Rough Road Home (The Circle D series) (17 page)

“Okay.”

“-–be reasonable? The risks you’re taking--” She stopped, her gaze still fixed on the ceiling. “What?”

“I said, okay.”

“Don’t mess with me, Nick.” She lowered her chin and swallowed. She’d had reverse psychology used on her more times than she could count. It wasn’t going to work. “I’m serious.”

“Turn at the street.” He waved to her left. “When we hit the highway, go south.”

Something wasn’t right and she had no intention of driving around on a wild goose chase. “What’s up? Why are you giving in?”

“Nothing’s up.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Let’s go.”

“You’re agreeing with me, why?”

“Like you said, sometimes we all make mistakes.”

Rachel couldn’t tell if he was throwing her words back at her about Uncle Mitch or what, but she wasn’t going to argue when tempted with a silver bullet opportunity.

She dug out the keys. As the engine roared to life, she noticed Nick rubbing his forehead. Her heart went out for his pain, and the decision he’d just made. Not a cowboy she knew would turn down their ride, especially in a regional Finale. But Nick had nothing to lose. He’d already qualified for the National Finals in December. Rachel sucked in a deep breath at the thought. The National Finals Rodeo was not her problem. Someone else would have to talk him out of that one.

By December, she’d be up to her eyeballs in her own problems. November through January were traditionally great trading months. If she played her stocks right and worked her fingers off over the holidays, she’d make up for her extended absence ten-fold...maybe even give Tom Everitt a reason to smile.

“Sit back and relax, Nick,” she urged as he swiped his hand over his face. “I know you won’t regret your decision.”

“Lady, you don’t know what regret means.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Can we maybe think about going a little faster? You’re in four wheel drive. This old diesel drives great in the snow.”

“Thanks for the tip, cowboy.” Rachel sat close to the dashboard as usual, her knuckles white on the wheel. “Driving in a white out ranks right up there with driving at night.”

The road was so familiar, Nick could tell where they were without ever opening his eyes. He still fumed over her kidnap tactics. Home was the last place he wanted to be, but he knew the decision was sound. Apprehension tore at his gut. What would he find there? His cowardice smacked him right in the face. It’s just a house, just a piece of land. He’d had four years to learn from his mistakes and come back a better man.

The mistakes he’d reconciled; the jury remained out on the better man part.

Nick stared at the thick blanket of snow swirling down from the heavens and blew his agitation out on a harsh breath. Always erring on the side of caution. Rachel didn’t take many risks in life, unless of course you considered her profession. Messing with other people’s money was risky business to be sure, but that gamble appeared to be the end of her line. He’d wager Rachel didn’t even own a pair of high-heeled shoes. Slow and steady, sure and even. A great anchor.

His vision blurred making the already snow-mottled landscape become fog white. The doc said to expect vision problems for a while. As he rubbed his eyes, he shook his head. Great. He and Rachel rode in the same vision-impaired boat.

“Something wrong? Are you feeling okay?” Rachel clung to the wheel, her gaze darting between him and the road. “Do we need to stop?”

“No,” he gritted out as he forced his fists down to his lap. “Just snow blind, I guess. It’ll clear up in a minute.”

“Good. I don’t know what I’d do with you if you passed out now.” She reached for the stick and shifted into compound low. The engine bucked, then continued to trudge through the snow. “I can’t even tell if we’re passing towns. Good thing a snow plow’s been by. The road’s filling up fast, but at least I can still follow the tracks.”

Nick blinked his vision clear and squinted. He’d lost his sunglasses somewhere along the line. They’d sure have been handy. Up ahead, he saw the red and blue flash of snowplow lights.

“Looks like we have company.” As his shoulders relaxed, he realized he’d been just as nervous as her.

“The Lord does provide,” her voice trailed off as her hands loosened their grip on the steering wheel. “I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep up.” She glanced at the seat between them. “My player must be packed in the back.”

Rachel turned to her MP3 player and earbuds whenever tension arose. A dependence thing he couldn’t quite equate with the rest of her take charge personality. “Does it really help that much?”

She sat silent for a moment. “I didn’t think so at first, but I didn’t want to hurt Uncle Mitch’s feelings. I started by listening to the music to relax.” A dimple showed in her cheek. “I’m a fan of country music; classical didn’t really thrill me. Thrills weren’t what I was after though, and it didn’t take long for Mozart and Bach to grow on me.”

“So, music soothes the savage beast, so to speak?”

“The music is a part of it. I still had a hard time letting go of the tension that put me on leave to begin with, you know, forgetting that I’m only human. Each time I thought about a stock option I’d missed, or purchase opportunity that hadn’t panned out, I internalized it, I’d let my clients down. When my stress level rose, my muscles contracted until my entire body ached. Music relaxed me, so I clung to that one facet and refused to give the whole ministry a chance.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Nothing, intentionally.” They caught up with the snow plow and Rachel guided the truck into the newly plowed tracks. “One evening, I clicked on the wrong track and ended up listening to the parable of the shepherd counting his sheep only to find one missing. He left his flock and searched high and low for that one sheep, then rejoiced when he finally found it.”

She turned and looked at him, her green eyes shining. “I knew that one sheep was me.”

Nick listened, stunned at her confession. Was that happening to him? Was God calling out? Or was his guilt finally getting the best of him?

“That’s quite the statement. Most times, people use religion as a convenient answer, only to find it doesn’t answer anything. Are you sure you have a handle on your problems? Maybe you just need a different direction.”

“I did need a different direction; that’s what God was trying to tell me. I had become so engrossed in climbing the ladder of success, I didn’t realize how far from the Truth I’d fallen. I had fragmented my life, conveniently putting priorities in my own order. In my heart, I believed Jesus had died for my sins, and that’s exactly where I kept my faith. Locked safely away. But, Jesus wanted more. He wanted the whole enchilada.”

Color flushed in her cheeks as she rubbed her palm across the back of her neck. “There’s a verse in Philippians that says, I can do all things through Christ who guides me. Well, I might have called myself a Christian before, but there was very little Christ in my life. Listening to the Scripture lesson helped me see that life in Christ is better than a life away from Christ any day.”

“So, you’re turning your whole life around based on a few weeks of Bible study?” Nick tamped down the most cynical of his opinion, but couldn’t contain it all. He’d been raised in the church all his life, yet when the tide crashed, he hadn’t been thrown a life preserver. The night before, he’d poured over the verses in the hospital issue Bible for hours, despite the frequent checks made on him by nurses and orderlies. He’d felt the familiar tug on his heart, yet the answers he sought evaded him.

Why? Why had she died? Life just didn’t make sense, but then, whoever said it would? “Don’t fool yourself, Rachel, people don’t change that drastically. Even if you’re bent on total commitment, it’s not that easy.”

“No one ever said the narrow path was the easiest.” She slowed the truck to give the snowplow a greater lead as gravel spit out at them. “I gave too much of myself to work. I’d lost who I was because everything I did had to do with trading and building a better, more powerful portfolio.” She shrugged. “Essentially, I had a stress meltdown, a lot like when an alcoholic hits bottom. Only when I hit bottom was Christ able to do something with me.”

“What’s He doing with you, Rachel?” Curiosity pricked his cynicism. He wanted to know, yet not. Devotion required effort. Effort messed with his concentration. He couldn’t afford many more trips to the hospital.

“Christ gave my life back to me.”

“To do what?” he pressed. “Make money?”

She nodded. “God gave me that gift, to help others manage their treasures. Plus, I enjoy my career. But I’m going back with a different perspective. The Lord is my Shepherd and this sheep doesn’t plan on losing her way again. I’ll not neglect my spiritual life, I plan to do more with it. Uncle Mitch hauls stock around and works for the Cowboy Church. I don’t see why I can’t trade stock and work for my church, too.”

The snowplow led them into a canyon. The wind howled and shook the truck as their pace continued slowly. Usually, the drive from Gunnison to Hawk Ridge took under an hour. They’d left the city limits of Gunnison over an hour ago and they still had more than half the distance ahead of them. They’d been on the road ten hours. He’d lost patience with the trip eight hours back.

Nick reached around to the back seat and opened the lid of the cooler. “Hmm, let’s see. On the menu this afternoon, we have cola, cola,--” he rummaged deeper, “–-cola, and cola. What’s your pleasure, ma’am?”

“Choices, choices,” she said, her dimple creasing as her gaze remained focused on the snow-blown road. “I guess I’ll take a cola.”

“Fine choice, I hear it’s a good year.” She accepted the can and took a long drink. Flipping the cup holder on the dashboard down with her pinkie finger, she set her can into the rubber ring and clasped the steering wheel again. “So, what do you plan to do with yourself now?”

Nick knew she’d ask eventually and had spent long moments pondering the answer. Funny, what appeared so black and white just days ago, now seemed anything but simple. “Go back on the road.”

He waited for her condemning reaction, knowing her thoughts on her choices. She’d hovered over him like a mother hen back at the hospital. Rachel stared ahead appearing completely unfazed. They drove along slowly, the
whirrr
of the snowplow ahead of them the only sound breaking the silence in the truck cab. Nick tapped his finger on the armrest. Rachel would have made a great salesman. Put your offer on the table then don’t speak until the deal was sealed. Get’em every time.

He surrendered. “Stephanie and I were wrong from the beginning. We made too much of the little incidental things in our lives and tried to build a future on less than the truth. It didn’t take long to figure out that wasn’t a good way to go.”

“Did she know what was important to you? You know, cattle, ranching, rodeo, all that good stuff?”

Nick laughed in spite of himself. “She came from a cattle family, her father is still an officer on the board of the Western Region Cattleman’s Association. No, cattle appreciation wasn’t our problem.”

“You didn’t beat her or anything like that, did you?”

“To have talked to her, you would have thought I treated her ten times worse.”

A gust shoved the truck against the snow line created by the plow. Rachel eased the tires back into the center path. “Trust me Nick, being married to a rodeo cowboy is no piece of cake.”

“I wasn’t bull riding professionally, I just caught weekend rides with my friends.” Her skeptical brow lifted again. How to make her understand? “I rode bulls like other men play golf.”

His logic was met by a defeated sigh. “No bull rider worth his skill looks at it that casually, but if that analogy helps you sleep at night, well all right then.” She loosened her grip on the steering wheel and motioned for him to continue - her delicate wrist twisting, her long fingers beckoning him closer. “So, what was the problem?”

It didn’t help him sleep at night and blast her for calling him on it. “Before we married, we thought we were on the same page, it wasn’t until a month or so afterward we discovered our words had different context. She wanted the Cattlemen society life she’d always known; I wanted just plain ol’ cattle. Even though we’d known each other for years, we never really knew each other.” He rapped his knuckles on the window beside him. “We just married for all the wrong reasons.”

“Don’t you think every marriage has its ups and downs?” she asked, her voice soft and thoughtful. She craned her neck to see around the plow. When she settled back against the seat, she turned her big, green eyes on him and arched a brow.

“Not like ours.”

“Nick, I’m sure you wanted the best for her.” She reached out and fingered the fold of his sleeve, her touch soothing as if she understood the situation.

His heart sped up, yet an odd calm settled over him. “Sometimes what we think is best, isn’t always the right thing to do.”

She peeked at him, an impish smile pulling at her lips until her sweet dimple appeared. “Kinda like me stealing you?”

“Something like that.” He stared at her, fascinated at how such a small facial expression lit up her entire face. “Your intentions were honorable.”