Hutch started slowly back toward the truck.
The dog got up and limped after him.
Carefully, he hoisted the stray into the passenger’s seat of his truck.
“You oughtn’t to sit in the road like that,” he said, once he was behind the wheel again and turning the key in the ignition. “It’s a good way to get killed.”
Here he was, talking to a dog.
A strange thing to do, maybe, but it felt good.
The dog turned to look at him with weary, limpid eyes and shivered a little.
Hutch debated turning around, taking the stray back to town, to the veterinary clinic, or at least to Martie Wren’s place, so she could take a look at it, maybe check for one of those microchips that served as canine GPS. He’d been around horses and dogs and cattle all his life, though, and he knew instinctively that this one was sound, underneath all that dirt and deprivation.
Pulling in at the top of his driveway, Hutch was relieved to see Opal’s station wagon parked up ahead. Evidently Bingo was over for the night, because she probably wouldn’t have left the Elks’ basement before the last number was called.
He parked, lifted the dog out of the truck and set him on his four thin, shaky legs. “You’re going to be all right, fella,” he told the animal gruffly. “You’ve got my word on that.”
They went inside.
Opal was at the table, drinking tea and reading from her Bible.
“Land sakes,” she said, at the sight of the dog, “what is that?”
Hutch gave her a wry look. “Just a wayfarer fallen on hard times,” he said.
Opal closed her Bible, stood up, removing her glasses, polishing them with the hem of her apron, and putting them back on again, so she could examine the dog more closely. “Poor critter,” she said. “Let’s have us a good look at you.”
Next she moved her teacup and Bible and draped a large plastic bag over the table.
“Heft him on up here,” she said.
Hutch complied.
The dog stood uncertainly in the middle of the table, convinced, no doubt, that he was breaking some obscure human law and would be punished for it. He took to shivering again.
“Nobody’s going to hurt you now,” Opal told him, with gentle good humor, as she began to examine and prod. “Just look at that rib cage,” she remarked, finally stepping back. “When’s the last time you had anything to eat, dog?”
Hutch put the critter back on the floor, went to the cupboard for a bowl, filled it with water at the sink, and set it down in front of the newcomer.
The animal drank every drop and looked up at Hutch, asking for more as surely as if he’d spoken aloud.
Hutch refilled the bowl.
Opal, meanwhile, washed her hands and proceeded to ferret around in the fridge, finally emerging with two pieces of chicken and a carton of cottage cheese.
Deftly, like she cared for starving strays every day of her life, she peeled the meat off the bones and broke the chicken into smaller chunks. She mixed in some of the cottage cheese and set the works down on the floor on a plate.
The dog, lapping up water until then, fell on that food like he was afraid it would vanish before his eyes. He made short work of the meal, and Hutch would have given him another helping, but Opal nixed the idea.
“His poor stomach has all it can do to deal with what’s already in there,” she said.
After that, Hutch bathed the dog in the laundry room sink, helped himself to a couple of towels fresh from the dryer and rubbed that bony mutt down until his hide gleamed and his fur stuck out in every direction.
When he and the dog got back to the kitchen, Opal had cleared the table and resumed her Bible reading and her tea drinking. She tapped at the Good Book with one index finger and said, “Leviticus. That’s the perfect name for our friend here.”
“How so?” Hutch asked, washing up at the kitchen sink. The whole front of his good shirt was muddy and wet from giving the dog a bath, but he didn’t care.
“Because that’s what I was reading when you brought him in.”
Hutch smiled to himself. He remembered when he was a kid and his mom would read through the whole Bible every year, a day at a time. She always said if a person could get through the book of Leviticus, they could get through anything.
“I take it Bingo was a bust?” he ventured, watching as Leviticus ambled over to the pile of old blankets Opal must have put out for him, settled himself, gave a sigh and closed his eyes.
“I won the blackout,” Opal informed Hutch proudly with a smile and a shake of her head. “Five hundred dollars. So I’m pretty flush.”
Hutch looked at the now sleeping dog and felt a space open wide in his heart to accommodate him. “Speaking of money,” he said, “I owe you some for all you’ve done around here, and over at Boone’s place today, too.”
Opal executed another dismissive wave of one hand. “I don’t want your money, Hutch,” she said. “And didn’t I just now tell you I’ve got five hundred beautiful dollars in my wallet at this very moment?”
He chuckled, shook his head. “You,” he said, “are one hardheaded woman.”
“All the more reason not to argue with me,” Opal replied. She arched both eyebrows and Hutch saw the question coming before the words left her mouth. “How did things go over at Kendra’s?”
Hutch folded his arms, leaned back against the counter alongside the sink. “Well enough that she and Madison will be coming out here tomorrow afternoon for a horseback ride,” he said. It was more than he would have told most people, but he owed Opal, and besides, talking to her was easy.
Opal beamed. “They’ll stay for supper,” she announced. “I’ll make my famous tamale pie. Kendra always loved it and so will that sweet little girl of hers.”
Hutch spread his hands. “You’d better be the one to offer the invitation,” he said, remembering the kiss. By now the regret would be setting in, Kendra would be wishing she’d slapped him instead of kissing him right back. “If it comes from me, she’s more likely to say no than yes.”
“Now why do you suppose that is?” Opal pretended to ponder, but her gaze found the dog again and she smiled. “You mean to keep Leviticus, don’t you?” she asked.
“Unless somebody’s looking for him,” Hutch replied. “I’ll check with Martie tomorrow.”
“Nobody’s looking for Leviticus,” Opal said with sad certainty. “He’d have a collar and tags if he belonged to someone.”
Hutch felt a peculiar mixture of sympathy and possessiveness where Leviticus was concerned. The dog was bound to be nothing but trouble—he’d chew things up and he probably wasn’t housebroken—but Hutch wanted to keep him, wanted that more than anything except to find some common ground with Kendra, so they wouldn’t be so jumpy around each other.
Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough to suit him.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I’LL NEED BOOTS,” Madison announced the next morning at breakfast. “Can we buy some, please? Today?”
Practically from the moment she’d opened her eyes, Madison had been fixating on the upcoming horseback ride out at Whisper Creek Ranch. Even as she spooned her way diligently through a bowlful of her favorite cereal, her feet were swinging back and forth under the table as though already carrying her toward the magic hour of three-thirty in the afternoon.
“Let’s wait and see,” Kendra said, sipping coffee. She didn’t normally skip breakfast, but that day she couldn’t face even a bite of toast. She had orchestrated this whole horseback riding thing, set herself up for yet another skirmish with Hutch and now the reality was almost upon her—and Madison.
What had she done?
More importantly, why had she put herself and her daughter in this position?
“Everybody at preschool has boots,” Madison persisted. Daisy, having finished her kibble, crossed the room to lay her muzzle on the child’s lap and gaze up at her with the pure, selfless love of a saint at worship.
“Most of those children have been riding since they were babies,” Kendra reasoned, making a face as she set her coffee cup down. Usually a mainstay, the stuff tasted like acid this morning. “Suppose you get on that horse today and find out you hate riding and you never want to do it again?”
“That won’t happen,” Madison said with absolute conviction. Where did all that certainty come from? Was it genetic—some vestige of all those English ancestors riding to the hunt, soaring over hedges and streams?
Kendra shook off the thought. She hadn’t slept all that well the night before, imagining all the things that might go wrong today, and now she was paying the price. Her thoughts were as muddled as her emotions.
“What makes you so sure of yourself, young lady?” she challenged with a small smile.
Madison grinned back at her. “You’re always saying it’s good to try new things,” she said with a note of triumph that underscored Kendra’s impression that the child was only posing as a four-year-old—she was really an old soul.
Busted, Kendra thought. She was always telling Madison that she shouldn’t be afraid—of preschool, for instance, or speaking up in class, or making friends on the playground—and now here she was, projecting her own misgivings onto her daughter. Speaking to the frightened little girl she herself had once been, instead of the bold one sitting across from her on a sunny, blue-skied morning full of promise.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” Kendra said, brightening. “If you still want boots after this first ride, we’ll get you a pair.” She wondered if the child had visions of racing across the open countryside on the back of some gigantic steed, when she’d most likely wind up on a pony or an arthritic mare.
“Okay,” Madison capitulated, not particularly pleased but willing to negotiate. “But I’m still going to want those boots.”
Kendra laughed. “Hurry up and finish your breakfast,” she said. “Then go and brush your teeth while I let Daisy out for a quick run in the backyard. You need to be on time for preschool and I have to get to the office.”
The spiffing-up process over at the mansion was winding down, according to reports from the painting and cleaning crews, and she already had two appointments to show the place, one at noon and one the following morning.
Things were moving along.
Why did it suddenly seem so difficult to keep up?
Madison set her spoon down, wriggled off her chair, and carried her mostly empty cereal bowl over to the sink. She stood on tiptoe to set it on the drainboard, humming under her breath as she headed back toward the bathroom.
Daisy started to follow her small mistress, but when Kendra opened the back door, the dog rushed through it, wagging her tail. Kendra followed.
The morning was glorious—the grass green, with that fresh-cut smell, and lawn sprinklers sang their rhythmic songs in the surrounding yards. Birds whistled in the branches of trees and a few perched on Kendra’s clothesline, regarding Daisy’s progress with placid nonchalance.
Madison returned to the kitchen just as Daisy and Kendra were coming in from outside. She opened her lips wide to show Kendra her clean teeth.
Kendra pretended to be dazzled, going so far as to raise both hands against the sudden glare, as if blinded by it.
Madison giggled, this being one of their many small games. “You’re silly, Mommy,” she said.
Kendra tugged lightly at one of Madison’s coppery curls and bent to kiss the top of her head. “Have I mentioned that I love you to the moon and back?” she countered, taking Daisy’s leash from its hook and snapping it to the dog’s collar.
“I love you ten times that much,” Madison responded on cue.
“I love you a hundred times that much,” Kendra pronounced, juggling her purse, car keys and a leash with an excited puppy at the other end.
“I love you the last number in the world times that much,” Madison said.
“I love you ten thousand times that much,” Kendra told her as they trooped outside and headed for the driveway, where the trusty Mom-mobile was parked.
“That isn’t fair,” Madison argued. “I said the last number in the world.”
“Okay,” Kendra answered, smiling. “You win.”
* * *
HUTCH MOVED FROM one stall to the next, assessing every horse he owned.
They were ordinary beasts, most of them, but they all looked too big and too powerful for a four-year-old to ride.
Was it too late to buy a pony?
He chuckled at the idea and shook his head. Whisper Creek was a working ranch and the horses pulled their weight, just as the men did. He’d be laughed right out of the Cattleman’s Association if he ran a Shetland on the same range as all these brush cutters and ropers. The sweet old mare he’d reserved for greenhorns had passed away peacefully one night last winter and much as he’d loved the animal, it hadn’t occurred to him to replace her. It was a matter of attrition.
Opal stepped into the barn just as he turned from the last stall, dressed for going to town. She wore a jersey dress, as usual, but a hat, too, and shiny shoes, and she carried a huge purse with a jeweled catch.
“I’ve got a meeting at the church,” she informed him. “After that, I thought I’d look in on Joslyn’s bunch, see how they’re doing.”
Hutch smiled, walked slowly in her direction. He’d already sent the ranch hands out onto the range for the day, assigning them to the usual tasks, which left him with nothing much to do other than look himself up on the internet and see how he was faring in the court of public opinion.
Not that he couldn’t have guessed. Team Brylee was probably still on the warpath, and so far a Team Hutch hadn’t come together.
“You don’t work for me,” he reminded Opal affably, as she had recently reminded him. “No need to explain your comings and goings.”
Opal stood stalwartly in his path, clutching her purse to her chest with both hands as though she expected some stranger to swoop in and grab it if she relaxed her vigilance for a fraction of a second. “I’m living under your roof,” she said matter-of-factly, “so it’s just common courtesy to tell you my plans.”
Hutch stopped, cleared his throat, smiled again. “All right,” he agreed. “You’ve told me. It was unnecessary, but I appreciate it just the same.”
Opal didn’t move, though she might have loosened her grip on her handbag just a little; he couldn’t be sure. “You and Boone,” she mused, sounding almost weary, even though it hadn’t been an hour since breakfast. “I declare, the two of you will worry me right into an early grave.”
Hutch’s chuckle sounded hoarse. He shoved a hand through his hair. “That would be a shame, Opal,” he said. “Boone will be fine and so will I.”
“Just the same,” Opal replied, “I sometimes wonder if I’m ever going to be able to cross you off my active prayer list.”
Hutch felt his mouth quirk at one corner. “We’re on your prayer list?” he responded. “Why, Opal, I’m both touched and flattered.”
“Don’t be,” she told him gruffly. “It means you’re a hard case, and so is Boone.”
“I see,” Hutch said, though he didn’t really. He wanted to laugh, but some instinct warned him that Opal was dead serious about this prayer list business. “Well, then, maybe I’m not flattered after all,” he went on presently. “But I’m still touched.”
She smiled that slow, warm smile of hers, the one that seemed to take in everybody and everything for miles around, like a sunrise. “There may be hope for you yet,” she said, her tone mischievously cryptic. “I’ll be back in plenty of time to make supper for you and Kendra and that sweet little child of hers. Try not to say the wrong thing and drive them off before I get back.”
Hutch merely nodded and Opal turned, her purse still pressed to her bosom, to leave the barn.
He’d fed the horses earlier; now he began the process of turning them out of their stalls and into the pasture—all except Remington, that is. He heard Opal’s station wagon start up
with a gas-guzzling roar, listened as she drove away, tires spitting gravel.
Opal did everything with verve.
He smiled as he fetched his gear from the tack room, carried it back to where the gelding waited, patiently chewing on the last of his grain ration.
Hutch opened the stall gate, and Remington stepped out into the breezeway—he knew the drill, and suddenly he was eager to be saddled, to leave the confines of that barn for the wide-open spaces.
Five minutes later, Hutch was mounted up, and the two of them were moving over the range at a graceful lope, headed for Big Sky Mountain.
Reaching the base of the trail Hutch favored, the horse slowed for the climb, rocks scrabbling under his hooves as he started up the incline.
Hutch bent low over the animal’s neck as they passed through a stand of oak and maple trees, the branches grabbing at both man and horse as they went.
The mountain was many things to Hutch Carmody—for as long as he could remember, he’d gone there when he had something to mourn or something to celebrate, or when he simply wanted to think.
From a certain vantage point, he could see the world that mattered most to him—the sprawling ranch lands, the cattle and horses, the streams and the river and, in the distance, the town of Parable.
After about fifteen minutes of fairly hard travel, he and Remington reached the small clearing that was, for him, the heart of Whisper Creek Ranch.
It was here that, as a boy of twelve, he’d cried for his lost mother.
It was here that he’d raged against his father, those times when he was too pissed off or too hurt or both to stay put in school or in his room or out in the hay-scented sanctuary of the barn.
And it was here that he and Kendra had made love for the first time—and the last.
Big Sky Mountain Page 17
