Pumpkins, Cowboys & Guitars

by Patti Ann Colt

  “The man is paralyzed from the neck down. His world consists of a three by seven hospital bed, his motorized wheelchair and his television. Has for the last two years. What’s visiting him cost me versus that? He’s been really sick the last few months. He needs friends.”

  “Oh my God, I just figured it out. The gold stallion you brought home? You said it was a friend’s and he couldn’t keep him. That’s Bill’s horse, isn’t it?

  “Yes. So what?”

  “God, Shane. Why didn’t you tell me? Don’t you see? This isn’t your fault and in fact you seem to have done everything you could do to help the man.”

  “It was the least I could do, Jess.”

  “I talked to Brant McCormick, Shane. He raises broncing horses, in case you’ve forgotten.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten. What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “He watched the video. Said it wasn’t your fault.”

  “I know horses, Jess. I spent enough time growing up around horses same as you. I did this on the amateur circuit and the pro circuit enough to know when a horse is off.”

  “Well, why didn’t the vet or any one of the other people that handled her before you rode her figure it out? What makes you more guilty than them? And I’m not saying anyone was guilty. Dangerous is the name of that rodeo game. You know it. Unpredictable stuff happens all the time.”

  “I know that, Jess, but the man’s life was changed for the worse and I was in the middle and could have stopped it. I won’t dodge saying what I know to be true and taking part of the responsibility for it. Yes, that’s why I quit. I was more focused on the next prize, the glory of the win and not on safety. Bill Fudd paid for that.”

  Jess crossed his arms. “Bill Fudd made a choice. Just like you made a choice. You were both in the arena with a dangerous horse. Rodeo is one big risk.”

  Shane lost it and shouted. “Bill Fudd didn’t choose to be paralyzed.”

  Jess got in his face and shouted back. “You didn’t choose to get bucked off or to have him get hurt trying to distract the damn horse, either!”

  Shane grabbed Jess’s shirt and shook him. “Still my fault. Still my problem.”

  Jess grasped his hands and held on. “This is why you haven’t told Kendra anything about your family or your past, isn’t it?

  Shane clenched his jaw, teeth grinding as he considered how to answer Jess’s question.

  “I’d like to know the answer to that, too.”

  Shane jerked at the sound of Kendra’s quivering voice. He dropped his hands from Jess’s shirt and turned to the open barn doors. She stood, uncertain, looking as if she’d bolt if given any provocation.

  “Kennie? What the hell?” He didn’t mean to snarl.

  She stepped back. “You left your phone. I followed you to give it back. Answer the question.” She was as pale as cake flour.

  His anger dried up. Dread and inevitability crashed together with the agony of hurt in her eyes. “How much did you hear?”

  “Does it matter?”

  He started toward her, but she held up her hands to stop him, juggling his cell phone. “Stay there.”

  “Kennie?”

  “Who is this?” She pointed at Jess. “We’ve met. Right? The Low Down. You were with your wife, Amy Rose.”

  “Yeah, Jess. O’Hare.” He pointed at Shane. “His brother.”

  Shane took his eyes off Kendra and glared at Jess, a split impulse away from shoving him into the dirt.

  Jess glared back. “Don’t even think about it. I promise you won’t like explaining to Mom. I didn’t tell Kendra anything. You were supposed to.”

  Kendra grabbed a post for stability and bent over. God, he wanted to go to her and hold her, but she still held him at bay with a hand up.

  “You knew who I was?” Kendra’s eyes spit daggers at Jess.

  Jess shrugged. “Guessed who you were when Sully told us.”

  “So you lied to me, too.”

  Jess stepped toward her. “No offense, Kendra, but I don’t owe you anything. I didn’t say any more than I had to so I could protect my lame-brained brother who is struggling with some issue about who he is.”

  Shane clenched his hands. “That’s enough, Jess.”

  “You bet it is, Shane. Time to tell her the truth. All of it.” Jess gripped the handles of the wheelbarrow. “I have horses to feed, a wife to take care of and triplet babies to figure out.”

  He turned the wheelbarrow around and went out the side door of the barn to the compost pile.

  Shane took a tentative step toward Kendra and when she didn’t protest, he took another one. Her mouth was locked in a tight-lipped frown. When he got to her, she handed him his phone, pulling her fingers away to keep from touching him.

  A part of him shriveled, damning himself for creating the whole damn situation because he couldn’t figure a way through his feelings. “I can explain.”

  “Possibly. But whether I will listen to that explanation is questionable. You lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie. I had some things I didn’t tell you. With your fear of horses, I was afraid you wouldn’t give me a chance.”

  “Your brother has a ranch five miles from my house and has nothing to do with my fear of horses. You not telling me is a pretty big omission.”

  “It’s not my brother’s ranch. It’s the family ranch. I grew up here.”

  Her eyes widened, her mouth opened, but no words came out. She whirled and took off for her car.

  He met his father coming out of the barn. “Hey, who is this? Is this your girlfriend?” Hope lit his eyes.

  His mother and Amy Rose were behind his father. Oh, God.

  “A girlfriend?” His mother swirled to get a good look at Kendra’s retreating back. “Why am I only hearing about this now?”

  “Not now, Dad, please.” He redirected his mom to his dad, and streaked by Amy Rose. “Kennie, wait.”

  She’d already gotten in her car and slammed the door.

  He ran to her car and opened the door. “Listen to me, please.”

  She swept her hair out of her face. Tears clouded her eyes. “I don’t want to hear some bullshit excuses, Shane. So maybe you should think about that first. You know what’s happened to me. You know lies and half-truths are the last thing I needed. Maybe it was about you. Maybe it was about me. Maybe it was about us. But a lie is still a lie.” She pulled her door away from him and started her car.

  He let her drive off because he couldn’t figure out where to start to make her understand and he didn’t want his family standing there listening to the explanation.

  “What is going on?” His mother’s confused tone clenched at a dozen regrets and squeezed the breath out of him.

  He watched Kendra pull back on the highway before he turned to her. “I can’t explain yet, Mom.”

  She masked the hurt in her eyes and touched his sleeve. “Are you sure?”

  He reached up to pat her hand and stared back down the road. “I have to go talk to Kendra first.” He had to make her understand how a good man could fall into purgatory and not be able to find a way out.

  Amy Rose reached for his free hand. “Tell her the truth and let it stand. She might get angry, but she’ll work through it, Shane.”

  “I wish I believed that.” He kissed his mother’s cheek. “I’ll be back.”

  “Go on. I’ll be here.” His mother hugged him and her expression told him she’d be understanding, making him feel like the hypocrite he was.

  He walked to his truck, trying to breath around the distress and worry. He hoped Kendra went home because he had only a few ideas where to search for her if she didn’t.

  “Now, who is going to tell me exactly what was going on here?” Shane looked back and discovered Jess in his mom’s crosshair.

  He slammed the door to tune out Jess’s answer. He was going to owe his brother.

  ∞∞∞∞

  Her hands shook, but Kendra tied one running shoe, then the other. By
the time she finished, she needed another tissue. She wiped her nose and her eyes and willed herself to quit crying.

  If half of what she’d heard was true, then there were volumes of details Shane hadn’t told her about himself. Three months together was enough time to have told her at least some of it. He’d been too good to be true and she’d fallen for it. She was such a fool! Her truth meter was seriously broken.

  She rose from the bed and smoothed the comforter. She had to leave before he arrived at her doorstep with more half-truths. She couldn’t deal with him and the crash of what turned out to be a fantasy romance. She needed to hit the trails and run until she was falling down exhausted because the agony of Shane’s omission was crackling through every part of her. She threw his t-shirt from the bed to his duffle in the corner. His fire cap was on her dresser. She tossed that to the corner too, followed by his running shoes, one thud at a time.

  Why? Why had he lied? It was such a huge thing for her. Yes, she had a fear of horses. That shouldn’t have stopped him from telling her the truth. Yes, she’d asked if they could go slow. But he should have figured out after several running dates that she wasn’t such a shallow person that those important details would have deterred their relationship. One fear wouldn’t have stood against who he really was. Didn’t he know how much he’d come to mean to her?

  More importantly, he knew about her father, knew what had happened and how she felt about those lies. Whatever else, how did Shane expect to build any lasting relationship with her without being truthful? He’d avoided introductions to his family. He’d not shared information about the family ranch or some problem with a man he’d hurt. What else hadn’t he told her? Did she really know him at all?

  She took a ragged breath, then another. A second and third tissue hit the wastebasket. Whether she could even catch her breath enough to run was debatable. But she had to move or she’d curl in a ball and scream.

  Her phone rang and she hurried to the kitchen. Her emotions tumbled head over heart. She took one look at the caller ID expecting Shane and finding her mother’s name. She recoiled and grabbed the counter, dizziness making the room swirl. She groped for her phone and turned it off.

  The front door opened and closed. She tensed, a painful tightness jumping from throat to stomach. Spots flashed before her eyes. She sucked in a full breath. “You should have knocked.” She turned slightly to confirm it was Shane out of the corner of her eye.

  “I figured you wouldn’t talk to me. I need to explain.” He stood hunched in the doorway with eyes bleeding pain.

  She shifted around the island and lifted herself onto a stool. She put her head in her hands, grappling to stay glued together. “The hardest thing I ever did was tell you the truth about my father.”

  “I know.”

  She lifted her hands and glared at him. “Apparently, you don’t. That would have been a good time to start sharing some of your details. Who is this man that got hurt because of you?”

  Shane jerked and stumbled back a step, hand rubbing his chest.

  “Is your brother right?”

  “About what?

  “That you’re struggling with who you are? Is that why you left out so much?” She was grasping, trying to find palatable reasons. “I mean, please tell me why it was such a big deal to meet your family?”

  He came further into the room and she let him. “I’m not sure I can make sense of this for you.”

  “Try. Because I need to understand why my truth meter is broken, why I trusted you, then you can take this and leave.” She handed him back his crisp twenties in a neat stack.

  He looked like she’d poked him with burning stick. She squashed any sense of trying to be nice and stuck to her hurt. He eased around her and pulled out the other stool. “May I sit?”

  She rose and rounded the island to the opposite side. “Yes. Stay right there.” She was itching to do something with her hands – mix a cake, wash some dishes, anything. Instead, she laced her fingers and laid them on the counter. “Talk.”

  He visibly swallowed and sat. “The park, when we first met.”

  She twisted her hands together. “We have to go back to the beginning? The beginning? That long?” She didn’t like the shrill in her tone. She was losing control and that wouldn’t do.

  Shane bit his lip. “Are you going to let me tell this my way?”

  She stared over his head to the magnets on her fridge and counted to ten. Then twenty. “Talk.”

  “Then you listen. Please.”

  “Fine.”

  “You were freaked about the horse. I chased you all the way to your car.”

  “I know. I couldn’t stop.”

  “I get that now. But I looked for you, for days. Everywhere I went.”

  “Why?”

  “Told myself it was because I wanted to see if you were okay. But really, something about you pulled me. I’d about given up when I ran into you at the park.” He traced the grain of the wood on the butcher block.

  She backed up and leaned against the counter, crossing her arms. “Go on.”

  “Didn’t seem like a good time to tell you anything about my ranch background.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he raised a finger. “Wait.”

  She grimaced and took a deep breath. “Fine. Continue.”

  “I’m a fireman now, Kennie. That’s who I am and I love it. I never lied to you about any of that. But I’ve been riding horses since I was two years old. The ranch has been in the family for one hundred forty years. You can’t go anywhere in this area without running into someone I’m related to or went to high school with. I was a volunteer fireman at eighteen. I was riding amateur rodeo by then, too. Entered the pro circuit at twenty-two and competed for three years. Then I quit.”

  “Why? Because of that man who got hurt?”

  “Yes. It was my fault.” He waited for her to respond, but she didn’t know what to say, couldn’t comprehend that Shane could be responsible for anyone getting hurt.

  She waved her hand at him. “That aside for a minute, let’s get this straight right now. My horse issues have nothing to do with this. Nothing. That’s where you are going with this whole tale, isn’t it?”

  “Can you honestly tell me you wouldn’t have said ‘nice to meet you and bye’ if I’d told you then I was a rodeo cowboy and a horse rancher?”

  “Could you have blamed me? I already have a lot to deal with, Shane. But my life story doesn’t have anything to do with yours! I would hope I would have been more objective.”

  He shifted on his chair. “I didn’t want to take the chance.”

  She leaned across the counter. “So you’re saying you lied to me for my own good?”

  “No, I lied to you until you could get to know me, understand who I am, trust me.”

  “You did a bang up job of that, didn’t you? About the time I had sex with you and told you about my father would have been a good time to start the confession.”

  He winced. “I know. I didn’t know how. Making sense of what I kept from you involves a lot more than you.”

  “This man Jess was talking about?”

  “Yes. Bill Fudd. He was a rodeo clown.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Two years ago.”

  Kendra reached for a tissue and wiped her nose. “Go on.”

  He stared out the window for a long time, before bringing his eyes to hers. She struggled to look at him. The agony twisting through his expression made her want to reach across the counter to comfort him. Instead, she crossed her arms and held herself.

  “I was pretty far up in the standings and pretty cocky about it. Got on a horse that was more irritable and rambunctious than normal. I felt something was wrong when I mounted her, should have stopped it. But I was sure I could handle her. She bucked me off in two seconds. Bill was in the arena with me. Came my direction to chase the horse off and she whacked him with her back hooves, sent him flying backwards into the fence. He brok
e his back, had a serious head injury. He’s paralyzed from the neck down now. Life over.” He dropped his gaze and rubbed his hands. “I talked myself out of doing anything about the damn horse because I wanted a record and a trophy.”

  She gave up and slid her hand across the counter to touch him, then damned herself for the action and drew away. “I don’t follow rodeo for obvious reasons. But seems to me that you have to know that getting in the arena with a riled up thousand-pound horse is pretty dicey.”

  “Bill made his choice. I made mine. Mine was wrong. He got hurt. I could have stopped that.”

  She didn’t know what else to say to him. This wasn’t something she could guide him to a different understanding even if she wanted to. “What does this have to do with lying to me?”

  “I haven’t talked about this with anyone, dammit. My family knew nothing about Bill Fudd until today; Jess snooped and found out. I can’t reconcile the care I take with the land, with family and friends, or with the animals. How I could be so reckless with a human life? Confessing that I was so careless about Bill Fudd’s safety? Who would understand that?”

  The sea of Shane’s emotions fueled her own regrets. “I killed my best friend, Shane. We sneaked out, disobeyed my mother. I was driving. If you think you’ll find recriminations here, you’d be wrong.”

  “I didn’t know that at the time.”

  “The difference between us, Shane, is that I talked about it – with my family and her family, who forgave me, I might add. I didn’t bottle all those emotions up and pretend that was handling it.”

  He glared at her. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what? It was an accident, regardless. If you’d known what was going to happen, you would have gotten off the damn horse. Shit happens, Shane. To all of us. Handling it by lying to your family and your girlfriend only made it worse.”

  He rose from his chair, shaking his head. “You don’t get it. I didn’t want you to see me as the kind of man who’d make that mistake.”

  “I wouldn’t have seen you that way, but you didn’t give me a chance. You didn’t trust me.”

  He stared at her, his mouth opening and closing.

  “There’s nothing left to say, Shane. You have to work this out, but it doesn’t involve me anymore.”