Love Inspired June 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: The Cowboy's HomecomingThe Amish Widow's SecretSafe in the Fireman's Arms

by Carolyne Aarsen

  His father had offered to help get the horses saddled up and Lee recognized the gesture for what it was. A small peace offering for the quarrel they’d had in the house. Lee knew he shouldn’t have been so short with his dad, but every time he saw Monty and John talking together, he felt shut out. He knew they didn’t do it intentionally; it was the reality of his situation. He was the one who had stayed away, the son who hadn’t claimed his inheritance even though he had his reasons.

  “Bombproof sounds good,” Abby said, still sounding skittish.

  “If you want, I can take your knapsack with me,” Lee offered, waiting beside her to make sure she was comfortable.

  Bonny shifted, snorted, then shook her head, her bridle clanking, and Abby jumped again. But then she relaxed slightly. “No, thanks. I always carry my own equipment.” Today she had also taken a tripod, which she had slipped through a sleeve across the back of her knapsack.

  “If you’re sure, we can get going.” Lee patted Bonny on the side, as if to remind her of his expectations, then walked over to Bandit and in one easy motion mounted the horse.

  He grinned at the familiar feel of the saddle, his feet in the stirrups, the reins in his hand. His father had made this saddle, but Lee hadn’t used it for over four years. The last time he was back at the ranch, it had been winter and too cold to go riding. The time before that it was only a short visit.

  This was the longest stretch of time he would be back at the ranch since he’d left.

  He turned Bandit away from the hitching post, nudged him gently in the side, signaling a walk, then led the way toward the gates of the first pastures. His heart lifted at the thought of the ride ahead.

  “We’ll be going across this pasture to the fence on the far side,” he said, turning back to Abby, “Through another set of gates and then through the trees, leading to the upper pasture.”

  She gave him a quick nod, but he could see from the way her lips were pressed together that she was still feeling tense. At least she wasn’t hauling on the reins like many first-time riders, treating them like brakes, holding the horse’s head down and confusing him.

  Well, she said she was willing, so she would figure it out, he thought, reaching down and unlatching the gate from the back of his horse. He rode through, Bandit pushing the gate open with his body, then waited for Abby to follow.

  “That’s a neat trick,” she said, sounding a little less nervous.

  “Sheer laziness,” he returned. “Don’t feel like getting off and on the horse.” He latched the gate and then continued on. He kept his horse alongside Abby’s, checking as the horses walked over the pasture.

  She released a slow breath as the horses ambled along. “Well, this isn’t half as scary as I imagined,” she said. “When you mentioned riding, I pictured us galloping across the open fields, me screaming and clinging for dear life to the saddle. Not an elegant thought.”

  He laughed. “This is a ride, not a rodeo.”

  She smiled and he could see her slowly settling into the saddle, releasing the tension that held her in its grip. “I think I can get used to this.” She patted Bonny on the side, letting the horse know she was okay.

  Lee rested one hand on his thigh, the other holding the reins loosely, moving with the horse. The scent of warm grass, leather and horseflesh wafted around him, filling in an emptiness in his life that, till now, nothing else had been able to replenish. He looked around at the hills as familiar to him as the lines of his own hands, the mountains he had watched through nineteen seasons of his life. He knew what kept him away, but at the same time, he felt an unspoken yearning slowly ease away.

  “You look happy,” Abby said.

  Lee looked back at her, somewhat dismayed to catch her studying him. At least she didn’t have that camera out again.

  “Content is more like it,” he returned.

  “Same thing, isn’t it?”

  He shook his head. “Not at all. Contentment has a depth to it that can’t be as easily flipped on and off as happiness. I’ve discovered that happiness is too fickle an emotion.”

  “That’s...profound.”

  “Stick around, girl,” he said. “I’m just getting started.”

  “A veritable font of wisdom.”

  His lips twisted ruefully. “I learned a few things in prison.”

  And, as often happened when he used the P word, an awkward silence fell between them.

  Thankfully they had come to the next gate. Lee opened it, let her through and when he closed it, he looked up to see her, camera in hand, lifting it up to take a picture.

  He held up his hand. “Please. Don’t.”

  “Will Bonny be okay with me doing this?”

  “Bonny’s fine. Loop the reins around your arm so you don’t lose them, though. As for the camera, I just don’t want you taking my picture.”

  “I’m not taking your picture,” she murmured, clicking away, one-handed, even though Lee could see that the lens was pointed at him. “I am capturing a man, a horse and a legacy.”

  “Then you should be taking pictures of my dad. After all, it’s his ranch and his legacy.” He didn’t like the faintly defensive tone that crept into his voice. His father had been making his disappointment with Lee known all through high school. Mowing down and seriously injuring Abby’s father had simply been the final straw in Monty’s estimation of Lee’s life and his prospects. Spending three years in prison, and seeing people’s reactions to that episode in his life, had created a deep humility in Lee along with the realization that nothing was owed to him. All he had was simply through God’s grace.

  Lee clucked to his horse and walked in front of her, leading the way. The path, well trodden by the cows, was wide enough for two horses to ride abreast, but Abby seemed content to stay behind. And, truth to tell, he preferred it. Something about her piercing gaze unsettled him. Every now and again he heard the whirr and click of her camera, but this time he kept his comments to himself.

  After half an hour of riding, the trees broke open into a sweeping, open basin. He stopped at the top of it, looking down the gentle slope to where the cows were grazing below him, brown and block dots scattered over the lush green hills. Farther in the distance, he saw the silver thread of the creek cutting through the pasture, tumbling down toward the far pastures of the ranch.

  “Are these all your cattle?”

  “This bunch is only part of them,” he said as he dismounted, his saddle creaking gently. Abby hadn’t ridden before, so he thought she might appreciate the break. “Dad keeps the cattle scattered over three different pastures.” Lee walked over to assist Abby, but she was already carefully getting off the mare. He stood close enough to help if she needed it, but not so close that she would feel he was hovering.

  “So these are only a third of the herd?” Abby asked, letting her backpack slip off her arm and lowering it to the grass once she was all the way down, still holding the reins in the other hand.

  “These are the first-calf heifers. They represent a quarter of the herd. The older cows with calves at foot are in another pasture. Those are the ones we’ll be moving for the anniversary celebrations.” He held out his hand to her. “Give me Bonny’s reins. Then you can take pictures easier.”

  As she handed them over, their hands brushed and Lee had to fight the urge to tighten his fingers around her hand.

  Abby, seemingly unaffected by the moment, walked slowly to the edge of the basin, knelt down and started shooting. Then she checked her camera, made a few adjustments and took a few more shots.

  While she worked, Lee drew in a long, slow breath. A smile curved his lips as he looked back toward the cattle grazing along the vast open spaces. The sight wrapped around his soul and curled around it close like a fist.

  Ever since the accident, he had felt disoriented and off-kilter, as if his world was always tilted. But now he felt as though he had found solid ground. A firm foundation on the Bannister legacy, unbroken and unchanging for one hundred and
fifty years.

  Until now.

  Your father doesn’t have to be the last Bannister on this land. You could stay.

  But behind that tantalizing thought came the reality of his own history and the shame he had brought on the family by his irresponsible actions. Could he truly let go of that? Did he dare to think he could simply make a decision to come back and there would be room for him? What’s more, did he have the courage to face a tight-knit community affected by his actions?

  “You said it was your great-great-grandparents who settled this place,” Abby said as she walked back to where her backpack lay, her voice penetrating his thoughts. “But how did they get started? How did they survive?”

  “Barely survived, that is,” Lee replied, sparing her a quick look. “They had some horrific years after they first arrived. There weren’t many neighbors to help out, and times were lean, according to the stories handed down. I think Great-grandpa headed down to Virginia City to work the gold mines a few years. He made some cash, which helped them get through some of the tough years. It also helped them expand as they slowly got their feet under them.”

  He paused for a moment, looking out once again over the gently rolling hills, before continuing. “They made it through the Indian wars, had a couple of sons who worked alongside them on the ranch and then those boys went on to work on the railroad when it came through.” Turning toward Abby, he fixed his gaze squarely on hers. Her look of rapt fascination prompted him to go on. “In the great blizzard of the 1880s, I think they lost half the herd. But they stayed, expanded, worked together, married, had their own boys who took over from them... And so it went, the ranch getting passed down through the generations.”

  “Has it stayed intact all through the years?”

  “It’s been fluid, depending on who stayed and who left. At one time the ranch was larger, but it got split off a few generations ago. My dad’s second cousin, Keith McCauley, still ranches here, but who knows what will happen to his place?”

  “How come?” she asked curiously.

  “Well, he only had the three girls and they haven’t shown the least bit of interest in his place. My grandfather ranched with Keith’s brother but bought him out when he wanted to leave the valley. Keith still owns a fair-sized ranch, though.”

  Lee stopped there, thinking back over the history of the ranch that his father would, from time to time, expound on. “I have to confess, I never paid a lot of attention to the whole history of the place when my parents were telling me. My mind was always somewhere else, thinking of all the places I’d sooner be than spending the rest of my life living in the basin and chasing cows.”

  “And now?” Abby’s question underlined his own shifting state of mind.

  “I don’t know.” His response came out reluctantly, but truthfully.

  “You like the work that you’re doing now?”

  Lee didn’t answer right away, thinking of the long, hard days he put in at his job as a driller in the oil patch. The boring evenings staying in camps watching television, playing cards. Going to bed and doing it all over again the next day.

  “It’s work” was all he said.

  Abby took a few more pictures, then pulled out a notebook.

  “I understand your father runs Angus cows?” she asked, jotting some notes in her book.

  Lee gladly switched to a safer topic of conversation. “Dad made the switch to black and red Angus cows when he took over the ranch from his father, against Grandpa Lee’s protests. It was a smart move. Angus calves are thrifty and the cows are great mothers. They’re not as large at weaning as your Simmentals or Charolais, but much easier to handle.”

  “You sound as though you speak from experience.”

  Lee nodded and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, exposing a long scar that ran down his forearm. “Got this when we were trying to load the last of the Charolais Grandpa Lee was so crazy about. We couldn’t get them on the truck and then, all of a sudden, one turned and ran straight at me. I had to jump the fence but got my arm caught up on a nail.” He winced at the memory. “So, suffice it to say, me and my sisters weren’t sad to see the last of them heading down the road.”

  “Did you and your sisters help out a lot on the ranch?” Abby asked, looking up from her notebook.

  “Though we always had a hired hand or two, helping was part and parcel of being a Bannister. Even Heather, who came to live here when she was ten, was expected to pitch in. She would yammer and complain, but when it was calving season, or time for shots or time to move cows, we all had to saddle up and cowboy up.” He let a smile spread across his lips as his mind slipped back to those times. “Mind you, I wasn’t always the most willing participant when I was older. I much preferred spending my time whooping it up with my friends.”

  “Mitch and David?” Abby asked, her voice quiet as if she was hesitant to mention the names of the orangutans he hung out with.

  “Yeah. Those two.” He shook his head, remembering, with some shame, his times with his so-called friends. They had been with him at the party that sent his and Abby’s father’s lives into a downward spiral.

  “Well, those two were nothing but trouble in high school. Not the nicest guys.”

  “And their behavior just grew worse after high school,” Lee murmured.

  “What do you mean?” Abby asked, furrowing her brow.

  Lee’s horse whickered lightly; Bonny bobbed her head as if in reply. Lee fought the urge to move the horses on, as if to leave the past—and his no-good friends—at this place.

  “Those aren’t my secrets to tell,” he said curtly, thinking of the physical and mental abuse Mitch, Heather’s ex-husband, had heaped on Heather while they were married. David, as well, had his dark history. At a party that had gotten out of control, he had forced himself on Keira. The backlash of those actions had reverberated through Keira’s life and had almost cost her her relationship with Tanner, David’s brother.

  “But you look angry.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why is that?

  Turning away, he ran the ends of the horse’s reins through one hand, thinking what to say and how much to tell Abby. She was a reporter, after all.

  “All I’ll say is both those guys created huge trauma for my sisters.” His mouth hardened into a tight line and then he sighed. “I struggle with thinking I could have prevented that as well if I had quit hanging around with them like my parents always pleaded with me to do. And I shudder to think what I would have turned out like had I stuck around here in Saddlebank.”

  Silence followed that admission.

  “Then maybe it’s a good thing you ended up in jail.”

  Lee swung his gaze back to Abby, but she wasn’t joking. Her expression was dead serious.

  And as her words settled between them, he wondered if maybe she wasn’t right.

  Chapter Six

  Abby restrained a gasp, wondering how she dared to speak those words aloud.

  And from Lee’s inscrutable expression, she wished she could take them back.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, but even as she spoke, she felt as if her apology undermined her own father’s pain.

  Lee held up one hand as if to stop her. “No. You had every right to speak your mind.” He gave her a half smile. “I deserved what happened to me, but it helped me turn my life around. I started attending the church services and the pastor helped me with my faith journey. I guess I was in a place where I had no choice but to listen, so I finally did.”

  “Well, that’s good, I guess” was all she could say.

  “I know it wasn’t a good thing for you and your family, but it made a difference for me, so it’s a mixed bag.” He looked away from her again and Abby’s reaction shifted and tangled. Pictures of her father, memories of the fights her parents had all melded, fueling the resentment she always felt whenever she thought of Lee. “I can’t change what happened,” he continued, “but there isn’t a day that I don’t regret what I did. That I wish I could fix it
somehow.”

  It was the sincerity in his voice that caught her attention.

  Away from Lee she could make him out to be whatever monster she wanted him to be. But hearing what he said about her father, hearing the regrets he carried, banked the anger that had powered her emotions since the accident.

  She knew she should forgive him, but she still struggled with a sense that she was betraying her family.

  But the weariness clinging to her the past few years whispered at her to let go. Keeping the fires of injustice against her family stoked and burning took a lot of energy. Maybe forgiving him was what she needed to do for her own peace of mind. She had hoped to find some type of closure by doing this piece. Could this be the first step?

  “Forgive as I have forgiven you.”

  The remnant of a Bible passage flittered into her mind, and she let it settle. It couldn’t hurt to consider forgiving him. Her own life wasn’t perfect and Lee seemed to be wrestling with his own regrets. He hadn’t come out of this unscathed in spite of his family’s money.

  Is that what matters? That the scales are balanced? That you find out that he suffered, as well?

  “I appreciate what you said,” she finally replied. “It’s been hard, but like you said at the beginning of my visit, we need to find a way to move on. You’ve given me lots to think about.”

  “That’s all I can ask for,” he said gruffly.

  She had planned to simply acknowledge his comment, then look away.

  But when his dark eyes locked on hers, she saw pain in their depths.

  Her heart twisted with sympathy for him, and feelings from a simpler time in their lives were resurrected. For the space of a few, heavy heartbeats, he was the young man she had had such a crazy crush on. The strappingly handsome man who had danced with her at the prom, had held her close. Had told her she was beautiful. The first man who had made her feel breathless with just one look.

  That same breath now slowed and she felt her hand rise, as if to comfort him. Just in time she caught herself and dragged her gaze away from his, feeling as if she were coming up for air.