by Sawyer Belle
She panted, fighting to dam her tears, not wanting them to spill in front of him. Her next words came out in a whisper.
“How do you think that makes her feel?” When he didn’t answer, “Forget about your own guilt. Think of hers.”
She turned and sped down the steps, stomping passed Sass only to slide to a stop. A ride was exactly what she needed. She grabbed the first bridle she saw hanging on a wooden post and buckled it onto the roan. Flinging herself onto Sass’s bare back, one swift kick of her heel and the pair tore out of the stables, beating down the shadows across the open meadow while tears streaked down Mackenna’s cheeks.
Brent went to the window and watched her sprint away from him, from his biting tongue and callous insults. His features were still twisted in anger, but his innards were cringing at how he sent her away and the message she shot to his soul before she left. He had not once in the past five years thought of the guilt his mother must surely feel. After the accident, Brent had given up any ideas he once owned for his future and devoted his time and attentions to caring for her.
Alora had never asked it of him, but to him it wasn’t a question to be answered. She was his mother, whose entire world had just been shattered. There was no way he could walk away and continue with his plans. She was constantly pushing him to take jobs out of state, to date someone seriously, to go to college somewhere, but he considered it a mother’s natural inclination and had refused.
For years, he worked side-by-side with Ty raising cattle for slaughter. It was a job that worked him hard enough to forget his own abandoned ambitions. During the summers Ty would always help his family out on the dude. Brent had never had any interest in it. He knew it would take him away from his mother’s home, which was too far away to commute every day. The cattle ranch was only ten miles from home.
His shoulders sagged with the realization. That’s why his mother had persuaded him to work the dude this summer. At the time, she made a case for Bev McCrae, saying she was starving for good hands. Alora had said it was the height of bad manners for him to refuse Bev’s request for help on the dude and she would not allow him to shame her that way. The McCraes had been good, Christian friends to them and he couldn’t justify refusing to help either.
As he stood gilded in the fading sunlight, he thought back to those four weeks that Mackenna was injured. The three wranglers managed just fine without her. Bev McCrae was not in any desperate need of help. Brent shook his head at his mother’s trickery. More than likely she had begged Bev to take him on at the dude. Why? Mackenna’s words echoed through him. She pushes you into something you might enjoy. She pushed him away from her so that he could enjoy himself without the burden of taking care of her.
Mackenna was right. The harder he fought to hate life, the more guilt he put on his mother. What the hell was he supposed to do? He didn’t feel right enjoying life when his mother had suffered so much. He could never live with himself if he followed his dreams, leaving her to live out her days alone. The reality was that he could never pursue the career he wanted or a serious relationship as long as he nursed his mother. He couldn’t afford it even if he wanted to.
Sure, the summer had been more pleasant than he had imagined, but it was almost over. Then, he’d be back to the cattle and back in his home. Mackenna would be back in Nevada where her dreams for her own future awaited. Three weeks, he thought. This was Mackenna’s summer, too, and she deserved to enjoy the last three weeks of it, and he had just about taken that away from her. He had no right to send her off in tears just for trying to be a friend.
He descended the steps and found Jake. Bridled and bare back, he bore Brent across the meadow in pursuit of the strawberry roan and her golden-haired rider.
Chapter 13
Mackenna was thankful for the clear night as the moonlight tumbled over tiny rocks in the mountain stream, glowing white against the night. With it being near the end of summer, the stream had degenerated to more of a trickle, but it was enough to make the banks around it green and lush during even the driest months. She dared not go beyond it. She did not want to be too far away from the ranch. She was alone and without saddle or weapon of any kind.
She sat on the ground, Sass’s reins in her hand as the horse grazed nearby. The tears came without ceasing as she threw pebbles into the water. Indulge your little crush on me, he had said, and every time she repeated it in her head, she cringed and blushed. He knew she had feelings for him. That on its own was bad enough, but that he would reduce them to a teenage crush hurt her deeply. He would never see her as anything more than a kid. She pulled her knees into her chest and wiped her eyes on them, steadying her breaths.
“Mackenna,” came his voice from behind her. She turned to find him sitting atop Jake staring down with eyes full of regret. She hid her face from him.
“Brent, I gave you what you wanted and left you alone. Now you do the same for me and leave.”
“I’m not going to leave you out here alone,” he said. “Come back with me.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”
“Fine,” he said, dismounting. “Then, I’ll stay here with you.”
He sat on the grass next to her and she turned her face away from him. He knew it was to hide her tears. He didn’t want to embarrass her again by broaching the subject that had brought them on. As the silence thickened between them he heaved a heavy sigh and began talking about what he had never intended to tell her.
“My mom was paralyzed five years ago,” he began weakly. “I had just turned nineteen and was looking into moving away for college. It had been raining hard that whole day. When I got home from work that night, I was drenched. My dad had called home to tell my mom that he was stuck at the office and wouldn’t be home for hours. Back then we had a small log home about fifteen miles from town. Nothing fancy, about ten acres in the mountains we used for our own leisure. My dad was an attorney and that’s how we made a living.
“When Dad had called to say he’d be at the office, Mom felt bad and decided to take him some dinner. She’d asked me to do it first, but I refused. I’d been out in the rain all day and didn’t want to go back out in it. So, she decided to go. At the last minute, my twelve-year-old sister Natalie said she wanted to go, too. So, they left to take my dad food.”
Mackenna watched him recount the story. His gaze was focused on the stream ahead of him, his eyes beaming like bits of the moon overhead.
“Well, when she got to the office he was there all right, but he wasn’t working. He was screwing his paralegal. Both my mom and sister saw. They ran out of there before he could say anything, but he followed her in his car. As she was driving back to the house in one of the mountain passes there was a mudslide. It came rushing down right at her and washed her truck off the road and down two hundred feet.
“Nat died,” he said with sad finality. “Mom didn’t, but she never walked again. My dad pulled her out of the car. One week after Nat’s funeral, he filed for divorce. He said he’d had the papers drafted up before the accident. Mom was too distraught to know what was going on around her. She signed without even reading them. If she had, she would have known that he left her nothing, not even the home she’d lived in for twenty-two years. No alimony. Nothing.
“Obviously, Mom had no job or income of her own, and who was going to hire her? In one month, she lost the man she adored, the home she knew, the daughter she loved and the use of her legs. She wasn’t mentally fit to handle it. I moved us into town, to a small apartment that I could afford on my wages. She gets disability, but it’s about twelve hundred bucks a month. With Medicaid she gets some help with her prescriptions but it doesn’t cover the in-home care she needs while I work to keep us alive.”
Mackenna was horrified and heartbroken for him and Alora. She could not imagine living through such an ordeal, losing so much in one night. She reached for something, anything, to combat the despair in his voice.
“I can’t believe your father would l
eave your mother with nothing if he knew all of the circumstances.”
“He knew what condition he was leaving her in, and I’ll be damned before I ever seek him out for help. The day he walked out of her life, he walked out of mine.”
She knew there was no arguing with him. There was no need. She’d feel the same way in his position.
“So, anyway,” he continued, “That’s why I won’t leave my mom. It’s already killing me to have to leave her in Emma’s care for the summer.” He turned to her and their eyes met. “I’d appreciate it if you kept this to yourself.”
“Brent, I would never betray your confidence,” she said steadfastly. “Does Ty know?”
He nodded. “The McCraes go to our church and were friends to us before the accident. They know all about it, but I still don’t want it talked about. Kelly probably doesn’t know, unless Ty’s said something to her. It was the McCraes who offered me work and decent pay on their ranch. They are the reason we’re as comfortable as we are. We owe them a lot.”
“There is no charity from the McCraes,” Mackenna said. “They are good Christian folk, yes, but you earn your pay. You’re one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met, Brent. If you weren’t pulling your weight, the McCraes wouldn’t have kept you, charity or no.”
He shrugged, returning his gaze to the water. She studied his profile as if for the first time, seeing all of the years of struggle and emotion that sculpted the beautiful lines of his face. Now she understood why he called his life in Montana a prison, although she suspected that part of him loved it. It was likely more the bitterness of being forced to give up what he’d wanted to do than it was being in Montana.
“What were you going to study before the accident?” she asked.
He looked at her. “Photography.”
She flinched.
“What?” he asked, an amused smile taking hold. “Shocked ya?”
“Yeah,” she said, grinning back. “I never would have figured you for the artsy type.”
“Well, photography is as much science and math as it is art, at least if you shoot film anyway.”
“Sounds like you were able to study it a little bit.”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling as the memories came back to him. “I took some classes in high school. I shot all of the yearbook photos my senior year. My teacher said I had talent and continued to mentor me after high school, at least until the accident. Once mom and I moved into town I sold all of my gear. We needed the extra cash. Now, I don’t even have a cheap disposable camera to my name.”
“Photography, huh?” she shook her head disbelievingly. “I would have figured you for something more like engineering or something.”
“Engineering?” he said with mock disgust on his face.
“Yeah,” she defended. “You totally have an engineer’s personality: serious, emotionless, no sense of humor…”
When he raised an eyebrow to her, she elbowed him playfully.
“Just kidding.”
“Yeah, right,” he drawled and they chuckled. Amid the silence that followed, Mackenna wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him close, but she settled for placing her hand on his upper arm.
“Thank you for telling me, Brent. I know you didn’t have to, and I’m sorry for goading you into it.”
“You didn’t goad me into it, Mackenna,” he said then placed his hand over hers. “I’m sorry for attacking you like I did. I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on you.” He reached out a finger to trace the tear line streaming through the day’s dirt on her cheeks. “I hate that I made you cry.”
Mackenna shivered, whether from his touch or the chill air she did not know, but in response Brent wrapped an arm around her and held her close. She leaned her head against his chest and sighed. He was warm and comforting. How would she be able to leave in three weeks? The thought already tore at her, teasing fresh tears into her eyes. She held them back with pinched eyelids. They sat silently and content for a good while.
Brent surprised himself by how easily he found comfort with her. He didn’t know what had set about the change but ever since the night of their dance he saw her through new eyes. Though he fought hard to ignore and shun her, he still studied her when she wasn’t aware. He found his gaze fastened on her smile, the way it lit up her entire face and was so infectious that those around her grinned like fools.
He watched as she gave her heart to Sass every day, displaying her affection in every caress or coo. She had kept her hair bundled at the nape of her neck throughout the day, but he couldn’t forget how soft and shiny it was falling around her face and his hands, and he longed to run his fingers through it. Her jeans were looser on her now than when she first arrived, her arms tighter and stronger and he nearly fell from his horse when he realized that he was watching the soft bounce of her breasts as she cantered along the line of tourists in their party.
Though he didn’t understand the sudden attraction he felt for Mackenna, he certainly didn’t welcome it. A part of him felt like it was wrong to think of her in any sexual way, simply because of her age. His mother was right that she was closer to eighteen than sixteen, but he still could not break the connection he had made between her and his kid-sister.
He still wasn’t sure that he agreed with his mother that Mackenna had real feelings for him other than friendship, but he was determined to keep their relationship held at friendship anyway. There was no point exploring something that would end in three weeks anyway. Toward that end, he patted her arm and helped her rise.
They rode back to the ranch quietly and though Mackenna had hoped that he would invite her up to his loft to spend more time together, he did not. She felt a greater connection to him now that he had shared something so personal with her, but she did not know where that connection affected him. Whatever he felt toward her, she knew that the Brent she loved was back and would stay for the next three weeks.
Chapter 14
“Psst!” she called up the wooden steps to the loft. When no sound came back down to her, she made the noise again. Soon, Brent was leaning over the edge of the platform and looking sleepily down at her. He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his knuckles as he waited for her to say why she was interrupting his sleep.
“What’s wrong?” he finally asked.
“Get dressed and get down here,” she said.
“Why?”
“We’re going on a midnight ride!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on! It’s the last full moon of our summer here. It’s tradition.”
“I’m sleeping, Mackenna!”
“Not anymore,” she called. “Now get your butt down here. Everyone else is outside waiting.”
“Okay, okay. Fine.”
He dressed himself and stomped down the stairs, still half asleep. Mackenna had their horses saddled and bridled and she handed his reins to him as he climbed up. They left the stables and met Ty, Kelly and Leslie outside.
“So, what’s this all about?” Brent asked Ty.
“Well, just think of it as sort of hide-and-seek on horseback.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Yep! It adds to the fun. It’s an old Slanted S tradition. The last full moon of the summer, all of the wranglers do it.”
Brent looked skeptically at the riders around him.
“Don’t worry, Brent,” Leslie said. “It’s my first time, too.”
Ty explained the perimeter and the rest of the rules to Leslie and Brent. When he gave the word, the five riders broke off in separate directions, running away from the light of the lodge. There was to be no stream crossing. That was the major rule and served to keep them all safely corralled within hailing distance of the lodge.
Mackenna smiled into the night as she and Sass ran to the trees for cover. Even with the full moon overhead it was difficult to see her hand before her face. She could hear the clomping hooves throughout the meadows and wondered who would be the last one found. She
led Sass on a slow walk, trying to avoid any noisemaking obstacles.
Brent meandered along the stream, allowing its constant babble to cloak the sounds of Jake’s footfalls. As he wove around, allowing the cool night breeze to tease him fully awake, the sounds of female laughter made him tug on the reins and stand fast. Soon, he heard Ty’s voice.
“You suck at this game,” Ty chuckled. “You’re supposed to avoid being found.”
“Hmm…” Leslie countered. “A full moon on a cloudless night, everyone doing their best to leave us alone, no cabin walls to hear through…I think I’m very good at this game.”
“Well, now that you mention it,” Ty said suggestively, “get over here.”
She chuckled again and Brent slowly turned Jake around and crept away from the lovers. Once he felt a safe distance away, he held Jake still beneath the branches of an old pine and listened to the sounds around him. Soon, the steady snaps of grass and twigs crunching beneath the hooves of a horse approached. He stayed where he was until the black moving shadow came into view. He was about to pounce and claim victory when another shadow moved from the side and took advantage.
“Ha!” Mackenna called out to Kelly. “Gotcha!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Kelly said dryly. “I’m done anyway.”
“Hey,” she called after her friend as Kelly turned her horse toward the lodge. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Mackenna,” she said tightly. “Absolutely nothing.”
“That doesn’t sound like nothing.” Kelly ignored her as she continued to walk away. “Kelly!” Mackenna called after her. “If you’ve got something to say to me, say it.”
Kelly whirled her horse around. “Fine! I never figured you for such a backstabber.”
“What are you talking about?!”