Love Me Some Cowboy

by Lisa Mondello

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  "AIN'T LOOKIN' SO good," Robbie muttered as Will and he stood with their arms folded on a metal rail of the holding pen, watching the huge black bull stand on only three legs.

  "Let's don't borrow trouble," Will said.

  "Might as well get ourselves prepared for the worst."

  "We're not ready to put him down yet, Granddad. You're goin' to extremes."

  "Don't tell me you haven't considered it could happen."

  "I'm tryin' to stay positive. Frank'll come, give him a look-see, and in a day or two he'll be fine."

  "And next Sunday mornin' Jessie Orric's pigs will fly!"

  Will's patience was running out. He was having a hard enough time dealing with the situation. He didn't need his granddad to— He looked at the older man. The strain was starting to tell on him, too. The financial trouble the ranch was in, the continuing trouble between him and his brother. Worry had deepened the already weathered lines on his aged face, giving him an almost haggard appearance. He also seemed to be moving slower and be quieter. Normally, it was Robbie who put an optimistic spin on things. He was rarely negative.

  "We're gonna get through this, Granddad. One way or another," Will stated firmly.

  A muscle twitched in Robbie's cheek. "I hope so, son. I sure hope so."

  They were silent again, watching the bull.

  Then, out of nowhere, Robbie said, "I wish you had you a wife. And a kid or two."

  Will laughed, ill at ease because his thoughts had automatically jumped to Cassie. "Just what I need," he quipped, "more mouths to worry about feedin'."

  "You can always feed 'em, son. A wife who loves ya and the babies ya make together help smooth the harsh edges from life's hard times." His grandfather lifted a bushy eyebrow. "If our ancestors had let the bad times get in the way of them gettin' married and havin' babies, none of us'd be here!"

  In this instance, Will gladly let himself be carried along on his grandfather's lightening spirit. "You're forgettin' somethin', ol' man. First there has to be a lady."

  "No, son," his grandfather replied, "first ya hav'ta start lookin'! Sometimes that lady can be right under your nose."

  Will pushed away from the rails. His grandfather, astute as always, had picked up on something. But he didn't want to talk about his feelings for Cassie right now. He wasn't sure enough of what they were.

  "Hope Frank Wilkins won't be too late gettin' here," Will said.

  Right after the words left his mouth, the vet rolled up in his SUV.

  ~~~~

  FOR THE FIRST time in more than a week, Cassie slept solidly through the night. She'd gone to sleep the moment her cheek touched the pillow, so the crowing rooster found her already awake and once again examining the photo of her father—seeing that young, happy face and noticing the small resemblances to herself. She'd inherited his coloring, the line of his brow, and her nose was the same as his, only smaller.

  Did she sleep better because she knew he was watching over her?

  She propped the photo back in place against the base of the lamp and quickly got ready for the day. If she accomplished nothing else before sunset, she was going to talk to her mother. Sylvia was right. It was something she had to do.

  When she entered the kitchen, though, she immediately knew something was wrong. Sylvia and Robbie sat disconsolately at the table, while Will leaned back against the counter, arms crossed over his chest, his expression sober.

  Sylvia started to get her a cup of coffee, but Cassie quickly refused.

  "What's happened?" Cassie asked, her eyes fixed on Will.

  "We didn't get good news about Traveler," he said. "Vet wants to do some tests."

  "He's not sure if somethin's broke or if it's somethin' else," Robbie added flatly.

  "Either way, it's not somethin' we need right now," Will said.

  "I'm sorry," she sympathized as she slipped into her chair.

  "Lord knows what it could end up costin' us," Robbie said.

  "More'n we got, that's for sure," Will replied.

  Everyone was silent.

  "What will you do?" Cassie asked, looking from one to the other.

  Will rubbed his neck. He looked to have spent a far harder night than she had, and it was everything Cassie could do not to go offer comfort, just as he had comforted her when she'd needed it. But with Sylvia and Robbie there, she couldn't do it.

  "We'll sell some cows," Will said. "Do whatever it takes."

  Robbie winced.

  "Whatever happens, we'll be fine," Sylvia murmured. Then more aggressively, "We will!"

  A wounded look passed over Will's face that he instantly schooled away. If Cassie's attention hadn't already been on him, she wouldn't have noticed. But she did. His mother's brave words had pained him.

  "Well, I'd better get out there," Will said, straightening. "Granddad, you up to helpin' me load him up?"

  "Try'n stop me!" Robbie returned grimly.

  ~~~~

  "THINGS HAVE A way of piling up, don't they?" Sylvia said softly when the two women were alone. "I keep thinking we're gonna be able to battle our way out of this, then…somethin' like this happens."

  Cassie wanted to help her feel better, but didn't know how. The land sale was still too distant a possibility. She could only offer what Will had given as a solution. "Will said you could sell some cows."

  Sylvia grimaced. "Oh, we can do that, all right. But if we do, we're cuttin' into the heart of the herd. Will's already culled down almost to the bone. Sell many more and we won't be able to break even, much less make a profit. And there's no guarantee what the pairs will bring at auction—the cow and calf. Can't sell one without the other at this stage. It just breaks my heart. He's been workin' so hard to improve the herd. A bull like Traveler was his daddy's dream, and Will made it come true. Now this."

  "Maybe Traveler won't be as bad as you think."

  Sylvia gave a disheartened little laugh. "Way things have been goin' for us…it'll be worse. Can't change what you can't change, though." She pushed to her feet. "Want to come to the pens and see Traveler for yourself?"

  "I wouldn't be in the way?" Cassie asked.

  "I don't think Will would think so."

  Cassie caught her breath. But when she looked at Sylvia, to see if she'd meant what she'd said in the way she seemed to have said it, the woman had already started for the door.

  ~~~~

  THE BULL WAS enormous to Cassie's eyes. Solid, strong, almost glossy black, with a thick neck, deep chest…and noticeably lame.

  "This is Traveler," Sylvia said as they reached the pens off to the side of the outbuildings. "He's a beauty, isn't he?"

  "He's huge!" Cassie exclaimed.

  "Big, but mostly sweet tempered. I hope for his sake his problem is somethin' we can get cleared up quick. He's just everything my Johnny wanted. Top quality, great lineage, all the right traits. And he's a machine when it comes to makin' fine babies."

  Cassie noticed Will at work a short distance away, doing something to what must be the trailer hitch at the back of his blue pickup. When Robbie came to stand beside Sylvia and the two of them began talking about the vet, she crossed over to Will.

  If he was surprised to see her, he didn't show it. He finished what he was doing and only then straightened.

  "I came to see Traveler," she explained.

  He nodded.

  Still driven by the need to offer comfort, she said, "And to see you. I—I wanted to tell you how sorry I am, and—"

  "You said that in the house," he interrupted, his sky-blue eyes unreadable.

  "—and to tell you that I hope everything will go well."

  He nodded again.

  "And—and…to tell you that I—"

  He stilled her stumbling words by touching the tip of his finger to her mouth, and, ever so slowly, tracing the outline of her bottom lip.

  Cassie couldn't move. She was incapable of taking any but the shallowest of breaths. She wasn't sure where
this was going; she only knew she needed to be with him.

  Then he bent forward and kissed her. A kiss that rocked her to her core. So much so, that when he pulled away, she felt…incomplete.

  "One day I'm gonna get tired of doin' that," he warned in a husky whisper.

  At first she didn't understand what he meant, until she realized it was the "pulling away" part. He wanted more. And so did she. Until she remembered Sylvia and Robbie.

  Guiltily, she sprang back and jerked her head around. Both mother and grandfather were wearing pleased smiles.

  "If you're lookin' for help in those quarters, don't," Will advised. "They'd be more apt to help me keep you here than help you get away." Then, in a conspiratorial whisper, he added, "They're not lookin' anymore if you want to make your escape."

  "Yes. Yes, I should," Cassie murmured and, flustered, hurried back toward the house.

  "Cassie?"

  His voice stopped her. She turned, unsure of what to expect.

  "Thanks," he called, "for carin' about Traveler."

  In a daze, she could only nod.

  ~~~~

  CASSIE DIDN'T BOTHER to change clothes before she left the ranch. For this talk with her mother, dressing up wasn't necessary. She wore what she'd had on since showering earlier that morning—a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and the athletic shoes she'd taken to wearing around the ranch. Now, instead of sticking out like a sore thumb on the streets of Love, she looked as if she belonged. She might not like her history with the town, but it was a part of her, a fact she was coming to accept.

  She had no idea where her mother might be. Bonnie could be anywhere. First, she tried the house where she'd grown up, then widened her search to the nearby streets, circling blocks, checking favored shortcuts, and even cruising down Main in both directions. All along, people she recognized smiled and waved, a few even called their hellos. There was no hostility, no derision, no scorn, and precious little remaining curiosity. Her presence was just...accepted.

  She'd felt so isolated while growing up. Was it possible she had played a part in isolating herself? Had her immature mind magnified everything that had happened? Had her own embarrassment about her mother's strange behavior enhanced her negative perceptions?

  Some of it had been real. The bullies, the rolled eyes, the scattered groans when her mother espoused her oddest ideas. Real, too, was her shame at having Bonnie for a mother. She'd pulled in, hidden herself away as she suffered humiliation after humiliation.

  Her teenage years had been the worst. A time, she now knew, when it was normal for most teens to be humiliated by their parents. Their normal parents. She had envied her peers their complaints! To her, everything was Bonnie's fault. But was it?

  Cassie drove back to her mother's house, tried the front door again just in case, then set off on foot to the creek where her mother had often taken her to play as a child.

  The sun was warm on her shoulders as she covered the half mile to where the ground began a gentle descent to the water. At this point the gurgling stream was maybe eight feet across and mostly shallow. Cassie walked along the edge, remembering a time when the width had seemed vast and the depth far greater.

  She reached her mother's favorite tree, one her mother claimed had a gentle spirit, and found her there, asleep on a child's quilt. Cassie recognized the quilt. It had been hers.

  Her mother's henna-red hair was caught in a kerchief tied at the nape of her neck; her dress was another variation of multihued crinkled voile. Her frame was so thin she looked breakable.

  "Bonnie," Cassie called softly. "Bonnie, wake up." She touched the cool skin of her mother's arm.

  Her mother stirred, focused her eyes, and pushed upright. "Cassie?" she breathed wondrously. "I was just dreaming of you. You were—"

  "We need to talk," Cassie inserted before her mother could veer too far into fantasy.

  Bonnie smiled. "We can talk here." She untied the scarf from around her hair and spread it out as ground cover for Cassie to sit on.

  Cassie accepted the gesture by folding her legs beneath her.

  "It's beautiful here," Bonnie murmured, dreamily content as she looked around. Her gaze came to rest on her daughter. "You're beautiful, Cassie."

  "Bonnie—"

  "I always knew you would be."

  "Bonnie!" Cassie said sharply to break through.

  Her mother recoiled, her smile faltering.

  Cassie felt as if she'd slapped a kitten. Never before had she seen her mother react in such a way. Bonnie had always seemed oblivious to everything. Or was it that "before" she had never really looked?

  "I need to talk to you," Cassie said, almost defensively. "About—about my father."

  Bonnie vigorously shook her head, denying Cassie's request. "No...don't—"

  Cassie took the photo from her purse. She pointed to him. "Do you realize this is the first time I've known for sure what my father looked like? The first time I've seen him since—"

  Her mother started to keen.

  "Why did you throw his pictures away? Why did you stop talking about him? You never mentioned him! You never said anything! Not in all those years—"

  "Take it away…put it away…I don't—" Bonnie's expression was stricken.

  "Why? Why did you do it?" Cassie demanded, determined to get an answer. "Didn't you love him? Didn't you want me to remember him? I was so little when he died. I barely—"

  "Of course I love him!" her mother cried. "My life…everything I do… He's not gone! He's in here!" She pressed a hand to her chest. "In here with me, with you. You have to feel him, Cassie. You have to!" She dismissed the photo. "You don't need something like that to remember him."

  "But I did, Bonnie! I do!"

  Her mother started rocking, arms hugging herself. "It hurt so much," she moaned. "Every time I looked— He was so much more. That's paper! He's not paper. He's not alive in them."

  As her mother continued to rock, a little of Cassie's anger dissipated. It was like punishing a kitten. "But I wanted one," she said huskily. "The one I used to have by my bed. It was of you and me and him. I remember it being there every morning when I woke up. Until you took it away."

  Her mother began keening again.

  Cassie caught her thin shoulders to make her stop. "How did he die, Bonnie?" she asked quietly. "I've never known."

  "No…"

  "Bonnie…Mom…please tell me."

  Through her pain Bonnie seemed to absorb Cassie's need. Finally, in a whisper, she said, "He fell. He fell from the tower. I told him not to go to work that day. I told him clocks were funny things and didn't always like to be corrected. But he laughed and told me that clocks were friends, that he always scratched them under their chins and made them chime. And I let him go— And he fell."

  Clocks. The clock on the courthouse. Sylvia said her father had been working at the courthouse. Suddenly, her mother's refusal to have a clock, a watch or any other timepiece about, made a kind of sense.

  Bonnie must have always been a little fey, but had loved her husband deeply...and after losing him, maybe she'd pulled into herself, created her own world, where possibly, somehow, her husband seemed nearby. But Cassie hadn't been a part of that world. She'd always stood outside. Wanting her mother to love her as other mothers loved their children. Was it that Bonnie didn't know how to reach out to her? Because she, Cassie, had kept her at a distance? Blaming her for things Bonnie had little power to change?

  Tears rolled down her mother's cheeks, her gaze pleading for Cassie to…to what? To absolve her? To make everything right?

  Cassie struggled with her own emotions. With her remaining anger from years of pent-up frustrations and pain. Then she looked again at her mother, and she folded her into her arms.

  A sigh that must have come from somewhere deep in Bonnie's soul escaped her lips as she relaxed into Cassie's embrace, her arms reaching out, tentatively at first, to encircle Cassie's back.

  For a long time, neither mother nor daught
er moved. Then both, sniffing and wiping their cheeks, drew back.

  Cassie's throat was tight as she asked lightly, "Do you have any honey cakes left?"

  Bonnie's bottom lip quivered into a smile. "I made some fresh ones last night. I saw an owl, so I knew something special would happen today."

  It wasn't in Cassie anymore to be irritated with her mother's flights of fancy. Bonnie wasn't going to change; she couldn't change. So Cassie changed herself.

  "I'd love to have one," she said, smiling.

  Her mother's face brightened. "And some of my special tea?"

  "And some of your special tea," Cassie confirmed.

  Together they returned to her mother's home.

  ~~~~

  CASSIE WAS WAITING at a red light on Main Street when Ray Taylor's late model Buick pulled into the intersection ahead of her, making a left turn onto Main. She drew back in surprise. She hadn't expected to see him on this trip; she hadn't even been thinking of him. Several other cars turned onto Main as well, before her light finally turned green. She didn't have trouble catching up to him. One by one, the other cars turned off and Ray, himself, was a slow driver. Cassie followed him all the way to the Four Corners, where he turned into the parking lot at Handy's.

  During all that time he hadn't noticed her. Which continued as they both got out of their cars a few slots apart. Not until she called his name.

  When he looked around, Cassie was already striding towards him.

  "I have nothing to say to you," he dismissed her coldly and headed for the store's automatic front doors.

  "That's all right," she said, catching up to him, "you can just listen."

  "I can call the police."

  "Go ahead." Cassie called his bluff. "I'll be happy to say this in front of them. In front of everyone."

  A customer frowned at the blockage they created at the entrance. She cleared her throat. "Excuse me," she said impatiently.

  Another customer arrived. Ray Taylor glared at Cassie, apologized profusely to his shoppers, then hustled her into the store and up to his office.

  "You are starting to make me angry," he growled as he dropped into the chair behind his desk.

  "The feeling is mutual!" Cassie retorted.

  She hadn't expected to do anything like this today. She hadn't formed any plan of attack. It was seeing him in his car, carrying on so blithely with his life, while Robbie and Sylvia and Will were facing possible ruination.