Along Came a Cowboy

by Christine Lynxwiler

“Probably too busy seducing a hysterical girl.”

  His voice is soft. “Rachel—”

  “Where would he take her?” I snap.

  “Probably to the ranch.”

  “I’ll be right there.” I open my car door.

  “Let me take you. You’re in no shape to drive.”

  “I don’t have time to wa—” His truck pulls into the driveway behind my car. I slam the door and flip my cell shut. I also don’t have time to waste arguing.

  When I climb into his truck, he looks over at me. “It will be okay.”

  “That depends on how quickly we find them.”

  “Dirk—”

  I hold up my hand. “If you’re going to tell me again what a fine, upstanding young man he is, I’m going to have to take my own car.”

  A muscle in his jaw jumps, but he keeps his lips clenched together.

  We ride the rest of the way to his barn without speaking. Dirk’s truck is parked right outside, and my stomach clenches. What will we find? Are we too late to stop Jenn from repeating my mistake?

  As soon as I open my truck door, I can hear a male voice yelling. Jack is already running toward the barn, and I’m on his heels through the door. I stop in my tracks as I see Dirk inside the dirt-floored arena.

  “Are you crazy?” he yells. “You can’t do this.”

  Jenn, her hair flying wildly around her shoulders, looks down at him from inside the chute, astride a bull. The bright green shirt and red hair are incongruent with the brownness of the arena and the paleness of her face. The word surreal flashes through my mind. This can’t be happening.

  She glances up at me and lifts her chin.

  Black spots dance in front of my eyes, and everything starts to fade. I blink and steady myself with my hand. “Jenn,” I call shakily, “come on out and let’s talk.”

  “I don’t have anything to say to you,” she yells, her voice hoarse from crying.

  “I have plenty to say to you,” I call back. “Please get off the bull.”

  Dirk climbs up on the chute gate in front. It can’t open with him on it, surely. A movement near Jenn catches my eye. Jack has slipped around behind her.

  Please, Lord, keep her safe.

  Jack’s husky voice rings through the empty arena, but I can’t tell whether he’s talking to Jenn or the bull. I edge closer, and she answers him, so I guess he is talking to her. He continues to talk in low soothing tones as if the back of a bull is the perfect place for a long conversation.

  Every muscle in my body is taut. I feel as tightly coiled as a lion ready to spring, yet as helpless as a mouse in a trap.

  She looks over at me and nods, then reaches up toward Jack. A sigh of relief pushes from my lungs.

  Dirk leans in to help Jack get her off the increasingly restless bull. Apparently, his foot catches the latch, because the chute gate he’s standing on swings slowly open. He lets go of Jenn and teeters, then drops to the ground, trying to close the latch back.

  The bull, sensing freedom, slams his massive body against the gate. Dirk loses his balance and stumbles backward.

  Jennifer, still on the bull’s back, screams.

  I run toward them.

  The bull throws his body sideways and meets no resistance. I reach the fence just as Jack snatches Jenn straight up in the air. I sink to my knees. The bull rampages out from under her into the arena, snorting and bucking.

  Jack stands on the back side of the chute with Jenn cradled in his arms.

  Dirk, back on his feet, climbs the fence and jumps out of the arena. He starts toward them, but Jack waves him away. He carries Jenn as if she were a baby and sets her down on the bench behind me.

  I clamber to my feet and sit next to her. I reach toward her, and sobbing, she clutches my hand. Tears gush as I stare down at our clasped hands. For a brief second, she’s mine again. It’s as if none of this awfulness ever happened.

  “That was close,” I say quietly, rubbing my trembling thumb across the back of her hand.

  Jennifer stares up at me, her body shaking, her eyes clouded with fear and doubt. “I wanted you to pay,” she whispers. “I thought it would serve you right if I got thrown off a bull.”

  I instinctively put my free hand over my heart. “It probably would have served me right, but I’m so thankful it didn’t happen.”

  “How could you do this to me?”

  “Jenn, things aren’t always as they seem.”

  Her choked laugh is edged with sarcasm. “No kidding.”

  “There’s no explaining why I did what I did. I guess that’s why I put this off so long.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? Were you ashamed of me?”

  I shake my head. “I was ashamed of me.” My insides clench as I remember the day I handed her to Tammy. “I wanted you to be a phoenix, baby. Beauty rising from the ashes. And you are.”

  “Did you hate me because I was a mistake? Is that why you gave me up?”

  I clasp her hand a little tighter, and she jerks it away as if she just realized we were touching.

  “You were never a mistake. I loved you. More than life itself. That’s why I gave you up.”

  “How could you have kept this from me all these years? Would. . .Mom—” She stumbles on the word. “Would they not let you tell me?”

  I push her hair back from her face, and again she jerks away.

  “No, I was the one who wouldn’t let them tell you I was your birth mother. I said I didn’t want you to know because I didn’t want you to be embarrassed, but the truth is, if I couldn’t be your mother, I, at least, wanted you to look up to me. Not to see me as someone who would do something so despicable.” I pull in a shuddering breath and swipe at my face, slick with tears. “It was pride.”

  “My whole life has been a lie.”

  “You have two parents and an extended family who love you an incredible amount. That’s not a lie.”

  “I loved you.”

  Her past tense stabs me. “Jenn, we were going to tell you this afternoon. Your mom and dad are probably at my house by now, actually. I called them yesterday, and they agreed to come today so we could tell you together.”

  Jenn stares at me as if I am a stranger and pushes to her feet. “It’s too late now. I want to go home.”

  I follow her out of the barn then look around blindly for my car. Without speaking, Jack climbs in the crew cab truck and starts the motor. Suddenly, I remember I rode with him. Jenn gets in the backseat, and with great effort, I get in the front. My whole body is heavy with defeat. So this is what it’s like when everything you fear will happen, does. I’ve lost them both.

  I look over at Dirk, leaning on the fence, his head buried in his arms.

  “What was he thinking?” I mutter.

  Jack gives me a sharp glance. “He was thinking that a girl he really likes asked him to show her how he could ride a bull. But when he got the bull in the chute, she climbed down in there instead.”

  From the backseat, a quaking sob punctuates his words.

  I try to fight back my own sobs, but I can’t, so I turn to the window and bury my head in my arm.

  “Rachel. . . ,” Jack says softly.

  I shake my head. Nothing he can say will make me feel better, and if I feel any worse, I think I’ll die. He must realize that, because he doesn’t speak again.

  When we get to my house, I get out, shut my door, and open Jenn’s. She lets me help her down but pulls away from me when I try to put my arm around her. I mumble, “Thanks,” in Jack’s direction.

  “Take care,” he says softly and drives out of my life.

  “I thought you said Mom and Dad were going to be here,” Jenn says as if everything I say and do might be a lie.

  “They should be here any minute.” “I’ll be in my room.” She scuffs down the hall. “Packing.”

  I should try to start something for supper. The game plan had been I’d have a nice supper ready, and as soon as they got here, we’d eat and then tell Jenn the
truth together. I walk in the kitchen and open the pantry door. The labels blur together. I snag my little footstool and step up on it to stretch to the top shelf. Behind a twenty-pound bag of Jasmine rice, my fingers find what I’m looking for. I clutch the plastic and pull it toward me.

  I barely look up when Russ and Tammy’s headlights illuminate the dim living room. In a minute, she pushes open the screen door and flips on the light. “Rachel,” she gasps.

  I look down at my lap and the floor around me littered with candy wrappers. “I needed chocolate,” I moan.

  “Oh my goodness! She found out, didn’t she?”

  I nod, miserable in every way.

  Tammy gives me a quick hug, and she and Russ hurry down the hall to Jenn’s room. She apparently lets them in, and they disappear inside. I sit in the quiet house listening to the rise and fall of their voices.

  I’ve never felt so alone.

  Jenn will be okay. She may never forgive me, but she’ll be okay. She has parents who love her, and someday she’ll have a family and children of her own. But I’ll never move past the mistake I made as a teenager.

  Even in my sugar-clouded mind, I can see that I chose my own reality. Is this what I want? To live out my life and end up a bitter old woman with no one?

  I jump up and hurry down the hall to the bathroom. After I wash my face and scrub my teeth vigorously, I put on a light touch of makeup, enough to cover my swollen eyes a little, maybe. I raise my hand and tap on Jenn’s door. “Tammy?”

  Tammy opens the door and smiles at me. “We were about to come out.”

  Behind her I can see Jenn sitting on the bed next to her dad, her head resting on his shoulder. She keeps her gaze to the floor.

  “I’m actually going to run out for a little bit, okay? I’ve got some things I need to take care of.”

  She hugs me again. “Just give her a little time. She’ll remember that Aunt Rachel’s the best,” she whispers against my ear.

  Tears edge my eyes again, and I nod even though I don’t believe it. “I’ll be back in a while.”

  “Russ is going to go get us a pizza. We’ll save you some.” Again I nod. “Thanks.”

  In my car, I sit in the driver’s seat, unsure what I’m going to do. After a few minutes, I start the motor and drive mindlessly for a while, watching details carefully but not going anywhere. Finally, I turn down the lane toward Mom and Dad’s. And Jack’s. I pass his road, though, and head on toward my childhood home.

  Sitting in the dark eating chocolate may not be a therapy I’d recommend to my patients, but as I sat there, I realized some hard truths. One is that somehow emotionally I ended up being frozen in time that Christmas Eve morning I told my parents I was pregnant.

  I pull up into their driveway and kill the motor and my headlights.

  I stare up at the dimly lit house. I left a large part of my heart here that day.

  And as scary as the prospect is, I’m ready to reclaim it.

  “Hey, baby girl. What are you doing here?”

  I jump, startled by my dad’s use of my childhood nickname almost as much as I am by his presence in the front porch swing. “Daddy! What are you doing out here?”

  “I was just sittin’ and studyin’ a little until it got too dark to see.” He holds up his well-worn black leather Bible. “Your mama’s gone into town for her scrapbook night, so I wasn’t in any hurry to get back in the house.” He starts to stand. “But we can go on in if you want.”

  “No, we can just sit out here.” I slide into the patio chair and pretend I don’t see him pat the swing beside him.

  A chirruping fills the silence.

  “Crickets?”

  “Tree frogs.”

  “I never could keep those straight.” I stare out at the green flashes lighting up the yard. “Y’all have so many lightning bugs. I remember Tammy and me catching jars full of those.”

  He nods. “She’d forget and leave hers until they died. Then she’d cry. But you were so careful. You always made sure you let them out after you used their light a little.”

  I remember that. “I never wanted to take a chance that I might forget and be sorry.”

  “I think that made it a lot harder to accept the news when you told us you were expecting.”

  I jerk my eyes up to meet his, shocked that he brought up a subject that has been taboo for fifteen years.

  His eyes, so like mine and Jenn’s, have crow’s-feet I’ve never noticed. “That is what you came to talk about, isn’t it?”

  I shrug then nod. “Mostly.”

  “I knew you would eventually. Or I hoped you would.”

  “What made it harder to accept?”

  “You were always our easy child. The steady one. Levelheaded. Careful. We were stunned beyond a parent’s normal shock at that kind of news.”

  I hate to admit that I felt sort of the same way. Like what I did was worse because I was so not the type to do it.

  “Not that I’m making excuses for that day. We’ve talked a million times about how we wished we’d handled it differently. But sometimes you don’t get another chance.”

  I think of Jennifer’s angry, hurt-filled expression today. Tears prick my eyes. Another surprise. I thought I was all cried out. “You kicked me out. On Christmas Eve.”

  “I know it seems that way to you, but at the time we just wanted to get you away quickly so that when you came back home. . .after, there’d be no rumors.”

  “You planned for me to come back home?”

  He frowns. “We asked you to come back home with us after the baby was born. Don’t you remember?”

  I start to deny it, but then I stop. “That was just so that I’d be out of Russ and Tammy’s way and they could get on with their new life with the baby.”

  He chokes a little and coughs. “It was because we missed you and wanted you here.”

  I know that’s how he remembers it, because my dad would never lie, but I have a feeling his memory is a little skewed.

  I guess mine could be, too.

  Maybe reality is somewhere in the middle. “We saved your presents for years.”

  I put my hand to my mouth. I’ve never admitted to a soul how hurt I was that my parents put me in a car on Christmas Eve and never offered me one gift from under the tree. For the first few years, I privately wondered what they did with them. I pictured a big bonfire. Or maybe an act as simple as returning them to the store. Finally I put them out of my mind. I thought.

  “Why didn’t you just give them to me in Georgia?”

  “We had some silly idea that when you came home, we’d celebrate Christmas and pretend the whole thing never happened.”

  As the queen of pretend-it-never-happened, I can relate even though I don’t want to. “Yeah. I tried that. Pretending. It blew up in my face today.”

  Concern etches deep lines on his forehead. “Jennifer found out?” He looks over my shoulder as if she might be lurking in the dark. “Where is she?”

  “Tammy and Russ are with her. I called last night and asked them to come so we could tell her together, but this afternoon Jack made a comment about us looking alike, and Jennifer put two and two together.”

  He reaches over and pats my hand, a little awkwardly, but the feeling is there. “I’m sorry.”

  “She hates me.”

  “Nothing hurts worse than that, I don’t think.” His voice is filled with pain.

  “I never hated you, Daddy. Or Mama, either.”

  “It sure felt like it for a lot of years.”

  “I thought y’all hated me.”

  “That’s just another way we failed you. Not putting aside our pride enough to make sure you knew otherwise.”

  “I should have come to talk to you about it sooner.”

  “We thought when you moved home that things would straighten out in no time.”

  “They should have,” I say softly and lean my head back against the chair. “I’ve been an idiot.”

  “We all have.�
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  I laugh a little, and a permanent tightness in my chest loosens. “Mama might not like you speaking for her on that.”

  He chuckles. “It sure was nice of you to invite her to go to the concert with you. You’ll never know how much it meant to her.”

  “I had fun.”

  “So did she. She talked about it for weeks after.”

  “Maybe we can do more together.”

  He nods. “Maybe we all can.”

  I reach over and squeeze his hand. “Count on it.”

  “Don’t give up on Jennifer, Rachel. She loves you, and if you just keep showing her you love her, she’ll come around. And I think it’ll be sooner than you think.”

  I push to my feet. “From your lips to God’s ears.”

  “I really will be praying about it, honey.”

  “Thank you. I’d better be getting back home.”

  He stands and pulls me into a hug, then drops a kiss on my forehead. “Love you.”

  “I love you, too, Daddy.”

  He walks me out to the car. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  “I won’t.”

  “You’re welcome to bring our neighbor over with you anytime.”

  I shake my head, trying to ignore the pain stabbing through me. “You and Mama are going to have to give up on that dream. We had a parting of the ways today, too.”

  “Partings can be mended.”

  I slide into the driver’s seat. “You may be a tad bit overly optimistic.”

  He shakes his head. “After what happened here tonight? I don’t think so.”

  “We’ll see.” I start the motor and put the car in reverse.

  He stays where he is until I get turned around and head out. In my rearview mirror, I watch him walk back up on the porch.

  As I pull out of my parents’ driveway, I roll my windows down and slow to a crawl. The stars out here are so big. A gentle breeze across my face matches the peace I feel inside. But when I near the turnoff to Jack’s ranch, a wave of longing broadsides me.

  Regardless of what Daddy said, some fences can’t be mended.

  I waited too late to figure out my true feelings for Jack. With today’s fiasco fresh on his mind, I doubt he’s in any mood to listen. And now that he knows the truth about what happened all those years ago, I’m sure he never will be. After tomorrow night, the rodeo will be over and he’ll again become someone I just see around town occasionally.