by Neva Brown
Table of Contents
CASEY’S COURAGE
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
CASEY’S COURAGE
NEVA BROWN
SOUL MATE PUBLISHING
New York
CASEY’S COURAGE
Copyright©2013
NEVA BROWN
Cover Design by Rae Monet, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Published in the United States of America by
Soul Mate Publishing
P.O. Box 24
Macedon, New York, 14502
ISBN-13: 978-1-61935-165-3
www.SoulMatePublishing.com
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
To my family who loves me, warts and all
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Dr.Paul Coggins and Dr. James Penrod, college professors from “long ago”, who allowed my shy muse to venture out and learn to play nice with pedantic college English without being scolded.
Also thanks to the many members of San Angelo Writers Club, who, over the last fifteen years, have shared their knowledge, critiqued my writing, and encouraged me.
Chapter 1
Guilt and an eerie sense of foreboding made Casey Mason as restless as the cattle. Out of habit, she talked to Cindy Girl, the sorrel mare she rode, while she waited for the cowboys to settle the cattle so she could start dragging calves to the branding fire.
“Cindy Girl, I can feel Dad’s disapproval all way across the corral. This sense of foreboding makes me think we better be extra careful today. You watch your step. We don’t want to get into any wrecks. We’re not trying for applause or ribbons—just winding up the last old-fashioned branding on the Running S. We’re ending a chapter in both our lives today. You get to retire to have your first foal, while I start a new career. Casey Mason, PhD, college professor.”
Casey watched her dad, Jake Mason, the epitome of a cowboy, approaching on a tall, bay gelding. She braced herself against the harsh look on his face. He held the reins in one hand while his other rested on his thigh, his jaws clenched, lips thin. She would need all the fortitude she could muster to stand her ground in the next few weeks.
He had been the driving force that had shaped her life—applying to her upbringing the same single-mindedness he’d used to become a rodeo champion. Even before he left the circuit to manage the now-elite horse operation of the Running S, he’d nurtured her innate ability with horses. With his stern teaching and J.D. Spencer’s money and horses, she’d become a champion in her own right. Did she owe them more years of her life? Was she being ungrateful and selfish like he had accused her of being? The need to please him still prodded her conscience, even if her common sense told her it was time to make a bid for independence.
Just as Jake got close enough to start speaking, the noise of a helicopter drowned out the sound of his voice. The bawling, agitated cattle recognized the thwack of the rotor. They wanted to run. Dust boiled up from the tramping hooves of the cattle as the cowboys kept them milling. An early morning southwest breeze shifted the dust. Drifting and rising toward the east, the dust created a haze between Casey and the sun that inched up from the horizon.
The chopper landed some distance from the corrals. The swirling dust whipped up by the rotors added to the haze, almost obscuring a man holding his hat on his head with one hand as he jumped down from the light craft.
Casey blinked and her breath hitched. Jordan Spencer III, her Tres, the man she had judged all men by since her early teens, strode away as the noisy machine lifted off into the high blue sky, heading back toward Spencer Mansion.
She watched him duck under the awning of his grandfather’s customized recreational vehicle parked near the corrals. Her heart beat in triple time. Why, even after all these years, did just seeing him make her want what she couldn’t have?
Aggravated at her thoughts, she muttered, “He probably doesn’t even answer to Tres anymore. It’s probably Mr. Jordan Spencer now. People change in fifteen years.” She breathed deep. She knew how to control her emotions—at least that’s what she told herself. She’d practiced it for as long as she could remember.
Jake’s gravelly voice broke into her thoughts, jerking her back to the present. “Looks like the long-gone grandson finally made it back. Heard he’s a billionaire now.”
She’d learned early in life not to show her feelings to her dad. “I guess he did all right those years in Australia.” She reined Cindy Girl to face the cattle. “Are we ready?”
“Yeah, I came over to tell you J.D.’s letting some photographer take pictures today.” Jake nodded toward the corral fence across the way. “He’s the guy leaning on the fence with cameras hanging around his neck. He wants to talk with you later. Watch out for him in the corral. He probably doesn’t know how to stay out of the way.”
Casey smiled. “I’ll watch and try not to run over him.”
Shaking out her rope, she rode to the herd, roped a calf by its heels with two swings of a loop, and dragged the struggling animal to the branding fire where two college boys waited. One got the head, the other the hind legs. They lay the bawling animal on its side, flipping the rope off in one smooth motion. The boys held the calf down while one man vaccinated it and another man stuck a branding iron to its hip.
Casey headed back to the herd to heel another calf as smoke boiled up. She wrinkled her nose as the stench of burning hair that permeated the air. She passed Jake as he dragged a calf toward the branding fire. The long, monotonous day’s work had started.
Casey flipped a lock of her mare’s mane back into place. “Cindy Girl, you weren’t around when Tres spent time here, so I’ll tell you a secret. He was the best-looking cowboy I’ve ever seen. But, he was the boss’s grandson and worldly wise, a college man.”
The mare twitched an ear and eased into the herd in quiet pursuit of another calf. Casey shook out her loop. Never breaking pace, she heeled another calf, jerked the slack in the rope while Cindy turned with perfect timing heading back to the branding fire. Casey worked by rote, her thoughts on that summer so long ago—her thirteenth summer.
Tres’ granddad had sent hi
m to work with her dad to learn about the horse operation of the ranch. Dad had sent them off riding for miles on green-broke horses day after day. Teaching the young horses took hours and hours of repetitious maneuvers. Tres talked about college and his society life as they put the young horses through their paces again and again. He even played Big Brother at times, giving advice that no thirteen-year-old would understand. Those were magical days.
Casey, with a self-discipline she used in the show arena, forced herself to concentrate on the present. After all, that gorgeous man she saw striding toward J.D.’s trailer was a billionaire, if the community grapevine was right, not the cocky, lean, college man she’d fallen in love with and never gotten over.
Seeing Tres after all these years, Casey could once again hear her parents’ declaration; a daughter of the hired help is not accepted as an equal with the boss’s grandson. She knew in her head what they meant, but her heart didn’t seem to get the message then, then or now. After all these many years, just knowing Tres was nearby made her heart do little flips of joy.
As Tres made his way toward the RV, he watched his grandfather, J.D. Spencer, debilitated from a heart attack five years earlier, struggle up from his chair and stand with the help of a tall, lean-muscled young man.
He couldn’t hear what J.D. said, but he saw his elegant, gray-haired grandmother, Mattie Lou, put down her needlepoint and stand up. He saw the sparkle in her alert, brown eyes as he got closer. Had he ever called them Grandmother and Granddad? If he had, he couldn’t remember. They’d always been Mattie Lou and J.D. to him; just like they were to almost everyone they knew.
Tres quickened his steps and ducked under the awning of the RV, taking his grandfather’s hand in his and giving it a gentle shake. He wanted to embrace the old man, but didn’t dare. He knew how J.D. felt about a ‘sissy’ show of feelings.
“Tres, my boy.” J.D.’s husky voice wavered as he slapped Tres’ shoulder, and then pulled him in for a hug.
Tres returned the hug, shocked at the frailness of the once strong man. Feeling the trembling in his grandfather’s body, he eased him back into the chair and watched the caregiver place an oxygen mask on J.D.’s face. Still watching J.D. out of the corner of his eye, he embraced his tiny grandmother, who hugged him close.
“Welcome home, Tres,” she said. “It’s been a while.” She turned to check on J.D. and then added, “This is Brad, J.D.’s nurse and therapist. I told you about him in my letters. Brad, this is Tres.”
Tres extended his hand. The all-business nurse/therapist looked up from helping J.D. get settled and shook Tres’ hand. He smiled. “Glad to finally meet you.” He turned back to J.D. and efficiently adjusted his oxygen mask.
Mattie Lou, seemingly comfortable with what Brad was doing, called Tres’ attention away from a frowning J.D. and a watchful Brad. Tres recognized her ploy to give J.D. a moment to recover with dignity. “You arrived just in time to see the last day of the old-fashioned branding on the Running S. The photographer that’s in the way out near the branding fire is recording ‘The Passing of an Era.’ J.D. finally decided to put in modern pens with chutes, head gates, and calf tables.”
Tres looked out across the wide expanse of the pens. “I guess it’s time. Labor gets harder to find every year. But I see some things never change.”
The place looked just like it had when he was growing up. With his arm back around his grandmother’s shoulders, he watched the dusty riders in the corral. He saw a heeler heading back to the herd. “Is that Casey Mason?” His arm tightened ever-so-slightly around his grandmother as he recognized his summer companion from long ago.
“It is,” J.D. said, slipping the oxygen mask off his face. “That little lady’s made Running S horses famous in rodeo and show circuits everywhere. I’ll tell you all about it when I show you the trophies she’s sent home the last few years. But right now, tell me about that Australia deal you parlayed into a fortune.”
Easing down into the chair between his grandparents, Tres gave his attention to J.D. as Mattie Lou picked up her needlepoint and sat down to hear her grandson’s story.
“Not all that much to tell, really. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time with some money to invest.” Activity in the corral caught his eye again. He felt like he was in a time warp as he watched Casey, an intriguing, grown-up Casey. His pulse quickened at the sight of her. J.D.’s voice jerked him back.
“I never did understand why you left like you did, so soon after your mother died. And whatever happened to your engagement to that pretty Melanie?”
Tres marshaled his thoughts. He and his granddad had kept in touch about business and impersonal things all the years he was in Australia, but no mention had been made of Tres’ personal affairs or his decision to leave the country. Now that Tres was back so they could look each other in the eye, he knew J.D. had no qualms about meddling and expecting straight answers.
Tres mulled over just how to tell his granddad that Melanie Thurston did not believe in monogamy, a fact Tres had learned only days before he was to be married. “After Mother died, I had to make several trips out of town to get all her business settled. One night, when I came home unannounced, I learned my fiancée and I didn’t share the same views about marriage, so we parted company.” Tres realized, in all the years since that night, he had never told anyone that he’d found Melanie with more than one sex partner in his bed having quite a party. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt now. “Sick of it all, I left her, my demanding high finance job, and high society. I went bush.”
“You could’ve come here,” J.D. said. A hint of reprimand colored his voice.
“I guess I went a little wild. I invested every dime of my inheritance from Mother in some chancy opportunities that luckily made money. I even invested in one of my inventive college friend’s venture into high tech stuff.”
“So, now that you’re a billionaire, how long do you think you can stand to be stuck off in the wilds of West Texas? Will you be running off to live in New York like your daddy?”
“No New York for me. I’ll hang around as long as you’ll have me. If I never see inside another boardroom or lawyer’s office, it’ll be fine with me. After all the long, tedious negotiations I endured to sell my holdings Down Under to that Australian Ranchers’ Co-op, I know I never want to be that entangled in business again. Dad lives and breathes high finance with its wheeling and dealing, but it’s not for me.”
The noon heat became oppressive, but J.D. continued to press Tres for more information and threatened Brad with dire consequences for insisting he go inside the RV for a rest.
Mattie Lou put her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “I bet Tres would like to eat at the chuck wagon with the men and visit.” She smoothed her hand down J.D.’s arm. “He might just like to drag out a few calves for old time’s sake. If you rest this afternoon, maybe after supper tonight, you’ll feel like showing him all the trophies you were talking about.”
Grumbling, J.D. got out of his chair with Brad’s help. “Always somebody around trying to run my life. Tres, go make yourself useful. I certainly can’t do anything, anymore. Dan does a fine job, but the ranch needs you.”
Dan Brown, the foreman of the Running S for as long as Tres could remember, greeted him with a nod and handshake. Nobody would figure this crusty old cowboy for a graduate of Texas Christian University with a specialty in Ranch Management. He was sweaty, dusty, and blood spattered from having taken a turn at castrating calves.
“Tres, about time you showed. Grab a plate. Maybe J.D. can rest a little easier now with you here. Not being able to be in the thick of things still galls him.”
“That last heart attack hit him hard, didn’t it?”
“Didn’t look like he’d pull through for a time. But he hired that fellow, Brad, and had that RV customized so it’s a rolling emergency room. Now he and Mattie Lou show up anywhere work is going on.”
“How is Mattie Lou handling all this?”
&n
bsp; “Just like all the other hard times they’ve coped with over the years. She’s steady as a rock.”
“She’s always seemed invincible to me,” Tres said. “But she and J.D. have always seemed like a matched set. I thought she might crater at the possibility of losing him.”
“Not Mattie Lou,” Dan said.
Tres watched Jake and Casey across the fence on the other side of the corral as he and Dan squatted down in the lacy shade of a big mesquite to eat. The father and daughter stripped the riding gear off their sweating mounts, then upended their saddles beside a fancy maroon trailer that sported bold white letters RUNNING S QUARTER HORSES with smaller letters for Trainer, Casey Lee Mason, Cielo Alto, Texas. A heavy-duty maroon pickup with a customized sleeper completed the rig, most likely her transportation during her college years.
Dan watched Tres. “J.D. wasn’t stingy with his money when he sent Casey off to his old alma mater Texas A&M University,” Dan said. “When she started winning regularly, he went hog wild.”
Tres glanced at Dan. “He sounded really proud of her.”
“You bet he is. She made the rodeo team at A&M her first year, putting the Running S horses right up there with the best of ‘em, then she went pro.”
“Jake must have changed,” Tres commented. “He’d never let her get so far from his control when I knew him.”
“He didn’t change. J.D. just overcame every reason Jake gave for her not being able to go.”
Tres watched as Jake and the slim, curvy, grown-up Casey started toward the chuck wagon. The photographer stopped her. Jake walked on, filled a plate, and joined Tres and Dan. He shook Tres’ hand as if they might have seen each other just yesterday. “Good to see you.”
