Unconditional Sanctuary (The Harlow Springs Ranch #2)

Chapter One

SIX YEARS AGO

Near Claremore, OK

Gray

The bay gelding huffed, his ears twitching, as Doc Lawrence slid his hand over its ribs.

General has been lethargic for the past couple of weeks and in the past few days, he’s not interested in his food.

For a fourteen-year-old horse, he's still beautiful with his coal black tail and mane; he was born with black socks halfway up each leg, but as he got older a layer of snow-white formed around his hooves.

My younger brother, Mason, raised him, they used to be inseparable, but he hasn’t been around much for the past eight years.

Not since he was forced to join the military for defending our sister when they were eighteen.

We all know General misses him, our sister, Marley, insists he misses him every day.

Marley is standing at his front, scratching the white star on his forehead as I stand back and watch the vet. My gut’s been telling me something is wrong for weeks, some signs I’ve seen in the past are there, but my hope has been that maybe he just has a bug and I’ll get a prescription.

General rears his head and moves to the side a step when Doc Lawrence’s hand moves over his flank toward his under region.

That’s not a good sign, Marley shushes him and presses her forehead to his.

We’ve both seen this before and when I look at Marley, her eyes are closed, and she’s giving General all the affection he wants.

Knowing that General can sense our emotions, I try to be as casual as possible.

Marley has always had a connection with horses, and I swear she can communicate with them.

But General is Mason’s horse, and Mason is her twin.

Marley and Mason have always been two sides of the same coin, and she knows it will kill him that he couldn’t be here.

She’s also carried the guilt of knowing Mason was sent away because he was protecting her. If it weren’t for that night, he would be here.

Movement in my peripheral pulls my attention to the main house up the hill, my youngest sister Breanna is running to the barn, frantically waving her arms and yelling my name.

The high school bus just dropped her off about thirty minutes ago, and I’m wondering what could have happened between now and then.

Dad hears the panic in her voice and walks out of the tack room, which is also his office, and stands next to me, we both watch her running down the hill. Her long wavy hair is blowing around her, fear in her big blue eyes. She keeps yelling my name, and Dad and I quickly begin to walk toward her.

“Gray! Gray!” The closer she gets, the higher pitched her voice becomes and I start to run to meet her.

Her petite body crashes into me, and I grab her arms because she nearly falls in her heightened state. “Breanna, what is it? What’s wrong?”

She’s breathing so hard that she can’t talk, and her fingers are digging into the skin on my forearms. She starts to pant, “Sarah, Sarah.”

Sarah is my wife who is in town taking our three-year-old daughter, Lainey Rai, to her well-baby visit, and my heart jumps in my chest as my own alarm skitters up my spine. “What, Breanna? What about Sarah?”

As she is trying to breathe, her eyes are filling with tears. “Sarah! She was in an accident!”

It’s taking everything in me to not match Breanna’s panic as my mind spins. “Breanna, calm down and tell me what’s happened.”

Through sobs, she tells me about the call from a police officer in Owasso, who asked us to meet them at the hospital.

He wouldn’t give her any information but asked us to get there quickly.

As she is relaying the message, I realize I left my phone in my jacket in General’s stall, so they called the house phone.

I turn and look at my dad, dread oozing out of every pore.

Surely, he can tell me everything is okay, and we just have to go get them because her SUV is not drivable.

I want him to tell me my wife and daughter are fine.

Instead, he keeps the cool mask on his face as he looks at Breanna and in his gravelly voice says, “Go tell Doc Lawrence what you just told us, so he knows why we left and stay here with Marley. I’ll call as soon as we can. ”

Dad grabs my arm and we run to my truck. I don’t remember much about the drive to the hospital, all I could think about was Sarah’s smile as she carried Lainey Rai on her hip before she left. She gave me a kiss and said she would be back in a couple of hours.

Lainey Rai gave me a kiss on my cheek and in her three-year-old voice said, “Uv ya.”

My thoughts go to the conversation about Lainey Rai’s pronunciation, and I wonder why we were making such a big deal about whether she was pronouncing her L’s or not. It seems so insignificant right now.

Are they okay?

I don’t know how many traffic laws I’ve broken on the drive, but when we get to the hospital, all I can think about is getting to my wife and daughter. Dad keeps up with me the entire way as I run from the parking lot to the emergency room desk.

The woman behind the desk looks at me like I’m just another person, doesn’t she know my wife and daughter are back there somewhere, damn it? She even has the audacity to tell me to calm down. I’ve never wanted to hit a woman like I wanted to hit her in that moment.

The far-away rumble of my dad’s voice gets my attention. “Gray, we have to stay calm, they’re getting the doctor.”

My dad is well versed in hospitals. My mom died almost eighteen years ago after giving birth to Breanna. The infection she developed after they went home from the hospital with my youngest sister was quiet as it poisoned her body, and by the time they got her back to the hospital, it was too late.

Dad became mom and dad that day, and even though he’s never been an affectionate man, preferring tough love over hugs, all his children felt his love every day.

The world flips on its side when the doctor comes out and tells me the woman who has been the love of my life since we were sixteen ‘succumbed’ to her injuries.

The woman who gave me my daughter and filled every dark space in my life with light ‘succumbed’ to being t-boned by someone who had been day drinking.

As I fall to my knees as my head and world spin out of control and the blood flooding through my ears muffles all the surrounding sounds, I hear my dad asking about Lainey Rai.

There are mumbled bits and pieces about a broken arm, but how am I supposed to be a good father without my Sarah?

She’s my everything. How can she be gone?

The next week is a blur of arrangements and taking care of a three-year-old who is in pain and wants her mama.

Marley, my other sister, Kinley, and Breanna try to calm Lainey Rai as much as they can.

My dad even tries to calm her, but the only thing that stops the crying is when I sit and hold her or lie in her bed with her.

The nightmares are the worst, she wakes up screaming and crying for her mama, so we cry together until we go back to sleep.

Mason was given a week’s leave from the Army to come home for the funeral.

His love of target shooting when we were kids paid off for him, he’s a sniper for Delta Force and rarely gets time to come home.

I asked him once why he didn’t leave the military when he could and he says he loves what he does.

I’ve always been closer to Mason than to my youngest brother, Tucker, who was given leave from the Air Force. When Mason steps into the house and drops his bag at the front door, he lets me cling to him as I cry for the lost future I took for granted.

“What am I going to do, Mason? How do I raise my little girl without her mama?”

We both sit in the family room facing each other in the giant leather chairs next to the fireplace, me reclining back like I don’t have the energy to sit up and him leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

“Lainey Rai’s going to be fine; she has a whole family here that is going to make sure she is taken care of, and you have a support system in all of us. You’re going to be fine, too, it’s just going to take time.” His blue eyes that are the same color as Dad’s, are locked on mine.

Running my hand down my face, wiping the moisture that’s collected in my beard and mustache, I know I look a mess. “Normally, I take them to the well-baby visits; I stayed home to meet the vet.” I let my head fall back onto the cushion of the chair. “It should’ve been me.”

Mason’s face becomes hard. “No. You’re wrong, brother. Wishing for things that are never going to happen will not help Lainey Rai. Everything happens for a reason, and you’re supposed to be here.” He points his finger to the floor to back up his point.

I lift my head and lean on the arm of the chair, cupping my chin in my hand. “What reason could there be for a young mother to be taken from her family? Her family who loves her more than life itself?”

“And she loved you more than life itself, but I know she would hate for you to be questioning the order of things and blaming yourself.” He reaches over and grabs my knee. “I know Sarah would want you to remember the good times and never forget to help Lainey Rai to remember them, too.”

My eyes slide over to the fireplace, and I try to control my emotions as I say the next thing that has been constantly on my mind, “They asked me if I wanted an open or closed casket because the damage to her face from the glass was so bad.” I swallow down the sob that’s working its way up my throat and try to stop my voice from shaking.

“She sat in that car in pain with our daughter screaming in the back seat, Mason, unable to help herself or Lainey Rai. Her last hour on this earth was painful and unimaginable, and I wasn’t there to help her go. She died alone.”

When I look back at Mason, his fist is tight in front of his mouth and his eyes are glassy and red.

He takes a minute before he responds, “But she knew, for a fact, Gray, that you would have moved heaven and earth to be there if you had known. She knew you loved her and would have taken on all her pain if you could. You have to hang onto the love between you and not let it be tarnished with guilt or what ifs.”

***

Some of our friends from high school stand in the crowd of family and friends gathered around the grave. I opted for a closed casket because I don’t want everyone to see the damage to her face, Sarah never liked to leave the house without a fresh face and fixed hair.

She had the prettiest long, dark brown hair.

I left Lainey Rai at home with our housekeeper, Opal, there’s no reason to expose her to any of this. As I watch my wife’s casket being lowered into the ground, I feel my father’s hand on my shoulder and on my other side, my sister Marley takes my hand.

Sarah wouldn’t want Lainey Rai to get less than our daughter deserves.

As the casket with the shell of my wife disappears into the ground, I make her a promise, I will not let grief steal any love or affection our daughter deserves.

I will make it my purpose to give her the love and security she would get from both of us.