A Certain Kind of Hero (39 page)

“So you chose to live like a gypsy.”

“A cowboy,” he corrected with a cocky grin. “Don't gypsies raise
sheep?
”

“I don't know. All I know is that they wander from place to place, and their children just—” she gestured expansively “—wander with them.”

“I don't have any children, so what difference does it make how I choose to live my life?” His eyes challenged her. He folded his arms and braced his shoulder against the gun cabinet. “What difference does it make to
you,
Amy. Why should you give a damn?”

“You were my husband's friend.”

“It has nothing to do with Kenny, and you know it. It has to do with you and me, and it always has.”

“There was no ‘you and me.' You weren't really—”

His hand shot out and grabbed her shoulder again. “The only thing I wasn't really was the kind of man you were looking for. You chose your husband carefully, didn't you?”

She stiffened. “Yes, and you were his friend, which made you
our
friend.”

“Give me a break.” With a groan he released her and turned away, patting his empty shirt pocket. His cigarettes must have been in his jacket. It was about time for a smoke and the drink she'd first accused him of sneaking.

But at his back, she persisted with her crusade. “You know, you could have built something on that land instead of tearing down what was left and going off—”

Great suggestion. “You would have enjoyed that, would you?” He confronted her again, trying hard not to sneer. “You married to Kenny, and me living just down the road?”

“It wouldn't have bothered me.”

“Yeah, right. Well, it would have bothered the livin' hell out of me.”

“I just meant that…” They stood face-to-face, but they were talking past each other. Intentionally. He knew what she meant, and he could tell by the look in her eyes that she knew damn well what
he
meant.

She shook her head and softened her tone. “You don't understand about the land because you've never been one to settle down. It's just not in you.”

“I understand something about the land, Amy. I grew up here.” He glanced away. He didn't like that soulful look she was giving him. “I guess I don't understand about the roots. Mine must have eroded. What was left after Jesse died was me and Oakie. Two people who tolerated each other. Barely.”

“Why do you keep coming back, then?”

“To see Kenny.”
What, was she blind?

“Kenny's not here anymore.”

“I'm stickin' around to help his wife and kids get through the winter.”

“I'm his
widow.
”

“Which means what? Besides the fact that you need a man?”

“I
don't
need a man!” Fingers rigidly splayed, she swept the idea away with an abrupt gesture, then calmly echoed, “I'm not talking about that. I'm saying you've come back to—”

“No, let's stop talking
around
it, Amy. I'm living under your roof, and Kenny's dead.” He braced his arms on the gun cabinet, trapping her between them to keep her from turning away. “Several years ago you said it was wrong. Several cold nights ago you told me it was too soon. What are you tellin' me now?”

They stared at one another, and finally it was he who had to turn away. If he got hold of her again, he would begin trying to shake some sense into her. Or he would be kissing her senseless—one of the two. He sighed. “What do you want from me, Amy?”

“I haven't asked for anything.”

“Doesn't it mean anything to you that you haven't
had
to?”

Her lips parted. He arched an eyebrow, waiting, but she pressed those lips together again. He gave a dry chuckle, as short on patience as she was on answers.

“I'm goin' out for a smoke,” he told her as he headed for the stairs. “Call me when supper's ready. Whatever supper you think you can spare your hired
gypsy.
”

 

Tate thought a lot about “roots” when he and Jody rode into the hills—
his
hills, on his land—and selected a Christmas tree. He'd taken it as a somewhat positive sign when Amy hadn't refused to let Jody go along after Jody assured her that his throat wasn't “one bit sore anymore.” The horseback part of the journey would be short, Tate had promised. They had trailered Outlaw as close in as they could. Then he'd put Jody in the saddle and mounted up behind him.

Maybe he did have some roots in the foothills, he thought.
The huge, pale winter sky rose high overhead and slid down in the distance behind the snow-capped western peaks. The morning freshness was filled with sage and pine. It felt good to fill his chest with something besides smoke, to get himself light-headed on pure air.

“What we're gonna end up with is a juniper or a ponderosa pine. You think that's okay?” Tate wondered as he surveyed the snow-spattered red cuts and the flat-topped slopes.

Jody nodded vigorously, the bill on his little flap-eared plaid cap bobbing up and down like a barfly's eyelashes.

“They don't make the best Christmas trees, but we'll find a good one. We can't use a limber pine. See that one up there?” The boy nodded again. “The wind's turned it into a pretzel.”

“Mom and me bought our tree last year,” Jody reported. “Did your dad used to go cut your Christmas tree himself?”

“My stepdad did, yeah.”

“Did he take you with him?”

“He did. This is where we'd always come lookin', too.”

He remembered the year a bobcat had spooked the horses. Jesse had been just about Jody's age, and Tate and Jesse had been riding double. Their sixteen-hand palomino had laid his ears back, and they'd gone streaking across the flat, with Jesse hanging on to the saddle horn and Tate, mounted behind him, gripping the swells. He could still see that jackleg fence up ahead. Just when he'd thought they were goners, the big horse had sailed over the rails like a trained jumper and kept right on galloping until he wore himself out. Oakie's face had been whiter than the December snow cover, but he'd said he'd never seen any cowboy stick a horse better, and he'd been looking Tate straight in the eye when he'd said it.

“We always found a good one out here,” Tate said, surprising
himself as he echoed Oakie's annual pronouncement. “You can't get 'em any fresher.”

They chose a small juniper. Even though it didn't have the pointed crown they were looking for, it had a straight trunk, and it was already decorated with cones that looked more like pale blue berries. Entrusted with Outlaw's reins, Jody was content to stand back and watch Tate cut the tree down. But the notion of roots bedeviled Tate as he swung the ax. He would take the tree away, but the roots would remain. If he came back to this spot years later, he knew he'd find juniper saplings. For every one that he pulled down, Amy would probably plant two more, with or without a placenta to nourish its roots. That was the way she was. A nester, like his mother, whose life had been hard and brief. His mother hadn't lived long enough to see the get of her womb reach manhood.

The tree went down, and Jody cheered. Tate straightened his shoulders and flashed a smile the boy's way. It was good for a boy to have a man to look out for him, too, Tate thought. And it was good for a man to remember that times weren't
all
bad when he was a boy.

 

Amy had been keeping to herself a lot lately, spending hours behind closed doors in the bedroom with the sewing machine whirring. The tree pleased her. She emerged long enough to give it her special homespun touch, adding brightly colored calico bows, along with small hanging pillows shaped like rag dolls and toy soldiers and teddy tears. She gave the top berth to a lacy angel, then stepped back and announced that she'd never seen a prettier tree.

After letting it be known that offers to entertain the baby would be more than welcome, Amy went back to her sewing machine. Tate and Jody discovered that Karen had an ear for
harmonica music. Now that she could hold her head up, she liked to bob along with their songs.

After several hours of late-night work, Tate managed to get his packages wrapped. The paper was cut funny in places, and he'd had to use a lot of tape, but he felt good when he arranged the gifts under the tree. He'd saved all the receipts. Half the stuff probably wouldn't fit. The other half was probably purely frivolous, but he didn't care. He'd picked out things he wanted his…he wanted
them
to have.

Amy didn't say much when she saw all the packages, but Jody was bursting with excitement when he asked, rather cautiously, whether any of the packages might be for him. Tate pointed to his name on one of the tags and challenged him to find the others.

Jody found one small box to be especially fascinating. He kept checking it over, shaking it, staring as though he were trying to develop X-ray vision, and muttering his guesses as though the package might respond if he hit on the right word. By Christmas Eve he had almost become a fixture beneath the tree.

After a supper of what Amy called her Christmas Eve chowder, she disappeared into the bedroom one more time and emerged with an armload of packages and a broad smile. “I have some things to add to the booty,” she told Tate as they met in the hallway.

“Can you use some help?” Karen had fallen asleep in his arms, and he'd just put her down in the crib in her nursery. “Looks like you've been busy.”

“You guys probably thought I was avoiding you these last couple of weeks. I wasn't.” She let him take the top half of her pile of packages. “Mine are all homemade.”

“Makes them more special.”

“Jody's too young to see it that way. I know he's excited
about your gifts, and I'm trying not to be an old Scrooge about it.”

With a quick frown he questioned her choice of words.

“What I mean to say is, I'm sure you bought him the kinds of things a little boy wants for Christmas.”

“I was a little boy again when I did my shopping. You don't begrudge me that, do you?”

“No.” They stood across from each other in the narrow hallway, his armload of boxes touching hers. A big red bow grazed her chin. “I appreciate it. It's the first Christmas without Ken, and I dreaded it. But you're here, and I'm glad, and—” She shrugged. “I guess I feel a little guilty about being glad.”

He groaned. “You are so full of—” With a soft chuckle he tipped his head back against the wall. “The word that comes to mind…well, you'd take it wrong.”

“Baloney?”

“That's not right, either. I know how you feel. I miss Kenny, too. Maybe not the same way you do, but I miss him.” He ducked a little closer to her ear, as though he was sharing a secret. “I think it's okay to be glad about some things at Christmas, and still be sad about others. And I'm glad I'm here.”

“Where would you be if you weren't here?”

“No place special.” Probably hanging around Reno or Denver, or maybe working the holidays for some trucking outfit, but she was looking at him as though she thought he was sitting on the keys to some pleasure palace. “That's the truth, Amy. No place anywhere near this special.”

Jody had fallen asleep under the tree. Quietly Tate set his armload of packages aside and knelt beside the boy. The colored lights from the tree cast a rainbow of soft hues over his soft blond curls and his sleeping-in-heavenly-peace face.
The warm glow seemed to seep into Tate's skin, like the gleam of approval he'd been seeing in the child's eyes lately.

That was a gift, he realized. The best gift anyone had ever given him. Nobody had ever accepted him unconditionally, the way Jody did. He imagined himself claiming his gift from under the tree as he lifted Jody into his arms, carried him to bed and tucked him in.

Amy had a steaming cup of apple cider waiting for him when he came back to join her on the sofa. “Homemade,” she said as she watched him take a sip. “But it doesn't have much kick to it.”

“I like it the way it is.” He pressed his lips together, savoring the cinnamon flavor. “Homemade.”

She nodded toward the packages under the tree. “It's that small box that fascinates him, but I don't think it's sugarplums he has dancing in his head. What's in it?”

“A gift for him and a surprise for you.”

“The day you don't surprise me will be a surprise, Tate Harrison. I hope you didn't go overboard.”

“I didn't.” Not as far as he was concerned. “Anyway, what's done is done, and you're long overdue for a few pleasant surprises. And I'm just the man who can provide them, because you don't expect much.” He gave her a mischievous wink. “I can look pretty damn good just by taking some time off from being bad.”

“I wouldn't say that.”

“You wouldn't say I look good?”

“You look—” she gave him a pointed once-over “—the way you've always looked.” The observation made him squirm a little, which made her laugh. “Truthfully, I've always thought you looked good even when you were being your baddest.”

“Baddest man in Overo?”

“Sometimes. You know darn well you turn a lot of heads, cowboy. You always have.”

“But not yours.”

“You know better than that,” she admitted. “But I've always managed to be fairly practical.”

“
Very
practical.”

“I'm certainly not going to be unrealistic about a cowboy whose pickup odometer turns over every year.” She glanced away from him, her attention drawn to the lights on the tree. “I do hate to see you sell your land, though. Someday you might wish you had a familiar place to park that pickup.”

“I'm familiar with a lot of parking places.”

“So was my father.” She sighed deeply, and the lights twinkled in her eyes like distant memories. “My family moved all the time when I was growing up. When people ask me where I'm from originally, I still get all flustered with the need to explain. I used to launch into a complete history, but I've learned to simply pick a place.” Her wistful smile seemed almost apologetic. “Or just to say that I'm from here now, because I
am.
I really am.”