The Ranch (33 page)

“Are you keeping secrets from us?” Zoe teased her, and Mary Stuart laughed at her too. But Tanya just ignored them and went to finish dressing. She looked particularly spectacular that day in a pair of bleached jeans, and a peach colored T-shirt. She was even wearing a new pair of boots, a pair of apricot hand-embroidered ones that she had bought a while before in Texas.

And when they went to the dining room for breakfast with the other guests, Hartley was waiting for them. He looked very cheerful, and very comfortable as he put an arm around Mary Stuart, and said a warm hello to the others. He smelled of soap and aftershave, and looked very handsome in a white shirt and blue jeans, and Tanya couldn't help thinking that he and Mary Stuart looked terrific together. They looked as though they were meant to be, and Zoe agreed with her, as she commented on it later, on the way to the stables.

Little Benjamin was waiting for them there, and having everyone sign his cast. Tanya gave him a big kiss and an autograph, and a bunch of young girls asked her for one too, and their mothers let them. People were more relaxed about seeing her around, but no one was taking sneaky pictures of her, which she appreciated. And when Gordon saw her, he waved, he was saddling up a bunch of horses. As always they were among the last to ride, and Mary Stuart sat on a bench with Benjamin on her lap, nuzzling his neck, and talking to him. He was like a gift now.

“You sure scared us yesterday, you wild guy you,” she said, remembering the sight of him flying toward the stables on the runaway horse and then sailing into the air, and onto the rocky roadway.

“The doctor said I should have broken my neck, but I didn't.”

“Well, that's lucky.”

“Yeah, and my mommy cried.” He looked at Mary Stuart seriously then. “You were right. She says she's never gonna love the baby like she loves me. I told her you said so.”

“Good.”

“She said I'd always be special.” And then he brought tears to her eyes again with a gesture that hit her like a fist to the solar plexus. “I'm sorry about your little boy,” he said as he kissed her.

“Me too,” she said, as her eyes filled with tears and her lips trembled, and Hartley watched her. “I still love him very, very much,” she said, barely able to speak. “He's still very special.”

“Can you see him sometimes?” he asked, puzzled by death. They were the kind of questions Todd would have asked her at his age, and she would have tried to answer, but she was honest with him.

“No, I can't. Not anymore. Just in my heart. I see him there all the time. And in pictures.”

“What's his name?”

“Todd.” Benjie nodded, as though that were sufficient introduction. And then a little while later he got off her lap and went to look at the horses, and then back up to their cabin to his mother. He seemed satisfied with his visit, and then Mary Stuart and Tanya and the others went out with Gordon. Hartley was looking at Mary Stuart, and she smiled. Dealing with Benjamin was still painful. He was so direct with her, but maybe it was healthy for her. It certainly wasn't easy, and Hartley gave her a quick squeeze before she got on her horse and told her she was terrific.

“I don't know what I ever did to get so lucky,” she answered.

“Clean living,” he teased her. And they had a nice ride that morning. Zoe was looking tired, so she took it easy, and the doctors had gone for a rafting trip in Yellowstone, so she rode along with Hartley and Mary Stuart. And Gordon and Tanya rode on ahead, and he invited her to the rodeo that night. He was in it.

“Are you kidding? What events do you ride in?”

He looked sheepish for a minute. “Bulls and broncs. I've done it since Texas.”

“Are you crazy?” She'd been to those rodeos as a kid. The guys got stomped on and dragged around, half of them were brain damaged before they were thirty, the others had so many broken bones, they walked like old men even though they were in their twenties. “That is a really dumb thing to do,” she said, looking angry. “You're a smart guy, why risk your life for a couple of hundred dollars, or a silver buckle?” He had ten of them at home, but so what, if he wound up crippled?

“They're just like your platinum records,” he said quietly, not surprised at her reaction. His mother said the same thing, and so did his sisters. Women just didn't get it. “Like what you have to go through to get a gold record, or an Oscar. Look at the torture they put you through, rehearsals, threats, bad managers, tabloids. It's a lot easier riding a bronc for ninety seconds.”

“Yeah, but I don't get dragged around on my head in horse shit until I'm brain dead. Gordon, I disapprove of this,” she said sternly, and he looked disappointed. Maybe she was a big-city girl after all, and not a Texan.

“Does that mean you won't come tonight?” He looked crushed, and she shook her head, but she was smiling.

“Of course I will. But I still think you're crazy.” He grinned at her then and lit a cigarette. “What are you riding tonight?”

“Saddle broncs. That's easy.”

“Show-off.” She was excited about it. She loved rodeos, and she'd been planning to go anyway. He invited her to come see him at the pens, and she said she would if she could find him. It wasn't always easy for her to get around either. If people recognized her, it would restrict her movements, and she might even have to leave if people really surrounded her. She never went to public events like that without a bodyguard, but she didn't want to this time. She was just going to go in her bus, with Tom, and Zoe and Mary Stuart. And Hartley, if he wanted to join them. But Tanya could hardly wait to see it. And she had just the outfit for it.

She was like a kid going to the fair when they got dressed that night before dinner. She came out of her room wearing soft beige suede jeans with fringe down the side, and a matching beige suede shirt with the same fringe and a suede neck scarf. And she had a cowboy hat exactly the same color. It looked very Western, but she had bought it all in Paris, and the suede was so soft it felt like velvet on her body.

“Wow! You Texans!” Mary Stuart complained. She had worn emerald-green blue jeans and a matching sweater, with black alligator boots from Billy Martin's. And Zoe was wearing stretch jeans with a Ralph Lauren military jacket. As usual, they were the best-looking group in the place, and Hartley had started calling them “Hartley's Angels,” which amused them.

It was a lively dinner that night, and Benjamin was running all over the dining room while his mother was threatening to go into labor. She said it had been a traumatic week and she couldn't wait to get home to Kansas City that weekend, and Mary Stuart couldn't blame her. It was not the kind of week you would have wanted to have while eight months pregnant, but Mary Stuart was happy she'd met Benjie. He made her sign his cast for a second time, and right after dinner, they went out to Tanya's bus and left for Jackson Hole with Hartley. He had agreed to join them at the rodeo, and he was enthralled by the bus as they drove there. He loved it.

“I can't believe this,” he said, amused by all of it. “And I thought I was hot stuff with a Jaguar.”

“I drive a ten-year-old Volkswagen van,” Zoe confided to him, and he laughed. But it was for a good cause in her case, every penny she had she put into the clinic to buy medicine and equipment.

“I'm afraid the literary world can't compete with Hollywood,” he said apologetically. “You beat us hands down, Tanya.”

“Yeah, but look at the shit we have to put up with. You people work like gentlemen. The people I deal with are savages, so I deserve this.” She justified it and they all laughed, but no one begrudged it to her, not even Hartley. She worked hard for her money.

And in the comfortable bus, the time passed quickly on the way into Jackson Hole from Moose, and half an hour later they were at the rodeo, and they were nearly half an hour early. The ranch had gotten them great tickets. And it all had a familiar smell and feel to it that reminded Tanya of her childhood. It was just the way Tanya remembered it when she was a little girl. She used to ride her pony over and watch all of it. And when she was a little older she rode in it a few times, but her daddy said it was too expensive, and she wasn't all that crazy about horses. She just loved the excitement. It was like the circus.

They took their seats and bought popcorn and Cokes, just as an official of the rodeo approached her. She wondered if there was something wrong, if they'd had a death threat or a security problem, the man approaching them looked extremely nervous, and Hartley became instantly protective and stood in front of her as the man approached them and asked to speak to Tanya.

“May I ask what this is about?” Hartley asked politely, sensing some kind of danger, or imposition at the very least, as she had.

“I'd like to speak to Miz Thomas,” he said with an accent Tanya recognized easily as Texas and not Wyoming. “We have a favor to ask her.” He peered over Hartley's shoulder at her and added, “As a fellow Texan.”

“What can I do to help you?” She stepped forward. She had decided he was harmless, though annoying.

“We were wondering if…” He was sweating uncontrollably, he had been delegated for this task, and he was wishing someone else had done it. And her bodyguard really scared him. He was very well dressed, and a little awesome. It was, of course, Hartley, though she had bought a ticket for Tom too, but she didn't know where he was sitting. “Miz Thomas,” the man from Texas went on nervously, “I know you probably don't do this, and we can't pay you anything… but we wondered… it would be a real honor…” she wanted to shake him to help him get the words out,“… if you'd sing the anthem for us tonight.” She was so startled she didn't answer for a moment. She had done that before, but there was something touching about it. It was a hard song to sing, but in a way it would be fun to do it. Right out in the open, with the mountains all around them. It was such a sweet idea that she smiled at him, and wondered what Gordon would think if she did it. In a funny way, she wanted to do it for him, to wish him luck on his bronco.

“It would be an honor,” she said seriously, and meant it. “Where would you like me to do it?”

“Would you come with me?” She hesitated for a moment, always slightly afraid of the crowd, and what could happen to her, and there was no one to protect her. The others looked a little concerned, but no one had recognized her so far, and it was tempting to just go with him and do it.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Hartley asked, he didn't want her to be in any danger, and he was more than happy to go with her to offer his protection.

“I think I'll be all right,” she said in an undertone to him. “I'll stay out in the open, and if you see anything strange happen, or a crowd closing in, get the security right away, call the police, just get them out there.” But they might not be fast enough and she knew that.

“I don't think you should do this,” he said conservatively.

“It's a nice thing to do though. It would mean a lot to them.” And it was a gift she could give to Gordon. She wanted to do it for him and the people of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “Don't worry,” she said, patted his arm, glanced at her friends, and followed the perspiring man from the rodeo down a flight of stairs out of the bleachers and around the ring. They were right out in the open and the others could watch her. What they were proposing was that she stand on a box in the middle of the ring with a microphone and sing, or if she preferred, she could do it on horseback. It was a scenario she much preferred. She was a target either way, but she had more mobility on a horse than on foot, and she was a good enough rider to get out of any situation if she had a horse on which to do it. They were more than happy to have her do it on horseback, and they offered her a beautiful palomino which matched her hair and her outfit. It was more theatrical that way anyway. She only hoped she wasn't making herself an easy target for a crazy with a gun. It was an awful way to think, but when she did concerts, she had to. Her agent would have had a nervous breakdown, if he'd known what she was about to do, with no protection, and for free yet. But the little girl from Texas still lived in her. If she had thought when she was a child she would sing the anthem at the rodeo one day, she would never have believed it. It was something she had never done, and used to dream of, as a kid from Texas. And she agreed to do it on horseback. They explained to her that she'd go on in the next ten minutes. And as she looked around, she wondered if she'd see Gordon, but she didn't. No one seemed to be in the least aware of her presence, or what was coming. No one knew she was in the audience, or so she thought, although the people from the rodeo said that the girl at the ranch who'd ordered the tickets for her had said who they were for, which annoyed her a little, but it was hard to control that. Someone always said something. But the crowd at the rodeo was in no way prepared for the announcement that was made as the rodeo began, nor was Gordon.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the grand marshal said into a mike as he sat in the ring on a big, black stallion. “We have a real treat in store for you this evening. The Jackson Hole Rodeo welcomes you tonight, and to thank you for coming here to see our bulls and our broncs and our cowboys, we have a real nice lady who's going to give you quite a treat. She's going to sing our anthem. She's visiting Jackson Hole,” and as he said it, Tanya prayed he'd have the brains not to say where she was slaying, and the others hoped the same thing as they sat in the bleachers, but mercifully he didn't. “And she's pretty familiar with the rodeo herself. She's a Texas gal… ladies and gentlemen,” there was a powerful drumroll from the members of the high school band who were about to play the anthem, “I give you…
Tanya Thomas!
” And as he said the words, a cowboy opened the gate, and she galloped into the ring on the palomino. She made an incredible sight with her blond hair flying out behind her. She was holding the mike in one hand and the reins in the other, and the horse was livelier than she'd expected, and she was praying she wouldn't fall off before she got to sing the anthem. And according to plan, she galloped once around the ring, and then walked the horse into the middle, smiling at the crowd and waving as they screamed and cheered her. People were on their feet and unable to believe their good fortune. And for a fraction of an instant, she was afraid they would stampede her. She could almost smell it brewing. And she wished she could see Gordon, but she couldn't. He was standing far behind her, straddling the bronc pens, unable to believe what he was seeing, or the crowd's reactions. He was surprised that she hadn't warned him, but he watched as the crowd continued to scream and shout her name, and stamp their feet in rhythm. But she was holding up a hand, and they stopped finally so they could hear her.