Gravel Road

by Walls, Stephie

  “Lacey’s foal is our future?”

  His eyelids closed, and he exhaled. When he opened them again, the light returned, and honey swirled in the sea of warm brown. “No, Cross Acres is. And your daddy needs to know I can handle whatever he throws at me. I’m playin’ for keeps here.”

  Austin was seventeen and had his sights set on forever. That eternity included me. And I came with Cross Acres. I didn’t have any brothers, and my sister didn’t have any suitors. I hadn’t thought about it, but Austin was right. If we got married, it made sense that he would come work for Daddy. His brother, Charlie, would be first in line to take over the Burins’ farm, and Cross Acres couldn’t run itself.

  The enormity of what had crossed my mind and how it all strung together was somewhat mindboggling. What was even more perplexing was that Austin had figured it out long before I had. Typically, women were the ones looking for ways to draw a man into a commitment—Cross Acres was quite the dowry—but Austin had searched for it on his own. I still wasn’t brave enough to ask if he’d discussed this with Daddy. That was a topic for another day. For now, I was content to know where Austin’s heart lay.

  Austin’s back was still to the mare, now on her side with her head on the ground. The weight of the foal on Lacey’s bladder brought new meaning to the saying, “Pissing like a racehorse.” The poor girl couldn’t stop urinating. This, however, wasn’t the same sound.

  I pointed, grabbing Austin’s attention. “Is that normal?” I cringed a little at the sight of the greyish-white bubble poking out of my favorite horse, along with the stream of what I could only assume was amniotic fluid. I shouldn’t be a stranger to this sort of thing, but I’d kept my distance throughout the years. Had this not been my horse, I would have tried to get out of it this time, too.

  Austin turned to see what I was talking about. “Yep. Run, get Jack.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to argue with him and tell him to go get Daddy himself. Then it occurred to me that if something happened in the amount of time Austin was gone, I wouldn’t have a clue how to handle it. I shut my mouth and took off running.

  Two hours later, we had a beautiful, palomino colt. Daddy and Austin made sure I left the little guy alone while we waited for the placenta to pass and then gave Lacey and her boy time to get acquainted. My attention wasn’t on the guys searching the placenta—once it was expelled—to make certain it was whole. I focused on the wonder of the tiny life in front of me.

  It was as though he were my own miracle. I grinned when the little horse shook his head, and I rooted for him when he tried to stand on wobbly legs. And when he suckled Lacey for the first time, it was my personal victory. Each thing Daddy told me to look for was there, right on time, and what I hadn’t seen, Ben pointed out. I couldn’t believe how fast the colt was up and walking, much less how quickly Lacey seemed to recover. Animals were far more resilient than people. There were women in town who’d used childbirth as a reason not to get out of bed for a month.

  “What’s it gonna be, Randi?” My daddy jarred my thoughts.

  I shifted my gaze from the blond beauty before me to the warm, blue eyes above me. “Huh?”

  He jerked his head toward our new four-legged friend. “His name. What is it?” Daddy chuckled at the shock he clearly read in my expression. “Your horse. You name him.”

  “Nugget.” He kind of looked like a chicken nugget. His coat was a muted tan, and he was more body than anything, with legs like sticks.

  I loved seeing my daddy look at me with pride. All I’d done was watch, so there wasn’t anything to boast over. I hadn’t even been the one to break the sack so Nugget could breathe.

  “You’re on Nugget duty,” Daddy said.

  A smile spread across my lips and lifted my cheeks so far my eyes scrunched. It wasn’t clear how long baby duty would last, and I hoped I didn’t have to do it alone. Not being able to touch him or play with him would make this difficult.

  Daddy turned to my boyfriend. “Austin, you stayin’ with her for a bit?” I loved that he knew I wanted company without my having to ask.

  “I’m here for the duration, sir.”

  “All right then. I’m going to try to grab some shuteye.” His eyelids drooped, and his shoulders slumped with exhaustion. “You need anything, don’t hesitate to holler.” Daddy disappeared without waiting for confirmation.

  Ben tipped his hat and followed. He was an odd bird who hadn’t said more than a handful of words throughout the entire birth. Daddy cared a lot about him, though. He was older and had been around since I was little. There was a lot he could no longer physically do. Daddy didn’t care. Ben had been a devoted hand, and Daddy would be a loyal employer until Ben no longer had a desire to work.

  Austin wandered past the other stalls, closed the barn doors, and then came back with several blankets. “Hop up for a second,” he said.

  Together, we spread the blankets over the bales of hay I’d occupied for the last couple of hours, and then we took a seat.

  “Your dad’s a good man.”

  “Did you know I’d get to name the horse?”

  He snickered. Clearly, we hadn’t been talking about the same thing. “It didn’t surprise me, but I was referring to how he is with Ben.” Austin leaned back against the wall of the barn. Neither of us took our eyes off the mare or the colt. “Lots of people woulda cut him loose when he couldn’t keep up. Jack didn’t do that. He makes sure Ben has an honest day’s work, and everyone on this ranch respects both of them for it.”

  “Hmm…” I hummed my acknowledgment, yet my heart was wound up in the little colt I got to call my own. I curled into Austin’s side and admired the blond from a distance.

  The sun had long since set, and I didn’t have a clue what time it was. The only light I could see before Austin closed the doors had been coming from the porch. The rest of the world seemed to have gone to sleep. If I weren’t wired from all I’d seen in the last few hours, I wouldn’t be far behind them. As it stood, I was content to relax in Austin’s arms, mesmerized by my new horse.

  He kissed the top of my head, and I pulled back to meet his eyes. They were liquid with love, and I nearly panted with desire. Hesitantly, I eased toward him. I didn’t want to mistake what I saw for hunger if it were merely exhaustion. When he slid down and took me with him, it was evident I hadn’t misread the intent in his gaze.

  A mewl escaped my mouth when he cupped his hands around my jaw. And I struggled to catch my breath when our tongues tangled. Goose bumps erupted on my arms when my shirt came over my head, and chills ran down my legs when he tugged off my shorts and panties. I wasn’t sure when it had happened, yet there we both lay, naked as the day was long. Wrapped in each other, fused together.

  Our souls had long since formed a union, but that night in the barn, our bodies became one. Together, we exchanged the greatest gift either of us could ever give, and we lost a piece of ourselves neither of us could ever get back.

  I didn’t have one ounce of regret.

  8

  Austin

  Jack needed to worry about getting better, not about the problems at the ranch. Unfortunately, there were decisions to be made, and I didn’t feel right making them on my own. Thus far, Sarah and I had managed to keep the details of the fire damage from Jack. We had reached a point where that was no longer an option.

  The wooden door to his hospital room seemed to weigh a thousand pounds when I pushed it open, although that might have just been the burden I carried. Sarah glanced over her shoulder from beside Jack’s bed and gave me a soft smile. She’d never been my type, nor had she been Charlie’s, yet seeing her here, it was obvious how she had managed to steal my brother’s heart. The role she’d played in Randi’s life in high school trained her for the role she played as an adult, and she was perfectly suited to be a farmer’s wife.

  Once I reached her side, I leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “Hey, girl,” I said with a gentle squeeze to her bicep. “How’s t
he patient?”

  Jack appeared better than I’d seen him in days. Pink tinged his cheeks, and the dark bags under his eyes had faded. “On the mend. It’s good to see you, Austin.” Jack’s voice wavered. The strength behind it had yet to return.

  “You too. You look like you feel better.” I searched the room for a chair. Without another one to drag next to the bed, Sarah gave me her seat and moved to the sofa. I used that term lightly. Foam blocks stacked on top of each other did not make it furniture, in my opinion.

  Jack pushed up and situated himself against the pillows. His expression stiffened, and he squared his shoulders to prepare for the conversation he knew I had come to have. I imagined, based on his demeanor, that Sarah had given him a heads-up.

  I leaned forward in the plastic chair and rested my elbows on my knees. There, I searched for words to make this less difficult.

  “Quit pussy-footing around, Austin. Just spit it out, son.”

  I grabbed the ballcap from my head, ran my fingers through my hair, and then fiddled with the bill to keep from meeting Jack’s eyes. “I brought in a vet from Oklahoma. He’s been at the ranch all week.”

  The movement from the hospital bed drew my attention. Jack shifted and crossed his arms. “And?”

  “We’ve got some issues.”

  I hoped he’d ask questions, or that Sarah might help me out. Jack remained stoic, and Sarah didn’t make a peep. The only option left was to lay it on the table.

  “We lost nearly twenty percent of the pastures and a tenth of the herd. We have hundreds of head suffering from smoke inhalation, calves without mothers, some with burns, and Dr. Thomas—he’s the vet who came down—is worried about latent hoof damage.”

  Jack stared at me as if I spoke a foreign language, even though the recognition showed in his eyes.

  “We need to bring in hands from out of state, since none are available locally, to deal with the fences and irrigation systems. The ranch needs the vet at our disposal for at least another couple of days, maybe longer. And I’m not sure where we’re going to get the antibiotics needed for the head with respiratory issues.”

  His head bobbed slowly. “That it?”

  I shrugged. “Well, that’s the short list with the highest priority.”

  Jack raised a hand to his scruffy face, and the scratch of his whiskers on his palm was audible even from a few feet away. The same eyes that had seemed alert when I arrived were now weary, and the bags under them became more prominent. It was the first time in my life that I could remember Jack appearing defeated, haggard.

  He took a deep breath in and then let it out. “Well, that’s what we have insurance for. I hate that I’m not there to help you deal with all of it, but do what you need to do to keep the place running.”

  That was the nail I didn’t want to drive into the coffin, the final blow that might send him over the hill. There was one more problem I hadn’t mentioned. “The insurance lapsed, Jack.”

  I hadn’t even told Sarah. I’d hoped there was something I could do. I’d been fighting all week to get the policy reinstated with no luck. It probably wouldn’t have been an issue had we not had significant damage or loss. As it stood, every rancher in town had a claim.

  Sarah gasped from the other side of the room.

  Jack sat up straight. That look of exhaustion quickly transformed into one of rage. “What do ya mean?”

  “I called in the claim to get an adjuster out. They said the premiums weren’t paid when the policy renewed in February.” I didn’t go on to tell Jack, or Sarah, that multiple letters had been sent to Cross Acres that went unanswered or that calls had been ignored. It wouldn’t do any good, not now. There was no point in adding insult to injury.

  Jack shook his head, and Sarah stood to take her dad’s side. They talked on top of each other, essentially stating the same things: there must be a mistake, and that can’t be possible.

  I let them go. They both needed to say whatever was on their mind. And I listened, patiently. There wasn’t anything they could throw at me that I hadn’t already tossed at someone else…and had it shot down.

  A lull presented itself, and I took it. “Unless you can provide a voided check or proof of a bank draft, there is no coverage.”

  That summed it up.

  Sarah angled toward Jack and took his hand in hers. “Daddy, you paid the bill, right?” The concern in her tone would be evident to a deaf person. It wasn’t just her voice, her body language screamed worry. Slumped shoulders, pinched facial features, mouth slightly ajar, all the classic signs were there.

  “Of course, I paid. This is utter nonsense. Nothin’ but some huge corporation where the left hand don’t know what the right hand’s doin’. Cross Acres ain’t never gone a day without insurance.”

  Until February first. And it hadn’t had any since. I couldn’t sort any of that out, though.

  “Austin, you need to get on the phone and ask for a supervisor.” Sarah’s attempt at being helpful was noted; it was also useless.

  I jerked my head toward the door while maintaining eye contact with Sarah. “Can I talk to you in the hall?”

  Jack latched onto my forearm faster than a snake struck. “You two might think I’m old and feeble, but last time I checked, my name was on the deed to that ranch.”

  I sucked on my teeth and willed lightning to strike or some other deadly force to take me out in the next two-point-five seconds. When neither happened, and I hadn’t vaporized, I did my job.

  “We need cash, Jack. And we need a lot of it. The vet has dozens of ranches vying for his attention, and we need him full time. The animals need medication—that takes money. And we need extra help to get fences rebuilt and to haul hay to feed the herd, who can’t be sustained on the property we currently have them on. That doesn’t even begin to address the ongoing issues about those acres not producing, the irrigation systems, or the fact that several of our own hands lost their houses to the fires and are displaced.”

  “We have guys who lost their houses?”

  I nodded. “Several.”

  The county was in a bad way. Fires didn’t just take out empty fields; they ate anything in their paths from animals to homes. Cross Acres had lucked out; the ranch saw far less devastation than many others the fire hit first. Jack would have lost everything had the wind not shifted again and taken the flames east. The damage was bad, but it would have been catastrophic.

  “Open the house. I’ve got a couple extra bedrooms, the couches, the barn. Anything you need, use it.”

  My chuckle didn’t gain a favorable response.

  “There a problem?” The grit in Jack’s tone rubbed me with uneasy frustration.

  This entire conversation was emotionally equivalent to navigating landmines. I didn’t have a clue what would set Jack off, although I presumed just about all of it. So maybe it was more like dodging bullets from an automatic weapon in a hail of gunfire. “You’re going to need your room when they release you.”

  “Okay, that still leaves three others. We can’t accommodate everyone in town, but we can certainly take care of our own.”

  I scratched my head and then put on my hat. The damn thing acted as a security blanket these days. “Except that Miranda and her boyfriend are there.”

  I’d never understood the expression, “he looked like he’d seen a ghost,” until that moment. “Randi’s in Mason Belle?”

  Sarah came to the aid of her father. “Daddy, I told you she came home. Don’t you remember?”

  Jack shook his head and then turned evil eyes on me. “You’re shackin’ up with my little girl? In my house? And why hasn’t she come to see me?”

  “What?” I was confused as the day was long.

  Sarah patted her dad’s forearm. “She’s been here several times, but I thought it was better for her to help Austin at the ranch than to get you worked up.”

  “Some help,” I muttered.

  Jack’s face went from stark white to beet red. “What’s wr
ong with you, boy?”

  Before I could respond, Sarah intervened. “Daddy, she came home from New York, and she brought her boyfriend, Eason, with her. You’ve heard me talk about him.” She spoke to her father the way I’d heard her explain something to her kids.

  He bobbed his head, yet the slight squint and vacant look in his eyes told me he didn’t follow. “I need to meet this boy.”

  Sarah giggled. “He’s hardly a boy. He’s in his thirties and a lawyer.”

  I stifled a laugh when Jack puffed up his chest.

  “I don’t care how old he is or what he does for a livin’. I wanna meet him. And I wanna see my daughter.”

  The pieces weren’t falling into place for Jack. He didn’t give any indication that he’d been estranged from his youngest child for over six years. There was no hesitation in his demands.

  Sarah gave him her pity smile, the one I hated to receive. “Eason is leaving this afternoon.”

  I sat back and watched this unfold.

  Jack grimaced. “Eason? That’s the boy’s name?”

  “Yes, sir. Eason McNabb,” I confirmed with snark.

  He shook his head. “That’s a sissy name.”

  Sarah didn’t fall into the pit of name calling, and oddly enough, she came to the guy’s defense. “Actually, it’s a family name.”

  Jack lifted his nose and scoffed. “Oh, so he’s never done an honest day’s work?”

  Over the last few days, I’d felt everything Jack actually had the nerve to say. I just hadn’t voiced it. Eason’s hands had never seen a callus, and I thought his name was somewhat soft myself. There wasn’t a rough edge to the guy.

  “He’s a nice man, Daddy. And he brought Randi home. We should be grateful.”

  “I’ll be grateful once I meet him and see her. Call her.” Accustomed to issuing orders, Jack seemed to have forgotten that Randi had quit listening to him the day she left Mason Belle.

  It was hard to tell if Jack had turned a blind eye to the past or didn’t remember it. He’d been on large doses of narcotics in recent days, so maybe this was temporary. Or perhaps it was a way to forget whatever happened and move on.