Sunrise Canyon (New Americana 1)

Jake rose, leaving his last two twenties on the table with the check. “I’ve had nothing to do but sleep for the past two weeks. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER TWO

Kira gathered her students in the living room after dinner for their nightly lecture and discussion. She’d found that the cozy setting—the timbered ceiling, the overstuffed leather furniture, the shelves stocked with books, along with the crackling blaze in the tall sandstone fireplace—helped the teens relax and feel more like talking, which was essential to their therapy.

Tonight most of them looked ready to fall asleep. They’d had a strenuous day, cleaning the stable and hauling fresh bedding for the stalls, observing and taking notes on the horses and taking a midday hike to a spring above the ranch for a picnic. She would cut tonight’s session short, Kira decided.

“Before we start our discussion, I want to tell you a little about the ranch,” she began. “Take a look at the painting above the fireplace. That beautiful white horse is Flying Cloud. He belonged to my great-great-grandfather. It was the money that Flying Cloud won racing, back in the 1920s, that bought the land for this ranch. Some of the horses you’ll be working with are his descendants.”

Kira glanced around the circle of young faces. Two of her students were yawning. Dusty usually handled this part of the lecture, and he did it like the showman he was. Without him, she would just have to make do.

“The ranch started as a cattle operation, but after the Great Depression, much of the land had to be sold off. That was when my great-grandfather turned it into a guest ranch—or a dude ranch, you might call it. During its heyday, in the 1950s, we had some famous people staying here, including movie stars and politicians. Their autographed photos are hanging out in the hall. You can see them as you walk between here and the dining room.”

“I looked.” Heather spoke up without raising her hand. “I didn’t know any of those old creeps.”

“It was a long time ago,” Kira said. “But they were famous in their day. If you google them, you might learn a thing or two.”

There was no response, only a circle of blank faces. Kira continued.

“A few years ago, my grandfather was going to close the ranch and retire. That was when I talked him into opening a horse therapy program. And now, here we are.” Kira took a breath. “So let’s talk. What did you think of your first job this morning?”

Mack raised his hand. “It sucked! I came here to ride horses, not to shovel shit!”

“Thank you for raising your hand, Mack,” Kira said. “So you didn’t like it much. Anybody else?”

Brandon, the slender, soft-spoken boy who was Mack’s cabin mate, raised his hand. “I didn’t like it, either. But animals poop and they can’t clean it up by themselves. Somebody has to do it for them. I learned that when I had a dog.”

Kira made a mental note to ask Brandon about his dog in one of their private sessions. “So you didn’t mind it too much, Brandon?”

“I guess not. Just the smell, maybe.”

“I couldn’t stand the smell,” Lanie said. “It almost made me throw up. Do I have to do it again?”

“Only if you want to work with the horses,” Kira said. “Nobody’s going to force you, Lanie, but if you don’t want to help, you might as well not be here.”

“Sheesh!” Lanie picked at one bitten thumbnail. “This is as bad as being home!”

“Thank you for telling us how you feel, Lanie,” Kira said. “Now let me tell you all something. We’ll be starting every day by feeding and watering the horses and cleaning their stalls. Today it took a long time. When you learn to work together, and work faster, you’ll have more time to spend with the horses. Now, to move on, what did you learn from observing the horses together? What did you write down in your notebooks?”

The discussion that followed brought out some good observations, with all the students taking part except one. Faith, a fifteen-year-old Taylor Swift look-alike, had done her share of the work, but had barely spoken all day. She sat a little apart from the others, her manicured hands folded in her lap. Kira had learned that the quiet teens were often the most deeply troubled. But the horses could work wonders—Kira had seen it happen. She could only hope it would happen again.

When the youngsters showed signs of nodding off, Kira dismissed them with a reminder that they’d be getting up early the next morning. She was tired, too. Getting through a long opening day without Dusty’s help had been exhausting. And unless he’d turned right around and driven back from Flagstaff, she’d be on her own tomorrow as well.

What had possessed her grandfather to hunt down Jake and try to bring him home? The last time she’d seen Jake, on leave for Wendy’s funeral, he’d been cold and distant, as if his emotions were encased in granite. Even when she’d told him she’d be taking care of Paige until his current deployment as an Army Ranger was over, he’d barely found the words to say a thank-you before he turned and walked away.

How could she not believe he’d blamed her for his wife’s death—or that he blamed her still?

The most disturbing thing was, he’d never come back for Paige. When he’d failed to show up after the end date of his deployment, Dusty had contacted the VA. According to their records, he’d checked into a veterans’ hospital in Virginia, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Weeks later, Jake had checked himself out and disappeared without a trace.

And now, if Dusty succeeded in his quest, Jake would be living here, on this ranch. And every day of dealing with the man would be a new challenge.

Emotions churning, she wandered from room to room, putting things in order for tomorrow and turning off the lights. Consuelo, who lived with her retired husband on the outskirts of Tucson, had her own room and bath off the kitchen. When the students were here, she usually stayed, but tonight she’d gone home. Except for Paige, asleep in her room, Kira was alone in the house.

As part of the nighttime routine, she took a flashlight, stepped outside and made a circuit of the guest cabins and grounds to make sure her students were settled in. Everything was quiet—no surprise, since they’d all looked exhausted tonight. But something told Kira she wouldn’t fall asleep so easily. There was too much weighing on her mind.

The desert night was cool, with a light breeze blowing off the mountains. Out here, away from the lights of Tucson, the stars spilled glory across the deep dark of the sky. Kira remembered nights as a child, when she and Wendy would come to visit their grandfather here on the ranch. They would spread a blanket on the ground and lie on their backs, gazing up at the sky, picking out the constellations and talking about the things they wanted to do when they grew old enough to make their own decisions about life.

It was a mercy, she supposed, that neither of them could’ve known how their lives would turn out.