“I don’t remember you having this many horses,” she said as she walked back.
“We might not have,” Travis agreed, picking his horse’s hoof. “Colton wants to expand his horse training, and bought several to break to saddle, then sell at a profit.”
“Other folks around here have been talking to him about having him work their horses,” Brady added. “He hasn’t started that yet, but he probably will.”
“He’s that good?”
“Oh, yeah,” Brady answered, sliding the snaffle bit into Zora’s willing mouth. “That boy is the newest horse whisperer.”
“He does have to quit using his spurs, though,” Travis added. “A filly unloaded him not long ago when he hit her too hard with them.”
Dropping her eyes, Addie noticed both of them had spurs on their boots, yet had not noticed the sound of the jingling when they walked. “But you both have spurs on.”
“They’re just a tool, Addie,” Travis replied, straightening from his hoof picking. “Used lightly without gouging has the horse responding more quickly, that’s all.”
“I see,” she answered. “I think.”
“Someday I’ll give you riding lessons,” Brady offered. “Here, she’s all set.”
With no little trepidation, Addie walked to the mare. She remembered how to mount, yet she swung into the saddle awkwardly. Zora endured Addie’s lack of grace and balance without reacting at all. Brady adjusted the stirrup lengths to fit her legs, then grinned up at her.
“Don’t be nervous now,” he told her. “Zora will babysit you.”
“Great. An equine babysitter.”
“He’s right,” Travis added. “She takes care of Riley.”
“Who’s Riley?”
“My five year old daughter,” Brady replied, handing her the reins. “Now relax.”
“I’m nervous,” Addie admitted. “She’ll feel it.”
“True,” he said with a shrug. “But she knows her job, and won’t react to your feelings. Now go have fun.”
Travis had mounted his horse, and started out of the barn at a walk. Addie nudged Zora with her heels, wondering if the mare would simply stand there as Addie wasn’t wearing spurs. She ambled forward in answer to Addie’s shoes on her ribs.
“Heels down,” Brady called from behind her. “Always keep your heels down.”
“I’ll remind her,” Travis said over his shoulder.
Addie tried to relax, and pushed her heels downward as she rode behind Travis. Too nervous to ask him questions, she gripped the saddle horn with one hand, the reins in the other.
Travis said little as they left the barn, and rode along a trail that wound among the prickly pear and mesquite thickets. Zora ambled along with her head low, her ears flicking around at whatever happened to catch her attention. Trying to remember the good signals and bad signs of equine body language, Addie had no idea what Zora might be thinking.
“Relax, Addie.”
Travis had turned halfway around in his saddle to look at her. “Take a deep breath, and let it out. And let go of the horn.”
“But what if she spooks?”
“She won’t. Trust me. For an Arab, that horse spooks less than Spike does.”
Addie took his advice, and breathed deeply, then let it out slowly. Zora’s ears turned back toward her, and for a moment Addie felt certain that indicated she was about to explode into bucking. “What is she doing that for?”
“She’s listening to you,” Travis replied with a grin. “Waiting for you to tell her what to do.”
Addie leaned forward slightly. “Don’t buck me off.”
“I’m afraid that’s not exactly what she’s waiting for.”
“Then all I want for her to do is just walk.”
As they continued on, Addie relaxed more when Zora did nothing to frighten her. Travis dropped back so he could ride alongside her, and reminded her to keep her heels down.
After a stretch of comfortable silence, Travis seemed at ease, and Addie felt it might be the right time to broach a difficult subject.
“It must be hard working this ranch without your folks,” she said gently. “Do you want to talk about what happened to them?”
For long moments, she thought he would not answer. Then he said, “A drunk driver crossed the center line. Hit them head on, and they were killed instantly.”
Horrified, Addie forgot to be nervous. “Travis, I am so sorry.”
“The drunk was convicted of vehicular manslaughter, and sentenced to two twenty-five year terms in prison.”
He gave her a crooked smile. “He’ll never get out of there.”
“I think that’s about right. I suppose he had other convictions?”
“Many DUIs, yes. But for my folks... well, he still has his life. They don’t.”
“They are alive in heaven, Travis,” Addie said tenderly. Her heart ached for him. “You will see them again.”
He didn’t answer, and stared ahead between his horse’s ears. After a few minutes, he reined in, and Zora stopped beside his gelding without Addie doing a thing. Travis pointed.
“This is the irrigation canal,” he said. “As you can tell, there are no tracks, no manure that says cattle have been sneaking through the fence to get their water here.”
Addie gazed up and down the length of the big ditch, water flowing through it at a sluggish pace. “Maybe it’s getting contaminated further upstream.”
He sent her a dark look, and immediately Addie knew their moment of companionship was over. “Then that’s not our problem, is it?”
She said nothing as he turned back to the irrigation canal, and wondered what had happened to his friendly attitude so quickly. Was it my question about his parents? I can see he’d be sensitive still, but to turn himself off like a light?
“I have to get back to work,” he said, his voice tense, then reined his horse around.
Withdrawing into herself, Addie followed, and said nothing as they rode back to the barn.
Chapter 7
“What’s up with you, man?”
Travis flicked his eyes from the television to Colton then back. “Nothing.”
Travis reclined in the La-Z-Boy while Colton had stretched out full length on the sofa. They had eaten their supper after chores were completed, Colton doing the cooking while Travis cleaned up, and now watched a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western on cable.
“Right,” Colton replied. “I saw your face and Addie’s when she left here. Neither of you looking at the other, not talking, but both your body languages screaming, ‘I ain’t a happy camper.’”
“Never mind, Colton.”
Travis thought Colton had dropped the subject, for he said nothing else for a while. In truth, Travis had been thinking of Addie, and when they had first met in high school. He was seventeen, and she was not quite sixteen, and the prettiest girl in school.
“You’re thinking about Addie.”
Travis shot him an annoyed glance. “Just watch the movie, Colton.”
“I’ve seen this one a hundred times. Why don’t you just get it off your chest?”
“What are you? My therapist?”
“If you want me to be. Here, you can take the couch.”
“No.”
Trying to shove Addie and the memories she brought with her out of his mind, Travis focused on Clint’s riding skills for all of thirty seconds. That dapple gray is a nice horse. Then he recalled how much time she spent in the library, reading or finding something new to read. You’re a bookworm, he had called her, teasing.
Yew betcha, she had replied with a grin, a load of books in her arms.
“I really loved her,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“You were just a kid then.”
“I still noticed things,” Colton replied. “I wasn’t stupid, even though you thought I was.”
“I never did. I just thought you should focus on school, not horses.”
“I turned out all right.”
“That you did,” Travis agreed.
His mind went back to those days fourteen years ago when he and Addie started hanging out together. First, it was having lunch together in the cafeteria, then becoming good friends. Then after he invited her out to the ranch, and started to teach her to ride. How could I have forgotten how badly her parents neglected her when mine all but took her in as the daughter they never had?
“She was always out here,” Colton said, and Travis was certain his brother had read his mind. “I liked her. She never talked down to me, or treated me like a kid.”
His eyes found Travis’s. “Unlike some people.”
“I suppose an apology for treating you like a kid is in order.”
“Apology accepted. But really, Trav, for a pretty girl, she was never conceited like others were. You remember how Trisha Mathews was? A stuck up little princess. Nastier to people than a feral hog.”
Travis frowned. “I don’t remember her.”
Colton’s eyes were on the television, but clearly his mind wasn’t. “Maybe you didn’t. She was older than me, but younger than you, I reckon. I think she got married before she was eighteen and moved away.”
“No,” Travis mused. “Addie was never stuck up.”
“Nope. Always a real nice gal.”
“I remember some of the other pretty girls hated her,” Travis continued. “She acted like she didn’t care, and just ignored them.” He chuckled. “I think that made them even madder.”
“I can’t think of why anyone would hate her,” Colton commented. “She was nice to everybody.”
“But high school girls are jealous critters, Colt,” Travis replied. “They were jealous that she was prettier than they were, and like you said, nice to everybody.”
“I guess I didn’t pay much attention to that stuff when I got to high school.”
“No, you could only think of horses and making the rodeo team.”
“I did, too.” Colton grinned.
Remembering how fond his parents were of Addie, and how his brothers, especially Brady, had teased him about having a girlfriend. He had fallen in love with her that year, and she with him. He smiled as he recalled hiding behind the barn to kiss her, her arms around his neck, his around her waist.
He also recalled, his smile fading, as they walked hand in hand out in the pastures, keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes. I hate it here, Addie had told him. My folks hate me and Callie, they’re always gone. I want to go to college, Trav. I want something more than this hick town.
Travis had tried to convince her that going to the local community college was the same thing, and they could keep seeing each other. Addie had a distant look in her eyes, he remembered now, as though seeing a future that didn’t include him. Then she took his hand, smiled, and said, Maybe.
“Can you blame her for leaving, Trav?” Colton asked. “Her folks never gave her nothing, she had to fight for everything. You and me, we had the ranch and a decent future. What did Addie have?”
“Me.”
After a length of silence, Colton asked, “Did you ever think that maybe you weren’t enough?”
“Obviously I wasn’t,” Travis replied, surprised to discover the admission didn’t make him angry. “I reckon she needed a future she clawed out for herself, not one handed to her by me.”
“I think you just hit that one dead to rights. Addie is one of those independent gals. She loved you, Trav, but she had to do for herself.”
Absently watching Clint Eastwood order a town painted red, Travis nodded slowly. “I never understood that until now. At the time, I felt she didn’t care at all, and blew me off. Like I was dead wood keeping her hanging back where she didn’t want to be.”
“If she had asked you to go with her?” Colton asked. “Would you have gone?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“She knew it, too. Put yourself in her boots. She couldn’t have a future in the big city and with you, both. She had to choose.”
“So why couldn’t she have chosen me?” Travis asked, unable to halt his bitterness. “Was I such a terrible thing, Colt? I wanted to marry her.”
“And is that your wounded pride talking?”
“No, it’s my wounded heart,” Travis snapped. “She was the only one for me, Colt. The only one.”
“And you never did get over her,” Colton said softly, “that may be why it never worked out with Becky.”
Travis snorted. “Becky lied and cheated, and wanted me because this ranch made me money. She never loved me.”
He stared at the television. “She was hard to love, always talking about money and how she never had any growing up. Yeah, I’ll admit I was too hooked on Addie to really love Becky, but I did give it my best shot.”
“Yeah, I expect she showed her true nature when she ran off with whatshisname. Used to work for us.”
“Joe Collins.” Travis spat the name. “I never liked that dude. Always sneering like he was all that and a bag of chips, and couldn’t ride a fat pig.”
“I reckon we’re lucky they’re long gone.”
“I suppose so.”
Travis thought about the engagement ring he had bought with the money he’d earned working the ranch. He still had it. After Addie left on the bus, he had taken it, and locked it away in a wooden chest. He then put the chest under his bed, and hadn’t taken it out since.
“I asked her to marry me.”
“Yeah, I thought you had.”
His heart hadn’t hurt this bad for nearly twelve years as it did now. Feeling as though it just might break into pieces, as it had all those years ago, Travis stared blindly at the television. His mind recalled every detail of that moment, every word, every expression that crossed her face.
He had taken her behind the barn where they spent so much time kissing, and knelt down in front of her. Holding up the ring, he gazed up into Addie’s green eyes. “Will you marry me, Addie?”
She stared at him as though in shock, as though it had never occurred to her that their relationship might have advanced that far. “Travis,” she began, her voice thick. Then she paused.
“I love you. I love you with everything I have,” he said.
Desperation filled Travis’s heart, for he had fully expected tears of joy and a resounding yes from her. This hesitation, this emotional withdrawal, confused and scared him.
“I love you, too, baby,” she said, kneeling with him. “But I got accepted to the university in Houston.”
Travis only stared, gaping like an idiot, unable to believe she was truly going away. “When were you going to tell me?”
“I only found out today. I’m going. I can’t stay here, Travis, I hate this place. It’s tearing me apart, loving you and hating Honey Creek. Please understand, I can’t marry you. I want a good job in the city, I want school.”
The pain from his freshly broken heart spread, and Travis found it hard to breathe. “Please,” he whispered, “I love you. Don’t leave me.”
Addie started to cry. “Don’t do this, Travis, please. I can’t handle it.”
She rose from her knees and ran. Travis watched her go, his heart bleeding, his mind stunned. On the far side of the barn, he heard the car start up, the rattle of tires on gravel. Then she was gone.
“I saw her one more time,” he murmured. “I figured out when she was leaving on the bus, and I went there. I watched her leave while she stared out the window at me.”
“Listen, I’m sorry, bro,” Colton said, his tone soft. “But you have a second chance here. Don’t blow it.”
Travis gazed at his brother. “Do I? I don’t think so.”
Chapter 8
“I blew it back then.”
Addie felt Callie’s eyes on her as they sat on the house’s front porch as night fell across West Texas. The baby monitor sat on the table between them as Callie had put Gus down to sleep a short while ago. Lifting her glass of iced tea, Callie eyed her sidelong. “Did you?”
/> “Yeah.”
“Or did you do what you felt was right at the time?”
Addie drew a deep breath. “I was barely eighteen. I was too young to know what was right and what was wrong.”
“Actually you did. I remember how level-headed you were. You knew that to break out of this dead-end town, you had to go to college. I actually envied you.”
Addie glanced at her, startled. “You did?”
“I did.” Callie chuckled. “I hated school, as you remember. But I also didn’t have your ambitions. I wanted what many girls wanted, a husband and babies. I just went through many Mr. Wrongs before I discovered who I thought was Mr. Right.”
“And he was a Mr. Wrong, too.”
“He was. I learned that the hard way. But I did wish I had your determination, sweetie. I wanted to be like you, strong and independent.”
“But you were.”
“No. I wasn’t. I was too interested in the idea of marriage, children. While you were off getting your law degree, I was playing house. Just like we did when we were kids.”
Addie stared out over the town, lights coming on as the sun vanished from the sky. “I had no idea.”
“And now I wish I had followed in your footsteps,” Callie said wistfully. “College and a good job. I wouldn’t give Gus up for anything, but if I had learned skills, I wouldn’t be in the fix I’m in.”
“Callie, I am very happy to be here, and I’m thrilled I can help you. And it’s not too late for you to learn skills to get a decent job.”
“I know. And know you are a blessing in my life. I’d prayed and prayed, and God sent me you.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Addie said, irony in her tone. “I’m a washed up lawyer with only one client.”
“It’s not too late for you, either,” Callie went on. “You have a second chance here.”
“With Travis? Oh, don’t go there, sis.” Addie shook her head. “I broke his heart. He’ll never risk it again. I hurt him too badly.”
“Even broken hearts can heal.”
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