Time For Love

Take the money.

Dylan knew he’d regret this. The lies. The deception. The unanswered questions. He accepted the assignment anyway, with a handshake and a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep.

CHAPTER TWO

“I’M HOME.” KATHY entered the front door, shedding her pink jacket.

No one greeted her. The house smelled of savory pot roast steeped in bittersweet memories.

Her grandfather had passed away four months ago, but memorabilia from his military career still hung on the living room wall—medals, pictures, certificates of service—along with black-and-white wedding photos and baby pictures. Add in the 1970s furniture and color scheme, and everything looked the same as when he’d been alive, except there was no dust, no newspaper piles, no faint smell of hair tonic. Flynn said he’d update the place once he was done grieving. Until then, the house looked the same as it had twenty years ago.

It’d been almost two decades since their mother left them here, since Kathy had sat in Grandpa Ed’s lap while he braided her hair (a skill he’d learned in the military for making horses presentable). He’d told her she was going to be just like all the other girls in Harmony Valley. But she was different.

She was surprised every time she opened the pantry and discovered it was full. She was wary of strangers, even smiling ones in town. And her heart stuttered every time she saw a woman with red hair or heard a female with a smoker’s throaty laugh.

She’d stayed close to home in those early years, under the watchful eye of her grandfather. Eventually, when her mother didn’t come back and Kathy reached her teens, she felt confident enough to push the small-town limits that had kept her safe for so long.

Kathy missed Grandpa Ed’s booming voice as he chastised her teenage self for wearing skirts that were too short. She missed his barked rules and pieces of advice, however unwanted they’d been at the time. She could still feel his strong arms around her when she had come home after only a few months at college, alone, an emotional wreck and pregnant. He’d talked her into keeping Truman. It’d been the best decision of her life.

Until the text messages started...

The screen door banged behind her. Abby, her son’s small, mostly black Australian shepherd, trotted over to greet Kathy.

“It’s you,” Truman said flatly, standing in the foyer. He was eight, but he might just as well have been eighteen for all his sullenness. Everything about him was dirt smudged and disheveled—from his unzipped blue jacket, slightly askew on his thin shoulders, to his sneakers, laces dangling, the color of spent earthworms. “I thought you were Uncle Flynn.”

Her chest felt cavernous, as if somewhere along her alcohol-blazed trail the heart she’d given to her little boy had been lost. “I brought you a chocolate bar.” When he was younger and she’d disappointed him, she would bring him gifts and sweets, and he would fling his arms around her as if she had never failed him. Today she’d had Phil, the elderly town barber, go in and buy the bar for her at El Rosal. Kathy pulled it from her jacket pocket, distressed to find the dark chocolate soft beneath her fingers.

Without looking at her, Truman turned up his nose. “I don’t eat treats before dinner. Aunt Becca says I can only have one treat a day, and I already had cookies.”

Kathy remembered baking cookies with Truman last Christmas in this kitchen. He’d stood on a stool, mixing the dough, chattering a mile a minute. When they slid the cookies in the oven, Truman had hugged her tight and then run to play checkers with Grandpa Ed. If only she’d known how fragile their bond was, she wouldn’t ever have let him go.

“How about a hug?” Kathy dropped the candy onto the low wooden coffee table and extended her arms, knowing they’d remain empty, but still stubbornly hopeful. So very hopeful. “Your mom’s had a long day.”

“I hug you every night at bedtime, like I’m supposed to.” So young to be able to wound her so deeply.

Kathy couldn’t seem to draw a breath.

Abby sat quietly in front of her, soft eyes patient for affection. She’d been Becca’s dog until last summer, when Kathy went into rehab and Truman moved in here. Kathy reached in her pocket for a doggy treat. Presents worked great with animals. With her son? Not so much. Not anymore.

Truman walked past Kathy to the kitchen. “Where’s Aunt Becca and Uncle Flynn?”

“I don’t know,” Kathy said. “I smell dinner, though. We should check to make sure it doesn’t burn.”

He shook his ginger-haired head. “Becca never burns anything.” Another accusation. Another oxygen-robbed moment.

Unlike her sister-in-law, Kathy was a horrible cook. Granted, in the past two years she’d been operating the stove under the influence, but she was convinced you either had the cooking gene or you didn’t. The more Becca’s perfection contrasted against Kathy’s flaws, the stronger Kathy’s desire to get a place of her own became. All she needed was rent money—and Truman by her side.

Becca hurried down the hall toward them, looking put-together-cute in yoga pants and a thin green sweater. For sure, she didn’t smell of manure and disinfectant. “I didn’t hear you two come in. I was on the phone checking on a client.” Saint Becca, the town’s caregiver to the elderly. She kissed the top of Truman’s head.

Kathy’s ears filled with a rushing noise, much like the time she’d got caught by a submerged branch at the bend in the Harmony Valley River and nearly drowned. She turned away.

“Did you meet Felix’s new litter of kittens?” Becca asked Truman.

Kathy couldn’t resist turning back.

Truman beamed. He used to smile at Kathy like that, before she’d lost control of the drinking. “I also saw Bea’s baby goats. She calls them kids.” He giggled.

“I’m going to wash up.” Kathy fled down the hallway. She locked herself in the bathroom and stared at her reflection in the mirror. What an afternoon. A confrontation with a handsome, heartless stranger, followed by another example of how she’d been replaced in Truman’s life.

She needed...something. She didn’t want a drink. Alcohol didn’t solve anything. But she wanted her son to look up to her and love her, like he used to. Like he did to Becca. She wanted them to be a family again, to have a bond with her son that no one could break. If only he would agree to spend time with her. Alone time. Together time. Precious time. He’d see she was the mother he’d once loved wholeheartedly.

The shower beckoned. She knew the family wouldn’t hold dinner for her. She could eat alone. But that was the coward’s way out. And her grandfather hadn’t raised any cowards. He’d passed on words of wisdom to her and Flynn after their mother left them here for good—pep talks he’d most likely used on the military men who’d reported to him during his career.

She met her gaze in the mirror. “Don’t let life push you around. You can win back Truman’s love and trust.”

She could.

The more often she said it, the better chance she had of believing it.

* * *

FEAR DID AWFUL things to a man. It drained Dylan of energy and hope, and now of morals.

His old man would have said he’d let a horse best him. And then he’d have followed that up with a besting of his own. His dad’s bloodshot eyes had been wilder and more menacing than any horse.

Still thinking of the promises he’d made in Harmony Valley, Dylan drove down Redemption Ranch’s thinly graveled, potholed driveway, illuminated only by his headlights. A small car turned in behind him. He parked in front of his paint-peeling, two-story clapboard house. Motion-activated lights flipped on—one from the front porch, one over the separate garage and one near the corner of the double row of stables. They illuminated his crabgrass and scraggly shrubbery.

Home, sweet home.

Phantom let out a shrill whinny, more a warning than a welcome.

Dylan leaned against the dented tailgate, pushing all his concerns—for the black stallion, Kathy and a damaged colt—to the side.

“Daddy!” A brown-haired, stubby-legged five-year-old boy tumbled out of the backseat as soon as his mother unbuckled him. Zach wrapped his wiry arms around Dylan’s legs. “I want a pony ride.”

Eileen stood at the car, arms crossed, a frown on her face. He’d considered her kind and beautiful once—short wavy brown hair, whiskey-colored eyes and a button nose. And she had once loved him, back when she’d considered Dylan the man who hung the moon, the horse miracle worker whom everyone wanted to hire. “Cutting it close, Dylan?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Dylan kept his voice chipper for his kid’s sake. He hadn’t enjoyed his parents’ fights when he was a boy—he refused to put his own son through the same. “I had a meeting run over.” He’d stayed too long in Harmony Valley, stopped at the bank and then run into the feed store for a bag of oats.

“You’re lucky.” Eileen slammed the rear car door. “We’re late.”

“I’ll have him home on time.” Traffic permitting. The highway between Cloverdale and Santa Rosa was often crowded and slow-moving.

“You’ve let the Double R go,” Eileen said coldly, before getting back in her car and driving away, puffs of dust a trail of annoyance in her wake. They’d divorced a few years ago. She’d wanted him to get over himself and find a “real job,” one with nine-to-five hours and generous benefits. Then she’d met deep-pockets Bob and filed for divorce.

“Dad.” Zach squeezed his legs. “I already had dinner. I’m ready to race.”

“Come on, sport. Let’s saddle Peaches.” Dylan took his son’s small hand and led him to the tack room, ignoring the end-of-the-day ache in his knee.

Barry, the former jockey turned caretaker, waved at them from his apartment window above the garage.

Zach leapfrogged forward. “Was Peaches a racehorse?”

If only Dylan had a dollar for each time Zach asked him this. “Peaches? She prefers to walk regally in the arena.” Plod along happily was more like it.

An owl hooted in an oak tree. A white barn cat with a crooked tail followed them. Horses stretched their graceful necks between stall bars, sniffing, nickering and stomping in greeting—Sam, a former jumper who balked at fences; Rickshaw, a half-blind bay; Marty, a headstrong trail horse; and so on down the line. Horses that were untrainable or unlovable—at least in their last owners’ eyes.

“Peaches is a good racehorse.” Zach defended his faithful steed, running ahead as if he’d been born wearing cowboy boots. “I could race her.” He opened the tack room door in the middle of the stable aisle.

Zach couldn’t kick that pony into a trot if he wore spurs and shot off fireworks, but Dylan wasn’t telling his son that. He followed Zach in, took Peaches’s bridle from its hook, then hefted her small saddle and blanket.

“Where was Peaches when Phantom kicked you?” Next Zach hurried toward the farthest stall on the end. The last stall had signs posted—Danger! Stay Back! “If Phantom ever came after me, I’d just hop on Peaches and race away.”

In the last stall, a shrill whinny pierced the air. The other horses drew back into their stalls.

Startled, Zach searched the gathering gloom as if expecting the black stallion to charge out of the shadows. Dylan kept walking, reminded of the courageous way Kathy had entered the colt’s stall today. But his knee throbbed a warning and Dylan kept his eyes on the bars over the stall windows where Phantom was stabled.

“Phantom is mean,” Zach said in a hushed voice.

“He’s just a horse.” A large brute of a horse with incredible speed and the bloodlines of Thoroughbred royalty in his veins. “You know, even if you try to be careful, accidents happen.”

“He’s mean.” Zach’s brown hair was crisply cut and gelled into place, just the way Eileen liked it. Shifting Peaches’s gear in his arms, Dylan ruffled Zach’s hair, eliciting a giggle from his son.

Zach, with his ready smile and buoyant attitude, was the balm to Dylan’s setbacks. With his son in his life, Dylan could bear any burden and ride out any storm. Financial worries would be weathered. Physical setbacks overcome. Shattered dreams rebuilt. Maybe even his faith in a horse could be restored given time.

Peaches loved Zach and greeted him when he opened the stall door by nudging his pressed jeans pockets. Peaches was an ancient palomino Shetland pony, formerly a mascot at Far Turn Farms.

Giggling, Zach pulled out some baby carrots from one pocket and held them in the flat of his hand. “She knows I have treats.”

Peaches lipped them from his little palm while Dylan saddled her. It took only a few more minutes to slip her bridle on, hoist Zach into the saddle and hand his son the reins.

It was full-on dark now. And quiet. Quiet enough that Dylan imagined he heard Phantom’s huff of disgust as he led Peaches toward the arena. He flipped the lights on, chasing away the bogeyman. Then he opened the gate and set the pair free.

Peaches, per her usual modus operandi, walked slowly toward the fence and began her circuit. Small puffs of dirt rose from each footfall.

“Dad. Dad. Daddy.” Zach twisted in the saddle. His grin was so bright it could have lit the arena. Forget the arena—it sparked a feeling of joy in Dylan’s chest that chased away the day’s concerns. “Say it, Daddy. Say it.”

Dylan grinned. “Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. The Cloverdale Derby is about to begin.” Dylan latched the gate. “Peaches and her jockey, Zach O’Brien, are the odds-on favorite tonight. And—” he drew out the word as he climbed atop the highest rung on the arena fence “—they’re off. It’s Peaches in the lead.”

With a whoop, Zach leaned over the pony’s golden neck and jogged the reins as if they were galloping. “Come on, Peaches. You can do it.”

The pony continued plodding along.

“Keep going, Dad.”

Dylan could go on like this forever. “They’re heading into the first turn with Peaches ahead.”

* * *

LATER THAT NIGHT as Dylan pulled into the driveway of Eileen’s prestigious home in her prestigious neighborhood in Santa Rosa, Zach was fast asleep in his car seat in the rear of the truck. Eileen’s outdoor lighting cast a glow over the perfectly manicured yard, limelighting verdant shrubs and small tufts of autumn color.

Eileen and her husband, Bob, came outside to meet them. They wore matching red plaid flannel pajama pants, green T-shirts (his: Santa; hers: Mrs. Claus) and red suede slippers. Cute, but not exactly Dylan’s thing. Not to mention, Thanksgiving was still weeks away—never mind Christmas.

“I expected you an hour ago.” Eileen’s voice was as hot and toxic as a smoking muffler. So much for her ho-ho-ho. “You didn’t answer my texts or my calls.”

“I left my phone at the barn. There was traffic.” That last part was a little white lie. He’d taken Zach for ice cream. Dylan unbuckled his son from his seat.

Eileen elbowed him aside and lifted Zach. “You’re always either late or canceling on him.”

“I’m trying my best. I brought you a check.” He tried to keep his voice even, but his throat felt as potholed as his driveway. “It’s tough to get a business going in the early years. I have to hustle clients where I can.” His income wasn’t big, but it was fairly steady. Big paychecks loomed on the horizon—if he could help Kathy, if he could help the colt, if he could harvest Phantom’s sperm. If. If he could rediscover the nerve to work with severely untrainable horses, he could make the dream of a steady income a reality.

Bob took Zach from Eileen and tucked the little man to his shoulder as if he’d had years of practice. Something cold solidified in Dylan’s stomach. And it wasn’t rocky-road ice cream.

“I’ve talked to my lawyer.” Eileen was on a roll tonight. She snatched the check from his hand. “You can’t be late anymore. Not you or your money.”

“Not now, honey,” Bob said. “Let’s get Zach to bed. He’s got school tomorrow.”

Dylan hadn’t forgotten it was a school night, but... “It’s only eight thirty.”

Bob sighed, as if he knew better what Zach needed. He walked toward the house with Dylan’s kid.

Eileen’s mouth worked in that way it did when she was having trouble swallowing back bitter words. She was rarely successful. She spewed words at him, as sour as a green cherry, as hard as its pit. “You need to do better, Dylan. Or things are going to change.”

Like things hadn’t changed when she left him and took his son away? How could they get any worse?

Bob stopped and turned to face Dylan. Zach murmured something. Bob murmured back, stroking Zach’s little shoulders. The cold fist in Dylan’s gut expanded. The other man met Dylan’s gaze over the hood of the truck.

The cold fist sucker-punched Dylan from the inside out.

He knew how things could get worse.

They could take Zach from him. Not for Saturdays. Not for Wednesday nights.

Forever.

CHAPTER THREE

“DO YOU KNOW how hard it is to see the screen and type with you in my lap?” Kathy’s arms bent as she tried to navigate the online university’s website around Abby’s sleek body.

They sat at a desk in her bedroom. Growing up, it had been Flynn’s room—geek command central and off-limits to Kathy. The posters of Batman, “World of Warcraft” and Bill Gates may have come down, but it still felt like her brother’s room. Navy plaid wallpaper and tired green shag contrasted against her teal leopard-print comforter and pink slippers.

When she’d gone into rehab, Grandpa Ed was still alive. Flynn had been staying in this room, and so Truman had been put across the hall in Kathy’s childhood space. After Grandpa’s death, Flynn and Becca had married and then moved into the master bedroom. And so Kathy took this room—not wanting to upset Truman by asking him to switch spaces.

The dog turned and licked Kathy’s cheek, as if to say get on with it. While outside her window, birds sang a happy good-morning. She was convinced there was one bird that had designated itself as her alarm clock. Regular as a rooster, that little guy. Tweet-tweet-tweet as the sun approached the horizon.

“I’m just not excited about a business degree,” she whispered to Abby. Accounting, economics, business law. Ugh. But Flynn insisted that she needed a college diploma to rebuild her life, and he said she could do anything with a business degree. Lacking a clear idea of what she wanted to do with her life, Kathy had bent to her brother’s will. She’d get a business degree to prove to him she was serious about creating a solid future for Truman. If only she could make herself complete the college application form.

The dog faced the screen again, her black fur soft against Kathy’s arms. She smelled of freshly dug dirt and green grass...and freedom.

More than happy to postpone signing up for college courses, Kathy gave the dog a kibble from a teacup on her desk, then scratched Abby behind her pointy ears. “You’re just here for the food.” She didn’t much care why Abby kept her company. She enjoyed the affection, even if the conversation was one-sided.

Her bedroom door swung open. Truman’s gaze swept the carpet and corners of the room. “Abby?”

Truman never came in here. He barely acknowledged Kathy’s existence. She couldn’t have moved if someone had shouted, “Fire!”

He finally noticed where his dog was. “Abby.” Disappointment. Betrayal. Truman’s cheeks flushed. He patted his jeans-clad thigh urgently. “Abby, come.”

Neither Kathy nor Abby moved. In fact, the dog gazed back at Kathy, as if encouraging her to speak. And what would she say? Abby sighed and stared at the computer screen again. Or, more accurately, at the teacup below the computer screen.

“Tru.” His name came out as deep and hoarse as the bullfrogs’ songs down by the Harmony River. Kathy stared in the vicinity of her son, cleared her throat and tried again. “I like your T-shirt.”

It was a green-and-purple tie-dyed shirt with a black running-horse weather vane screen-printed on his chest.

He gazed up and down the hall, either looking for support or making sure no one caught him talking to her. “The mayor gave this to me. It’s Uncle Flynn’s winery logo.”

Of course it was. Everyone in Harmony Valley was embracing the winery and its attempts to revitalize the town. But hello, people, should her son be wearing a shirt advertising alcohol?

It doesn’t say Harmony Valley Vineyards, said the voice of reason.

It promotes underage drinking, said the fearful side of her, the one that had been riding shotgun on her shoulder since rehab.

“It’s just a shirt,” Kathy said defensively, bringing her internal argument into the open.

Truman gave her the my-mom-has-lost-it look. He lost his patience and raised his voice. “Abby. Come here. Now.”

Abby jumped from Kathy’s lap and trotted to Truman, circling him and nudging him inside the bedroom. Her herding instincts were to unite, not divide.

“I don’t have time for games,” Truman grumbled, making his escape. “It’s time for lessons.”

Kathy listened to their footsteps move into the kitchen, made immobile by the fact that that was the most successful interaction she’d had with Truman since she’d come home a few weeks ago.

Grandpa Ed used to say, “First the battle, then the war.”

She stood and did a battle victory dance.

“Smooth moves.” Flynn stood in the doorway with that older-brother grin that little sisters hated. “A bit ‘Put a Ring on It’ and a bit ‘Harlem Shake.’ What are we celebrating?”

“Shh.” Kathy yanked him inside and closed the door. “Truman talked to me.”

They high-fived.

“How’re you feeling today, Kathy?” His grin faded. His gaze took inventory.

“Stop. You aren’t my sponsor.” She widened her eyes and breathed on him. “I’m sober.” No bloodshot eyes. No fire-starting breath.

“You’d tell me if you were tempted, right?” He asked her that every morning, but there was an urgency to his question that hadn’t been there in the weeks since she’d come home.

Had she sleepwalked to a liquor store? She thought not. “Of course I’d tell you if I was tempted.” Nope. If she was tempted, she wouldn’t tell him. Not in a thousand years. He’d try to lock her up in rehab quicker than you could say, “Reboot my computer,” and she’d lose what little ground she’d gained with Truman.

“I was thinking of hiring someone to find Mom,” Flynn said out of the blue.

There must have been a bomb blast, because Kathy couldn’t feel her limbs and it was quiet. Deathly quiet. Not even the bird alarm clock made a sound.

“I made peace with my dad.” Flynn’s voice cut through the aftershock. “Maybe it’s time we made peace with Mom. I could get her into rehab. Truman needs you to have a strong support system and...”

“Don’t you dare bring her around me or Truman.” Kathy’s lips felt numb. The words she had to say formed too slowly until she felt robbed of what little power she had left. “I mean it.”

Flynn spoke in his brother-knows-best voice. “It’s been nearly two years since I’ve heard from her. I just thought...”

“She doesn’t deserve your compassion.” She deserves to rot in hell.

* * *

THE TROUBLE WITH selling your soul to the devil was that there was a debt to be repaid. Or, in Dylan’s case, several.

He had thirty days. Thirty days to deliver the semen orders he’d sold for Phantom. Thirty days until his next mortgage and child-support payments were due. Thirty days to make progress with Kathy and the injured colt.

Dylan leaned on the porch railing at Redemption Ranch. Wisps of mist clung to the brown grass in his pastures as the first rays of daylight crested the Sonoma Mountains. Steam rose from the cup of coffee cradled in his hands. In the distance, tall, sturdy eucalyptus trees created a natural border to his property. Whoever had planted those trees had wanted a visual marker, a boundary, that said, This is mine. If Dylan couldn’t keep up with the payments, he’d have to sell off a parcel of the land to a developer. The trees would go. Cookie-cutter houses would fill the pasture. Noise would invade his borders.