Second Chances 

Clancy Laird stopped her rented Lexus in front of the gate to the Rocking Horse Ranch and contemplated the changes that had occurred over the past ten years to what had once been her home. Hers and her grandfather’s. Angus Laird was gone now, and the whole ranch seemed to have an air of sadness about it. Clancy herself felt that sadness; she had not seen Angus but once in the ten years since she had fled Dallas, and by the time she had found out he was gone, he had already been buried in the family cemetery beside her grandmother, Clarice Clancy Laird, for whom she had been named. 

She stared into space unseeing, wondering where Jud was now. Jud Hamilton, the foreman of the Rocking Horse when she had lived here, and the reason for her escape to Los Angeles when she was a mere child of seventeen. Jud Hamilton, the older man who had been her first love, and who had broken her young heart. Jud, the man she had never been able to forget, the one she still loved to this day, even though she hated him almost as much for hurting her so badly. 

She supposed that she should thank him if she ever saw him again, because going to Los Angeles to be live her estranged mother had been the beginning of her career. Within a year of her arrival, she had become one of the star models of one of LA’s top agencies, and was now making a six figure per year income. At twenty-seven, she had everything she could ever want. The only thing she’d ever wanted that she couldn’t have was Jud. 

With a sigh, she started the car again and pulled into long, winding drive to the Rocking Horse. Knowing that she would soon face the harsh reality of seeing her grandfather’s raw grave only increased her sadness and her sense of guilt. She should have come home long to see him ago; her departure had hurt him deeply, even more so because she could not explain to him her reason for going. 

When she drew into the circular driveway in front of the ranch house, she was unbelievably delighted to see Rose Cummings, the Rocking Horse’s long-time housekeeper standing on the steps of the ranch’s wide veranda, her face lit up with delight. 

“Clancy!” Rose cried as she flew down the steps and wrapped the young woman in an almost bone-crushing hug. “I’m so glad you’re here!” Tears of joy coursed down Rose’s cheeks.  

Clancy returned the hug. “It’s good to see you, Rose. I’m just sorry that it’s under such dismal circumstances.” 

Rose’s face crumpled in sorrow. “Angus. Yes… I wish you could have been here with him at the end. He wanted to see you so very much before he went.” 

“And I would have been here if I had known, Rose. Unfortunately, Mother was on the Riviera, and I didn’t get the message until she came back,” 

“If you’d have kept in better touch, you would have known that he was ill.” Rose chided. 

“Even if I had, Rose, you know Angus would never have told me he was so badly off… he would have thought he was protecting me. You know how he was.” 

Rose nodded. “Yes, he was a very stubborn old man, especially toward the end. Well, let’s get you inside and get you settled. How long are you going to be here?” 

Clancy took her suitcase out of the back seat of the car and looped her arm through Rose’s. “At least until Angus’s will is read, anyway, and to see what he wanted me to do about the ranch. After that, I don’t know. “ 

The two of them went separate ways in the main hall; Rose, to the kitchen to start the evening meal, and Clancy up the big spiral staircase to her old room to change clothes. When she opened the door, she was stunned to find that it had not even the smallest thing had changed from the way it had been on the day she had left. When she investigated, she discovered that even her clothes were still in the closet. She shook her head with a sad smile. She should have known that Angus would not have allowed any changes, and would have believed that she would be back. She only wished she had come back before it was too late. 

As she looked through all her old clothes, she came across what had been her favorite pair of blue jeans, and when she tried them on, was pleasantly surprised to see that they still fit her, despite a more mature figure. She pulled on a pair of worn black cowboy from the closet and then a chambray work shirt over a round-necked tee shirt. Looking in the cheval mirror that stood in the corner, she could almost imagine being seventeen again.  

The thought of seeing Angus’s grave made her want to weep, but she knew that she could not put it off any longer. She would not really be able to believe he was gone until she did. And so, with unwilling feet, she went through the house and out the back door, following the well-worn path to the cemetery some quarter of a mile away. 

As she went through the gate into the cemetery, she could see the fresh-turned earth that marked the spot where her beloved grandfather had been laid to rest, and tears welled up in her eyes, flowing unchecked down her face. She approached the grave and fell on her knees beside it, touching the place on the marker where his name had been carved into its stone face. “Angus, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.” She whispered. “I hope you’ll forgive me…” 

“He may, but I won’t…” grated a harsh voice from behind her. She turned her head to see a man dismounting from a roan stallion… she recognized both horse and man immediately. Jud! Ten years older than the man she remembered, but still achingly handsome, with his sun-bleached, collar length mane of hair and emerald eyes that had always seemed to be able to see into her soul. She gasped in surprise. She had never imagined that he would still be here at the ranch. 

He bore down on her with purposeful steps, grabbing her arm and yanking her to her feet. “It’s about time you came back here, you lily-liver little coward!” he swore angrily. “It’s just too damned bad that you didn’t consider it necessary until poor Angus was cold in his grave! You never did think of anyone but yourself, Clancy!” 

She jerked her arm out of his grasp. “What are you still doing here? How dare you call me a coward, after what you did to me? Or was it that just that breaking a woman’s heart was an everyday thing for you?” 

He grabbed her arms just above the elbows and gave her a little shake. “You were seventeen years old, you little idiot! Do you think I wanted to spend these past ten years in jail? As for what I’m doing here, Angus made me co-owner of the ranch two years ago.” 

Clancy gasped. “Why the hell did he do that!?” 

“He did it because he had this crazy idea that someday you’d have enough sense to come home and you and I could run it together.” Jud replied.  

Clancy could only stare at him in shock. But of course, Angus had never known that she’d left because of Jud. Because on one stunningly starlit night, she had screwed up her courage and told Jud that she was in love with him. He had laughed.  

“It’s just infatuation, Clancy.” he had said. “That will change when you grow up.” 

She was devastated by his rejection of her, and the fact that he had laughed off her confession of love, and agonized by embarrassment. She had felt that she would die with the ache in her heart, and she knew that she would not be able to face seeing him day after day with the way she felt about him, knowing that he didn’t care about her. 

“Impossible!” she said retorted. “I don’t want to be within a thousand miles of you! What in God’s name would make Angus think I would want to run this ranch with you?”  

“Because he knew he knew how I felt about you.” 

She was confused. “How you felt about me?” she stammered. “You don’t feel anything for me… you told me so, ten years ago. You told me that I was only infatuated, and I’d grow out of it.” 

He shook his head. “That’s not what I said, Clancy. I said that it would change when you grew up. I had hoped that it would change into real love, because I was idiotic enough to fall in love with a seventeen-year-old kid, and I knew it wasn’t right. I was planning to tell Angus that I was quitting on the day you disappeared. After that, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave him here alone when he was so devastated by you being gone. I knew it was my fault. What I want to know now, Clancy, is did I wait ten years for nothing? Did what you felt for me change when you grew up? Or is there another man in your life now?” 

She was dazed by all of this. “I don’t believe this… you can’t be telling me that you felt the same as I did and you still do? I can’t believe it….” 

“Then maybe this will convince you…” he replied, and kissed her until she was positively breathless.  

“Tell me that you still love me, Clancy, and that you’ll stay. Don’t make me wait another ten years for you. I’ll do it if I have to, but don’t make me do it.” 

She couldn’t believe it was true. He was saying that he loved her… that he loved her when she’d been foolish enough to leave, and that he loved her now. The thought of the ten years she had wasted, ten years that she could have been here with Angus, and with Jud nearly made her ill. But fate had given her a second chance, and she certainly wasn’t going to waste it.  

“There isn’t anyone else, Jud. There never has been, because I’ve never been able to forget you. And I’ve never stopped loving you. I’ll stay.”

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