Big Sky Wedding (14 page)

“Zane?” Landry’s voice was clipped, brusque. He sounded almost irritated, as though he’d been doing something vital to the future of the free world and Zane had interrupted him for a mundane chat.

“Just returning your call,” Zane said, with an easy affability he didn’t feel. There was a lot wrong between him and Landry, though they’d been close once, and he’d long since decided to steer clear.

“Good,” Landry ground out. “That’s good. Er—thanks.”

“I’d say ‘you’re welcome,’” Zane drawled in reply, “but that would be stretching the truth, little brother. What’s up?”

Landry huffed out an exasperated sigh. “I called to ask if the kid—Nash, I mean—got there okay.”

“Nice of you to ask,” Zane gibed, keeping his tone cordial. “He’s here and he’s fine. And how come you’re not in Germany doing whatever it is you do?”

“There was a change of plans,” Landry answered, after a beat or two. His tone was still grudging, but, though the change was nearly imperceptible, he’d backed off a little.

Something in the way his brother sounded made Zane uneasy. Landry didn’t usually have any trouble speaking his mind, but he was choosing his words carefully now, and there was an air of awkwardness around them.

“You okay?” Zane asked, after a few moments of silent debate with a part of himself that would rather leave this alone.

Landry gave a ragged sigh in response. “I’m just feeling kind of restless, I guess,” he said. It was the closest he’d come to opening up, at least to Zane, since before their mother died. “You know that old bit about climbing the rungs to success and then finding out you had your ladder against the wrong wall?”

Zane let out his breath. “Been there, done that,” he said, and waited.

Another pause followed, then Landry answered with a sort of deliberate cheer. “I thought I might come out there for a week or so—to Montana, that is—and have a look at that ranch of ours.”

“All right,” Zane said, mildly baffled. Landry had never shown an interest in Hangman’s Bend, beyond plunking down a sizable amount of money for his half of nearly three thousand acres and signing the appropriate papers. Though he’d had no more intention of actually living out here in the boondocks than his brother had, Zane had paid extra for the existing house and barn, so on some level, he must have figured on winding up there at some point.

“What’s the nearest town?” Landry asked, in a distracted tone, as though he might be taking notes but already chafing to get on to the next item on his agenda.

“Place called Three Trees,” Zane answered.

“I thought it had some Bible name,” Landry mused. Zane could picture his brother frowning.

“That’s the next town over—Parable,” he said.

“Right,” Landry said. “Is there a hotel?”

Zane grinned. He hadn’t done a whole lot of research on the area himself, but he knew Parable County boasted several run-down but respectable motels, the kind that used to be called “motor courts,” along with a few bed-and-breakfast type establishments. Landry, the city boy, was probably picturing his usual accommodations—say, the Peninsula or the Ritz.

“You can stay here,” he replied, expecting a refusal. “It’s rustic, but we have plenty of room.”

“Who’s doing the cooking?” Landry wanted to know. “Not you, I hope.”

Zane almost laughed. “Cleo is in charge of grub,” he replied, picking up on his brother’s indirect reference to an episode when they were probably nine and ten years old. One night, home alone in a motel room in some dusty Texas town clinging to the crumbling sides of a road all but obsolete now that the freeways were in, they’d been especially hungry, so Zane had decided to whip up a meal instead of waiting for their mom to bring home whatever was left of that day’s special at the café. Since the room didn’t have a kitchen, Zane had set the secondhand hot plate on the desk in front of the window, heated the burner to a red glow and proceeded to fry up a few slices of bologna in an empty aluminum pie tin.

Five minutes into this culinary endeavor, the cheap curtains had caught fire, and he and Landry had fled, panicked and coughing up their socks, into the weedy gravel parking lot. Black smoke billowed through the open door and the manager appeared, sweating and swearing, wielding a fire extinguisher that sprayed one shot of foam and then fizzled.

Fortunately, the volunteer fire department had arrived promptly to put out the blaze, and the whole place hadn’t burned down, but the room was pretty much trashed—walls blackened, floor and furnishings swamped with water from the heavy canvas hoses.

When their mother got home from work, less than half an hour later, a boxed supper of leftover meat loaf and mashed potatoes in hand, she’d been greeted by the manager, who was, of course, raving by then. He’d reminded her loudly that the use of hot plates and other such appliances in the rooms was strictly forbidden, and now his insurance rates were going to go up, and then told her to load her brats in the car and hit the road.

Relieved that the kids were alive and unscathed and she wasn’t being asked to pay for the damage, Maddie Rose Sutton hadn’t said much at all; she’d simply listened to the old man’s diatribe until he’d run out of steam, then loaded up what few personal belongings she could salvage, gestured to her wide-eyed boys to get into the battered station wagon, settled the motel bill with what was probably her last few dollars and driven away.

The backs of Zane’s eyes burned, remembering how brave she’d been, and how patient, and how ridiculously young. Some mothers would have yelled—and not without justification—but she’d merely handed the box of food over the backseat, along with a couple of plastic forks from the stash in the glove compartment, and told them to eat before the food got any colder than it already was.

Realizing that Landry was still talking, Zane jerked himself out of the memory and back into the here and now. Whatever his brother had said, he’d missed it, and he was too hardheaded and proud to ask for an instant replay.

“So, anyway,” Landry said, winding down now, “I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Great,” Zane said, mystified. He had no clue when—or if—his brother would show up, or, if he did put in an appearance, whether he’d stay there at the ranch house or get himself a room in Three Trees or Parable.

Time would tell.

They said their goodbyes and the conversation was over.

When Zane got back to the demolished kitchen, Cleo and Nash were waiting impatiently. Cleo had changed into purple pants and a matching top with ruffles, but she still wore the yellow sneakers.

Zane, thankful for small favors, was glad she hadn’t put her hat back on to complete the look. Leaving Slim to snooze contentedly in his favorite corner, apparently heedless of the ruin surrounding him on all sides, Zane, Cleo and Nash climbed into the truck and left for town.

The process took a couple of hours, and by the time they got back to the ranch, after supper at the Bluebell Café, it was getting dark. Zane sent Cleo on into the house while he and Nash began unloading a dizzying array of purchases from the back of the pickup.

“How did your hot date go, anyhow?” Nash asked companionably with no preamble whatsoever as he lugged his newly acquired TV, still in its box, across the yard, following a path of light spilling from the open door Cleo had just passed through.

Zane hadn’t been thinking about Brylee, but about the old days, and Maddie Rose, and how he and Landry had been thick as thieves when they were younger. He took a moment to register his brother’s question, and then answered, not unkindly, “That, boy, is none of your damn business.”

Nash accepted the reply with equanimity—most likely, being out of the loop was nothing new to him, given that Jess had always been long on doing what came naturally and short on explaining why—hesitated, then posed a question of his own. “Do you think Dad knows where I am?”

Zane was glad it was fairly dark in the yard, and his face was in shadow beneath the brim of his hat, because he wouldn’t have wanted the boy to see the expression on his face, a combination of pity for Nash and cold anger at the man who’d gone off and left him on Landry’s doorstep. Sure, Landry was family, but, like Zane, he was still a virtual stranger to the kid.

“He’ll be in touch,” Zane heard himself say, his voice husky.
Or not.

He should have been straight with him, told the boy what he surely already knew, that Jess Sutton was about as dependable as a cheap flashlight with low batteries, but it was no use. People mostly believed what they
wanted
to believe, especially when the alternative was a hard truth. Why should Nash be the exception?

“You think so?” Nash asked, sounding hopeful and worried, both at once.

Lugging half the contents of the supermarket in Three Trees, Zane didn’t have a free hand, or he would have given the kid a brief pat on the shoulder, in an effort to reassure him a little. “What’s his pattern?” he asked, as they climbed the porch steps, Nash in the lead with his TV.

“His pattern?” Nash asked, glancing back over one shoulder and nearly tripping over the dog awaiting him just inside the kitchen door.

“When he takes off,” Zane replied, with no inflection, “how long does he usually stay away?”

Over Nash’s head, Zane locked gazes with Cleo, who frowned.

Nash set the box down with obvious relief, ruffling Slim’s ears and laughing a little as the dog jumped, and circled and finally sat. His eyes were serious, though, when he looked at Zane, and one of his skinny shoulders moved in a halfhearted shrug. “It depends,” he admitted. But then the glum expression slacked off just slightly, and he added, “He always comes back, though. Sooner or later. When he does, we have a good time, going to movies and eating in restaurants and stuff.”

By then, Zane was avoiding Cleo’s eyes, but he knew that she was thinking pretty much the same thing he was. Jess Sutton wasn’t worth the space he took up or the air he breathed, and all the wishing and hoping in the universe wasn’t going to change him.

“Let’s get this stuff inside and put away as best we can,” Zane managed, still sounding rusty. “I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m looking forward to a shower and eight hours of sleep.”

“You just carry in the rest of what we bought,” Cleo interjected. “We’re going to have to live out of bags and boxes for a while, anyhow, since there’s no place to put everything, once the refrigerator is filled up.”

Zane nodded. Cleo hadn’t said anything particularly profound, but she’d made the situation easier, just the same.

He and Nash unloaded the truck, then Nash went off to his room, Slim at his heels, to try out his new TV.

Zane said a quiet good-night to Cleo, who looked like she expected him to say something and was going to be nonplussed if he didn’t, and retreated into his own space, such as it was.

The shower was soothing—for once, there was plenty of hot water.

The air mattress was tolerable, even bordering on comfortable.

Still, Zane didn’t fall asleep right away, tired as he was. He lay in the darkness, with his hands cupped behind his head, thinking about the way Brylee Parrish looked in a pair of jeans and grinning like an idiot.

CHAPTER EIGHT

B
RYLEE
BIT
HER
lower lip as she studied Casey’s face, there in the kitchen of the main ranch house. “Really?” she asked anxiously. “You don’t mind?”

Casey, who was peering at a page in an old cookbook, an apron tied around her tiny waist, scratched away a splatter mark with one fingernail and chuckled. “Of
course
I don’t,” she said, giving the words a musical lilt, as she often did. Sometimes, it was hard to decide if Casey was talking or singing—she had music in her at the cellular level, it seemed, and she exuded it. “I told you I wanted to invite Zane over for supper one day soon, since he and I are acquainted. Besides, this is still your home, too. You don’t need my permission to have guests, Brylee.” Earnest tears glistened in those famously green eyes for the briefest of moments, then she added huskily, “You’re not feeling shut out, like you’re not part of the family, are you? Because you
are.
”

Brylee gave her sister-in-law a quick, impulsive hug, touched by the pained expression on the woman’s face. Casey was deliriously happy, now that she and Walker were finally married, no doubt about that, but it didn’t stop her from fretting that she and the kids had somehow swept Brylee aside.

“No,”
Brylee protested. “Casey, I’m thrilled that you and Walker finally got your acts together and tied the knot, and you know I love Clare and Shane and Preston as if they were mine.” She folded her arms, tilted her head to one side and studied her brother’s wife with mock solemnity. “I’ve been living in that apartment since I came home from college, you know, and that was long before you came on the scene. I like it. In other words, I’m
fine.
”

Okay, so it was a good thing Brylee didn’t happen to have her hand resting on a Bible just then, but what she’d said was
mostly
true. She
was
glad Casey and Walker were married, and she
did
adore all three of the children, too. But if she admitted that she sometimes felt like the proverbial fifth wheel, no longer comfortable having free run of the main part of the house the way she used to, Casey wouldn’t understand that it had nothing to do with her and the kids being there. She’d stew and worry, because that’s how she was—she cared about other people, cared a lot.

“You’d say something if you were unhappy, wouldn’t you?” Casey pressed, very softly. Her eyes were dry now, but her lower lip quivered just slightly.

Brylee was forced to tell another white lie. “Yes,” she replied, shifting her focus to the well-used cookbook Casey had been perusing. Passed down from Walker and Brylee’s great-grandmother, the volume was dog-eared, marked up and positively bristling with slips of paper bearing notes in faded handwriting. “What are you planning on whipping up, Mrs. Parrish?” she asked, to change the subject.

Casey twinkled. “Biscuits,” she replied. “Walker loves the things—he’d eat them at breakfast, lunch and dinner—and I thought I’d take a stab at making a batch the old-fashioned way. He never complains about the ones that come from the supermarket in a cardboard tube, but I know he misses the homemade kind.”

Brylee rested a hand on Casey’s shoulder, gave it a light squeeze. “You know what?” she said gently. “Walker’s one lucky cowboy, getting you for a wife.” This time, she was being completely truthful.

Casey gave a chortling laugh, along with an involuntary sniffle. “I’d say
I’m
the lucky one,” she countered, holding the heavy cookbook up in front of her face and squinting comically at the printed recipe, even though there was nothing wrong with her eyesight. “It looks so simple—flour, some shortening and buttermilk, a little salt—but...”

Brylee moved to the sink, washed her hands with soap and hot water. “You can do this, Casey,” she lectured, grinning. “But if it would make you feel better, I’d be glad to give you a few pointers.”

Casey beamed. “That would be
excellent!
” she said.

Soon, both of them were up to their elbows in sifted flour—standing side by side at one of the long counters and chatting away as they built a double batch of country biscuits.

“How are Shane and Clare doing?” Brylee asked, leaving Preston out of the inquiry only because he was lying in his portable crib nearby, sleeping soundly and obviously thriving.

Casey made a face. “Shane’s behaving himself, though he’s still hectoring both Walker and me something fierce about letting him enter the rodeo next month,” she answered. “Clare’s been a little quiet, since she found out that boy she liked was just using her to get to me, but having Zane Sutton here for supper will probably cheer her right up. She’s a huge fan.”

The reminder of Zane gave Brylee pause—she always felt better when she forgot to think about him, since whenever he came to mind a jolt of sweet electricity went through her—but it didn’t break her conversational stride. She dropped her voice to a mischievous whisper and went on to confide, “He’s a looker, all right. If I wasn’t afraid he’d find out about it and get the wrong idea, I’d rent all his movies and watch them one right after the other.”

Casey giggled. “I knew it,” she said, with a note of soft triumph in her voice. “You’re
smitten
with the man, Brylee Parrish.”

“I’m not
smitten,
” Brylee insisted.
Heck, no,
chided her inner critic, the one who always had an argument ready,
you just want to rip his clothes off and roll around with him in the tall grass naked as the day you were born, that’s all.

Brylee blushed at the inevitable—and X-rated—image that had taken shape in her brain.

Watching her, Casey gave a bubbly burst of amusement. “If you could see your face!”

Thank heaven the woman wasn’t psychic, Brylee thought. But Casey
was
perceptive—more so than most people, anyhow—and she was whip-smart, too. With that agile mind of hers, it wasn’t any big leap for her to guess what Brylee was thinking. In fact, Shane and Clare swore up and down their mom had eyes in the back of her head.

“It’s time to roll out this dough and cut some biscuits,” Brylee said decisively, all business now. “Set the oven temperature at 375 and I’ll get out a couple of glasses and some cookie sheets.”

Casey frowned and squinted at the cookbook again. “The recipe says 350,” she told Brylee seriously.

Brylee waved a hand to dismiss that. “This oven has been twenty-five degrees off for as long as I can remember,” she answered. “So 375 will do it.”

Casey sighed and moved to the stove, while Brylee scrounged through the cupboards under the counter for a pair of cookie sheets, found the rolling pin in a drawer and finally reached overhead for a pair of drinking glasses. They’d use the rims to cut perfect circles in the dough, once they’d rolled it out on a floury surface.

By the time Walker, Shane and some of the ranch hands came in for supper a short while later, the air in that kitchen was downright redolent with the smell of perfectly baked biscuits.

Brylee snatched a couple for herself, placed them on a paper towel and stood on tiptoe to kiss her brother’s beard-stubbled cheek. “See you around,” she told him, smiling at the sheer delight in his face as he breathed in the aroma and gave Casey an exuberant hug.

“Biscuits?” he said, almost as though he might be afraid to hope.

“Yep,” Brylee replied, summoning Snidely, who had been sleeping under the table since she got back from the ride with Zane Sutton, and heading for the apartment. At the door, she paused, looked back over one shoulder and said, “That wife of yours is definitely a keeper, Walker Parrish. I hope you’re thanking your lucky stars for her, and often.”

Walker chuckled, his eyes glowing, and planted a smacking kiss on Casey’s upturned, flour-splotched face. “Believe me,” he replied gruffly, as his bride smiled back at him, “I say thank you with about every breath I draw.”

The words touched Brylee in parts of her heart that were still bruised, and she wondered if she’d ever know that kind of love.

Determined not to let her feelings show, she exchanged a glance with Shane, raised her eyebrows and slipped out, with Snidely right behind her, his toenails clicking on the tile floor.

No more than two minutes could have passed when someone knocked at the door between Brylee’s apartment and Casey and Walker’s kitchen. It opened, and Shane stuck his head inside.

“Can I come in?”

Brylee had just buttered both the biscuits she’d helped herself to and was on the verge of devouring the first one. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. “Don’t let me stop you,” she teased, with a small grin. “Want a biscuit?”

Shane shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said, stepping into the corridor. “Mom’s got about a million of them stacked on a platter, and we’ll be having supper in a few minutes. You were out of there so fast, Dad didn’t get the chance to ask you to join us, so he sent me to do it.”

Brylee might have said she wasn’t hungry, if she hadn’t had a growling stomach and a mouth full of fresh, flaky, delicious biscuit at the moment. She chewed, swallowed and reached for the second one, still resting on its paper towel nearby, oozing butter where she’d sliced it in half. “Not tonight,” she said pleasantly. “I’ve got things to do.”

“Like what?” Shane asked. He’d had a growth spurt since school let out in the spring, and he was nearly as tall as Walker. It was scary how fast kids grew up—why, in no time at all, she might be having a similar conversation with Preston.

An honest reply—she planned to wash her hair, check her personal emails and possibly set the DVR to record one of Zane’s movies—was out of the question. On the other hand, she didn’t want to fib again, as she had earlier, to Casey, in case it got to be a habit. Taking the easy way out was tempting, but it was also a slippery slope. Therefore, she was stuck for an answer.

Shane didn’t miss her hesitation, of course—that would have made things too easy and, besides, like his sister, he was a sharp kid. His expression was sort of wistful, and he was watching her closely. “You mad at us or something?” he asked.

Brylee was horrified. “No,” she responded quickly. “Of course I’m not.”

“You always say no when we invite you to come over,” Shane reminded her. He actually looked a little hurt, and sounded that way, too. Still pretty grubby from herding cattle all day with his dad and some of the ranch hands, he shifted his weight slightly, from one leg to the other. “It’s weird.”

Brylee realized she
had
been making a lot of excuses lately, keeping to herself when she wasn’t at the office, and there was no point in denying the fact. “I’m just trying to give you guys some space over there,” she said lamely, forgetting all about the second biscuit she’d been planning to gobble up. “Let you be a family, just the five of you.”

“
You’re
part of our family, too,” Shane said, as a Walker-like smile crept to his lips and then rose to flicker in his eyes. He spread his hands in a got-you-there kind of gesture. “Come on, Brylee,” he urged. “If I go back and tell Mom and Dad you think you’re in the way or something, they’ll bring out the big guns. You’ll get no peace at all, ever.”

He was right, of course.

“Can we make a deal?” Brylee asked, attempting a smile and wringing her hands a little.

“Depends,” Shane said. He was barely a teenager, yet already his voice was changing. And he was gaining confidence as well as lean muscle.

“I’ll come and have supper with the rest of you if you promise not to tell your folks what I said. About why I haven’t been over that much lately, I mean.”

Shane considered the bargain, pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes mischievously as he worked the matter through in his head.

“Okay,” the boy finally agreed, with one of those sun-parting-the-rain-clouds smiles that always reminded her of her big brother. Soon enough, Shane would be irresistible to the female gender. Too bad there was no way to warn girls and women everywhere. “Maybe you can get Clare to talk. I always wished she’d shut up, but now, all of a sudden, she’s got nothing to say, and it’s creepy. She’s been pouting for days over that stupid guy who was going to romance her on the bus trip to the capital, and it’s a total bummer just to be around her.”

This time, Brylee smiled without effort, nodded. “I’ll do my best to draw your sister into the conversation,” she promised. “Give me five minutes to wash up and feed Snidely, and I’ll join you.”

Shane, having accomplished his mission, grinned again and went out the same way he’d come in.

Once the door closed behind him, Brylee sighed and rolled her eyes heavenward, but she wasn’t really exasperated. In fact, a part of her rejoiced at the prospect of sharing a meal with the rest of the Parrish clan.

She’d been lonely lately—she could admit that now.

Not out loud, of course. Just to herself. But that was progress, wasn’t it?

* * *

T
HE
FIRST
CROP
of contractors showed up at Hangman’s Bend bright and early the next morning, clipboards in hand, retractable tape measures at the ready, expressions serious and businesslike as Cleo shepherded them from room to room, explaining what she wanted done—which was amazingly specific, in Zane’s opinion. She had it figured out right down to the style of fixtures for the bathrooms and the color of each and every wall.

Looking on in amused silence, Zane marveled at her energy and the quick certainty in her voice. He’d figured out that the floors ought to be replaced, and the kitchen brought into the twenty-first century—the room had skipped the twentieth entirely—but that was as far as it went. He hadn’t thought about furniture at all, except to acknowledge that they’d need some, but Cleo seemed to have her mind made up about couches and chairs, tables and lamps and the like.

He was more than willing to let the woman have her way.

Nash, meanwhile, sat at the rickety card table in the center of the bomb-zone kitchen, spooning cereal from his bowl and then putting it back before it got to his mouth.