Wild Horses

“Or horrified, more likely.” It was crazy how their dad still had the ability to embarrass her, even from wherever he was hiding in Mexico. How mortifying, and how totally predictable, that she and Wade were now responsible for all his stolen property. Her dad had always excelled at making huge messes and leaving them for other people to clean up. “What should we do with it all?”

“See what can be fixed, first off.” Wade pointed to the repair shop across the gravel parking lot.

“But after? Do you think we can find who used to own them?”

Her brother shrugged. “I hope so. And if we can’t, let’s just give it away.”

“Unbelievable.” Nora sighed and set the chain saw down on the gravel, yanking her own gloves from the back pocket of her jeans. When she’d agreed to help Wade get the family ranch going, she hadn’t realized there’d be more public humiliation involved.

“Do you ever think about how Dad’s doing down in Mexico?” Wade set a blower on the ground and reached for another. “Whether Arch and Blake are still with him?”

“Honestly?” Nora pulled on another chain saw, tugging it free of the pile. “I try not to think about them. I know I should... He’s my dad and they’re my brothers. But I figure they’re probably in trouble down there, too. I mean, stealing farm equipment was just a hobby. Do you really think they’d give up dealing drugs and all the other stuff they were into?”

“Probably not,” Wade grunted as he tried to heave the chipper out.

“And who knows if they’re even still alive? All it would take would be cheating the wrong guy, or infringing on someone else’s territory for them to be killed down there.” Nora glanced at her younger brother, worried that she shouldn’t have voiced her fears. Decades of protecting him made the instinct automatic. But he just looked mildly frustrated, untangling a power cord that had wrapped itself around the leg of the chipper. Sometimes she forgot he was all grown up and a veteran, as well. “So I guess that’s the long way of saying no, I don’t think about them very often. Or at least, I try not to.”

Wade got the cord off and yanked at the chipper again. “Well, that’s probably the best way to handle it, at this point.”

Nora looked away from the overwhelming mess in the truck, to where the granite peaks of the Sierras rose abruptly from the hills beyond town. “I know I sound harsh, but they weren’t exactly kind to us. Do you think of them?”

“He’s my dad,” Wade answered simply. “They’re my brothers. Of course I think of them. And I hope they’re okay. But I don’t miss them.”

Nora pondered that statement for a moment. Wade might be a decorated soldier who’d done two tours of duty in Afghanistan, but in many ways he had a gentler heart than she did. He didn’t hold the same grudges against their dad. Of course, as the youngest, he’d had Nora, three years his senior, to protect him from a lot of their father’s craziness. She turned away from the mountains. “Well, whoever owns this repair shop nowadays is going to love us,” she said. “We’ll probably pay his mortgage for the next year, getting all this stuff fixed.”

Wade glanced at her. “This is my first time coming into town.”

She understood the anxiety written on his face. She had it, too. “It’s not that bad. When I went out to get groceries, most people just stared. You know they’re dying to ask about Dad, or Arch and Blake, but they don’t know how.” Grabbing a weed whacker in each hand, she forced an upbeat note into her voice. “Come on, let’s do this.” She started toward the battered garage with Mountain Machinery Repair painted in blue above the door. A couple of tractors were parked alongside the building and a riding mower was just inside, most of its internal parts scattered around it. “Hello?” she called into the cavernous entrance. “Anyone here?”

“Hang on,” a deep voice echoed from the back of the shed. The clank of something metal made her jump—she was still shaken from her encounter with the mustangs last night. Footsteps approached, a welcome relief from the memory of the stampede.

A man’s figure emerged from the gloom and Nora could see his frame in the shadows, tall and lanky. Then he stepped into the afternoon light and she gasped, shock paralyzing her lungs for a suffocating second. She reeled backward and crashed into Wade. Her hip bumped the handle of the chain saw he carried. “Ouch!” Tears welled in her eyes, from the pain, or emotion, or both.

“Jeez, Nora, be careful!” Her brother steadied her against him and then stepped carefully to the side. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lied, clutching her throbbing hip bone and staring at the proprietor of the machine shop. Todd Williams? How was this possible? He was staring back, but not in shock. Instead, he looked wary. Probably thought she’d smack him with her weed whacker. She’d certainly dreamed of smacking him plenty of times since the day he’d dumped her.

She’d know that face under the faded John Deere cap anywhere. The high cheekbones, the green eyes, the sandy hair, the wide mouth. Her college boyfriend. The guy who’d broken her heart into a million pieces nine years ago. Pieces she’d never been able to put back together in quite the same way.

Case in point. Right now she was a mess, while Todd seemed pretty calm. After all this time, it was still easier to be the dumper than the dumped.

Todd looked at Wade. “Afternoon.”

“Afternoon,” Wade returned the greeting. “I’m Wade Hoffman. Are you the owner of this shop?”

“I am,” Todd answered. He paused for a fraction of a second then gave his name. “Todd Williams.”

Nora felt suddenly nauseous, as if some part of her had been hoping that she’d been mistaken. Though she knew that was impossible.

“Good to meet you,” Wade said. “This is my sister, Nora. We’re hoping to get some work done on a bunch of equipment.”

“Hey, Todd.” She tried to make the words sound casual but instead there was an awkward squeak in her voice. Her face felt hot.

She saw him swallow once before he answered. “Hey, Nora.” His expression was guarded, his jaw tense.

Nora forced herself to keep her gaze steady. She waited for him to say more, the silence growing awkward in its length. Finally he broke it. “Long time, no see.”

“Wait, you know him?” Wade turned to look at Nora in surprise.

“We went to college together.” Todd stepped forward with his hand out. “Good to see you again.”

It wasn’t good to see him and the last thing she wanted to do was shake his hand. But no other option came to mind, so Nora set down one of her weed whackers and held her hand out. Glancing down, she realized she was still wearing her filthy leather glove. “Hang on,” she muttered, setting down the other tool to pull off her gloves, cursing this awful situation.

She’d wondered, over the years, what it would be like if she ever saw Todd again. In her imagination she’d always been well dressed, made-up, calm and in control. She’d pictured regret in his eyes when he looked at her and finally realized what he’d given up.

In reality, she must look pathetic. Sweaty, streaked in grease, staggering into her brother, in possession of stolen property. There certainly wasn’t any regret to be seen in Todd’s expression. Just discomfort while he waited with his hand out, and she wrestled with her glove, which was inexplicably stuck on her knuckles.

Finally her hand was free and he took it in his own. She should have left the glove on, because the touch of his skin brought it all back in an instant—how much she’d loved holding hands with him, how right it had felt to be linked together like that. All the years between them evaporated in his warm grip. Then his hand was gone and she was back in the present, standing in a machine shop with a stolen weed whacker on either side of her.

“What are you doing here?” She tried to sound as if she barely cared what his answer would be, but her words came out too abruptly. Wade glanced her way and she saw one of his eyebrows go up. For an instance she regretted how close she was with her brother. Nothing about this bizarre situation would get by him.

“Working.” He stated the obvious and left her feeling stupid.

“In Benson?” His presence here made no sense. It was as if she’d found a tropical plant growing out among all the high desert scrub.

“I came out here to do some environmental work a few years ago. I fell in love with the area. The work dried up, but I stayed.”

“I never knew you could fix things.” She should stop interrogating him, but how? She had so many questions.

He looked down for a minute, finally seeming as uncomfortable as she was. “Well, I learned an awful lot about how machines work in my...” He seemed to search for his words. “In my environmental career.”

“Huh.” Brilliant comeback, Nora. She tried to think of what to say next, but her mind lit on random details instead. The slight curl in his hair where it lay against his neck. The unique green-gold color of his eyes.

In college she’d loved the feeling that she could lose herself in those eyes like she might lose herself in a forest, walking from patches of dark green to sunlight. But then he’d left. And she’d still been lost. It had taken years to find herself again.

He broke the awkward silence. “So is this where you grew up?”

She listened, in between his stumbling words, for the regret she’d always wished he’d feel. Then she caught herself and stopped. Whatever he was feeling didn’t matter. They were ancient history and she needed to pull herself together.

But it was unfathomable. Todd Williams was a machine repair guy in Benson? The information ricocheted around her brain, disorienting her. “Yes. I...” She glanced at Wade, “I mean, we grew up on a ranch just outside town. Marker Ranch. It’s been empty for years. Wade is fixing it up again. I’m just helping him out for a while.”

“So you don’t live here. I mean, permanently.”

He seemed relieved. That stung. Nora willed a carefree note into her voice. “Nope. My work usually keeps me moving every few months.”

“Great.” Todd shifted uncomfortably and looked out into the parking lot, probably hoping some other customer would show up and rescue him.

There was another pause, and then Wade came to their rescue. “So where do you live—in town?”

“Actually I’ve got some land south of town.” Todd smiled and the enthusiasm in his expression made something inside Nora’s heart hurt. “I love it out there. I spend a lot of time working with horses, hiking, fishing and snowboarding come winter.”

“This area’s amazing for all of that. Do you fish?”

“Hell, yeah!”

Nora listened in disbelief as her brother and her ex started talking about the various local streams, the best trout and the best flies to catch them at this time of year. It all seemed so surreal that Nora stealthily reached down and pinched herself on her leg. It hurt, so, yes, this was really happening.

She stole a glance at Todd. He seemed taller, though that was hardly possible. Maybe it was the bulk on his frame now. He’d been slim in college, and he still didn’t seem to have an ounce of fat on him, but his thighs and arms were thick with muscle, his chest broad and his shoulders square. His face was different, as well. New lines were etched where there had previously been none. Smile lines crinkled around his eyes, and a faint furrow formed between his brows.

He’d worn his hair long in college, almost shoulder length. Now it was cropped pretty short, though still visibly shaggy and sun-bleached an inch or two below his ball cap in the back. It was eerie to see the ghost of the boy she’d known so well underneath the man—the stranger—he was now.

He glanced her way and caught her staring. So what? She had the right to stare after all these years. The last time she’d seen him, he’d dropped by her house on the way to the airport, his backpack slung over his shoulder, bulging with the supplies he was taking to the Amazon. He’d been off to save the rain forest, excited for his trip. She’d been miserable, so sad to say goodbye.

And now here he was. Laughing and ingratiating himself with her brother. Of course this moment was a lot easier for him. He’d headed off to Brazil happy. His heart hadn’t been blown to bits by their breakup. It was rude to interrupt but she did so anyway. “I don’t get it. Why here? Why Benson? Why my hometown?”

His voice was calm and rational, and she remembered how he’d always been like this. Easygoing to a point where it seemed as though nothing ever really touched him. Including her. “I didn’t know it was your hometown, Nora. You never told me where you lived—not exactly.”

She turned away, toward the parking lot, hoping she looked bored, not as if she was blinking back the tears that prickled unexpectedly.

But he sensed her emotion. He always had. His low voice gentled. “Anyway, you’d always told me you’d never go back home again.”

That was supposed to make her feel better?

Wade was glancing from Nora to Todd and back again. “Just to clarify...you guys dated?”

“Yes.” Todd let out a heavy sigh, as if the thought pained him. “For three years.”

“Right.” Wade glanced at Nora, one raised eyebrow signifying a whole lot of questions she’d have to answer later. Then he turned back to Todd. “Well, we’re hoping you could take a look at all these tools. If they can be repaired fairly cheaply, we’d like to do it. Otherwise, maybe you can point us to the nearest junkyard.”

Todd smiled. He was probably thrilled to get back to business and avoid further conversation with his crazy ex-girlfriend.

She didn’t blame him. She must look a little wild right now. Between getting run over by wild horses last night and meeting Todd today, Nora was starting to feel like coming home to Benson had been an even worse idea than she’d feared.

“Why don’t we get your truck unloaded and I’ll take a look,” Todd said. The two men started toward the pickup, but Nora stayed where she was, studying the interior of the shop as if it mattered, trying to slow her pulse and gather her thoughts. The oily smell was actually kind of soothing. The smell of everyday reality. She breathed it in, hoping it would restore her sanity.

She heard Wade and Todd returning. Wade was saying something about trying to remove some rust. She forced herself to join them as they headed back to the truck again, trailing a few steps behind, so she wouldn’t have to join their conversation. After a few miserable trips, they set the last of the tools down on the ground.

“Nice to meet you, Todd.” Wade shook her ex-boyfriend’s hand. “Come on by the ranch if you want to go fishing sometime.” He turned to Nora. “You want to stay and talk with Todd for a bit? I can do a couple errands and then come back.”

“I’m ready to go now,” she said quickly. No way did she want to be left alone with Todd.

“Nora, could you stay a minute?” Todd fixed his green gaze on her, and she silently, sternly, forbade her knees from weakening. “It’s been years. It would be great to catch up.”

Catch up? As if they were old buddies who could just have a chat, share their latest news and then go on their way? As if there hadn’t been emotions between them deeper than anything she’d ever known before?

“Wade and I have a lot of chores to do, so we should probably get going.” It wasn’t a lie; their to-do list was easily several feet long and the day was nearly over.

“Tonight,” Todd said. “Can we meet for a drink?”

Nora glanced at Wade for some kind of rescue, but her brother just shrugged his shoulders in a singularly unhelpful way.

“Sure.” She sighed. So many years of thinking about Todd made it impossible to say no. She was still so full of questions. “I’ll meet you at the Dusty Saddle. At eight.”

The Dusty Saddle was a dive bar on the edge of town. Not a place anyone would want to linger and a good way to keep their drink short. Which was perfect because seeing Todd again was wreaking havoc in her heart. Hell, the way she was feeling right now, she could down a beer in about thirty seconds flat. She’d fit right in at the Saddle.

“Sounds fine.” Todd smiled and she recognized the faint curl to his lips when he did. She used to tease him that he smiled as if he was in on some private joke. He’d always answered that it wasn’t a joke—he was just smug because he knew he’d gotten the best girl. She wondered how he explained it nowadays.

“Okay,” she mumbled. “See you then.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” Todd leaned down and grabbed a couple of their dilapidated chain saws. He held them as if they weighed nothing. “See you around, Wade. I’ll give you a call with an estimate. And I’d like to take you up on that fishing invite soon.” He turned and started toward the back of the shop.

Nora watched him walk into the shadowy interior, trying to ignore the way his worn jeans fit him perfectly, and the slight swagger in his stride that she didn’t remember from when she’d known him before. It took effort to turn away, but she followed Wade to the truck, her brain tumbling like a clothes dryer, each random thought twisting and turning as it cycled around. And then one image came to the surface, clearly separate from the emotional tangle. The image of Todd, walking away just now. It wasn’t a swagger that she’d seen. His footsteps were uneven. Todd walked with a limp.

And then she knew, with a thud in her stomach, why the voice of the masked man had sounded so familiar. It had been Todd’s voice in the dark last night. It was Todd who’d chased her and grabbed her arm and thrown her phone. Todd Williams was the masked man who’d freed the wild horses.

CHAPTER THREE

NORA LEANED OUT of the truck window, staring at the blue-gray blur of sagebrush rushing by, letting the hot afternoon breeze snap her hair in every direction. It was a good thing Wade was at the wheel, because her hands were shaking and her stomach heaved.

Anger was bubbling inside her like lava, flowing over her initial surprise and leaving sharp edges and disjointed thoughts in its wake. Todd had freed the horses. He was the idiot who’d terrified her in the dark. He’d almost gotten her killed. He lived here, in Benson. Her mind jumped between topics, between their past and the present, as she tried to make some kind of sense of what she’d learned.

Wade stopped the truck in front of their shabby ranch house. Nora stared at the peeling paint and sagging porch, seeing it with new eyes. Todd’s eyes. She’d always hid her impoverished, messed-up past from him. But soon he would know. Moving back here and facing that past had been hard. It would be harder with Todd Williams in town to witness her struggles.

A shutter banged in the late-afternoon breeze. The amount of work the house needed was overwhelming. And when you combined that with what the ranch required, it was mind-boggling. Luckily Wade was fearless. Nora wasn’t sure she’d ever take on a project as large as revitalizing this ranch on her own. But the impossible nature of it seemed to spur Wade on and give him a focus as he got used to life outside the army, life away from war. And for that she was grateful. So grateful she’d offered to help him out. To move back to the childhood home she’d vowed to never set foot in again.

Now she wished that she’d let him return home on his own. That she’d just offered financial support—a check in the mail from someplace far away from Todd.

She realized, suddenly, that Wade hadn’t moved, either. They were sitting in the truck in silence—except for the noise of Wade’s fingers tapping restlessly on the steering wheel.

“You’re angry.” She stared at him in surprise. Wade rarely got angry with her. Or anyone.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Her brother looked straight ahead, not at her.

“Why?”

“Because you never told me about him.” He turned to face her then, his dark brown eyes narrowed in frustration. “He dumped you, didn’t he? Right after college. Right before you took me with you to Nevada.”

“So?” She didn’t want to talk about that time. Didn’t want to remember how lost she’d felt. “It was none of your concern.”

“Yes, it was. I’m your brother. We lived together. You think I didn’t notice how sad you were? That I didn’t wonder why you got up every morning with red eyes?”

“You could have asked.” She sounded like the sullen teenager that he’d been back then. But she was ashamed at the memories—at the way she’d totally fallen apart.

“I did ask, Nora! You told me you had allergies, but I never bought that. You wouldn’t choose to be a plant biologist if you had hay fever. I never could figure out what was wrong.”

Nora smiled faintly at his logical conclusion. “I didn’t know you were worried.”

“I heard you crying. A lot. I thought maybe it was all the stuff that was happening with Dad. Or having to take care of me.”

She turned in her seat to face him then, and touched his shoulder gently. “I never minded taking care of you.”

“I just worried that...well...” He glanced away for a moment. “I was a brat.”

“You were a teenager, and I took you away from your hometown, so of course you acted out. But you were my brat, you know?” She reached over and ruffled his short hair. “You were my family.”

He glared at her, refusing to be teased out of his frustration. “Then, you should have told me what was really going on.”

He was probably right. But she didn’t want to admit it. “I guess I figured my little brother didn’t need to know the details of my love life.”

“A three-year relationship is more than a detail, Nora. And it might have explained a lot. About how you were.”

She didn’t want to talk about those dark days. “I was fine.” She glared at Wade, daring him to challenge her lie.

Her brother just shook his head.

“Okay, I wasn’t fine,” she admitted. “But I was embarrassed that I was such a mess. Plus, I didn’t think you’d care that your boring older sister got dumped.”

“I did care. I still do.” Wade glanced at her, then away again. “I’ve noticed that you never go out with anyone for long. Is Todd the reason for that?”

“No!” He’d put into words what worried her, but accepting that, saying it out loud, would make it real. She refused to be that pathetic. “I guess I never told you about Todd because I wanted to keep him separate from the rest of my life, you know? Because of Dad and Arch and Blake.”

Wade was silent for a moment, fingers drumming again. “So you fell in love with pretty boy there, but never told him where you were from or what you’d been through. Or about how you were taking care of me?”

“Trust me, he’s not pretty. Not to me, at least, not anymore.” Saying it out loud was the first step to believing it. “But yes, I fell in love. And I never told him anything about our family.”

“I don’t know much about relationships, sis, but I know that’s not a very good foundation for one.” Wade shook his head and looked at her with dismay.

He was right. She’d been ridiculously private. Love couldn’t thrive with so many secrets. “I didn’t want him to see me the way everyone else always had, as poor Nora Hoffman from the crazy family. College was a chance to just be me, without all that baggage.”

“I guess it makes sense, in a twisted kind of way.” He gave her that dismayed look again. “And you broke up because...”

“After college he wanted to work in the Amazon rain forest. To stop the deforestation.”

“Why didn’t you go with him? It sounds like something that would’ve been right up your alley.”

She remembered how much she’d wanted to. How her sorrow over losing Todd had been mixed with jealousy and regret and resentment. “I didn’t go because of money. Those jobs pay nothing. The only reason Todd could go was because his family is rich and he didn’t need to work. He could afford a job like that. I couldn’t. I needed to be practical.”

“And support me.” He looked grim. “Your baggage.”

“No!” She smacked him then, lightly, on the shoulder. Like she used to when they were kids. “You weren’t the reason I didn’t go, Wade. I couldn’t have survived on the tiny stipend they were offering. No one could. Plus, I had that great fellowship at the University of Nevada for my graduate work. It made sense to accept it, and I was happy to take you with me. You needed to get out of Benson.”