Only Hers by Francis Ray Read Free Book Online

therapist said she never hadseen anyone more determined to not only walk, but run. He never did manage to run, but he could do a mean skip and a hop with his cane.”
    “He told me he let his horse Paintbrush do the running for him.”
    “He did. Every morning the two of them would head out and usually end up at the meadow.” Matt shook his head. “No matter how I objected about him going alone, he went anyway. Turned up his nose if I mentioned me or one of the hands driving him.”
    “Why did you want someone with him?”
    “Glaucoma,” Matt answered succinctly. “Doctors found out early last year, but it was too late to be treated. Got so bad Wade could barely see his hand in front of his face. I understood riding Paintbrush gave him back his independence, but it was too dangerous for Wade to wander over a thousand acres by himself.”
    “Knowing that, you let him go anyway?” Shannon asked in disbelief.
    “I had to.”
    “But—”
    “Taking away Paintbrush or not helping Wade find his way to the barn would have been the easy way out for me, but not for Wade. He would have felt helpless, less than a man.” Matt tugged on his hat. “So I hired someone to watch him from a distance. I couldn’t take his pride away from him. He had lost too much already.”
    A wave of sorrow and regret swept through Shannon. One of the most heart-wrenching decisions a family member had to make was knowing when to set your own wants aside and do what the patient needed. “You did what was right.”
    “Yeah.”
    The one clipped word from Matt told her he didn’t think it had been enough. She knew exactly how he felt. All her specialized training hadn’t helped her grandfather. Her hand fisted to keep from placing it on Matt’s tenseshoulders and comforting him. “In all the times we talked, he never mentioned his failing vision.”
    “Wade wasn’t the type to lay his problems on someone else; he was more apt to take on another person’s problems. He never complained about the hand life dealt him. Only said that a man ought to be willing to take the bad times with the good.” Matt glanced away, his voice gruff. “He was a hell of a man.”
    “Yes, just like Granddaddy,” she mumbled. Her throat tight, she turned away and almost stepped on her escaped, gasping perch. Carefully, she picked up the foot-long fish and carried it back to the bank. Slipping the fish into the water, she picked up the fishing pole and the rest of her things, then started back to the house.
    “He was a keeper. Why did you throw him back?”
    She kept walking. “Life is precious in any form.”
    “That didn’t stop you from eating that beef last night.”
    So the truce was over. “I didn’t have to see it before it died.”
    “So it’s all right as long as you don’t have to dirty your own hands,” Matt said, catching up with her. “I’m surprised you didn’t send someone else to claim my land.”
    The unfairness of his taunt swung her around. The rebuttal sprang to her lips, but somehow she managed to swallow the words. “People in St. Louis consider me a nice, decent person. Why can’t you?”
    “Try taking one hundred acres of prime grazing land or, in your case, riverfront property, from one of them and see how long that opinion lasts.”
    He was right. Again. Her shoulders slumped. “Can’t you understand? I had to come.”
    A callused thumb kicked his Stetson back on his head. “How could I have forgotten? As I said, it’s your own personal sleep aid.”
    Shannon resisted the urge to bop him on the head with the canvas bag in her hand. “You are making it very difficult for me to like you.”
    Matt leaned down until their noses were an inch apart. Shannon quelled the impulse to lean away. “You didn’t seem to have any difficulty liking me last night in the kitchen.”
    Face flushed, Shannon stumbled backward. Her canvas shoes caught in the underbrush. With a startled cry, she felt herself falling. Matt’s hand shot