The Outer Edge of Heaven (9 page)

Under the circumstances she wasn't afraid of Tyree and certainly didn't feel the slightest need to be civil to him when he made some suggestion about the two of them getting together later. Still mad to the core, she slammed out of the door and gathering up the children she headed on toward the pig barn. She was going to cook up a ranch hand and serve him for dinner!

When the little pig was well fed, she took the kids back to the house to Madge and went in search of Luke. Richard was in the great room pulling wires out of the back of the entertainment center. She could hear him grumbling as she started to go past, and she asked, "Is something wrong, Richard?"

"Oh, this whole television system is on the fritz and Madge asked me to look at it, but really I need Luke to do it. He can fix anything. Have you seen him? This whole ranch is going to fall apart when he finally leaves here. I wish that he wanted to stay. I can't imagine why he would want to go off and be an accountant of all things."

Charlie hesitated and then said, "Actually, Richard, Luke dreads when he's going to have to leave here. He doesn't want to be an accountant. The only reason he's studying accounting is because it'll pay the bills when Chase takes over here."

Richard stopped what he was doing and stared at her. Finally, he asked, "When Chase takes over here? What are you talking about? Why would Chase take over here?"

"Luke knows that eventually you'll hand the reins here over to Chase because he's the oldest son, just like all the other generations of Langstons have. He feels like when that happens, he'll have to leave. The accounting degree is simply his plan for an occupation for when he has to find a way to make a living after he leaves here."

Richard was still staring at her aghast. "Luke told you that? Luke honestly believes that?" She nodded and he said a mild expletive and went on, "My own son Luke? Who I talk to every single day of my life? Who I thought I had the ultimate father son relationship with, thinks I'm turning this place over to Chase?"

He began to swear again and sat down heavily in a chair and Charlie wondered if she'd made a big mistake telling him as he continued to mumble, "How can he possibly think I'd turn this place over to Chase? It’s all I can do not to kick Chase out because he does so little around here. Chase would destroy this place in a month." She shrugged and waited to see if he was going to yell at her or cry.

He didn't do either, but he turned to her and asked tiredly, "Is there anything else this earth shaking you've figured out since you've been here that I'm missing and need to know?"

Charlie hesitated. He seemed to honestly want to know, but some of the things would be likely to rock his world. He saw her hesitation and said, "Go ahead and tell me, Charlie. They're my children. My greatest treasures. I love them and I need to know."

"Okay…" She sat down in the chair next to him. "Do you want me to be brutally honest? Or politically correct?"

He sighed, but then said, "This is Montana, Charlie. We don't do politically correct. Let me have it."

Nodding, she began, "Well, I guess you should probably know that Lindie's baby is Chase's and Luke isn't truly in love with her, but he's going to marry her because he feels it's the only honorable thing to do. Lindie actually wants to give the baby up for adoption and go to college, but she can't get that through to Luke."

Richard closed his eyes and bowed his head quietly, but then a few seconds later looked back up. "And."

"Um… Tuckett is smoking pot with Tyree, but I'm going to kill both of them before you have a chance to, so that's a moot one."

At this Richard sat forward abruptly. "Smoking pot! Tuckett? You're kidding!"

She shook her head sadly. "I wish I was. I'd been wondering if Tuckett was smoking. Regular smoking, but I just caught the two of them not half an hour ago. I was looking for Luke to tell him when I came in here."

Richard put a hand up to rub the back of his neck. "What else?"

"Actually, since you already know about your wife's shenanigans, that's about it. Fo finally has a girl he really likes. That's earth shaking, but it's a good thing. Madge has an on-line fling going, but I think she's being smart about it so that's all okay. Other than the fact that Jamie thinks he wants to be a ballerina, I think everything else is under control."

He sighed and then cracked a halfhearted smile. "Oh, that's all I need on top of everything else. A son who's a ballerina."

Luke came in from the garage right then. He laughed and asked, "Chase wants to be a ballerina?"

Richard shook his head. "Not Chase, Jamie. Have you got a second Luke? There are some things Charlie and I were just discussing that I think you need to be in on."

Luke looked from one to the other and Charlie said almost guiltily, "I hope you're not going to want to kill me later, Luke."

She got up to go and added, "When you're through here with your dad, would you come find me? I'm going to need some help murdering Tyree and then trouncing Tuckett." As she walked out the door, praying for all she was worth, she could feel Luke's eyes burning into her back.

They were still talking earnestly when she came back in two hours later to start dinner and when the kids came in laughing and squealing, Luke and Richard headed into the office and shut the door behind them. Charlie started in praying silently for them again and began getting ready to grill steaks for dinner.

Dinner was long over and the kids down for bed, but she still hadn't seen Tuckett. Luke and Richard were still cloistered behind the office doors and Charlie had begun to worry in earnest. She wished Fo didn't have a date tonight so she could talk to him, and finally decided to go find Lindie. At the very least, she should admit to her what she had told Richard earlier.

She found Lindie at her parents’ home across the way and they both laughed when Lindie asked her if she wanted to go shopping and walk home. Sitting on the porch step, Charlie told Lindie about her conversation that afternoon with Richard. Lindie took it calmly and patted Charlie's hand. "Don't worry, Charlie. Remember when you told me everything would work out the way it's supposed to eventually? Sometimes a little wake up call is necessary. Maybe not pleasant, but necessary."

"I know. I felt I needed to be honest with Richard when he asked, but I'm afraid Luke's going to want to kill me."

Lindie smiled. "I've known him my whole life and to my knowledge he's never killed anyone yet. A couple times he's wanted to come close with Chase, but he's pretty hard to rile." She put a hand to Charlie's shoulder. "I think you're safe."

After a while, Charlie took the long way back to her cabin and sat in one of her porch rockers in the dark and looked out across the valley. One more time she began to pray silently to herself that all would be well with these people she had grown to love like her own.

Almost an hour later when Luke quietly materialized out of the darkness, for a second he almost scared her. He stepped up on the porch and settled himself into the rocker next to hers without saying anything and she wondered for just a minute if he was angry with her, but the silence was comfortable.

When he finally did break the silence, all he asked was, "How do you know what pot smoke smells like?"

She shook her head and began to laugh softly. "I've been worrying and praying for hours for you and that's all you're going to ask me?" She laughed again. "No, I've never smoked pot or anything else, Luke. I simply went to high school. Unfortunately there were those who did." She lazily rocked her chair and after a minute asked, "Are you really mad at me?"

"No. I'm grateful to you." The quiet stretched out, broken only by the creak of her rocker.

Finally, she asked, "Did Tuckett ever come back?"

"No. Neither has Tyree. Tyree had actually asked me for tomorrow off earlier and he's gone. I think Tuckett is here somewhere. He's just worried he's gonna get crowned."

"He's right to worry. I'm going to tan his hide once you and Richard are through with him."

Luke smiled. "I'm sure that's the reason he hasn't come back. Dad and I don't scare him. You terrify him."

They rocked in silence for another while and then Luke said, "I talked to Lindie." When Charlie didn't say anything after a few minutes he continued. "Why didn't you tell me she wanted to put the baby up for adoption? Somebody should have told me."

"It wasn't truly my place."

"But you told my dad."

"I was worried someday you'd both be bitter at each other for getting married. I know you were trying to help her, but someday she would have met someone who would have made her wish she'd waited until she fell in love to commit. And you'd never have been truly happy would you? And it would have made it hard to ever be friends with Chase someday, wouldn't it?"

"It will still be hard to be friends with Chase someday. It’s all I can do to tolerate him. We don't have much in common. But you're right. Marrying Lindie would have been a mistake."

"So did you call it off?"

"Yes. She’s going to put it up for adoption and go to college. Dad’s going to pay her tuition and expenses out of what would have been coming to Chase."

"I feel like I should apologize to you."

"Actually, I came to thank you."

She was still so unsure. "I've been praying for you. I was worried I'd made a mess of things."

"Things have been a mess, Charlie, but you didn't do it. Things have been a thousand percent better since you came."

She thought about that for a few minutes and then said, "I'm glad. I really love your family."

"We really love you too."

She had no idea how to respond to that and they rocked on in silence that lasted, but it was an incredibly sweet and comfortable long silence. Theirs had been an easy friendship that had just gotten a lot easier. The guilt Charlie had been feeling about falling in love with him was gone and it was a good feeling. A great feeling.

Sometime later Fo appeared out of the darkness too and pulled up another rocker to join in the easy quiet. Charlie wanted to ask about his date, but it felt wrong to interrupt the peace of the night and she decided to wait until the next day.

She wasn't even sure what time it was when the two of them peeled themselves out of their chairs, but it had been long enough that the peace had settled into her bones. Even when they were gone she was loathe to end this sweet night, although now that she was alone, the peace seemed to have dissipated. Now she was just incredibly tired and was tempted to nap for a second in her rocker.

Finally, she got up to go feed her little pig. The million stars over Montana may have been casting a spell, but little piggies still needed her to go to market. She was later than usual and gathered up her bottle and headed out into the ranch yards that seemed darker to her with everyone gone to bed. It was almost a little nervousing.

As she let herself into the barn and turned on the light, she was startled when Tyree came through the door behind her, shut it and said silkily, "I thought I'd see you here tonight." His eyes were much more alert than they had been this afternoon and there was no mistaking the appreciative gleam in them as he glanced her up and down. She suddenly wished she'd brought either Luke or Fo with her this time.

"I usually come and feed him." Knowing that she’d never come here late alone again, she tried to act nonchalant about him being there, and stepped away from him to call the little pigs out of the hole in the fence. When the runt made it through, she picked it up and went to put the bottle in its mouth, but Tyree grabbed her. He put a hand over her mouth and though she tried to wrestle free, she couldn't break his hold as he began to tell her close to her ear the things he planned to do to her just now.

The little pig began to squeal for all it was worth where it was being crushed between them and Charlie started to fight even harder. She knew she was in trouble, and though she was trying to keep her head, deep down she was horribly afraid. She was strong and in great shape, but Tyree was much bigger and stronger, and there wasn’t much she could do to get away no matter how hard she was trying. He was hurting her face. And her arm where he was wrenching it felt as if it was going rip right off at the shoulder.

With the little pig still squealing, Charlie jerked her head back and got just enough room to bite Tyree viciously. In the process, she accidentally stepped on more of the little pigs that were milling around her feet. They set up a wholesale ruckus and then the mother got into it as well.

When she bit him, Tyree jerked his hand away swearing angrily and she screamed. She was able to get the bottle hand free and she raised it, swinging as hard as she could. She caught him on the side of the head and was almost ashamed that she hit him hard enough that the bottle shattered on impact. It showered both him and her and the whole squealing pig family with milk. He went down in a heap and the piglets at their feet got even louder when some of them were half buried under him.

Luke and Fo and Tuckett all three came flying in the barn door at almost the same second as Charlie bent to try to rescue the squished baby pigs from Tyree's unconscious body. She fished three or four of them out and by the time all the babies were back in the hole and safely cowering beside their seriously upset mother, Tyree's head had begun to bleed profusely from a gash where she'd decked him with the bottle.

While it was all happening, she'd been able to focus on fighting him, but as soon as the barn fell into silence, she began to shake. Fo and Tuckett leaned down to try to stop the blood pouring out of Tyree's head, and Charlie turned away as she started to cry uncontrollably. She tripped over the broken glass bottle and stepped out the door of the barn. Once out of the circle of light, she leaned her head against the barn wood and sobbed.

A gentle hand touched her and pulled her back, and she turned and buried her face against Luke's chest as he quietly wrapped both arms around her. For a minute he simply held her and then softly asked, "Are you all right?" She nodded, but couldn't stem the tide of tears that ran down her cheeks or control the shaking that was making her teeth chatter.