Lucas had slept in bunkhouses for most of the past twenty years, and the one he awoke in on Monday morning wasn’t all that different. A living area with a couple of bunk beds shoved over to one side. A door that led to a large pantry, and another one into a bathroom. The kitchen was part of the open living space and had a table and chairs for four people, and a separate bedroom and bathroom for the foreman, which he figured he’d might as well take since there was no one else to claim it. For just a split second, he had trouble remembering where he was when opened his eyes. He was used to sleeping in a bunk—if he was lucky—or in a sleeping bag out under the stars, not in a king-size bed that felt like it covered an acre of ground.
He remembered that Theron was coming that morning and bailed out of bed so fast that he scared the ranch hound dog, who’d been sleeping on the rug beside the bed. “Sorry about that, Tex. I got excited about a kid coming out here for his first session in horse therapy.”
He remembered Vada from high school and almost blushed when he thought about the crush he had had on her. Not that he ever approached her or even spoke to her all that often because she and Travis Winters, the star of everything in school, were a couple, and she only had eyes for him.
Tex growled and headed toward the door without even looking back.
“Guess you aren’t interested in hearing me talk about how I’ve always measured every woman I dated by what I thought Vada would be like?” Lucas plodded along behind him and let the dog outside. “I built her up in my head to be a perfect woman, and now no one else has snowball’s chance in hell of measuring up to that.”
Tex took off in a dead run around the bunkhouse without even so much as a growl.
Lucas closed the door, went back to the bathroom just off his bedroom, shaved, combed his hair straight back, and stared at his reflection in the mirror. “She’s only here for therapy for her boy. Remember that and don’t get all shy and bashful around her.”
His reflection didn’t have a single bit of advice for him, so he got dressed and headed out to the kitchen to make himself some breakfast. He had worked in huge ranches and hung his hat in both small and huge bunkhouses. He had stayed in this very one a couple of times when he had come home the past year, but that morning when he made an omelet, it felt emptier than it ever had before.
He had gotten in so late the night before that he put the horses in the barn and then went straight to the bunkhouse. Stevie had called him about the time he hit the Texas line and told him about the child who needed help, and he was too excited to get much sleep, and up too early to join the family for breakfast. He would get hugs from them all when he saw some lights come on in the ranch house, but right now he was hungry. At the news of having his first horse therapy client, he’d been too excited to eat supper. He’d just finished slipping the omelet out of the cast iron skillet and over onto a plate when he heard Tex scratching at the door.
“Great timing,” he said as he slung the door open to let the dog back inside. “I suppose you want a bite of my breakfast, right?”
The noise that Tex’s claws made when he marched across the wood floor into the kitchen area echoed through the place. Lucas thought of grumbling cowboys fussing at one another for snoring or telling tales about the night they’d just had with some lady they’d met at a local bar, and the bunkhouse seemed to get even emptier.
Even though he was the one who sat back and listened most of the time, he missed the hustle and bustle of what had become his normal routine. Tex sat down beside his chair and waited for Lucas to share a few bites with him.
“I’m not really a people person,” Lucas said as put a forkful of the omelet in his mouth, and then gave Tex one, “but I’m figuring out real quick that I don’t like to be alone either.”
When he and Tex had finished breakfast and he had cleaned up the kitchen, Lucas put on his coat and hat and headed outside with Tex right behind him. Lucas made a left turn when he reached the fork in the path—one led to the ranch house where Jesse and Addy lived with their family, and the other one led to his folks’ place. Tex turned around after he’d gone a few feet down the well-traveled path toward the ranch house and bounded back toward Lucas.
“So you decided to have a second breakfast with Mama and Dad, rather than Jesse and Addy, did you?” Lucas chuckled.
Tex barked his answer and took off in a trot toward Pearl and Sonny’s house. Sunflower Ranch had four dwellings on it—the original ranch house where Jesse lived with his family, the foreman’s small house where Pearl and Sonny now lived, Stevie and Cody’s place across the section line road, and, of course, the bunkhouse. Lucas had spent a lot of time sitting on the former foreman’s porch and in Henry’s house when he had been a teenager. Henry had been the ranch foreman long before the three Ryan brothers had been adopted and had been more like a favorite uncle to all of them than a hired hand. It still didn’t seem right that he had left Sunflower Ranch for a cabin in the Colorado mountains.
Lucas didn’t knock on the back door but stuck his head inside and yelled, “I smell coffee and bacon.”
“Come on in and pour yourself a cup,” Sonny called from the table where he sat with his morning newspaper. “Breakfast is on the bar. Your mama hasn’t learned to cook for two yet, so there’s always plenty.”
Lucas removed his coat and hat and hung them on an old, familiar rack beside the back door. “Mama’s food is the best in the whole world,” he said as he crossed the floor and kissed his mother on the cheek, then gave his father’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I’ve eaten in too many bunkhouses to count, and Mama’s food tops them all, but I’ve already had breakfast.”
“Oh, hush up with all that talk. It’s just breakfast.” Pearl’s smile said that she had enjoyed every compliment. “Cody came by earlier and grabbed a couple of biscuits. He said that you’ve got your first customer in the therapy business today.”
“How does that work, son?” Sonny asked.
“I’ve talked to Theron’s mama, Vada, on the phone,” Lucas explained as he poured himself a cup of coffee and then grabbed a blueberry muffin, “and she gave me a little information about the boy. He’s ten years old and has been diagnosed as super intelligent with social issues. Sometimes that goes along with folks who are smarter than their peers. He can take care of himself but change is hard for him. He doesn’t like to talk to anyone but his mother, and he lives in a solitary world.” He sat down across from his mother and took his first sip of coffee.
“And how do you propose to help with that?” Sonny asked.
“Mostly, I’ve worked with Down’s syndrome kids, and those with low self-esteem,” Lucas answered. “So I’ll have to feel things out as we go. I’ll introduce him to Buttercup today, and if things go well, maybe I’ll bring Winnie out to meet him later on down the road, just to show him that he can accept change. If he just wants to watch me brush and talk to the horses this first time, that’s fine. We’ll go at his speed, whether it’s slow or even slower. I don’t expect a lot on the first day.”
“What about other people being there?” Sonny asked.
“Not for a little while, and then only if he shows signs of improvement. It will most likely be a long process,” Lucas answered. “Horses don’t see a kid who is different in any way. They just see a child. Somehow, children with their own challenges understand this, and it helps them to heal and eventually have positive relationships with people, even if it’s just a few folks.”
Pearl nodded. “I can understand that. When you came to our family, it seemed like Champ, the old ranch dog we had at the time, helped you.”
“I loved that dog, and he took a lot of my secrets to the grave with him. From my research.” He took a bite of his muffin and a sip of coffee. “I don’t know what you put into these, Mama, but they are the best in the world.”
“Love, son,” Sonny said. “She puts love in all her cooking. Now tell us more about these children you hope to help.”
“I’ve discovered that a child with problems needs to learn to have a relationship with himself so that he can accept change and figure out how to live in the world,” Lucas answered, and wondered if he was talking about himself as much as about the kids he worked with.
“So your goal for today is simply to meet Theron and let him look at the horses?” Sonny asked.
“That’s right, Dad,” Lucas answered.
“And later, maybe in a few weeks, I can meet him?” Sonny asked.
“I hope so,” Lucas answered. “Once he’s adjusted to having me around, I’d like for you to be the next person he meets.”
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” Sonny said.
“Do you remember Vada from high school?” Pearl asked.
“Of course,” Lucas said. “It’s not like Honey Grove High was that big.” Lucas almost blushed. There was no way he was going to admit that he had had a serious crush on Vada all those years ago and that he still dreamed about her.
“It was such a shame she lost her grandmother last year. We miss her at church. It can’t be easy for Vada, working at home and being closed off from the world so much. I’ll gladly pay for these therapy sessions,” Pearl offered.
“There is no charge,” Lucas said. “If I build up a client list that takes all my time, then maybe then I’ll figure up a price for my services, but right now, I just want to help kids.”
“That’s pretty generous, son,” Sonny said, “and it makes me proud of you.”
Lucas pushed back his chair and took his coffee mug to the dishwasher. “Thanks, Dad, and thank you, Mama, for the offer to pay for the sessions. I hate to eat and run, but Jesse wants me to help herd some cattle from one pasture to another. It’s been a long time since I did that job on a four-wheeler rather than a cutting horse.”
“You brought two horses back home with you,” Sonny reminded him.
“Those are therapy horses.” Lucas chuckled. “They wouldn’t know how to herd cattle. Their job is to make friends with kids and let them learn to ride.”
“Kind of like kids,” Sonny said with a broad smile.
“How’s that?” Lucas asked with a frown.
“You’ve raised those horses to be therapy horses, and that’s what they are. I raised three sons to be ranchers and be danged if they don’t all three go off and be doctors, military, and horse trainers,” Sonny told him. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Buttercup or Winnie would either one be good cutting horses if you gave them a chance.”
“But then we all come back home to be ranchers. What is it that the Good Book says about raising a child up for a few years?” Lucas put on his coat and settled his old, worn hat onto his head.
“It says, ‘Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.’” Pearl said.
“And y’all did a good job of it. Ranchin’ is in our blood, and we just can’t get away from it,” Lucas said with a smile.
* * *
Vada wasn’t hopeful when she awoke that Monday morning. She had learned not to tell Theron about any kind of outing—even a simple trip to the backyard—until a few minutes before the event. If she did, he fretted about it until he was a wreck when the time came. That morning she was surprised when he came out of his room and sat down at the table. He had his fidget toy in his hands, but he wasn’t playing with it.
“Cheerios?” she asked.
“Bacon, please, and eggs.” He kept his eyes on the table.
“Scrambled or fried?” Vada asked and then wished she could take the words back. Choices would not be a good thing that morning.
“Do horses eat scrambled or fried?” he asked.
“I think they eat hay or grass. I know they like carrots and apples,” she said.
“Scrambled then, and I will need an apple to take to the horse,” he said.
“What horse?” Vada almost dropped the whole carton of eggs she was taking from the refrigerator to the counter.
“The one we are going to see today. I looked horses up on the computer. I think I will like them,” Theron said. “They are supposed to help kids like me.”
Vada was both excited and shocked almost speechless. “How did you know about horses?”
“I heard you talking to Stevie and to someone about going to see a horse this morning at ten,” he answered, “so I did some research.”
“You’ve had therapists, Theron, and…” Vada stumbled over the words.
“I don’t like people. They scare me and the ones my age bore me. That’s not nice to say, but they do…” He paused, and Vada half expected him to go back to his room, but he went on, “The therapists you took me to, and the ones that came here want me talk about the way I feel. They want me to say more than I just feel alone and lonely.” He raised one thin shoulder and looked up at her.
Vada had almost forgotten how pretty his brown eyes were. “Well, I don’t expect Buttercup—that’s the horse’s name that you will meet today—will expect you to talk if you don’t want to.”
“Are there more animals where we are going?” Theron asked.
“I understand there’s a dog named Tex, a cat and some kittens in the barn, and alpacas.” Vada thought she was dreaming until she took bacon out of the microwave and a bit of the grease popped onto her finger. It burned badly enough that she knew she was wide awake.
“I will research those and see if they help kids like me,” Theron said.
Why didn’t I think of that before? Vada wondered. If any animal would help him, then he could have a cat or a dog.
Hope. Miracles. Magic. ’Tis the season for all of it, her grandmother whispered softly in her ear.
She whipped up two eggs, scrambled them in a bit of butter. “Do you want the horse to help you, son?”
Theron picked up the plate of bacon and carried it to the table. “Yes, I do. Will there be people there?”
“Just Lucas. He owns the horses and lives on the ranch,” Vada answered.
Theron got two plates from the cabinet and cutlery from the drawer. He set a perfect table, poured a mug of coffee for his mother, and set a bottle of orange juice beside his plate.
“Lucas won’t want me to talk a lot like the therapist did, will he?” Theron began to work with his fidget gadget.
“I don’t think so,” Vada assured him. “I knew him a long time ago, and he was kind of shy back then. I imagine he’ll just want to tell you about the horse.”
He laid the fidget toy to the side and began to eat his breakfast. That he even came out of his room was a miracle. That he talked to her that morning gave her hope. Could a bit of holiday magic really be waiting for her out at Sunflower Ranch? she wondered as she sat down at the table and had breakfast with her son.
When he had finished his food and drank all his juice, Theron carried his plate to the dishwasher and then sat back down at the table. “I might like Lucas if he doesn’t ask me how I feel about every little thing.”
“That would be good,” Vada said.
“If this helps me, will we go back for more therapy?” he asked.
“That will be up to you,” Vada answered.