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Mark shook his head. “It was my fault.”
Her father grunted this time. “I’ll say.”
“Do you mind?” Mark asked the man. “We’re trying to have a conversation here.”
“You can’t order people around,” Mr. Stelling said. Then he crossed his arms over his stomach. “Who do you think you are, anyway?”
“I don’t know any longer,” Mark snapped back without thinking. On the day he and Hannah were trying to discuss, he’d known exactly who he was. He’d just been awarded a full scholarship to the college in Missoula. Everyone said he’d win at least two events in the local teen rodeo like he had for the past three years. He craved prizes like that. Somehow it was proof that he was somebody—a hero of sorts. He didn’t think he’d see any more of those wins again in life. No one gave out brass-plated belt buckles to someone for learning to tie their shoes.
He glanced over at Hannah. He had defended her from everything once. Now he wasn’t sure if he could protect her from anything.
“I’m sorry,” he said. The least he could do was get on that combine and harvest her father’s wheat. He didn’t want her to have to do that. She looked tired to him.
“That night was my fault,” Hannah said again, her voice firm. “I shouldn’t have gone on like I did. You were excited about that scholarship and all I could see was that it was pulling you away from me.”
“No,” Mark protested. There was that flash of hurt in her eyes again. “I always saw that scholarship as being for us. For a chance to live a good life for us—you, me and—well, I wasn’t thinking of children then, but it would have been all of us.”
He’d never thought he’d be content to be a rancher. He had wanted to win all the prizes the world had. He pictured Hannah on his arm, looking proud. A big house. An important job. Lots of money. Truthfully, he didn’t ever remember asking himself if that was the kind of life that Hannah would want, though.
“Well, if I hadn’t been so upset, you wouldn’t have gone off like you did,” she insisted. “I knew that scholarship was important to you.”
Mark shook his head. He wasn’t willing to let himself off the hook that easily. “It wasn’t about the scholarship. No one forced me to go out drinking with Clay. He didn’t even want to go driving around. Besides, my mother had always told me never to start drinking. She knew my father had a terrible time with it and she worried I’d inherit that from him.”
No one needed to say anything more. Mark had let alcohol overtake him that night. He became so confused he came up with the crazy idea of taking the hunting rifle from the rack in his pickup and going in to rob that gas station. He couldn’t remember what he’d been thinking. But he still clearly saw the slice of time when he’d turned that gun on the male clerk inside the station and demanded money. Events had happened fast then. The clerk turned out to be an ex-marine and skilled enough in combat to disarm Mark. In the scuffle, the gun had discharged and the bullet slammed into Mark’s head.
He sat there a minute, just driving as he watched the farmland go by. He was more content than he thought he’d be with his future on the family ranch. He turned toward Hannah. “Don’t let Jeremy ever drink.”
Until this moment, Mark hadn’t realized that the Nelson curse of alcoholism could touch his precious son.
Hannah grinned and glanced at him over her father’s head. “So far Jeremy hasn’t asked for anything stronger than grape juice. That’s his favorite. He tends to spill so he takes it in a sippy cup, but he’s almost ready for a regular big boy cup.”
Mark basked in the moment. This was the kind of conversation parents would have.
“The boy should be drinking milk, not juice,” Mr. Stelling announced.
Mark saw Hannah bite back a response. He was glad they were making the turn off the gravel road. There was a lot of irritation in his pickup and only some of it belonged to him. Still, he was pleased to be escorting Hannah home.
* * *
Hannah felt her stomach muscles clench as the pickup turned into the drive leading to her father’s house. The sky had grown lighter although it remained gray. The conversation had bumped along all the way back from Miles City, and she saw the scowl on her father’s face deepen as he looked at his place. She figured he regretted the deal with Mark. But it was too late; Mark was already parking the pickup, and someone needed to run the combine.
“At least the rain is holding off,” she said, hoping to ease the tension. Every rancher she knew liked to talk about the weather. The clouds were gray, but there had been no droplets on the windshield of the pickup.
Both men just grunted in response to her observation.
Mark opened the door on his side of the cab and she did the same. She was relieved to step down onto the hard-packed ground. Maybe things would be friendlier now that they were home.
She startled herself by even thinking of this place as home. But she took a good look around. It had been twilight when she arrived at her father’s ranch last night and dark when she left this morning. Now, seeing the place in full light, she noticed signs of neglect. Weeds had long ago overtaken her mother’s old garden space. The buildings needed new paint. Every fall her father had hired a local man to grade the road from the house to the barn, but it hadn’t been done in what looked like years.
She heard her father slide across the seat and step down from the pickup.
In spite of everything, she had some warm memories of living here. She hoped she would be able to do a few things to fix it up in the time she’d have.
“It’s good to be home,” she said softly.
Her father gave her a long look. Then he nodded curtly and started walking toward the house.
Hannah watched him make his way to the porch. She wondered if she could ever make her peace with this man. She’d heard sermons about forgiveness and figured her adoptive father was high on the list of people she needed to work on in that area.
She’d need God’s grace to do anything like that, she thought to herself as she followed her father over to the house.
She walked up the steps behind the older man. Mark was right behind her.
Her father paused as he stood in front of the door to the house.
“There’s no need for you to come in,” he announced as he reached for the knob. He kept his back toward Hannah.
“Mark will need something to drink,” she finally said, figuring the words must have been addressed to him. “Water, at least. Maybe iced tea. Operating that combine is dusty work.”
She sensed Mark stopping next to her. She never had understood her father’s grudge against the Nelson family. He’d had it before she’d been adopted and it seemed to be still active in his mind.
Her father turned then. His eyes narrowed as he looked at her directly. “I meant you, too. I can take it from here. I’ll bring out a gallon of water if you both just take a seat on the steps.”
His words caught her by surprise. She felt them slice through her like a knife. Mark moved closer.
Then, as her father started to push the door open, she realized what he was doing.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Hannah protested as she reached out and touched his shoulder. He turned, but didn’t meet her gaze. “I promised that nurse—the doctor, too—that I would keep an eye on you. You need to let me in the house or we are both sitting out here.”
Her father hadn’t invited her inside last night, either. Instead