The Rancher's Lullaby. Leigh Duncan
On the other side of counter, Clyde’s color deepened to crimson. The man studied his toes. “Four months, according to Jessie’s Facebook page.”
Lisa’s stomach churned, and she swallowed bile. Her attorney had warned her away from social media until the divorce was final. Apparently Brad and Jessie hadn’t received the same message. She clutched the display case, her fingers leaving damp, sweaty prints on the glass. “Pregnant,” she whispered.
“Unexplained infertility” was the best diagnosis the doctors could offer her to explain five long years of trying, and failing, to get pregnant. When they suggested stress might be the culprit, she’d come off the road, spent a year writing songs and living a quiet life, but that hadn’t worked any better than the vile herbal tonics her sister, the health nut, had suggested. IVF had been her last hope. They’d tried one round. But in reality she was the only one trying by that point. Brad had given up months earlier, complaining that no child was worth the hell the hormones put her body through. Or the outrageous expense, though he hadn’t contributed one dime toward the cost. Tens of thousands of dollars later, all she’d had to show for her efforts were a busted marriage and a bucket of tears. Through it all, she’d clung to the faint hope that her body wasn’t to blame. That some day, some way, she’d be able to conceive.
But Jessie’s pregnancy changed things. It proved Brad wasn’t the one with the problem. And that—well, that left only her. She had to face the fact that she was barren. She’d never conceive, never give birth, never hold a baby of her own in her arms.
Sucker-punched by the news, Lisa doubled over. Every cubic inch of air seeped out of her. Slowly she sank onto the chair behind the counter. The room spun. She lowered her head to her knees.
“Lisa? Lisa? Are you all right?” Clyde asked. “I know the end of a marriage is never easy, but it’s what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it?”
Not exactly. She waved a hand at him. “Give me a minute,” she whispered, blinking. The dam had burst, but she’d spent her whole life performing. She’d learned early on to hide emotional turmoil behind a stage presence. She rose on unsteady feet. “You have the paperwork?”
“You sure you feel up to this?” Concern showed in Clyde’s beefy face.
“Nothing’s changed, right? This is the agreement we already worked out?”
“Exactly the same.” He pulled an official-looking document from his briefcase. Lisa grabbed a pen from the cup beside the cash register. She scrawled her name in the blank marked with a red sticker and initialed all the places Clyde indicated. Sighing, she pushed the paperwork back across the glass to him.
“When do we go to court?” she asked as he carefully placed the thick stack of papers back inside a leather case. In order for the divorce to be final, she and Brad had to appear before a judge.
Clyde checked his watch. “Brad asked for a special hearing this afternoon at four.”
“Today?” Despite herself, she gasped. “I can’t go to Fort Pierce today.” Getting behind the wheel of a car while the implications of Jessie’s pregnancy were so fresh and raw—yeah, that definitely ranked in the top ten of bad ideas.
“Relax,” Clyde said. “As your legal representative, I’ll attend in your stead. Trust me. You’ll be a free woman by five o’clock this afternoon.”
Lisa swallowed. A free woman. But one who’d never, ever, have the one thing she wanted most in life. A baby.
Later, she wasn’t sure how she had managed to show Clyde out the door. She certainly didn’t remember locking it or turning the Open sign to Closed. She couldn’t recall heading up the stairs. She did, though. She even made it as far as her bed before her tears fell. As they soaked her pillow, she curled into a fetal position, cradling the stomach that would never swell with a baby, and cried.
“Easy, boy. Easy,” Garrett murmured. He scratched the soft skin under Gold’s neck, wincing at the three lines of equally spaced cuts, one for each strand of barbed wire. “He gonna be okay, doc?” Though every cattleman knew his way around a needle and thread, he’d insisted on calling the vet to tend to the horse. Picking up the tab was the least he could do to make up for his foolishness.
Jim Jacobs smoothed thick salve over the last of the sutures. “Barring infection, this should heal up within a week or so. Don’t ride him till the stitches come out.” Jim replaced the cap on the tube. “You were lucky. I’ve seen worse. How’d you say it happened again?”
“Sheer stupidity on my part.” Garrett could have lied, could have said Gold wandered off while he was fixing the solar array. Could have gotten away with it since there was no one to dispute his version of the truth. “One minute, we were cutting across the pasture. The next, I’d ridden us straight into a corner. I went flying. Gold, he hit the barbed wire.”
Garrett shoved a hank of hair off his forehead. He could have died. Should have, if the truth were told. But he’d landed safely, the fence had held, and both he and the horse had walked away relatively unscathed. He couldn’t help but smile when a twinge shot down his arm as he rolled one shoulder. He’d been granted a new lease on life. And everything—even a painful shoulder—felt better than the dark cloud he’d been under for the past year.
“I’m surprised at you. You know to treat a good horse better than that.”
Garrett hung his head. No one knew better than he did how he’d been pushing the limits, pitting himself against the world. But those days were over. In that instant while he’d been lying there, listening to the wire stretch, hearing Gold scream and knowing—knowing—death was only seconds away, he’d realized he wanted to live. That he wanted to be a father to his son. He met his friend’s eyes as Jim handed him the tube of antibiotic. “It won’t happen again.”
“No, I don’t believe it will.” Jim nodded. “Rub that cream on the cuts three times a day.” The vet gathered the last of his tools and supplies into a large tackle box. “I’d best get moving. I want to be home before the storm hits.”
A steady breeze greeted them as the two men stepped from the barn. On their way to a pickup truck that had been outfitted as a mobile veterinary clinic, Garrett intercepted a feed pail that tipped end-over-end across the yard. The air carried a scent made up of equal parts rain, rich dirt and tropical flowers. He eyed the darkening clouds before his attention shifted when he heard someone call his name.
“Garrett?” His mom cut across the yard from the back of the house.
“Best see what she wants,” Garrett said as Jim slid into the cab’s front seat.
Jim touched his hat brim. “Call me at the first sign of fever or if Gold lames up.”
“Will do.” The pail swinging, Garrett headed in Doris’s direction. “Everything all right with LJ?” he asked when he was close enough that the wind didn’t steal the words right out of his mouth.
The lines in Doris’s face formed a wreath of smiles at the first mention of her grandson. “He’s down for the night.” She sighed. “He had a big afternoon, playing with Bree and Jimmy. Man, that child can laugh.” She wiped her eyes. “He reminds me so much of you at that age.”
Garrett rubbed his chest where a hard knot of disappointment had formed. “I was hoping to spend some time with him this evening. Maybe—” he paused, not quite certain what one did with a ten-month old “—maybe read him a story. Or something.”
Doris squinted up at him, her penetrating gaze nailing him in place while Garrett shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “Oh, Garrett,” she whispered. She moved close enough to wrap her arms around his shoulders. “Welcome back, son.”
With his free hand, Garrett snugged his mom to his chest. “It damn near