Shane grumbled under his breath for a few moments, riding along beside Walker in silence, but it soon became clear that he hadn’t been retreating, he’d been reloading. “You’d never go against anything Mom said?” he challenged.
“I didn’t say that,” Walker answered. “But I’d have to feel pretty strongly to raise an objection, because she’s a smart woman, and it just so happens that she’s right about most things.”
A long, throbbing silence fell.
Then Shane asked evenly, “Do you think she was right to lie to Clare and me since we were babies?”
He’d been expecting this for a while, but it still unsettled him a little.
“No,” Walker replied reasonably, “but sometimes people do the wrong thing for the right reasons. Things aren’t as cut-and-dried as they seem from your perspective, son—a lot of decisions are shots in the dark, judgment calls, essentially, and it’s real easy to make a mistake.”
Shane mulled that over for a while. They spotted half a dozen strays on the other side of a thicket of brush and rounded them up, with considerable help from the dogs, heading them toward the main herd.
They bawled and kicked up dust, those cows, too stupid to know they were on their way back to good water and safety in numbers. Walker cussed them a little out of sheer habit, calling them sorry-looking, lop-eared knotheads, much to Shane’s amusement.
“You got something against cows, Dad?” the boy asked.
“Facts are facts,” Walker replied with a grin. “Dogs are smart. Horses are smarter yet. But there’s only one domestic animal dumber than these critters, and that’s a sheep.”
The remark brought them right back around to the subject of the upcoming junior rodeo, albeit indirectly.
“I’m too old for mutton busting,” Shane said.
“Tell that to your mother,” Walker answered.
An hour later, when they got back to the barn, Shane did a creditable job of unsaddling Smokey, leading him into his stall, checking his hooves and giving him a good brushing down.
Casey came out of the house as they were approaching, looking four kinds of good in trim jeans and a white suntop with a few strategically placed ruffles. Walker drank in the sight of her, thinking they’d get through life just fine, the pair of them, if they made love every night and took care not to say more than two words to each other in the daylight.
They had their tender moments, Walker was willing to admit that much, but they still disagreed on just about every subject known to civilization.
She favored one political party, he supported the other.
She wanted to keep Clare and Shane close to home, so they wouldn’t be kidnapped, develop drug habits or give interviews to scumball reporters.
Walker believed in giving kids as much freedom as they could handle. How else would they learn to stand on their own?
Casey insisted on going to church as a family, while Walker thought he was more likely to make God’s acquaintance on the open range than inside some building with a belfry and pews.
It seemed to Walker that they both had one foot in the marriage, and one foot out, and either one of them might bolt at any time.
Oh, but the sex was better than good.
And Casey was all but certain she was carrying their baby.
Count your blessings, cowboy, Walker thought.
“Mom,” Shane began, “I was wondering—”
“Not now,” Casey broke in. She tried to smile at her son, but something was wrong and Walker knew it. “Go on inside so I can talk to your dad.”
Shane jerked off his hat, slapped it against his thigh and stalked off toward the house.
Walker and Casey remained where they were—just outside the barn door, in the last blaze of afternoon sunshine.
Walker tensed, knowing something—God only knew what—was coming.
“Might as well just come right out and say it,” he said, adjusting his hat.
“Mitch called,” she said. “Some artists are putting together a benefit concert—for the earthquake victims.”
In his mind, Walker saw instant replays of some of the news clips out of South America. Children separated, perhaps permanently, from their parents. Bad water and broken roads, houses and buildings toppled, tents serving as temporary hospitals, doctors and nurses working shifts that were measured in days, rather than hours.
“And you want to be part of it,” Walker said. He understood her desire to help, and shared it, but he saw this as the beginning of a tug-of-war that might last for the rest of their lives. Work pulling against home and family, and vice versa. Eventually, the rope would break.
Casey swallowed, nodded. “Yes.”
“Where?” Walker asked, turning his hat brim in his hands, in slow, thoughtful revolutions.
“L.A.,” Casey answered, watching him closely. “The concert will be shown live all over the world, next Saturday night. There’s some setting up to do, though, and of course I’ll want to rehearse with the band—”
“Of course,” Walker agreed, thinking he’d sounded snappish, when he hadn’t meant to, but not ready to backpedal and make it right.
“I know that’s the weekend of the rodeo over in Parable, and I was supposed to sing the national anthem, but—”
“Folks will understand,” Walker put in.
“Will you?” Casey asked.
The question stung. She knew he’d seen the devastation left by that earthquake; did she think his heart was made of concrete?
“Do what you have to do, Casey,” he said gruffly. “I’ll look after the kids and the critters and we’ll all be just fine.”
She slipped her arms around him, laid her cheek against his chest. “I thought you’d try to talk me out of this,” she confessed. “Because of—everything.”
He curled a finger under her chin, lifted her face so he could look directly into her now-misty green eyes. “I’d rather you stayed,” he said, in all honesty, “mainly because there might be a baby on the way, and for a few other reasons, too.”
Casey’s whole being twinkled as she gazed back at him, casting her spell. “Will you miss me?”
“You, yes. The sex, yes. The bickering—not so much.”
She pretended indignation. At least, Walker hoped she was pretending.
“You know that old phrase honest to a fault?” she asked.
“I know it,” Walker said.
“It describes you to perfection.”
He laughed and then, because he couldn’t help it, because he could already feel her slipping away into that other life, where he was a foreigner, he kissed her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CASEY TOOK A COMMERCIAL FLIGHT out of Missoula the next morning, changed planes in Seattle and landed in Los Angeles after several delays, to be met outside security by a smiling Mitch, the guys in her band, her technical crew and other important members of the entourage.
While they waited for her luggage near one of the baggage carousels, autograph seekers and a few representatives of the tabloid press crowded in close.
Casey had always thrived on this kind of attention—hell, she’d loved it, would have felt invisible without it, even just a few months before—but something had changed. All she could think about was Walker and the kids and the peaceful grandeur of Timber Creek Ranch, with its canopy of sky and miles of open space, that sacred sense of being tucked into the heart of God.
Nothing if not professional, though, she smiled and signed her name and posed for cell-phone snapshots, even answered a few questions from the “reporters,” but part of her simply wasn’t present.
Mike Reynolds, her lead guitar player and longtime friend, must have seen through the act, because once they’d collected her bags, made their way to one of several waiting limos and ducked inside, he looked her straight in the eye and said, “I’ve seen sadder brides, but I can’t remember when.”
Mitch and two assistants rode with them, but, mercifully, they had their heads together, busi
ly conferring over various schedules—rehearsals, radio and TV interviews, a few public appearances in random places like shopping malls, and photo ops with politicians and other celebrities.
Casey tried to smile at Mike, but she’d used up most of her wattage back there in the baggage area. Her comeback—“How many of those sad brides were yours?”—fell a little flat.
Mike merely grinned, used to being kidded about his overactive love life, but his eyes were solemn as he looked at her, seeing too much. “Case,” he said patiently, “this is me. Mike. Next best thing to a brother. Please don’t tell me things are going wrong between you and the cowboy already.”
“‘The cowboy,’” she reminded him gently, “has a name. It’s Walker. And, no, it isn’t that. I’m just a little—”
I’m just a little pregnant.
Maybe.
Please, God.
“Worn-out?” Sweet Mike, prodding for answers and then trying to throw her a conversational lifeline.
She shook her head. I’m not sure I even want this crazy, wonderful gypsy life anymore, she thought to herself. And if I’m not Casey Elder, country-music hotshot, then who am I?
This was an identity crisis.
“I miss Clare and Shane, and Walker, of course,” she replied. That was purest truth, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Not that she owed an explanation to Mike or anybody else. Would have been nice to understand it herself, though. “It’s been great, spending so much time together. Not being on the road, rushing from place to place, setting up gear and taking it down again.”
As if she’d set up or taken down equipment since the earliest days of her career, but still.
Mike ducked his shaggy head slightly and looked at her even more closely than before. “Really? You really don’t miss the road? Because I’ve been climbing the walls—itching to hit the concert circuit and soak up some bright lights and unbridled adoration.”
Casey chuckled, but deep down, she felt an ache of guilt. She couldn’t expect Mike or the others in the group to cool their vocational heels indefinitely, waiting for her to take up where she’d left off. They were talented musicians—some of the best in the business—and they were still in the prime of their lives, working and otherwise.
They had plans and dreams of their own, naturally, and even though money wasn’t an issue for any of them, the occasional recording and video session at her house in Parable, Montana, wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy their creative drive, not forever, anyhow.
“You getting restless, Mike?” she asked finally.
Beyond the tinted windows of the limo, palm trees and looping tangles of freeway zipped by. Cars were everywhere, taking people somewhere else, always somewhere else. Why wasn’t it okay to just be in one place, even for a little while?
Mike took her hand and patted the back of it. “It’s not that,” he said. “I just miss the music we made together. So do the other guys.”
“Me, too,” she said. “Sometimes.”
Mike smiled. “And other times?”
“Other times, I just want to learn to cook comfort food, ride horses and sit in the porch swing, watching that big Montana sky change. The kids are growing up so fast it makes my head spin—I can’t stop thinking about the way time slips by.” She paused for a deep, slow breath, knowing her talk of home and family probably sounded pretty prosaic to Mike, a man used to traveling in the fast lane, always at full throttle. “I like my life.” And I love Walker Parrish, even if I am scared to tell him so.
“Okay,” Mike said, musing, gazing out the car window now.
Clearly the conversation was over, for the time being at least, and if nothing had been settled, well, Casey was getting used to that. She’d always been so certain, so focused. Now, she was totally uncertain.
Clare was still angry and confused, and Shane, though he put a good face on things, surely had some issues of his own.
And then there was Walker, the man she loved. The man she’d basically cheated out of his son’s and daughter’s childhoods. At times, she could almost believe that Walker cared for her, cared deeply, especially when they made love. Other times, like now, she wondered if he’d ever be able to forgive her completely, as hard as he might try.
Battling despair, she settled deeper into the cushy seat of that limo and silently reminded herself that, problems or no problems, the Casey Elder show must go on. She knew all her lines, and why wouldn’t she? She’d had years of practice, built herself a successful persona. But was there a real person behind the polished image?
Hard to say.
*
BRYLEE COULDN’T HELP with the kids while Casey was away because she had her annual “motivational retreat” scheduled for that week, and several hundred of her salespeople would be converging on the campgrounds near her company headquarters to stay in cabins, sit around campfires, receive awards and be inundated with workshops and speeches.
She was taking Snidely with her, and she’d invited Clare to go along, but it seemed to Walker that the girl had developed mildly antisocial tendencies since Casey’s departure for L.A. She mostly hid out in her room, where, according to Shane Parrish, Master Spy, she kept company with her cats, changed the polish on her fingernails and toes roughly every ten minutes, read books, surfed the internet and picked out mournful ballads on an old guitar.
Once or twice, Walker got as far as her closed door, fist raised to knock companionably, but each time, something had stopped him. She’d been singing, and her voice was so like Casey’s that it haunted him, as did the few lyrics he could make out. The theme was clear enough, though—loneliness, deception, betrayal.
Was this regulation teen angst, Walker wondered helplessly, or genuine sorrow?
Back in the day, when he’d been the guy who came to dinner now and then, he’d have known how to reach Clare. Ironically, now that he’d assumed the role of father, he didn’t seem to have a clue.
No, what he had, apparently, was a gift for saying the wrong thing.
Relating to Shane was easier, since they had more in common, both being male for starters. They shared a love of horses and wide-open spaces and rodeo, too, and their outlooks and basic thought processes were remarkably similar. Though the boy did show flashes of resentment now and then, he also tried hard to make the best of whatever came his way.
The same could not be said of Clare, though, and it worried Walker, not just because her attitude hurt Casey, but because she seemed to be drifting away from all of them, becoming someone else, closing the book on their efforts to forge the framework of a family.
Life went on, though, and there were chores to be done, meals to be cooked and eaten, plans to be made, with the rodeo coming up so soon. Walker put one foot in front of the other, mostly, missing Casey with an ache that ground inside him 24/7.
“I forgot to ask Mom if I could enter the rodeo,” Shane said on the third night Casey had been gone, after they’d eaten supper and done the dishes. The two of them were alone in the kitchen, except for the dogs; Clare had eaten a few bites and helped clear the table after the meal, but she hadn’t said more than two words the whole time, and she’d retreated to her room at the first opportunity.
Walker refrained from pointing out that the boy had had plenty of chances to make his pitch, since Casey called regularly and texted even more often than she dialed the home number.
“So text her,” he said.
“She’s rehearsing,” Shane reminded him. “And then she’s having dinner with a bunch of VIPs. The vice president is going to be there.”
Walker knew all that—he’d spoken often with Casey, though always briefly and in a sort of awkward, out-of-step way. “She’ll read the text and answer when she gets a chance,” he told his son. “As she always does.”
Shane rolled his eyes. “She’ll say no,” he said. “Without even thinking about it. Because that’s what she does when she’s busy, which is all the time. She just says no and goes right on doing whatever she’s doi
ng.”
“That being the reason you haven’t asked her,” Walker observed mildly.
“All I want to do is enter one stupid rodeo event,” Shane persisted. “What’s the big, huge, hairy deal?”
Walker, sitting at the table now, with one last cup of coffee going cold in front of him, stifled a smile. “Which ‘stupid event’ do you have in mind?” he asked, in his own good time.
Shane’s whole face lit up. “Bareback riding,” he answered. “Broncs.”
Oh, hell, Walker thought. He knew what bucking horses could do, because he bred them to do it. “That’s a rugged game,” he said. “Even in the junior category.”
“They’re all rugged,” Shane argued spiritedly. “That’s the whole point. It’s rodeo.”
“Have you ever been bucked off a horse?” Walker asked calmly.
Color flared in the boy’s earnest face. Tanned and freckled from all the time he’d been spending outdoors, helping Walker and the hands with ranch work, he was beginning to look more like a real, rough-and-tumble country kid than the sheltered son of a famous singer. Casey had done a good job raising him, and his sister, too, despite the present rocky road they were all traveling, but she wasn’t big on letting either one of her children take chances.
It went without saying that taking foolish ones, like hitchhiking or messing with drugs or alcohol, would never lead to anything but trouble and heartache. But calculated risks? That was another thing, an important part of growing up and learning to hold your own in a tough world.
“Did you enter the junior rodeo when you were a kid?” Shane wanted to know.
He’d make a damn good lawyer, Walker thought, or even a politician, though he sincerely hoped the boy wouldn’t take that route. Most politicians ranked pretty low on Walker’s list.
“Yes,” Walker replied wearily. “But I’d ridden horses all my life, Shane, and my dad believed a few hard knocks were good for a person.” My mother, on the other hand, far from being overprotective like yours, just didn’t give a damn what I did, one way or the other.
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