Cattleman's Courtship

Too late for Uncle Alan.

The stone in her chest shifted and tears thickened her throat.

Please, Lord, don’t take him away, too. You already took my mother, please spare him.

Then she caught herself.

God didn’t listen to prayers. How many had she sent up that her mother would come back to her? Would put her first in her life?

Had God listened when she prayed Nicholas would choose her over his work? Over his ranch?

Sometimes she wondered if her prayers were selfish but she believed that anyone else in her situation would want the same things.

Aunt Lori always said God moved in mysterious ways. Well, they were certainly mysterious to Cara.

Cara rolled her head slightly, chancing a glance at Nicholas, who had stayed at the hospital. The knot of his tie hung below his open collar of his rumpled shirt. She couldn’t help the hitch of her heart at the sight. He looked more approachable now, more like the Nicholas she remembered.

As if aware of her scrutiny, he glanced back at her. And again their gazes locked. He turned, then walked back in her direction.

He sat down in the empty chair beside her, resting his elbows on his knees. “How are you doing?” he asked.

The deep timbre of his voice still made her heart sing. Still swept away her natural reserve. “I’m okay.”

He frowned, as if dissatisfied with her reply. But what else could she say? She felt especially vulnerable now and if she said more, she would start to cry. She needed to maintain what dignity she could. To stay aloof, calm and in control. Nothing had changed in his life and she couldn’t put herself through that emotional wringer once again.

“Here’s your aunt,” he said suddenly, standing up.

Lori came down the hallway, clutching her purse. A nurse walked beside her, talking in hushed tones. As they came closer Cara heard snatches of the conversation.

“He’ll be on the monitors for a couple of days…good pulse…healthy man…”

Lori nodded, but Cara knew she wasn’t absorbing all this.

Cara got up, stretching her tired muscles, and walked toward her aunt.

“How is he?” Cara knew the question was superfluous but she had to ask.

Her aunt shook her head. “He looks so awful with all those things attached to him. You don’t want to see him yet.”

But Cara needed to.

“Can I see him?” she asked the nurse.

“You two can go in,” she said, gesturing at Cara. “But only for a minute. We don’t want to tire him out.”

Cara realized with a start the nurse had included Nicholas in the invitation. She was about to correct her, when the nurse turned, her shoes squeaking on the gleaming floor.

Cara didn’t look back to see if Nicholas was coming, but as she followed the nurse, she could hear his measured tread behind her, slightly slower than her own.

The nurse motioned for Cara to come closer. “You’ve got two minutes then I’ll come and get you.” She smiled at Cara, then past her. Cara could tell the moment her smile connected with Nicholas. Nicholas always had that effect on women, she thought dully, pushing aside the curtain around her uncle’s bed, her fingers trembling.

She stepped forward, then faltered at the sight before her.

Her uncle, a large, strapping man, lay on the bed, his face still obscured by the oxygen mask. Lines attached to circular pads snaked out to a machine beeping out a regular rhythm. His arms lay beside him, bare except for a blood-pressure cuff attached to a machine. Two IVs ran out from his arms.

He looked like death.

Cara pressed her hand to her mouth, stopping the faint cry of dismay, her knees buckling beneath her.

She would have fallen, but strong arms caught her from behind. Held her. Just for those few seconds she allowed herself to drift back against Nicholas’s comforting strength, thankful for his presence.

We fit so well, Cara thought, letting him support her. His touch, his smell, his warmth felt so familiar it created an ache deep in her chest.

Then, when she caught her balance, his hands settled on her waist, held a moment and then gently pushed her away.

As if he couldn’t stand to touch her any longer than he had to.

Cara disguised the pain of his withdrawal by catching her uncle’s hand and clinging it to it, hoping he would pull through this emergency. She stayed by her uncle’s side a moment longer, then turned away.

“I want to…go,” she said to Nicholas.

Aunt Lori sat huddled in the hard plastic chair, her hands kneading each other. As Cara came closer, her head came up. “Is he awake?”

Cara shook her head.

“He was working too hard.” Aunt Lori’s voice sounded so small. So wounded.

Cara stifled the flicker of guilt her aunt’s innocent comment created. It wasn’t her fault, she reminded herself. Even if she had stayed behind and worked at the clinic as her uncle had always envisioned, Alan Morrison wouldn’t have slowed down. Wouldn’t have done less.

“We should go home,” Cara said quietly, taking her aunt’s arm in hers.

“Can we come back tonight?”

“Of course we can. But you should go home and rest a bit before we do.” Cara took her aunt’s arm and, as they walked to the door, she leaned heavily on Cara.

The air outside smelled fresh, new. The sun shone down with a benevolent spring warmth, but Cara couldn’t stop the chill shivering down her spine.

“My truck is parked over here,” Nicholas said, stepping ahead of them to lead the way.

Cara acknowledged his comment with a nod, following him more slowly, holding her aunt up.

“I made him eat his vegetables. I made him go for walks,” Aunt Lori was saying, clutching Cara’s arm. “I took good care of him.”

“Of course you did,” Cara said quietly, her attention split between her aunt and the man who strode in front of them, leading the way to his truck.

He opened the door and Cara felt a jolt of dismay. The cab had one bench seat with a fold-down console.

Which meant her aunt would be sitting by the window and Cara…right beside Nicholas.

She helped her aunt into the truck, then had to walk around to Nicholas’s side. She began to get in slowly, wishing she’d worn sensible shoes instead of high heels made for walking short distances, not climbing running boards of pickup trucks.

She faltered as she stepped up and Nicholas caught her, his hand on her elbow. She tried to ignore his touch, wished her heart didn’t jump at his nearness.

She settled on the seat beside her aunt, and buckled herself in. Nicholas got in and Cara’s senses heightened.

“Can you move over a bit,” Aunt Lori asked, nudging Cara with her elbow. “I’m feeling claustrophobic.”

Cara shifted as much as she dared. No matter what, though, she sat too close to Nicholas. She felt the warmth of his arm through the sleeve of her sweater and the scent of his cologne drew up older memories of other trips in this truck. Trips when she didn’t mind sitting as close to him as she was now and often tried to sit even closer.

That’s over, she thought.

The trip back to Cochrane was quiet, broken only by the hum of the tires on the pavement, the intermittent noise of the fan sending cooling air over the truck’s occupants.

Cara kept her arms folded over her purse and tried, like her aunt did, to keep her eyes fixed on the road rolling past them.

But she couldn’t stop her awareness of the man sitting next to her. Each curve in the road and each bump in the pavement brought the two of them in contact with each other.

“Did the doctor say anything about what might have caused the heart attack?” Nicholas asked, breaking the heavy silence.

Cara took a breath. “He told me his cholesterol levels were high. And I imagine the stress of working added to that.”

“Did they say how serious it was?”

“A heart attack is serious. Period,” Aunt Lori said in a tone that didn’t encourage any further discussion.

A heavy silence followed her remark. Cara wished she dared turn the radio on. She wished she and her aunt could share casual conversation. Anything to keep the picture of her uncle falling down the stairs out of her mind.

Anything to keep her from being so sensitive to Nicholas’s presence.

The beginnings of a headache pinched her temples and by the time Nicholas pulled up to her aunt and uncle’s home, Cara felt as if a vise gripped her forehead.

“Thanks for all your help,” Aunt Lori said, leaning past Cara to give Nicholas a worn smile. Then she stepped out of the truck and headed up the walk to the house.

Cara slid over and from a safer distance risked a glance at Nicholas.

He draped one arm over the steering wheel, his other across the back of the seat, bringing his fingertips inches from her shoulder.

“Thanks for the ride and for all the help,” Cara said. “I’m so glad you could bring Aunt Lori to the hospital.”

Nicholas didn’t say anything, his eyes holding hers. “Are you going to be okay?” His voice sounded cool, as if he were asking a mere acquaintance.

Cara shrugged and slipped her purse over her arm. “I don’t know.”

Quiet fell again and Cara didn’t have anything more to say. So she slipped out of the truck and trudged up the sidewalk. But before she got to the house, she couldn’t help a glance back over her shoulder.

Nicholas was watching her.

She took a chance and lifted her hand in a small wave, but he started his truck and drove away.

Cara closed her hand and pressed it to her chest, surprised at the jab of hurt.

Did you expect him to come running down the walk, pull you into his arms and beg you to give him another chance? Did you really think he was pining for you the whole time you were gone? He doesn’t care for you anymore.

The words mocked her, and she turned and entered the house.

Aunt Lori sat in her usual chair in the kitchen, her arms wrapped around her midsection.

“Do you want some tea?” Cara asked, walking to the stove.

Aunt Lori nodded.

While she waited for the water to boil, Cara joined her aunt, glancing around the papers piled up on the room table, the dishes scattered over the kitchen counter. She wished she had the energy to start cleaning.

Her aunt was not a housekeeper. She always joked that she preferred to paint walls than wash them and she could always afford to get someone to do it for her.

Though she missed her aunt and uncle, she didn’t miss the mess either in the house or her uncle’s vet clinic. Her mother wasn’t much different and at times Cara wondered if she really was a Morrison. Every time she came back to her aunt and uncle’s place, either from university or visiting, she spent the first few days tidying up.

However, in spite of the chaos, Uncle Alan and Aunt Lori’s home had been Cara’s most stable home since Audra Morrison dropped Cara off at their place. Audra had assumed Cara was old enough to be without her while she followed her conscience and went to work overseas.

Cara still remembered the grim voice of her uncle, trying to plead with his sister, Cara’s mother, to think of Cara.

Her mother’s reply still rang in her ears. Cara had been raised with more privileges than any of the children she left to help. She didn’t need her mother as much as these destitute young orphans in Nicaragua.

And then she left. Aunt Lori had come upstairs and had sat beside Cara, not saying anything, simply holding her close, letting Cara’s tears drench the front of her shirt.

When Cara turned fifteen, everything changed. Cara’s mother was killed flying into the Congo to help yet another group of lost and broken children.

And Cara was alone.

Uncle Alan and Aunt Lori were named her guardians. They paid for all her expenses, bought her a car. Put her through vet school and Uncle Alan offered her a job when she was done.

She started working for her uncle, met Nicholas and she thought her life had finally come to the place she’d been yearning for since she was a young girl.

A home of her own. A family of her own.

And now, her uncle lay in a hospital bed and Nicholas was more removed from her than ever.

“How are you doing?” Cara asked, reaching over and covering her aunt’s icy hands with hers.

“I’m tired. And I’m scared.” Lori looked up at Cara. “Will you pray with me?”

Cara was taken momentarily aback. How could her aunt talk about praying after what had just happened? What good would it do?

But she wasn’t about to take what little comfort her aunt might derive from praying, away from her.

“Sure. I’ll pray with you.” Cara folded her hands over her aunt’s and bowed her head.

Cara waited, then realized her aunt wanted her to do the praying.

Her heart fluttered in panic. What was she going to say? But her aunt squeezed her hands, signaling her need. So Cara cleared her throat and began.

“Dear Lord, Thank You for today…” She paused there, wondering what she could be thankful about when her uncle was so ill, but she carried on. “Thank You that we could worship with Your people in Your house…” She stopped, hearing the inauthentic words in her own ears.

She glanced up in time to see Aunt Lori looking over at her.

“Why did you stop, honey?”

Cara sighed. “I sound like Uncle Alan.”

“That’s not so bad.”

Cara gave her aunt a quick smile. “No, but…”

“It’s not from your heart.” Aunt Lori finished the sentence for her.

“I don’t know if I can pray from my heart.” Cara tightened her grip on her aunt’s hands.

“Why not?” Aunt Lori asked, her smile sad.

Cara sighed lightly, knowing she would have to be honest with her aunt. “I don’t think I’ve been able to pray since…”

“Audra died?” Aunt Lori stroked Cara’s hand with her thumbs.

“Mom’s death was the beginning.”

“And what was the end?”

Cara looked down, working her lower lip between her teeth. “I know it sounds kind of funny now, maybe even a bit childish, but after Nicholas and I broke up, I haven’t been able to pray at all.”

“That was a hard time for you.”

“Not as hard as what you’re dealing with right now.”

“I still have Alan’s love. I know how much you cared for Nicholas and I know the hurt he caused in your life made you pull further away from God.” Aunt Lori looked down at their joined hands, her thumbs still making their soothing circles around Cara’s hand. “I hoped that by asking you to pray, you would be able to at least let God’s love fill you. Let God break down that barrier you’ve put up between you and Him.”

“He was the one that put it up, Aunt Lori,” Cara whispered.

“God always seeks us,” Aunt Lori assured her. “He never puts up walls. We do.”

Cara’s soul twisted and turned. “Love hurts, Aunt Lori. It hurts so much.”

Her aunt reached out and cupped her cheek. “That’s the risk of loving, my dear girl.”

Cara let the words settle into the wrenching of her soul. She knew her aunt was right, but she also knew, for now, she wasn’t going to take the chance of getting hurt again.

“I’ll pray this time,” Aunt Lori said, taking her hands.

Cara bowed her head and let her aunt’s prayer wash over her. And for the merest moment, she felt a nudging against the walls she’d put around her heart.

She knew that everything had changed. In the space of a heartbeat, or lack of a heartbeat, her world had spun around.

There was no way she could wander around the streets of Malta knowing that her uncle, the man she thought of as her father, lay helpless and recuperating from a devastating heart attack.

She had no choice now. She would have to cancel her trip and stay in Cochrane to support her aunt. Even if it meant running the risk of seeing Nicholas and having her pain reinforced.

Though she had told her aunt she didn’t pray much, she caught herself praying that when the time came she would be able to leave with her heart still intact.

Nicholas pulled up to his father’s house and slammed on the brakes, dust swirling around his truck as it fishtailed then abruptly stopped. He was being juvenile and he knew it, but his anger and frustration had to find some release and driving like a fool seemed to be a part of it.

The events of the past days piled on top of each other. Seeing Cara in at the clinic then at church. She acted so cool. So remote. He knew part of it was his own fault. He’d put up his own barriers to her and he had to remind himself to keep them up.

Like you did at the hospital?

For a brief moment, when he and Cara had seen Alan lying on the hospital bed, he thought she might lean on him just a little longer. But she had quickly pulled herself together and had drawn away from his support.

Nicholas grabbed his tie from the seat and opened the door, his anger fading with each moment. He felt tired and drained. In the next couple of weeks he had to get fences fixed, his haying done and then get ready for another work trip overseas.

He sighed as he trudged up the sidewalk. He wished he could stay home, at the ranch. Wished he could get on his horse and head up into the mountains.

He thought of Cara’s past insistence that he not go back to work and the ensuing fight that had sent her running.

Nicholas stopped at the top step of the house and, turning, let his eyes drift over the valley spread out before him. Cattle dotted the pasture near the house. His purebred herd painstakingly built up by him and his father over the past five years, had been paid for by the work he did.

Beyond this valley lay the land he and his father had purchased back from the bank after his parents’ divorce. When missed payments led to foreclosure, this, too, had been paid for by his work. He had focused his entire life on this ranch.

He could have found work closer by, but it wouldn’t have paid near what he got from working on oil rigs. The time off gave him the opportunity to work on the ranch. His father managed the ranch while he was gone. All in all it had been a convenient and lucrative arrangement.

One he wasn’t in a position to change. Not yet. He knew the beating his father’s pride took when they had to go, hat in hand, to the bank to refinance the ranch.

Four generations of Chapmans had farmed and ranched on this land and each generation had added to it and expanded it. Nicholas was the fifth generation and he wasn’t going to let the ranch fail on his watch.

He knew Cara couldn’t understand. She didn’t have his attachment to the land. She didn’t have the continuity of family and community he had. Though he didn’t appreciate his father’s puzzling antagonism toward Cara, he did agree with his father on one point.

Cara’s lack of strong roots made it hard for her to appreciate the generations of sweat equity poured into this place. She couldn’t understand how important the ranch was to him and to his father.

And if she didn’t get that, then she wasn’t the girl for him. Logically he knew his father was right about that.

He just had to convince his heart.

Chapter Three

“And how’s Uncle Alan?” Cara asked, shifting the phone to her other hand as she slowed the car down and steered it around a tight corner. Dust from the gravel road swirled in a cloud behind her.

“He’s still very tired, but the doctor says that’s normal. How are you doing?” Aunt Lori sounded tired herself.

“I’m fine, busy, but things are going well. I’m on my way to take a stick out of a horse.”

“Just another day at a vet practice,” Aunt Lori said with a small laugh. “Uncle Alan asked me to remind Anita to do the supply checklist. He thinks the clinic is running low on—”

“You tell Uncle Alan that Anita has already sent in the order and everything at the clinic is under control.” Except my driving, she thought, as she pushed the accelerator down, hoping she didn’t hit any washboard on her way to the next call.

The Chapman ranch.

The last call she’d been on had taken too long. A sheep with trouble delivering her lambs. Something that could have been dealt with at the clinic, but the woman insisted someone come out to look at it.

Then the woman wanted her to check out her dog’s gums and have a quick peek at her laying hens.

Which now meant that in spite of keeping the accelerator floored, she was twenty minutes late.

So it was easier to blame her heavily beating heart on the pressure of trying to get there on time rather than possibly seeing Nicholas again.

“But I gotta run, Aunty Lori. Tell Uncle Alan I’ll be there tonight and give him a full report of how things are going.”

“You take care, sweetie. I’ll have supper ready for you when you come.”

Cara smiled as she hung up. She was busy, sure, but there was a lot to be said for coming home after a hard day of work to supper cooking on the stove.

While she enjoyed cooking, many of her suppers back in Vancouver consisted of pizza or a bowl of cereal in front of the television. Hardly nutritious, despite the claims of the cereal manufacturers.

Cara made the last turn up the winding road leading to the ranch. She allowed herself a quick look at the mountains edging the fields. The bright spring sun turned the snowcapped peaks a brilliant white, creating a sharp relief against the achingly blue sky.

When she and Nicholas were dating, they seldom came to the ranch. This suited Cara just fine. Every time she came, she received the silent treatment from Nicholas’s father, which created a heavy discomfort. Cara knew Nicholas’s father didn’t approve of her, though she was never exactly sure why.

All she knew was each time she saw Dale he glowered at her from beneath his heavy brows and said nothing at all.

So she and Nicholas usually went to a movie, hung out at her uncle and aunt’s place or visited Nicholas’s best friend, Lorne Hughes.

So when she found out the call came from Dale Chapman, she was already dreading the visit, and running late just made it more so.

She parked the car and, as she got out, she heard Dale Chapman speaking.

She grabbed a container with the supplies she thought she might need out of the trunk of the car. Then she headed around the barn to the corrals, following the sound of Mr. Chapman’s voice.

Dale was holding the horse’s head, talking in an unfamiliar gentle tone to his horse.

Just for a moment, Cara was caught unawares. She wasn’t used to gentleness from Dale Chapman in any form.

“Good morning, Dale. Sorry I’m late.”

His cowboy hat was pulled low on his head, shading his eyes, but when he looked up, his mouth was set in grim lines.

“I came as soon as I could.” Cara knew trying to explain to him about unexpected problems with her previous case would be a waste of time.

Cara set the kit down in what seemed to be a safe place, pulled a pair of latex gloves out and slipped them on as she walked toward the horse.

She knew from the phone call that Dale had found the animal with a stick puncturing the muscles of its leg.

From here she could see the stick hanging down between his front legs. As she bent over to get a closer took, her mind skimmed frantically through her anatomy lessons, trying to picture which muscles the stick could have injured.

Watching the horse to gauge its reaction, she gently touched the leg, feeling for heat. But he didn’t flinch.

“When did this happen?” she asked, looking up at the wound. There was surprising little blood on the stick, which led her to believe it hadn’t punctured anything important.

“Um…let’s see…” Mr. Chapman hesitated, as if trying to recall.

“I found Duke this morning in the new pasture.”

The deep voice behind her reverberated across her senses. Then Nicholas crouched down beside her and she caught the scent of hay and the faintest hint of soap and aftershave.

She couldn’t stop the quick flashback to another time when she was at the ranch watching her uncle working on one of Nicholas’s horses. It was the first time she met him.