In the Rancher's Arms
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Trish Milburn
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Chapter One
Having a place feel both foreign and familiar wasn’t a new sensation for Arden Wilkes. She’d experienced those conflicting impressions all over the world, arriving in new locales and feeling immediately at home. Not once, however, had she been swamped with those feelings about her actual home.
Until now.
She watched out the window of her mom’s car as the familiar sights of Blue Falls, Texas, flowed by. Though she’d been here only four months ago to visit her parents for Christmas, that seemed a lifetime ago. She’d had no clue the trauma and fear she would endure in the months ahead.
Arden closed her eyes, hoping to keep the memories at bay, but that only made them more vivid. So she opened her eyes again, watching as they passed the sheriff’s department, the bank, La Cantina Mexican Restaurant, the hardware store that felt like a slice of an earlier era. Her mouth watered as she glanced to the other side of the street and noticed a steady stream of people going in and out of the Mehlerhaus Bakery for pastries and morning coffee. How many times had she fantasized about a huge bear claw and rich, dark coffee in the past several weeks?
Her flight into San Antonio had been the first one to land that morning, putting them in Blue Falls when the downtown area was busy with the opening of stores and ranchers coming to town to do business before spending the rest of the day out working beneath the endless sky. She would have preferred arriving under the protective cover of darkness, when no one would see her and she wouldn’t have to see the seemingly endless yellow ribbons tied everywhere and parade of Welcome Home, Arden signs.
She appreciated the residents’ kind sentiments, really she did, but every ribbon, every sign reminded her of those endless weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds of captivity. Memories she just wanted to forget.
“I need to stop for gas, sweetie,” her mom said beside her, squeezing Arden’s hand that she’d barely let go since they’d gotten in the car.
“Okay.” Arden needed to stop anyway, even though they were only a few miles from her parents’ house. After weeks of not having enough to drink, she couldn’t seem to quench her thirst. And all the water, coffee and bucket-size sodas had a way of sending her to the bathroom on an annoyingly regular basis.
But when her mom pulled up to the convenience store’s gas pumps, Arden hesitated. As irrational as it was, stepping outside the confines of the car scared her. She made herself take a slow, deep breath. No one was out there waiting to grab her, to drag her away to an uncertain fate.
As she stepped out of the car, the fresh air bolstered her. Despite the fact that her entire career was built on finding the right words to describe people, places and events, she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what made the air smell like home. It just did. Maybe it was simply the air had a different personality in Texas, blowing in across the vast expanse of the western part of the state and finding its way through the hills and valleys of the Hill Country. Whatever it was, it helped settle her nerves. Gone were the scents of cooking fires and the sweat of not only her captors but also the other captives.
Stop thinking about it.
With another deep, fortifying breath, Arden headed inside and made a beeline straight for the restroom without making eye contact with anyone else in the store. They would no doubt have questions for her, kind words and hugs and all the things she wasn’t ready to face yet. She needed time to shed the Arden she’d become during the past weeks and find the Arden she’d been before—if that was even possible. Sometimes the fear that it wasn’t possible nearly sent her into full-blown panic attacks—something she’d never experienced prior to being abducted.
After she was finished, she walked out into the main part of the store and set her gaze and path toward the exit.
“Oh, sweetheart, I thought that was you.”
Arden jerked her head to her right just as an older woman, Franny Stokes, came up to her and pressed Arden’s hand between her cool, wrinkled ones. Arden flinched at the contact but Franny didn’t seem to notice.
“We’re all so glad that you’re home safely.” Franny gave her a sympathetic look. “What you must have been through, I can’t imagine.”
Arden knew Franny meant well, but the sound of her voice faded. All Arden could focus on was how to extricate herself from the other woman and flee to her mother’s car. Her pulse began to race, and it became harder to breathe. She detected movement to her left a moment before she heard a deep voice.
“Mrs. Stokes, how are you?” the man asked Franny, inserting himself into the conversation and positioning himself so that Franny had to let go of Arden’s hand. “Mom says you’ve been a bit under the weather.”
The man glanced at Arden, long enough for her to see him nod slightly toward the door, giving her the opportunity to make her escape. A wave of gratitude welled up inside her at the same time she realized who he was—Neil Hartley, older brother of Sloane Hartley, who’d been in Arden’s graduating class.
She gave him what she hoped was a thankful expression and made for the door. She’d taken only a couple of steps when a loud crash made her scream in the same moment arrows of fear seemed to pierce every part of her. She ducked and covered her head.
* * *
EVERYTHING HAPPENED AT ONCE. A few feet behind Franny Stokes, a woman Neil didn’t recognize dropped a full coffeepot, sending hot liquid and shards of glass in all directions. In front of him, Franny yelped and pressed her hand to her chest in surprise. But it was the sound that came from Arden Wilkes, combined with her duck-and-cover reaction that spurred him to action.
Two quick strides and he was beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay.”
She jerked at his touch but then seemed to realize who he was, that he meant her no harm. He didn’t have to look around the store to realize every person in there was staring at the two of them.
“Let’s go outside,” he said, and steered her toward the door.
The way she was shaking damn near broke his heart. He didn’t really know Arden well, her being a couple of years younger than him, but she and Sloane had been on friendly terms in high school. And everyone in town knew what had happened to her, captured by human traffickers somewhere in Africa. It was near impossible not to know with the front-page articles in the local paper, some national news coverage and the parade of yellow ribbons down Main Street. The journalist had become the story. When word had come that she’d been rescued, it was as if the very town of Blue Falls had exhaled in relief.
As they passed through the doorway, he looked up and made eye contact with Mrs. Wilkes. Her eyes went huge and she hurried toward them.
“What happened?” Her hands went instinctively to Arden, checking her for physical injury.
Arden straightened. “I’m fine.”
Her voice didn’t sound fine, though she was obviously making a valiant effort. He wasn’t sure if that was for her mother’s sake, his or her own. Maybe all three. Now that the initial panic was subsiding, he’d guess she was embarrassed.
“Someone dropped a coffeepot and scared the living daylights out of everyone in the building,” he said.
Arden looked up at him, and though their gazes held for only a moment he was able to see first confusion and then a hint of gratitude. He smiled, but she didn’t smile back. He didn’t blame her. Sometimes you couldn’t make yourself smile no matter how much you might want to. Sometimes you simply forgot how.
“Come on, sweetie,” Mrs. Wilkes said, motioning toward her car. “Let’s go home.”
Arden preceded her mom, moving quickly, seeming to want to be anywhere but standing in front of the gas station. Mrs. Wilkes glanced at him, mouthed a silent “Thank you,” and hurried to the car. She looked almost as shaken as her daughter. The weeks since they’d received word of Arden’s abduction had no doubt been hard on the Wilkeses. Arden’s father had even suffered a heart attack.
He shook his head as he watched their car head down the street, not wanting to think about what Arden may have endured at the hands of her captors. She was home now, and hopefully she’d find a way to move beyond it and heal. He knew from experience that people were resilient, that they could get past a lot of bad stuff. It just took time and support.
Stepping away from memories of the past and toward the present, where he had work to do, he strode toward his truck, slipped into the driver’s seat and pointed his pickup toward home.
When he pulled into the ranch, his memory traveled back in time to when he’d first seen the place. To a scared five-year-old, it had seemed impossibly huge. He’d been one part frightened and one part mesmerized. The mesmerized part still hit him on occasion, twenty-seven years later. He couldn’t imagine a place feeling more like home if he’d been conceived and born here.
He parked and even before his booted feet hit the gravel, Maggie, the family’s Australian shepherd, was there to greet him, tail wagging with the kind of enthusiasm that would make more sense if he’d been gone for weeks rather than a couple of hours.
“Hey, girl,” he said as he scratched her between the ears. “You miss me?”
“Stop spoiling that dog,” Sloane said from the low limestone porch. “We all already know she loves you most.”
He smiled at his sister. “What can I say? The dog has taste.”
Sloane made a rude sound then strode toward the back of his truck. “You get everything?”
“No, I just went to town and shot the bull with the morning crowd at the Primrose.”
“Well, I hope you all at least finally solved some of the world’s problems.”
His thoughts shifted to Arden as he saw his mom rounding the house, obviously returning from working in her garden. The world certainly did have plenty of problems, and Arden had been caught up in them.
“No, but I did see Arden Wilkes.”
The expression on Sloane’s face changed from sibling irritation to concern. “How did she seem?”
“A nervous wreck.” He relayed what had happened in the store.
“That poor girl,” his mom said, having joined them when she’d heard Arden’s name mentioned. “I hope they got the monsters who took her and they pay.”
His mother wasn’t a vindictive woman, but she believed in justice.
“The news report I saw said at least some of them were killed during the rescue,” Sloane said.
Good riddance. Anyone who bought and sold other humans, including children, didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as decent people.
“I heard some of the city leaders want to honor her at the rodeo this weekend, give her a hero’s welcome home,” his mom said.
“That doesn’t seem like a very good idea.” When his mom and Sloane gave him eerily similar questioning looks, he said, “From what I saw, she’s not ready for that.”
“Well, her mother will no doubt run interference for her,” his mom said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Molly isn’t up for it either. She and Ken have been through so much the past several weeks.” She placed her hand on Sloane’s upper arm and gave Neil a look full of motherly love. “If something like that ever happened to one of my children, I’d lose my mind.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” he said, absolutely certain of his words. “You’re the strongest woman I know. You’d probably be on the first plane to wherever we were and you’d kick butt and take names.”
His mom laughed a little. “Now there’s a mental image. Well, go on, you two, scoot. I’m sure there’s something needs doing around here.”
He helped Sloane unload the new pup tents she was going to use for one of her camps for underprivileged kids. Sloane could seem no-nonsense sometimes, was definitely opinionated, but she had a soft spot for kids, especially ones who didn’t have much positivity in their lives. If she ever met someone, got married and had kids of her own, she’d be a great mom. She took after Diane Hartley in so many ways, even though they didn’t share one speck of DNA.
“What do you think happened to Arden?” she asked when they’d finished unloading and stood cooling off in the shade of a massive live oak tree.
A vision of the terrified look in Arden’s eyes before she’d attempted to hide it formed in his mind.
“Nothing good.”
* * *
ARDEN FELT LIKE a complete and utter fool as her mom drove them toward the house. She wanted to beat her fist against the passenger side door to release some of the anger over what her captors had done to her state of mind. She was not this person, one who damn near screamed bloody murder because someone dropped a coffeepot.
“It’ll be okay, sweetie,” her mom said.
“I know.” In fact, she didn’t know, but she didn’t want to worry her mother any more than she already had. At the moment she couldn’t even look at her mom. Though she heard the sympathy and concern in her mom’s voice, Arden knew if she saw it right now she wouldn’t be able to hold back tears.
When they popped over the hill that gave Arden her first view of her parents’ home, a lump rose in her throat. How many pitch-black nights had she slept in her cage imagining she was in the safe comfort of her childhood bedroom instead? It had seemed impossibly far away, but now it sat in front of her. The modest home, the elm tree that still held her tire swing, the little pond filled with ducks and flanked by a bench where she and her dad would sit and watch the ducks together.
And then she saw him, and she had to bite her lip to keep from making a twisted sound of relief and distress. When she’d found out a couple of days ago that her father had suffered a heart attack shortly after she’d been taken, she’d been swamped with the fear that she’d never see him again. Now there he sat in one of the rockers on the porch next to his sister, Emily.
He must have seen them at the same time because he and Emily stood, and he didn’t act like a man who’d had a heart attack as he left the porch and was halfway to her mom’s parking spot before her mom even got the car put into Park.
Arden’s legs shook as she stepped from the car, and she felt her tears demanding to be set free. Despite the shaky legs, she closed the distance between herself and her father with quick strides.
“My baby girl,” he said as he pulled her into his arms.
She finally lost the battle with her tears. “I’m so sorry, Dad.” The rush of emotions came out in great, gasping sobs.
Her dad continued to hold her close the same as he’d done when she was a child and someone had hurt her feelings or she’d had a bike wreck and scraped all the skin off her knees. Even though it felt so good to be held like that, she could tell he was weaker than she remembered. She should be supporting him, not the other way around, even though she was still weak herself from the weeks of captivity.
Arden stepped back and gripped his arms. “I’m so sorry I worried you.”
“It wasn’t your fault, honey.”
It was, and she was going to do everything in her power to make sure she never did anything to cause him harm again.
“You need to sit down, rest.”
Her father waved off her concern. “If I rest any more, I’m going to go crazy. I’m fine, don’t worry.”
Not likely. In addition to being noticeably weaker, he was thinner and paler, as well. She started to insist he sit, but he smiled and gripped her hands with more of the strength with which she’d always associated him.
“I just want to look at my beautiful girl.”
“How about we go inside?” her aunt Emily said. “I bet you all are hungry.”
That was Emily from the time Arden could remember. If anyone was going through hard times of any sort, Emily was there to feed them.
Arden didn’t let go of her dad’s hand, but she allowed her aunt to give her a hug.
“We’re all so glad you’re safe,” Emily said next to her ear.
Arden offered her aunt a small smile as Emily stepped back. As her mom and Emily headed for the house, Arden turned to her dad. He reached up and wiped away the remnants of her tears then placed his hands on either side of her face and kissed her forehead.
“No more tears. You’re safe and you’re home. All is right with the world.”
That was only partially true. She knew from horrible experience that there was a lot very wrong with the world. But she couldn’t focus on that now, might not ever focus on it again. Instead, she slipped her arm around her father’s waist and accompanied him inside.
When they stepped through the door, Arden hadn’t taken two steps before she was greeted by another member of the family. Lemondrop, the family’s spoiled-rotten cat, twined himself in and around her ankles. Arden reached down and picked up the cat, running her fingers through his yellow fur.
“Hey, handsome.” She rubbed her nose against Lemondrop’s, and he began to purr loud enough to be heard in the next county.
“He tried to come with me to the airport this morning,” her mom said. “It was as if he knew where I was going.”
“Maybe he did,” her father said. “That cat is smarter than you think.”
It was a miracle Lemondrop had even lived. Arden had found him wet and emaciated on the side of the road when she was in high school. Dr. Franklin, the local vet, hadn’t held out a lot of hope for the kitten’s survival. Not one to give up, Arden had nursed little Lemondrop back to health and earned his undying devotion.
“You’d never know he was once a scrawny little kitten,” her mom said, echoing Arden’s thoughts.
Throughout the rest of the day, Arden somehow managed to make conversation with her family. They didn’t ask her anything about her captivity, though she knew they had to have a million questions. But she must be giving off an “I’m not ready to talk about it” vibe.
At one point, she curled up on the couch and dozed off with Lemondrop snuggled next to her. It was an unfortunate position for the cat when Arden jerked awake from a nightmare, sending him fleeing as if she’d turned into a fire-breathing monster.
By the time she and her parents finished eating dinner, filled alternately with light topics of conversation and tense silences, Arden was exhausted despite her nap.
“I’m going to go to bed,” she said.
“You need a good night’s sleep,” her mom said as she started to rise.
Arden held out her hand to stay her. “I’m fine. I’ll probably conk out before I hit the pillow.”
But despite being more tired than she’d ever imagined possible, she couldn’t go to sleep. Now that she was alone, her mind started spinning in circles, refusing to let her fall into oblivion. Images she’d held at bay since arriving home broke free to plague her. She shoved hard at them, forcefully replacing them with anything else she could latch on to—the time Lemondrop squared off against an opossum on the back porch, the framed copy of her first article from the high school paper, the time she’d been chased by an ostrich when it broke free of its pen at the county fair. Neil Hartley.
Her thoughts slowed and fixed on him, creating an odd calm within her. No doubt it was only a temporary reprieve from the memories that demanded space in her mind, but she’d take it even if she didn’t understand it. She didn’t really know him well. He was just the older brother of a classmate. And yet he’d known exactly what she’d needed in the convenience store that morning. She’d only made eye contact briefly, but it had been enough to realize he’d gotten even better-looking in the years that had passed. If she was the same woman she was even two months ago, she might try to get to know him better. But she wasn’t that person anymore.
She didn’t know who she was.
