No Cowboy Required (Biggest Little Love)

by Sky, JoAnn

  “No, he’s—”

  Socks reared up on his hind legs and neighed a pitiful howling cry that sounded like pure agony. Then the horse bolted. Straight down the fields paralleling the road, as fast as he could run, as if he was in a panicked craze and chased by fire. He kept running until he was out of sight.

  Socks had never been so far from the rest of the band. Grace’s heart pounded faster than Socks’s hooves had run.

  “Stop him, Gracie, stop him.” JJ ran down the road after Socks, screaming his name. Grace followed, yelling for JJ to stop, groping for her phone in her jean pocket. Noah. They needed Noah.

  Grace’s side cramped out at the same time Noah’s phone rolled to voicemail. She stopped running, leaning over to heave for air. When she looked up, JJ was too far to hear her call and getting farther away.

  Grace ran back to the house, her side throbbing. She grabbed her keys from the kitchen counter and flew to her car. She had to catch up to JJ before he decided to get off the dirt road and head up into the hills after that horse. She zoomed her car past Noah’s empty parking spot.

  Where the heck was he when they needed him?

  Chapter Sixteen

  About a half mile down the road, Grace found JJ sitting in the dirt, sobbing. She pulled over, then got out and sat next to him.

  “I lost him, Gracie,” he wailed as he rocked back and forth. “He ran up into the foothills. He was too fast for me.”

  “Well, he’s got four legs, honey. You’ve only got two.”

  “What if he never comes back?”

  “Of course he’ll come back. He’s just mad and needs a little time alone—like you sometimes do. Like all of us do.”

  He stopped rocking and considered this information. He wiped the tears rolling down his cheeks with the back of his hand. “Can we drive around, just a little, and look for him? Maybe he’s by the dry creek.”

  The last thing Grace wanted to do with the morning was spend it looking for a runaway wild horse. Still, the answer was obvious. “Sure. Let’s check the dry creek. What do you say we go for breakfast afterward?”

  “At the Stop-n-Gas?”

  She bumped her shoulder to his. “Where else?”

  Ninety minutes later, with no Socks sighting but with full tummies and an earful from Mrs. Walters, Grace and JJ headed home.

  “Look at those trailers.” JJ pointed at the field. “And what’re all those people doing over there?” He pointed closer to the road. “Some of them have signs.”

  Grace slowed the car as they passed and rubbernecked. “I don’t know, honey.” Not a complete truth. There was one reason folks gathered with signs like that. Grace’s stomach squeezed, then twisted like a wet rag.

  “Gracie!” JJ squirmed in the back seat as much as his seat belt would allow. “That sign says ‘Horses were here first.’ And the one next to it says ‘Wild Horse Killers.’ Are those people with the big trucks killing the horses? Stop the car, Gracie.”

  Grace squeezed the steering wheel, her palms suddenly slick with sweat, and kept driving. “The Bureau of Land Management doesn’t kill them, JJ. They round them up and take them to a new home out in the desert.” She understood the rationale. When the herds got too large, they’d end up dying of starvation or dehydration. Without the roundups, they’d multiply beyond a sustainable population. Even so, the practice seemed cruel. Animal activist groups agreed.

  “Is it as nice as here? What do they do? Just drop them off and let them roam?”

  Lie, Grace, lie.

  “Actually, no. They put them in pens. But they’re big pens.”

  “Like prisoners?” Grace could hear the panic building in JJ’s voice. “Forever?”

  “No, not forever. They pick out the youngest and the oldest and return the rest to the range. The younger ones are adopted out, usually at an auction. The older ones are cared for, forever.”

  “Locked up?”

  “They’re cared for, JJ,” she said tersely. This conversation had all the characteristics of a ticking time bomb.

  “But they’re separated from their families, all of them. From their bands.”

  Grace bit her lip. There was no good answer. “They make new bands, JJ.”

  “That’s not good enough. Stop the car, Gracie!” he shrieked. “Go back. We have to help them stop it.” He unlocked his seat belt and tried to open the door. It didn’t budge. Thank God for kid-proof safety locks.

  “Put your seat belt back on, JJ,” she ordered. “We’re not going back.” If she was alone and in a prior life, maybe she would’ve. “I want to keep you safe.” Grace pressed on the gas. “I remember one time, when I was a little older than you, the protesters and the BLM guys got into a fight. People got hurt.” The last thing she needed now was to lose control of JJ in this mob. He could get hurt.

  JJ sobbed all the way home. Grace wanted to sob. Even more, she wanted to crawl back into bed and hope this entire day—and yesterday’s party—was all a big, bad dream.

  As soon as she stopped the car in the drive and unlocked the doors, JJ shot out of the back seat. Grace started after him, ready to tackle him to prevent him from leaving the yard.

  “I hate you, Gracie!” His words jabbed her in the heart and stopped her from moving forward. “I wish you’d leave and never come back.” He ran toward the house.

  As the porch screen door slammed, Grace’s eyes inadvertently glanced toward Noah’s still-empty parking spot. Lucky for both of us, I am leaving. Very soon. She wasn’t cut out for this. She didn’t belong here anymore. New York couldn’t come fast enough.

  Her phone rang, and she pulled it out and put it to her ear without looking. “Noah, thank God. Where are you?”

  “Sorry, dear, not Noah.” Simon’s Polish accent clipped through the phone.

  No, she couldn’t deal with the reprimand for bailing on Milan, not now. “Simon, this isn’t a good time. I’m in the middle of…a situation. Can we talk later?”

  “No need, dear. This will only take a moment. I’m calling to let you know you don’t need to return, at least not to work for me.”

  The air in her lungs whooshed out. “Wh…what? N…no. I’m sorry about Milan, Simon. But you knew I had some family things to take care of. I’ve got things under control now.” She sucked in more oxygen. “Just not right this second. But things have been settled. I’ll be returning to New York soon and be back to work just like normal.”

  “No need to rush. I’ve made other arrangements. Your services are no longer needed at Simon Pulski Photography.”

  “You’re firing me?” He couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that.

  “Grace, dear, you fired yourself.”

  “No, Simon, let me explain.” None of this was her fault. And soon, it wouldn’t be her responsibility.

  “No need, dear. Good luck.” The line went dead.

  Fired? Panic gripped at her chest and dug in. It wasn’t every day a girl lost a wild horse, her standing with her brother, and her job—all before noon. What would she do now? Certainly not stay here. She wasn’t wanted, and the feeling was mutual. Maybe Ricky’s offer was still open. Not that it mattered. She couldn’t afford to partner with him. She didn’t have extra money. She didn’t have any job. She didn’t have a plan.

  Her phone rang again. Good Lord, the only thing she did have was a phone that wouldn’t stop ringing. She read the screen but didn’t recognize the local number. Had the bill collectors gotten hold of her cell number? Wasn’t it enough that they left daily messages on the home answering machine? She took a deep breath and answered, “Hello?”

  “Grace, is that you? Sounds like your dog died. Is everything okay?”

  Sam Barker. The biggest bill collector of all.

  “Hey, Sam.” Grace checked her watch. Eleven o’clock. “Isn’t it a bit early for you on a weekend? Don’t tell me, you’ve just gotten out of church.”

  Sam laughed. “Good one. I just wanted to call and make sure you were okay. You didn’t seem t
oo happy when you left yesterday. All good over there? You’ve got a lot on your plate.”

  A lot less than a few minutes ago. Thanks, Simon. She pushed him out of her brain. Now was her chance to negotiate something with Sam. She hadn’t talked with Noah about the idea, but why would he oppose it? He’d wanted to buy the ranch. Maybe she could help make that happen.

  “I do have a lot on my plate. But I’m glad you called.”

  “You are?”

  She forced a laugh. “Come on, Sam. We’ve known each other a long time. Old friends are the best kind.”

  “You got that right. Actually”—Sam cleared his throat—“I was calling to follow up on my offer. Want to grab dinner one night this week?”

  “I’d love to,” she rushed out, before she could change her mind. “I was hoping I could pick your brain, maybe come up with some options for this ranch.”

  “Options, huh? Well, together we could probably come up with a few.” His words carried hope. Too much hope. The kind of hope that, coming from him, should have made her question this dinner plan. But Sam was her best chance at cutting a deal to help JJ and Noah.

  “Are you free tonight?” she asked. The conversation would probably go better if Noah wasn’t around. Plus, she couldn’t go out and leave JJ alone, so she was stuck at home anyway.

  “Tonight?”

  She ignored the tickle at the back of her neck warning her off and pushed forward. “Yeah, my place. I make a mean crab cake.” She’d picked up the ingredients when she purchased the ground beef for the meatloaf. She still wasn’t sure what had possessed her to do it, but she might as well put the food to good use.

  “Hell yeah, I’m free tonight.”

  “Good. See you at seven.” She hung up.

  Was she doing the right thing? Did it have to be dinner? Sam would get the wrong idea. She was playing on the crush she knew he’d had on her since high school. She thought of JJ, tears streaming down his face over Socks. Of course she was doing the right thing, and for the right reason.

  She checked her watch again. Lots of time to reconsider.

  No, absolutely not. What next? The boxes from the attic. Organizing crap into piles of save, sell, scrap was just the kind of mind-numbing activity she needed. She didn’t want to think about anything. Not Simon, not Ricky, not JJ, or Noah. Definitely not dinner with Sam. She strode into the house and forced herself to walk past JJ’s room, to give him space, though the whimpering she heard through his door broke her heart.

  Grace started with the boxes that were marked—the first had “kitchen stuff” scrawled on it, and the next “more kitchen stuff.” Probably sellable. She peeked inside. Old racing magazines and forms from the track—most scribbled with her father’s handwritten notes.

  Definitely scrap.

  After several hours of mismarked boxes and a scrap pile ten times larger than the sell pile (and nothing in the save pile), Grace needed a change. She scanned the room, littered with nothing but more of the same brown square boxes. Her mind wandered up to the attic, and her body quickly followed, to where she and JJ had left a few odd-shaped items that were too heavy to move. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light, coming to rest on a single large steamer chest in the corner. It must have been Sheila’s, because Grace didn’t recognize it from her childhood.

  She tried to pull the chest into the middle of the room, but only managed to scoot it a foot or so before deciding it might be easier to unload it a bit first. The chest looked decades old, but the combination lock was new. She knelt in front of it and tried her father’s birthdate on the lock. No luck. Then she tried the date her father had brought home his beloved horse, Josephine. That day was burned into her memory. Her father—so proud, so happy.

  Not surprisingly, the lock didn’t budge. Only in the movies did the hero open the safe, or the whatever, with a combo-stroke of genius and luck. It was probably JJ’s birthday or Sheila’s. Too bad she didn’t know either. Besides those, she was out of ideas as to what her father might have used as three numbers.

  Unless…

  Grace tried her birthdate, which, of course, would never work. She hadn’t received so much as a card since her mom left. She doubted her father remembered the date. She didn’t know why she was even try—

  The lock clicked open.

  The lock clicked open. He’d used her birthdate. Her heart pounded in her ears as Grace lifted the top of the chest and peered inside. A few pairs of green fatigues—probably from the stint her father did in the Army straight from high school, an Army field manual, and a ratty olive green sleeping bag. To the trash bin for that. But nothing so far was heavy enough to stop her from moving the chest. She dug below, finding two ammo containers at the bottom. And two envelopes.

  Grace’s hands shook as ran her fingers over the metal cans. Was Sam’s dad right about her father owning guns? The hidden attic location made sense, given how her mom hated the things. Though there weren’t any guns with the ammo.

  She glanced around, knowing there were no other chests but not able to stop herself from looking anyway. Why hide ammo? Well, hopefully she could sell it for a good price. She didn’t know much about guns or ammo except that neither was cheap.

  She lifted out one of the metal containers, heavy like ammo would be, and unclicked the latch. Silver glinted in the dull light, but not from bullets. The case was two-thirds filled with silver dollars. She picked up one coin and studied the front, recognizing the Liberty face as identical to the single coin her father had carried in his pants pocket his entire life. Her father had told her it was a Morgan and 90 percent silver. His lucky coin, he used to say, because they didn’t make them like that anymore. The date on the coin in her hand was 1887. Her father’s had been 1885. She dug through the container a bit. How on earth had her father collected so many? Sure, they’d used them in the casinos years ago, but that’d stopped well before her father was of gambling age.

  She heaved out the second container and opened it to find it, too, was over half full of Morgan silver dollars. There had to be hundreds of coins in each container. The second case also had a small velvet pouch. She picked it up, pulled open the drawstring, and let the contents slide out onto her palm. A single coin, though this one wasn’t a Morgan. On this one, dated 1873 and very worn, was the full body of Lady Liberty in a sitting position. Her father must’ve kept it separate because it was different than the rest. She slid the coin back into the pouch and put it into the container.

  What if they were worth money, as in, a lot of money? She’d need to get them appraised, of course, before doing anything else. What if they were worth enough that she could partner up with Ricky? Excitement simmered in her chest.

  Grace lifted out the two envelopes. The top one was letter-sized and upside-down. She flipped it over and saw her name written in cursive in her father’s writing. Her heart dropped to her stomach and played dead in the rancid, churning acid. The envelope was sealed. She stared at it. Did she have the strength to open it, to read it?

  No, not now. She shoved it aside.

  She picked up the second envelope, a large, unaddressed manila rectangle. It wasn’t sealed, so she opened it. Two single sheets of paper contained a typed listing of the number, date, and mint of coins, presumably the ones in the chest. To the right of each row, written in pencil and under the heading “per coin” were dollar values ranging anywhere from ten dollars to over one hundred. At the bottom of page two was a line set apart from the rest, with the label “Seated Liberty.” The velvet pouch coin, she assumed. Next to it, also in pencil, was a number: $8,000. And below that, double-underlined, was what she believed was the total: $38,000.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Grace stared at the figure on the paper, blinked, and dared it to disappear or lose a zero or two. It didn’t. Assuming it was her father who wrote the numbers in pencil, when did he do it? Ten years ago? Last year? It mattered, probably, because the price would fluctuate with the price of silver. It wasn’t like she k
new anything about coins and silver. But if the handwritten number was anywhere near true, why hadn’t her father done something? Why hadn’t he saved his home? Maybe he’d meant to. Maybe the cancer had fuzzed his mind and confused him. Regardless, if this was anything near real, it might solve her problems.

  Or cause more.

  Assuming the money was half hers, half JJ’s, Noah would still expect her to use it all to save the ranch. A noble cause. Or…assuming Sam couldn’t come through for her, she could let the ranch go anyway, borrow JJ’s half of the money, and open up that studio with Ricky. She could be her own boss. No one had to know about the coins, right? At least not at first. Once she got on her feet, once her business was running and successful, she’d pay back Noah and JJ, with interest. They could buy a bigger place, a better place. The ranch needed more work than it was worth. It’d really be a win-win for everyone. In the meantime, they could rent somewhere, right? Just for the short-term. Noah and JJ would stay together; she’d get her life back.

  This could work.

  She pushed aside the niggle in her chest, the one that Pastor Bob used to preach about, the one that folks plowed right through, rationalizing away the regret.

  This could totally work.

  She individually carried each ammo can downstairs and put them on the floor in her bedroom closet. Then she locked up the chest, scooped up the papers listing the coins and the other envelope, and scooted down the stairs. She paced her bedroom, developing a new plan. She needed to call Ricky. No, first she needed to find someone to value her find.

  She glanced down at the unopened envelope in her hand. Maybe it contained the answers. Was she ready to learn them? Her phone rang, saving her from deciding. She recognized the number as Sam’s. She should probably add him to her contacts. Had she really offered to cook dinner for Sam Barker? She hadn’t entered Reno—she’d entered the Twilight Zone.

  She shoved the envelope into the side of her luggage and answered her phone. “Hey, Sam. You’re not calling to cancel, are you?” She still needed him. Without Sam, she’d be choosing between New York and here.