“Not a clue. I only know horses. Every other animal under my care has died or run off. It’s why I told Whisper she shouldn’t leave Copper in my care.”
He dug in again. “You’ll learn. I did. As it turned out, even I couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“She got hit by a car.”
He stopped again. “No.” It was odd how she always went to the worst-case scenario. Then again, maybe it would have been kinder to Schatzie than wasting away. “She had something called EPI or exocrine pancreatic insufficiency. Basically, though she ate, her body wasn’t pulling the nutrients from it. Eventually, it shut down. It’s a very unusual problem and is difficult to diagnose. By time we figured it out, it was too late.”
“You must have missed her.” More dirt rolled over the edge as she pulled it back. “Did you get another dog then?”
His parents had talked about it, but…. “No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s hard to explain. I loved that dog. Losing her left a hole in my heart. Of course, with time I moved on. I just didn’t want to love another dog only to lose it. That happens with dogs. Different breeds live longer. German Shepherds usually live to be about twelve or more. Smaller dogs like Copper can live longer. But either way, they don’t live as long as us. I didn’t want to experience that pain again.” She probably thought him a wimp of a man for that. He tried to think of a defense, but he couldn’t.
She didn’t say anything for a long time. Not only did that concern him, but it also hindered his efforts to dig straight. “Hey, you still there? You’re not crying over my dog story, are you?”
“No, I was thinking about the people I’ve lost. I totally get where you’re coming from. It’s better not to get that close again.”
People? Probably because of her family. Someday though, she’d have her own family. He tried picturing Riley with a baby. He couldn’t do it. Instead, he saw her with a teenage boy, teaching him how to shoot at a target range. He grinned. Now that fit her perfectly. “Tell me about these pets of yours.”
As she spoke, he kept digging, half of his mind on her story and the other half on getting her out of the mine safely.
The day was spent digging and talking. He told her more about growing up with an older sister who thought she was his third parent and a younger brother who liked to compete with him. She spoke mostly about her time in the Army, though she did share a story about a prom date gone bad and having to be picked up at the police station for underage drinking.
He learned more about her by what she didn’t talk about than by what she did. She didn’t talk about her family except an occasional word about her father. She never spoke about her pets, though he now understood why she knew so much about horses. “Your parents didn’t mind you living in the stables?”
“They didn’t know. As far I was concerned, at the ripe age of fifteen, I didn’t need them anymore. Turned out, I didn’t, which was a good thing.”
He pulled more dirt to the side before responding. Having her right behind him helped even more with his direction. The gravel seemed more condensed. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but it felt like he was making better progress. “Why was that good?” Though he’d left home at the usual age and begun his own life, he was glad to have both his parents still living.
She let out her self-deprecating chuckle. “Because when I turned seventeen, my father went overseas and my mom was a basket case, so she depended on me instead of the other way around. She was weak.”
The last was said with so much derision that he felt the need to defend the woman. “In what way was she weak? I’m sure being an Air Force wife isn’t easy, especially with two daughters.”
Riley pulled dirt, the gravel rolling back before she answered. “She was nothing but emotion. Couldn’t get her to see the logic in anything. It was all about howshefelt. It was frustrating and a waste of breath to try to talk sense into her. If she wanted something a certain way or an item in the store, that was what had to happen, even if it made no sense.” The movement of dirt behind him stopped.
He pulled more toward him with the shovel head and pushed it to the left of him. When he didn’t hear her gold pan, he paused. Had she gone back into the past again? “Riley?”
“Yeah, I’m still here. Just thinking.”
“About your mother?”
“No, Big Bird. Yes, about my mother. She and my father were complete opposites. He was logical, stoic, rational, and strong. She was emotional, always ridiculously happy or incredibly depressed. I have no idea why they ever got married.”
“Opposites attract?”
She snorted. “Or maybe my father couldn’t help but fall for a woman who needed him. Whatever the reason, they should have never been man and wife.” Her gold pan hit the dirt again.
Relieved that she simply reminisced, he chuckled. “But if they hadn’t married, you wouldn’t be here.” He dug the shovel head deep ahead of him.
“You’re kidding right. If they hadn’t married, I wouldn’t be in this godforsaken mine? Sounds like a win to me.”
He recognized her humor now. “True, maybe you’d be on an island sipping pina coladas.”
“Presidente.”
He pulled the earth toward him. It was definitely heavier and it seemed colder, which made no sense. “What president?”
