Rancher Daddy

by Lexi Whitlow

  Thirty minutes later, just as the band begins to tune up and I think it’s safe to make my way back to the table, I’m cornered by that woman—Anne Chandler—who starts gushing about what a remarkable accomplishment Camden has achieved, and how fortunate he is to have Tyler at his side. Then she detours off in the direction I’ve been dreading.

  “How did you and Camden meet? I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Do you compete?”

  I give her my coolest smile. “No,” I say. “I barely ride at all. I’m still taking lessons.”

  She blinks, her expression going blank. “Really? I didn’t even know Camden had a riding school at his place.”

  “He doesn’t.” I say, offering no more.

  She won’t let it go.

  “You must be a neighbor then, from Ronen?”

  I don’t know why I even care what this woman thinks. She’s no one to me. I hope she’s no one to Camden.

  “I’m from North Carolina,” I say. “I work for Camden. I’m his daughter’s nanny.”

  Her eyes flash. Her lip turns up cruelly. “The nanny?” she repeats. “You’re the nanny?”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” I say, hoping to make a point about her advanced years.

  She smirks, catching my intent.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” she observes, hugging her drink close. “Especially given everything that happened with Beverly.” She lifts her eyebrows. “That whole business was a terrible tragedy. Poor girl. But I guess… I guess it’s worked out… Still, it’s a shame that the little girl lost her mother.”

  I don’t press her for details because I assume she’s fishing to see what I know, or am willing to reveal. The answer is nothing on both accounts.

  “After all that though, I really am surprised that Camden would be willing to try it with another babysitter.”

  Babysitter? What the hell is she going on about?

  “I’ve got to go find Cam,” I say. “He promised me a dance and it looks like the band is about to get going.”

  When I find him, he’s all but floating on clouds, surrounded by a cadre of friends, old and new admirers, and a group of young women who look like horse champion groupies, batting their teen-aged eyelashes at him, flaunting their figures.

  That’s my cue to reclaim my date.

  I slide up beside him, slipping my arm around his, demanding his attention. He looks down, then smiles.

  “I wondered where you got off to,” he says, interrupting his conversation with the woman who won the Best in Utah buckle, and who obviously wants some of what Cam’s got.

  He returns to her briefly. “Check the web site,” he says. “All the details and contact info are on it. I think we’ll probably get booked up a couple years in advance pretty quick after this, but I’ll flag your inquiry and call you next week.”

  Then he returns to me, allowing me to pull him away from his court.

  “Thank you,” he nuzzles into my ear. “Overwhelmed. Get me outta here.”

  He’s a little buzzed from the whiskey and dizzy from the thin air up there in the clouds where he’s been floating.

  “Not a chance,” I say. “The band is getting ready to go on, and I’ve been practicing for weeks.”

  Camden smiles that beaming smile, warming me. “That’s right. We came here to dance.”

  You could knock me over with a feather when the lights go down, the stage lights go up, and a genuine celebrity—who I recognize—takes the stage with the band behind him playing a familiar melody.

  “Cam, that’s Lyle Lovett.” That’s certainly obvious.

  He nods. “Yeah. Sure is. So?”

  We played Lyle Lovett at least five times a week in the bookshop. I know almost all his songs by heart. I love him. He’s amazing.

  In my excitement for the entertainment, I completely forget my unsettling conversation with Anne Chandler. Instead, I fall into the moment, pulling Camden forward to the dance floor as the slim, white tux bedecked man with funny hair and small eyes, introduces himself and his large band.

  “In keeping with the general theme of the evening,” Lovett says, “We’re going to open the ball with a favorite.”

  The band launches into the strains of his most popular tune, If I had a Boat, which everyone here knows and loves. The crowd begins applauding before the song even gets underway.

  Finally, I’ve found something I share in common with these people! We all love Lyle!

  Cam and I tear up the dance floor for the first three songs, until the band settles into the first ballad. Pulling me close, Cam settles down, rocking us easy in time with the paced, sad melody.

  I cradle my head against his broad chest, drinking in the scent of his cologne and sweat, thinking of little more than how his arms feel wrapped around me, when I’m sidetracked by the sight of Tyler talking to Ann Chandler. His expression is animated, his gestures angry. And she’s laughing at him.

  He points his finger at her, speaking sharply, then he turns, walking away from the confrontation.

  A moment later I see Tyler looking in our direction. As the song draws to a close, Tyler steps forward, tapping Cam on the shoulder.

  “I want to cut in,” he says, smiling awkwardly. “Let me dance with the prettiest, single girl here.”

  Cam steps back, offering my hand. “Just give her back in one piece. And don’t try to steal her,” he says. “Just one dance.”

  The next thing I know I’m dancing with Tyler Burke, and it’s not nearly as easy as it is with Cam.

  “I’m not much of a dancer,” he apologizes as the song lifts around us. “And that’s not why I’m here.”

  He enlightens me.

  “I saw you talking with Anne Chandler. And she told me she brought up Beverly and what happened with her.”

  I have no response except to nod silently as the music plays.

  “That was a really rough time in Cam’s life. Bev was going off the deep end. Emma was sick, and we didn’t know whether she was going to make it. He was a mess. Bad things happened. Bev brought ninety percent of all that shit on herself.”

  I feel my brow furrow. “Tyler, I don’t know what happened. You’re not making any sense to me.”

  He shakes his head, frustrated.

  “Just leave it all be, Grace. Whatever Anne said to you, don’t go looking for explanations. She’s just a catty, jealous bitch trying to stir up trouble. You make Cam happy. That’s what matters. Aside from Emma, you’re the first good thing he’s had in his life in a long time. Don’t go looking for reasons to doubt it.”

  Before this dance with Tyler I wasn’t much concerned with anything Anne Chandler said to me. After the dance, it’s a whole different ballgame.

  There’s something I don’t know. Something important. Something people—Cam and his friends—want to keep quiet.

  That is never a good thing.

  Chapter 14

  Camden

  We got snow at New Years, and then a week after. We went to Big Sky for the gala, and came home to find the ground nearly bare, with just a few pockets of lingering white lurking in the shadows. It’s mid-March now, and there’s been no snow. Nothing except a building, warm gale coming out of the Southwest. The wind is relentless. It hasn’t ceased for weeks. The ground is dryer than it should be. The ponds have thawed with their banks laying low.

  None of this is a good sign for the coming spring. There should be a dense pack of snow on the ground and up high on the mountains, with the snowmelt filling the reservoirs, streambeds, and rivers. But it’s not. The skies overhead are clear and bright. The air is unseasonably warm. I have a bad feeling about what all this portends.

  It’s not good.

  You’d think I’d be walking on clouds after our showing at Big Sky, but the truth is the recognition has brought headaches along with the benefits. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing, my email is blown up, and every two-bit farm report stringer from Deadwood to Dubuque is calling, asking for an interview for their AM radio ranch r
ound-up. Basically, being recognized as the best horse breeder in the country has become a giant pain in my ass.

  That, and Grace has been standoffish since we got back from Big Sky.

  I wanted to tell Emma about us, but she’s said no in no uncertain terms.

  We had our weekend and then everything went back to the way it was before. We’re not exactly on the low-down; everyone in town knows we’re together. For some reason, she wants to protect Emma. From what, exactly? I don’t know. She won’t say and when I press her, she gets defensive.

  All of this together is enough to put me in a foul mood.

  Of course, I don’t really know what foul is until I see a Sheriff deputy’s car slowly coming up the lane toward the house. It’s not quite eight in the morning and Tyler and I are watching the horses out in the pasture, nursing our coffee, when Bobby Jenkins steps out of the car, a fistful of papers in his hand, heading toward us.

  He tips his hat as he nears—almost apologetically—then hands me the stack.

  “You’re being served,” he says. He gives me a pen and shows me where to sign.

  “What is this?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t read the paperwork. I just present it. Sign right there.”

  I look down at the documents.

  The heading on the cover page reads, ‘Motion to Modify Child Custody.’ I see the names ‘Craig and Delores Beaufort.’ and my heart just seizes.

  Beverly’s parents.

  “What the fuck is this, Bobby?”

  I’ve known Bobby Jenkins since we played junior varsity football together. We rode the bus back and forth from grade school.

  He shakes his head, shrugging. “Get a lawyer,” he advises. “That’s off the record. This looks legit. They have a fancy lawyer down in Missoula who’s a friend of Bev’s daddy. You need to take this serious, Cam.”

  I leave Tyler to the horses and I go inside to read these papers.

  I’m not altogether schooled on all the legalese, but by my reading, Beverly’s mother and father are suing me for joint custody of Emma. They want unsupervised visits with her in Montana, plus a week at Christmas, a week at Easter, and four weeks over the summer—in Arizona.

  Fuck that.

  I call my attorney, Sam Underwood, in Missoula.

  “Send the papers down to me,” he says. “Let’s see what this is all about.”

  “Can they do this?” I ask. “She’s my daughter. They can’t just…”

  “Grandparents have rights,” he informs me. “There’s precedent for grandparents to have joint custodial rights in the case where the parent is deceased. There has to be a compelling reason to deny it.”

  “How about if they’re horrible people?” I ask. “Both of them are miserable human beings. They were shitty parents to Bev. I don’t even know how they scraped up enough money to file this. Last I heard they were dead broke, driving long-haul trucks cross-country—essentially homeless.”

  Sam chuckles into the phone. “I’ll look into it. I’ll find out what I can. Just relax.”

  Easy for him to say. It’s not his daughter that someone is talking about hauling away to Arizona.

  When I tell Grace about this, she’s pensive. She listens, without speaking.

  “There is no way in hell I’m letting them anywhere near Emma,” I say, my fingers gripping the back of my neck while I pace across the floor of my bedroom. “They’re awful people.”

  Grace sits silent, just listening while I rant, giving her explicit details of my relationship with my former in-laws. How they pushed Beverly to pursue me. How they encouraged her to get me to sell the ranch after my father died.

  “They were in it for the money,” I say, exasperation animating me. “That’s all it was ever about for them. And when I wouldn’t sell, everything went south. Then Emma was born, and that was the icing on the cake. They left and went to Arizona, leaving Bev and me with a sick baby.”

  Grace listens, her eyes fixed on the floor in front of her. When I’m out of words and out of energy to express my angst, her eyes lift.

  “Tell me what happened with Beverly,” she says.

  What happened with Beverly? That’s enough to fill a volume, and then some. I feel my jaw clench and every muscle in my body tense.

  “She drove off the road, into the reservoir,” I say. “She drowned in six feet of water, drunk off her ass.”

  There’s more to the story. I live with the more to portion every day of my life. But does Grace need to know all that? Does she need to know what an epic, catastrophic failure of a human being I am? Does she need to know that I may as well have sent Bev over the edge? That I could have stopped her? Taken her keys? Stood in front of the truck?

  Does she need to know that I wanted Beverly gone?

  Does she need to know that I didn’t even care she was gone, once she left?

  “I have a feeling there’s more to it than that,” Grace says, her voice low and cool. “And when you’re ready to tell me, I’m ready to listen.”

  She leaves me alone in my room without ceremony or drama.

  She knows more—or suspects more—than I’m willing to reveal.

  How does she know? What does she know?

  I love her. Because I love her, there are some things I don’t want her knowing about me.

  This is all going to go sideways. I know it. Feeling it coming at me, is making me crazy.

  Chapter 15

  Grace

  Kara is my go-to when I feel all the uncertainties building up and have no other outlet to vent them. She’s a good listener. Since it’s difficult to have a private conversation in this house, we text more than we talk.

  Grace: He’s got a secret he’s keeping about Bev. And everybody’s covering for him.

  Kara: Secrets are poison. If he keeps them, you know all you need to know. I don’t care how good he is in the sack. What did that woman say about the babysitter? Have you asked him about that?

  Grace: No. I don’t even know how to broach it. He just told me what happened to Bev.

  Kara: I’m worried about you. This is all feeling dangerous. Mr. Darcey is turning into Mr. Wickham—and then some. People died. There are lawyers involved. I know you love the little girl, but sis, you may need to consider bolting if this shit gets any deeper.

  Grace: You’re being melodramatic.

  Kara: I’m not. I live in NYC. People die here every day. Some b/c their crazy boyfriends went off the deep end. There’s no way you’ll ever convince me that Montana boyfriends are not as volatile. You need to take care.

  Maybe she’s right. She can’t be right. Can she?

  Cam and I are so good together, but that’s our bubble. When his complicated life starts crowding in, things get dark.

  The complication increases just a few days later when I arrive home from picking Emma up at pre-school, to find two strange cars parked in the drive, and Camden waiting for us on the front porch wearing a grim visage, accompanied by a Sheriff’s deputy.

  “Beverly’s parents are here,” he says, his voice a monotone, his eyes cast off beyond me. “Some judge granted them a pre-hearing visit. They’re waiting for Emma.”

  His eyes drop to mine. “My Mom is on her way, but until she gets here, you’re the supervision. You and a rep from Child Protective Services. They have two hours.”

  “Who’s here, Daddy?” Emma asks, looking up at Cam with big eyes. She sees he’s upset. Camden steps off the porch. He approaches Emma slowly, and when he gets close he drops to his knees in the grass in front of her. The expression marring his face is misery unchecked. It’s a combination of grief, anger, and dread.

  “You know how we sometimes talk about how your mom passed away?” he asks Emma, taking her small hands in his.

  Her soft little brow furrows. She nods.

  “Well, your mom had a mom and dad too, like I have my mom; your Grams.”

  She stares into his eyes intently, unblinking.

  “They’re
your grandparents. They’ve come to see you, baby girl.” He smiles at Emma. “They want to see how smart and beautiful you are. They want to make sure I love you as much as I should.”

  “You love me bigtime, Daddy,” Emma says, but her brow is still furrowed.

  “I sure do,” he says.

  He hauls in a lungful of air, then slowly lets it out.

  “I can’t be with you while you visit with them, but Grams is coming, and Grace will be with you the whole time. Okay?”

  Emma shakes her head. “I don’t know them.”

  “No, baby. You don’t remember them. But they remember you.”

  “It’ll be okay,” I assure Emma. “You’ll be brave, and I’ll be brave for you. And it’s not for long. It’s just a little while.” I hold out my hand for hers. “Let’s go see who these new people are. If they have funny noses or big heads, we’ll laugh at them.”

  Once inside the house, I’m surprised to find Tyler sitting in the living room in awkward silence, with our guests. Maybe Camden was afraid they’d try to steal the silverware.

  Tyler appears relieved to see us. He checks his watch, then addresses his companions.

  “It’s four-ten. Two hours.” He stands, and when he walks past me, he lowers his voice. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

  The woman sitting to the right of the hearth is perhaps forty-five or fifty years-old, with over-worked, shoulder-length, bleached blond hair. She’s dressed out of a big-box store sales circular, right down to the cheap plastic shoes. More than any of that though, is the expression on her face. Her skin is puckered, beginning at the narrow slit of her mouth, radiating out. She’s spent a lifetime pursing her lips, and now the expression has permanently set in skin. Her eyes are small and too far apart, giving her a vaguely stupid, harsh appearance. None of this is improved on by the fact that she’s wearing bright red lipstick and violet eye shadow, with way too much foundation and powder.

  “Emily, come over here and meet your Granna Dee,” the woman says, her voice as ragged as her wrinkled skin. She’s got the timbre of a life-long cigarette smoker. Her vocal chords scarred and damaged, rendering her tenor lower and rougher than it ought to be for someone of her gender and size.