by Janet Dailey
His wife, who’d died of cancer in her fifties, had given him two daughters. The firstborn, Wendy’s mother, Barbara, was running a charity mission with her second husband—a preacher she’d met at her first husband’s funeral—in Uganda or some other godforsaken place. When Wendy got pregnant and married Jake, the woman had pretty much disowned her. She hadn’t been there for the wedding. Hell, she hadn’t even bothered to come home for her daughter’s funeral.
Dusty’s other daughter had perished in a small plane crash with her doctor husband, leaving Wendy’s cousin Kira an orphan at seventeen. Funny he should remember even that about Kira. Something in him didn’t want to remember her at all. Something else couldn’t let go of her.
He knew, of course, that Kira had taken in his daughter to raise. But he’d long since made up his mind not to contact her. As long as Paige was safe and well cared for, she was better off not knowing the haunted, sometimes violent man her father had become.
Dusty led the way to a late-model white Jeep Wrangler and clicked the remote to unlock the door. “Climb in,” he said. “There’s a good steak house ten minutes from here. I know they don’t starve you in jail, but you look like you could use a decent meal.”
“Thanks . . . I guess.” Jake climbed into the passenger seat, closed the door and fastened his seat belt. “I’ve got some questions for you. For starters, how did you know where to find me?”
Dusty started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. “A few months ago, I hired a private investigator to track you down. He didn’t have an easy time of it. You don’t seem to settle anyplace for long, do you?”
“I guess not.” That mind-set had evolved after Jake checked himself out of the VA hospital. Don’t stay around long enough to get attached to people, to places or even to animals. No love, no loss, no grief. So far, it seemed to be working for him. In his good moments, he’d managed to feel almost numb.
They drove in silence for a few minutes before Jake spoke again. “So my next question is, what made you think a bum like me was worth finding?”
Dusty braked the Jeep at a red light. “That answer’s going to take some time. What d’you say we leave it till our supper’s on its way?”
Jake settled back into the cushy leather seat, his eyes tracing the silhouette of tall ponderosa pines against a blazing Arizona sunset. He’d been in jail two weeks, barely half his sentence. It felt damned good to be out. But he sensed that the old man was reeling him in like a hooked fish. Not knowing why made him edgy.
He would listen, Jake decided. But he’d be damned if he was going to talk. There were no words for the hellish things he’d seen and even done in Afghanistan. If Dusty tried to pump him, he would get up from the table and walk away.
Dusty pulled up to a restaurant with a log exterior and a name Jake recognized as a high-end steak-and-ribs chain. Inside, the aromas coming from the kitchen made him weak in the knees. After two weeks of jail fare and, before that, eating from fast-food dollar menus, this was like stepping into a forbidden paradise. But he’d insisted on paying his own way, and he could only imagine what a really good meal would cost here.
The hostess showed them to a booth. Dusty ordered two Coronas while Jake perused the menu. The cheapest item, a burger with fries and coleslaw, was fifteen dollars. That would have to do him.
“My offer to buy you dinner still stands,” the old man said. “They’ve got great prime rib here.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got it. And I’ll buy yours, too.” Jake gave his order to the waitress—a burger.
Dusty shrugged. “I’ll have the same.” As the waitress hurried off with their order, he turned back to Jake and thrust one of the chilled Coronas across the table. “You’re a stubborn man, Jake O’Reilly. At least I’m buying the beer.”
“Thanks.” Jake took a swig, savoring the coldness and the taste. “What I really need is to know what your game is. I never expected to see you again, and now you show up and spend a thousand bucks bailing me out. What’s in this for you? What do you want?”
The old man’s eyes, a deep, startling shade of blue, gazed into Jake’s. “It’s simple enough. I want to take you back to Tucson and give you a job on my ranch.”
“What the hell?” Jake stared at him. “I don’t know anything about ranch work. I’ve never even been on a damned horse.”
“Maybe not. But there’s plenty you could do. I know about your engineering degree, so you should be handy with tools. And some of the kids we work with could use another man around the place.”
“The kids?”
“Teenagers with troubles—at risk, that’s what Kira calls them. She runs a horse therapy program to help them.”
Kira.
Why was this all beginning to make some kind of crazy sense?
“What about Paige?” he asked.
“Your little girl needs to see her father, Jake. She’s getting old enough to wonder why you never came back for her.”
Jake’s fingers tightened around his glass, hard enough to whiten his knuckles. “I never came back for her because I’m not fit to be a father. The nightmares in my head, the memories of what happened over there—I could scare her, even hurt her without meaning to. I shouldn’t be with kids. I shouldn’t really be with anybody.”
“So you just plan to keep running. Is that it?” The wise blue eyes seemed to skewer him to the back of the booth.
“I spent five weeks in the VA hospital before I got tired of talking to their shrinks. ‘Give it time,’ they said. ‘Maybe it’ll go away.’ That was almost two years ago. It hasn’t.”
Dusty set down his beer and leaned across the table. “Come home with me, Jake. Come and do some good where you’re needed.”
“Nobody needs me,” Jake said.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I need you because I’m getting old. Paige needs you because you’re her father. And Kira—she needs you, too.”
“Why would Kira need me?” He pictured Wendy’s cousin, so smart, so driven. How could a woman like Kira need anybody?
“Kira needs you to forgive her for what happened. Maybe if you can do that, she’ll finally be able to forgive herself.”
Jake stared down into his glass. He’d seen the police report. Kira’s Toyota Corolla, with Wendy in the passenger seat and two-year-old Paige strapped into her car seat in the back, had been hit by a drunk driver, late at night. The big SUV had T-boned the small sedan, killing Wendy outright. Kira had walked away with cuts and bruises. Paige, thank God, had been untouched.
“You know Kira didn’t cause the accident,” Dusty said.
“I know.” But if Kira hadn’t been out at that hour, on that street, with his wife and daughter in her car, Wendy—his one hope of becoming a whole man again—would still be alive.
The waitress, arriving with their meals, broke the tense silence. The burger was first-rate—as it should have been for the price. Jake could’ve wolfed his down, but he forced himself to eat slowly, matching the old man bite for bite. They were almost finished when Dusty spoke.
“Let me make you a practical offer. You owe me a thousand dollars, money you promised to pay back. I’ll hire you on as a maintenance man at twenty dollars an hour, half of that to go toward repayment, the other half to you. Once the loan’s paid, you’re off the hook. You can stay or go. I’ve got an empty guest cabin where you can live rent free, meals included. That’s the best deal you’re going to get anywhere.”
Jake scowled down at his empty plate. It was a generous offer, more than generous. And if he said no, he’d be welching on a loan he’d be hard-put to repay, sacrificing the one thing he had left—his honor.
The old man was no fool. He had sprung a clever trap, and Jake was caught in it.
“So what do you say?” Dusty asked.
Jake exhaled slowly. “I’ll need to go by my place and pick up a few things.”
“Fine. I’m pretty beat after driving up here. We can get a motel for the night, or if you’re up
to driving, I can sleep on the way home.”
Jake rose, leaving his last two twenties on the table with the check. “I’ve had nothing to do but sleep for the past two weeks. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER TWO
Kira gathered her students in the living room after dinner for their nightly lecture and discussion. She’d found that the cozy setting—the timbered ceiling, the overstuffed leather furniture, the shelves stocked with books, along with the crackling blaze in the tall sandstone fireplace—helped the teens relax and feel more like talking, which was essential to their therapy.
Tonight most of them looked ready to fall asleep. They’d had a strenuous day, cleaning the stable and hauling fresh bedding for the stalls, observing and taking notes on the horses and taking a midday hike to a spring above the ranch for a picnic. She would cut tonight’s session short, Kira decided.
“Before we start our discussion, I want to tell you a little about the ranch,” she began. “Take a look at the painting above the fireplace. That beautiful white horse is Flying Cloud. He belonged to my great-great-grandfather. It was the money that Flying Cloud won racing, back in the 1920s, that bought the land for this ranch. Some of the horses you’ll be working with are his descendants.”
Kira glanced around the circle of young faces. Two of her students were yawning. Dusty usually handled this part of the lecture, and he did it like the showman he was. Without him, she would just have to make do.
“The ranch started as a cattle operation, but after the Great Depression, much of the land had to be sold off. That was when my great-grandfather turned it into a guest ranch—or a dude ranch, you might call it. During its heyday, in the 1950s, we had some famous people staying here, including movie stars and politicians. Their autographed photos are hanging out in the hall. You can see them as you walk between here and the dining room.”
“I looked.” Heather spoke up without raising her hand. “I didn’t know any of those old creeps.”
“It was a long time ago,” Kira said. “But they were famous in their day. If you google them, you might learn a thing or two.”
There was no response, only a circle of blank faces. Kira continued.
“A few years ago, my grandfather was going to close the ranch and retire. That was when I talked him into opening a horse therapy program. And now, here we are.” Kira took a breath. “So let’s talk. What did you think of your first job this morning?”
Mack raised his hand. “It sucked! I came here to ride horses, not to shovel shit!”
“Thank you for raising your hand, Mack,” Kira said. “So you didn’t like it much. Anybody else?”
Brandon, the slender, soft-spoken boy who was Mack’s cabin mate, raised his hand. “I didn’t like it, either. But animals poop and they can’t clean it up by themselves. Somebody has to do it for them. I learned that when I had a dog.”
Kira made a mental note to ask Brandon about his dog in one of their private sessions. “So you didn’t mind it too much, Brandon?”
“I guess not. Just the smell, maybe.”
“I couldn’t stand the smell,” Lanie said. “It almost made me throw up. Do I have to do it again?”
“Only if you want to work with the horses,” Kira said. “Nobody’s going to force you, Lanie, but if you don’t want to help, you might as well not be here.”
“Sheesh!” Lanie picked at one bitten thumbnail. “This is as bad as being home!”
“Thank you for telling us how you feel, Lanie,” Kira said. “Now let me tell you all something. We’ll be starting every day by feeding and watering the horses and cleaning their stalls. Today it took a long time. When you learn to work together, and work faster, you’ll have more time to spend with the horses. Now, to move on, what did you learn from observing the horses together? What did you write down in your notebooks?”
The discussion that followed brought out some good observations, with all the students taking part except one. Faith, a fifteen-year-old Taylor Swift look-alike, had done her share of the work, but had barely spoken all day. She sat a little apart from the others, her manicured hands folded in her lap. Kira had learned that the quiet teens were often the most deeply troubled. But the horses could work wonders—Kira had seen it happen. She could only hope it would happen again.
When the youngsters showed signs of nodding off, Kira dismissed them with a reminder that they’d be getting up early the next morning. She was tired, too. Getting through a long opening day without Dusty’s help had been exhausting. And unless he’d turned right around and driven back from Flagstaff, she’d be on her own tomorrow as well.
What had possessed her grandfather to hunt down Jake and try to bring him home? The last time she’d seen Jake, on leave for Wendy’s funeral, he’d been cold and distant, as if his emotions were encased in granite. Even when she’d told him she’d be taking care of Paige until his current deployment as an Army Ranger was over, he’d barely found the words to say a thank-you before he turned and walked away.
How could she not believe he’d blamed her for his wife’s death—or that he blamed her still?
The most disturbing thing was, he’d never come back for Paige. When he’d failed to show up after the end date of his deployment, Dusty had contacted the VA. According to their records, he’d checked into a veterans’ hospital in Virginia, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Weeks later, Jake had checked himself out and disappeared without a trace.
And now, if Dusty succeeded in his quest, Jake would be living here, on this ranch. And every day of dealing with the man would be a new challenge.
Emotions churning, she wandered from room to room, putting things in order for tomorrow and turning off the lights. Consuelo, who lived with her retired husband on the outskirts of Tucson, had her own room and bath off the kitchen. When the students were here, she usually stayed, but tonight she’d gone home. Except for Paige, asleep in her room, Kira was alone in the house.
As part of the nighttime routine, she took a flashlight, stepped outside and made a circuit of the guest cabins and grounds to make sure her students were settled in. Everything was quiet—no surprise, since they’d all looked exhausted tonight. But something told Kira she wouldn’t fall asleep so easily. There was too much weighing on her mind.
The desert night was cool, with a light breeze blowing off the mountains. Out here, away from the lights of Tucson, the stars spilled glory across the deep dark of the sky. Kira remembered nights as a child, when she and Wendy would come to visit their grandfather here on the ranch. They would spread a blanket on the ground and lie on their backs, gazing up at the sky, picking out the constellations and talking about the things they wanted to do when they grew old enough to make their own decisions about life.
It was a mercy, she supposed, that neither of them could’ve known how their lives would turn out.
With a final glance around the yard, she went back into the house and locked the doors behind her. She would look in on Paige, then get ready for bed and try to get some rest.
Tiptoeing down the hall, she eased open the door to the little girl’s room. Paige slept with a night-light, a little angel figure that plugged into the outlet next to her bed. Lit by its soft glow, she was curled on her side, her profile sweet in sleep, her curls tangled on the pink Disney Princess pillowcase.
A framed photograph of her parents on their wedding day sat on the nightstand, where Paige could see it when she lay down to sleep and when she first woke in the morning. She had no memory of the fatal car crash. She accepted what she’d been told—that her mother was an angel, watching over her from heaven. Her father’s absence was harder to explain. She’d been told early on that he meant to come back for her. But as months turned into years, that chance had faded. Paige was mostly a happy child, secure in the love of everyone around her. But now and then, she still asked where her father was and when he was coming back.
Kira hadn’t told her that Dusty had gone to get him. How would it affect her now,
having Jake show up—a very different Jake from the smiling man in the wedding photo?
Standing next to the bed, Kira studied the picture in the glow of the angel light. She’d been Wendy’s maid of honor that day, awkward in an unflattering pink ruffled dress, which she’d never worn again. But Wendy, in a strapless mermaid-style gown that fit every curve of her stunning figure, had taken breaths away when she walked down the aisle on Dusty’s arm.
Growing up, the two of them had been almost as close as sisters—Wendy, the beautiful one with her emerald eyes and Titian hair, and Kira, known as the plain one, the smart, ambitious one. For as long as she could remember, Kira’s decisions had been guided by reason and common sense. But impulsive, passionate Wendy had always led with her heart. She had followed her heart to the very end of her life.
As for Jake . . . Kira’s gaze lingered on the handsome, smiling face. He’d looked so dashing that day, in the dress uniform of an Army Ranger, and he’d seemed so much in love with his beautiful bride.
That was the last she’d seen of him until Wendy’s funeral, three years later. At the time, she’d assumed his haunted look was nothing more than grief. Even then, she should have known it was more.
Turning away, she slipped back into the hall and closed the door, leaving it ajar. Maybe Jake would be gone when her grandfather got to Flagstaff. Or maybe Jake would refuse to come home with him. Surely, that would be for the best.
Wouldn’t it?
* * *
It was after midnight when Jake drove into Phoenix and negotiated the freeway connections that would get him off I-17 and onto I-10. From there, the drive to Tucson shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.
Simple enough. But as he made his way through the interchange and onto the route that would take him due south, it was as if a gate was closing behind him. Phoenix was where he’d spent his years as a foster kid. It was where, after turning eighteen and being booted out of the system, he’d signed up for ROTC and managed to get into college. It was where he’d met Wendy, at a big rock concert, when she’d climbed onto some boy’s shoulders and fallen into his arms. These days, he couldn’t even remember the name of the band. But at least the big, sprawling desert city was familiar; and not all his memories of the place were bad.
