Big Sky Wedding

by Linda Lael Miller

  All that was true, of course—except maybe for the part about Landry having a snowball’s chance in hell with Brylee, ever—and that was why Zane planned on calling Casey Elder as soon as he got home and asking for a raincheck on the home-cooked dinner. If he crowded Brylee now, Zane figured, he wouldn’t just miss when he tried to catch the brass ring, he’d fall clear off the merry-go-round, and getting back on would be a bitch, if it was possible at all.

  “Let it go, Landry,” he said, very quietly. He started the truck up again, grinding the ignition, checked the mirrors, and pulled back out onto the road. “We’ll be at Hangman’s Bend in a couple of minutes. You can sleep off all that beer and whatever else you’ve been swilling since you got to Parable. There might even be some hope that you’ll come to your senses by morning.”

  But Landry was shaking his head. “I’m not bunking in at your place, cowboy,” he said. “There’s an establishment in Three Trees called the Somerset Inn. Place looked halfway decent on the internet. Anyway, I have a reservation, and the rental company is dropping off a replacement car there first thing tomorrow.”

  Zane hoped his relief wasn’t too obvious, intense as it was. “Okay,” he agreed casually. “But you might have mentioned this when we drove through Three Trees fifteen minutes ago. I could have dropped you off then.”

  “You were busy tailing the Lady in Red,” Landry reminded him airily. “Far be it from me to interfere with your love life, bro.”

  “Right,” Zane said skeptically. “Far be it from you.”

  “That woman I was dancing with,” Landry mused aloud, as they passed the mailbox at the bottom of Zane’s driveway and headed on toward town. “You happen to recall what her name is?”

  Zane’s grip tightened on the wheel again momentarily, and conversely, he felt a weird impulse to laugh. He’d just been congratulating himself on not getting into a knock-down-drag-out, in the middle of nowhere, with his obnoxious brother. Now, what little self-control he’d been able to hold on to gave way to another rush of hostility.

  “You don’t remember her name?” he asked, when he figured he could trust himself not to yell, or pull over again, haul Landry out of the truck and beat the hell out of him on the spot. “You were all over her, man. She’s probably expecting a phone call at any minute, followed up with a major date, if not a proposal, and you didn’t catch her name?”

  Landry sighed, long-suffering. “I see you’re still the same judgmental bastard you always were,” he remarked, feigning great sadness at the discovery.

  “Amy,” Zane bit out, determined not to acknowledge the gibe. “Her name is Amy.”

  “Right,” Landry said. “It would have come back to me eventually, but thanks, anyway.”

  “She’s Brylee’s friend,” Zane pointed out, remembering what Brylee had said about how Amy was still in love with her ex-husband—against the dictates of common sense, evidently, since the man was busy romancing a flight attendant—and kept his tone as even as he could. Landry was goading him, and he needed to put on the brakes, get a grip before “bad” morphed itself into “worse.” “Amy’s a nice person, a small-town girl.” A pause. “So suppose you summon up the decency to leave her the hell alone? You’re not even divorced from what’s-her-name, are you?”

  “Susan.” Landry let out a long breath. “We never got around to getting married again, after that last divorce,” he said, dismissing the most recent wife/girlfriend/whatever, as if she’d been hired from an escort service for a night. “Is Amy the first runner-up or something?” he went on, all innocence and phony concern now. “I mean, if things don’t work out between you and Brylee—and from my viewpoint it looks like they won’t, sorry to say—you want to keep her friend in reserve for a replacement?”

  Zane simmered in silence for a long time, refusing to give in to his baser instincts, which called for immediate brother-blood by the bucket load. The flash flood of adrenaline rushing through his system took a while to subside.

  When the outskirts of Three Trees finally came into view, though, Zane was ready to talk again, and he went straight to the point. “What are you doing here, Landry?” he asked, without any inflection at all. “In Montana, I mean. It definitely isn’t your kind of place.”

  “I told you,” Landry said, the soul of patience. “I want to get a good look at my half of the ranch. I need a change of perspective, a chance to get off the hamster wheel for a few days and figure some things out.” Attitude aside, this was probably the first true thing to come out of Landry’s mouth all night.

  “That must be why you bought yourself those road-show jeans and circus boots,” Zane speculated flatly.

  Now Landry was genuinely offended; Zane could tell that by the freeze in the formerly heated atmosphere. And he not only didn’t give a rat’s ass what Landry’s response was, he was jazzed.

  “These clothes,” Landry said stiffly, “are custom-made. The best Chicago-land has to offer.”

  Zane chuckled, crossing the town limits and trying to remember exactly where the Somerset Inn was located. He might have seen it on one of his trips to town; he wasn’t sure. “Exactly,” he answered idly. “Around here, people buy their pants at Wal-Mart or Target or over at the Western-wear store—wherever they can get the best price—and no man who called himself a cowboy would be caught dead wearing duds like yours, especially those sissified boots.”

  That remark shut Landry up for a moment or two. He lifted one of his feet and gave his boot a cursory once-over. “Sissified?” he echoed, unconvinced but wavering a little, too.

  Up ahead, Zane spotted the sign for the Somerset Inn, behind the Denny’s and a convenience store/gas station surrounded by semitrucks.

  He grinned to himself. Score, he thought. “Downright girlie,” he confirmed, pulling into the lot next to the motel. It was a good-sized outfit, though modest, well-maintained and with a lot of welcoming light spilling out through the lobby doors and windows.

  Still, it was surely no match for the digs Landry was probably accustomed to gracing with his presence. Here, there might be a free breakfast, a pool and a few exercise machines, but room service, private wet bars, high-thread-count sheets, retractable TVs and spacious showers with multiple sprayers were unlikely prospects indeed. So much for personal concierges and complimentary champagne and rose stems on the pillows at night instead of a square of cheap chocolate, too.

  And yet, Zane thought, slightly deflated by his own observations, unassuming as it was, the Somerset Inn was in a lot better shape than his place. Once Landry got a look at the ranch house—and there was no getting out of that—he would have plenty to say about the new setup, and none of it would be favorable.

  Landry was still scowling over Zane’s comments on his duds, and he shoved open the truck door before Zane even came to a full stop under the fake-stucco portico outside the lobby. He got out, slammed the passenger door behind him, wrenched open the one in back to get his traveling gear and then slammed that door, too, hard enough to dent the framework. Without a goodbye or even a backward glance, let alone a thanks-for-the-ride, Landry walked away and disappeared into the inn.

  Zane was at once relieved and stricken by the seemingly unbridgeable chasm that had yawned between him and his brother, once his closest friend, from around the time their mother died.

  He let out a breath, drove away into the dark country night and headed for home. The lights were out in the house when he got there, except for one dim bulb glowing above the kitchen sink, which might mean he could avoid Cleo and Nash until morning. That would be some consolation at least.

  He parked the truck, jammed the keys into his pocket and made his way to the barn, where he spent a few soothing minutes leaning against Blackjack’s stall door, communing with the sleepy gelding. Horse-energy almost always restored Zane’s equanimity, and that night was no different.

  Later, walking toward the darkened porch, he scrolled through the lengthy contact list on his cell phone and came to a number for
Casey. Since the area code covered that part of Montana, he figured it must be current. Keying it into his phone must have been his agent’s doing—Marcella was big on building and maintaining networks.

  Zane touched the green Call icon and waited. Inside the kitchen, Slim scratched at the other side of the door and gave a plaintive whimper, so Zane let him out and waited, the phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear, as the dog darted into the yard and ran around in a big circle, wild with the joy of being on the loose.

  Zane had to smile then, and it made him feel better.

  “Hello? Zane?” The voice was Casey’s; she’d picked up just as he was about to disconnect, realizing he hadn’t checked the time before dialing, and everybody over at Timber Creek might have already been asleep—until he rousted them, that is.

  Zane bit the figurative bullet, grateful for caller ID because he didn’t feel like explaining who he was or even talking on the phone at all in the first place, and besides, he felt like a first-class heel for lying his way out of a perfectly good supper invitation. “Hi, Casey, I’m sorry if I woke you up or anything—I didn’t—”

  She laughed. “Heck, Zane,” she replied, “the baby and I are both night owls, anyway. Besides, it’s only about ten-thirty or so. How’ve you been since I saw you last, anyhow?”

  “Good,” Zane said, his tone giving the lie to the response. “You?” he took a breath, not waiting for the answer. “It was big news when you got married, and even bigger news when you came up pregnant.”

  Casey grinned; he heard it in that famously musical voice of hers. “Why, old buddy, I’m as happy as a pig in a puddle of molasses,” she told him, deliberately thickening that honeyed Texas drawl of hers. “It’s been too long, Zane. I can’t wait to catch up over supper tomorrow night, have you meet Walker and the kids—”

  Zane wedged in a sigh, stopping the flow of Casey’s words. “That’s the thing,” he said glumly. And then he lost his momentum, lapsing into an awkward silence.

  Casey hazarded a guess. “You can’t make it,” she said, making no effort to hide the drop in her level of enthusiasm.

  “Not tomorrow night,” he managed. “Maybe another time, but—”

  “Sure,” Casey replied, quick to let him off the hook. She was an easygoing type, as he recalled, and he’d liked her from the first. On the set of their TV movie, they’d been pals, skipping the usual hanky-panky to have fun instead of set-trailer sex. “Another time.”

  “Thanks,” Zane said, feeling like three kinds of an SOB. At least Casey hadn’t pushed for the reason he was begging off, which spared him the necessity of lying to her outright.

  Zane straightened his spine, glanced up at the stars and reminded himself that he was doing this for Brylee. He was giving her space, that’s all.

  “I’ll give you a call in a few days,” Casey told him.

  Would a few days be long enough for some of the dangerous heat smoldering between him and Brylee to die down? He sure hoped so, because he couldn’t keep on like this for much longer. Real life was no place for honing his acting skills, and besides, blowing people off was Landry’s usual M.O., not his. “That would be good,” he finally replied, feeling even more like a shithead in the face of Casey’s kindness.

  Goodbyes were exchanged and they both hung up.

  “Crap,” Zane told the dog, who’d finished his celebratory dash through the overgrown grass and stood looking up at him now, watchful and adoring, tongue lolling as he panted in happy exhaustion.

  Slim, of course, had no answer for that. He simply wagged his tail and followed Zane inside the pile of junk lumber they called home.

  Time to call it a night.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BRYLEE’S DAD HAD always told her and Walker that no matter how bad something seemed at night, it would look better in the morning light, and her present good mood certainly bore the theory out.

  The night before, she’d been in a classic dither, beelining for home after fleeing the Boot Scoot parking lot, seeking the sanctuary of her small apartment like a rabbit bolting for its hole with a pack of hungry coyotes closing in fast.

  She’d blown in like a hurricane, heart pounding, breathing fast and shallow, kicked off those bad-news shoes right away and then tossed them decisively into the trash bin for good measure. Snidely, baffled by this unusual behavior but happy to be reunited with his beloved mistress just the same, had followed her to her bedroom, where she’d immediately peeled off the red dress, dropped it in a silky heap at her feet and then kicked it into the dim recesses of her closet, from whence it came. This time, she didn’t bother with a hanger.

  Awash in furious satisfaction, next she’d stomped into the bathroom, scrubbed off the layers of makeup, disposed of her ruined panty hose and let down her hair, brushing and brushing until it was no longer stiff with spray, took her nightshirt from the hook on the back of the door and squirmed into it. She had trouble finding the armholes, and for a moment or so, she felt as though she’d been slapped into a straitjacket—a strangely appropriate image, taking her mental state into consideration.

  Even after swilling two cups of herbal tea like a drunk downing whiskey after a lengthy dry spell, followed by a much calmer and wholly genuine attempt to mellow the heck out by slowing down her brain, sleep had still eluded her. Mindful of Snidely’s patient confusion—the way she’d been carrying on, for pity’s sake, the poor dog must have thought the world was ending, at that very moment—she finally flung herself into bed, wriggled around a bit in a vain effort to settle in, then shot bolt upright again, muttering, because she’d forgotten to switch off the lamp on her nightstand.

  For all that ruckus, Snidely, seemingly reassured that civilization would continue on its usual hurly-burly course, for the time being, anyway, curled up in his customary place on the hooked rug beside Brylee’s bed, gave a sigh of profound relief and drifted off to doggy dreamland with enviable ease.

  Brylee, by contrast, lay stewing in her own juices, her face hot with self-recrimination as she relived every wretched detail of her over-the-top, silly-schoolgirl reaction to Zane Sutton’s mere presence at the Boot Scoot. As if he’d broken some cosmic law by showing up in a place she hadn’t expected to run into him, and therefore hadn’t had a chance to prepare in advance for the encounter.

  And what was that about, this need to gird her figurative loins, like a female gladiator about to go into battle, before having the briefest contact with her sexy new neighbor?

  Brylee had always prided herself on her cool head and good manners—the only real exception to the rule having occurred at the wedding-that-wasn’t, after Hutch dumped her without even letting her get as far as the altar. On that infamous day, she’d thrown down her bouquet, stomped on it a couple of times and then marched outside in her fairy-tale bridal gown to snatch the Just Married sign, with its wacky shoe-polish letters, right off the back of the waiting limo. She’d ripped the strip of cardboard into shreds and thrown the remains in the gutter.

  On top of making a fool of herself in front of people with cameras, she’d gone and littered. While she wasn’t proud of acting like a character in a bad soap opera, she did wonder who could really blame her. Her wedding had been ruined, after all, and no red-blooded woman would have smiled sweetly and said, “Oh, well,” now would they? But last night, in Parable—well, that was a different matter entirely. She’d behaved like an idiot, especially after the kiss.

  The kiss.

  And holy crapola, what a kiss. She’d never experienced one like it before, not even with Hutch, and she’d been crazy about the man—crazy enough to want to marry him, for Pete’s sake.

  Thank God for unanswered prayers, she’d thought, lying there in her lonely bed. And soon after that, she’d begun to feel like herself—her true self—again. Anyone with eyes could see that Hutch belonged with Kendra, not with her. And she belonged with—well, who the hell knew who she belonged with?

  Maybe nobody, the way things were shaping
up.

  Okay, so she might have to soldier on alone—lots of women did—but she’d do it with class and aplomb, by God. She’d dress to kill and speak her mind and go for the things she wanted. Why, she’d be the Katharine Hepburn of Parable County, Montana.

  Finally, after much angst and a few vain efforts to figure things out—again—she’d tumbled into an awkward slumberlike state, shallow as a mud puddle and anything but restful.

  But now it was morning, and the world was a whole different place. Zippity-do-dah!

  The sun was shining fit to bring up next spring’s grass right along with what was there already, the famous big sky was bluer than blue had any business being, without a permit from God, and she could ramble around her place in sweats all morning, if she wanted to, except for brief forays outside with Snidely, of course, and a quick trip to the supermarket in town. She could indulge her not-so-secret passion—cooking.

  Why, she probably wouldn’t even set foot in the warehouse all weekend, and for her, that was a major shift.

  Yes, sir, Brylee had a plan, and she followed it, awash in that crazy mixture of anticipation and wary dread no man had ever made her feel before.

  Until Zane Sutton.

  Tonight, he would be coming over for supper, bringing Cleo and Nash with him, and she’d be fully restored by then, batteries charged, ready for anything. Well, maybe not anything, but she had regained most of her composure, and she might at least be able to get through the evening without making a spectacle of herself.

  She was humming cheerfully when a soft knock sounded at the inside door and Casey opened it to call out, “Anybody home?” The phrase was part of the vernacular in that household, had been for as long as Brylee could remember.

  “Come in!” Brylee practically sang, from the kitchen, where she was running cold water over the frozen game hens she’d bought at the supermarket on her brief grocery run into Three Trees. Hastily, dressed like a gym rat and hoping to go unnoticed, Snidely waiting in the car, she’d selected four bottles of the best wine one could expect to find on supermarket shelves, taken her time choosing prime brussels sprouts and premium baby potatoes and all the stuff for a whiz-bang salad.