In The Rancher's Arms

Arden took one more look at herself in the mirror—tanned skin, hair in such need of a good cut that she’d pulled it into a ponytail and thinner facial features than were normal. It was all fixable, with time. The inside was more damaged, but hopefully tonight was the first step toward healing that, as well.

She pasted on a smile for her mom. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

As her mom drove toward town, Arden noticed her quick glances in the rearview mirror to where Arden sat in the backseat. To try to keep her mom from her obvious worry, Arden pulled out her phone and pretended to read on it.

Her mind wasn’t on the phone’s image of her hiking through the Rwenzori Mountains. Uganda had some truly beautiful places, some wonderful people, but just thinking of it now made shivers run across her skin, her insides twist into tighter and tighter knots. How many times had she relived the moment she’d gone from reporter to captive?

She scanned through the photos on the phone and replaced the Rwenzori picture with one of her parents wearing Santa hats last Christmas. It always made her smile when she looked at it. Granted the phone it had originally been on was who knew where, but she’d learned several lost phones ago to keep her photos backed up in the cloud.

The sound of another vehicle passing drew her attention, and she looked up to see they were coming into Blue Falls. As her mom made the turn toward the fairgrounds, the anxiety that had made a home for itself inside Arden kicked up several notches.

It’ll be okay. It’s safe here. You’ll be back home before you know it. This is a necessary step.

By the time her mom parked in the field adjacent to the grandstands, Arden had almost convinced herself that her mental pep talk was true. Even if it wasn’t, she was here now and she couldn’t back out.

The walk from the car to the arena was filled with a blur of faces and well wishes and what was meant to be reassuring hugs and caring touches. It took all of Arden’s strength not to jerk away at each one, so that by the time they reached where the mayor was standing she was already wiped out. Somehow she found the strength to accompany the mayor to the flatbed truck inside the arena where a country western band was packing up their gear after evidently entertaining the crowd.

As Arden climbed the steps to the top of the trailer, she glanced toward the grandstands and found her parents making their way to seats among the crowd. Maybe if she focused on them during this whole show, she’d make it through. But even as she had that thought, she considered that doing so might actually be the worst thing. She couldn’t risk them seeing how much her current position was shredding her determination to see it through. How the panic was clawing its way up out of her like a zombie from the grave.

Her legs shook as the mayor made her way to the microphone and began to speak. It took an incredible amount of focus on Arden’s part to fix her mind on the woman’s words, to make them sound like something other than an indistinct voice at the bottom of a deep pit.

“We’re all so happy to have Arden Wilkes back home in Blue Falls, safe and sound.”

A round of applause from the people staring at Arden caused her to flinch. There were even a few American flags waving out in the midst of the crowd. She scrunched her forehead in confusion, but before she could think about it too much she realized the mayor was looking at her. That she’d said something to which Arden needed to give a response. As if she was rewinding the past few seconds in her mind, Arden realized what the mayor had said.

Arden approached the microphone on increasingly shaky legs. “Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate all the prayers for my safe return and the support that’s been given to my parents during the past weeks.”

She certainly hoped that’s all that was expected of her because she didn’t think she was going to be able to stay here being stared at like a museum exhibit for much longer. As if the mayor could see her distress, she shook Arden’s hand, gave her a gift bag containing welcome-home gifts from local merchants and nodded toward the stairs descending from the trailer.

Arden made for the stairs as quickly as her waning energy would take her. But even after she left the arena, she wasn’t free. What seemed like a gauntlet of well-wishers closed around her. She did her best to smile and thank them all. After all, she’d been witness to such scenes before. Child soldiers returned to their families. Mudslide survivors finding family members alive. One man who’d been erroneously held in a Chinese prison finally released. She had covered their stories, even talked to the people in question, but she’d never truly understood the sheer feeling of being overwhelmed when they were returned to normality.

She saw her mom stand, and Arden knew she couldn’t possibly face her mother right now. Her mom would take one look and know that Arden hadn’t been telling the truth when she’d claimed she was fine. She would coddle Arden to the point of driving Arden to insanity. She loved her mother dearly, but all Arden wanted was for everyone to go back to behaving normally around her so she could do the same. So she could somehow find a way to forget what had happened to her, what she’d been unable to prevent from happening to others.

“Excuse me,” she said as she found an opening in the crowd. As if her need to get away had been blasted over the speaker system, people ceased trying to stop her. There was no destination in mind, just some space to breathe—ironic since recently open space had a habit of robbing her of her ability to breathe.

Somehow she ended up in the dimly lit area next to the concession stand. She counted it a small miracle that no one seemed to notice her there. Evidently the people in line were too focused on placing orders for hot dogs, nachos or food on a stick to pay her any attention. But she knew it wouldn’t last.

As she thought that, someone stepped around the corner of the building and extended something toward her. It took her a held-breath moment to realize it was Neil Hartley and what he had on offer was a cold bottle of beer.

“You looked as if you could use one of these,” he said.

She latched on to the bottle and brought it to her lips, downing half the contents before stopping. When she finally lowered it to breathe, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He didn’t stare at her, which allowed her to relax some. He was tall and broad enough that he blocked her from sight of a good portion of the crowd in front of the concession stand. “Guess your homecoming has been a bit overwhelming.”

“You could say that.”

Most people would have asked questions or done the teary hug followed by an “I’m so sorry” or “Praise the Lord you’re home safe” thing, necessitating a response from her, but Neil did neither. He just stood there gazing out across the field behind the grandstands, leisurely enjoying his beer. It felt as if he was appointing himself a quiet and casual barrier between her and the world, and she felt more of her well of panic subside. There was no way he could, but it almost seemed as if he understood how she felt and what she needed.

In the same moment she saw another woman walking toward them with a sympathetic look on her face, Neil nodded in the direction of the stock pens at the end of the arena. He gently touched her elbow and said, “Let’s get away from this crowd. Can’t hear myself think and it smells like a fryer vat back here.”

She didn’t question him, just went along and acted as if she hadn’t seen the other woman so it didn’t seem as if she was being rude. Some people might have the best of intentions but still not understand that she was on emotional overload at the moment and needed to not have to be “on” and ready with a plethora of thank-yous.

The crowd seemed to part for Neil as he guided them away from the grandstand toward where the pens contained the bulls that would be ridden in the last event of the evening.

“They look so much bigger up close,” she said. “I can’t believe people climb on them voluntarily.”

Neil chuckled a little, a nice sound that tempted her to smile. “Everybody’s got something about themselves that others think is crazy.”

Was he thinking about how she’d tracked down human traffickers and ended up getting herself kidnapped, necessitating a rescue by the US military? Sure, she hadn’t been the only American being held, but it had still been equal parts relief and embarrassment when the camo-clad troops had burst into the kidnappers’ camp. At the memory of the resulting firefight in which she’d feared for her life, she grew dizzy and wrapped her hands around one of the rungs on the metal fence in front of her.

Neil had to have seen her reaction and yet he didn’t say anything. Instead, he leaned his forearms against the top of the fence beside her, then pointed toward the bulls in the enclosure.

“See that black bull on the opposite side?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“He’s the meanest one here. If whoever draws him stays on for eight seconds, I predict that guy will win the event.”

She glanced at Neil, was struck by how handsome his profile was. The last time she’d seen him before her return home, he’d probably been about twenty. It must have been the night she and Sloane graduated. She had a vague memory of the entire Hartley clan being part of the crowd that crammed into the high school gym for the commencement.

“Did you ride?” she asked, deciding to go with the avenue of conversation he’d offered.

“Bulls? Heck no, I like my neck unbroken.”

She laughed a little at that, and the sound of her own laughter stunned her. When was the last time she’d been able to really laugh? She honestly couldn’t remember.

“Any rodeo events?”

He shook his head. “Never got into it. Too busy working on the ranch.”

Inside the arena, the next barrel racer sped toward the first of the three barrels and guided her horse in a tight turn around it.

“You ever try it?” Neil asked.

Arden shook her head. “Didn’t grow up on a ranch. I did ride an elephant once, though.”

What had made her reveal that? They’d been doing fine talking about something that had nothing to do with her job—former job—and she had to go and steer the conversation that way.

Neil smiled, and her breath caught. She’d known he was good-looking. Even she wasn’t so caught up in her own concerns to be able to overlook that obvious fact. But it was remarkable how much a simple smile could magnify what she’d already seen.

“An elephant, huh?” The way he said it indicated he’d believe it when he saw it.

“Yes, in India.” She pulled out her phone and scrolled to a photo of her atop a large Indian elephant, then extended the phone to him. “She was very sweet.”

He took the phone and looked at the screen. “Well, what do you know? You did ride an elephant.”