Back in the Saddle

by Ruth Logan Herne

“We’re naming the cat Snickers and that’s that,” Cheyenne said.

  “Are not!”

  “Are too!”

  “I don’t know what it matters. Cats are so persnickety that they don’t come to a name, no how,” Hobbs noted.

  Angelina changed the subject without saying a word as she set a whipped-cream-frosted cake on the counter.

  “Is that cherry cake, Angelina? Please say it is.” Brock sat down on the nearest stool.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, cherry cake sure beats fightin’ over cats in my book and probably in most others as well.” Hobbs took a seat alongside the younger cowboy. “I saw you settin’ them layers earlier, and I was hopin’ that was what you were makin’.” He gave her a big gap-toothed grin. “It’s one of my favorites, Angelina.”

  “We didn’t have time to make one in February when Sam was sick, so I thought we’d welcome spring with it. Girls, you’ve had yours, so head off to bed, okay?”

  “Why should we when there’s no school tomorrow?” Cheyenne crossed her arms, defiant. “If my mother was here, she wouldn’t worry about me going to bed at eight o’clock when there’s no school.”

  “Well, she’s not here,” Nick said, “and I am. When Angelina tells you what to do, just do it. Without the sass. Apologize. Now.”

  She flipped her hair, muttered “sorry” in a barely discernible voice, and stomped down the hall and up the stairs.

  Dakota gave her father a big hug, then hopped down to give one to everyone else in the room as well. When she finally skipped happily down toward Grandpa’s room, Colt whistled lightly. “ ’Kota knows how to work a crowd, doesn’t she?”

  “She sure does,” Nick said. “And while she appears to be more cooperative, she’s as stubborn and manipulative as Cheyenne. She’s just smart enough to do it with more grace.”

  Colt didn’t dare ask Nick if he’d considered the principal’s request. He didn’t want to open a can of worms. Besides, the sight of whipped-cream frosting on cherry cake put everything else on hold. Or maybe it was the beautiful woman serving the cake.

  He rounded the breakfast bar and came up behind her. He wanted to get her alone. Explain his decisions. Tell her his plans about helping the town—but not in front of the guys. He needed to nail down a few loose ends before he went too public. Another trait he shared with his father: he liked a plan set in stone. Less disaster and embarrassment that way. But he wouldn’t mind telling Angelina, letting her think about him being here long term…so she might consider staying.

  —

  Angelina moved to cut Colt a slice of cake. He came up behind her, laid his hand over hers much like a groom would do on a wedding day, and broadened the knife angle for a much bigger piece. Was his thinking matching hers? Grooms and weddings and sharing cake? Most likely not, and his next words proved it.

  “I’m really hungry.”

  A lesson learned. She was pipe-dreaming about ever afters, and the cowboy was yearning for cake. “So it would seem.”

  Her mother bustled into the kitchen, still energetic after putting in a long day of work, work she wouldn’t have to do if she were back in the city. Isabo ticked off on her fingers the chores she’d done. “I have taken the last load of laundry upstairs, all folded and ready to be put away. Ironing is done, and I will get up early to begin breakfast. I am going to do some sewing in my room for a little before sleep. If you want to sleep in tomorrow and catch up after the crazy times of this week, it is fine, my daughter. I am sure you are tired after so much going on.”

  Guilt hit as she finished cutting Colt’s cake. Isabo had taken on several of Angelina’s duties since moving to the ranch house, and the aftermath of the fire’s destruction put more work on her. In Seattle, her mother wouldn’t have to concern herself with cooking and cleaning for a crowd. She could relax and take on civic duties as she’d done before. Have lunch with friends, walk the piers. Her mother loved being near the water. Tucking her this far inland went against her grain. “I can do breakfast, Mami.”

  “There is no need, but if you wake up, we can do it together,” Isabo said. “Good night, everyone.”

  A chorus of good-nights followed as Angelina handed Colt his monster-sized piece of cake.

  “Your mother has amazing energy,” he said.

  “Too amazing.”

  He didn’t dig right into the cake with the fork she handed him. He set it down and focused on her. “You don’t want her help?”

  It sounded foolish when he said it, because who wouldn’t want a hand running a busy house that had so much going on? This week alone, her mother’s help had been invaluable. She couldn’t have helped Sam or the town if Isabo hadn’t been taking care of things on the ranch. “It’s not that I don’t want it; it’s that she’ll never relax when there’s work to be done. She has to be in the thick of it, helping.”

  “How is that bad, exactly?”

  Brock and Hobbs finished their cake. They stood up, said their good-nights, and headed out, leaving her to face Colt’s question. But the answer wasn’t as easy as Colt made out.

  He didn’t get it because Staffords thrived on work, work, and more work. She respected their work ethic, but hadn’t her mother done her share already? Earned her reward? “This is supposed to be her time,” Angelina explained. “This should have been her retirement with my father. It was all planned out so they could travel, see things together, do things together. And now that he’s gone, it’s all changed. She’s spent the first two years of widowhood going stir-crazy in a cabin. I want her to be able to embrace life now. Her life, her choices.”

  “Does she seem unhappy to you?” Colt asked. “Because I think she likes taking charge, being at the heart of things, bossing men around. A family trait, it seems,” he added, smiling.

  “She doesn’t seem unhappy,” Angelina agreed. “She seems…busy. Really busy.”

  “Have you asked how she feels about it?”

  She hadn’t, so his question annoyed her. “I’ve got this, Colt. With my father gone, I’m all she has, and I take that very seriously. I believe I’ve mentioned that already.”

  “But if you guys don’t talk about it, how do you decide who wants to do what?”

  Was it a question of want? Or a question of should? “There’s nothing to discuss. Whatever she needs to make her life complete, I will give her.”

  “So if she leaves…you leave?” He still hadn’t bothered with the cake, as if working this out was more important. “It’s that simple? Or are you leaving because you want to get back to the force and you’re using your mother as an excuse?”

  “I don’t need an excuse, Colt.” She faced him square. His questions hit a nerve, but what right did he have to question her when he intended to leave too? Did he think a few shared kisses—wonderful, mind-clearing kisses that shouldn’t have happened—gave him rights? Because if that’s what he was thinking, he was sadly mistaken. “My parents did everything they could for me. They cared for me and loved me from the beginning. That might be hard for you to understand,” she continued, and right at that moment she didn’t care that her harsh words might wound. “But that’s how it was. They sacrificed for me, their only child. Now it’s my turn.”

  “You think I don’t understand sacrifice.”

  She shrugged, silent. How could he comprehend something he’d never known? Yes, he knew what it was like to lose a mother, and that had changed his life.

  For Angelina, it was different.

  Isabo Castiglione wore sacrificial love like a mantle of grace. Now Angelina was determined not to let her mother down. She placed plastic wrap over the remaining cake and slid the tray back into the refrigerator. “Good night, Colt.”

  She walked away, torn, tired, and grumpy. And he’d never even taken one bite of the stupid cake to see how good it was.

  Angelina was right—kind of. He didn’t know a lot about sacrifice, but he could learn, couldn’t he? If his father could embrace a change of heart in his fif
ties, Colt could certainly manage it twenty years younger.

  He placed a call to his friend in upstate New York and asked him to overnight the project his firm had designed three years before. And then he opened his laptop to double-check current zoning areas in Gray’s Glen and the road heading west. When he approached the townspeople, he wanted a firm layout in mind.

  Angelina didn’t trust him. Was that because she saw him as a player or because she’d been played? He guessed both, which made him want to be a better person sooner.

  He had the crazy urge to go wake her up and tell her he was staying put, right there on the Double S, but caution kept him where he belonged, upstairs, working on his plan. He saw what happened with Nick’s mother and then Nick’s wife. Loving ranch life didn’t come naturally to everyone, and what right did he have to mess with Angelina’s plans?

  None.

  He worked until he had to sleep, and when he woke up, he grabbed coffee and went to the barn. There was work to do on the far ranch border. Moderate weather and rain had given too much leeway to big animals and fence posts—even sturdy ones like theirs. He’d spend the day tending fence and wishing he was a better person, because if he was, maybe she wouldn’t be so all-fired ready to pack her things and leave.

  Midmorning his phone rang. He spotted the New York number and answered, surprised.

  “Selma?” The newly named CFO of Hutchison-Mills Investing hadn’t spoken to him in over two years. Not since she’d left the Goldstein Group. “This is unexpected. What’s up?”

  “We want you here, Colt. I want you here. At Hutchison,” she said briskly. Selma rarely wasted words and always went after what she wanted. “I can’t believe Goldstein was stupid enough to let you go over the Tomkins fiasco. I’ll sweeten whatever deal anyone else is offering, but I want you back here, ASAP.”

  The horse neighed, then shied away from the fence because Colt wasn’t paying proper attention. He brought the horse to a halt before his split attentions caused trouble. “You’re making an offer? Why?”

  “You haven’t been on your computer, I take it?”

  Not to check e-mail or stocks because he’d been running on pure adrenalin and not much sleep since the fire. “No time. Tell me in short, understandable phrases because the connection up here isn’t the best.”

  “Major fund increase due to shift in export taxing, and unheard of increases in medical because of cancer treatment breakthroughs. On top of that, recent earthquake activity has shaken up the energy world and is likely to become the next big hashtag, one that will make climate change look minimal after the politicians take sides. You’re suddenly sitting pretty, and my guess is that when you do access your e-mail, you’re going to have a dozen offers. Whatever they offer, I’ll offer more. And I want your team too. We’re ready to deal, Colt. We can ignore the past and work toward the future. Together. Just as it should be.”

  Leave it to Selma to put her own spin on things as long as they were in her favor. “You mean the past where we were a couple and you cheated on me by trading up to the Chief Operating Officer at Hutchison? The idea of working with you and the guy you dumped me for doesn’t exactly tempt me, Selma.”

  “The past is over. Done. Finis. We’re the future, Colt. Hutchison wants you and doesn’t care what it takes to get you. He sees your brilliance. He got burned by Tomkins himself.”

  That was news to Colt because Hutchison’s name wasn’t on the fallout list of investors. “He used an assumed name.”

  “A market fund name. He didn’t like Tomkins and didn’t want an open association. He still got burned—for a similar amount. However, when you’ve got funds showing millions in the debit column, Tomkins becomes small change.” Colt could see her sitting bolt upright, dressed impeccably in her designer clothes. “This gives you the chance to get back in the game,” she went on, “back to what you do best. Make tons of money and watch Goldstein squirm for letting you go.”

  He wanted Goldstein to squirm. His old boss was a greedy, egocentric kingpin in the world of hedge-fund finance, and he’d thought nothing of making Colt the fall guy. Colt had accepted the blame initially because he felt there was some merit to the assessment. But hearing that market shifts were pulling him back on top gave him a different kind of head rush.

  “Don’t make me come out there, Colt. Get on a plane. Make this easy for both of us.”

  “I’m supposed to drop everything here and come crawling back?”

  “Not crawling, Colt. Marching in with your head up.”

  “I doubt that’s going to happen, Selma, but I’ll check my e-mails when I get back to the house. I’ve got work to do right now. I’ll get back to you soon. Thanks for calling.”

  He hung up.

  That would infuriate her, he knew. In retrospect he should have sent her a thank-you note for breaking up with him two years back. She’d been part of the inner sanctum, groomed to rise to the top—and she had. Selma fit into this world of hedge-fund movers and shakers, the cool, calculating, not-much-conscience, minimal-life-outside-of-work type people.

  He wondered if he belonged in that world anymore. Maybe he never did. Maybe the whole thing was to prove to his father that he could be successful in his own right. He wasn’t sure if that should make him proud of himself or ashamed. But he felt a little of both.

  Whether or not he belonged, if Selma was correct about the current shifts, and Colt’s personal investments were recovering as she intimated, he would be wise to set aside some time to adjust his personal portfolios.

  Nick rode toward him looking grim, but that seemed to be the norm these days. “If your break’s over, can you scout the canyon with Brock?”

  “Will do.” He pulled a knit face mask over his mouth. “Stupid wind.”

  “Wet ground, cold wind, bad combination,” Nick acknowledged and then rode west to check fencing.

  Colt found Brock on the other side of the tree-dotted pasture where Hobbs joined them on the four-wheeler. Together they moved to the canyon. Most cattle stayed upland on their own, but there were always a few mothers who sought the privacy of the breach to have their young. By the time he and Brock had brought in six cows and three babies, the afternoon was done and he no longer felt the least bit cold. Driving cattle up the ravine worked up a sweat. With BeeBee’s help, they herded the group into the next fenced area, penning the last of the missing cattle.

  “That’s it then.” Hobbs slapped them each a high-five. “We done it with only two casualties, boys. That’s less’n ever. Don’t it feel good?”

  “It does,” Colt said, and Angelina’s parable came to mind. There was distinct satisfaction in finding those lost cows and newborn calves, then herding them to safety. The thought that he and God agreed on something felt good and strange, all mixed together. “It feels darn good, Hobbs.”

  He turned Yesterday’s News around, and he and Brock walked the horses across the broad upper pasture. Hobbs drove the four-wheeler ahead of them, opened the gate, then relatched it once they’d passed by. They repeated that twice more, and by the time they descended into the barnyard, a late afternoon sun had broken through the clouds and the wind was dying down.

  He thought of what he’d be doing in New York at this time of day. He’d be living in his office, crunching figures, overseeing deals, figuring achievement percentages. In hedge funds, the status quo was never enough. If you weren’t moving forward you were losing ground, always behind. So different from riding the range, gathering calves, and putting up horses.

  As he dismounted and began to unsaddle Yesterday’s News, he heard a sweet, familiar voice drifting through the open door of the barn. The sounds from Angelina and the children made New York seem thin and distant.

  Once more he wondered if this abrupt change was some sort of eternal plan to show him the difference between the Manhattan Colt Stafford and the cowboy he saw in the mirror these days. Selma’s phone call had riled a wealth of emotions. His cynical side would love to go back to New Yor
k, make a fortune, and see his former boss squirm. He couldn’t deny the underlying satisfaction in that.

  But another part was ready to turn his back on the whole thing—as long as his personal investments were secure. There was something indefinably nice about the fresh ranch air, seeing life from a saddle perspective, and waking to see Angelina each morning. The sound of her voice emphasized how important she’d become to him. A coming home he hadn’t expected but needed. He stopped at the house, picked up the long tube he’d had overnighted from Hueber Architectural, and set the plans in the backseat of the SUV. He’d run these down to Josh Washington’s place and get the contractor’s advice about his idea, but first he needed to see Angelina smile over baby kittens.

  He crossed the barn, determined. One way or another, he wanted a future with this woman. He needed to court her in earnest because whenever he thought of the Double S and settling down, he saw Angelina by his side and Noah in his arms. Now he just needed to convince the woman in question.

  “Angelina!” Cheyenne pointed at the striped kitten. “When I pet the kittens, this one seems happier than the other ones. Do you think he likes me?”

  From her spot on the floor, Angelina gave the nest of kittens her most serious attention. She heard more than kitten love in Cheyenne’s question. She heard the heart of a child whose mother walked out on her. She read in her face a little girl searching for reasons…and something warm and fuzzy to cuddle. “I think it could very well mean that, darling.”

  Angelina’s chest tightened when Cheyenne slanted a sincere smile at her. A beautiful child, hiding so much emotion, pretending things were all right, hanging on to anger like a bull rider wrapping his hand in the rope.

  Who would watch out for Cheyenne and Dakota once she left? Who would encourage their imaginations? Their love for animals, patriotic Popsicles, and princess gowns?

  Dakota crooned to the tiny calico as Colt approached from the far side of the barn. “I’ve been hoping you’d show me these kittens, Ange.”

  “And here they are.”