THE STARDUST COWBOY

by Anne McAllister

  She looked like a smart woman. She sure was a pretty woman.

  He didn't know why he kept coming back to that! Well, yes, he did. It was on account of that damned wedding. Weddings made him think about women. And wanting. But he didn't want Dori Malone.

  He still wanted Tricia. Had wanted her for more than a dozen years.

  But he was never going to have her. Never. It was true what he'd told Jake's mother. Since he couldn't have Tricia, Riley Stratton had become a hardened bachelor. There was no one else to leave the ranch to—besides Jake.

  She stood in the doorway and watched Riley Stratton walk down the steps and across the street to his truck. She waited until he got in, started the engine and drove away. It wasn't until his taillights disappeared down the street and around the coiner that Dori breathed again and shut the door.

  She leaned against it and shut her eyes. Then she wrapped her arms around her body, hugging herself tightly, feeling that, if she didn't, she might just shake right apart.

  Chris was dead.

  The words were blunt, almost shocking, or—maybe—not so.

  The Chris she'd known and thought she loved had, in her heart and mind, died a long time ago. That Chris had died backstage in the Portland auditorium where she'd gone to give him the news. She had suspected, but hadn't wanted to say until she was sure.

  But that afternoon the test had confirmed it.

  "I'm going to have your baby," she'd told him, curled against the warmth of his chest, confident that once he knew, Chris would rise to the challenge, would welcome the news.

  But Chris had gone totally still. And then, slowly, he'd eased her out of his arms. He'd held her away from him and quite matter-of-factly had told her he wasn't ready for parenthood.

  "I can't deal with it," he'd told her, as if there was a choice. "It's not part of my plan."

  "But—" Dori had begun to protest.

  "It won't work. You know. I told you. I don't want to get married."

  "But—"

  "You knew, Dori. You always knew." And then he had told her to go home.

  Home? She'd been appalled. She'd left home to be with him. The fight with her father, the hard words, the recriminations that resounded when she'd announced she was going with Chris still rang in her ears.

  "I can't go home," she'd wailed.

  But Chris had said implacably, "Well, you can't stay here. We travel light. You know that. And if the guys haven't minded sharin' with you, they sure won't feel the same about a baby."

  The guys. The band. The band was what mattered to Chris.

  "Anyway, I can't talk now. I've got a show in an hour."

  The show, of course, had to go on. Dori knew that. She should have realized it before she'd tagged along. His music was what he loved. She was his "girl," his friend, his plaything.

  "We have good times" was the way he'd described their relationship.

  She should have understood that he didn't want more than that.

  She didn't want to go home. But it was the only place she knew of where they had to take her in.

  In time she was glad. In time she realized that he had been right. Then she'd been grateful that he'd refused to try to make things work.

  They would have ended up hating each other. They would have made life miserable for each other—and for Jake.

  It had been better not to have him around. He'd given Jake what he could—Jake's beautiful blue eyes, his dark cowlicky hair, his mischievous grin, his boundless enthusiasm—and the letter about the Stardust cowboy that had fueled his little boy dreams.

  Since Jake's birth she'd never expected more. She'd never expected half a ranch.

  "I own a ranch?"

  Dori whirled around.

  Jake was standing in the middle of the hallway staring at her. His eyes were wide and dazed, as if he was waking from a dream.

  Now that Riley Stratton was no longer there, Dori had notions of having dreamed it all, too. "You," she told her son severely, "are supposed to be in bed."

  "Yeah, but—"

  "No buts, young man. Bed. Right now." She scowled her best stern-mother scowl. After nearly eight years, Dori was pretty good at it, even though sometimes she felt like a fake. Was it because she'd been little more than a child herself when Jake was born that she felt more often empathetic than dictatorial? Possibly.

  But no matter how much she might sometimes see the world as Jake saw it—and dream dreams as fanciful as Jake dreamed—her job as his mother was to Be Responsible. So she intensified her sternness and backed him toward the bedroom.

  Jake retreated, but as he went, he asked again, "That cowboy … did he say I own a ranch?"

  "He said Chris … your father … was killed in a car accident," Dori replied sharply.

  She was sorry the minute she'd said it. It wasn't the sort of news one blurted, and she knew it. Jake hadn't known his father, of course. Not in the flesh. But that didn't mean he didn't have feelings for Chris.

  Sometimes, she thought, the feelings were more pure, more intense, because Jake didn't know Chris.

  If he had, he would have had a clearer notion of Chris's limitations, he wouldn't have put Chris on a pedestal. He wouldn't be the man for whom that Stardust cowboy had come to stand.

  Perhaps it was to break that awe, to demand that he see Chris as a human being who could drive too fast and miss a curve, that she'd spoken bluntly now.

  Or maybe, she admitted with more honesty, it was because she felt guilty—because for a split second her attention, too, had been captured less by the pain and waste of Chris's death than by the notion of the ranch that was now his son's.

  At her words Jake went totally pale. He swallowed. "Killed?" he said hoarsely.

  And Dori felt immediately worse because she realized that Jake's fascination with the ranch hadn't been so great that he'd ignored his father's death. He just hadn't sneaked out of the bedroom in time to hear the first part of her conversation with Riley.

  She put an arm around his shoulders, steered him back to bed and tucked him in before sitting down beside him. "I'm sorry, Jake. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it … like that."

  Jake shrugged narrow shoulders. "'S okay. Just … needed to know."

  "Yes. But I should have … been gentler."

  "How did he die? What happened?"

  Carefully, doing her best not to dwell on the grimmer aspects of Chris's death, Dori related what Riley Stratton had told her. Jake listened, unblinking, until she finished.

  Then he waited, not saying anything for a moment, for her to go on. But she didn't, and finally he prompted, "And the ranch?"

  She might have known he wouldn't forget about the ranch. "Apparently your father owned half of the family ranch. As Chris's son, you're his heir."

  "What's an air?"

  "H…E…I…R." She spelled it for him. "It's what you are when someone dies and leaves something to you."

  "The ranch." Jake smiled slightly and settled back against the pillow. "Cool. Not cool that he's dead," he added quickly. "Just … I always wanted a ranch." He yawned then, the excitement of the day finally catching up with him. "I knew it." He smiled again. "I knew it when I saw him. An' then when I saw the Stardust…"

  "Jake," Dori said sharply. "That's a story."

  Jake sat up. "I saw Stardust."

  "Describe what you saw."

  "He—the cowboy—was standin' by the streetlight watchin' the building, waiting. For me."

  Dori wanted to tell him not to exaggerate, but unfortunately that part was true. "Go on."

  "Well, he just stood there, and he waited. An' waited. And then I guess he changed his mind about comin' in, 'cause he turned to go. An' that's when I saw it! When he walked away I saw Stardust, all white and sparkly, scattered behind his boots—a trail. Stardust." And he folded his arms across his chest.

  "Glitter, Jake," Dori said, relieved at so simple an explanation. "It was just the glitter we scattered when Shane and Poppy drove away. Remem
ber? We threw birdseed and we threw glitter. That was what you saw. Not Stardust. And the man was your uncle. His name is Riley."

  A very prosaic name. Nothing glittery about it at all. Just as there was nothing glittery about the man. He was 100% down-to-earth Wyoming cowboy—for all that he was head-turning handsome in a weather-beaten, rugged sort of way. Still, Dori knew that Jake wouldn't notice that—or care if he had.

  His attention had been totally captured by the glitter. She looked at him brightly, encouragingly, waiting for his agreement.

  Jake just looked at her. "I know what I saw."

  Dori sighed. It was useless to argue with him. In the morning, when he'd had time to sort things through, when he was awake and aware, then they would talk about it again. And then Jake would realize that the Stardust cowboy was a mythic figure, the hero of a children's story, and that no matter how much you might want him to—he never stepped out of the world of imagination into the real-life world of Dori and Jake Malone.

  She didn't believe him.

  Well, all right, Jake thought. She was a grown-up. Sometimes grown-ups didn't see what was right under their noses. They needed logic and all that rot to explain things that kids just understood.

  Usually his mother was pretty good at that sort of thing. Usually she was right there, sharing when they talked about the Stardust cowboy and adventures and dreams.

  It was too bad she didn't understand now.

  But she would. She'd have to. Because the Stardust cowboy had come, promising to take them on a grand adventure. And Jake was ready to go wherever he said.

  So what if the Stardust cowboy was his dad's honest-to-goodness brother and not the Stardust cowboy from the story—that didn't matter. It didn't even matter that his mom had seen glitter where he had seen Stardust.

  All the dull, logical explanations in the world didn't make a bit of difference because, for once reality was exciting enough to make up for them!

  And the reality was that he, Jake Malone—a kid who had never done an exciting thing in his life—had all of a sudden, this very night, become the owner of half a ranch!

  How could his mother say that Riley Stratton wasn't the Stardust cowboy when he'd come bringing news like that?

  "Jake!" Dori tapped her foot and glared from the now-cold waffle on his plate to the stairs he wasn't coming down. "Jake!"

  Normally every Sunday he was up at dawn—eager and determined and dragging her out of bed to make a "big breakfast" before they went out to play. Sundays, generally the only day she didn't have to work, they always spent hiking or exploring or climbing, all the while telling stories that began "What if…"

  Today, of course, was different.

  Today she'd agreed to work so her mom and dad could attend a fortieth anniversary party of a couple they'd grown up with. Jake was going to go to Milly's. But Dori had at least made the breakfast. And now he was sleeping in!

  "Jake! The waffles won't be fit to eat!"

  Finally she heard the sound of heavy thumps coming down the stairs. He appeared, dressed, eyes sparkling, face flushed as if he'd been running, dragging two heavy duffel bags behind him. "I'm packed."

  "Packed? What for?"

  "Ready to go. To the ranch."

  "To the ranch?" Dori gaped at him.

  He nodded gravely. "When're we leavin'?"

  Dori closed her mouth. She swallowed. Her fingers strangled the back of the kitchen chair. "Jake."

  No. Too strong. She took a breath and forced herself to be quiet, to be calm and rational. To make sense. "Jake, hon' … we're not going to the ranch."

  "You mean 'cause you have to work today? I thought maybe it'd be too far. But I wanted to get ready anyway. When can we go, then?"

  She forced herself to sound calm and matter-of-fact. "We're not going to go."

  "What do you mean, not going? Why wouldn't we go? We own a ranch, Mom!"

  "For the moment," Dori allowed. "But only for the moment. We can't keep it, Jake."

  "Why not?"

  "Because…" The word that was the death knell of mothers-in-the-right everywhere. "Because."

  Jake looked furious. "Because isn't a reason! You're always tellin' me that."

  "Because we're selling it to Mr. Stratton, er, your uncle Riley. He offered to buy it."

  "I don't want to sell."

  "Well, maybe not. But you need to sell. So you can have the money to go to college or do whatever you want to do when you grow up."

  "I want to own a ranch," Jake said stubbornly. "I want to be a cowboy. I've always wanted to be a cowboy."

  God, give me patience. "I know you do," Dori agreed. "But you're seven years old, Jake. There's a good chance that you're going to change your mind half a dozen times before you grow up."

  "No," Jake said. "I won't." He folded his arms across his chest. "An' I'm almost eight."

  "Jake, you don't know anything about being a cowboy."

  "Do, too. Cash told me stories! 'N' Milly did. 'N' you! I know about bein' a cowboy!"

  "You know stories."

  "Yeah, so? Stories are good! They make you smart. They teach you things. They help you dream. You told me so yourself."

  Well, yes, she had. Hoist by her own petard. "Even so, they're just stories, Jake. Not real life. If you still want the ranch when you're grown-up, I'm sure you can go work for him then."

  "That's years!" Jake protested.

  "Yes," Dori agreed, "it is."

  "But—"

  "I'm not discussing this with you," she said firmly. "I've decided." And she'd spent a sleepless night doing so. "You can unpack all your stuff later. Right now you have to sit down and eat. We're late, and I have to drop you off at Milly's before I head to the store."

  For a long minute she thought Jake wasn't going to move. Probably, if he'd been five or six years older—old enough to have heard about passive resistance and sit-down strikes and Mahatma Gandhi—he wouldn't have.

  But fortunately he was only seven and three-quarters, and he didn't know all those things. He sat. He stabbed his cold waffle. He muttered, "I haven't decided," under his breath. She heard mutiny, pure and simple, in his tone.

  But Dori was taking her victories where she could get them: at least he ate.

  "You don't need to tell Aunt Milly anything about the ranch," she told him as they climbed the steps to Milly's apartment.

  "I can't tell her?"

  "No. She'll just…" Well, actually, Dori didn't know what Milly would do. Her steady, predictable sister hadn't been the same since Cash Callahan had crashed her wedding to Mike Dutton a few months before. Before that she'd have supported Dori one hundred percent. But now—now Milly was the proverbial loose cannon. And Dori didn't need her sister's input here anyway.

  "Just don't tell her," she said to Jake. "It'll upset her. She'll dwell on it."

  Jake banged and banged and banged on the door, so long that Dori thought Milly might have forgotten. But then the door opened a crack and a disheveled Milly appeared. She was wearing a bathrobe, and she looked, well, ravished. She also looked completely amazed to see Dori and Jake.

  "What're you—" She clutched her bathrobe around her like she wasn't wearing anything underneath it. Then she must have remembered, because she went bright red and said, "Oh, help! Oh, my gosh. Oh … oh…"

  "It isn't Dutton, is it?" a familiar, gruff voice said from behind her.

  And suddenly Milly's fire-engine-red color, her clutched bathrobe and her ravishment all fell into place. "Is that you, Cash?" Dori called.

  Jake's eyes went round. "Is Cash here?" he asked his aunt Milly eagerly. "Hey, Cash! Guess what!" He started in the door.

  Dori's fingers clamped on his shoulder, holding him where he was. He shot her a despairing look.

  He twisted irritably. "I can't never tell 'im?"

  Dori wanted to say, No, never. But his blue eyes were so wide, so eager, so innocent, so full of hopes and dreams. How could you say never to a face like that? So she hedged. "Not no
w."

  Jake beamed, then pushed past his scantily clad aunt. "Somethin' great happened. I can't tell you yet," he said to Cash who, Dori was intrigued to notice, was wearing a pair of not-quite-zipped jeans and nothing—obviously—else. "But it's the superest thing! An' you gotta teach me all there is about bein' a cowboy!"

  "Jake!"

  He sighed heavily. "You never said—"

  "It doesn't matter what I said. It's what I meant. And you know what I meant," Dori said sternly. "Go watch cartoons or something while Aunt Milly and Uncle Cash get dressed." She gave them a speaking look. "It is Uncle Cash, isn't it?"

  Milly's face turned red again. But Cash nodded firmly. "Damn … er, darn right it is."

  "Well," Dori said, feeling a little awkward herself as the two lovers exchanged a heated glance. She backed toward the steps. "Congratulations."

  "Stay and toast us with a glass of orange juice," Cash suggested.

  Dori shook her head. "Can't. Got to open the store. But I'm … very happy for you." She smiled, turned and hurried down the stairs. "I'll pick Jake up about six-thirty," she called over her shoulder, eager to be gone.

  "Have fun," Milly said, which told Dori that Milly was still on cloud nine.

  Cash was more realistic. "At least keep the brussels sprouts in line."

  Keep the brussels sprouts in line.

  Of course. What else was there to do?

  Sorting vegetables—keeping the rotting ones from mingling with the fresh—was just about the most exciting thing in Dori's life.

  What life? she asked herself as she stood behind the counter and watched Mrs. Campion trundle out the door with her bag of groceries.

  Old Mrs. Campion, eighty if she was a day, had more of a life than Dori did.

  "Last night I had the most wonderful dream," the old lady had just confided, splotches of red that were not rouge bright on her papery cheeks. "Me and Harrison Ford." She beamed at Dori and fluttered her eyelashes. "It was something."

  "I'll bet it was," Dori said.

  Dori envied Mrs. Campion her dreams. She envied her Harrison—though he was a little old for her. Once upon a time Dori had dreamed about men, too.