Pumpkins, Cowboys & Guitars

by Patti Ann Colt

  Sometimes he couldn’t even do the connecting. He knew he felt responsible for the mess that man’s life had ended up in and those feelings caused massive ambivalence about his life prior to being a fireman. Unfortunately, that included what he thought of as his “cowboy” years. He tore off a piece of his sausage roll, but then dropped it back on the napkin. “A whole lot of complicated reasons. The point is she isn’t going to understand.”

  His father took a bite of his sausage roll and chewed, his eyes distant, thinking things through. He finally swallowed and then took a sip of coffee. “By my experience, it’s always a bad thing when you think she won’t understand. What you think she won’t understand, she generally will. What you think isn’t a big deal she’ll either get ticked about or cry over.”

  Shane shook his head, a heaviness slipping through his body. “I know what her reaction is going to be.”

  Chase O’Hare sat unmoving, his hands wrapped around his coffee cup, his donut untouched on the napkin. His eyes, however, kept sweeping Shane’s face. “She matters.”

  He thought for a flash about denying it, but what would be the point. He’d told enough lies as it was. “She matters.”

  “Then seems to me your answer is tell her the truth and hope you can fix it.”

  “I tried to. Something happened that got in the way.”

  “Get it out of the way and try again.” His father’s cell phone buzzed at him. He pulled his glasses from his pocket and studied the text message. “Your mother. I quit fishing an hour ago and told her I was on the way home.” He typed in a reply.

  “Don’t tell Mom.”

  “About the girlfriend? I won’t. You will. After you fix things.”

  “If I fix things.”

  His father pointed a finger at him. “Son, half the battle is believing you can. But you know that. Couldn’t have ridden bucking horses if you didn’t.”

  In reality, that seemed like a lifetime ago to Shane.

  “Or run into a burning building, for that matter. Tell her. Better than stewing about it.” Chase shoved his donut across to Shane. “Take this. I eat it, you mother will smell the chocolate when I pull in the drive.”

  Shane stared at the food in front of him, not feeling like eating any of it.

  His father stood and took his coffee. “I have to get home. Handling some of the chores for Jess until Amy Rose gets her feet under her.”

  “What did the doctor say?” Shane wrapped the donuts in a napkin.

  “Promised I let your brother tell you.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “Yeah, promised Jess he could tell you the details.” His father’s hand came down on his shoulder. “Tell her, Shane. Truth in a relationship is important. Sure, little white lies, we all tell them. But the big stuff about who you are and where you come from, you can’t change those. They follow you, speak about who you are. If she matters, she deserves to know all about you.”

  Some part of Shane had known that all along. Some part had been repeatedly nagging on him to come clean since the beginning. Some part of him was proud of who he was. So how did he make peace with the scattered pieces of himself? How?

  “You been struggling with something for quite a while. Your mom and I can both see it. That about this woman?”

  “No, Dad. Something else.”

  His dad peered at him, waiting for him to speak, but Shane couldn’t get words around the boulder of that whole mess. He shook his head and stared to the back of the shop where the Asian lady was cleaning the kitchen.

  “When you’re ready, you know we’ll listen.”

  Shane nodded and took a gulp of coffee, then cleared his throat several times.

  “I gotta go, son, else your mother will call Jess and send him looking for me.”

  “I have to go too, Dad. I’m working a shift tonight for Steve and have a bunch of things to do before then.”

  His father squeezed his shoulder. “Come by later. We’ll go riding together. Dreamer misses you.”

  His gut froze, the coffee churning the acid. “I can’t, Dad. I haven’t had that much time off. I have laundry to do, bills to pay, a couple errands to run.”

  “And a girl to talk to.”

  “Yeah. That too.”

  God, he missed riding Dreamer and was ticked at himself. The only one denying him the pleasure of his horse’s company was him. He wanted to take Kendra to the barn and introduce them, which in light of her accident was not something that was going to be easy for her, but it was another slice of who he was that he was denying her.

  “Well, I’ll ride her for you today, but she misses you.”

  “I’ll do it as soon as I can, Dad.”

  “Good enough. See you Thursday night for dinner?”

  His mind went blank. “Let me check my schedule, Dad. I’ll call Mom.”

  “You do that.” His father’s phone went off again. “Your mother. Wants help taking down the drapes and taking them to the cleaners. It’s the project of the day.”

  “Thanks for coffee and the talk.”

  “Anytime.”

  His father left. Shane cleared the table, dumping the food and his coffee in the garbage. He went to his truck and drove to his apartment.

  He’d do laundry.

  He’d pay bills.

  He’d go to the bank and get some money for Kendra to use to buy supplies. She hadn’t told him she was squeaking by financially, but it was obvious from the paperwork on the desk and she didn’t need to. He could help her. Wanted to help her.

  But talking to Kendra about his past was not on his list today. She needed time to settle down from her talk with her father. Time to think it through and put it in perspective.

  He needed time to search for those words that had been eluding him for weeks before his silence killed any chance he had.

  ∞∞∞ ∞∞∞

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Amy Rose moved the stack of papers the doctor had given her to read, shoved away the stack of romance paperbacks and the laptop Jess had thoughtfully put close at hand, and plumped her pillows. Apparently a multiple birth pregnancy was going to keep her under a microscope for months to come. Morning sickness all day and all night was sapping her energy. She alternately threw up or had cravings for jalapenos, Oreos and Orange Crush, a combination that would have normally had her puking on principle.

  This was the first time since seeing the doctor that Jess had left her alone. He’d only done so because he had a ton of ranch work to do and she’d promised to take it easy. It wasn’t that she necessarily needed to take it easy. She felt decent some of the time. But he was trying so hard to be cool and calm. If she read his eyes right – and she did – he was plumb overwhelmed and scared. So was she.

  Three babies!

  How in the world did one person deliver three babies, let alone take care of them? She had to follow the doctor’s instructions explicitly if she wanted to get as close to full-term with them as she could. She had several doctors’ appointments in the next two weeks, another ultrasound, and was waiting for a maternal-fetal specialist to call and schedule an appointment.

  She’d read every scrap of information the doctor gave her. She’d read website after website, found several forums with other mothers to discuss pregnancy. She’d looked at baby clothes and furniture. She’d fretted that this house was nowhere close to big enough for three babies without a remodel. That put an ache from the loss of her own house square in the middle of her chest. She worried about health care coverage and how much this was going to cost, even though Jess had said they’d figure it out.

  She still needed more clothes, a new cell phone, and to tell her parents. Which was going to be hard since they wouldn’t return her calls. Jess would not be in favor of her driving alone to Dallas to tell them. She certainly wouldn’t drag him to their lair. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go to that much trouble anyway. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d only told them what she wanted to do with her life and t
hey’d walked away from her.

  Her brain was on overload. Input full.

  Her emotions were volatile and unpredictable. Tears imminent.

  Her love for Jess and their babies filled her so completely that those emotions outweighed all the rest. Blessings complete.

  The front door opened and slammed closed. Jess swore under his breath.

  She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, walked the short distance to the front room, and grinned as he struggled to dump the grocery sacks on the table. He must have tried to make one trip. “Hey, you.”

  He smiled at her. “Sorry. I was trying to be quiet.”

  “I was awake. No worries.” She walked to the table.

  Jess’s house was the most basic of floor plans. The living room, dining area and kitchen were all one room on the front side of the house. The laundry room, bathroom and bedroom were on the back side of the house. There were no extra bedrooms. No extra storage. It had been built originally as a home for Ladonna and Chase when they’d first married. At the time, Chase’s parents lived in the big house. Jess had painted the rooms white and installed hardwood floors. He’d kept the furniture simple and to a minimum.

  Jess dumped the last of the bags on the kitchen table. “I think I got everything on the list.”

  She pulled one bag to her and started unpacking the groceries, studying his face. “What’s wrong? You look like a thundercloud.”

  “Argument with my dad.” Jess shoved the milk in the refrigerator, hung his hat on the peg by the front door and went to the sink to wash his hands.

  “You? Argue with your dad? What about? Your dad rarely argues with anyone.” She went to him and leaned into him for a hug.

  He obliged and kissed her temple, his face clearing for a moment. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. What did you argue about?”

  “Shane.” He kissed her mouth, taking his time.

  She kissed him back and pulled away. “Don’t try to distract me. What about Shane?” She started on the second bag, sorting and putting away.

  Jess reached for another sack and put a frozen pizza on the stove. “We argued about Shane. Dad had coffee with him this morning and found out about the girlfriend. He’s ticked at me that I knew and didn’t say anything.”

  “And he found out you knew, um… how?”

  Jess pulled another bag to him and pulled out bananas and apples. “He asked me point blank and I told him the truth. It was a relief actually.”

  “Does your mom know?”

  “No. That’s where the rub is. Shane wants to tell Mom himself. But he still has a few things to work out with Kendra before he does. My mother is going to be livid when she discovers we all knew and she didn’t.”

  “What is up with him?” Amy Rose gathered all the plastic bags and put them in the recycling. “Sully’s right. He’s not been acting like himself for quite some time now.”

  Jess went back to the front door, toed off his boots and put them in the boot stand by the door. “And it goes back to before Kendra. Which is why, tonight after dinner, we’re going to go hunting for some clues.”

  Amy Rose opened the refrigerator to stow the remaining items. “What clues?”

  “Shane’s rodeo days. I stopped by Mom’s after the chores were done and sorted through her box of memories on Shane’s rodeo days. Can’t believe it’s already been two years since he competed.” Jess reached in the fridge for a beer and twisted the top off. “She kept a list of every rodeo he was in and which events. I borrowed that list. We’re going to YouTube our way through the evening and see if we can find any videos from some of those rodeos. Don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. He stopped riding abruptly and made no explanation. It never made any sense.”

  “Cool. Date night. Movies.” She went on tiptoe and kissed him. “I’m in if you feed me.”

  “I can do that. Oreos might be involved.”

  “Aw, you love me.”

  “Without a doubt, Mrs. O’Hare.”

  They ate pizza and salad, cleaned the dishes and settled on the sofa with Jess’s computer on the coffee table and a package of Oreos. Two hours later, Amy Rose had her legs propped over Jess’s lap, had worked her way through a dozen Oreo cookies and had snoozed through the last thirty minutes of rodeo videos.

  “You only have three more rodeos on the list. I don’t think we’re going to find anything.” She yawned and snuggled closer to Jess.

  Jess patted her leg to get her attention. “Not so fast. I think I found something.”

  Amy Rose opened her eyes and shifted around. “What?”

  “Watch this. I warn you, though. It isn’t pretty.” Jess clicked the mouse over the replay tab.

  A grainy homemade video focused on a handsome cowboy, a younger version of Shane. He walked to the shoot, climbed onto the back of an antsy horse named Demon’s Daughter and settled in. The clock counted down and horse and rider were released from the shoot. Shane lasted two and a half seconds before being bucked off and landing on his shoulder in the dirt.

  Amy Rose winced. The rodeo clown tried to dart toward Shane and draw the horse off. Instead, the angry horse kicked the man square in the chest. He slammed back against the fence with a momentum that shook the fence, and slid to the ground unconscious. The video cut off.

  “Oh God.” Amy Rose fell back against Jess. “Is he dead?”

  “I don’t know. That was all there was and I can’t find any other videos. This was the last rodeo Shane competed in. The other two on the list after this, he entered, but didn’t compete. I think one plus one equals two.”

  Amy Rose swung her feet to the floor and pulled the laptop to her. “Let’s search for a news article. There had to be one. That rodeo clown got hurt in a major way.”

  Jess leaned against her and followed her sort through the search items, opening and discarding options. “Try that one.”

  She opened the website and scanned through the article from the local newspaper. “This is it. A rodeo clown was seriously injured yesterday at the Mayhill Rodeo. Bill Fudd, 35, was kicked by Demon’s Daughter and struck the steel fencing. He was airlifted to a hospital in Fort Worth.

  “Does it mention Shane?”

  “Yeah.” She scrolled down to the bottom. “Bareback bronc rider Shane O’Hare had been ejected from the horse when the accident occurred.”

  “What happened to Fudd?”

  She scanned the page. “It doesn’t say.”

  Jess got to his feet and paced the small living space. “Shane feels responsible.”

  “Why? Accidents happen in rodeo all the time. He had to know that. Had to have witnessed more than a few in those years he was on the circuit.”

  “Not the same when it’s up close and personal like that. And Shane’s always been the go-to person when anyone needed anything. I swear that’s why he’s a fireman. Having to watch what happened to that man had to rub. I need to talk to him.”

  “Are you going to call him tonight?”

  Jess looked at the clock. “No, it’s too late. I think he’s working, anyway. Plus, I want to do this face-to-face.”

  “You want me to see if I can find out what happened to Fudd?” Amy Rose yawned.

  “Yes. I need all the facts I can get. But not tonight. Let’s quit.” Jess dropped by her side and took her hand. “Life’s funny, isn’t it? My parents were at every event he was in except those last few months while Dad was recovering from his broken foot. How much different would this be if they’d been there, if they’d known.”

  “Shane had to know they’d understand, that you would understand. It was an accident.”

  “That horse was pretty riled. Maybe he thought he could have handled him better, or shouldn’t have ridden him. The neighbor raises and trains bucking horses. I’m going to take a run over and talk to Brant McCormick in the morning, show him the video and see what he says.”

  “That’s a good idea, and I’ll broaden my search and see what else I can find.” She c
losed all the windows and turned the computer off. “I need ice cream. Triple fudge chocolate.”

  Jess gazed at her for a moment and then laughed. “I didn’t buy any. It wasn’t on the list.”

  “Sorry. Craving.”

  Jess went to the kitchen and opened the freezer. “You’re in luck. There’s plain chocolate, but there’s only half a pint here.”

  “Gimme.”

  Jess brought her the ice cream and a spoon. “Let’s hope what we find out will help Shane.”

  Amy Rose took several bites of ice cream and watched Jess check the door, lock it and begin turning off lights. She finished the last bite of ice cream, mourned there wasn’t more, and reached to turn out the final light.

  They’d been avoiding the subject all evening.

  “Three babies, Jess. What are we going to do? This house isn’t big enough.”

  Jess disposed of her ice cream carton and followed her to the bedroom. He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it into the hamper, then came to her side. “I love you, Amy Rose, and I love those babies. We’ll figure it out.”

  “There’s so much. So much to do, so much to learn, so much to decide.” The panic settled in her throat, choking her.

  “Shhh.” He leaned over and kissed her neck. “I’m here. We’re a family. We’re both smart people. We’ll figure it out. Mom has more than a few ideas. She was down in the barn with me a couple times today. We can make time tomorrow to go over and talk a few things through.”

  “My parents. They aren’t returning my phone calls.” She took to his hand and pulled it to her cheek, grief washing over her.

  “They’ll come around. Give it time.”

  “You keep saying that, but I don’t see how.”

  “We’ll make it happen. They are family.”

  She snorted. “They never treated you like that.”

  “But they always wanted what was best for you. They aren’t going to stay mad. It’s not possible.”

  “You hope.”

  “No, I know. Not every day a woman has triplets. It’s an event and a blessing. I don’t think they could have raised the woman I love with all my heart without a bit of love for her in them.”