Free LoversFeud by Ann Jacobs Page A

again without Mom.
    The rain that had persisted yesterday and throughout this morning had finally let up, though the sky was still cloudy and overcast. Bye checked his watch. Good. He had nearly two hours before Karen had said she’d meet him at the line shack, so he could ride instead of drive.
    Maybe a hard run would be as good for him as for his blood-bay stallion, Vampire, whose exercise had been limited lately to short rides in the paddock. Bye had trouble understanding why none of the stablemen dared to ride him out on the ranch roads, since he always welcomed the challenge of controlling his spirited seventeen-hand thoroughbred.
    Yeah, a gallop across the fields should do wonders toward clearing his brain. Eager now, Bye exchanged his hand-tooled dress boots for the worn pair he kept in the tack room and grabbed a pair of leather gloves while waiting for Manuel to saddle Vampire. Knowing how the stable boy shuddered at the thought of having to go anywhere near the horse, Bye would have done the chore himself if his father hadn’t always insisted that taking care of the horses and doing stable chores were parts of what he paid the help to do.
    “Thanks, Manuel.” The boy handed over the reins and scurried back just in time to avoid a nip from Vampire. “You need to let him know he doesn’t frighten you.” Bye checked the girth to be sure it was cinched tightly before swinging into the saddle.
    “But Vampire, he does scare me. He bites.”
    “Then I’ll just have to tell him that’s not very polite,” Bye said, his tone deliberately teasing.
    Manuel’s eyes widened. “ De nada. I don’t mind taking care of your horse, Mr. Bye. I am happy to have the job.”
    No doubt that was true. Like most of the Mexican ranch hands, Manuel sent most of his minimum-wage pay to his family south of the border. “Take it easy. I don’t think we ever fired a stable hand just because he got nervous around a full-grown stallion.”
    “Gracias.”
    As Bye rode out of the stable yard, he wasted no time giving his fractious horse a few gentle reminders as to who was boss, and by the time they turned onto a ranch road, Vampire had quit fighting the bit and was responding to Bye’s light touch on the reins.
    * * * * *
    Gray clouds hung low, buffeted in a fierce wind over the high plateau. Bye watched the miles go by under the big horse’s clattering hooves as if nothing had changed. At the fence encircling the wind farm he’d built above a large oil field that doubled as a pasture for calves and their mothers, he reined in, paused and stopped to look. Whereas seeing the turbines turning usually exhilarated him, today they were just objects to note.
    The windmills weren’t dreams realized or obstacles overcome, only hundreds of three-bladed turbines placed on fifty-meter-high platforms in a precise pattern above the pasture to capture energy from the strong winds that constantly blew across the land. Bye recalled bringing his mother here before she got too weak to ride, watching the joy on her face when she realized he was finally doing something useful.
    My boy has grown up. Her words rang in his ears. She’d been so proud of him, her love unwavering and unconditional. She’d always supported and loved him, even when he’d done little or nothing to deserve it.
    “Mom, I’ll miss you more than you’ll ever know.” Though she was dead and beyond being hurt, Bye wouldn’t talk about what had happened back at the house. Not here, where he felt her presence almost as if she were still at his side, teasing him gently for tilting at windmills, expecting nothing more from him but that he be her loving son. She’d never demanded or expected perfection from him or expressed disappointment when he fucked up, the way Four always had.
    As Bye watched the mesmerizing synchrony of the turbines, he wondered if anything would ever be the same. Deep down, he knew it wouldn’t. Not for him or for Deidre. With the revelation of one