Cowboy, Undercover

by Vicki Tharp

  “I don’t know…”

  They walked over to the bank of lockers and stripped out of their flight gear. Powell slipped on a leather jacket. With night approaching, the temperature had dropped. She pulled a dark blue hoodie out of her locker and slipped it over her head.

  “Brant’s going.” Powell wiggled his brows up and down. “You know you wanna.”

  That funny flutter hit her stomach at the mention of Brant’s name. Kinda like that feeling she always got when she hit an air pocket, and the helo dropped fifty to a hundred feet. It wasn’t an awful feeling, but Tessa wasn’t sure if it was a good one either.

  “I haven’t missed that little flirt-fest you and Brant have had going on these past few months.”

  Tessa ducked her head and closed her locker, not wanting Powell to see the flush seeping into her cheeks. “Flirt-fest? What are you, thirteen?”

  His smile went wide at her hesitation. “Got ya. We’re heading out at seven. Don’t be late.” Powell turned on his heel and headed out the door before Tessa had a chance to weasel out.

  Gil stood in the center of the Lazy S’s round pen. A stocky sorrel mustang cantered around the rail, it’s mane and tail blowing in the breeze, while Sidney Wilcox, the ranch’s resident horse trainer, gave Gil instructions.

  “That’s it. Like that!” Sidney climbed up the round pen and draped her arms over the top rail. When the horse broke into a trot, she got on to Gil again. “Use the lunge whip to drive him forward. Don’t let his feet stall out.”

  Gil slapped the ground with the lunge whip, and the horse cantered off again. The muscles in Gil’s right arm ached where the bullet had ripped through the muscles several months ago. Physical therapy had been tough, but sometimes working the ranch was even tougher.

  Unlike physical therapy, the ranch work wasn’t an hour or two a few times a week. It was all day, every day. Hauling hay. Mucking stalls. Working the horses. Riding fence. And that didn’t include the extra set of exercises his physical therapist had given him to work on in between their sessions.

  “When did you say the other veterans were going to be here?” Gil’s breath came out in harsh pants. His stamina sucked, but he was getting stronger every day. If Healing Horses didn’t do anything else for him, it was at least helping him to physically get back to where he’d been before he’d been shot.

  Jenna Nash stood beside Sidney, her arms on the rails and a boot on the bottom rung. “I’m expecting Mia Mann in the next day or two. But the other two have problems with their funding paperwork. It could be a couple of weeks or more before they’re able to come.”

  “What’s the matter, tough guy?” Sidney said. “You getting lonely out here?”

  Gil stepped in front of the mustang’s driveline and sent the horse back in the opposite direction. “Not lonely. I’m wondering when someone’s going to get here to help lighten the load.”

  The wind whipped up and blew hair into Jenna’s face. She wiped it away and mashed her hat down further on her head. “I don’t know Gil, you seem to be doing a damn fine job all by yourself. You sure you haven’t had prior horse training experience? Maybe you should think about giving up your day job.”

  Funny she should say that. Gil didn’t comment. What he did with his life after Healing Horses wasn’t anyone’s business but his own.

  “I think that’s enough for one day,” Sidney said as she stepped back from the round pen. She was a tiny thing, with short cropped red hair that she moussed up into short spikes, though it would be a mistake for anyone to let her size fool them. She was tough and probably had more true grit than John Wayne.

  Gil stepped in front of the mustang’s driveline again, turned his back to the horse, watching it over his shoulder. The horse stepped to the center of the pen and followed him around. They walked a few circles as they both caught their breath, then he stopped and turned, and the mustang stuck his head against Gil’s chest.

  He raised a hand to pat the horse’s head. The horse shied, and its head came up, but as soon as Gil touched the broad forehead, the horse settled. Gil scrubbed his fingers through the cowlick between the horse’s eyes. From what Jenna had said, a swirl smack dab in the middle of the horse’s forehead was a sign of a good, levelheaded horse.

  Gil didn’t know about all that nonsense, but this mustang was going a long way to proving Jenna right. He retrieved the lead rope, clipped it onto the horse’s halter, and lead him back into the large paddock where the other three mustangs grazed.

  The sun dipped behind the mountains, casting long shadows on the ground. Sidney headed back up to the barn. It was her night to feed. Which didn’t hurt Gil’s feelings one bit. His stomach growled, and his muscles screamed, and all he wanted was hot food and an even hotter shower.

  In the distance came the clop, clop of horse hooves as Alby and Santos, the Lazy S’s resident ranch hands, came trotting up to the pasture gate after a long day out on the range.

  Off to his right, from the back porch of the big house—an old two-story number with a wraparound porch—came the clank of the triangle as Jenna called everybody in for dinner. It had only taken a few days for Jenna to turn him into Pavlov’s dog with that damn triangle, his stomach gurgling and his mouth salivating anytime he heard that bell.

  After dinner, Gil didn’t hang around and shoot the shit with everybody else. He hoofed it back to his cabin. He was tired and sore, and he had barn duty first thing in the morning.

  Besides the big house, and the smaller foreman’s house farther down the road, the ranch had two older cabins, two newer cabins, and two more nearing completion. One of the older ones Sidney’s husband Boomer had expanded when they’d adopted their young teenage daughter. The other one was shared by Alby and Santos.

  Gil was in one of the newer cabins. One room. A double bunk on either side. A kitchenette with a bathroom tucked behind. Footlockers and hooks on the wall were ample storage for his clothes and what few personal items he’d brought.

  It wasn’t the Ritz, but it wasn’t meant to be.

  This was a working ranch with a veteran therapy program. The veterans didn’t need luxury. They needed healing. Somehow, the combination of open spaces, horses, and body numbing hard work all around a group of people who got him, had begun to change him in ways he’d never thought possible. That’s how he’d known it was time to get out of the ATF.

  After his shower, he dropped into one of the lower bunks with a groan. Would the day ever come when his shoulder didn’t continually remind him how close he’d come to dying?

  But he hadn’t died.

  Now it was time for him to do all the things his choice of careers hadn’t allowed him the time to do. Like, have a relationship. A family of his own perhaps? Kids? Who knew. None of that had even been a thought or consideration eighteen months ago. But now that he had a second chance at life? He wanted all that.

  And more.

  2

  The alarm on Tessa’s cell phone went off, and like the starting gun on Amazing Race, Jack burst through her bedroom door, his kid-sized tactical backpack loaded up and strapped to his back. A flashlight and water bottle dangled from a couple of the loops on either side. You’d think he’d packed for a week in the Serengeti, not the weekend at her great Aunt Evie’s ranch.

  “Get up, get up, get up.” Jack’s boots slid on the wood floor, and his thigh thumped into the nightstand. Something slid off the paper plate he held in his hand. “Oops.”

  That can’t be good. Tessa closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Jack was blowing on a piece of peanut butter toast. He held it out to her with pride. “I made you breakfast.”

  With the flight hours she’d been clocking, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d swept or mopped. The hairy toast mocked her. “That’s okay, buddy. I’m not that hungry. You can have mine.”

  “I already ate.” He held the plate out to her again. If she blurred her eyes, she almost couldn’t see the dust bunnies glued to the peanut butter. “And m
y teacher says breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

  Jack hoovered up information faster than a Dyson, and he wasn’t shy about sharing what he learned. Before he launched into the intricacies of the food pyramid, she plucked a stray hair off the top of her toast and took a big bite.

  She choked it down, and he yanked the covers off her. “Hurry, we’re going to be late.”

  “Okay, okay.” Tessa laid her toast on the bedside table and rolled out of bed. “I’m hitting the shower.”

  “But, Mom—”

  “Go,” she said. “You can play one of your video games while you wait if you want.”

  Jack rolled his eyes, as he headed toward the door, his thumbs tucked in the shoulder straps of his backpack. “Billy’s dad says that too much screen time rots brain cells. Do you want me to lose brain cells? I’m only seven. If I start now there’s no telling how many I’ll lose by the time I’m fifteen, and then if I start drinking young—”

  “Ho, now. Since when were you planning on a life of underage drinking? That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “I’m not. Pickling your liver is no joke.” He grabbed the door as he slowly started backing out. “But statistically kids are starting to drink younger and younger, and it’s inevitable–”

  “Jaaack.” Statistically. Inevitable. Who else’s second grader argued like a seasoned lawyer?

  “I’m just saying you can’t fight statistics and—” She raised her brows, letting him know it was time to give up. “Okay, okay. I’m going.”

  Jack left and closed the door behind him. Tessa let the smile that she’d been holding back break free. Some days it was all she could do to keep up with him mentally. What was she going to do when he was fourteen, or sixteen, or eighteen? Dear Lord, she was in trouble.

  Tessa was in and out of the shower in record time. She stood in front of her mirror, a towel wrapped around her body as she brushed her teeth and worked the tangles out of her hair. There came a faint knock at her bathroom door, and Jack poked his head in.

  “I’m almost ready,” she said. “Give me a few more minutes.”

  Jack came into the bathroom and held up the plate with her fuzzy peanut butter toast. “Don’t forget this,” he said. “Protein is a great way to help you keep full all day.”

  Tessa smiled, took her toast, and because he was watching, she took another bite. Who knew, maybe the dust bunnies would add a little fiber to her diet. Around the bite, she said, “Now go on. I need to get dressed.”

  Jack hurried out, his backpack flapping against his back. Tessa shoved the rest of the toast into her mouth. Her cell phone buzzed on the counter beside her. She groaned when she saw the caller ID and swallowed hard.

  “Dad? Something wrong?” She held the phone away from her face, checking the time. It wasn’t even six AM. “Why are you calling this early?”

  “Been talking with your husband –”

  “Ex-husband.”

  Her father talked over her as if she hadn’t said anything. As if her divorce wasn’t final. The fact that her father was still talking with Bradley left a worse taste in her mouth than the fuzz-encrusted peanut butter.

  It was frustrating enough that her ex wanted back into her and Jack’s life, but to have her father do her ex’s groveling? Her father should be on her side. Not Bradley’s.

  She only half listened to her father talking because the gist of what he had to say never changed: Bradley was sorry. Bradley would try better. Her son deserved to have his father around.

  Her father couldn’t understand why she was so difficult, so selfish.

  All those things were meant to pile on the guilt, to make her into the villain, to make her think she was the one who was going to screw up their child.

  “Dad, stop.”

  “Be reasonable, Tessa. Bradley deserves—”

  “Bradley deserves what he got. A divorce, and limited visitation.”

  “Your son needs a positive male role model. He needs his father. He needs—”

  “Look, Dad, I gotta go.” Tessa pinched the bridge of her nose to relieve the pounding behind her eyes. She didn’t have the time or the energy to argue with her father. “I’m running late. I’ll call later. Tell Mom I love her.”

  Tessa hung up, her hand shaking as she dropped the phone on the counter. Six years and her father hadn’t accepted that she and Bradley would never, ever, ever be together again.

  Bradley wasn’t a good man.

  He was a charmer. When it suited him. Especially with family court judges, she found. He could make you want to drink the Kool-Aid and jump off a cliff. How could her father not see past Bradley’s bullshit?

  Before Jack could come back into her room, she jumped into a pair of jeans, stomped into her boots and slipped on an old T-shirt and sweatshirt. Catching her hair in a ponytail, she called it good. The cows weren’t too picky.

  She dumped her paper plate in the kitchen trash, grabbed a quick cup of coffee in her travel mug and called out to Jack. He’d settled on the couch engrossed in one of his new books from the library. Harry Potter? Or maybe quantum physics? Who knew. Long ago, she’d quit steering him toward books geared for kids his age. With Jack, she picked her battles, and what books he read wasn’t one she was going to win.

  She plopped a Bison County Sheriff’s Office baseball cap on his head, the bill turned backward. “Come on, slowpoke, you’re gonna make us late.”

  Jack grumbled and righted his cap. “Mom, that’s not the way the pros wear their caps.”

  Heaven forbid her son does something against the “rules.” And really? Was she complaining that her son follows the rules? What was the matter with her?

  He scrambled to his feet, tried to stuff the book into his already overloaded backpack. When it didn’t fit, he tucked it under his arm and ran out the front door. Tessa pulled up the rear and locked the door behind her.

  “Uh, oh,” Jack said.

  Tessa turned, her purse dropping from her shoulder at the sight of her flat tire. “Shit.”

  “Mom, Billy’s dad said that swearing –”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Tessa clicked her key fob and had Jack throw his gear in the back seat of her four-door Jeep Wrangler.

  Jack closed the rear passenger door and grinned at her. “Does this mean I get to learn how to change a tire today?”

  Tessa leaned over her tire and ran her finger along the one-inch gash in the sidewall. Her stomach shifted and the peanut butter she’d eaten stuck like glue. This wasn’t a flat tire from a simple road hazard. Someone had slashed her tire. Tessa forced false cheer into her voice. “I guess, buddy. Help me get the spare off.”

  She glanced at her watch, she wouldn’t make the Lazy S by seven. She shot off a quick text to Quinn and told him she had a flat and suggested they should go on without her.

  The responding text came in as she busted the last of the lug nuts loose. Jack checked her phone. “Quinn said someone will wait and you can catch up.”

  She replaced the damaged tire with the spare and showed Jack how to tighten the lug nuts evenly. He pushed and pulled on the lug wrench getting the nuts as tight he could. She followed up behind him tightening them up the rest of the way.

  “Take this,” she said, handing him the lever for the jack. “Slowly turn it to the left until the hydraulic bleeds down and the tire is on the ground.”

  In a rush, she hefted the damaged tire in the back of her Jeep and tossed the tire tools in on top. “Saddle up, Cowboy.”

  After climbing behind the wheel, she wiped her grimy hands on her jeans and glanced over her shoulder at Jack. “All set?”

  He fastened himself into his booster seat. “You know, the new guidelines on child safety seats—”

  “Say you have ten pounds and an inch and a half to go.”

  “But Billy doesn’t use a booster seat, and he only weighs—” Tessa cut him off with a narrow-eyed look in the rearview mirror. Jack blew out a breath. “Fiiine.”

  Her h
eadlights cut through the dull gray dawn as the low cloud cover kept well east of the Rockies. About fifteen minutes later, the Jeep rumbled over her great Aunt Evie’s cattle guard. Jack giggled. The cattle guards always made him giggle. Sometimes she forgot he was a kid.

  “That tickles my butt,” he said.

  Jack scrambled out of his booster seat as Tessa parked. He was out of the Jeep and running for Evie’s front door before Tessa got the chance to pull the keys from the ignition. She reached into the back, shouldered Jack’s backpack, and followed him to the front door. Jack raised his hand to knock, but Massey, Evie’s grown grandson, pulled the door open before he had the chance.

  “Hey, Squirt.” Massey released the grip on one of his crutches and gave Jack a fist bump.

  “Hey.”

  They both pulled their hands back and extended their fingers like an explosion. Jack skipped into the house, and Massey pulled Tessa in for a hug. “Hey cuz, how you been?”

  Tessa rolled her eyes. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was a Monday.”

  “That good, huh?” Massey chuckled and started crutching his way to the kitchen. Massey had Cerebral Palsy, but he rarely let that slow him down. When he spoke, his consonants came out soft. When she and Jack had moved to the area, it had taken them no time at all to get used to the way he talked. The local women had learned to appreciate it. He never seemed short of female companionship.

  Tessa dropped Jack’s bag on the couch on her way to the kitchen. Evie greeted her with a hug. Evie was a slight woman who had more steel in her spine than Lady Liberty.

  “I thought this would be nice for your ride.” Evie handed her a full thermos of coffee. “It probably won’t warm up for another couple of hours.”

  With thanks, Tessa took the thermos. She glanced toward the table where a set of architectural drawings were spread out over the top. Massey bumped his chin toward the man standing in the kitchen. “You remember Wyatt Wolfe?”