Page 22 of Austin (The K9 Files #29)

R ox slowly rode Charlie home, leaving Cowboy behind with Austin and her dad.

She couldn’t think of any reason why the drugs and the guns were buried on their ranch, but that was a hell of a place to hide them.

Out in the middle of nowhere, on private land, just out on the range, with nobody to disturb them but the odd cow or two.

For all she knew, the gun-runners were helping themselves to a little bit of beef at the same time.

When she got back home, Amie was waiting, a frown on her face. “I don’t know what’s going on, but it would be nice if somebody would fill me in.”

Rox winced at that, gave her mom a hug, and noted, “We found something out there.” Then she smiled. “We also found Cowboy.”

Amie’s face lit up. “You found Cowboy, after all this time?”

She nodded. “I think somebody was using him to keep an eye on a stash of weapons.”

At that, all the color fled from her mother’s face. “What do you mean, a stash of weapons?” she asked, her hand going to her chest.

Rox told her about Austin basically falling in the pit and finding the weapons there.

“That’s insane,” Amie muttered, disbelief in her gaze. “Anybody would know that’s Jake’s land, and he won’t tolerate that. Why would anybody hide them way out there in the middle of nowhere?” she asked, and then shook her head. “There’s got to be better, more convenient places to stash weapons.”

“But, if you think about it, the road runs by not too far from there,” Rox pointed out, “so it makes some sense.”

“None of it makes sense,” she muttered, frowning at her daughter. “How could any of this make sense?”

“What if this stash of goods is meant for someone local?” Rox suggested, giving her mother another quick hug. “I’m putting on coffee, but I’m not sure how long they’ll be or even what the next step is.”

“What do you mean? Surely they’ll call the sheriff.”

“Austin wanted to avoid the local authorities and go one level above. Yet I’m not sure Dad is up for calling in the cavalry at all,” she replied.

“I think he’s pissed off enough right now that he wants to move the guns, taking them away from the people who used his land to stash them.

You know, a finders-keepers thing, seeing as how it’s his land anyway, and meanwhile, run down whoever is poaching on his land. ”

“Are they poaching though?” Amie asked.

“I don’t know,” Rox admitted, with a wave of her hand. “No doubt we’re down a head or two, but we’re certainly not down more than what looks to be personal use.”

“Right,” Amie muttered, reaching up a shaky hand, “but that’s not very helpful.”

Rox snorted. “Have you seen anything in this that’s helpful?”

“Yes,” she declared. “Austin.”

Rox winced at that and then slowly nodded. “I will admit he’s been very handy to have around again.”

“Handy enough to figure out if you can make peace with him?” her mother asked.

Rox shrugged. “I definitely intend to make peace with him, if only for my own peace of mind—but that doesn’t mean we’re getting back together again,” she warned her mother. Amie’s face fell, letting Rox know that’s exactly what her mom was hoping for.

“Why not?” her mother asked. “It’s obvious you two still care about each other.”

“Maybe, though I don’t know about him. I’m not sure I even still know him. I care about him, sure, but then I never stopped caring,” she added, unable to give a coherent response. “All that doesn’t mean he wants to hook up with a child again either.”

“You’re not a child,” Amie declared.

“No, but what I did was childish and foolish,” she admitted, “and I caused a lot of pain for all of you. I don’t want to go there again.”

“Of course not, none of us want you to go there again,” she said, taking her daughter’s hand. “But just because you messed up, what, six years ago now…”

“Five,” she clarified. “Five years, five very long years, knowing exactly how you guys felt about it.”

“Yes, I remember.” Amie rolled her eyes. “We didn’t treat you very nicely over the decision you made regarding Austin.”

“It’s not so much that I even really made a decision, and I think that’s the part we all had a hard time with. I was angry and kicked him out, while shooting off my mouth. I don’t even remember why I was so angry.”

Amie smiled a sad smile, as she faced her daughter. “You do, but maybe you just don’t want to recognize it.”

Rox frowned. “I wasn’t pregnant though, remember?”

“We don’t know that for sure,” her mother replied, “although you were certainly acting hormonal enough to be pregnant.”

“Yeah, sure, great , but acting that way doesn’t give me a pass for that kind of behavior. As it turned out,… maybe I’d had a miscarriage, but it would have been extremely early on, and I don’t even know for sure I was pregnant. Symptoms aside, it could have been all kinds of things.”

“I know,” Amie agreed. “I also know that you’re quite willing to bash yourself over it all until the world ends. However, at some point in time, you have to let yourself off the hook too.”

“Will you let me off the hook?” Rox asked.

Amie winced. “Yes, I absolutely will let you off the hook because life, as I know it, isn’t perfect. I was pretty emotionally strung out at the time myself because we all really loved Austin. He was like a son to us, and to find out that he walked without even saying anything to us was very hard.”

“Yet how could he, when I didn’t even give him a chance,” Rox shared bitterly. “I made sure he knew he wasn’t welcome.”

“Maybe,” Amie conceded, “and that was tough on both of us, but it’s also been a lot of years later now.

Maybe both of you have changed, or maybe neither of you has changed enough to even want to move on.

I don’t know. I’m not holding my breath that you’ll work it out, but I am hoping you each find peace in your own way. You both need it.”

“He’s a good man,” Rox admitted, her sadness evident in her tone.

“I don’t know exactly what happened with his accident, but the thought that he went through something like that alone, without us, without any support, without you, is just…

” Amie shook her head, tears in her eyes.

“It breaks my heart. I don’t know what it would have taken for him to contact us, but a life-changing accident like that surely would have been more than he could have handled all by himself. ”

Maybe he did have someone to help him through , Rox thought, but she abruptly shoved that idea out of her mind. She couldn’t handle that right now. Or ever.

Her mother touched her arm, bringing Rox back to the present.

Rox shook her head, adding, “Of course it was hard on him. Believe me that I’ve thought about it a lot, and, so far, he won’t tell me what happened.

I haven’t really pushed it hard, but you’re right.

Just thinking that he was hurt and lying broken somewhere, knowing that he was alone and nobody gave a shit?

That is one of the hardest things for me to get past mentally.

I never intended for him to leave and to never come back again,” she murmured.

“He has always been my heart and soul, until he just wasn’t here anymore. ”

“There is a time for you to get past that too,” Amie reminded her daughter, “and this is it. You have a chance now. He is here, and, for better or for worse, you guys need to deal with whatever emotions you have left to deal with. If you don’t get back together in the end, that’s fine, but at least hopefully you both get closure and can begin to move on. ”

“All these years that he’s been gone,” Rox muttered, “I never once even dated.”

Her mother grimaced. “I was hoping that at least you would come to terms with the idea that what you had with Austin was something that you still wanted.”

“I didn’t need to go on a date for that clarity,” Rox stated bluntly. “I already knew it,” she murmured. “He was always that part of my heart that I could never walk away from.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” her mother agreed. “When it’s your heart, it’s the heart speaking to you. You can’t change it, even though you might want to. You might think you should, but it’s not quite that simple.”

“None of this is simple,” Rox murmured. “Honest to God, it’s all just heartbreaking.”

Amie walked over and gave her a hug. “And yet you’ve grown up beautifully.”

“I just wasn’t grown up back then, was I?”

Amie smiled and patted her cheek gently. “You were as you always are, a beautiful young woman. You just wanted a little more from him than he was ready to give you, and your method of letting him know that you wanted more of him alienated you two. That is probably what caused the problem.”

“Ya think?” Rox quipped, with a headshake. “I was spoiled rotten and definitely didn’t deserve him. I totally missed the whole idea of commitment to serve , which is clearly so important to him. I was an immature brat, and I deserved what I got.”

“No, stop now,” Amie said firmly. “You don’t need to go down that pathway. You grew up, you learned, you changed, and you found yourself. That can be incredibly difficult to do. Some of us never quite get there. Just look at your brother.”

“Do I have to?” she asked, with a wince. “You do realize that he will probably be in the middle of this mess somehow. Oh, I almost didn’t tell you.” Then she quickly filled her mother in on the men they had met out there.

“What the hell were they doing there?” Amie asked in astonishment. “I’ve never known people to speak of your father like that. He’s always been highly respected here,” she noted, “and no one would dare to come onto our land like that. I’m finding this all very difficult to understand.”

“Yeah, if you’re finding it difficult, imagine how that’s going for Dad,” Rox pointed out.

Amie winced again. “No, you’re right. This will shake him to the core. His word was always law, and people respected him and held on to that as part of the relationship with him, even if they disagreed on other matters,” she murmured. “This will break his heart.”