Healing the Cowboy's Heart

by Ruth Logan Herne

  “Clearly the animal is stressed.” Braden crossed the room quickly. “He should be kept calm post-surgically, especially with internal damage.”

  She worked to keep her cool as she held the dog’s head in her lap, soothing him with light, gentle strokes. “He was calm, thank you. The doorbell startled him. He tried to get up.”

  “What pain meds have you prescribed?” He asked the question in a quick, stern voice, as if she was a wayward child.

  She wasn’t, and she refused to let him set the tone. She kept her voice relaxed as she listed the meds she’d used.

  “And you operated in your van?” Braden raised two bushy gray eyebrows in disapproval. “When there’s an antiseptic option in Council at my practice? And several in McCall?”

  “Are you familiar with mobile veterinary clinics, Doctor?”

  He scowled. “Having stuff in the back of a van doesn’t make it a safe option for invasive surgeries.”

  “Safer, actually, in many ways,” she corrected him mildly, still stroking the dog. “No risk of cross contamination from sick animals caged nearby, and when time is of the essence, the mobile unit can respond as needed. I’d be happy to give you a tour of it sometime.”

  His frown deepened. He checked the dog’s injured limb, asked several questions in a clipped voice, and by the time Isaiah walked in through the back door about four minutes later, Char was barely keeping a lid on her temper.

  She shot Isaiah a cool look as he took in the scene he’d created, and if she wasn’t cradling the injured animal, she might have kicked him in the shins.

  For good measure.

  “What do you think, Braden?” Isaiah posed the question as he scrubbed up at the kitchen sink. “Pretty remarkable, right?”

  “I think it’s a little late to ask that question since this dog was in need of emergency services last night.”

  Isaiah shot him a puzzled look as he reached for a towel. “Which he was immediately given thanks to Dr. Fitzgerald’s availability. We didn’t have to transport Rising and she had him in surgery within minutes of the accident. It was quite impressive.”

  Braden stood and faced Isaiah. “Motor-vehicle surgery isn’t the same as an operating room for small animal care. Considering the amount of damage to this limb, an amputation may have been the wiser choice. Dogs manage quite well on three legs, and you limit the possibility of infection and further damage from shattered bone.”

  Up to this point Char had kept quiet from her spot on the floor.

  She’d watched Braden’s face, saw his open disapproval and heard the reproach in his voice while maintaining dignified silence. But to suggest that amputation was better than fixing a broken leg galled her and she couldn’t stay quiet anymore.

  She settled Rising’s head back onto the soft rug he loved and stood. “Fixing will always beat removing, Doctor.” She ignored Isaiah purposely. She’d deal with him later. For the moment Braden Hirsch was going to get a lesson in manners. She took a moment to wash her hands at the kitchen sink. When she was done, she turned. “It takes skill, practice and good eyesight to fix a GSW like that.” She indicated Rising with a jut of her chin. “If the medical professional on-site goes into this kind of surgery with the necessary skills, then repair is the best option. If the professional lacks those skills, amputation offers a reliable alternative.”

  She turned and faced Isaiah. “I’m going to the barn to check on Ginger while you consult with Dr. Hirsch.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer.

  Head high, she went out the door, across the back deck and down the graveled drive, and when she got into the barn, she kicked a straw bale, nice and hard. And when that felt good, she kicked it again...

  And then approached the recovering horse with a much better attitude than she’d had five minutes before.

  * * *

  “Infection, bone chips, debris, lameness. A gunshot wound is nothing to take lightly, Isaiah.” Braden faced Isaiah in the broad kitchen and acted like he was dealing with an errant child. “A gunshot brings foreign objects into the wound. Something like this, with extensive trauma, is difficult to handle. The limb is bad enough, but to have chest-wall damage compounds the issues. We’re fortunate the bullet missed vital organs.”

  “And equally fortunate to have Char close by,” Isaiah replied bluntly. “There’s no such thing as having too much skill when it comes to livestock and pets.”

  “That skill got her nowhere with the horse that died at the Council Horse Rescue this morning,” Braden shot back. “Veterinary science has little tolerance for bleeding hearts. It takes the ability to make snap decisions and stick by them to be successful when dealing with animals and a rancher’s bottom line. Like it or not, in the end a farm or ranch needs to make money. And it takes guts to make those decisions in a farmer’s favor.”

  Isaiah clenched his hands. He hadn’t heard about the horse. They were all hoping the rescued animals would make it once they’d passed the first few days. He was sorry to hear that wasn’t the case.

  “Part of animal triage is focusing the most good on the option most likely to succeed. Not trying to make the world a better place from the back seat of a fancy car.”

  Isaiah stared at him, shocked. “Did you compare a quarter-million-dollar operational facility to the back seat of a station wagon? Please say no.” One look at the aging practitioner’s face told him the answer. “Different doesn’t equate bad, Braden.” Isaiah waved his hand toward the segregated barn. “You’re angry about the horse. My mother’s angry about the horse, yet you both know it was the right thing to do. You can’t admit it, and neither one of you wants to reckon with that old news.

  “But we have to,” he went on. “If this is ever going to be cleaned up and made right, we have to let the truth be known. These lies have been eating at my mother for all these years. It’s time to stop. To come clean.”

  Braden stared at him.

  For a moment Isaiah thought he’d made his point, but then Braden snapped his leather bag shut. “You’re young, Isaiah. You think the truth will set people free, but sometimes that truth is what pushes folks over the edge. You might want to think about that.”

  Think about it?

  He’d done nothing but think about it for decades. One bad day, one horrific accident and a lie of omission that had been on his mind ever since. Every time he saw Alfie’s parents. Alfie’s sisters. Or Braden Hirsch. No matter how much he tried, that old secret festered. Now it was time to cleanse the wound.

  Braden walked out the door, climbed into his car and never looked back. And when he was out of the driveway, Isaiah checked on Rising.

  The family protector had dozed off again. Calm, even breathing showed he was resting comfortably.

  Char’s coffee mug sat on the counter, still half full.

  He brewed a fresh cup into a stoneware mug, the kind Katie had always liked to use. Then he crossed the graveled drive to the old barn.

  He was about to enter the barn when a lyrical voice drifted over the fenced meadow. Char’s voice, light and musical, floating through the midsummer air.

  She was singing an old song. A song about horses. A song he’d long since forgotten and now remembered because his mother had sung this same song to him and Andrew years ago. Before the accident. Before she’d grown bitter.

  “When you wake you shall have all the pretty little horses...”

  He came around the edge of the barn and paused, not wanting to disturb the scene.

  She fit.

  He felt it. He knew it. He understood the unlikelihood of it because his family had their own Shakespearean-style feud going with the Fitzgeralds and she was in the middle of discord.

  None of that mattered as she walked the neglected horse gently through the field. And as Char’s notes rose and fell, Ginger plodded along, nodding her head as if she liked the tune
. Or knew the tune.

  Impossible. Wasn’t it?

  Char looked up. Spotted him.

  Her expression darkened.

  He moved forward, ducked between the fence rails and took her coffee to her. “Fresh. Hot. Good.”

  She ignored him and kept walking the horse until Ginger put her head down to graze one of the few bright green sections of midsummer grass.

  Not easily deterred, he followed right along. “I’m sorry Braden showed up while I was out back.”

  She shot him an incredulous look. “And I’m sorry you didn’t bother to tell me you were calling a second opinion. It’s your right, of course. But a professional heads-up would have been appreciated.”

  “I called in no one.” He kept his tone mild. “My mother wanted a second opinion. I told her it wasn’t necessary, but if she wanted one, it was fine. And I didn’t see you to tell you because you were gone.”

  She held up her phone as a reminder of multiple options.

  He acknowledged that with a grimace. “I should have texted. Or called. I had no idea Braden was going to hurry right over.”

  “So far I am less than impressed with the lack of hospitality I’ve seen in this community,” she told him frankly. “I thought it would be different. Nicer. Lizzie and Melonie have both fallen in love with Shepherd’s Crossing and the beautiful setting. They’re ready to jump in and help make things better because they see potential in the town. In the people.” She drew an unhappy breath. “I’m either hanging with a bad crowd or doing something wrong, because I don’t think I’ve been scolded this often since junior high. And just so you know, Isaiah—” she faced him directly “—no one gets to do that. Ever. So your aging buddy should consider himself fortunate to be in one piece right now.”

  Braden had done a number on her.

  Welcome to my world. But the moment he thought that, Isaiah realized something else.

  He could change things up.

  He had the power and the choices to make his world less divisive. Less antagonistic. “You’re right.” He frowned. Tirades had become too much of the family norm. That needed to change. “We’ve let sadness and anger take too much control.”

  His words calmed her expression. “Grief is an awful thing.”

  It was. He nodded.

  “And these kids can’t get away from it. Everywhere they look they must imagine what things would have been like if Mom and Dad were still here.”

  She’d nailed a big part of the problem because he and Andrew and Katie had partnered the Appaloosa ranch for nearly a decade. He stroked Ginger’s neck as he answered, and the horse didn’t shy away. She leaned in as if enjoying his attentions. “Every milestone comes with a shadow. Every holiday or birthday comes with regret, and I’ve wondered if that will ever get better?”

  She sighed. She reached out and stroked her hand along the opposite side of the horse’s neck in a slow caress. Her fingers, long, smooth and pale, contrasted with Ginger’s chestnut tone. An opal ring flashed a hint of light as her hand soothed the old mare’s months or years of neglect. “It does get better, even if it never gets fixed.”

  Was that the shadow he saw in her eyes? Wanting things to be fixed at last?

  “For us, Corrie was the moving force,” she told him as the horse continued to graze. “She never let us wallow in the should-have-beens or could-have-beens. With no mother and an absentee father, she was our everything. She took us to church, to horseback-riding lessons, to tournaments and dance recitals. We never really had time to think about what wasn’t normal about our lives because she made it normal. She was there every single morning and every night. Even when she stood out in a crowd of wealthy parents, with her hand-sewn dresses and her fancy hats. Even when, every once in a while, a stupid kid would rag on me about having a black mama, the other parents showed her great respect. Like they knew she’d stepped into a void and made things all right again.” Her hand hesitated, then stopped. “You know it never really occurred to me that she might have wanted something else or at least the chance to do something else.”

  The thought drew her eyebrows down. A tiny ridge formed and he wanted to reach out. Smooth the ridge away. Give her reasons to smile. To laugh. “She loves you.”

  “But what if loving us meant she never got a chance to live a life outside of us?” she asked. “She’s traveled two thousand miles north and west, caring for family and friends long after the money ran out, when so many others would be opting for a Gulf Coast retirement. Not because she’s supposed to. Because she wants to. So how blessed were we to have her in our lives and what would our lives have been like if she wasn’t there? Or if she decided to leave?”

  It was a rhetorical question.

  Ginger plodded forward toward another section of tender grass. She glanced left and right as if looking for other horses, then busied herself in a new, shorter patch of grass.

  “You’re Corrie to these kids.” Char let the horse go ahead. “You’re their support, their person to lean on. The one who’s there, 24/7. And how fortunate they are to have you, Isaiah.”

  She looked up.

  He gazed down.

  She’d been angry when he’d approached the paddock.

  She wasn’t angry now. She was caring. Lovely. Beautiful.

  So beautiful.

  Her ponytail swayed with every move she made. A few dozen freckles dotted lightly tanned cheeks. Not too many. Just enough. She held his gaze and when he glanced down at her mouth, her lips parted slightly.

  Was she wondering, like him?

  Wondering what it would be like to kiss him? Because the thought of kissing her had been on his mind from the moment she’d locked eyes with him in Bitsy’s side pasture, and wasn’t that an interesting turn of events, because he hadn’t had the chance to kiss anyone in a long while. And now he wanted to.

  He reached a hand to her cheek. Her jaw. And just left it there, to see.

  She almost leaned into it.

  But not quite.

  She took a firm step back. “Don’t mess with my head, cowboy.”

  He lifted one eyebrow.

  “And don’t do your strong, silent cowboy nonsense on me, either. I’m here to do a job and have already managed to tuck myself into a very Hatfield-and-McCoy-style land feud and your family scandal, and I’ve created a chasm between me and the old-guard veterinarian. I don’t need casual flirting to muddy the already churning waters.”

  “No one mentioned the word casual.”

  She shot him a skeptical look as she came around to the front of the horse.

  “And for the record, Char—” he paused just ahead of her, blocking her way “—I don’t do anything casual. Ever.” He let that sink in for about two seconds, then winked. “Just so you know.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She studied him before moving around him to unhitch the halter. “I’m going to let her graze on her own while I sit with Rising.”

  All business. Flat affect. Pretending she wasn’t attracted. He might be rusty, but he wasn’t blind, and he was 100 percent sure that Char Fitzgerald was just as interested in him. And even more annoyed by the prospect.

  “Char?”

  “What?” She turned impatiently as if to scold him.

  He raised his hands. “Rodeo. Saturday. Evening show, as long as all is well here. Dad will stand guard over the animals for us. I’ll pick you up at six, okay? That gives us time to grab food before the action starts.”

  “I can come with my sisters. They’re bringing Zeke. It’s fine—”

  He reached out and tweaked her ponytail. Just a bit. Enough to get her attention, and when she raised her eyes to his, he smiled. “I promise that if you find me an absolute dud of a date, you can grab a ride home with your sisters,” he told her, and he didn’t drop his gaze or pretend like this wasn’t very, very important. Because it wa
s.

  “Isaiah...”

  “Make it five forty-five, actually. That gives us plenty of time to find four seats and grab food.” He didn’t wait for her to confirm or argue. He opened the gate, let her walk through it, then tipped his hat slightly. “I’ll come back up in a couple of hours so you can sleep. And, Char?” He waited until she turned back. “I’m sorry about the horse in Council.”

  “You heard.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t say how or why. “And I’m glad you gave him a chance. He deserved that after what he’d been through. Just like her.” He noted Ginger with a thrust of his head. “We do what we can, then it’s in God’s hands.”

  Doubt drew her brows together.

  Doubt in God? Or in her choice to try to save the traumatized horse?

  He understood doubt. It had plagued him for years until Andrew had pointed out the obvious. Something never comes from nothing. So how did everything come into being?

  And then it made sense. Perfect sense in a most insensible manner, but from that moment on he’d believed. Seeing the unrest in her eyes, hearing it in her words—he wanted that quiet peace for her because Isaiah Woods was pretty sure Char Fitzgerald had never been able to claim serenity for herself, and if he did nothing else for this woman...he’d like to see that changed.

  Chapter Nine

  “So, the cowboy is picking you up?” Melonie exchanged looks with Lizzie on Saturday afternoon and grinned as she got things ready for Corrie. Corrie was watching the twins for the evening.

  “And taking you to the rodeo with his two kids,” noted Lizzie with that know-it-all tone in her voice.

  “Who both have taken a shine to you,” Melonie continued as she restocked the changing table with more diapers than any two eleven-month-old babies could possibly need in one short evening. Although Char knew precious little about babies of the human sort so she’d learn by watching Mel. From a discreet distance, she decided as she checked the charge on her phone. If the evening went downhill, she wanted to be able to call Lizzie as backup. “You two are ridiculous,” she said as she examined her lipstick one last time. And then she gave her eye makeup a quick once-over again, too. Just in case. “We’re working together, and the kids like me, so it made perfect sense.”