The four-wheeler was busted, and it would take longer to saddle her trusty paint, Lulu, than it would to walk, so Effie tugged the brim of her straw cowboy hat lower to shade against the sun, then trudged through thick weeds and grasses, dotted with occasional cactus and yucca. They’d had surprisingly good rain throughout the summer, which meant her herd of thirty Angus was fat and happy.
They sold them off as needed for extra income.
The closer she came to the man, the more obvious it became that he was in trouble, Effie started to run.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” By the time she reached him and his horse, she was out of breath and sweat drenched. The sun’s heat pressed her shoulders like malevolent hands.
The stranger was unconscious.
“Sir?” She shook him. Looked as though he might have tried using a rope to lash himself into the saddle, but it now hung loose. If his boot heels hadn’t been stuck in the stirrups, he’d have fallen off. Is he dehydrated?
No. A nearly full water bottle hung from the saddle’s horn.
His horse neighed, its eyes wide with panic.
“It’s all right, boy.” Knowing she needed to get this man to a hospital, Effie took the horse by the reins, guiding him toward the house as fast as she could manage.
She didn’t slow until she reached the yard’s gate, and even then, she hollered, “Colt! Remington! Mabel!” Please, God, let them hear her through the open window screens.
All three came running. Her grandmother carried six-month-old Cass on her hip.
“Whoa!” the twins cried, racing to her.
“What happened to him?” Colt asked.
“Don’t know.” Effie led the man’s horse into the only slightly cooler shade alongside the barn. “I need to call 911.” Never had she wished more for the cell phone she’d left back at the house.
“Look at his hand.” Remington pointed. “It’s all puffy.”
Effie paused a moment to look. The man’s fingers had swollen to the point that his wedding ring would need to be cut off. Twin puncture wounds oozed a nasty mix of clear fluid and blood. She’d seen similar marks on a horse, and then only because she’d witnessed the rattlesnake strike.
She took off running toward the house.
“What’s wrong with him, Mom?” Colt called after her.
“Snakebite,” she heard Mabel say.
No doubt from the heat and excitement, just as Effie reached the front porch, Cassidy began to cry.
* * *
MARSH LANGTREE DRIFTED in and out of a strange new world.
His son, Tucker, was still alive, but older—and somehow there were two of him. A baby wouldn’t stop crying. And then there was an angel—petite and blonde with eyes the same deep blue-green as the Indian Ocean.
Let’s get that ring off and start an IV.
His eyes wouldn’t stay open.
Mom, is he dead?
Maybe I am?
The angel knelt alongside him, stroking his hair. You’ll be all right. They’re taking you to the hospital.
Hospital? Marsh thought he’d died. That was the only way he’d ever see his son again.
A man approached with a tool and then there was pressure on his left hand. Ma’am, would you mind holding his ring? He’ll probably want to have it repaired when he comes out of this.
Why were they taking his wedding ring?
Before he could further process the question, his eyes drifted closed and refused to open again.
* * *
“WE’LL BE TAKING him to Arkansas Valley Regional in La Junta,” the older of the two paramedics said to Effie after they’d settled the man in the back of the ambulance. He handed her the stranger’s wallet. She felt foolish for not having looked for it sooner. “Since he’s gotta be from around here, would you please contact his family? This kind of news comes better from friends.”
“Sure,” she said automatically, hoping her grandmother might know the man’s next of kin. “Is he going to be okay?”
“He’ll live, but it’s too soon to tell how much lasting damage there might be to his hand.”
While the twins chased the ambulance down the dirt drive, Mabel approached with Cassidy still on her hip. “Sure didn’t see any of this coming. Some bit of excitement, huh?”
“Yep.” Excitement was one way of putting it. Effie’s pulse still hadn’t slowed.
Her grandmother wrangled the boys back into the house to help fix lunch. “You coming?”
“I will in a sec.” Effie gravitated toward the barn. “Let me take care of the stranger’s horse.”
Effie led the chestnut into the cathedral-like barn, setting the wallet on top of a hay bale. The structure’s ancient wood creaked in the light breeze. She never tired of the smells of hay and worn leather tack and a trace of manure.
Mabel had inherited the ranch from her third husband, Dwayne, a few years earlier. They’d celebrated their thirtieth anniversary before he died from cancer. He’d been a kind, loving man—far better than Effie’s no-account grandfather, who’d gone to jail for cattle rustling a year after their vows.
Poor Mabel had then married his brother, but that marriage hadn’t turned out much better. He’d been a moonshiner who’d gone and gotten himself shot and died a week later from his wound.
After leading the horse to a stall, Effie removed his saddle and set it atop a rack. She then brushed the creature, calming him with each stroke.
The adrenaline rush of finding the unconscious man had reminded her all too much of the first time she’d seen her own ex-husband, Moody, bucked from the back of a bull. He’d lain on the rodeo arena’s soft dirt for a good five minutes before paramedics helped him come around. She’d been six months pregnant with the twins and feared going into early labor from the terror of finding her reckless husband paralyzed or dead.
That night marked the beginning of the end of their marriage—not because he’d been seriously injured, but because he hadn’t. Instead of being relieved to the point that he gave up his PBR dreams to settle down with a nice, safe nine-to-five job, he’d doubled the amount of bull-riding competitions he entered. She’d prayed that once the boys were born he’d realize it was time to call it quits, but he refused.
She’d fooled herself into thinking love would be enough to sustain her through life on the road with newborns and then toddlers, but when the twins turned five and were eager to start school, she’d put her foot down, demanding Moody stop for the sake of their family.
He’d again refused, leaving her with no choice but to go on without him in the hopes that he’d soon miss her and the boys badly enough to realize he needed them more than adrenaline.
Her parents had offered to take her and the boys in, but they led such active lives back in Oklahoma City, where she’d grown up, that she couldn’t imagine how she and the boys would fit in.
When Effie’s widowed grandmother, Mabel, suggested it would be a godsend for Effie to move in and help, she’d jumped at the offer. Not for one second did she believe her high-octane, square-dance-a-holic grandma actually needed her, but she was beyond grateful for the safe place for her little family to land.
Once the twins started school, Moody visited whenever he had the chance, but those times dwindled to the point that if she hadn’t been so determined to stand by her marriage vows, she might have considered asking for a divorce. Cassidy had been conceived the last