Steen shifted uncomfortably, not used to that kind of praise. “Yeah, well, it worked out okay.” He realized there was no point in denying it. The kid had seen the move, and apparently, the damn cameras had immortalized it. Maybe it was good that Pointer knew he’d been saved. Maybe it would encourage him to pay it forward to someone else someday. “Pointer’s a good kid,” he said, trying to get the focus off him. He was too damn tired to be lauded as a hero. He’d just done what any decent human being would have done. Nothing special. Just basic shit.
“I know he is, and now, thanks to you, he has a chance to start over.” Thomas slipped his hand inside his blazer and withdrew a fat envelope. He held it out to Steen. “Here’s some cash to help you get started. It’s tough to get going after you’ve been in prison. It’s my thank you for saving my son’s life. I’m deeply sorry that you almost died because of it. I will owe you a debt for the rest of my life.”
Steen stared at the envelope for a moment, but he felt no temptation to take it. He shook his head. “Money ruins people,” he said. “I don’t want it.”
Thomas must have heard the conviction in his voice, because he lowered the envelope without trying to push the money on him. “What can I offer you?”
“Nothing.” The only thing Steen wanted was to turn back the clock to four years ago, and have him be smart enough to see what was coming before it happened. But there was no way to make that happen. Life had happened, and there was no way to go backwards.
Thomas raised his perfectly trimmed eyebrows. “I know a lot of people, Mr. Stockton. I can make phone calls. I can get you a job doing anything you want. I can help you start over. I have money, and I have contacts in every line of business.”
Mr. Stockton? Steen almost laughed. Who called him Mr. Stockton? “Just call me Steen.” But he had to admit he was mildly curious as to what Pointer’s father did for a profession. Who had a business that resulted in so many connections and favors? Maybe he was trouble after all. “Why did your business get Pointer targeted?”
Thomas’s face became shuttered. “I piss off a lot of people,” he said simply. “I accept those consequences for myself, but seeing Pointer affected has caused me to think deeply about what I do. Please, allow me to do something in return for my son’s life.”
Steen shook his head. “I don’t want anything.” He started to walk past him, then turned around. “No, you can do something for me.”
Thomas raised his eyebrows. “Anything.”
“Be the father Pointer deserves.”
Thomas frowned. “That’s it?”
“That’s everything. You seem like a good guy. He’s lucky to have you. Be there for him. Put him first. That’s it.” Steen suddenly felt restless, and he wanted to leave. “Have a nice day.” He nodded his farewell, and then walked past him, heading down the driveway toward the chain link fences that separated the world from those who weren’t allowed to inhabit it.
Today, they would open for him. He still remembered the day he’d arrived in the van, watching those gates slide shut behind him, locking him away from the world.
Thomas didn’t follow as Steen walked away, his legs growing heavier with each step. He hadn’t realized how weak he still was, but there was no way he’d go back to the infirmary and ask them to call a transport to take him to a civilian hospital, like they’d originally planned. He’d rather die under the oak tree by the street than have anyone tell him what to do ever again.
He’d made it only about a hundred yards when the gates slid open, and a black pickup truck towing a two-horse trailer drove in the gate.
Steen stopped, a slow grin spreading on his face as he watched it roll up. He didn’t need to see the Stockton Ranch lettering on the side to know it belonged to his brother, Chase, the only person who would be disrespectful enough to pick him up when he’d specifically told him not to.
The truck eased to a stop beside him, and Chase rolled down the passenger window. His beige cowboy hat was tipped back on his head, and those familiar blue eyes regarded him unflinchingly. Chase draped his wrist loosely over the steering wheel, turning just enough to face Steen. “Need a ride, little brother?”
“I don’t know.” Steen walked over to the window and leaned on the frame, his elbows resting on the door. “Where you going?”
“Stockton Ranch. We have room.”
For a moment, Steen hesitated. How many times had Chase talked about getting him to the ranch? It wasn’t his world, and he didn’t feel like he was a Stockton like the others were. “You don’t want an ex-con living at your place. It’s bad for business.”
Chase’s smile disappeared, replaced by a dark scowl. “I’ll say this one time, Steen, and then this topic is over. We both know damned well that you didn’t do shit, and you didn’t deserve prison. The fact that justice failed you doesn’t change the fact you’re a good man, an innocent man, and my brother. The ranch will always be a better place with you on it. Got it?”
Unexpectedly, Steen’s throat tightened, and he had to look away. “You never give up, do you?” But there was no ire in his voice. Just weariness.
“No, I don’t. You coming to the ranch or what?”
Steen took a deep breath, fighting off his gut instincts to climb into the truck and accept the life his brother offered. He wanted it, he burned for it, but it wasn’t right. Despite Chase’s words, he knew he was a black mark on the Stockton name, and he didn’t warrant a piece of that land. He wanted to just walk away and forget who he was, but he couldn’t make himself do it…not yet. There was something he needed to know, closure he needed to attain before he could walk away. “Is Mira there? At the ranch? I have some questions to ask her.”
Chase grinned, his entire face lighting up at the mention of his woman. “Of course she is. She lives there now. We’ve been waiting for you to get out before we get married. She said you promised to come to the wedding, and she’s holding you to it.”
Steen considered that statement. Marriage carried nothing but bitterness for him. “You trust her?”
“Yeah, all the way.”
He heard the conviction in Chase’s voice, which surprised him. Chase had been more anti-marriage than any of them. “Then I hope you’re right. You deserve a good one.”
“I got one.” There was a thud from the trailer, and the sound of hooves crashing into the metal. Chase swore, glancing back at the shuddering trailer. “White Knight doesn’t like the trailer. You want to ride with him?”
Steen stiffened. It had been a long time since he’d done the horse thing. “Not really.”
The horse crashed against the side of the trailer, making it shake. A panicked squeal split the air, and Steen instinctively called out to the animal and began heading toward the trailer. He’d never been able to walk away from a horse in need, and the old instincts came rushing back.
“Hey!” Chase called out.
Steen glanced back at him, still moving toward the horse. “What?”
“You’ll need this.” As he spoke, Chase tossed a battered old cowboy hat out the window. Steen recognized it immediately as the one he’d worn back in high school.
He caught it, surprised by the sensation of feeling that familiar shape in his hands again. “You still have this?”
Chase grinned. “I never gave up hope, bro.”
Shit. It had been a long time. Steen studied the hat for a moment as images of his old life, his cowboy life, flashed through his mind. He remembered the horses, the competitions, the smell of worn leather and clean straw, all the things that had grounded him when nothing else had made sense. He felt like it had been in another lifetime, as if it had happened to someone else.
White Knight slammed against the side of the trailer again, jerking his attention back to the present. Steen jammed the hat down on his head and loped back to the trailer. He opened the door and swung inside without even thinking about what he was doing, moving as naturally as if he’d never walked away.
A dapple-gr
ay horse was backed up against the rear of the trailer, his head up and his eyes wide with fright as the trailer began to lurch forward again. Steen instinctively began to talk, the words leaving his mouth without him even thinking of what to say. He just knew what the horse needed to hear, as he always had. The horse began to lower his head toward Steen, his ears flicking forward to listen, and suddenly, the day didn’t feel so crappy.
For the first time in a long, long time, Steen felt like he was in the right place.
It wasn’t much, and he knew it wouldn’t last, but for right now, it was a start. He grinned at the animal. “Hey, boy. Sucks to be locked up in a cage, doesn’t it?”
White Knight lowered his head even further, and he pushed against Steen’s chest. Pain shot through his side, but he ignored it. Instead, he placed his hand on White Knight’s nose, surprised by how soft it was. He’d forgotten what it felt like to touch a horse. He’d forgotten what soft was.
He’d forgotten a lot.
He just wished he’d forget the rest.
Chapter 2
Despite her valiant efforts to maintain a positive attitude, there was simply no way for Erin Chambers to see the bright side of the situation when the SUV she was driving lurched and slithered to an engine-coughing death on the edge of the Wyoming dirt road.
“Oh, come on. Please don’t do this to me.” She tried the ignition again, but there was no response from the vehicle that her best friend, Josie Mayers, had named “Faith” because the truck had gotten her out of so many sticky situations.
Well, Faith had bottomed out in a big way, and was so not living up to her name.
Erin grimaced as she flexed her hands around the steering wheel, trying not to freak out and collapse in a wail of self-pity at this latest sabotage to her attempts to make this day work out okay. She glanced at her watch, her heart sinking when she saw what time it was. It was almost six. It had been over an hour since she’d received the frantic call to stitch up a horse that’d had a trailer mishap.
As tempting as it was to surrender to Faith’s refusal to move, she needed to get to the ranch, not sit by the side of the road awaiting the first Wyoming sunset she’d seen in over a decade.
Six weeks ago, it had sounded like a fantastic idea to use her upcoming sabbatical to run the Wyoming vet clinic so Josie could go to Chicago and help her mom recover from surgery. Erin had happily envisioned snuggly dogs, soft kittens, and long conversations with devoted pet owners, a situation that seemed so much more appealing than her stressful equine surgery practice in Virginia. She’d been excited to use her training to help animals that weren’t under deep anesthesia all the time, and the thought of returning to the area she grew up in had sounded wonderful. She’d been struggling so much in her day-to-day life, and she was excited to reconnect with a life that used to make sense to her, hoping that maybe she’d be able to figure herself out in the process.
Today was her first day on the job. As she’d expected, she’d gotten conscious animals and the opportunity to drive around her old town, but other than that, it hadn’t been anything like she’d hoped and expected, not by a long shot.
In the last twelve hours, she’d been knocked down and nearly impaled on the horn of a massive bull. She’d also been flattened into a mud puddle by a six-year-old girl practicing her barrel racing skills on whatever happened to be near her and her pony, which, at that time, had been Erin.
Her last stop had gone long when the sheep had escaped from the holding pen just before she’d arrived, necessitating almost an hour of watching sheepdogs do their stuff, which was incredibly cool, she had to admit, but not very helpful with her timing. She’d spent over two hours cumulatively being lost, since the spotty cell service in the region had rendered her reliance on her phone’s GPS a poor decision. None of the landscape looked familiar to her, and she felt like a complete stranger in the land that had once been her home.
Except this life hadn’t been her home. When she’d been a kid, she’d never been canvassing dirt roads, trying to locate assorted ranches. She’d been cloistered in the library, or at school, or at ballet class, or any of the proper training classes that her parents had thrust upon her. Everything about her return was wrong, nothing was as she’d imagined, and there was nothing she could do about it now.
Josie was gone, there was no one else to run the clinic, the engine was dead, and a horse named Ox’s Ass needed stitches. A passing glance at her phone confirmed she had no reception, so there would be no white knight galloping to respond to a call for help. Grimly, she yanked open the glove box and pulled out the tattered spiral notebook that Josie had stashed inside as a makeshift owner’s manual. She flipped the first page, quickly scanning Josie’s notes. On the second page, she found a note stating: “When the engine dies while driving, there are three possible causes.” Erin scanned the rest of the page, and her heart sank.
“Really? She wants me to connect wires in the engine? Seriously?” Josie’s instructions seemed incredibly complicated, and Erin felt like tossing the notebook aside, crawling into the backseat, and sleeping until the three weeks were up.
But there was a horse with a torn shoulder, and she was the one who had to fix it. She sighed. Just because her parents were disgusted with her utter lack of mechanical ability didn’t mean she couldn’t manage to follow a few instructions, right? She pulled out her reading glasses and studied the notebook again. Sadly, and not surprisingly, the fact she could actually see the words clearly didn’t make them any easier to understand.
No problem. She was an innovator. She could make this happen. She took a deep breath to fortify herself, and then popped the hood. Once she saw the engine, she was sure she’d be able to decipher Josie’s notes. It was all good.
She pulled the door handle to get out…but the door didn’t budge. “Oh, come on!” She twisted in her seat and then slammed her boot against the door. It opened with a reluctant creak of protest. See? She totally rocked it.
Trying not to think about the fact that feeling so triumphant over her ability to exit a truck maybe didn’t bode well, she climbed out, her hiking boots kicking up dust balls in the roadside dirt. Ignoring the aches in her body, she strode around to the front of the vehicle, propped the hood up, and studied the engine.
Then she looked at Josie’s drawings.
Then she looked at the engine again.
Then she looked at Josie’s instructions.
Then she tried turning the notebook upside down.
“Seriously?” Was the drawing even of the same vehicle? Tears suddenly burned in her eyes, tears that had nothing to do with an engine, and everything to do with the fact that she’d been pressing on as hard as she could for the last twelve months since everything had fallen to pieces around her, and this stubborn engine was just one thing too much.
She gripped the grill of the truck and closed her eyes, willing herself to pull it together. She was not going to fail at this. Josie needed her, and Ox’s Ass needed her.
Erin took a deep breath, and opened her eyes. “You can do this. It’s not like Josie’s a mechanic, right? If she can figure it out, then you can.” She shook out her shoulders, then set the notebook on the engine. She stared at it. She willed it to make sense to her. But not one damned thing on Josie’s drawing matched what she could see in the engine.
Dammit. She was not going to let Ox’s Ass down, but what was she going to do?
Hike.
That was what she was going to do.
It was only a few miles, right?
She’d be there in two hours.
God, a two-hour hike carrying medical equipment? Really?
Yes, a two-hour hike carrying medical equipment. Really.
She was not going to let herself mourn for her sterile operating room and pristine working conditions. She’d left because that life was strangling her, and if it took hiking several miles in the dusk to find herself again, then that was what she was going to do.
Resolutely, sh
e tossed the notebook on the engine and left it there, then marched around toward the back of the SUV. She’d just managed to get the stubborn tailgate open, when she heard the rumble of an engine.
She spun around, shielding her eyes against the sunset as a billow of dust filled the sky. A black truck pulling a horse trailer was heading right toward her. For a split second, she considered all the big city warnings about strangers and isolated roads, and then she decided that if she were kidnapped and held for ransom, it might help her to gain perspective on her own life. And, if she weren’t kidnapped but got help instead, then that would be good, too. So, a win either way, no matter what quality of individual was in the truck.
Decision made, she stepped out into the road and began waving her arms to flag the driver down.
***
Steen was in the middle of a deep conversation with White Knight about the crappiness of prison life and how much it sucked to have personal freedom ripped out of one’s life, when he felt Chase slow down and stop the truck. Frowning, Steen glanced toward the window, knowing they hadn’t gone far enough to reach the ranch, but there were no stop signs on these roads. When the truck stayed still, Steen raised the flaps on the side of the trailer and peered out, but all he could see were fields. Where were they?
He heard Chase’s door slam shut as his brother shouted a greeting to someone. Apprehension flooded Steen, and he closed the flaps. The last thing he wanted to do was socialize. He had nothing to say to the world. He’d had nothing to say when he lived in it, and he had nothing to say now that he’d been removed from it for the last four years. How did a man make small talk when he had a prison record haunting him?
There was no chance he was getting out of the trailer.
He patted the horse’s nose and resumed their conversation, keeping his whispers low so no one would know he was in the back. Knight was relaxed now, munching happily on the hay net that was dangling from the wall. His ears kept flicking toward Steen, listening to the conversation with more interest than anyone had shown in a long time.
A Real Cowboy Knows How to Kiss Page 2
