Cindi Myers - Her Cowboy Soldier

“Where would you go? This is your home.” Bobbie peered intently at her. “Aren’t you happy here?”

“I am happy. But I’ve never lived in a small town before. Right now it’s a novelty, but later...” She let her voice trail away.

“Don’t borrow trouble worrying about what might never come. You’re settling in nicely. You’ve got a job, and friends. You’re making a place for yourself here.”

She was settling in, but was she settling? Hartland felt so peaceful, so safe. Maybe she was only hiding here, protecting herself from hurt instead of getting out into the wider world and developing a thicker skin.

She could almost hear her mother, encouraging an eight-year-old Amy, who had been worried about starting classes at yet another new school. “Doing the easy thing all the time is for cowards,” Katherine Anderson Carruthers had said. “You’re not a coward. You’re going to go out there and show everyone you’re not afraid, and just doing that will make you braver, and next time it won’t be so hard.”

Her mother had been right. By the time Amy was sixteen, starting at a new school wasn’t so hard. But part of that may have been because she hadn’t felt compelled to try so hard to fit in and make friends. After all, she’d be leaving soon, so if the other students didn’t like her, it didn’t matter in the long run.

She thought of Josh and his “in your face” hook, daring people to take him as he was or not at all. She understood that kind of bravado.

“Anything else exciting happen at the school board meeting, or do I need to wait and read about it in the paper?” Bobbie asked.

She wasn’t sure if her grandmother had decided there was nothing else to say on the matter of Amy staying or leaving, or if she was saving her arguments for another time. Either way, Amy was grateful for the change of subject. “A woman named Erica Bridegate was there. She introduced herself as Love Soldier.”

“Hippie-looking chick—tall, with dark hair?”

“Yes. Do you know her?”

“She buys produce from me and asks smart questions about how to grow things. Kelli and Devon Bridegate’s girl. One of those who marches to her own drummer, but nothing wrong with that. What was she up to?”

“She wants to turn the vacant lot next to the elementary school into a garden for the kids. They’d grow vegetables and eat them in the school cafeteria.”

“And the school board thought she was crazy.”

“Not really. She’d done her homework and recruited volunteers and even got folks to agree to donate a lot of the material she’d need for the project. But she asked the school to pay the water bill and that worried the board, because no one knew how much that bill might be.”

“Makes sense. What happened?”

“Josh said he knew about rainwater irrigation systems and offered to help her set up a system to collect rain from the school roof and store it in a cistern to use to water the garden. He said he worked with a couple of systems like that in college.”

“I’d forgotten he went to University of Northern Colorado and got a degree in agricultural science. I think the plan was for him to come home and help his daddy run the Bar S.”

“And then he was hurt in Iraq.” She felt a pang as she said the words. So much loss and pain from that war.

“That was later. First he came home and he and his dad butted heads over the right way to do things. Mitch Scofield can be pretty stubborn, and I imagine Josh takes after his old man. Then Josh shocked everyone when he enlisted. I think one reason he did it was to make Mitch mad, but you never saw two people prouder of their boy than Josh’s mom and dad. It tore them to pieces when he was hurt.”

“Josh lives with them on the ranch?”

“He has a cabin they fixed up for him, so he’s close but not in their back pocket.”

“Am I in your back pocket?” Bobbie had lived alone in the big farmhouse for almost five years before Amy and Chloe moved in.

“That’s different.” Bobbie waved her hand in dismissal. “You and I get along. Josh and his dad still don’t always see eye to eye. It would be like you living with your mother.”

“Mom and I get along.”

“And you get on each other’s nerves, too. Katherine can be plenty bossy, I know.”

Amy bit her lip to keep from pointing out that Bobbie herself liked to do her share of ordering people around. But Bobbie’s bossiness didn’t bother Amy, not the way her mother’s managing ways did. Maybe it was that generational thing again.

“Hello. Anybody home?” Both women turned to see Charla in the door of the greenhouse.

“Hello, Charla. What brings you out our way?” Bobbie asked.

“I was heading back from picking up supplies in Junction and thought I’d swing by and say hello.” She greeted each woman with a hug.

“Supplies weren’t the only thing you bought in Junction,” Amy said. “You had your hair done.”

Charla smoothed a hand over her gleaming blond locks. “I may have indulged in a little freshening up.”

“That ought to impress a certain single banker.” Bobbie winked at Amy, who did her best to stifle a laugh.

“If you’re referring to Clay Westerburg, I already struck out with him.” Charla sighed and leaned back against one of the elevated planting tables, arms crossed over her chest. “We went out and he talked about his ex-wife the entire evening.”

Bobbie patted the younger woman’s shoulder. “The right man will come along when you least expect it.”

“I hope you’re right. Anyway, I didn’t stop by to moan about my love life—or lack of it. I’m recruiting for the booster club. We need chaperones for the prom and the after-prom party.”

“Count me out,” Bobbie said. “I’m too old to stay up that late, and the music the kids play gets on my nerves.”

“What about you, Amy?”

“I don’t think I’m a prom kind of person. I never even went to a prom when I was a teenager.”

Charla’s eyes widened. “You didn’t?”

“I took correspondence courses my last couple of years of high school. We were living in Spain—and then Korea.”

“Wild. Then you should definitely do this. It gives you an excuse to get dressed up and stay up past midnight, and in this town, that’s something.”

“What do the chaperones do?”

“Just mingle among the kids, make sure they stay out of trouble.”

“Will you be there?”

“I wouldn’t miss it.”

Amy laughed. “You make it sound like a date instead of a duty.”

“We’re the responsible adults and we have to enforce the rules, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun, too.” She pulled a notepad from her shoulder bag and consulted it. “So far I’ve got Teresa Fischer from the bank, Josh Scofield, Rick Southerland, Zach Fremont and his wife, Susie.” She stashed the pad back in her purse. “You’d be the perfect addition. Say you’ll do it.”

Amy shook her head. “I’ll pass.” The idea of hanging out in a social setting with Josh felt awkward; they clashed every time they saw each other. “Besides, what would I do with Chloe?”

“As if I couldn’t look after Chloe,” Bobbie said. “You should go. It would do you good to socialize with people your own age—the other chaperones, I mean.”

“I don’t think so.” Sure, the evening might turn out to be fun. Or it could be a painful reminder of her status as both a local outsider and a single woman. “But thanks for asking.” She avoided looking at Bobbie, though she was aware of her grandmother’s gaze fixed on her. Bobbie wanted Amy to get more involved with the townspeople, but a formal dance was not the place Amy wanted to start.

“Let me know if you change your mind,” Charla said. “There’s always room for one more, though I could use a couple more single men, to make the night a little more interesting.”