THE NEXT TWO weeks passed by quickly. Darlene signed away her parental rights and Rico went before a judge seven days later and he became legal guardian of Dusty. The judge suggested that he adopt Dusty to prevent problems down the road. He then went to see Gabe Garrison, Miss Kate’s younger brother, who was a lawyer in Horseshoe, to start adoption proceedings. Rico told Gabe that he and Anamarie were getting married and he wanted her name on the adoption papers, too.
They told the Rebels and everyone was excited for them. But no way was he going to the Wiznowski house. Ana didn’t push him and she told her parents on her own. And as he had expected Miss Doris said she didn’t approve of the marriage. Ana seemed to be fine with that and she was busy making plans for the wedding. There was one problem. They couldn’t get the church until the first Saturday in September. Ana still wanted a church wedding so they would wait until September. In the meantime, they settled into family life.
School let out and hay season was in full swing. He didn’t have much time for Dusty, but Ana always kept him up until Rico could get home. That bothered Rico. He needed to spend more time with Dusty, but he couldn’t let the Rebels down.
The first Monday in June, Falcon surprised them. “Everyone sit down. I want to talk to y’all.”
Everyone took seats and Rico leaned against the doorjamb.
“We’re all getting older and we all have families that we neglect during hay season. I want to change that up a bit. Eden helped me and we’ve come up with a program that I think is going to work. It’s on my laptop.”
Eden was Falcon’s daughter and she was in vet school at Texas A&M.
Falcon turned his laptop around so everyone could see. “This is how it works. Everyone will work three days from sunup to sundown, then they’ll have three regular days and one day off.”
“You’ve already typed in our names,” Phoenix pointed out.
“Yes, son,” Miss Kate answered, “but you’re free to switch days with your brothers if you need to.”
“No, I think this is great.”
“Elias, Quincy and Jude have babies coming,” Falcon commented. “I know everyone will pitch in to help during that time.” He patted a stack of papers. “Here’s a copy for everyone.”
Rico thought this was the best thing that could have happened. Now he would have more time with Dusty.
“I have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from sunup to sundown. Who’s working with me?” Elias asked.
“I am,” Rico replied.
“Wow, Falcon, you do know what you’re doing.”
Rico seconded that and he couldn’t wait to get home to tell Ana.
* * *
ON FRIDAY RICO had a regular day and he was home by five o’clock. As always Dusty was at the front door. When he reached the barn, he would text Ana to let her know he was coming. He swung Dusty up and gave him a hug and then Dusty ran to his room.
Rico walked around the counter and took Ana into his arms. This was the best part of his day. After a sweet kiss, he asked, “What’s Dusty doing in his room?”
“Counting his money.”
“Can he count?”
“Money, no.” She kissed his cheek. “Just be prepared for something.”
Dusty charged back into the room and held out his hand with four quarters in it. “Is that enough money to buy boots? I want boots like yours.”
Rico squatted in front of him. “I think that’s just about the right amount.”
“Oh, boy.” Dusty carefully handed each quarter to Rico. “When can we get them?”
“I have tomorrow off and we’ll go and buy new boots.”
“Oh, boy! Did you hear, Ana?”
He turned his head to look at her and saw tears in her eyes. He’d gotten the marriage proposal thing all wrong, but he’d gotten it wrong with the right woman. He couldn’t imagine coming home and not finding her here. She’d become a part of him in a short period of time. Dusty ran to the living room and he stood and took her into his arms again.
“He’s just so precious,” she mumbled into his shoulder.
He stroked her hair. “And so are you.”
He never imagined he would have a family. He just thought he would always be the hired hand on Rebel Ranch. After his troubled past, that was okay with him. But things had changed and now he had his own family. And soon he would have to start looking for a home because above everything else he wanted them to have their own home.
On Saturday they got up late and went to buy boots for Dusty. He was one excited little boy, especially since Rico bought him a hat, too. He wanted to sleep in the boots so they let him. After he fell asleep, Ana took them off and placed them on the floor beside his bed.
* * *
SUNDAY WAS A long day without Rico. It was one of his full days and they wouldn’t see him until about nine or ten o’clock that night. Ana had bought a couple of bridal magazines and Dusty was trying to help her pick out a dress. He fell asleep in her arms and she held him tight. Through the years she had wondered what it would feel like to hold her own child and it was unlike anything she had ever envisioned. Even though Dusty wasn’t biologically hers, he was her child in every other way.
* * *
LIFE WAS BETTER than Rico could ever remember. Falcon’s schedule worked out great for everyone. The more time he spent with Ana and Dusty the more he knew he had it all—a wonderful woman and a happy kid.
Ana was busy with wedding plans, making the deal for the cake shop and entertaining Dusty. Every day was a new adventure with her.
By the end of June the heat became a factor with hay hauling, but the guys were used to it. Near the end of one of his regular days, Falcon gave him a list of errands to run. He left the hayfield about three thirty and he hoped to be home by five. With his truck loaded down with supplies, he headed home.
The McGregor place was across the road from Rebel Ranch. The entrance was directly across from where Rico had to turn on to Rebel Road. Mr. McGregor was in his nineties and Rico noticed him standing by his mailbox in pajamas and a T-shirt. Mr. McGregor was a tall thin man with a balding head and it was too hot for him to be out this time of day. Rico supposed he was getting his mail.
He turned on to Rebel Road but something made him look back. Taking a second look, he realized the man was holding onto the mailbox. Rico turned around and went back and pulled into the bar ditch next to the mailbox. Cars whizzed by and he was afraid Mr. McGregor was going to get hit.
He got out and ran to the man. “Mr. McGregor, do you need any help?”
“No, I don’t need any help.” His knuckles were white from his grip on the box.
A Mexican lady in scrubs came from the house pushing a wheelchair. She was out of breath when she reached them. “I’ve been looking for him everywhere. Mr. McGregor, you know you’re not supposed to go to the mailbox. Your grandson takes care of that.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Mr. McGregor growled at her.
Clearly there was a problem here and Rico just wanted to go home. “Let me help you into the chair, Mr. McGregor.”
“I don’t need anybody’s help.” His voice was rough and angry.
“Then sit in the chair.”
“I’m trying to find my sea legs.”
The old man was being difficult and probably rightly so. Old age was a bitter pill to swallow and being a strong man he probably had never needed help in his whole life.
“I’ll help you,” Rico told him. “Just hold on to me.”
But the old man couldn’t move and his body trembled from weakness. Rico did the only thing he could. He lifted the man into his arms and placed him in the chair.
“Take me to the house,” Mr. McGregor ordered. “I don’t want her touching me.”
“He’s like this all the time,” the woman muttered.
Rico had no choice but to roll the man to the house. It was an old house, probably built in the 1800s and Rico admired it every time he drove by. With its long veranda and white columns, it was a showplace of days gone by.
“There’s a ramp at the back of the house,” the woman told him.
He rolled the man through a screened-in back porch and into the house. “My bedroom is down the hall to the right.” The old man waved a hand at the woman. “Go back to watching TV like you always do.”
Rico felt he had to say something. “Mr. McGregor, you’re being very rude to someone who takes care of you.”
“Ah, my grandson hired her. I can take care of myself. My son want to put me in a home and sell this property. I’ve lived here my whole life, as have my ancestors, and I’m not going anywhere. But that fancy gal who has her hooks in my son calls the shots.”
If Mr. McGregor was in his nineties, that meant his son had to be somewhere in his seventies and fancy gal probably wasn’t too fancy anymore, either. The old man was just mad at the world and life and what it could do to a person.
“I’ll help you into bed,” Rico said. He really had to get home.
“Hand me that walker. I can get in bed by myself.”
Rico found the walker against the wall and placed it in front of him. It took Mr. McGregor a moment but he got to his feet and shuffled to the bed and sat on it. He peered at Jericho through his round wire-rim glasses.
“Who are you?”
“Jericho Johnson.”
“Yeah, you’re that mysterious guy who works on Rebel Ranch.”
“That’s me.”
The old man looked him up and down. “You’re a big strong fella.”
“That comes from throwing eighty-pound bales of hay onto a trailer.”
“Yeah, I used to do that. I used to do a lot of things. Now I’m just waiting for the good Lord to call me home so I can be with my wife again.” The man lay down and pulled the covers over him. “You have any kids, Mr. Johnson?”
“I have a son,” he replied. It was the first time he’d said the words out loud and it made his situation that much more real. He had a son.
“Love him while you can because when he grows up, he’ll grow away from you or meet some fancy gal who puts all kinds of nonsense in his head. You’ll never get your son back.”
On that note, Mr. McGregor went to sleep. The Mexican lady hovered in the doorway and he walked over to her. “I know he’s difficult, just hang in there.”
“Thanks for your help,” she called as he walked out the door.
Outside, he took a moment to look around. An old wood barn stood not far from the house. The tin roof had rusted away in spots. The adjoining corral was also wood and needed work. Several of the boards had fallen off and others had rotted away. In the distance was a smaller barn. Most likely used for hay. The pasture hadn’t been mowed in years and it grew wild with weeds. The rolling hills nestled under towering oak trees. There wasn’t a fence in the distance or to the side of him. Mr. McGregor owned a lot of land.
He’d talk to Falcon tomorrow about Mr. McGregor. If his grandson was going to sell, he wanted to be the first to make an offer. This could be his and Ana’s home—their very own home.
* * *
LATER THAT NIGHT, after Dusty was in bed, he told Ana about the McGregor property.
“The McGregor place?” One eyebrow lifted sharply as she settled onto the sofa with a cup of coffee.
“Yeah. I know it’s old, but I can fix it up any way you want. I just don’t know how much land goes with the place. It might be out of my price range.”
“Horseshoe is high-tech now and I can look it up on the Horseshoe website tomorrow. We have a new tax assessor and she has updated everything. I looked the shop up and it gave me the tax value and information I needed. We can do the same for the McGregor place.”
“Let’s do it now.” Their future was together and he wanted to get it started as soon as possible. He wanted the place for Ana and Dusty—a place where Dusty could grow up and call home.
She made to get up and then sat down again. “I can look it up on my phone.” Leaning over, she grabbed her phone from the coffee table. Her thumbs went to work. “I’ll use McGregor as a keyword and it should bring it up.” After a moment, she said. “Okay, here it is. Oh.”
“What?”
She handed him her phone and he glanced at the acreage. As he’d thought, Mr. McGregor owned a lot of land. A sinking feeling crashed into his stomach. All his hopes of buying that house and land were gone. He would never be able to afford it.
“We’ll find another house,” Ana tried to reassure him. “We have lots of time and the bunkhouse is fine for what we need right now.”
He had his heart set on the house and now he had to let go like he had to do so many times in his life. One thing he was never letting go of was Ana.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY Rico had another regular workday. As they filed out of the office to go do their jobs, Falcon said, “Rico, can I talk to you for a moment?”
He had no idea what Falcon wanted, but he stayed as he was asked to do.
“I got a call early this morning from Mr. McGregor.”
Mr. McGregor?
“Obviously you helped him yesterday and he’s very grateful for that.”
He told Falcon about the mailbox incident. “He’s just a very old and angry man.”
“Yeah, everybody knows that and no one can get along with him.”
“Is that it?” Rico asked. “I need to get to work.”
“No, that’s not all. He asked if you would pick up his mail every day. He wants to pay you twenty dollars a month to do that.”
Rico gave a chuckle. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. That’s the message he gave me.”
“Then, I guess I’ll go over and pick up his mail every day, but I don’t want his money.”
“You’ll have to tell him that.”
Before he could leave, Falcon asked, “Did you notice what kind of shape that land is in?”
“It’s bad. It hasn’t been cultivated or fertilized in years.”
“I talked to his grandson in town not too long ago and he said they were trying to put Mr. McGregor in a home, but he was refusing to go. If the grandson is planning on selling that land, I was thinking about extending Rebel Ranch across the road.”
Rico was good at keeping his emotions hidden, but that morning disappointment must have shown on his face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing, Rico. Your face changed when I mentioned it.”
He could do this. He could talk to Falcon. “Yesterday, as I looked around the place I thought it would make a good home for Ana and Dusty. I thought I would make an offer when the place came up for sale, but then I found out how much land there is and there’s no way I could afford that house and land.”
“You want that place? I’ll help you get it.”
“No. It will be a good addition to Rebel Ranch.” He swung toward the door.
“Rico!” Falcon called, getting to his feet. “Come back here!”
As always, when a Rebel gave him an order, he did it.
“Now, I’m going to talk to the grandson again and tell him when he puts that land on the market I want to be the first to offer a bid. And I’m going to make that bid for you. You want that place? I’ll make sure you get it. Understood?”
“Falcon—”
“Don’t worry about financing. Mom or I will go with you to the bank. We’ll help you make this happen. Whether that land is Rebel Ranch or in your name, it’s all the same thing. You’re a part of this family.”
Part of the family. He’d heard that so many times. They just didn’t understand that he wasn’t. Everything in him was pulling back, but then he thought about Ana and Dusty. He really wanted that house for them, but he wanted to be able to buy it himself.
But he had to be realistic. There was no way a bank was going to loan an ex-con, that amount of money. He needed the Rebels if he wanted that house for his family.
Once again he would be indebted to the Rebels.
* * *
AS SOON AS he got in his truck he called Ana and told her what had happened. She was excited, but they both were cautious about going into that much debt. He also told her about Mr. McGregor and that he would be a little late getting home tonight.
That afternoon around four thirty he pulled up to Mr. McGregor’s mailbox and took out a brochure from a car dealership in Temple. A driveway went around to the back of the house and that’s where he parked. He knocked on the back door and the Mexican lady let him in.
Mr. McGregor was in his bedroom sitting in a wheelchair, watching television. It was turned up loud. The old man turned it off with Rico entered the room.
“Jericho, come on in,” Mr. McGregor said. “Did you get my mail?”
He handed him the brochure.
“That’s it?” The wrinkles on the old man’s forehead deepened. He pointed toward the door. “She’s stealing my mail. I don’t even get my bank statements anymore. She’s looking at them.”
Going on what the Mexican lady had told him, he replied, “Mr. McGregor, I think your grandson has had your mail rerouted to his house so you don’t have to worry with it anymore.”
“What?” The old man shook his hand. “No. He wouldn’t do that.”
“You need to ask him.”
“Hand me that phone by my bedside.”
Rico handed him the portable phone, wondering how he had gotten mixed up in the McGregor family. Every time he helped someone it snowballed into much more. He really didn’t have time for this.
“You had no right,” Mr. McGregor screamed into the phone. “You’re an ungrateful grandson taking away all my rights. I’m not dead yet.”
The grandson had to be talking because Mr. McGregor sat in silence listening. Rico just wanted to leave, but he waited for some reason.
Finally, Mr. McGregor said, “Yeah. Yeah.” Then he clicked off and handed Rico the phone. “My mail goes to his house just like you said. Ungrateful brat.”
There was an antique chair not far from where Mr. McGregor was sitting. “Mind if I sit?”
“Go ahead.”
“Your grandson loves you. That’s why he’s trying to make your life a little easier by taking care of your business. Do you really want to pay a lot of bills?”
Mr. McGregor looked down at his wrinkled arthritic hands. “I know, Jericho, but it’s hard being old and useless.”
“If you let people help you, maybe that feeling would go away.” As he said the words it resonated with him. He did the same thing. He was always pushing people away, not letting them get too close. He could see himself in Mr. McGregor.
“I don’t need help,” the old man grumbled.
“You do need help.”
The old man hung his head. Suddenly, he asked, “How old is your son?”
“He’s four.”
“I was twenty-one years old when my boy was born right here in this house in this bedroom. Sadly, my wife was unable to have any more children. So we spoiled him. I raised him as a cowboy because I’m a cowboy. I’ve always been a cowboy and I’ll die a cowboy. Now my boy is citified. He calls, but we have nothing to say. This land will be passed down to him and he will sell it. It has no meaning to him.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. McGregor.” Rico didn’t know what else to say. He knew the old man had been hurt deeply and there weren’t enough words in the dictionary to comfort him.
“Were you always a cowboy?”
For some odd reason Rico started to tell the old man about his life. He never opened up to anyone but Miss Kate and Ana so it felt a little odd talking to a stranger. The words came pouring out and the old man just listened.
“I heard you were an ex-con,” Mr. McGregor said.
“I have a lot of anger inside for what happened to me, but I try not to let it show.”
“How do you do that?”
“By being grateful for what I have now. The Rebels accepted me for who I am when no one else would take a chance on me.” Rico got to his feet. He really needed to get home. “Be grateful for what you have, Mr. McGregor, and be grateful for the good life you had. You’ve had a lot of good years with your son and now your grandson. Just accept them for who they are. It’s clear they care about you.”
“Yeah,” the old man admitted. “They could’ve put me in a home a long time ago and I wouldn’t’ve been able to do anything about it.”
He patted the old man’s shoulder. “Grandpa Rebel always says you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Think about it.” He walked toward the door. “I’ll check in from time to time to see how you’re doing.”
“Thank you, Jericho. Stop by anytime you want.”
As he drove away he hoped Mr. McGregor made the right decisions for himself. Being lonely and angry never did anyone any good. Rico knew that for a fact. He would be more accepting and open when people tried to help him, especially the Rebels.