7
DESPITE JULES’S SILENCE on the drive, Tanner appreciated the time to get his shit together before he confronted his father again. Their reunion hadn’t gone well. In fact, their reunion had been a disaster. He hadn’t expected a warm reception. The old man’s anger and orders were pretty much on par for their relationship, but the venom populating his words had caught him off guard.
“Why are we heading back this way?” he asked, dragging his mind off his father and eyeing the route Jules followed. It was a rockier road, angling north along the creek rather than the dirt roads, which ran between the pastures. Granted, they were in the Jeep, and she handled it with expert skill, avoiding the worst of the bumps in the road and keeping them on the track.
“I have to leave some antibiotics at the gelding barn; a couple of the horses had abscesses I cleared. I want to make sure they don’t develop any other infections. From there, we can use the loading drive to reach Route 5, then circle out to the state highway and the main drive to the house.” Which would give Tanner more time with Jules. Not a bad thing.
“You’re pissed at me.” He kept one arm braced against her seat and the other on the bar. Jules didn’t accelerate past twenty miles per hour, but her knuckles were white on the steering wheel.
“You just ordered me to have dinner with you. I thought we covered at the bar that I don’t like others making my decisions for me.”
Ouch. He winced. She wasn’t wrong. “Would it—”
Before he could continue, she raised a hand. “I have rules,” she admitted, and for the first time since he encountered her on the ranch she gave him a wry grin. “I have to have them. It was what I was trying to tell you back at the pasture.” The breeze tugged a strand of her hair loose from the handkerchief she’d tied around it. It only added to her appeal. She’d been a temptress in the dance hall, a vixen at the hotel, but she was all earth goddess that afternoon.
The many layers of Jules. “Well, I know you only let your friends call you Jules, and you don’t like clichés. You also don’t let strangers buy you drinks. Or make any decisions for you. That’s four rules.”
The blush in her cheeks deepened. Yes, she had a bit of sunburn, but she was definitely blushing. “I also don’t date ranchers or people I work for.”
“Why is that again?” Better to get the lay of the land before he decided on a campaign. Tactically speaking, he couldn’t refute her objections if he didn’t know what they were.
“Because it’s practical. You grew up here, you can’t tell me you don’t get how it works.”
“I’ve lived here long enough to know that people date.” He shook his head. “Men and women dance; they have fun doing it.”
“How could you grow up here and not get it? These people are ranchers, Tanner. They’re all ranchers. They all own land. They either sit on the council or are active at the co-op, but ultimately they all wield influence. Sometimes these men who have influence disagree—over water rights, over feed prices, over land leases, over highway construction. I heard a story once where one of the only times all the ranchers in the area teamed together was when they wanted to stop a dam that was going to be put up. They didn’t want that dam or the changes it would invite. So it didn’t happen because they had enough influence together to do that. But they don’t always agree.”
She slowed the Jeep then turned out onto a small dirt road, and he could see the gelding barn in the distance.
“When they don’t agree,” Jules continued, “they’re vicious. They don’t trust each other with breeding futures, the latest innovations in crop rotations, or pasture maintenance. Every rancher in this valley has a secret, and those secrets are important to them. If they think I’m dating you, then they stop trusting me. What if I whisper their secrets in your ear?”
From the way Jules described it, Durango Point was a hotbed of intrigue, gossip, and danger. Finding the idea ridiculous, Tanner laughed. “First, it’s none of their business what you whisper in my ear. Second, trust me when I say that when we’re in bed together, the last thing we’ll be discussing are other ranchers or their ranches. Third—and I mean this in all seriousness—secrets about what? We all raise cattle. We all train horses. We all have fields where we grow hay grass; some have corn, still others have organic crops. Fact of the matter is, everyone gets baby cows the same way they do baby horses. How many secrets can they really have?”
Not laughing at her reasoning proved a challenge to Tanner. Yet, even in the middle of his retort her expression tightened. He wasn’t scoring any points; if anything, it was as though he backslid farther than when he’d tried to buy her a drink at Sully’s.
“That’s the problem,” said Jules. You don’t respect their history. You told me all about your grandpa and how much fun you had with him and the things that he taught you, and those are precious to you. You don’t think all those other ranchers have similar kinds of stories?”
“Stories about their families? What the hell does that have to do with us going out to dinner?” Was the intent to drive him crazy? She might just be succeeding. He only wanted to ask her out to dinner. Spend more time getting to know her—rekindling the pleasure they’d shared the night before.
Pulling in next to the barn, she put the vehicle in park, then turned sideways to look at him. “It has to do with them trusting me even when they don’t trust each other. If I’m to take care of their animals, they have to know that what I learn over at the Walkers’ won’t go to the Crawleys’. Or what they’re doing over at Sunter Hill won’t come back to Round Top. They have to know that what I see and what I hear and what I do is about them, and that’s it. I can’t have skin in the game. The one thing my uncle taught me and stressed when he had me taking over his practice was that I had to put the well-being of the whole valley first. Not your family, not their family, and not someone else’s family. I have to be a neutral party, so if you have a dispute with your neighbor over water rights, it won’t matter, because I can still take care of their animals. That’s it. My job is important to me. You know, you may look at this ranch as a burden, but it isn’t one for me. This valley, those animals—the people here are all important to me. I’ve worked really hard to get where I am.”
She climbed out of the Jeep and stalked around to the trailer. Tanner followed her, trying to understand the agitation eddying around her.
“Jules, you can date me and still be a neutral party. Folks around here are pretty decent, and they’re not going to hold it against you if I ask you out and you say yes.”
“I’ve been here ten months and I’m still the new girl, remember?” She lifted an ice chest out of the back, and when he went to take it she avoided his intercept. “I’m still going to be the new girl in a year, and I’ll probably be the new girl in five years. My uncle was the familiar face; I was just a kid who came to visit. If I’m the new girl dating the Colonel’s son, then I’m tainted goods. They have a hard enough time trusting me without years of relationships to trade on. I only have the goodwill my uncle left for me. I have to use his goodwill to apply to the practice I’m trying to run.” She opened her mouth as though to say more, then closed it and shook her head. “Look, you don’t have to like it. And so we’re absolutely clear—you didn’t ask. You told me we were going out. Either way, you do have to respect my choice. I said no.” With that, she pivoted and walked away. So passionate in her convictions.
“Well, shit,” Tanner took his hat off and wiped his forehead. From zero to colossal fuckup in nothing flat.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Tanner Wilks. He’s still got a gift for driving the ladies away!” Mateo Lopez’s voice was a blast from the past, and Tanner whirled around to find his old friend standing not five feet away from him, hands on his hips and looking pretty damn good for having been (nearly) blown up.
Striding toward him, Tanner extended a hand, and Mateo accepted it with a fierce grip and pulled him into a hug. Careful of the other man’s back, Tanner returned the embrace but kept it light. “It is good to see you, man.”
“And you, brother,” Mateo said as he took a step back and gave him a once-over. “Looking pretty fancy for having just arrived. ’Course, when you’re captain you get those cushy jobs. Sir.”
Tanner snorted. “Don’t call me sir. I work for a living.”
“Actually, what you were doing was getting shut down by the doc. I work for a living.”
Glancing in the direction that Jules went, Tanner stowed his hat back on his head and scanned the fence line. Apparently Mateo had been repairing one of the fences when they drove up. “Speaking of working for a living, are you supposed to be doing this?”
“Oh, don’t you start.” Mateo chuckled. “I get enough of that from Mama and Papa. I get to hear it from my docs. I don’t need to hear it from you.” With that, he turned away and walked toward the fence, moving at a slow but steady limping gait. There was a kind of awkward grace to his motion. It took Tanner a minute to realize that he was doing his best not to swivel his hips or shift his back as he moved.
“Well, I’ll leave you alone about it. Just make sure you tell me if something is really bothering you. Seems only fair. That way I can help out as needed.”
“Look after the Colonel,” Mateo said as he picked up a hammer, then motioned to the bucket with the nails in it. “Hand me those. I’ve got to tighten the boards all along this part.” Mateo tugged out the bad nails, than hammered in a new one.
Tanner joined him so he could brace the board with his elbow. “Okay, tell me—does Jules not really date anyone?”
“I think she’s gone out a couple of times. Mostly she just goes to the Silver Dollar every once in a while to dance. She works harder than the rest of us combined.”
“Huh.” His attention remained riveted on where Jules disappeared. “So she works all the time, dances on her night off, and she’s not seeing anyone seriously?”
“She dances with a lot of guys. But we’re not girlfriends.” Mateo gave him a look of reproach. “She doesn’t confide in me.”
The rebuke bugged Tanner more than he cared to admit. “If she isn’t dating, then I can change her mind about dating a rancher. I’m only half a rancher at the moment, so that should give me some leeway to pursue.”
His old friend snorted. “You’re not even half a rancher! I call you more of an amoeba.”
“Ouch.” But he left it at that. What were a few names between friends? “So what can you tell me about the Colonel?”
“Not much to tell. He remains, as always, a stubborn Marine. What did you expect?”
“I want to know if Doc Clayton and your mother are right,” he said, grabbing another handful of nails and following Mateo down to the next board. Most of the boards were loose; in fact, over half of them had their nails half out. “What’s up with the fence?”
“This would be the work of Satan,” Mateo said, flashing a fierce grin.
“Why did they name him that?”
“The Colonel picked it after he bought him at auction. He is a wild thing. Trying to gentle him because we had to talk the Colonel out of gelding him.”
“You consider giving him a different name?” With a name like that, no wonder the stallion behaved like a hellion.
“When you convince the Colonel to change his mind on a subject, let me know. It will be one for the record books.”
Still standing there, Tanner stared out at the pasture. Horses grazed lazily, farther out in the pasture and beneath the shade of the trees. A fly buzzed near his ear, and a breeze brushed his face. Above, the sky was the most stunning color of blue. Mateo’s hammering added to the ambience, grounding it and reminding Tanner he was really there.
The soft scuff of boots on dirt alerted him to Jules returning from the barn. “Hey, Mateo, I’ve stocked the antibiotics and updated the requisitions. You should be good—I noticed we’re low on wormer. You’ve been managing the mare schedules. Are you due anytime soon?”
Capable, dedicated, and organized, Jules ignored Tanner and favored Mateo with her attention. The rejection should have stung, but it only served to whet his appetite for more. Even the most difficult of recruits or wildest of horses could be coaxed.
Pausing in his work, Mateo glanced over. “No, thanks, Jules. We’re good right now. Next month, we’ll need to worm the whole of the western herd. You can probably put the purchase orders in at the end of the month so we can have everything in hand.”
“I’ll check the east barns first, then I’ll check the breeding barn. Easier to put in one whole order.”
“Thank you, ma’am, I surely do appreciate it.” Mateo gave her a flattering smile and doffed his hat toward her, ignoring Tanner’s disgruntled look.
With a grin, Jules waved, then headed for the vehicle. “I’m leaving now. Coming or staying?” The look she gave him seemed perfectly pleasant—if they’d only just been introduced.
If he didn’t have to talk to the Colonel, he’d probably skip the ride altogether and give her some space. As it was, he needed to consider all his options and get a feel for the land mines awaiting him in order to discover a way to navigate around them. Jules intrigued him on far too many levels to let his attraction go.
“I’d appreciate the ride, ma’am.” He put emphasis on the last word, which earned him a half smile so that was something. “You wouldn’t mind dropping me off at the house?”
“No problem at all, sir. See you later, Mateo.”
“See you later, Doc. Don’t let Tanner here give you a hard time. He’s really a big softy.”
She laughed with genuine amusement. “I won’t, as long as you promise not to overdo it. Don’t think I didn’t see you limping. Keep it up and I will tell your mother on you.”
The other man snorted but saluted. “Just got this last row here and I’m done for the day. Good enough?”
Jules hopped back into the Jeep they’d left parked by the barn, slid into the driver’s seat, and snapped on her seat belt, but studied Mateo with a thoughtful look. “Good enough for now. Let me know after you talk to your therapist though, okay?”
Tanner followed the interaction with interest as he dropped into the passenger seat. Mateo seemed as at ease with Jules as his father. Whereas they both treated him, in varying degrees, as an outsider. Still ruminating, he missed Mateo’s response, then Jules fired up the engine and they were pulling out. She welcomed the interest of friends, colleagues, and employers. She’d defended his father—worried about Tanner ambushing him—then looked after Mateo, not letting him skate by with his limp. Not afraid to call a spade a spade, either. She’d challenged him from the moment he saw her in the bar. Loyal and compassionate—she needed to see he was worthy of the same.
All too quickly they were at the house, and Jules glanced at him. “Here you go.” When he didn’t respond, she asked, “You okay?”
He stepped out of the vehicle, pausing for a moment before turning to look at her. “Kind of an odd question for someone who doesn’t want to get personally involved. Thanks for the ride, Doc.” Walking away, he didn’t let himself glance back.
Maybe it was harsh, but being made to feel like an outsider at his ranch when Tanner hadn’t wanted to come home in the first place didn’t sit well. Unsure whether it was Jules saying she couldn’t date him, the Colonel’s fury at his presence, or Mateo’s censure, he decided against pursuing further debate in his current mood. Maybe it was some combination of the above.
The Jeep’s engine revved, then pulled away. He paused at the door to follow its path. He came home to take care of things, so the Colonel had to come first. Tanner would do his duty by his father, but he had his eye on Jules, and that wasn’t going away. Dammit, did she have to be the vet? And couldn’t she have fewer rules? It would’ve been nice to have someone he could just talk with.
At the house, instead of heading up to his room or going to find Maria in the kitchen, Tanner followed the long hallway past the living room and the formal dining room, toward his father’s office. The same room had belonged to Grandpa, and when the door was closed, it meant that one should knock before entering. Right now, that door was closed. Staring at the old, dark wood, Tanner knocked twice.
“What?” His father’s voice carried through the heavy wood. Accepting it as an invitation to come inside, he opened the door and stepped in.
His father sat behind a large wooden desk weathered by age and use. It had been an antique when first installed. Decades of use by Wilks men had aged it further. The computer sat on one corner and seemed almost anachronistic to the rest of the room, with its thick, hand-hewn shelves and old-world aesthetic. The red leather ledger book open in front of his father was far more in tune with the history present. Another concession to his father’s age were the spectacles that sat low on his nose, which gave him a crusty, old librarian look.
Without even glancing up from his work, his father said, “Tanner, I have a bit of work to do. What do you need?”
Urging himself to consider the wisdom Jules had shared with him earlier, Tanner straightened up and closed the door before saying, “It occurred to me that I failed to say, ‘Hello, Father,’ when I found you at the pasture. It also occurred to me that I interrupted your task with the doc. So if you’ll forgive the infraction, I would like to present myself, Colonel.”
Chewing rocks had to be simpler than squeezing the words out. He disliked having to be so formal with his father. But then again, they never had any kind of warm relationship. Taking the glasses off, the Colonel leaned back in his chair and stared at him.
“I don’t know what you hope to accomplish by this visit, Tanner. I understand Doc Clayton called you with his concerns. He and I have had words about my expectations of professional boundaries in the future. Particularly when it comes to haranguing my children about visiting.” Oh, Tanner would bet that his father had verbally blistered the hide off of Doc Clayton. Of course, the old doctor had known the Colonel for most of their lives, so he could handle him.
“I’m sure you and the doc will resolve your differences, but I’m not here for a visit. I’ve spent the better part of two decades serving my country, and I think I’ve served with distinction. Of course, that’s only my opinion, as I don’t pay much mind to medals or accolades. As you taught me.”
“That’s it—you just retire? You’re not even forty.”
“No, sir, I’m not.” His thirty-sixth birthday would arrive with the holidays. “I also have a father who has a large spread to run, so I think it’s time,” he said, gritting his teeth to say the next words. “To take a page from your book and learn by your side.”
Utterly unmollified, the Colonel shook his head. “You never had any interest in running the ranch.”
“No, sir, I disagree—respectfully. I was never allowed to have any interest in running the ranch. I knew what was required of me, and I did my duty.”
“You see this as another obligation of your duty.” It wasn’t a question—if anything, it was a snarl.
“No, sir, I don’t see this as an obligation,” said Tanner, yet even as he spoke the words, he heard the lie. He’d already experienced the wealth of emotion on the way home—he didn’t want to be here. He’d wanted to stay the course of his career, but Doc Clayton gave him no choice. What was done was done. “I’m here because you’re my father. You don’t have to like that I’m your son—you simply have to accept that I’m here, and here is where I plan to be for the foreseeable future.” The words that his father should get on board or get out of his way hovered on his tongue, but he managed to restrain them. Barely.
The Colonel stood abruptly and slammed his hand against the desk, causing the items on it to jump. “I won’t be spoken to in that tone. Not in my house. My son should understand respect and not pay lip service.”
“Well, he wouldn’t have learned respect from you now, would he?” The argument ignited a fire under Tanner’s temper. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he wrestled against the need to strike back, as his father’s pallor went gray and his breathing grew labored.
Between one syllable and the next, one of the most influential and powerful figures in his life turned utterly frail. “Dad?”
“Get out,” his father wheezed, but maintained a white-knuckled grip on the desk as he sat abruptly. Every breath he took seemed to cost him.
In a flash, Tanner was at his side. “Dad, what do you need?” His father waved an arm as though trying to wave him off, then pressed a hand to his chest.
Tanner hit speed dial on the house phone for Doc Clayton. His father fumbled for the receiver handset, but his feeble grip couldn’t keep the phone from Tanner. Doc answered on the second ring, thank God.
“It’s Tanner. The Colonel is having trouble breathing. He’s gripping his chest and he looks like hell. What do I do?” Drop him into a field of battle, and he knew how to deal with insurgents, snipers, physical dangers—stick him in the middle of his family, with his distant father and all the emotional IEDs, and he was at a loss.
“Let me hear his breathing.” Clayton’s manner exuded calmness.
Tanner put the phone over to his father’s ear even as his father managed to wheeze out, “I’m fine. Clayton, go away.”
Jerking the phone free before his father could hang it up, Tanner asked, “Should I call an ambulance?” Although, based on their distance from Durango Point, he might be better off just loading his father in the truck and driving him in, as he had his grandfather years before. The thought horrified him, particularly since the aplomb he’d felt when coping with his grandfather’s injury at eight seemed to be missing now.
“It sounds more like he’s having a bit of angina. He’ll need his nitroglycerin pills. At last check, he had them in the top right-hand drawer of his desk—concealed inside the tin of breath mints. Give him one right now; I’m on my way.”
“Got it.” After hanging up, he searched his father’s desk until he located the deceptively cheerful tin exactly where the doc said it would be. Popping it up, he read the label on the smaller container inside. This was the stuff.
The Colonel didn’t stop scowling the entire time, but he took the pill without further argument and then closed his eyes. Gradually, his breathing steadied, but although his color returned to something resembling normal, he still seemed far too pale.
More relieved than he cared to admit, Tanner leaned back against the desk and stared at his dad.
“You shouldn’t have come,” the Colonel said without opening his eyes. “You had a career and a chance at a life away from here. Coming home for me was a foolish choice.”
“But it was my choice to make.” Yet no matter how much he repeated the sentiment, it didn’t change the resentment he felt when Doc Clayton called him or when he filed his papers or when he went through his exit interviews or even when he drove the long road home. At least he’d been there in that moment when his dad needed the pills. “And you’re stuck with me. We’re stuck with each other, and we need to find a way to make this work.” If only he could be sure his presence wasn’t what caused the attack.
His father said nothing. In fact, he went so quiet that Tanner actually leaned forward and reached over to touch his father’s wrist. His breathing had evened, and his pulse was steady. Had he gone to sleep?
How had things gotten this screwed up? And when had his father gotten so sick? The man always seemed so powerful, so in command of everything. Most of the time, Tanner thought of him only as the Colonel. Over the years he’d been the captain, then later the major. Even the concept of Dad seemed alien and out of place.
But what he said earlier about his father was also true in regard to himself. He didn’t have to like being here—he just had to live with it. And if their argument had made one thing abundantly clear, it was that the Colonel needed him.
He glanced at the ledger lying open on the desk, then around the office that had been his grandfather’s. The computer seemed the only acknowledgment of changing times; otherwise, it could still be his grandfather’s study. While waiting, he kept two fingers on his father’s pulse and one eye on the clock.
Doc Clayton needed to hurry.