Chapter 2
Deb sighed, pressing the heel of her hand against her eye as baby Jimmy started to cry in the truck's back seat. “It’s ok, sweet boy,” she said, trying to sound motherly as she looked around from the passenger’s seat to give the wailing toddler a look at her face.
He wasn’t talking yet, which worried her sometimes. Jimmy seemed to be developing at his own pace, but she didn’t want him to fall behind other children his age.
Seeing her face did nothing to calm him, however.
She didn’t blame him for his reaction. She wasn’t used to the city, either.
Phoenix wasn’t a huge city like New York or Los Angeles, but it was a lot larger than anything Deb was used to.
She lived the rancher’s life and had since she was even younger than Jimmy.
Her family’s ranch was her prized possession, and she worked hard every day to ensure it thrived and continued on.
Sometimes that meant having to take trips into metal jungles like this in order to sell some horses.
“Hey, baby,” she said, her voice going high and kind for the sake of her son. “It’s okay. Momma’s here.”
Jimmy calmed himself a bit, but he was still fussing.
Deb was counting the seconds until this deal was done and they could get back to real life.
Leaving the ranch wasn’t her main issue.
It was just being in the city. It was so high-tech, so busy and loud and colorful.
It assaulted every one of Deb’s senses, and she had a feeling it was the same for Jimmy.
She had grown up on the ranch. She had worked its land since she could walk.
She had fallen in love there, gotten married there, had her child there, and even gotten her heart broken there.
It was a place of wonderful and horrible memories alike, a safety net where she could relax and force the world to make sense.
Memories of the ranch inevitably brought her mind to Vin. Her ex-husband was likely out there somewhere, hunting down outlaws and living off the land the way he liked. That man had been impossible since they were teenagers, the call of the great wide open somewhere always loud in his head.
But Vin had changed after leaving the ranch and going out into the world for the first time. He had left with a mission, a calling to serve. He had returned different. He was wounded and distraught and wrestled with inner demons that had clung to his soul in a far-off land.
She knew right then and there that she would lose him. It would take many more years for him to leave, but it was a slow and steady deterioration. But he still took care of her and Jimmy, sending them money every week. He never missed a week, ever.
Vin was a man of responsibility, and he checked in with her once in a while. However, understandably, he had kept a far greater distance over the last six months.
A knock on the window drew Deb’s attention away from the baby. Looking over, she could see the chiseled jawline and green eyes of Sean, her new husband. He was looking in the window at her intently, a gentle patience hidden somewhere behind layers upon layers of stoic toughness.
She rolled the window down. “What’s up?” she asked, trying and failing to give her man a weary smile.
He looked frustrated, which was nothing new. Sean had whatever the male version of “resting bitch face” could be called. But he seemed particularly irritated standing outside the vehicle. “They got questions,” he said, rolling his eyes and gesturing back toward the building.
“What kinda questions?” Deb asked, feeling her own irritation starting to rise. Why couldn’t she just sit in the car with the baby and not be bothered with this crap?
“The kind I don’t know how to answer,” Sean replied. “Questions about the training.”
Deb sighed again and nodded silently. Sean was an able-bodied man’s man. He was so much like Vin, which wasn’t shocking given how close the two had been both as teens and as soldiers when they went off to war together.
But Sean lacked Vin’s patience, the gentleness that her ex had hidden behind a prickly, gruff exterior.
Sean was all gruffness when dealing with other people, and he had a short fuse.
Of course, he was never like that with her.
She had seen a side of this man that spoke to places in her heart she had long since believed dead and buried.
He had awoken a fire in her, a passion that years of Vin’s deteriorating mental state had snuffed out. She was grateful for Sean and for this second chance he had provided her. She just wished he knew something, anything about training horses.
Sean had grown up in Phoenix. As such, he was more comfortable in this place than she could ever be. That was why she hoped that he’d be able to just handle the sale, sign the paperwork, and be done with it.
But no such luck, apparently.
Deb opened her door and swung out her legs, her heeled boots impacting the city's pavement like it was the terrain of an alien planet. She stretched as she stood outside the vehicle, straightening her tight-fitting blue jeans.
She moved past Sean toward the truck’s backseat, opening the door to reach inside and unfasten Jimmy from his car seat. “There’s Momma’s big boy,” she said to him, lifting the fussing baby up and out while planting a kiss on his chubby cheek.
He stopped his cries the moment she wrapped her arms around him, burying his head and face in her chest and snuggling in deep. “There we go.”
“You’re bringing the baby?” Sean asked, looking her up and down.
“Would you rather I leave him out here by himself?” Deb bit back, an eyebrow raised as if daring Sean to try her on this.
“You’re right,” he replied, shaking his head. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Well,” Deb replied with a sly smile, “it’s not your strong suit.”
Sean laughed, a smile breaking through his stern countenance for a moment as he leaned in to kiss his wife on the forehead.
He then leaned down and gave little Jimmy a kiss on top of his head.
Deb was thankful for Sean for a lot of reasons, but she was especially thankful for how great he was with her son.
Of course, Sean wasn’t Jimmy’s daddy, but that didn’t seem to matter.
He was always patient and kind with the boy, providing the father figure in his life that was so desperately needed.
When Vin had left, Deb had been so stressed at suddenly having to be everything for this innocent, wonderful little boy.
It was nice to finally have some help.
Deb walked toward the large trailer hitched to the rear of their truck and looked in at two gorgeous brown male horses.
“Hey, good boys,” she said, speaking lovingly to them.
The horses turned their attention to her voice, as they had always been trained to do.
Deb bounced Jimmy in her arms a bit and spoke down to them.
“Say ‘hi horsies,’” she said, moving the baby’s arm as though he were waving at the enormous animals.
She had been raised around horses all her life, and she was happy to expose her son to these magnificent creatures from an early age.
The two who were here with them were well-trained, exceptional specimens.
It always made Deb sad to part with her animals, but this was one of the ways the ranch kept the lights on.
Her father had told her once when she was very young and crying because they were selling one of her favorite mares that she’d get used to it one day. He said she would someday understand the realities of ranch life and learn to appreciate the time she had with each of these creatures.
And he was partially right. She had come to understand the economic realities of ranch ownership. However, she still felt a pang of sadness whenever it was time to part with one of her prized beauties.
Horses were her primary passion in life and always had been.
It was how she and Vin had initially bonded when he came to work at her parent’s ranch at a very young age.
He had such a way with these animals, a commanding presence cradled by a gentle dominance that earned him the respect, admiration, and affection of the animals under their care.
Sean lacked any sort of familiarity with horses.
He had worked on the ranch as a farm hand, mostly tending to livestock like cattle and sheep.
He could barely ride a horse, and Deb often found his lack of equestrian understanding to be cute and endearing.
Sean was so strong and capable, but this was one area where he just didn’t fit in, and the chink in his otherwise-polished armor was nice to see.
Deb looked in at the horses with Jimmy, and her mind started to flash back to the day they were born. Her eyes began to mist, and she sniffled softly.
“Every time,” Sean said with a chuckle.
She looked back to see him looking at her with fondness, gently shaking his head. “I can’t help it,” Deb replied. “They’re a part of the family.”
“Yeah, but like your daddy always said, this is ranch life,” Sean said.
“I know,” Deb responded with a gentle nod. “But I was there when these boys were pulled into the world. I worked with them from the moment they could stand. When you make a connection that early in life, there’s a bond there that never goes away.”
“Hm,” Sean said, his expression suddenly darkening.
Deb realized he was reading too far into her words. Sure, she had known and loved these horses for many years, but he was connecting her words to someone else she had known a very long time.
“Stop that,” Deb scolded, trying to halt this train of thought before it careened out of control. “You know you’re the man I love.” She reached one hand out while still holding the baby with the other and pressed her palm into his strong, hardened chest.
She could feel his heart beating there under her fingers.
His strong, caring heart that she valued above all else.
He stood still for a moment as though her words and touch were starting to sink in.
He then pressed the palm of his hand into the back of hers, pressing her touch deeper into the muscles of his chest.
“I know,” he said finally, and Deb breathed a sigh of relief.
The last thing she needed right now was Sean spiraling out of control with jealousy. As soon as she allowed herself to relax from that momentary faux pas, her attention was diverted by an unfamiliar sound.
It was almost like an explosion, but it carried within it a metallic quality that made it sound almost electronic in its resonance. Her attention was pulled out into the city, where a visible shockwave was spreading.
Her hand, still pressed into Sean’s chest, could feel his heartbeat start to race. He took in a sharp breath as the shockwave washed over them, blowing back Deb’s hair. The horses neighed in a panic within the trailer and moved the entire vehicle back and forth as they thrashed inside.
Deb pulled her hand away from Sean to wrap both arms protectively over the baby.
The moment the explosion hit, Deb noticed vehicles on the street stopping dead in their tracks.
The traffic light at the intersection just ahead of them went dead, along with the “Do Not Walk” sign on the street corner.
People were looking around in a blind panic, and Sean had fallen deathly pale. It was as though he had seen a ghost. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, flipping it open. He turned the screen toward Deb while frantically hitting buttons. It was completely dead.
Deb knew what this meant, and so did Sean. Both Vin and Sean had scared her with talk of dirty bombs, terrorist attacks, and a wealth of other violent means that could collapse society. But none had terrified her more than their description of electromagnetic pulses.
“We have to get out of this city,” Sean said, his green eyes snapping down to look seriously into her face. “Right now.”