Parable, Montana [4] Big Sky Summer Read online

  Brylee laughed. “Not really,” she replied happily. “He told me to grow up, stop feeling sorry for myself and get a life.”

  Casey’s mouth fell open, just briefly. “And you didn’t slap his face?”

  Brylee was actually glowing. “No,” she said. “Because I realized he was right on all counts. I also realized that, while he might be Kendra’s Prince Charming, he’s all wrong for me. Not exactly a frog, since there’s no denying the man’s easy on the eyes, but we’d have gone bust sooner or later, for sure, and we’d both have had a few warts and wounds to show for it.”

  Casey didn’t know what to say, but she was stricken with admiration, and she supposed it showed, because Brylee gave her a quick hug and laughed again.

  “Time to round up the kids and head for town,” she said. “That menagerie of yours will be waiting at the ole mansion.”

  Brylee had offered to spend a few days at Casey’s house, looking after Clare and Shane and the dogs and cats, so the bride and groom could be alone together, in lieu of a honeymoon.

  Since the marriage was a matter of convenience, rather than mad, passionate love, a part of Casey dreaded the moment when she and Walker were the last men standing—so to speak—but another part of her was intrigued, even eager.

  “Give me a second with Clare first,” she told Brylee, who nodded and went off to speak with the last of the departing guests.

  Casey found her daughter sitting on the piano bench, idly plunking out the bare-bones version of “Heart and Soul” with one index finger. Considering that she could play Chopin without sheet music, not to mention a rendition of “Great Balls of Fire” that would have impressed Jerry Lee Lewis himself, Clare was playing for herself, not for anyone’s entertainment.

  Casey slid onto the bench beside her daughter and played the other half of the time-honored duet.

  Clare glanced at her, smiled shyly and showed what she could do.

  When the song ended, Walker, Brylee and Shane, standing in a semicircle behind Clare and Casey, applauded.

  Casey leaned over, rested her forehead against Clare’s and whispered, “No matter what, sweetheart, you’ll always be my baby girl. Please don’t forget that.”

  Clare’s eyes filled with tears, and her smile dazzled. “I’m still pretty mad at you,” she responded softly. “Will you still love me when I finally get over it?”

  Casey kissed the girl’s cheek with the kind of smack only a mom can get away with. “You can take it to the bank,” she promised. “I will love you forever and ever.”

  Clare chuckled. “Amen,” she said.

  After that, Casey hugged Shane goodbye and reminded him to behave himself, and then Brylee herded her niece and nephew out of the house and into her SUV.

  Only Casey and Walker remained once the door closed behind those three.

  And, of course, Doolittle, who seemed relieved that things might be returning to normal.

  With an audible sigh, the dog curled up in front of the cold fireplace, settled his bones and drifted off to sleep.

  Walker chuckled, took Casey’s hand and led her through the house to the kitchen, where she collapsed into a chair and kicked off her dress shoes.

  “We did it,” she said with a sigh comparable to Doolittle’s.

  Walker grinned, arched one eyebrow and undid his tie, then the top buttons of his dress shirt. “Champagne, Mrs. Parrish?” he asked, lifting one of the half-filled bottles off the counter and holding it up for her inspection.

  “Don’t mind if I do, Mr. Parrish,” Casey answered. She was accustomed to wearing either sneakers or boots, and those shoes had been pinching like crazy ever since she’d put them on.

  He filled champagne flutes—plastic ones, from the supermarket—for both of them, carried them to the table.

  After setting the glasses down, Walker sat, lifted one of Casey’s feet onto his lap and began to massage away the ache.

  Casey groaned with pleasure. If the man was trying to seduce her, he was on the right track.

  Walker chuckled, enjoying her reaction. “So what do we do now?” he asked lightly. “Play checkers? Watch TV? Build on a couple of bedrooms for the kids?”

  Casey moaned again, but the sound was part laugh. Dear God, Walker’s fingers were magic, and not just in bed. She’d forgotten how he could melt her simply by rubbing her feet. “For now,” she replied in a near croon, eyes closed, “let’s just keep doing this.”

  “I’m doing all the work,” Walker complained with a smile in his voice. “You’re just sitting there, shamelessly enjoying my husbandly attentions.”

  “Mmm,” Casey agreed, almost floating.

  After Walker had turned that foot into a quivering heap of jelly, he started in on the other one.

  “Our daughter has quite a singing voice,” he said. “Is she planning to follow in your illustrious footsteps?”

  Casey chortled without opening her eyes, even as she felt a mild pang of sadness. Clare was Walker’s child, as much as her own, and there was so much he didn’t know about her, or Shane, for that matter.

  “No way,” she answered. “Clare wants to be a veterinarian. She’s had all the show business she wants for one lifetime.”

  “How about you?” Walker asked, with a deceptive note of nonchalance. “Where do you stand on the issue of show business, Casey Jones?”

  Casey opened her eyes, studied him. She might be tired of the road, tired of waking up in one city and going to sleep in another, never quite sure which town was which, but she knew she’d never completely retire. Music was in her blood, and there were times when she needed to be onstage, needed to engage with an audience.

  “Is it a deal breaker?” she asked. Her lifestyle, after all, was night-and-day different from Walker’s. He liked ranch life, with the occasional rodeo thrown in for spice. And she liked singing, sometimes in church, sometimes in the shower and sometimes onstage in a sold-out arena.

  “I’m not trying to close any doors in your face, Casey,” Walker assured her quietly. “I’m just wondering how we’re going to proceed from here, that’s all. We haven’t talked about that much.”

  “No,” Casey agreed. “There’s a lot we haven’t talked about.”

  One corner of Walker’s very inviting mouth quirked upward. “We’re a pretty unconventional pair, I’ll say that for us.”

  Casey nodded. “We are indeed,” she agreed. “Any regrets, cowboy?”

  “Only that we didn’t do this sooner,” he answered. He sighed. “Get married, I mean. Shane’s all right with having an instant dad, at least on the surface, but Clare isn’t planning on letting bygones be bygones anytime soon, as far as I can make out.”

  “You’re right about that,” Casey answered.

  He raised an eyebrow, his expression wry. “Wait a minute,” he joked. “Did I just hear you say I’m right about something?”

  She laughed, which was ironic, since she was close to tears. “What if some woman comes along,” she began, unable, for some reason, to keep from poking at her own sore places, “and you fall head-over-bootheels for her, and here you are, tied down with me?”

  Walker’s expression turned solemn, but a sparkle soon leaped into his eyes. “I don’t foresee that happening,” he drawled.

  Casey’s heart picked up a little speed. It wasn’t an “I love you,” but she was reassured anyway. Mustn’t get too comfortable, though.

  “We’re not having sex,” she said.

  Walker chuckled, shook his head. “Hell, woman,” he said, “we’re married, aren’t we? Shouldn’t some part of this crazy situation be fun?”

  She pulled her foot from his lap, reached for her champagne flute and downed the lukewarm contents in a couple of gulps. Suddenly, she was all too conscious of the fact that they were alone in the house, and Walker was hot, and they were wearing each other’s wedding bands.

  Not to mention that his bed was just a few rooms away.

  “Now what’s gotten under your hide?” Walk
er asked, frowning.

  “It’s still light out,” Casey said, ignoring his question. “If it’s fun you want, let’s saddle up a couple of horses and ride.”

  Maybe on horseback, she could behave herself. Outrun the temptation she was feeling now.

  Why not just go to bed with Walker?

  Because when Walker made love to her, she lost complete control, and that terrified her. She was all about living up to the image of Casey Elder she held in her mind, about standing strong, marching to her own drumbeat, setting goals and meeting them, making decisions and abiding by them. When she was in Walker’s arms, she became another person entirely, a stranger, willing to bare her soul, show her deepest needs and emotions.

  And that scared her half to death.

  She waited for Walker’s answer, knew that if he held her, or kissed her, or even started rubbing her feet again, for pity’s sake, she’d be lost.

  Finally, he sighed, shoved back his chair and stood.

  “All right,” he said, with more resignation than enthusiasm. “Let’s change clothes and go saddle ourselves some horses.”

  The few things Casey had brought along were in a nearby guest room, still packed away in a small suitcase.

  She went off to swap her wedding dress and pantyhose for jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and when she got back to the kitchen, Walker was already back from his own room, clad in regular clothes. He’d even had time to brew a cup of coffee, and he smiled over the rim before setting it aside on the counter.

  His gaze glided over her, leaving fire in its wake.

  “You sure do fill out a pair of jeans just right, Mrs. Parrish,” he said.

  Casey made a face, though she was secretly pleased by the compliment, as casual and offhand as it had been.

  Leaving Doolittle behind to recover from the festivities, they left the house together, heading for the barn.

  No one was around—even the ranch hands were elsewhere, though they’d been present for the wedding—and yet there was a feeling in the air that made Casey uneasy. Stopping in the yard, she turned in a full circle, very slowly, looking for the source of her discomfort.

  Sunlight flashed off something in one of the nearby oak trees, a silvery glint, and that was when Casey spotted the reporter, lurking in the high branches. She muttered a very unladylike word and headed in that direction, fists clenched.

  Rapid clicks sounded as the sneak took pictures.

  Walker, keeping pace, tilted his head back, adjusted his hat and grinned. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  This kind of intrusion was new to him, but Casey was anything but amused. “Get down from there before you break your darn fool neck!” she ordered, looking around again as the branches rustled and shook overhead. Where there was one photographer, in her experience, there were a dozen.

  Worse, that particular tree was situated close enough to the house to provide a clear view of the living room, where the ceremony had taken place.

  “This is a free country,” the tree man argued, sounding braver than he probably was. “There’s the First Amendment—and freedom of speech—”

  “Don’t you lecture me on the Bill of Rights, you jackass,” Casey shot back. “It just so happens that I have a few rights of my own!”

  Walker chuckled again. He was loving this, which only made Casey more furious.

  “You carrying a gun, cowboy?” the spy asked warily. A round, bespectacled face peered down at Walker through the foliage.

  “No,” Walker answered affably, “but I could lay my hands on one in short order, if I were so inclined.” He paused. “If I were you, buddy, I’d get the hell out of here before this redhead decides to climb right up there after you and smash that camera of yours over your head.”

  More branches shifted and creaked, and the photographer, a portly sort who had, in Casey’s view, defied gravity as well as good manners by hauling himself up into that tree in the first place, made his way down.

  Backing away quickly, he huffed, “Don’t let her get me!”

  And then he turned and ran for his life.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WALKER WAS PRACTICALLY doubled over laughing as he watched the pudgy, tree-climbing reporter making an awkward dash for the tall timbers, but Casey was not amused. While she understood that tabloid stringers and photographers had a right to earn a living like everybody else, she’d had so many private moments interrupted or flat-out ruined over the course of her career that she’d run out of patience a long time ago.

  It only made matters worse that, since settling in Parable, she and the kids had enjoyed a certain slackening of media attention, though they’d never been entirely free of it, and now, as she’d expected and feared, the semihiatus was obviously at an end. Game on.

  Time to shift emotional gears from neutral to overdrive. Again.

  Folding her arms, Casey sighed and watched balefully as the reporter finally disappeared into a stand of brush down by the main road. Moments later, a car engine started up with a roar, soon followed by the screech of tires as he tore out of there.

  Walker, quiet now, slipped an arm around Casey’s shoulders—which, she realized with a stab of annoyance, were trembling. She’d better buck the heck up, she thought, because the die was cast and, by God, her children weren’t going to come out on the losing end.

  “Case,” her new husband said, very quietly and with a gentleness that was very nearly her undoing, “it’s all right. He’s gone.”

  “For now,” Casey conceded grudgingly. She did let Walker hold her close against his side, though, and it felt good not to be alone, not to have to be strong, if only for a few moments. Too good.

  “Let’s go for that ride,” Walker said, steering her toward the barn.

  Casey looked around, but she knew they were by themselves, at least in terms of sneaky reporters. It was small comfort, because there had been others, of course. They’d simply been faster than Tarzan of the Oak Tree—by now, they were probably in Three Trees, behind the doors of their cheap motel rooms, swilling beer and congratulating themselves, anticipating the fat checks they’d soon be banking. Thanks to modern technology, they’d probably already zipped very personal photos and wildly speculative stories about Casey, Walker, the children and the wedding itself off to waiting editors.

  “What if we’re followed?” Casey fretted. Secretly, she’d entertained a fantasy that she and Walker might consummate their marriage after all, somewhere out there under the big sky, sheltered by venerable trees and high grass, with their horses grazing peacefully nearby.

  Now, of course, sex in the tall grass was out of the question. The thought of their being seen making love, let alone photographed, chilled her blood.

  “Don’t be paranoid, Casey Jones,” Walker counseled with an easy grin. His arm was still around her shoulders, strong and sure, and they had almost reached the barn door. “If that guy was an example of his breed, they won’t be following us on horseback, and we’d hear anything with a motor from a long way off.”

  Casey nodded, biting her lower lip, but she was still thinking that such things were easy enough for Walker to say, because he’d never been stalked, never had to console disappointed children after an innocent and entirely ordinary outing—a birthday party, an afternoon movie, a visit to a zoo or a theme park—had been spoiled, cut short by obnoxious photographers and pseudojournalists.

  He’d probably never had to watch Fourth of July fireworks or the New Year’s Eve countdown on a hotel TV, instead of celebrating in person, or attend weddings and christenings and even funerals in the company of several bodyguards, because there had been a rash of death threats.

  While she pondered these recollections, Walker saddled a gelding named Smokey for her and then Mack, the buckskin, for himself.

  Back outside, in the afternoon sunshine, he gave Casey a leg up into the saddle. She’d been too preoccupied to prove that she could damn well mount a horse on her own, whatever he thought of her riding skills.r />
  Walker swung onto Mack’s sturdy back and they were on their way, passing between the horse pasture and the bull pens and on into an open field, rippling with sweet-scented grass. The sun was warm on their backs, and the sturdiness of horse flesh and the creak of leather began to calm Casey’s nerves, degree by degree.

  “Tell me what life’s been like for you,” Walker said quietly, resettling his hat as he spoke, and reining Mack in a little to keep pace with the more sedate Smokey. “Not the visits to the White House, or being named Entertainer of the Year all those times, stuff like that—but the nitty-gritty, day-to-day things.”

  The response that leaped to Casey’s mind was “lonely,” interestingly enough, but she didn’t say it. For one thing, she was too proud, too attached to her independence and the strength she made it a point to project, even when she didn’t feel it.

  For another, she knew Walker was still thinking about the reporters and photographers, not the good ones, the courteous professionals, of whom there were many, but the intrusive, obnoxious types who apparently lived to invade her privacy and that of her children. Those people, mostly men, though there were a few women in the mix, could put a scurrilous spin on something as simple as a picnic in the park or a routine stint in the hospital.

  Outdoor meals with the band members and their families became cult meetings, and a bad case of strep throat, complicated by exhaustion brought on by weeks on the road and requiring IVs and medical observation, could be twisted into a secret abortion. Casey could handle being the target of that kind of gossip, but it wasn’t always directed at her alone—sometimes Clare was dragged into it, and even Shane had been credited with a serious drug problem.

  Casey told Walker those stories, and a few others, as they rode, and difficult though some of it was, she felt relieved just to vent to this quiet, nonjudgmental man, listening attentively to every word she said.

  That was a new experience, mostly. She’d discussed such things with Mitch, and with the guys in the band, but only because they’d usually witnessed the incidents for themselves, so there was no hiding it from them. The bodyguards and members of law enforcement encountered in the course of her travels were paid to care what happened to Casey Elder and her children, though they were unlikely to have any real emotional investment in possible outcomes.