Leave It to Chance

by Sherri Sand

  “Gina just isn’t used to kids.”

  “Well, then, this will be good practice.”

  Chapter 14

  Ross shook the newspaper open to the home-and-garden section as he did every Saturday morning. The article on “winterizing your home” didn’t hold his attention. He laid the paper aside. This used to be his favorite part of the week, but now his thoughts kept drifting to the Cranwell plans on his office desk. Maria Cranwell had changed the water feature yet again.

  He took another sip of rich black brew and gazed through the kitchen window out over his pasture. A movement in the adjoining field caught his eye.

  “What?” In the enclosure near Sid’s horse barn, an angry black horse danced around a sway-backed gray nag.

  Ross growled and headed for the back porch. He jerked his work boots on, then threw an old coat over his shoulders and stomped through the grass to bring Chance back home.

  Wet field grass slapped over the top of his boots, soaking his jeans up to the knee. Halfway through Sid’s pasture, Ross stopped. He glanced around trying to get a feel for what was out of place.

  Slowly it came to him. Sid had usually let the horses out by now. Yet only Traitor and Chance stood in the pasture. He glanced toward the house. The back porch door stood wide open. Sid surely wouldn’t have left it open on such a cold morning. His pulse accelerated, pounding in his ears.

  He broke into a run, his gaze sweeping the pasture as he sprinted for the barn. A bit of red off to his left snagged his attention. The stiff breeze blew it gently, fluttering just beneath the blades of grass. Probably nothing, but his heart hammered anyway, beating against the bones in his chest. He cut toward the red bit of fluff, still scanning the rest of the field. Then he saw the black boot.

  “Sid!” The scream tore through him, lost in a chilly gust of wind. He raced, the air current whipping against him. Sid lay chalk white, his skin cold and pinched, as if he had shriveled into himself. Ross slid to his knees next to the older man and leaned his cheek over Sid’s open mouth, but with the gust blowing between them he couldn’t tell if there was breath. He gently laid his head over Sid’s chest and thought he felt a soft thump-thump, but wasn’t sure. It might have been his own pulse surging in his ear.

  Was it a heart attack? Skinny as he was, Ross knew Sid’s doctor had been after him to eat better or risk having it catch up to him. He grabbed for his cell phone at his waist, but clutched denim instead. He yelled, the wind snatching away the sound. His cell phone lay in the kitchen by his truck keys.

  Ross scanned the rest of Sid’s body and saw that dark wetness had colored much of Sid’s overalls. A patch had spread under his left leg, bathing the grass with the old man’s lifeblood. Ross pulled out the utility knife he slipped into his pocket every morning and slit the tough denim to Sid’s thigh. It was bad—the flesh mangled and bruised from iron horseshoes. Bits of bone and muscle clung to the material Ross peeled back. Black-crusted blood told him Sid had been out here a while. He tore off his shirt and tied it around Sid’s leg, trying to be gentle, but needing to dress the wound. When he was satisfied, he laid his coat over his friend, then ran for Sid’s barn phone and called for help.

  Sierra flipped the blinker to pull into Ross’s lane but caught the flash of emergency lights ahead. An ambulance pulled onto the highway from Sid’s drive. It sped past with screaming sirens. She gunned the van and headed for Sid’s. Somebody had to still be there.

  She circled the empty gravel yard with her van. Ross must have ridden in the ambulance. A flash caught her periphery, and she turned to see Ross vault the fence back to his yard. He was bare chested in the freezing weather. Sierra floored the accelerator and sped back down the driveway to Ross’s.

  She met him coming out of his house, the T-shirt he’d thrown on inside out, the tag hanging out in front. His eyes were frantic. “Sid’s hurt bad.”

  She gripped the steering wheel, terror pouring over her. “Get in the van. I’ll take you to the hospital.”

  He opened his mouth, glanced at his truck, then nodded, and rushed to the passenger side of the van.

  “What happened?”

  “I found him in the pasture with Traitor and Chance.” He stared out the side window, his voice so low she could barely make out the words.

  “Did he have a heart attack?”

  Ross’s turned to stare straight through the windshield, his profile tight, angry. “He’d been stomped.”

  “How did Traitor get in your pasture?”

  His eyes flared dark. “Chance was in his.”

  In the hospital waiting room, Ross looked away from Sierra, guilt eating at him. She was crying, and he hadn’t offered a word of comfort, not a hug, not even a cup of coffee. He paced to the far side of the room and dropped onto a couch with his forehead in his palms and elbows on his knees. An image of a gray horse in the wrong pasture flashed into his mind. Sid lay on an operating table because someone left a gate open.

  A cushion moved beside him, then settled. He glanced over and saw his cousin.

  “I got your message.” Kyle swallowed hard. “How’s he doing?”

  Ross shook his head and swallowed hard.

  “Mr. Morgan?” There was the soft hush of rubber soles on the carpet.

  Ross raised his head and walked to meet the doctor halfway across the room.

  Dr. Ho, still in scrubs, crossed his arms. “Mr. Barrows will be moved to recovery shortly. His left femur was crushed. We managed to insert a rod and remove most of the fragments.” He shrugged. “It’s a waiting game at this point to see how it heals and if there’s infection.” The doctor’s gaze flashed down to his hands frequently while he talked, as if consulting a clipboard he no longer held. “His age doesn’t improve his chances, nor does the fact that he was exposed to the elements for most of the night.”

  Sid had been out there all night? The shock hit Ross like a bucket of ice water in the face.

  “We did our best, but we may still have to take the leg.” Ross met Kyle’s eyes, and he broke out in a cold sweat. Spots darkened his vision for a second.

  The doctor’s tone changed and he reached toward Ross, concern in the eyes behind the silver frames. “Sir, do you need to sit down?”

  Sid with one leg? He’d die. Just waste away. Anger thrashed in Ross’s gut. All because Chance had gotten in with that black horse.

  Kyle gripped his arm. “Ross?”

  Ross shook off his hand and stepped back on shaky legs. “No. I’m fine.”

  The doctor eyed him carefully before continuing, “We may need to perform a second surgery to clean the wound some more. We were able to irrigate and remove most of the debris, but our focus was getting the rod in.” He crossed his arms. “Considering his age, we didn’t want him under the anesthesia longer than necessary. Consequently he’ll be on heavy doses of antibiotics for a couple of weeks.”

  Sierra sniffled.

  Ross looked at her. Her face was blotchy, and her eyes puffed up. She addressed the doctor. “What are the risks at this point?”

  The doctor nodded. “Infection always remains our number one concern. Also how his heart will react to the trauma of the wound, the exposure, and extensive surgery.” The doctor consulted the nonexistent clipboard again. “His heart rate and blood pressure remained fairly stable through the surgery, but it’s a wait-and-see game from here on out.”

  Ross turned and his gaze caught Sierra’s. Her eyes were deep pools of sorrow and fear. She bent her head, but not before he caught the flash of guilt.

  In that split second, satisfaction flashed through him. He was glad that she felt culpable. And the shame of that thought rode him harder for it.

  On the drive back to Sid’s, Ross couldn’t bring himself to break the silence that filled Sierra’s van like black tar. The car coasted to a halt in front of the barn, and he started to open his door.

  She turned in her seat. “Ross, please say something.”

  He hesitated. Sid had looked so ill i
n the few minutes Ross had sat with him in the recovery room after the surgery. And she couldn’t change that. With a quick glance at her, he opened the van door. “We need to get your horse back to my barn.”

  She caught up to him at the barn entrance, her soft touch to his arm stopping him. Her eyes were big cinnamon pools of distress.

  He stepped back and her hand fell. “Sierra, nothing I say is going to turn back time.”

  The wind tangled the ends of her chestnut hair as she looked away, her back to the pasture. “What do you think happened?”

  The weight of his own responsibility pressed into his chest. Why didn’t he double-check the gates when he turned Chance loose in the pasture last night? “Traitor hasn’t adjusted to the other horses for some reason.” He sighed. “I imagine he got agitated having Chance in his field and Sid tried to separate them.”

  “How did Chance get out?”

  “The gate separating my pasture from Sid’s was left open.”

  Her eyes grew puzzled.

  “Your kids were playing in the pasture yesterday after Sid left.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes fell from his and she drew her jacket tighter around her body. “So …” she raised her eyes slowly, “you blame us.”

  He jerked his gaze toward the pasture. “I’m not mad at you.”

  She remained quiet, the wind whipping her hair.

  The words burst from him. “I’m mad at—at …” He threw his arms up. “I don’t know what I’m mad at. I’m mad that Chance got loose in Sid’s pasture. I’m mad that Sid might lose his leg, might never be the same.”

  Sadness filled the curves of her face. “I’m so sorry, Ross.”

  “But that doesn’t change anything, does it?”

  Sierra watched Ross stride across the pasture toward Chance, a blue lead rope dangling at his side. He gave the black horse near the fence a passing glance, then jerked back, and the low words whipped to her. “Oh, Lord!”

  Whatever had happened, it was bad. Ross snapped the lead on the black horse’s halter and turned him so that she could see him. A large flap of his chest hung loose, the red flesh exposed and crusted with dried blood. Sierra’s stomach twisted.

  Ross’s face was set in angry lines. “Sid doesn’t need this on top of everything else!”

  Sierra backed a safe distance from the horse’s path as Ross led him toward the barn, the horse’s metal shoes crunching in the gravel. She waited until the black horse disappeared through the entrance, then followed, staying back until Ross closed the door to the stall.

  He gave her a grim look. “We’ll have to call the vet.”

  On a small ledge near the sink, an old black rotary phone rested atop a tattered phone book. After the call he grabbed another lead. “I’ll bring Chance in here to look him over. I don’t have any first aid in my barn.”

  The sick feeling grew with visions of more gaping wounds. Sierra steeled herself and followed him to the fence.

  He tossed her a brief glance as he walked Chance back through the gate. “Nothing major that I can see, just a few bites and abrasions. He’s lucky.”

  Yet from the look on Ross’s face Sierra sensed that he wished Chance had been the injured one and not Traitor.

  Chapter 15

  After Sierra left, Ross tried to hold Traitor steady as the vet stitched the slashed flesh together. He felt his anger cooling off and murmured softly to the black horse as it pulled against the cross ties. It made no sense to blame Sierra for the injuries Chance had caused. It wasn’t any one person’s fault. When the vet finished, Ross wrote down instructions for the antibiotics then jumped into his pickup to head back to the hospital.

  His cousin was supposed to meet him in the small waiting room on Sid’s floor, and he wasn’t going to like what Ross had to say. Kyle needed to find Chance a new home. The horse had caused too many problems, and Sierra … she was becoming his biggest distraction.

  Kyle walked in ten minutes after Ross and dropped into a chair. “Sid awake?”

  “There’s a nurse in there now. Said to give her a minute.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t get over to help feed Sid’s ponies this morning. One of my mechanics didn’t show up.”

  “Sierra helped.”

  “But she’s scared of horses.” Kyle stared at him as if he’d beaten the woman.

  “What?” Ross tossed the magazine he’d been reading back onto the table and stood up. “It was her horse that put us in this mess.”

  “This isn’t her fault, and you know it.” An accusatory tone crept into Kyle’s voice. It was one that Ross hadn’t heard in a long time and didn’t care to hear right now. “What is it with you? Sierra is sweet. So are her kids. I’ve watched you, cousin. As soon as a decent woman comes onto your radar you go on a hunt.”

  That jolted a snort from Ross. “A hunt? Right!” He wasn’t looking for a relationship and definitely not one with Sierra Montgomery. Even if he couldn’t keep her off his mind.

  Kyle torpedoed in on that. He poked an oil-stained finger at Ross’s nose. “Yeah, you do! You pick and dig around the edges until you find some reason to back off.”

  “And why would I do that?” Irritation rolled out with the words.

  Kyle laid one arm across the other, legs spread. “You tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to tell, because there’s nothing there.”

  Kyle shook his head. “You live like you’ve got something to prove.” He dropped his arms and his voice grew softer. “Just think about it, Ross. The only person you need to prove anything to is yourself.”

  Ross looked away.

  When they finally got to see him, Sid looked more withered than he had earlier. The white room felt boxy and small with the hospital bed devouring most of the space. “Hiya boys.” Sid’s voice was reed thin.

  “Hi, Sid.”

  Kyle was the first to ask. “What’s wrong with your voice?”

  The gown had slid down one of Sid’s thin shoulders. “Hoarse. Doctor said it’ll come back in a few days.”

  Kyle frowned. “Why is it hoarse?”

  Sid’s eyes immediately fell away from them and focused on the faded yellow drapes. “From yellin’ for help, I guess.”

  With a groan, Ross dropped his head in his hand.

  “Now, Ross. Don’t go blamin’ yerself. I shoulda knowed better than to head into that field the way Traitor was actin’. Nothin’ ornerier than a stud protecting his territory.”

  Kyle folded himself into the chair next to the bed. “What happened?”

  Sid pressed a weak fist into the mattress to adjust his weight. “Oh, I brought the other horses in and was headed out for Traitor when I heard him squealing and carrying on. Found that horse Chance out there. I knew Traitor could hurt him bad, and I didn’t want those kids to lose their horse. So, like a fool, I tried to catch Chance before Traitor did much damage. I lost my footing and fell. Don’t recall much after that.”

  Ross closed his eyes and wiped a hand down his face.

  “Doc said it was lucky you found me when you did.” Sid’s chin sank down toward his chest. “Mighta moved up my retirement.”

  Kyle gave a halfhearted chuckle. “I never thought I’d hear those words cross your lips.”

  Sid’s eyes moved to the far wall. “The thought’s been comin’ now and again.”

  Kyle visited a few more minutes then looked at the clock. “Mom’s having the family over for dinner tonight, so I better get going.”

  “Tell Stella and your sisters hello. Haven’t had your mother’s pot roast in a good while.”

  Kyle touched his forehead in salute. “Will do. I’m sure she can be persuaded to bring one over when you’re recuperating. Oh, and Mom said she has some information for you.”

  As soon as the door closed, Sid seemed to shrink back into the sheets. Growing older and smaller in the space of a heartbeat.

  Gone was the verve and bluster. In its place lay a shell of the old man. Ross reached deep and found a grin. “Don
’t keep up pretenses on my account.”

  Sid scowled. “Aw, you know Stella. If Kyle tells her I’m ailin’, she and those girls of hers will be down here fussin’ over me. I cain’t stand bein’ fussed over.”

  Ross laughed, relief enveloping the dread.

  Sid sighed. “I don’t know, Ross. I’m tired.”

  Alarm flashed through Ross’s mind. He’d suggested for years that Sid sell his farm and slow down. But without the horses, what would Sid have to live for? That answer was obvious—nothing.

  “Sid, you just spent a night in your pasture, thanks to me. It’s going to take a while to get your strength back. You’ll feel more like yourself in a couple of weeks.”

  Sid looked pointedly at his leg. “Maybe it’s time to sell, like you’re always yammering about.”

  The words shot out of Ross’s mouth. “Well, maybe I was wrong.”

  Sid raised his eyebrows. A few seconds later a low chuckle rumbled through his chest. “I see. You’re scared that ol’ Sid is gonna roll over and kick the bucket without them horses to keep him goin’.” Sid raised himself up a few inches. “Now you listen to me, son. The good Lord assigns our days, and when He says it’s time to go, it’ll be time to go. No sooner, no later.” He relaxed back with a firm nod.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The color was clearly back in Sid’s cheeks. “Now what’s on your mind?”

  “Pardon me?”

  Sid’s whiskers jiggled as he moved his jaw. “Son, I don’t have the energy to go draggin’ it out of you.”

  Ross sank into a vinyl chair crowded between the wall and the rolling platform that held a pitcher of water. “I’m getting rid of Chance.”

  Sid’s grizzled cheeks really started moving then. “Now, why would you go and do a stupid thing like that?”

  Tension grew and radiated between Ross’s shoulder blades. “Traitor had to have his chest sewn shut.”

  Pain spasmed across Sid’s face. If Ross thought that’d be enough to get Sid on his side, he was wrong. “That’s not Sierra’s fault. No reason to blame that gal and her horse.”