Parable, Montana [4] Big Sky Summer Read online

  A happy sorrow. It was a phrase Walker wouldn’t have thought up in a million years, but it sounded like poetry coming from Casey. He figured she’d eventually weave it into one of her songs. He secured the reins and left Mack to graze, and did the same for Casey’s horse.

  “It was a hard life,” he said, remembering the small gravestone hidden in the tall grass, where his ancestors had buried their three-month-old daughter after she died of scarlet fever. “But they stuck it out, made it mean something.”

  Casey wandered farther afield, and bent to pluck something from the ground. It was a spear of asparagus, the stray remnant of a garden that had been gone for better than a century. “It’s perfect,” she said, pleased.

  “Grows all over the place,” Walker said, pleased himself, and a little hoarse with it. “Brylee and I used to gather asparagus by the bushel out here, take it home and boil it up for supper.”

  Casey stopped, gazing at him. “Is that a happy story?” she asked. “Or is it more like a tale of hard luck?”

  Walker grinned, though something about her question made his throat thicken a little. “We were okay as kids,” he replied. “Mom didn’t take a whole lot of interest in us, but Dad was rock solid.”

  “I wish I’d known him.”

  “Me, too,” Walker answered. “He’d have liked you.”

  Casey found a large, flat rock rising out of the grass, brushed away dirt and pine needles and sat down. “My folks died when I was a toddler,” she said without a trace of self-pity. “I grew up with my paternal grandparents.”

  “Yes,” Walker replied, joining her, since the rock was wide enough to accommodate both of them. “I think I read about that in People magazine.”

  Casey’s smile was a little thin by then, but her lips quirked up at the corners for a moment. “You read People magazine?” she joked. “I had you pegged for a Western Horseman subscriber.”

  “I’m that, too,” Walker admitted. “But when your face or your name is on the cover of a magazine—any magazine—I buy it and I read it.”

  That seemed to unsettle her slightly. She slid her palms along the thighs of her jeans, as though smoothing a skirt. “You know, of course, that there’s a lot of hype out there. You can’t believe everything you read, and all that.”

  Walker nodded, removed his hat, held it loosely between his hands. “Yep,” he said. Then he grinned. “I admit I was intrigued by that tabloid story about your having a secret husband tucked away somewhere.”

  She drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, taking in the hardy antique flowers and the ruins of the cabin and the herd, way off in the distance. “You think that was bad?” she countered lightly. “What about the one that claimed I was abducted by aliens and my children are the result?”

  Walker chuckled. “I might have believed it happened once,” he joked. “But twice would stretch my credulity.”

  She laughed, but that was quickly followed by a barely stifled sob.

  “Hey,” Walker said awkwardly. “Don’t cry.”

  For God’s sake, don’t cry.

  She turned her head to look directly at him, her beautiful eyes moist. “I can’t help it,” she said. “Clare and Shane are the most important people in my life, and now I have to tell them I’ve been lying through my teeth since day one!”

  Walker set his hat aside, took her hand, interlaced his fingers with hers. “If you need more time—”

  “No,” Casey broke in, glumly resolved. “I should have told them a long time ago. Putting it off would only make everything harder.”

  Walker was quiet for a long time, still holding her hand. Then he asked, his voice husky and pitched low, “Why didn’t you, Casey? Why didn’t you tell Clare and Shane that I’m their father? And why didn’t you tell me the truth, right from the beginning?”

  She swallowed hard, swiped at her eyes with the back of one hand, sat up a little straighter. Her chin wobbled, but she got the answer out, hard as it was to hear. “I thought you’d want us to get married.”

  “I did,” Walker said, remembering. Hurting. “But I wouldn’t have held a gun to your head, Casey. You could have said no.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.” She sniffled. “You wouldn’t have needed a gun—you could have talked me into anything, including marriage, and it would have been all wrong because—because dammit, I wanted to sing, on a real stage, in front of a real audience. I had something to prove, and you, Walker Parrish, didn’t need to prove a darn thing!”

  “So you told me Clare was another man’s child,” Walker said evenly. After all these years, it still stuck in his craw, that memory.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Casey said. “I was young and I was confused and I just didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You could have trusted me just a little, Case,” Walker told her, sad through and through. “I might be a cowboy, and I might be a little old-fashioned, too, but I wouldn’t have forced you to give up your career, move to this ranch and start ironing shirts, raising vegetables and cranking out more babies.” He paused, dealing with old wounds that still hurt like hell whenever he acknowledged them, which wasn’t often. “I knew how much your music meant to you, how talented you were. Knew even then, when you were singing for peanuts, that you had a big future. I would have done my level best to help you any way I could.”

  Casey started crying again then, in earnest. Even the horses noticed, looking up from their grass-munching as though catching the scent of trouble on the breeze.

  Walker gathered Casey in his arms, not knowing what else to do. He held her close, feeling her hot tears soaking through the fabric of his shirt, propped his chin on top of her head and waited in silence for the storm to subside. Words wouldn’t help now, even if he’d known what to say. He’d probably said too much as it was.

  After a while, Casey recovered her composure enough to accept the clean cotton handkerchief he handed her. She swabbed her puffy cheeks and then blew her nose, foghorn-style.

  “How are we going to tell Clare and Shane the truth?” she finally asked, her voice small and her shoulders drooping a little.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Walker said, not holding her quite so tightly but not turning her loose, either. “It’ll have to be just the four of us, in a quiet place, but there’s no way to make this easy, Casey. It’s a hard thing to tell, and it’ll be a hard thing to hear.”

  She nodded, sniffled again, started to hand the handkerchief back to him in a crumpled wad, decided against that and stuffed it into her bra, where it bulged comically. “I don’t think I could do this alone,” she said, looking away.

  Walker cupped her chin lightly, turned her face toward him, looked into the Irish-green depths of her eyes. “You don’t have to do it alone,” he told her.

  And then, without intending to, he kissed her, a mere brush of their mouths at first. Her lips felt damp against his, and tasted of salt.

  She stiffened, then opened to him, sliding her arms around his neck, drawing him closer. Need rocked him, as powerful as an earthquake deep underground, the kind that starts tsunamis, far out to sea.

  The kiss deepened.

  Casey moaned softly, warm against him. Curvy and pliable, the perfect fit.

  Walker pulled away, got to his feet, grabbing up his hat as he moved, breathing hard and keeping his back to Casey while he fought to regain control. He felt her approach, almost flinched when she laid her hands, fingers splayed wide, on his shoulder blades. Fire raced through his system and branded his soul.

  “Walker,” she said. That was all, just his name, but there was a world of sorrow and regret in that one word.

  “We’d better go,” he said, still not turning to face her, his voice rough as gravel. “I don’t know about you, but I’m on the ragged edge of doing something stupid right about now, and with our track record, you’d probably get pregnant.”

  She was silent for a few moments, then she slipped around in front of him, put her arms around h
is waist. Looking up at him with eyes full of tears, she gave a raspy chuckle. “I can see where that might be a problem for you,” she confessed, “my getting pregnant, that is, but I kind of like the idea.”

  Of all the things Casey might have said at that moment, that was the last one he would have expected. Something inside Walker soared at the thought of Casey carrying and then bearing his child, but another part of him was downright pissed off. What part of We’re in a big fix here did she not understand?

  “I’ve already got two kids who are bound to think, at least for a little while, that they’re mistakes we tried to cover up,” he said coldly, “and I’m not about to let that happen to a third.”

  Casey looked startled, almost as though he’d struck her. She started to say something, then caught herself and clamped her mouth shut.

  Moving stiffly, she strode over to Smokey, stuck a foot in one stirrup, grabbed the saddle horn in her right hand and hauled herself up onto the gelding’s back.

  Walker knew he could have stated his case in a more tactful manner, but he also knew he’d been speaking the God’s truth, so he locked his jaws at the hinges and mounted Mack, and he and Casey rode all the way back down the hill, across the road and into the barnyard without a single word passing between them.

  When they arrived, Brylee was sitting on the porch steps, Doolittle on one side of her, Snidely on the other.

  Well, Walker fumed silently, that was just fine. Not only were he and Casey virtually at each other’s throats—again—but there was an eyewitness to their folly.

  Brylee stood, her wide smile fading as she sized up the situation. She slid her hands backward into the rear pockets of her jeans and came toward them.

  The dogs, blessed with better sense, stayed where they were.

  “Peace,” Brylee said weakly, making the two-fingered hippie sign.

  Walker dismounted, as did Casey, and the women remained behind while he led Mack and Smokey into the barn to remove their saddles and other tack and brush them both down. Doolittle kept him company, waiting sympathetically in the breezeway while Walker drew out chores he could have performed in his sleep for as long as possible.

  Casey and Brylee had gone into the house; they were probably sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee or tea, and talking about hardheaded men.

  Though he would rather have avoided another encounter with Casey, however brief, that would have been an act of cowardice. He’d brought Casey to the ranch, and therefore it was his responsibility to take her back home. So he made for the porch steps, crossed to the door and stepped over the threshold, hat in hand, dog at his heels.

  Sure enough, the two women were at the table, with steaming cups before them, talking in quiet voices. Naturally, they fell silent when they heard Walker’s footsteps on the porch.

  Casey lowered her eyes when he and Doolittle entered the kitchen, but Brylee glared at him through narrow eyes. She might as well have shouted the word fool, her thoughts were so obvious.

  Walker suppressed a sigh and hung his hat on a peg. Then he ambled over to the sink, rolled up his sleeves and scrubbed his hands with the harsh yellow soap that was always waiting for him there.

  That done, he picked up Doolittle’s water bowl, rinsed it out under the faucet and filled it again.

  Still, nobody said anything, though Brylee kept trying to wither him with her stare.

  He scowled at her, leaned back against the counter while Doolittle lapped up water and folded his arms. “There are two sides to every story,” he said, and then wished he hadn’t, because now he’d given away the fact that the argument between him and Casey was still stuck under his hide like a fishhook.

  “Nobody said there weren’t,” Brylee informed him coldly.

  Casey finally met his eyes, squaring her shoulders and jutting out her chin as she did. “If you wouldn’t mind,” she said, “I’d like to go home now.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Walker replied without inflection. And he gestured toward the screen door. “After you.”

  Casey scraped back her chair and got to her feet. “Thank you for the tea,” she said to Brylee, both of them rendering Walker invisible in that mysterious way women have.

  “I could take you back to Parable,” Brylee offered. To look at her, a person would have thought she was Casey’s sister, not his. She knew zip about the situation, but she’d already thrown in with Casey—that much was obvious.

  Casey shook her head. “Thanks, but I know you have to get back to work. Walker can drop me off.”

  With that, Walker opened the screen door and held it for Casey, who blew through it like a redheaded wind.

  He was a little stung when Doolittle decided to stay behind, with Brylee and her German shepherd, instead of coming along for the ride. Dammit, Walker thought, even the dog was against him.

  He and Casey were both in the truck, buckled up and rolling down the driveway, before he spoke. “What did you tell Brylee?” he rasped after unsticking his jawbones.

  “Nothing about Clare and Shane, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Casey said, self-righteous as a fanatical Puritan. “I just told her you were impossible.” She tossed off a mockery of a smile. “Turns out, she already knew that. Go figure.”

  That was the end of the day’s conversation.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FOR A FULL WEEK, nothing happened, nothing regarding the big reveal, at least. Walker didn’t call or stop by, or even grace Casey’s in-box with an email.

  Clare and Shane remained clueless as far as their paternity was concerned. They swam in the community pool every afternoon, hung out with their friends, played tag with the dogs in the backyard and rarely sniped at each other. That last part was the tip-off, Casey figured. They were smart kids: they knew some kind of major change was imminent, and they’d formed an alliance, probably brief, probably tenuous, but an alliance nonetheless.

  Casey was grateful for small favors.

  Boone and Tara returned from their honeymoon, and Boone ran the sheriff’s department again, but otherwise, both of them kept a low profile for a few days. Then, letting the local grapevine spread the word, they invited practically the whole county to a big Friday-night party at their place, complete with barbecued beef, washtubs full of potato salad, slow-roasted corn on the cob and biscuits the size of Frisbees. Those who knew Tara well, as Casey did, noticed right away that chicken wasn’t on the menu, and were amused by the irony.

  Tara, a former cosmetics tycoon, had been billing herself as a chicken farmer from the day she moved to Parable, but, as far as anybody knew, not one of her fine feathered friends had ever been beheaded, subsequently cleaned and plucked, cut to pieces and fried in bacon grease, let alone turned up crispy and delicious on somebody’s dinner plate.

  People were tolerant of this oddity—in rural areas like Parable County, chickens weren’t pets, and their purpose was clear: give eggs and eventually wind up in a skillet or a stewpot—reminding each other that, after all, Tara was from New York City, and therefore might be expected to have a few strange ideas rattling around in that pretty head.

  Though she’d rather have continued hibernating and feeling sorry for herself, Casey spiffed herself up, put on black jeans, a long-sleeve T-shirt to match, shiny boots and a modicum of makeup and, to appease the part of her that wanted to hide, a baseball cap. She drove, with Doris and the kids, out to Boone and Tara’s farm.

  Ah, Boone and Tara, Casey reflected with a smile.

  At first, they were feuding neighbors, that pair, Boone living, with his two young sons, in a double-wide trailer one step away from being condemned and surrounded by high grass and assorted junk—an annoying contrast to Tara’s well-kept farmhouse, just across the little slice of river that separated their two properties.

  Now the double-wide was long gone, and a beautiful barn and white-rail corral stood in its place, complete with horses. The newlyweds, along with Boone’s boys, Griffin and Fletcher, and Tara’s teenage twin stepdaugh
ters, Erin and Elle, resided in Tara’s house, since their doctor father was too busy to raise them. It was spacious, that august Victorian structure, the kind of place that would look perfect, with just a dusting of snow and a holly wreath at the door, on the front of a Christmas card. They were already adding on, making room for babies.

  Babies. Ouch.

  As she parked the SUV in a field, amid dozens of other vehicles, Casey recalled the brazen thing she’d said to Walker, up there at his great-great-grandparents’ homestead the day they’d gone horseback riding, about how a baby might be a problem for him, but she kind of liked the idea. Just remembering that made her blush, never mind that it was completely true.

  After all, she was still young, only in her thirties, and she wanted another child very much. Maybe several. But she’d been a fool to say as much to Walker, after the way she’d brought Clare and Shane up—wholly loved, but lied to, nonetheless.

  What had she been thinking?

  She sighed, trying to dodge the inevitable riot of emotions. She hadn’t been thinking at all, and that was the trouble. She’d never been able to put two sensible thoughts together when it came to Walker Parrish. If she had been, everything would have been different. She’d either be a childless loner, still pursuing her career at full throttle, or married to Walker, living on the ranch and popping out brothers and sisters for Clare and Shane.

  “Mom?” Clare prompted as they walked toward the Taylors’ yard, which was already bursting with laughing visitors. “This is a party, not a funeral. Buck up, for Pete’s sake.”

  Casey smiled while scanning the crowd for any sign of Walker. “You’re right, honey,” she agreed quietly, but part of her still wanted to turn tail and run like hell. They’d gotten into that stupid row, she and Walker, before they could agree on a time and a place for the powwow to end all powwows, and she’d been guiltily grateful for the reprieve. At the same time, the nearly unbearable dread had continued to build.

  According to the kids, who kept track of him like a pair of private detectives staking out a cheating husband, Walker had been off hauling bulls and broncos to some distant rodeo over the past week or so, and, much to Shane’s thinly disguised irritation, he’d taken Dawson McCullough along with him, wheelchair and all.