Her Cowboy Soldier by Cindi Myers

bony hand on Amy’s shoulder and looked her in the eye. “Just because Brent isn’t here to have fun doesn’t mean you have to punish yourself by never enjoying anything.”
    “I...I’m not doing that.” Was she?
    “I’d better take these peppers out to the truck,” Amy said. “We need more up at the stand.” She made her escape from the greenhouse, but her grandmother’s words echoed in her head. Was she avoiding the prom out of guilt over Brent’s death? Maybe that was part of it. And maybe she just needed more time before she was comfortable with a social life. She had work and Chloe to keep her occupied; she wasn’t ready to add more.
    And maybe, despite her mother’s training, she was a coward. After losing so much, she didn’t want to take more risks. She was afraid to open her heart to pain again.
    * * *
    O N S ATURDAYS , J OSH helped his dad with whatever work needed doing around the ranch. When Josh had first come back from Iraq, Mitch had been hesitant to let his son do anything, as if the loss of his hand also meant the loss of all his skills. Josh had had to prove he could handle the job—that he could still ride a horse and string fencing and haul feed and all the jobs involved in keeping a big ranch going.
    This Saturday they were shipping calves to the auction house in Junction. Josh worked with his dad and the two hands, Tomas and Ben, to round up the calves and confine them in the holding pens. From there, they’d be loaded onto a livestock trailer for the trip to the auction. It was hot, dirty work, the air filled with the bawling of the calves and the shouts of the men, dust rising in choking clouds around them.
    Josh’s horse, Pico, had thrown a shoe on the way out of the corral this morning, so Josh was riding one of his dad’s mounts, a cantankerous sorrel called Pete, who wasn’t happy with the unfamiliar rider on his back. Josh had to work to keep the horse in check.
    “Don’t know what’s up with him,” Tomas remarked as the horse danced back from the open gate of the pen as two calves streaked past.
    “He don’t like that hook,” Mitch said. “Some animals are wary of anything that isn’t as it should be.”
    Was this another subtle reminder from his dad that Josh “wasn’t as he should be?” No—Mitch was too plainspoken for subtle. He said what he thought without a lot of concern for other people’s feelings—certainly not his son’s. Part of Josh was glad his dad hadn’t coddled him after he came home from the war. If only Mitch trusted Josh to do more.
    “You’re probably right,” Josh said. “But I can handle him.” He’d ridden practically since he could walk; a nervous horse and a missing hand weren’t going to defeat him.
    At ten they stopped to water the horses and themselves, resting in the shade of a gnarled piñon.
    “Bart Ogleby’s driving over about eleven and we can load ’em up,” Mitch said. “They ought to bring a good price over at the auction.”
    “Snow’s melting fast this year,” Ben said. “Another month we can take the herd up to the high pasture.”
    Moving the herd was a spectacle the whole neighborhood—and more than a few tourists—turned out for. The cowboys, including hands from neighboring ranches who came to help, drove the herd through open gates onto the highway, which had to be closed for the purpose. In a parade of cows, horses, ATVs and ranch dogs, all led by county sheriff SUVs with their lights flashing, they traveled a mile down the highway to gates leading to other pastures that fed onto high ground watered by winter snows. The cows would spend the summer in these lush pastures, then the whole process would be reversed in the fall.
    The operation required precision, coordination and a little luck to run smoothly, but it was one everyone on the ranch looked forward to.
    “Your mom tells me you got corralled into chaperoning the prom this year,” Mitch said to Josh.
    “I did.” He’d planned to dress