Big Sky Wedding (24 page)

Brylee smoothed a lock of coppery hair back from Clare’s slightly flushed cheek. “I just told him how
I
felt, when
my
dad stopped letting me go out on the circuit with him and Walker and the others. Your father isn’t trying to spoil your fun, Clare—he loves you, and he’s trying to look out for you, keep you from getting hurt.”

Even as she said those words, Brylee felt old wounds healing over, at long last, in the deepest regions of her own heart. Her dad
had
loved her, just as Walker loved Clare, and he’d honestly believed he was doing the right thing by sheltering her from a dangerous world.

Now might be a good time to pick some flowers in the yard, she thought, and pay a visit to Barclay Parrish’s grave, in the small, shady cemetery just outside Three Trees.

It couldn’t hurt to say,
Thank you, I understand,
even so long after the fact.

* * *

F
OR
WHATEVER
REASONS
, Landry didn’t show up on Hangman’s Bend Ranch all day on Saturday—at least, if he did, he didn’t stop by the house—and Zane was both glad about and troubled by the fact. Cleo and Nash were disappointed and peevish that he’d canceled the visit to Timber Creek as it was, and Landry’s prickly presence wouldn’t have improved the emotional climate any.

There might have been a full-scale insurrection, in fact, if Zane hadn’t reminded the disgruntled natives that they’d all be attending a barbecue over at Hutch and Kendra Carmody’s place the next afternoon, thus ending their social isolation. He’d even volunteered to drive into town and fetch pizza for supper, though he was getting sick of the stuff, and would have preferred a home-cooked meal. Still, dining on takeout for the ten millionth time was a small price to pay, he supposed, for keeping the peace.

After supper, Zane retreated to the barn, saddled Blackjack and led the animal out into the cool of the gathering twilight.

Nash, evidently burned out on reruns of vintage TV dramas, was standing almost directly in his path when he emerged, and Slim was right there beside him, sizing up the proceedings. In the little time he’d had that dog, Zane thought, with distracted satisfaction, the critter had filled out a bit through the middle, and gained a little confidence, too. His coat gleamed, even in the rapidly fading daylight, and his eyes were bright with eager interest.

Nash, on the other hand, was clearly in poor humor again, now that he’d finished off the last of the pizzas. He stood still, with his hands in his pockets and his head slanted slightly to one side, watching as Zane swung up into the saddle.

“You
said
I could get a horse of my own,” the boy said, with just a touch of accusation underlying the reminder.

“Give me a break, buddy,” Zane replied, hoping to jolly the kid out of his prepubescent mood. Were there going to be a lot of these? “You’ve only been here a few days, and a lot’s been going on.”

Nash shifted from one foot to the other, but his hands remained in his pockets and his shoulders were still rigid under his T-shirt. “There’s
always
going to be a lot going on,” he said, and Zane couldn’t rightly deny that, ranch life being what it was. “But that’s okay. Just promise the kid stuff and then ignore him—I’m used to that.”

Not for the first time, the boy’s words pierced something in Zane, something tender and already bruised. Nash was admitting, if in a roundabout way, that Jess Sutton wasn’t the paragon he’d made him out to be.

Big surprise there.

“I don’t plan on ignoring you, Nash,” Zane said, leaning one arm against the saddle horn and holding the reins loosely in the opposite hand while Blackjack fidgeted, prancing sideways, eager to cover some ground. “And when I make a promise, I keep it.”

Nash’s expression remained skeptical, but there was a chink in his armor, Zane could see that—a glint of hope in the kid’s eyes.

“Landry’s in town,” Nash went on, his voice still dull. “I heard you telling Cleo all about how he’s a train wreck—Landry, I mean—and you wish he’d just go back to Chicago and stay put.”

Guilt flashed through Zane, but he knew there was more the boy meant to say, so he braced himself for it and waited while Blackjack became increasingly impatient, tossing his head now, dancing backward a few steps.

“Is that what you say about me?” Nash asked. “When I’m not around—or you think I’m not? That you wish I’d get out of your hair?”

Damn,
Zane thought. “No,” he said, after a beat or two, “it isn’t. It’s just that things are a little complicated between Landry and me, that’s all.”

“Why?” Nash persisted.

“They just are,” Zane said, not really having an explanation.

“I would have liked to have a brother, somebody to grow up with. Even a sister would have been okay, I guess. Just
somebody
to hang with when Dad went away all those times.”

The backs of Zane’s eyes throbbed, and he had to clear his throat before he answered. “Look,” he ground out, hoarse despite those efforts, “if you want to, climb up on the fence over there and get on behind me. We’ll ride double.”

Nash’s whole face brightened. “Really?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean, boy,” Zane told him.
Unlike some people I could name.

Quick as mercury escaping from an old-fashioned thermometer snapped in half, Nash was up on the fence. Zane rode over and made the horse stand still until the kid was on behind him.

Cleo, meanwhile, materialized on the porch, glowering with disapproval. “Nash Sutton,” she called, “you get down offa that big ole beast of a thing this minute!”

Zane grinned and ignored the woman. “Put your arms around my middle,” he told Nash, “and hold on to Blackjack with your knees.”

“Have you both lost your minds?” Cleo ranted on, for all the world like a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher warning of certain doom, pacing and gesturing and finally flapping her apron at them as if to shoo them right out of her sight if they couldn’t behave like decent human beings.

“Yes, ma’am, I guess we
are
a little crazy,” Nash replied cheerfully. Then, to Zane, in an eager whisper, he said, “Make him run.”

Zane chuckled. “No possible way,” he answered. “You probably wouldn’t get hurt, but Cleo might just have a heart attack right before our eyes.” He headed Blackjack down the rutted driveway, toward the road.

Nash bounced behind him. “This is great!” he yelled, loudly enough to split Zane’s eardrum. “I knew it! I’m a natural!”

Zane laughed and eased Blackjack into a trot, once they reached the dirt road below the house. The gate, in sore need of repair like just about everything else on the place, stood open, the hinges long since rusted solid.

The ride had to be short, since it was getting dark, but it lasted long enough to let Blackjack burn off some energy and satisfy Nash’s thirst for adventure, for the time being at least.

Back at the barn, Zane dismounted by swinging one leg over Blackjack’s neck and jumping to the ground, and Nash immediately scooted forward into the saddle, grabbing the reins. “I
told
you I could do this,” the boy crowed, face beaming as bright as the moon overhead.

“Be careful getting down,” Zane counseled, gripping Blackjack’s bridle strap just in case Nash got any ideas. He was pleased that his kid brother was happy for once, though, and that he’d had a part in it.

By then, Cleo had retreated into the house in head-shaking disgust, and Slim, for whatever reason, had gone along with her.

Heedless of his older brother’s advice to dismount slowly, Nash leaped to the ground, limber as an Apache warrior, and winced comically when the balls of his feet made contact. The inevitable jolt of pain made him howl.

Zane shook his head slowly from side to side. “I tried to warn you,” he said.

Nash had straightened, but he was still making faces. “Oww,” he repeated.

“Next time, when I tell you something, listen.”

With that, he led the horse back into the barn, made sure he had food and water and showed Nash how to undo the cinch and slide the saddle and blanket off Blackjack’s back, how to remove the bridle, positioning his hand to catch hold of the bit so it wouldn’t knock against the animal’s teeth. After that, they checked the gelding’s hooves for stones and other debris and gave him a thorough brushing down. Nash had a lot to learn, naturally, since he’d never been around horses before now, but he did seem to have a knack handling them, and that was a very good sign—wasn’t it?

* * *

R
ATHER
THAN
CARRY
plates and platters across the house to the other kitchen, Brylee served supper at her table, instead of Casey and Walker’s. It was a squeeze, the space being considerably smaller, but that just made the occasion cozier.

Shane and Walker ate like wolves at the tail end of a starvation winter, while Clare was so ebullient at the prospect of traveling to Colorado with her dad and brother that she hardly touched her food. Instead, she chattered, her pretty face flushed, her eyes bright with excitement.

Only Casey seemed to see through Brylee’s cheery facade, and she alternated between stabbing at a brussels sprout or a baby potato or a bite of game hen with her fork and shifting the blanket-bundle that was Preston from one shoulder to the other.

She was careful not to watch Brylee too closely, of course, but there was no mistaking her concern.

Brylee simply smiled a lot, listened and consumed just enough supper to avoid attracting attention, profoundly grateful that there was no real point in trying to make conversation. Clare prattled blissfully on about what clothes she wanted to take along on the trip to Colorado, and Shane, a typical kid brother, interjected a scoffing grunt once in a while. Mostly, though, he shoveled in food, stoking the fire of growth raging inside him, multiplying cells, stretching bones and filling out muscles.

Walker complimented Brylee on the meal, to which he had done a respectable amount of justice, and took baby Preston from Casey so his wife could finish her supper.

In the midst of all this, Brylee watched, and silently counted herself lucky to be part of this lively gathering of kinfolk and, at the same time, wondering if she’d ever have a family of her own.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T
HE
NEXT
DAY
, cars and pickups filled the driveway and much of the barnyard at Whisper Creek Ranch, Hutch and Kendra Carmody’s place outside Parable, and still more rigs lined the road below. There were a few motorcycles in evidence, too, Zane noticed, and probably an extra horse or two in the barn and corrals.

Cleo, all dolled up in a bright green polyester pantsuit, her best outfit, she claimed, and brand-spanking new in the bargain, sat stalwartly in the passenger seat of Zane’s truck, one hand gripping the extra handle just above her window as though she expected the vehicle to go pitching over a steep cliff any second now. And never mind that there
wasn’t
one within miles.

Nash, riding in the backseat, wasn’t saying much—probably because he was too busy gawking at the Carmodys’ fine ranch house, first-rate barn, miles of painted fences and the many horses and cattle grazing in the surrounding pastures. Once he’d looked his fill, Zane suspected, amused, the boy would most likely busy himself trying not to look overly impressed by it all.

They’d left Slim at home, where he’d be safe and no bother to anyone, but as Zane pulled up in front of a makeshift valet station near the mouth of the driveway, manned by a pair of grinning teenage boys, he reflected that there were probably almost as many canine guests at the party as there were people.

One of the young men hired to park cars opened Cleo’s door for her and suavely helped her down after she’d swung her legs around and taken a teetering perch on the running board. Zane couldn’t tell for sure, since her back was turned to him, but he’d have bet she was blushing that plum color she turned when she felt flattered. Nash scrambled out right away and headed for the action without a moment’s hesitation.

Apparently, the kid wasn’t shy, Zane thought, pleased. He would have pulled away then, found a place to park, but the other boy already had his door open and was holding out one hand for the keys.

Zane placed the jingling tangle of metal in the kid’s palm, and the next thing he knew, his truck was pulling away at a good clip, leaving him to breathe dust.

With a chuckle, he followed Cleo and Nash toward the noise and the good-cooking smells, but they were well ahead of him by then and soon disappeared, swallowed up in the busy, noisy merriment of a good old-fashioned, down-on-the-ranch, eat-till-your-belly-busts barbecue. Smoke rising from somewhere in back of the large, rambling house flavored the air with the tempting aromas of beef and chicken and pork crisping on the grill.

Stepping through a wide, trellised gate in the back fence, Zane estimated the happy crowd at somewhere around a hundred head or so, not counting kids and dogs, and noticed the large brick barbecue, with its concrete base and shingled roof, obviously a permanent fixture designed to feed a cast of thousands with no problem. The structure was surrounded by men drinking beer, swapping yarns and offering unsolicited advice on when to turn the meat over, so it wouldn’t burn.

A stranger and an outsider, Zane nonetheless felt immediately at home in this bunch; he’d grown up mostly in the country, after all, and rural ways had always made more sense to him than cloverleaf freeways and folks who’d never met even a single one of their neighbors, no matter how long they’d lived at the same address.

Carmody, sporting a cobbler’s apron over the usual jeans and cotton shirt and wielding a long-handled cooking fork, looked up, spotted him and waved him over with a grin. Boone, the sheriff, was there, too, in civilian clothes like before, at the Butter Biscuit Café, and Zane recognized Slade Barlow, as well.

Somebody handed him a beer, still slippery from the ice-filled cooler nearby, and Hutch made casual introductions, at the same time keeping an eye on all that beef, chicken and pork. There were hot dogs and hamburgers, too, and a nearby table fairly groaned under the load of homemade potato salad and pies and all kinds of other such delicacies, along with the usual buns, pickles and condiments.

Folks laughed and yammered all around, the women clustered at picnic tables under shade trees, the kids and dogs weaving in and out, chasing one another, dogs barking and kids shrieking with glee.

Sipping his beer, Zane privately wished he’d brought Landry along, greenhorn clothes, sorry attitude and all, but he hadn’t been able to raise his brother, either by calling his cell or his room at the Somerset Inn. He’d done his sibling duty by trying, he figured, and he’d expected to be glad he hadn’t made contact but, instead, he felt a lonely ache taking shape in the pit of his stomach.

Landry loved a good party and, whatever was gnawing at him, joining in the celebration might have cheered him up a little.

Overhead, thunder grumbled, but nobody seemed to care, or even notice. And why
should
they? Things like bad weather wouldn’t spoil the day for these hardy folks, used to hard winters and sizzling summer heat and about a million other shifts of climate—they’d just laugh about a little rain, and maybe take refuge inside if the stuff started coming down hard.

To Zane, Whisper Creek’s main ranch house looked spacious enough to accommodate this crowd and another one just like it, and he felt a mild pinch of something like envy at the thought. Would
his
place ever be bursting at the seams with friends and relations, like this one?

He finally looked up, when he felt a single drop of rain land on his shoulder, and he saw the formerly blue sky filling with gunmetal-gray clouds, but like the other guests, he was soon drawn into the conversation around him, and forgot all about the weather.

Once, he caught a brief glimpse of Cleo, in that traffic-light-green outfit of hers, sipping punch and getting to know the group of smiling women who’d drawn her into their circle.

Another glance around the big yard proved that Nash, too, had found his niche—he was already playing horseshoes with a flock of older kids, a mixture of boys and girls.

Zane reckoned they’d been at the party, he and Cleo and Nash, for almost an hour when an influx of new arrivals showed up, laughing and calling out greetings to friends, bringing more kids and more dogs and more
food
right along with them. The women, wearing either cotton dresses or jeans and short-sleeve shirts, kissed cheeks and squeezed hands, genuinely glad to see one another, while the men gravitated toward either the barbecue grill or the open bar sheltered beneath the patio roof. The food was already being served, on a buffet-style, help-yourself basis, and Zane had worked his way to the front of the chow line, and was filling a paper plate, when everything inside him went suddenly still.

It was as if every clock in the universe stopped ticking for a nanosecond, every heart stopped beating, every sound went still.

He turned his head and immediately saw the reason: Brylee was there, along with Casey. A baby nestled in a fleecy slinglike arrangement draped across Casey’s chest but, otherwise, they seemed to be traveling alone. Casey spotted Zane right away, beamed that searchlight smile of hers and came in his direction. Brylee, walking behind her, looked disconcerted and dragged her feet a bit as she followed in her sister-in-law’s wake.

“I was
hoping
you’d be here,” Casey said, when they were nearly toe-to-toe, poking Zane playfully in the chest with one finger to emphasize her point. “I didn’t reckon you could hide out forever.”

Zane chuckled, though he was jittery inside, and not just because of the oblique reference to the invitation he’d ducked the night before. He kept his attention focused on Casey, but he was keenly aware of Brylee standing at a small distance, clearly caught by surprise and uncomfortable, too.

“Hey,” he said, and kissed the crown of Casey’s head. Even though she’d raised herself on tiptoe, he had to bend a little. “How’ve you been since I saw you last, Mrs. Parrish?”

The woman literally glowed, as though she’d swallowed a whole swarm of live fireflies in a single gulp, and tipped back the baby’s blanket to show a downy head resting against her chest. “If I were any better,” she chimed in response, “I’d probably be breaking some law. This is Preston, by the way. He’s getting too big to carry, but I haven’t had the heart to break the news to him yet.”

Zane smiled and admired the little guy, who slept contentedly on, despite the jostling and the noise. When he risked another glance at Brylee, she was looking studiously away, toward the gaggles of women at the picnic tables.

“I’m happy for you,” he told Casey, and he meant it. She was one of a kind, with a legendary talent and a voice that caressed her listeners from the front row to the nosebleed seats whenever she performed. On top of that, she was a truly nice person. “Where’s the rest of the family?”

“Well,” Casey said, “Walker—that’s my husband—is off chasing the rodeo, and the other kids, Shane and Clare, are with him. So Brylee and I are on our own for a while.”

Zane nodded to Brylee, and she nodded back in a reserved way, and she still seemed poised to bolt for parts unknown as soon as a path opened through the crowd so she could get away.

“Step up here and be neighborly,” Casey told her husband’s hesitant sister, her tone good-natured enough, but not to be ignored, either. Casey might have been little, but she was used to running the show. “We can’t have this man thinking folks in Parable County are standoffish.”

Brylee looked miserable then, and a little annoyed, as well, even though she made an effort to smile. “No,” she said, in a voice that was smooth on top and serrated like a steak knife underneath. “We can’t have that.”

“I’d better say howdy to Hutch and Kendra,” Casey put in. Like a spirit, she vanished into the mob.

Brylee folded her arms and regarded Zane with a chilly challenge lurking in her eyes. She wasn’t going to make this easy, he could tell. He’d ticked her off, and she wanted him to know it.

Zane, rarely at a loss for words, especially with women, found himself struggling for something to say. “Hungry?” he finally asked, remembering the plate in his hands and lifting it slightly, as though for her inspection.

She shook her head. And she waited.

Zane, realizing that he was damming the flow past the buffet table, stepped out of line. And then he said something even more unimaginative. “Looks like it’s going to rain.”

Brylee’s mouth twitched at one corner, ever so slightly, but the freeze was still on. “Looks like it,” she agreed.

He gestured for her to precede him and, somewhat to his surprise, she did. She led the way to one of the few unoccupied places in the yard, a corner flower bed with a wide, knee-high brick wall edging it.

She sat.

Zane sat. He didn’t remember being this nervous since he was in high school and made a move on a rodeo queen who happened to be two years older than he was, and that confounded him more than a little bit. What
was
it about this woman that turned him into a tongue-tied rube?

“I’m sorry about last night,” he said, when nothing better came to mind, letting the plate rest on his lap, untouched. “I just—well, I thought maybe you’d need some space, after...”

After the kiss of the century.

Brylee’s shoulders, left bare by her green sundress except for tiny straps holding the garment up, moved in a very slight, shruglike way, then fell back into graceful alignment again. “I guess you didn’t expect to see me here,” she surmised, and a mischievous twinkle sparked in her hazel eyes now.

Zane didn’t know what to say to that, so he just sat there like, to use his mother’s favorite cliché, a bump on a log.

“You’re probably not the only one, considering what happened between Hutch and me, I mean,” she went on, her tone almost breezy now. “Or, to put it more accurately, what
didn’t
happen.”

High above, thunder boomed again, loud but still distant, and a cloud briefly blocked the sun, spilling shadows over the amiable gathering for a few moments.

“You mean the...non-wedding?” Zane asked stupidly.

She nodded. “So you already knew about that,” she said.

“Yeah,” Zane admitted, picking up the plastic fork that had burrowed into the baked beans on his plate and immediately putting it down again. He’d been ravenously hungry fifteen minutes ago; now his throat was as dry as an empty creek bed in a drought, and he didn’t figure he could manage so much as a bite of food.

“It
was
all over the internet,” Brylee mused lightly, smoothing the gossamer skirt of her sundress over slender thighs.

Where, Zane wondered, a little frantic, was this conversation headed? “Things happen,” he said. Eloquence on the hoof, that was him.

“Yes,” she agreed, with a philosophical sigh. She smiled a wisp of a smile that tugged at an especially tender place in Zane’s heart and, taking in the milling guests, the brightly colored paper lanterns dangling from tree branches, the astounding spread on the buffet table with a sweep of her beautiful eyes, went on. “Things worked out for the best,” she added softly, watching as an obviously pregnant Grace Kelly–blonde moved through the gathering, accentuated by a shaft of sunlight that seemed to shine only on her. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Brylee asked, very softly. Then, with more spirit, she finished with, “Rats. I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this. I apologize.”

Zane followed the blonde’s progress for a second or two, saw her draw up alongside Hutch, who was still officiating at the barbecue grill, and slip an arm around his waist. He grinned down at her with a love so plain it could have been seen from outer space, like the Great Wall of China and the lights of New York City, and gave her a gentle squeeze and a peck on the forehead.

This would be the woman Carmody had chosen over Brylee, back in the day, Zane reflected. “Yes” was all he said, in the end, because Brylee was right—the lady was a looker, though for his money, their hostess was no match for the vision sitting right beside him in a floaty green dress.

“I guess I’d better circulate a little,” Brylee said, sounding resigned but not unhappy. “Otherwise, Casey will never let me hear the end of it. She
made
me come with her, but being here is probably better than sitting home alone.”