“Hey, I was thinkin’—my Alex and your Dee should get together for a lil’ play date or somethin’, and maybe you and I can find ourselves doin’ somethin’ too.”
“No.”
She blinked at him, and he did not back down from her gaze. The phone in his pocket was buzzing, and he pulled it out. Seamus’s number. He was calling back.
“Sorry,” he said, even though sorry was the very last thing in the world he was. “I’ve got to take this.”
Chapter Five:
Something
“’bout ye?” Seamus greeted, rather than asking the question lingering on his tongue. What are we doing?
“Sorry, what?” came the confused reply.
Seamus stopped pacing his living room and scooped his hair back with his free hand, tugging on it in…well, frustration mostly. So I’ve been home, what now? Ten months? Not a damn word from Chancey Bo Clearwater, followed by three calls in the space of a week. What the hell am I doing calling him back? Of course, ten months in Ireland was more than enough time to have forgotten all he’d learned about how to talk to ’Mericans. He rephrased his initial question: “How are you?”
From the other end of the line came the relative silence of a public space: distant conversations, passing cars, Chancey’s fast breathing, and no response.
“Chance? You still there?”
“Yeah. And I’m OK.”
“Right. Good.” More silence ensued. “Me too,” Seamus added. Jesus, this was awkward. He’d never been so good with the old chit-chat. All right, so, when he’d had a few, he didn’t know how to shut up, but he was sober now, which was…odd. He checked the time. He could probably get to the pub for one before Marie cleared out for the night, although he needed a shower, and he was knackered. Maybe give it a miss for one evening. His liver would thank him for it if nothing else.
“So…” he said, unzipping his paint-splattered cargo pants and inching them down one-handed so he could sit on the sofa. “You called me.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Honestly? I don’t know.”
“OK?” Seamus kicked his shoes away and trampled out of his pants. His t-shirt was covered in paint too, and he clamped the phone between his shoulder and ear, getting one arm free, wondering why he hadn’t yet hung up. Not that he would hang up on someone, especially not Chancey. But Seamus had a ready-made escape if he wanted to use it; he was calling international and it was costing him an arm and a leg. It would be simple to beg off. All right, then, Chance, nice chattin’, can’t spend my savings on this call. Instead he said, “It’s cheap, then, this Skype thing, is it?”
“Yeah. A couple cents a minute.”
“I might have to look into it.” For what reason? “I’d be able to call my brother more than once a year,” he explained, for the benefit of both his conscience and Chancey. “Hold on…” Seamus quickly pulled his t-shirt over his head and fed his phone-bearing hand through the sleeve.
“What was that?” Chancey asked.
“Oh. I’ve been paintin’.” Because that explained everything, like the fact, for instance, that he was now sitting in his boxers while holding something of a non-conversation with the only man who’d been inside them. Why was it that the room suddenly seemed ten degrees warmer?
“You got an apartment over there?”
“No. A cottage. It’s a lovely old building, and quite a size. Two bedrooms—three if I count the box room.”
“Box room?”
“Yeah. Where the water tank used to be. It’s a wee square room, about big enough to swing a cat if you held it really close to ye.”
Chancey gave a deep, gravelly chuckle, and it sent a wave of something akin to a shiver down through Seamus’s shoulders and chest. He did his best to ignore it and forged on. “You’re not at work today, no?”
“Yeah. Dee’s mom went on tour over the summer, and Tina changed my schedule. Tuesdays I’m there at five a.m. so I can quit early and take Dee to her dance class. That’s where I am now.”
“Ah, right. Gotcha. And how’s Tina getting on?”
“Great. I think she misses you almost as much as…the rest of us.”
“She misses havin’ someone to kick yer all up the arse,” Seamus joked, although in truth he’d had to do a fair bit of that. Funny how the only thing that had changed in ten months and four thousand miles was swapping cattle for cabbages, because young men were young men the world over. “You still getting all those lazy gobshites, are ye?”
“Yep,” Chancey said. Seamus could tell from the way the word sounded that he was smiling. How many times had they gone for a drink together after a long, hard day, training up kids who thought they wanted to be cowboys, only to have them leave as soon as their first pay check was in their hand? It was a hell of a job—twelve-hour days, minimum, tending the animals, herding them to better feeding grounds, rounding them up, giving immunisations, and dealing with idiot city-boy workers who didn’t know one end of a cow from the other.
“Did she bring in someone to work with you?” Seamus asked.
“We’ve had a few guys come through.”
“Come through? So none of ’em have stuck it out?”
“Um…kinda more like…”
“You sent ’em packin’, didn’t yer, Chance?”
Again, that deep chuckle. Chancey was a good guy to work with, a grafter, but he wanted to get on with the job. Work on Tina’s ranch was part-time and never guaranteed, but it was a real ranch, and Chancey had worked there all of his adult life. He was the closest Tina had to a permanent member of staff, and within hours of Seamus starting his first shift, he realised if he wanted to stay in Chancey’s good books, he needed to get his head down and work like billy-o. Seamus’s five years at Tina’s made him the second longest serving member of staff, and he was under no illusion about who was the boss. For while Tina was the sort who would get her hands dirty, she was also far better with the paperwork than anyone else, and she gladly left Chancey to the rest of it. Over time, Seamus became his right-hand man, and they got to talking, became friends, drinking buddies. The rest…well, it seemed it wasn’t history after all.
“It’s late, right?” Chancey asked.
“Gone eleven, aye.”
“I’m keeping you up.”
“Not at all, no. Like I say, I’ve been painting. I should’ve been stopped by now anyway. I’m up at five.”
“The guy who never sleeps. I remember.”
Seamus laughed. “I do sleep, just not as much as everyone else.” He was a shocking sleeper. Always had been, although he’d been better these past few months, until Chancey called to say ‘I miss you’.
“I miss you too,” Seamus said, his thoughts escaping unintentionally, but he wasn’t embarrassed by his admission. They’d spent too many hours in each other’s company for secrets to factor into their friendship.
“You do?”
“Yeah. Don’t take this the wrong way, Chance, because…well, it would be really odd if you were like a father to me…”
“Make a guy feel good about himself, why don’t ya?”
“The compliment’s coming, my friend, don’t you worry. All I meant was we worked together for five years. I wouldn’t be the man I am if it wasn’t for you.”
“The kind who leaves without saying goodbye?”
“Chance, I…” Have no defence. Chancey’s words seemed to dance in the air, wispy imps laughing, jabbing their fingers in accusation. “You knew I was planning to come back someday,” Seamus justified. Even to him it sounded like bullshit.
“You always said you would,” Chancey agreed. His tone was cool and dismissive, still a punch in the gut that sent Seamus sprawling back against the sofa, panting for breath.
How did it come to this? And what was this anyway? He’d thought—no—he’d assumed Chancey wouldn’t want anything to do with him after what had happened between them. They were drunk, which was no excuse, but it wouldn’t have happened
if they’d been sober, knowing that the morning after they’d both be back at work, acting as if nothing had changed, when in reality everything had.
Where Seamus had once accused Chancey of sullenness, now he saw deep and moody. Wrinkles became laughter lines, the glare morphed into a glint, and the middle-aged cattle herder with the wire-wool stubble and unwashed, uncombed mop of greasy hair transformed into a hard-working, weathered and hot-as-hell-itself cowboy.
There was no mistaking those memories as mere figments of his imagination. Seamus didn’t even have to work at it to remember…the smell, the taste, the all-consuming everything of Chancey’s body against his. First the kiss, rough, hard, whiskers scratching and burning at his chin, his neck, a scorching trail of hot breath, shirts unbuttoned, the broad, hairy chest tickling light touch, push-push, denim-clad cocks rutting, demanding liberty, backstepping up onto the porch, through the door… And then Chancey in his bed, laughing at the tangle of legs and sheets and lips and tongues, slipping and sliding in sweat and ecstasy, tequila and tobacco intoxication taking them down, down, deep into each other…
Ah, the gift of living alone, to be sitting on the sofa in nothing but underwear and with a boner that could hold up a big top. Seamus laughed quietly at himself, but not quietly enough.
“What’s funny?” Chancey asked.
“Nothing really. I was thinking about…” Seamus paused, listening to Chancey greet his daughter, grateful for the momentary reprieve. He had no more than a few seconds in which to make his decision, and it was a life-changer.
“Hold on, Dee.” The muffled voice became clear again. “I gotta go, Shay.”
“All right, but can I just say…I’m sorry. I should’ve said goodbye, but you and me, well, I thought…” we meant nothin’… “Anyway, that’s all really.”
“Apology accepted.”
“I’m gonna get your Skype thing and call you, if that’s OK?”
“More than.”
“Great. You take care now. Love to Dee.”
Seamus hit ‘end call’ and sighed heavily in relief, a weight taken off his mind that he hadn’t been aware was there. Now to deal with the other matter…
Chapter Six:
Work, Work on the Range
“Keep it tight!” Chancey called to the young man and his fiancée who were riding on the other side of the small group of Angus. They were herding the cattle—no more than ten total—from one field to another with the help of two very well trained cattle dogs, Flip and Flop.
The woman, who was a much better rider than the man, whooped and cheered as she managed to get one of the calves to fall back in line. Chancey watched the herd, Rabbit Hill’s guests, and the dogs all with the practised eye of a true rancher. This was nothing—the sun beating down on his forearms, dirt in his teeth, sweat under his hat, the damn itch he’d had for the last half hour—all of it was as familiar as home. And the old ranch horse he rode was the perfect companion.
It was the dream of every true cowboy to be his own man, working for no one but himself, and Chancey Bo Clearwater was no different. When he’d told his daddy at sixteen that he meant to be a rancher, the bastard had laughed right in his face—dream big, he’d said with a snort.
We can’t all be bank tellers like you, Dad.
Had to be someone out there doing the heavy lifting, making sure the animals were tended to, immunised, kept safe from predators, all of it—else, there wouldn’t be any of those steaks his daddy had been so damn proud of grilling in the summer. ’Course, it didn’t have to be cattle, that was just what Chancey had always tended. Sheep seemed like an obvious second choice, but he knew people who raised emu and alpaca, elk even sometimes. If he wanted to go totally left field, he could have got himself a salmon farm. Probably be a lot less dusty.
“Am I doing this right?” the man asked nervously. He clutched the reins like he might throttle them. Chancey motioned for him to ease up a little. Poor horse. It had been through worse, though. God he couldn’t stand city folk who couldn’t even do a basic Google search about what visiting a ranch might be like.
There’s so much dirt…
It smells like animals…
Where’s the spa…?
The ‘herd’—though it could barely be called that—wandered lazily in the direction of the designated pasture. Honestly, they’d have gone through on their own in time if Chancey had left the gate open, because they’d grazed their current field down to little more than dust. Even the dogs, well trained as they were, seemed to be having a good laugh at these tourists. Flip was constantly in motion, making wide circles, keeping the cattle from spreading too far apart with a nip here and there. Flop, true to his name, would run about twenty or thirty yards before dropping to his belly in the dirt, legs stretched out behind him. He watched with a lazy ease, tongue lolling from his grinning mouth. But the moment there was movement on the other side of the herd from Flip, he was off like a furry rocket, pushing the cattle in the right direction, only to drop down on his belly again as soon as Flip made it back around.
After Chancey had closed the gate behind the cattle, he turned on his winningest smile and said, “’At’ll do it, folks. You were great.”
The woman whooped again, and the man straightened in the saddle, looking pleased with himself. The dogs, knowing they’d satisfied their end of the bargain, celebrated by leaping together into one of the nearby water tanks, splashing around a bit, and then climbing out—sufficiently cooled. All told, Chancey wouldn’t mind a good dunk in the tank himself.
“So I think lunch’ll be on soon. We should probably head back.”
At the stables, he handed off both his horse and the guests to Gabriel who was going to ‘let them’ rub down their own horses for another twenty dollars. The woman was eager, her fiancé was less so. It was noon on a Wednesday. That meant if he hurried, he could make it over to Tina’s for some actual herding.
<<< >>>
Chancey felt the power of the horse beneath him as they galloped together across the open field. They moved like one great beast, muscles stretching and contracting in time. Times like these, he wanted to keep on riding—forever, maybe—do that whole sunset thing. Explore the plains on horseback, all of the Midwest and then the rest of America, riding, setting up camp under the stars, picking up in the morning. It was a beans-and-jerky-type fantasy that he always reined in by focusing on Dee’s sweet face. If he didn’t have her, then maybe. Maybe he’d be long gone.
But he did—so these jaunts across Tina’s fields had to do, and he promised himself, like he did way too often, that next time Dee was at her mother’s, he’d bring a bedroll, and he’d sleep out here and play pretend for the night.
They rounded an old, rusted windmill, barely turning in the breeze, and pushed on towards a small pond near the fence. He eased back on the reins and the horse slowed, pleased with the run, but ready for water. Chancey was ready for it too.
With only a single glance to make sure he was alone, he stepped out of his boots, pulling off his sweat-drenched socks and balling them up inside. He unbuttoned his shirt and unbuckled his jeans, letting the pants fall to the dusty earth and shaking out of his sleeves. He made short shrift of his underwear and then, naked except for his favourite piece of clothing—his hat—Chancey reluctantly removed that too and laid it on the pile.
The horse lifted its head to look at him, sneezed, and went back to drinking. Chancey laughed, hands on bare hips.
“You don’t approve.”
Well, he didn’t need the horse’s approval—just the cool waters of the pond, which enveloped him as he waded in. He’d been pond swimming since he was a kid. There was something about the chlorinated sterility of a maintained pool that turned him off. This? This was bliss. He dunked his head under the water, felt the chill sink into every pore, and popped up again with a gasp.
“Goddamn!”
The wind that blew across that wide-open Kansas ranch sent ripples along the surface of the pond and m
ade Chancey’s skin break out in goose bumps. He leaned back on the water, arms and legs spread wide, his whole front exposed to the setting sun.
Wonder what would have happened if he’d shared this spot with Seamus before he’d left? Would it have made the Irishman want to stay?
<<< >>>
Chancey was dead beat by the time he dragged himself into the house. He could smell macaroni and cheese, and grinned. Good girl, Dee. It was the only thing she ever made, but she never left him hungry.
“Dee, hon? You up still?”
The warm plate of mac told him that she probably was, and a second later his suspicions were confirmed when she popped into the kitchen in her pyjamas, one of the earbuds from her iPod shoved in her ear, the other dangling. She swooped in and kissed his cheek, all signs of the sullen girl she’d been yesterday gone.
“Hey, Momma sent her new single. It’s pretty good. Wanna hear?”
What he wanted to do was eat, but he tried to be supportive of Kaylee, especially because Dee was so proud of her. He leaned over and let Dee place the earbud for him. It was the middle of the song, a swelling chorus—but Dee hit ‘back’, and immediately the song started over.
Guilt, heartbreak, and what-ifs: that was Kaylee Starr, always singing about some lost love that may or may not be real. She did all right for herself, considering. She wasn’t ever going to be a Dolly or a Reba, but sometimes her songs made it on the radio, and sometimes she opened for second-tier country acts. She was pretty hot on the rodeo circuit, and she made enough of a living to at least keep doing what she did.
“I like this one,” Dee said, half-humming along with the impassioned chorus. “You think she’s singing about missing us?”
It was a joke, and Deidra didn’t even try to hide the mischievous grin on her face. She knew the song wasn’t about them.
Seeds of Tyrone Box Set Page 25
