by Eve Gaddy
“Well, you do. But that’s not important. I need you to whisper a horse.”
“Are you kidding me? You know I don’t whisper horses.”
“Sure you do.”
Sean started to argue but gave it up as futile. “Have you heard anything about Glenna?” he asked in what was undoubtedly a vain attempt to change the subject.
Dylan frowned. “Nothing worth talking about. You know I’d have told you if there was any real news. The PI followed a few leads, but none of them have panned out.”
“Not surprising considering she could be anywhere in the world.”
“Yeah. We’re still paying the guy, and he’s got a good rep, so maybe we’ll hear something soon.”
“It seems like we should do more, but I don’t know what it would be.”
“If you think of anything, let me know. Now, about that horse.”
Sean sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Go away, Dylan. I’m not in the mood.”
“Sorry, no can do. She’s a beautiful mare, a Norwegian Fjord brunblakk dun. But she’s been mistreated and is scared to death of people. I want to breed her, but until she settles down, I can’t do it. Plus, she’s a sweet horse. She deserves a good life.”
“How can you tell she’s sweet? You said she was terrified of people. Will she let you around her?”
Dylan shrugged. “Not really. I mean, we managed to get her in the trailer and bring her to the ranch, but I thought the poor horse was going to shake to death.”
“What makes you think she’s sweet?”
“She and Burt made friends. She’s as sweet and gentle as can be with that dog. And he’s crazy about her.”
Burt was one of several dogs who lived at the ranch. Dylan always seemed to have a new one—someone found one and brought it by, someone dumped it, some of them simply wandered up. He found homes for a lot of them, but Burt was a keeper. He’d had him for a long time. Burt was a stable dog. He loved horses and they loved him.
“All horses love Burt.”
“That’s beside the point.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Come on, Sean. You’re not doing anything but feeling sorry for yourself. You’re obviously not working, so come out and take a look at Harriet and see if you can help her.”
“Her name is Harriet? Did you name her?”
“No, she came with the name. Why?”
Because of Harry Monroe. He hadn’t been able to save Harry. Sean wasn’t big on signs from the universe, but as signs went, this one was pretty damn clear. Harry. Harriet. Damn.
“Harriet,” Dylan said. “I hadn’t made the connection. You’re thinking about Harry Monroe, aren’t you?”
Sean didn’t answer. “I’m going to shower and then I’ll be out there.”
“Do I need to hang around to make sure you’ll come?”
“When have I ever said I’d do something and then not done it?”
Dylan smiled briefly. “You have a point. I’ll see you in a little while.” At the door, he turned around. “Thanks, Sean.”
“There’s no guarantee I can help her, you know.”
“I know. But you will.”
Sean wished he could be as sure of that as Dylan was.
*
If Honey had thought a single refusal was going to change her father’s behavior, she’d have been wrong. Buster started up again the following week. He continued to call her, trying everything to get her to help him. He asked, he cajoled, he demanded, he yelled at her, he damn near cried. Honey continued her refusal. It was as if he was totally deaf to what she told him. On the third day she thought she’d finally gotten through to him when he didn’t call first thing that morning.
After her ride Honey groomed Halo. She and her mare both enjoyed the grooming process, especially since Sean had “talked” to her. That, of course, made her think about Sean for the thousandth time since they’d broken up. She hadn’t seen him, not even when she’d had an appointment with either her orthopedist or her physical therapist.
She told herself she’d done the right thing. They didn’t have a future, so it was best to let things end as they had and not try to draw things out and put off the inevitable. How could she miss him so much and so badly when they hadn’t even been together that long?
“So you can groom your damn horse, but you can’t even do one miserable favor for your old man?”
Startled, she nearly dropped the brush. Whirling around, she saw Buster standing several feet away. “My God, you scared me to death, sneaking up on me that way.”
“Scared you to death because now I can see how you’ve been lying to me. You’re not hurt, at least, not anymore.”
Honey started to explain, started to justify why she wasn’t helping Buster. But then she looked at him, and she saw him more clearly than she had in a long, long time. Not the father who had been there for her when her mother died and when she was growing up. Not the man who made every one of her events he possibly could. This man was a stranger. A totally self-centered drunk who only cared about what she could do for him.
“You really don’t give a damn about me, do you, Buster?”
He rolled his eyes. “That’s just foolishness. You’re my daughter, aren’t you?”
Honey put down the brush and patted Halo on the rump. “I’ll be right back, sweetheart.”
She walked around in front of Halo and stood face to face with her father. “Yes, I’m your daughter. Not your doormat. Not anymore. I’m finished taking responsibility for you. I’m done enabling you. You need to get sober and stay sober. Until you do, I don’t want anything to do with you.”
Buster stared at her with his mouth hanging open. Finally, he found his voice. “I never thought I’d hear you, my only little girl, talk to me that way. What’s gotten into you?”
“I’m finally seeing you for exactly what you are, and not what I thought you were or hoped you’d be.”
“You’ll be sorry you treated me this way.”
“No, I don’t think I will be. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m busy grooming my horse.”
Buster stood there for a full minute while Honey ignored him. Then he left without another word.
Making certain he was gone, Honey leaned her forehead against Halo’s neck. Wrapping her arms around her horse, she willed herself to calm down. She might have looked and sounded calm when her father was there, but inside she’d been quaking. Am I doing the right thing?
She heard Sean’s voice saying, “You can’t change him. You can only change your reaction to him.”
She finished grooming Halo and put her back in her stall. Then she took out her cell phone and called her brothers.
*
“What’s up, Honey?” Mick asked when she walked into her brothers’ office two hours later.
“Yeah, what’s so important we couldn’t talk about it on the phone?” Kevin added.
Honey took off her jacket and tossed it over a chair back. “We need to talk about Buster.”
Mick sat in a chair behind the big desk, and Kevin leaned against it. “There’s no point, Honey,” Mick said.
“Not unless you’ve changed and aren’t going to enable him anymore,” Kevin added.
“That’s just it. I have changed, and I’m not enabling him anymore.”
Rather than being pleased, both of her brothers looked skeptical. “When did you decide this?” Kevin asked.
“Today.” She told them what had been happening since they’d last seen her, only leaving out any reference to Sean. Which, of course, they noticed.
“Where does Sean come into this?” Mick asked.
“He doesn’t. We broke up.”
“News to me. When did that happen?”
“That doesn’t matter. I’m here to talk about Buster, not Sean.”
“Suit yourself,” Mick said. Kevin merely lifted an eyebrow at her. “What do you suggest we do? Kev and I have already done everything we could think of.”
“I k
now. And I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you before.” Tired of pacing, she sat in one of the chairs. “I want to try to get him into rehab one last time.”
“We tried,” Kevin said harshly. “Three times. It didn’t work and it’s expensive. The last time he only lasted a week after rehab before he went on a drunk. You should remember—you saved his ass.”
“I can’t change what I did in the past. But I can change what I’ll do in the future. I’ll chip in for the rehab.” She had a little in her savings that she could use. “I think we should arrange an intervention with all three of us.”
“Good luck with that,” Kevin said. “Last time we tried that it wasn’t pretty.”
“But that was the two of you. He still had me covering for him then. Now he doesn’t.”
“What happens if—when—it doesn’t work?” Mick asked.
“Then we know we tried everything and he’s on his own. But I have to give him one last chance. If you two don’t, I understand, but that’s my plan.”
They were silent for a long moment. Then Mick sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m in. Kevin?”
“What the hell. I’m in too.”
Chapter Twenty-One
A two AM phone call was never a good thing. Honey tried to ignore the cheery song she’d chosen for phone calls from people who didn’t have a ringtone of their own, but when it stopped and then started for the second time, she gave in. “What?”
“Honey, this is Roger. Roger Emerson?”
Roger? She sat up. “You used to work for my father.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry to call you so late, but your father, he’s out of control.”
“Out of control? What’s he doing?” She knuckled her eyes, trying to wake up.
“He’s at the Wolf Den, busting up the place. Bartender’s going to call the cops if he won’t settle down.”
Her automatic response, ‘I’ll be right there’, was on the tip of her tongue. Then she remembered. Well, that test hadn’t wasted any time in coming. How serious was she about not enabling Buster any longer? “Roger, I really appreciate you calling me. It’s very kind of you to worry about Buster.”
“He don’t mean any harm. It’s the bottle that’s his problem.”
“Yes, it is. I think it’s time we let Buster deal with the consequences of his actions.”
“You’re not coming down here.” He made it a statement.
“No, I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
“I can’t rightly blame you. I imagine he’ll be calling you from the jail.”
“I imagine he will. Thank you, Roger.”
She hung up and waited for the next call. It came in forty-five minutes later. “Hello.”
“I’m down at the jail. I need you to come bail me out.”
No—this is Buster. No—this is your dad. No—Honey, I need your help. Not even a mention of her name. Just a demand. His words were slurred so badly she almost didn’t understand him. Might not have if she hadn’t been expecting the call.
“No.”
“Hurry up. I wanna get out of here.”
“No,” she repeated.
“No?” He managed to sound both drunk and incredulous. “Whaddya mean, no? Come bail me out, girl.”
“No. I’m not coming. You got yourself put in jail, you can get yourself out.”
“But if I don’t post bail, they won’t let me out.”
“That’s a shame, isn’t it? Can’t help you, Buster.” Not anymore.
Honey hung up while he was cursing, then remembered to silence her phone. For all she knew, Buster would talk them into allowing him another phone call. She lay back down, expecting sleep to be a long time coming, but she fell asleep almost the moment she shut her eyes.
The next morning after she woke up and made coffee, she checked her messages. Five messages, all from the jail. “Whatever happened to only one phone call?” she wondered. She deleted them all unheard. Buster would have been at his abusive best, and there wasn’t a reason in the world why she should listen to anything he’d said.
She closed up her bed and pulled the table down, poured herself a cup of coffee and sat at the table to call her brothers. “Hi, it’s Honey,” she said when Mick answered. “Buster got thrown in jail last night for busting up the Wolf Den.”
“Damn. That didn’t take long.”
“No, it didn’t. Can you and Kevin come over, so we can get this over with? We can go bail him out, do the intervention and take him to rehab.”
“If he’ll go.”
“He’ll go,” she said grimly. “How long he’ll stay and whether or not it will be effective are another matter.”
“We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
“Good. Thanks.”
“You’re doing the right thing, Honey.”
“I know. But I wish it didn’t have to be this way.” Still, knowing that Mick and Kevin would be right there with her helped. A lot.
*
The past week had been cold and snowy, but the first sunny day, Sean took Harriet out to the round pen. Though it was chilly, the big Montana sky was a cloudless blue, with the sun shining brightly to warm things up. He and Dylan sat on the round pen fence, watching her. The mare didn’t look like the same animal Dylan had brought home just a couple of weeks ago. She’d filled out some, her coat, a pale, creamy yellow, glowed with all the attention she’d been getting. Her forelock, mane and tail were paler than her body, almost white, and they had been brushed until they looked like silk. Or at least, she’d looked that way until she rolled in the mud and snow.
“You’re doing a great job with Harriet, Sean.”
“Not me. She’s the one who’s done all the work.” The mare had gone from a nervous, beat-down animal who shied at almost everything to a much calmer and much more trusting horse in a remarkably short amount of time. There were still people she wasn’t sure of, but she had accepted Sean, Dylan, the vet and his assistant and several of the ranch hands. And of course, Burt the dog.
Burt had gone out to the pen with Harriet and they had started chasing each other around, playing like they were youngsters. Harriet was fairly young, but Burt was well past his prime.
“It blows me away that a horse could have gone through hell like she did and still be willing to trust again,” Sean said.
“You’ve put in a lot of time with her. I think you’ve been here whenever you haven’t been working.”
He’d volunteered to work Thanksgiving rather than have to deal with his family. He loved them, but he hadn’t been up for a big holiday meal. “Yeah. I haven’t had anything else taking up my time. That’s for damn sure.”
“About that—”
“Don’t go there, Dylan,” Sean said wearily. “Honey and I are done. There’s no sense talking about it.” Or thinking about it, though he’d hardly done anything else. He thanked God for work because he was able to concentrate on his patients rather than think about what had gone wrong between him and Honey.
As usual, Dylan ignored him. “You’re in love with her.”
“What gave you that idea?” Sean asked sarcastically.
“I’m smart that way. I’m going to give you some unsolicited advice because I’m really sick of seeing you mope around. Make up with her. Grovel if you have to. It’s obvious you two are sickeningly in love—”
“One of us is,” Sean interrupted. “And it’s not Honey.”
Dylan stared at him for a minute, then busted out laughing. “Bullshit she’s not.”
Sean thought about punching him one, but it didn’t seem worth the effort. “She wanted a no strings fun fling from the first. I was the one who wanted to change the rules.”
Dylan rolled his eyes. “God give me patience. Go talk to her, Sean. Ten to one she’s just as miserable as you are.” He jumped down from the fence. “And do it soon.”
Damn Dylan. Did he have a point? He thought about the last time he’d seen Honey. He’d been the one to walk away. But she had
been convinced that the way she was dealing with her father was the only way she could approach it. She’d still been adamant she would only be in town on rare occasions.
Well, so what? They could still see each other when she was in town. He could go with her on the weekends he wasn’t working. It wouldn’t be perfect, but nothing ever was. Seeing her occasionally was infinitely better than never seeing her, never holding her, never making love to her again.
Harriet ambled over to him, head butting him so he would pet her. “Look at you,” he said, rubbing her nose. “Here you are, willing to try, trusting again, though God knows you have every reason to distrust people.”
Harriet looked at him with wise eyes. “Make it work. Try again,” she seemed to say. “It’s not perfect, but don’t let that stop you if you love her.”
“Hell. I can’t ignore both you and Dylan.” He climbed down off the fence and looked at the mare again.
Harriet tossed up her head and whinnied.
“I’m going. I hope you two are right.”
*
Sean knew Honey had moved, but he didn’t know where she went. So he called Tanner. She was bound to know since she boarded Halo and was one of Honey’s good friends.
“She’s living here, Sean,” Tanner said when he asked her. “We have an apartment above the equestrian barn and she’s renting that.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad she’s staying at your place. She talked about moving to the Sunset apartments.”
“Yes, she told me that. Luckily, we have a lot of room.” She laughed and added, “The equestrian barn wakes up early, but it’s bound to be better than hearing train whistles all day and half the night.”
“Can I ask you a favor?” Sean asked.
“Of course.”
“If you see Honey, don’t tell her I’m coming out there.”
“All right. I assume you have a good reason for not telling her?”
“I do.” He wasn’t totally sure Honey would stick around if she knew he was coming. He thanked Tanner and hung up.
First, he went to Sweet Pea Floral. He walked in to what seemed like a thousand varieties of flowers. The owner, Risa Davison, offered to help him.
“Are they for a special occasion?” she asked.