The Heart of a Cowboy

by Trish Milburn

  He’d considered texting Chloe that Natalie was back in Blue Falls, but something kept him from doing so. She didn’t need to be thinking about anything that was going on here. His sister rarely took time for herself, so she deserved these days away with Wyatt. Even Owen, the little, taunting bastard, should be able to enjoy his honeymoon without thinking about the return of a childhood acquaintance from a time before they’d all lost their mother.

  His dad strode into the barn, drawing Garrett back to the present.

  “How’s our patient doing?”

  “Good.” Garrett reached over the top slat of the stall and scratched Penelope between her ears. “Should be even better before Chloe gets back.”

  “That Natalie does have a way with animals. You ought to ask that girl out.”

  Garrett nearly choked as he shifted his gaze to his father. “You been hanging out with Verona?”

  “Good Lord, no. That woman would probably try to match me up with somebody.”

  Garrett waited for the visceral rejection of that idea, but he was surprised when it didn’t come. He’d loved his mom dearly, and it still hurt that she wasn’t around to share in the big and small moments of all of their lives. But in that moment, Garrett realized that his father had been alone for a long time, most of Garrett’s life.

  “Would that be a bad thing?”

  His dad looked at him as if he’d sprouted horns, but then the sharp edges of the expression smoothed out. “There was only one woman for me in this life.”

  “Sorry.” Why the hell had he asked such a stupid question? He was beginning to think the ranch’s water supply had been contaminated with something that was making his brain act abnormally.

  His dad slapped the leather gloves he held in his right hand against his left palm. “No need to apologize.” The awkward pause made Garrett want to kick himself. “I’m running into town to get some parts to fix the leak in the sink. Going to stop by the hospital to see Charlie Small. Damn fool fell off a ladder and broke his hip.”

  “What was he doing on a ladder?” Charlie Small, who’d worked at the feed store all of Garrett’s life, had to be nearing eighty years old.

  “His cat got on the roof, and he had the bright idea he could get him down. He’s lucky he didn’t break his neck.”

  After his dad left for town, Garrett started feeding the horses and mucking out stalls. He’d much rather be out moving the herd to new pasture, but he and his dad had decided to wait a couple more days before making the move. All he knew was that he needed to stay busy, try to occupy his mind with something other than Natalie Todd.

  * * *

  NATALIE WALKED ALONG the path through the cemetery, trying to remember where her grandparents’ graves were located. She hadn’t been here in so long that her memory was fuzzy. The image of a stone angel was the main thing she remembered, though she was pretty sure it wasn’t part of her grandparents’ gravestones. They hadn’t been wealthy people, either.

  She scanned the names as she walked by stones of all shapes, sizes and colors, amazed by the money that had been sunk into some of them. It wasn’t a happy way to start her day, but it was somehow better than sitting in that motel room staring at four walls, especially since she’d had another horrible night of sleep and woke up irritable.

  Her feet stopped moving when she saw the angel from her memories. It wasn’t as big as she remembered and had weathered with the passage of years, but its outstretched hand still pointed the way to her destination.

  As she passed the angel statuary, she took a moment to look at the name at the base. Mildred Canton, born 1861, died 1920. All these years Natalie had remembered the stone angel looking over Mildred but not the woman herself. She wondered if that’s how everyone ended up when fate didn’t direct them toward a life as president, pioneer or movie star. If you were a rancher, an alcoholic father who couldn’t keep a job or a veterinarian from the Great Plains, did you end up just being a forgotten name at the base of a stone statue in some kid’s foggy memories?

  Natalie shook off the melancholy thoughts and walked the last few feet to her maternal grandparents’ graves. She didn’t have a lot of memories of Stephen and Lola Shaw, but a few snippets were enough to make her smile. Grandpa Stephen holding her on his lap as she opened a Christmas present—a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, what she’d called a big-girl puzzle. Grandma Lola’s homemade cinnamon rolls that had been as big as Natalie’s dad’s hand. Natalie might have only a few memories of her grandparents, but it would have felt wrong to return to Blue Falls and not visit them.

  She crouched next to their simple stone and pulled up a few weeds that were creeping up around the edges. Then she placed the fresh flowers she’d just bought a few minutes earlier at the base of the gray granite.

  “Hey, Grandma, Grandpa. I know it’s been a long time.” She felt silly talking to a rock, but it seemed she ought to say something instead of just staring at it. So she told the final resting place of her grandparents that her mom was okay, about what Allison and Renee were doing with their lives, that she was a vet and that she remembered the old beagle they used to have. Poor little blind, arthritic Pookie.

  “Dad’s gone now,” she said, a lump forming in her throat. “Maybe...” Her voice faltered, and she had to swallow before continuing. “Maybe you could show him around.”

  She rose to her feet and took a deep breath, glad she’d done this despite the fact she’d had enough of visiting cemeteries lately. Her gaze drifted across the cemetery until it landed on the real reason she’d come here today. Feeling queasy, she headed up the hill toward Karen Brody’s grave.

  Seeing Karen’s name on the rose-colored stone with Beloved Wife and Mother etched below punched Natalie right in the heart. More than two decades may have passed since Karen’s death, but in that moment the pain of her loss was as fresh as the day she’d been laid to rest. Natalie would swear she could feel Chloe’s small, sweaty hand squeezing hers.

  With tears pooling in her eyes, she kneeled next to the grave and placed the bouquet of pink roses gently on the ground. Then she skimmed her fingertips over Karen’s name.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry my dad did this to you. I know he was sorry, too. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive him.”

  Natalie realized she was addressing herself as much as Karen’s spirit. Though she had no doubt her dad had been deeply regretful about what he’d done, she couldn’t deny she was still angry that he’d run away, that he’d done so much damage and then been too much of a coward to confess. It would be so much easier if she could hate him, but she couldn’t. Despite everything, she’d loved her dad even if she wanted to scream at him until she was hoarse. But she’d been denied even that because you didn’t scream at a man who was taking the last breaths of his life.

  The tears in her eyes overflowed, and she finally let go of all the sorrow and loss that had been eating away at her even before her dad’s death.

  She didn’t know how long she cried, but it didn’t matter. And if someone saw her sobbing over the grave of a woman who’d been gone for twenty years, she’d deal with it. Nothing could be harder to face than the task she’d been sent to Blue Falls to complete. Again, she questioned if she could go through with it, if she should. It seemed the Brodys were happy. Could she bring sorrow back into their lives?

  Her phone rang, startling her. One didn’t expect to hear a phone ringing in the middle of a cemetery. Thankful for the excuse to push hard questions and painful memories to the side, she pulled her phone out to see Doc Franklin’s name on the display.

  “Hey, Doc,” she answered, trying to mask the remnants of her tears.

  “I need a big favor,” he said.

  “If this is about me taking over your practice—”

  “No, no. Although I still hope you change your mind about
that. But I’m about to start a surgery and just got a call from the Burton ranch out at the edge of the county. They’ve got a bull that’s not acting right. Can’t even get him in a trailer to bring him in. Would you go check on him for me? At least do an initial assessment until I can get out there.”

  She wanted to refuse, suspecting that this might be another part of Dr. Franklin’s plan to get her to stay in Blue Falls. But he really did sound harried, so she found herself agreeing. After all, it was better than watching the minutes tick away at an agonizingly slow pace.

  “You’re a lifesaver, sweetie.”

  Despite where she was and the fact tears were still drying on her cheeks, she smiled. If she wasn’t careful, he was going to wear her down even though there were so many reasons why that was a bad idea.

  When she ended the call, her gaze fell on Mr. Brody’s name next to his wife’s. A chill ran down Natalie’s spine. She’d always thought it was creepy to see a person’s name on a headstone when they were still alive, almost as if it was tempting fate. An image formed in her mind of Wayne Brody sitting at his kitchen table eating pie, a smile on his face as he talked about Chloe’s and Owen’s weddings.

  She couldn’t do it. No matter what she’d promised her father, she couldn’t break the Brodys’ hearts all over again. Her dad would just have to understand. She would do this one last favor for Doc Franklin and then she’d head home, taking her awful secret with her.

  Chapter Seven

  Doc hadn’t been kidding when he said the bull was in a bad mood. Natalie would swear she could hear the animal say, “Go ahead, make my day,” as he stared at her.

  “How long has he been like this?”

  “We noticed it this morning.”

  She thought she detected a limp in the bull’s rear right leg when he moved, but she needed to get closer to examine him. With the help of Mr. Burton and a couple of ranch hands, she tried to steer the angry bull from the corral to the chute that led toward the head gate. Each time they almost succeeded, the cranky bull eluded capture. But he seemed to be tiring, so maybe, just maybe, this next time would be the charm.

  “We about got him,” one of the ranch hands said.

  The words were still echoing in Natalie’s ears when the bull suddenly bucked away from the chute, straight toward her. She didn’t even have time to think about moving. One moment she was facing a ton of angry bull, and the next she was on the ground with white-hot spears of pain shooting from her leg directly into her brain.

  As she cried out, she somehow also heard the sound of hooves. Oh, God, she was going to be trampled. But in the next moment, three faces were staring down at her. She couldn’t make out their features with the blazing sun above them.

  “Lie still,” said a voice, but the pulsing of the pain center in her brain prevented her from distinguishing which dark figure had uttered it. “Lennie, go call an ambulance.”

  Natalie opened her mouth to say she didn’t need an ambulance, but what came out was a moan. Her vision dimmed at the edges, and she felt coated in sweat that was cold one moment and burning her skin the next.

  For some reason, she started to lift the upper part of her body, but one of the men gently kept her on the ground.

  “Don’t move. Pretty sure you’ve broken your leg, and you’ve got a deep gash on your arm.”

  It wasn’t until he pointed it out that Natalie realized that some of the pain she was experiencing was indeed coming from her right forearm. It felt as if it weighed as much as the bull when she lifted it. Bright red blood flowed down her arm, disappearing under the edge of her T-shirt and causing nausea to well in her stomach. She might have gone to vet school, but she couldn’t stand to see her own blood.

  It became harder to focus, and she blinked against blurry vision as she let her arm drop.

  One of the guys touched the side of her face. “Come on, Doc. Stay with us.”

  But she didn’t want to stay. She wanted, needed to go. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes, streaking down into her ears. Almost as painful as her injuries was the knowledge that she wasn’t going home today. Her father’s mistake had brought her back to Blue Falls. Now hers was trapping her here.

  * * *

  THE FIRST THING Natalie noticed as she started to wake was how dry her mouth was, as if someone had stuffed it with cotton balls. She licked her lips as she gradually opened her eyes. No one else was in the room, so she watched people walking by out in the corridor as the anesthetic fog slowly receded from her brain.

  Gradually, the events of the morning came back to her and she was able to think more clearly. She lifted her injured arm to see it wrapped in several layers of gauze and tape. No doubt there were several stitches underneath the bandaging. She punched the button to raise the head of the bed then folded back the blanket to reveal a cast reaching from her knee all the way down to her foot with only her toes peeking out. She closed her eyes and barely kept herself from crying out in frustration.

  Damn it. Why had she allowed her dad to make her promise to come back here? Despite a few bright moments seeing people she’d once cared for, it had been a disaster from the minute she’d rolled into town.

  Needing to do anything other than lie in her hospital bed, she lifted the head some more then eased her legs off the side. She spotted a set of crutches in the corner. If she could get to them, at least she’d be mobile and could get out of here. Even her room at the Country Vista Inn was better than a hospital room. It was true what they said about doctors being the worst patients, even if the doctor’s patients were normally cows and horses.

  Carefully, she slid her good foot down to touch the floor, flinching a little at the cold of the tile. When she managed to bring the other foot down, she grimaced against a dull ache. No doubt her leg was going to hurt a lot more when the meds wore off, so she needed to vacate the premises before that happened. Whoever had fixed her up might get the bright idea to keep her here. Maybe she could fly Allison down to drive her back to Kansas. She shook her head slowly. What a royal mess.

  Movement outside the open door caught her attention. Someone walked by, but by the time it registered who it was, Wayne Brody was taking a couple of steps backward and meeting her gaze.

  “Lord, girl, what happened to you?”

  “A surly bull and I had a bit of a disagreement.”

  “I’m guessing you lost the argument.”

  “You could say that.” She took a breath and tried to push herself to her feet. Her head swam enough to knock her off balance, and she teetered sideways.

  Mr. Brody took a quick step forward and grabbed her uninjured arm. “Whoa, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “The plan was to get those crutches in the corner and put on some real clothes, then walk out of this place.” The smells and sounds reminded her too much of the several times over the past few months that her dad had been in and out of the hospital. Being in her clinic was different—it didn’t have the same feel of sickness and despair.

  “Looks to me like you need to sit back down.”

  “Excellent advice,” said a doctor in a white lab coat as he swept into the room.

  Natalie knew when she was outnumbered, so she sat down but refused to lie back in the bed. The doctor stepped in front of her and crossed his arms.

  “Trying to make a clean getaway, I take it?”

  She noticed the teasing gleam in his eyes. “Something like that.”

  “I’m not opposed to dismissing you, but do you have someone to pick you up? Your identification said you are from Kansas. Or is that old information?”

  “No, it’s current.”

  “I’ll give her a ride,” Mr. Brody said. “I’m done here now anyway.”

  “Why are you here?” Natalie asked.

  “Visiting a friend who isn’t having any b
etter of a day than you are.”

  She didn’t like the idea of spending more time with Mr. Brody when her father’s secret was still burning a hole inside her, but if it was the only way she could get out of the hospital, she was taking it. After all, it wasn’t that far to the motel. She’d figure out the next step then.

  After the doctor explained the extent of her injuries, he turned to Mr. Brody. “She should be fine to get around on her own in a couple of hours, but she’ll need assistance if you have stairs.”

  Natalie opened her mouth to correct the doctor, but Mr. Brody spoke first. “Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of her.”

  No, no, no. She couldn’t let this happen. “I’m fine, really. And there are no stairs at the motel.”

  “There’s also no room service at the Country Vista,” Mr. Brody said. “With Chloe and Owen out of the house now, we’ve got plenty of room.”

  “I can’t impose.”

  Mr. Brody made a dismissive sound. “Impose? What are you talking about? You spent enough nights at our house when you were a kid that I began to think you were one of ours.”

  Natalie bit her lip and tried to slow her steadily increasing heart rate. There was no way she could stay under the Brodys’ roof and not tell them. But then she couldn’t tell them when she had no way of leaving.

  “Please, I just need a ride to the motel.”

  “We’ll go there to pick up your stuff. Now, no more arguing.” He bopped the end of her nose as he had when she was a kid. He had made her giggle then, but now it only made her want to cry.

  * * *

  GARRETT SCOOTED OUT from under his truck just as he heard his dad turn into the driveway. He grabbed the shop rag and wiped the dark splatters from the oil change off his hands. When he glanced toward his dad’s truck, he realized someone was with him. As his dad pulled past him, Garrett saw it was Natalie. His heart rate kicked up a notch before he scolded himself for that reaction.