Quinn by R.C. Ryan

good arrangement. How’s it working out?”
    She pointed to a photo of an older man with his arm around a younger man’s shoulders. “It wasn’t long before Dad was calling Austin his second son. It’s funny. Dad was a stickler for rules. Everything had to be done a certain way.” She chuckled. “His way. But in Austin’s case, he was always willing to go that extra mile. No matter how many things Austin did wrong, or how badly he messed up, Dad would have a logical explanation. I’d hear him telling the wranglers that Austin was a city boy. He’d never been on a ranch before. The crew was expected tocut him a lot of slack. Dad insisted that he’d get the hang of things when he’d had more time under his belt.”
    “Did he?”
    She shrugged. “We can all see that he’s really trying.”
    “So he’s still here. What about his family?”
    Her voice lowered. “He never talks about his past. According to Buddy, it was a really sad story. Austin had been in foster care, then living on the streets, when Buddy saved him from an attacker one night in Laramie.”
    “Was Buddy in college there?”
    “Yes.” She nodded. “After that they bonded and became friends, and when Buddy graduated he brought Austin here to work on the ranch.”
    “I can see why your father wanted to keep him around.” Quinn paused, wondering how to ask the next logical question.
    Finally, gathering his courage, he asked, “What happened to your father?”
    He saw the pain in Cheyenne’s eyes. “A ranch accident. Dad had taken one of the all-terrain vehicles up into the hills. When he didn’t return, we went searching and found him in the snow. Apparently he’d taken a steep hill too fast, and the vehicle flipped on him, pinning him. Chief Fletcher said it looked as though he froze to death out on the trail.”
    She fell silent, and Quinn thought it wise not to press for more details.
    With a shake of his head he muttered, “That’s a heavy load of bad luck to shoulder. What about Austin? Where is he now?”
    “Up in the high country with the wranglers. He keeps saying that he wants to learn everything he can aboutranching, and there’s no better way than by spending time with the whole crew.”
    “That’s good. It sounds as though he’s found a home here.”
    She looked down at the cup of coffee in her hands. “I really feel that I owe it to Dad and Buddy to give him as much time as he needs to learn the ropes of ranching.”
    Quinn moved closer to the framed photograph of a beautiful young Arapaho woman in flowing native dress, her dark, waist-length hair spilling over her shoulders. “Your mother?”
    She nodded.
    “She was beautiful.”
    Cheyenne dimpled. “My dad was absolutely crazy about her. And she felt the same way about him. I’ve never known two people more perfectly suited to be together. Her Arapaho name was Lolotea. It means ‘gift from God.’ Dad always called her Lola.”
    She settled herself on the sofa, tucking her feet underneath her as she reminisced. “When cancer took her, Buddy and I thought our dad would never get past his loss.”
    “How old were you?” Quinn sat beside her, on the opposite end of the sofa.
    “Seventeen. A senior in high school. Buddy and I did our best to comfort our dad, but he was inconsolable. It’s funny.” She stared down into her cup. “I can still remember the first time I heard my dad finally laugh again. He and Micah were talking about something that had happened years earlier. It was an old story, one we’d heard many times. About an ornery mare that had tossed my dad headfirst into a creek. He came up mad as a spitting cat. Suddenly Dad and Micah were convulsed withlaughter. Buddy and I sat there drinking it in, and thinking there had never been a lovelier sound than our dad laughing.”
    She looked up and found Quinn studying her. “It taught me something special. I learned that every person has to work through grief in his own way. And when we reach that