Angelina glanced right, then left as she pulled out onto the road. “Too much and they’re stuck-in-the-mud stubborn, and that’s gotten them into plenty of trouble before. Let’s go home and get things done, and we’ll let things unwind around us. Eventually they will,” she added. “Sam and his boys don’t generally take the easy or quickest path. But they get there after a while.”
Elsa leaned forward slightly. “Can you drop me at home please?”
Angelina met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Because?”
She hesitated, wishing she could have been different. A different woman with a different past, but she wasn’t. “It’s better that way.”
Isabo groaned.
The noise made Angelina grimace. “My mother needs no words to voice her opinion, as you can see.”
“Your mother’s a tough woman,” Elsa said softly. “Tough and wise. Her strength becomes her.” She sat back, wishing she lived close enough to walk. A walk would give her time to decompress.
“You sure you want me to do this?” Angelina asked at the intersection. “I think you should come to the ranch with us. Cheyenne and Dakota will want to see you. And it will give you and Nick time to talk.”
“I think I’ve caused Nick enough worry for one day, don’t you?”
“Elsa.” Angelina turned and faced her once they pulled into her gravel driveway. “Your reaction surprised him, yes. So now you need to see him. Explain.”
She knew that, but right now her nerves were stretched thin. She needed the gift of time, something she’d learned to give herself.
She climbed out of the car. She didn’t dare meet Angelina’s eyes. She knew what she’d see. Concern. Disappointment. Worry.
She’d seen it all before.
She walked into the house as the big SUV pulled away. Then she sank down along the wall onto the floor.
She dropped her head into her hands and let the tears fall. They fell for Christiana and Braden, for Cheyenne and Dakota, for that little brown-haired girl, caught in a maelstrom. She wept for all the little children whose parents disappointed or hurt them.
Achilles budged his way under her right arm.
She ran tear-soaked fingers through his fur, and when her fingers touched the cool, flat metal of his nametag, she didn’t have to read the tag to remember the inscription. “There is a little good in all evil.” Wilson Rawls, Where the Red Fern Grows, a book that helped inspire her life, her career path.
She’d hung that tag on Achilles purposely. The old dog had been left to die, wandering a train track. She and the old mutt had a lot in common back then. They still did, a pair of loners, shirking others, avoiding the sunlight.
But as she fingered the tag, she remembered the beautiful story of Big Dan and Little Ann and a boy, growing up before his time. Or maybe it was right at his time. Maybe people didn’t get to choose what experiences molded and melded them into contributing members of society, but they did get to choose how to handle those experiences.
She’d loved dogs all her life. And horses. And she didn’t mind cows at all, so maybe part of her was never supposed to be encapsulated in an office in a big city or suburban professional building all her days.
Maybe…
Just maybe…
She was supposed to be here and now, with Nick and those girls. If that was true, she needed to face Nick and explain her past. Maybe her past could bring understanding to the present.
She sat straighter against the wall, then pushed herself up, grabbed her keys, and went out the door.
Angelina was right. It was foolish to hide, foolish to wait in the dark when she could be her own catalyst once again.
She hopped into the driver’s seat, turned the small car around, and headed for the Double S. She was done with waiting. Nick would form his own opinions, as it should have been all along, but to wait anymore would show cowardice, and Elsa never wanted to be cowardly again. If there was a time to every season, she needed to claim her season now. In Gray’s Glen.
Nick punched a fist into the passenger door of his brother’s SUV as they drove to the sheriff’s office. They had left the girls, tuckered but content, at the ranch with Trey and Sam. “If you can’t drive faster than this, pull over and I’ll take the wheel.”
Colt stayed calm and didn’t mock him, a possible notation for the brotherly record books. “We’re almost there. Let’s keep it cool. And what the heck was Whitney doing up on 970 when she was supposed to be watching the girls dance?”
That was the question of the hour, wasn’t it?
Right now his emotions were on high and his brain was jumbled. “No clue. I realized again today that I know absolutely nothing about women, but that’s not exactly a big surprise, is it?”
“Not a pity party.” Colt groaned on purpose. “Spare me that. And what is it you think you need to know?” Colt asked, and he sounded so sensible that Nick had to work not to wail on him, which would be dumb since Colt was driving. “Because whatever it is, you’ll be wrong, so why bother? You picked wrong the first time. The world didn’t end. This time you’ve actually found a good match, and not just a good match for you.”
Nick snorted.
“But a match for the girls,” Colt continued, when what he really should do was just be quiet.
“And the ranch.”
Obviously quiet wasn’t top priority for his older brother.
“You found a smart, beautiful, funny woman who isn’t afraid to get dirty and likes animals. Clearly a mistake, of course.” He turned into the sheriff’s lot and parked. “So if you need a little time to get to know her better and understand why she came unglued today, take the time. It’s not like you’re going anywhere. Breathe. And give the girl a chance to explain.”
“She could have explained any time in the past several weeks,” Nick retorted. “I don’t do lies and half truths. You know that—you’re the same way.”
“Like you didn’t know she’d been hurt before?” Colt shot him an incredulous look that matched his tone. “Hey, newsflash, Captain Obvious. People don’t walk away from their lives and hole up in the woods over a broken fingernail. The words delicate psyche were written on her face the first time I met her. You didn’t notice?”
Heat climbed Nick’s neck. “I knew there was something. I figured she’d tell me in time.”
“Except that you’ve only known each other a little while.”
True. But. “It seems longer. It seems…”
“Like it was meant to be. Like God put her in front of you and said, ‘Hey, Einstein. This is the one, right here. Your match. Your destiny.’ ”
“Without the sarcasm, but yes.”
“Why do I have the feeling you’re going to totally muck this up because a rough few minutes tweaked the emotions of an amazing woman?”
Put that way, it did sound kind of dumb.
“Listen, it’s not my business —”
“Like that’s ever stopped a Stafford.”
Colt shrugged off the truth in that. “When I realized I was falling in love with Angelina and Noah, I had two choices. Stay or go. Which meant I had one choice because there was no way I was about to leave the best thing that ever happened to me. Once we’ve got things settled, you stop and think about that. And yeah, pray about it. Because I’ve never seen you as happy as you’ve been the last few weeks. Having Elsa around made a difference in you and those girls. For the first time since I came back last winter, you all started to look happy. No matter how many fancy cows you raise or how many cattle you sell, you can’t buy that look, Nick. And my guess is it’s mighty hard to replace.”
He knew his brother meant well. He knew he was right in many ways, but the one thing Nick had always wanted, had always prayed about, was honesty. It was how he treated others, and it wasn’t too much to expect to be treated the same way in return. Love without trust isn’t love.
He’d found that out the hard way when his mother left. And then he’d repeated the mistake with
Whitney.
Yeah, maybe he’d chosen wrong. He could own that in retrospect.
But two little girls made the stakes much higher now. Could he —no, wait, scratch that—should he risk their stability and happiness?
No.
His gut soured.
He was doing what Elsa taught him to do, following her advice to the letter. Putting the girls first, exactly as he should. They’d finally gotten to a leveled playing field, only to trip up the present with the past. His past. Her past.
Which meant it might be better to live separate paths.
He climbed out of the car and moved toward the sheriff’s office. Rye met him just outside the door. “She got tired of waiting and called for a ride.”
“She what?”
Rye shrugged. “We weren’t charging her, she didn’t do anything wrong, and when you didn’t drive right over here, she used our phone and called Johnny Baxter. She said she had something to celebrate and she’d already lost a lot of time.”
Something to celebrate?
Not her daughters. Clearly they weren’t important enough to set aside a night of partying. “Did she say where?”
Rye shook his head. “She didn’t, but I overheard Johnny call a friend for a ride later, which is at least a smart thing to do. He told him to meet them at the Little Luck around eleven. Said he’d be out of money by then.”
The Little Luck Tavern was a hole-in-the-wall bar north of town, which explained why she was out on Route 970.
“You might want to have your say tomorrow, Nick. Considering they’ve been gone nearly an hour already.”
Rye was right. Nick didn’t want to face Whitney when she’d been drinking, but they’d made an agreement for her to stay in the house rent free, and she was north of town breaking that agreement right now. “It’ll hold till tomorrow. Did they tow her car into Sal’s?”
Sal’s Auto was one of the businesses hurt by the spring fire, but Sal was working in temporary quarters while his shop was being rebuilt.
“Yeah, Sal radioed me that he had it. And that there were liquor bottles in it, but they were unopened. Two broke. The rest were fine. He set them aside.”
Nick turned toward Colt. Colt shrugged. “No clue.”
He turned back toward Rye. “She’s got no money, unless she lied about that, but I don’t think she did. Where did she get the funds to buy liquor?”
Rye splayed his hands. “A question for the lady, my friend.”
Colt set a hand on his shoulder. “Isabo made a killer lasagna. Let’s go home and eat, maybe find out what Angelina knows. We can do all this tomorrow.”
“Like I have a choice?”
Colt shook his head. “And since you don’t, why let it make you crazy?”
He was right. He thanked Rye and climbed back into the car. They drove home, and the first thing he noticed as they pulled into the wide drive was Elsa’s car, parked to the left.
His heart stepped into quicker rhythm. He stopped, tightened his shoulders, and blew out a breath. Angelina approached him from the side. She looked from him to the car, then the barn.
So…He started walking that way but paused when Angelina called his name. He turned and waited, figuring it was one more person about to have their say, but then she surprised him. She faced him, waited, then took a step back. “I’m staying out of it.”
She should stay out of it. Everyone should stay out of it. Out of his business, out of his hair, stop telling him what to do, what not to do.
He walked into the barn, and the first thing he heard was the sound of Elsa, humming in the distance.
He didn’t think his heart could beat faster.
It did.
He didn’t think he could possibly move slower, because what could he say? Do? How could this ever be right?
Elsa hadn’t gotten a little shaken up at the school. She’d gone into full-blown meltdown. Nick was right that Angelina seemed to know something. And why was she privy to the information?
Give her a chance to explain. It’s the decent thing to do.
He didn’t feel all that decent right now. Right now he felt like every woman he’d ever cared about had gone rogue on him. Why should he want to step into that quagmire all over again? If once burned was twice careful, then three times burned was just plain stupid, and Nick was done with being stupid.
She didn’t turn as he approached.
Embarrassed?
Maybe. Or stubborn. That thought brought to mind their initial meeting, where she shut the door in his face.
His vote went straight to stubborn. “I looked in on Kita. She and the pups look fine.”
She didn’t look up, just stayed in her corner of the whelping stall, watching BeeBee. “Here too, and I think we’ve got a little time yet. Instinctive mothers have the best outcome.”
He’d noted that with cows over the years, and lived the lack of it, so Nick understood.
He sat down in the opposite corner of the stall.
“Those are your good clothes and you’re sitting on a barn floor.”
“I know.”
She accepted his admission without looking up. Was she waiting for him to open the conversation? He picked a piece of clean straw from the nearby bale and worked it between his fingers. “I expect we’ve got things to talk about.”
That brought her head around, and when she aimed that sea-green gaze at him, it was all he could do not to cross that floor, gather her into his arms, and promise her everything was going to be all right. Except it wasn’t.
“Not if Cheyenne’s coming out here. She doesn’t need to hear all this stuff. Not at her age.”
“But it’s probably stuff I should have heard, Elsa.” He didn’t try to hide the disapproval edging his tone.
“I agree. And every time I went to tell you I chickened out.”
“I’m here now, and the kids are playing. There’s time enough.”
She flinched, then sat straight, her back flat against the wall. “I was part of a big, busy practice in Brant Park. I had a jam-packed schedule, a great reputation, a nice office I shared with two other counselors, and I’d been named a school consultant for the Brant Park school district. I did a good job. I know this because many of my early patients have gone on to high school and college. They’re thriving. I’ve gotten updates and thank-you notes from all over the country, and there were times when those notes were the only thing that kept me going, Nick.”
He stayed quiet and still, wishing he didn’t care, wishing they didn’t have to have this conversation. But there was no choice.
“I was brought in on a case of a girl about a year older than Cheyenne. Her name was Christiana. No one was allowed to nickname her; she wasn’t allowed to be called Chris or Chrissy or Christy. It had to be Christiana, always. She had a six-year-old brother, a sweet little boy named Braden. He was cute, funny, and didn’t like to sit still, but a good kid. Their mother initially hired me to see the kids. She was going through a tough divorce, a divorce that made all kinds of headlines. Her husband—ex-husband,” she corrected herself, “was a big-name pro-football player. She said he’d been displaying odd behaviors, mood swings, anger issues. But these weren’t documented by anyone else; there was a lot of money involved and weekly headlines. Neither one was opposed to slandering the other in public, which made the whole thing a chronic mess for the kids, while feeding a tabloid frenzy of he said–she said. The judge had asked that my report be part of the custody hearing. Their father objected to it, saying I was biased toward the mother.”
“Were you?”
Elsa’s face went grave. “I didn’t like either of them. They were two selfish, self-absorbed people who didn’t have a clue how blessed they were in multiple respects. I wrote my report, turned it into the judge, and then saw the kids for one last time for an exit interview, recommended by the court. That day we talked about change. About dealing with change, getting used to things, looking at the bright side. I wanted to give them every po
ssible skill I could think of because no matter what that judge decided, and based on their parents’ self-absorbed behaviors, their lives would most likely be filled with turmoil. And then, as we said good-bye, Christiana reached out and hugged me.”
Her face changed, remembering. She flexed her hands, then swiped them against her casual jeans. “She’d never done that before. She was a private, distant child—beautiful but definitely a loner. Until that one time, that moment, and when she let me go she looked right up at me and whispered, ‘I’m so scared, Elsa.’ ”
Chills ran up Nick’s spine.
“So scared.” Elsa whispered the words, staring at the young dog in a nest of clean straw. “I said, ‘Of what?’ and she said, ‘My daddy.’
“I stared down at her, wanting to take her back into the room. Find out what she meant, but I couldn’t. At least I felt like I couldn’t.
“Technically, our time was up. The door was open. Her mother was there, waiting to take her home, always in a hurry. Braden had already waved good-bye and dashed out to her, and as she motioned for Christiana to come along, Christiana took my hand and squeezed it hard, as if begging for help. And then her mother called her name and she went.” She locked her hands around her knees, eyes down. She stared at her hands for long seconds, then sighed. “I didn’t know what to do. My report was in, the exit interview was just that, until that last moment. I tried calling her mother later but got no answer. And then the next morning, when I should have called the school to relay what she said, I had second thoughts. What if I ruined someone’s life by repeating the words of a child? It wasn’t as if she’d given me any basis for concern at this point. But I knew, Nick.”
She sat straighter, her hands gripping her knees, her gaze directed across the stall, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t the liver-and-white dog she was seeing. It was a little girl, asking for help. “He picked them up from school that day. Sometime during the day, the judge’s ruling had come down, giving custody to the mother with shortened visitation to their father.”
Home on the Range Page 25