Big Sky Country

by Linda Lael Miller

  Hutch laughed and stepped into the kitchen, looking loose-hinged and at ease inside his skin. “Don’t you think it’s time you made an honest woman of yourself, then?” he challenged. “Come on, Joss. Don’t be chicken. It’s a nice day and I’ve got just the horse for you—a little mare named Sandy. She’s no more dangerous than a rocking chair.”

  The rest of Sunday stretched before Joslyn, long and lonely. Kendra had other plans—a shopping junket to Missoula that hadn’t appealed to Joslyn, though Kendra had asked her to go along—which meant she might not see another human being before tomorrow morning. She was due to start working at the real-estate office then, and she was looking forward to having a job again.

  She wasn’t cut out for a life of leisure.

  “I’m not chicken,” she said in belated protest. “I happen to consider myself a very brave person.”

  “I’d say that’s right on the money,” Hutch agreed, looking more serious now, though Joslyn knew the twinkle in his eyes, having gone, would return momentarily. “It took guts to spend all that time right out in the open at Kendra’s barbecue, fixed in everybody’s crosshairs.”

  Joslyn sighed, found her sandals and slipped them onto her feet. “There were moments,” she admitted as Lucy-Maude, taking no interest in visiting cowboys, jumped up into the seat of the overstuffed armchair and curled up for a nap.

  “You’ll want to switch out those shorts—good as you look in them—for a pair of jeans,” Hutch said. Sure enough, the twinkle had already returned. “It would be a shame to scratch up a fine set of legs like yours cutting through the brush on a horse.”

  “Flatterer,” Joslyn said with a grin, heading for her tiny bedroom.

  “I call ’em as I see ’em,” Hutch called after her.

  She returned a couple of minutes later in well-worn jeans, sneakers and with a long-sleeved cotton shirt over her sun top. Looking down at her shoes, she said, “These are the best I can do, since I don’t own any boots.”

  “Another thing that ought to be rectified,” Hutch teased. He’d moved to the armchair, where he sat perched on one wide arm, stroking Lucy-Maude’s sleek back. “You do realize that this critter has something in the oven? Six or eight somethings, probably?”

  Joslyn, oddly touched by the sight of a rough-and-tumble cowboy like Hutch petting a cat, sighed. “Yep,” she said. “I picked up on that.”

  Hutch ran his eyes over her once with platonic appreciation and cocked another grin. “Maybe we can rustle you up a pair of boots when we get to my place,” he said. “Dad kept some of my mom’s things when she died, and she did a lot of riding before she got sick.”

  Joslyn’s throat tightened, just briefly. She remembered Lottie Hutcheson Carmody’s long illness and subsequent death; her mother and Elliott had gone to the funeral, leaving her at home with Opal, much to her secret—and guilty—relief.

  She and Hutch had both been twelve at the time and already good friends, in the gibe-and-shove way of prepubescent kids. More than once, Joslyn had wished she’d insisted on attending Lottie’s services, if only so Hutch would have seen her there and known she was sorry he’d lost his mother.

  Losing her own was unimaginable, then as now.

  Hutch laid a hand to the small of Joslyn’s back and lightly steered her toward the door. Slipping her purse strap over one shoulder, she went along.

  The Butter Biscuit Café was doing a brisk business, as it always did on Sundays. People came for breakfast before or after church, then for a late lunch or an early supper.

  Essie Spotts, the middle-aged and inherently good-natured owner of the place, somehow conjured up a table right away. Essie’s hair was dyed Elvis-black, and she wore it pinned up in a loose bun on top of her head, shot through with pencils of varying lengths. She hadn’t been at the barbecue the day before, but she’d provided much of the food and the waitstaff.

  If she’d lost any money in Elliott’s investment scheme, she didn’t appear to blame Joslyn for it, unlike a number of other, less charitable souls around town.

  “Now, then,” she said cheerfully, plucking one of the pencils from her hair and pulling a small order pad from her apron pocket. “Blueberry brunch balls are the special, since we’re serving breakfast all day. Comes with scrambled eggs and either bacon or sausage on the side. Toast is extra, since you’ve got your carbohydrates in the brunch balls.”

  A benign smirk curved Hutch’s mouth as he sat down across the table from Joslyn and intertwined his fingers, in no apparent hurry to consult a menu. “What the heck,” he began, “is a blueberry brunch ball?”

  Essie, who happened to have a hefty vinyl menu tucked under one pudgy elbow, bopped Hutch lightly on the head with it. “It’s a mess of blueberries, you dumb cowboy, mixed with pancake dough and deep-fried.”

  Hutch laughed. “It’s all right, Essie,” he teased. “You not wanting the word to get out that you’re crazy in love with me, I mean. I understand completely.”

  Essie, who had to be past fifty, blushed behind the powdery circles of rouge on her cheeks. “You stop that nonsense right now, Hutch Carmody,” she scolded, clearly delighted, “and tell me what you want to eat. In case you haven’t noticed, the place is full to the rafters, and I don’t have all day to stand around here yammerin’ with the likes of you.”

  “I’ll have the special,” Joslyn interjected politely. “Please.”

  Hutch was still grinning. “And I’ll take a cheeseburger, fries and a double chocolate shake, just like I always do.”

  Essie clucked her tongue, shook her head, spiky with pencils, and turned to hurry off and put in the order.

  “Blueberry brunch balls?” Hutch asked, looking at Joslyn.

  “Oh, stop it,” Joslyn said. “You just like saying that.”

  “You’ve got to admit,” Hutch replied, “it’s alliterative.”

  “‘Alliterative’?” Joslyn smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use that word.”

  “I’m not really a dumb cowboy,” he confided mischievously in a whisper, “whatever Essie says to the contrary. I’ve even read a book or two in my time—in fact, I’m seriously considering getting myself one of those electronic readers and downloading a whole mess of Shakespeare.”

  Joslyn chuckled, and Essie returned with Hutch’s milk shake and the orange juice and coffee expertly balanced on a small, round tray. She served the drinks and trotted off toward the door to greet another batch of customers and say goodbye to some on their way out.

  “You and Shakespeare,” Joslyn said with a mock frown. “Not a combination I would have come up with in a million years.”

  “Forsooth,” Hutch said.

  “That’s all the Shakespeare you know?”

  Hutch laughed again. “Pretty much,” he admitted.

  The food arrived and in the next instant, his grin faded, and the laughter drained from his eyes.

  Joslyn turned to look back over her shoulder to see what—or who—had been able to effect such a lightning-fast change of mood.

  Slade Barlow had just come in. He saw the two of them right away, nodded cordially enough, took off his hat and spoke quietly to Essie, who was, once again, all smiles and blushes.

  Hutch slid back his chair. Stood. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Joslyn without looking at her.

  She didn’t like the glint in Hutch’s eyes. “Wait—” she said.

  But he was already walking toward Slade.

  It seemed that the whole place went silent just then. Nobody spoke or even clinked a fork against a plate or a cup against a saucer. No pans rattled in the kitchen.

  Because there was no other sound, Slade’s words, though spoken in a low rumble, were clearly audible.

  “Hello, Hutch,” he said.

  “You take a look at my offer yet?” Hutch countered without returning the greeting first. His back, turned to Joslyn now, was rigid, and she could tell that his arms were folded. “To buy your share of Whisper Creek, I mean?”


  Slade took in their surroundings with an eloquent—and irritated—glance. He was a private man, Joslyn knew, one who didn’t run from public confrontations but didn’t much enjoy them, either.

  “Maggie gave me the papers last night,” he said evenly. “I haven’t had time to give the matter a whole hell of a lot of thought, as it happens.”

  Hutch seethed at that. “All the better to jack me around, right?”

  “Now, Hutch,” Essie said, handing Slade the take-out cup of coffee he must have ordered when he came in, “don’t you go starting anything. I mean it.”

  Slade set the coffee casually aside on the register counter, along with his hat. “Yeah,” he echoed. “Don’t start anything, because you might have your hands full finishing it.”

  Hutch wanted to hit Slade; Joslyn and everyone else in the Butter Biscuit knew that. “All I want is an answer,” he growled, and it was obvious from his stance that he was still looking directly at his half brother.

  “All right,” Slade said, measuring out his words. “In that case, I guess it has to be no.” There was a long, dangerous pause before Slade went on, “I’ve been thinking of getting myself a couple of horses. Which half of the barn at Whisper Creek is mine?”

  Essie squeezed between the two men and put a manicured hand on each of their chests, fingers splayed.

  “Hutch,” she said, “you go and sit down with your lady, right now. And, Slade, you take your coffee—it’s on the house this time—and go about your business.”

  Joslyn felt something akin to amazement as, however reluctantly, both men obeyed Essie’s motherly command.

  Slade picked up his cup of coffee and walked out the door.

  Hutch returned to the table where he’d been sitting with Joslyn and pushed away what remained of his cheeseburger.

  “Damn it,” he said after a charged moment.

  Joslyn considered reaching out to him, maybe patting his hand, but that seemed almost—well—patronizing under the circumstances, so she held back, staring down at the blueberry brunch balls on her plate, her appetite completely gone.

  “Let’s go for that ride,” Hutch said after a few very long moments.

  Joslyn nodded, and Hutch settled up the bill, and they left.

  Talk closed behind them like briefly parted waters as they went through the door of the Butter Biscuit Café.

  * * *

  ESSIE’S WORDS RANG IN Slade’s mind as he climbed into his truck, parked in the gravel lot beside the café, balancing his coffee in one hand and juggling his hat with the other. You go and sit down with your lady, she’d told Hutch moments before.

  Since when was Joslyn Hutch’s “lady”?

  Some of Slade’s coffee squeezed past the lid and spilled as he jammed it into the cup holder, burning the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger.

  Slade swore. Jasper, riding shotgun, looked at him with concern.

  “Get a grip,” Slade said, talking to himself now and right out loud, too. Not, as he figured it, a good sign. “Hutch and Joslyn were having a meal together, not rolling around naked in high grass.”

  Jasper’s expression went from concern to pity. He gave a low, throaty whine.

  “It’s all right, boy,” Slade told the dog. “I’m only about half as crazy as I sound, and you’re in no danger.”

  He took a couple of deep breaths, then started the truck, shifted it into Reverse, and backed up. He’d stick with the original plan, he decided—take a spin by the Best Western hotel at the edge of town to see if Shea and Layne had arrived yet.

  That would get his mind off Joslyn and Hutch. He hoped.

  They were just getting out of a white rental car in front of the Best Western hotel when Slade pulled in with Jasper. Layne, coolly elegant in a red-and-white polka-dot dress and big sunglasses, waved and smiled. She was gorgeous, his ex-wife, but she didn’t make his breath catch or his heart rate speed up.

  Shea, standing by the passenger door in jean shorts and a short pink T-shirt that left part of her midriff showing, jumped up and down as she recognized him—he guessed that, without her friends there to see, she didn’t have to put on that disdainful front so common to teenage girls.

  “Hey,” he said, getting out of the truck, leaving his hat and his dog behind.

  Shea, small with a head of dark hair and huge violet eyes, squealed with delight and flung both arms around him, pressing her forehead hard into his breastbone. “Hey,” she said, choking a little on the word.

  Above Shea’s head, Slade’s and Layne’s gazes met as she took off her sunglasses. Layne nodded cordially, and Slade nodded back and hugged Shea just a little more tightly than before.

  Living with a teenager and a new dog was going to liven up his summer, all right, even before adding Joslyn Kirk to the mix.

  CHAPTER TEN

  AFTER THE CONFRONTATION with Slade, back at the Butter Biscuit, Joslyn could see that Hutch was even more set on the horseback ride than before.

  Settled in the passenger seat of the beat-up old ranch truck he drove over the bumpy roads leading to Whisper Creek Ranch, she bit her lower lip.

  “Do you want to talk?” she asked.

  Hutch scowled, though he kept his eyes on the dusty swath of oil-stained gravel and dirt in front of them. “About what?” he snapped.

  Joslyn simply looked at him.

  To his credit, Hutch immediately threw her an apologetic glance. “Sorry,” he said.

  “What’s going on between you and Slade?” Joslyn persisted. She’d gleaned a lot from things that were said earlier at the café, but she wanted to hear Hutch’s take on the situation, so she pretended to know nothing.

  He was looking straight ahead again, and his jaw tightened until the bone bulged. “Same old, same old,” he said presently, trying for a light tone and failing big-time. “Cain and Abel, that’s us.”

  “I think it’s more,” Joslyn ventured. She’d always known that the two men were half brothers, one legitimate and the other not, just as everyone else who’d ever spent more than a day in Parable did. It was old news, which indicated that some new dynamic must have entered the equation.

  Hutch glanced her way and signaled a turn onto a familiar side road, next to a sturdy mailbox with the name “Carmody” stenciled on the side. Drove too fast over the ruts and bumps. “A few days ago,” he said, without looking in her direction, “Maggie Landers called Slade and me into her office for the reading of my dad’s will. Half of everything the old man owned goes to Slade.”

  Joslyn absorbed that without comment. Splayed her fingers on her blue-jeaned thighs and made a concentrated effort not to bite her tongue as they bounced along that pot-holed driveway.

  She’d been under the impression that John Carmody had never been willing to admit Slade was his flesh-and-blood, born of a long-ago affair with Callie. It was one of those secrets that wasn’t much of a secret.

  “Half of everything,” Hutch reiterated grimly, bringing the truck to a jerky stop, at last, between the two-story colonial house and the long, low-slung barn, with its weathered red paint and white shutters at the windows. “Including this ranch.”

  “Oh,” Joslyn said lamely.

  “Yeah,” Hutch bit out, “oh.”

  She summoned up a wavery smile. “So this means you’re going to wind up in the poorhouse?” she teased, her tone tentative.

  Still lame, she decided.

  Hutch made no move to get out of the truck. He shut off the engine, though, and gazed off toward some horizon she couldn’t quite see. “Money’s not the problem,” he said, after a long, uncomfortable silence. “There’s plenty of that to go around. It’s the land. It’s been in the family for more than a century, Joslyn. There are Carmodys buried here. It’s wrong to break this ranch into pieces.”

  “Does it have to be that way?” Joslyn asked, very quietly. “Couldn’t you and Slade work something out?”

  “I offered him more money than he’s ever seen for his share of Whisper Cree
k,” Hutch said miserably. “He doesn’t want the place—never showed any interest in staking any kind of claim before. And he could have done that, if he’d taken a notion to. Hired a lawyer, gotten a DNA test done, whatever.” He paused, sucked in a breath, squared his shoulders. He still wasn’t looking at Joslyn. “No, Slade’s just jerking me around, that’s all. Because he can, probably. Besides, this is his chance to get back at me for having what he never got, and he means to make the most of it.”

  Joslyn wanted to choose her words carefully, so she took her time putting them together in her head. While she hadn’t known Slade any better when they were younger than she did now at this moment, he’d never struck her as the envious type. Slade had been quiet and kept mostly to himself and a small circle of friends, and he’d never had nice cars or expensive clothes, as she and Hutch had, but it was also true that he’d never shown any signs of wanting those things. Even as a youth, he’d been squarely centered in his own identity, it seemed to her, and comfortable there.

  “I know you want things settled,” she said, “but it hasn’t been that long since your dad died, and now you’ve got the inheritance thing to deal with. Maybe if you just, well, breathe, and let the dust settle for a while, Slade will stop digging in his heels and reconsider your offer.”

  Slade loved the Kingman place; she’d seen that when the two of them had gone out there together. Although he’d been slow to make up his mind about buying it, she figured he’d wind up living there when all was said and done.

  Hutch sighed, shoved a hand through his hair. “In other words, I should back off a little? Is that what you’re saying?”

  She smiled. “That’s what I’m saying,” she confirmed. “Slade’s stubborn. You’re stubborn. What we have here is a good old-fashioned standoff, and turning it into a pissing match isn’t going to solve anything.”

  At last, Hutch turned to look at her directly and gave her a sheepish grin. “Maybe I’ve been pushing Slade a little too hard,” he admitted.