Aidan: Loyal Cowboy: Aidan: Loyal CowboyThe Family Plan

by Cathy McDavid

  “I can’t impose on you like that.”

  “I insist.” Her tone was as firm as his.

  “Oh, Daddy. Can we please stay with Jolyn?” Mandy’s bright green eyes pleaded with him.

  He hesitated for an instant, then relented. Every minute counted when a person was missing in the wilderness, and he had a lot to do to get ready. With Jolyn’s help, he’d be done that much sooner.

  “I’ll call Mrs. Payne when I get to the house,” he said. “She’ll pick up Mandy after dance class and take her to my aunt and uncle’s house. And I’ll let Elizabeth’s mother know what’s going on.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jolyn said. “We’ll manage.”

  “I’ll be in touch when I can. But don’t worry if that isn’t until tomorrow. We could be out all night.”

  “Just find that boy.”

  “You listen to Jolyn, you hear me?” He emphasized his warning to Mandy by leveling a finger at her. “Whatever she says, you do it.”

  Both girls nodded solemnly but from the neck down, they fidgeted with excitement.

  “Thanks,” he told Jolyn, wishing he hadn’t made that promise about not kissing her.

  Confident that his daughter and her friend were in good hands, Chase gave Matilda her head and raced home at a full gallop.

  Chapter Eight

  “Your mom and dad and I used to come here all the time when we were young.” Jolyn tethered Sinbad to a low-hanging tree branch. The horse immediately lowered his head and sniffed the ground for stalks of grass.

  “For picnics, like us?” Mandy asked, distributing the brownies and juice boxes.

  “Most of the kids came up here to…explore.” Jolyn changed her story at the last second. She wasn’t about to tell the girls what the local teenagers did—and probably were still doing—at the old Ladderback mine.

  They’d decided on a different destination after Chase left to join his platoon on their search-and-rescue mission. The girls went often to Neglian Creek crossing but had only been to the mine once and that was in a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

  “What did you explore for?”

  “Oh, the usual. Arrowheads. Secret tunnels. Buried treasure.”

  “Ever find any?”

  Mandy and Elizabeth picked boulders on which to sit. Beside them, over a small ridge, a narrow stream splashed down the mountainside to join its much bigger cousin, Neglian Creek.

  “Nope. Just lots of spiders and snakes and a big, furry raccoon. Once, your dad went really deep into the mine and stumbled on a whole bunch of bats.”

  “Ew!” Elizabeth shuddered in revulsion.

  Mandy was apparently made of stronger stuff. “Cool. Can you take us there?”

  “Absolutely not. It isn’t safe. Mike, you know him, he’s helping me build your dad’s clinic. When we were in high school, he fell into the shaft and broke his arm in three places.”

  Poor Mike had been trying to impress Jolyn when his stunt backfired. She’d visited him the next day at home and signed his cast. She’d also accepted his invitation to the school dance, mostly out of guilt. And because Chase was already going with SherryAnne.

  “Your dad had to climb down and get him.”

  “Was Mom there, too?” Mandy perched on the edge of her boulder, listening raptly.

  “Yes.”

  “Did she help rescue Mike?”

  Jolyn didn’t remember much of what SherryAnne did beyond complaining that their afternoon fun was cut short.

  “Yes, a little,” she said, stretching the truth for Mandy’s benefit. “Mostly your dad helped. He rescued Mike from the mine and led both horses all the way back to town because Mike couldn’t hold on to the reins.”

  “My mom and Jolyn were best friends,” Mandy informed Elizabeth. “But my mom and dad were boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  “Jolyn and your dad are boyfriend and girlfriend now,” Elizabeth said matter-of-factly.

  “No, they’re not,” Mandy answered hotly.

  “We’re not boyfriend and girlfriend,” Jolyn assured the girls.

  Elizabeth was undaunted. “You were holding hands.”

  Mandy looked confused and unhappy.

  “I was upset about something, and your dad was trying to make me feel better. We’re just friends.”

  There was that phrase again.

  The tension in Mandy’s thin frame visibly lessened. She was clearly uncomfortable with the notion of her father dating, even someone she liked.

  Jolyn hadn’t taken the little girl’s feelings into consideration when she’d contemplated having a relationship with Chase.

  Perhaps she’d been fooling herself. Hurting Mandy, coming between her and her father, wasn’t an option. Her mother was already doing that, or trying to.

  Brushing her hands on her jeans, she stood, determined to restore the mood to what it had been when they first arrived. “Just because I won’t let you go down into the mine doesn’t mean we can’t look inside. Who here wants to go with me?”

  Mandy jumped up, all bright eyes and big smile again. “I do.”

  Elizabeth’s enthusiasm didn’t match Mandy’s. “As long as there aren’t any bats.”

  “We won’t be going that far down the shaft.” Jolyn planned to let the girls venture just inside the mine opening where she knew from personal experience that the ground was solid and the rafters stable. But no deeper. “Besides, bats sleep during the day.”

  “Is there any gold in here?” Mandy asked once they’d scaled the footpath leading to the mine’s entrance.

  Jolyn had gone slowly so as not to aggravate her knee. “Actually, the prospectors in these parts dug for silver, or so the stories go.” She hauled Elizabeth up onto the ledge with her and Mandy.

  Then all three stared into the seemingly endless pitch-black tunnel. A current of slow-moving air swirled out from the dark to glide over them, chilling their faces and arms. Jolyn had forgotten about the cold.

  “It’s not very big,” Mandy observed.

  The girls’ heads barely cleared the top rafter. Jolyn would have to stoop over to enter.

  “The shaft is bigger inside. But not much and only for a little ways. It gets smaller the farther back you go.” Chase had had to crawl on his hands and knees to pull Mike out.

  “What are these?” Mandy inched forward until she stood close enough to the rafters to run her hand over the rough and scarred wood.

  “Names and dates and different graffiti kids have carved.” Not to mention a few obscenities Jolyn hoped the girls didn’t notice.

  “Sure is a lot of them.”

  “About a hundred and thirty years’ worth.”

  The modern-day hieroglyphics covered every available inch of surface space. It was a wonder that many carvings hadn’t weakened the rafters to the point of collapse.

  “Did you ever write your name here?” Mandy asked.

  “No. But your dad did.”

  “Where? Show me!”

  Jolyn crossed to the other side of the entrance and squatted. “Around here somewhere.” In truth, she knew exactly where to locate Chase’s carving, having stared at it more often than she cared to admit. “There.” She indicated a pair of initials, one above the other, linked by a plus sign in the middle.

  “Who’s S.B.?”

  “Your mother.”

  “Her initials are S.R.”

  “They are now. Back in high school, her name was

  Sher
ryAnne Bakersfield.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” Mandy stared at the initials for a long, silent moment. “My dad really loved my mom,” she said, tracing the initials with the tip of her index finger.

  “Of course he did. And she loved him.”

  “I just wish she still did.” Mandy’s voice rose barely above a whisper. Had Jolyn not been right beside her, she wouldn’t have heard.

  “What’s important is that she loves you. And always will.”

  “I guess.”

  Mandy gazed at the initials with quiet intensity. For a second, Jolyn thought the girl might cry. And who could blame her? Even at her young age, Mandy knew an empty platitude when she heard one.

  Damn SherryAnne. Canceling her visit verged on cruelty. What could be more important than celebrating a daughter’s birthday? A daughter she hadn’t seen in a year.

  Since Mandy didn’t appear keen on conversation, Jolyn opted to leave her alone for a few minutes. Elizabeth had gone back outside and was kneeling on the ground in front of the mine opening, watching parallel lines of black ants march in and out of a huge anthill.

  “You like insects?” Jolyn asked. She kept one eye on Mandy, just as a precaution.

  “They’re kinda neat. My parents are always making me and my sisters watch Animal World and the Nature Channel instead of cartoons.” Elizabeth made it sound like torture.

  “But you don’t like bats.”

  “Ick!” She made a face, sat back on her fanny and hollered, “Come on, Mandy. I’m bored.”

  “We really should leave, honey,” Jolyn added, “if you want to make your dance lesson on time.”

  Mandy stepped out into the sunlight. She’d stopped looking like she might cry, but Jolyn could tell that she was hiding her hurt and pain. Just like Chase.

  The ride home went well. All remnants of Mandy’s pensive mood fled when they reached the road and Jolyn let the girls lope their horses across a stretch of open meadow. By the time they stopped, they were breathing heavier than the horses—from laughter more than exertion.

  “Look, there’s a log.” Mandy waved excitedly. “Can we jump it?”

  “Is Cinnamon able to?”

  “She’s jumped way higher than that lots of times.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Daddy lets me.”

  Jolyn did recall seeing low jumps in the practice arena at Chase’s house. And the log couldn’t be more than two feet off the ground. She, too, had jumped her horse higher than that when she was Mandy’s age.

  “Well…”

  “Please.”

  Jolyn took comfort that Cinnamon wasn’t tall and the ground was covered in thick, green grass. If Elizabeth’s old horse did more than walk over the log, she’d be surprised. “All right.”

  Mandy trotted Cinnamon toward the log. A split second before reaching it, the small horse came to a sudden stop. Then, with a snorting grunt, she popped over the log. Everybody cheered. Elizabeth’s old horse had apparently jumped before because he approached the log without hesitation and easily cleared it.

  “Your turn,” Mandy said.

  “Me? No.” Jolyn shook her head. “I’m enjoying watching you two.”

  “You have to,” the girls insisted.

  Without warning, a paralyzing fear gripped Jolyn. She might have been facing an open pit of burning lava and not a fallen log in the middle of a grassy meadow. Giving herself a swift mental kick, she gripped the reins with hands slick from sweat. She hadn’t jumped since the accident and wasn’t remotely ready to try.

  “We have to get back for your dance class.”

  “Not yet, we don’t. Come on.”

  She was being ridiculous. The log was only two feet high, for crying out loud. She’d jumped three times that height during every performance in the Wild and Wooly West Equestrian Show. Always without a hitch. Except for once. And that had been a humdinger of a hitch.

  Sinbad pawed the ground. He’d waited while the other horses had their turn and was now ready for his. And why not? Since the day Jolyn’s parents brought him home thirteen years ago, she’d been taking him over obstacles of every shape and size. No, that wasn’t entirely true. He hadn’t jumped since the accident, either.

  But unlike her, he couldn’t wait to try again.

  “Hurry,” the girls chimed. “You’re taking forever. It’s just a log.”

  Yes, a log. Not a wagon filled with mock settlers. She could do this. And she might never have a better opportunity to test herself.

  Sweat trickled down her neck and dampened the collar of her shirt. Air rushed from her lungs only to be drawn swiftly back. Her pulse thrummed, echoing the pounding inside her head.

  Sinbad must have sensed her agitation as his pawing gave way to prancing in place. One squeeze of her legs and he’d fly like the wind.

  Jolyn tugged on the reins. Sinbad instantly stopped prancing, only to collect himself.

  “Go,” she whispered before she lost her nerve.

  When he would have run, she held him to a trot. A slow, slow trot. Used to clearing far larger objects, Sinbad didn’t do much more than lift his front legs off the ground.

  It was enough for Jolyn.

  The girls clapped and for one instant, Jolyn was performing in the show again. Only then, she hadn’t trembled from head to toe or felt her chest ache like she’d just run a marathon.

  “We really should get a move on,” she said, dragging in a ragged breath. They still had a half-hour ride ahead of them, and Mandy needed to change for dance class.

  Realizing they were going home, the horses picked up the pace.

  You did it, Jolyn commended herself as they rode. You jumped Sinbad and survived. Though far from conquering her fear, she hadn’t let it defeat her.

  God willing, she wouldn’t have to test herself again anytime soon.

  * * *

  “SUTHERLAND CONSTRUCTION?” A deep male voice called out.

  “Who is it?” Jolyn stood on a stepladder, her back to the open office door, her head inside an air-conditioning duct and her fingers buried in a tangled clump of electrical wire.

  “Delivery from Office Central. Someone order a desk?”

  “A desk?” Jolyn dropped the wire and carefully climbed down the ladder. “I didn’t order any—” She turned and let out a gasp. “Steven!” Breaking into a huge grin, she hurried across the room to throw herself into her brother’s arms. She hadn’t seen him since her last supply run to Pineville. “What in the world are you doing here?”

  “I told you. I’m delivering a desk.”

  “But I—”

  “Mom mentioned you needed one. And no,” he pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger, “you won’t pay me back. Consider it an office-warming present.”

  “Oh, Steven. I can’t accept.” Her brother worked as a manager for a family-style restaurant in Pineville. He was doing okay financially, but he and his girlfriend had recently purchased a new house and new furniture to go with it.

  “Don’t refuse until you’ve seen it. We’re not talking top of the line here.”

  “Thank you.” Framing his face with her hands, she pulled him down and kissed his forehead. She’d return the favor one day soon by doing some landscaping or upgrades on the house for him and Bethany.

  He studied her critically before releasing her. “You look tired.”

  “I am, a little.”

  “How’s the knee? Mom said it was bothering
you.”

  “Did she now?” Jolyn asked, raising an eyebrow. Evidently their mother saw fit to mention Jolyn’s minor medical complaint but not her own major one.

  That might change after today. Her parents were at that moment en route to visit her mother’s doctor in Pineville. Jolyn’s offer to accompany them had been refused. Rather than drive herself crazy playing “what-if” all afternoon, she decided to tackle some of the renovations at her new office.

  Holding out her leg for her brother’s inspection, she said, “The knee’s much better, as you can see. I’ve been taking it easy and doing my exercises.”

  “You call standing on a ladder taking it easy?”

  “Compared to crawling around on a rooftop, yes.” She didn’t mention she’d been doing precisely that an hour earlier. “I had a CAT scan done last week and the doctor said everything looks fine. I just overdid it at first.”

  “How’s Chase’s clinic coming?”

  “Terrific. We’re about two days ahead of schedule.”

  “I hope he appreciates how hard you’re working.”

  “Actually, he doesn’t know yet. About the schedule,” she clarified. “He went on a search and rescue with the Blue Ridge mounted posse and didn’t get home until yesterday. They found the boy. Alive and well,” she added.

  “That’s good.” Steven nodded, his features revealing nothing of what he was thinking.

  Jolyn stuffed her hands in her jeans pockets. She was always careful when discussing Chase with her brother for obvious reasons. Steven was no saint and had rightfully earned his share of the blame in the affair with SherryAnne. In Jolyn’s opinion, however, he’d redeemed himself somewhat by leaving Chase and SherryAnne alone and staying far away from Mandy.

  If only the same could be said about their mother.

  “My little sister.” Steven wrapped his arm around Jolyn and gave her an enthusiastic hug. “An up-and-coming businesswoman. Who’d’ve thunk it?”

  “Is that an insult or a compliment?”

  “Compliment, of course.” He released her, and they walked toward the door.