Chapter One
Coming back to the ranch was harder than he’d thought.
Carter Beck swung his leg over his motorbike and yanked off his helmet. He dragged a hand over his face, calloused hands rasping over the stubble of his cheeks as he looked over the yard.
As his eyes followed the contours of the land, the hills flowing up to the rugged mountains of southern British Columbia, a sense of homesickness flickered deep in his soul. This place had been his home since his mother had moved here, a single mother expecting twins.
He hadn’t been back for two years. If it hadn’t been for his beloved grandmother’s recent heart attack, he would still be away.
Unable to stop himself, his eyes drifted over to the corral. The memories he’d kept at bay since he left crashed into his mind. Right behind them came the wrenching pain and haunting guilt he’d spent the past twenty-three months outrunning.
The whinnying of a horse broke into his dark thoughts and snagged his attention.
A young boy astride a horse broke through the copse of trees edging the ranch’s outbuildings. He held the reins of his horse in both hands, elbows in, wrists cocked.
Just as Carter had taught him.
A wave of dizziness washed over Carter as the horse came closer.
Harry.
Even as he took a step toward the horse and rider, reality followed like ice water through his veins. The young boy wore a white cowboy hat instead of a trucker’s cap.
And Carter’s son was dead.
A woman astride a horse followed the boy out of the trees. The woman sat relaxed in the saddle, one hand resting on her thigh, her broad-brimmed hat hiding her face, reins held loosely in her other hand. She looked as if she belonged atop a horse, as if she was one with the animal, so easy were her motions as her horse followed the other.
When the woman saw him, she pulled up and dismounted in one fluid motion.
“Can I help you, sir?” she asked, pushing her hat back on her head, her brown eyes frowning at him as she motioned the boy to stop.
Carter felt a tinge of annoyance at her question, spoken with such a cool air. Sir? As if he was some stranger instead of the owner of the ranch she rode across? And who was she?
“Is that your motorbike, sir?” The young boy pulled off his hat, his green eyes intent on Carter’s bike. “It’s really cool.”
His eager voice, his bright eyes, resurrected the memories that lay heavy on Carter’s soul. And when the woman lifted the little boy from the saddle and gently stroked his hair back from his face with a loving motion, the weight grew.
“Yeah. It’s mine.”
“It’s so awesome,” the boy said, his breathless young voice battering away at Carter’s defenses.
Carter’s heart stuttered. He even sounded like Harry. Coming back to the place where his son died had been hard enough. Meeting a child the same age Harry was when he died made this even more difficult.
He forced his attention back to the woman. A light breeze picked up a strand of her long, brown hair, and as she tucked it behind her ear he caught sight of her bare left hand. No rings.
She saw him looking at her hand and lifted her chin in the faintest movement of defiance. Then she put her hand on the boy’s shoulder, drawing him to her side, as if ready to defend him against anything Carter might have to say. She looked like a protective mare standing guard over her precious colt.
Carter held her gaze and for a moment, as their eyes locked, an indefinable emotion arced between them.
“My name is Carter Beck,” he said quietly.
The woman’s eyes widened, and he saw recognition in her expression. He caught a trace of sorrow in the softening of her features, in the gentle parting of her lips.
“I imagine you’ve come to see Nana... Mrs. Beck.”
He frowned at her lapse. This unknown woman called his grandmother Nana?
“And you are?” he asked.
“Sorry again,” she said, transferring the reins and holding out her hand. “I’m Emma Minton. This is my son, Adam. I help Wade on the ranch here. I work with the horses as well as help him with the cows and anything else that needs doing. But I’m sure you know that,” she said with a light laugh that held a note of self-conscious humor.
“Nice to meet you, Emma,” he said as he reluctantly took her hand. “Wade did tell me a while back he was hiring a new ranch hand. I didn’t expect...”
“A woman?” Emma lifted her shoulders in a light shrug. “I worked on a ranch all my life. I know my way around horses and cows and fences and haying equipment.”
“I’m sure you do. Otherwise, Wade wouldn’t have hired you.”
Emma angled her head to one side, as if wondering if he was being sarcastic. Then she gave him a quick nod, accepting his answer.
Carter glanced around the yard. “Where is Wade?”
“He and Miranda went to town. She had a doctor’s appointment.”
“Right. Of course.” The last time he’d talked to Wade, his ranch foreman had told him his wife was expecting.
Emma’s horse stamped impatiently, and she reached up and stroked his neck. “I should put the horses away. Good to meet you, and I’m sure we’ll be seeing you around.” Then without a second glance, she turned the horses around, her son trotting alongside her.
“Was that man Mr. Beck? The man who owns the ranch?” Adam’s young voice floated back to him.
“Yup. That’s who it was,” Emma replied.
“So he’s the one we have to ask about the acreage?” Adam asked.
Acreage? What acreage? He wanted to call after her to find out what she was talking about. But he was sure his grandmother heard his motorbike come into the yard and would be expecting him.
As he turned toward the house where his grandmother lived, his gaze traced over the land beyond the ranch yard. The hay fields were greener than he had ever seen them.
Beyond them he heard the water of Morrisey River splashing over the rocks, heading toward the Elk River. The river kept flowing, a steady source of water for the ranch and a constant reminder of the timelessness of the place.
Five generations of Becks had lived along this river and before that who knows how many generations of his great-great-grandmother Kamiskahk’s tribe.
He felt a surprising smile pull at his mouth as other, older memories soothed away the stark ones he’d been outrunning the past two years.
Then, as he walked toward his grandmother’s house, he passed the corral. He wasn’t going to look, but his eyes, as if they had a will of their own, shifted to the place where the horse waterer had been. The place where his son had drowned.
His heart tripped in his chest and he pushed the memories away, the reminder of his son’s death stiffening his resolve to leave this place as soon as he could.
* * *
He looked older than the picture Nana Beck had on her mantel, Emma thought, watching Carter stride away. He wore his hair longer, and his eyes were slate-blue instead of gray.
Emma had heard so much about Nana Beck’s grandchild, that she felt she knew him personally.
But the tall man with the sad eyes and grim mouth didn’t fit with the stories Nana had told her. The man in Nana Beck’s stories laughed a lot, smiled all the time and loved his life. This man looked as if he carried the burden of the world on his shoulders. Of course, given what he had lost, Emma wasn’t surprised. She felt her own heart quiver at the thought of losing Adam like Carter lost his son.
“Can I feed the other horses some of the carrots?” Adam was asking, breaking into her dark thoughts.
Emma pulled her attention away from Carter.
“Sure you can. Just make sure you don’t pull out too many. We have to pick some to bring to Nana Beck.” She opened the corral gate and led her horses, Diamond and Dusty, inside, Adam right behind her.
“Are we having supper there?”
Emma shook her head as she tied the horses up. “Nope. Shannon... Miss Beck said she was coming.” Since Nana Beck’s heart attack, Nana Beck’s granddaughter, Shannon, Miranda, the foreman’s wife, and Emma all took turns cooking for Nana, making sure she was eating. Today it was Shannon’s turn.
“Are you going to talk to that Carter man about the acreage?”
“He just got here, honey. I think I’ll give him a day or two.” Emma loosened the cinches on Diamond’s saddle and eased it off his back. She frowned at the cracking on the skirt of the saddle. She’d have to oil it up again, though she really should buy a new one.
And Adam needed new boots and she needed a new winter coat and she should buy a spare tire for her horse trailer. But she was saving as much as possible to add to what she had left from the sale of her father’s ranch.
“Do you think he’ll let us have our place?”
Emma frowned, pulling her attention away from the constant nagging concerns and plans of everyday life and back to her son.
“It’s not our place, honey.” Emma pulled off the saddle blankets, as anticipation flickered through her at her and Adam’s plans. “But I do hope to talk to him about it.”
Wade Klauer, the foreman, had told her about the old yard site. How it had been a part of another ranch Carter had bought just before his son died. When Wade told her Carter was returning, she’d seen this as her chance to ask him to subdivide the yard site of the property. Maybe, finally, she and her son could have a home of their own.
“I’m going to get some carrots,” Adam said, clambering over the corral fence. “And I won’t pick too many,” he added with an impish grin.
Emma laughed and blew him a kiss and then watched him run across the yard, his boots kicking up little clouds of dust.
He was so precious. And she wanted more than anything to give him a place. A home.
Up until she got pregnant, she’d spent her summers following the rodeo, barrel racing the horses her beloved mother had bought for her. Her winters were spent working wherever she found a job. But after she got pregnant, she was determined to do right by her son. And when Adam’s biological father abandoned her, she moved back to her father’s ranch and returned to her faith.
A year ago she met Karl and thought she’d found a reason to settle down. A man she could trust to take care of her and her son. A man who also loved ranch and country life.
But when she found him kissing her best friend, Emma ditched him. A few months later, Emma’s father died. And in the aftermath, she discovered her father had been secretly gambling, using the ranch for collateral. After the ranch was sold to pay the debts, Emma was left with only a horse trailer, two horses, a pickup truck and enough money for a small down payment on another place.
As Emma drove off the ranch, her dreams and plans for her future in tatters, she knew she couldn’t trust any man to take care of her and Adam.
She struggled along, working where she could, finding a place to live and board her horses. So when she saw an ad for a hired hand at the Rocking K Ranch, close to the town of Hartley Creek, she responded. The job promised a home on the ranch as part of the employment package.
As soon as Emma drove onto the Rocking K, nestled in the greening hills of southeast British Columbia, she was overcome with an immediate sense of homecoming. She knew this was where she wanted to be.
“I got some carrots,” Adam called out, scurrying over to the corral, his fists full of bright orange carrots, fronds of green dangling on the ground behind him.
“Looks like you picked half a row,” Emma said with an indulgent laugh as she slipped the bridles off Dusty and Diamond.
“Only some,” he said with a frown. “There’s lots yet.” As Adam doled out the carrots to the waiting horses, his laughter drifted back to her over the afternoon air, a carefree, happy sound that warmed her heart.
When Adam was done, Emma climbed over the fence. As they walked back to the garden, she heard the door of Nana Beck’s house open. Carter came out carrying a tray, which he laid down on a small glass table on the covered veranda.
He looked up and across the distance. She saw his frown. And it seemed directed at her and Adam.
* * *
“What a day to be alive,” Nana Beck said, accepting the mug of tea Carter had poured. She settled into her chair on the veranda and eased out a gentle sigh.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Carter said quietly, spooning a generous amount of honey into his tea. “Really glad.”
“No inheritance for you and your cousins yet,” she said with a wink.
“I can wait.” He couldn’t share her humor. He didn’t want to think that his grandmother could have died while he was working up in the Northwest Territories on that pipeline job. Knowing she was okay eased a huge burden off his shoulders.
She gave him a gentle smile. “So can I.” She reached over and covered his hand with hers. “I’m so glad you came home.”
“I tried to come as soon as Shannon got hold of me. But I couldn’t get out of the camp. We were socked in with rain, and the planes couldn’t fly.” He gave her a smile, guilt dogging him in spite of her assurances. “So how are you feeling?”
“The doctor said that I seem to be making a good recovery,” Nana said, leaning back in her chair, her hands cradling a mug of tea. “He told me that I was lucky that Shannon was with me here on the ranch when I had the heart attack. They caught everything soon enough, so I should be back to normal very soon.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Carter said. “I was worried about you.”
“Were you? Really?” The faintly accusing note in his grandmother’s voice resurrected another kind of guilt.
“I came back because I was worried, and I came as soon as I could.” He gave her a careful smile.
“You’ve been away too long.” Her voice held an underlying tone of sympathy he wanted to avoid.
“Only two years,” he said, lounging back in his chair. He hoped he achieved the casual and in-control vibe he aimed for. He would need it around his grandmother.
Nana Beck had an innate ability to separate baloney from the truth. Carter knew he would need all his wits about him when he told her that his visit was temporary.
And that he wouldn’t be talking about his son.
“Two years is a long time.” She spoke quietly, but he heard the gentle reprimand in her voice. “I know why you stayed away, but I think it’s a good thing you’re back. I think you need to deal with your loss.”
“I’m doing okay, Nana.” He took a sip of tea, resting his ankle on his knee, hoping he looked more in control than he felt. He’d spent the past two years putting the past behind him. Moving on.
Then the sound of Adam’s voice rang across the yard from the garden.
“So how long have the woman and her boy lived here?” He avoided his grandmother’s gaze. He doubted she appreciated the sudden topic switch.
“Emma and Adam have been here about six months,” she said, looking over to where Adam kneeled in the dirt of the garden beside his mother, sorting potatoes. Emma’s hair, now free from her ponytail, slipped over her face as she bent over to drop potatoes in the pail. He had thought her hair was brown, but the sunlight picked out auburn highlights.
“She’s a wonderful girl,” his grandmother continued. “Hard worker. Very devoted to her son. She loves being here on the ranch. She grew up on one, worked on her father’s ranch before she came here.”
Carter dragged his attention back to his grandmother. “I’m sure she’s capable, or else Wade wouldn’t have hired her.”
“She raised her boy without any help,” his grandmother went on, obviously warming to her topic. “I believe she even rode the rodeo for a while. Of course, that was before she had her son. She’s had her moments, but she’s such a strong Christian girl.”
Carter’s only reply to his grandmother’s soliloquy in praise of Emma was an absent nod.
“She’s had a difficult life, but you’d never know it. She doesn’t complain.”
“Life’s hard for many people, Nana.”
“I know it is. It’s been difficult watching my daughters making their mistakes. Your mom coming back here as a single mother—your aunt Denise returning as a divorced woman. Trouble was, they came here to hide. To lick their wounds. Neither have been the best example to your brother and your cousins of where to go when life is hard, as you said. So to remind you I’ve got something for you.” Nana slowly got to her feet. When Carter got up to help her, she waved him off. She walked into the house, and the door fell closed behind her. In the quiet she left behind, Carter heard Adam say something and caught Emma’s soft laugh in reply.
He closed his eyes, memories falling over themselves. His son in the yard. Harry’s laugh. The way he loved riding horses—
The wham of the door pulled him out of those painful memories. Nana sat down again, her hands resting on a paper-wrapped package lying on her lap.
“Having this heart attack has been like a wake-up call for me in so many ways,” she said, her voice subdued and serious. “I feel like I have been given another chance to have some kind of influence in my grandchildren’s lives. So, on that note, this is for you.” She gave him the package. “I want you to open it up now so I can explain what this is about.”
Carter frowned but did as his Nana asked. He unwrapped a Bible. He opened the book, leafing through it as if to show Nana that he appreciated the gesture, when all it did was create another wave of anger with the God the Bible talked about.
He found the inscription page and read it.
“To Carter, from your Nana. To help you find your way back home.”
He released a light laugh. Home. Did he even have one anymore? The ranch wasn’t home if his son wasn’t here.
Losing Sylvia when Harry was born had been hard enough to deal with. He’d been angry with God for taking away his wife so young, so soon. But he’d gotten through that.
But for God to take Harry? When Carter had been working so hard to provide and take care of him?
“There’s something else.” Nana gave him another small box. “This isn’t as significant as the Bible, but I wanted to give this to remind you of your roots and how important they are.”
With a puzzled frown, Carter took the jeweler’s box and lifted the lid. Nestled inside lay a gold chain. He lifted it up, and his puzzlement grew. Hanging from the chain was a coarse gold nugget in a plain setting. It looked familiar.
Then he glanced at Nana’s wrist. Empty.
“Is this one of the charms from your bracelet?” he asked quietly, letting the sun play over the gold nugget.
“Yes. It is.” Nana touched it with a forefinger, making it spin in the light.
“But this is a necklace.”
“I took the five charms from my bracelet and had each of them made into a necklace. I am giving one to each of the grandchildren.”
“But the bracelet came from Grandpa—”
“And the nuggets on the bracelet came from your great-great-grandmother Kamiskahk.”
“I brought you potatoes, Nana Beck,” Adam called out, running toward them, holding up a pail.
There it was again. The name his son used to address his grandmother coming from the lips of this little boy.
It jarred him in some odd way he couldn’t define.
Adam stopped when he saw what Carter held. “Wow, that’s so pretty.” He dropped his pail on the veranda with a “thunk” and walked toward Carter, his eyes on the necklace Carter still held up. “It sparkles.”
In spite of his previous discomfort with the little boy, Carter smiled at the tone of reverence in Adam’s voice.
“Gold fever is no respecter of class or age,” he said, swinging it back and forth, making it shimmer in the sun.
“Is that a present for Nana Beck?” Adam asked.
“No. It’s a present from me to him,” Nana said, glancing from Carter to Adam.
“That’s silly. Nanas don’t give presents to big people.”
“You’re not the only one I give presents to,” Nana Beck said with a smile.
Carter couldn’t stop the flush of pain at the thought that his grandmother, who should be giving gifts to his son, was giving them to this little boy.
“Adam, don’t bother Nana Beck right now.” Emma hurried up the walk to the veranda and pulled gently back on his shoulder. She glanced from Nana to Carter, an apologetic smile on her face. “Sorry to disturb your visit. Adam was a little eager to make his delivery.”
“Did you see that pretty necklace that Mr. Carter has?” Adam pointed to the necklace that Carter had laid down on the Bible in his lap. “Is it real gold?”
“Actually, it is,” Nana Beck said. “I got it made from a bracelet I used to wear. Did you know the story about the bracelet, Adam?”
“There’s a story?” Adam asked, his voice pipingly eager.
Carter looked away. Being around this boy grew harder each second in his presence. Harry had never heard the story about his Nana’s bracelet. The story was part of Harry’s legacy and history, and now this little boy, a complete stranger to him, would be hearing it.
“Adam, honey, we should go,” Emma said quietly, as if she sensed Carter’s pain.
“I want to hear the story,” Adam said.
“Stay a moment,” Nana Beck urged. “Have some tea.”
“No... I don’t think...” Emma protested.
“That’s silly. Carter, why don’t you get Emma a mug, and please bring back a juice box and a bag of gummy snacks for Adam. They’re in the cupboard beside the mugs.”
Carter gladly made his escape. Once in the kitchen, he rested his clenched hands on the counter, feeling an ache in the cold place in the center of his chest where his heart lay. He drew in a long, steadying breath. This was too hard. Every time Adam spoke, it was a vivid reminder of his own son.
Carter closed his eyes and made himself relax. He had seen boys the age of his son’s before.
Just not on the ranch where...
Carter slammed his hands on the counter, then pushed himself straight. He had to get past this. He had to move on.
And how was that supposed to happen as long as he still owned the ranch, a visible reminder of what he had lost?
Copyright © 2011 by Carolyne Aarsen