A Cowboy in Her Arms

by Mary Leo

  Callie finished off her cherry muffin and went for a blueberry scone.

  Carson pulled the box away.

  “Seriously?” She slapped the table.

  “Not until you tell me.”

  “I just did.”

  He shook his head. “Nope. I’m not buying it.”

  She stood and reached for the box. He stood and pulled it away.

  “This is baked-goods blackmail,” she told him.

  She reached for the box again, but Carson held it way up over his head. She was desperate now. He knew her comfort food during times of trauma was something sweet, and he was taunting her with it.

  This was so unfair.

  She relented. “Fine, but you can’t hate me if I tell you.”

  “You’re my sister. It would take a lot for me to hate you.”

  “Oh, so you could hate me?”

  “Okay, maybe not hate, but if the situation warranted it, we could all dislike each other. But I’d always love you. You’re my sister.” He smirked.

  “Good to know.”

  “Just tell me what’s wrong.”

  “It’s Emma. I can’t seem to accept her, to like her.”

  “Does Joel know this?”

  “To a degree, yes. I told him last night.”

  He let out a long whistle, pushed back his black cowboy hat and placed the pink box of yummy delights on the table, then he sat down, hard. Callie sat, as well, but didn’t take a scone. Now that she’d admitted it out loud to her brother, her stomach felt queasy.

  “That’s rich, don’t you think?”

  “What, because you said you could actually dislike me?”

  “Well, yeah, there’s that, but also Emma is Sarah’s daughter. That little girl looks enough like her mom to be her double. I’m thinking that has a lot to do with your feelings for her.”

  Callie wrapped her arms across her tummy. She suddenly felt cold, as if all the blood had drained from her body.

  “That doesn’t mean anything. It’s her personality. She’s hard to be around. You don’t know what that child is like. I ask her to do something and she does the exact opposite, and she can be spiteful to the other children. And don’t even get me started on how she gives Joel and Polly sass. She’s downright defiant!”

  “So was Sarah, at least to everyone but you. As I recall, you loved her rebellious streak. How she wouldn’t be deterred by anyone. How she always knew what she wanted, and wasn’t afraid to go get it.”

  “She wanted Joel and she took him from me, her best friend. Now Emma wants Joel. She wants all his time and energy and love. There’s nothing left for me.”

  As soon as she admitted her innermost feelings, she felt as if she’d been hit by a bolt of lightning.

  “Do you hear yourself, Callaghan Grant? Do you hear your resentment toward a young child? For Sarah’s child?”

  The fact that she’d finally articulated feelings that had been swirling around in her for weeks, brought up a well of emotion she’d been doing everything to keep secret, even from herself. And now, a door had opened and she could see what had been hidden behind it, what she’d locked away.

  “Oh, Carson. I’ve been so blind. So filled with my own pity. What’s wrong with me? I’m a horrible person. Joel should hate me...you should hate me. Everyone in this family and this town should hate me. Maybe even the world.”

  “Come here,” Carson said. They stood, and he wrapped his strong arms around her as she sobbed on his shoulder. She remembered all the other countless times she’d cried on her big brother’s shoulder. All her sisters had. He was always there for them. But would he really be there for her now? Now, when he knew how horrible she’d been acting toward an innocent child?

  “Nobody hates you, at least I don’t think they do...well, maybe Joel does, but you might still be able to fix that if you’re honest with him. If you tell him the truth like you just told me. Of course, getting the truth out of you or any one of our sisters can be like birthing a breech calf. Sometimes I just gotta reach in there and pull it out.”

  She looked up at him, smiling from his little visual dig. After all, he was still her annoying brother.

  “Oh, thanks,” Callie said. “You just compared me...and our sisters...to a birthing cow. That makes me feel so much better.”

  She sobbed even louder.

  Chapter Twelve

  Callie had spent most of Sunday doing chores around the ranch, not really talking to anyone. She was still coping with the fact that she’d been taking her resentment out on a child when all her adult life, she’d been wanting children of her own. What kind of mother would she make if she couldn’t love Emma, who needed all the love and kindness she could give her?

  When dinner came around, and her mother entertained her usual houseful of guests, Callie locked herself in her room feigning an oncoming cold. Her mom prepared a plate, but all Callie ate was the homemade apple pie with three scoops of ice cream.

  She didn’t fall asleep until sometime around four in the morning, and when the alarm went off, she slept right through it. She called Mrs. Pearl in the office at school to tell her she’d be late. Callie felt as if she’d been run over by a bus, a great big double-decker bus. Not only were her emotions fried, but she’d been living on sugar and coffee for two days straight. To say she felt sick was an understatement. She had cultivated a headache that would bring a two-hundred-pound man to his knees.

  Just as Callie walked into her classroom, the sound of the bell ripped through her head causing her headache to intensify...or was the bell actually the piercing scream from one of her students just outside the back door?

  Inside, Mrs. Pearl, a normally unflappable woman in her fifties, let out a little yelp and ran out of the room, saying she would get security.

  Before Callie could get her bearings, most of the children ran to the back door and crowded the open doorway.

  Another wail, then some crying.

  “It’s Emma, Miss Callie. She must be hurt,” Frankie told her, his normally bright face showing agonizing concern for his friend.

  “Children, let me through,” Callie ordered in a calm voice. She told herself to remain unruffled no matter what, despite the fact that her heart raced and her throat felt as though it was caught in a vise. The children depended on the adult to handle whatever situation came up, irrespective of how bad it might be.

  She assumed that Emma must have fallen or hurt herself pretty badly, and from the high pitch of her screams, it might be critical. Callie pulled her phone out of her pocket as she neared the door, in case she had to call 9-1-1 and Joel.

  Her students stepped aside as Callie approached. Emma’s sobbing and screeching wasn’t letting up, Adrenaline heightened Callie’s apprehensions. She prayed for this emergency, whatever it was, to please end well.

  When she finally saw Emma racked with tears, crying and shaking while standing in front of the bunny hutch, Callie knew something tragic must have happened to one of the rabbit, and not to Emma. Some of Callie’s dire fears faded as she slipped her phone back into her pocket and coolly approached Emma, thoroughly relieved that nothing bad had happened to her. In that moment, once all the barriers had been stripped away, and all the misplaced resentment vanished, Callie realized how much she truly cared about Emma, only she hadn’t wanted to admit it even to herself. She’d been so busy trying to safeguard her heart that she’d almost pushed away the one child who needed her most... Sarah’s child.

  She turned back to her students, who were huddled in the open doorway like frightened puppies. “Children, please go back inside and take a seat on the rug. I’ll be there in one minute.”

  None of them budged as Emma’s distress escalated with another ear-piercing shriek when she spotted Callie walking toward her. This time she didn’t ta
ke another breath until her lips began to turn blue.

  Callie immediately went over, knelt on one knee and folded Emma into her arms. At first Emma sought out the warmth, but then without warning, Emma took in a breath, screamed again and fought Callie’s embrace. She squirmed, pushed and scratched, trying her best to release herself from Callie’s grasp.

  “No! No! I don’t...want...you. Something...bad happened. I want my daddy.”

  Callie brushed the sweat away from Emma’s forehead and tried to soothe her. Seeing her this upset tore at Callie’s heart. “Emma. Emma, look at me, sweetheart. I can’t help you if you don’t calm down. I need to know what’s wrong. Take a breath and talk to me.”

  But Emma wanted no part of it. Instead, she struggled and wriggled out of Callie’s grasp. Callie held on to one of her arms as Emma pulled back with all her might. Callie was afraid if she let go, Emma would fall backward on the concrete and hit her head or hurt her back. Callie tried to get a better hold on her. Emma refused to give in.

  Frankie ran over to them. “It’s okay, Emma. It’s okay. Don’t cry. Holy moly, Emma, what’s wrong? Did you fall?”

  Emma shook her head, relaxing for a moment, which gave Callie the opportunity to get a better hold. “It’s...Wheezy. What’s...wrong with Wheezy?”

  Frankie peeked into the hutch and poked at something. He sniffled, then said, “He’s dead. Wheezy’s dead.”

  Then Frankie began to wail, as well.

  Emma shrieked again, her little body stiff with despair. The other children had apparently heard Frankie and began to cry, some of them sobbing and yelling out Wheezy’s name. Soon, the children surrounded Callie, all wailing with abandon.

  Emma stopped pulling, so Callie let her go in order to check on Wheezy, and sure enough, poor little Wheezy lay on his side, stiff as a board, while Squeezy sat huddled in the corner of his own hutch, his breathing labored and fast.

  Callie slipped off her sweater, wrapped it around Wheezy and removed the beloved creature from his little cage.

  As soon as Emma realized what was happening, she wept louder and ran off into the school yard, with all the other children following close behind in a single line, like distraught ducklings following their mama. Other students and their teachers were now pouring out of their classrooms to add to the commotion.

  John Keswick, the twentysomething first-grade teacher, seemed to understand the situation almost immediately. He carefully took Wheezy from Callie and laid him on top of the hutch, high enough away from the children’s eyes. “Let’s just put him up here for the time being,” he said to Callie, “where he’ll be out of the way, until you decide what to do with him.”

  “Thanks,” Callie told him, grateful that he had a temporary solution. It gave her a little respite from the situation, enabling her mind to reset itself out of the chaos.

  “And it’s only Monday,” John said with a sly grin. Then he corralled his students and somehow managed to get them all back inside the school.

  The second-grade class, under Mr. Zeke Crawly’s strict tutelage, wasn’t so eager to listen and instead wanted to see a dead rabbit. Some of them already had their phones out eager to capture Wheezy’s lifeless body in digital form with the intention of sending the wretched images into cyberspace.

  Callie stood her ground and wouldn’t let any of them near Wheezy.

  “I always thought your petting zoo was a bad idea,” Mr. Crawly said with a haughty tone to his strident voice. “And that child needs to be disciplined with a firm hand, which her father obviously doesn’t have the stomach for. She’s disrupted your entire class. Nothing worse than a pushover parent with an out-of-control child.”

  The man riled Callie to her core. “For one thing, ‘that child’ just lost an animal she adored. She’s merely reacting to that terrible loss. You have no idea what she’s been through in the last few months, so back off. She’s one brave little girl who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to stand up for herself. And, for your information, her father is the finest dad I’ve ever met. He’s kind, loving, attentive and understanding of a child’s needs, which is more than I can say for you as a teacher.”

  His students cheered. And in that instant, Callie knew she would be in trouble with the school board for what she’d just said. Funny thing was, she didn’t care. It was about time someone stood up to him, and it was about time she stood up for Emma and Joel.

  “You’ll regret this,” he whispered.

  “No,” she said, “you will.”

  Then she ran out into the school yard to retrieve her peeps, who were now huddled around Emma.

  * * *

  WHEN JOEL HAD received the call from Mrs. Pearl that Emma was causing a disruption in her class at school and he needed to pick her up, the lump in his throat seemed about as big as a bowling ball.

  He knew that whatever Emma had done now, and with the way Callie felt about his daughter, that once again, she would probably be expelled. He ran different scenarios over in his head as he raced to school. Finding another school for her would be a challenge, especially since the nearest one was over forty-five minutes away in a different county.

  He could homeschool her, or at least maybe Polly could, or maybe he could hire someone to come in and teach Emma.

  But he couldn’t get around the fact that all Emma’s friends were at this school. She loved her new friends, and the bunnies, the turtles and the fish in Callie’s classroom. He didn’t have the heart to tell her she couldn’t see them anymore.

  He wondered if he could somehow change Callie’s mind, at least about school. Unfortunately, from the way she had spoken about Emma, he knew that might be impossible. Besides, he owed it to his daughter to find a teacher who genuinely liked her.

  Once again, Joel thought that trying to put down roots might not be something he and his daughter were cut out for. Every time they tried, something went wrong.

  Thing was, this town had grown on him, had grown on Emma. He liked who he’d become from living here, from meeting the townsfolk and from being with Callie. Besides, both he and Emma depended on Polly, and she depended on them. No way could he start over somewhere else without her.

  He pulled his SUV into a parking space, turned off the ignition, jumped out and took off for the front steps without bothering to lock up his rig. He had to find a way to make this work, despite what anyone said to him this morning, despite what Callie had said to him the other night.

  As he walked to the office he thought for sure he’d see Emma sitting on a bench, waiting for her father, like she had in the last three schools she’d been expelled from. When he arrived at the office and didn’t see her, he peeked inside, but didn’t see her there, either.

  On a hunch, he left and walked down the quiet hallway, passing walls decorated with artwork that the children had done, Emma’s picture of a horse family standing next to a barn was still on display. There was a massive bulletin board announcing various events for Halloween, including the play Emma would be in, parent-teacher night and a bake sale that Polly and Emma were already planning for.

  It was up to him to make the case for his daughter. Up to him to find a way to convince Callie and whoever else he needed to talk to that Emma needed this...that he needed this.

  When he came up on Callie’s classroom, the door was open, and the only two people inside were Emma and Callie. Emma sat on Callie’s lap, resting her head on Callie’s shoulder, legs slung over Callie’s, listening intently to every word Callie said. They sat in the middle of the round rug on the floor. Joel spotted the rest of Callie’s class out in the school yard through the open doorway. Mrs. Pearl was with them. Neither Callie nor Emma had seen him when he approached, and he quietly moved just behind the wall and listened.

  “Your mama loved to ride a horse. Aunt Polly taught her when she was your age. The summers your mama ca
me to visit were some of the best times I ever had. I loved your mama like a sister, just like I love you.”

  “Like a sister?”

  “Not exactly. I love you like your mama’s daughter...like my own daughter.”

  Raw emotion welled up inside of Joel. He could hear the love in Callie’s voice, in her words. He didn’t know what had caused the change in her feelings for Emma, but he was thankful that it had.

  “Your mama and I did everything together,” Callie said. “There was one summer when our team even won the spud tug at the county fair.”

  “What’s a spud tug?” Emma asked, carefully repeating the words.

  “It’s where two groups of kids or adults hold on to opposite sides of a rope and pull. The thing is, they have to do it over a big pit of sticky, gooey, cold mashed potatoes. The losing side usually falls in.”

  Emma giggled. “I want to do that.”

  “Fall into the gooey mashed potato pit?”

  Joel grinned. He knew what his daughter would say next.

  “Uh-huh. Mashed potatoes are my favorite.” Then she giggled again.

  All the tension that Joel had been carrying around since he’d received the phone call drained out of him, like water through an open faucet. His shoulders relaxed and his fists opened.

  “We’ll see what we can do about that next year,” Callie told her, a lilt to her voice.

  “Did my mama ever talk about me?”

  “Well, she didn’t know you back then. It was before you were born. But she and I would talk about all the children we were going to have. And you know what? Your mama always said she was going to have a girl first, a baby girl she would name Emma. And here you are.”

  “She knew I would be her daughter?”

  Joel could hear the excitement in Emma’s voice as he leaned against the wall, happy that Callie was taking the time to share some of her memories of Sarah with Emma. It felt magical and right.

  “Yep. She planned for it. She even knew what color eyes you would have.”