Wrangling The Cowboy's Heart

Now he had to finish his shift, clean up and try to get to the funeral on time. But as he drove to his last call of the day, all his thoughts were of those blue, blue eyes.

* * *

Jodie clutched the single rose she held, staring at the casket bearing the remains of her father as the pastor read from the Bible. With her other arm she clung to her sister Lauren as a flock of ravens whistled overhead. The birds were a funereal black against the blue Montana sky that stretched from one mountain range to the other, cradling the basin the town of Saddlebank nestled in.

She took in a deep breath, slowing her still-racing heart, memories as raucous as the birds above them swirling through her mind. The service in the church had been mercifully brief and surprisingly difficult. Jodie’s own emotions were so mixed as she listened to the pastor talking about her father’s life. She wondered if they knew the same person.

Do not speak ill of the dead.

Her grandmother’s words resounded in Jodie’s mind. Her dear grandmother, who had also passed on, like Jodie’s mother had. So many losses, she thought.

Only half her attention was on the casket and the pastor. The other half was on the man who stood toward the back of the sparse crowd assembled around the grave.

He was taller than the last time she’d seen him. Which wasn’t a memory she enjoyed pulling out.

That summer had been both wonderful and awful. She’d dated Finn, and lost her chance at her audition for the music conservatory.

After her parents’ divorce and their subsequent move to Knoxville with their mom, she and her sisters had spent their summers in Saddlebank with their father. He’d never approved of her seeing Finn. Keith McCauley thought Finn Hicks was too good for her.

But at the beginning of that summer Jodie had felt her life was coming to a good place. She was falling in love with a wonderful guy. Which had scared her, and led her to do something very stupid.

She was still dealing with the repercussions of that decision and her father’s reaction to this day. After that summer, she’d never seen Finn again.

Until a couple hours ago.

Seeing Finn in the same uniform her father always wore, a uniform that evoked too many bad memories, was a shock, and yet not a surprise. Finn had always been a solid, salt-of-the-earth guy. Which was what had attracted her to him initially.

She wondered what he would think of her now, working as a waitress during the day, playing piano in bars at night.

Jodie sneaked another glance at Finn, dismayed to catch him returning her gaze. But he looked quickly away, his hazel eyes now focused on Keith’s coffin. Finn had grown from an appealing teen into a handsome man, his strong features, square chin and broad shoulders granting him an authority that seemed ingrained. His dark brown hair, worn longer than her father’s regulation haircut, curled just enough to soften his face.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that Finn had followed in her father’s footsteps. The eulogy Finn had delivered a few moments ago was lavish in his praise of a man he’d said had been a mentor to him. A shining example of Christian love in quiet action.

It had been a difficult funeral, Jodie thought, clenching and unclenching her right hand. Leaning on her sister as she so often did.

Lauren wore a sensible black dress, a stark and suitable contrast to her own bright red one. Jodie had refused to wear black, reasoning that with her dark hair she’d look washed out, but now she felt a touch of regret at her choice. She looked as though she didn’t care, when, in fact, her emotions concerning her dad were complex and confusing.

For better or for worse, he was still her father, and now he was gone.

Her older sister stared at the coffin, her pale face framed by her long blond hair, her blue eyes blinking, her narrow shoulders hunched protectively. She pressed Jodie’s arm to her side.

Jodie wondered if she, too, thought of their missing sister, Lauren’s twin. When they had contacted Erin to make the arrangements, all Lauren or Jodie had got in reply were terse text messages stating she couldn’t come. Nothing else.

At a signal from the pastor, Lauren laid her rose on the casket. Jodie did the same, followed by Aunt Laura, their father’s sister. Their aunt was short and plump, her graying hair cut in a shoulder-length bob. She wore a simple gray blazer, slacks and sensible shoes, as befitting the funeral of her brother. She placed her rose on the coffin, then stepped aside to let Monty Bannister, a tall, heavyset man who was their father’s distant cousin, and his wife, Ellen, who barely made it to Monty’s shoulder, do the same.

“In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, we commend the body of our brother Keith McCauley to the ground,” Pastor Dykstra said, his voice tugged away on the breeze swirling around the graveyard. “And we cling to the promise of the resurrection of the dead. The hope of our eternal life.”

Jodie said a quiet amen, a shiver traveling down her spine at the thought of eternal life. Facing God with the mess that had been her life the past ten years. That was one of the reasons she’d avoided God lately.

The casket slowly descended into the ground, and with each inch Jodie felt the complicated bonds tethering her to her father loosen. It had been years since she’d last seen him. Years since that horrible fight that had changed her life, broken the connection between her and Finn and sent her running away from him and everything he represented.

She’d called her father a few times a year. Each time she’d been on the receiving end of a litany of complaints and grumblings, and guilt piled on her for not coming to see him.

Then he had been diagnosed with cancer. But only weeks before she and her sisters had arranged to visit, their father was killed in a single-vehicle accident.

“The family would like to invite everyone to meet in the church hall for some lunch,” Pastor Dykstra announced, ending the funeral service.

People started drifting away and Jodie took a deep breath, knowing what lay ahead. Well-wishers and sympathy and a headache that increased with each passing moment. She caught a glimpse of Finn walking to another part of the graveyard, then stopping by a stone.

Jodie wondered if it was his father’s grave, remembering that his dad had died when Finn was only fourteen.

Finn’s smile was melancholy as he looked down, then ran his fingers over the stone, as if trying to connect with whoever was buried there. His sorrow caught at her heart. She doubted she would ever look at her father’s grave with the same love that seemed to shine in Finn’s eyes.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Pastor Dykstra said as he shook Lauren’s hand, resting his other on Jodie’s shoulder. Jodie focused her attention back on the man with another surge of remorse. “Your father talked often of you girls.”

Pastor Dykstra shook Jodie’s hand, his kindly eyes holding hers. “I pray you will let God comfort you at this time.”

She nodded, giving him a smile. He squeezed her hand again, then walked away from the grave toward the church.

Monty Bannister also shook Jodie’s, then Lauren’s hand. “I hope that you’ll be able to remember some of the good times you had with your father,” he said, giving them both a winsome smile. “And that you feel God’s presence in your lives.”

Jodie wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She hadn’t spent a lot of time with God lately and doubted that He cared to spend much time with her. Nor was she so sure which memories of her father she would be remembering. When she and her sisters had come to visit, it was as if he hadn’t known what to do with his daughters other than make them work. Each summer had been fraught with the tension of living with a man who, as sheriff of Saddlebank County, saw life in black-and-white. No shades of gray. A man who for some reason was especially hard on Jodie.

So she simply murmured her thanks. She was quite certain that even if Monty knew exactly what her father was like, he would have said the same thing.

“You girls make sure you call us if you need anything,” Ellen told them, clinging to both their hands, her smile warm.

“Thank you,” Jodie and Lauren said at the same time.

Jodie had only vague remembrances of Monty, Ellen and their three children, Keira, Heather and Lee. Keith had taken them only a few times to Refuge Ranch, the Bannister spread. Because Lauren and Erin were older, they’d hung out with Keira and Heather, leaving Jodie to play with either the cats in the barn or the horses.

“How are you girls holding out?” Aunt Laura slipped an arm around Lauren, giving Jodie a quick smile.

“This is harder than I thought it would be,” Lauren said, wiping her eyes. “I feel so bad that we didn’t take the time to see him before he died.”

“Oh, honey, you meant to,” their aunt assured her. “I know you were making plans. He was excited at the thought of seeing you both. I’m sure you have good and bad memories, and like cousin Monty said, I hope you can find some of the good ones,” she continued.

“Thanks, Aunt Laura,” Jodie said, giving her a hug. “It’s so good to see you again.”

“We’ll have to make sure to get together while you girls are still here. Knowing you, Jodie, you’ll be gone with the first puff of wind sifting through the valley.” Aunt Laura raised her finely plucked eyebrows. “I’ll give you girls a moment while I make certain the caterer has taken care of the lunch.”

As their aunt marched off to do her duty, Lauren took a deep breath, blinking back tears, and pulled a tissue out of the pocket of her dress. “I can’t believe I feel this way,” she sniffed. “I didn’t think I’d be so weepy.”

“Part of it might be because Erin’s not here,” Jodie said, tucking her arm in her sister’s. “You two always had a special bond.”

A bond that Jodie, at times, envied. Her twin sisters always seemed so self-sufficient, and though they included Jodie in many of their antics and adventures, she often felt like an outsider to their relationship.

“Why wouldn’t she come?” Lauren asked, the pain she felt evident in her voice.