Late Last Night (River Bend) (2 page)

The ranch herd of Red Angus cattle was calving right now, and Rob never had quite enough help. He might be up half the night if there was a cow having trouble. Every few days he would cut the “heavies” out of the herd and bring them down to the field by the calving shed, and he, Kate, and Melinda would take turns to check them every couple of hours during the night. The disruption to sleep could be brutal. Kate yawned, thinking about it.

In the kitchen, she found Melinda, her sister-in-law and mother of the brood. There were four different-sized baking pans laid out on the table and cooked strips of lasagne hanging everywhere, over the edges of bowls and pots and even the back of a chair. On the stove, béchamel sauce had cooled in a pan and formed a thick yellow-white skin on top, while Melinda was only just tipping canned tomatoes into another pot—not quite big enough—containing ground beef that was still half raw and onions well on their way to being burned.

Melinda had tomato in her dark, pretty hair, and on her apron. The sink was full of dirty dishes, and the country music on the radio was turned too loud. Yet in the middle of all this she turned and smiled at Kate as if none of it mattered all that much—although that might have been a front. “I thought I’d make a big batch, so we could freeze some of it for another time. But then I got distracted…” She frowned and gave another smile that seemed to be an apology.

“It’s almost seven o’clock,” Kate said, and knew she’d sounded short and snappy. At this stage of preparation, she estimated another hour and a half, minimum, before the meal would be ready, since it needed a good forty-five minutes in the oven after it was put together, and that couldn’t be done until the meat and tomato sauce was cooked.

“I know. I always forget how complicated
lasagne is,” Melinda said. “And I think I started in the wrong place, with the béchamel. I sort of… got mixed up.” She waved her hands vaguely.

The kids would be over-tired and beyond hungry. Rob wouldn’t have a second’s peace between the end of the meal and when he needed to get to bed himself. He only let Melinda and Kate take turns getting up once a night during calving season, which meant he was checking the pregnant cows himself, most of the time. Couldn’t Melinda see he needed to be able to rely on her more, on the home front?

Kate fought back her impatience and won over it… for now.

Melinda was always like this. She and Rob had married so young, when she was still only seventeen and already pregnant with Rose. She was a sweet girl, the nicest and kindest person in the world, and she adored her husband. She was twenty-eight years old now, four years younger than Kate, and it wasn’t her fault that her planned third pregnancy had produced triplets.

She and Rob had made great parents to begin with, even though they were so young. Rose had co-operated by being an easy baby, and RJ, the result of a second unplanned pregnancy just four months after Rose’s birth, had been pretty easy, too. It hadn’t seemed like such a foolish decision to complete their planned family of three children right away. A family close in age had its advantages.

But the triplets had been a shock, and way too much.

When they were born—dramatically, by C-section, after Melinda’s blood pressure had climbed to a dangerous height—Rose and RJ were only two and one, so there were five toddlers and babies in the house, and Melinda understandably hadn’t coped so Kate had stayed on here instead of moving into her own place, even though by then she was already teaching at the high school and had to make the commute every day. It was a good half-hour. Thirty-five minutes, really.

But the kids had grown older and easier over the past few years. Rose was ten, now, RJ was nine, and the triplets Jamie, Jess and Jodie were eight, and Melinda still wasn’t coping.

She was so disorganized and vague about everything, and you couldn’t blame sleep deprivation or the Terrible Twos any more. Why couldn’t she manage better? The children were at school all day. Sure, yes, make three or four batches of lasagne at once, streamline the process, it made sense, but start it after lunch or even first thing in the morning, so it was ready in time.

What had Melinda been doing all day? She barely helped Rob with ranch work, even during this busiest time of the year. They could have kept chickens, but when they’d tried it, Melinda forgot to shut them away at night and predators came. She loved color and craft, and had boxes of fabric for quilting, but nothing ever seemed to happen except half-finished projects. Maybe a pillow-cover or a wall-hanging every now and then, if Rob helped her sort everything out and guided her through, but that was about it.

Every day, Kate came home from a hard day of teaching English to high school kids who wanted to learn but didn’t get enough attention, and kids who
didn’t
want to learn yet attempted to dominate the focus of the entire class… Neve Shepherd, for example…

She came home to this chaos.

Dinner not ready, or not even started, often.

Children not channeled into any kind of task.

Rob desperately trying to wash off the day’s fatigue so he could turn around and pick up the slack, even though he had ranch business on the computer most evenings.

Kate was desperate for a life of her own. Harrison Pearce had delivered a stark warning tonight and she knew he was right. She would never forgive herself if she killed someone on the roads because she was too stressed to drive safely. But how could she leave her younger brother in the lurch? How would this family possibly manage without her? And, more immediately, how would she find the time and energy for the papers she needed to grade tonight?

She took a breath. “Okay, how about I finish making the lasagne?”

“Oh, that would be such a help! Thank you!” Melinda said.

“And you could hear the trips do their reading aloud, for school, and then maybe come in here and wash up some dishes? Rose and RJ could help with that. They’re old enough.”

“You’re right. I should remember to ask them. I should remember to ask them about homework…” She sounded unhappy with herself about it, and her frown had darkened.

“Never mind,” Kate said brightly.

Melinda glanced at her then quickly away again, and Kate knew that Melinda hadn’t missed the tinkly-polite patience in her voice, and the words spoken
through gritted teeth. Her sister-in-law might be vague, but she was perceptive about people and atmosphere.

Something had to change. Sheriff Pearce was right, and it wasn’t just about her safety on the roads. If she kept letting herself be pulled in two directions like this, she would grow chronically angry and bitter toward Melinda and Rob. She’d lose any pleasure she felt in the kids because they weren’t hers and they were stopping her from finding a life… a man… kids of her own.

She would start to loathe all of them, loathe Melinda’s mother who could have helped but never did, loathe the beloved family ranch for its demands on Rob’s energy and strength, and she would loathe herself most of all, for becoming such an angry martyr, for not getting out while there was still time.

She loved her brother. She loved his whole family. But something had to change.

Chapter Two

Kate bit the bullet and talked to Rob that night, after the meal.

They had finally served it at eight thirty-five, after the kids’ hunger had been kept at bay earlier by a banana each and a glass of milk. Somehow the kitchen cleanup hadn’t happened before dinner, so it was still a mess in there and would have to be tackled later. But Rob had taken Rose and RJ with him to check on the pregnant cows, and they were starting to know what to look for in the “heavies”—restlessness, discharge, the pregnant cow lifting her tail and kicking at her belly. That was a big plus. They’d be a real help by next year.

Melinda was getting the children to bed now, and fortunately, since it was almost nine-thirty, they were tired enough that even her vague, chaotic parenting style could manage the task. Kate and Rob could both hear her along the corridor with the triplets. “No, don’t change your pajamas, Jodie. I know you love your princess ones, but—
oh, okay, if you really want to. Put those ones in the laundry basket, then—wait, Jamie, you haven’t brushed your teeth. Oh, you have? Really?”

Rob yawned and blinked, waiting for Kate to begin. She’d said a few minutes ago, “We need to talk,” and they’d come into the living room, where toys were still scattered, along with food crumbs and a plastic cup leaking dregs of juice onto the carpet. Right now, Rob looked tired, apprehensive
, and frankly clueless about what was coming, and she knew he would be eager to get to bed. He wasn’t a talkative man, but he was solid as a rock, strong and honorable and decent, and she didn’t want to hurt him, or make him feel bad.

“Is this about money?” he asked, before she could find a way into the subject.

“Money? No!”

“One of the kids, then?”

“Not that either. Rob, just let me say this, okay?

But there was no easy way.

She’d taught him to read when he was six years old and she was nine. He’d struggled with it at school, but she’d sat down patiently with him each evening until something clicked. Her parents had praised her and the glow of pride was something she’d never forgotten.

Teaching Rob to read was what had led to her teaching career, and she’d always felt protective toward him. It was only when he grew up and grew bigger and stronger than her that he started to protect her in return. It went both ways, now, but the two ways were different. He was concrete and practical in his thinking, a man of action, not empathy or imagination. They cared about each other a lot, but it wasn’t enough.

She took a breath. “Rob, I think I need to move into my own place.”

“Your own place?” He looked blank. “You mean, build a second house?”

On the ranch, of course. Her heart sank. He had no idea. “No, that’s not what I mean. I need to move away. Closer to town and school. I think it’s time. Past time. You and Melinda need to—to find a way to manage without me. I feel like I don’t have a life of my own, and it’s starting to make me angry, and I hate that.”

“Move away,” he said. He looked shocked, and still blank. “Move
away.”

“Yes.”

Silence. She wondered what else she could say, but finally he spoke, sounding bewildered and creaky with fatigue.

“I had no idea you wanted to do that. You love the kids. I thought you were happy here.”

“I have been…”
but not so much lately, although I’ve tried not to let it show.

And it seemed she was a better actress than she knew. Here on the ranch, she’d kept her feelings bottled safely away. It was only in the
truck each day, driving back and forth between here and Marietta, that she gave way.

To screaming.

To speeding.

To singing along to the radio at the top of her lungs, not even noticing the Sheriff’s car and lights and siren until he was almost on top of her.

Calm, Kate. Find the calm, and breathe it in.

“I have been happy,” she repeated. “I love you and Melinda and the kids. But all of you… rely on me… too much, and I’m starting to resent it, and that’s getting in the way of the love, and I hate that.”

“I had no idea,” he said again.

But he wasn’t slow to grasp an idea when it was put in front of him and soon he was urging her to act at once. “You’ll get an apartment? Or a house?”

“I’m still thinking. Not sure. Maybe even some acreage, as long as it’s only a few minutes out of town.”

“I know you hate the drive back and forth. That at least I haven’t been blind about.”

“You haven’t been blind, Rob.”

“You’ll find something easily.” But she could see that he was thinking feverishly behind the words, panicking a little.

“How will you manage when I go?” She hadn’t meant to say it. She shouldn’t let him see that she was doubtful on his behalf. Maybe she had no right to do this. Maybe she was being selfish. “Melinda… struggles. You already work so hard.”

But Rob was firm now. “We’ll get her mom to come for a month or two, help with the transition. The kids are getting old enough to help more, too. Rose and RJ were great, tonight. I’ll make up a chart for chores, or something. We’ll handle it, don’t worry.”

“Will her mom be willing?”

“She’ll have to be,” he said shortly. “She has no real excuse.”

Darla was divorced, living forty-five minutes away in Bozeman and comfortably off. She had hobbies and a social life and did charity work, but she didn’t have an employer who had to give permission about time off. She was a free agent. Rob was right, she could have done a lot more for them over the past ten years.

“Do it,” Rob said. “Make a plan. I’m so sorry you were the one who had to say it, Kate. I should have seen. Long ago.”

“It’s okay. It’s fine.”

“Do I need to call Darla tonight?”

“Tonight? No! Gosh, it might take me three or four months to find the right place.”

“That long?”

“I want to buy, not rent. I have money saved.”

But she hadn’t even looked at real estate prices yet. Hadn’t ever let herself think seriously about moving to her own place because she’d been so worried about how Melinda and Rob would manage without her.

“Three or four months, huh,” he echoed.

“Longer, even.” She could see how relieved he was, to know that she wasn’t planning to leave them in the lurch tomorrow. She would be here for the rest of calving and branding, and would help with whatever she could, as always. It felt like a good compromise, and her stress was easing just to think about the move. Light at the end of the tunnel. A change to plan for and look forward to. “And I’ll still come out to help when I can, even after I’ve moved.”

She took a breath, and felt she was breathing in calm. Could it be that she was actually
happy
that Harrison Pearce had stopped her tonight? Happy that she’d been wearing two pairs of glasses too many? Oh lord, they’d looked so funny and pitiful, tangled there in his big hand!

“Go to bed, Rob,” she said. “I’ll clear up in the kitchen.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll put on some music, just quiet.” When everything was clean in there, she would sit at the big table with hot tea and the music still going, and grade as many papers as she could manage.

Wearing just the
one
pair of glasses, thanks.

The whole house would be quiet by then.

Peaceful. Calm.

It made her keep thinking of Harrison Pearce, and the broken tail light, and the way he’d seen deep into her emotional state and let her off the hook. Rob took himself off to bed, the kids quieted into sleep and she tackled the kitchen, dreaming and planning.

She sacrificed the episode of ER that she never normally missed on a Thursday night and graded papers for an hour, finding exactly what she’d expected: Neve Shepherd’s fluent, but cynical effort, clearly dashed off in one hand-written draft at the last possible moment. Tully Morgan’s thoughtful piece, printed on a dot matrix printer, with the edge strips of the track paper torn off cleanly at the edges. Gemma Clayton’s neatly written but uninspired work, produced as if her bright mind was a thousand miles away. A messy scrawl from Trey Sheenan, with some surprising insights hidden in the tangle. His twin brother Troy’s paper, much better written but full of spelling errors. A couple of other unmemorable pieces of work.

An hour of grading was enough. The rest would have to wait. It was after eleven, and time for bed. She found she was actively looking forward to seeing Sheriff Pearce tomorrow…

… And then she didn’t. Because only a couple of deputies were there when she brought the pickup to the building that housed both the County Sheriff’s Office and the Marietta Police Department, on her school lunch hour. The deputy who came to the front desk was young and new and obviously thought she was just slightly out of her mind.

“Sheriff Pearce wanted me to bring the pickup in to show him I’d changed the light.”

Blank look.

“Because he otherwise would have ticketed me for the offense.”

“Right, okay.”

“So if he’s not here, could you take a look instead, and report back to him?”

The deputy duly did so, and she was back at school with twenty minutes to spare for her ham and lettuce sandwich, and no handy bottled supply of Sheriff Pearce calm tucked away in her bag.

She minded too much about that.

“We
need to settle this, Christie,” Harrison told his ex-wife.

They’d been arguing about it—face to face, by phone and email, through their respective lawyers—ever since the separation. It was the last unfinished detail… although a pretty large detail… in their divorce settlement, and one of them had to shift position or they would never be free of each other.

Christie frowned. “I want to keep this place.” They were standing on it—on the piece of ground in front of the poultry shed, where Christie had been at work when he’d come out here for what he was determined to make their final confrontation.

“You can’t,” he said. “Because you can’t afford to buy out my half, and there’s no reason why I should pay for you.” They’d been over this countless times before. They didn’t have children, and they both worked full-time.

“We moved here so we could live somewhere like this,” she said.

“That was a mistake.”

There was no point hashing it all through again. They’d been living in Helena, where the kind of small acreage Christie wanted was more expensive, and where neither of them had family. They’d moved to Marietta just over a year ago so she could have her land and Harrison could have—well, could convince Christie to have—the family he wanted. He’d thought that being close to his older brother and his teenage nieces and nephews, on a picturesque piece of acreage that cried out for kids, would start Christie thinking along those lines, finally, but it hadn’t happened.

His own fault, really.

They were thirty-four years old, both of them. They’d been together since they were twenty-five, married since the age of twenty-seven, and Christie had said all along that she didn’t want children, but he’d thought she would change her mind. Most women wanted kids, didn’t they? Most
people
wanted them.

Christie loved animals. She rode horses and bred exotic poultry and showed schnauzer dogs, and surely that should mean she loved children, too, and when the biological clock started ticking and when she saw how happy his brother Doug and sister-in-law Steffie were with their parcel of four, she would start going broody and clucky like those weirdly feathered hens of hers…

But no.

Three months after the move Christie had told him, angry and one hundred percent firm, that she didn’t ever want to be a mom. “I have never hidden that from you, Harrison. You’ve always said you were okay with it. But you weren’t, were you? You thought the little woman would come to her senses in time.”

Which was an unkind way of putting it, but was basically true. They’d been telling each other a lot of unkind truths in recent months.

So he had a decision to make, he had thought. Stay married to Christie and stay childless, or give up on the marriage and find a woman who wanted the same things he did.