Promise from a Cowboy

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At seventeen B.J. hadn’t been able to imagine life without his dad. Now, five years after losing him to a heart attack, he still felt the loss.

“I was there,” he said in answer to Jackson’s question. “But I decided to come back early.” He shared the family’s results with Jackson, but brushed off Jackson’s congratulations.

“Just another rodeo trophy, that’s all. I was glad Cassidy and Farley did so well, though.”

Jackson went to the small fridge in the corner of the room and pulled out a couple of beers. “But I thought you had another rodeo in Washington you were headed to next?”

“Had a change of plan. Plus I figured it was time to check up on the place. Frankly, I was hoping to find you enjoying life a little more than the last time I came home.”

“And when was the last time?”

“You know damn well when. Last March, when we were celebrating Corb and Laurel’s new baby.”

“That was three months ago.”

“Yup.” He eyed Jackson’s face, noting the tired lines around his mouth and eyes. “You had any fun at all since then? Dated any pretty girls?”

Jackson snorted. “No time for that nonsense around here.”

“You used to find the time to have fun,” B.J. recalled. “Blaming yourself for Brock’s death is just about the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.”

“I don’t blame myself.”

“If you’d look me in the eyes when you said that I might be able to believe you.” B.J. took a swallow of his beer and regarded his foster brother thoughtfully. He’d never forget the night before the wedding when they’d been discussing the driving plans. Initially he’d been the one who was going to chauffeur Brock and Corb to the wedding, while Jackson drove Olive in a separate car.

It was Olive who had nixed that plan, insisting that her eldest son should be the one to accompany her into the church.

“If I’d been behind the wheel, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. Brock would still be dead. Corb would have hit his head and gone into that coma. It wasn’t the driver’s fault. It was just bad timing.”

Both Savannah and a local rancher who had witnessed the accident had agreed on that point. Why couldn’t Jackson take any comfort from that?

“Have you ever thought of seeing a counselor or something? Maybe a professional could help.”

As he’d expected, Jackson shook his head at the idea. “Naw. It’s not just the guilt that bugs me. It’s having been there. And seen it all. I’m the only one, you know. To this day Corb doesn’t remember the accident, or even the entire week before it happened.”

“He’s lucky he doesn’t—even if it did almost cost him his relationship with Laurel.”

Jackson nodded, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead. “The worst was those ten minutes before help arrived. It was so quiet, I could hear the birds chirping in the brush. But all around me was blood....”

You couldn’t be a rodeo cowboy for eighteen years and not have seen a lot of blood and gore. But the picture Jackson was painting broke B.J.’s heart. He wondered why it had taken him so long to talk to Jackson about this. Or maybe it had taken this long for Jackson to be ready to talk. “It must have been hell.”

Again Jackson nodded, his gaze fixed despondently on his boots.

“What can I do to help?”

“What can anyone do? I just go on, getting through each day best as I can.” He picked up his beer can, looking at it as if it were something strange that he’d never seen before. “Sometimes I wonder, though....”

“What?”

It wasn’t easy to get Jackson to open up and talk about himself. Now that he’d cracked a chip in his foster brother’s armor, B.J. had to do his best to keep him talking.

“I just wonder if I shouldn’t be moving on.”

“Work somewhere else, you mean?” B.J. didn’t consider himself a sentimental person, but he had to admit the idea was disconcerting.

“I brought it up to Corb once. He took it like some sort of personal insult. It isn’t as if I’m not grateful for what your family did for me. I just can’t stand feeling like I’m some sort of fill-in for Brock. Living the life that he was meant to have, instead of doing whatever it was that I was intended to do.”

“Hell. I’m sure Mom and Corb never meant to make you feel that way when they offered you Brock’s job.”

“Not Corb, for sure,” Jackson agreed.

But maybe Olive? B.J. wouldn’t put it past her. He suspected that his mother did somehow blame Jackson for Brock’s death. Olive had never warmed up to Jackson. Even when everyone else treated him like part of the family, she’d maintained an air of cool distance.

He could see how hard this must be for Jackson to handle in the wake of the accident.

“It hurts me to say this, but if you want to leave, then that’s what you should do.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that. The perfect opportunity just opened up for me, but there is a catch. I’d need to start right away. And you know it would take a while to find a replacement for me here. And even longer to train him...”

That was all true.

But there was one solution.

It would require a commitment that B.J. wasn’t sure he was ready to make. But didn’t he owe Jackson this much? Jackson, who had shouldered such a burden for this family all on his own this past year?

“I know someone. And he doesn’t need any training.”

“Really?” A spark of hope lightened Jackson’s dark brown eyes.

“Yup.” B.J. nodded. “Me.”

Chapter Five

After a fitful night spent worrying about Regan, it was a relief to go to work the next morning. Regan and Murray had taken off on their road trip before Savannah had got out of bed. She’d heard them rustling around in the kitchen, then shutting the back door and starting up Regan’s Honda Civic.