by Jillian Hart
“I haven’t seen that in a while.” Ryan breathed, sitting up straight. “We used to have a whole herd of them that would graze in the fields next to our house.”
“We did, too. They’d come and eat the grain set out for the horses.”
“Is he awesome or what?”
Pure, elegant power, the male elk lifted his head to scent the wind. Muscles rippled beneath his tan coat as he stretched. As if sensing danger, the great animal gathered up into a breathtaking leap. Agile and lithe, the bull galloped across the ruby-hued landscape, a streak of brown against the wonder of the dawn. A ray of sunlight haloed him and he vanished.
“Awesome,” Kristin agreed into the silence.
As the SUV crept forward on the ribbon of road, Ryan fought the memories crowding up from the deep well in his heart he’d boarded shut decades ago. Memories of the crisp winter air searing his face. His boots sinking deep in the snow as he tried to walk in his dad’s tracks, though the footprints were too far apart. The crackle of the dried marsh reeds as they rustled when Dad knelt down. The black stock of his hunting rifle resting on his thigh.
“What made these tracks, son?” Dad had asked in that hushed voice he used, not as harsh as a whisper but so quiet Ryan had to scoot up closer to hear. “Look carefully.”
His eight-year-old body had been thrumming with excitement. He hitched up the woolen hat that had slung too low and into his eyes, and frowned at the tracks. They looked just like the deer tracks they saw on the north side of the marsh. But he didn’t want to blurt out the wrong answer without thinking long and hard on it first. He didn’t want to disappoint his dad.
“Here’s a hint. First figure about how long they are.”
“I shoulda known that right off, Dad!” Ryan remembered to keep his voice down even if he wanted to shout with excitement. “It’s an elk. Elks’ tracks are bigger than deer. And, uh, it’s a bull elk. He’d been polishin’ up his antlers on that cottonwood. The bark’s all gone in spots.”
“That’s my smart boy. My guess is if we move along nice and quiet, we just might be lucky enough to get a good look at him.”
The rasping hum of a diesel engine tore Ryan from the past and from his father’s side. He sat with the morning sun stinging his eyes in the passenger seat as Kristin merged onto the wide-open lanes of I-90. The three-trailer semi barreling along in the lane beside them pulled ahead, the driver in an obvious hurry to get home.
Home. How was he going to make it through the next twenty-four hours when he hadn’t even reached his mom’s house and he was already dragging up the past? And feeling torn apart by it. He didn’t know. He didn’t have any answers. He flipped down the visor and winced at his reflection in the mirror. He took one look at his red-rimmed eyes, dark spikes of hair that looked like a twister tore through them and a day’s growth shadowing his jaw.
Yeah, Mom’s gonna take one look at me and start right in. Ryan could hear it already. She’d want to know if he was sleeping enough, eating right, et cetera, et cetera, and there was no way he could tell her the truth. No way he could drag up the past that would only devastate them both. For her sake, he had to be tough.
Troubled, he stared out his side of the windshield and blinked. It was the marsh. Buried in snow, the surface rough and choppy due to a few of the hardier, taller reeds and cattails poking through the snow. The marsh where Dad would take him to learn what a man needed to know.
It wasn’t the hunting. It wasn’t the tracking. It was the self-reliance. The world’s a harsh place, son. He could hear Dad’s mellow baritone as clear and true as the day he’d said it. A smart man adapts and perseveres and learns to take care of himself. Look, there’s the elk.
Ryan saw it perfectly in memory—the proud bull poised at the frozen shore, antlered head lifted to scent the wind on a morning lit by gold and rose, in a world layered with white.
Yeah, Dad, you sure taught me that lesson well. Ryan swallowed past the knot in his throat, turning his head to watch as the marsh whizzed by and fell behind them. Lost from sight like the past. Yeah, his dad’s death taught him way too much. He’d learned to take care of himself at an early age.
“This is our exit.” Kristin’s voice sounded thick.
With excitement? Probably. She had her family waiting, her sisters coming home, her grandparents to draw near. Self-reliance wasn’t something a McKaslin girl needed to know to survive. He realized what felt like envy was really longing. Longing for what could never be.
You can’t change the past, man, he told himself, although he knew that lesson well, too. The past is gone, done, no sense in letting it in. He was changed. A man he hoped his dad would be proud of. Someone who was about as self-reliant as possible in this world of Internet and cell phones, of urban sprawl and shopping malls.
“Look.” Kristin gestured ahead as she circled off the icy ramp and onto the two-lane road that nosed them toward town. “A lot has changed. Oh, that restaurant is new. There’s Gramma’s coffee shop. She has a new awning out front. I’ll have to tell her how cute it looks.”
Ryan scanned the green-and-white-striped awning giving a decidedly Country Living look to the shop that advertised “Espresso” in loopy purple neon. That was the coffee place Mom was always talking about. She’d picked up extra work whenever Kristin’s grandmother needed help.
That’s when he realized the town, with its old-fashioned main street and neat, sturdy buildings that hadn’t changed since the fifties, had grown up, too. A few quaint restaurants, more cafés than the old red Formica-countered diners, brightened up the faded brick buildings marching down the length of several blocks. Corey’s Hardware had a new neon sign, fresh paint and a bench out front.
There was a new antique store prettied up with lace curtains in the wide windows. And the Sunshine Café, where, after he’d saved up change from collecting aluminum, he’d splurge on chocolate milkshakes for him and his little sister before handing over the bulk of the hard-earned dollars to his mom.
“Do your cousins still run that place?”
“Yeah. They make the best chocolate shakes anywhere.”
“I was just thinking about that. Thick and sweet and so chocolaty.” Ryan’s stomach growled. “Wow, I remember you and your sisters would ride your horses into town and tie them up in the parking spots in front of the café.”
“And you would ride your bike.”
His bike. As Kristin navigated along the snowy street, where previous tracks of chained-up vehicles had broken a clear path, he saw snatches of the boy he’d been. Pedaling on his secondhand mountain bike down the wrong side of the road, a rebel without a cause and a chip on his shoulder. Holding down two jobs, bagging at the grocery on weekends and cleaning barns for Kristin’s uncle. Wanting his mother’s life to be easier. Hating that it wasn’t. Missing his dad so much, it hurt to breathe.
I never should have come back, he thought, his eyes stinging. It was too much. Earlier, he’d vowed to keep his thoughts in the present. But what did a guy do when the past was tangled up with the present?
“The closer we get to home, the sadder you look.” Kristin sounded concerned. Caring, the way a friend was.
He lived such a busy life, he didn’t have a lot of friends. And he liked it that way. He shrugged. His problems were his own. “I’m just dog tired. You doin’ okay? I could take over. In fact, why don’t you let me drive?”
“Because those are my dad’s fields. Okay, they’re my sister’s now. Michelle and her husband took over the farming. I’m almost home.”
Kristin probably didn’t realize how much warmth she placed on that word. Her emotion came through as easily as if she’d opened wide her heart. What a blessing she had, in the family she’d grown up with. In the childhood home that rose into sight nestled on the crest of a low rolling hill. The front windows reflected mauve in the rising sun, and the clouds overhead began spitting out tiny airy flakes of snow, as delicate as spun sugar. Like a blessing on this day of homecoming.
“I take it Caitlin belongs to one of your sisters?”
“Yep. I’m a proud aunt many times over.” Okay, there were a hundred excellent reasons for coming home. Her sisters were married, and when they all gathered together for holidays, they’d become a sizable group. It was exciting to see how happy her sisters were. Happy with the lives they’d chosen. Her sisters were mothers now, and that meant a whole troop of nieces and nephews she got to spoil.
Both bitter and sweet, her visits home. Very hard on her poor heart.
“That’s a pleasure I haven’t enjoyed yet, being Uncle Ryan.” For the first time on the trip, he smiled, genuine and true, and it was as if his defenses lowered and she could see more deeply into him. See a glimpse of his dreams. “Mia has just finished vet school. She’s worked hard to get this far, and she hasn’t taken the time to fall in love.”
“She’s smart, finishing her school first.” It’s what she did. “A woman has to be able to make a living on her own.”
“That’s what Mia says, and I agreed. Look at my mom. She married Dad right out of high school. They had a happy marriage until the day he was struck by that truck. It was hard enough facing each day without him there, for all of us, but we struggled financially, too. In a small town with no training whatsoever, Mom cleaned houses and worked at the cannery outside Bozeman. Yet no matter how we all worked, it was never enough to make ends meet. It was hard for her. Mia and me—”
He paused, raked his hand through his dark hair and turned to stare out the window. His throat worked. “We did everything we could to make it easier for her, but it was a hard road to walk.”
He fell silent, gazing off into the fields where tender shoots of winter wheat hid beneath the numbing comfort of snow. Like the anguish that Ryan clearly worked so hard to hide. Kristin’s heart twisted so hard it hurt to breathe, and she trained her attention where it belonged—on the road and not on a man’s silent pain.
She remembered a strong-willed boy who was a little too loud, a tad too reckless. He’d been in the background of her growing-up years, not someone she hung out with. Sure, she’d known he’d lost his dad and that his mom worked a lot. But she’d been a girl herself, and then a teenager too caught up in friends and school and her own family’s loss to have given more than a passing thought to a boy who was nothing but trouble.
That boy’s pain was in the man, a tangible presence that ached like a festered wound. One that had tried to heal over the years, but could not.
She knew what that was like. Some wounds could never close. Some hurts always ached. Some tragedies changed a person forever.
She drove in stinging silence until her parents’ house rose up on the road before them, graced by the soft morning’s glow. The ache inside her eased. The familiar sight of the big wraparound porch, the wide old-fashioned windows, the lights from the kitchen where Mom was already hard at work caused emotion to ball in her throat. She was home.
Ryan broke the silence. “It’s just like I remember it.”
“It’s always the same. A safe place to come to.” But not an easy place. The tangle of opposing emotions left her feeling conflicted—as always. Mom and Dad’s sadness, their strained marriage, Allison’s loss that was never spoken of. Never.
And the good things, too: the laughter of her sisters over dinner, playing Monopoly after the dishes were done to the sounds of the football game from the living room. Gramma’s loving presence. Nephews and nieces to hold close.
She hesitated. A busy day awaited her in the house that loomed over them, casting them in partial shadow. “Will you be all right?”
“Sure.” He nodded, but his smile was shallow and didn’t light his eyes. He looked faraway, as if his thoughts were troubled and elsewhere. He looked tired as he swiped his palm over his face. “Thanks for driving, Kristin. You didn’t have to let me sleep.”
“I figured Samantha’s savior deserved some rest. If you hear how she’s doing, will you let me know?”
“Sure. I should reimburse you for the gas.”
“Oh, no. Consider it my contribution. It’s the least I can do. If you hadn’t come along, then I’d be in Boise right now.”
“Look, there’s your mom.” Ryan saw the woman who’d aged since the last time he saw her long ago. He didn’t know why that surprised him, it was completely logical. Time passed and it changed everyone. But to see the woman who used to be so young-looking with gray accenting her golden hair and her face lined from hardship—he felt it down deep.
Everyone had hardship. Life had trials, and it wasn’t the bad things that happened but the way a person rose to the challenge that mattered. He had lost a father. Alice McKaslin had lost a daughter. The worry clear on her face turned to relief when she recognized Kristin behind the wheel of the SUV.
“Kristin! There you are! Oh, we were so worried!” Alice, still in her quilted housecoat and matching quilted slippers flew down the snow-covered steps.
“Didn’t you get my message?” Kristin asked, hopping into the cold, closing the door behind her as she cut behind the vehicle and out of sight.
In the side-view mirror, Ryan could see Kristin step into her mother’s outstretched arms. The love unmistakable on Kristin’s face, shining in her eyes, made her glow.
Family. Yeah, it was important, but he wasn’t looking forward to the price of it. He loved his mom. He’d do anything for her. But he couldn’t look anywhere without seeing the past. Even the fields where he’d worked long and brutal days in hundred-degree heat bringing in hay for Mr. McKaslin brought memories flooding back. He dreaded the drive back to town, where he would see more of the past, more of the boy he’d been. More of the turmoil and pain he’d worked so hard to leave behind.
While mother and daughter were still holding on to each other and exchanging greetings, he climbed out and grabbed her computer case and bag.
“Why, Ryan Sanders, is that you?” Alice McKaslin noticed him trying to slink past.
He’d wanted to avoid the gooey mess of female emotions if he could, but no such luck. So he faced the teary-eyed females with a man’s courage. “It’s me. It’s good to see you, Mrs. McKaslin. Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Why, happy Thanksgiving to you! Your mom has been talking of nothing else for weeks. She’s baked every last one of your favorite treats, I hope you know.”
“I figured she would.” He froze, knowing what was next, but he couldn’t do anything to stop it. Mrs. McKaslin released her daughter and came at him next, her arms outstretched, to give him a hug. “What on earth are you two doing together?”
“It’s a long story. I’m sure you can get Kristin to tell you. I’ve got to get home. Mom’s probably worried about me. I was supposed to come in last night.”
“Come here and let me hug you, young man.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I haven’t shaved. Showered. Been deloused.”
“Oh, you can still make me laugh.” Refusing to back down, Alice came at him and wrapped him into a kindly hug and, being a self-reliant man, he endured it—okay, it was nice. Alice was like a dear aunt to him when he’d been growing up. He brushed her cheek with a brief kiss as he moved out of her embrace.
“You’re more handsome up close than in those pictures your mom shows me. You don’t see her enough, young man.”
Standing behind her mother, Kristin winked at him. “Go easy on him. He’s a busy, important doctor and the only reason I’m here and not snowed in at Boise is because he’s a good guy.”
“You’re not so bad yourself, Miss McKaslin.” The way both women were looking at him, as if he’d hung the moon and lit the stars, made him itchy.
He was uncomfortable with looks like that. With anyone getting too close. He’d gotten used to being alone. That was why Francine had returned his ring last September. He didn’t need her
at all, she’d said.
It was time to go. He let Alice lead the way to the front door, ignoring Kristin when she gestured for her bags. He was a lot of things, but he tried to use his manners when he had them. And what Kristin had done for him, in letting him sleep, he appreciated more than she could ever know. She looked as exhausted as he’d felt before getting some shut-eye, and he didn’t mind at all carrying her bags into the house and depositing them at the top of the stairs.
“You didn’t have to do that.” She looked at him as if she appreciated the gesture. “But thank you.”
“No problem.” The delicious aroma scenting the house—apple and pumpkin pies, frying bacon and the roasting warmth of a baking turkey made his stomach growl loudly. He blushed. “Sorry about that.”
“Would you like to stay? Breakfast is in the works. Eggs and bacon and pancakes and sausage. Real homemade hash browns.”
“I can’t tell you how good that sounds, but Mom would box my ears. I’d best get home. She’s waiting for me, and I’m late. I’m probably in trouble. Wow, I haven’t said that since I was eighteen.”
“Some things never change.” Kristin breezed down the stairs, aware of her embarrassing grade-school pictures marching along the wall at her elbow. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice.
He didn’t say anything as he headed for the door. “Take care of yourself, Miss McKaslin.”
“You too, Dr. Sanders.”
She didn’t know why, but she hated seeing him slip through the door and stride down the steps. Even in the slick conditions, he walked with an athlete’s assurance. With the power of a man who had confidence and integrity. Inside she sighed a little, remembering how he’d probably saved a young woman’s life.
“Kristin, honey, close the door, would you?”
“What?” She shook her head, realizing she was letting in all the cold air. Shivering, she shut the door but watched through the window as Ryan climbed into the rented vehicle, belted in and drove away, leaving her behind. Adding another ache to the others she was collecting inside her heart.