Big Sky Secrets Read online

  Brylee smiled warmly. Although she hadn’t liked Landry when he first arrived in Parable County, she’d mellowed noticeably since last Christmas, when she and Zane had gotten married. “Don’t worry about it,” she responded, with a rueful glance at her own grimy feet. “This is a ranch, and dirt comes with the territory.”

  The screen door creaked just then, and Cleo—Zane and Brylee’s housekeeper—trundled through the gap and out onto the porch, her skin a glistening ebony, her dark eyes flashing, her gray hair partially tamed by a bandanna scarf. She looked stern, but that was a pose, Landry suspected, the ruse of a tenderhearted person trying to hold on to a little personal space.

  “Say what, Mrs. Sutton?” Cleo challenged, making it clear that she’d overheard Brylee’s statement about ranches and the inevitability of dirt. “I just now finished mopping the kitchen floor—it isn’t even dry yet—and I don’t care how much dirt it takes to make up this ranch. You’re not setting foot in my clean house until you hose those feet off good.” In the next instant, Cleo’s gaze moved over both Zane and Landry, sweeping them up into her good-natured consternation. “Same goes for the two of you. I don’t work my fingers to the bone around this place for my health, you know. And a person’s got to have standards!”

  Zane, apparently used to being lectured, simply grinned and gave the woman an affable salute of acquiescence. The discourse sounded familiar to Landry, too—he could easily imagine that warning coming from Highbridge, not quite so colorful, but with better enunciation and grammar.

  Ah, Highbridge. Yet another reason Landry fit in around here about as well as an extra toe in a narrow-soled boot. He employed a butler. What self-respecting cowboy did that?

  “You tell me what you want and I’ll bring it out here,” Cleo prattled on, hands on her hips, elbows jutting. By then, the hint of a grin had appeared in her eyes, and the corners of her mouth twitched slightly. Like Highbridge, she clearly relished stating her opinion, asked for or not.

  “Beer,” Zane replied lightly. “And make sure it’s cold, if you don’t mind.”

  Cleo narrowed her eyes, then fixed Brylee with a look. “Iced tea or lemonade for you,” she informed her crisply. “If you’re not pregnant, it’s not for lack of effort, now, is it, and we both know alcohol is no good for babies.”

  Brylee shook her head, but her color was high again. “Cleo,” she scolded, laughing a little.

  Cleo remained undaunted. “Iced tea or lemonade?” she repeated, folding her plump arms now.

  Brylee sighed, put up both palms in a gesture of surrender and sat down at the small wicker table in a shady corner of the porch. Zane and Landry joined her.

  “Tea, please,” Brylee said, almost primly.

  Cleo gave a stiff nod and ducked back into the house to fetch the refreshments.

  “Cleo can be a tyrant sometimes,” Brylee confided, smiling, but still pink in the cheeks. Every time she glanced in Zane’s direction, the air sizzled.

  “But only between the hours of midnight and twelve a.m.,” Zane said. He’d taken Brylee’s hand by then, and their fingers were interlaced, the gesture easy, ordinary and yet somehow profoundly intimate.

  Landry did a quick mental scan of the few tempestuous years he’d spent with Susan and was saddened by the swift, searing realization that they’d never been close in the way Zane and Brylee were, not even in the best of times. The sex had been good, he thought, but then, in his experience, which was relatively broad, bad sex was a rarity.

  He shoved a hand through his filthy hair, wondering what had prompted all this introspection.

  The two dogs meandered up onto the porch then and curled up in separate shady spots for an afternoon snooze. Bees buzzed in the flower beds nearby, and way off in the distance, one of the cattle bawled, probably calling her calf.

  Cleo bustled and banged out of the house again, lugging a tray this time. On it were one glass of iced tea, a plateful of cookies and two long-necked brown bottles with thin sleeves of ice melting off their sides.

  She served Brylee first, then plunked a beer down in front of each of the men.

  “You seen Nash lately?” she asked, evidently addressing the whole group. Before anybody could reply, she continued. “I’m fixing to wring that boy’s neck if he doesn’t pick up his dirty laundry, like I told him. A person can’t walk across the floor of his room for all the empty pizza boxes and soda cans. This keeps up, well, the next thing we know, this whole place will be crawling with bugs!”

  Zane, who had just taken a swig of beer, made a choking sound, part chuckle, and lowered the bottle from his mouth. “Nash went to that bull sale up in Missoula, with Walker and Shane,” he reminded the disgruntled woman. “When he gets back, though, I’ll be sure to have him slapped in irons.”

  Cleo didn’t smile at the joke. “I’d like to know who told that child he could go off gallivanting that way, and not a one of his chores done,” Cleo fussed. She lifted three snow-white, crisply pressed cloth napkins from the otherwise empty tray and slapped them down on the tabletop in a fan shape, like a winning hand of cards.

  “That would have been me,” Zane responded mildly.

  “Spoiled, that’s what Nash Sutton is,” Cleo harrumphed, before turning on the heel of one lime-green high-top sneaker and storming back inside the house.

  Brylee swatted at Zane with the hand he wasn’t holding, but she was smiling and the flush was still in her cheeks, as fetching as ever. Landry predicted, silently of course, that the two of them would be in the shower together within five minutes of his departure, and twisting the sheets five minutes after that.

  Cleo might have surmised that, too, because she came right back out of the house, still in her cotton scrubs but wearing a red sun hat now, along with a pair of knockoff designer shades. She carried her big purse close against her side, as though she expected to find herself wrestling with a mugger at any moment.

  “Some of us,” she tossed off in passing, waddling down the porch steps and marching toward an old station wagon parked near Zane’s truck, “have better things to do with our time than sit around in the shade. I’m going to town for some groceries, and I’ll be gone awhile.”

  Brylee shook her head again, amused.

  Zane laughed.

  Landry, feeling downright superfluous—in this case, three was definitely a crowd—immediately pushed back his chair and got to his feet, ready to hit the trail.

  Startled, both dogs lifted their muzzles from their forelegs to look at him.

  “What’s your hurry, little brother?” Zane asked, frowning slightly. “You haven’t even finished your beer.”

  Did the man have a clue? This was his chance to be alone with his breathtakingly beautiful wife and he was worried about leftover beer?

  Landry sighed and bent to kiss Brylee’s cheek in brotherly farewell. “I’ve got things to do at home,” he said. Then he reconsidered his beer, decided he’d rather have Scotch from his own bar and, leaving the bottle where it was, headed for his truck, left behind earlier in the day when he’d ridden over to Timber Creek with Zane.

  Though Cleo’s vehicle was long out of sight when Landry drove away from his brother’s house, the dust her tanklike station wagon had churned up was still billowing in the air as he took a left onto the county road.

  Briefly, he wished that he had somewhere else to go besides home, where no one was waiting for him but Highbridge and a two-animal herd of buffalo.

  * * *

  TWILIGHT TURNED THE famous big Montana sky lavender at the edges, spilling the first thin shadows over the rim of the valley, softly draping fields of colorful zinnias and gerbera daisies in the cool, gentle promise of a summer evening. Ria Manning felt mildly unsettled as she gazed out over her small patch of land. Something vaguely like homesickness stirred within her, which was ridiculous since she was home, wasn’t she? She bit her lower lip, deftly winding the garden hose into a thick coil of green rubber and hanging it from the sturdy hook on the wall of t
he toolshed.

  She’d mowed her lawn earlier, and the sprinkler system was just coming on. The sweet scent of cut grass soothed Ria as she skirted little geysers of water, making her way toward the back porch. The structure sagged slightly, weathered and rickety, and Ria added yet another chore to the daunting to-do list she carried in her head—replace porches.

  Behind the cottage—it was actually just a small house, so calling the place a “cottage” was on the creative side, to Ria’s mind—the weeds were thick and tall enough to hide a variety of outmoded farm equipment and other relics of previous productivity. The fields on that side were empty, plowed under and left to recover from repeated overplanting.

  In another year or so, with proper fertilization and maybe a burn-off, carefully controlled, of course, the soil would be fertile again—or so the county extension agent maintained anyway. Some people might have been impatient, but Ria understood the basic concept of long-term investment, that good things really did come to those who waited.

  Once a bean counter, she thought, with a slight, rueful smile, always a bean counter. As Frank, her late husband, used to say, she was so left-brained it was a wonder she didn’t tip over every time she tried to stand up.

  Sighing, because memories of Frank always made her sigh, Ria kicked off her muddy sneakers just inside the back door, leaving them on the newspaper she’d laid out for the purpose. The kitchen floor gleamed with cleanliness, and she took a moment’s satisfaction in that before flipping on the overhead lights.

  Ria had discovered long ago, possibly even in childhood, that if she stood still too long, the loneliness would overtake her, so she got busy right away, washing her hands at the sink, filling the old-fashioned copper teakettle, setting it on a burner, turning the appropriate stove knob to “high.”

  She took a pretty cup and saucer from one of the cupboard shelves, dropped in a tea bag and then crossed to her desktop computer, wriggling the mouse to wake the machine from its slumber. While the thing booted up, she took her cell phone from its charger to check her voice mail.

  Heat surged rhythmically through the kettle on the stove.

  There was a single message awaiting her—that was one more than she usually received—and it was from her half sister, Meredith. Ten years Ria’s senior, Meredith didn’t contact her often, since they had little in common besides a father, now long dead. When she did initiate a phone call or an email, Ria usually wound up wishing she hadn’t. Meredith wasn’t actively hostile—not all the time anyway—but she was one of those people who didn’t suffer fools gladly, and, though she never said so outright, it was understood that she thought Ria slotted right into that category.

  Against her better judgment, Ria pressed the speaker button on her cell and plunked the device down on a counter before zipping over to the refrigerator, in search of supper prospects.

  Meredith’s recorded voice filled the small kitchen, educated and shrill, and Ria’s back molars automatically locked together.

  “Are you there, darling?” Meredith chirped. “I was hoping you’d pick up.” For once.

  Ria sighed again, decided on a grilled cheese sandwich and canned soup for her evening meal, set the makings out on the counter in an orderly row.

  “Listen, sweetie, this is important,” Meredith went on brightly. “I’ve had to fire another manager—at our Seattle branch, this time—and the result is complete and utter chaos. I’m talking possible embezzlement here. The feds might even be a factor. If you don’t get over there and straighten out the situation—well, we’ll have to close that office, and there will be government audits and all sorts of bad publicity, and you know how Daddy would feel about that.” Meredith paused to drag in an audible breath, then launched into the big finale. “Call me when you get this message, pretty please. No matter what time it is. You have my numbers.” A beat passed. “Love you!”

  And Meredith hung up.

  Love you!

  Right, Ria thought, wishing she could ignore her sister’s request to call her back and already fully aware that she couldn’t. She was just too damn responsible, that was her problem.

  Still, she intended to eat first. She’d been working hard all day, weeding and watering, making preparations for Saturday’s farmers’ market over in Parable, and she was hungry. Not to mention tired.

  Ria grilled her sandwich, heated her soup. Her tea was brewed by then, and cool enough to drink. She served her food up in pretty dishes, using the good silverware she and Frank had received as a wedding present, trying to invoke some semblance of a family meal.

  Frank. He’d been her mainstay, the only man she’d ever truly loved—or could even imagine loving. Now, when he’d been gone for just two and a half years, she occasionally forgot what he’d looked like and had to study their wedding pictures to reacquaint herself with his features. She’d memorize his angular jaw, his strong mouth, his thick, dark hair, his brown eyes and his quick smile.

  And then forget again.

  Although Ria knew the phenomenon of not being able to recall a departed loved one’s face wasn’t unusual among the bereaved, she always panicked a little when it happened, and the guilt could last for hours, if not longer.

  Why was she so bereft now, though?

  It was the time of day, Ria reminded herself silently, sitting down to her lonely supper, spreading a napkin over her blue-jeaned lap and taking a deep breath in an effort to restore her equanimity.

  She’d been hungry before, but now, suddenly, her appetite was iffy. She nibbled at one half of the sandwich and spooned up some of the soup, then gave up and cleared the table. Methodically—because Ria Manning was nothing if not methodical—she tossed the leftovers into the trash and rinsed off her plate and bowl in the sink before wandering into the front room, taking her cup of lukewarm tea with her.

  The face, dark brown, hairy and horned, and roughly the size of an armchair, loomed suddenly in the center of the picture window. And even though Ria knew, on one level, exactly what she was looking at, she was startled enough that she gave a little squeal of alarm, leaped backward and nearly dropped her china cup and saucer.

  The creature at the window made an awful, plaintive sound, a sort of forlorn bellow. The drapes, still open, of course, gave the impression of stage curtains, as though Ria made up the entire audience at a horror show.

  Recovering slightly, Ria set her tea aside on an end table, her hand shaking all the while, and pressed splayed fingers to her pounding heart.

  Bessie. As the shock subsided, Ria’s temper kicked in.

  “Not again,” she said, coming to a simmer. “Damn it, not again!”

  By contrast, the cow buffalo standing in Ria’s flower bed seemed to have calmed down considerably. After that one harrowing cry, Bessie ducked her massive head out of sight, and when she raised it again, she was chewing on a big clump of freshly planted petunias. In the near distance, Ria spotted Bessie’s yearling calf, now nearly as big as its mama, making a meal of the bright orange poppies growing in an old wheelbarrow.

  For a moment or so longer, Ria was frozen where she stood. Bessie looked quite content now, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t get riled again. Since she probably weighed as much as a farm truck, the prospect was terrifying. With one swing of that gigantic head, she could shatter the picture window to smithereens. Why, she might even scramble through the opening and run amok in the living room.

  Get a grip, Ria admonished herself. This is not an emergency.

  It didn’t help much.

  Walking backward, she fled to the kitchen, dived for the landline receiver on the wall above her computer desk and speed-dialed.

  “Sutton residence,” Highbridge intoned formally. “May I help you?”

  “They’re out again,” Ria announced. “Those—creatures—”

  “Oh, dear,” Highbridge commiserated. “I do apologize. Have they done any damage?”

  “Besides scaring me half to death and eating my flowers, you mean?” Ria knew
the situation wasn’t Highbridge’s fault—he was a butler, not a ranch hand—but since he was directly in the line of fire, he got the worst of it. “Do you realize, Mr. Highbridge, that Oriental poppies don’t bloom until the second year after they’re planted?”

  “Just Highbridge, if you don’t mind,” he interjected mildly. British to the core, he managed to convey both concern and carefully controlled amusement.

  “And one of these animals just pulled them all up?” Ria went on.

  “Mr. Sutton will be right over to collect the beasts,” Highbridge replied. “And I’m sure he’ll be happy to compensate you for any damage, as usual.”

  Mr. Sutton will be right over.

  Well, that was something, Ria thought, simmering down slightly. When Landry arrived, she’d simply pretend she wasn’t home.

  CHAPTER TWO

  RIA DID NOT like Landry Sutton, did not like him one bit—never had, never would—which was why she intended to make herself scarce when he came to round up his smelly, flea-bitten, poppy-scarfing buffalo.

  Landry had arrived in Parable County at about the same time as Ria, a little over a year before, and, from the very beginning, he’d struck her as bullheaded, full of himself and, for the most part, insufferably stubborn. Only his impossibly good looks—the classic square jaw, those perfectly sculpted features and blue eyes that changed, according to his mood, from periwinkle to cornflower, that shock of shaggy, wheat-blond hair, a lean but powerful build, not to mention innate masculinity—kept him from being entirely unendurable.

  Physical qualities were genetic, after all, accidents of birth; it wasn’t as if the man could take credit for having good DNA, for Pete’s sake.

  But, being Landry, he probably did anyway. He had the air of a man who had never failed at anything he attempted, and since that was humanly impossible, Ria had long since dubbed him a poser.

  Now, stepping up to the darkened picture window—an act that set her barely calmed heart to pounding all over again, because she knew she’d jump right out of her skin if she found herself face-to-face with Buffalo Bessie for a second time in one night—she squinted through the glass.