The Wake Up Page 3

  “You’ll work it out,” she said. “If you really care for each other, you’ll work it out.”

  Aiden felt his limbs grow firm and immobile, as though they’d been made of fresh plaster of Paris and were now beginning to set up. The bag boy had finished placing his groceries in two sturdy paper sacks and had pushed them in Aiden’s direction, but Aiden made no move to pick them up.

  “Want help out with these?” the boy asked.

  Probably not because Aiden didn’t look every bit the strong and healthy rancher. Aiden was obviously fit and quite capable of dealing with the physical world. Probably the boy asked because Aiden did not move or speak. Maybe the boy correctly sensed that Aiden was lost in a moment of his life.

  “No, I’ve got it,” he said.

  As he lifted the bags, he braved another glance at Marge. She shot him a smile that was clearly intended to be bracing. But it looked as though she was scared for him. Which made Aiden’s gut feel the tiniest bit wobbly, though only for a second.

  He left the store without glancing back.

  Aiden arrived back at his ranch to find an unfamiliar truck at the end of the driveway. Parked in front of the locked gate, with its engine off but the radio blaring country-western, windows fully rolled down in the midmorning heat.

  Aiden pulled up beside it and powered down the passenger window of his beefy one-ton pickup.

  The man behind the wheel was a good ten years older than Aiden, and unfamiliar. So clearly not someone who lived around here, or Aiden would have known him. The man lifted up his battered cowboy hat and scratched his mostly bald scalp.

  “Can I help you?” Aiden called over.

  “Thought maybe I could take a look at that quarter horse you got up for sale. Saw your ad in the paper.”

  Aiden sighed.

  “Which horse?”

  “Sorrel gelding? Three-year-old?”

  Aiden didn’t want to show anyone a horse. Not today. That would involve pulling his head around to business. His head balked at the prospect. All he wanted to do was clean the house for his guests and get started on the food preparation. He wanted to stay in that dreamy land of having a date with Gwen. The rest of life could wait outside the gate forever as far as he was concerned.

  “Most people call on the phone and set up an appointment.”

  “I called. Didn’t get an answer. Had some business down the road a few miles. Had to drive here from Fresno, so I thought I’d take a chance on catching you.”

  Aiden sighed again.

  “Okay,” he said. “I got a few minutes, I suppose.”

  He haltered the three-year-old sorrel gelding and led him out into the dappled sunlight in front of the barn.

  “Solid for his age,” the man said. Aiden hadn’t bothered to ask his name.

  “Yeah, he’s going to be big. Stocky big. Not too tall to work cattle. Probably no taller than he is now, which I’d say is fifteen-two. I never put a measuring stick to him or anything. I’ve probably got my nerve calling him a roping prospect, because he’s not even under saddle yet. But both the stallion and the brood mare were born to rope. Champions, both.”

  The man looked the horse up and down. Ran a hand down the animal’s side. Picked up a rear hoof and looked at the bottom of it. Aiden wasn’t sure what he was trying to see.

  “Yeah, I heard good things about these horses. Same ones your daddy used to breed, right? Harris Delacorte?”

  “It’s his same line, yeah. You from around here?”

  “Fresno.”

  “Right. You said that. Sorry. Glad word’s traveled that far.”

  The man dropped the hoof and straightened his back. Stiffly, as though it hurt from too much ranch work and holding too many hooves. He stared at Aiden and said nothing. Aiden felt the need to fill the silent air.

  “Until pretty recently I’d always start the three-year-olds myself. Much too long a story to explain why I don’t anymore.”

  And not a story I’d consider telling to a stranger. Or would enjoy telling to anyone.

  “Start ’em?”

  “Under saddle,” Aiden said. “Yeah.”

  “You mean break ’em.” With an argumentative emphasis on the word “break.”

  A pause as the unspoken parts of the disagreement settled in.

  “I don’t like that word myself. I don’t look at it that way. I mean, the horse should still be in one piece after you’re successfully sitting in that saddle on his back. If not, I’d say you’re doing something wrong.”

  Aiden felt the man bristle. Felt a return of that same shadow of dark cloud that had been dogging his day.

  “Can’t say as I agree with you there. Horse has a spirit that tells him to go his own way. Please himself and not you. You don’t break that, you’re just heading for a world of hurt.”

  A moment of silence, during which an energy crackled in the air between them. Even the gelding caught it. Aiden saw the animal’s head come up, and his eye open wider—saw the dark brown iris partially ringed with white.

  “Not a point worth arguing,” Aiden said. “Because the horse is not for sale. None of my horses are for sale.”

  “But you put him up for sale with an ad in the paper.”

  “Oops.”

  The man just waited. Maybe to see if Aiden would say more. Maybe deciding whether to blow his top or not.

  “I hate it when that happens,” Aiden continued. “When your horse is not for sale and you accidentally tell the classified ads people at the paper that he is.”

  “Right,” the man said, his eyebrows pressing down over his darkening eyes. “I get the message. I know when I’m not wanted.”

  “That’s a good quality in a person,” Aiden replied.

  The man stamped back to his truck, the soles of his boots kicking up miniature dust storms in the arid dirt.

  Aiden tried to pull his attention back to his day. Tried to force the feeling of elation back into place. Of course it didn’t work.

  There was a pall over everything now. A lingering sense of some small pending doom. And it wasn’t about the sorrel gelding, Aiden realized as he walked him back into the barn. There was far more at stake than an argument with a buyer. The man gunning his engine and tearing away was the least of Aiden’s worries.

  He wished he had a better bead on the greater worries, but they eluded him. Just shadows. Ghosts. Unknowable and indistinct. And yet so very . . . there.

  Chapter Two

  Falling and Breaking

  When Aiden swung his front door wide, all he could see for a minute was her. Though it was not a full minute in actual fact—it was two or three seconds that felt stretchy and overextended, as though they had caused time to falter.

  He knew he should look down at the two children who stood one on either side of her. But all he could see was Gwen.

  Her hair, naturally jet black, was swept up into a soft do, her eyes so dark as to be nearly black as well. And deep, as if he could swim right through them to what mattered most inside her. She wore a deep-red dress that managed somehow to be modest and show off her full curves at the same time.

  “Hey,” he said, and felt his face flush with embarrassment. Because her children were watching him look at her as though she were the only thing in the world that mattered to him.

  Had he ever felt this way about a woman before? Nothing came to mind. Everything before a couple of months ago felt like a muddled blank when he tried to reach for it.

  “Hey yourself,” she said. “This is Elizabeth . . .”

  Aiden lowered his eyes to the girl.

  She was a slim, shy-looking teen who bore no resemblance to her mother. Same with the boy, he could now see in his peripheral vision. They were redheads. Muted red hair and light, freckled complexions. Which could only mean one thing, and it was a thing that made Aiden’s stomach roil: the kids took after that horrible, abusive man Gwen had just divorced. By the look of it, they were more part of him than of her. He had pictured them a
s miniatures of Gwen. It was a disappointment, because he’d thought they would feel familiar to him, and they did not.

  “Elizabeth,” he said, and held his hand out for her to shake.

  She accepted the offer. Her grip was tentative and light. It made her smile hesitantly to shake his hand. Still, it was a lovely smile. Toothy, braces and all, and real. The kind that makes you smile back whether smiles come easily to you or not.

  “And this is Milo,” Gwen continued.

  Aiden reached his hand out to Milo, who was younger and smaller than his sister. The boy stood with his head purposely angled away, as if he thought he could pretend not to see Aiden’s offer. Gwen bumped his shoulder with her arm, but it only caused the boy to back up a step. As if retreat were the only move he knew.

  He was strangely thin, Aiden now saw. Sickly thin. He had bags under his eyes, deep circles. As if he hadn’t slept for a week. Or as if he were allergic to something. Or maybe everything. The whole world.

  “Okay,” Aiden said, though everyone present seemed to know it was not okay. “You folks should all come in.”

  Meanwhile, as he spoke, he found himself seized with a strange thought. Well, not even a thought so much. He did not think it through in his brain, nor did he go there on purpose. It was more of an image, flooding in uninvited, of his adoptive father the first time Aiden had met him. He’d been standing in the doorway with his hair slicked back and flowers in his arms. Obviously deeply taken with Aiden’s mother, and more than aware that her two children stood as walls that would need to be scaled if he was to be with her. All the fear of that knowledge etched into his face.

  It was a memory from a time he’d been sure he could not remember. And yet there it was.

  Ironic, Aiden’s brain said to him. Thirty-four years later you know exactly how he felt. Poor guy.

  “I can make Milo some macaroni and cheese,” Aiden said. As he spoke, he rose out of his chair on his way to leaving the table.

  “No, really, Aiden,” Gwen said. “Don’t.” She put her hand on his arm, and he sank back down. Aiden looked up to see both children staring at the spot where Gwen’s hand intersected with his white shirtsleeve. “He won’t eat that, either. It’s not about what you made. It’s good. And Milo likes chicken and pasta. Usually. He just doesn’t eat when he’s nervous.”

  “I’m not nervous,” Milo said, still staring at his plate.

  It was the first the boy had spoken. Aiden was literally hearing Milo’s voice for the first time. It hadn’t changed yet—well, of course it hadn’t; he was only ten—but somehow Aiden had been unprepared for the high flimsiness of it. It made the boy sound more innocent than he looked.

  He did not look innocent. Not at all. He looked shifty and suspicious. Unbalanced by his fear of everything around him.

  “I’ll rephrase,” Gwen said. “When Milo is in an unfamiliar situation, he doesn’t eat.”

  “Or any other situation,” Elizabeth added. “He just never eats.” Then she glanced up and around, was caught by her mother’s eyes, and decisively clammed up.

  “I hate to sit here and eat while he starves,” Aiden said.

  But he placed his cloth napkin back in his lap, because he had no idea of a better way to proceed through the moment.

  “It’s his choice,” Gwen said. “You served him a lovely meal. He’ll either eat it or he won’t. I won’t have you jump up and make him something else, because he’s just as likely to turn his nose up at that, too.”

  They ate in silence for a few minutes. Well, three of them ate.

  “I thought maybe after dinner,” Aiden said, “we could all go for a ride. I have some really nice, quiet horses. You kids like horses?”

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said.

  “No,” Milo said.

  Their words erupted simultaneously and more or less canceled each other out.

  “Well, Elizabeth and Gwen can go for a ride, and Milo and I can stay here and get to know each other better,” Aiden said, refusing to let the dread of that statement come through in his tone. “We have lots of time before it gets dark tonight. Second-longest day of the year. Did you know that?”

  He looked to Elizabeth as he asked the question. It just seemed safer.

  “I did, actually,” she said, sounding eager. “Summer solstice is tomorrow. So, do you have cows here, too? Or just horses?”

  “Elizabeth,” Gwen said, and shot her daughter another look, as though the girl had said something wrong.

  “What?”

  “Aiden might think that’s too personal.”

  “How can cows be personal?”

  “No, they’re not,” Aiden said, setting his fork down. “It’s not too personal a question at all. So don’t feel bad for bringing it up. It’s just that your mother happens to know that I’m . . . in between on some things. And she probably thought I wouldn’t want to talk about it. But it’s okay. I still have a couple hundred head of cattle. And this used to be a working cattle ranch. Just three months ago it was. But then I went through some . . . Oh, I don’t know. A change of heart, I guess. And now I’m not sure if that’s what I want to do anymore. I also breed quarter horses. So I might just do that instead. You know. Only that.”

  He looked up to see the girl staring into his eyes with an unguarded intensity. It made him realize that he was not nearly as ready for this meeting as he had thought. But ready or not, here it was. And Aiden was going to see it through.

  “So what will you do with all the cows you already have?” she asked.

  “I . . . haven’t quite decided that yet.”

  “That’s enough of giving poor Aiden the third degree,” Gwen said.

  “No, it’s okay, Gwen. Really it is. The idea was for the four of us to get to know each other. Right? So questions have to be okay.”

  But he breathed a quiet sigh of relief when no more questions seemed forthcoming.

  Aiden picked up Milo’s plate. The food on it literally had not been touched. The boy hadn’t even pushed it around with his fork. In fact . . . had he even picked up his fork? Not that Aiden could remember.

  He carried the plate out onto his front porch and whistled for Buddy.

  “Hey, Buddy. Here, boy.”

  Gwen came out onto the porch and hooked her arm through his.

  “How can you have a dog and I don’t even know it?”

  “I guess because he’s only been hanging around two or three days. The cats told him to come around for a handout, I swear. All these cats who hang out here and beg off me for meals. I think they all belong to the same club. They tell each other who’s the biggest sap within walking distance. I’m kidding, of course. Well. I’m half-kidding. They’ve got my number, no matter how they manage to do it.”

  Buddy wagged his way up onto the porch, and Aiden set the plate on the boards. Buddy wolfed down the chicken almost without stopping to chew. Then he began lapping at the pasta.

  “Poor baby,” Gwen said, pressing more tightly to Aiden’s side. “He’s so thin and raggedy. And he hardly has any hair.”

  “Yeah. I think he’s been on the road awhile. But you’re not on the road anymore, are you, Buddy? You found your sap now.”

  “What kind of dog d’you think he is?”

  “Now that’s hard to say. I’m tempted to say every kind. But I actually think he’s got some border collie or maybe some Aussie shepherd. I’ll know more when his hair grows back some. I gave him a flea bath. Hopefully that’ll help. Hopefully it’s not the mange, but we’ll see. Where are the kids?”

  “Milo had to use the bathroom. And Elizabeth volunteered to wait and make sure he got back out here with no trouble.”

  Aiden almost asked what kind of trouble she was anticipating. But the words wouldn’t pass through him.

  “He’s not a bad boy,” she said, when it was clear Aiden was not about to speak. “He’s difficult. These days. But he’s not bad. I know him. I know he’s not. He was the sweetest little guy until . . . It’s not in hi
s nature. His dad was really awful to him. And it’s just left him . . .”

  But before she could finish the sentence, the kids joined them out on the porch. And their chance to talk evaporated. Just like that.

  Just when they were getting to the part Aiden really needed to know.

  Looking back, Aiden would find it hard to pinpoint the moment when Milo slipped out of sight.

  It could have been while Aiden was assuaging the last of the nervousness of two novice riders about to mount. He knew he’d seen Milo out of the corner of his eye a moment earlier as he’d fitted Elizabeth with a helmet she could wear to ride. He’d given her a helmet because he felt responsible for her. Because it had been his idea to put her on a horse. He’d noted the presence of Milo because of the pressure it made him feel.

  He had claimed that he and the boy would get to know each other better. Which Aiden—and probably everybody else—knew to be a euphemism for “We will suffer quietly until you’re done riding.”

  “They’re good horses,” Aiden told them over and over.

  But was Milo right there listening with him? Looking back, it was hard to say.

  He remembered that Gwen and Elizabeth were riding in circles in the big roping pen in the front yard—the one in which Aiden’s life had so recently fallen apart. Because they were afraid to ride out on the trail without him, without something or someone to help them feel more in control of their own safety. He remembered their laughter as they nudged the horses into a trot.

  Gwen was riding Pharaoh, a big bay with a black muzzle and black legs from the knees down. A real gentle giant of a horse. He had put Elizabeth on Penny, the little gray mare. At fourteen hands she was technically a pony. No matter what her size she would never harm a soul. She would protect her rider, up to and including slowing down and stopping if her rider seemed off-balance or physically insecure.

  “Can we canter?” Elizabeth called to him as they trotted by, both bouncing comically in the saddle. Both holding on to the horn as if it were the only thing keeping them from landing in the dirt. “Or lope? Or whatever western riders call it?”