by Jen Peters
Adam turned Mister back to the trail and lifted his face to the skies. Branches and treetops cut down his view of the blue expanse above, but he spoke anyway. “Is this what you mean by trials building character, God? Just what am I supposed to learn from a sprained ankle?”
Maddy worked by herself for another hour, the office seeming too quiet with Adam out. Mr. Black eventually came in and lowered himself slowly into his chair. “It’s no fun getting old,” he said.
Maddy smiled at the weather-worn rancher. “No, I imagine not. The only problem with that statement is that you’re not old.”
“That’s what you think. I turned sixty-seven last month, Missy. I know, I know,” he said, eyes twinkling, “I only look like I’m sixty-six. But raising four boys when you started late wears you out even more than a hard ranching life. And then adding a little girl…”
“Mr. Black, I —”
He held up a hand and cut her off. “Please, I’ve told you before, no ‘Mr. Black.’ It’s Samuel.“
Maddy tipped her head. He seemed to engender the respect that called for Mr. Black, but if that was what he truly wanted...
“Samuel it is, then. But you are not old. You’re strong and working hard, and you will be for a lot of years.”
“Yeah, well, let’s just say that I’m glad Adam is taking on a bit more.” He paused, looking at his ranch-roughened hands. “These old things have done a lot of the work around here, but they’re not as strong as they used to be.”
Maddy didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t realized he was past regular retirement age, but did ranchers ever really retire? What she did know was that he wouldn’t appreciate any more platitudes from her. And she could use a break from income and expenses.
“Tell me about your family,” she said. “I mean, I know Adam is the oldest, and Caleb takes care of the horses, but I don’t know much about them. And I haven’t met your daughter at all.”
The older man waved a hand. “Lacey’s been chomping at the bit to come see you. She finally got some big school project done, so I imagine she’ll find you soon.” He looked pensive, then glanced at her and chuckled. “So you want to know about the boys, huh, Missy? I can’t say as I blame you—they’re downright good looking, all of them. Take after their mother, you know.”
He looked suddenly out the window, keeping his gaze there while he blinked a few times. Maddy waited, not wanting to intrude, but couldn’t help wondering how his wife had died.
Samuel finally turned back to Maddy with a half-smile. “Well now, I’d say Caleb does more than just take care of the horses. He’s about the best trainer I know. And he’s got a knack for breeding the right mare to the right stallion. Our three stallions are known across the west now for the things their get are doing.”
“Get?”
“Their progeny. Colts and fillies. Children.” He waved his hand at her.
“Caleb seems pretty happy,” Maddy said, wanting the attention off her lack of knowledge.
“Oh, happy-go-lucky, that one,” Samuel Black said. “Always has been. He always looking for the silver lining, and he could charm a sparrow from a tree. Got girls eager for him to come dancing in town.
“Now Micah, he’s just the opposite. Quiet, hardly hear a peep from him. But he watches and sees, and he’s thinking a lot behind those eyes. When he does talk, you oughta listen.”
“And does he have a lot of girls, too?” Maddy asked. Quiet, brooding cowboys could be quite attractive to some women, even if they weren’t her type.
Samuel grimaced. It was a moment before he spoke again. “No, Micah’s gone through a pretty rough time. His wife left and won’t hardly let him see his son. My grandson.”
Maddy gasped. “Doesn’t he have visitation rights?”
“Huh. Don’t do much good if she won’t follow them. And he won’t push so hard that she lands in jail.”
“How old is your grandson? How long since you’ve seen him?” She couldn’t imagine not being able to be with her own child.
“Jacob is two-and-a-half now, I think, and I ain’t seen him since they left a year ago.” He looked away again, then down at his boots.
“Hey, boss, you in here?” came a voice from the hall. A short, swarthy man appeared at the doorway. “I’ve got some of Lacey’s fudge for you. She wanted to come herself, but Adam didn’t want her bothering your new accountant.” He limped slightly as he brought the plate of goodies in.
“Thanks, Bart,” Samuel said, reaching for a piece of light-colored fudge. He turned to Maddy. “Bart’s been on this ranch almost as long as I have, and I was born here.”
“Ma’am.” Bart tipped his hat to her.
“Nice to meet you, Bart,” Maddy said. She looked over the peanut-butter fudge.
“Actually,” Samuel said with a grin, “most everyone calls him Uncle Dirt.”
Maddy jerked her head up. “Uncle Dirt?”
Bart—Uncle Dirt—put the plate on the big desk and tipped his cowboy hat to her. “’Cuz I’m older’n dirt, not ‘cuz I never bathe.”
Samuel laughed. “That too, Bart!” He turned to Maddy. “Lacey heard someone call him that when she was little and carried it on for the rest of us. Now everyone calls him that.”
Uncle Dirt chuckled. “And now it’s time for me to brighten your day…by leaving!”
Maddy took her own bite of the slightly grainy sweetness and smiled, both at Uncle Dirt’s humor and at memories of her own early attempts at fudge. “He’s…an interesting character.”
“That he is,” Samuel said, taking another piece and stretching his legs out. “We go back a long, long ways. Well now, the boys. You probably heard that Seth is in the Army, off in Iraq. We’re pretty proud of him.”
Maddy waited, but Samuel got lost in his own thoughts again. It couldn’t be easy having a son fighting in the middle East.
When the tension finally eased from Samuel’s shoulders, Maddy shifted the subject. “What about Adam? I mean, we were all in here yesterday, but is he more like Micah or Caleb?”
Samuel snorted. “Oh, he’s the lead bull in the pasture. Loud, in charge, knows what he wants and gets it.”
Maddy cringed inwardly, remembering Adam’s reaction to her and Mia. And then his decisiveness taking care of the office situation, demanding and getting results. “A bull in a pasture” described Adam Black to a tee.
“Have you always been a rancher?” she asked.
“Long as I can remember, and my father before me. Black Rock, up the hills from the bull pastures, was named after my grandfather. Besides being mostly black granite.” He grinned. “So when the boys take over, this land will have owned by,” he counted on his fingers, “four generations of Blacks.”
“Wow,” Maddy said. With immigrant grandparents, she didn’t have any lasting ties to a particular place unless it was back to their village in Italy. And it was hard to feel connected to a place you’d never been.
“It’s a good thing, too. Don’t know how a ranch can make it if there’s a mortgage to pay on top of everything else.” He sighed and pushed himself out of the chair. “Thanks for listening, Missy. I gotta get back to the barn now, but sometimes I just need someone who’s not rushing here and there.”
“Anytime, Samuel. You know where to find me.”
Maddy watched him leave, having a hard time believing he was pushing seventy. He still seemed as strong as his sons.
She thought of each of them, so different, and wondered what Seth was like. Brave, definitely. Driven like Adam, probably, or he wouldn’t be in the military.
She looked around the office—the daffodils on her small table, trophies here and there, and Adam’s books and binders filling the shelf closest to the big desk. She stood and perused the rodeo pictures on the wall: bull-riding, bronc-riding, roping, posing with a huge bull on a halter. It wasn’t clear who was doing the riding, but it was definitely a younger Adam with the prize bull. Proud, grinning like she’d never imagined.
S
he’d only seen the serious side of Adam—determined, impatient, even angry—but never an outright smile. Did he still have one in him?
5
Adam grumped his way into the office early the next morning, his ankle throbbing and his mood as dark as ever. He couldn’t believe they’d cut off his boot last night. His new twelve-hundred-dollar Luccheses. They had just sliced through the leather and wrenched it off.
Of course, that they still had to wrench after cutting it meant that there’d been no way to get his foot out otherwise. But dang, he loved those boots!
After the initial sharp pain had worn off, he’d spent a sleepless night of aching. It didn’t matter—he wasn’t going to spend the day sitting in the recliner playing Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. He had work to do, even if it meant limping in an Ace bandage. In tennis shoes. Tennis shoes!
Adam scrawled notes across the lease proposal, studied the solar well information, and muttered at his father when he came in. Maddy arrived after putting Mia on the school bus, but he couldn’t manage much more than a polite smile for her, either.
Dad laughed. “Told you that you should have taken the day off. Ice will help that more than anything else, and maybe spare the rest of us your moaning and groaning.”
“What happened?” Maddy asked.
“Oh, Grumpy Bear here sprained his ankle yesterday, but doesn’t want to admit how much it hurts.”
Maddy looked at Adam, concern in her eyes. “Do you need anything? Mia’s pillow is still here if you want to put your foot up.”
Adam ground his teeth. If one more person gave him one more piece of unwanted advice… “I’m fine.” He looked down at his papers, but he felt her still watching him. When he finally looked up, she was focused on her computer again.
Good. Maybe they could have a normal morning.
And then Lacey came rushing in. “I missed the bus, so Uncle Dirt’s going to take me down and then do the grocery shopping. But can you watch the bird for me? Bread and milk every hour or so.” She set a bag and an open shoebox between him and Dad. “Thanks, Adam.” She kissed his cheek and ran out the door.
Dad raised his eyebrows. Adam stared at the scrub jay with a splint on its wing. Maddy came over and hovered. “Oh, wow,” she said. “Lacey takes care of hurt animals?”
Adam let out a long sigh. “She tries. Mostly they die anyway.”
“She did keep that rabbit alive until its leg healed,” Dad said.
“And it probably got eaten by the next coyote,” Adam replied shortly. Then he saw the look on Maddy’s face. “I’m sorry. I’m out of sorts right now, or I wouldn’t have said it so badly. Even if it’s probably true.”
Maddy reached a finger to the bird and stroked its head lightly. “Maybe this one will get lucky.”
She returned to her desk, and they settled down to work. The phone stayed silent, only two ranch hands came in with questions, and Adam was finally able to accomplish something.
His phone timer dinged, pulling Adam away from a dry discussion in Beef Production on the pros and cons of fall calving. With relief, he pulled bread and a canister of milk from the bag Lacey brought.
“Come on, bird,” he murmured, dipping a pinch of bread into the milk and then touching it to the bird’s beak. “You know you want some.” He dribbled a little milk on it, tapped the soppy bread gently on it, but the bird didn’t respond.
“Maybe he wants a female voice,” Maddy suggested, moving to stand by Adam. “Can I try?”
Adam nodded to the slice of bread, and she did the same things he had, to no avail.
He stroked the bird’s head with the back of his finger. “You can’t get well if you don’t eat,” he said softly. “Come on, just try.”
“Aww, you do care,” Maddy teased.
“Just don’t want it to die on my watch,” he muttered, trying not to notice the warmth of her body next to him. “Here, I’ll open its mouth and you squeeze a drop of milk off that bread. Just a drop.”
He gently pried the jay’s beak open, and Maddy got a drop down its throat. It pulled away, but when she dabbed the bread against its beak again, it opened slightly.
“He’s eating,” she whispered. “It’s working.”
It really was. Adam’s spirit lifted—just because he was a realist didn’t mean he couldn’t be excited about saving a life. Or about the touch of Maddy’s hand against his, giving him a zing he hadn’t felt in years.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that—about her—so he focused on the feeding. They got four more drops of milk into the jay, then let it rest on Lacey’s bed of tissues.
Maddy returned to her desk, and Dad gave Adam a pointed look. Adam retreated to the boring article, but couldn’t help being distracted by Maddy—especially those two vertical furrows on her brow that appeared when she was concentrating. And those crazy curls. And the softness of her voice when she’d been cooing to the bird.
He jerked his head up at the sound of “Mamma Mia” playing. Maddy’s ringtone. Who would put “Mamma Mia” on her phone on purpose?
“Hi, kiddo…I know, sweetie. I miss you too…I’m glad you had a good time…Yeah, can you put your mom on?” Her voice lowered, but the office wasn’t so big that Adam could stop listening.
“No, I don’t know when I can come home. You know the situation…What I wouldn’t give to see the twins joking around right now…I know, we had to pull Mia out of a bull pasture the other day.”
Then Maddy froze and looked around the room. “Hang on,” she said into the phone and walked out the door.
Adam was taken aback. “What was that all about?”
Dad shrugged. “Maybe she doesn’t want to tell about that episode with us in earshot.”
“No,” Adam mused. “She said she couldn’t go home. I wonder why not?”
“None of our business, son. Let her have her privacy.”
Adam pursed his lips and returned to the article, but the mystery of Maddy stayed in his mind.
Maddy trotted down the building steps and ducked behind the homestead. No one would overhear her here.
She’d nearly done herself in. Her sister Sophia had mentioned how one of her son’s dates had gone wrong and ended up in a broken window. Nothing horribly bad, but Maddy had just blurted out about the bull pasture episode. Why did a person always need to relate something similar in their own lives? Especially when that person was trying to fly under the radar?
“Okay, I can talk now,” Maddy said, perching on the back porch of the house.
“Bulls?” Sophia squeaked. “Where are you that Mia got in with bulls?”
“Uh…” Caution was better late than never. “Near a ranch. Far away from Denver,” she finally said.
“Are you even still in Colorado?”
“Of course.” As much as she’d needed to run, she wasn’t desperate enough to cross half the country.
In fact, she’d been here less than a week, but she felt safer than ever, despite the run in with Adam over the bull pasture. Just how much caution was necessary? Was there anything she could share with her family?
“Actually,” Maddy said slowly, “we’re over on the Grand Junction side. I can tell you that much.”
“Wow, so far.” Her sister was silent a moment. “Well, not so far. I’ve got the map pulled up, and it’s only a couple hours’ drive. Do you think we could meet somewhere in between?”
It was Maddy’s turn to be silent. Finally, “I can’t. I can’t trust that Brock wouldn’t be following you. You know what he’s like. And they can’t—” She cut off before she said too much about the Blacks.
Sophia sighed. “He’s such a piece of work. Anyone else would think you were over-the-top paranoid, but I remember what your face looked like that one time.”
“I’m not paranoid,” Maddy whispered.
“I know that, sis. And I know there was a lot more that you didn’t show us. But…” A teasing note came into Sophie’s voice. “Just who is they?”
&nb
sp; “They?” Maddy stalled.
“Yes, they. You said ‘and they can’t—‘“
“Oh, that. I mean the ra—place that I work.”
But Sophie was no slouch in picking up details. “The ra—? A ranch? With a bull pasture?”
“Umm…” Maddy searched her mind for a possible evasion, but found only a distraction. But truly, what could it hurt? She didn’t have to give any identifying information. “Yes, but I don’t know for how long. Adam came back from a trail ride just as we were getting Mia out of the pasture, and he really lit into us.”
“Did he get violent?” Sophie asked, a protective note to her voice.
Maddy sent her mind back. Adam hadn’t tried to hit anyone, hadn’t even threatened it. And actually, if she’d come riding into a dangerous situation, she might have blown her stack, too. “No, he just yelled a lot, especially at his brother who had no responsibility at all for Mia. But still…”
Sophie’s tone changed completely “I’d yell too, if someone put themselves in danger but didn’t actually get hurt. And his name is Adam, huh? What’s he look like?”
“Sophie! I’m not interested in men right now!”
“Avoiding the question?” Sophie teased. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
Maddy heaved a sigh and caved in. She knew Sophie wouldn’t let go. “Adam has dark hair and eagle eyes and a frown to make you back up a step. His brother Caleb is actually better looking—blond with broad, broad shoulders. Well, they’re both covered in muscle, being ranchers and all. But Caleb is nicer.”
Sophie chuckled. “How fascinating, sis. Your voice describing Adam is different than describing Caleb. I think you might have a thing for Adam-who-cares-enough-to-get-mad.”
“I do not! He’s the last person I’d want to get involved with!” Although Maddy had seen a different side of him with the bird. She shoved that out of her mind and changed tacks. “Besides, you’re the one looking for a new guy. Have you had enough of Sad Sam?”