Chapter 5

“Damn, it’s cold,” Gabe muttered, pulling his stocking cap down lower as they piled out of the utility task vehicle. They mainly relied on horses to get around in the warmer months, but that was much harder on Jack’s leg, so they’d purchased the UTV. It had turned out to be quite handy this winter.

Gabe glared at the sun slowly moving higher in the sky as the morning wore on. The ball of supposed light was doing nothing to warm the air. “Whose brilliant idea was this?”

“When did you get to be such a wuss about the temperature?” Jack asked, rearranging the straw in the enclosure.

“There are pros and cons to leaving the SEALs. One of the pros is not freezing for the hell of it.”

“Well, until someone invents water that doesn’t freeze, get used to it. And stop complaining,” Alex returned.

Gabe used the pick to break the ice that had accumulated on the top of the water tank. A few cows glanced his direction. It was strange thing, this ranch work. About six months in and he had to admit, he didn’t love it. He could tell Alex loved it bone deep. Maybe that came from growing up here. The riding horses, the mountains, all that crap. To Alex, this was a kind of calling.

Gabe didn’t mind it for as much as he liked to complain, but it wasn’t his calling. He’d only ever felt that in the navy. Which was ironic, all in all, since he’d never grown up with any military aspirations.

But then again, maybe that was life. Maybe there were no callings. Maybe people just made the best of what they had. Quite frankly, that was more appealing than the idea he had to be satisfied and fulfilled all the time.

“What about you, runt?” Gabe asked, handing Colin the ice pick. “What are you going to do when you grow up?”

Colin shrugged, poking what was left of the ice with the pick. “I don’t know. Firefighter would be pretty cool.”

“Firefighter. You told your mom that?”

“I’m not stupid. She’d have a cow if I told her that. She wants me to go to college and be bored forever.”

The three men glanced at each other. None of them could extoll the virtues of college exactly. Gabe doubted Monica would appreciate Gabe mentioning that.

“Hey, what’s that?” Colin asked, pointing to a lump in the distance.

They all shaded their eyes against the sun. There off across the pasture was a lone cow, but it wasn’t standing exactly. Gabe couldn’t quite make out what looked wrong about it.

Alex’s expression went grim. “Why don’t Gabe and Colin stay here while Jack and I check it out?”

“I can go,” Colin said boldly, but then some of that surety melted. “What is it?”

“Looks like a dead cow. Got caught in a drift maybe. Jack and I are going to have to dig him out, then we’ll have to transport him to the composting area. It’s not a fun job, Colin.”

Colin chewed his bottom lip, looking out across the expanse of white.

Gabe figured Monica wouldn’t care for what he was about to do, but if the boy was going to spend the next eight years on this ranch, there were some things he was going to have to learn.

“We all came out. We’ll all dig it out.”

Alex cleared his throat, but Gabe raised an eyebrow.

“How old were you?” Gabe asked. Alex had grown up here, and Gabe was under no impression Alex had been sheltered from ranch work.

Alex didn’t respond, so Gabe turned to Jack, who might have been as new to this whole ranching thing as Gabe was, but he’d grown up on a farm, not out in the burbs. “And you?”

“Younger,” Jack said, shrugging toward Alex. “Gabe’s right. Gotta learn sometime.”

“Gotta learn what?” Colin demanded.

Gabe looked down at the boy. “When you see a responsibility, you meet it, even if you really don’t want to. Cattle ranching means sometimes cattle die, and we have to be responsible to handle it.”

“What do we have to do?” Colin asked, frowning at the dead cow.

Alex went through the procedure as they all got in the UTV. The drive across the pasture was slow-moving thanks to all of last night’s new-fallen snow. Which gave Gabe all sorts of time to doubt his insisting Colin be a part of this.

They worked in a grim kind of silence, digging the dead animal out of the snow, then only spoke instructions to each other as they used the UTV to drag the cow out of the pasture. It wasn’t exactly gruesome work, nor was it fun work pulling a dead cow across snowy ground.

They dragged the cow all the way to the composting area at the edge of the property. Gabe, Jack, and Alex had built the area in the spring, but they hadn’t had cause to use it yet. Once they got close enough, they all had to get out and pull the cow the rest of the way by hand.

Once they’d actually gotten the carcass into the area, everyone was huffing, and Gabe no longer had any complaints in him.

“Why don’t you and Colin take the UTV and go get what we need to finish?” Alex said, nodding toward the vehicle.

Gabe nodded, giving Colin a nudge toward it. The kid wouldn’t be making the return trip, but he didn’t need to know that yet. “Let’s go.”

“Isn’t this part of the responsibility too?” Colin asked, but his voice was scratchy and hell, the kid was only ten.

“Yeah, but sometimes a man needs a break too. Besides, if we don’t get what they need, who’s going to?”

Colin nodded and got into the UTV. Gabe flicked glances at him as they drove, and he couldn’t help but worry he’d pushed the kid too far here. Maybe Colin was too young to be dealing with the basics of ranch life.

Gabe stopped the UTV at the barn, but he pointed to the house. “Let’s go on up for a second. Get a few thermoses,” he offered. He’d make an excuse about getting coffee or something, so he could convince Colin to stay at the house without making him feel like he wasn’t man enough for the rest.

Colin got out of the UTV wordlessly, and they trudged through the snow toward the house. Gabe was tempted to wrap his arm around the boy and give him a squeeze, but it was hard to know what was appropriate with someone else’s kid.

“Why… They just left the rest of them out there,” Colin said softly, frowning.

“You heard Alex explain this cow was old, got caught in a bad place. Accidents happen.” He thought about what Monica had said last night about how her husband had died. Gabe didn’t want to draw any correlations, so that’s all he said.

“But…that isn’t fair.”

“Life’s not fair, bud. You know that better than most kids your age. We’re all going to die at some point. People. Animals. It’s never going to feel like the right time. It’s never going to feel fair. Sometimes it’s only going to give you more questions than anyone could hope to answer.”

“I know I’m supposed to be sad my dad died,” Colin said in that same scratchy voice, but his posture had gone defensive as they tramped across the yard. “But I was a baby. I never knew him. I know Mom’s sad, but I didn’t know him. He’s no different to me than that cow. Except I can see the cow.”

“You know, I didn’t know my dad either before he died.”

Colin peered up at him, clearly curious but not going to question it. Which Gabe figured meant he had to keep talking. Unfortunately. “My mom was so sad about it she didn’t even want to tell me his name. So I don’t miss him, since I never knew him, but that doesn’t mean I can’t miss the idea of him. I’ve wondered what might’ve been different in my life, and that doesn’t help, but death leaves a mark even if you don’t remember it.”

Colin shrugged. “I’m tough. I’ll be fine.”

They both climbed up the stairs, but before Colin reached for the door, Gabe placed a hand on his shoulder. He knelt, winced when his hip gave a little shot of pain, then ignored it.

“Being tough isn’t about ignoring the things that touch you. Being tough is about facing things that are hard. Being tough is about facing things that a lot of people wouldn’t. And sometimes being tough isn’t the answer. You have to be tough in the face of things that are wrong. You have to be tough in the face of your own responsibilities and the choices you make. You have to be tough in the way you protect your mom and anyone else you care about. But there are going to be times in your life when things will be hard and being tough won’t be the answer.”

“How do you know the difference?”

“Honestly? You probably won’t always know the difference.” He was a hell of a pep-talk giver, wasn’t he? But he’d started this and he’d see it through. “You have to figure it out for yourself. But knowing that it’s an option, that you don’t have to be tough all the time, it’s a good step in the right direction.”

Colin stared at him like he’d just spoken gibberish. That’s probably all it sounded like to the kid. With a grunt he tried to swallow, Gabe got back to his feet.

Colin frowned. “What’s wrong with you? Is it why you got all those scars?”

Since they’d been swimming this summer, Colin had seen the handiwork of a grenade and a vehicle crash mapped over Gabe’s upper right side. “Yup.”

“How?”

“Afghanistan. While I was on patrol, someone threw a grenade into our vehicle. The blast caused Alex to crash into an embankment. My right side got twisted and sliced to hell.”

“But you lived.”

“Three of us did. One of us didn’t.”

Colin’s frown deepened at that, and Gabe tried not to picture Geiger, the friend he’d lost. Tried not to remember that day or the months of pain and healing that came after. He tried to focus on today and the cold and this little boy in front of him.

“You are tough, runt, and no one can take that away from you.” Gabe patted Colin’s back. “But it’s a cold day, and this is complicated work. I want you to stay here.”

Colin’s expression went mutinous, but Gabe couldn’t let that sway him. “You want to help next time, I want you to read up on disposing of deceased livestock. Alex, Jack, and I spent a lot of time learning about what we’re about to do, and you’ll need to as well if you want to help.”

“Reading is boring.”

“Then I guess you don’t want to help.”

Colin grumbled something under his breath as he pushed the door open, but Gabe had a feeling the kid would read up on it. Gabe had a feeling the kid would see his responsibilities through.

He didn’t have any idea why that made him proud when Colin was nothing to him, but it was there anyway.

He decided to ignore it.

* * *

Monica never allowed herself to lead a conversation with anger. She counted to ten when she wanted to scream at Colin for being a little jerk. She breathed through hideous customer service. She’d learned to squeeze her palms together when talking with her father and wanting to throttle him.

None of those tactics seemed to be working.

Last night, Colin had woken up from a nightmare. He’d been sobbing, and he’d crawled into bed with her like he was tiny again. After she’d calmed him down, she’d finally convinced him to tell her about the dream.

It had been an especially weird one. A dead cow under the Christmas tree, a Christmas tree that had been decorated with pictures of Dex and dead cows. Monica hadn’t known what to make of it until Colin had mentioned the dead cow he’d helped the Revival Ranch men move.

She hadn’t slept after that, even when Colin had finally dozed at her side. She was too furious. Far too furious to approach any of them. She needed time to cool down, but as she stood next to her truck the next morning, anger started to shred her usually normal reason and rationale.

When Gabe stepped out of the bunkhouse, looking somehow as strong and rugged as all those peaks in the distance behind them, whatever small thread of control she’d had over her emotions broke.

Her baby had been crying and scared, and this indestructible man had caused it.

“Go inside, Colin,” Monica said, deadly calm.

“Where are you going?” Colin asked, staring at her across the front of the truck.

“I’m going to…” She didn’t like to lie to her kid, but she wasn’t about to tell him what she was really up to. “I wanted to check on some horse stuff before Becca and I have our meeting. You head on inside.”

“If the guys are there, I want to—”

Gabe was approaching, and Monica’s temper was at a rare boiling point she barely even recognized. “Go inside and stay there.”

Colin frowned up at her. “Why?”

“Because I am your mother and I said so. If you’re not up on that porch in five seconds, you will deeply regret it.”

Colin complained, loudly, but he also scurried toward the house. It gave Monica minimum satisfaction that he did.

“Morning,” Gabe greeted as he approached. He tipped his hat and offered one of his meaningless, charming grins.

“Is there some place private and warm we could talk?” she asked through gritted teeth.

His eyebrows lifted, but he didn’t question her. He gestured toward the bunkhouse. “That do?”

She nodded sharply and started marching toward it. It hadn’t snowed again last night, but the subzero temperatures had made what snow there was slick and hard. Every time her boots crunched through it, she felt a little more righteously furious.

This man, this man in particular, had been the cause of her child’s nightmares. She ignored the tiny little voice in her head that reminded her Alex and Jack had been there too, and she’d probably be able to handle her temper a little better around men who were her patients.

She was protecting her baby. Her life. Anger and fury were right, and certainly Gabe the big, strong Navy SEAL who thought he was so smart and that her child should wield an ax and help with removing a dead cow could handle a little of her very fair anger.

She pushed into the bunkhouse, Gabe following at a much more leisurely pace. He affected that don’t care about anything attitude, and nothing could have riled her more, because if Gabe was going to be taking Colin places and encouraging him to do things, then he needed to care so deeply it hurt. Hurt just like this.

Slowly, Gabe closed the door, then leaned against it. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

He rubbed a hand over his jaw as if contemplating it. “Depends on who you ask, I suppose. I happen to think I’m quite the prize.”

“Colin is ten years old. Axes and saws were one thing, but disposing of a dead animal?”

All that easy, fake charm melted off his face until only the bitterness was left. It felt like a triumph to get under his mask.

“It’s ranch work. He’s part of a ranch now.”

“He’s ten. Helping you guys means riding in the UTV and petting horses, maybe shoveling some poop or helping to mend a fence. It does not mean you get to force him to face death. He has had to face that enough.”

“Yeah, so have we all. But it’s a part of life.”

“I am well aware how much a part of life.”

“Then I don’t know why you’re up my ass. Because he was the one who spotted the dead cow, and he had the option to help or not. He chose to help, because he’s not afraid to stand up and do what he should.”

“What he should? Were you clearing out dead animals when you were his age?”

There was a heavy beat of silence where he gave her one of those looks she’d learned from her time in therapy never led anywhere good. Unexpected, awful.

Then he blinked, and it was gone. “So, what? Keep my distance? Never even look in your kid’s direction?”

It deflated her, because it was the second time he’d made this gigantic jump to what she hadn’t even considered. “Why do you always assume the worst?”

“I don’t know, maybe it’s all the being screeched at in private.”

“I am not screeching,” she said. “But I am about to be violent.”

His mouth curved at that. “Try me, sweetheart.”

“This is ridiculous. You are ridiculous.” He’d somehow taken all the anger out of her and all she had left was that soft spot of hurt. “You can’t know what it’s like to watch your kid struggle with a nightmare. To not be able to do anything about it.”

“No, I don’t.”

There were a million things left unsaid there, and she was tempted to slap her hands over her mouth so the questions piling up in her head didn’t escape. She’d already fallen into therapist questions a little too easily with him, and he’d made clear again and again that he didn’t appreciate it.

So she wouldn’t say anything about nightmares or war or PTSD. This wasn’t about him after all. It was about Colin. Her child.

“Something on your mind, Doc?” Gabe asked with that fake laziness that only ever sounded like a hard-edged bitterness to her ears.

“Nope.”

He leaned forward, so close she could count the dark eyelashes framing his dark eyes, count the whiskers he’d missed when he’d apparently shaved this morning. She could feel his breath against her cheek as he spoke.

“Ask it.”

She knew he was trying to be threatening. Trying to prove a point. Trying to intimidate her so she didn’t ask again. But she hadn’t asked. He was the one putting words and questions into her mouth, so she lifted her chin and ignored the fact the last thing her body felt was intimidated. “Do you have nightmares?” she asked flatly, dispassionately, with none of the therapist care she usually infused into those type of questions.

He looked her right in the eye, far too close for comfort. “No,” he said, enunciating it with relish.