Reunited with the Rancher

by Brenda Minton

  “Where do you want to take Rambo?” Kylie asked Andy.

  “The horses,” Andy answered, his look solemn. He held the harness and Rambo stood quietly at his side, ready for his command.

  “Okay, you lead.”

  Andy led and they all followed.

  “Do you see the difference?” Kylie asked Carson as they left the apartment.

  “He’s more confident.” Carson’s tone held wonder. “I should have thought of this.”

  She was taken aback by the comment. “You can’t think of everything.”

  “I know, but...”

  “Did you ever stop to think that God had a greater plan for your trip to Hope? You’re here and it seems like one thing after another is stopping you from leaving. And I know you don’t want to be here. But look at Andy and think about that.”

  “You’re right.”

  She fell back, putting her hand to her heart. “I’m right?”

  “You’re right.”

  Andy had reached the fence with the horses, and Kylie held Carson back. Andy tried to go through the fence and Rambo wouldn’t budge. When the child tried to let go of the halter and crawl through, the dog moved to block him.

  “That’s amazing,” Carson said.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Thank you,” Carson said. His lips brushed her hair as he spoke.

  Andy returned to their side with his dog. Rambo sat and Maggie wanted down to pet him.

  “You have a best friend,” Kylie said. The words came out watery as she fought the tears that threatened to spill out. She wasn’t prone to waterworks but Andy and Maggie seemed to bring out that side of her nature.

  Andy needed a best friend. The kind of friend Rambo would be to him. Loyal. Always willing to be loved and to love back.

  She thought his daddy needed one, too. Maybe if he had a friend he wouldn’t look so alone most of the time. But it wasn’t her place to think about Carson and what he needed or didn’t need. He was an adult. He could take care of himself.

  For all she knew, he did have a friend, someone he counted on. She didn’t need to be his person.

  That was actually the very last thing she needed.

  Chapter Eight

  On Wednesday Carson left Maggie and Andy with Eve, because she’d taken the task of teaching them to work with Rambo. He thought it was easier for her than Kylie, because Kylie was too attached. Both to the dog and to his children. He headed for the corral and Matt met him there.

  In the nearly two weeks he’d been on the ranch, he’d grown to like Matt. He respected him. Matt had lost his left arm when an IED exploded as he drove through a town in Afghanistan. After his multiple hospital stays, he’d tried to go home but he’d found that he no longer fit in there. He’d heard about Mercy Ranch, and a year ago had moved to Oklahoma.

  “So what’s the plan for today?” Carson asked the other man.

  Matt nodded toward the men in the arena. “Riding lessons.”

  “Riding lessons?” He hadn’t expected that.

  Matt grinned and ran his hand through shaggy blond hair. “More like therapy. But a lot of these guys can’t ride. Not only have they never been on a horse, but with their physical disabilities riding is more of a challenge. If they can’t get on the horse, they walk it, brush it, spend time with it.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  “We have a couple of new guys. They need help saddling their animals, and then we’ll leave it up to them how much they want to do with the horse.”

  Carson headed for the men who had horses tied to the outside of the barn with the lean-to shading them. One of the guys greeted him. The man next to him was too busy working on his saddle.

  “Need help?” Carson asked.

  The man standing next to the big paint horse turned. Carson realized he wasn’t a man. He was a kid. Twenty years old at the most. He had a scar along the right side of his face and his right arm appeared to be paralyzed. But he smiled.

  “Dude, that would be great.” He stepped back. “I’ve never been on a horse and I don’t have a clue how to saddle him.”

  Carson lifted the saddle pad first, eased it into place, then settled the saddle on the horse’s back.

  “Next the girth strap.” Carson stood on the horse’s left side and reached for the strap that hung on the opposite side. He pulled it under the horse’s belly and through the ring. The kid standing next to him watched intently.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Joe.”

  “Well, Joe, your horse is saddled.” Carson handed him the reins. “I’m not sure what they’ll want you to do now.”

  “I guess I’m going to ride this bad boy.”

  “It’s a girl,” Carson pointed out, and Joe laughed.

  “So you’re Jack’s other son?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Is he okay?”

  Carson patted the kid on the arm. “He will be.”

  His phone rang. He recognized the Chicago number. “I have to take this.”

  “Sure, no problem. Thanks, Doc.”

  Carson walked away, answering the phone as he did. “Dr. Carson West.”

  The person on the other end greeted him, then let him know that he would have to be in Chicago in the next week if he wanted to interview for the job. He thanked them and told them he would try to be there. He pulled a pen and paper out of his pocket and wrote down the number, repeating it back.

  He hung up, then noticed Kylie standing behind him.

  “I didn’t want to interfere,” she said.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Job interview?” she asked, looking disappointed.

  “Yeah. They’re giving me another week, but then they have to pick someone. I get that.”

  “I’d hoped you would be here for Jack’s surgery. But if you can’t, that’s understandable. We’ll get Andy used to Rambo...” Her voice trailed off.

  “If I don’t go, the job won’t be there.” He realized that the job in Chicago no longer seemed like the most important thing. He’d gotten sidetracked here. By the ranch, by Jack, by the woman standing next to him. Kylie.

  Kylie cleared her throat, gaining his attention. “We have church tonight and there’s a potluck. If you want to go. I just wanted to let you know. I didn’t want you to wonder where everyone had gone to.”

  “We’ll go.”

  “Oh, okay.” She seemed surprised. “How was your visit with your dad yesterday?”

  He’d taken Maggie and Andy to see Jack at the hospital.

  “It was good. He told me he’s going to keep thinking of ways to keep us here. I told him I can’t keep putting off the inevitable.”

  “He will try. I guess it won’t work though, will it?”

  “No, it won’t work.” He glanced past her, at Matt and the others, already saddling their horses. Therapy. He realized the horses had been doing that for him since he arrived. It felt good to be here, to connect with this part of his past. “A year ago I realized we were living our lives as if we still expected her to come home. Or maybe I was the one living that way. Maggie and Andy were existing with a father who wasn’t really there for them. We need this change. I realized in the past year that we have to move on, keep living.”

  “You don’t have to convince me,” Kylie told him, her voice sweet, soft.

  He knew he didn’t have to convince anyone. Other than himself.

  The conversation ended and they ended up side by side, watching as Joe and the other men worked with their horses. Joe had only managed to lead his horse. He looked uncomfortable even though the mare plodded along docilely.

  “I’m going to help Joe.”

  “I’ll watch from here.”

  As Carson approached, Joe stopped. The horse also came to a st
andstill. “Want to ride?”

  Joe looked up at the horse. “I think for now I just want to lead him.”

  “If you change your mind, let me know.”

  “Sure thing, Doc.” Joe saluted.

  Carson returned to Kylie’s side. She was watching the men but he could tell she was distracted. She pushed a stray hair back from her face.

  “Have you started over?” she asked.

  Her question shifted pieces of him, emotionally, physically. A year ago he would have told her that starting over wasn’t an option. He was living his life as best he could. That had changed when he realized that the act of just getting through each day wasn’t helping his children.

  “I’m making an attempt.”

  “That’s a start.” She glanced toward the house as a truck rolled up to the garage. “I know how it feels, Carson. I know that feeling of being so shattered by something that you wonder if you’ll ever find all of the pieces of yourself. I’ve heard all of the platitudes. People say they understand. And they say it’ll get easier. You want to scream at them that it isn’t getting easier. When will it get easier?”

  He searched for words that he hadn’t expected to need. “And then one day you realize you got through twenty-four hours without crying. Another day passes and you realize you laughed for the first time in a long time.”

  “Yes, that’s it. It’s called moving on. What a sanitized word for something so difficult.” She touched his hand with hers.

  It didn’t take much for him to come to the realization that he was indeed moving on. And that he was enjoying the company of the woman who had once been a childhood sweetheart. He hadn’t expected that. He’d been numb for so long, now was a really awkward time to suddenly notice a woman.

  He was a surgeon; he knew how this worked. When circulation was returned to a limb that had been deprived or cut off from blood flow or oxygen, it started to feel things it hadn’t felt in a long time. Life returned.

  She released his hand. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. I’m not sure how Jack talked Isaac into bringing him home. Isaac is usually pretty good at handling him.”

  He didn’t know at first what she was talking about. Then he realized Isaac had a passenger in his truck.

  * * *

  “We should go see what they’re up to.” Kylie glanced back to see if he was following her.

  “I think that’s probably a good idea.”

  The two of them hurried toward the house.

  “Don’t try to run,” Carson called out.

  Jack had a hand on the door and he paused, ever so slightly. “I’m not running—I’m just ready to sit in my recliner and give people orders.”

  “You’re going back to the hospital is what you’re doing.” Carson walked up behind his dad, noticing that Jack’s legs shook and his breathing was labored.

  “I’m not going back. They want to cut me open.” He headed inside, not giving Carson a chance to stop him. Not that he would have. Jack obviously needed that recliner.

  “Maybe they want to cut you open because it’s the best way to keep you alive. Did you ever think of that?” He put a hand on Jack’s arm. Isaac had the other. “You’ll have to do it eventually.”

  Jack made his way slowly to the family room and the big leather recliner. “I missed this chair. Hospital beds are torture devices.”

  “Did you do the tests?” Carson asked.

  “Yeah, I did a few. And then I told them I’m done. I wanted to be home. I was afraid you would leave without saying goodbye.”

  “I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye. And I think you know that.”

  “You don’t seem to listen,” Jack whispered.

  Isaac loomed, leaning against the wall next to the chair. Carson glared at him. “Why don’t you sit down?”

  “I guess because I don’t want to.” The other man just grinned, chewing on a toothpick that hung from one corner of his mouth. And then he touched a finger to the brim of his cowboy hat, adding a bit more to the challenge.

  Carson took a step in his direction, really wanting to forget he wasn’t a man of violence. “First, do no harm.” Yeah, he remembered the Hippocratic Oath.

  “Stop. Both of you.” Jack shot Isaac a look. “Go sit down.”

  “Yeah, brother, why don’t you go sit down?” Carson shot a look at Isaac that didn’t faze him a bit. But the whole situation made Carson wonder what he’d done with his better self. Obviously packed up and sitting in a Dallas storage unit.

  “I’m not going to sit down because I don’t like being told what to do,” Isaac said without a bit of anger. “And you don’t like to be challenged. I guess you’re used to being the big boss. And around here...”

  Kylie touched Carson’s arm. He glanced down at her, somehow forgetting her presence. He shouldn’t have forgotten. No doubt it was all the male saber rattling that had caused his memory lapse.

  “Let’s focus on Jack,” she said, sweetly but meaningfully.

  “That’s what I’m trying to do. He needs to go back to the hospital.”

  “I said, I’m not going back,” Jack growled. “Isaac isn’t the only one who doesn’t like to be told what to do. I’m a grown man. When I’m ready for open heart surgery, I’ll let you all know.”

  “The fact that you seem to think you have a choice is what amazes me. When a doctor recommends that surgery, he isn’t saying that you might want to consider it. He’s telling you that you need it. In order to live.” He shot Isaac a look. “And you should be the one encouraging him to do what’s best for his health and not the one driving him away from the only help he’s going to get.”

  “Right, because he’s going to listen to me.”

  “He has to listen to someone.” He gave his full attention to Jack, his father. This was not the reason he’d come here—to get in the middle of Jack’s medical situation, to argue with a man who was his brother and to find himself gaping at the woman he’d only known as a gangly girl with bare feet and the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen.

  He should have left that first night. Better yet, he should have just kept on driving east on the interstate rather than taking that turn toward Grand Lake and Hope, Oklahoma. If he had listened to his wiser self, he would be almost to Chicago by now.

  Instead he’d crash-landed in his past, but it didn’t look anything like what he’d remembered.

  That was both good and bad.

  * * *

  Kylie had no desire to be the referee in the Western version of Family Feud. Isaac, always a little angry, glared at Carson. Jack, pale and shaky, closed his eyes and seemed to be ignoring his sons.

  Carson stared at his father, concern furrowing his brow. “Chest pains?”

  Jack opened his eyes. “Pains, but not in the chest. The three of you. That’s my pain. I’m seventy years old, so I think I can decide what I want to do about my health. I talked to the doctor. The two of us agreed that I can wait. Not long, but a few weeks won’t kill me.”

  “I’d like for you to have the surgery in Tulsa,” Carson informed his father.

  Kylie figured telling Jack what to do was a little bit like trying to pull a mule where a mule didn’t want to go.

  “My doctor and I already made that decision. Without your help.”

  Isaac moved away from the wall, straightened his hat and gave Carson a look that wasn’t hard to interpret. She’d known Isaac long enough to know when he was sending a message that a person’s opinions weren’t wanted or needed. Kylie guessed that meant Carson and Isaac weren’t going to be best friends any time soon.

  “Where are you going?” Jack asked as Isaac took a few steps.

  “I’ve got work to do.” Isaac stepped around the chair, shoulder checked Carson and kept on going.

  Kylie stared after him, unsure of what to say or do. Isaac had some bitter
ness but he usually tried to get along with people on the ranch. Obviously Carson didn’t qualify.

  “Get back here,” Jack growled.

  Isaac stopped but he didn’t turn.

  Jack pushed Carson’s hand off his wrist. “Oh, stop doing that. My heart is still beating. The two of you have to accept that you’re brothers and neither of you is at fault for that. I’m to blame. I was about the orneriest man walking. You were there, Carson. You lived through it for thirteen years. I was an alcoholic, addicted to pain pills and on top of that, I wasn’t very nice.”

  “You definitely had your moments,” Carson said dryly.

  Jack looked from Isaac to Carson. Kylie wished Carson would listen. Really listen to Jack. She knew that some apologies were just words with no meaning behind them. But with Jack, the proof was in the man he was today.

  “Surprise, I’m your brother.” Isaac tipped his hat at Carson.

  “Yeah, definitely a surprise.” Carson stood there, frozen; his gaze shifted from Isaac to Jack. It shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, he’d noticed the family resemblance and had suspected this from the beginning. “And the family reunion has been fun. I’m only sorry it couldn’t last a little longer.”

  “You and me both.” Isaac said it with a smug grin.

  It didn’t take a therapist to know that these two men, Isaac and Carson, weren’t going to hug it out. They both had too much going on inside them.

  Isaac wore his anger like a badge. His mother had raised him until he turned ten, then she’d dumped him at Mercy Ranch. That’s when Jack really started to get his act together, the way he told it. His wife and three kids had been gone a few years and he suddenly had another son depending on him.

  Isaac didn’t have warm fuzzy feelings about that time of his life.

  Carson’s attention returned to Jack, who immediately dropped his hand from his chest.

  “Leaving the hospital was a bad decision. I’m not going to say it again. If you decide to go back, I’ll be happy take you.”

  “I’m not going back. Not today. They’ll arrange my surgery for next month, after the fishing tournament. I’ll be fine until then.”