I still think of our little boy or girl every day. When I’m all alone at night, when Ava and Aubrey are sleeping in their room and Chase is on the road, I frequently break down. I mourn the child I was carrying, who was a part of me and Chase, and the life we would have had as a family of five. I feel anger and resentment that I was alone when it happened. He was off chasing a title I don’t give a shit if he ever wins again. Because while I love he’s a cowboy—because it’s a part of him—it’s not why I love him. I love my Cowboy because of the man his is—was—is, depending on whether he’s home and present, or on the road and distracted.
On the nights I’m alone, I feel guilt I couldn’t keep my baby safe for forty weeks. I feel a hole, wide and raw, in my heart that was supposed to be where I stored all the love for our baby. Another space will open up if I ever conceive again, but that hole, it will never be filled.
So we tried, as soon as the doctor said it was safe to, and Chase was sure—he was positive—we would be successful. Until the day came when I told him, without any doubt, it was not to be. He ended our call almost immediately after, and the next day he let me know he wouldn’t be home before the next rodeo; he and Cody were going to rent a truck and drive to the next city. He needed some time to process.
That was the first time he stayed away after I told him it still wasn’t our time to grow our family. He’s done it a handful of times since. With every “not this month” that has come since the miscarriage, I know he has felt more and more like a failure. He’s not one. But he feels that way. We’ve been tested, each of us, and they don’t have any concrete, identifiable reasons why I can’t get pregnant. It just hasn’t happened.
It’s put a strain on us, nearly as much as his constantly being gone has. Two and a half years ago, we made a plan—one more season to take the title—we’d have a baby, and our life would be set. But one more season turned to three; with constant travel, rides, missed birthdays and events, which has taken its toll.
“Mama,” Ava says quietly, poking her head into our home office. “Is Daddy calling tonight?”
I push back in the chair and hold my arm out to her, inviting her to come sit in my lap. “Where’s your sister?”
“Playing with her stupid Barbies,” she says with an attitude unlike anything I’ve ever heard from her as she sits in my lap.
“Ava Anne!” I scold her. “Drop the tone, and you know how I feel about that word when you’re talking about your sister.”
She settles into my lap and nods. “I’m sorry. She was saying things about Daddy and it hurt my feelings.”
“What was she saying?”
“She said that Daddy was a meanie, just like me.” She looks at the picture of all of us on the desk, fighting tears back. “He’s not a meanie and neither am I.”
“No, you aren’t,” I say, kissing the side of her head. “Why did Aubrey call you and Daddy meanies?”
“Because I said when he comes home, he’s going to teach me to ride, and we can go to rodeos together so I don’t miss him anymore.”
Dammit, Chase. This is why we need you home.
“Oh, baby,” I sigh out. “You can’t go to rodeos with him. Not without me and Aubrey being with you, too.”
“I can too!” she screams, and gets off my lap, hurrying away from me. “He’s my daddy! I can go if I want to!”
“Ava Anne,” I say sternly. “That is enough. You aren’t going anywhere. Daddy will be home soon, and he’s going to try to call tonight. He will tell you the same thing.”
She bolts out of the office, crying and stomping down the hall, until I hear her bedroom door slam shut.
“You better call tonight, Chase. The girls need to hear your voice. And I do, too,” I say out loud—to no one in particular—and scan our office, looking at the picture frames hanging from our walls. Each picture carries a memory with it. Most highlight his rodeo achievements, others bring back some of our special memories as a family that have come fewer and farther between over the past couple years.
No rodeo, no title, no amount of money in the world is worth this feeling. It can’t be. Not when you have two little girls at home who need you.
Chase
I settle into my bed in our hotel room and adjust the ice pack on my arm, then reach for my phone. It’s been a long, long week. Even just helping kids, showing them how to ride, I’ve managed to aggravate my injury further. The bruising is deep, and the muscle is constantly aching. That’s part of why I didn’t go home this time. I couldn’t hide this until the bruise dissipates. Allie would just fuss and worry. It’s not something either of us needs right now.
While it’s been a blast being able to teach the kids, to pass on the same knowledge I’ve gained, and see the passion they all have to become big-time riders, I really do miss my girls.
I haven’t talked to any of them in two days; times have been off and when they’re free, I’m not. And when I am, they’re not. But hopefully, God willing, that will change now.
Before I open my messages, I stare at the background on my phone for a few moments. Allie is holding Aubrey in her lap, while Ava wraps her arms around Allie’s shoulders and neck from behind. They’ve all got huge smiles on their faces, and look happy as can be. I remember the day I took the photo. It was last Christmas and we had just finished opening presents. The girls were thrilled over everything they got and Allie and I had spent the night before doing some celebrating of our own, so she still had that extra glow to her. Of course a couple weeks later she told me, again, we still weren’t expecting. I’ve started to get used to that.
With a sigh I open my messages and send one to my wife.
Chase: Hey Darlin’. I’m in. Can you talk tonight?
I wait a few minutes, checking the time and trying to remember if she said they had something going on tonight, when finally, my phone pings with her reply.
Allie: Hi. We can. The girls need it. It was a bad day here.
Chase: I’m calling now. We can talk just the two of us when I’m done with the girls…
I go into my apps and open up my video chat, dialing Allie, smiling immediately as she accepts and her face comes into full view.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” I say.
“Hi, Cowboy.” She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes again. “Let me call the girls in here real fast. They’re going to be so excited to see you.”
I nod my head and just take in her features, chuckling a little to myself when she shouts for our daughters. We both wait in silence until their little voices get closer and closer.
“Girls, someone’s on the phone and wants to see and talk to you.”
“Daddy? Is it Daddy?” I hear my Pipsqueak ask.
“Me first! Me first!” my Monkey says in return.
“No, me first! I’m older,” Ava snaps back at her.
Aubrey starts to respond when Allie interrupts them, “Enough! Or neither of you talk to him and you go to bed right now!”
I’m a little taken aback by her tone. I’ve never heard her so hard on them. Judging by the silence her words are met with, the girls are shocked, too.
I want to diffuse this before it goes any further, so I jump into the conversation and say, “Why don’t I talk to all three of you at once? I can call again once you set the computer up? Would that be better?”
Allie looks at the phone with tired eyes and nods her head. “Give me two minutes then we’ll be ready for you, Chase.”
The call disconnects before I can even answer. Allie has never, in all the time I’ve known her, been this way.
It worries me.
And I will get to the bottom of it.
But first, I need her to call back. It’s been, taking a peek at the time, fifteen minutes already. What’s going on?
Just as I’m getting ready to dial Allie’s phone, I get an incoming video call. It doesn’t even finish ringing the first time before I accept, watching the screen come to life with their faces filling
it. They’re sitting at the desk in the office, and Allie is in the chair with the girls on either side of her.
“There’s my girls!” I say, noting the looks on each of their faces, trying to stay upbeat for them. “How are you?”
“Hi, Daddy,” Ava says, first.
Aubrey waves her little hand and says more quietly than I’m used to, “Hi, Daddy.”
Allie pulls her into her lap then adds a strained, “Hey.”
“What are you all up to tonight?”
“Getting ready for bed,” Ava says sullenly. Aubrey nods her head and adds, “We’re in trouble.”
“You’re in trouble, what did you do?” I ask, adjusting the wrap holding my ice pack in place and shifting my phone’s angle so I see their faces better.
“Like I said earlier, it’s been a bad day here. How bad is your arm?” Allie asks, dropping the topic of the girls’ behavior before we really even begin.
“I landed wrong showing the kids what to do earlier, it’s no big deal, Darlin’.” I try to make light of it. She’s already upset enough. So are the girls. I shrug my shoulder to add to the notion that I’m fine.
Even from hundreds of miles away, the tension in the air is suffocating me. None of them are smiling, Allie looks pissed-off and exhausted, the girls look like they’ve been crying, and there’s nothing I can do about any of it from here.
“Take ibuprofen for the swelling and pain, keep icing it, and take it easy tomorrow, Chase,” Allie says, almost robotically, repeating a variation of the same instructions she’s given me hundreds of times before. Only this time, unlike any other, she sounds annoyed as she’s saying it.
“Why don’t you all tell me what’s going on? Maybe I can help, buy the girls a little more time up before they have to go to bed.”
That gets my girls to smile wide and nod, but it does nothing to improve the scowl on my wife’s face.
“What’s been happening today, girls?” I ask, looking between each of them as best as I can, given our connection.
“We’ve been fighting all day,” Ava whispers.
“And talking back to Mommy,” Aubrey interjects.
“You both know better than that,” I say sternly. “Apologize to each other and your mom right now.”
Both the girls say sorry to each other, and then to Allie.
“You girls need to help Mommy, not make things harder on her. Do you hear me?” A stifled sound leaves Allie’s stock-still body. Was she snorting?
The girls nod their heads and I watch Allie.
“Good, I bet she will let you stay up a little later then. But you should go brush your teeth and get your jammies on, right now. I love you both. I’ll call again tomorrow so we can talk about more fun things. Okay?”
They answer in unison, “Okay. Love you.” Aubrey slides off Allie’s lap and she and Ava walk away, leaving me and Allie to talk.
“You can’t do that, Chase,” Allie scolds, and repositions the computer in front of her as she scoots closer.
“I can’t do what?”
“Call in and think telling them to behave is going to fix things. You don’t think I tried?” She shakes her head, then rests it on her hands.
“Sometimes they just need me to remind them, too,” I say, a little defensively.
“No, Chase, sometimes they need you here, period.” She looks up at the camera from her hands and sighs. “Their attitudes are because they miss you. Their fights today have been over spending time with you when you get home.”
I don’t know what to say. The set of her shoulders, the tone of her voice, it all screams she’s had enough. But my strong wife doesn’t give up.
“Talk to me, Allie. I’m here right now.”
She shakes her head again, almost as if she’s denying what I’m saying. “It’s fine. Just a bad day here. But I need to go tell the girls, that even though Daddy said they could stay up later, they can’t. Because they can’t. There has to be a punishment for their behavior. It’s the only way I can keep control when you aren’t here.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I was just trying to help…” This is not how I expected tonight’s call to go, and right now, I’m wishing I wouldn’t have called at all. Instead of a happy conversation with my wife and kids, it’s been scolding and tension.
“It’s fine. But I really do need to go. I’ve got to get the girls straightened out and into bed. Maybe we can try this again tomorrow night. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.”
“Yeah, I hope so. I love you, Allie.”
“I love you, too, Chase.”
Allie disconnects the call and I toss my phone down onto the bed beside me. How did everything go so wrong, so fast?
Allie
The days have started to run together. The monotony enough to make one blur into the next, into the next. The girls have relaxed their fighting and attitudes, a little, since I overruled Chase and followed through on their early bedtime punishments last week. But it’s starting to pick back up again. After he finished his camp, he was off to the next rodeo. A five-day event that has left him battered, bruised—but still sitting at number one in the world—and away from home for a grand total of sixteen days now.
Sixteen.
It’s the longest we’ve ever been apart. He was only home for thirty-six hours after a four-day stretch away before that. I haven’t spent quality time with my husband in close to a month now. He’s been away for three weeks, essentially, with a very small window where we actually spent time awake together.
He has been home for one point five days out of the last twenty-two.
It’s a staggering number to me. I know he’s been gone, but to put it into days and weeks, it leaves a tightness and ache in my chest akin to what I imagine would be the feel of a very large bull sitting on top of it.
If he makes it home, like he said he would, the girls and I will get five days with him before he has to leave for another rodeo again. That rodeo should only be a few days away before he comes home and we pack up for Cheyenne.
Aubrey runs into the house, her dark pigtails flapping against her head, her white and pink tank top covered in dirt, and she comes to a halt in front of me.
“Mommy!” she shouts, unnecessarily.
“Aubrey!” I say back, just as enthusiastically.
“Daddy comes tonight!” She does a little happy jump and throws her hands into the air.
I reach out and tighten one of her pigtails, nodding my head and grinning, “Yes, he comes home tonight.”
She starts spinning in fast circles in front of me, saying in a singsong voice “Yay, yay, yay, Daddy’s coming home.”
She spins away from me and out of the room like a little tornado, still singing her made-up song as she disappears down the hall.
Ava was just as happy this morning, only instead of singing and spinning, she spoke words a mile a minute, telling me everything she wants to do with Chase while he’s here. Starting, of course, with getting out on their horses so she can show him how well she’s doing with her riding.
In fact, that’s what she’s out doing right now. She begged me all morning to let Kip keep an eye on her while she rides Lightning. After a solid hour of telling her to wait until later, I took her out, helped her get Lightning saddled and ready, then asked Kip if he could hang out in the pen with her for a while, so she could practice before her daddy gets home.
It's something Chase should be here to see, but in his absence, she’s determined to be the best she can be just for him. She wants his approval as much as she wants to learn for herself, if not more.
I step out to the porch and watch her ride around the pen. Kip is standing close by, guiding her, giving her basic directions. He’s been good for the girls. He’s young, but he’s smart and kind. And he’s a hard worker. Ruben, one of our other guys, walks up and calls Kip over. I can see him signaling to Ava to stop, then saying something I can’t make out to her as he walks to the fence to talk to our employee.
&
nbsp; What happens next happens in a blink. One moment Ava’s seated on a still Lightning, the next, she’s nudging her horse, urging him on, pushing a limit she shouldn’t be.
Then, time slows down, and I’m watching her in slow motion as she pushes too hard to get to the barrel Kip has set up for her. Lightning turns hard, perfectly, aside from the fact it’s not a pro rider on his back, it’s my little girl. And she’s leaning too far into the turn.
“Ava!” I shout, jumping off the porch and setting out at a dead sprint toward the pen. Kip turns toward Ava when I shout, taking off toward her just as she loses her balance and falls hard off her horse.
My heart lodges in my throat when I see her hit her head on the edge of the barrel, and I push myself to run faster, squeezing through the narrow opening of the pen when Ruben opens it for me, allowing me easier access to my daughter.
Kip reaches her first, sliding to a halt next to her still body and dropping to his knees. He doesn’t move her, not right away.
“Kip, Kip is she okay?” I clear the last ten or so yards in no time and drop beside them, putting my hands to her body, to her head. I pull away when she whines out, and my fingers are covered in blood.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Canton. Oh God. I’m so sorry.” Kip is panicking now. He’s seen plenty of grown men fall off horses and bulls, but never a nine-year-old he was looking after. He sees the blood on my fingers and his face pales. He was responsible for watching her, and he feels at fault for this, I can sense it in the way he keeps apologizing. But he was watching her. Just like I would have done. Like Chase would have.
An odd calmness settles over me in reaction to his frantic tone and movements. She needs me to be okay right now. I will be for her. It’s like second nature. “Kip, it’s okay. But I need you to scoot back so I can check on her.”
He does as I asked and slides back, leaving me room to move around to the side Ava’s head is facing. Her eyes are wide with fear, and she tries to move, crying out.
Hold on Tight (Cowboys & Angels Book 1) Page 4
