Redeeming the Rancher (Meier Ranch Brothers 2)

“Pushin’ back the darkness? Nah. He’s been trying to do that since he got back. Reminds him of somethin’ he’d rather forget over there. Started sleepwalking again a few nights ago, just like he did the first night he came home, after his second deployment. Sometimes he makes it back to bed. Most times, he’ll wake up, pitch black out. Then he’ll just stay put until the sunrise. Makes for a funny story at breakfast, to hear where he wakes up, but he doesn’t much see the humor in it.”

“He won’t talk about it.”

“I ’spect he never will. You bein’ Daniel’s kin and all. It’s sacred. Can’t say as I understand it. Never served, myself. Wes’s grandfather was the same way. Found it easier to open up to those who had the same experiences. Don’t want to burden the rest of us, I s’pose.”

She recalled Wes piss-drunk, wondered how often that happened. “It seems he might be carrying too much of the burden by himself.”

“Wes don’t always know what’s good for him. Boy can lead an entire unit into a firestorm but can’t lead himself away from trouble. The homegrown kind. Been that way since he was the little end of nothin’. Always stirring up his brothers. An impulsive streak. Only Hell his momma ever raised.”

“They must have been proud when he went into the service.”

“You’d have thought he was the Second Coming, they carried on so. Clem was so proud, he cleared a space right in the center of his memorabilia to hang Wes’s photo. ’Fore long, Marine stuff was everywhere.”

“Where is it all now?”

“Right around the same time Wes started sleepwalking, he packed it all away. Clem’s too. Burial honor flag. All of it. Rough time for Wes, adjustin’ back. Took a good while longer than all the other times he returned.”

“When was that?”

She suspected she already knew.

Willie scratched at his head. “Quite a few years back, now.”

Livie knew exactly. “The time after Daniel came here?”

“Now that you mention it, I’d say that’s about right.”

“Daniel was killed that January. Along with four others.”

She knew little beyond the highlights the Marines packaged up and sold to the family. Part of coming here was a quest for truth. She hadn’t imagined that truth might come at a cost to someone else.

“Wes didn’t come home. Must have been that next Christmas,” Willie said.

“Maybe coming here was a mistake,” she confessed.

“Maybe you bein’ here is exactly what the boy needs. Pain like that, powerful enough to knock a man from his aim. He’s so busy trying not to feel that he’s lost himself in the numbness of it all. What art does, right? Makes you feel.”

“If it’s done right.”

“I have no doubt about that.”

Livie couldn’t say what came over her—she simply wanted to kiss his cheek. The connection she felt to Willie defied explanation.

At the peck, his ample lips stretched wide.

“Speaking of done right,” she said, “I could use your help. The bronze will need a plinth, and I hear you’re pretty good with your hands.”

“Tell me what I need to do. I’d be honored.” He shuffled his feet and stood. “Time for an old man to catch some shut-eye.”

“What can I do?”

“Enjoy the sunset. For us both.” He said goodnight to her with a wave. By the time the screen door tapped closed behind him, the sun had slipped clear of the horizon.

Livie picked up her sketchbook. The glow from the amber porch light expanded enough to illuminate the page. She fleshed out Willie’s hands, the unique markings, the rough surfaces, then turned her attention to the barn’s opening. In a space no wider than an embrace, at a time of day when she had promised herself she would respect Wes’s boundaries, she lifted fragments of his image for her vision of the bronze.

And tears rimmed her vision.

It felt right—this direction, this inspiration, this man whom Daniel loved. It felt only right he should be part of her sculpture, something to swear off the dark days of Mildred and Augusta and usher in something close to hope. It felt right, but she knew it could not be.