Unbreakable Bonds (the Harlow Springs Ranch #6)

Chapter One

HARLOW SPRINGS RANCH

Claremore, OK

Breanna

Seven years old

Daddy’s been quiet the whole drive home from school. The principal called him after I punched Jacob Neil in the nose. But he deserved it because what he said can’t be true.

“Everybody knows you killed your mom.”

When I knocked him to the ground during recess, I let him know what I thought about what he said. He’s just a stupid bully who tries to make people cry, and even though I’ve never done anything to him, he really doesn’t like me.

I’ve seen my big brothers fight lots of times, and even if they were bleeding, they didn’t cry and act like babies. Daddy always makes them shake hands and make up after they ‘get it out of their system’.

Jacob cried like a baby and held his nose. Now, I’ll probably get in trouble when we get home.

Gravel from the driveway bounces off the bottom of the truck with little plinking and plunking sounds, and the trees on each side have pretty pink and white flowers on them.

Today they aren’t as pretty as they usually are, mainly because my heart is beating hard in my chest, and I don’t know what to feel.

My anger at Jacob drained away as I let what he said sink in.

I killed my mom.

There are family pictures all over the house with her in them, but the only ones of me and her are when I was a tiny baby. All the pictures of her stop after me. Daddy told me she died because she got sick.

What if I made her sick?

The truck comes to a stop in the circle drive in front of the house, and I grab my bookbag to run inside, my tears falling freely now, making it hard to see.

I don’t bother closing the front door and run into my brother, Tuck, at the bottom of the stairs, and he grabs my shoulders to stop me from falling.

“Whoa, where’s the fire?” He sees the tears on my face, and he crouches in front of me, still holding my shoulders, his eyebrows scrunched together. “Hey, what’s the matter?”

My sister Kinley is partway down the stairs, and she’s looking at me over Tuck’s shoulder, worry in her eyes as she pulls her eyebrows up. She sets her hand on the banister and waits for me to answer the question.

Sniffing, I drag the back of my hand across my face. “Jacob Neil told everyone on the playground that I killed my mom, so I punched him in the face and got in trouble.”

“That little shit!” Kinley screeches. Her face twists in anger as she crosses her arms over her chest.

I hear Dad’s boots scuff across the front porch, but I keep my eyes on Tuck. “Is it t-true? D-Did I kill M-mama?” I’m crying so hard that my words are choppy as I’m hiccupping.

All three of them cry, “No!”

Tuck looks over my head at Daddy, but my crying got my other brother, Mason’s, attention, and he walks around the corner from the kitchen with a big sandwich in his hand. “Did I just hear what I think I heard?”

Kinley barks over her shoulder, “Yes! The little asshole!”

“Kinley Grace!” Daddy growls. “Language.”

Our housekeeper, Opal, is standing right behind Mason with her apron on and a dishtowel in her hands. She looks sad.

Mason looks right at me and lifts his eyebrows. “Did you give him what for? If you didn’t, I will.”

“Mason!” Daddy growls again.

Mason looks over my head. “What? The kid obviously needs to be taught some manners.”

Daddy sighs. “She punched him in the nose, and they are both suspended for three days.”

“I would have done the same thing!” Kinley squawks.

“Good for you.” Mason says with a nod just before he stuffs half of his sandwich in his mouth.

“Stop it, all of you.” Daddy says, his voice angry. “Breanna, go upstairs and change out of your school clothes and meet me in the stables.”

Tuck lowers onto his knees in front of me and wipes the tears from my cheeks before he says, “Some boys are just mean, pipsqueak; there’s no excuse or reason for it. Doesn’t mean you did anything wrong.” He hugs me before he lets me go and stands up.

I look over my shoulder at Daddy, and he tips his head toward the stairs. “I’ll wait for you in the stables.”

Dragging my bookbag at my feet, I walk up the stairs, sniffing the whole way, to change out of my school clothes.

My sister, Marley, who is Mason’s twin, walks into my room as I pull one of my barn t-shirts over my head.

She’s really pretty and always has boys calling the house wanting her to go on dates with them.

Sometimes she yells at Mason about not being able to date because of him.

I don’t know what that means, but he always laughs and says ‘good’.

All my brothers and sisters are older than me, they’re in high school, except for my brother Gray, he’s getting married next year and helps Daddy with the ranch all day.

“Let me braid your hair before you go out with Dad,” she says and sits on the bed with a hair tie looped on her finger.

I’m the only one in my family who has curly hair, and some days, like today, it flies around my head. Marley and Kinley have long, wavy hair that’s shiny and soft and never flies away. Leaning on the edge of the bed between Marley’s legs, I’m still as she pulls my hair back in sections.

She works in silence for a few minutes before she says, “If Mama were here right now, she would hug you and hold you in her lap and tell you she loves you very much.” She ties my hair off at the bottom of the braid and turns me around to face her. “Since she’s not, I’m gonna do it for her.”

Laying my head on her shoulder, I rest there for a minute, inhaling the scent of her coconut lotion. Marley always smells like coconuts.

She pats my back and kisses my cheek. “I love you, pipsqueak. Now go on, Dad’s waiting for you.”

Now, I’m worried Daddy’s mad at me for fighting at school. But I couldn’t let Jacob get away with what he said.

I just don’t want Daddy to be mad at me.

Dragging my feet, I walk down to the stables, my boots getting covered in dust from my intentionally slow walk in the ruts from the tractor.

My oldest brother, Gray, is inside the big, open stable doors, dropping fresh hay in one of the stalls. He looks up when he sees me and stops what he’s doing.

“Hey, come here.” He always sounds gruff, like Daddy.

All my brothers are tall, and I step into the stall, looking up at him. “What?”

He hooks his hands under my arms and picks me up like he used to do when I was little. My arms automatically go around his neck, and I hook my knees on his hips as I set my chin on his shoulder. The familiarity of the hug makes my chin wobble, and I sniff.

“Hey.” His hand is sliding up and down my back.

“What?”

He turns his head to speak low into my ear. “What that boy said is bullshit, and if Mom were here, she’d say the same. She loved you the same as she loved all of us; you were just too little to remember when she told you.”

I sniff again and whisper, “Did I make her sick?”

“No, sweetheart, you didn’t make her sick.”

“Breanna.” Daddy’s gravelly voice comes from one of the stalls on the other end of the stable.

“Coming,” I call back.

Gray sets me down and kisses the top of my head before he gently pushes my shoulder in Daddy’s direction. “Go on, squirt.”

Mason’s horse, General, is saddled, and Daddy is walking him out of the stable. “Come on, let’s go for a ride and get some fresh air.”

After he lifts me up, he sits in the saddle behind me, one arm around me, and guides General with the reins in his other hand.

We cross the stream behind the barn and follow one of the trails into the woods. New green leaves are opening on all the trees, and I can smell the pollen in the air. The pollen makes Tuck sneeze every year.

Since it’s late afternoon, the sun is still kind of high, and the light is speckling the path in front of us through the trees. When I wipe my nose with the back of my hand, Daddy tightens his arm around me.

He takes a deep breath and starts talking in his deep, scratchy voice.

“You know, honey, you were our surprise baby. We thought the Lord was done giving us babies, but me and your mama were so happy when we found out we were going to have another little girl.” He leans forward a little and looks around the side of my head.

“You were almost named Audrey, but your mama was cuddling you at the hospital when she said, ‘she looks more like a Breanna’.”

“Audrey?” I wrinkle my nose. “I’m glad she changed her mind.”

His chuckle is deep in his chest and vibrates behind my head. “I told her I didn’t care what your name was, as long as you were healthy.”

“Did she hold me a lot?”

“She did. She always had you on her lap, kissing your cheeks and tickling you under your chin. When you were cranky, she would slide her finger down your nose, and it would make you smile.”

“I wish I could remember.”

“I wish you could too, honey.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes, honey.”

“Are you mad at me? For hittin’ that boy?”

He takes a deep breath behind me, his chest bumping the back of my head. “No. I’m not mad at you for hitting that boy, I’m mad because you got caught. Maybe he’ll think twice before being so loose with his tongue next time.”

Surprise sweeps the words out of my mouth, I never thought he’d say that.

He clears his throat and continues. “When I was a boy, if someone was mean, we challenged them to a fight after school. Now, one of two things would happen while we were waiting for the last bell of the day to ring: either we would decide whatever we were mad about was bad enough to fight about it, or that time served as a cooling-off period and would make us realize it wasn’t.

But it was always off school property. You understand what I’m saying to you, honey? ”

“I think so.” I pause and tip my head back to look up at his face over my head. “Don’t fight at school?”

“I’m not saying to go around hitting people, that’s not right, but if someone is mean to you, especially if they hit you first, I want you to defend yourself, honey.

But there are rules. Number one is: don’t act on your anger; give yourself a minute to think if you can, unless you need to immediately defend yourself.

Second, don’t give them the chance to get the upper hand.

And third, never let ‘em see you cry, honey.”

“I didn’t cry until I got home.”

He pats my belly. “That’s good.”

Pulling General’s black mane through my fingers, I sigh. “Why’d he say that, Daddy?”

His chuckle is harsh, like his voice. “That’s easy, he’s a little prick, and I’ll be having words with his parents.”

His use of the word prick makes me smile, but it doesn’t last long. “But is it even a little bit true?”

“No, honey. Your mama got sick from an infection; we didn’t even know she was that sick until it was so bad we couldn’t save her.”

“Did she get an infection because of me?”

He sighs again. “It happened a week after you were born.”

“But was it because of me?”

He’s quiet for a moment before he clears his throat.

“Sometimes, when women give birth, something inside of them goes wrong. Your mama started having symptoms after we came home from the hospital, and she ignored them, thinking they were normal. If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine because I didn’t insist she go back to the doctor when she first felt bad. ”

“But if she hadn’t had me, she wouldn’t have got sick?”

“Can’t look at life that way, honey. You can say that about anything that happens on any given day, and eventually it will drive you crazy. What you need to focus on is whether it’s something you can do anything about.”

I watch the trees go by us for a minute before I suck in a breath to ask what is making me want to cry more. “D-Do you think she ever w-wished she wouldn’t have had me?”

“Nooo,” he draws out the word as his arm tightens around me. “I know for a fact that your mama would always choose you.”

The tears I’m trying to hold back fall again, and I sniff. “How do you know?”

“Because I’m your dad, honey. It’s just human nature that when people become parents, they love their children more than they love themselves. It happens to all of us - it’ll happen to you, too, when you have your own babies. I will always choose you, and I know your mama would do the same.”

When we get back to the stables, our foreman’s son, Mato, has cleaned General’s stall and takes the reins after Daddy lifts me off. Mato plays with Tuck all the time, and sometimes they let me play with them. He’s Native American and wears his black hair long, and sometimes he braids it.

“Mato,” Daddy says, and he stops. “Make sure you spray General down, it’s tick season.”

Mato nods and turns.

A few days later, Jacob Neil came to school with a black eye and a busted lip, and he wouldn’t look at me. After school, Tuck and Mato are down in the stream behind the stables catching crawdads, so I go down to play with them. Mato has a big cut on his knuckle.

“What happened to your hand?”

As he lifts one of the rocks in the water, it makes a sucking sound in the mud, and the crawdad leaves a cloud of dirt in the water when it darts away. He shrugs his shoulder. “Got in a fight.”

“With who?”

“Just a kid from school.”

“Did you win?”

“Yep.”