by Lois Richer
“Yes, but it doesn’t contain all the other information you want. This will.” Drew’s delight made it impossible not to return his smile. This was the happiest he’d looked since he’d arrived. “I’ll show you. Let’s take a horse. Raven, for example. She’s probably got the most medical bills.”
He entered the information, then again explained how to save the files in distinct categories. In minutes he’d created an entry page for every one of the Double H’s horses.
“It’s great, Drew. I can’t thank you enough,” Mandy said dutifully.
“I hear a but.” He leaned back and waited.
“But I’ll have to reenter everything I’ve already entered in my old system. It will take me forever and I haven’t got that much free time right now.” Mandy didn’t need to say computers were her least favorite thing about ranch work. Drew already knew that.
“Merging should be pretty easy...” He dove into her files and studied them intensely, apparently unaware that his knee kept bumping hers.
Mandy’s stomach sank when he finally pushed away from the desk. “No good?”
“Your programs are really old, Mandy, you haven’t used the same format for all of the files and some of them files are corrupted. I don’t use merging much in my work but transferring everything should be doable. I just need a bit of time to do it. Thing is, I have to leave now to take my singers’ group.” He rose, picked up his hat and put it on, dark eyes thoughtful. “I’ve saved it. I’ll take another look later on this evening. Everything’s password protected, right?”
“Yes. I use Ella’s birth date.” She rattled it off before realizing exactly what details she was revealing to him.
The significance of those dates impacted Drew like an ice storm. He froze. Was he, too, remembering those last moments they’d shared?
“So Ella really is my daughter,” he said in a tight voice, his former easygoing manner completely gone.
“I already told you that.” Mandy didn’t say anything else because she sensed there was a struggle happening inside his head.
“Yes, you did.” He scrutinized her for several long moments before wheeling around and walking toward the door. “I have to go.”
“Thank you for the help.” His reaction puzzled Mandy. “See you later,” she called to his retreating back. She shrugged at his nonresponse and tried to continue working. But the memory of that stark awareness dawning in Drew’s eyes would not dissipate.
Now that he had Ella’s birth date, would it change anything?
“Don’t get your hopes up, girlfriend,” she chided herself. “Learning that date doesn’t mean that Drew suddenly wants to be a daddy.”
“Drew wants to be a daddy?” Ella stood in the doorway. “My daddy?” she asked with wide-eyed hopefulness.
Lord, when will I learn to shut up?
“Sweetie, I didn’t say that,” Mandy rushed to correct herself. “Drew doesn’t want to be a daddy to anyone. He lives by himself in a big city.” Tears welled in Ella’s eyes but Mandy had to end her futile hope. “I don’t think he has room for anyone in his life, sweetheart.”
And isn’t that the truth, Manda Panda?
* * *
“Where’s your head at, Drew?” Oliver chided as they built a campfire for the youth group they were escorting. “A couple of times during that ride I was afraid you were going to lead us into the wild blue yonder and right over a cliff.”
“Sorry. Guess I’m a little distracted,” Drew apologized. Apparently his plan to carry on as if nothing had changed wasn’t working.
“A little? Let me guess. You and Mandy argued again.” Oliver’s eyes widened when Drew shook his head. “Then what’s wrong?”
“Just—life.” He didn’t know how to explain that the combined knowledge of Ella’s birth date and the absolutely unavoidable certainty that he was her father had knocked him completely off-kilter.
“Anything I can help with?” Oliver was obviously curious. “Want to sound off to me? It wouldn’t go beyond us.”
“Thanks, but—I’m not sure that would help.” Drew scrambled for a way to express his jumbled mess of conflicting feelings. “Did you ever know something, sort of, but then the truth of it hit you out of the blue and knocked your whole world off balance?”
“Hmm. Not sure if I understand that.” Oliver squeezed his eyes closed for a second, then said, “Let’s see. Someone told you something was true and you had no reason to doubt them, but you kind of did—until you didn’t? Close?”
“Actually—yeah.” Drew stared at his coworker with new appreciation. “That’s exactly what’s happened.”
“And now the truth of what they said has been proven and it’s knocked you back on your heels so far that you’re not sure what to do about it,” the cowboy continued.
“Bang on,” Drew agreed. “I feel—”
“Gobsmacked.” Oliver chuckled at his surprise. “What? You think I don’t know words? An English friend introduced me to the meaning of that word eons ago and trust me, it fits a lot of situations.”
“Don’t I know it? Gobsmacked is exactly how I felt when Mandy first asked me to come back here.” Drew laid the last log on the fire, checked that it wouldn’t tumble off and straightened. “The kids are ready to start their meeting here. Let’s see if they left us anything to eat.”
“I’m down with that.” Oliver laughed out loud. “I’m also cool and hip and any other descriptor you’ve got, though at the moment I am definitely not gobsmacked.”
“Oh, brother.” Drew made a face when Oliver swayed his hips as he walked to the chuck wagon.
The men sat a distance away from the now-singing group, contentedly eating as the echo of voices performing scales rang around them. Then they helped pack up the wagon so it could be returned, making certain the s’mores ingredients stayed behind.
“Don’t know why they need s’mores,” Oliver grumbled as he munched on oatmeal cookies. “There was enough dessert on that wagon to stuff ’em full.”
“They’re kids. As I recall, Bonnie baked nonstop and I ate nonstop at that age.” Drew cupped his iced tea glass in his palms and listened to the melodic voices echoing around the valley. “Though I freely admit I know less than nothing about kids,” he added.
“Everybody starts out that way. Like me. Confirmed bachelor till I came to Hanging Hearts Ranch.” Oliver grinned. “But I learned pretty fast that kids are as terrified of messing up as I am.”
“Maybe.” Drew doubted anyone could mess up as badly as he had. “This group sounds amazing.”
“They come here every year, right before their big singing competition in Missoula. Their director says singing out here amplifies where they’re off-key so well that the kids can hear it for themselves.” He scratched his head. “Or something like that. I don’t always understand when she starts talking music.”
“Well I for one do not hear anything off-key.” Drew closed his eyes as the singers moved into a quiet, evocative piece about listening for God’s voice. He glanced at Oliver. “Do you think that’s really possible?”
“What? Hearing God?” Oliver nodded as he packed their utensils for transport. “I do.”
“How? Like a voice in a bush?” Drew wasn’t trying to mock. He was serious.
“I’m no Moses.” Oliver shrugged. “I think God uses more subtle means to speak to us these days. I mean a voice in the bush would draw network television and then whatever He was trying to tell us would be lost in the hubbub.”
“So how does God talk specifically, personally?” Drew voiced the question that had haunted him for years, hoping his new friend had an answer.
“Psalms tells us to be still and know God,” Oliver said quietly. “I think that means an inner knowledge, or a prompting that we sense nudging us in a certain direction.”
“But how do we get that nudge?” Drew
needed to hear Oliver’s response.
“By being quiet and listening, by waiting and by tuning out all the noise inside our heads.”
“You hear noises in your head?” Drew teased, then sobered when Oliver nodded.
“We all do. The shoulda, woulda, coulda voices are in my head constantly, making me feel bad. Likewise, the guilt voices and the fear voices.” Oliver grinned. “You look shocked.”
“Because I can’t fathom you afraid of anything.” Drew so wanted to hear Oliver’s answers, even though asking made him feel foolish. The darkening sky lent some privacy to their conversation, which helped.
“That’s one thing I figured out through our Bible studies,” Oliver reflected. “Even the biggest, burliest guy is afraid of something. I’m afraid I’ll lose another kid.”
“You had a child?” Drew sank onto a nearby boulder, stunned. “But you said—”
“It wasn’t my child. It was someone else’s, which makes it worse.” He squeezed his eyes closed as if it was too painful to talk about.
“I don’t want to pry,” Drew murmured.
“You’re not prying. Besides, I’m told that talking about it is good for me.” Oliver didn’t look up. His voice became a low rumble that Drew had to lean in to hear. “I used to be a teacher. We took our kids on field trips before school finished for the year. The seventh graders I taught wanted to go white-water rafting. We did and one of them, a girl, died.”
“I’m sorry.” Drew figured the child must have drowned. “Kids should have to take swimming lessons really young.”
“Anna didn’t drown. When our bus broke down, it took a while to get help. She went into diabetic shock.” The emptiness of Oliver’s voice revealed his pain. “I couldn’t save her.”
“But that wasn’t your fault, Ollie. She should have brought extra insulin or something,” Drew defended his friend.
“It was my fault. I wanted to show the kids a certain plant species so I took a detour through some rough terrain. That’s why the bus broke down. It was my fault Anna died.” He lifted his head and stared at Drew, his round face shiny with tears. “I never taught again after that, couldn’t take the risk that I’d be the cause of some other kid’s death or injury.”
“That’s understandable.” Drew felt sorry for this man, yet he’d consistently marveled at Oliver’s great rapport with kids who came to the ranch. “I felt like that for years after our parents were killed in the car accident that injured my brothers and me. Guilty. I lived and my parents died. To this day, despite Bonnie and Ben’s best efforts, I still don’t feel like the Double H is home, that it will ever compare to the home I lost that day.”
“Why does this home have to compare to the other one?” Oliver frowned. “And why was it up to Ben and Bonnie to make it that way?”
“I—I don’t know. Because they wanted to be my parents?” Drew gaped at the other man. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
“A home isn’t something someone gives you, Drew.” The big cowboy leaned back against a tree, his words slow and thoughtful. “A home is created by people who join together for their common good, blood-related or not. It’s not a place that’s waiting for you to arrive,” he added.
“Huh?” Drew didn’t get it.
“You make your home by contributing, by giving and by sharing with people you care about. Maybe that’s why you never felt comfortable here, because you didn’t invest anything of yourself into making this place your home.”
“But—” Drew stopped, gulped. Something about Oliver’s comment rang true.
“Maybe you never ‘let’ yourself belong here because it would have meant opening yourself to loving and possibly losing again.” Oliver shrugged. “After I quit teaching, I wouldn’t let myself take a risk. I think you’re the same. That’s why you’re standoffish with the kids who come here, so they won’t get too close.”
“I’m not standoffish,” Drew protested.
“Sure you are.” Oliver’s big grin eased the sting of his words. “Because if you don’t get too involved, you won’t do anything that can hurt them or you. Am I wrong?” he pressed when Drew didn’t answer.
Drew wouldn’t, couldn’t respond because he was stuck wondering if his riding buddy had just revealed a truth about him.
“The issue is self. It’s always about self and our concept of who we are. In my case I had to realize that life wasn’t all about me, what I wanted or needed. Before I figured that out, I became so unhappy that I ran away.” Oliver made a face. “Avoiding the hard stuff was my standard operating procedure.”
Mine, too, Drew thought.
“I went over the side of a cliff. Not purposely, but I got stuck there, couldn’t get out of my car. There was no way to avoid facing what I’d become, to see myself as God sees me. A taker.” Oliver looked ashamed. “That’s when I figured out that life isn’t about getting. It’s about giving, being involved, helping, doing anything I can to make the world better for other people. Because doing that makes the world better for me.”
“I see.” Maybe it had worked for Oliver, but Drew didn’t think getting more involved than he already was would help anyone. He wasn’t the warm and fuzzy type.
“Ben was a member of the rescue team that found me two days later. He offered me a job here and—voilà!” He spread his hands. “Here I am. Hanging Hearts Ranch is my home. My life has never been better since I took the focus off myself and put it on other people. But I had to make this place my home. That took an active role on my part. I didn’t just walk in here and find someone had made a home ready and waiting for me.” He snickered. “I wouldn’t have appreciated that anyway. Working out the kinks of fitting in here is what makes Hanging Hearts Ranch my home.”
The singing group was ready to roast marshmallows for their s’mores. There was no more time for talk. Drew tucked away what he’d learned, vowing to reexamine what Oliver had said later, when he was alone.
I had to make this place my home.
Like Mandy had?
Chapter Nine
“Happy Mother’s Day.”
“Thanks.” Mandy gulped as she accepted the gigantic bouquet from Drew, who stood on her doorstep. She wasn’t exactly sure how to deal with him these days. On one hand, she liked that they weren’t arguing as much anymore. It was far too busy for that.
On the other hand, she worried.
Drew seemed to go out of his way to spend more time with Ella, and from what her daughter let slip, some of their time together was spent discussing Ella’s early childhood. Mandy wasn’t happy about that, fearing Drew would ask her to fill in the blanks.
The last thing she wanted to do was go back, to feel the overwhelming guilt billow once more, to let him know she’d cost him much more than he knew.
“Can I catch a ride to church again?” Drew asked, one eyebrow arched. “Bonnie’s car is at the garage. New tires.”
“Oh.” Mandy swallowed. “Yes, sure. We’ll be ready in half an hour or so.”
“It’s potluck day again, isn’t it? Mother’s Day luncheon?” There was an odd gleam of anticipation in those dark eyes that suggested Drew might even be looking forward to going to church. “Are you planning on staying?”
“Yes. I couldn’t talk Ella out of it.” Only after she’d said it did Mandy realize how unhappy she sounded. “I was hoping to see Aunt Bonnie today, do something special for her.”
“We could still go.” He paused for a moment, thinking it over. “What if we took a cake along and had Mother’s Day tea with Bonnie and Ben? Ella would love it. She’s always up for a tea party. Ma would like it, too.”
“Sure. That sounds nice.” Was this the same Drew of the flowers-and-a-card-delivered-by-someone-else-but-never-in-person, who was planning something special for Bonnie on Mother’s Day?
“Close your mouth, Manda Panda,” he teased in a lo
w, amused voice. “It’s not that unheard of.”
Yes, it was. For Drew. But Mandy didn’t say that because she didn’t want to cause the big grin stretched across his face to disappear. His smile was something to be cherished.
“I don’t have a cake,” she murmured.
“I made one last week and froze it.” He shrugged off her stare. “Every once in a while I like to bake. I also picked up some party stuff.”
“Sounds great.” A momentary image of Drew as he might have looked if they’d married, if he’d been there for Ella’s birth, filled Mandy’s head.
Would he have made a special Mother’s Day cake for her?
Like a thunderstorm, other memories of that day swept in and erased her fairy-tale notions. She was glad he hadn’t been there, glad he didn’t know what she’d done, what a terrible mother she’d been.
“Mandy?” Drew was staring at her. “You’ve gone white. Is something wrong?”
“I’m fine,” she said quickly, clinging to the door so her knees wouldn’t give out. “See you in half an hour. And thanks for the flowers.”
“Sure.” He frowned at her, unmoving even as she closed the door on him.
Mandy thrust the beautiful bouquet in a jug of water. Ella emerged from her room and demanded to know where they’d come from. That engendered unanswerable questions, like when would Drew want to be a daddy and was Mandy ever going to get Ella her very own daddy?
Exasperated and on edge, Mandy finally ordered her daughter to get ready for church. Ella’s face crumpled and tears rolled down her cheeks as she turned away.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” Mandy gathered her precious daughter in her arms and held her close. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“I didn’t try to do bad, Mama,” Ella sobbed.
“You didn’t do anything bad, sweetheart.” How could she have let her guilt overwhelm her enough to cause Ella pain? Mandy pressed her lips against her daughter’s wet cheek. “You didn’t do anything wrong. And you made me the most beautiful card. That was so sweet.”
