The Christmas You Found Me, page 22
“We’re a team,” I tell him, hugging him back. “I can go talk to her if you need a minute.”
“No, I’m okay. Let’s go ask Em.”
She’s moved from playing at the table to playing on the couch when we go inside. We leave our dirty boots in the mudroom but don’t change. When Guy sits down on the couch next to her, Emma doesn’t look at him, choosing instead to focus on the Frosty the Snowman toy in her hands.
“Emma, I need to talk to you. Did you let the cows out of the pen?” Guy asks.
Emma shifts uncomfortably, and she’s holding on to Barley’s coat with her little hand, not meeting either of our eyes. It takes her a moment before she says, “Yes.”
Guy must have been hoping we were wrong, because he exhales heavily. “Emma, you know not to open the cow and horse pens. Why did you do it, baby girl?”
“They wanted the food on the other side.” Her face gets this frustrated look. “They should get to eat what they want.”
“Did you do it because you didn’t get to eat ice cream at the block party?”
She still won’t look at him, and tears start to gleam in her eyes, even as she stubbornly fights them back as she plays. I settle down to the floor next to the couch so we’re not both looking down at her.
“Emma? It’s okay to get disappointed when you don’t get what you want. I do. Your daddy does too. It’s okay for the cows to be disappointed too.”
“Daddy gives you milk.”
Guy starts to say something, but I glance at him, silently asking him to let me answer. He nods, then leans back on his hands.
“I’m new to your family, Emma,” I tell her. “Just like you and your daddy learned which hay to feed the horses, I’m learning what foods not to keep in the house. I’m sorry I drink milk when you can’t. If it bothers you, then I won’t do it anymore.”
“Milk is bad for us,” she says determinedly.
“No, Emma.” Guy smooths his hand over his daughter’s head, then he hugs her, the child almost disappearing beneath his arm. “Milk is bad for you. It’s not bad for me and Sienna. There are going to be a lot of people in your life who might get to eat or drink or try things you want. But it’s important to know what’s not good for you, baby girl.”
When she sniffles, burying her nose in his rib cage, it breaks my heart.
“There have been things I thought I wanted, but they weren’t good for me,” I tell her softly. “Your daddy is helping me learn that. I’m like you, sweetie pie. We’re a little stubborn when we think we’re right. Unfortunately, you can’t let the cows or horses out without an adult. There’s too much that can hurt them, like too much food or bad weather or predators. Part of living here means taking care of them, even if they want something they can’t have.”
Emma turns red-rimmed eyes to me. “Did I hurt the cows?”
I don’t have an answer for her, not until I go get the herd. “I’m going to go see if I can find them, and hopefully they will be fine.”
“They won’t come back like the horsies?”
“No, baby. They’ve gone up into the mountains. When cattle wander away, they don’t usually come back by themselves.”
Emma glances down at the dog resting his head on her lap, staring up at her with sad eyes. Barley always was good with crying women. “Barley will get them back,” she decides. “He can do anything. Daddy can help.”
I look at the aging retriever, his white muzzle barely speckled with red. If I drag him up this mountain in December to try to work the whole herd, I’m not going to have a Barley dog left coming back down. Barley’s a good boy, the best boy, but he’s not enough. And it’s one thing to take a new rider on a trail Legs is familiar with, but it’s another to take Guy out into the mountains in the dead of winter. He doesn’t know how to work cattle, and this is a bad time to learn.
“Sienna, I am so sorry.” Guy puts a hand on my shoulder, and his voice sounds devastated. “This is all my fault. How do I make this right? I’ll do anything you need.”
I stand up and head to the window, looking out at the mountains rising above us in the distance. It’s too late to go after them now. We’re already losing light. Unfortunately, as cold as it is, it’s only going to get colder tonight and tomorrow. Without the donkeys with them, the calves are more at risk for hungry predators, but I’m the most worried about the weather. Bad visibility in bad country means serious falls for animals and people alike. My stomach twists, but I know what I need to do. This isn’t about any of us. It’s about getting those cattle back safely. There’s only one other person who knows this dangerous landscape as well as me.
“Guy,” I tell him quietly. “Neither of us will like this, but there’s something I have to do.”
Chapter 21
I make the call, and my help agrees to show up first thing the next morning.
Ours is a sleepless night as I stay up late gathering the supplies I need and planning for the next morning. Guy keeps apologizing, clearly riddled with guilt, until I give him a hug and ask him to stop. I know he feels terrible about the cows getting out, but there’s nothing we can do to turn back time. I’m not angry with him or Emma, but I am stressed and worried. I care about my animals’ safety and health, and I need every single one of my cows to make this ranch stay afloat. More than anything else, I don’t like knowing what—and who—the next day will bring.
As much as I appreciate Guy taking responsibility for Emma’s actions, I can’t juggle his emotions right now. I need to process my thoughts on my own, and eventually Guy falls quiet, doing what he can to help me prep for tomorrow and staying awake with me even when there’s nothing he can assist with. We finally crawl into bed, dozing fitfully for a mere two hours before it’s time to get back up again. We feed the animals and are standing ready on the front porch when Micah arrives at dawn.
I remember the days of pulling into a ranch in a Ford F-450 dually, a truck closer to a semi than the other Ford trucks driving around town. I remember the truck pulling a brand-new fifth-wheel horse trailer with living quarters, fully loaded down with horses, as if the weight wasn’t even there. I remember the soft purr of the engine instead of the rattle of my current ride, with butter-smooth leather interior and automatic warmers for the bucket seats.
I don’t miss the man, but some days, I do miss that truck.
To his credit, Micah didn’t give me a hard time on the phone the night before. We might be in a bad place emotionally, but he’s a third-generation cattle rancher. If anyone knows how much trouble I’m in, it’s him. He doesn’t show up alone either. When Micah climbs out, two of his ranch hands follow suit. I don’t recognize them, but I do recognize the trio of cattle dogs who hop out of the back seat after the hands.
“Hey, babies,” I say in greeting, kneeling down and hugging them. I raised these three from puppies, and I try not to think about how much I miss them or how they were considered property to be traded, like all the other animals I loved.
Micah introduces me to the ranch hands, and as they unload their horses, we discuss our plans. He knows every inch of this property, and it’s pretty clear the two paths the cattle should have taken. Whether they actually did remains to be seen.
Micah eyes Guy as he stands there with Emma in his arms, and the expression on Guy’s face is strained. I know he would saddle up with us in a heartbeat. Even if he doesn’t know how to drive cattle, he’d still try and, in the process, in snow this deep, end up getting his or his mount’s necks broken. Either way, Emma’s not well enough to go where we’re going, and Guy needs to be here.
That doesn’t mean he has to like it.
Guy sets Emma down on the step next to Barley as I mount up on Legs and ride over to the porch. Lulu might be a better cattle horse, but I need Legs’s strength and stamina for this ride. Paddlewhack is absolutely dwarfed by the sheer bulk of Legs, but the donkey has food for us and the animals and my tent loaded on his back.
Guy meets me at the bottom of the stairs, then rests a hand on my thigh as he looks up at me. “I’m sorry,” he tells me quietly. “I’ll make this up to you.”
“There’s nothing to make up. We’ll be back down as soon as we can, but it might be tomorrow, depending on how far they got.” I don’t tell him how much I’m not looking forward to a night in Micah’s company in a tent on the mountainside. “Don’t be surprised if I don’t check in. If the herd went into the gorge to get out of the wind, reception sucks in there.”
I don’t tell him the gorge is the most likely…and most dangerous…place for them and for us. Guy doesn’t need me to say it, and the tension in his face increases. His thumb curls into my leg, and I can see him eyeing the rifle strapped to the back of my saddle, the same as the other three riders.
“Are you expecting any predators?” he asks quietly.
“I’m just staying prepared.” The last thing I’m going to say in front of Emma is that the gun is for the cattle in case any of them didn’t make it safely through the night.
My eyes flicker to her, and Guy notices. He closes his briefly, then nods. “Come back safe, Sienna.”
I lean down to hug him goodbye, and I get a brief but warm kiss in return. Then he retreats to the porch with Emma as we ride off.
I don’t know if Guy sees Micah fall in next to me, but I think Micah does it on purpose because we’re not even out of eyesight of the house. Legs snorts at the presence of a different horse, but we ride in silence. This is what we were best at, being in the saddle next to each other. On horseback, we seemed to have everything figured out, even when we were kids at the local barrel races. It was when our boots hit the ground that everything always fell apart.
“I didn’t see a broken fence.” Micah breaks the silence first, like he always does. “How did they get out?”
“I left a gate open.”
“You’ve checked those gates twice a day every day for your entire life, Sienna.”
“It’s a gate,” I say. “They get left open sometimes.” He glances over at me, clearly not buying it. I can already feel my neck start to ache from the tension in my jaw. “My gate, my responsibility.”
Micah snorts. “Yeah, you used to cover for me with all the crap I did too. But hey, I never left the gate open. The kid let them out, didn’t she?”
“My stepdaughter, Emma, made a mistake. She’s four, Micah. Four-year-olds make mistakes.”
“So do adults.”
He’s not wrong, although I don’t know if he’s talking about me or himself. At one point in my life, I would have driven myself to distraction trying to decipher his comment, but today, I just want to get my cows and get back home. The strained set to Guy’s shoulders is playing through my mind, and the last thing he needs is more to worry about. If I can get the herd home safe and sound, then no harm, no foul.
“Can he ride?” Micah asks, as if following my train of thought.
“Yes, but Guy can’t be in two places at once, and Emma can’t be out in this. He doesn’t know the terrain like I do, so I’m going. Give him any crap about it, and I will run you off this mountainside and get the cows myself, even if it takes until New Year’s.”
“Even if they all end up frozen to death?”
“Even if.”
As I say it, the wind picks up, blowing hard into our faces, and I know this is going to be a bad ride. Bad for the horses, bad for the cowboys, and bad for the dogs. I’d planned on the dogs picking up the trail, but wet slush joins the bitter winds, wiping out the trail the farther we go into the high country. If we get hit by a storm, it’s going to be nonnegotiable. We’ll have to wait it out. I’m not killing these men for my cows.
“Did you check the weather?” Micah asks, even though he knows I did. We always check the weather out here.
“I did before we left.”
“You still going to be mad at me when we’re done?” He almost—almost—sounds apologetic.
That question is a better one.
I watch Legs’s right ear rotate, and I instinctively glance to the right to see what caught his attention. We’re all out here looking for cattle, and Legs is just as likely to notice them as I am.
“I don’t have a lot to care about, Micah. When you go after the things I have, you’re going to get a fight. I just don’t know why you want to fight with me. Haven’t you had enough?”
“We weren’t fighting anymore.” When I look at him, confused, Micah gives me a tired, bittersweet smile before explaining. “It took me a long time to figure it out, but when you stopped fighting, it meant you didn’t care anymore. I actually thought things were getting better. Clueless me, huh?”
He clucks to his horse, picking it up to a trot as he rides up to join the two hands.
I ride alone and in silence, even though we make plenty of noise as we head into the high country. It’s past noon when the little brindle cattle dog barks an alert she’s found the herd. I’m grateful, because even Legs is struggling with slogging his way through the snow and the wind up and down these mountains. Dark forms wind in and out of the trees, hooves kicking at the snow to search for grass, but not enough. I frown as I angle my way toward the herd…or this part of it at least.
“How many did you say were up here?” Micah calls over to me. He’s been riding with his men the last couple hours, which has been a welcome reprieve from his presence.
“Sixty-one, including the bull.”
“I’ve got forty-three,” Micah’s cowhand says, and Micah nods in agreement.
I nudge Legs into a trot and circle on the left flank of the herd, staying as quiet as I can to keep them from moving. They’re hard to count, with snow caking their backs and the steers huddling tight together.
Forty-three. Dang it.
“There’s eighteen more somewhere up here,” I tell the men. “If I can take one of the dogs, I’m going to keep looking for them. If you all head down, you might get in by tonight. At least you’ll get to lower ground.”
Micah tilts his head to the two ranch hands, indicating for them to do as I suggested, then turns to me. “I’ll go with you. They’re probably in the gorge, and it’ll be easier for two of us to get them down.”
He’s not wrong, but I don’t have to like it.
It’s dark before we reach the gorge, and the area is just too dangerous to ride at night, even in the best of weather conditions. We make camp in a stand of trees, where the animals can get as much shelter from the weather as possible. Paddlewhack brays in annoyance until I feed him and Legs, but I leave Micah to tend to the dog and his mount. We each brought our own tent, but we set them up close together as a much-needed windbreak. Another thing I don’t have to like but will deal with because it’s better for everyone to stay warm out here…as warm as we can be anyway.
Of the many, many things that got shipped off to Hammond Farms, included was my favorite trail blanket. Micah’s got the thin but toasty-warm plaid blanket draped over his shoulders as we huddle near the fire, trying to thaw our hands around cups of coffee.
“It’s warmer over here, Sienna.” He flaps the edge of the blanket at me.
I just look at him, hoping my eyes convey what I’m thinking: I will literally freeze to death, and I mean literally, before I crawl under a blanket with my ex-husband again.
“It’s not as warm as you think,” I finally say.
“You always were the most stubborn thing in these mountains, and that’s saying something.” Micah chuckles, then gives his head a shake before sipping his coffee. “My momma warned me about taking up with a Naples girl, but you had me hooked the first time I saw you ride.”
“That was back in peewee classes at the county fair, Micah.”
“Yep.”
“Is there a point to all this?”
“I’m saying despite what went wrong with us, we’ve got history, Sienna. How long have you got with the guy back at your place? A couple weeks, max?”
“It took a lot for me to call you for help, Micah. It was humiliating, and while I appreciate you coming through for me, I asked for help to keep my cattle safe, not to get grilled on my love life.”
“So you love him? The loser with his boots on your couch right now?”
“I barely know him.” Even as I say it, the words feel wrong on my tongue. I look up at Micah, and there’s an expression on his face that says he thinks he’s won. Won what, I don’t know. And maybe I do know Guy. I might not know his best friend from middle school’s last name, but I know when he’s happy or when he’s scared. I know he’ll be strong when he’s exhausted and he’ll be good to us, even when things feel really bad.
I know I love him.
As I look across the fire, I realize something very important. Divorcing Micah was the best thing I ever did.
“A thousand paper cuts,” I say quietly. “That’s what being married to you was like. A thousand smug smirks, a thousand little looks, a thousand snorts of disapproval. You were an aggressive drunk, which scared me a lot more than I ever admitted. But being married to you was bleeding out on my feet from a thousand paper cuts. And it hurt worse than I could even describe.”
“Sienna—”
“No, I’m not done. You might be the guy on the horse who knows how to help with the cows. But the loser at home? He’s the one patiently waiting for me to figure out what I want, when I want it. You tell me, Micah. Which one of you is the real man?”
He watches me from across the fire, and it’s been a long time since Micah didn’t look mad at me. He just looks discouraged. “You know, Sienna, if you’d fought half as hard for us as you just did for him, we’d still be together.”
“Then that would have been sad for both of us.” I almost feel bad for him when I add gently, “I don’t want you back, Micah. You don’t want me back either, if you’re being honest with yourself. It just embarrassed you when I moved on. Normally it would be one more paper cut, but honestly, I have enough on my plate without worrying about what you think or want anymore. That part of me belongs to Guy now. I just want to get these cows and go home. I miss my family.”
