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So an uphill climb, all fight and pain for Layton, with my reward being that a friend—really more of a colleague—regaining quality of life. I lose my job. While I’m well respected, I risk my professional reputation, and my résumé will have an odd gap.
Braxton Ranger is asking a hell of a lot from someone he’s never met.
* * *
I toss and turn all night.
My brain conjures images of the old west. Of ten-gallon hats and dusty streets. Of cowboys with a weird X of bullets strapped across their chests saying, “Howdy, Ma’am” to every woman in a dress and those pointy cowboy boots.
There’s a saloon shoot-out at one point with the old guy falling through the rail of the upper deck, his lifeless body smashing a table on the way down. Beer bottles fly as bartenders duck behind the solid wood bar.
I’d swear there’s banjo music, and somewhere a coyote howls in the distance.
I wake in a cold sweat. At least there was no shoot-out at high noon. No coyotes, but Kyle is howling in his sleep as his paws flip with his dreams.
“It’s okay, baby. Kyle, you’re okay.”
He stirs and resettles, falling back into sleep, but not howling any longer.
I grab my iPad from the nightstand and Google Ranger Ranch. Of course, their site comes up, but I pass it by to look at reviews.
Wow. Their horses are highly spoken of, but clients talk about staying for dinner or meeting at the barn in the early morning hours over cups of coffee and talking horses with Kimpton. I discover, after digging some more, that Kimpton is their dad. He inherited the business from his father before him.
There are pictures of four kids much younger on another site. It appears to be a magazine write-up. Mom and Dad and four kids, stair stepped, in front of a split rail fence while horses graze in the background.
Layton, the youngest, is the least comfortable in front of the camera, or the least willing. He looks annoyed. The picture names them out in order of age: Braxton, Exton, Brighton—the only girl, and Layton, with their parents Kimpton and Emilia.
Emilia. That was the password to get into his hospital room. It was a woman, but not who I assumed.
He hasn’t mentioned her. Braxton didn’t either. With some trepidation, I Google Emilia Ranger. My heart falls when I see an obituary. I read it, and my eyes are warm and stinging by the end. Some obituaries are perfunctory. Hers is anything but. It’s intimate and full of the emotion of the person who wrote it. She died of cancer. She knew it was coming.
I look at the dates to see it’s been a year and a half. This family—Braxton called them a unit—has had a lot of loss in that time.
The search for Kimpton Ranger comes up with news stories and blog posts of a kidnapping attempt on their ranch and even more with a land deal that ended up in court just this prior January.
This family needs to stick together. It seems something is always trying to bring them down.
My fingers hover over the search bar. I type in Layton Ranger and wait for the inevitable pain that rises with seeing his search results.
There are his stats, an ever-evolving Wikipedia page, news articles with pictures of the wreckage. There’s a horrid photo from the scene when they were loading him into the ambulance.
Then there are the pictures in his jersey, in a suit walking off a plane, one is a wind suit with air pods in as he walks into the stadium. There are pictures on the beach. Photos in the gym. If I scroll far enough, I can find my favorite… the one of the two of us at that night club, where he’s protecting me, giving me his warmth, that stupid wig dangling from my fingers. A scary moment made less scary by a man doing the right thing, even when it wasn’t convenient.
And that’s what it boils down to, isn’t it?
Doing the right thing at the right time, even when it’s inconvenient.
THIRTY-TWO
AURAL XANAX
LIVY
Me:I’m in. We’ll need to discuss logistics, but we’ll make it work. Let’s get him back in fighting shape.
I set my phone down only to hear it buzz. It hasn’t been thirty seconds.
Braxton Ranger:Thank you. You won’t regret it. You’ll have everything you need.
