Big Sky River

by Linda Lael Miller

  “I’ll bring the boys over in a few minutes, and we can switch out the car seats then,” Opal offered, unruffled even though there might as well have been fiery arrows flying through the air, given the tinderbox mood. “Right now, Boone Taylor, I think you could do with some lemonade and a chance to sit in the shade for a spell. Might cool you off a bit.”

  Boone didn’t refuse outright—once Opal Dennison made up her mind, it would take an edict from God to change it—but he didn’t accept the backhanded invitation, either. He needed to establish some distance between himself and Tara Kendall, get some perspective. All this time, he’d thought of her one way and now, all of a sudden, he was thinking about her in another. It was disconcerting. “I’ll see you at my place, then,” he told Opal, turning to walk away.

  “Wait!” called a girlish voice.

  He looked back over one shoulder and saw one of the blonde girls—twins, he reckoned, since they looked so much alike—coming down the porch steps.

  “You’re a cowboy, right?” the child asked. She was a winsome little thing, gawky and knobby-kneed, wearing a pink dress and peering up at him through the lenses of her too-adult wire-rimmed glasses. She took in his hat, his Western shirt, his jeans and boots. “At least, you look like one.”

  Boone waited, mildly confounded by the observation. Around Parable, Montana, every man was a cowboy.

  The girl busted loose with a beaming smile. “We’ve got bags in the back of Tara’s car,” she said. “And they’re real heavy.”

  “Erin—” Tara began, but then all the air seemed to go out of her, like a balloon that had been blown up but never tied off at the bottom.

  “I’d better carry them in while I’m here, then,” Boone heard himself say. Although he hadn’t owned a horse or entered a rodeo in years, he was a Westerner to the core.

  Next thing he knew, he was hauling suitcases from the back of that SUV, inside the house and right upstairs to a small, airy bedroom, with Erin leading the way, annoyed with himself for wondering where Tara slept. It took two trips to complete the job, and the backs of Boone’s ears burned the whole time, not because he was expending any particular effort, but because he had an audience, and he wasn’t accustomed to that. The porch crowd had dispersed and then reassembled in the small foyer, watching him like they’d never seen a man carrying luggage before.

  “Thank you, Mr.—?” the girl with glasses began, when he came down the stairs for the second time.

  “Taylor,” Opal supplied, with a verbal smack to her own forehead. “Where are my manners? This is Sheriff Boone Taylor, Erin. Erin and her sister, Elle, are visiting from New York.”

  Boone nodded and tugged again at his hat brim, chagrined to realize he hadn’t taken it off when he had stepped inside the house. His mother had probably rolled over in her grave.

  “Do you have horses?” Erin asked eagerly.

  He didn’t dare look in Tara’s direction again, because he knew he’d feel like he’d just shoved one end of a screwdriver into an electrical outlet if he did, but he was aware that she was standing nearby, all right. All over his body, tiny nerves jumped and crackled under his hide, as if fixing to break right through to the surface.

  “No,” he said. “Sorry. No horses.”

  Erin looked disappointed, and he didn’t risk a glance at his boys.

  After the bellman episode, Boone made his escape. Strode out of there with only slightly more dignity than an alley cat with a burr stuck in its tail. He went down the porch steps and across the yard, swinging one leg over the gate in the picket fence, wading through a million chatty chickens to get back to the squad car.

  His neck was hot as he executed a casual, salutelike wave at the audience, who had gathered on the porch, watching him intently. The whole scenario made him wonder if he’d grown an extra ear in the middle of his forehead.

  Befuddled, he drove home, parked the county car in the overgrown yard, and went into the double-wide, tossing his hat aside as he entered and making straight for the kitchen sink, where he started the faucet running and splashed his head and neck with cold water until his skin cooled down and the front of his shirt was soaked.

  What the hell was the matter with him, anyhow? All this time he’d managed to coexist with Tara Kendall, gall him though she sometimes did, with her little digs about the way his place looked, but now, for some crazy reason, she had him good and rattled.

  By the time Opal drove up in her station wagon fifteen or twenty minutes later, bringing the kids with her, Boone had calmed down enough to safely lock away his service revolver, take off his badge and pull on a dry T-shirt, but he still felt oddly stranded, and restless, too, like a dog trapped on a median between six lanes of traffic going both ways.

  Opal came inside with Griffin and Fletcher, both of whom immediately hightailed it for the living room to turn on the seldom-used TV, shook her head and frowned when Boone offered her cash for looking after the kids all day, not to mention cooking and cleaning, too. “I’m your friend, Boone Taylor,” she said, hands-on-her-hips indignant.

  “I know you are,” Boone replied, still holding the twenties he’d just pulled from his wallet, “and that’s why I won’t take advantage of you.”

  Opal set her jaw and again shook her head, scowling at him as fiercely as if he’d just suggested switching out the communion wine at church for homemade whiskey. “I do not have a clue, Boone Taylor, why you can’t accept a simple kindness from somebody who cares about you and just leave it at that.”

  “Put it in the collection plate,” he persisted, gently prying open one of her hands and pressing the money into it. “Or give it to some charity.”

  She hesitated for a long time.

  “I could do that, I suppose,” Opal eventually allowed. “The foreign mission fund has been running a little low lately. The economy, you know.”

  Inwardly, Boone sighed with relief, though there was a lingering prickle of disquiet, too. Her earlier remark had struck close to the bone, since it was hard for him to accept help, from his closest friends or from Molly and Bob. “That’s a fine idea,” he said, speaking moderately so he wouldn’t give away too much of what he was feeling.

  Whatever the hell it was.

  Opal squinted at him, looking suspicious, but finally opened the maw of her enormous purse and dropped the bills inside. “You’re sure you don’t need me to look after Griffin and Fletcher for a few more days? I wouldn’t mind at all—they’re a pleasure to be around, you know.”

  Yeah, Boone reflected ruefully, remembering Fletcher’s scowl. A real pleasure.

  “I’m sure,” he said, with a little too much certainty. Like everybody else in Parable, he was fond of Opal, so he added gently, “They’ll be just fine at day camp. They might even learn something.”

  “I don’t know,” Opal fretted, clearly unconvinced. “That’s a good program the center has going there and all that, but I believe most of the other children are younger than yours.”

  He heard the silent echo of his younger son’s words back there at Tara’s place. Day care is for babies.

  “Can’t hurt to try,” Boone said, to himself as much as Opal.

  Opal headed away from him then, with a sigh and another shake of her head, moving toward the living room doorway, where she paused to say goodbye to Griffin and Fletcher. Both of them thanked her politely, which restored some of Boone’s faith in the youth of America—in his line of work, that ebbed and flowed.

  Most of the kids in and around Parable were good, but he’d ended his workday a little under an hour ago by ordering down a half-dozen snarky teenagers off the rickety old water tower outside of town, and they hadn’t been too happy about it.

  Setting aside the memory of their grumbling, Boone followed Opal outside to take the boys’ car seats out of her station wagon and set them on what passed for a porch, to be installed in the cruiser later. He waved as she drove away.

  Fletcher was waiting for him in the kitchen when he got back
inside, matchstick arms folded, feet set a little apart, chin jutting forward. “There’s nothing on TV,” he said. There was a more-than-vague accusation in his tone, as though he figured Boone was personally responsible for network programing.

  Boone sighed. “Life is hard,” he replied.

  Fletcher stood his ground. “Are you putting us in day care?” the kid asked, reminding Boone less of Corrie now and more of himself. Back in the day, when his high school classmates garnered titles like, “Most Likely to Succeed” or some such, the line under his yearbook photo had read, “Most Cussed.” “Because day care is—”

  “Not just for babies,” Boone interrupted his son’s statement quietly, mirroring Fletcher’s stance by folding his own arms and digging in his heels a little. When he went on, though, he tried for a more diplomatic tone. “You have to be somewhere, buddy. I can’t take you and your brother to work with me. Not all the time, anyway. And you can’t stay here alone.”

  “Aunt Molly never made us go to day care,” Fletcher pointed out. “Not once.”

  Boone didn’t want to strong-arm the boy, physically or emotionally, but he couldn’t afford to come off as a pushover, either. If he set that kind of wimpy precedent, he knew he’d come to regret it, immediately if not sooner. “Do you know what ‘nonnegotiable’ means?”

  “No,” Fletcher admitted, but only after he’d considered the matter for a moment or two, trying to stretch his five-year-old mind around the concept.

  Griffin meandered into the kitchen then, stood a step or two behind his brother. “It means, dumb-face,” he told Fletcher, “that rules are rules. Dad makes them, and we have to do what he says because he’s a grown-up and we’re kids.”

  Boone was impressed—his elder son was only seven, after all, but he understood the ins and outs of parental authority well enough, it seemed. “Don’t call your brother ‘dumb-face,’” he said, as a mild aside. Then he shifted his gaze back to Fletcher. “Otherwise, Griff has it right. Somebody has to head up this outfit, and I’m that somebody.”

  “Yeah,” Griffin said, probably just glad to be right about something.

  Fletcher remained clearly skeptical, but at least he didn’t argue. “They have a dog,” he announced. “Those girls over at Ms. Kendall’s chicken farm, I mean. Can we get a dog?”

  The request was one Boone could say yes to, and he almost leaped at the chance, he wanted so badly to be on better terms with the kid, but then his common sense kicked in, and he hesitated. He was a deliberate man, and he did not make snap decisions unless there was a lethal weapon involved.

  “We’ll give that idea some thought,” he said, in compromise. Then, rolling his shoulders to release some of the tension that had collected there—he figured the tightness in his muscles and his gut still had more to do with Tara Kendall than setting boundaries with his boys—he walked over and pulled open the refrigerator door, bent to peer inside. “Let’s see what Opal whipped up for supper.”

  “It’s a Mexican meatball casserole,” Griffin said helpfully.

  Boone smiled as he pulled a baking dish—not his own, so Opal must have brought it with her when she drove over that morning—and peeled back a corner of the foil covering. He spotted tomato sauce and a sprinkling of grated cheddar cheese, and his mouth watered at the prospect of a woman-cooked meal. “Yep,” he said. “Whatever that is.”

  “I’m not sure I like that stuff,” Fletcher said. He might have been angling to become the poster boy for Childhood Obstinacy. If so, he was not only in the running, he was out there in the lead.

  “Too bad,” Boone told him, his tone firm but affable. “This is what we’re having, dude. It’s a take-it-or-leave-it kind of deal.” He shut the fridge door and carried the dish over to the stove. Helpful to the end, Opal had indeed scrawled baking instructions and a temperature setting on the foil using a marker. He turned on the oven at 350 degrees and took three plates from the cupboard to set the table.

  None of his dishes matched, but thanks to Opal, they were clean.

  “Supper’s on in half an hour,” he told the boys, feeling oddly domestic. “Talk among yourselves, watch TV, swing from the rafters, whatever.”

  Fletcher looked a little disgruntled, since the argument had petered out on him before he was ready to let it go, but he followed his brother back into the front room, where the TV was blaring zippy cartoon music—probably a chase scene, by the sounds of it.

  Boone’s cell phone chimed, indicating a text message, so he picked up the device off the kitchen counter to read it.

  Molly had written, How’s it going?

  Boone smiled and tapped in a reply. It’s going. The boys are okay. What’s happening on your end?

  Bob came through surgery just fine, Molly answered, with typical speed. Sorry I took so long to let you know, but today it was one thing after another. A smiley face followed. Say something that will cheer me up.

  Boone thought for several seconds, then wrote, The boys want a dog. Is that cheerful?

  They’d love a dog, Molly replied, adding a whole row of smiley faces this time. Are you going to get them one?

  Probably, Boone texted, starting over twice because he kept putting in the wrong letters. He was a little slower on the draw than his sister when it came to typing on a tiny screen—or a big one, for that matter. Molly, an electronic wiz, used perfect punctuation and never ran words together. I’d like to let the dust settle a little first, though. Griff is adjusting, but Fletcher keeps threatening to hitchhike back to Missoula. A dog might complicate things.

  Heaven forbid, Molly joked in reply. Boone, LIFE is complicated. She hesitated for a few moments then, and Boone withheld his response because he knew his sister wasn’t finished. Maybe some counseling would help, she suggested, not for the first time. This is a big change for all of you.

  Maybe, Boone answered. He’d had grief counseling after Corrie died. It hadn’t helped. I’ll look into it.

  Bob’s hurting a lot, Molly confided.

  A wave of sadness swept over Boone as he absorbed those words. I know, hon. I’m sorry—but stop worrying about us, because we’re doing all right.

  The reply was a little smiley face and, I’m doing my best not to sweat the small stuff, cowboy, but, hey, I’m a mom. Moms fixate and obsess. It goes with the territory.

  He smiled. I love you, world’s best sister.

  I love you, too, bro. Keep me up to speed on everything, okay?

  Boone’s throat burned a little, as though he’d gulped down a wad of rusty barbed wire. Griffin and Fletcher weren’t the only ones who missed Molly. Sure, he thumbed. And you do the same.

  The conversation was over, and Boone’s shoulders slumped slightly as he set aside the phone and went back to the refrigerator, this time for a jug of milk.

  He poured a glassful for each of the kids and added silverware to their places at the table.

  As for the counseling idea, Molly hadn’t been the first person to broach the subject; a big believer in talk therapy, she’d taken the boys to see a child psychologist on a regular basis while they lived with her and that had been fine with Boone. After all, Griffin and Fletcher had lost their mother when they were practically babies and subsequently been uprooted from their home, and while he’d been sure they were better off with Molly and Bob, some kind of damage was inevitable in a situation like that.

  He’d been a train wreck after Corrie’s death himself, there was no getting around it. Without Slade and Hutch and a few other close friends, he might not have made it through the soul-fracturing cycles of grief and fury and every emotion in between.

  Still, opening all that up again to some shrink, letting a “professional” poke and prod at all those sore spots, the most profoundly private regions of his psyche, had been beyond him. So he’d soldiered on, mostly alone, drinking too much alcohol when he was off duty, letting the patch of land—that he and Corrie had once had such grand plans for—fall to rack and ruin, getting through his days and nights
, but not really living.

  Eventually, Boone had tired of his own morose company and cleaned up his act a little, drinking beer only with his friends and always in moderation, and swearing off whiskey entirely. First as Slade Barlow’s deputy and then as sheriff, Boone had dealt with too many mean drunks to delude himself. Trying to drown his sorrows in alcohol never worked and, besides, it was a dangerous road to travel.

  The timer on the stove chimed suddenly, jarring him from his solemn musings. Opal’s savory casserole was ready to come out of the oven.

  “Supper!” he called to the boys, rifling through three drawers before he found a pot holder. The TV was still bullhorn loud.

  Mercifully, one of them shut off the thing before he had to issue another order—the tube was never on unless Griffin and Fletcher were in residence, since Boone took in important football games on the big screen at the Boot Scoot Tavern in town and got the news that mattered off the internet or over the radio in his squad car—but these days, he had to choose his battles. Setting limits on how much television the kids watched was way down there on his priority list.

  Both his sons marched into the bathroom and washed up without protest, and took their seats at the kitchen table when they came back.

  Boone sat down to join them, scooped up some of Opal’s fine-smelling concoction for Fletcher and set it in front of him, taking note out of the corner of his eye as Griffin reached for the serving spoon, making it known that he was big enough to help himself.

  “Aunt Molly always says grace before we eat,” Griffin remarked, moments later, when Boone picked up his own fork, ready to tie in. He was so used to his own sorry cooking, or takeout from the Butter Biscuit Café in town, usually cold before he got a chance to eat it, that the prospect of dining on something Opal had prepared made him double-hungry.

  He stopped, mildly embarrassed. “Okay,” he said, and waited.