Parable, Montana [4] Big Sky Summer Read online

  Casey found her voice again. Nodded to Shane to handle the suitcase. “The downstairs guest room,” she said, pointing toward the opposite side of the house. The little apartment off the kitchen had once been Opal’s, she knew, but now it was Doris’s domain, even though she was away for the time being.

  Of course, Opal was aware of the guest room in question, having worked in the mansion for years as the employee of the first owners, the Rossiters, and she marched off toward it, Shane following with the suitcase, the dogs trailing behind like members of a circus parade.

  As soon as they were out of sight, Casey rushed back, gathered up the pile of towels she’d dropped at the foot of the stairs and carried them into the laundry room, stuffing half of them into the washer, then stopping, peering at the knobs and switches, momentarily baffled.

  In the end, it was a matter of common sense, of course, and she got the machine going. What she needed now was a cup of tea, to settle her down a little.

  Just as Opal and Shane returned to the kitchen, Clare appeared, still clad in cotton pajamas and yawning behind one hand. Tendrils of her hair stuck out around her head like a coppery halo, making her resemble an angel in a Renaissance painting.

  As if.

  “It’s about time you got up,” Shane remarked, always ready with a jibe whenever he encountered his sister.

  Clare made a face at him, and then turned a sunny smile on Opal, fit to bring a field full of wildflowers into bloom. For all the notice the girl paid Casey, however, she might as well have been part of the woodwork.

  Opal proceeded to open a drawer, pull out an apron and tie it around her waist. “Looks like somebody ought to haul off and make some breakfast,” she said, beaming, “before wholesale starvation sets in.”

  “Mom tried,” Shane explained tolerantly, “but the oatmeal blew up in the microwave, and even the dogs won’t eat it.”

  Casey gave her son a look, but it bounced off him like a bullet off the big S on Superman’s chest.

  Clare, still ignoring her mother, meandered over, peered into the microwave and said, “Yuck.”

  The word, one of her daughter’s favorites, wasn’t a cheery “Hi, Mom!” nor was it directed specifically to her, but Casey figured something was better than nothing.

  “I was just about to clean up the mess—” Casey faltered, embarrassed. A domestic goddess she wasn’t—she’d never had to be. Growing up at her grandparents’ place, Lupe and her nieces had done all the household tasks, and as soon as she’d had two nickels to rub together, Casey had hired Doris.

  Opal waved her away. “I don’t mind doing it,” she said. “Why don’t you just relax for a few minutes, go on outside and admire all those beautiful flowers in the yard? I’ll give a shout when the food’s ready.”

  Clare was rooting around in the refrigerator, looking for a carton of yogurt. “Don’t make anything for me,” she said brightly, still refusing to acknowledge Casey’s existence. “I’m on a diet.”

  “Diet,” Opal scoffed. “Pish-posh. You’ll have a decent meal, girl, and that’s the end of it.”

  Remarkably, Clare straightened, shut the refrigerator door and stood there empty-handed, the yogurt evidently forgotten.

  “Okay,” she said meekly.

  Casey stared for a moment. Who was this changeling, posing as her daughter? More to the point, what magic was Opal working? Was there an instruction book?

  Instead of asking, she poured a cup of coffee, carried it out through the sunporch and onto the steps and did as she’d been told. She just sat there, admiring the flower beds, where roses bloomed, fat and velvety and wildly colorful, like a convention of aging madams, clad in their best outfits and meeting to compare notes and plan better brothels. The peonies—white and red, pink and candy-striped—were at the height of their brief but spectacular glory, enjoying one last hurrah before June gave way to July, while their lilac colleagues were already gone. The Gerbera daisies and the dinner-plate dahlias and the irises and the hearty zinnias flourished, though, belonging more to summer than to spring.

  The beauty and the delicious blend of fragrances all but took Casey’s breath away. Up until this moment, she realized with quiet chagrin, she’d barely even noticed the exquisite riot of color in her own backyard. She’d been too busy, but doing what?

  She heard dog feet crossing the sunporch behind her, nails clicking on the tiles and the faint squeak of Shane’s sneakers.

  The Labs went by, one by one, brushing against Casey’s shoulder as they passed. Then Shane sat down beside her on the step, watching fondly as the critters played tag and chased butterflies and rolled in the lush green grass.

  Reveling in the fact that they were alive.

  In that moment, Casey knew she could have walked away from her career, if not her music, even given up this mansion and her stock portfolio, fancy equipment, buses and glittering stage clothes, and still been perfectly happy, as long as she had her children, her dogs and cats, and plenty of flowers.

  She thought of Walker, of the way he’d held her and made her body sing a song all its own, wordless and fierce, the day before.

  Well, okay, almost perfectly happy, then.

  She and Walker were like a pair of dancers, both determined to lead, constantly stumbling over their own and each other’s feet, always a little out of step with the tune.

  Nobody had everything, did they?

  Shane broke the silence, and the mood, with a chipper, “Would it be all right if I called Walk—Dad?” How long had he been working up his courage to ask her that?

  “Now?” Casey stalled. Behind them, through the open door on the other side of the sunporch, Opal’s and Clare’s voices rose and fell, circled and finally interwove, like ribbons floating in midair, guided by a magician’s wand.

  “I have his cell number,” Shane said, sounding mildly defensive.

  Casey slipped an arm around Shane, but loosely, and was relieved when he didn’t shrug her off, the way he sometimes did when there were other people around, especially kids his own age. “Go ahead and call your dad,” she said with gentle humor. “You don’t have to ask my permission to do that.”

  “I do if I want to ask him to let me go along next time he hauls stock to a rodeo,” Shane said, not looking at her, but straight ahead, past the dogs and the flower gardens and the high wall at the back of the property. He was gazing, she surmised sadly, into a whole new world just opening its doors to him.

  Casey set her coffee cup down beside her foot, moving with careful deliberation so she wouldn’t spill the stuff. She didn’t know a whole lot about what Walker actually did when he was on the road, besides hauling broncos and bulls from place to place, but she was clear on one aspect of it: he was usually gone for days at a time.

  “Has he said anything about taking you with him, Shane?”

  Shane shook his head. “Not recently,” he admitted. “Back when Clare and I used to visit the ranch for a couple of weeks every summer, we talked about it once in a while. Walker said I’d have to wait until I was a little older.” He paused, gave her a sheepish grin and spread his hands. “Well, now I’m older,” he finished.

  A twinge squeezed Casey’s heart, and, much as she wanted to reach out and smooth Shane’s sleep-rumpled hair with a motherly hand, she refrained. If Walker refused Shane’s request to follow the rodeo, the boy would be crushed. If he said yes, on the other hand, she would be crushed. She’d miss her son every minute of every day, and worry about him, too, and his departure, however brief the journey, would be the beginning of letting him go for good.

  Her throat constricted.

  “So, what’s the word, Mom?” Shane asked, blithely oblivious to the fact that she was falling apart. Which, of course, was a good thing. “If Dad lets me go on the road with him, will you be cool with that?”

  Hell, no, she wouldn’t be cool with it, Casey thought. Walker worked with dangerous bucking horses and bulls bred to hurl cowboys skyward and then try to stomp them to a b
loody pulp when they landed in the dirt. There was all that loading and unloading, and all those long and lonely roads.

  Shane, eager to help his dad, and to prove himself, could so easily get hurt—badly hurt.

  On the other hand, the rodeo business was as much a part of Shane’s heritage as country music, wasn’t it? She and Walker were like two very separate rivers, merging, and Clare and Shane were a blend of both. She’d been able to pretend for a long time that they were hers alone, but that was over.

  Somehow, she had to accept that they were Walker’s, too.

  “Mom?” Shane prompted, determined to get an answer.

  “If Walker says you can go, and he promises to make sure you stay safe,” Casey forced herself to say, “then I’ll deal with it. I can’t say I’ll be ‘cool’ with it, as you put it, but I’ll deal.” Somehow.

  Shane grinned. “Fair enough,” he said. Then he stood up, beanstalk gangly, and sprinted over to wrestle with the dogs, using up some of their spare energy and, hopefully, some of his own, as well.

  If only he’d get too tired to fall in love with rodeo, Casey thought wryly.

  No such luck. He was Walker Parrish’s son, and that meant the cowboy life was in his blood.

  Casey sat, her coffee forgotten, and instead of Shane roughhousing with the dogs, instead of her flower gardens, she saw a dusty arena surrounded by bleachers packed with rodeo fans.

  She heard the auctioneer-like drone of the announcer’s voice, saw a chute gate swing open and a bull explode through the gap, with a cowboy on its back, spurring hard while the animal spun and bucked.

  The rider looked like Walker, but he wasn’t. He was younger and leaner, with most of the hard spills still ahead of him.

  He was her Shane, but Walker’s, too.

  Opal yanked Casey out of the vision with a hearty “Breakfast’s on the table. Come and get it!”

  The next few minutes were chaotic, what with all the bounding around of one boy and three dogs, Opal fussing cheerfully that she was going to trip over one of those critters and break her neck if they kept getting underfoot like that, Clare fully dressed, with her hair brushed and caught up in a clip on top of her head, her expression civil, if not exactly mom-friendly.

  Once the meal was over, and the kids had cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher, Casey and Opal sat alone, in the blissful quiet, collecting their thoughts.

  “See what you’ve gotten yourself into?” Casey asked her friend after a few moments, grinning as she lifted her coffee cup to her lips.

  Opal chuckled. “Once it’s just the reverend and me,” she observed, “without kids and dogs and some sort of ruckus going on all the time, I’m not sure I’ll know how to act.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Casey said, confident of that much at least. “Did you say the wedding is scheduled for next month?”

  “We just set the date,” Opal answered with a nod. She paused to admire the respectable engagement ring gleaming on her left hand. When she looked up again, there was a hopeful expression in her eyes. “It’ll be July 15—that’s a Saturday—and we were wondering if you’d sing, the reverend and me. I know it’s a lot to ask, you being famous and all, but, well, we thought—”

  “Opal,” Casey interrupted firmly. “Of course I’ll sing. In fact, my feelings would have been hurt if you hadn’t asked.”

  The beaming smile was back. “Thank you, Casey Elder,” Opal said. A beat passed, and then the smile faded. “Now,” she said, suddenly serious, “I’m just going to go right ahead and butt in where I’ve got no business sticking my nose. What’s the holdup with you and Walker getting together?”

  Casey couldn’t answer for a few moments, she was so taken aback, though she knew she shouldn’t have been surprised. Opal was famous—make that infamous—for her matchmaking, after all.

  This time, though, she was definitely barking up the wrong tree.

  “We’re friends, that’s all,” Casey hedged. Friends, mimicked a voice in her head, as every cell in her body remembered the fevered intensity of their lovemaking, with benefits.

  “How long do you think you’re going to be able to keep that story rolling, once word gets around that you and Walker had two kids together?” Opal challenged, firmly but not unkindly.

  Casey put one hand to the base of her throat. “Where did you hear—?”

  “Your Clare told me just this morning,” Opal replied matter-of-factly, “while I was making breakfast. Evidently, the news came as quite a shock to the child, though I’m sure she’ll manage to wrap her mind around it soon enough, smart as she is. But right now, she’s mighty rattled, and I guess I’m easy to talk to, because she poured out her heart to me.”

  Casey propped both elbows on the table’s edge and buried her face in her hands with a weary groan.

  “I hope you and Walker don’t think those children are going to keep this to themselves,” Opal went on, “because I might be the first person one of them told, but you can bet all those gold and platinum records you’ve rounded up that I won’t be the last.”

  Opal was right, of course.

  And it wasn’t that Casey had expected Clare and Shane to pretend nothing had changed. She’d just been in so much emotional turmoil that she hadn’t thought that far ahead, hadn’t even considered that the community would inevitably find out and, after that, the media. Dear God, the media.

  They’d have a field day, especially the tabloids, and Clare and Shane would be at the center of the scandal—through no fault of their own. And she’d been the one to bring it down on their innocent heads.

  It was going to be awful, no two ways about it, and she might as well try to plug an erupting volcano with a wine cork as attempt to avert the red-hot lava of public scrutiny.

  She needed to talk to Walker—come up with some kind of plan, though damage control was all they could hope for—and it had to happen now.

  Casey scooted back her chair and made a beeline for the wall phone, only to find that Shane was already on one of the extensions. With Walker.

  She broke right into the conversation, with all the subtlety of a stunt person somersaulting through a saloon window in an old Western movie. “Walker,” she said. “We have to talk. Right now.”

  *

  WE HAVE TO TALK. Right now.

  After issuing her grand summons, Casey hadn’t waited for an answer, she’d simply hung up the phone, hard.

  Shane had been the first to recover from the shock. “This is bogus,” he’d said angrily. “Mom just told me I could go to the next rodeo with you if it was okay with you, and now she’s already going back on her word!”

  “I don’t think she was referring to the rodeo,” Walker had told his son with grim resignation. “You tell her to hold on—I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Do I still get to go rodeoing with you?”

  Walker had given a dry chuckle at that. The boy had plenty of stick-with-it going for him, that was for sure. “My answer is still yes,” he’d replied. “But your mother has a say, too.”

  After that, they’d said their goodbyes and ended the call.

  Walker, who’d been tagging calves’ ears all morning with some of the ranch hands, was wearing at least one layer of good Montana dirt, so, once he’d snapped his cell phone shut, he took the time to shower and change before he hoisted Doolittle into the truck and started for Parable.

  Casey was pacing the driveway when he pulled in, better than half an hour later, and she looked four parts pissed off and one part scared out of her wits. If Clare and Shane were around, there was no sign of them, and the dog brigade wasn’t in evidence, either.

  Walker left Doolittle in the truck, got out and shut the door hard behind him.

  “Where are the kids?” he asked, straight out, because, whatever Brylee or anybody else might think to the contrary, they were his first concern.

  “Opal took them to the community center to swim in the pool,” Casey answered, biting off the words. From
her attitude, an objective observer might have gotten the impression that this powwow had been his idea, and she’d rather be doing something else.

  Walker swept off his hat, swatted it against his right thigh and jammed it right back onto his head. “There’s no need to get testy!” he growled, making an effort to keep his voice down.

  Casey folded her arms. “You took the words right out of my mouth,” she said acidly.

  Walker leaned in until their noses were almost touching, and damn any neighbors who might be watching, fixing to carry the tale to every corner of the county. “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded. “If I hadn’t been talking to Shane when you came on the line, I’d have thought something had happened to him or Clare!”

  The green fire blazing in Casey’s eyes cooled off a little. “We have to get married,” she said.

  Walker narrowed his eyes, thinking he must have heard wrong. “What did you say?”

  She turned on one heel and hauled butt for the house, forcing him to follow.

  “Dammit, Casey,” he sputtered, furious because he had to tag after her like some schoolboy with his tongue hanging out. “Talk to me.”

  She waited until they’d reached the kitchen, then whirled on him, arms folded, feet so firmly planted that her heels might just leave dents in the floor.

  “We have to get married,” Casey repeated with elaborate enunciation, as though he was either deaf or didn’t speak the language.

  “I’ll be damned,” Walker muttered, taking off his hat and then, not knowing what to do with it, putting it on again. “You’re pregnant? How can you know for sure, when it was only yesterday that the condom broke?”

  Casey went white, then red again. “The condom broke?”