Big Sky Wedding

by Linda Lael Miller

  The backs of Zane’s eyes burned, remembering how brave she’d been, and how patient, and how ridiculously young. Some mothers would have yelled—and not without justification—but she’d merely handed the box of food over the backseat, along with a couple of plastic forks from the stash in the glove compartment, and told them to eat before the food got any colder than it already was.

  Realizing that Landry was still talking, Zane jerked himself out of the memory and back into the here and now. Whatever his brother had said, he’d missed it, and he was too hardheaded and proud to ask for an instant replay.

  “So, anyway,” Landry said, winding down now, “I’ll see you when I see you.”

  “Great,” Zane said, mystified. He had no clue when—or if—his brother would show up, or, if he did put in an appearance, whether he’d stay there at the ranch house or get himself a room in Three Trees or Parable.

  Time would tell.

  They said their goodbyes and the conversation was over.

  When Zane got back to the demolished kitchen, Cleo and Nash were waiting impatiently. Cleo had changed into purple pants and a matching top with ruffles, but she still wore the yellow sneakers.

  Zane, thankful for small favors, was glad she hadn’t put her hat back on to complete the look. Leaving Slim to snooze contentedly in his favorite corner, apparently heedless of the ruin surrounding him on all sides, Zane, Cleo and Nash climbed into the truck and left for town.

  The process took a couple of hours, and by the time they got back to the ranch, after supper at the Bluebell Café, it was getting dark. Zane sent Cleo on into the house while he and Nash began unloading a dizzying array of purchases from the back of the pickup.

  “How did your hot date go, anyhow?” Nash asked companionably with no preamble whatsoever as he lugged his newly acquired TV, still in its box, across the yard, following a path of light spilling from the open door Cleo had just passed through.

  Zane hadn’t been thinking about Brylee, but about the old days, and Maddie Rose, and how he and Landry had been thick as thieves when they were younger. He took a moment to register his brother’s question, and then answered, not unkindly, “That, boy, is none of your damn business.”

  Nash accepted the reply with equanimity—most likely, being out of the loop was nothing new to him, given that Jess had always been long on doing what came naturally and short on explaining why—hesitated, then posed a question of his own. “Do you think Dad knows where I am?”

  Zane was glad it was fairly dark in the yard, and his face was in shadow beneath the brim of his hat, because he wouldn’t have wanted the boy to see the expression on his face, a combination of pity for Nash and cold anger at the man who’d gone off and left him on Landry’s doorstep. Sure, Landry was family, but, like Zane, he was still a virtual stranger to the kid.

  “He’ll be in touch,” Zane heard himself say, his voice husky. Or not.

  He should have been straight with him, told the boy what he surely already knew, that Jess Sutton was about as dependable as a cheap flashlight with low batteries, but it was no use. People mostly believed what they wanted to believe, especially when the alternative was a hard truth. Why should Nash be the exception?

  “You think so?” Nash asked, sounding hopeful and worried, both at once.

  Lugging half the contents of the supermarket in Three Trees, Zane didn’t have a free hand, or he would have given the kid a brief pat on the shoulder, in an effort to reassure him a little. “What’s his pattern?” he asked, as they climbed the porch steps, Nash in the lead with his TV.

  “His pattern?” Nash asked, glancing back over one shoulder and nearly tripping over the dog awaiting him just inside the kitchen door.

  “When he takes off,” Zane replied, with no inflection, “how long does he usually stay away?”

  Over Nash’s head, Zane locked gazes with Cleo, who frowned.

  Nash set the box down with obvious relief, ruffling Slim’s ears and laughing a little as the dog jumped, and circled and finally sat. His eyes were serious, though, when he looked at Zane, and one of his skinny shoulders moved in a halfhearted shrug. “It depends,” he admitted. But then the glum expression slacked off just slightly, and he added, “He always comes back, though. Sooner or later. When he does, we have a good time, going to movies and eating in restaurants and stuff.”

  By then, Zane was avoiding Cleo’s eyes, but he knew that she was thinking pretty much the same thing he was. Jess Sutton wasn’t worth the space he took up or the air he breathed, and all the wishing and hoping in the universe wasn’t going to change him.

  “Let’s get this stuff inside and put away as best we can,” Zane managed, still sounding rusty. “I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m looking forward to a shower and eight hours of sleep.”

  “You just carry in the rest of what we bought,” Cleo interjected. “We’re going to have to live out of bags and boxes for a while, anyhow, since there’s no place to put everything, once the refrigerator is filled up.”

  Zane nodded. Cleo hadn’t said anything particularly profound, but she’d made the situation easier, just the same.

  He and Nash unloaded the truck, then Nash went off to his room, Slim at his heels, to try out his new TV.

  Zane said a quiet good-night to Cleo, who looked like she expected him to say something and was going to be nonplussed if he didn’t, and retreated into his own space, such as it was.

  The shower was soothing—for once, there was plenty of hot water.

  The air mattress was tolerable, even bordering on comfortable.

  Still, Zane didn’t fall asleep right away, tired as he was. He lay in the darkness, with his hands cupped behind his head, thinking about the way Brylee Parrish looked in a pair of jeans and grinning like an idiot.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  BRYLEE BIT HER lower lip as she studied Casey’s face, there in the kitchen of the main ranch house. “Really?” she asked anxiously. “You don’t mind?”

  Casey, who was peering at a page in an old cookbook, an apron tied around her tiny waist, scratched away a splatter mark with one fingernail and chuckled. “Of course I don’t,” she said, giving the words a musical lilt, as she often did. Sometimes, it was hard to decide if Casey was talking or singing—she had music in her at the cellular level, it seemed, and she exuded it. “I told you I wanted to invite Zane over for supper one day soon, since he and I are acquainted. Besides, this is still your home, too. You don’t need my permission to have guests, Brylee.” Earnest tears glistened in those famously green eyes for the briefest of moments, then she added huskily, “You’re not feeling shut out, like you’re not part of the family, are you? Because you are.”

  Brylee gave her sister-in-law a quick, impulsive hug, touched by the pained expression on the woman’s face. Casey was deliriously happy, now that she and Walker were finally married, no doubt about that, but it didn’t stop her from fretting that she and the kids had somehow swept Brylee aside.

  “No,” Brylee protested. “Casey, I’m thrilled that you and Walker finally got your acts together and tied the knot, and you know I love Clare and Shane and Preston as if they were mine.” She folded her arms, tilted her head to one side and studied her brother’s wife with mock solemnity. “I’ve been living in that apartment since I came home from college, you know, and that was long before you came on the scene. I like it. In other words, I’m fine.”

  Okay, so it was a good thing Brylee didn’t happen to have her hand resting on a Bible just then, but what she’d said was mostly true. She was glad Casey and Walker were married, and she did adore all three of the children, too. But if she admitted that she sometimes felt like the proverbial fifth wheel, no longer comfortable having free run of the main part of the house the way she used to, Casey wouldn’t understand that it had nothing to do with her and the kids being there. She’d stew and worry, because that’s how she was—she cared about other people, cared a lot.

  “You’d say something if you
were unhappy, wouldn’t you?” Casey pressed, very softly. Her eyes were dry now, but her lower lip quivered just slightly.

  Brylee was forced to tell another white lie. “Yes,” she replied, shifting her focus to the well-used cookbook Casey had been perusing. Passed down from Walker and Brylee’s great-grandmother, the volume was dog-eared, marked up and positively bristling with slips of paper bearing notes in faded handwriting. “What are you planning on whipping up, Mrs. Parrish?” she asked, to change the subject.

  Casey twinkled. “Biscuits,” she replied. “Walker loves the things—he’d eat them at breakfast, lunch and dinner—and I thought I’d take a stab at making a batch the old-fashioned way. He never complains about the ones that come from the supermarket in a cardboard tube, but I know he misses the homemade kind.”

  Brylee rested a hand on Casey’s shoulder, gave it a light squeeze. “You know what?” she said gently. “Walker’s one lucky cowboy, getting you for a wife.” This time, she was being completely truthful.

  Casey gave a chortling laugh, along with an involuntary sniffle. “I’d say I’m the lucky one,” she countered, holding the heavy cookbook up in front of her face and squinting comically at the printed recipe, even though there was nothing wrong with her eyesight. “It looks so simple—flour, some shortening and buttermilk, a little salt—but...”

  Brylee moved to the sink, washed her hands with soap and hot water. “You can do this, Casey,” she lectured, grinning. “But if it would make you feel better, I’d be glad to give you a few pointers.”

  Casey beamed. “That would be excellent!” she said.

  Soon, both of them were up to their elbows in sifted flour—standing side by side at one of the long counters and chatting away as they built a double batch of country biscuits.

  “How are Shane and Clare doing?” Brylee asked, leaving Preston out of the inquiry only because he was lying in his portable crib nearby, sleeping soundly and obviously thriving.

  Casey made a face. “Shane’s behaving himself, though he’s still hectoring both Walker and me something fierce about letting him enter the rodeo next month,” she answered. “Clare’s been a little quiet, since she found out that boy she liked was just using her to get to me, but having Zane Sutton here for supper will probably cheer her right up. She’s a huge fan.”

  The reminder of Zane gave Brylee pause—she always felt better when she forgot to think about him, since whenever he came to mind a jolt of sweet electricity went through her—but it didn’t break her conversational stride. She dropped her voice to a mischievous whisper and went on to confide, “He’s a looker, all right. If I wasn’t afraid he’d find out about it and get the wrong idea, I’d rent all his movies and watch them one right after the other.”

  Casey giggled. “I knew it,” she said, with a note of soft triumph in her voice. “You’re smitten with the man, Brylee Parrish.”

  “I’m not smitten,” Brylee insisted. Heck, no, chided her inner critic, the one who always had an argument ready, you just want to rip his clothes off and roll around with him in the tall grass naked as the day you were born, that’s all.

  Brylee blushed at the inevitable—and X-rated—image that had taken shape in her brain.

  Watching her, Casey gave a bubbly burst of amusement. “If you could see your face!”

  Thank heaven the woman wasn’t psychic, Brylee thought. But Casey was perceptive—more so than most people, anyhow—and she was whip-smart, too. With that agile mind of hers, it wasn’t any big leap for her to guess what Brylee was thinking. In fact, Shane and Clare swore up and down their mom had eyes in the back of her head.

  “It’s time to roll out this dough and cut some biscuits,” Brylee said decisively, all business now. “Set the oven temperature at 375 and I’ll get out a couple of glasses and some cookie sheets.”

  Casey frowned and squinted at the cookbook again. “The recipe says 350,” she told Brylee seriously.

  Brylee waved a hand to dismiss that. “This oven has been twenty-five degrees off for as long as I can remember,” she answered. “So 375 will do it.”

  Casey sighed and moved to the stove, while Brylee scrounged through the cupboards under the counter for a pair of cookie sheets, found the rolling pin in a drawer and finally reached overhead for a pair of drinking glasses. They’d use the rims to cut perfect circles in the dough, once they’d rolled it out on a floury surface.

  By the time Walker, Shane and some of the ranch hands came in for supper a short while later, the air in that kitchen was downright redolent with the smell of perfectly baked biscuits.

  Brylee snatched a couple for herself, placed them on a paper towel and stood on tiptoe to kiss her brother’s beard-stubbled cheek. “See you around,” she told him, smiling at the sheer delight in his face as he breathed in the aroma and gave Casey an exuberant hug.

  “Biscuits?” he said, almost as though he might be afraid to hope.

  “Yep,” Brylee replied, summoning Snidely, who had been sleeping under the table since she got back from the ride with Zane Sutton, and heading for the apartment. At the door, she paused, looked back over one shoulder and said, “That wife of yours is definitely a keeper, Walker Parrish. I hope you’re thanking your lucky stars for her, and often.”

  Walker chuckled, his eyes glowing, and planted a smacking kiss on Casey’s upturned, flour-splotched face. “Believe me,” he replied gruffly, as his bride smiled back at him, “I say thank you with about every breath I draw.”

  The words touched Brylee in parts of her heart that were still bruised, and she wondered if she’d ever know that kind of love.

  Determined not to let her feelings show, she exchanged a glance with Shane, raised her eyebrows and slipped out, with Snidely right behind her, his toenails clicking on the tile floor.

  No more than two minutes could have passed when someone knocked at the door between Brylee’s apartment and Casey and Walker’s kitchen. It opened, and Shane stuck his head inside.

  “Can I come in?”

  Brylee had just buttered both the biscuits she’d helped herself to and was on the verge of devouring the first one. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was. “Don’t let me stop you,” she teased, with a small grin. “Want a biscuit?”

  Shane shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said, stepping into the corridor. “Mom’s got about a million of them stacked on a platter, and we’ll be having supper in a few minutes. You were out of there so fast, Dad didn’t get the chance to ask you to join us, so he sent me to do it.”

  Brylee might have said she wasn’t hungry, if she hadn’t had a growling stomach and a mouth full of fresh, flaky, delicious biscuit at the moment. She chewed, swallowed and reached for the second one, still resting on its paper towel nearby, oozing butter where she’d sliced it in half. “Not tonight,” she said pleasantly. “I’ve got things to do.”

  “Like what?” Shane asked. He’d had a growth spurt since school let out in the spring, and he was nearly as tall as Walker. It was scary how fast kids grew up—why, in no time at all, she might be having a similar conversation with Preston.

  An honest reply—she planned to wash her hair, check her personal emails and possibly set the DVR to record one of Zane’s movies—was out of the question. On the other hand, she didn’t want to fib again, as she had earlier, to Casey, in case it got to be a habit. Taking the easy way out was tempting, but it was also a slippery slope. Therefore, she was stuck for an answer.

  Shane didn’t miss her hesitation, of course—that would have made things too easy and, besides, like his sister, he was a sharp kid. His expression was sort of wistful, and he was watching her closely. “You mad at us or something?” he asked.

  Brylee was horrified. “No,” she responded quickly. “Of course I’m not.”

  “You always say no when we invite you to come over,” Shane reminded her. He actually looked a little hurt, and sounded that way, too. Still pretty grubby from herding cattle all day with his dad and some of the ranch han
ds, he shifted his weight slightly, from one leg to the other. “It’s weird.”

  Brylee realized she had been making a lot of excuses lately, keeping to herself when she wasn’t at the office, and there was no point in denying the fact. “I’m just trying to give you guys some space over there,” she said lamely, forgetting all about the second biscuit she’d been planning to gobble up. “Let you be a family, just the five of you.”

  “You’re part of our family, too,” Shane said, as a Walker-like smile crept to his lips and then rose to flicker in his eyes. He spread his hands in a got-you-there kind of gesture. “Come on, Brylee,” he urged. “If I go back and tell Mom and Dad you think you’re in the way or something, they’ll bring out the big guns. You’ll get no peace at all, ever.”

  He was right, of course.

  “Can we make a deal?” Brylee asked, attempting a smile and wringing her hands a little.

  “Depends,” Shane said. He was barely a teenager, yet already his voice was changing. And he was gaining confidence as well as lean muscle.

  “I’ll come and have supper with the rest of you if you promise not to tell your folks what I said. About why I haven’t been over that much lately, I mean.”

  Shane considered the bargain, pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes mischievously as he worked the matter through in his head.

  “Okay,” the boy finally agreed, with one of those sun-parting-the-rain-clouds smiles that always reminded her of her big brother. Soon enough, Shane would be irresistible to the female gender. Too bad there was no way to warn girls and women everywhere. “Maybe you can get Clare to talk. I always wished she’d shut up, but now, all of a sudden, she’s got nothing to say, and it’s creepy. She’s been pouting for days over that stupid guy who was going to romance her on the bus trip to the capital, and it’s a total bummer just to be around her.”