Читать книгу Falling For A Cowboy - Karen Rock - Страница 14
ОглавлениеAMBERLEY STUMBLED ALONG a rutted path, her gasps of breath harsh in her ears. Her boots sunk into puddles forming atop the hard-baked soil. Soaked, her plaid shirt clung to her like a frigid second skin. It’d begun drizzling only ten minutes ago. Then, in that unpredictable way of Rocky Mountain weather, the sky turned on the world with what appeared to be crack-white flashes of lightning. Thunderous booms shook the electric air and thick sheets of rain pelted the earth, shaking her from the inside out.
Worst of all.
She was lost.
Clamping her chattering teeth, she trudged on, one foot in front of the other. Where was she? She’d run off a half hour ago, she estimated, and should have reached her destination: a small, abandoned one-room schoolhouse that had once served the local ranching families a hundred years ago. Its shape should have caught her attention by now. The dirt path that ran from her cabin led straight there, yet somewhere along the way she’d gotten turned around. Now she didn’t recognize which path she followed since staring straight at anything was like looking through a smudged, cracked, warped windshield. Reining in her mounting panic, she used her side vision to guestimate her location.
The waterfall of sky blurred the dim landmarks worse than her slipping eyesight. Skyscrapers of pitch-green trees, pines she supposed based on the smell and shape, loomed to her right. To her left, the land turned to beige shale and seemed to slope down. In fact, it seemed to disappear—
Her foot encountered air and she teetered for a gut-cramping moment on the edge of a drop-off. Her arms pinwheeled. A flash-thought forked in her mind. Would it matter so much if she tumbled right off this mountain? What difference would it make?
A wild shriek flew from her, voicing her anguish, her fear, her hopelessness, her rage, her despair.
Then a strong arm snaked around her waist and yanked her back. Hard. She and her rescuer smacked to the boggy earth with a sploosh. The man grunted, the air knocked out of him, and she blinked up at the shifting, whirling sky, winded herself.
An instant later, she scrambled away and rocked back on her heels. A tall, lanky man leveraged himself up on his elbows, then shot to his feet in a smooth, agile move she’d recognize anywhere.
Jared.
He opened his mouth to say something, but just then a deafening flash-bang splintered the fizzing air. The sky lit up and lightning burned through a nearby tree, amputating a crane-sized branch. It crashed with deadly force inches from their feet. Burnt wood and sulfuric fumes rose.
The sky growled, low and ferocious, readying for another salvo. Goose bumps broke out across her skin.
Jared gestured. “Come with me!”
Amberley nodded. No time to argue. He laced his fingers in hers and together they slid and stumbled through the howling tempest. The streaming air launched debris at them, hard bits of wood whizzing fast enough to strike with maximum impact. When a trail marker sign winged at them, she didn’t spot it fast enough to duck and it bashed straight into her forehead, sending her to her knees. She clutched her stinging face, and her fingers came away a sticky, blurred red.
She felt dazed. She shook her head to clear it, but the move only shot a bolt of pain through her. Without a word, Jared scooped her up in his arms, held her tight to his broad chest, and jogged down the trail until the outline of the old schoolhouse appeared. She grasped her thrumming head, afraid it’d either fall off her shoulders or explode if she didn’t.
Without pausing, Jared kicked open the door, shoved it closed behind them, strode inside the dark interior, then lowered to a tottering wooden chair at the front of the room. All at once, the world muted itself. The now-muffled rain snare-drummed softly on the roof. The fangless wind batted against the rattling windowpanes. The dank, musty space closed in. Their ragged breaths mingled. Beneath her ear, Jared’s heart galloped and the hands smoothing up and down her back shook.
She’d never sensed Jared flustered a day in his life, and for some reason this scared her as much as anything.
“Shhhhhhhhhhh,” he murmured, low in her ear. “I’ve got you, darlin’.”
She stiffened.
“You’re safe,” he crooned in a rumbling, husky voice.
Enough. She didn’t want to be safe. Least of all because of someone else rescuing her or seeing her at her weakest. Even worse, that person was Jared.
She wriggled free of his arms and faltered back a couple of steps. Her hands groped the emptiness behind her, a new habit, to feel for what she couldn’t see. Frustration and helplessness brewed in her belly, toxic and nauseating. When her fingers encountered the soft edge of an old desk, she leaned on it, testing her weight partially, before trusting herself to sit atop it.
“Let me.” Jared brushed back the hair sticking to the gash on her forehead. Something dripped from her temple. Warmer than water.
She’d never fainted in her life. Yet suddenly, a light-headedness stole over her, and she grasped the edges of the desk with both hands.
“Stop.” She jerked away and nearly cried out from the pain. A red drop splattered on the dusty floor.
Jared pivoted with her. “Hold still.” He flipped off her hat, grasped her chin in one strong hand and studied her. A deep longing to see his amber eyes seized her. Yet if they held pity, she’d rather not know. “This is going to need stitches.”
She started to shrug and realized that even the slightest movement made her head whirl and her stomach revolt. “A flesh wound,” she said, trying to joke, a reference to one of their favorite Monty Python movies, but her voice cracked like a thirteen-year-old boy’s.
“Not funny, Amberley,” Jared growled. “You could have gotten yourself killed out there.”
He pulled something from his back pocket, wrapped it around her head and tied it in the back. It smelled like him, she thought, breathing in the crisp cotton, clean soapy smell. His lucky bandanna, she guessed.
“So what if I had?”
He knelt in front of her and gathered her hands in his. Though she tried to stop them, tears of pain welled. She didn’t cry easily. In fact, she could count the number of moments on one hand. The time her glasses got knocked off and she’d had to crawl around on the playground looking for them while other kids laughed. And once when she’d dislocated a shoulder during a barrel racing accident. Then the day they’d buried Daddy.
“Well, if you’d gotten yourself killed, then I would have lost my mind,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, almost a croak.
Her frog prince. Back.
Only she didn’t want him anymore.
She didn’t want anyone.
Not even herself.
At least not who she was now.
She screwed her eyes shut. Jared brushed at her damp lashes with his thumbs, the gesture so tender it ached. “Your mother told me about your eyes.”
A painful lump formed in her throat.
“Amberley, talk to me.”
She stood. Halting steps carried her to the window. Although she couldn’t see much in the writhing darkness, she imagined the tumult and wished it’d sweep her away, too.
“I want to go home.”
Jared joined her. When his fingers laced with hers, she jerked her hand away. “Charlotte told me you’ve been having trouble for a while now. Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”
She shrugged.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to.”
Because I couldn’t bear for you to think less of me.
To pity me.
“Why? I’m always here for you.”
“I can manage on my own,” she fired back.
“But you don’t have to.”
“Yes, I do.”
“We’re a team.”
Only when they were both equal. But those days were over. “Not anymore.”
“Just tell me what I can do, Amberley.”
“This isn’t about you, Jared,” she snapped.
“The heck it ain’t.” She flinched at his suddenly angry tone. In all their years, they’d never fought. Not seriously. Sure. They’d had their share of good-natured arguments from time to time. Squabbles. Bets. Competitions. Rivalries. But this? It was foreign and felt every kind of wrong.
Still. She’d rather he be angry than sorry for her. Angry meant you mattered. Pity? That rendered you inconsequential.
“We’ll get through this.”
“Get through this?” She pressed her burning forehead against the cold glass. “I’m going blind, Jared. I’m never getting through this.”
He cupped her shoulders and turned her slowly. “There’s got to be a cure,” he insisted. “Surgery. A donor list. Didn’t I hear once—something about cadavers...”
“Stop.” She put her hands over her ears. “Just stop. Everything comes easy to you. Heck. You’ve never had to work for just about anything in your life, so I get your not understanding this. But I.” She poked a finger in his chest. “Am. Not. Getting. Better.”
“So you won’t even try?”
“I just want to be left alone.”
“What’s that mean? Holing up in your room? Hiding out from the world? Ignoring your friends?” He cleared his throat. “Me?”
“It’s not hiding. It’s being realistic. Facing facts.”
“About what?”
“That I can’t do anything anymore.”
“You can do plenty.”
“Not barrel race.”
She angled her head and viewed him from the corner of her eye, using her working, peripheral vision. Those perfect brows of his slanted over his straight nose, and white rimmed his golden-brown eyes all around. He appeared every bit as uncomfortable and confused as she felt.
And she couldn’t bear it.
He surrounded himself with capable, successful people. Winners. She couldn’t blame him for not understanding how to handle someone disabled like her. Disabled. She already hated the word. It meant not able. Who wanted to be known as that—even if it was true?
“You can’t see at all?”
“Not dead on. Everything’s a blur of color in the center of my vision. From the sides, I can focus some.”
“You can’t see my face?”
Her insides shriveled at the pained note that entered his voice. “Not all of it. Not at once. And soon.” Her voice fractured. “Soon I might not be able to see even that.”
He brought her hands to his warm, smooth cheeks. When he swished her fingers over his down-turned lips, she yanked free.
“Let me help you,” Jared insisted.
“Do what? I can’t compete anymore. Can’t ride. Can’t drive. Heck. I can’t even walk alone on my own. I don’t want to depend on anybody for anything. I don’t want to be reminded of—”
“Reminded of—” he prompted.
“Of how helpless I am.”
“No one’s saying you are.”
“But they’ll be thinking it. You’re thinking it.”
The beat of silence spoke volumes and hurt way more than she’d imagined it could. They’d never lied to one another, and she didn’t expect anything less than brutal honesty from her best friend now. Outside, the battering rain eased, then trickled. The thunder and lightning moved off to torment another mountain.
She glimpsed Jared’s chest rise, then fall with a long exhale. “You’re no quitter, Amberley. That isn’t the gal I—” he stumbled, fumbled for a word. “I care about.”
She flushed. What’d he been about to say? Oh. No matter. None of it did anymore. Jared liked being around her because she challenged him. Once it sunk in that those days had ended, he’d come around only out of pity. She didn’t believe for a second he’d abandon her. His decency and loyalty meant he never turned his back on his friends. But she wanted to be his equal, not his charity case. Better she cut things off while she still had her pride. Jared ran with a fast crowd and she’d only slow him down.
“Then stop caring about me,” she forced herself to say, “because that girl’s gone.”
“Not happening.”
She paused, thinking fast. She needed to get rid of him once and for all. For both their sakes. “So as my friend you’ll do anything for me?”
He nodded quickly. “Now you’re seeing sense.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Anything?”
“Name it,” he vowed.
“Alright. Then bring me home and don’t ever come around again.”
“Amberley...” he protested, his voice full of air like she’d sucker punched him.
She shook her head. Firm. “You promised.”
* * *
“AMBERLEY, PHONE!”
At her mother’s call, Amberley roused herself ever so slightly from the 24/7 stupor she’d fallen into these past few weeks. “Tell them I’m sleeping!” she called without opening her eyes. She turned and burrowed deeper under her covers, ignoring the slight bump up in her heart rate.
So far, Jared had kept his word and not called since that night on Mount Sopris, but a part of her, a lowdown, cowardly, traitorous part, still hoped, every time she heard the phone ring, that he hadn’t respected her decision...
Hadn’t given up on her.
She missed him. Missed her friend. Missed that smile. Not that she’d ever see it again anyways.
Oh. Stop bellyaching. It was for the best. If she cared about him, she’d let him go. She sighed and flopped over on her back, arms flung wide, her best thinking position.
What was the saying? “If you can’t fix it, you just have to stand it.”
She glanced over at the bedside table cluttered with cans of pop, bags of chips and dishes left over from eating meals in bed the last few weeks.
Or wallow in it...
Inertia. Another good word for her current state. Suspended animation. That summed it up, too. Maybe she should request to be cryogenically frozen. Least then she’d do something for science.
“Amberley!” shrilled her mother again.
She shoved herself upright, and her covers dropped to her lap in a messy heap. “Can you take a message?” From the corner of her eye, she spied the digital clock with the oversize display her mother had brought home recently. It read 1:20 p.m.
Outside her open window, the sky was a blue so brilliant even her eyes picked it up, the air was still washed clean from recent rain, and birds warbled from the two rustling maples that stood sentinel at the end of their drive. It was the kind of weather that usually woke her feeling elated, glad to be alive, wishing she could belt out some musical number like “Oklahoma” or the “Sound of Music.”
Not that she could sing a lick, but on days like this she’d always felt anything was possible. Even singing on key. Like maybe she could ride to the end of the earth and back before it’d even had a chance to circle the sun.
“It’s about Harley!”
Harley? She tossed off her covers and stumbled down the narrow hall to the kitchen, hands brushing the walls to keep her bearings. Her wrinkled sleep shirt swung around her knees.
She mouthed “Thanks” to her mother and brought the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
“Sorry to bother you, Amberley, what with, ah, all you’re going through and all.”
Harley’s stable owner, Benny Jordan, an asthmatic former champion roper turned rodeo clown who’d retired to this area fifteen years ago, breathed noisily into the phone.
“Is Harley okay?” Her fingers gripped the handle hard, and she dropped into the seat her mother pulled out. Inside her chest, her heart skittered every which way. Although it’d been weeks since she’d seen Harley, not a day passed where she didn’t wonder how he was doing and if the stable was taking good care of him. Prior to her accident, they’d spent most of every day together. Now, the thought of seeing him again only reopened the wound of all that she’d lost.
When her mother pointed at the phone, then her ear, Amberley nodded, fumbled around for the speaker button, then pressed it.
“Well, now. That’s the thing. See. He’s not eating like he should.” More wheezing, then, “Been skittish when folks come near. This morning, I sent in Joan to muck out his stall.”
Joan? A former rodeo pro herself, she’d become the local horse whisperer and founded the equine therapy program they ran out of Harley’s stables. She had much more important things to do than clean stalls.
“Did something happen?”
A kettle whistled, and her mother’s chair scraped back as she rose to grab it.
“Well. Now she’s going to be fine.”
“Benny. What happened to Joan?” Her pulse picked up tempo and her fingers drummed along with it on the wooden tabletop. Across the way, she glimpsed her mother’s form twist to face her. Something hung from each hand. Mugs, Amberley guessed.
“The doctor says it’ll heal in about six weeks.”
Alarm bells shrilled in her ears. “What happened?”
“Harley busted out her kneecap. Kicked her full on.”
Every bit of air in her lungs rushed right out of her. “I’m so sorry.”
The sound of poured liquid reached her ears followed by the rip of paper as she imagined her mother opening tea bags.
“Not your fault.”
But it was. She saw that suddenly. “I should have been down to care for Harley.”
“Understandable that you haven’t.” She heard a couple of quick inhaler puffs from his end. Then, “Sorry to bring you the bad news, but I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to house Harley anymore.”
She hung her pounding head. “Is that final?” Jordan Stables provided the only home Harley had ever known. If he couldn’t manage there, who knew where he’d end up?
The painful thought of being separated from him branded itself on her heart, burning straight through.
And it’s not like you’ve done anything to help, whispered that angel on her right shoulder.
What’s the point? whispered the devil. Not like you can ride him again. Care for him.
But she and Harley had a bond that went deep. Besides handling him morning and evening, she’d talked to him a lot. While grooming him, or letting him eat “better” grass on the stable’s front yard, she’d filled him in on rodeo winners, cried over barrel racing icon Scamper’s passing, sympathized with his “picked last in gym” herd status, and generally kept up a running conversation. She believed she could rattle on about the rising price of corn feed and Harley would think all was right with the world.
And after her father’s cancer diagnosis, Harley had been there. She’d cried lots of tears into that silver mane of his. Had hung on to him when it’d felt as though her whole world was falling apart. He kept her from crumbling, too. She never could have gotten through that terrible time without him...or Jared...
Abandoning Harley was inexcusable.
A spoon clanged against ceramic. Her unflustered, steely-souled mother stirring the tea.
Daddy’s last words came back to her. “I know you’re going to be okay. You are strong.”
And she’d believed it, until now.
“When do you need Harley gone by?”
“Joan’s in quite a state, as you can imagine. She’s got students booked for her program, and now she’s laid up. Plus, we won’t be able to get anyone to care for Harley. So—”
“I’ll come down,” she cut him off.
A hand appeared in her line of vision, and the mug her mother set down banged against the table. Puffs of pungent steam swept off the surface and curled beneath her nose.
“Not sure if that’d make a difference.”
“If I keep up his stall, can he stay? Least until I figure out next steps?”
She could see general shapes when she was close-up and in small spaces, like a stall. Heck, she’d cleaned the stable’s stalls so many times, she could do it blind. It’d hurt to be nothing better than a stall mucker, but she’d do anything to help the horse that’d done so much for her.
Benny made a noise like a shrug. “Well. That’d solve some of the issues.”
“Some?”
“He’s not socializing well with the other horses in pasture. Acting out.”
“Needs exercise,” her mother murmured beside her.
“That Charlotte?” Benny hollered.
“Howdy, Ben!” her mother called. “Just thinking there isn’t anything wrong with Harley some regular riding wouldn’t sort out.”
“That a fact.”
Amberley’s body tightened, her muscles clenched. She’d been resisting her mother’s plea to sell Harley. Now it seemed she faced a rock-and-a-hard-place decision. Sell Harley, or find a way to interact with him that wouldn’t leave her feeling worse than ever.
She’d avoided anything that reminded her of the old days. Had asked her mother to remove all her trophies. Stopped listening to rodeo on the radio. Cut Harley and Jared right out of her life. Now she understood how much her decisions affected others. Jared called her selfish, and he had the right of it when it came to Harley.
A steel band tightened around her chest at the thought of letting Harley go. Yet Harley’s needs mattered most. First step, visit Jordan Stables, settle him down, get him comfortable and put out feelers for buyers.
Champion barrel racers like Harley sold quickly. He might even make the ERA Premier touring team she’d dreamed about, and he deserved that spotlight. The glory. He’d trained hard for it, right alongside her.
She recalled something she’d read on a poster once: “If you love something, let it go, even when you know it’s never coming back.”
Or something like that.
It applied to her and Jared, too.
“Just give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be down.”
“Mighty appreciated,” Benny said, then hung up.
A little while later, her mother pulled to a stop in front of Jordan Stables. The familiar scents of manure, hay and horse assailed Amberley as she eased out of the car and stood with a hand on the warm car hood. Memories, sharp and sweet, rushed through her, stinging her eyes and heart. Once this had been her sanctuary. Now she felt like a stranger. Worse. Like she didn’t belong.
“Howdy, ladies.” Benny’s unmistakable twang rang out.
She turned in the direction of his voice and recognized the barrel shape of him, the rolling gate of his bowed legs. He wore the same ten-gallon hat. That much she could make out. As for the rest, her memory about the grizzled man filled in the blanks.
“How’s Joan?” Amberley jumped, then swatted at a biting horsefly. In the distance, a group of riders lined up atop horses in one of the corrals.
“Resting for now, otherwise I’d take you to her.”
“Please give her this and our apologies.” Charlotte handed over a couple of banana walnut loaves she’d baked this morning. The sweet, nutty smell passed beneath Amberley’s nose as the foil-wrapped rectangles exchanged hands.
Now that Amberley thought about it, her mother cooked a lot lately and she’d taken time off from work to care for her. Was her career suffering? Did she resent being tied to the house alongside Amberley? Regret flashed inside. She didn’t want to be a burden to anyone. She’d been taught better than that.
Amberley’s life might be done, but that didn’t mean the same was true for her mama. Or Jared. Or Harley.
She had to find a way to cut ties with all of them. Otherwise she would bring them all down.
“That’s mighty kind. Thank ya,” wheezed Benny.
“Wish we could do more,” her mother demurred.
Speaking of which...
“Mind if I go and check on Harley?”
“Still got him in the third stall.” A sweep of movement, Benny’s arm, she guessed, pointed her in the right direction.
“Thank you.” She took a tentative step toward the long, ramshackle building that housed most of the stable’s horses. Overhead, birds twittered among the rustling branches of the mighty oaks that covered much of the property. A horse’s neigh spurred on two more, and a shifting movement from the mounts in the corral caught her eye. Her foot encountered something sticking up from the ground, a root maybe, and she stumbled forward, only to feel her mother’s hand at her elbow, steadying her.
“Got you, honey.”
Amberley swallowed down the loss of all that she couldn’t see and focused on Harley. Several paces farther and her fingers brushed the rough edge of the half door to his stall. Inside, a large black shape lifted its head and twisted its neck to eyeball her.
“Hey, Harley,” she cooed, and he lowered his head and blew. His stamping hooves shifted through the straw bed. “Sorry I haven’t been around.”
Lifting the hard metal latch, she eased open the door and made to slide inside.
“Honey. That may not be safe,” her mother cautioned.
“It’s Harley.”
In an instant, she threw her arms around his warm neck and buried her face in his tangled silver mane. When had he last been brushed? The rise of dust from his pelt itched her nose, and she sneezed.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she crooned, and Harley dropped his head to her shoulder at last, nickering, shaking slightly in his withers. “Should never ever have abandoned you.”
Another rumble emerged from the back of his throat. His soft lips brushed against her jawbone and his warm breath rushed by her ear.
“I was scared. Still am. But I’m going to do right by you now,” she vowed, feeling around for a brush. Harley needed her and she needed him. That was plain.
An hour later, she and her mother led Harley by a corral on their way to the pasture. The rise and fall of excited children’s voices indicated a lesson in progress.
“You need to wear your helmet,” she heard an adult exclaim.
“Watch her back brace,” someone else warned.
“No! I don’t want to!” she heard a girl scream. “Please don’t make me. Please!”
Harley slowed and his ears twitched. She clucked to keep him moving, but he seemed more interested in the commotion. Was this the therapy program her doctor had mentioned? If so, good thing she hadn’t joined it. Why force people with disabilities to confront everything they couldn’t do? It was demoralizing.
“Is that Amberley James?” she heard someone squeal. She froze.
“Yes, it is!”
“Amberley!”
A rush of movement, color and shapes, closed in on the fence. Harley sidestepped but otherwise stayed calm.
She’d gotten recognized plenty in her old life. But now, she just wanted to be forgotten. Since she had stayed away from the news, she hadn’t yet heard how the rodeo community responded to her vision loss. Her mother and her agent resolved her former contract obligations. That much she knew, but little else.
Still, she couldn’t deny that a bead of warmth expanded inside at the children’s excitement to see her.
“Howdy,” she called in their general direction.
“Ride? Ride? Ride?” demanded a little boy. A blur of motion at his sides suggested he flapped his hands.
“Can you teach me to be a barrel racer?” asked a child who didn’t appear to have any hair given the bare flesh tone surrounding her head.
Cancer?
Her heart squeezed.
“Oh. No. I—uh—I don’t ride much anymore.”
“See!” cried the child she’d heard earlier. “Amberley’s blind like me and she won’t ride, so I don’t have to either. I want to go home!”
“Well. Ah...” She stalled, unable to agree with that sentiment. Riding helped her during the years her thick glasses made her feel different from other kids. Working with horses gave her a taste of success and achievement. She didn’t want this little one to leave defeated because of her.
“It sure would mean a lot to the kids if you’d join us today,” said a voice she recognized. Joan’s daughter, Belle, home from college. “Not to mention we’re a bit understaffed at the moment.”
Amberley winced, thinking of injured Joan and Harley’s role in it. She owed it to the Jordans to help. At least for today.
“I might take Harley around once,” Amberley said slowly, hardly believing the words as she spoke them. “If you will, too. What’s your name?”
The little girl bowed a head of what looked like blond curls. “Fran.”
“Alright, Fran. If I walk Harley around, do you think you might try for me?”
“Okay.”
A moment later, she guided Harley into the corral, surprised at his lack of hesitation. He stepped forward, sure-footed and eager. In fact, she’d never sensed him this excited, not even before a barrel race.
Was he showing off for the kids?
“Here you go.” With an oomph, Benny hefted Harley’s saddle over her horse’s back. She didn’t need her eyesight for this, she mused, while her fingers flew nimbly, fastening and cinching out of habit. A budding light of confidence flickered inside.
With a boost from Benny, she swung her leg around Harley, and her lips twitched up in an unstoppable smile. Settling back in the saddle felt good. Like coming home.
“Fran? Kids? You ready?”
“Yes!” they chorused.
“I’ll lead you around,” her mother called from below, but Amberley shook her head. She could manage this small-sized corral, and she’d discern the fence in time to avoid it.
Most important, at least for today, she wanted to imagine that she could ride Harley on her own. She owed it to her horse, to injured, shorthanded Joan, and to her mother, who needed to stop fussing and get her life back.
Maybe, in this insular little world, Amberley could pretend she had a purpose after all.
