The Rancher's Dream. Kathleen O'Brien
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at eye level.
“I know you’ll start doing your oh boy, oh boy, oh boy impersonation as soon as you see it.” She pulled the guest chair closer to the bed, sat down and laid her hand lightly on his arm. “But you know what? I’ll be so glad you’re awake I won’t even complain.”
He didn’t respond, of course. The IV continued to plink, and the monitor kept up its electronic hum and rhythmic beep. From just outside the door, voices and footsteps rolled down the hall like waves of energy. But Kevin was utterly silent.
“I wish you could have seen Molly this morning,” she said, refusing to let herself be discouraged. “That front tooth has finally broken through, and she smiles all the time, as if she’s showing it off.”
More silence. But Molly was the one subject Crimson felt comfortable with. No matter how complicated everything else might be, she was certain Kevin would want to know his little girl was all right.
“She’s sleeping better, too. I got one of those teething rings Grant suggested—” She broke off. Just mentioning Grant’s name made her nervous. She didn’t want Kevin to feel he’d been displaced as Molly’s daddy...that she and Grant were the parents now. Even worse, what if some of her new feelings about Grant came through in her voice?
She imagined, sometimes, that even the way she said the syllable was different now. Huskier, leaden with tension and repressed emotions.
“Anyhow, I think there’s less pain once the tooth cuts through. She seems much more cheerful now. And boy, is she eating! When I bought diapers yesterday, I had to get the next size up.”
She chuckled, but the sound echoed eerily in the quiet room, and it felt out of place, like laughing in a church. She wondered why it didn’t sound that way when the nurses did it. Probably because, when a nurse was in here, she didn’t feel so alone.
She didn’t feel so out of her depth.
“Oh! I took a video this morning.” She pulled out her phone and thumbed through her pictures until she got to the right one. She pulled it up, hit Play and held the phone in front of Kevin’s face, as if that made sense. As if he might just open his eyes and say, “A video! Great!”
On the phone’s small screen, Molly waved her hands, grinned and let loose peals of giggles and hiccupping laughter. Occasionally, Crimson’s thumb had covered the lens as she struggled to hold the phone out and the baby up simultaneously. It didn’t matter, though. Because of course Kevin did not wake, did not open his eyes, did not show any signs of being happy to hear his baby’s voice.
“Say, I love you, Daddy!” Crimson sounded like a cheerleader, urging Molly. “Say, come home soon, Daddy!”
And then...at the very moment Crimson said, “Come home soon, Daddy,” Kevin’s finger twitched. Crimson dropped the phone to her lap, staring at his hand. Her heart beat rapidly.
Do it again, she willed him. Do it again.
The light in the room changed as the door opened. Crimson looked up, her heart still pounding in her throat. It was Kevin’s new doctor, Elaine Schilling.
“He moved his hand!” Crimson didn’t leave Kevin’s side, didn’t let go of his arm, but she leaned toward the doctor eagerly. Her voice was tight and thin. “I was playing a video for him—a video of his daughter—and his finger moved. I’m sure of it!”
Dr. Schilling paused as she reached into her pocket to pull out the little light she used to check pupil response, an important indicator, Crimson had learned.
“Well...” The woman’s hazel eyes were kind, but her thin, austere face didn’t catch any of Crimson’s eager enthusiasm. “It’s certainly possible. But we must remember a person in Mr. Ellison’s condition may exhibit reflex activities that mimic conscious activities. It’s wise not to read too much into it.”
Crimson stared stupidly, as if she couldn’t understand the doctor’s terminology. But she did understand. It was simple enough. Dr. Schilling was saying the twitch was just some involuntary misfiring of a neuron. She was saying it probably didn’t mean anything, and Crimson shouldn’t hope for a miracle.
But Crimson was hoping. She had to hope. Who could survive without hope?
She couldn’t. She remembered how—almost fourteen months ago, just barely more than a year—she’d kept diving down into the cold, black water of the Indigo River, looking for Clover, telling herself it wasn’t too late. If a passing stranger hadn’t seen her there and jumped in to drag her to shore, she’d have drowned alongside her sister.
In many ways, drowning would have been better than giving up. She couldn’t remember the man’s face, but she’d never forget his voice, saying, “You have to stop now. She’s gone.” The words had fallen on her skin like razor blades.
So she had to keep hoping. She wanted to tell the doctor that, but she didn’t know how to begin. She let her hand fall into her lap. She must have bumped the Play arrow, because suddenly Molly began to laugh again as Crimson again implored her to tell her Daddy to come home soon.
The doctor frowned, a stern but compassionate expression. She clearly thought Crimson had restarted the video deliberately, hoping to prove her point. She hadn’t—truly she hadn’t—but she couldn’t help staring at Kevin’s hand all the same. Maybe...
But this time Kevin lay as still as a wax mannequin.
And suddenly, Crimson’s eyes began to burn. They stung fiercely, as if they’d caught fire from the inside. Was it possible he’d never wake up? That he’d never go home to his baby girl?
As she stared at that lifeless hand, scalding tears spilled over. She bent her head, and the tears fell against Kevin’s skin. He showed no awareness of that, either.
Embarrassed, Crimson stood. The doctor needed to tend to her patient. Crimson was in the way here. She was making a fool of herself. She turned, but she could barely see which direction to walk. Everything was fractured by her tears.
As if she’d called for him, Grant was somehow there. He put his arm around her shoulders and murmured her name. She looked up at him, and even though his face was blurred, she felt a powerful magnetic pull, as if his shoulder was the only place in the world she could rest her head safely right now. The only place she could let these tears fall in peace, without feeling ridiculous or weak. Without exposing all the secrets she’d been hiding for so long.
“Come on, sweetheart,” he said gently. His arm steered her toward the door. “Let me take you home.”
She followed him out. But as they exited the dim room and emerged into the bright light of the hospital corridor, all she could think was...
If Kevin actually could still hear, how did it make him feel to hear his best friend call Crimson sweetheart?
“I MUST SAY, Campbell, you are a lucky man.” Stefan Hopler shoved his hands into the pockets of his elegant linen khakis as they slowly strolled back to the ranch house from the stables, a full moon lighting their way almost as clearly as high noon.
Grant wondered what Hopler meant exactly—if he meant anything at all. Was it just flattery—to soften him up for bargaining over the horse?
Somehow he didn’t think so. The man’s tone sounded genuine.
And why shouldn’t it be? Hopler didn’t know anything about Grant’s history—he knew nothing about his dead wife, Brenda, or the little girl they’d once had...Jeannie.
Hopler didn’t even know that Grant hadn’t always been a rancher, that once, like Kevin, he’d been a young, ambitious lawyer—and that the career dream had died along with his family.
All Hopler knew was what he’d seen here today. The beautiful acreage of Campbell Ranch,