Wild Horses (15 page)

Nora stilled. She hadn't thought much about this part of Todd's life. Everything he must have gone through to get his leg working again.

“When I was in the chair, people always asked about it. Or if they didn't ask, they just stared at me, wanting so badly to ask. Even if they
did
talk to me about something else, I could tell that what they really wanted was to know what happened to my leg. And I realized that people can't help it. It doesn't matter how good their manners are, they're fascinated by anything that's different.”

He paused and took a pull of his beer. Nora waited, imagining what that would be like to have strangers looking at you and wondering. At least she'd always carried her wounds on the inside.

“So I started telling them. If they asked, or if I noticed them looking, I'd explain what happened. And what I found out is that once they knew what was up with my leg, we could actually have a normal conversation about other stuff.”

“So I should just take an ad out in the
Benson Herald
telling everyone that Wade and I are back, and no, we don't know where our dad and brothers are?”

Todd laughed. “That's one way to do it. But no. I'm saying that when people ask about it, try not to take it too personally. Remember that it's just their natural curiosity. For me, it's my leg. For you, it's your family.”

Nora stared at him. “When did you get all wise?”

“When I attended the school of hard knocks?” His eyes were so warm, the skin around them lined with experiences—hard knocks. She liked them this way.

“An excellent institution, so I've heard.” It was a joke, but her thoughts didn't feel as light as her tone. The sheltered kid she'd known at college was long gone. He walked so well on his leg now that it was easy to overlook the many months of healing and physical therapy he must have gone through. And after their night in the shed, she understood better what had happened between him and his family. She couldn't imagine what it had been like for him, sitting in their college classes listening to the professor detail all that was corrupt and wrong about his father's choices.

“So has my pep talk worked? Are you ready to mingle again?”

Nora sighed. “I guess so. I'm not really good at this, you know. I spend most of my time talking to plants.”

He grinned. “I wondered what it was you did all day.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, if it's a choice between your bad jokes and mingling, I'll mingle.”

He laughed and put a hand on her arm. It felt amazing. “I'm glad you're here.”

“It's not too weird after the other night?” Yikes. She hadn't meant to say that. But it was hard to think straight when he was touching her. And something about tonight made her want to say just what she was thinking.

“Not weird at all. Awesome. I love having you here. Meeting the people I hang out with. It's always so cool to put all my friends together.”

Friends.
That shouldn't sting so much. Wasn't that what she'd decided was safer, after their night in the shed?

Tears stung her eyes and she willed them back. She'd wanted distance and he was giving it to her. So why was she upset?

His smile was luminous. He seemed fine with the just-friends dynamic. “Here, come meet Walt. He's kind of a curmudgeon, but he knows more about horses than anyone I've ever met.”

Right. She wasn't here to moon over Todd; she was here to get to know the people of Benson. And maybe the local grouch was exactly what she needed to help her ignore the niggling thought that was rattling around in the back of her head. That she didn't want to be at this party as Todd's friend. That somehow, despite their differences, despite her plans to leave Benson, she wanted to be a lot more than a friend.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

N
ORA
PULLED
UP
next to Wade's truck and shut off her engine with a sigh of relief. She'd hiked far today, hoping to walk off all her mixed-up feelings from Todd's party the other night. Hoping to walk herself into some kind of acceptance and peace.

And the Fir River mustangs were a great excuse for a walk. They lived southeast of Benson, in a barren area of box canyons and shrubby hills. But with the drought limiting their water supply, it looked as though their range had shrunk to a couple of the deeper canyons where there was still a little water. She hadn't seen the herd today, but it was clear they were overusing those canyons, and the plants around them were trampled as a result.

She hadn't found peace. It was depressing. She was sad about the plants, and also about the horses, who couldn't be thriving in such harsh conditions.

Now all she wanted was a shower and maybe one of Wade's beers from the fridge. She opened the door of her Jeep and stepped out, and stopped. There was a sound coming from down past the barn. It was distant, but clearly something was very wrong. Metal was smashing into metal. Someone was yelling.

She reached into her backpack and grabbed her cell phone, in case she had to call the sheriff.

Was someone breaking into one of their sheds? Vandalizing them for fun? She looked around frantically. Wade's truck was parked in his usual spot. Oh, God, what if someone was hurting Wade?

But if she called the sheriff, word would spread all over town that there was trouble out on the Hoffman ranch—again. Plus, if Todd was still at his shop he could get here faster than the sheriff could. Nora dialed his cell phone and he picked up right away. She spoke quickly, needing to move toward the noise, but afraid to lose her signal. “It's Nora. I just got home and something's wrong. There's screaming behind the main barn. Can you get over here?”

She could tell he was running as he spoke. “I'm on my way. Be careful.”

He hung up and Nora shoved her phone in her pocket, breaking into a run. As she passed the barn the sounds got louder and the words got clearer. Swear words. Shrieked. Wailed. “God damn it, shit, fuck” over and over, and metal clanking and smashing. The sounds weren't coming from behind the barn; they were coming from an old falling-down shed beyond it. And then she recognized the voice, despite the animalistic pain distorting it. It was Wade.

Her heart hammered harder with every shrieked word. To hear her calm, laid-back brother in this state... Horror threatened to dizzy her, to stop her breath. Nora slowed, and stepped carefully around the corner of the shed, hurling herself to the ground as a piece of car bumper flew in her direction. It landed just a few feet away. She scrambled to her feet and took shelter against the side of the shed as another car part sailed past like a missile. Then an old window. The glass shattered when it hit the ground, pieces exploding in shards of surreal light.

There was more swearing, slightly muffled now. Wade must have gone back inside. Another clank and a thumping, as if Wade was wrestling with some piece of junk that was stuck. And then with a loud “Fuck!” out came a bicycle—perfectly airborne, as if carrying an invisible rider. It landed with a crash against the bumper.
“You assholes!”
Wade screamed from inside, and Nora jumped as his fist came through the shed window right next to her, glass erupting everywhere. She bolted, then stopped a safe distance away.

“Wade!” Her voice was a scratchy squeal. “Stop!”

There was silence and then Wade stepped out of the shed with a beer bottle in one hand and blood dripping from the other. He had on filthy coveralls, his hair was standing on end and grease was smeared all over his face, turning his normally handsome features gray and black.

“Wade?” she asked softly now. “It's Nora. Are you okay? Can you try to calm down?”

She knew instantly from the way the muscles in his face tightened that it was the wrong thing to say.
“I will not calm the fuck down!”
He drained his beer bottle and threw it to his left, the clinking sound telling Nora there were several more bottles in the dry grass. He must be going through a twelve-pack.

He stepped fully out of the shed and glared at her. “I am so tired of you telling me to calm down. That it's all going to be okay. What the
fuck
is there to be calm about? And how the
fuck
is
this
okay?”

Her heart might actually be fracturing, the fissures of sorrow so painful. Wade, her little brother, was falling apart. Wade, whom she'd spent her life protecting, was beyond her reach now. She had no idea what to do.

He took a stumbling step toward her. “You know what we are, sis? A couple of losers. That's what.” He stopped and stared at her defiantly.

She prayed for the right words. “We're not losers. You're an ex-soldier. A decorated soldier.”

“I fought a war that we'd already lost. We had no business in that country. No one wanted us there.”

She'd had no idea he felt that way. “That's not true! You were over there trying to protect people. To help them live a normal life, free of terrorists.”

“Ha. As if you and I know anything about a normal life.” He took a couple steps back toward the shed and picked up a hubcap, throwing it like a Frisbee so it sailed into the fading sky, landing out of sight. “
Fucking
losers,” he mumbled and reached into the box at his feet, pulling out another beer.

“What happened? What got you so upset?”

“Some stupid rancher, Bob somebody or other.” He unscrewed the bottle cap and threw it into a nearby bush.

“What did he do?”

“Said Dad had stolen a bunch of his cattle years ago. And he wants us to pay him for them.”

Now Nora was outraged. “Well, he's a fool. I'm sure he can't prove it or he would've pressed charges long ago.”

“Let me tell you what gets me,” Wade went on as if she hadn't spoken. “You and me, we've tried our whole fucking lives to do the right thing. You did so well in school, you managed to duck all the shit that Dad threw at you. You rose above it all and got your PhD. You're a doctor. A fucking doctor!”

Nora caught sight of Todd, walking slowly and quietly along the driveway. He stopped alongside the shed, just out of Wade's view. He gave her a questioning look and she shook her head slightly to tell him to wait. She had no idea what was going on with Wade. Had he taken some kind of drugs along with the alcohol?

“But people—” Wade's voice rose in fury again “—here still treat you like shit. People here, who've got no fucking education, still want to hold up their fucking noses and say they're better than you.”

“It's okay,” she tried to assure him. “I don't care what anyone says about me. I know who I am and that's what matters.” As she said it she realized the truth in her words. And how important it would be for her to live up to them, for Wade's sake if nothing else.

“And me—” He took another gulp of beer, ran his forearm across his mouth, leaving another streak of black grease. “I'm a goddamn soldier. And I'm starting a ranch. What could be more all-American than fighting wars and raising beef?”

“It's a great plan,” Nora said quietly. “It's a really good goal.”

“But I've barely done anything with those damn cattle of ours besides throw them some hay. And you know why? Because I am out
here
, cleaning out one more stash of stolen property courtesy of our
loser
family.” He shoved his beer bottle into his pocket and reached behind him, into the depths of the shed. When he stepped back out he had a metal box. A car stereo. “
Endless
piles of stolen property. What the fuck am I going to do with it all? What the
fuck
were our
loser
dad and our
asshole
brothers thinking?”

And with a guttural scream he hurled the stereo as hard as he could. It sailed several yards to a tumbled-down fence and disappeared into a pile of waist-high weeds.

“Fuck!”
he yelled again. But the shrill note was gone. Nora prayed that meant this storm was passing. She needed to figure out what to do next. Her little brother wasn't nearly as okay as he'd been pretending to be.

“Wade.” She took a step closer. “You are
not
our dad. You are
not
our brothers. You are
not
responsible for the stuff they stole. And you are
not
a loser. Most people would just haul everything on this ranch to a junkyard and get rid of it. But instead, you've been trying to get things back to their rightful owners. You are
not
a loser.”

He still looked angry, but he wasn't screaming and he wasn't throwing things. Nora took another step closer. “You've had a lot of beer. And you're tired. You've worked nonstop since the moment you moved back here. And I think you just reached your breaking point today.”

Wade stared at the ground somewhere near her feet. He looked drained. Empty. And that emptiness scared her as much as the screaming, maybe more. “When I heard all the noise earlier, I called Todd, because I didn't know what was going on.”

She looked over to where Todd was still waiting between the shed and the lane. He gave her a thumbs-up, and took a few quiet steps toward them. “He's here now. Is it okay if he helps us out a little?”

Wade looked away, took his beer from his pocket and drank. For a moment Nora thought she'd lost him again—that he was disappearing into whatever corner of his mind all this rage and hurt was coming from. “Todd's been through a lot, too,” she reminded him gently. “He got crushed by a bulldozer. He's had a tough time with his family. He knows what it's like to go through really hard times. We can trust him.”

And apparently she did trust him. It had been purely instinctive to call him when she needed help.

She filed that thought away for later and turned her attention fully on Wade. “So what if Todd and I help you over to the house? We can get you a glass of water and wash some of this grease off you. We'll call Dr. Miller so he can stop by and check on you. Then you can get some sleep. And tomorrow, we'll figure out what to do next—about the stolen junk, about all the stress you have left over from the war, about everything.”

He hesitated, as if letting her words sink in. And then he nodded slightly and she stepped forward carefully and touched his arm. When he didn't shake her off, she gently took the bottle from his hand and set it on the ground. She nodded to Todd and he stepped into Wade's view.

“Hey, Wade” was all he said. His voice was completely casual. He didn't come any closer. He reminded her of how he'd been with the wild mustang that day on his ranch. Waiting for Wade to trust him.

“Hey, Todd,” Wade finally answered.

Todd walked easily toward her brother and laid a hand on his shoulder blade. “I'm here for you. Let's head to the house, okay? Nora and I are going to help you figure out what to do about all the stuff that's bugging you. But right now let's just go get some rest.”

And magically, Wade went with Todd, leaning slightly on him in the growing dusk, while Nora walked behind, heart heavy, but relieved that at least for now, her brother was safe.

* * *

“Y
OU
NEED
TO
get some sleep.”

Todd was kneeling in front of her chair and Nora realized she must have dozed off.

“No, I need to watch Wade!” she protested, her voice slurred from sleep.

“He's fine. Not vomiting. Still lying on his side, just like Dr. Miller ordered. And he's sleeping well. I'll sit up with him. I'm not that tired.”

She was alert now, staring at the lump of quilts that was her sleeping brother. In the dim light of his bedroom, the old digital alarm clock read 2:00 a.m. “Thank you for getting Dr. Miller. And for taking him back home.”

Hal Miller had been Nora and Wade's doctor when they were little, on the rare occasions that their parents had remembered to give them medical care. And he was the only person Nora thought Wade would trust. But when she'd called, Dr. Miller had said that his night vision wasn't so good anymore. Todd had volunteered to be his driver.

The kind doctor had given Wade an IV for dehydration and checked him over. He also had a long talk with Nora about post-traumatic stress disorder. Her brother had PTSD.

Nora stared at Wade. “What if he isn't okay?” The tears she'd held back all evening welled up. “What if that stupid war damaged his brain somehow and he's not going to be okay?” She buried her face in her hands, trying to stay strong for her brother—as she always had.

Todd wrapped his arms around her, still kneeling. “So many people live with stuff like this. We can get him help. But for a start, he can take the medicine Dr. Miller prescribed.”

She was getting his T-shirt wet but she clung to his shoulders anyway. She needed his reassurance. She'd managed to get by on her own for her entire life, but this was bigger, more frightening than anything she'd ever faced. The idea that her little brother's mind could descend into this kind of rage and darkness terrified her. She couldn't have helped him get this far in life only to lose him now.

Tears poured down her face. She was too sad for sobbing. Sobbing meant you had the energy to gasp for breath, and this was a misery far deeper than that. Her baby brother was in pain. His mind wasn't well and she didn't know how to fix it.

Todd rubbed her back in slow circles. The panic trickled away bit by bit. He pulled her closer and her tears stopped.

“You hanging in there?” he whispered into her hair.

“It just all feels so futile,” she stammered out.