Stella Bagwell - Should Have Been Her Child

At seventy-one, Will was still spry and healthy and a better cowhand than most men thirty years younger. Jess didn’t want to think about the time his grandfather would no longer be able to pitch hay, build fences or brand cattle. As for riding a horse, the old man would be happy to die in the saddle.

Jess checked the watering troughs and feed buckets hanging on the rail fence even though he knew Will had already seen to the horses’ needs. He was simply making the rounds, satisfying the lawman inside of him that all was well.

In the morning, he would tell Pa to give him two or three more days and then he’d help him hit the brush. Since there was only the two of them, it would take at least three days of hard riding to scour the mountains and arroyos around the ranch for stray Hastings cattle.

They didn’t have a bunkhouse full of cowboys to do the work for them. But even if he had those resources, Will wouldn’t want it that way. Like Jess, the old man was a proud loner. He didn’t want anyone doing his job for him. Yet he welcomed Jess’s companionship and helping hand, because Jess was family. And someday all of this would be his grandson’s.

For the past four years Jess’s help in keeping the Hastings ranch going had been in the form of money. A part of the salary he’d earned with the border patrol. And if Katrina’s mother hadn’t been killed in a car accident, he supposed he would have still been in El Paso.

Sighing wearily, he lifted the felt hat from his head and scraped his fingers through thick waves flattened against his skull.

It must be true that all things happened for a reason, he thought, as he walked slowly back toward the small, stucco house. Regina hadn’t been the love of his life. He’d married her believing she would fill the empty hole in him after Victoria had rejected him. But she hadn’t. And he supposed he couldn’t blame her for divorcing him. He hadn’t been able to give her his heart or the richer lifestyle she’d so dreamed about.

Her untimely death had left his little girl without a mother. Yet it had brought him back to New Mexico, to his grandparents and a job that was better suited to him.

Yes, he thought, all things happened for a reason. Some good. Some bad. Now he could only wonder what this trouble at the T Bar K was going to mean. For him. And the Ketchums.

Victoria had reached the end of her rope. Rather than discussing their health problems, three-quarters of her patients preferred to hear the scoop about the body found on the T Bar K. Who was it? What had happened? What was the law doing about it? Was the sheriff’s department calling it a murder?

She couldn’t get any work done, much less find a moment of peace to clear her mind. By six o’clock on the fourth evening after Jess’s visit to the ranch, she was ready to scream.

Her jagged nerves must have shown on her face when Nevada rapped lightly on the open door of her office.

“Knock, knock. Is it safe to come in?”

Victoria frowned at the young nurse. “Since when have you ever worried about entering my office?”

“About two minutes ago. You looked as though you could wring someone’s neck.”

Victoria signed her name to the bottom of the document she’d been reading, then slapped the paper atop a pile she’d been meaning to clear from her desk for two days. “It’s been a difficult day,” she tried to explain.

Nevada eased her hip onto the corner of the desk. “You look exhausted.”

Victoria chuckled. “I’m not twenty-two like you, Nevada. I’m thirty. By six in the evening I look wilted.”

Nevada shook a finger at her. “That’s not your age. That’s from working too hard.”

“I’m not the only one who works hard around here.” She gave the nurse a grateful smile. “Has Lois already gone home?”

Nevada nodded. “The receptionist is gone, the front door is locked and the lights are out. You should be leaving, too.”

Victoria rose from the leather chair and began to gather several medical reports she planned to read tonight.

Nevada kept her seat, seemingly not in any hurry to leave Victoria. It wasn’t like the young woman, Victoria decided. Normally, she was always in a rush to get home or run some sort of errand, not to mention call one of her countless boyfriends.

“Uh—did you find something bad on Mrs. Barton’s test results?”

Victoria gave her friend and co-worker a reassuring smile. “No. Mrs. Barton is going to be fine. The tests show her heart is strong and healthy. She strained a muscle in her chest while playing baseball with her ten-year-old son. The pain was mimicking angina, that’s all.”

“Oh, that’s good news. I thought—well, you’ve looked a little down these past few days. I was afraid it might have something to do with one of the patients. You treat them all as if they were your family.”

With Victoria’s mother passing, her brother being killed and then her father dying, the past years had seen her once-large family dwindle down to only two brothers. To make up for the void, she supposed she had turned more and more to her patients.

“You worry too much about me, Nevada.”

The younger woman shot Victoria an affectionate grin. “You’re my boss. And friend. I’d rather see you smiling.”

Victoria made a motion that the two of them should leave the small office. After turning off the light, the women walked slowly down a narrow hallway which would lead them to a back exit of the brick building that served as Victoria’s private clinic.

As they walked, Victoria replied, “It’s hard for me to smile when all I hear is questions and speculations about a body being found on the ranch. I’m really getting weary of people asking me about it.”

Shrugging, Nevada reasoned, “It’s big news, Victoria. The whole thing has aroused curiosity in the community. That’s only natural.”

“I understand that much. But it’s impossible to discuss medications, treatments or health problems when my patients want to gossip.”

Nevada had to laugh. “I know what you mean. I can hardly take a blood pressure without people bombarding me with questions. Maybe the authorities will come up with some new information that will quieten down all this talk.”

Victoria nodded hopefully. “What’s needed is a concrete explanation. One that will satisfy all this curiosity and all the townsfolk will turn their attention elsewhere.”

Reaching the back door, the two women paused.

“You’re right about needing an explanation,” Nevada agreed. “But how long do you think it’s going to take the law to figure things out? Sometimes these unknown identity cases take months, even years, before they’re solved.”

Victoria groaned at the thought. Several months of this and she’d pull out her hair. “I can’t stand another week of this uproar, much less months. I’ve got to do something about it.”

Interest peaked Nevada’s dark brows. “Like what?” she asked eagerly.

“Once I leave here, I’m going over to the sheriff’s department,” Victoria stated firmly. “I want answers. Or if not answers, at least some reassurance that the law is moving on this case.”

A wicked grin suddenly appeared on Nevada’s pretty face. “Hmmm. You might meet up with some resistance there,” she said.

Victoria knew the younger woman was talking about Jess. Although she hadn’t known the nurse before the undersheriff had left the area and Victoria behind, Nevada had heard about their relationship. At least, what the general public knew about it and the bits that Victoria had volunteered to her. But she’d not told the other woman everything. No one, not even her family members, knew how much she had loved Jess Hastings or the devastation his leaving had caused her. She’d kept most of it hidden. After all, she was a doctor. She couldn’t be needy herself. She had to take care of the needy.