The Reluctant Wrangler (14 page)

Sighing, Jules led him away from the X-ray. “She told the dispatcher that she’d stepped out to use her cell phone. There wasn’t reception in the apartment building.”

Mac gritted his teeth. This was unbelievable. “Who was she talking to on her phone? Her boyfriend?”

Jules shook her head. “She has a baby at home, and she was trying to reach the babysitter to make sure everything was okay.”

Mac felt like a heel. “Oh. So where is she now?”

“She rode here in the ambulance with Kirby. She was so upset about what happened that as soon as she gave her statement to the police, she was given a sedative. She’s in a room here, overnight.”

Nodding, Mac glanced at the door of the room where Kirby waited. If Nikki had been here, she’d— But she
wasn’t, and that was his fault. “So what are we going to do?”

“I’m going to be making some phone calls. I want assurances that Kirby will be going home with us.”

“He won’t be going back to his father?”

“It’s highly unlikely,” she answered. “And maybe you can help. If you can get Kirby to tell you the truth about how his arm was broken—and like you, I believe it was his father who did it, just the way the doctor showed you—then he’ll never be allowed to see Kirby again.”

Mac thought long and hard about how he might be able to get Kirby to tell him. He wasn’t nearly as good at these things as Nikki was, but he was more than willing to give it a try, especially if it meant Kirby would be taken from the brute who’d hurt him.

“All right,” he told her. “I’ll do what I can.”

“And I’ll do what I can on the legal end of it.”

When he stepped into the examining room, Mac found Tanner telling Kirby about how he’d won his gold belt buckle at National Finals Rodeo a few years before. Kirby was enthralled, but when he looked up at Mac, he beamed.

“Did you talk to Nikki?” he asked as Tanner left the room.

The weight in the pit of Mac’s stomach only got heavier. “Not yet, champ.” He still wasn’t ready to forgive Nikki and wasn’t sure he ever would, but he wished she was the one handling this, not him.

Kirby’s smile had dimmed. “Can we go home now?”

Mac walked to where the boy sat and put his arm around him. “Not quite yet. We’re waiting to find out what we have to do next.”

And Mac didn’t have a clue how to get him to tell
the truth about how his arm had been broken. And then he remembered that he’d built a little trust with Kirby over Nikki’s missing ring. He could do this if he tried. He’d find out what happened, and Kirby would be able to go home with him. He just didn’t want to think about what Kirby would do when he discovered Nikki wasn’t there.

Grabbing a chair, he turned it around and placed it in front of Kirby, then straddled it so he could look up at the boy, not tower over him. “Kirby,” he said. “I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“I need you to be honest with me.” Instead of answering, Kirby blinked. Mac tried to think of how Nikki would handle it. “You trust me, don’t you, Kirby?” he asked.

Kirby nodded. “I trust you and Nikki and Jules and Tanner and Shawn and Shamar and Leon and—”

“Good, good,” Mac said before Kirby could list the rest of the boys. “And you know that we all care about you very much. We love you.”

“Even Shamar and Leon and—”

“Even them. Not that they’ll tell you in so many words, but remember how Shamar helped you with your saddle?”

Kirby nodded. “I didn’t even have to ask him—he just did it.”

“Right.” Mac tried to choose his words carefully. “And now you can help us. Will you do that?”

“I guess.”

Mac hoped it would be more than a halfhearted attempt by Kirby. They needed to know the truth. “I want you to be honest with me, okay?” Kirby nodded, but it definitely wasn’t with vigor. “When you told the hospital
people that you hurt your arm when you fell off the bed, was that the truth?”

Kirby lowered his head and said nothing for several seconds.

“We need to know if something else happened,” Mac told him. “Do you understand?”

Nodding, Kirby lifted his head. His dark eyes were filled with fear and sadness, but he nodded. “It was him.”

“Him?” Mac didn’t want to put words in the boy’s mouth. Kirby needed to say it. “My dad.”

Relief washed through Mac, but it wasn’t over. “How did he do it, Kirby?”

“He— He was mad ’cause I said I was hungry.”

Mac cringed, but said nothing. Hadn’t Nikki already gone over this? Was there never food available for him in his own home?

“He always gets mad when I say that,” Kirby continued, “and he grabbed my arm and jerked me up in the air. It hurt. Bad. I guess that’s when my arm broke.”

Mac couldn’t speak, but he knew he had to assure Kirby that telling him was the right thing to do. “I’m sorry that happened, buddy,” he said, reaching up to cup his face in his hand. But Kirby jerked away, as if Mac was going to hit him. “Whoa! It’s okay, Kirby. I’ll never hit you.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” Mac answered. “But I need to ask you two more questions, okay?” When Kirby nodded, Mac went on. “Can you tell the people who need to know so they can help you? Can you tell them what really happened, how you broke your arm?”

The boy seemed to consider it. “As long as he won’t hurt me for telling.”

“He won’t hurt you again, Kirby, I promise.” Not when Kirby was willing to tell the people who could help. But he still wasn’t finished. “That scar on your face. Did your dad do that, too?”

Without hesitation, Kirby nodded.

“Why didn’t you tell Nikki and me that when she asked?”

Kirby shrugged. “Because I didn’t know how, and he said if I told anybody, he’d hurt me again.”

That was all Mac needed to hear. He stood. “I need to let Jules know what you’ve told me. Is that okay?”

Nodding, Kirby still looked a little wary. “Can we go home now?”

“Let me check with Jules and the doctor. Will you be okay in here by yourself?”

“As long as you come back soon.”

Mac smiled, but his heart ached for the boy. “I will.”

He stepped out of the room and searched for Jules. Finding her as she was finishing a call, he approached her. “Kirby is ready to tell what happened. And he wants to know when he can go home with us.”

Jules still maintained the cool assuredness of an attorney. “He can come with us. It’s temporary, but I’m working on that. The doctor said the swelling in Kirby’s arm needs to go down before they cast it. Thank goodness he doesn’t think it needs surgery! He said we could take Kirby home if we’re very careful. They’ll put on a half-cast splint and wrap it. He won’t need to come back here to the hospital. In a couple of days Paige can put a real cast on the arm.”

“That’s good,” Mac said. “I need to let him know.”

Back in the room, he gave Kirby the good news. Although the boy seemed to be happy, his smile wasn’t as bright as Mac thought it might be.

“What is it, Kirby?” he asked, pulling him close, but being careful of the arm.

One fat tear rolled over the scar on Kirby’s cheek. “I want Nikki.”

Mac thought his heart was breaking. “I know you do.”

Kirby looked up at him. “If my dad isn’t going to be my dad anymore, can you and Nikki be my mom and dad?”

Mac didn’t have an answer. So much had happened in the past twenty-four hours, he didn’t know how he felt anymore. And he didn’t know when he would. For now he was numb.

“Where are you going, Nioka?”

Nikki let go of the door and turned to look at her grandmother. “To the school to talk to Charlie Brightwater. I’m hoping he’ll give me back my old job.”

Ayita Rains nodded. “But why there? Why not with Youth Services? You enjoyed helping the children there.”

Nikki had considered it over the past week since she’d left the ranch. She missed the boys. She missed everyone. But it was time to put it all behind her. Working at Youth Services would only be a reminder of the boys. “Because I’d rather return to Sequoyah Schools.”

Her grandmother sighed. “Come. Sit by me.”

After having avoided anything more than a quick chat with her grandmother since arriving, Nikki knew there were questions to be answered. She’d told her grandmother very little, thinking it would be better. “Can we do this later?” she asked. “I don’t want to be late.”

“Charlie will wait. He’s younger than I am.”

Nikki couldn’t stop her smile. While it was true her grandmother was nearing ninety, she was still as sharp as she’d been when Nikki was a child. That might not be such a good thing, Nikki thought as she moved to sit
on the floor near her grandmother’s chair, the spot she’d always taken when she was a young girl.

Ayita smoothed Nikki’s hair with a gentle hand. “You haven’t told me why you returned. Now would be a good time, I think.”

Shrugging, Nikki took a deep breath. “It didn’t work. I never should have gone there.”

“Then you never would have met your brother.”

“But it was just like Mom told me.” She looked up to see her grandmother watching her closely, her eyes bright and knowing, and she had to look away, aware that tears would come when she spoke about what had happened. “They don’t want me there. I deceived them. I should have told them from the beginning who I was.”

“You would have been given the job if you’d done that?”

Nikki shook her head. “No.”

“And you loved the job. You loved the boys you looked after.”

Her throat thick with emotion, Nikki could only nod.

“People’s hearts can change.”

Not this time.
“It doesn’t matter,” Nikki said, hoping saying it would make it true. She tipped her head up to look at her grandmother. “I don’t want to be far from you.”

“And my wish is for you to be happy.”

“I will be, I promise.” Nikki started to stand, but her grandmother’s hand on her shoulder stilled her.

“Tell me what he’s like.”

“He looks like I expected,” Nikki answered. “Tall, dark and handsome. And oddly, he has blue eyes. I guess the O’Brien recessive gene came through.”

“One blue, two brown,” her grandmother replied.

Nikki looked up at her. “How do you know?”

“I saw the boys when they were small. I remember Tucker’s eyes. Tanner’s, too. But I want to know what Tanner is like, not how he looks.”

“He’s very kind. The boys’ ranch belongs to his wife, and he supports her in every way. Her name is Jules. And apparently Tanner raised Tucker’s son, but I never learned the whole story.”

“I have a great-grandson?” Ayita asked, her eyes glowing with joy.

“Two,” Nikki replied. “Tanner and Jules have a two-year-old boy named Wyoming. Tucker’s boy’s name is Shawn. He’s almost eighteen and very nice. You’d be proud of him, Grandmother. He has a good heart.”

Ayita nodded. “Maybe someday I will know them all. What about the other?”

“Tucker? I never heard them speak of him.”

“No. The one who holds your heart.”

Nikki froze. She hadn’t mentioned Mac or anyone else. How could Grandmother know? “There is no other,” she managed to say.

Ayita nodded. “That’s what you say, but it’s what you don’t speak that I hear.”

Nikki couldn’t answer. Would her grandmother not allow her to let the past go? It was the only way to ease the pain she felt. She
had
been wrong not to tell them from the beginning. But there was little she could do about it now, except try to forget and move on with her life. Someday it wouldn’t hurt so much.

“Nioka?”

Swallowing the tears she knew would soon spill, Nikki answered. “He’ll never forgive me for deceiving Tanner and Jules. Or him.”

M
AC LEANED ACROSS
Shawn for a better view of Jules, who stood at the door of the white clapboard house that looked as old as the city of Tahlequah itself. Tanner sat quietly ahead of them in the driver’s seat of the crew cab pickup.

“I remember this house,” he said. “The yard is as neat and pretty as it was when I was a boy. I must have been five or six at the time.”

“Sometimes the really good things never change,” Mac replied, wishing he could turn back time. Not far, though. Two weeks would do it. Even one.

He’d spent the past week trying to come to terms with what had happened. Jules had told him several times that good people sometimes weren’t able to be honest about something for a reason. It might not be right, but they were protecting themselves or someone else. Nikki had done that. After talking at length on the phone with his parents, Mac had realized they’d been protecting him. He understood now that Douglas MacGregor would always be his father, whether MacGregor blood ran in his veins or not.

Thinking of how much he’d learned over the past few days and hoping this visit would go well, he watched as Jules turned around, and he held his breath. She lifted her arm and… “Wait! Is Jules waving to us?”

“She is!” Shawn shouted, and was out the door and up the walk before anyone could answer.

“You go on, Tanner,” Mac said. “I’ll be along later.”

Tanner reached for the handle and opened the door. “No. We all go together.”

“But maybe family—”

“We’re all family at the Rocking O. Remember?”

“Right.”

As Tanner and Mac were getting out, Shawn returned. “She said to tell you that we need to park in the driveway of the house next door.”

“Over there?” Mac asked, pointing to a row of tall bushes separating the two properties.

Shawn stepped closer. “Nikki’s gone right now, and she’s afraid that if Nikki sees the Suburban when she comes back, she’ll leave.”

Mac looked over the top of the vehicle at Tanner. “That’s not a good sign.”

Tanner nodded, his mouth turned down in a frown. “It’s worse than I’d thought it would be. It’s a good thing we brought Jules. She’s much better at handling situations than I am.”

“Better than me, too,” Mac admitted.

Shawn walked around to the driver’s side and slid onto the seat. “I’ll move it.”

Mac waited for Tanner, and they walked up the sidewalk together, joining Jules.

“Ayita,” Jules said, “this is Tanner and our friend William MacGregor. You met Shawn. He’s moving the car.”

“Welcome,” Ayita responded as they all walked past her and into the house. “My home is small, but I hope you can find someplace comfortable to sit. You’ve had a long drive.”

“Thank you for seeing us,” Tanner answered with a nervous smile. He waited until Ayita was sitting on an obviously well-loved easy chair, and then he sat on the end of the sofa closest to her. Jules sat next to him, and Mac chose the small sofa across from them.

Ayita smiled at Tanner. “You’re an older version of
the little boy I remember. You’ve done well. Nioka says the ranch is beautiful.”

“We’re very proud of it. Somehow we’ve made it through the hard times.”

“I watched your career over the many years. You have the talent of both your parents.”

“I’ve retired from rodeo,” he answered, taking his wife’s hand. “Jules and I have a son. Wyoming will be two in October. I hope he’ll get to meet you soon.”

Ayita nodded and sighed. “I would like that very much.”

When Shawn walked in the door, he hurried to sit next to Mac. “I don’t think Nikki can see it if she comes from the west.”

“She won’t be looking for anyone,” Ayita assured him, “but I thought it best not to let her know you are here. Mrs. O’Brien, there is lemonade in the kitchen. Would you mind getting everyone some?”

Jules glanced at Tanner with a smile before standing. “It’s Jules, Ayita, and I’d be happy to. Shawn, would you come help me?”

“There are glasses in the cupboard and ice in the freezer,” Ayita said as Jules and Shawn started for the kitchen. “If you hadn’t told me who you are, Shawn, I would have thought you were Tucker.”

Shawn ducked his head, obviously embarrassed. “That’s what everyone says.”

Tanner leaned forward. “Has he ever contacted you?”

Ayita shook her head, then looked up as the front door opened.

Mac’s gaze followed Ayita’s.

“Charlie said I could start on Monday,” Nikki an
nounced, tossing a set of keys to a nearby table and picking up a bundle of what appeared to be mail.

The heaviness Mac had felt in his chest eased, and his heart hammered. He’d come to terms with the reason for her deception, thanks to Jules and Kirby. She’d done the only thing she could do, considering how Tanner had felt about their mother. But Mac’s joy at seeing her was dimmed by the fear that she would turn and leave when she realized they were all there.

“We’ve missed you, little sister,” Tanner said, filling the silence in the room.

Nikki looked up, the envelopes falling from her hand. Her gaze darted around the room, finally lingering on Mac, and then on Tanner. “I…” She reached behind her for the door.

“Come sit by me, Nioka,” Ayita said, her voice quiet yet firm. “Your family has come to see you.”

Nikki hesitated, and then began to move, her steps unsteady as she walked to where her grandmother sat. Perching nervously on the arm of the chair, she glanced at her grandmother and took a deep breath before facing the others. “How did you find me?”

“Mac was convinced you’d come here,” Tanner explained, “and I remembered where Ayita lived when I was a boy.”

Nikki looked at Mac, then at Tanner. “But why are you all here?”

Jules stepped out of the kitchen, a glass in each hand. “Because we love you, Nikki, and we came to apologize.”

Nikki shook her head. “You have nothing to apologize for. It’s me who deceived everyone.”

“Only because you thought you had to,” Jules said softly as she walked into the room. She gave Ayita and
Tanner each a glass, then moved to place her hand on Nikki’s shoulder. “You took us all by surprise, that’s all. And we don’t blame you for not telling us who you are. In the same situation I would do the same.”

“Where’s Kirby?” Nikki asked as Shawn walked in and handed a glass to Mac. “I tried to call Cheryl, but she’s on vacation, and no one at OKDHS would tell me anything about him.”

“He had an accident while with his father,” Jules answered. “We’ll talk about it later, but Kirby is back at the ranch and misses you.”

Nikki jerked forward, fear written clearly on her face. “What happened?”

“A broken arm,” Jules answered with a shrug, making it seem less than it was. “But we thought the long ride might be uncomfortable for him.”

Seeing the sad smile on Nikki’s face, Mac wished he could take her in his arms and assure her that all would be well, just as long as she came back to the ranch with them. “A lot has happened since you left.”

When everyone started talking at once, Mac watched Ayita, her smile stretching wide and her eyes filling with tears. Would Nikki agree to return to the ranch, or would she choose this woman who had loved her since she was born?

“So you’ve heard nothing from Tucker?” Tanner was asking Ayita.

“He was here for a short while, two years or more after the man was here asking questions.”

“That would have been the private detective I hired to find him.”

“He was about the age of Shawn at the time,” she answered, nodding. “He needed something only Charlie Brightwater could give him, so I sent him to Charlie at
the school. He wasn’t here for long, and he told me nothing about where he had been or where he was going.”

“I wish I’d known,” Tanner said, glancing at Jules.

“He asked me not to contact you,” Ayita explained. “I argued, but it did no good, so I finally gave him my promise.” She sighed. “So many promises have been made, and everyone is sadder because of them.”

Tanner looked at Nikki, who now sat on the floor next to Ayita, her head in her grandmother’s lap. “Not so much, now that Nikki has found us.”

Nikki’s smile was tentative, and she said nothing.

Feeling anxious, Mac decided it was time. Standing, he walked to where she was sitting and held out his hand. “Nikki, would you come outside with me?”

She leaned back, only a little, but the fear in her eyes said all he needed to know.

“Go on, Nioka,” Ayita said. “The garden is blooming.”

Nodding, Nikki took his hand and he helped her stand. “This way,” she said, leading him toward the kitchen.

The garden was still beautiful, even in the last of autumn, as Nikki and Mac stepped out onto a flagstone patio at the back of the house. Instead of taking a seat on one of the many chairs filling the patio, Nikki remained standing and turned to look at him. “Why are we out here?” she asked.

“I know a simple apology isn’t enough, but I don’t know what else I can do.”

“No,” she answered with a small shake of her head. “I should be apologizing to everyone. What I did was unforgivable. I should have told Jules who I was when I applied for the job.” Lowering her head, she sighed.
“My mother warned me that I wouldn’t be accepted. She was right.”

Lifting her chin with a finger, he forced her to look at him. “But you are. That’s why we’re here.”

Her eyes glistened with tears and she turned away. “Maybe things are better as they are now.”

“Bridey knew who you are.”

She moved to look at him. “How?”

When he reached out and touched her cheek, she stood very still. “She recognized you when she first met you. You reminded her of her mother.”

Nikki’s eyes widened. “I did?” When he answered with a nod, she smiled.

“I have more to say, if you’ll hear me out.” When she nodded again, he moved closer. “I don’t know how I can ever make up for what I did, but I’d like to take a lifetime to try.”

Her eyes widened again and she took a step back. “I…I don’t know what you mean.”