by Saylor Bliss
“She used to say the night sky was one of God’s favorite old blankets, keeping everyone here on Earth safe and warm. And the blanket has these tiny pinholes worn in, like some comfortable blankets do. The lights we see are little glimpses of heaven on the other side of the blanket.”
My throat tightened. “Then I guess… we’re sharing a little bit of heaven right now.” Any moment I would surely turn to warm mush.
“Next time we’ll get it right.” In a flurry of smooth moves, he shifted and suddenly I was facing him. With almost agonizing slowness, he angled his head and pressed his mouth to mine. The kiss was soft and filled with sweet longing, and his gaze lingered when he drew back. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Christine.”
After Travis left, I closed the door and leaned against it, my fingertips pressed against my lips while my body hummed with residual electricity.
“Pretty sure you got that last bit right,” I whispered. I’d come within inches of begging him to stay.
My T-shirt landed on the sofa. I unfastened my jeans and loosened them on the way to the bathroom. While the hot water splashed into the tub, I tossed in my favorite bath beads. Then I heard the soft knock on my door and flew across the small apartment to answer, my heart tripping into a happy dance.
“Hey, cowboy, you gonna spend the night—?” I pulled up short at the sight of the brawny man lounging against the railing outside my apartment.
“Bull, hey, what are you doing here?” Hastily, I pulled the edges of my gaping jeans together, cursing when the zipper jammed. “
“Heya, Christine, I came by to apologize for Friday night,” he said gruffly, stepping inside on his own invitation. His greedy eyes crept along the length of my bare arms, skimmed my neck, flicked over my chest, slid lower to where my jeans weren’t quite fastened. I knew he couldn’t see much and forced myself not to clutch the denim closed.
Chills settled everywhere his inky black gaze touched. He was creeping me the hell out. He’d never come on to me before, had always treated me with respect. But Bull probably wasn’t thinking of the wife he habitually left at home, as his eyes shifted once more to my breasts and he licked his lips. His eyes slid to the unmade bed behind me, and he rubbed his thumbs and fingertips together. My heart lodged itself in my throat, beating madly with foreboding.
“It’s okay, Bull. I accept your apology.” Why did my voice have to shake? I held the door wider, praying he would just leave. As a thin film of perspiration formed along his upper lip, his mouth fell open and his breathing grew shallow.
Apprehension gave birth to alarm, slithering along the route Bull’s eyes traversed and clawing at my gut with fierce talons. Bull was a big man. I was completely alone. If he tried anything, I wouldn’t be able to stop him.
Adrenaline rushed, and I drew a deep breath. I’d just have to make sure he didn’t try anything, get him to refocus his attention. “Bull, it’s getting late. Wanda’s probably waiting up for you.” My suddenly constricted throat, barely allowing the words out.
He nodded, pulling his gaze away with obvious regret. “Maybe I’ll come in to the bar one night, have a drink with you.”
“We’ll talk soon.” I knew my promise sounded false, but if Bull noticed, he said nothing. Finally, by stepping through the doorway myself, I managed to entice Bull over the threshold.
“I’ll, ah… see you at the bar sometime, then.” As he paused and looked around, apparently stunned to find himself outside, I quickly stepped back in, then closed and bolted the door. Heavy footsteps thumped down the stairs and I released my pent-up breath. The distant growl of an engine had to be his truck starting.
Please let it be his truck.
The shakes slammed me, and I pressed my back against the door, as if to keep it from opening. Almost in slow motion, my legs gave way, and I melted into a pool on the cold, hard tile. Tears squeezed from behind closed eyes, as huge shudders wracked my body.
What the heck had that been about? I could go weeks, even months, seeing nothing of Bull. He generally took his play to the hookers up in Jackson and did his drinking there as well. But with Travis’s return, I’d seen two incidents with the troubled man in three days and I couldn’t help but think the explanation for that rested with Travis.
I scrubbed the tears from my cheeks, but didn’t get up until long after the engine sounds had drifted into the night. When I pushed to my feet and staggered into the bathroom, I discovered the water of my forgotten bath had sloshed over the edges of the bathtub, swamping the floor, saturating the pretty lilac colored rug and soaking into my favorite pink fuzzy slippers.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Travis
Grant had developed a particularly skillful disappearing act since I had begun to ask more pointed questions. But I could be skillful, too, and this time I was determined to keep Grant from dodging me by riding out early. Spending the night in the tack room waiting to ambush my brother wasn’t particularly appealing, especially when Christine had made it very apparent I would be welcome in her bed. But I knew it was time to corner Grant for answers.
Christine. Dang, our relationship had been intense right out of the chute. Being with the woman was like sitting on a crate of firecrackers. It was impossible to know when it would detonate, but explosions were inevitable. And I always had loved playing with matches. At some point, I’d started feeling things I’d never expected to feel again. When had that happened?
I knew the answer. It had begun when I’d nearly collided with an otherworldly vision on a mountain road. Never in my life had head, heart, and physical interest all happened at the same time for me. And now they were doing just that, life was pretty freaking amazing.
Forcing what I’d rather be doing from my mind, I took a rough inventory of supplies, noting the worn leather, the scraps of unusable equipment set aside for salvage. Much of our equipment had long ago seen better days. Working with my hands had always relaxed me, so I settled on the old barstool in front of the little workbench and repaired tack while I waited for my brother and some answers.
“You’re up early,” Grant said, when he walked into the tack room a few hours later. If he was surprised to see me there, it didn’t show in the pleasant smile on his face.
“Never slept.”
“You used to going without sleep?”
Travis shrugged. “Sometimes. When it’s necessary.”
“Guess you’re saying I made it necessary.”
I didn’t look up. In silence, I concentrated on folding the leather strip into a loop around the harness buckle then securing it with neat stitches.
Grant shuffled his feet back and forth. “Come on, Trav! I hate it when Dad pulls that no-talk bullshit. Do you have to be just like him?”
I frowned, irritated by the comparison. With deliberate care, I tied off the thread then hung the repaired harness on a hook behind the bench, along with several others I’d finished.
Just as deliberately, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the scrap of material I’d cut from my shirt the day before, unwrapped the slug I’d retrieved from the dead cow, and set it on the workbench.
Then I turned and regarded my brother in silence, pointedly waiting for the answers to the questions I’d been asking for days.
Grant regarded the spent bullet like it was poison. “You got that from the dead cow?”
I cocked my head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “Is there someplace else I might have found it?”
Grant stooped and picked up a stray buckle from the floor. With exaggerated care, he placed it on the bench. “We had some trouble up in the high pasture this past spring.”
“Some trouble?” Two words that offered nothing in the way of explanation. “Come on, Grant! You gotta do better than that. Why did you ask me to come home?”
Grant averted his eyes.
I rocked back on my heels and blew out an irritated breath. “I don’t get it. You literally summoned me home, hinted that you need help.” I shrugged. “And for
some reason, you don’t want to have a simple conversation about what’s going on around here. So I guess the real question is, why should I stay?”
“Dad had a heart attack. About three years ago.”
My head came up sharply, as though Grant had just popped me in the jaw.
“It was mild, pretty much over before he even got to the hospital. But he had to have tests, meds. And there were bills. A lot of bills” He paused, seemed to struggle for words. “We had… a rough patch.”
“You never said a word.” Rage constricted my voice as I barely checked my temper. “Did you think I wouldn’t care?”
“He didn’t want you to know. I kept hoping you’d see the quarterly reports and…” He spread his hands helplessly. “Notice something.”
With a little prick of conscience, I visualized my desk drawer with the neat bundle of unopened white envelopes that arrived from the accountant every three months. I scrubbed a hand over my face, as the frustration of years spent avoiding reminders of the life I’d once left behind, caught up with me. If I was truthful, I had to admit I’d come back exhausted from living a life I shouldn’t have been living. And I’d nearly been too late getting home.
“Dad thought —hoped you’d come back after Mac… died.” Grant picked up a scrap of harness and began rolling the leather between his fingers. “When you didn’t, he didn’t want to drag you back here on his account.”
“I couldn’t come back. Not then. I was injured myself, and…” I closed my eyes against pain I’d spent years hiding from. Mac, my cousin with the unruly red hair and the splash of freckles across his nose, that kept him a perpetual kid even as a man doing a man’s job. The grin that flashed even in impossible circumstances. The vision gelled in my mind, became so clear I might as well have been twisting the knife in my heart. I forced my eyes open and focused on the tack room. Harnesses, buckles, wood, straw… But no red hair. No Mac.
Tamping back on the raw feelings, I focused on Grant and returned to the conversation. “I could’ve helped in other ways. I would have sent money. Geez, Grant, I’ve got more of that than I could ever use. I was Mac’s beneficiary on his life insurance and he died on the job, so the payout was tripled.”
One side of Grant’s mouth twisted upward into a wry smile. “Wouldn’t Bull and old Robert just love you investing Mac’s insurance payout in McGee land?”
“Who cares about what they’d think?” I leveled my gaze at Grant. “It’s what Mac would have wanted.”
“Is it?” Grant tossed the scrap of leather onto the bench. “Dad said he had good reasons for running off.”
I wince. “I didn’t think Dad knew any of what was going on or why, and I’ll admit a part of me worried he would have tried to stop us so I never told him.
Sudden motion and a whoosh of air sent me flinching backward as Grant drove a violent punch into the wooden beam next to my head.
Sixteen years’ worth of anger simmered in Grant’s green eyes. “You don’t give Dad enough credit,” he grated. He unfurled his fist, without as much as a glance at the torn skin on his knuckles. “He may not have known until later why you left, but he had your back the whole damn time. He trusted you. Covered for you. When he knew you’d gone to Texas, he told the FBI you were always yammering about going to Alaska, so they should start looking there.” Grant’s eyes became enraged slits. “Pretending to hate you was the best way to take the heat off Dad. And off of you. Only he never expected you would hate him back for real.”
Under the weight of Grant’s words, I staggered and gripped the workbench behind myself. “I don’t —I never hated Dad. I didn’t know what he did.”
“You didn’t want to know.” Grant flexed his fingers as though itching to form new fists. “I was watching it kill our old man to write you off so he could protect you from being picked up for kidnapping, and you never even asked how he was, the few times you bothered to call.”
He stalked to the other side of the tack room and stood, back straight, shoulders heaving, his back to me. He’d always had a hot temper, and it had always bugged him when it got away from him.
I stepped away from the bench, forcing my hands to remain open and loose. I had no reason to feel defensive, or maybe I did, but I wouldn’t fight my brother. “Grant, I was hurting, too! I was just eighteen. I was arrogant, thinking I could save the world and there wouldn’t be any consequences. By the time I realized there were, it hurt too much to talk about home, let alone call and hear your voices.”
“And I was thirteen!” Grant whirled, wearing an incensed glare that seemed capable of shooting flames. “Old enough to know you left, but not old enough for anyone to trust me with your reasons for leaving.”
Old enough to feel abandoned.
I took several deep breaths, seeking calm in a river of rage. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Grant slumped. “They made life bad for a while.” Sadness replaced the temper in his voice. “The MacKays. They spread lies about you, about Mac, even —about Mom. And people were listening. But Dad wouldn’t talk about it, wouldn’t talk about you. Finally people stopped caring about the stuff Phyllis was spreading in town. Mostly.”
“If anyone deserved to die in that family, it wasn’t Mac.” Fury I’d never quite banked began to swirl again.
“Dad said his old man beat him up.”
“Someone sure did.” I picked up the long black knife I’d been using to cut leather and twirled it baton-style. “I found him sleeping in the little barn. He’d been there probably three, four days. He was sneaking into the house when we were out so he could steal food to feed himself.” My voice hardened. “Three or four days, and no one came around looking for him.”
“Was he in bad shape when you found him?” Grant paced to the door, stopping to stare out into the stable yard.
“Both eyes were blackened, one was swollen shut. His nose was broken, teeth were loose.” I waited for the picture to fill Grant’s head the way it was filling my own. “And someone had put out a cigarette on his tongue at some point.”
Grant whipped around and I caught a glimpse of shock in my brother’s eyes. “Why?”
“Because he had red hair and he stuttered maybe.” I slashed the air with one hand. “Shit, I don’t know. Why the hell does that family do any damn thing?”
“Couldn’t you, I don’t know, call someone? Report it?”
“Report it to who?” I demanded. “Sheriff Russell MacKay?” I slammed the knife point-first into the scrap leather Grant had been playing with.
Grant whistled low and long. “Mac’s uncle. I forgot.”
“I was just going to take Mac into Jackson, see he got help then come home,” I said, swallowing back the bitterness the memories had dragged up. “But he was afraid they’d send him back. He begged me to stay with him, to take him away from Wyoming, from his family.” I leaned forward and captured Grant’s eyes. “Do you know how bad shit must have been for a kid to beg someone to keep him safe from family?”
A muscle worked in Grant’s jaw but he said nothing.
“I never stopped missing this place,” I said quietly, allowing some of my rage to dissipate. “But I couldn’t come home until Mac made sure I was cleared of kidnapping. And Mac was always —different. Kind of fragile. He couldn’t come back here, and I couldn’t leave him in the city.”
“Why did you stay away after Mac died?”
“I told you I was injured. I just about had to learn to walk again, Grant.” I closed my eyes and allowed different, even more painful memories to surface.
“You never told us it was that bad,” accused Grant, his face showing horror.
“I was in rehab for months. Then… I wanted to come home, but I didn’t know how to ask. And… I was trying to find someone.”
Grant frowned. “Who were you looking for?”
“I’ll tell you about her sometime,” I promised. Needing a distraction, I scooped the spent bullet off the workbench, rewrapped it, and returned it
to my pocket. “She was with us when Mac died. I’ve been looking for her since I got out of the hospital, but… no luck.”
“Long time to be looking for someone,” Grant observed. “So what now? Are you here to stay or are you here with one foot still in the city?”
Easy… one breath in, another out. “I want to come home, Grant. To stay, if you’ll have me. I’ve missed this place, Dad… even you.” He sent a grin across the tack room. “Maybe especially you.”
Raw torment traveled across Grant’s face, and he choked out his answer in a thick voice. “I’ve missed you, too, big brother.”
Something Grant had said earlier registered anew. I leveled him in his sights. “Dad said I was ‘yammering’ about Alaska?”
Grant chuckled. “In the thickest hayseed accent you ever heard.”
The first bit of happiness since the conversation had begun brought on a smile. Our father, with his Master’s Degree in Agricultural Science from Wyoming State, playing country cowboy.
For me. The thought was even more humbling than it was comical.
“So, how much does you wanting to stay have to do with the local barkeep?” Grant’s grin was back in place.
That old brotherly feeling surfaced again —it came easier each time. With an answering smirk, I stalked across the distance between us, hiked Grant onto my shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and walked out into the stable yard. With no remorse whatsoever, I tipped my younger brother into the stock watering trough.
“Hey!” Grant sputtered, as he sat and blew water out of his mouth. He stood, shaking the droplets from his hair. But the huge grin remained plastered across his face. “Paybacks, bro!” he called out. “You know what they say about ‘em.” Then he let out a whoop before bending and retrieving his hat, floating in the trough next to him.
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered around a yawn. “They’re a real bitch.” With a lighter heart, I spun away from the happy scene and strode to the house.
