she had nowhere else to turn.
“I’m sure,” she had replied.
She’d taken a leave of absence from the hospital, gotten together what there was in her meager savings account, transferring it into her checking account, and driven down here with Ryan. John’s divorce papers were tucked into her purse. She had no one to lean on but herself.
Ryan had put up a huge fuss about being taken away from his friends. He’d also threatened to run away the first chance he got.
He repeated the threat every hour on the hour in case she hadn’t heard him the first half a dozen times.
Debi told herself that Ryan only threatened to run away because he wanted to frighten her into turning around and driving back to Indianapolis. Maybe a year ago, she might have, but what stopped her now was that she knew if she did, for all intents and purposes she would have been signing her brother’s epitaph because as sure as day followed night, Ryan was on a path headed straight for destruction.
“Well, the clowns who run this place aren’t going to get the opportunity to brainwash me because I’m taking off first chance I get. You know I will,” he threatened again.
Debi sighed as she stared at the road before her. She wasn’t all that sure the threats were empty ones. Ryan could very well mean what he said. That was why she wasn’t going back home once she had finished registering him and got him settled in. If Ryan did take off, she wanted to be right here where she could go after him and bring him back. He was her brother and at fifteen, obviously still a minor. She was responsible for him, and she would have felt that way even if he were eighteen.
She prayed that it wouldn’t come to that, but considering what she had already gone through with Ryan, she wasn’t counting on it being easy.
“I mean it. I’m gone. First chance I get,” Ryan repeated with emphasis.
“Yes, I heard you,” Debi replied stoically. She also heard the fear in his voice. God, let these people here reach him, she prayed. She saw the cluster of people in and around the corral. “Okay, we’re here. For my sake, try not to insult the man in the first five minutes.”
Ryan’s laugh had a nasty sound to it, and she knew this was not going to go well. “Hey, I don’t want to spoil the man, now, do I?”
She didn’t bother answering her brother. Anger and despair had grabbed equal parts of her. Anger that he had allowed himself to become this destructive, negative being and despair because she couldn’t snap him out of it and had been forced to turn to strangers for help. She’d thought she was too proud for that but obviously pride had withered and died in the face of this situation.
There were two cowboys by the corral as she pulled up. Were they just workers, or...?
She saw the slightly taller of the two draw away from the enclosure and approach her car. Debi turned off the engine, carefully watching the approaching cowboy’s every move. He strolled toward them like a sleek panther, with an economy of steps.
Debi got out of the vehicle. Ryan remained where he was. She wasn’t about to leave him in the car, not even if she was only inches away and had the car keys in her hand. She knew her brother, knew that he could hot-wire anything with an engine and take off at a moment’s notice. She had no doubt that he probably thought that he could propel himself into the driver’s seat and just take off without a single backward glance.
Well, not today, she told herself. Bending down, she looked in through the open window on the driver’s side. “Get out of the car, Ryan.”
“No,” he informed her flatly.
At fifteen, Ryan was taller than she was and while scrawny-looking, he was still stronger. The only time she ever managed to get him to move was when she caught him off guard.
That wasn’t going to work here, she realized, looking down into his defiant face.
Jackson White Eagle chose that exact moment to enter into her life. “Trouble, ma’am?”
“‘Ma’am’?” Ryan echoed with a sneer. “Is this guy for real?” he jeered, turning toward his sister.
“Very real,” Jackson assured him in an even voice that was devoid of any emotion. “Why don’t you get out of the car like your sister requested?” he suggested in the same tone.
“Why don’t you mind your own freakin’ business?” Ryan retorted, sticking up his chin the way he did whenever he was spoiling for a fight.
“For the next month or two or three,” Jackson informed him slowly with emphasis, “you are my business, Ryan,” he concluded in the same low, evenly controlled voice with which he had greeted the teen’s sister.
Jackson opened the door on the passenger side, firmly took hold of Ryan’s arm and with one swift, economic movement, pulled his newest “ranch hand,” as he liked to call the teens who arrived on his doorstep, out of the car and to his feet.
“Ow!” Ryan cried angrily, grabbing his shoulder as if it had been wrenched out of its socket. “You going to let this jerk manhandle me like that?” he demanded angrily, directing the question at his sister.
Before Debi had a chance to respond, Jackson told her brother matter-of-factly, “That didn’t hurt, Ryan.”
“How do you know?” Ryan cried, still holding his shoulder as if he expected his arm to drop off.
“Because,” Jackson said in a calm, steely voice, “if I had wanted to hurt you, Ryan, trust me, you would have known it. To begin with, the pain would have thrown you off balance and you would have dropped like a stone to your knees.” He released his hold on Ryan’s arm, but his eyes still held Ryan prisoner. “Now then, why don’t you get your things out of the car and come with me? I’ll show you and your sister where you’ll be staying for the next few months.”
“Few months?” Ryan repeated indignantly. “The hell I will.”
Jackson suppressed a sigh. He turned from the woman who he was about to escort to the ranch house and looked back at the teen she had brought for him to essentially “fix.” This one, he had a feeling, was going to take a bit of concentrated effort.
“By the way,” he said to Ryan, “I let the first two occasions slide because you’re new here and this is your first day—”
“And my last,” Ryan interjected.
Debi had stood by, quiet, until she couldn’t endure it any longer. “Ryan!”
The smile Jackson offered to the woman who had brought the teen to him was an understanding one.
“That’s all right. Ryan will come around.” His eyes shifted to the teen. Under all that bravado was just a scared kid, he thought. A kid he intended to reach—but it wouldn’t be easy. “There’s a fine for every time you curse. You put a dollar into the swear jar.”
“Curse?” Ryan mocked. “You call that a curse?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes, I do. While you’re
