Big Sky Wedding Page 6

  When the other dog appeared, floppy-eared and thin, Snidely returned to Brylee’s side and sat vigilantly beside her, though he didn’t make a sound—not even a warning growl. His tail switched back and forth, just briefly, and Brylee knew he was hoping for friendship, though he’d do battle in her defense if he had to.

  She stroked his sleek head and murmured, “It’s okay, buddy,” and if Snidely didn’t understand her words, he did comprehend her tone, because he relaxed.

  The black dog, painfully skinny, with a dull coat, stood on the other side of the creek, watching Brylee and Snidely. He seemed calm and, at the same time, poised to flee if he sensed a threat of any kind.

  Brylee was surprised when she spotted a collar around the newcomer’s neck, complete with tags. He looked like a stray, not somebody’s pet.

  Anger surged inside her. What was up with the symptoms of starvation and the timid manner? Whoever this dog belonged to— And it was no great stretch to figure that one out, since she knew every cat and dog and horse within a twenty-mile radius of Three Trees and she’d never so much as glimpsed this fellow before.

  The poor creature had the misfortune to belong to none other than Zane Sutton, knee-meltingly handsome movie star. Major land owner.

  Arrogant, self-indulgent, shallow jerk.

  Brylee pulled her feet out of the creek, tugged on her socks and shoes and stood up. “Hey, boy,” she said to the dog on the other side. “Are you lost?”

  The dog eyed her, eyed Snidely and sat down in the tall grass to await his fate.

  Brylee made her way to the line of flat rocks that bridged the creek—she’d been crossing that way for so long that she could have done it with her eyes closed—while Snidely plunged valiantly, if reluctantly, into the water and paddled across.

  The black dog didn’t move, though it gave a little whimper of fretful submission as she drew near.

  “Let’s get you home,” Brylee said, after crouching in front of the dog and taking a casual glance at its tags.

  Sure enough, he belonged to Zane. And his name was Slim. Was that some kind of cruel joke? On a surge of righteous indignation, Brylee shot like a geyser to her full height.

  Snidely climbed gamely out of the creek and shook himself off, sprinkling both her and Slim with shimmering diamonds of sun-infused water, pure as crystal and freezing cold.

  The march through the woods was familiar to Brylee, of course—she’d visited often, when her friend Karrie had lived on Hangman’s Bend Ranch. Back then, of course, the place had been in good repair, a working cattle spread, with a larger house and barn than most of its neighbors boasted, to be sure, but Karrie and her family had been regular people, well-grounded country folks—not pearly teethed movie stars living out some weird fantasy of getting back to the land and all that other sentimental hogwash.

  By the time she, Snidely and Slim emerged into the large clearing where the house, barn and corral stood, Brylee had worked up a powerful huff.

  The illustrious Mr. Sutton was outside, shirtless, evidently repairing the corral fence. His jeans rode low on his lean hips, and his chest and back were muscular, probably honed by hours in some swanky gym. Seeing Brylee and the two dogs coming out of the trees, he paused, hammer in hand, a row of nails between his lips, and watched as they approached.

  “Is this your dog?” Brylee demanded furiously, when she’d come within a dozen feet of the man and then suddenly stopped in her tracks. It was as though some kind of barrier or force field had slammed down between them.

  “Yep,” Zane said, after taking the nails out of his mouth and dropping them into the pocket of his beat-up jeans. They certainly didn’t fit his image, those jeans—was he trying to look as if he belonged in Montana? “He’s mine, all right.”

  Brylee sputtered for a few inglorious seconds. “Did it ever occur to you to feed him once in a while?”

  Zane opened his mouth, closed it again. His grin was so insolent, and so damned sexy, that she would have slapped it right off his face, if her personal principles allowed—which, of course, they didn’t.

  A boy came out of the house just then, also shirtless, and sprinted toward them. “Slim!” he called jubilantly. “I wondered where you’d wandered off to.”

  Zane flicked a glance at the gangly child, a preteen actually, on the verge of a rapid growth spurt. “Brylee Parrish,” he said quietly, “meet my kid brother, Nash.”

  Nash looked so pleased to make her acquaintance that what remained of Brylee’s animal rights lecture died in her throat.

  “Hello, Nash,” she said, after swallowing.

  The boy turned shy, blushing extravagantly. “Hello,” he murmured.

  Zane seemed to find the exchange mildly amusing. “Take old Slim into the house,” he told Nash quietly, “and see if you can get him to chow down on some kibble.”

  Nash hesitated, glanced at Brylee again, from under the thickest eyelashes she’d ever seen on any guy—except maybe Zane himself—and whistled low to summon the dog.

  The two of them vanished inside, Nash reluctantly, Slim going with the flow.

  “He’s a stray,” Zane said presently. “I haven’t had him long enough to fatten him up.”

  Brylee was flummoxed. She’d steamed over here on a mission of justice and mercy, and now, suddenly, she was becalmed, a ship with no wind in its sails.

  “The boy or the dog?” she asked.

  Zane’s smile was affable, with a twinkle to it. “Both, I guess,” he said.

  By then, Brylee felt like a complete fool. She’d assumed the worst—movie stars, that disruptive, now-you-see-them, now-you-don’t class of people, rarely proved her first impression of them wrong. This one had, though, and the realization left her tongue-tied and embarrassed, wishing she hadn’t come on like the storied gangbusters, full of accusations and spitting fire.

  “Oh,” she said.

  Zane’s smile eased off into a sexy grin. “Is that all you have to say?” he asked, obviously enjoying her discomfort. “‘Oh’?”

  Heat burned her cheeks, and she knew her eyes were flashing again. “If you’re waiting for an apology,” she said, “don’t hold your breath.”

  Zane leaned in a little—she hadn’t realized how close together they were standing, though one of them must have moved—and she felt his substance, his energy, in every cell and nerve, like some kind of biochemical riot. “Now why would I expect an apology?” he drawled, though he seemed more amused than angry. “Just because you rolled onto my land like an armored tank and flat-out accused me of animal cruelty?”

  Brylee blinked. Swallowed. “The dog’s ribs show,” she said lamely, after too many moments had passed. “Anyone would think—”

  “He’d been going hungry for a while,” Zane finished, when her words fell away in midstream. “As it happens, he wound up in a good shelter in L.A. just a few days before I adopted him. I’ve been giving old Slim as much kibble as he can handle, Ms. Parrish, but it’s a slow process, requiring patience and understanding.”

  Brylee longed to melt into a puddle, like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. She wanted to say she was sorry, too, that she’d jumped to conclusions, but her throat had constricted like the top of a drawstring bag, pulled tight.

  Damn her Parrish pride, anyway. It would be her downfall for sure.

  Idly, Zane stepped back, collected his shirt from a nearby fence post and shrugged into it.

  For Brylee, this was both a relief and a crying shame. All that spectacular man-muscle, covered up, hidden from view. Thank heaven. Or darn it. Whichever.

  He turned his attention to Snidely then, bending to favor the dog with a few pats on the head and a grin that left no doubt of his love for four-legged furry people.

  On that score, at least, Brylee had misjudged Zane Sutton, no doubt about it, but she still couldn’t bring herself to apologize. It wasn’t just her pride, either—she had a vague and very disturbing sense that she’d be opening a door to a whole slew of
unpredictable developments if she dared let down her guard, even for a moment.

  “Come inside,” he finally said. “I can’t offer you iced tea or a mint julep, but we do have sodas and ice, and I could probably rustle up some coffee, if you’d rather have that.”

  Oddly, it never occurred to Brylee to refuse the invitation. She simply followed Zane toward the house, shamelessly enjoying the rear view, while Snidely trotted along at her side, oblivious to the fact that the planet had just shifted off its axis and Ecuador could suddenly become the new north pole at any given moment.

  By then, the boy, Nash, was in the kitchen, trying to look busy. He’d pulled on a T-shirt, and Slim, the slat-ribbed dog, was crunching away on a recently replenished supply of kibble.

  Brylee looked around, remembering, and remembering eased some of her tension, made her smile.

  Her friend Karrie’s mom, Donna, had taught both her daughter and Brylee to cook in this kitchen, imparted simple sewing skills, listened benevolently to the ceaseless girl-chatter about boys and cheerleading tryouts and prom dresses, driven them to and from school events and the movies.

  “You’ve been here before,” Zane observed quietly, watching her.

  His words startled Brylee out of her reverie. “Yes,” she said. “My best friend, Karrie, used to live in this house.” There was so much more to the story, of course—Donna, recognizing Brylee as what she was, basically a motherless child, had made room for her in this house, and in her heart. The Jacksons had been her second family.

  Nash and Slim were both staring at Brylee now. Did she have something in her teeth? Stuck to the heel of her shoe?

  Zane moved to the refrigerator—the same one that had always been in that spot, unless Brylee was mistaken—and opened the door. “What’ll it be?” he asked. “Soda? Water?”

  “Nothing for me, thanks,” Brylee said, feeling a little like one of the birds who occasionally flew into her warehouse and got trapped there, wheeling and swooping in increasing desperation as it searched for a way out. “I really can’t stay— I just—”

  Nash moved to the card table in the center of the room, drew back a chair with a manly flourish. “You can’t leave yet,” he said with a grin, gesturing for her to have a seat. “You’re the only person I know in this godforsaken place, except for my brother, and he’s practically a stranger.”

  Brylee sat down, slightly mystified. Nash had charm, and he’d exhibited good manners by offering her a chair, but what was up with calling Montana—the place she loved best in all the earth, her soul’s true home—“godforsaken”?

  “Nash is used to finer digs than this old, neglected ranch,” Zane explained dryly, when Brylee proved to be at a loss for a reply. With a weary sigh, he sat down opposite her at the rickety folding table. “You know—homeless shelters, juvenile detention centers, maybe a bunk in a rusted-out camper in somebody’s backyard now and then.”

  Brylee’s eyes widened. Where she came from—which was right there in Parable County, thank you very much—those were fighting words, yet Zane’s tone wasn’t unkind, merely matter-of-fact. And she’d thought her family relationships were complicated.

  Nash, left to stand like the odd man out in a game of musical chairs, leaned casually back against a counter and folded his underdeveloped arms. There was something very reminiscent of Zane about the posture. The man-child smiled winningly and said, “As you can see by the way my brother treats me, I am in drastic need of a friend.”

  Brylee smiled back at the boy, amused and at the same time concerned. “You’ve come to the right place, then,” she said. “Three Trees and Parable are both great towns, and I’d be glad to introduce you around, starting with my nephew, Shane—he’s about your age—and my niece, Clare, too.”

  “Is your niece as beautiful as you are?” Nash asked smoothly.

  Zane laughed and shook his head. “Next he’ll ask you what your sign is, or look puzzled and ask if you’ve met before.”

  Brylee liked Nash, even though he was half-again too smart-alecky for his own good or anybody else’s, so she ignored Zane’s remark. “And you’re how old?” she countered lightly.

  Nash reddened a little under her kindly scrutiny, and he seemed stuck for an answer. Brylee would have bet that didn’t happen very often.

  “He’s twelve,” Zane supplied graciously.

  Nash glared at his brother.

  Twelve? Impossible, Brylee thought. “Going on forty-five,” she said.

  A short silence followed, the air between the two brothers so charged that Brylee wouldn’t have been surprised to see thunderclouds forming beneath the ceiling.

  “I could show you around,” Nash finally volunteered, effectively rendering his older brother invisible, at least as far as he was concerned. “I mean, since you haven’t been here in a while and everything...”

  Zane sighed at that, but raised no objection. Was he ashamed of the place? It was pretty dilapidated, an unlikely abode for an established movie star, certainly.

  “That’s a great idea,” Brylee said, pushing back her chair to stand. “I’d love to have a look at the place.” She glanced at Zane, who was standing now, too. “You don’t mind?”

  “I don’t mind,” he confirmed. The twinkle in his eyes and the twitch at one corner of his mouth said he knew full well she didn’t really care whether he minded or not.

  “We’re getting more furniture after the renovations are done,” Nash hastened to explain. “Right now, we’ve got a couple of beds and an air mattress, and that’s about it.”

  Following Nash, with Snidely right behind her, Brylee suppressed a smile. “Things take time,” she said.

  The house, though empty, was just as she remembered it—large and rambling, with spacious, raftered rooms and tall windows and a total of three natural rock fireplaces. There were four bedrooms and as many baths, along with a sizable dining area and a living room that not only ran the full width of the house, but offered a magnificent view of trees and mountains and that endless pageant of sky.

  “Cleo gets here tomorrow,” Nash announced, when they’d come full circle, after about fifteen minutes, and returned to the kitchen. Zane and Slim were both gone, and Brylee caught the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of a hammer somewhere nearby. “She was my brother’s housekeeper, when he lived in L.A.”

  Brylee offered no comment. She was just glad she hadn’t followed her first inclination and jumped in to ask who Cleo was before Nash got around to clarifying the matter for her.

  So, Cleo wasn’t a girlfriend or, worse yet, a wife. Brylee felt like a damn fool for caring either way, but care she did.

  “I guess she can really cook,” Nash went on conversationally, “but Zane says she’s a stickler for neatness and order, and she’ll raise hell when she gets a look at this place.” He paused, sucked in a breath and went right on talking. “We ordered a washer and dryer and another bed, but we’re holding off on all the other stuff because Cleo’s the type to want a say-so in just about everything.”

  Brylee smiled, amused by this assessment of the unknown Cleo. She sounded like a SoCal version of Opal Dennison Beaumont, local force of nature. “That’s probably wise,” she said.

  Suddenly, Nash looked wistful, and his gaze was fixed on something—or someone—very far away.

  “You don’t have to tell Zane or anything,” he said, very quietly, “but I kind of like it here.”

  Brylee rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder, touched to the core of her heart. “Why would you want to keep that from your brother?” she asked, searching his face. If she’d known Nash Sutton better, she’d have put her arms around him just then, the way Donna Jackson had so often done with her, and given him a squeeze, promised him everything would be all right. Since they’d just met, though, she knew that would be overstepping, and she’d done enough of that for one day, accusing Zane of neglecting, if not abusing, his dog.

  A muscle bunched in Nash’s jaw, and a fly buzzed against the torn and rusted mesh in
the screen door, the sound of the hammer sifting through on a June breeze fragrant with pasture grass. “Because this is temporary,” the boy finally replied, feigning nonchalance and deftly avoiding Brylee’s gaze at the same time. “That’s the way my life goes. Everything’s temporary.”

  The backs of Brylee’s eyes scalded, and she didn’t speak for a moment, fearing her voice would catch if she did. Sure, she’d missed having a mother continuously on the scene, both as a girl and sometimes even now, as a grown woman, but she’d always had her dad and Walker and a slew of good friends, including the Jacksons. From the sound of things, Nash was alone in the world, allowed to hang around until someone decided he was in the way and sent him packing.

  Seeing Brylee’s expression, and reading it all too accurately, Nash turned up the wattage on that killer grin of his, so like his brother’s. He might have been only twelve, but he’d trained himself to act and talk like a man, and that saddened Brylee, sensing, as she did, that he’d missed out on much of his childhood—skipped right over it.

  “I wasn’t trying to make you feel sorry for me,” he said.

  Too late, Brylee thought, but she smiled to hide her sympathy. Pride seemed to be about all Nash had to call his own. “I live on the next place over, with my brother, Walker, and his family,” she said cheerfully. “We have lots of horses, and there’s always plenty of extra space at supper. Breakfast and lunch, too, for that matter. You’re welcome to drop by anytime.”

  “You don’t have a husband?” Nash asked, apparently having noticed the omission when she mentioned Walker and Company. He sounded somewhat surprised, which was a compliment, she supposed.

  “Nope,” Brylee said, rustling up another smile. This one was harder to come by than the last one, though. She might have had a husband by now, if she’d had the God-given good sense to pick anybody besides Hutch Carmody for a partner. “I’m single.”

  Nash frowned, as though he might be trying to work out an Einstein-worthy equation in his head. “And you live with your brother?”

  The question gave her a pang, but it also amused her a little. “Like you,” she confirmed. She leaned slightly to give her dog a pat on the head. “Snidely and I share an apartment on the premises, so don’t picture me sitting in a rocking chair in the attic, knitting socks. I’m not exactly the maiden aunt.”