thinks she painted the stars.”
Yay for Bing. After all she’d been through, she deserved it. But considering the age difference between the two cousins, if Carma followed Bing’s example she’d find her own soul mate in a couple of decades, give or take.
Grandma took both of her hands and forced Carma to meet her piercing gaze. “Promise me you’ll do this. For Eddie. And for yourself.”
There was no denying Grandma White Elk once her mind was set, something else that tended to run in the family. Carma smiled reluctantly. “Okay. I swear.”
“I’ll make sure you don’t dawdle.”
She was true to her word, damn her stubborn, congestive heart. A week later, in the middle of a rerun of Murder, She Wrote, she’d slumped over on the couch, as if she’d simply gone to sleep. Grandpa’s sister had moved in right after the funeral—and Carma was left with no choice but to get on with keeping her promise.
The purpose of her trip was twofold. Tony had connected her with his friends—healers and shamans across Montana and the Dakotas who were willing to share their knowledge and hopefully help Carma understand and develop her own unusual skills. She’d also made a list of equine-based therapy programs to visit along the way, learning everything she could before she reached the end of her winding trail—Bing’s new home in Earnest, Texas.
A thought that made Carma’s belly clutch every time. How would Gil react to her showing up out of the blue?
But she wouldn’t stay away for fear of what Gil would think. Besides being one of her favorite cousins, Bing was her connection to Tori and the Patterson Clinic. Carma had considered texting Gil about her visit, but advance notice felt like an expectation.
Get ready, Big Boy, here I come.
Besides, she didn’t know exactly when she’d arrive. The lack of a set schedule chafed at the part of her that insisted on straightening out every tangle—from a necklace chain to Jolene’s latest squabble with their mutual aunt Agnes—but the freedom to follow wherever the wind pushed and the sky beckoned made her heart swoop and dance like a starling on the breeze.
She caressed the wide strip of intricately painted beadwork that ran along the van’s hood and down the sides. She certainly wasn’t going to sneak across the country. And she wouldn’t lack in comfort. Behind the red-velour bucket seats, Tony had installed a fridge, gas stove, closet, drawers, and a queen-sized bed.
Everything Carma needed for her own personal voyage of discovery. Almost. She pulled the last piece out of her coat pocket and stashed it in the cubbyhole beside the radio. Then she tipped her head back and drank in her sky and her clouds. Let the breeze finger through her hair and caress her face as she sent up a silent goodbye.
And the wind whispered Be safe, friend, in a voice that only Carma could hear.
Chapter 4
Oklahoma City—late January
Like every second Sunday evening for the past fourteen years, Gil drove into the plushest section of Oklahoma City and parked in front of Krista’s house, delivering Quint back to his mother. He didn’t care what anybody said about modern architecture, he still thought the place looked like a two-million-dollar dentist’s office. An opinion he probably should have kept to himself, but it had gotten a rise out of Krista, which Gil enjoyed far too much.
Then he’d gone home and made his house a place for running and wrestling, scattering Legos, and scribbling on walls. God knew that and getting caked with grease and ranch dirt were the only things Gil could give the kid that Krista didn’t.
The door swung open, and Krista Barron-Tate stood framed in the entrance, a splash of bright poppy in her silky pantsuit and excruciatingly pointy shoes. A pantsuit, for God’s sake. The renegade who’d blown Gil’s college-boy mind would’ve sneered at the picture she made now, with her blond hair set in sleek, bulletproof waves. Maybe that was why Gil could never resist agitating her until the shell cracked and he caught a glimpse of the girl who’d run wild on the rodeo circuit with him for most of his rookie year.
Now she waved a perfectly manicured hand at him. “Come on in, Gil!” she called. “We need to talk.”
Not good. Since the day she’d told him she was pregnant and God no, she wouldn’t marry him, those words from Krista had never boded well.
What did she want this time? Spring break in Tuscany? A two-month summer music program in New York City? Then Gil would have to argue that the horizon in the Texas Panhandle was wide enough for any kid, and the boy could get plenty of culture from his grandmother, the same way she’d tried to ingrain some sense of their Navajo heritage into her sons.
Efforts Gil had resisted with every fiber of his being, starting with screaming at the top of his three-month-old lungs through the entire length of a ceremony intended to celebrate his first laugh.
Gil thumped the steering wheel once, muttered a curse, then climbed out of his midnight-blue Charger and followed Quint up the walk. Krista stood aside to let them in. “Quint, go change out of your good clothes while I talk to your father.”
Quint regarded the pair of them with the Are you sure you can handle this? pucker between his brows that had been making Gil feel inadequate since—equal parts awed and terrified—he’d stared into a hospital bassinet at what was unmistakably his child.
He’d been playing catch-up for most of the fourteen years since.
With one last doubtful glance, Quint disappeared into the sterile depths of the house. Gil tucked his hands in his pockets and strolled past Krista into what they called a living room—as if anyone could survive in there for more than an hour. He declined a seat on a couch that appeared to be made of upholstered concrete slabs and said no thanks to the glass of sweet tea sweating politely onto a stone coaster, choosing to lean against a mantel made of gray slate. The obligatory family photos were so flawless they looked like they’d come with the frames, except that unlike his two younger sisters, dark-haired, dark-skinned Quint was obviously not the child of Krista’s pale, sandy-haired husband. And speaking of Douglas…
Gil glanced toward the nearest archway. “Are you sure you don’t want to have your attorney present?”
Of course she’d married a lawyer. A Harvard graduate. The son of a family whose social and business dealings were so interconnected with her father’s that their union was borderline incestuous. And to top it off, he was a decent human being who adored Krista and Quint and showed Gil nothing but respect…the son of a bitch.
Krista sank onto a chair that matched the concrete couch. The cushions didn’t give under her weight. “Can we just have a civil conversation?”
“Depends on what you want to talk about.” Gil held up a hand. “No, wait. Let me guess—you want to take the kids to South Korea while Douglas helps negotiate some new trade agreement?”
Krista took a sip of her tea, then set it down with a sharp click. “Close. He has been offered a position as a commercial attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Namibia.”
“That’s an actual country?”
She smiled faintly. “It’s in the southwest part of Africa. Douglas has always been interested in foreign service, and this is an excellent opportunity to get his foot in the door.”
“Wait a minute.” The gist of what she was saying slapped Gil in the face. “You’re talking about a job.”
Krista ran her fingers down her thigh, pleating the thin fabric of her pantsuit. “The posting could be up to five years.”
Five. Years. Gil bunched his fists, panic coiling in his chest as he scrambled for some angle of attack. There must be a clause in their custody agreement that barred her from taking his son to the opposite side of the planet. “No goddamn way.”
“That’s also what Quint said…minus the obscenity.”
Cold sweat sprang up between Gil’s
shoulder blades. “You can’t make him go.”
“I don’t intend to try.” Krista continued to worry the fabric of her pantsuit. “The girls are young enough to adapt, but Quint starts high school this fall, and he’s not willing to give up football and basketball.”
“But if you’re going with Douglas—” Oh shit. Her father and stepmother. She was gonna leave Quint with the man who’d thrown all his money and influence at erasing Gil from Quint’s life.
A corner of her mouth quirked. “Give me some credit. I am painfully aware that if you and Daddy had to deal with each other, someone would end up in a shallow grave.”
And Gil had proven to be remarkably hard to kill. Otherwise high speed, a motorcycle, and a sharp curve would have done the job shortly after Krista had gutted him on her way out of Texas. Instead, he’d destroyed the rodeo career he’d loved even more than the woman who was still not looking him in the eye.
“If you’re not staying and he’s not going…”
Her gaze lifted, and behind the shadows in her eyes he saw a glint of mockery as she repeated almost the same words she’d said to him once before. “Congratulations, Gil. You’re gonna be a full-time daddy.”
He…what?
For the first time in all the times he’d been in her house, he had to sit down.
* * *
It was after nine when Gil got home, still in shock from Krista’s bombshell. He parked in the driveway of his house, conveniently located only steps from the back door of the Sanchez Trucking shop, slammed the car door, and headed for the shop. Even at this time on a Sunday one of the drivers must have a problem that would give him an excuse to yell at someone.
But when he stomped into his office, Analise, the night dispatcher, shooed him out again. “Everything’s under control. Go annoy someone else.”
Who? His brother was in Houston for most of the week, and their dad was off on one of his monthly fishing trips. Hank would be cuddled up with Grace. All the Jacobs crew were on the road with their bucking bulls and horses, so he couldn’t drop by Miz Iris’s kitchen tomorrow morning to let her promise him that yes, he could handle living with his own child.
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