by Vicki Tharp
“Let her talk,” Mac said.
Hank put his hands up, then crossed them over his chest. “Fine. Talk.” By the way he said it, he might as well have said, “Better make it good.”
“So, Dad,” Jenna started again. Hank chuckled and shook his head but didn’t interrupt. “I went to college to be a social worker because I wanted to help people. There’s something missing, and I think I figured out what it is.”
She paused, but Hank motioned her to continue. His face was still hard, but he’d uncrossed his arms from his chest and leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees.
“I want to drop out of social work and become an equine therapist.”
“A horse shrink?” Alby’s voice rose.
“No, it’s—”
“Someone who uses horses to help people with physical problems,” Mac said.
“And mental,” Jenna added, her eyes cutting between Mac and Boomer. “Specifically, I want to help veterans. I want to help improve their lives, physically, emotionally, spiritually. I want to do that, and I want to do that here.”
“Here?” Dale asked.
“Here.” Jenna stood and stepped in front of the fire and turned toward the group. “What better place than this valley, these mountains? I’ve seen firsthand how this place, the horses, can help people.”
Mac held her gaze and nodded once, then shot a quick glance at Boomer. He and Mac went way back. Of all the people around the fire, even with her husband there, Boomer ventured he alone knew the kind of transformation Mac had gone through at the ranch.
“But it won’t work without Mac and Boomer.”
The beer and the pills and the physical exhaustion had settled hard in Boomer. He startled out of his half daze. “Me? I don’t know anything about any of that.”
“You know horses. More importantly, you and Mac, you two know soldiers. You’ve been in combat. You understand what it was like over there. You know what it’s like to shoot and be shot at. The horses, the physical therapy, the peace they bring help to a point. You two,” Jenna looked between Mac and Boomer again, “you two can give them someone to talk to, someone who can understand what they’re going through. That’s something I could never give them.”
“I’m no shrink,” Mac said.
“You don’t have to be. You just be you. What do you say?”
For the longest time, no one spoke as they absorbed her words and the ramifications to the Lazy S and the people they might help.
Then it was like a collective gag had been ripped away and they all spoke at once.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Mac said.
“I’m proud of you,” Hank added.
“I’m nobody’s role model,” Boomer grumbled. “Hell, I’m the one you want to steer them away from.”
Jenna smiled at her father, and the worry lines on her forehead eased. “You mean it?”
He stood and pulled her into his arms and hugged her tight. “Yeah, baby, I mean it.” His voice was gruff, but he got all the words out clear enough.
Boomer looked away. His chest tightened and he couldn’t exactly say why. Was he touched by the moment? Or by the fact that it had been a really, really, really long time since anyone had said they were proud of him?
More importantly, even longer since he’d been proud of himself.
* * * *
The moon shone high and the fire burned low, and after a long back-and-forth about Jenna’s ideas for the therapy program and how it would fit into the workings of the rest of the ranch, everyone had grown silent.
Then Quinn took Jenna’s hand, stood, and pulled her to her feet. He glanced around at everyone, never quite meeting anyone’s gaze. He shifted from foot to foot and said, “I have to leave in the morning, and I wanted to say to everyone how much Jenna means to me. I know you haven’t always approved,” he said to Hank, “but I think even then you knew I had Jenna’s best interest at heart. That I love her.”
Jenna backed a step away, but Quinn kept a tight grip on her hand. “Quinn,” Jenna’s voice dropped to a stage whisper. “What are you doing?”
“What I should have done a long time ago.” Quinn dug into the front pocket of his motorcycle pants and pulled out a tiny box. Then he got down on one knee.
“Oh, my gosh.” Lottie covered her mouth and Dale tucked her under his arm.
“Quinn.” Jenna’s voice hardly carried, but the warning in her tone was undeniable. The way she shook her head didn’t look like someone who couldn’t believe what was happening. At least, not in a good way.
Boomer had been there and knew the signs. Quinn had stars in his eyes, love in his heart, and a long deployment weighing heavy on his mind.
Quinn opened the ring box and held it out to Jenna.
“It—it’s beautiful.”
“Jenna, I have loved you since before it was proper.” He sneaked a look at Hank. “Or safe. You’re an incredible woman that I want in my life. I want you with me for now and for always. Will you marry me?”
“You’re leaving for Okinawa. Tomorrow.”
“Come with me.”
Hank harrumphed.
“When the semester is done,” Quinn wisely added. “Come to Japan, be my wife.”
Jenna pulled her hand from his. “Japan?”
Quinn’s smile faltered around the edges.
“You were sitting right here. Right next to me. The therapy program is my dream, here, at this ranch. This is how I can make a difference. Did you not hear what I said? What I wanted?”
“I thought what you wanted was for us to be together.”
“I do, but—”
“But not if it’s not exactly how you want it. Not if it isn’t on your terms.” Quinn paced toward the fire then back again, a hand on his hip and a finger pointed at his chest. “Do you have any idea what I’ve sacrificed, what I gave up for this assignment? What I did so I could be with you, take you with me?”
“I never asked you to—”
Quinn snorted out a bitter, cold laugh and held up a hand. “Don’t finish that sentence.” He snapped the ring box closed and set it in her palm.
“I can’t accept this.”
“I bought it for you. Keep it, sell it. I don’t care. I never want to see it again.”
The “or you” seemed implied as he snagged his leather jacket off the log and walked away into the darkness, but then again, Quinn was a proud Marine who’d had his heart handed to him in front of God and everyone.
No one spoke. Even Alby, and he always had something to say.
“Dad…I…” Jenna folded the ring box against her chest as Hank stood and pulled her into him. Boomer lowered his gaze and damned that his flask had been swiped, the rotten bastards. He rooted around in his cooler, but came up with empties.
A pebble hit him in the hand and he glanced over at Mac. She tossed her head in the direction Quinn had taken off.
He mouthed, “Why me?”
She rolled her eyes like the answer was obvious. Maybe to her it was, but Boomer got up anyway and headed up after Quinn.
“Boom.” Hank tossed him a set of keys. “He’s gonna need a ride to his parents’ house.”
Lottie and Dale were up and giving Jenna hugs. Alby and Santos had magically vanished into thin air.
On his way past Mac, Boomer quietly said, “I’m not the guy for this.”
She gave him a light shove. “You’re the only guy for this.”
Boomer wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that, but he guessed it didn’t really matter. Quinn had already disappeared from view. Boomer jogged to catch up. His stride was off since he didn’t have his running leg on, and the socket jarred the end of his stump despite the extra padding.
Then he saw a faint shadow up ahead and hollered out, “Wait the hell up, man.”
Quinn didn’t stop, his steps didn’t even slow or falter. Boomer jogged faster, the stutter in his step more pronounced the faster he went.
When he finally caught up to Quinn, Boomer lengthened his usual walking stride to keep up with him. Being a Marine, Boomer recognized the stride and the carriage of a man on a mission.
Even if that mission was getting the hell out of Dodge.
“Come on,” Boomer said. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
Quinn kept walking. Like he hadn’t heard him, like Boomer wasn’t even there.
Boomer clasped a hand on Quinn’s shoulder and stopped him short. Quinn knocked Boomer’s hand free, shoved him back, then got in his face. “Outta my way, Boom.”
Instead of backing down, Boomer bumped Quinn in the chest with his own. “You wanna fight, big man? Show me what you got?”
“What I want—” Quinn shouted, spitting saliva with the words. Quinn glanced behind them to where they’d come from, and Boomer understood.
What a man wanted and what a man could have sometimes weren’t even in the same solar system.
Boomer knew that better than most.
Quinn sagged as the fight left his system.
“Let me drive you home.”
Quinn didn’t argue. He didn’t do much of anything until Boomer steered him toward Hank’s Ford.
The drive over to Quinn’s parents’ house felt longer than the ten miles it was. The road was winding and Quinn hadn’t said one word since they’d gotten in. When Boomer pulled up in front of the modest ranch house, he cut the engine and the headlights.
Quinn didn’t get out as soon as Boomer threw the lever in to park, so he assumed Quinn had something he wanted to say. Lord knew Boomer didn’t know what to say. What kind of life-altering advice could he give a man? His wife had left him. And Sidney? Well, Sidney might want him, but not as the man that he was. She wanted the cleaned-up, Boy Scout version she had of him in her mind. The real him? The one full of warts and war wounds and bad booze? Not so much.
Quinn stared out the windshield and laughed, but it was full of derision, not humor. “I thought that was what she wanted, I thought—”
“What she wanted? Or what you wanted?”
“I thought they were the same. Isn’t being together what matters?”
Boomer was at a loss for words, except for a few expletives for Mac for getting him into this in the first place. He could try to placate Quinn with meaningless words, but they would be just that—meaningless. Quinn didn’t deserve that. What he deserved was the truth, at least as much of the truth as Boomer understood himself.
“I’m not gonna sit here and blow sunshine up your ass, man,” Boomer started. “I don’t have any answers for you. Wish I did, but I don’t. All I know is, if you love her like you say you do, then some way, somehow, the two of you will make it work.”
Quinn did look at him then. “You saying I should give up my flying, my career, to stay in some Podunk—”
“I didn’t say that. But that’s what you’re asking Jenna to do. Give up what she loves, what she’s passionate about.”
“I thought all the experts said love is enough.”
Boomer was quiet while he processed the truth in that. Or, should he say, the mistruth. “In my experience, love alone is never enough.”
CHAPTER NINE
Four weeks. Four weeks of waiting, hoping, and searching on their days off and they had found…abso-freaking-lutely nothing. Eli and Angel had vanished from the face of the planet, as if Scotty had locked on the tractor beams and beamed them aboard the starship Enterprise.
The sheriff had found nothing either. Not at local auctions, or even on Craigslist. Each day that went by, hope drained away drip by drip, drop by drop.
Jenna had long since gone back to school, but called daily for updates.
Sidney didn’t envy Hank one bit.
Now, for the first time since the horses were taken, she and Bryan had three days to look for them. They were taking the mustang string out for their first overnight camping expedition, and she was going to make damn good use of their time.
Last night, she, Bryan, Mac, and Hank had pored over the maps looking for the best routes through the mountains, to the blind canyons, or any place people and horses could hide out. Trouble was, there was too much territory and too little time.
Bryan knocked on her doorjamb as she stuffed the last of her clothes into her saddlebags. “You about ready?”
She tossed the bag over her shoulder. “Ready.” Then she spotted the guns. On his right thigh was strapped a military-style thigh holster complete with gun. He held a rifle in one hand and a pistol and holster in the other. “What’s that?”
“Precaution. You know how to use them?”
“If you need me to kill a can at fifty paces, I’m your girl. If you’re talking high noon at the O.K. Corral, probably not.”
He laid the rifle on her bed, pulled the pistol from the holster, and tucked the holster into the waistband of her pants until the clip captured her belt. “This is a Glock 19 with an extended mag, which means you have sixteen rounds, including the one in the chamber. No safety except on the trigger. Just point and shoot. But if you shoot,” he looked up from where he was still fiddling with the holster, trying to get it adjusted right, and looked her in the eye, “you shoot to kill. Because I guarantee they will.”
The laugh on her lips died before it could come out. “Wait, you’re serious.”
“Deadly.”
“If we find the people who stole the horses I figured we’d call—”
“Irish, if we find them, or, worse, they find us, there won’t be anyone we can call who can get there in the time it would take them to put a bullet into that fiery little head of yours. Or mine.”
Sidney sucked in a breath and held it, but it didn’t stop the shiver that overcame her or do anything to take the extra beat out of her heart rate. In fact, it only made her feel light-headed and queasy, so she let it out.
“Or we could find the horses all alone in a mountain meadow, up to their bellies in green grass.” That notion sounded like rainbows and moonbeams as reality took a back seat to naïveté, or was that wishful thinking?
He stared at her. Not as if she had gone completely around the bend and needed someone proficient in the use of straitjackets to get her back, but as if he wanted to give her a moment in her little fantasy world. They both knew that if there had been any way for Eli to find his way back to the ranch he would have been there by now, and her mind simply refused to consider other reasons why he hadn’t made it back. Like severe injury or death.
Bryan’s eyes narrowed as he watched her. His hard expression softened and the bulge of muscle at his jaw relaxed, as if he knew exactly the turn her thoughts had taken. “Or we could find them belly deep in grass.”
It felt like he was throwing her a bone.
He picked up the rifle and followed her out of the barn, where they’d left the horses saddled. The sky was growing light in the east, while the western mountains were still shrouded in darkness. The air was cool, and the dew-dampened grass wet the toes of her boots. Thing Two had pulled on his rope to get enough slack to shear the tops off all the grass in a two-foot radius of the hitching post.
Starting off, she was going to ride the black-and-white paint who she had named Dante because she’d gone through the seven circles of hell earning the horse’s trust. Bryan was riding the buckskin he’d named Rio. Thing One and Thing Two had a halter and lead rope, because they were going to be ponied first and switched out to ride later along the trail.
She tied her saddlebags onto the back of her saddle while Bryan tied a scabbard on the right side of his. Donkey hee-hawed when Bryan checked the animals’ load of food and camping supplies to be sure they hadn’t shifted on the pack tree.
Bryan slipped a treat from his po
cket and fed it to Donkey. As much as he liked to deny it, the donkey was his. Donkey only hee-hawed for one man.
“Nice ass, Boom,” Mac said as she materialized out of the darkness. She had a bad habit of doing that and would surprise everyone but Bryan, who had his own set of impressive ninja stealth skills.
He smiled and patted Donkey. “Added squats to my routine for you, beautiful.” He wagged his eyebrows up and down suggestively. If Sidney didn’t know he considered Mac a sister, she might have been jealous.
“I was talking about the one with ears,” Mac said.
“Yeah, and whiskey leaves a bad taste in my mouth too.”
Mac rolled her eyes, shook her head, and muttered something that to Sidney sounded a whole lot like “incorrigible.”
Then Mac’s whole demeanor changed and Sidney fought the urge to stand at attention. Mac held out extra batteries for the two-way radios they had packed away.
“We might have some weather moving in over the next few days, so Dale wants to round up the calves to tag and vaccinate in case the river swells and we can’t get to them for a few weeks. With us up by the box canyon, that should keep us within radio contact a little longer.”
Sidney snagged a pack of batteries, but when Mac handed the other to Bryan she held on to it until he looked her in the eye. Mac didn’t say anything, but they held a whole lot of conversation with that look alone. Mac finally gave him a short nod and released the package. “Don’t do anything stupid; that’s an order.”
Bryan barked with laughter. “Don’t worry, I don’t think my pride could handle you saving my ass twice in one lifetime.”
“I’m trusting you to keep it that way.”
The smile slid from his face as he sobered and gave her a curt nod.
He didn’t say anything else. In fact, he didn’t say anything else for the next few hours as they climbed higher and higher into the rocky foothills and turned south toward the first pass.
“I’m sorry about Mac,” Sidney said at last, tired of the relentless silence.
“What are you sorry about?”