Big Sky Secrets

by Linda Lael Miller

  Landry was standing on the doormat, shoulders squared, expression pensive, hat in hand.

  The dead bolt clicked loudly as she released it, and the screen door creaked on its hinges. Ria made a distracted mental note to oil them and promptly forgot all about the hinges and the oil.

  The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, Landry looking just as bewildered as Ria felt.

  She stepped back to let him in, averting her eyes while she engaged in a private scuffle with her inner bimbo and the powerful urge to fling herself at Landry, wrap her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and kiss him all over his face.

  But there was a counterurge, too—he’d stressed her out, made her worry and miss most of a night’s sleep, so part of her—a big part of her—wanted to take another approach altogether, wanted to kick, bite and scratch, calling Landry names—bad ones—the whole while.

  “I’m not staying,” he said.

  “Fine,” Ria replied coolly, “because I wasn’t planning on letting you stay.”

  The remark sparked one of those crooked half grins, impervious and a tad cocky, that invariably weakened her knees, turned her breathing shallow and made her heart skitter like a flat stone skipping over water.

  And eventually sinking.

  Still holding his hat, Landry shifted his weight, ever so slightly, from one foot to the other and then back to center.

  “Zane figured he’d worried you, stopping by earlier and all,” he said. “Now that you know I’m okay, I’ll say good-night.”

  They reached another impasse in the moments after he’d spoken, a strange interlude during which neither of them moved an inch, despite obvious intentions to do otherwise. That invisible current arced between them again, a kind of magnetic field, vibrating, expanding like a new universe taking shape.

  Ria found herself thinking Landry might kiss her. She’d slap his face if he tried, she decided.

  Or give in to her most primitive instincts and kiss him right back, and heaven knew where that would lead—Quinn was in the house, so a hot time in the old bedroom was out of the question, but there was all that countryside out there, full of soft, secret places to lie down on sweet grass, sheltered by shadows—

  Ria derailed her runaway thoughts, not daring to follow that particular train any further than she already had.

  Anyway, to kiss or not to kiss turned out to be a moot question in the end, for both of them, because Landry broke the stalemate by giving a half nod, putting his hat back on and turning to walk away.

  Ria was relieved. She was also disappointed.

  It was a paradox, one she’d have to obsess about for a while, and that meant, tired as she was, that she’d be awake long after she finally tumbled into bed.

  * * *

  LANDRY DIDN’T SEE Highbridge again until breakfast, and by then he was over most of his irritation at being tracked down like a stray calf the night before—an episode that would never have happened if the butler wasn’t such an incorrigible meddler.

  Highbridge, for his part, was exceptionally quiet, even a little subdued, it seemed to Landry. Apparently, no sermon on decent conduct was forthcoming, for the moment anyway, and that was an almighty relief all by itself.

  “Will you be wanting eggs this morning, sir?” Highbridge asked, in a moderate tone that reminded Landry of a mediator filling a breach, holding peaceful space between opposing forces teetering on the verge of all-out war. His gaze never quite connected with Landry’s, though.

  Resigned, Landry muttered a “yes” to the egg offer, pulled back a chair and sat down at the table, noting that there was only one place setting—his own.

  Where was Jess? Sleeping in? On a hunger strike?

  No, Landry decided, Pops was probably at Zane and Brylee’s place, since he’d already struck out here, angling for a little traveling money.

  “Your father left a note,” Highbridge said presently, over the sizzling sounds of bacon and the thunk of the toaster. Highbridge brought a cup of coffee to Landry, along with a folded sheet of paper, and he set them both down in front of Landry’s plate—coffee at ten o’clock, paper at two.

  Landry felt something crawl down his spine, like a bug under his skin, and then scurry back up it again.

  He took two slow, deliberate swallows of coffee, pausing to savor each one of them, delaying as long as he could, before finally unfolding the note.

  He hadn’t expected a flowery apology or a poetic discourse on the wonders of forgiveness, but the single word Jess had written did come as a surprise.

  Goodbye.

  Landry sat in silence for a while, trying to put names to all the conflicting things he was feeling just then, and not getting very far with the effort.

  “He left?” he finally asked when Highbridge set a platter of bacon, eggs and fried potatoes before him.

  At last, Highbridge met Landry’s eyes. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “To go where?” Landry inquired, somewhat tersely.

  Highbridge offered up his version of a shrug. “He didn’t say. Mr. Sutton asked me for a small loan and a ride to the interstate highway, and I obliged on both counts.” He paused then, pursing his lips and raising his eyebrows slightly, as though preparing to be called a sucker and subsequently defend his actions. When the accusation didn’t come, he went on. “It happened last night, while you were—out. In your absence, I would normally have consulted Zane, but, of course, that wasn’t possible.”

  “Of course it wasn’t,” Landry drawled, the response mildly spoken but edged with sarcasm. “Because you’d already sent Zane out chasing after me.”

  Highbridge’s gaunt cheeks reddened ever so slightly. Was it possible he regretted butting in, even just a little?

  Probably not. After all, he was always right, wasn’t he?

  “Shall I make more toast, sir?” Highbridge asked, his eyes playing the avoidance game again, darting from here to there but never coming in for a landing.

  “This’ll be plenty, thanks,” Landry said dismissively.

  And then he concentrated on eating his breakfast, leaving Highbridge to do his own thing, undisturbed.

  There were other things to think about.

  For one, the annual rodeo, over in Parable, was under a week away now, and although Landry hadn’t been broadcasting the fact, he’d be competing in the saddle-bronc event. He’d paid his entry fee well in advance, and never considered backing down, even after getting that faceful of dirt—make that three facefuls—the day old Pure Misery kept throwing him in Walker Parrish’s corral. Other broncs, on other days, had done pretty much the same thing.

  Still, Landry meant to go over to Walker’s ranch as soon as he’d finished eating and get in some more practice if he could.

  With luck, he might fare better than he had done those other times, when he’d climbed back into the saddle, over and over again, and gotten his ass handed to him for his trouble.

  Landry turned the rodeo cowboy concept over in his mind a couple of times, making an admittedly optimistic effort—okay, an impossible effort—not to think about Ria for a while, since he did more than enough of that already. In the long—or not so long—run, it was a loser’s game, of course, like deciding not to ponder pink elephants, but he needed a break from the stress and agitation the woman churned up in him, and he’d take what relief he could get.

  Jess’s speedy departure and one-word note had certainly captured his attention, not that there was likely to be any respite anywhere along that mental trail, either.

  But there was a cryptic element to the fare-thee-well missive, a troubling sense of hidden meanings, as if “goodbye” might be code for something much more complicated.

  Landry sighed and went on eating. And thinking.

  It wasn’t surprising that his father had lit out so fast, or that he’d “borrowed” money from Highbridge—these things were typical of Jess Sutton, as much a part of his makeup as muscle and bone. The pigeons changed—this time, th
e role had fallen to Highbridge—but the basic M.O. was always the same: set up the mark with a sob story and a truckload of sloppy sincerity, empty flattery and horseshit remorse, get what he wanted and disappear as quickly as possible.

  Nothing new there. The familiar pattern held.

  At the brass-tacks level, it was the note that nagged at the edges of Landry’s mind.

  The thing was, Jess never said “Goodbye.” He just packed up and split, usually when nobody was around to catch him sneaking off, and then he’d stay good and gone until he was flat broke or close to it, and feeling sentimental.

  If confronted on his way out the door, the old man might have managed a jovial “So long, now” or a perky “See you soon,” but “Goodbye,” in its current context, at least, had a ring of finality to it that didn’t mesh with Jess Sutton’s style. Sure enough, he could be counted on to duck out at some point—that was about the only thing Jess could be counted on for—but if he could avoid it, he didn’t burn his bridges behind him—he liked to keep his options open for next time.

  Spinning his brain gears and getting nowhere in the process, Landry finally decided he was making a big deal over nothing—most likely, Jess’s perplexing “Goodbye” meant just that: goodbye, adios, adieu, until we meet again.

  Landry was faced with a choice—he could sit and brood over something that was probably meaningless or he could get outside, tie into the day and make it count for something.

  And riding broncs was as good a way to do that as any.

  So Landry did his barn chores, then saddled a fresh horse, leaving the gelding he’d ridden the night before to take his rest in the comfort of his stall, and started across Hangman’s Bend Ranch, following the creek from his section of the property to the base of the trail winding through Zane’s share.

  Though his intentions were set, Landry wasn’t in any particular hurry, so he made a point of stopping off by the other place. He spotted Brylee first, a vision in shorts, a cotton top and a floppy hat, working in her vegetable garden. Cleo was in the backyard, hanging white sheets on the clothesline.

  Seeing Landry, Brylee smiled and beckoned to him.

  Cleo glanced his way, too, but instead of smiling, she scoured him with a quick, disapproving scowl, picked up the laundry basket at her feet and stomped back into the house like a one-woman march on Washington.

  Grinning a little, Landry rode over to the edge of the tall chicken-wire fence that enclosed the sizable garden patch, inclined his head slightly in the direction Cleo had gone. “I see my reputation precedes me,” he said dryly.

  Brylee pulled a face, a kind of comical wince, made her way over to the fence, tilted her head back and looked up at him through the hexagons of wire. The floppy brim of her straw hat did nothing to hide the snap of annoyance in her eyes and the set of her chin.

  She wasn’t smiling anymore.

  “What were you thinking, Landry Sutton?” she demanded, quietly but fiercely. “Taking Ria to the Boot Scoot Tavern, of all places? Were you trying to set her up to look like a fool, plying her with liquor—?”

  Landry broke the flow of Brylee’s diatribe with a raspy chuckle. “You sound like Highbridge,” he said. “And neither one of you seems to need a pulpit to stand behind while you call down the fire of righteousness and burn me for a hopeless sinner.”

  Brylee glared. “We’re not afraid to cry foul, if that’s what you mean.”

  Landry went on as if she hadn’t said that last thing. “Anyway, you’ve been known to frequent the Boot Scoot yourself, Mrs. Sutton—in fact, that’s where I met you for the first time, remember? You showed up for a date with Zane in a sexy red dress, a pair of I-mean-business high heels and an attitude, if I recall the scene correctly.”

  His brother’s wife blushed at the reminder, but her feet were firmly planted and her fists were bunched atop her hipbones, so it was a safe bet she wasn’t ready to back down. “That was different, and you know it!” she sputtered.

  “Was it?” Landry asked lightly.

  Brylee blushed even harder. “Okay, maybe it wasn’t,” she answered, softening around the edges a little but clearly begrudging him even that one very small concession.

  Then, “But it turned out all right, didn’t it?”

  Brylee was referring, of course, to the fact that she and Zane had fallen in love, despite their habit of butting heads hard enough to strike sparks, and they’d wound up married, even crazier about each other than before and committed, for the duration.

  “Maybe things will turn out all right this time, too,” Landry suggested. “Did you ever consider that, Mrs. Sutton?”

  “No,” Brylee said briskly, “I did not. You have seen that mess on the internet, haven’t you?”

  “I have,” Landry confirmed.

  The signs were there by now: Brylee’s temper was beginning to subside. Being a class act and a real lady made it hard for her to maintain a fit of peevishness for long, Landry figured, and, sure enough, that radiant smile finally broke through, bright as a stream of sunshine shafting through stacks of gray clouds.

  “Honestly, Landry,” she went on, with a great sigh and a sister-in-law’s abiding affection, “sometimes I could just shake you.”

  He grinned down at her. “That’s been tried,” he said. “Didn’t change a thing.” He stood up in the stirrups, looked around. “Is my brother at home, by any chance?”

  Brylee shook her head, pretty much back to normal now. “Zane’s over at Walker and Casey’s,” she replied. “They just took delivery on a bunch of new bucking horses, prime stock for next week’s rodeo, and a lot of the ranch hands are busy on the range, inoculating calves and the like, so Walker needed some extra help in the corrals.”

  Landry nodded, feeling oddly validated. He’d been headed for Walker’s place anyhow, and now he could make himself useful when he got there, instead of just asking for the favor of a chance to break his damn fool neck. He’d lend a hand wherever it was needed, then offer to try out one or two of the fresh broncs when the other work was done.

  Walker was always looking for volunteer broncobusters; today, he’d want to weed the duds out of the herd, the ones that would make reliable saddle horses but weren’t cussed enough for rodeo, then identify the best buckers, the ones with go-to-hell wired right into their DNA and a marked determination to launch any cowboy who tried to ride them into outer space.

  It was all part of a stock contractor’s job—especially a successful one, like Parrish.

  When Landry got to Timber Creek, he found the main corral churning with dust kicked up by a couple of dozen or so pissed-off horses. Walker, mounted on a fine buckskin gelding, greeted him with a grin and waved him over to where the action was.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes!” Parrish yelled, over the din of whinnying cayuses and the handful of mounted cowboys cussing as they tried to herd some of the ill-tempered critters into smaller corrals adjoining the big one, others into holding pens. Like the ranch workers, the boss of the operation was coated in dirt from the crown of his battered hat to the soles of his well-worn boots, not being one to supervise from a distance. “Provided you’re here to help sort out this bunch of knot-head hay burners, that is!”

  Landry grinned and replied with a salute, confirmation enough that he was there to do whatever needed doing.

  Walker offered a few loud instructions, and Landry and his horse waded into the fray.

  The work was hot, dangerous and dirty—the incoming horses were as good as wild, carefully bred to be ornery, and today, they definitely lived up to their billing.

  Landry rode, switched mounts when his own got tired and rode some more.

  After a couple of hours, he and Zane and Walker and the others finally got the last of the four-legged devils into corrals and holding pens, a few to this one, a few to that.

  By then, Landry was tired, saddle-sore and wearing at least three layers of dirt. His beard was coming in, a bristly stubble that made his face itch. And for
all of it, issues with Jess, his half-finished house, a glaring metaphor for his life, and the sheer frustration of loving a woman who was determined to cling to the memory of a dead man, he was happy. Happier than he’d ever been in any boardroom, clean and combed and freshly shaven, clad in a tailored suit to boot.

  “I guess you’d like to try out one or two of these maniac broncs,” Walker said to Landry, when the dust was beginning to settle a bit and the ruckus was dying down.

  Zane, nearby and still in the saddle, overheard Walker’s words and darted a glance Landry’s way, followed by a hard frown.

  “You guessed right,” Landry told Walker, undaunted.

  Walker looked him over with amused respect. “You’re a sucker for punishment, Sutton,” he drawled, eyes twinkling, one side of his mouth cocked up in a semblance of a grin. “That’s what makes you a cowboy, I reckon. You’re as reckless a fool as the rest of us.”

  Zane rode closer, his gaze fixed on Landry’s face and not likely to come unfixed anytime soon. “What the hell do you think you’re—”

  Landry was off his horse and on his way to the one empty corral before Zane could finish the sentence.

  He was quick, though, and he caught up, swinging down from the saddle and standing directly in front of Landry, solid as a brick wall. He was holding Blackjack’s reins in one leather-gloved hand, reaching out to take those of Landry’s horse with the other.

  “You might want to get out of my way, big brother,” Landry said.

  Zane didn’t budge. “Landry,” he grated out, keeping his voice down since he had business with his brother at the moment and nobody else. “Maybe you don’t remember the last time you tried to ride a bronc and damn near got killed?”

  The words got Landry’s back up, all right. Zane had never had any trouble riling him.

  “I remember,” he said, through his teeth. “I got thrown. So what?”

  “So maybe you ought to lay off busting broncs for a while,” Zane shot back.

  “Are you planning to lay off the bronc-busting, Zane?” Landry asked, his voice deceptively mild. “Seems to me I saw your name on the rodeo roster last time I looked.”