YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE who can help him.
She might as well have spoken the words. It was clear as spring water that that was what was going through her mind.
Little did she know that it had been many years—too many—since he’d helped anyone. Himself included.
Blue pushed his hat back on his head and wished she’d step aside so he could walk away. This was way more than he could handle. And this woman was in such a passion of trying to save her son that she would never give up.
What the hell am I getting myself into?
Damn it. He knew the minute Micah said the first word to him that he should’ve stayed out of this.
He’d tried to stay out. He’d thought of Dannie and that had pulled him in, which was stupid. There was nothing he could do for her now.
Andie Lee turned away, walked to her truck, pulled the tailgate down, and sat on it. Long legs dangling, she stared off across the valley.
He had given his word to Micah. No way could he take it back.
What he had to do now was make Andie Lee see the limits of what he could do for Shane.
He hitched the loose halter and the coil of leadrope higher onto his shoulder and walked over to her. She didn’t move, didn’t even glance at him. Maybe she hadn’t intended to strip her feelings quite so naked and now she was embarrassed to look at him.
“I’ll make a horseman out of him,” he said. “If he wants it.”
She didn’t look at him or say a word. No matter. She could still hear.
“Horses are dangerous,” he said to the side of her face. “No guarantees.”
She didn’t turn toward him. She just held her pure profile still against the blue of the sky and looked at the mountains.
Finally, she sighed. It was a pitiful sound if he ever heard one.
“If he wants,” she said. “I can’t make him want it.”
“Nobody can.”
That little bit of agreement made her turn to him, with her eyes flashing and her tongue loosened again.
“It’s ironic that I panicked at the thought of him riding the colts,” she said. “Ironic and stupid when he’s out there trying to kill himself every day of the week with drugs and guns.”
“Not stupid,” he said. “With the right horse he could get it done.”
Shock showed in her face, but she had to already know that. She’d grown up on a ranch.
Her eyes softened in a silent plea.
He wanted to look away but that’d make him feel like a coward. He knew what the plea was and he knew only God could give her what she wanted. Blue hadn’t even been able to help his own mother when she looked at him like that.
“I’ll not put him on the roan,” he said.
She searched his eyes, quick and deep, the way she had done in Micah’s truck when she said she was Gordon’s stepdaughter.
Because she didn’t know if she could trust him. It made her seem so vulnerable he wanted to reach out and touch her. Reassure her. Comfort her.
It was an unaccustomed feeling. A long forgotten one.
“I’m thinking maybe Shane’s been snorting cocaine and stealing guns and whatever else he’s been doing partly for the danger itself,” she said. “Maybe breaking horses will be enough thrills to satisfy him.”
She held his gaze again. Her eyes were beautiful. They told him she was a woman with a lot of heart.
“I only hope being in jail won’t finish killing his spirit,” she said.
It could happen, especially to a kid. Fear could kill a weak spirit and Shane had been scared.
Blue could remember the unreasoning, blood-freezing fear of being so close to pure evil in so many bodies committing so many acts of unreasoning cruelty. When one prisoner had reached around Blue with a lightning strike of his hand to knife an enemy in the back and brought it back to slash Blue for no reason except that he was there. When two of the Pureblood Brotherhood had jumped Blue in the showers and tried to cut off his braid.
Defending himself from such insanity was enough to make his fear explode into a cloud big enough to smother him.
But those fights had been a relief from the bigger fear pent up inside him. The fear of no escape from the relentless noise of strangers forever invading his ears, reaching for his mind.
And fear of no escape from the endless silence of every minute passing without one real, personal word addressed to him that carried a meaning for his heart.
Those two fears would be instilled by a county jail as well as a state prison.
Blue had stood up under the fear and conquered it. Shane didn’t look able to fight off a fly. The fear Blue had seen in his eyes must be heavy enough by now to crush Shane’s soul.
“Gordon arranged for him to be in a cell by himself,” she said, talking to herself again. Anything for a shred of comfort.
“You going to see him?” he asked.
Andie Lee glanced at Blue quickly.
“No. Gordon arranged it so that only he and his lawyer are allowed to visit Shane.”
Blue’s gut clenched. He wouldn’t let himself think about Gordon. He wouldn’t let himself think about this woman’s misery. He’d only gotten into this for Shane.
“Shane’ll have to put his back into the grunt work,” he said, “or I’m not fooling with him.”
“Well, it certainly won’t do any good for me to tell him that,” she said. Then, wryly, she added, “As I believe you so thoughtfully pointed out a little while ago.”
“Stay out of it,” Blue said.
“Well, thanks a lot.”
She meant to be sarcastic but she sounded hurt, too.
“A kid his age needs something of his own without his mother in it,” Blue said.
“He already has that,” she said with a wry chuckle.
She was scared to death herself for her boy, but she was still hanging on to her sense of humor, which took guts. He could see why Micah was hell-bent on helping her. She drew a man’s eye to her, yes, but her spirit appealed to him, too.
“Gordon said every boy needs somebody to grab him by the neck and yell at him and shake some sense into him,” she said. “I told him humiliating Shane like he does is going to make him worse instead of better.”
“Gordon won’t be hanging around this barn.”
Andie Lee looked at him. She heard his own dislike of Gordon in his voice.
“Good.” A little smile played on her lips when she said it.
Blue felt the corners of his own mouth turn up as if they were co-conspirators. He took a step back. No need to get in any deeper here.
“Work’s waiting,” he said.
“Don’t let me keep you,” she said. “And don’t worry. I’ll stay out of it and I’ll stay away when Shane’s here.”
He nodded, turned and walked away, his hand closed hard around the loops of rope. He slapped them against his hipbone in rhythm with his steps.
THE NEXT DAY, Andie came up to the barn to ride her horses for the first time since Blue had been on the ranch, and three days later he decided that she was planning to make a habit of it. Late in the morning, she’d drive in and park her truck beside Micah’s, go straight to the barn and saddle up. She’d ride off into the trees behind the house or go across the road and climb the hills to the west or ride down into the valley and disappear, becoming a smaller and smaller dot as she headed for the river.
One day she’d ride the gray horse and the next she’d take the sorrel mare. Some days she rode them both. Every day she talked to Blue a little.
Not for long, because twelve colts took up his whole day and she was careful not to interrupt his groundwork or bother him if he was busy in the barn, but they fell into a little conversation every day. About the horses, mostly.
Around the fourth day or so, she started sitting in the shade of the barn and watching him ride when she came in tired from her travels. He didn’t care. When he was mounted on a young one, he was thinking about that horse and listening to him while he taught him to listen to Blue. He didn’t even remember that Andie Lee was there.
Who are you kidding, Bowman? You always know she’s there.
Well, he tried not to be aware of her. He didn’t want to be aware of her.
When he was done, sometimes she had a remark or two about that horse and they compared opinions. When he was in the barn, sometimes she talked about what she’d seen on the ranch that day and he asked questions.
After all, he needed to learn the lay of the land and the locations of the hands and the work. Not to mention what all she could tell him about Gordon, if she ever felt inclined to say anything about him.
When Blue and Micah were working on the fences or the trailer or the tack while she wrangled tools for them, sometimes she talked about the past. And Shane.
That was why she came up there every day, Blue decided. Shane was why she did everything she did. The woman was obsessed, just the way Tanasi Rose had been.
She was hanging with him and Micah out of loneliness while her son was jailed, but she was also trying to make Blue sympathize with the boy before he came back. Andie Lee was leaving no stone unturned.
Sometimes it irritated him. He had told her plainly what he could and would do for her wayward child. Trying to make friends with him or trying to brainwash him would not change that one bit.
Yet he understood it, too. She had that glossy look of a woman used to getting what she wanted, but she was trapped in a low-down problem that she was as helpless to solve as any mother accustomed to poverty and prejudice. Helpless as Tanasi Rose.
In fact, he and Andie Lee were surprisingly alike. They were from entirely different worlds but they both had a passion. She wanted to save Shane just as much as he wanted to destroy Gordon.
And he couldn’t stay aggravated with her for long because she didn’t overstay her welcome or intrude in any way. She just offered and took a little companionship every day. In spite of how he tried to control his mind and his emotions, he began to look forward to it.
By the end of that week, Blue had to admit that the best times were when Micah was off somewhere else and Andie Lee was around when he was done riding for the day.
She would help him turn them out, each of them leading two tired two-year-olds from the round pen to the pasture with the big trees scattered over it and the grass darker green in the shadows thrown by the passing clouds. He loved that walk. Two people and four horses together after the work was done.
Blue wasn’t alone then. It was as if, for the first time in his life, he wasn’t alone. It was hard to explain to himself. He didn’t let himself try to figure it out. If he let himself think about it too much, he might start wanting it all the time.
Always, after they’d slipped the halters off and let the horses go free, kicking up behind and throwing their heads around, he and Andie Lee would stay there for a little while, leaning against the fence.
When the horses settled, some of them, always including Andie Lee’s two, came up to get a little scratching and petting. Then he and Andie Lee were just two simple humans feeling the warm hides beneath their hands and the silky muzzles against their faces, looking off across the homey valley and up at the beckoning mountains. Saying only a few words now and then.
Not wanting ever to move again.
THE DAY AFTER they brought Shane back to the Center, Andie Lee woke before dawn, her hopes rising even before the sun. She got up and went out on the long second-floor balcony that ran along the east and south sides of the old house to think about why that was so. No way could she afford to set herself up for a new disappointment. She had to be realistic and logical.
But Blue was going to help Shane, she just knew it. True, Micah claimed to know little of his background, except that Blue was from Oklahoma originally and he’d worked with horses most of his life. He said he’d hired him because some friend had known Blue was looking for a job and Micah needed somebody.
And Blue had told her nothing about himself or his past. But she had been around him almost every day, trying to get a sense of his character, watching and feeling his quiet ways with horses and with Micah and with herself. She had found no reason not to trust him with her son.
Her son, who had already known more lowlife scum than she would ever meet.
Her son, whom she would see in just a little while. She was scared to death he’d be in worse shape than ever after a week in jail.
Andie Lee watched the sun come up, then she dressed to go over to the Center. Lawrence, the new director, had told her she could have a private breakfast with Shane, who’d begin his new regimen today. It included getting up early.
When she arrived at the recreation building that housed the dining hall, Tracie, the assistant director, showed her to a rough-hewn table out on the deck. It was set with old-fashioned enamelware on serape-striped woven place mats.
Trees grew up close, and the pine smell and the fresh sunlight made it seem a whole new world to her, as well as a new day. She hoped Shane would feel the same way and behave like a new boy.
Tracie brought him out of the back door of the dining hall. Andie Lee wanted nothing more than to go to him and put her arms around him. But the set of his head warned her off.
“Hi, Shane,” Andie Lee said, happy that her tone came out bright but neutral. “I’m glad you’re back.”
He actually responded. If you could call it that.
“Huh,” he said.
He looked horrid. Pale as death.
He sat down and began fiddling nervously with his silverware. Two people from the kitchen came out with plates of hot food, pitchers of coffee and juice and a basket of fruit.
Shane blurted, “Gordon said I’ve got a job.”
“Right.”
Andie Lee picked up her fork and took a bite of scrambled egg to set a good example. She hated this distance between them with the whole core of her being. She was scared to say too much, scared to say too little, scared to say the wrong thing and sick to death of the caution.
And the situation. He had opened the conversation, though. Maybe this was the beginning of the end of their stint in hell.
“A job breaking colts,” he said, clanging his knife against his plate. “And I’m telling you now that as soon as I get out of here, I’m goin’ on the circuit with Dad.”
She took a bite of toast and made herself chew and swallow it.
“I’ve been trying to get hold of him,” she said. “No luck so far.”
Shane picked up his glass and gulped his orange juice, frowning at her over the rim.
“Don’t tell him I was in jail.”
“You can tell him that yourself.”
The scowl deepened.
“I’m gonna ride with the Indian guy.”
“He’s a good horseman.”
He set down the glass and glared.
“How do you know?”
Ah, yes. To him, anything she touched was poisoned. How could they have come to this when they used to be buddies? How much of it was his age and how much the drugs? What had she done wrong?
She wanted to scream but she shrugged and spoke casually.
“My horses are in his barn, you know. I go up there to ride. I see him working.”
He eyed her suspiciously and jabbed the fork at his eggs. He ate one tiny bite.
“I’m gonna travel with Dad pretty soon,” he said. “Get ready.”
“I’m ready now,” she blurted, and her tone said she meant it.
Shane’s eyes jerked up to meet hers, surprise written all over his face.
She smiled at him. She wanted to laugh. It was the first time in two years she’d actually roused his full attention.
It surprised her nearly as much as it did him, and it gave her hope. Maybe somebody could get through to him now. Even if she couldn’t, maybe Blue could.
If Blue couldn’t, maybe Chase could. Maybe someday Shane would be on his own and healthy and she wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore.
At that moment, she wanted to lose that horrible burden more than she’d ever wanted anything. It made her feel new guilt on top of old, but it was true.
BLUE WAS riding one of the twos out in the open for the first time when Micah came out of the house and headed in his direction. He was motioning with one creaky arm for Blue to come to him.
He rode the little bay filly over to meet him halfway. She was going to be a sweetheart—she stopped on the whoa just as pretty as a finished horse. He patted her on the neck.
“Jist got the call,” Micah said. “I’m goin’ down to the Center to pick up the boy.”
“Wait up,” Blue said.
He had thought about it and decided that he should keep a sharp eye on Shane any time he was in their care. He’d only been back at the Center for two days after spending a week in jail, so that was nine days without drugs.
Blue led the filly to the round pen, tied her around, and put her back in with the others.
Micah had said that Gordon threatened the personnel at the jail with death and dismemberment, not to mention loss of their jobs, if so much as a whiff of marijuana made its way to Shane’s cell. So Shane probably still had the shakes and his snaky attitude.
He would be looking for money. He might be furious because he’d been jailed in the first place and blame Micah as well as Blue. He might still be on the prowl to steal a vehicle. In any case, he’d not be at all happy. He was a skinny, out-of-shape kid, but Micah was an old man and stove up and it’d be a shame if he got hurt.
When Blue got to the truck, Micah had it running.
“You’re taking this here babysittin’ job mighty serious,” he said.
He was pretty sharp.
“Don’t want you to mess with my new helper,” Blue said lightly. “You’re liable to tell him I’m a pushover.”
“Hopin’ to see his mother’s more like it,” Micah said, shifting gears. He gunned the truck out into the road. “Well, you’re hopin’ in vain this time, son. Andie Lee said the new director ain’t lettin’ Shane see her ’cept fer a half hour at breakfast this mornin’. No other visitors.”
“So we don’t count as visitors?”
“Nope. Reckon not. Reckon we must be em-ployers.”
Blue looked at him.
“You can’t be an employer, Micah, unless you pay wages.”
“Well, I cain’t even pay room and board to that boy Shane,” he said, wagging his head. “Wouldn’t do to have him around night and day ’cause we couldn’t get no sleep fer fearin’ he’d sneak out on us.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Blue said.
“It’s a shame, a cryin’ shame he ever gotta hold of that dope,” Micah said. “He was a fine little boy.”
“We all were,” Blue said, and Micah laughed.
“I’d go see ’em anytime Chase was rodeoin’ in this part of the state,” Micah said. “Shane was a pistol but he never had a mean bone in his body and Andie Lee was a fine little mother, too. She kept that trailer spotless and cooked ever’ meal and watched over that boy like a mother hen.”
Blue looked at him.
“They lived in a trailer?”
Micah squinted at him as he shifted gears and started down the hill to headquarters.
“Fer years,” he said, nodding sagely. “Seemed odd to see her in it, after she’d growed up down here at the big house, but back then Chase never could win enough to git a place of his own.”
Blue waited for him to say more.
“That’s what hurts me so bad and makes me so mad at Shane,” Micah said, “the way he talks to his mother. I may whip his ass over it yet. She has tried to be a mama and a daddy to him and this is the thanks she gets.”
“I thought Chase was his daddy.”
Again that squinted look from Micah.
“She left the rodeo road when Shane started to school. Said he was gonna have a good eddication, no matter what. Now he’s fried his brain so bad he likely can’t learn another damn thing or remember what he did know.”
Did she leave Chase, too, or just the road? Is she still married to him? Will he be likely to come here to see her?
But Blue didn’t ask any of the questions rattling around in his mind. In fact, it irritated him that he wanted to know those things. Andie Lee’s life was none of his concern.
And Micah actually quit talking then, clamped his lips together in a disapproving line, and glared through the windshield at the road.
Blue watched the mountains and looked at the cattle and the grass all the way down to the clinic and tried not to think about what he’d gotten himself into. Whatever he could do to help Shane would be in Dannah’s memory and it’d only be a few hours every day.
No matter what the end result, it wouldn’t be a waste. Just being outside and around the horses would do the boy good. Just using his muscles to clean stalls and throw hay and accomplish something he could see would do him good.
Micah drove to the building at the Center that Gordon had indicated when he told Jason to get his things and get off the ranch. He rattled up there, opened his door, said he’d be back in a minute, and limped off up the walk. He was an independent old coot and he’d guessed that Blue was trying to take care of him.
He felt bad about that but not bad enough to wish he hadn’t come. It was unnecessary, maybe, but maybe not. No sense in letting anything bad happen if it could be prevented.
Blue got out of the small truck cab to stretch his legs. And to put Shane on the inside and himself by the door. One time, in a fit of depression, Dannie had tried to throw herself out of a moving car.
It was hardly a minute before Shane, scowling, stepped out the door with Micah right behind him and a tall, thin man probably in his midforties following them. They all walked toward the truck.
Shane looked sick and pale. As they came closer it was clear that he did still have the shakes, too.
“I’m Lawrence Cotton,” the thin guy said, coming forward to shake Blue’s hand. “I’m the new director here at the Center.”
He met Blue’s eyes squarely as Blue introduced himself. His handshake was firm and his gaze was direct. He was dressed in jeans and a starched shirt. He was not only older but also much more impressive than Jason had been.
“Hey, you’ve got a classic truck here,” he said, walking around it.
Blue said the truck was Micah’s and Micah began to brag about how many miles she had on her and how good she was still running.
Shane stood there, moving restlessly and never quite meeting Blue’s gaze.
When Micah paused for breath, Lawrence clapped him on the shoulder and said he’d like to drive the truck sometime. He caught Blue’s eye, nodded goodbye, and turned to Shane.
“See you this evening, Shane,” he said. “Work hard and pick out a horse for me. I’ll come and ride with you one of these days.”
“They’re two-year-olds,” Shane said. “They’re not broke.”
“You can coach me,” Lawrence said. “Or maybe you could find me one that is broke.”
Shane rolled his eyes. Blue felt like doing the same. That was all he needed—another pilgrim in the saddle. Lawrence seemed okay, though. Nothing phony about him.
Micah went around to the driver’s seat and Shane stood where he was. Blue opened the passenger door and waited for Shane to go ahead. He hesitated for several seconds, so Blue said, “Get in, Shane.”
He did, but he wasn’t happy about it.
“I feel trapped in here,” he said, when they were all wedged in and the doors closed.
“Won’t be long,” Micah said. “Jist up to my barn.”
“I hate sitting in the middle.”
“Cowboy up,” Micah said. “There’s a five dollar fine for whinin’.”
“You always say that,” Shane said. “Sue me. I haven’t got a cent.”
“You can work it out,” Micah said.
Shane glanced up at him sideways, the first time he’d looked at either one of them.
“I’m not whining. What I’m saying is a fact. And I’m not working for you, Micah. I’m riding with Blue.”
He had the shakes bad enough that his arm jerked against Blue’s as he looked up at him then and finally met his gaze. His eyes were bloodshot and not as hostile as when Blue had put a stop to his bid for freedom. Now they hid his feelings beneath a flat, angry glare and a glimmer of uncertainty.
Shane jerked his gaze away.
“And Blue works for me,” Micah said. “So you can figger it however you want it.”
“Let me outta here,” Shane said. “I’ll ride in the back.”
“No ridin’ in the back,” Micah said. “It’s agin the law.”
“Aw, and we’re really worried about the law,” Shane scoffed.
“So jail’s not bad, huh?” Blue said.
Shane jumped at the unexpected sound of his voice. It took him a second, but he shot back, “Not if you’re tough.”
He glared at Blue to make his point.
“You’re pretty tough?” Blue asked.
“Tough enough,” Shane said, and managed for a couple of heartbeats not to look away.
He sulled up and stared out through the windshield the rest of the way. At Micah’s, he spilled out onto the ground as soon as Blue was out of his way but then he just stood there, blinking in the sun, as if he wasn’t quite sure where he was or what came next.
Micah looked across the boy to Blue and shrugged, as if to say, He’s all yours.
“Come on,” Blue said, heading for the barn.
Shane came along, walking fast, trying to match Blue’s stride. Micah stayed where he was. Blue was glad. He didn’t need a lot of talk while he tried to get a feel for the kid.
As they stepped in at the east end, Blue said, “I’ll get you started on your chores before I ride the next one.”
“What do you mean, chores? Gordon said I’m riding with you. I’m gonna help you break them.”
“Gordon’s not the boss of this barn. You’re not straddling anything until I see what kind of a hand you are. Don’t even be messing with the twos from the ground. Especially not the roan.”
Shane stalked past him, walked fast down the aisle and out the other end of the barn.
“Look out there,” he said, raising his trembling arm to point, “I’ll ride if I want to. My mom owns those two horses out there and she’s always telling me to ride.”
“Nope,” Blue said. “No horses to ride until you’re clean and sober.”
Shane came back to him.
“I am. I haven’t had a hit in a week.”
“Keep that up and we’ll see about it next week,” Blue said. “You oughta be over the shakes by then.”
Shane stuck his hands into his pockets.
“I wanta ride the colts,” he said. “My dad’s a roughstock rider. If I get good enough, I can rodeo with him.”
“What I try to do is get ’em started in a frame of mind where they don’t buck,” Blue said.
He gestured at the manure fork standing in the corner.
“Start by cleaning the stalls,” he said, “and don’t throw out too much of the shavings.”
Shane’s sullen expression fell over his face again and he glared at Blue.
“I can ride,” Shane said. “I want the worst one you’ve got.”
Blue ignored that nonsense and went into the little corner tack room. He came out with a headstall and a bit he wanted to change to, noticing from the corner of his eye that Shane still stood in the same place.
Blue changed the bit without saying a word to him. Finally, just as he finished, Shane went to get the fork and the wheelbarrow.
After he put the screwdriver away, Blue left the barn and headed for the round pen. Andie Lee was just driving in.
Damn it. All he needed was for her to go in there and start sympathizing with her baby boy, who had just taken his first step in the right direction.
Maybe she didn’t know he was already here.
She cut off the motor and turned to get her hat off the seat.
Blue lengthened his stride and got there just as she opened the door. He put one hand around the frame of the open window and stood in her way.
“Don’t get out,” he said. “You can ride later.”
A flicker of guilt in her eyes disappointed him. She did know.
“You said you weren’t coming around when Shane’s here.”
“I know,” she said. “I know I said that.”
The hurt in her voice made him sorry he’d been gruff. That made him mad at himself. It also made him mad that he liked being this close to her. And that he’d love to touch her.
“You lied.”
“Not then,” she said quickly. “I’m just making myself a liar now. I need to see him working, actually doing something, Blue. I’ll saddle up in five minutes and ride away.”
“You need to see him in action,” he said, “but he doesn’t need that. You’ve got to let him have this for his own. Go to the barn now and you’ll screw up everything.”
“You, too?” she said. “Now Gordon and you think I’m Shane’s biggest problem? I thought you were my friend, Blue.”
Her voice caught when she said his name, like she was going to cry. But she wasn’t. His hand tightened around the window frame until the edge dug into his fingers.
What the hell did he care what she thought of him?
“Listen to me,” he said, from between his teeth. “I told you that boys need something of their own. There’s a real possibility that Shane might take to this.”
She gasped a little and her eyes bored into his.
“Why? How do you know that? What happened?”
“He’s picking stalls, is what. When he thought he never would. Because he wants to ride the colts.”
“He does? He’s never been horse crazy. What did he say…”
“Nope,” Blue said. “No tale-carrying between the two of you.”
He glanced in to see that her feet were out of the way and pushed the door closed.
“I just need to see him.”
He squatted down so his face was level with hers. Oh, God. This was too close. He wanted to kiss her.
“Andie Lee,” he said. “Give him this chance.”
Then he stood up and walked away toward the round pen.
He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until the engine of her truck fired up. He heard the tires on the gravel and knew she was backing around in the driveway.
As she drove out into the road, he lifted the latch on the round pen gate, stepped inside and closed it behind him.
He’d done nothing all morning except babysit—first Micah, then Shane, and now Andie Lee.
He had to get a handle on himself. All this entanglement was nothing but a hindrance to the purpose that had brought him here.