Her Lone Cowboy

He wandered into the kitchen and poured a glass of water. Leaning against the sink, he drank it down, grateful for the miracle of clean, good-tasting water, so unlike the filtered, never-quite-right stuff they’d had in Afghanistan.

Like all the other military personnel, they’d consumed bottled water by the gallon, along with electrolyte drinks. When he’d come back to the States, he’d never been able to get enough clean water into him and he still drank more than he ever had in his younger years. He set the empty glass down and stood with his hands gripping the edge of the sink. The memories were close tonight and he couldn’t seem to shove them away as he usually could. He’d been back for more than a year and a half, but as his mother had said, he’d left the war but he’d never really come home.

Pushing away from the sink, he wandered back to the living-room window and stood, arms crossed over his chest, staring into the darkness while he thought about his new neighbors.

“What do you think, Bert? You think she ever had a husband?”

He glanced down. Bertie’s gentle snores told him that this man’s best friend couldn’t have been less interested.

In spite of that, Caleb continued with his speculation. “Did the guy abandon her and Sam? Didn’t care that he had a wife and kid?”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed as he thought it over. “Maybe she was impossible to live with.” He straightened, his arms dropping to his sides as another thought came to him. “Or did she always want to be a single mom so she got some clinical assistance?”

He ran his thumb along the stubble on his chin. “Nothing wrong with that, Bert. But, nah, I don’t think so. I think...that I’m losing my friggin’ mind.”

Caleb admitted he was out of his element and had been for a while.

At one time he’d had an unerring sense of direction, a built-in compass that could point him the right way even if it was pitch-black outside and only safe to move a few inches. Now he tried to defend his home from night noises with a stick and stood staring at his neighbor’s house.

And he didn’t even care about his neighbors.

He turned, headed back to bed, giving in to the twinge in his leg that told him he’d been on it too long and ignoring the one in his gut that told him he was a liar.

* * *

BY THE NEXT afternoon Laney thought she may have convinced her son that he wasn’t to visit Caleb, or Bertie, until he was invited. She had left him inside to play with a building set he was using to make a replica of Caleb’s place.

Sam had only seen the yard and the house, but in his imagination it contained endless corrals made of snap-together pieces of plastic fencing, as well as a barn of cardboard and masking tape.

With a few minutes to herself, she decided to take a break from organizing her house and get her turn-outs ready for the coming fire season. During the summers when school was out, Laney was a wild-land firefighter, a member of Fire Team 8, currently an all-woman group that fought wildfires during the summer. There had been men on the team in the past and there probably would be again, but right now, it was all women who, like Laney, had families and additional jobs. The money from fighting fires paid for both necessities and luxuries.

She spread her coat, pants and boots out on the patio attached to the back of the house and examined them closely for damage. Her fire boots appeared to be in good shape, as did her coat, but there was a rip in her pants caused when she’d fallen over a log last summer and snagged them on a broken branch. She thought she could mend it.

Laney stepped back into the house for her sewing kit, calling out to Sam as she went.

“Sam, everything okay?”

Silence.

Whirling around, she hurried to his room. His construction project lay scattered across the floor, but he wasn’t there. His black cowboy hat was gone from the top of the dresser where he left it when he wasn’t wearing it. That told her exactly where he was headed. He was so taken with the whole cowboy mystique that he wouldn’t have left without that hat if he had gone to visit Caleb and Bertie, and she was sure that was exactly what he had done.

He had probably only left a few minutes ago, but she knew from long experience that he could move like the wind when he wanted to. If she took the Jeep and hurried, she might make it to Caleb’s house before Sam did. Having his mother greet him when he arrived would be an unpleasant surprise that might make him think twice about going over there without permission again.

“And maybe pigs will fly,” Laney muttered as she ran to get her keys. “So much for keeping our distance from Caleb Ransom.” She had tried to impress on her son that their neighbor wanted to be left alone, but clearly she hadn’t succeeded.

Laney knew that in this rural area, neighbors often had to depend on each other, but Caleb didn’t want that. She thought he was probably embarrassed that she had seen him in pain last night, had seen him weak and vulnerable. Having Sam pop up there again, with her chasing him, might make things even more strained.

That wasn’t her biggest worry, though. She was most concerned that Sam had gone back to the pasture where Caleb kept his horses. She ran out to the fence, climbed up to balance herself on the rail and scanned the area for the mare and her foal. She spotted them quite close by with no little black cowboy hat bouncing toward them, so she knew Sam probably wasn’t in the pasture.

“Thank heaven,” she murmured, jumping down and running for the Jeep.

Starting the engine, she wheeled out of the drive and headed for the Ransom ranch.

Only a few yards down the single-lane road she had to squeeze past a car pulled over and stopped partway in a ditch. Driving past, she saw that someone was inside so she stopped, jumped out of her car and hurried back to ask if the driver had seen Sam.

When she recognized the driver, her steps slowed and her heart sank in dismay, but she forced a smile. Monette Berkley had been her neighbor in the tiny apartment building where she and Sam had lived in town. She was a busybody, a long-time social worker employed by Arizona’s newly revamped and name-changed Department of Child Safety, and she delighted in spying on her neighbors.

She was a definite oddball, but Laney didn’t think she meant any harm—although she couldn’t imagine what the woman was doing out here, and there was no time to find out. As she approached, she noticed that Monette’s appearance, always haphazard, was approaching sloppy. Her hair slid out of a loose topknot and the front of her blouse was stained with what looked like coffee.

Leaning over, she said, “Hello, Monette. Did you see my little boy on the road?”

“Your little boy? You mean Sean?”

“Sam,” Laney corrected. “Yes. He’s the only little boy I’ve got.”

“What’s he doing off by himself?” the woman demanded, her dark eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Why aren’t you watching him?”

“Monette!” Laney cried in exasperation. “Did you see him?”

“No,” the woman answered, looking miffed. “I only stopped a second ago. Did he run away?”

Laney whirled around. “Of course not. He probably went to visit the neighbor.”

Or at least the neighbor’s dog, she thought, rushing back to her car.

Monette called out to her, but Laney ignored her as she put the Jeep in gear and sped down the road to Caleb’s driveway.

* * *

CALEB MOVED CAUTIOUSLY toward the front door where he’d heard scuffling noises and then a soft knock. Since his leg had seized up on him last night, he’d been moving much more carefully, trying to handle the pain and outlast the muscle seizures without resorting to more of the painkillers the doctor had given him. Aside from making him woozy and giving him nightmares, they’d probably caused him to stand by his window gawking at his neighbor’s house. Besides, the pills didn’t really cure anything, so why bother with them?

He finally reached the door and swung it open, his curious gaze at eye level. Seeing no one, his focus swung down to right above knee height where Sam Reynolds grinned up at him.

“Hi, Mr. Rasmon.”

“Ransom,” Caleb corrected automatically.

“Ransom. Can Bertie come out and play?” Sam’s huge smile and big brown eyes begged him to agree.

From behind him Bertie shuffled up, tail wagging and mouth open in his own big, doggy grin. He wiggled past Caleb to greet his new best friend, giving Sam a lick on the cheek that sent the eager boy into peals of laughter. Sam threw his arms around Bertie’s neck and sighed blissfully. “I love you, Bertie.”

These two were made for each other, Caleb thought sardonically, stepping onto the porch. He leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. “Sam, does your mom know you’re here?”

Into Bertie’s furry neck, Sam mumbled something that sounded like “Maybe.”

Caleb wanted to pull the boy away and get down at eye level with him, but his weakened right leg wouldn’t let him do that. And if he fell, he might land on the boy. Instead he reached down, cupped Sam’s chin and brought the boy’s face up until their eyes met, the way he’d seen Laney do the day before. He tried to make his voice sound as firm as hers had without resorting to his army sergeant’s voice.

“Sam,” he repeated, “does your mom know you’re here?”