The Ranch (29 page)

“Try to forget it,” Mary Stuart said, and both women put their arms around Tanya's waist, and the three of them walked up to the dining room, talking like that, with no idea of the powerful impression they made as they walked along. They were three very striking women. And from his deck, unnoticed by them, Hartley Bowman was watching Mary Stuart.

Chapter 13

Their ride that afternoon was just as pleasant as the one that morning, and they rode out again in the same groups and configurations. They were assigned the same wrangler and the same horses for the duration of their stay, so Liz, the head of the corral, was anxious to know if everyone was satisfied with their mounts and their cowboys. And no one seemed to have any complaints that she knew of.

Zoe chatted with the doctors again that afternoon, and Tanya tried not to listen as they had moved on to transplants, which was no better than the discussion about severed limbs earlier that morning. And trying to leave Mary Stuart alone with Hartley as they discussed a book they'd both read, she moved ahead again with the wrangler. Once again, they rode for what seemed like miles, in silence. And then finally, Tanya couldn't stand it, and she looked at him from across her horse's neck, but he never even looked at her. It was as though he had no idea who she was beside him. It was entirely up to her to keep up with him, he never once acknowledged her presence.

“Is there something about me that bothers you?” she asked, with an irritated expression. He was really beginning to annoy her. She was not having fun, and she didn't even like him.

“No, ma'am. Nothing at all,” he said, without a change of expression. She thought he was going to lapse into silence again and she wanted to hit him with her cowboy boot. He was the most taciturn man she'd ever met, and she couldn't stand it. Usually people at least talked to her, or looked at her, or something. She had never met anyone with reactions like Gordon. But he surprised her after another half mile, while she was debating whether or not it was worth the trouble of trying again, just to see if he would answer. “You're a real good rider.” At first, she couldn't believe he'd spoken, and this time he glanced at her sideways, and then looked away just as quickly. It was almost as though her light was too blinding. It was that that was troubling him, but she didn't know that.

“Thank you. I don't like horses.” Or cowboys. Or people who don't talk to me. Or anything about you.

“I saw that on your card, ma'am. Any special reason? You taken a bad fall sometime?” She suspected it was the most he'd said all year to anyone, but at least he was trying. He was clearly a man of few words, but she was beginning to wonder if Hartley was right, and he was shy and not used to city people. He should have taken a job doing shoes then, not riding with hotel guests, she thought as she watched him.

“No, I've never fallen. I just think horses are dumb. I rode a lot when I was a kid, but I never liked it.”

“I grew up on a horse,” he said matter-of-factly, “roping steers. My daddy worked on a ranch, and I worked right along with him.” He didn't tell her that his father had died when he was ten, and he had supported his mother and four sisters until they all got married and he still supported his mother, and he had a son he helped out from time to time in Montana. Despite what Tanya thought of him, Gordon Washbaugh was a good man, and a bright one. “Most of the people who come here say they can ride, think so too, but they're just plain dangerous. They don't have any idea what they're doing. They all wind up in the dust first day out. Not many like you, ma'am.” It was a classic understatement and he knew it. He looked at her sheepishly, and she was surprised to see that he was smiling too then. “I never rode with anyone famous. Makes me kinda nervous.” He was so honest it impressed her. And she was suddenly embarrassed by her complaints to the others at lunchtime.

“Why would it make you nervous?” His perception of her amused her. It was so rare that she could see herself from that perspective. She never really understood why people were so fascinated, nor why he would be frightened of her,

“Don't want to say the wrong thing, ma'am. Might make you angry.”

And then she laughed suddenly, as they rode through a clearing. The light was beautiful on the hills, and in the distance they could see a coyote. “You really made me mad when you wouldn't talk to me this morning,” she admitted with a grin, and he glanced at her cautiously. He had no idea whether or not to relax with her, if she was real, and could be trusted. “I thought you hated me or something.”

“Why would I hate you? The whole damn ranch wants to know you. Bought your CD's, want autographs. Someone's got a video of you somewhere. They told us not to say anything to you, not to ask questions, not to bother you. I figured it was just better not to talk at all. Didn't want to bug you. The others make such damn fools of themselves. I tried to get them to let someone else be your wrangler. I'm not much of a talker.” He was so honest with her that in spite of her earlier assessment of him, she actually liked him. And he was surprisingly clean and well-spoken for a cowboy. “I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings.” He brought it down to such real emotions, she started to say he hadn't, but he had, that was the whole point. It hurt her that he wouldn't talk to her. It was something new for Tanya. “I figured it'd be more restful for you if I kept my mouth shut.”

“Well, make a little noise from time to time just so I know you're breathing,” she said with a lopsided grin, and he guffawed.

“Someone like you, the whole world must chew your ear off. I couldn't believe how crazy they all got before you got here. Must be hard on you,” he said matter-of-factly, getting right to the heart of the matter, and she nodded.

“It is,” she said softly, able to be honest with him, out in the middle of nowhere, as they loped toward the mountains across a field of wildflowers. It was like seeking truth, or finding nirvana. There was something about the place that touched her deeply. She had come here to amuse her stepchildren originally, and then her friends, but instead she was finding something she had lost from her soul a long time ago, a kind of peace she had long since forgotten. “All those people grabbing at you, taking something from you, taking something away from you, it's as though they suck out your spirit and they don't even know it, but they do… sometimes I think that one day it will kill me, or they will.” The nightmare of John Lennon being murdered by a fan was vivid for all famous people who had mobs of fans as she did. But there were other nightmares as well, just as lethal in the long run, though less obvious than the gun that had killed him. “It's a crazy life where I come from,” she said thoughtfully, “it didn't used to be in the beginning. But it got that way. And I don't think it's ever going to change now.”

“You ought to buy a place here,” he said, looking straight ahead toward the Tetons, “a lot of people like you come here, to get away, to hide for a while, get their spirit back. They come here, or go to Montana, Colorado, same idea. You could go back to Texas.” He smiled at her and she groaned.

“I think I've outgrown that,” she confessed, and he laughed. His laughter was a fresh, easy sound that suited him perfectly and made her smile in answer.

“I think I outgrew Texas a long time ago too. Too hot, too dusty, too empty. That's why I came here. This suits me better,” he said as she looked around them and nodded. It was easy to see why. Who wouldn't it have suited?

“Do you live here all year long?” she asked. This was much better than the morning. Even if she never saw him again, at least now they were human beings. He knew something about her, and she knew something about him. She thought maybe she'd write a song about him. The Silent Cowboy.

“Yes, ma'am,” he said.

“What's it like?” She was thinking of the song now.

“Cold.” He smiled and glanced at her sideways again. She was so beautiful, she scared him. It was easier not to see her. “We get twenty feet of snow sometimes. We send the horses south in October. Can't get around except by snowplow.”

“It must be lonely,” she said thoughtfully, trying to picture it. It was light-years away from Bel Air, recording studios, movies, concerts. Twenty feet of snow… one solitary man… and a snowplow.

“I like it,” he said. “I keep busy. I get a lot of time to read, and think. I write some,” and then he smiled cautiously and glanced at her, “listen to music.”

“Don't tell me you listen to me while you're sitting here in twenty feet of snow all winter.” The very idea of it was so foreign to her that it amazed her and she loved it.

“Sometimes,” he confessed. “I listen to other things too. Country western. I used to like jazz but I don't listen to it much anymore. Beethoven, Mozart.” The man was intriguing to her. She had definitely misjudged him. She wanted to ask him if he was married, if he had a family, out of curiosity, not out of any interest in him, but that seemed too personal, and she sensed that he would have been offended. He was careful to set boundaries and stay well behind them. And then, before she could ask him anything else about his life there, they rejoined the others. Hartley and Mary Stuart were chatting easily, and the doctors were still busy dismembering remembered patients, enchanted with their discussions. It was a surprisingly congenial group, and they were all sorry when their trail ride ended. It was four o'clock by then, and they were free to go to the swimming pool, go hiking, or play tennis. But they were all exhausted and Zoe looked it. Tanya had been noticing since the day before that Zoe was paler than she had been in college. Her already fair skin seemed to have gotten even whiter.

The medical couple from Chicago went for a walk to look at wildflowers, and Hartley walked the three women back to their cabin, and they were all startled to see a little boy there. He was just sitting there, and when Mary Stuart saw him, she had a visceral reaction. He was about six years old, and he seemed to be waiting for someone.

“Hi,” Tanya said easily. “Did you ride today?”

“Yup,” he said, pushing a red cowboy hat back on his head. He was wearing little black cowboy boots with red bulls on them, and little blue jeans and a denim jacket. “My horse's name is Rusty.”

“And what's your name?” Zoe asked as she sat down beside him on the deck, grateful to sit down for a moment. The altitude made her breathless.

“Benjamin,” he said formally. “My mommy's having a baby, so she can't ride horses.” He was more than willing to share the information, and Zoe and Tanya exchanged a smile. Mary Stuart was standing a little distance away, talking to Hartley, but she was frowning and didn't know it. But Tanya had seen it, and she knew why even if Mary Stuart didn't. The boy looked so much like her son Todd at the same age that it made your heart ache. Tanya wondered if Mary Stuart saw it, but she didn't want to say anything to Zoe, for fear Mary Stuart would hear it. And the odd thing was that the child kept staring at Mary Stuart as though he knew her. It was eerie.

“My aunt looks just like you,” he offered finally, fascinated by Mary Stuart, although she was the only one of the group who hadn't spoken to him, and didn't want to. She didn't go out of her way to avoid him, but she didn't enter into conversation with him either. She had sensed, more than seen, the resemblance. And Hartley saw something in her eyes that made him wonder.

“Do you have children?” he asked. He had noticed the wedding band on her hand that afternoon, but from things she'd said about deciding where to spend the summer, and the impression he'd gotten that she was alone, he wasn't exactly clear on her marital status. And neither was Mary Stuart.

“Yes, I do…” she answered vaguely in answer to his question about whether she had children. “A daughter… I… and a son, who died,” she said awkwardly, and he could see the pain in her eyes and didn't pursue it. She turned away from the boy then, and walked into the cabin with Hartley. She didn't want to see the child a moment longer.

“Was he…” he hesitated, wanting to reach out to her, but not sure how to, “was he very young when he died?” he asked cautiously, wondering if he shouldn't mention it at all. But he wanted to know more about her. Perhaps that was why she had come here. Perhaps he had died in an accident with the father… or perhaps she was still married. There were questions he wanted to ask her. After riding with her all day, he felt as though they were friends now. They were so isolated from the world they knew, in this remarkable place, thrown together for only moments. If they were to become friends, they had to learn everything about each other very quickly.

“Todd was twenty when he died,” she said quietly, trying not to see the little boy beyond the window. He was still chatting with Zoe and Tanya. “It was last year,” she said, looking down at her hands for a moment.

“I'm so sorry,” Hartley said softly, and dared to touch her hand for an instant. He knew only too well the pain of loss. He and Margaret had been married for twenty-six years when he lost her, and they had never had children. She couldn't. And he had accepted that. In some ways, he had always thought it brought them closer. But now he looked at Mary Stuart and could only glimpse what she had gone through. “It must be terrible to lose a child. I can't imagine it. It was bad enough when Margaret died. I really thought it would kill me. I was surprised when I woke up every morning, I kept waiting to die of grief, and was stunned that I didn't. I've been writing about it in my new book all winter.”

“It must help writing about it,” she said as they sat down on the couch in the living room. The other two were still outside talking, but she couldn't see the boy now. “I wish I could write about it. But it's better now. I finally put his things away a few weeks ago, before I came here. I couldn't bring myself to do it before that.”

“It took me nearly two years with Margaret,” he said honestly. And he had only been out with two women so far and hated both of them for not being her. He knew all about the pain of adjusting. At least she didn't have that to deal with, though he still didn't know about her husband. “It must have been very hard on your husband too,” he said, fishing for information, but she didn't understand that. He had seen the narrow wedding band, but the way she spoke didn't confirm that she was married,