Her Second Forever

by Joanna Sims

  Colt pushed his hair away from his forehead and rested his hands on the top of his head. He let out a long breath and then said, “I found what I was meant to do.”

  “And what is this thing you have found?”

  “It’s not a thing,” he said. “It’s a who.”

  Colt told his mother all about Strides of Strength—about the riders and his connection to them. He told her everything except that he had fallen in love with Lee. That he kept to himself.

  “I always knew that you would not be satisfied only working here on the ranch. I told your father this. Yes, you are a rancher. Yes, you work the land. Of course, this is in your blood. But this connection you have always had to the smallest birds—the birds who do not fly so easily—the birds with the broken wings—this too is also in your blood and to deny this is to deny that which makes you who you are.”

  * * *

  Colt and Lilly left her sanctuary to join the family celebration that was unfolding—Shane and Rebecca were holding a gender reveal party in the back patio area of the ranch house. The party was serving double duty because this was the first time Callie’s soon-to-be in-laws were joining them at Sugar Creek Ranch.

  “Hey, big sis.” Colt hugged Rebecca and then leaned down to say hello to the baby in her belly. “Hello, niece—nephew?”

  “We’ll know soon enough.” Rebecca beamed at him happily. Pregnancy simply suited Rebecca Brand. She had a definitive baby glow and her curvy figure had somehow been enhanced by the growing baby bump.

  “What’s the plan? Is Shane going to jump out of a cake or something?”

  Rebecca laughed. “Thankfully, no. He has planned fireworks in the color that matches the gender.”

  “Well,” Colt mused, “it wouldn’t be a Brand event if it wasn’t over the top, now would it?”

  “No. It wouldn’t.”

  After he touched base with Rebecca, he then found his brother Shane to congratulate him. As he wound his way through the crowd, each one of his siblings mentioned how good he looked. Like Lilly, they were noticing a change in him. No one knew that the real change in him was the love he felt for Lee. That love had made him want to be a better person. That love made him want to fit into her more serious and philanthropic world. The connection he had to the riders at Strides served as proof—validation—that his love for Lee was good and right. Until Lee Macbeth, he had been drifting along with no direction and no real plans. Now, he was focused and motivated. These were qualities he always had but had never wanted to tap into before. His love for Lee had brought those qualities to the surface.

  “It’s about damn time you flew straight.” Jock, a gruff rancher with deep-set blue eyes and a shock of bright white hair had never been one to temper his words. “Now finish this nonsense out at that petting zoo or whatever the heck-fire goes on out there with all of those do-gooders and get back to work here. Hunter and Bruce have been carrying your load long enough.”

  Jock gave Colt a little slap on the cheek. “Good to see you, son.”

  Liam, who was just within earshot of Jock’s words of wisdom, came over right after their father left. “He leaves you with a warm fuzzy feeling, doesn’t he?”

  “The man is a walking Hallmark card.”

  Liam laughed and then nodded to the group of people nearby. “Callie has been bugging me about you. When is Uncle Colt getting here? When is Uncle Colt getting here? She wants you to meet Tony and Tony’s parents.”

  “How are they doing?”

  “The parents?”

  Colt nodded.

  “Total culture shock,” Liam said under his breath. “California to Bozeman, Montana? We’re from different planets, man.”

  Callie always gave him the best hugs and tonight was no exception. Callie held on tightly and then she did something that had never happened before—she let go of him and linked her arm with a young man, short in stature, with thick glasses. And like Callie, Tony had Down syndrome.

  “Uncle Colt—” Callie’s face was lit up with excitement “—this is my fiancé, Tony.”

  Colt shook the young man’s hand and then he was introduced to Tottie, Tony’s glamorous mother, who was covered in diamonds that offset her perfectly golden bobbed hair, and Tony Sr., Tony’s father.

  “Are you in the cattle business, Colt?” Tony Sr. asked him.

  “I work on Sugar Creek with my brothers.”

  “That’s good. That’s good. Family is the most important thing.” Tony Sr. nodded. “I own a chain of carpet stores. Tony’s been selling for me since he was in high school.”

  Colt looked over to where Tony and Callie were standing, their heads close together, their hands intertwined. They looked like any other engaged couple—affectionate and enamored.

  “Kate didn’t expect any of this with Callie. Did you?”

  Tony Sr. gave a little shake of his head. “Not at all. How could we imagine such a thing as this? We had hoped that they would be happy with their long-distance romance.”

  Callie rested her head on Tony’s shoulder and Tony put his arm around her and hugged her tightly to him.

  “We hoped it would fade,” the father continued. “And yet, here we are.”

  “This is a big move.”

  “A very big move,” Tony Sr. agreed. “But he is my only child.” There was a catch in the man’s voice and the slightest pause before he continued, “He’s my son and this is his chance to have what his mother and I never thought he would have. A wife. A marriage. How can I deprive him of that? No. Kate and Liam can’t move—Kate has her family ranch and all of those horses. Liam has a practice he’s built. They can’t move, so we move. I can travel back to California whenever I need, no problem. I can sell carpet anywhere. Who knows—perhaps Bozeman needs a new place to buy carpet.”

  Tony Sr. nodded as if to confirm his thought.

  “I’ll be fine,” the man said, “I’m worried about Tottie. She’s leaving all of her friends behind—she has so many—her social clubs, her charities. The only thing she’ll have to keep her occupied here is Junior and I’m not so sure that’s going to be such a good thing.”

  Colt didn’t have a chance to respond because his brother Shane had gotten up on the small stage that was a permanent fixture at Sugar Creek.

  “Good evening, all.” Shane stepped behind the microphone with his guitar in hand. Shane was a singer-songwriter and he had recorded an album once he had embraced a sober lifestyle and married Rebecca. Shane had faltered in his sobriety a couple of times, but he seemed to be back on track and working the program that the VA had set up for him. He looked happier now—tonight—then Colt had ever seen him look before.

  “Some of you might remember that I wrote a song for my sweet Rebecca called ‘Pretty Eyes.’” Shane smiled at his wife who was standing by the stage, her hand resting protectively on her baby bump. “I love you, Rebecca with the pretty eyes.”

  Rebecca mouthed the words I love you and wiped fresh tears from her cheeks as Shane played her song. During the song, Colt looked around at his family. So many of his siblings and family members had found their mates. Jock and Lilly, Bruce and Savannah, Liam and Kate, Callie and Tony—they all had found each other. His brother Gabe, a long-distance high-end horse transporter had found his true love, Bonita, and once she finished medical school, she was moving to Bozeman to start her medical practice. Now, he had finally found Lee and he hadn’t even known that she was the vital piece of his life that had been missing. But she was that vital piece. On a night like tonight, when his family had gathered to celebrate the coming of the next generation of Brands, Colt knew in his gut that Lee belonged, here, by his side.

  Colt joined in with the rest of the crowd, clapping for Shane as he finished his love song to his wife. Shane took off his guitar and held out his hand for Rebecca to join him on stage. With his arm around his wife, Shane said, “Green is
my favorite color and Purple is Rebecca’s. So, green if it’s a boy and purple if it’s a girl.”

  They all looked upward and saw glorious bursts of plum and lavender sparkling against the darkened backdrop of the night sky.

  Shane’s voice was the loudest when the crowd shouted, “It’s a girl!”

  Colt whooped and hollered with the rest of the clan, happy to welcome a girl into a family dominated by boys.

  “No!” someone shouted. “It’s a boy!”

  Shane had his arm around his wife’s shoulders, holding her tightly, when a fresh set of fireworks, this time in forest and lime green, lit up the sky.

  Lilly joined her son and daughter-in-law on stage and said simply into the microphone, “It’s a boy and a girl. We’re having twins!”

  The crowd erupted with cheers at the news; Colt was happy for his brother and sister-in-law—he was happy for his parents who always wanted more grandchildren. Until Lee, he hadn’t given much thought to children. Now, the idea of becoming a father in his twenties didn’t seem like such a impossibility.

  “I—I want a b-baby,” Colt heard Callie say to Tony Jr. “Right after we get married.”

  “No,” Tony Jr. said with a petrified expression on his face. “I can’t do that. Mom and Dad told me to get a job and take care of myself. Now I need to take care of you. Like my dad takes care of my mom.”

  “I—I have a job. I—I know how to cook. I—I have my own apartment.” Callie frowned at her fiancé. “I—I take care of myself. I—I want to have a b-baby. If you don’t want to have a b-baby, then I—I don’t want to marry you!”

  Realizing Callie was not going to back down from this discussion with Tony Jr., Colt gave his sister-in-law Kate a heads-up.

  “I think Callie is having her first fight with Tony,” Colt told Kate in a lowered voice.

  “No.” Kate, a slender, fit woman with sun-streaked dark brown hair and deep laugh lines around her eyes, said, “It wouldn’t be the first. What are they fighting about now? Let me guess—babies?”

  “Yep,” Colt said. Kate and Callie were as close as a mother and daughter could be and Kate knew her daughter better than anyone.

  Kate sighed with a shake of her head. “Stubborn, just like her mother. I’ll go talk to her.”

  Colt congratulated Shane and Rebecca, said good-night to the rest of the family and then headed to his cabin in the woods. He texted his friends back and told them that he, once again, would not be joining the poker game. He liked to drink beer when he played poker, a lot of it, and that always got him in trouble. Tomorrow was the first day Lee was going to let him work directly with the students and he wasn’t going to violate that trust by showing up hungover or late. No—he was going to arrive early and well rested and ready to work. And he was going to log eight more hours on his service time, bringing him one day closer to being free to ask Lee out on a date. Now that was a day worth working toward.

  * * *

  Monday morning, Lee had to admit to herself that she was rethinking her decision to let Colt work directly with the riders. Yes, he was a favorite of the parents and the kids, and yes, he had proven himself to be more reliable than she originally assumed, but this was something entirely different. She was entrusting him with the safety of the riders and entrusting him to be a significant part of the program.

  “Do you have the list ready?” Gilda appeared at the door of her office.

  Every day, Lee created a master list, matching riders and horses with volunteers who would act as side-walkers and leaders.

  “I just finished.” Lee held out the list for Gilda. “I put Abigail on Sweet Girl now that we have someone tall enough to side-walk with them.”

  Gilda reviewed the list. “I think this will be good for Abigail. Sweet Girl has a nice narrow base of support.”

  “I hope so,” Lee said uncertainly. “It’s Colt’s first session.”

  “Colt will do very well,” Gilda ensured her, echoing the sentiments of Boot from the previous day. “Boot is very impressed with this young man.”

  Lee’s stomach clenched a bit when Gilda brought up Boot. Wasn’t she the one who suggested that Boot ask Gilda out? But now Lee felt uneasy about the growing friendship. It was like watching something inevitable happen—like the sun rising in the east—and knowing that she was powerless to stop it.

  “It seems like everyone likes Colt.”

  “Yes,” Gilda agreed. “This is so. What’s not to like?”

  As if to add his two cents to the conversation, Chester, who had opted to get into his carrier this morning to come to Strides, yawned and meowed at the same time.

  “Well, I guess everyone is in agreement about him then.” Lee leaned down and kissed the oversized gray tabby on the head.

  Gilda held up the list. “Let me get started on this and I will see you out there.” She turned precisely on her heel and left the office.

  Even with everyone so supportive of Colt, Lee couldn’t seem to settle her stomach waiting for him to arrive. She stood at the window, facing the long drive into Strides, watching for his headlights. She knew the headlights on his fire-engine red Ford truck and when she spotted his truck turning off the main road onto the gravel drive, the smile that came to her face was automatic. Why had she doubted that she could count on him to be there? He hadn’t let her down so far.

  “Be good.” Lee dropped another kiss on Chester’s head before she headed out the front door.

  She met Colt at his truck.

  “Good morning, my lady.” Colt jumped out of his truck, his hair wet from a shower and slicked back off his forehead.

  “Good morning,” Lee said, feeling those pesky butterflies in her stomach that were always there whenever Colt turned that smile her way. “Are you ready?”

  For the first time, she actually sensed some nervousness coming from Colt. Usually he was so confident about everything he did at the facility. But this was something new for him. He had never side-walked for a therapy session before.

  “Don’t worry, Colt.” She reached out and put her hand on his arm, just for a brief moment. “You’ve got this.”

  Colt put his cowboy hat on. “If you believe in me, then that’s saying something.”

  Did she believe in him? Lee had to search her own mind and her own heart for a split second. She always strove to be honest. She knew that honesty had a resonating frequency that people could hear and sense.

  “Yes,” she finally said, “I do believe in you.”

  * * *

  Colt had to admit that he was scared, as all get-out, to be responsible for the safety of Lee’s special-needs riders. He was human and he got scared, but it didn’t happen all that often. Today, he was scared. His first rider was Abigail—tiny, nonverbal, determined, feisty Abigail.

  “Are you sure you want to put her on Sweet Girl?” Colt asked under his breath to Lee, not wanting anyone to hear him doubting her plan.

  Lee nodded. “Sweet Girl has the perfect movement to help loosen Abigail’s abductors but no one has been tall enough to side-walk Sweet Girl.”

  Colt watched Abigail push her pink walker along the perimeter of the arena to the ramp where he would help her mount.

  “But now we have you,” Lee added when he didn’t say anything.

  “You’re not going anywhere.” Colt rubbed his hands together to dry the nervous sweat on his palms. Abigail was so tiny—so fragile-looking—the last thing he wanted to do was accidentally hurt her.

  “Just remember your training and you’ll be fine,” Lee tried to reassure him and he appreciated her effort. “I’ll be here, Gilda will be here. You’ll be fine.”

  “Alright.” He gave her a nod so she knew he heard her.

  Lee caught his eye. “Time to cowboy up, Colt.”

  Hearing that phrase coming out of Lee Macbeth’s mouth did exactly what she had i
ntended—it broke the tension in his body and made him smile.

  When he walked up the steps to the top of the ramp and waited for one of the volunteers to lead Sweet Girl between the ramps, Colt was feeling steadier even though he felt his hands shaking a bit from the adrenaline pumping through his body. On the other side of ramp, on the left mounting side of Sweet Girl, the speech-language pathologist helped Abigail onto the Thoroughbred’s back and, as he was trained, Colt was there to hold on to the little girl’s right leg.

  “She’s never been on a horse that big before.” Abigail’s mom watched nervously from the ramp. “She looks so little up there.”

  “Sweet Girl is as gentle as they come,” the therapist reassured the mom before she told the horse leader to Walk On.

  With his left hand, Colt held on to Abigail’s leg to ensure that she was safe on the horse’s back while he walked down the stairs of the ramp and into the arena next to Sweet Girl. Julie Reed, the therapist working with Abigail, happened to be the speech-language pathologist who helped his sister-in-law Rebecca speak more clearly after her near-fatal car accident.

  “We have a Stop card and a Go card.” Julie Reed pointed to the two large colorful cards attached with Velcro to the saddle pad in front of Abigail.

  “Let’s stop,” Julie instructed the leader, and the entire team halted. Colt was glad that they stopped for a moment. It was an odd sensation holding onto Abigail, working to keep her steady on the back of the horse. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced—he could already feel his arm getting fatigued and they hadn’t been walking the arena for five minutes. He wondered how the women, who dominated this type of work, managed to side-walk for hours every day. It was a workout for him.

  “Abigail,” Julie said to the little girl on the big horse, “do you want Sweet Girl to go?”

  Abigail squealed with excitement and nodded her head in a bobbly fashion that was typical for her.

  “If you want Sweet Girl to go, you have to tell her. Touch this card if you want her to go.” The therapist modeled what she wanted Abigail to do by touching the green Go card. When Abigail didn’t reach for the card, the therapist took the girl’s hand and touched the card with it and then said, “Go!”