Good Together (3 page)

The fact that it had happened to some other woman’s husband, this time, didn’t make it easier to bear.

But what troubled her even more was that Wes hadn’t called to tell her what had happened. She’d assumed he hadn’t wanted to frighten her. But in the past, he’d shared everything with her. The good. And the tough.

When he came home, she could tell the accident had affected him deeply. How could it not? But even then he refused to talk about it, leaving the room if she so much as mentioned Dex Cooper.

That was when Wes’s rodeo scores had started dropping.

It was so obvious now, Mattie couldn’t believe she hadn’t made the connection earlier.

“Dex’s death is part of it,” Wes agreed. “You know I was planning to quit next year anyway. But that kind of cinched matters for me. And I started wondering what it was all for, anyway. All those years in the rodeo ring. Sure I won some belt buckles and made some money. But for what?”

Finally he was being honest. But why had he waited until it was too late?

“You rodeoed because you loved it. And the money you earned helped us raise our daughters.”

Unconvinced, Wes glanced over the pictures on the mantel. His parents and hers. Their daughters. Their wedding photo. God, they’d been young.

“I understand why you’re quitting the rodeo. It’s time.” Few men continued to compete into their thirties, and even less once they hit forty. “But why sell the ranch? Seems to me that it’s the perfect time to be expanding—not getting out.”

Wes rubbed his face and sighed. “You don’t get it. I’m done, Mat. I’m just...done.”

How dared he say that? “What about the rest of us? I’m not done. I love this ranch and I’ve worked harder at it than anyone. And what about Portia and Wren? If we sell, where are they going to go for Christmas and the summer break? This is their
home
.”

“You don’t get it, Mat. You think the girls are going to keep coming back here all the time—well they won’t. They’ll get a job in the city and they’ll meet a guy and we’ll be lucky if they visit one week out of the year.”

Maybe. Eventually. But there were a lot of years to go before that day. “Aren’t you rushing things a little?”

“The twins are eighteen. How much time did you spend going back to the Circle C once you were that age?”

Heat flared over her. “That’s not a fair comparison. Those were different days. And Hawksley wasn’t the kind of father that you are.” Her father had been disapproving and distant—always. He’d never given any sign that he cared whether his daughters came to visit or not. The only ties Mattie felt to the Circle C were to her sisters. The four of them, despite the gaps in their ages, were very close.

“Parents have to step back when their kids are grown. That’s just how it is.”

He’d never talked like this before. “Our roles change,” she agreed, talking slowly, trying to figure out who this man was. She’d always felt that their parenting styles blended perfectly. But looking back now she could see that Wes had connected better with the girls when they were younger. Their adolescent stage had confused him. And maybe he’d pulled back more than she realized. “But they still need us.”

“Portia and Wren haven’t needed me since I taught them to drive.”

“Why are you being so literal? You know being part of a family is more than doing jobs for one another. Family provides our emotional bedrock. None of us ever grow out of the need to be loved.”

“And I’ll never stop loving them,” Wes said, his voice subdued once more.

The implication of his words hit her with another ferocious stab of pain.

He’d never stop loving their daughters.

But he had stopped loving
her.

* * *

A
Week Later

Nat Diamond left his doctor’s office in Polson with a feeling of relief at an unpleasant task finally behind him. Ever since his mother’s death, twenty years ago, the result of a misdiagnosis, followed by a drug which had stopped her heart cold, he’d had a profound, if somewhat illogical, distrust for the medical profession. He’d been dreading that appointment for weeks. Now, the day opened up to him full of possibilities.

He’d start with lunch. The Mexican place on the shore of the Flathead was his favorite. He’d order steak fajitas and a glass of Corona. Then treat himself with a long ride on the new colt when he got home.

The colt had turned out to be a nice surprise. Spirited, but anxious to please too. Handsome and gaited, strong and graceful. He couldn’t wait to show him off to his neighbor Mattie. When she’d sold the horse to him three years ago, she’d said he had promise. But she’d be thrilled to see just how much.

At the restaurant, Nat asked for a booth at the back and sat so he could look out at the lake. The patio had been closed off for the season and at the moment nary a boat could be seen over the expanse of the silvery blue waters, speckled with whitecaps. The Flathead was the biggest freshwater lake this side of the Mississippi and it didn’t take much wind to get all that water churned up.

Despite the cooler temperatures—and the knowledge that snow would soon be coming—Nat was relieved summer was over. He didn’t care for the influx of cottagers and vacationers who jammed up the roads with their cars, and the lake with their motor boats every July and August. September was the best, but October was good too.

He’d enjoy this month while it lasted.

The gal who seated customers walked by, disrupting his view as she led an older man to the table next to his. Nat gave a double-take. It was Jake Webster, foreman at the Bishop’s place.

“Hey there, Jake. Want to join me?”

Jake nodded, then took the bench seat with his back to the lake. “Good to see you, Nat. I’ve been meaning to call. You must be planning to move your cattle in soon.”

“Next week. You in?”

“Absolutely.”

One long day of work would see the job done. In the past, when they’d had more cattle on the Double D, pushing the cows down closer to home for the winter had required a two-day trail ride. Nat had loved those days riding with his mother and father, eating dinner around the campfire and sleeping under the stars.

Recent years, though, he’d been downsizing the operation. He’d leased a large portion of his land to a neighbor to the south. Reduced the herd. It was easier this way. And he sure didn’t need the money.

Jake ordered enchiladas and a beer and with their drinks came a basket of tortilla chips and a small bowl of watery salsa. Trying to scoop some up, without dripping on the table, was a challenge Nat almost never met.

“I thought we’d bring the cows in next Monday. With the twins in college, I suppose Mat will want to come. And Wes, if he’s home. Should I call her, or will you pass on the invite?” Nat worded this carefully, because he was treading potential dangerous waters here. Mattie loved any excuse to be out on the range riding all day. Her husband, despite his horse-breeding operation, and love of the rodeo, did not.

Nat wasn’t sure if it was the work—or himself—that Wes objected to. They’d been friends once upon a time. How could they not be, when they’d grown up on adjacent ranches? But once Wes married Mattie, that had changed.

Wes was away from home a lot. And he made it clear that he didn’t want Nat stepping in to fill his shoes while he was gone. Good old Jake—decades older than Mattie—was there to handle any problems that came up.

Only Jake couldn’t handle everything.

And it was Wes’s own fault that he wasn’t home more. If Nat were Mattie’s husband, he sure wouldn’t be taking off to a new rodeo every second week.

Tensions between them eased a little when Nat married Julia. But his marriage hadn’t lasted five years before Julia moved back to Seattle. He should have known better than to pluck a woman out of the city and try to transplant her on a ranch.

He’d resumed his bachelor lifestyle without much difficulty. And Wes had gone back to glowering at him if he spoke so much as one sentence to his wife.

Their food came then, and Nat was half finished his plate before he realized Jake hadn’t answered his question. He looked up to see Jake pushing food around on his plate.

Nat set down his fork. “What’s up?”

“Well. It’s Mattie. I’m kind of worried about her.”

“Why?”

Jake sighed. He wasn’t one to gossip, especially not about the Bishops, about whom he felt incredibly loyal. But sometimes a man had to make a call and speak up, if the situation warranted it.

And this time, apparently it did.

“She hasn’t stepped outside of the house for a week.”

That wasn’t like Mattie. “Is she sick?”

“Don’t think so. She says not. But she won’t let me in to check on her.” Jake swallowed. “Thing is, Wes drove off seven days ago, without his trailer or his horse.”

Jake raised his eyes from his plate, and in his tired gaze Nat could see his concern. The reason for it was obvious. If Wes hadn’t taken his horse, then he wasn’t off to another rodeo. So where had he gone?

T
here was not a single tea leaf left in Mattie’s kitchen. She’d gone through so many pots in the last week that she’d depleted not only her favorite English Breakfast, but also all the herbal brands her daughters had accumulated over the years.

She’d also worn out two decks of cards playing solitaire. She found the game soothing, for some reason. Shuffling and dealing the cards, logically sorting them, keeping her mind busy so she couldn’t dwell on the unthinkable thing that had happened last Monday morning.

She and Wes had had their “talk” shortly after eight in the morning.

By noon he had left, most of his clothes packed in two suitcases, along with his damned iPad, the check-book, and a box of files he’d removed from the office. She had no idea where he’d gone. She could send him a text message or e-mail if she needed him for something, he’d said on his way out the door.

The implied message was that he was hoping not to hear from her at all.

And he hadn’t.

Despite composing numerous messages to him in her head, from
you lousy jerk,
to,
what did I do wrong?
she had maintained silence. Every time she felt the urge to reach out to him, she thought about his eyes and how empty they had seemed when he looked at her. As if all the laughter and love that they’d shared had bled out of them.

He no longer saw her as Mattie, the love of his life, but as Mattie, the woman who was standing in his way.

And God, but it hurt. Her husband and this ranch were as much a part of her body and soul as the twins were. How could she survive the loss of all of them? What would be left, who would she be?

And what about Portia and Wren? In about five weeks they’d be flying home for Thanksgiving. What would she tell them if their father wasn’t here? Or if he lived up to his promise to put the property for sale? She was so afraid of this happening that she hadn’t answered the phone all week.

Not even calls from her daughters. She’d texted them instead, silly messages like, “Busy right now. Love you lots!” She’d even missed their regular Sunday Skype call yesterday, sending yet another text message. “Computer on the fritz. Getting it fixed. Skype next week?”

An out-and-out lie.

She was ashamed. But also desperate. One look at her face—she’d hardly stopped crying all week, even when she played cards the tears streamed down her cheeks—and they’d know something awful had happened.

She couldn’t trust her voice on the phone, either. She’d tried calling Sage earlier—and been forced to hang up and send a text message. “Sorry, I had to hang up before you answered. I’ll try calling later in the week.”

Thank God for the impersonal text message. It was saving her butt, big time.

But she couldn’t put off the people she loved forever. Eventually she was going to have to face them. How would Portia and Wren cope? It wasn’t fair for their first year at college to be spoiled by something so dreadful as this.

Damn Wes—how could he have written off his children as if they simply didn’t matter anymore? At one time he would have done anything to protect them.

And her.

Mattie reached for the tissue box. She’d scavenged them from every room in the house and this last one she’d taken from the drawer of Portia’s nightstand. The tissues smelled faintly of Portia’s white sandalwood perfume.

Which only made her cry harder.

Just eight weeks ago the four of them had sat down to dinner together, celebrating the girls’ last night at home before college. Not that Mattie had felt like celebrating—tears kept popping into her eyes as she prepared all of their favorites. Broccoli soup for Wren, ribs for Wes, lemon pie for Portia. The occasion had to be marked, she was determined about that.

Never had she guessed that it might be the last time the four of them would eat together as a family.

That thought started another spate of tears. Mattie tenderly dabbed her cheeks, avoiding the raw area around her nose. She ought to take a shower and change out of her sweats. Prepare herself a proper meal. Go out and buy a few essentials.

Instead, she crawled under the quilt she’d moved to the living room sofa. It was old, she’d found it in the linen cupboard, something she’d taken with her when she moved from the Circle C to her new home with her husband. Her grandmother Bramble had stitched together the quilt—she’d made one for all of them, except Callan who’d been born after their grandmother’s death.

Mattie liked to imagine that some of the squares of fabric on her quilt were from old clothing of her mother’s. She’d been twenty-two when her mom was killed in a ranching accident. Already married, with babies of her own. But her mother’s death had shattered her. Even then, though, she hadn’t fallen apart like this.

Mattie pressed the soft flannel backing against her cheek. She wished her mother was here now, to comfort her. What would she say? Mattie knew her parents had gone through rough patches too. Yet their marriage had survived.

Was it possible hers would too?

Blissful relief shot up in her heart every time she considered this. But the hope never lasted long.