The Wrangler's Last Chance

by Jessica Keller

  Carter grinned for the first time that evening. “Well, young Shannon gets an A-plus for naming in my book. I’ve worked at my fair share of ranches and so many horses have boring names. I can tell you this is the first Tater Tot I’ve ever met.”

  “I was all of five when I got him, if that. He’s the same color as a tater tot and they used to be my favorite food, so really it was quite an honor for him.” Tater Tot moved away from them and pawed the ground. Shannon knew colic could be really dangerous. They had lost horses to it quickly in the past. “Did you call Spira?”

  Carter made a face. “Give me a little credit. I went on hundreds of colic calls during school—it’s probably the most common callout for horses. Besides, I looked at Tater Tot’s records and he’ll be twenty-five this year. So surgery is out of the question. I’ve already given him medication, so at this point there isn’t much else the doctor would do.”

  “I’ve heard you’re not supposed to give a horse water when they have colic.” Shannon motioned toward the water bucket in the stall.

  Carter turned and leaned his back against the stall. “Professionals are split down the middle on that one.” He shrugged. “In my experience, water helps. You need liquid for your body to work, right? And it absorbs elsewhere in the body, not just the intestines.” He rolled at his shoulder so he was angled toward her. “If he was making weird noises when he was drinking or if he started wheezing, then of course we’d take it away. For now, he’s doing well.”

  “But what if he gets worse?” Shannon had grown up at the ranch and knew enough about horses to know that if Tater Tot’s gut twisted he wouldn’t make it. Carter was right about him being too old for surgery. It was far too much money and too big a risk to take on an old trail horse they only used for campers.

  Carter pushed off the stall door and made his way toward the office, motioning her to follow. “I’m going to stay up with him in the barn all night to make sure he doesn’t.” When he opened the door to the small office the strong smell of bitter coffee wafted out. “Want a cup?” He glanced over his shoulder.

  “Sure.” She followed him into the small room.

  “Fair warning.” He pulled two mugs from a deep drawer. “It’s the leaded stuff.”

  “Good.” Shannon fished some creamer cups out of the same drawer before accepting the coffee from Carter. She dumped four creamers and two packets of sugar into the steaming drink before taking a sip. “Someone has to keep you awake.”

  He set his mug down and cocked his head. “You don’t have to do that, you know. I’ll be fine on my own. I can drink the whole pot.” He tapped the coffee maker. “And I can always make more if I need to. I won’t let anything happen to Tater Tot, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  After the pangs of loneliness Shannon had felt around her family earlier, she didn’t want to head back to her bunkhouse. All that waited for her there were more reminders that she was alone and might always be. She wanted Carter’s company right now.

  Maybe she needed it.

  And maybe—just maybe—he needed her company, too.

  Even if he wasn’t willing to admit it.

  Chapter Six

  Carter was finishing his second cup of coffee when he heard Tater Tot start to roll in his stall again. Discarding the cup on the nearest perch, Carter rushed down the hallway, flung the stall’s door open and dropped to his knees beside the horse.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” Carter grabbed the horse’s halter, preventing the animal from rolling again. He wasn’t about to let Shannon’s childhood horse hurt itself or worse. He would have been out here with any horse from Red Dog Ranch, but now that he knew this one was special to Shannon, he only wanted to double his efforts to save it.

  Behind him, Shannon skidded to a stop in the hallway. “What can I do?”

  “Grab a lead.” With a few encouraging words and prods, Carter guided Tater Tot to his feet and brought him out of the stall. Shannon thrust a lead line into Carter’s outstretched hand. He clipped it onto the horse’s halter. Tater Tot plodded down the hallway for a few steps and then stopped to paw at the ground. The horse tossed his head wildly.

  Carter placed a hand on his neck. “Hey, now. You’re okay. You’re going to be okay,” he murmured to the horse until it calmed down. Carter glanced at Shannon as he jutted his chin toward the barn door. “Can you open it for me? I find they stay calmer if they’re walked outside.”

  Shannon nodded and jogged ahead, unbolting the wide door and rolling it open enough for Carter and Tater Tot to walk out.

  “Make sure Wing stays in there,” Carter said. The bird was liable to waddle after them into the night and become coyote bait.

  “Until you showed up here, that bird used to follow me everywhere,” Shannon said. “Now I’m chopped liver to him.”

  Once they were safely outside, she rolled the door back until it was almost closed and then fell into step beside Carter.

  At well past midnight, drapes of darkness swathed the fields. Shannon tugged the zipper on her hooded jacket all the way to her neck and then hugged her middle. A sharp wind tore over the ranch, causing the tall grasses and new flowers to roll and toss like an angry ocean. Carter pulled his hat down a bit to make sure it was securely on.

  “You know,” Shannon said, jamming her hands into her jacket’s pockets, “if we had a riding arena we could be walking him inside right now. Let’s keep that in mind for encouragement while we’re planning the horse show.”

  Carter laughed. “True, but then we’d miss the stars.” There were thousands of them out right now. Tiny pinpoints of hope against the darkness. Individually they seemed insignificant—not enough to matter or make a difference against the vast night sky—but together they were enough to light their path.

  Shannon latched onto his arm, stopping him in his tracks. She looked up, her mouth wide-open. “I haven’t been outside this late in a long time. It’s beautiful.” Her whispered words held the weight of awe.

  As he watched her, Carter’s heart pounded loud and hard in his chest. His mouth went dry. He wasn’t sure he had ever seen anyone as beautiful as Shannon Jarrett before. And yes, with her blond curls and wide eyes, he found her physically very attractive, but it was so much more than that. Despite all she had been through, Shannon was kind and brave and warm and always ready to smile. And being around her made Carter wish he was strong enough to be all those things, too.

  I’m sorry someone hurt you.

  Clearly, she had overheard the bulk of his phone call with his father. From his side of the conversation, he was sure she could have heard enough to understand some of what had gone on. And she definitely knew by now that his upbringing wasn’t the bright one she must have had.

  Most people probably would have turned and fled after hearing his exchange with his father. As riled up as his dad had gotten him, Carter must have looked frightening when he ended the call. Yet Shannon hadn’t run off or even blinked at how he was acting. In fact, she had stridden right up to him and reached out.

  Tater Tot huffed but lumbered forward. They needed to keep him moving.

  Carter cleared his throat. “Are you warm enough? I’m going to have to walk him for a while, but if it’s too cold just say the word and we’ll do a loop to drop you back home, okay?” While he didn’t find the night too cold, Shannon very well might. And some distance was bound to help his heart. It would definitely be safer than having her near enough that he could drink in the caramel and vanilla scents that always trailed her. He hadn’t even known her long enough to feel like he was losing himself—but Shannon hadn’t hesitated about hugging him when they first met. She had gone out of her way to be kind. And she had clung to him when she needed protection, had looked to him for encouragement with something that was incredibly important to her, and had walked toward him when he was hurting instead of walking away.

  Where
Shannon was concerned, Carter was in very real danger.

  “You’re not shaking me that easily, cowboy.” She looped her arm through his again. “Besides, who’s going to protect you from the mountain lions if you’re out here all alone?”

  This time he didn’t even attempt to fight the grin that washed over his face. “I can count on you to protect me, huh?”

  She straightened her spine and rolled her shoulders. “Oh, yeah. No one gets to mess with my buddy Carter.” She reminded him of the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz as she put up her fists. “Not on my watch.” She called into the darkness, “Hear that, cougars? Don’t even try because Shannon’s got his back.”

  He scrubbed at his jaw. “You realize they lived in plenty of the other places I’ve been?”

  She blew her hair out of her eyes. “Sure, but haven’t you heard everything’s bigger in Texas? That includes mountain lions.” She elbowed him in a joking manner. “Face it, you need me.”

  Maybe he did.

  Carter shook that thought away. Shannon was his boss’s sister. All things considered, she was probably more off-limits than Audrey had ever been. Back then, he had been a lonely teenager making mistakes, but he was a man now and knew better. Knew that it was up to him to keep others safe...that his lot in life was to never connect, never have anyone too close so that he couldn’t hurt them. He still remembered all the horrible things Audrey had yelled at him. He had ruined her life. Just like his mom’s. Just like Amy’s.

  He already cared too much about Shannon to chance causing her pain.

  But he couldn’t deny how good it felt to have her cuddled against his arm as they strolled through the night. They could walk together to help Tater Tot, couldn’t they? There was nothing wrong about that.

  Shannon finally broke the silence. “So I realized earlier that even though we’ve been talking a lot, you’ve shared surprisingly little about yourself.”

  His gut clenched. He kicked a small rock in the path, making it skitter into the field. “Is that so?”

  “You’re really good at making it seem like you’re being open when you’re not at all.” She gently jiggled his arm. “I’d like to know something about you. Something real. If you’re willing to share.”

  The whole point of taking a job at a remote ranch in Texas had been to keep himself unconnected. Make good money for a year or so, have very few expenses, stay around animals and then get out before anyone could care enough to miss him. Or more likely, before he missed them.

  But Shannon’s nearness made warmth flood his chest and he hadn’t felt like that in a very long time, if ever. He didn’t want to drive her away, not tonight. If he had to he could always pull away tomorrow.

  Carter licked his lips. “What do you want to know?”

  “On the phone—” She looked out across the field and then back at him. “So you have siblings? Would you tell me about them?”

  Last time he told someone everything about his past she had called him trash and sent him packing. But Shannon wasn’t Audrey and he knew not to tell people everything anymore. No one needed his life story, but he could share a little here and there. Safe things. Rattling off information about his siblings should be fine.

  He shot out a long breath. “Like you, I have three siblings. But the dynamics are a bit different. I’m the oldest.”

  She squeezed his arm, letting him know she was there. She was listening.

  But already he wasn’t quite sure where to start without getting too deep. He would have to talk about the divorce and touch on what a horrible person his father was. Even without saying too much it was difficult to avoid that part.

  He would say it fast and just plow through all the information at once. “My parents divorced when I was twelve but by then my dad already had a four-year-old son with the woman who’s now his second wife. That was Austin and she was pregnant with Brooks when my dad left.”

  “Your poor mother.”

  “She took it hard, even though I’ve gathered she knew he had a mistress and another family for years before they finally split. I think she thought that if she just ignored it, it wouldn’t be true.” He laughed once, but it held no humor. “She was wrong.”

  He kept Tater Tot’s lead rope so the horse couldn’t reach the grass. Letting a horse with colic eat would undo all the good the walk was doing.

  He squinted at the stars, doing math in his head. “That makes Austin twenty-two now and Brooks eighteen.” He thought about the fact that his dad had been busy celebrating Austin when he had called. Did they make fun of Carter when his dad got off the phone? How foolish they all must have thought he was. His throat felt tight suddenly. Maybe he was allergic to some of these Texas flowers. “I’m not close to them.”

  “Their loss,” Shannon said in a matter-of-fact way.

  Carter shrugged because he wasn’t certain she was right. Of course, she was being kind. But he had always considered being shut out from that side of the family his loss. They all had good lives and were cheered on by their parents whereas he wasn’t.

  Since he was this far into the mess that was his family, he might as well tell her about all his siblings. “Then there’s Amy. Amy and I aren’t actually related by blood. My stepdad is her biological dad and her mom passed away when she was still a baby. She was seven when my mom married her dad. That would make her almost twenty-six now if I’m calculating right.”

  “So, around my age,” Shannon said.

  Carter glanced her way.

  Her hip bumped into his as they turned down another beaten path in the field. “From the way your voice changed while you were mentioning her, I’m guessing you and Amy are close.”

  “More so when we were young.” Back when she used to run to his room to hide when their parents were fighting. When she knew to go into his closet and lock herself there for safety, even if he wasn’t home. For a while, they had been best friends. Then he’d gotten kicked out and she had been left to handle both of their parents on her own. “But we haven’t been close for a long time.”

  With a gentle tug on his arm, she pulled him to a stop. “Do you believe in God, Carter?”

  Carter scrubbed his hand down his face. “I’m a Christian, yes. But not the church type.” He blew out a long stream of air. “That probably sounds horrible. I don’t mean it in a bad way. I love God but the church and I have had our differences.”

  She tucked her hands around his arm again and they started walking. “I’m not going to judge you for that. God meets us where we’re at. He’s spent the last few years patiently pursuing me when I was making horrible choices. While of course I believe we should be a part of a church community, the act of attending church doesn’t make someone a Christian. Where their heart is does.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe I’m going out on a limb, but I think God brought you here for a reason. And I think He wants to do something in your life and use you to impact other people. But you have to be willing to let that happen, Carter.”

  Shannon was kind, but Carter knew better. He was no one’s blessing from God. He never would be.

  His fingers tightened on the lead rope. “Let’s not get carried away. I’m just here to make an honest dollar so I can pay down my school loans.”

  “Well, you can brush off what I said, but you’ve impacted my life already and that’s something you can’t just shrug away.”

  Uncertain how to safely continue navigating the conversation, Carter swallowed hard. He refused to hurt Shannon but they were already heading down a road that could end badly if he didn’t switch directions with her. If they got too close. If he let himself get invested and decided to stay... She deserved so much better than a man like him. He needed things to shift back to safe ground—topics that didn’t involve emotions and declarations.

  Tater Tot hadn’t tossed his head, pawed at the ground or attempted to lie down to roll the w
hole time they had been walking, so Carter veered them back toward the barn. The building was dwarfed by the distance they had created by walking for so long.

  They made it halfway across the field before he felt Shannon fidgeting beside him. Despite his recent thoughts about not wanting to risk getting any closer to her, Carter couldn’t suppress his smile or his curiosity. “Out with whatever you want to say.”

  Shannon groaned. “Am I that obvious?”

  “The silence was killing you, wasn’t it?”

  She tossed back her head and laughed. “It was excruciating. I’m not used to holding back.”

  Since their very first encounter she hadn’t been one to bite her tongue. He enjoyed when people were that way. Then at least he knew what he was in for. So it struck him as strange that Shannon hadn’t come right out and said something. Had she taken his silence to mean he was upset? While he might have been confused and conflicted, he definitely wasn’t upset.

  Carter caught her gaze. “Remember what I said the other day about being heard? That goes with me, too, Shannon. You can say whatever you want around me.” He ducked his head to meet her deep brown eyes straight on. “No fear, okay?”

  “Right,” she said. “Well, I just wanted to ask you about being a veterinarian. I mean, you have your degree, right? We should be calling you Dr. Kelly.”

  “If you haven’t figured out by now, I’m not much for titles.”

  She nodded in a thoughtful way. “Why would you pick to be a head wrangler when you could be running your own practice?”

  He rolled his shoulders. “It takes a lot of money to set up a practice.” Money he didn’t have and wouldn’t have for a long time. “And I have eight years’ worth of school debt that needs to be paid off. So it seemed smarter to try to pay those loans down before taking on another huge financial hardship.”

  They were close enough to the barn now that she released her hold on his arm and made her way to the barn door. Some of the warmth from earlier drained from his body. Maybe it was colder at night than he had given Texas credit for.