Wrangled

by Natasha Stories

  I’d lost my appetite, so I excused myself and went to check on Tali, who had eaten with the other children a little earlier. She was clingy when she saw me, missing me no doubt. At two and a half, she could be a handful, but when she was being good, she was a delight. Just beginning to talk in complete sentences, she carefully pronounced each word according to her own take on it, hesitating between as if she were giving me the opportunity to understand her better. It sounded odd, like a series of one-word sentences. Now she was asking about her brother. “Mommy. Where. Al? Tali. Want. Al.”

  “I know, baby, I want him, too. He’s sick, though. When he gets better, he’ll come home.”

  “Want. Al. now, Mommy.” The stubborn set of her sweet little mouth told me we could be in for a melt-down if I didn’t distract her.

  “Do you want to go see the horses, baby?”

  “Horses! Tali. want. to. see. horses.”

  “Okay, let’s go see them, then.” Al was forgotten for the moment and I felt disloyal to him for it, but I couldn’t face a Terrible Two temper tantrum tonight. Yes, I knew we might see Cody, but the risk was worth averting the tantrum.

  It was late enough that I really should have been getting Tali ready for bed, around eight. The long rays of the sinking sun were still slanting across the yard and corral, and the air was still hot and dry. Though Tali was walking and running everywhere now, I carried her in my arms when we entered the barn.

  “Horses, mommy!”

  “Yes, darling, the horses are here. Be nice.” The warning was probably not needed, after all, Tali’s little hand probably couldn’t hurt even the sensitive noses of the horses, but more than once we’d had to extract a struggling kitten from a death grip in her plump little arms. We were trying to teach her to be gentle with the animals. I walked up to a stall with a beautiful tabiano mare, and held Tali up to pet her nose.

  We were making our way down the row when Cody’s deep voice startled me. “Well, look who’s here.”

  “Cody! We, uh, I was just letting Tali visit the horses. She misses A-L-M-A,” I spelled out, “and I needed to distract her.” I felt as though I’d been caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. My voice shook with the nervousness.

  “Oh, that’s okay. Here, let me take her,” he said.

  Before I could object, he’d held his hands out to Tali and she’d leaned into them the way little ones do. I had no choice but to let him have her, or drop her, her angle overbalancing me so that I couldn’t recover with her in my arms.

  “Cody. Horses,” she observed.

  Cody chuckled, and said, “You betcha, Princess. Here, this one’s my horse. Abo, say hi to Tali.”

  Abo snorted when he heard his name, and put his nose over the gate for a pet. “Did you bring any apples or treats?” Cody asked.

  “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t think about it,” I said. Why did the question make me feel guilty, as if I had insulted Cody himself? “Cody, I need to get her back in the house and put down for the night. Can I have her back?” I held out my arms, but this time she shrank back from me, clearly preferring the higher perch on Cody’s arm.

  “I’ll carry her on up to the house for you,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  Here it was again, and I wasn’t at all sure I was ready to talk to him. Not now, not ever. He’d chosen, and I didn’t make the cut. But his voice, his nearness, his scent, all combined to make me weak. Weak in resolve, and weak in the knees if I were honest with myself. But, I wasn’t going to let him know how he affected me, no matter what it cost me in tension. I set my jaw as we strolled toward the house. At the back door, I once again tried to take Tali, and was once again rebuffed by my opinionated little girl. Cody laughed and said he’d take her to our room. With sure steps, he walked to the room that had been ours until just over a month ago, where I was staying while I visited. Her old crib was there, still large enough for her though she’d graduated to a toddler bed.

  “Does she need a diaper at night?” Cody asked. I was surprised that he knew enough about toddlers and potty training to ask that. Wordlessly, I nodded, and he held his hand out to take the overnight style diaper I retrieved from the dressing table. With growing astonishment, I watched as this rough cowboy gently stripped Tali out of her clothes and applied the diaper, then dressed her in a soft little nightgown, laid her in her crib and patted her little bottom. “Go to sleep, now, Tali, okay?”

  “Good night Tali, I love you,” I said softly.

  “Love. You. Mommy. Love. You. Cody.” Her sleepy voice trailed away as my eyes filled with tears. I wasn’t the only one who had given my heart too easily. How much would it hurt my children to realize that Cody was no longer a fixture in their lives? And why did he have to show up tonight to remind her.

  Both of us walked quietly out of the room, and Cody shut the door gently behind him before he turned to me. “Do you want to do this here or outside?”

  “Neither,” I said. “I have nothing to say to you.”

  Cody’s ice-blue eyes turned flat and hurt filled them. “Annalee, what’s got into you? I coulda swore you felt somethin’ for me, and then I come back from a coupla weeks rodeo and you run like a scared rabbit into town. I don’t understand.”

  “Outside,” I hissed. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have with so many ears in the house. Tali wouldn’t wake for hours; I’d be back before that happened. I dreaded this show-down, but it seemed I couldn’t avoid it. We walked quickly through the house, me driven by anger and nerves, and him by the need to keep up with me. Outside, I strode toward the barn, with Cody close on my heels.

  Once inside the relative privacy of the barn, Cody grabbed my arm, the same as he’d done earlier. This time I jerked it away and backed off a couple of steps, before he could undo me with another of those kisses. “Stop it! You don’t have the right to manhandle me like that.”

  “What the fuck, Annalee?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him until he apologized. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just so darned confused, baby!”

  “Do you seriously not know what got me upset Cody Wayne?” I demanded.

  “I don’t have any idea,” he said.

  “Think back to when you came back from those first rodeos. Do you remember telling me to go in the house, without even a hug and kiss after you’d been gone two weeks? Do you remember saying you’d be there in a minute? That was the longest minute in my life, Cody. You never came. You chose the rodeo over me, and then you chose your uncle. As far as I could tell, you didn’t want me anymore, and I decided to make a life without you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think that’s all there is to say.” It was more than I’d meant to admit, but the words were out there, hanging in the air between me and Cody with his open mouth. I didn’t want to hear whatever excuse he had for me. I turned to go and took one step before that big hand had me by the arm once again, and this time I couldn’t shake it off.

  “Oh, no. You ain’t gonna tell me off like that and then not listen to what I have to say.” Cody swung me into his strong grip again, wrapping his arms around me so that I couldn’t step away from him, but I refused to look up at his face just above my head. I didn’t trust myself not to fall into a kiss if he tried it again. I went rigid, unwilling to listen but unable to leave, waiting for his excuse.

  “I’m sorry, baby. I shoulda sent word to the house. Right after you went in, Bill came runnin’ out to say there was somethin’ wrong with Abo. He’d got too hot in that trailer, and it took us all night to make sure he didn’t go down with colic.” It sounded reasonable, but then why hadn’t he sought me out in the next couple of days. I wouldn’t ask, though. I’d sound like I was whining, and I wasn’t a whiner. Furthermore, he’d take it as a sign of partial forgiveness, and I wasn’t ready for that, either. But, the month after I left the ranch had afforded plenty of time for him to come by, or at least give me a call. That I would mention.

  “So, when I left th
e ranch, you just figured I was gone and not worth coming after?”

  “Baby, you know how busy it gets around here in the summer. And there was a rodeo every weekend. I just didn’t have time.” It must have sounded lame even to him, because he winced with the last phrase.

  “Well, that lets me know where I stand, which is just about what I expected. Let me go.”

  “I won’t, not ‘til you give me a kiss and say we’re okay,” the set of his jaw was stubborn.

  “Oh, my God, you think we’re okay? We are so not okay,” I said.

  He unwrapped his arms then, but grabbed both arms above the elbow and bent to look into my face, his expression stunned. “Baby, what are you sayin’?” Pulling me to him, he wrapped one hand in my hair, thrusting his fingers through the bun as if it were there for a handle, then kissed me. His tongue forced my lips apart, and when I kept my teeth closed against him, he gave my hair a yank that made me involuntarily open my mouth to protest. Instantly, his tongue was inside, and the arm that held me tight clutched me even closer to him, bowing me back over it as he pressed his assault.

  My body was on fire, my senses lost in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions; fierce joy to be in his arms again, anger that it hadn’t been my choice, sadness that this would be the last time. Despite the fact that my heart was racing and dampness was gathering between my legs, I knew that as soon as he let me go, I’d have to walk away. He’d chosen, and he’d chosen wrong. I couldn’t let him hold my heart hostage any more, nor could I let him walk back into the lives of my children and hurt them again.

  My swirling thoughts became nothing as Cody kissed me and sank to his knees with me, finally depositing us on the fresh straw in an empty stall. As his body covered mine, pressing me down, holding me prisoner, I lost the battle with my desire, and kissed him back. With a groan, he covered a breast with his hand and pressed his erection into me and I finally came to my senses.

  “Cody, no!” I gasped. As I struggled with all of my might, it finally sank in on him that I didn’t want what he was trying to make happen. He stopped abruptly and rolled away from me, raising up on one elbow to look at me with surprise.

  “Baby, we cain’t make love?”

  “No, Cody. It’s over.”

  He sat all the way up with a gasp, then his face darkened and drew together in a menacing frown. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all evening. Let me up, I’m going in the house. You need to leave me alone, Cody.”

  “Go on then,” he said in a low snarl. “But I ain’t plannin’ to leave you alone. You’re mine, Annalee.”

  ~~~

  The following Monday I dragged myself out of bed and got ready for work. I’d left Tali crying in Amber’s arms on Sunday night and had driven straight to the hospital, where I found Al feeling a little better and in better spirits. Since he was able to stay awake longer, we had a nice long visit and he was fine with it when I told him I had to get home and go to sleep so I could work in the morning.

  “I’ll be okay, Mommy,” he said, with a brave little smile on his face that just about broke my heart. One last kiss and hug, and I tore myself away to drive home and collapse from my emotional weekend. In bed, I cried myself to sleep, wondering if my little family would ever be normal again.

  When I got to work Monday morning, it felt like I’d landed on a different planet. After being there only about six weeks, and taking the last of them off to stay with Al in the hospital, it was like I needed to start training all over again. Mr. Clark wasn’t in yet, so I went to work putting the files in order that he’d left on my desk, and reviewing them so I’d know what closings were coming up and when. When he still wasn’t in after I’d finished that, I opened my training manual to review. Part of my duties were to hold open houses for some of Mr. Clark’s listings, and the only compensation I’d receive for the overtime would be the opportunity to pick up buyers of my own and earn commissions if I could sell them a house. With an enormous hospital bill looming over my head, I was eager to get started on that.

  It was nearly noon when Mr. Clark arrived, bearing a huge bouquet, which he set down on my desk. “Oh, Mr. Clark, those are just beautiful! Who are they for?” I puzzled for a minute, not remembering a closing that was set for today.

  “Why, they’re for you,” he said. My mouth dropped open and I gawked at him, unable to summon a thought to utter. “I’m sorry I didn’t get down to the hospital last week, my assistant was out you know,” he said, winking. “So I brought the get well flowers to you. Not sure they would allow them in PIC anyway.”

  I knew for a fact they wouldn’t. Pediatric Intensive Care was even more strict than the adult unit, and fresh flowers were banned because of the potential for allergic reaction on top of whatever the kids had wrong.

  “Th-thank you!” I stammered. “They’re beautiful.”

  “Yes, you said that,” he laughed. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, it’s your lunch hour, and I’d like to take you to lunch.”

  “You what…? But, who will answer the phones?” I asked, inanely, because I simply couldn’t process this turn of events. Mr. Clark had never taken me out to lunch before, and no one had ever brought me flowers. I wondered if I were dreaming a fairy tale. I secretly pinched myself, and found to my amazement that I wasn’t dreaming.

  “They’ll go to voicemail like they used to,” he said. “Clients think we’re on call 24/7, but you’ll drive yourself crazy in this business if you don’t set some boundaries. Come on, let’s go get a burger.”

  Still in a bit of shock, I retrieved my purse from the knee hole in the desk and stood up to go. “You look very nice today, Annalee,” Mr. Clark said shyly. If I hadn’t already suspected it, that would have convinced me that I was dreaming. Except the delicious, juicy burger and fries from a local diner certainly tasted real.

  With the exception that Mr. Clark continued to pay me more personal attention than before, the rest of the week passed peacefully. I’d go to the hospital as soon as I was off work, and whichever of the girls was there that week would race home to take care of Daniel while I sat with Alma and Celeste went to work. When Al went to sleep for the night, I’d go home and more often than not fall asleep before I even had a chance to eat. I was losing weight, but I didn’t care. Al was definitely on the mend, though it would prove to be a slow process. We were planning on trying to bring Tali home at the end of the week, if she didn’t get too upset at Al’s continued absence.

  I went out to the ranch on Saturday morning to get my baby girl, but Charity begged me to stay at least until lunch. We hadn’t had much of a chance to catch up, between Al’s injury and my drama with Cody the week before. I hoped there wouldn’t be a repeat of that. I was exhausted, and I knew I didn’t have much in the way of reserves to fight with him. It was a relief when Charity told me he was off at another rodeo.

  “How’s he doing at that, by the way?” I asked.

  “Thought you had no interest,” Charity said, her eyebrows arched.

  “I don’t. Just making small talk,” I claimed.

  “Oh, then you won’t want to hear that he’s not doing all that well. Just holding his own, making enough at one rodeo to enter the next,” she said casually, though her eyes were sharp on me. A small pain went through me on his behalf. Poor Cody. And he thought that the rodeo would be his ticket off the ranch. It looked like it might not work out.

  After lunch, Tali and I went home and I spent some time cleaning the house. I’d seriously neglected my half of that duty lately, but someone was keeping it up. There wasn’t much to do. I was teasing Tali with the feather duster and flicking non-existent dust off the living room furniture when the doorbell rang. I took a quick glance in the decorative mirror on the wall, smoothing my hair back into its neat bun, then opened the door. For the second time that week, I stood in front of my boss with my mouth hanging open like a fish out of water. “Mr. Clark!” I exclaimed.

  “Annale
e, I’ve come to take you and your little girl out for ice cream,” he said. “Would she like that?”

  In the background, I could hear her eager assent. “Tali. Want. Ice. Cream,” she said.

  Ruefully, I invited him in. “Looks like I don’t have a choice in the matter.”

  “That’s what we call a preemptive strike,” he informed me. “By the way, Annalee, would you please drop the Mr. Clark? Makes me feel I’m my father’s age. Just call me Jason, if you don’t mind.”

  “Jason. All right, thank you Jason.” He wasn’t really that much my senior, but I’d been raised to call people in authority by formal address. I guessed he was perhaps in his early thirties. Too old for me, though why that thought should have crossed my mind, I couldn’t say.

  “Just let me get Tali spruced up, and then we’ll be ready, if you don’t mind me in jeans,” I called as I walked Tali down the hall chanting, “Ice. Cream. Ice. Cream.”

  “Not at all; you look sensational,” he called back.

  At the ice cream parlor, Tali sat in a blissful sugar trance, stirring her bowl of ice cream into mush, as Jason and I talked. It turned out he was younger than I’d thought, only twenty-nine. His face was always set in serious lines, making him look both older and more focused, but I learned that day that he was also capable of joking and laughing. By the time I insisted on going home because it was time for Tali’s nap, we were bantering like old friends, and trading good-natured insults about our quirks at the office. Jason asked if I would mind if he came to the hospital with me to meet Al, and I felt I couldn’t refuse. After all, he’d been very kind and very generous. The least I could do was let him meet the object of all the fuss.