A Cowboy's Heart

by Brenda Minton

  “I can’t find Timmy. I woke up from a nap and he was gone.”

  Willow moved, reaching for the shoes next to her chair. “We’ll find him.”

  “I’m going to head down the road on foot. Could you check the barn?”

  She slid on her shoes. “Of course I can. I’ll take my cell phone so you can call if you find him.”

  Willow walked out the barn, David tagging along behind her. She surveyed the fields, and the pens that held bulls. She prayed she wouldn’t see him anywhere near the bulls. He knew better. Of course he did.

  “David, did your brother say anything about leaving or doing something?”

  “No.” The child reached for her hand. “He just wants Mom to come home. So do I.”

  “I know, honey. But did he say something about playing outside, or doing something without telling any of us?”

  David shook his head. “No, he just wonders how far away Iraq is.”

  “It’s a long way.”

  Bell ran out of the barn. Willow reached down to pat the dog. If anyone knew where Timmy was, it was probably Bell. And that didn’t do them a lot of good.

  She flipped on lights as they walked through the doors of the barn. Something moved, catching her attention. She squinted as her eyes adjusted from bright sunlight to the dim recesses of the barn.

  It might have been her imagination, or not. She thought a door closed on one of the stalls, just barely. David’s hand was still in hers, and they hurried toward the stall that held her mare.

  The horse whinnied, and she heard a thump. Willow let go of David’s hand and ran to the stall. She peeked in, afraid of what she might see, afraid that the horse had hurt the child.

  The noise had been caused by an overturned bucket. Willow smiled down at Timmy, who was trying to steady the upside-down bucket. The mare had a bridle on her head, the bit under her mouth, not in. No saddle.

  “Timmy, what are you doing?”

  Timmy frowned at her. “I’m going to find my mom. Uncle Clint is just going to leave her over there lost, and she isn’t going to come home if someone doesn’t go get her.”

  Big, brave words and a child’s broken heart. How had he found out? Willow opened the door and spoke quietly, reassuring the horse who was trembling and holding steady as the little boy leaned against the mare’s side, obviously thinking he could ride her bareback.

  Willow picked him up and scooted the bucket out the door. She pulled the bridle off the horse, slid a hand over the mare’s neck and then backed out of the stall with the sobbing four-year-old in her arms.

  “Shhh, sweetie, it’s okay.”

  Timmy shook his head against her neck, and tears soaked her skin. “I want my mom.”

  “I know you do.” And it was Clint’s place to tell the boys everything. Willow reached into her pocket for her phone and speed-dialed Clint’s number. When he answered she choked back a sympathetic sob. “He’s here, in the barn. He isn’t hurt, but he’s hurting.”

  Because somehow he had overheard that his mother was missing.

  Clint ran from the main road back to the barn. When he walked through the doors, he took a deep breath and slowed down. He walked toward Willow and the boys.

  Timmy and David sat on the bench next to Willow. The boys didn’t look at him. Willow shrugged, and her smile wavered. He grabbed the five-gallon bucket next to the bench, turned it over and sat down facing the boys.

  “What’s up, guys?”

  Timmy looked up, his eyes and nose red from crying. He swiped a hand across his face. “I want you to go find my mom.”

  Clint swallowed and nodded, taking a few minutes to process the comment. “Well, kiddo, I can’t do that. I can’t go to Iraq. And your mom wouldn’t want me to leave you alone.”

  Clint would have liked nothing better than to hop on a plane and go to Iraq to look for his sister. He couldn’t tell that to the boys, or tell them how worried he was.

  “We’re fine here with Willow.” A four-almost-five-year-old’s logic. It sounded like it made perfect sense.

  “I can’t leave you here, partner. And there are real soldiers looking for your mom.” How had the boys found out? “Timmy, you have to tell me what’s going on. How do you know your mom is lost?”

  “Missing. She’s missing. I heard the word at church and then when you were talking on the phone. You said she’s still missing. And I think guys shouldn’t leave sisters alone.”

  “And I agree. But when guys make a promise, like the one I made to your mom, we have to keep those promises.”

  David didn’t comment.

  “David, buddy, do you understand that?”

  David shook his head.

  “Timmy, do you understand?”

  Timmy shook his head. “No. I just want my mom.”

  “I know, buddy, I know. And I want her to come home. I think we should pray. That’s the most important thing we can do, pray.”

  He held his arms out, and Timmy climbed onto his lap.

  They prayed. And Timmy and David added their own prayers to the end, asking God to bring their mom home safe.

  As Clint listened, he felt his own faith grow. Kids did that. They made everything seem possible. They had faith…until adults came along and cast seeds of doubt.

  It was easy to think of all the negatives, the bad things that could happen, the worst possible outcome.

  Clint closed his eyes, refusing to undo the faith with which the boys prayed. And he couldn’t look at Willow, because he had prayers of his own that seemed selfish at the moment.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Clint walked through the wide double doors at the end of the barn. The shadowy interior was familiar and comforting. Ten days, and Jenna hadn’t been found. There had been calls to tell him they were searching, but nothing to give them hope. Nothing to give the boys hope. It wasn’t easy for two little boys to go to bed each night, knowing their mom was missing.

  A movement at the far end of the barn. Willow pushing a wheelbarrow of grain. She was up early. And she was angry with him. That had been pretty obvious the day before, when he’d heard her struggling with a call and he’d taken over.

  He shouldn’t have.

  He should give her space, because she knew how to take care of herself.

  She turned and saw him. She set the wheelbarrow down and stood, waiting. A cowgirl in shorts and a T-shirt. He walked toward her.

  “Good morning.”

  She nodded. “I have coffee in the office.”

  “I had some.” He looked in the stall next to him, at the Arab filly she’d bought. An Arabian. He shook his head, still wondering why she’d done that.

  “Stop looking at her like that.” Willow walked up next to him. She still smelled like soap and herbal shampoo. Her hair was a little damp.

  “Sorry, I’m just not sure what you’re going to do with her.”

  “I think she’s pretty.” She smiled at him. “It’s about endurance, Clint. She can go for hours, and she has a pretty face.”

  “It’s all about a pretty face?”

  “She’s sweet.” She rested her hand on the horse’s red-gold neck, and the animal moved closer, nuzzling her shoulder. “See what I mean?”

  “Yes, she’s sweet.”

  Not a cow horse.

  “You’re too set in your ways.” She said it and walked off, and he thought she probably meant it in more ways than one.

  He opened his mouth to say something, but a shrill ring interrupted.

  “Telephone.” He nodded toward the office. “The phone is ringing.”

  She hurried in that direction and he followed. She had picked it up and was talking when he walked into the room. Instead of finishing the conversation, she handed it to him.

  “It’s someone from the military,” she whispered with her hand over the receiver.

  He took it, but he didn’t lift the phone to his ear. He didn’t want to hear. Not this way. Shouldn’t they come to his house and tell him in person.
Shouldn’t there be something more to it than this?

  Willow sat on the edge of her desk. She touched his arm. “Answer it, Clint.”

  He did. “Clint Cameron here.”

  “Clint, it’s me.”

  He cried. And all his life he’d been taught that only sissies cried. He could hear his dad telling him to stop that bawling. But real men cried when they heard the voice of their sister for the first time in weeks. Real men cried when prayers were answered.

  “Clint?” Her voice sounded weak.

  “Jenna. Where are you?”

  “I’m on my way to a hospital in Germany.”

  “Where? I’m coming over there.”

  She laughed, a soft, fluttery and weak sound. “No, you’re not. You’re not dragging the boys over here. Not here, Clint. Give me time.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story, but I was safe.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Safe. I’ll tell you more when I see you.”

  “You’re okay?” He sat down on the desk next to Willow. He was shaking, and Willow’s hand was on his arm. The long pause, static on the line, and the sound of chopper blades, all felt like chaos in his stomach.

  “I’m going to be okay. It’s going to take time.” She sobbed, and he couldn’t stand it. “They’re not sure about my leg, Clint.”

  He didn’t cry this time. He had to be strong. He had to be able to take care of her. “I’m coming over there.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re going to take care of the boys until I can come home. When I get to the States you can come and see me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have to agree.” She paused, a long pause. “If you come over here, I’ll give up and let you take care of me.”

  “I love you, Jen.”

  “I love you, too. I’ve been praying for you.”

  She was praying for him. She was lost, far from home, and she’d prayed for him. How long had he prayed for her to find faith?

  “We prayed for you, too.”

  “You didn’t tell the boys, did you?”

  He looked at Willow, remembering that she wouldn’t let him. “No, I didn’t tell the boys.”

  The boys found out on their own. He would tell her later, not now when she needed to think of herself and getting better.

  “Good. I’ll call again later, and I want to talk to them.”

  “They’ve missed you. We’ve all missed you.”

  “Are you in love yet?” He could hear her smile when she asked the question.

  “You’ve got to let it go.”

  “So, you are.” She breathed deep and he heard engines rumbling and people talking. “I’m praying you’ll let someone love you.”

  He glanced away from Willow. “I love you, Jenna.”

  “Chicken.”

  She said goodbye, and he set the phone down on the desk. She was safe. She was going to need him more than ever.

  “This is definitely a good day.” Willow hopped down from the desk, her smile radiant.

  “She said her leg is bad. What does that mean?”

  The smile she’d worn faded, and she shrugged, her eyes shadowing for a minute.

  “Whatever it means, I know she’ll get through it with your help. She’s alive, and she’s coming home to her boys.” She hesitated. “And from my end of that conversation, it sounds like she’s strong.”

  “She is.” He remained on the edge of the desk. “She’s stronger than I am.”

  “You’re human. She knew she was alive. You didn’t.”

  He nodded, because he hadn’t thought about it that way. “I’m going to work those two-year-old bulls.”

  “Not today, Clint. Take time with the boys. Let them know that their mom is coming home to them.”

  “You’ll need help.”

  “No, actually, I can take care of things around here.” Her smile this time was a little tense. “Remember, I’ve been doing that for a while.”

  “There are a few messages on the answering machine, calls that need to be returned.” He knew that Janie used to make those calls, but Willow had been pushing Janie back, reminding her that she had to do this on her own.

  “Clint, I can do this.”

  “I know you can.”

  She frowned and pointed to the door, pointing him to the exit. “Try saying it like you mean it.”

  “I don’t want to fight with you.”

  “I’m not fighting. I’m taking care of my business. I’m holding on to my life and my future. And I’m going to tell you now, when Jenna comes home, you’re going to have to let her do things for herself.”

  “I know that, Willow.”

  She shook her head, and by then he was angry with her. But from the snarly look on her face, she was pretty mad herself.

  “No, you don’t. You take over. Whether you mean to or not, you do. From the moment you learned about my hearing, you changed. You started treating me like I’m a different person. And I’m not.”

  “I’m going to spend that time with the boys. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Clint?”

  He lifted a hand as he walked out of the room. He didn’t have time to work this out with her, not when he had the boys—and Jenna coming home wounded. If he’d been taking over, now was the time to back out and let her have the reins back.

  He could do that, no problem.

  Clint was avoiding her, had been avoiding her since the phone call from Jenna. Three days, and they’d barely talked. She could think of reasons why. He was mad at her, maybe for telling him to give his sister room. Or maybe he’d realized, after returning calls for Willow, and having to repeat things when he spoke to her, that even a friendship with her required too much work.

  He wouldn’t be the first person to make that decision. And now she had additional baggage that came with a relationship. Her worsening condition. And no children. She touched her stomach because today was the anniversary of the accident.

  It didn’t hurt the way it had once hurt, thinking of her baby, and knowing that she would never again experience that thrill of life growing inside her belly.

  God was helping her to move forward, and giving her new joys. The twins counted as a joy. They were a blessing she didn’t want to miss out on.

  Willow poured food in the cat’s bowl and walked out of the barn. She stood outside the building, enjoying a cool breeze and the sweet smell of rain in the air.

  They needed rain, desperately. Her gaze traveled to the foreman’s house. Clint was running around the yard, shooting the boys with a water gun. She smiled at the sight of them together, happy again.

  Yesterday he’d brought them over for some of Janie’s homemade ice cream. It had been a celebration, with sparklers for the Fourth of July, and because Jenna would be coming home.

  Prayers answered. Willow walked across the road and stopped near the swing. Not forsaken.

  She looked up, amazed by the dark clouds eating up the blue. They hadn’t had rain for three weeks. They needed moisture, not a gully washer that would hit the ground and run off before it could soak in.

  Rather than going inside, she sat down on the swing to watch the storm approach. The breeze stirred the leaves in the tree. A piece of paper someone had dropped bounced across the lawn. The temperature dropped a good ten degrees.

  Willow looked up, watching the stirring in the clouds with interest. With the temperature dropping this fast, it could get bad. And she had animals in the field. She got up and hurried back to the barn, remembering a cow that hadn’t come up for feeding time. Knowing this cow, Willow knew without a doubt that she’d gone off somewhere alone to have her calf. Of course the cow would do that with a storm coming.

  She hurried through the barn, eager to get to the other end, and a clear view of the southern sky. If tornadoes were forming, they would form in the southwest and move northeast. The pattern was nearly a given.

  When tornado season hit, she al
ways tried to remind herself that the storms seemed to hit the same areas over and over again. It was a phenomenon she didn’t understand. But she also knew that nothing in life was for certain.

  Her Arab filly poked a nose over the stall door and whinnied as Willow passed. “Hey, sweetheart, it’ll be okay.”

  The wind whipped, blowing a door, banging it so hard that Willow heard and jumped. The horse skittered to the back of the stall. Willow turned in the direction of the noise. Nothing but the wind.

  Her old farm truck was parked out back. She pushed a hat on to her head, grabbed a horse blanket, and rope and ran for the truck. Rain was starting to fall and she didn’t want to think of the cow out there alone, laboring with a calf that might be too big to be delivered.

  Huge drops of rain pelted the windshield as she drove through the gate and down into the field. She had to get out and close the gate behind her. When she got back into the truck, she was soaked. She shifted from neutral to first gear and let the truck coast through the field as she searched for the cow.

  A few minutes later she spotted the animal in a small stand of trees, obviously laboring to have a calf that wasn’t going to be easy to deliver. Willow parked and jumped out of the truck. The heifer gave her a pitiful look that begged for help.

  “Oh honey, we’re in big trouble.” The feet of the calf were showing. The cow looked exhausted with her sides heaving, like she’d been at this for awhile.

  And the rain began to fall in earnest.

  Willow wrapped the rope around the hooves of the calf as the cow went to her knees, exhausted from labor. “Poor baby, you’re just not going to be able to get this one out yourself.”

  It wasn’t the first calf that Willow had needed to pull. It wouldn’t be the last. Every year there were several that needed her help, and sometimes the help of a veterinarian.

  Now to get the baby out and back to the dry barn.

  A movement a short distance away caught her attention. She turned as Clint ran toward her, hunkering down in the rain, his hat tilted.

  “What are you doing out here?” he shouted as he moved in closer, his gaze landing on the cow.