Chapter 86 A New Appreciation
“Tougher than a sack of bears?” Alexandra laughed so hard at the image that she was crying and wiping her nose before she was able to regain her self-control. She had never heard the expression, and it seemed so completely nuts, especially after her own run-in with a bear.
“My daddy taught me something years ago,” Evelyn continued once the two of them had recovered from the laughter that had left them breathless. “I’m going to pass it on to you. Toughness, true toughness, isn’t cussing, fighting, and wincing at a broken leg. True toughness is getting up off your ass and going out to do the things that need to be done, even when you don’t feel like doing them, and even when it might not be comfortable. When that man pushed you away before, he didn’t do it for his own good; he did it for yours. He was willing to sacrifice his own happiness so that you would keep your commitment, because he understood that if you backed out of that commitment, then you would always carry that failure around with you.
“Think about how he helps out during calving season. Evan could pay him for wintering his horses. He doesn’t have to go through that for another man’s profit. He doesn’t have to get up at two in the morning to go check on his heifers and freeze his ass off to help feed the cows. He could lie in bed, stay warm by the fire, and write books. I guarantee RJ would do that. In Evan’s mind, there is a sense of doing what is right. He knows how hard calving season is on a rancher, and no amount of money can replace what he does for Bob Fraser.
“The sweetness and tenderness are a form of toughness. He is not only a manly man in a man’s world, but he does the exact opposite of manliness to give you what you enjoy. It takes a tough man to be tender and sweet when he’s used to being rough. It takes a tough man to do all of the things he does and stick to that sense of ethics. The world is running out of men like that. There are fewer and fewer men who understand how to be that kind of tough, and more and more who are trying to wear their toughness like a jacket that you slip on and off as it suits you.
“Don’t you be fooled. Evan truly is tougher than a sack of bears.” Silence followed her lecture. She watched Alexandra pondering her words.
“I had never thought of it that way,” she said. “He seems so tender and sweet, even when he works with the horses. He is polite and gentle. Next to RJ, he seems pretty mild.”
“If I were in a fight for my life,” Evelyn said. “I would want Evan with me. He will always do the right thing when things get really tough. Nine times out of ten, the right thing will win out in the end.”
Alexandra pondered some more. “Did I ever tell you about where Sam and Lucy came from?”
“No,” Evelyn said.
“He found them starving and freezing to death,” she began, her eyes becoming misty as the memory of the story came to her. “They were with their mother, and she was dying. A couple of the other pups had already died. He brought them home and put them by the fire. Their mother died that night. He said that he spent several nights tending to them until he was sure that they would pull through.” She chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “I had always thought of that as his tenderness and sweetness, but you’re right, he had to endure a lot to save them.”
“The results of that little bit of toughness have certainly paid off,” Evelyn said. “Those books of his are huge. He must be making a killing off of them.”
“You know what is funny?” she said. “When I was with him, I had no idea that he was a bestselling author and a famous horse trainer. He never told me about himself. He didn’t brag about who he was and try to draw my attention. I had a completely wrong idea of who he was and what he was about. I thought he was just a backwoods bumpkin.”
“He’s far from that,” Evelyn said.
“I know,” Alexandra replied. “The men I’ve known in the past would have led off with those things. They would have tried to impress me. He never did that. In fact, he never did anything but try to keep me comfortable and safe.”
The last part of Alexandra’s sentence faded out slowly as she came to a more complete realization of Evan’s character.
Evelyn saw it and dismissed herself. “I’m gonna step out for a minute. Do you need anything?”
“Huh?” Alexandra glanced up at her briefly, lost in her thoughts.
“Never mind,” Evelyn replied. “I’ll be back in a few.”
Alexandra knew that Evelyn was leaving and knew that she had walked out the door, but it was more of an unconscious feeling of what was taking place around her than it was any form of conscious recognition. Her mind had wandered off to thinking about all of the things that happened in Evan’s life. The twists and turns that had brought him to where he was now. She suddenly realized that all of life took crazy turns; for her, for Evan, and there were even crazy turns in Evelyn’s life. It had all seemed like random chance to her before, but it was beginning to look like fate, something or someone maybe had a hand in guiding it.
She remembered the chorus of her favorite song. It had become her favorite song after she and Evan had listened to it while they were making love. She started to hum the chorus. “I tip my hat, to the keeper of the stars. He sure knew what he was doin’, when he joined these two hearts.” She smiled as an idea flashed into her mind. She was going to test out that satellite phone. She went to the directory in her cell phone, where she had just stored Evan’s new number the night before, and punched the send button when she pulled it up. When she heard his voice answer, she started to sing, “I tip my hat...”