by JoAnn Ross
Long Road Home
JoAnn Ross
Copyright © 2016 by Castlelough Publishing, LLC
Kindle Edition
Cover design by Syd Gill Designs
Cowboy Photography by Rob Lang
Publisher’s note: This is a work of fiction. The characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation to anyone bearing the same name or names. All incidents are pure invention and any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Welcome to River’s Bend—Oregon’s most western town where spurs have a job to do and cowboy hats aren’t a fashion accessory.
New York Times bestselling author JoAnn Ross returns to her Oregon ranching country roots with a poignant, emotional story about friendship, loss, and the redemptive power of love that binds us together through the worst of storms.
Growing up on neighboring ranches, Sawyer Murphy and Austin Merrill were always best friends. As teens, each secretly wondered if they could become more to each other. When the grown-up Sawyer returns to River’s Bend from deployment as a Marine Special Forces Ranger, Austin’s ready to move their relationship out of the friend zone while Sawyer remains stuck in the war zone. She still holds his heart, but he needs to be alone.
Something that becomes impossible when, after a heart-shattering accident, they’re left to care for their best friends’ children. Despite concerns about their ability to take on such a monumental responsibility, together they embark on a shared journey where they’ll encounter challenges, joys, and, ultimately, a perilous event that takes them to the very heart of what it means to be a family.
1
FREEDOM. FOR THE first time in too many years, Sawyer Murphy was doing things his own way. In his own time. In this wild, western land he loved. This home.
When summer arrived, fishermen would stand in Black Bear River’s rapids, casting for rainbow trout. Come fall, as colorful leaves scattered over rocks and water, bright pink salmon—which provided a buffet for the bears the river was named for—would swim upstream to their annual spawning grounds. In winter, it would become a ribbon of blue ice framed by a blanket of glistening snow.
This time of year, as the land stirred from its deep winter’s sleep, the tips of ponderosa pines shone a bright Kelly green from new needle growth, while trees whose limbs had spent the past months bare and cold were sporting coats of spring leaves. The river was running fast, fed by snowmelt flowing from Modoc Mountain, one of the peaks in the Cascade Volcanic Arc. There’d been a time, long ago during the Ice Age, when the ice and snow on the mountain had been up to three hundred feet deep.
Now, as it rushed down through wildflower-brightened meadows and evergreen forests, the water refreshed. Renewed. In the same way being back in this beautiful wilderness land he loved had always renewed Sawyer.
But not today.
A flash of sunlight hit the water, triggering a rapid-fire series of flaming images that flung him back to another mountain, thousands of miles away. As fast as it had struck, the flashback dissolved, and he was back on the Oregon riverbank.
Sawyer shook his head to clear it. Pressed his fingers into his eyes. When he took them away, he saw a woman headed toward him. Seemingly at one with her horse, Austin Merrill rode as if she’d been born in the saddle, which she’d almost been. Her father had stuck her on the back of a gentle trail mare before she’d been old enough to walk.
She stopped at the boundary between their two families’ ranches. When they came together, as they had so many times over so many years, past and present collided.
Austin’s family had owned Green Springs Ranch as long as his had settled the Bar M. Not only a neighbor, she’d also been, aside from his brothers, his best friend.
When they’d been children, they’d run free through meadows and woods, swung from a rope tied to a tree limb over the river swimming hole, screeching like banshees as they plunged into the icy water. They’d gone out with flashlights, patrolling dampened grass for night crawlers to use to catch the rainbow trout Sawyer’s mother would fry to a golden brown in an old iron skillet.
They’d both begun having success on the local rodeo circuit at a young age, and although he’d watched her practice racing those barrels, by the summer after they’d graduated middle school, things had begun to shift. The wild-child tomboy who’d been as close as his brothers had, seemingly overnight, turned into a girl with shiny hair the color of winter wheat and eyes as blue as the wide western sky. She’d grown taller, and how had he never noticed that her legs, tanned to gold dust by the sun, were so coltishly long and smooth?
One day, while they were picking wild blackberries, a strap had slipped off her shoulder onto her arm. As he’d stared at that delicate white strap against her sun-gilded skin, Sawyer became all too aware that, beneath her sleeveless blue-and-white gingham blouse, Austin Merrill had breasts.
By the time school started up again, her body was showing slender curves that tormented both his waking and sleeping hours.
He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the change. When she’d walked down the hall of Eaglecrest High School, heads would turn and hungry eyes would follow. Since his hormones had revved up by then, Sawyer knew exactly what those other guys were thinking. And hated every one of them. Especially since, as a lowly freshman who still hadn’t grown into what would become his six feet, two inches of height, he was definitely outgunned by those upperclassmen who’d put on sinew and muscle and had perfected their slick, woman-seducing moves.
If his first year of high school had been a time of agony, their sophomore year became even worse because Austin had dipped one of her pink-tipped toes (that new, shiny polish being another thing that had driven him crazy) into Eaglecrest’s dating pool. Just the sight of her, sitting next to Brody Ames as his pickup passed the school bus Sawyer had been riding, was nearly enough to make his head explode.
Although time had passed at a glacial speed in those days, finally Sawyer’s sixteenth birthday had arrived. After leaving the DMV with his driver’s license, he’d driven over to Green Springs Ranch to pick Austin up for the party his father and grandparents were throwing for him.
She’d seemed puzzled at why she couldn’t just ride her horse over to the Bar M, as she’d been doing for years, but apparently sensing it was important to him, she’d flashed her sunny Austin smile and agreed. Unfortunately, as she climbed up into the front seat, the white shorts revealed a hint of panty line that had given him a boner even harder than the one inspired by the Miss August centerfold from the Playboy he’d stolen from Ryan’s stash. A situation that wasn’t helped when she casually put her boots up on the dashboard, making it impossible to ignore those long tanned legs. With the scent of her soap or shampoo or whatever it was that had her smelling like peaches causing his head to spin, Sawyer was relieved when he managed to pull off the short drive without running off the road.
His master plan, carefully thought out over the past months, had been to ask her to a movie at the Roundup Drive-In, where, maybe, in the privacy of a darkened car, he’d get lucky and she’d let him touch those breasts he’d been thinking of for what was beginning to feel like his entire life. All evening the words he’d rehearsed in front of the bathroom mirror ran in a continuous loop in his mind. So much so that he’d found it hard to concentrate on anyone or anything else going on around him.
And then, after the marble sheet cake with his name written over it surrounded by sixteen candles had been eaten, and the remnants of chocolate fudge ice cream were melting in the churn, he’d chickened out.
Fortunately, she’d been so merrily chatting away about the party, she didn’t seem to notice that he’d gone mute as a stone on the drive back to G
reen Springs. He’d have to try again. The Roundup didn’t close for the season until after the Labor Day showing. There was still time.
The problem was, back whenever they’d talk about their future, Austin always wondered why anyone would ever want to leave River’s Bend. She had no desire to chase rainbows when her pot of gold could be found right here. Working on Green Springs, getting married, having babies she’d watch grow up beneath the wide Oregon sky.
Which was why, every time he’d gotten the nerve to make his move, Sawyer’s logical mind would override his body, and later, he’d realize, his heart, and bring up all the reasons the odds of a serious relationship surviving were about even with winning Powerball. Even if they could stay together until graduation, he still had four years of college, and after that, military service ahead of him. At least that’s what he’d kept telling himself.
But the simple truth was that he’d been a coward. What if she hadn’t felt the same? Not wanting to risk the humiliation of her shooting him down, which could threaten their lifelong friendship, he’d kept his mouth shut.
He had kissed her. Once. It had been two years ago, outside the hospital where his father had been flown for urgent bypass surgery. Forgetting where they were, and letting his little head do the thinking for his big head, he’d pulled her tight against him and taken her mouth.
Hot. Freaking. Damn. It had been as if a dam had burst. Austin had definitely kissed him back, digging her fingers into his shoulders, clinging to him, pressing against him, with an eager enthusiasm that had included some hot tangling of tongues.
He’d wanted her. Then and there, and damn the consequences. With his head spinning and his knee between her thighs, pressing against her there, Sawyer’s lust-filled brain had scrambled to strategically war plan the mission logistics like the Marine Special Operations officer he was.
Where to go to get some privacy? How to get there since he didn’t have wheels due to his brother Cooper picking him up from the airport? And why the hell hadn’t he thought to buy a damn pack of condoms somewhere on the way from the airport to the hospital?
The intrusive scream of an ambulance racing down the street toward the ER had broken them apart and sent Sawyer crashing down to earth like he’d just done a HALO jump without a parachute.
It hadn’t been the place. And, once again, he’d told himself that it damn well hadn’t been the right time. Having witnessed too many wartime deaths, Sawyer wasn’t about to ask her to sit around and wait for him to return to River’s Bend safe and, please, God, in one piece.
As he’d flown back to Afghanistan, he’d assured himself that apologizing for what he’d called a momentary lapse was the right—the only possible—decision.
Which hadn’t kept his heart from feeling bull stomped when, three weeks later, she’d emailed him with the news that she’d married some rodeo cowboy she’d met in Las Vegas while she and her dad had been there as stock contractors to the National Finals Rodeo.
Their correspondence had dropped off after that, during which time Sawyer had tried, and failed, to put her out of his mind. Then one day his brother, Cooper, had mentioned in one of his daily emails that Buck Merrill had come down with post-polio syndrome and was selling off his rodeo stock. Which meant, he’d suggested, that Austin’s dad might be willing to lease some pastureland. If Sawyer was interested.
As sorry as he was to hear about Buck, Sawyer damn well was interested in the land. Then the good news/bad news got even better when his brother had tacked on the little bulletin that Austin had finally wised up and dumped her blacktop cowboy husband.
Stuck on a mountaintop in the Afghan Kush, he’d tested the waters by sending her what he hoped sounded like a casual Happy New Year email. He did not mention the husband.
She’d emailed right back, thanking him for thinking of her father. After two days of back-and-forth, while she’d only brushed over her divorce—which told him that she wasn’t exactly weeping tears into her pillow over the breakup—she’d brought up the idea of him leasing the pasture that Merrill cattle had grazed for decades.
Sawyer had jumped at the opportunity, raising the offer she’d suggested. From what Cooper had said, money was tight around Green Springs Ranch, and even after he bought some stock from his own father, he had more saved up than he’d need.
Sitting on his helmet out in the middle of nowhere, for the first time in longer than he could remember, Sawyer was looking forward to the future.
Then he’d gotten called out on that clusterfuck of a mission that had changed everything.
2
“I’M SORRY I missed your party last night,” she said as she pulled Blue, her blue roan mare, up beside his buckskin gelding he’d named Duke. For John Wayne, not any English royalty.
“No problem.” Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck as he felt the damn walls closing in again. “We wouldn’t have had that much time to talk, anyway.”
His family’s welcome home dinner at the Murphy’s Bar M ranch had been a noisy, enthusiastic gathering of friends and family. Toby Keith, George Strait, and Dierks Bentley had belted out honky-tonk from hidden outdoor speakers, adding a country-western soundtrack to thick steaks sizzling on the grill and myriad conversations tumbling over each other like the river’s water crashing over rocks during spring thaw. While he’d appreciated the turnout, Sawyer had found trying to keep up more exhausting than a day humping his gear over miles of Afghan goat trails.
His dad was a typical rancher, never using two words when one would do, so his official welcome home speech was short and to the point, but Dan Murphy’s husky tone, and momentary brain fart when he’d lost his train of thought, revealed to everyone how relieved he was to have all three of his sons safely back from war.
Which was all it had taken to cause another shitload of guilt to come crashing down on Sawyer’s head. What the hell had he done to deserve steak, music, beer with moisture dripping down the side of the bottle pulled from an old metal tub, and all those well-meaning folks who just wanted to talk? And talk. And effing talk. By the end of the evening, he’d decided that if one more person came up and thanked him for his service, he was going to tie cement blocks to his ankles and throw himself in the river.
“Still, I wanted to be there,” she said. “I heard from Heather that you got a big turnout.”
Heather was her best friend, whose husband had been like Sawyer’s third brother back in the day. But that was then. And this was now, and sometime between Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” and Aaron Tippin’s “Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly,” Sawyer had decided that, in many ways, his life was proving to have been easier, and certainly less complicated, in Afghanistan than back here in the real world.
“Have you ever been to Grand Central Station at rush hour?” he asked.
Lips he’d tasted too many times in his dreams turned down. “You know I’ve never been east of Las Vegas.”
Yeah. He knew that. If only the damn rodeo championships had been held in a state where it took more than a nanosecond to get legally married, he might have been able to stop her from getting herself hitched to the totally wrong guy.
The problem was, after how he’d treated her, there would have been a better chance of the Cascades morphing into the Big Rock Candy Mountains and Modoc Mountain erupting and sending streams of Jack Daniels trickling over the rocks than of her listening to why she shouldn’t get married to anyone but him.
“I’ve never been to New York, either. But I’ll bet last night’s dinner came close. Seemed like nearly everyone in the basin showed up. Guess they couldn’t pass up the Bar M’s grass-finished rib eyes.”
Her gaze swept over him. Then her generous lips curved. “Your dad could’ve served hot dogs, or no food at all, and the turnout would’ve been the same. You’re a hometown hero, Sawyer. That’s a big deal. Especially around these parts.”
“I’m not a hero.” The actions that had won him that silver star had not been born
from heroism but from red-hot anger at having seen one too many men in his Marine Ranger unit killed by IEDs and ambushes. Just having it brought up again caused the hole inside Sawyer to grow larger.
“Well, you won’t find many who agree with that, but I’m not going to ruin a lovely spring day by arguing.” She flipped a blond braid over her shoulder. “Let’s go look at the pastureland.”
She leaned down and spoke a word into her horse’s perked ear. An instant later, it took off like a shot, leaving Sawyer to follow.
Even caught off guard as he’d been, Sawyer quickly caught up. Together they galloped side by side along the river, then streaking along the dirt trail through the woods, their horses hitting their powerful stride as they raced across the rolling fields of breeze-bent meadow grass.
Five minutes later, they’d reached the pasture nestled up against the mountain lowlands. Austin might have edged him out by a nose. Or maybe he’d beat her. It was too close to tell. But for that brief time, Sawyer had felt . . . maybe not quite alive. But not exactly dead, either.
They reined in, slowing the horses before bringing them to a stop.
The grass was still winter short but greening up. The paddocks were empty, stretching out to the boundary line that separated their families’ properties. Sawyer envisioned cattle—his cattle—grazing on rich green grass dotted with balls of sweet white clover and experienced something that vaguely felt like anticipation. Which came as a surprise after so many mornings waking up dreading the day. And the next. And the next.
“You’ve been away a long time,” she reminded him unnecessarily. Like he hadn’t had a countdown separation day calendar in his head for months? Especially since getting that email about her divorce, which meant he wasn’t going to have to deal with living up close and personal with her husband. Watching some lucky bastard living the life he’d once hoped would be his.
But before he’d returned home, he’d had one last mission to fulfill. Promises to keep. Which he had, even if the past three months had felt like one long, unending act of contrition.
