The Texan's Twins

Danica stopped mixing the formula and looked at Sandy. “No, he has a job as a wrangler at the Hausman ranch. What’s wrong with you? We use parolees all the time.”

“All the others stayed with Bobby to get their hours. Are you so naive that you don’t worry about being alone with an ex-con? Worse, as a vet tech he has access to everything in the office and will be spending most of his time with you. Alone. You just met him today. Do you even know what he did?” Her friend and vet looked more vexed than she had ever seen. She stood with her arms crossed.

“James Bolton is his parole officer. He wouldn’t bring a dangerous convict out here. The charge was transporting drugs.”

Sandy’s eyes went wide. “You have a drug dealer in here. Do you realize some of the drugs kept here have high street value?”

Danica tried to stop the eye roll, but she wasn’t sure she was entirely successful. Sandy didn’t know how well she knew Reid. “I’m not stupid enough to trust him. Yes, he’s an ex-con, and yes, I have everything of value locked away. I need his expertise to get my paperwork finished and filed. As soon as you find me a vet tech with the right degree, he’s gone.” Thrusting her hip out, she pointed to her walkie-talkie. “Bobby is one click away.”

Reid cleared his throat from the doorway. The cub curled in his arms, lying against his chest, sound asleep. Her traitorous heart thought of him holding their daughters. Heat caused her skin to burn. “Reid—”

“A girl named Sarah is here. She said to let you know she’s feeding the orphaned bats.” His eyes looked more gray than green before he returned to the other room.

Sandy stepped in front of Danica as she started following Reid. “Now, don’t go feeling sorry for him. He’s a criminal. You know I’ve always been uncomfortable with having the parolees out here.”

The need to apologize ate at her. “He’s a human who is trying to do the right thing.”

“You’ve known him one day. That man is not one of your rescue projects. He’s a grown adult that knows right from wrong, and he chose wrong.”

“You don’t know him.”

“Neither do you. Unfortunately, I do know men like him. He’ll get what he wants and leave you smashed and bleeding. When he’s taken everything he needs, he’ll walk out without a backward glance.” Sandy reached out and took the bottle from her. “Trust me. I know what I’m talking about. I’ll get this to Sarah. When I leave, I’ll take the con with me.”

Danica took the bottle back. “Thank you for the warning, but I’ve got this. You can go. I’ll have Bobby take Reid back to the Hausman Ranch. By the way, he has a name. Reid. And just like my animals, he deserves to be treated with respect. Okay?”

She sighed. “You sure you got this?”

“Yes.” She laid her hand on Sandy’s arm. “Thank you for caring, but I know what I’m doing.”

With a grunt, Sandy shook her head. “Those words almost guarantee impending doom.”

Going into the other room, they found Reid in the rocking chair. The cub was still asleep curled up in his arms. Danica grabbed the long leather gloves and prepared to feed the new baby. Sandy glared at Reid. “I’ll be back out tomorrow to do a follow-up. Will you be back?”

He nodded. “I have the early shift at the ranch, so I’ll be here at two o’clock.”

The vet turned to Danica. “I’ll be here at two. We can evaluate if the big guy is ready for release and do a follow-up with the little one.” With one last hostile stare at Reid, Sandy left.

Danica sighed and reached for the bear. The smell of the formula in the bottle had her awake and making noises. She couldn’t help but laugh at her antics. “Poor baby is hungry.”

A loud rumble came from Reid’s stomach. She raised a brow. “Are you needing to be fed, too? When did you eat last?”

His golden tan skin flushed a bit. He shook his head and kept his eyes focused on the bear.

“Reid. When did you eat last?”

He shrugged. “We had an early breakfast at the ranch.”

Knowing ranch life, that would have been before sunup. “It’s after four! Why didn’t you say something?” The bear finished the last of the mixture.

“Sorry. Making my own decisions still feels odd. After six years, I got used to others telling me what to do and when to do it. Some habits are hard to shake.”

That made her heart break a little. She remembered the carefree young man who loved being outdoors, riding bulls, drawing and poetry. She fell so hard in love with him. But like Sandy said, she didn’t know this Reid.

She wanted to know why he did it. Why Reid gave up on them so quickly. If they had worked hard, they could have made it. He hadn’t had enough faith in them. “I have some sandwich stuff in the refrigerator.”

The bear moved and crawled up his leg, trying to get under his shirt. “Are you going to give her a new name? Her collar said Slasher.” He gently pulled her out and hugged the bear close. “I don’t like that name.”

“With the intent to keep them wild, we have a policy not to humanize them. She’ll be assigned a number for her file, but no name. You shouldn’t hold her so much.”

“Babies need to be held. So she’ll get a number? Will she spend the night in the crate?”

Taking the cub out of his arms, she put her back into the wooden structure. They placed blankets and a floppy stuffed bear for her to cuddle. “After I feed you, we can clean and prep a large enclosure we made a couple of years ago for two orphaned bears. She’ll live there until we can release her in the bear habitat. If we do this right, she could be a candidate for release into the wild. We don’t want her to rely on humans too much.”

With the baby tucked away, she went to the central building. One of the volunteer college students was doing homework while covering their twenty-four-hour hotline. “Hi, Diego. This is Reid McAllister. He’s our new vet tech.” The men shook hands. “Is Sarah still here?”

“She was bathing the bats a minute ago.”

She introduced Reid to Sarah and the orphaned bats, then headed to the kitchen. Digging in the refrigerator she found enough supplies to make two sandwiches. They finished their meal in silence.

There were a hundred ways to start a conversation with her secret husband, but she needed to keep it professional until he left for good. With empty plates in the sink, they went outside. They got in her favorite ATV, a double-seated four-wheeler that looked like a golf cart on steroids. The large enclosure was deep in the ranch.

“What happened?” Reid pointed to the old homestead as they passed it, a ranch house built in 1918.

“When Linda, the owner, was moved to full-time care, the house caught fire. It was small, and it just took out the back room, but it did enough damage that it would take lots of money to restore it. It had been her plan that the caretaker of the sanctuary would live there.”

“Aren’t you the caretaker?” His gaze moved from the turn-of-the-century old rock home to her.

She blinked. Another dream put aside. She had planned to move out of her father’s house with the girls, but for now, she was grateful they had a safe place to live. “Yeah, but all the available funds have gone into the direct care of the animals.” She sighed. “I always wanted to. Maybe someday.” But at this rate, she doubted it. When did faith turn into stubbornness? Would she even be able to tell the difference?

As the enclosure came into view, Bobby waved. He had already started pulling the old bedding out. She parked and got off the cart with Reid to join Bobby. With the three of them working, it didn’t take long to get the chain-fence enclosure ready for the newest baby on the ranch. Reid stood in the center after they finished, sweating. He had dragged a large tree branch that was knocked down in the last storm. “Where do you want this?”

“We can tie it to the corner post and the stand. It will give her something natural to climb on and sleep in if she wants. From here, she can also get in the hammock, too.”

A small book fell from Reid’s pocket when he bent over to grab at the tree again. Without thinking, she reached down, and they bumped heads. “Sorry.” She picked up the leather book. It was a Bible. “You carry a Bible with you now?”

He took it and grunted.

She looked down and noticed a couple of yellow ribbons had slipped from his pocket, as well. “Oh, Reid.”

In college, he’d told her the story behind them. She had cried for the little boy that thought his father would come back home if he tied the yellow ribbons outside. He had heard the song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Around the Old Oak Tree” and truly believed it.

It took her back to her childhood, when she desperately wanted her mother to come home, but she was dead. At five, she hadn’t understood.

“You still have those?”

“They’re just bookmarks.” He stuffed them back into the Bible. “They don’t mean anything.”

“Reid, that’s not—” Her phone vibrated. She glanced at the screen.