Stay with Me (Cowboys of Crested Butte Book 4)

by Heather Slade

  “Renie and I woulda ended up together no matter what. But what you did, that day, took balls. I’ll never forget it, and I’ll likely never repay it.”

  “I didn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know. Looking back on it, I was a damn arrogant jackass for calling you.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Billy was studying the last couple of drops in the shot glass. Jace wondered if he was going to order another. “All that matters is you cared enough to do it. You’re a better man than I am, and for that, I owe you.”

  “You don’t owe me nothin’.” Jace turned to walk away, but Billy grabbed his arm.

  He waved his other hand in the direction of the casino. “I’ve been part of this rodeo circuit for a hell of a lot of years. You don’t see any cowboys walkin’ up, offerin’ to buy me a drink. You know why that is?” Billy didn’t wait for Jace to answer.

  “It’s because I kept to myself. I know these guys, but even after years of travelin’ to the same places, week after week, I would betcha not a single one of them would call me a friend.” Billy looked straight at Jace. “But I’d call you a friend, a damn good friend.”

  “I appreciate you sayin’ that, Billy—”

  “I’m not finished. I don’t know what the hell is goin’ on with you, but whatever it is, you’re not thinkin’ straight.”

  “It’s not important.”

  “Not important? Only one thing it can be, then. Bree’s got you in a tizzy. Wants you by her side day-in-day-out, that it? Yep, that’s how it is when you’re in love.”

  “Nothing could be further from what’s happening. Whatever was going on with Bree and me, isn’t any longer. She’s decided to go to Idaho for Christmas. You see, she and I planned to spend it together this year. I don’t think you make a spur of the moment decision to cancel holiday plans when you’re in love.”

  Billy shook his head. “You got it all wrong, partner.”

  18

  Red was quiet on the drive back from the airport. Bree didn’t mind; she didn’t feel like talking either. It was cold and snowing, and she hadn’t been able to get warm since she got on the plane that morning. Her body involuntarily shuddered, and she wrapped her arms more tightly around herself.

  “What’s in the box?” he asked after more than an hour on the road.

  “Things that belonged to Zack. Letters mainly, and I found a journal.”

  “I see.”

  “I started to read the letters the day the box was delivered, but I stopped. I hope you don’t mind me coming here to do it.” Suddenly she felt like a huge imposition.

  “I appreciate the company,” Red smiled.

  Bree smiled back, and then lost herself in the beauty of the Sawtooth Mountains. Their craggy spires, covered with snow, reached into the blue Idaho sky, as though they were yearning to grow taller still, to touch heavens that remained always out of reach.

  “I didn’t ask if you had plans for the holidays.”

  “I get my share of invitations from the ranch manager and his family, and some of the boys you met at the Stanley bakery.”

  “Do you accept any of them?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Why not?”

  “My wife passed away a couple of years ago. I wasn’t good company.”

  “And this year?”

  “Something told me I should stay home this year, too.”

  “You don’t have to, I mean, if you’re doing it for me. I could go back to Colorado.”

  Red reached over and patted her mittened hand. “Let’s take it one day at a time.”

  She nodded, and lost herself again.

  “I don’t understand why you need me in this meeting, I’m out of this after the first of the year.”

  “Ben and his brothers are meeting with the Wrangler people. I can’t very well send Bullet into a sponsorship meeting.”

  “You can handle it on your own.”

  Billy glared at Jace. “You got somethin’ more important to do this mornin’? ’Cause the way I see it, Flying R Rough Stock has been payin’ for your entertainment the last few days. You can step up and go to this meeting with me. Plus, we might get a free breakfast out of it.”

  Jace followed him into the elevator and down to the restaurant in the lobby.

  “Tristan?” Billy asked the woman standing near the entrance, looking at her cell phone.

  “Yes.” She shook Billy’s hand. “Billy Patterson, right? And this is?” she looked in Jace’s direction.

  “This here is Jace Rice, the other founding partner in Flying R Rough Stock.”

  Jace shook her hand and wondered what Billy was up to with an introduction like that.

  “I’m Tristan McCullough, with Lost Cowboy,” she said.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tristan. I like what you’ve done with your brand, admirable marketing strategy.”

  Tristan bowed her head, just slightly, and he saw her cheeks pinken. “It’s more than a strategy,” she told him. “It’s my father’s way of life. My grandfather’s, too.”

  Billy deferred to Jace throughout the meeting, and he had to admit, he enjoyed it. Sponsorship was something Jace understood from his days as a competitive skier.

  Flying R Rough Stock planned to contract stock to rodeos, but also to sponsor rookie cowboys and cowgirls. They had to be careful with bull and bronc riders, but sponsoring participants in the timed events, along with barrel racers, wouldn’t be a conflict of interest. Partnering with Lost Cowboy allowed them to help promote the riders they wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

  “Pretty girl,” Billy said when Tristan excused herself to take a phone call.

  “Yes, she is.” Billy’s motivation in getting him to the meeting became obvious.

  Jace wasn’t blind. Tristan was more than pretty; she was stunning. She was tall and thin, with long, dark, brown hair, and big brown eyes. She had been a competitive barrel racer, but once her family started their clothing business, she said it became her true passion.

  As beautiful and interesting as Tristan was, she wasn’t Bree. There had been plenty of buckle bunnies who tried to catch Jace’s attention the last few days, but they weren’t Bree either. She was all he could think about, all he wanted.

  “Hey, fellas,” Bullet sat down at the table, uninvited.

  Lyric stood behind him, taking it all in.

  “Who y’all meetin’ with?” she asked.

  “Tristan McCullough—”

  “Lost Cowboy,” she interrupted. “I’d like to get a Twitterview with that girl. Think y’all can put that together for me?”

  Jace laughed. Lyric never quit. Wasn’t she as exhausted as the rest of them were? Looking at her, you’d think she just stepped off the plane, enthusiastic as ever.

  “Here she is,” said Billy when Tristan came back to the table.

  Lyric took it from there, and Jace was glad their business had concluded. There’d be no getting a word in edgewise once Lyric got started.

  “Who is she?” Bullet asked, leaning in close to Jace.

  “She represents a brand that’s going to sponsor riders, some in partnership with Flying R.”

  “Ya think she’d sponsor me?”

  “Uh, I don’t know.” The look on Bullet’s face was equal parts hopeful and lustful. Jace didn’t want to rain on the cowboy’s parade, but he was afraid Tristan McCullough was way out of Bullet’s league.

  Bree stared at the box. There it sat, on the dresser in the guest room.

  When Red pointed out the cabin to her, last summer, she hadn’t gotten a good look at it from across the lake. In fact, what she’d seen through the woods, that day, wasn’t the cabin at all, it was the boathouse.

  The cabin stood higher on the hill, almost impossible to see from the lake.

  The main floor was comprised of a large great room, with a wall of windows that looked out over Pettit Lake and the Sawtooth Range. It was as though the dense trees surrounding the cabin magically opened to the perfect view.


  The kitchen was expansive, with a vintage Magic Chef combination range. It had ten gas burners, five small oven compartments, and three warming trays that ran along the bottom. Bree had never seen anything like it. The design was brilliant. Why didn’t they make ranges like this anymore?

  A wooden, winding staircase led to the second floor where there were five bedrooms, three of which had doors that opened to a deck overlooking the lake.

  The bathroom closest to the guest room had a black, claw-foot tub, and a raised, dark wood, tall tank, and pull-chain toilet that had a black porcelain base, like the tub. The sink was the same black porcelain as the toilet and tub, and was set in a cabinet made of dark wood. It was one of the most beautiful bathrooms Bree had ever seen.

  The guest room was feminine looking, despite the use of dark wood and black accents. The bedding and curtains were made from the same cream and black-colored French toile fabric. Upon closer inspection, Bree saw there were three distinct scenes woven into the fabric.

  In one, a woman and child were gathering flowers. A man, carrying a hay rake, walked with them. In the background, other people were cutting hay. A second scene showed a man on a ladder, next to a grape arbor. The final scene showed a mill, and a woman and child stood on a bridge, looking down at the water.

  Bree ran her hands over the bedding, plump with down filling. Her gaze lingered on the box on the dresser. She closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. After fifteen minutes, she was still awake. She couldn’t avoid it any longer. She was here to read whatever she found in the envelopes, and it was time she got started.

  She found a Hudson Bay wool blanket in the cedar chest near the door leading out to the deck. The snow had melted, and the sun had dried the wood enough that she wanted to sit outside. She slid her feet into the furry, ankle-height slippers, also sitting by the door, and wrapped herself in the blanket. She opened the door, carrying Zack’s journal with her.

  She opened the cover and found a date, along with a volume number, written on the first page. Zack’s handwriting filled every page. He’d started this journal a few days before his last deployment. There was no end date, but the volume number was fifteen.

  In all the years she’d known Zack, she’d never known he kept a journal. She went back inside and pulled the remaining envelopes out of the box. There were fourteen in addition to the one that contained the letters, and the one she’d pulled the first journal out of. Each one contained another journal. The last manila envelope contained volume one. The date showed Zack had started the journal when he was a freshman in high school, two years before she met him.

  She put the journals in order and started reading. It was filled with entries about schoolwork, girls, and family, as you might expect from a teenage boy.

  The second journal was much harder to read.

  May 3

  An angel visited our church today.

  May 10

  The angel came back, with her family. They’re joining our church. I invited her to come to our youth group meeting.

  May 17

  She came! Her name is Bree, and she is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.

  Bree closed the journal, and then closed her eyes. She remembered meeting Zack when her parents visited their new church for the first time.

  “Dinner?” asked Red, standing in the doorway.

  “Dinner?” she responded. “Already?” Bree looked at the time on her phone. How had she lost track of so many hours?

  “I didn’t want to interrupt, but…you didn’t eat breakfast, or lunch.” His eyes studied hers. “You need to eat, Bree.”

  She ran her hand through her hair. She hadn’t even showered today. “I can make something—”

  “No need. I’ve already made something. Join me whenever you’re ready.”

  “You wanna talk about it?” Tucker asked Jace when he found him at the bar.

  “Which it?”

  “Let’s start with you wanting out of the rough stock business.”

  “I don’t know, Tuck. The whole reason I went to Montana in the first place was to get off the road. Now I’m on it four times as much.”

  “Maybe we can work out a compromise. You were the one who insisted you would go out on the road twice as much as you needed to be.”

  Jace turned away from the bar and scanned the casino floor. “I’m drowning, Tuck.”

  Tucker put his hand on Jace’s shoulder. “I know you are, but I didn’t feel it until the last couple of days. What’s changed?”

  “Same thing that always changes.”

  “Bree?”

  “Not just Bree. Women.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Jace told Tucker about his phone call with Bree, and about her change in plans for the holidays.

  “I’ve been countin’ the days, Tuck. Literally countin’ them. All I’ve been thinkin’ about is the next time I’ll see her, and now I don’t know when that’ll be. I’m goin’ back to Montana from here. I need a few days to get some perspective.”

  “Good idea. We’ll see you back down at our place for Christmas though, right?”

  “I don’t know, Tuck.”

  “Fair enough. The door will be open.”

  “You wanna talk about it?” Red asked Bree when she sat down at the dinner table.

  “It’s as though I’m getting to know him all over again.”

  Red nodded. “Maybe you’re not getting to know him again, maybe you’re getting to know him for the first time.”

  “How do you know this stuff? I swear you’re clairvoyant.”

  Red shrugged his shoulders.

  “I received the box a couple days before I called you. It was…unexpected.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Letters. Most written to me and never sent. But there are also journals. They go back to when Zack was in high school. I don’t know who had them, or why they sent them to me.”

  “Someone in his family?”

  “It’s an APO return address, so it wouldn’t have been his parents, or his sister.”

  “Have you asked them?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know, to be honest with you. I haven’t told anyone about them until just now. You’re the first.”

  Red got up and took his plate into the kitchen. “Ready for seconds?” he asked. “There’s lots more.”

  “Sure, it’s really good, Red. I haven’t had chicken and dumplings since I left home for college. Is it homemade?”

  “Yes, ma’am. My mama’s recipe. Hits the spot on a cold winter night, like nothin’ else.”

  “Mmm. Comfort food.” Bree stood and looked at a photo hanging on the wall of the dining room. “Who’s this?”

  “My daughter,” he answered without looking up.

  “She…uh…”

  “Looks like you, Bree? Yes, I agree.”

  “Wow, I mean, there is a resemblance, right?”

  “A strong resemblance.”

  “Red?” He still hadn’t looked up from what he was doing.

  “That morning, when you walked into the ranch dining hall, I could’ve sworn you were her, tellin’ me it was time to come home to Jesus.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Nothin’ to say. Whether you look like her or not, doesn’t matter. You and I had a connection that first day.”

  “We did,” she agreed.

  “Somethin’ brought you to the ranch. Somethin’ made me offer to take you fishing,” Red looked up at the ceiling. “Not sure what or why. Not likely to get an answer, so I don’t question.”

  “I felt that way too. Like I was supposed to meet you.”

  “You were.”

  “Thank you, Red. You’ve done so much for me.”

  “No thanks necessary. I was supposed to meet you, too. This isn’t one-sided.”

  “Why do you think? I mean, it seems obvious why I was supposed to meet you. You’ve
helped me more than anyone. But why me, for you?”

  Red sat back down at the table. “Not a lot of reason for an old guy like me to get up in the mornin’ if I’m not needed.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “Say no more,” he held up his hand. “You’re welcome here any time. Now, what do you say we watch a movie? I have quite a collection. I take ’em from the ranch library, and then I forget to return ’em.”

  Bree laughed when Red pointed to his collection of DVDs. There was a stack, up against the wall, almost as tall as she was.

  The next morning, Bree took a journal with her when she went downstairs for breakfast. The dates on the title page included Zack’s final year as a cadet at the Air Force Academy. He proposed to her the day he graduated. Bree wasn’t sure she wanted to be alone when she read this one.

  A couple of hours, and many tears later, the tone of the journal changed. Zack was headed to his first base, and several of the pages were dedicated to how he felt about serving in the military. Most of what was written, Bree had understood fundamentally, at the time. What surprised her was Zack’s depth of passion.

  October 12

  Many question the meaning of life. I do not. I know, without question, what my calling is. I was put on this earth to protect and serve my country. It is not a responsibility I take lightly, nor do I pay lip service to it, as many I serve with do. More than being Bree’s husband, more than being a son, or a father, I am a soldier.

  She and Zack had talked about his commitment to the Air Force on their way to Yellowstone. It was the same trip that brought them to Idaho for the first time.

  “It’s something I should have told you before we got married,” he’d said then.

  She’d told him she understood his passion, but when she read his journal entry, she realized she really hadn’t. If he’d told her then that he believed it was more important than she was, she might’ve reacted differently. Maybe when he said it, she’d disregarded it as the ramblings of an idealistic young man.

  They’d argued about it more than once in the course of their marriage. Zack volunteered for more things than Bree thought were necessary. He didn’t do it because it was necessary to his career, he told her—he did it because it was necessary to his soul.