CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Lance~
For the first time in seven years he allowed himself to wonder if his post-battle surliness was what had driven his wife into his best friend’s arms. Not that it mattered. Water under the bridge now. Tommy Jack and Holly had produced an heir to the Prescott Horse Farm.
Tommy Joe was growing up with his sisters’ kids. Just one of this generation’s gang of cousins. Tommy Jack’s son would be running in and out of Aunt Sally and Uncle Roper’s house just as Tommy Jack had done when they were boys. Just as if he was Lance and Holly’s boy. Mom and Dad had loved Holly like another daughter. Sarah Ann and Jo Jo had welcomed her as a sister. No surprise they had all stayed close.
He had married a sweet girl. The operative word being girl. Was it a big surprise that Holly hadn’t been able to cope when his entire character changed for the worse? Hard for civilians to deal with veterans. To grasp the ravages to the brain that modern weapons created. Major brain trauma at the instant of psychological and physical trauma automatically produced mental illness.
His parents, his brothers and sisters, his beloved grandfather, none of them had fully comprehended. But they had understood that Holly was frightened and unhappy. Naturally they blamed him. Could he be a big enough guy to forgive them for being human? After all, he had forgiven himself for allowing Ferris and Ricardo to die. Maybe he could be glad that Granddaddy Tommy Jeff had an heir to his empire.
Right about now, Granddaddy was probably making plans to dust off the tiny saddle he had used to teach two generations of Prescotts to ride. In due course, little Tommy Joe would please his great-grandfather by taking to riding like a duck to water. After all, horses were in the boy’s blood. Turning that idea over in his mind, Lance found it lacked the power to sting.
He began to whistle, imagining a future in which he danced the bedtime tango with the prettiest girl in Colorado. This gleeful noise astonished him. Been a long time since he had whistled for sheer joy. In fact his state of mind felt distinctly odd. Only distantly familiar. Well, dang. He had forgotten what happiness felt like. Tonight he was a happy man.
He was pretty much prancing when he spotted the ragged prints where huge paws had broken the crusty snow and scattered the softer interior with every step. After a time he decided he was tracking a bear. He was thankful for his shotgun as he cautiously followed to see where it had gone.
Everywhere and nowhere. The beast had looked under every tree, padded around Amber’s cabin, and gone down to the creek. Was this the same half-grown animal he had seen frolicking the other day? That had gone up on Amber’s back porch?
The paw prints looked too big for that adolescent cub, but that could be an artifact of the condition of the snow. He had learned to track in Tennessee. But there was no comparison between a Colorado winter and the milder ones of his youth. He couldn’t be sure.
Just about the first thing his Daddy and Granddaddy had taught him was that tracks changed. Time, temperature, wind, all made a difference. Only way to be certain of what you were seeing was long experience. By the time he had joined the Marines, he had known the sign of every critter around Falkirk. He hadn’t been the tracker Daddy and Tommy Jeff were, but he had expected to be.
In dusty, gritty Iraq, where the constant wind carried fine sand to blur and erase details, he had learned to identify footprints and tire prints with high accuracy. In Iraq, knowing the difference between three-hour-old tracks and three-day-old tracks, was the difference between living and dying, which sharpened your wits considerably. But since he had come to Colorado he had done his hunting in the supermarket.
About all he could say about these particular tracks was that they might be bear, and they sure as heck hadn’t been there when he went to visit Amber. What was the animal after? If it was looking for food, it wasn’t doing it any way that made sense to a man. But at least it gave him an excuse to call his girl. For Amber had agreed to be his girl.
He was too old and too washed up to be courting a tender blossom like Miss Amber. It was taking advantage of her sweet, compassionate nature and her youth and inexperience. Hell, the kid had not had a boyfriend since she was a teenager. It was a sin to think of tying her down to a wreck like Lance Prescott. But he was tired of being noble. He was going to seize his chance and try to do his best to make her happy.
She answered on the first ring. She sounded happy too. “What were you looking for in the snow?” she asked. So she had been watching him. He felt a warm glow.
“I thought I saw bear tracks.”
“Oh. Again?” For a country girl, she sure sounded bewildered that the bear might have come back.
“Yeah. You keep an ear cocked. It might be the same half-grown cub, although the prints looked bigger. If you hear anything, you grab your rifle.”
“I’ve never shot a bear.” She sounded not so much frightened as dismayed.
“And likely you’ll never have to. But if one decides your cabin holds its lunch, you’ll only get one chance.”
“I guess. Are there lots of bears around here?”
“Some. The Double B does back right up to the foothills. Generally speaking we don’t see many. But an animal out of its habitat is more dangerous for being in unfamiliar territory.” He paused. Cleared his throat. “I wish you were with me, so I could keep you safe.”
There was a long silence and then she spoke. “Don’t you worry. I’ve locked up tight. There’s no scent of food around my cabin to attract bears. I’d be more worried one would go after the foals.” Well, he hadn’t really thought she would invite him to sleep in her cabin.
“Scout would be barking if it had been up by the stables.” Which was true, although come to think, it was weird that the bear had not followed that pungent scent. The stable block was kept clean, but it still smelled of horses and dung.
“So she would,” she agreed. “Scout’s a good watchdog.”
“I’ll give Darrell a call and ask if he’s heard anything,” he said reluctantly. He didn’t want to hang up. He wanted to keep hearing her voice in his ear.
“You probably better. Good night. Sleep well.” But she didn’t hang up.
“Consider yourself kissed, sweetheart,” he said.
It took another five minutes before they ended the call and he could phone Darrell. Darrell sounded as if he had been napping, and had just that minute woken up. He was skeptical, but he promised to look around.
“I don’t know, Lance, it would be plumb loco for a bear to come down here where there are people, when the calves on the range are there for the taking.”
“Not if it’s an adolescent male looking for its own territory, and too inexperienced to tackle a herd.” It was past time he remembered he had been trained to lead men. Lance infused authority into his voice. “Go patrol.”
“Okay, okay. I’m on it.”
Sgt. Prescott went whistling to his bed, to dream all night of soft dark curls and softer breasts.