by Natalie Dean
“While I am so pleased that you’re worried about representing Christ in all that you do, I hope you remember that no one can make you act in any way. You are responsible for your own actions, as convenient as it is to sometimes blame others.”
Oh boy. He knew when he was about to be taught a lesson, and he could sense it like his brother could sense a storm.
“If you don’t want to help the Touhey family, then that’s fine. If you believe that doing so would be detrimental to you, or them, then that’s fine too. But what you need to do is take ownership of the choice.”
Her wise eyes slipped up to him, and he found himself faced with a gaze that saw far too much. He guessed that’s why she was a mother. She seemed to know things that only a Ma could know.
“So, do you take ownership of that choice, Benjamin?”
He paused to breathe in deeply, then breathe out. She was right. He just wanted to get out of going there because the girl was so unpleasant and hurt his pride.
After all, he’d always prided himself on being fairly agreeable. Even-keeled, as some people would say. Maybe it was a part of the middle-child curse, maybe it was just because he liked being likable, but it seemed like a personal affront to be so outright rejected before he even had a chance to speak.
“I… I think I’ll give it another try. I guess everyone’s awkward in a new situation at first.”
Ma smiled ever so gently. “That’s my boy. Do you want to eat here, or should I pack you something up to take home?”
“You saved me dinner?” Benji asked with a grin.
“I thought you might be hungry after a long day’s work and not want to make yourself something. And if you didn’t stop by, I’d have leftovers for one of your cousins tomorrow.”
“You always think of everything, don’t you Ma?”
“Well, I do have quite a few years of experience under my belt.”
“Aw, come on now,” he said with a wink. “Not that many years.”
“Charmer,” she accused before getting up and going to the kitchen.
Benji let himself relax as she busied herself with grabbing what she had prepared and then putting it into one of her reusable bags. With a kiss and a hug, he was off on his way.
He didn’t stop until he was in his cabin, tossing his boots to the side once again. Taking one of the lids off a container and putting it into the microwave, he collapsed on his couch while he waited.
Once more, that girl returned to his mind. He’d been so affronted by her attitude that he hadn’t thought about much else. Like her shining copper hair and burning green eyes. Or the bandages wrapped around her hands and the deep bruise on one side of her jaw.
She had been hurt.
The thought came to him in a jolt, and he couldn’t help but frown at it. Should she have even been in that field? Working with her hands? He was sure that the metal of the shovel handle couldn’t be good for whatever was under those dressings, and he couldn’t help but wonder how she had gotten them.
And what she had said… she talked about him as if she knew him. As if she had had a multitude of interactions with him, but he didn’t remember ever seeing her once. And it wasn’t like she was one to blend in. Even under her oversized work overalls, he could tell that she had a soft, voluptuous form, the type of body that had helped fuel the entire Renaissance. Teenage him definitely would not have missed that, even if most of his peers had been drooling over girls with the popular super-skinny style at the time.
Maybe… he had just caught her on the wrong foot. After all, her farm had been hit by an arsonist and her brothers were in the hospital, and she herself was hurt. Benji could sort of understand how that might put someone into a bit of a bad mood. He could reach into the charity of his heart and give her a pass for her behavior.
But still, as he pulled his food out of the microwave and plopped in front of the TV, he couldn’t help but hope that he wouldn’t have to see her again.
Not if she was going to act that way…
5
Danielle
Dani barely hummed along to the song playing from the radio, her mind elsewhere as she made the long trek to the city.
When she had first gotten home, there’d been so much to do, so many things to fix, that she thought she wouldn’t be able to spare the time to go back to the hospital housing her brothers for weeks. That idea had torn her up inside, making her feel as if she had abandoned them to the frightful reality of being burned over half of their bodies.
Then again, were they even experiencing reality considering they had been put into medical comas?
Thinking that fact so plainly made her breath hitch, and she had to fight not to close her eyes against the memories that swept over her.
She could still see it, still smell it, clear as day. She had been in the ambulance, trying to find out where her brothers were when they’d injected her with something. She’d woken up seemingly only a few seconds later only to find herself in a hospital bed.
Everything had been suddenly terrifying. The air was too sterile, the lights were too bright, and she was alone. She’d tried to get up, but then multiple nurses were streaming in, telling her that she was all right. That everything was fine.
But everything wasn’t fine.
The only reason her brothers were even in their terrible situation was because she had stupidly tried to save all the animals on her own. She knew that they were insured, and she had always been taught that saving human lives meant more than saving animal lives. But when she had thought about those innocent animals burning in a fiery, agonizing death, she couldn’t just stand there and let them roast.
So instead, she had dragged her brothers into it and look where they had ended up.
Her entire life, they’d all been close. Everyone had told them and their mother that they wouldn’t be as friendly once they got older, and all sorts of tales about sibling rivalry, but that had never happened. When she had been bullied relentlessly at school, they often were the ones getting in fights to distribute their own justice on the worst of the bullies. She kept telling her brothers that she didn’t need them to use their fists, she was plenty good at using her words and none of her detractors were actually brave enough to physically fight her, so it seemed like the wrong thing to do.
Besides, going around and beating people up wasn’t the best way to stop things from being said behind her back. Unfortunately, people were always going to talk about the poor, fat farm girl who liked to wear overalls and flannels that were handed down from her older brothers. Annoying, but a fact of life.
Then it was supposed to be that the three of them would all leave after they graduated from high school, no longer wanting to live a life supporting the struggling ranch and heading on their separate ways.
But they hadn’t done that either.
No, it’d been her, her brothers and her parents for as long as she could remember.
And she could lose all of that now.
“Hey guys,” she said, trying to hold her tears in.
The boys were lying silently in their hospital beds. The hospital unit they were in had worked it out so that the two brothers could be in the same room together.
The doctors had said that their burns were extensive, and they were going to be kept sedated for quite a while, but no one knew quite what they could hear so it was encouraged not to be too morose or weepy. And that was pretty difficult considering she felt like the entire thing was her own fault.
Dani waited until all the nurses seemed to be done with their hourly checkups and the doctors had finished their rounds before reaching into her bag and pulling out a book about Winnie-the-Pooh. It was what their mother used to read to them when they were younger and they, in turn, read it back to her when she would occasionally take ill.
Dani smiled to herself as she remembered how they used to pretend they were in the Hundred Acre Wood back when they were kids. All of them took turns playing the characters like Tigger, Rabbit and Pooh. They had ad
ventures with heffalumps and woozles and climbing trees.
Those had been wonderful times, some of the brightest points of her childhood, so maybe reading them now would help them as much as they helped her.
She opened up to a story about a honey tree. It’d been a while since she’d read it, so she figured it would be a nice place to begin.
“Hey guys, you wanna hear about Winnie-the-Pooh and the gang? We’ll start at the beginning.”
For a tiny moment, she hoped that they would respond. But they were quiet, the only response being the beeping of the monitors, so she pressed on.
If they could run into a burning barn to save the animals that she was so worried about, then she could at least do this for them.
She read until her voice was giving out. She’d finished several grand tales by then and realized that she hadn’t had a glass of water in a couple of hours. Putting the book away, she wandered out into the hall and found the little cubby where they had a water dispenser and plenty of cups.
In a bit of a haze, Dani grabbed one of them and filled it to the brim with icy, cold water. It wasn’t quite as nice as the filtered well water they had at home, but it was way better than whatever was pumping through the water fountains back in high school.
Chugging it down, she filled it one more time before going back to her brothers’ shared room. They were in beds on opposite sides, a curtain hanging between them that was rarely drawn. Outside the window, she could see that night was falling. It seemed as good a time as any to wrap things up.
Then again, was there anything good about the situation?
Dani shrugged that thought away and curled up in the chair again. She looked over her brothers’ forms, the tubes in their mouths, their chests rising and falling. It wasn’t a comforting image, but it was something she could hold onto. As long as their hearts were beating and they were breathing, they were alive.
Unbidden, her mouth opened, and a few notes came out. They were melancholy, more breath than tune, but the more she kept on, the more it felt kind of right.
It was a lullaby, the one that her mother always used to sing to them. It had been a long time since any of them were young enough to need it, but Dani couldn’t think of a more appropriate time.
It was a simple song that told of where different farm animals and equipment slept. How they were all tucked in and safe until the morning. And every verse always ended with the same promise.
“I’ll always love you.”
Because she would. Dani knew that to the very deepest parts of her heart. No matter what happened, she would always love her brothers with the fierceness that only a Touhey could muster.
But she wasn’t sure she could love herself.
She finished all the verses she could remember, humming when her mind couldn’t recall the words. When she eventually stopped, it was pitch-black outside, and she knew she needed to leave if she didn’t want to drive sleepy. She knew she could go get a hotel, but the thought of costing her parents more money was loathe to her.
So, she gathered up her things and blew kisses to her brothers, wishing for all the world that she could press her lips to their cheeks instead and they would shove her off for being all clingy.
But she couldn’t do that. Not when their bodies were so fragile.
It was a long, long walk to the car. Longer than it should have been, and as she drove home, she felt more alone than ever.
6
Benji
Benji wiped the sweat out of his eyes and from his forehead. He looked over the wooded hill he had ridden to but lost track of the hooves he had been following. It didn’t help that the sun had set about ten minutes prior. Where had the day even gone?
He looked to the watch on his wrist. Goodness. He’d managed to chase down two of the horses that he was supposed to catch, but he’d been sure he could find the third after coming across fresh prints in some mud on the outskirts of the Touhey’s land. He certainly hadn’t meant to stay so late, but he guessed he had just been so focused.
Well, the two horses he caught were still tied to a post next to where he’d parked his truck, close enough so that they could help themselves to the hay and water in his truck’s bed. He should probably get them into a barn, and all groomed up. They’d certainly had a rougher time of it than he had.
Turning his own mount around, he let her trot at her own pace across the grassy fields. He’d been so busy being irritated with that cross woman that he hadn’t really taken the time to think about how the animals themselves had suffered. The poor things clearly had singed hair in several places, and he was sure he’d find some light burns on them once he looked them over more closely.
It was a shame the Touhey boys had been so hurt, but he couldn’t help but be grateful that they had saved a whole lot of beautiful animals from possibly the worst way to go.
He made it back to the two horses in good time, the last of the sunlight disappearing. Pulling his flashlight out, he tied their makeshift lead to the horn of his saddle and slowly walked them back to the secondary barn.
It wasn’t anything like his family’s mount barn; it could hardly be called a barn at all, but it was the best they had. Benji figured he should talk to his brothers and some of their workers to see if they would be up for a barn raising in the coming week. Goodness knew that the Touheys needed it.
However, despite the small size of the barn, there were two stalls available. Benji led them into their temporary homes, taking the time to fill up the trough with water and get more hay for the feeding bin that their stalls shared.
Once that was all settled, he looked around for any care items. After a bit of hunting, he did manage to find a light switch, and that helped him immensely.
Before too long he had managed to find a brush. It wasn’t as nice as the ones his family used, but he had to remind himself that the Touhey Ranch wasn’t a multi-dynasty empire like his was. It was easy to forget how someone in the same business could be struggling to just get through the day. Although Benji knew in the abstract that lots of people worried about paying their bills, he’d never struggled with anything like that. And his children would never know that either, and hopefully neither would their children.
It was strange to think that their families could have the same livelihood but such different realities, so Benji dismissed the thought. It made him feel… uncomfortable, but he couldn’t place his finger on why.
“Hey there, beautiful,” he whispered to the first horse as he gently brushed her down and looked for any wounds.
She was a beautiful mix of white, red, and brown. A real dappled girl that his sister-in-law Chastity would have absolutely gone moony-eyed over. The horse shivered slightly but seemed to accept Benji’s help. He wished he had a treat to give her, but honestly, after all the trauma she’d been through and the running, she probably just needed to stuff herself on the proper roughage for a couple of days.
He was surprised when he finished up to find no real wounds on her. She had several singed spots and a good chunk of her tail was missing, but that was it. The Touhey brothers must have freed her first, before the barn had collapsed on them. Brave souls.
Once he was sure she was feeling better, he gave the girl a small kiss on the snout. She wuffled gratefully, seemingly very happy to be in shelter, and trotted over to the corner to have some her time. That made Benji feel more accomplished than it should have, but he moved right on to the next horse.
He was a big, silver beast and clearly not as impressed by Benji. His dark eyes regarded the human with a distaste only slightly softened by the fact that he had been fed and watered.
“Hey big guy, I’d like to come in and just look you over, if that’s all right?”
Scientifically, Benji knew that the horse couldn’t really understand him, but there was always a part of him that felt animals knew much more than most scholars would believe. Not that he would argue that with anyone. That seemed like a waste of time if there ever was one.<
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Carefully, Benji extended his hand with the brush, hoping the big guy would recognize it. He still seemed to hesitate for a moment, but eventually let out a huff and turned his side to the human.
“Atta boy.”
Benji went about looking him over and grooming him too. Just like the first, he didn’t have any real wounds except for one hard scrape on his upper front leg. It didn’t look too serious, but he’d make sure to point it out to the Touheys for when they had insurance bring a vet in. His mane was also terribly singed, and Benji reminded himself to bring grooming scissors the next day so he could snip those bits out. Maybe braid it up and make the guy feel good about himself. He seemed like the type to show off for all the pretty lady horses.
Benji smirked a bit as he remembered his older brothers teasing him for learning all the different mane-styling techniques his mother knew. They said it was silly and that the horses didn’t know any different, but their tone changed when Benji helped a cheerleader fix her French braid after she took a bit of a tumble and all sorts of pretty girls came to him for hair-styling advice.
For being a good Christian boy, he certainly hadn’t had a shortage of lovely ladies to flirt with. It never really went beyond that because they all wanted commitments that he didn’t feel interested in, but it certainly had made him popular. Maybe even more popular than his brothers.
Not that his eldest brother Ben cared one lick. He’d only had eyes for Chastity. Who would have ever thought that would work out someday?
Shaking his head, Benji gave the gray boy a final pat on his flank before setting the brush to the side. He’d clean it the next day when he had time and daylight to find the proper supplies, but for the moment that was good enough.
When he finally made it out of the small barn, it was well past nightfall. He really had lost track of time. He walked up to his own mount, offering her a little bit of the apple he had in his pocket as an apology for keeping her out so long. And also, for their ride home at night. At least she wasn’t prone to being spooked like some of the newer additions to their family.