Fire in the Bosque

By Barbara Spencer Foster

Beautiful Lorena Rogers has it all: a successful husband, a lovely home, and professional security. Outwardly it appears that she has accomplished all her goals. But she realizes that what she thought would make her happy is now shallow and unsatisfying. To escape her empty existence, she returns to the ranch on the Rio Grande River where she was born and reared. As she cares for her terminally ill mother, she hopes to be able to resolve the frustrations in her life. She soon learns to enjoy some of the simple pleasures of ranch living as she resumes her horseback riding and dusts off her guitar and starts singing again. Unexpectedly, she renews the friendship of her first love in high school who has progressed from being a star basketball player to running the affairs of her home town as its mayor. Then it happens, the ultimate dread for those who live along the river--the fire in the Bosque. Amid the destruction, could there be resolution and a new beginning for Rena? BARBARA SPENCER FOSTER says, “I always knew I wanted to write. However, my writing career could come only after my profession and my family. Finally I was free to begin in 1998. I enjoy preserving the enchanted stories of my beloved native state, New Mexico.” The author is at home in Santa Fe and Townsend, Montana.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sunstone Press
• Release date: Aug 18, 2011
• ISBN: 9781611390155

Book preview

1     

RENA TURNED OFF HER COMPUTER and got up from her desk with a relieved sigh. She looked out the window that faced Lomas Street and stretched her arms high above her head. As she lowered her hands slowly down, the southwestern sun sent glittery sparks dancing on the white walls from the rings on her fingers. She looked at her diamonds for a moment and then roughly grabbed her left hand. She yanked the rings off and violently threw them against the wall as an explosive Damn! escaped her lips.

The woman's shoulders shook, and her long burnished hair fell across her hands as her head drooped, and she slowly raised trembling fingers to her brow.

Dear God, what am I going to do? she whispered hoarsely. Help me, Lord. My life is such a mess.

At that moment the phone rang shrilly and brought her back to reality. She wearily pushed her hair back and quickly swiped a hand across her eyes. She waited until the third ring before she answered, hoping her voice wouldn't betray the emotion she was feeling. Rena Brooks’ office. May I help you?

You surely can, Ms. Brooks, came the cheery answer. Then the voice continued in a slightly concerned tone, But am I calling at a bad time?

Rena recognized the confident voice of Adam Harrington, Chief of Staff at the hospital. She quickly collected her thoughts. Not at all, she said in an assuring tone.

Good, he said. I have something I want to show you for your approval this evening. I hope we can have dinner.

Rena knew what Adam wanted to show her. And a week ago it was the thing she had thought she wanted most in the world. Now, for some reason, she wasn't so sure.

Adam, I'm going up to check on Mother. Let me call you back later?

Sure thing. It was Adams turn to pause. Don't be long. I think you re going to like what I've found.

I'll get back to you, Rena said briskly and placed the phone back in its cradle. She then turned and walked slowly to the window as her thoughts spun chaotically through her head. He wants me to look at an apartment where we can steal away for romantic trysts. It will be a place hidden away so his socialite wife can never find us, she told herself. And I dreamed of something like this happening. Now I'm not so sure. What's wrong with me? she whispered aloud.

The rings lay on the carpet where they had fallen after hitting the wall. Slowly she bent down to retrieve them. Holding them in her palm as she gazed at them reflectively, she murmured, So beautiful and so expensive, but so meaningless. Why don't you come home, Taylor? Why can't Washington get along without you?

Rena dropped the rings in her desk drawer and closed it with finality. I think I know, she declared vehemently. You have other interests.

Rena's high heels clicked sharply in time to her thoughts as she walked to the elevator and pushed the number for her mother's hospital floor. As she got off and headed down the long corridor, visions of the two men in her life whirled through her head. Taylor: the shy young college student, the flustered groom, the workaholic husband, the man who seemed absent from her even when he was with her. And Adam: the handsome successful surgeon, the charming escort, the romantic lover, the man who would give her anything except a wedding ring.

Mother, if you only knew, she said under her breath as she entered the depressing hospital room.

The woman in the narrow bed didn't acknowledge her visitor although she must have heard her footsteps.

Hello Mother. Rena tried to sound upbeat.

What are you mumbling about? her mother asked, her eyes remaining closed.

I was thinking about today being your last treatment, Rena said brightly.

The old woman's eyes opened wide. That's right, she said in a stronger voice. And I'm not going to that half-way house they want to put me in. Her blue eyes had almost as much fire in them as the diamonds Rena had just put away. Do you hear me, Lorena? I'm not going there. The eyes closed again with finality.

Earlier in the day, the social worker at the hospital had told Rena that the doctors were suggesting her mother be put in their facility for outgoing patients where she could receive post medical care and therapy before being totally dismissed. Her chemo treatments were concluded for a time, but she needed monitoring and therapy treatments for two weeks.

Mother, Rena said softly, Your doctors say you have responded well to your treatments. They just want to watch you for a short time before you go home. You know, you have to be as cooperative as possible. It will only help your chances for complete recovery.

The blue eyes in the weathered face opened again and stared up at the ceiling. Listen to me, Lorena, she said in a firm voice. It doesn't matter what I do or what my doctors do. I'm not going to beat this cancer, but that's not important now. I'm ready to go to my people. I'm lonely here without them. But before that happens I don't want to stay in any kind of a hospital any longer. Turning her gaze to her daughter she pleaded, I just want to go home. Let me die at home in my own bed.

You can't stay home alone, Mother.

I know that.

Well, what are we going to do?

The expressionless blue eyes shifted to Rena's face and held firmly.

To escape this unyielding gaze, Rena turned and walked over to the window and looked out on the pitched rooftops that covered this huge hospital facility. She wants to go home to the ranch at Socorro, she thought. But my brother's wife can't take care of her. She's got two little ones and another on the way. I'd have to hire someone to be with her. Good help doesn't come easy. What am I going to do?

Let me think about it, Mother, she said softly. I'll see what I can figure out.

You re a good girl, was her mother's faint reply.

Back in her office, Rena collapsed into a chair. She put her head down on her arms as the tears came. She didn't know whether she was crying for her mother or for herself.

Her mother's words kept running through her mind. You re a good girl, you re a good girl, you re…

She said I'm a good girl! Rena marveled. She never gives me compliments. Her compliments were always for my brother. Everything he did was great; nothing I did ever warranted her attention.

Rena's thoughts went back to her lonely childhood. She knew her father loved her, and her happiest times were when she rode beside him on her little pony while she looked up at him on his big red thoroughbred. But he didn't often have time away from his ranch chores to pay attention to his little girl.

The lonely child had loved going to school because she had become very close to some of her teachers. She worked hard to make good grades, but her mother barely glanced at her straight A report cards. Her father, on the other hand, bragged about his smart little girl and always told her how pretty she was, while her mother pushed her away and had eyes and arms only for Boone, the little boy who was the center of her life.

Rena had grown accustomed to being ignored by her mother. That's just the way things were in her life. And after her father died as the result of his horse falling on him when she was in college, Rena went her lonely but self-sufficient way.

Rudy Steiner had made arrangements for his daughter to go to the Albuquerque Business School after her high school graduation. She had come home from classes over a holiday and met Taylor Brooks who was attending the engineering college in Socorro. Taylor was a quiet, serious young man who had definite goals set for his life. Young marriage was not in the plan. But he found the pretty ranch girl too hard to resist, and the two were married when Rena finished her business course. She returned to Socorro and got a job at the college in the business office, and Taylor continued school until he got his degree.

Rena was sure she had married the most wonderful man in the world, and she no longer felt so alone now that she had someone who loved only her.

When Taylor graduated with an electrical engineering degree, he got a job at Sandia Base in Albuquerque. Rena found an office job, and the young couple bought a modest home near Kirtland Air Force Base. Rena was happy with her new life in the big city, and she went home to Socorro only occasionally. Her mother didn't seem to miss her very much. Her brother took over the ranch when he finished high school, and he ran it to his mother's satisfaction. When he married a local girl, she built a house for the young couple close to the family home.

Time went on, and Taylor's hard work paid off when he was promoted to the administrative level. Rena got a better job in the University Hospital, and they bought a nicer home in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains on the east outskirts of town. Everything was going right for Mr. and Mrs. Taylor Brooks, but the years had taken the zest out of their marriage. Taylor worked longer hours and traveled out of town frequently. When he was home, he seemed tired and moody. Rena grew accustomed to his silence just as she had accepted her mother's disinterest in her life.

Rena had filled in the lonely hours when Taylor was gone by decorating the house and working in her yard. She made an attractive southwestern style cactus garden and had a large guitar shaped birdbath built to lure in the desert birds. She remembered the pathetic yard back in Socorro where the lizards and horned toads ran around the few hardy flowers her mother attempted to grow in the sandy yard. Her attractive yard afforded her much satisfaction.

The lonely young housewife and career girl soon developed friendships with some of the other girls who worked in the hospital. Sometimes after work they went to a show at the Kimo Theater or had a light drink at the Night Owl Bar. She even bought a season ticket for the performances at Pope Hall. I'll try to give myself some culture, she had laughingly told Taylor. Maybe you'll find me more interesting, she had thought to herself.

Rena knew her long, naturally wavy blonde hair and curvy figure received its share of admiring glances when she was out with the girls. And although she enjoyed flirting and having a good time, she never responded to any of the propositions she received. Her strict Lutheran upbringing reminded her she must be true to her husband.

However, that had all changed the night of the hospital Christmas party a year ago when she caught the eye of the chief of staff, Dr. Adam Harrington. His wife was home ill, and he had come to the party alone. When he asked Rena to dance, she felt she was moving on magic air as he held her in his strong arms and whirled her gracefully around the room. He was attentive to her all evening, and when he asked to see her again as they swayed slowly to the last waltz, she couldn't refuse.

Rena was putty in the handsome doctor's hands. Soon after that, they had spent a weekend skiing in Angel Fire, a resort north of Taos, and all the love she had craved for a lifetime was hers in his arms. The fact that he was married and had a family made no difference to her even though he told her he could never marry her because he must help his wife rear their children. She only knew she loved and was loved. Adam's arms around her was the only reality she wanted.

Rena now pulled her thoughts back to the problems of the present as she looked at her ringless hand resting on her desk. I cant think of either Taylor or Adam, she told herself. I've got to think about Mother. She says she wants to go home.

Rena glanced again at her bare fingers. Suddenly the