Big Sky Wedding (23 page)

After brushing his teeth, splashing water on his face and neck and deciding categorically not to shave, even though he already had a pretty good stubble going, he made his way to the war-torn kitchen in search of coffee.

Cleo, frying up bacon and eggs on a double-burner hot plate, the stove having been junked right away, gave him a wry glance. “Bad night?” she asked, looking like a ride at Disneyland in the bright primary colors she was wearing.

Zane ignored the question, figuring the answer was obvious enough to go unspoken, found a mug and filled it with black coffee. “Where’s Slim?” he asked, looking around for his faithful dog. The critter had been right there last night, when it came time to bed down, but he’d been gone when Zane opened his eyes.

Cleo chuckled. “He’s outside, with Nash,” she replied.

“Why is it so quiet around here, anyhow?” Zane quizzed, after a few restorative sips of Cleo’s excellent java.

“It’s Saturday,” the housekeeper reminded him. “Everybody needs time off, now don’t they? Especially construction crews, since they work so hard during the week and all.”

Zane sighed. “Good,” he said. “Maybe I can have two thoughts in a row without a handsaw screeching or a rain of plaster dust falling on my head.”

Cleo puckered her lips and frowned, but her eyes were dancing with kindly disdain. “Poor you,” she said. She lobbed some of the food she’d just cooked onto a throwaway plate and held it out to him. “What, may I ask, has gotten under
your
hide so early in the morning, Boss Man?”

“How much time do you have?” Zane retorted grimly, taking the plate she offered, his mouth already watering and his stomach rumbling. He would have sworn he had no appetite at all, and damned if it wouldn’t have been perjury. “It’s a long freakin’ list.”

* * *

W
ALKER
CASUALLY
DROPPED
in at Brylee’s apartment for coffee and a visit in the early afternoon, trying to act as though the idea had been his own. Just a brotherly whim, not a rescue mission.

Of course, Casey must have been behind this sudden decision, because Walker was always busy around the ranch, even on Saturdays, tending to the surprisingly constant needs of bulls and broncos, the lifeblood of his stock-contracting business. On top of that, rodeo season was well under way, and he’d be heading for Colorado soon, with half a dozen loaded trucks and a good share of his crew. And that meant even more work than usual, with all the preparation such trips required.

“Coffee on?” he asked, nodding a greeting to Brylee before drawing back a chair and sitting down at her table. She was already pouring him a cup, black, the way he liked it.

She smiled, welcoming the interruption, because for hours now, she’d been marinating poultry, cleaning and slicing each little brussels sprout into neat halves, to be seasoned and roasted with the hens, peeling just a stripe around what seemed like jillions of baby potatoes and leaving the rest of the skin intact, just to make them showy. Except for a couple of runs outside with Snidely, the supermarket foray and a visit to the barn to groom her horse, Toby, in his stall, she hadn’t taken a break.

“I’m fine,” she said, preempting the inevitable how-are-you. She filled a coffee mug for herself and joined her brother at the table, trying to shift her sisterly viewpoint to a more objective one and see what Casey saw when she looked at him.

Walker was undeniably handsome, the rugged, outdoorsy type, at home on horseback or mending fences, inseminating cows with bull semen, or loading and unloading rambunctious rodeo stock in a din of bawling and neighing and kicking and clouds of throat-parching dust. His brown hair was attractively shaggy, his greenish-gray gaze was piercing and he had the classically square jaw of a movie cowboy.

Oops,
Brylee thought, with an inner wince.
Stay off the movie-cowboy trail, girl, because it leads straight to Zane Sutton, and you
don’t
want to go there.

“Did I say you weren’t fine?” Walker challenged, leaning forward in his chair a little, a grin flickering in his eyes and doing an almost imperceptible jig at one corner of his mouth. He needed a shave, but he must have showered recently, because his tanned skin looked scrubbed and his hair was still a bit damp. His clothes were clean, too.

Busted.

Brylee sat back, folded her arms, tilted her head to one side. “Casey sent you,” she asserted mildly. “Big brother rushes to smooth his spinster sister’s ruffled feathers.”

Walker gave a mild snort and shook his head, as though marveling at the range of her wild imagination. “That’s not true,” he said, after a thoughtful sip of his coffee.

“You just dropped everything to stop in and have coffee?” Brylee chided. “I think you even took a shower and changed clothes for the occasion. Come
on,
Walker. I might not be a rocket scientist but, please, give me
some
credit.”

He cleared his throat, looked serious for a moment, then recovered his usual low-key but cocky attitude. “Actually,” he said, pleased to contradict her, “Casey
didn’t
send me. Clare did.”

“Clare?” Brylee frowned, puzzled. Surely Clare didn’t know enough about the situation with Zane, if it could be
called
a situation, to be worried about her aunt, but if she
had
been, the girl would surely have paid a visit herself instead of sending her dad as an emissary.

Walker sighed as though the weight of the world had just settled onto his broad shoulders and was fixing to stay there a while. “She wants to tag along to Colorado with Shane and me,” he said. “She’s managed to get her mother to come over to her way of thinking, but I’m still holding out. The road isn’t a place for a teenage girl, Brylee. You ought to know that better than anybody, but for some reason, my lovely daughter thinks you might be able to change my mind.”

So that was it. A soft, sweet sadness swept through Brylee as she sat there, remembering how searingly lonely it felt to be left behind when her dad and Walker and some of the ranch hands hauled stock to some rodeo, near or far. They—the men— stayed in motels and took all their meals in restaurants, and there were always new things to see and do, as well as the deliciously familiar ones, old friends you never ran into anyplace else, and new people to get acquainted with, as well. It was hard to believe those same wonders would appeal to Clare, who’d grown up aboard her mother’s tour bus and had been literally everywhere, including the White House and Buckingham Palace. But to that younger Brylee, a country girl looking at the very same scenery every day of her life, it had been an amazing adventure. A gift.

Until it abruptly stopped, that is. She sat up a little straighter and ran her hands down the thighs of her sweatpants, choosing her words carefully. “Walker,” she said, “you know I don’t interfere in these things. You and Casey set the rules for your family, and that’s the way it should be—”

“But?” Walker asked, arching one eyebrow.

Brylee expelled a long breath. Well, hell, if he was going to
force
her to meddle, she’d do it. “But,” she said, picking up where her brother left off, “it’s a real bitch of a thing to be part of something for a long time and then suddenly find yourself shut out of the action, left behind at home like an extra saddle, just because you’re growing up.”

Tears formed in her eyes, an unexpected development to be sure, and she blinked and looked away in an effort to hide them, even though she knew it was already too late for that.

Walker reached across the table, squeezed her fingers together briefly with a steely strong, calloused hand. “Is that how you felt way back when, Brylee?” he asked, with a gentle gruffness that was very nearly her complete undoing. She was already on emotional overload, after all, barely keeping it together, and stuff just kept on coming at her, right and left. “Left behind?” he added. “Shut out?”

She sniffled and squared her shoulders, determined to hold on to what was left of her dignity. “Yes,” she said. “That’s how I felt. I know Dad meant well—he probably thought I’d get in trouble with a boy when he wasn’t looking or come down with cramps and need Midol and a hot water bottle, or do some
other
girlie thing he wasn’t prepared to handle, but it
hurt,
Walker. Mom was gone most of the time as it was, and then you and Dad bailed on me, too—seemingly without reason and
definitely
without any solid explanations.” She paused. “What would
you
have thought, in my place?”

Walker sighed heavily. “About what you did, I reckon,” he admitted solemnly. “But Dad
was
trying to protect you, honey, not break your heart—I can promise you that much. And bad things
do
happen on the road—trucks break down in the worst possible places at the worst possible times, stock gets loose and has to be rounded up and sometimes somebody gets trampled in the effort. Most cowboys are good men, I grant you, but they’re
people,
just the same, and there are always a few bottom-feeders hanging around.”

Brylee breathed deeply and slowly for a few moments, stunned at how deep the bruises went, even after all these years. She hadn’t even been
conscious
of them, in fact, until the other day, when Clare had expressed the same desire to be included and the same confusion because that clearly wasn’t going to happen.

“I know all that, Walker,” she managed, after a long time, her voice rickety and a little thick. Afraid another crying jag might be coming on, she dragged herself back from the emotional brink, sat up straighter in her chair and closed her hands around her coffee mug. “I was young, but I wasn’t stupid. I grew up on this ranch, just like you did, and I was a pretty fair wrangler, if I do say so myself. But I still got thrown into the penalty box, when push came to shove, for the crime of being a girl.”

Walker swallowed hard, visibly moved. This was one of the many things Brylee loved about her brother, as Casey surely did, though obviously in a very different way—for all his rock-hard muscle, cowboy know-how and bone-deep self-assurance, he could put himself in another person’s place, and not only see things from their point of view, but empathize.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know Dad would be, too, if he were here to listen to your side of things.” A sheen brightened Walker’s eyes, promptly disappeared. He gave another sigh, so heavy it raised and lowered that powerful set of shoulders. “Damned if the kid wasn’t right,” he added, dryly rueful.

“What kid?” Brylee asked, having temporarily forgotten the genesis of this conversation.

“Your niece? My daughter?” Walker teased, rapidly becoming his ordinary self again. “Clare and Casey both said I was being bullheaded about this, and they were right. You made me see that.”

Brylee smiled a genuine smile, and her spirits rose measurably. “So you’ll let Clare join you on the rodeo circuit?”

Walker grinned, but he held up an index finger to indicate that a stipulation was forthcoming. “Once,” he said, with conviction. “If she behaves herself, then fine, she can be a regular part of the crew, until she gets tired of the hard work and the impossible schedule, anyhow. On the other hand, if that little girl gives me any cause at all to be concerned for her safety and her well-being, she’ll find herself right back here on the ranch, before she can say jack—anything about it. And for the duration, too.”

Brylee chuckled, holding up both hands in humorous surrender. “Fair enough,” she said. Then, archly, she added, “What if
Shane
got into some kind of trouble, somewhere along the line? What would happen then?”

“Shane’s a boy,” Walker pointed out. He was turning a little grumpy now, forgetting his coffee, shoving an irritated hand through his hair, leaving furrows behind each finger.

“Precisely,” Brylee said. “Does that mean the rules are different for him?”

“Damn it, Brylee, you’re not being fair here,” Walker complained. “Boys do get themselves in Dutch once in a while—of course they do—it’s part of growing up. But whether you like it or not, there are some important differences here—boys don’t get pregnant, for one thing.”

“That’s about the
only
thing,” Brylee reasoned. “They do their share of mischief and then some, and you know it, Walker. And how do you think these theoretical females you’ve been yammering about
get
pregnant, anyhow? By osmosis? A
boy
is required.”

Walker grinned wryly, shook his head again. “Cut me a little slack here, will you, sis? Clare can go along on one trip and she’d better mind her
p
’s and
q
’s, if she wants to go again. Right now, that’s all the concession
this
nervous daddy is willing to make.”

Brylee laughed and stuck out her hand in tacit agreement, and they shook on it, as though sealing a bargain.

Walker finished his coffee, said goodbye and left the apartment.

Five minutes later, Clare burst in, face glowing, eyes bright, without bothering to knock. She hurled herself into Brylee’s arms, saying, “Thank you, thank you,
thank you!
”

Brylee hugged her niece back, then assumed an expression of solemn warning. “Don’t blow this, Clare,” she said quietly, but with a smile. “If you act up—as, let’s be perfectly honest here, you’ve been known to do before—your dad will send you home in a heartbeat, and that will be it. You’ll probably never get another chance to go on one of these road trips before you’re a grown woman—if then.”

Clare nodded eagerly. “I will be
so
good,” she vowed.

Brylee chuckled and hugged the girl again, as pleased by Walker’s decision as Clare was. “On behalf of girls and women everywhere,” she reminded the child, with mock sternness, “
behave yourself,
Clare Parrish. Prove to your dad that he’s right to trust you.”

Clare, smiling now, wiped at her cheeks with the back of one hand. “You’re the absolute
best,
” she bubbled. A pause, another sniffle. “How did you manage to get Dad to give me a shot at this? He’s been stonewalling me
and
Mom, right along.”