Bad Boy Rancher

“Let’s give these two some privacy,” he heard his ma murmur, then the group tromped away.

“You were saying?” Brielle prompted, her prim tone and serene nature revving him up. She didn’t fool him. He’d glimpsed the shadows in her eyes, witnessed her swift burst of anger, and knew she ran deeper, darker, wilder than she appeared.

“I’m sorry I hit your van.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He shifted in his boots, uneasy at her direct, unrelenting gaze. She sure didn’t tiptoe around delicate subjects. “I don’t care if you believe me.”

Her jaw jutted. “Yes, you do.”

His mouth dropped open. She’d just called him out. No one dared do that, other than his family, and even they trod lightly.

A breeze rustled the dry leaves of a nearby maple, sending a few spiraling to the ground. “Why would I care?” he asked, forcing a nonchalant tone.

Her mouth ticked up in the corners. “You’re still here talking to me.”

He pressed his lips together to stop an unbidden smile, amused despite himself. She wasn’t scared to give offense, and he liked that. “I’m doing it for my ma.”

“Not yourself then?”

He stared at her, mute. What was she driving at? A trio of crows alighted on the telephone line running to the courthouse, bobbing their sleek black heads.

“Did you let go of the handlebars before you hit me?”

His head jerked back as if she’d slapped it.

“You saw me in time to avoid me,” she pressed. “Why didn’t you slow down or turn?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders, defensive. Her questions pummeled him, pinning him on the ropes. “I was drinking. You heard...”

“Point oh nine?” Her eyes narrowed, a hard street stare, the pain he’d glimpsed the other night now settling into their corners. “That’s just barely over the limit. No. Alcohol didn’t have much to do with it.”

His eyes dropped to his boots. He scuffed a line in the graveled parking lot, alternately wishing himself away and enjoying this dustup with her. “Then what did?”

One of the crows cawed, a rough, harsh, nasty sound voicing the writhing blackness rising from the base of his skull.

“Why don’t you come to my clinic and find out?” she challenged, then turned neatly on her heel and marched away.

He watched her hop into a Jeep with temporary plates and peel out of the parking lot.

No shrinking violet there.

His mouth curved. He liked having a sparring partner.

She made him feel alive, a stinging rush like the return of blood to a limb that’d fallen asleep.

Except he liked—no, needed—to stay numb.

He didn’t want to wake and face reality.

Did he?

CHAPTER THREE (#u0e7d92e2-277b-5e7e-9a21-240f5a960324)

“MY FAVORITE PIZZA toppings are pineapple and jalapeño peppers,” pronounced one of Fresh Start’s patients during their first group therapy session later that week. Brielle jotted down the unusual pairing on a stand-alone whiteboard then turned back to the speaker. He’d introduced himself earlier as Paul, a former artilleryman who’d served in Mosul. Per his intake, he suffered from PTSD and depression.

Paul took up most of one of the chairs circling the center of the converted ranch house’s living room. In his midthirties, he had wide ears, a round, expressive face and a stooped posture that seemed to be apologizing for the sheer size of him. Six inked names scrolled across his forearm.

Lost brothers in arms?

Names of fallen soldiers spun in Brielle’s mind then stopped on one, the thought like an ice pick to her brain.

“Dude. That’s the worst pizza topping combination ever,” a slouchy teenager said. Maya. She was a skeletal, black-haired girl with bruise-purple skin underlining eyes that looked up from the bottom of a deep well. She hailed from Denver and, according to her mother, had spent most of her life in facilities that’d failed to manage her bipolar and eating disorder.

Hopefully Fresh Start would succeed where others had failed. With its real-world immersion program through ranching experiences, it was designed to build confidence and end self-defeating behaviors. The clinic now housed fifteen residents, half its capacity, with eight more expected at the end of the week.

“This is a judgment-free zone,” Craig, the group leader, intoned, mock serious.

Brielle crossed one leg over the other and smiled encouragingly at her latest hire. At fifty-eight, Dr. Craig Sheldon brought decades of experience as well as a deep personal understanding of what it was like to survive a war after his service as a gunner in the second Gulf War. He sported a pointy goatee, long sideburns and thinning hair he’d pulled into a ponytail at the back of his neck. An enamel yin-yang symbol on a leather cord appeared in the open neck of his golf shirt.

“Lame.” Maya flicked her hand. A shower of tinkling silver bangles slid down her forearm and revealed a freshly healed wrist scar.

“Do we get pizza here?” asked a man with white hair that looked electrified. Stew’s children had tracked him down in an Aspen homeless shelter last week and admitted him for heroin addiction treatment. He’d stopped taking his mental health medications and had been suffering from hallucinations.

“Every Friday,” Brielle supplied and the group slowly turned her way, their eyes wary. She hadn’t spoken this whole hour save for a brief introduction. While Craig took the lead and built rapport, she’d stayed at the whiteboard and jotted down group responses while taking mental notes about her charges. “We’ll make them, so you can have any toppings you want.”

Pizza night was one of several activities she and Craig had brainstormed to build trust, confidence and self-esteem. Yet Fresh Start needed to add ranch skills to reach the potential envisioned by its owner. Thus far, no one had responded to her ad seeking a cowboy to run those activities. Did her lack of applicants stem from the disapproval locals had expressed about the clinic?

“Sweet!” Paul quirked an eyebrow at Maya. “If you’re lucky I’ll let you try mine.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’d kill myself first.”

An appalled silence descended. First-time group therapies needed to stay light and upbeat as the clients learned about each other and built trust; Maya’s statement was anything but that.

“Kidding. Jeez,” she muttered, then slid even farther into her seat. Her stick-thin arms crossed against her chest.

“Hey, if you can’t joke about suicide here, where can you?” Craig put in, a twinkle in his hooded blue eyes.

A twentysomething woman with Tourette’s syndrome giggled then clapped a hand over her mouth. Paul mouthed “what?” and guffawed. Stew joined in with an infectious belly laugh that got the rest of the group going, including Maya, who perked up enough to resume picking the rubber soles off her Converse sneakers.

Brielle stood, crossed the room and shot Craig a thumbs-up at the door. Very nice. Exactly the right touch of levity and reality, she thought as she strode back to her office. Her plans were finally coming together.

During the last three weeks, she’d fallen into a comforting routine with predictable schedules and specified activities. Now that she’d inserted order in her world, she’d begun to feel, for the first time since her discharge, she fit in...at least within these walls. Her days flew by at breakneck speed as she conducted staff interviews, oversaw patient admissions, supervised daily operations and provided individual therapy sessions to lighten Craig’s load.

She rounded a corner and her receptionist, Doreen, a petite redhead wearing oversize glasses, waved at her. Half a bologna sandwich dangled from her fingers.

“Call,” she mumbled around a mouthful, then pointed at Brielle’s office. “Mayor.”