Rosa laughed. She put the camera back in place. “I’ll tell Robert Redford that next time I see him.”
Dean winced as if hurt. As a filmmaker he admired Robert Redford and it was common knowledge that the actor/director loved Montana.
Moments later the rest of the group joined the chat. The normal round of hellos took up the first few seconds.
“Rosa, you look great,” Erin, her sister-in-law, said. “Montana must agree with you.”
“It’s beautiful out here,” she said, keeping the subject to the entire state.
“Any more bears?” Brad asked.
“None that I’ve seen.” Rosa tried to keep her voice casual. The story had been distorted enough. “I’m keeping away from areas where they are likely to be found.” She paused. “And I always carry a rifle.” Picking it up, she held it in front of the small computer camera.
“I’m serious, Rosa. You be careful.”
“Brad, I will. I don’t go exploring anymore. And that story was greatly embellished. It wasn’t as bad as the story sounded.”
“Met anyone interesting yet?” This was a question she got whenever the family got together. This time she was grateful for a change in subject. In the last few years, there had been a wedding a year. She was the last remaining unmarried Clayton and her sisters-in-law were all paying matchmakers.
“Everyone out here is interesting.”
“Forget the people,” Digger said. “Tell me about the car. Does it…”
Rosa answered all their questions. They often got together for family meetings when there was an issue. There hadn’t been any since Stephanie’s surprise revelation that she was actually the biological daughter of their adoptive parents. Dean’s news that he’d been nominated for an Academy Award for his first directorial effort had them all flying to California for the event and eventual party. And Luanne’s announcement of her preganancy. Now they met to catch up.
“Rosa, are you getting any rest?” Brad asked. Brad was a pediatrician. He was a quiet, moody guy, but he saw deeper into all of them than they sometimes felt comfortable with.
“Not much. I’m very busy.”
“Doing what?” Owen, her architect brother, asked. Owen still lived in the family home where they gathered as a family whenever they were in Dallas.
“I met a man named Bailey Osborne whose family has lived here for generations. He’s telling me the history of the town and I’m writing it down.”
“Why?” Dean asked.
Rosa saw Theresa elbow him in the side.
“I mean, why you? You haven’t decided to become a writer and not told us, have you?”
Rosa smiled. “Nothing like that.” She told them the story of the librarian asking her to see if she could influence Bailey to tell his stories of the history of the area.
“He must have really taken to you to do something like this after knowing you for such a short time,” Stephanie said.
“Bailey is a character. He’s charming and funny and loves to talk.”
“How old is Bailey?” Luanne asked.
Rosa knew where they were going with that question. “He’s old enough to be my father. Don’t get any ideas. There are enough women vying for his charms. I’m not one of them.”
“How’s he related to Adam Osborne?” Mallory spoke for the first time since saying hello.
“Father and son,” Rosa said.
“And is Adam just as charming?” Erin asked.
Rosa stiffened, hoping no one would notice her reaction on the small screen. Memories of them making love rushed into her mind. On its heels was the argument she and Adam had had at his house only a couple of hours ago.
“Help me out here, guys,” she appealed to her brothers. “This isn’t a get-Rosa-a-man call.”
“Rosa, I might be coming out that way,” Dean said.
“Why?” Rosa’s back went up. Dean’s statement was news to her. She hoped he wasn’t the family designate selected to check up on her. Being the baby of the family had its drawbacks, and an overprotecting family was something Rosa had to live with.
“It’s still up in the air, but we’re looking for a movie location and one of the scouts thinks Montana is best.”
“When would you be here?”
“Not sure. These things change from moment to moment.”
“Maybe you can get Adam to show you around, Dean,” Erin suggested. When all eyes seemed to focus on her, she said, “I’ve seen him. He’s gorgeous.” Digger looked at his wife as if he was surprised she’d looked at another man. They laughed and kissed.
“Is he as good looking in person as he is on television?” Stephanie asked.
Rosa thought of many ways to answer that question, but discarded them all for honesty. “Yes,” she said simply.
“Hi, Aunt Rosa,” Samantha said. She was nine now. Her entrance saved Rosa from answering any more questions about Adam. She was grateful to the niece and made a mental note to send her a present. For the next few minutes they talked about the kids—Samantha, Digger’s adopted daughter, and Chelsea, Dean’s adopted daughter. It seemed the adoptees were adopting. As far as she knew, no one was pregnant. Her sister Luanne had delivered an eight-pound baby boy last year, but her sisters-in-law were still as thin as they ever were.
“Rosa, now that you’ve met Adam Osborne, I suppose we’ll never break you of your addiction to the news,” Erin said.
Rosa hoped her smile wasn’t too off center. “You’ll be glad to hear, I don’t even listen to the news.”
“What? Why?” Brad asked.
“The house I rented doesn’t have good reception. The Internet is better, so I get a little, but I don’t watch it like before.”
“So in a way, Montana is weaning your addiction,” Dean said.
“Maybe you can get Adam to read it to you,” Stephanie teased. Everyone laughed except Rosa.
She blushed. She could feel the blood under her skin. Memories she’d been trying to banish rushed into her mind. She saw Adam’s head on her pillow, remembered the feel of his body inside hers.
Shaking her head, she tried to remove the image. “I’ll think about it,” she told Stephanie.
They rang off and Rosa closed the computer top. She remained sitting in front of it, looking at the sky, the trees, the mountains. The place was serene, as beautiful as any location she’d been in, yet Adam was back in her head. She had to do something to clear him out.
Getting up, she replaced the laptop in her backpack and mounted her horse. Later she’d drive into Butte and buy Samantha the most popular video game they had. She’d also get something for Chelsea and Luanne’s baby. But right now there were other things on her mind.
Namely rejection. Adam Osborne’s rejection.
Rosa hadn’t fooled them. The moment she came in the door the phone was ringing. It was Stephanie asking if she was all right. As soon as she hung up, Brad called with the same question. And then Digger was on the phone. She told them it was just that she was tired from so much work, but that things were going well here.
That wasn’t totally a lie. Things were going well with everyone except Adam. She was sure they believed her story of being tired. But to avoid any further calls, she grabbed her camera and left the house. This time she headed for Butte. She had enough scenery photos of the mountains. Her collection could do with some buildings and faces if the people would agree.
Rosa didn’t make it that far. Going through the Valley, she saw the library and thought of Joy Stapleton-Jones. She turned and parked in the small lot.
“Rosa, good to see you again,” the sixtyish woman greeted her warmly when she opened the door. “How are things going with Bailey?”
“Very well,” Rosa said.
Joy nodded.
“Bailey’s telling me a lot of stories. I’m recording them, so you’ll have an oral history along with the written one. He’s a very good storyteller.”
“I know,” Joy said. “That’s one of the reasons I want
ed him to write them down.”
“Adam has also joined the project. He and Bailey are going to turn the stories into a book.”
“That’s more than I hoped for,” Joy said. “You must be a miracle worker to get father and son to collaborate.”
“I think it’ll be a bonding experience and they both want that.”
Joy nodded, but she wasn’t totally convinced. Rosa thought it would work out well and the two men would be closer for it. It was the way it had worked in her family.
“From what I hear, you have a large collection of information on the area already,” Rosa said.
“We do, but it always helps to get firsthand accounts.”
“I’d like to read some of the works. Bailey and Adam mentioned there were other books besides Clara’s diary.”
Joy checked her watch. “We’ll be closing in an hour and I have an appointment in Butte, but you’ve locked the door before, so if I leave you alone everything will be all right.”
Rosa smiled. “I promise.”
“I’ll get the books.”
Rosa settled into one of the private booths and Joy came back with a cart of books and odd-shaped files.
“These are some of Lucas Evans’s plans for buildings he constructed in the Valley. There are also several other accounts of the mining that went on here and a rather humorous account of a baseball game that one of Clara Evans’s students wrote.”
By the time Joy closed up and left, Rosa was engrossed in the early part of the 1900s. Clara Evans’s diary was a copy of the original. Rosa imagined the original was in the personal library at Bailey’s house. In addition to the books Joy had left her, Rosa had a box of letters and some personal papers with a tag that read donated by Emily Hale.
Rosa didn’t know what she expected to find in the dog-eared pages, but like Bailey had said, Rosa could see a lot of Adam in the tenacity of the woman whose handwriting was scrawled across the paper. She wondered if she’d unconsciously turned in to the library because she wanted something of Adam. Sitting back, she stared at the ceiling a moment. The room was quiet with a silence that told her she was the only living soul among the thousands of volumes of stories. Among the lives these books held.
What had she expected, coming here? Why hadn’t she just stayed away from Adam the moment she realized he didn’t like her? But she felt drawn to him for that reason. Men buzzed around her the way women flocked around him. They should be opposite poles of a magnet, repelled by each other, all wanting the spotlight for themselves and unwilling to share it. Yet that wasn’t proving true for them.
Stopping any thoughts that might pull Adam further into her mind, Rosa went back to reading. Unfortunately, the section she was reading was a retelling by Clara’s aunt of Clara caring for Luke after a dynamite explosion. Luke had saved Clara’s life and been hurt in the process.
While Adam hadn’t saved Rosa’s life, he’d shown her the promise of what life could be like. And then he’d taken the hope of it away.
“Crawford, you’re not listening to me.”
Rosa pulled into the drugstore parking lot and cut the engine. She didn’t immediately get out of the car, but pulled the cell phone from its cradle and spoke into it. “I am not interested. This is my vacation. You remember, we agreed that I was taking the summer off. That means no contracts. No shooting schedule. No emergencies.”
“I know, Rosa. And I understand.” Maxwell Crawford was her agent. They’d worked together for years and held a mutual respect for each other. But he always called her in a pinch. And she always caved. But not this time. “This really is an emergency. They’re willing to pay you triple your rate. For just a few hours of work.”
“Crawford, we both know it’s more than a few hours. These things can take days.”
“I promise it won’t. It was one of the points I stressed. If you do it, you were only available for one day.”
So he had committed her for a day, not a few hours.
“Why can’t they get someone else? There must be a hundred models dying for this chance.”
“They want you.”
It was a simple answer and it fed right into Rosa’s ego. She was highly sought after, which was what had prompted this vacation. She worked hard and had been doing it for years with little relief. Her face graced many products, many magazines had her standing in the most expensive fashions in the world. Television commercials had her selling everything from soap to jewels. This was her chance to be without deadlines.
“Say you’ll do it, Rosa. It’s a chance to increase your worth. After this you can work less time for more money.”
“You can’t entice me with money, Crawford. I don’t need the money.”
“Then do it for me,” he said. “I have children in college and a wife who lives high.”
Rosa laughed. Ingela Crawford had come from a poor background and she never got it out of her blood. While she didn’t spend her days clipping coupons, and her closet sported several designer labels, she assessed the worth of everything before buying it. She and Crawford were well off. He did well as her agent and he handled several other high-profile and highly paid clients.
“Rosa, it’s one day. Don’t you have a day you can take to wear beautiful gowns and enjoy the sun and sand on a beautiful island?”
“The answer to that is no,” she said. She heard his frustration through the bouncing signals that brought his voice from New York through several outer-space satellites to the phone she held. “The sun is harsh and hot and the sand blasts against my skin with enough force to remove a dermal layer. But…”
“But what?” He jumped on the word, his voice raising in anticipation. “You’ll do it?”
“I’ll do it,” she said.
Crawford shouted in her ear.
“Hold it,” she stopped him. “There’s a condition.”
“What is it?” he asked cautiously.
She didn’t ask for favors often. She wasn’t like many models who became prima donnas the moment they got a little success.
“We don’t do the shoot on some beach on an island.”
“Where do you want to do it?”
“Here,” she said. “In Waymon Valley. The place is gorgeous. The mountains will make a great backdrop. Imagine me all dressed up in a gown in an area that’s juxtaposed to what I’m wearing. It’s like those photos of people sitting on sofas in the middle of a forest.”
“I don’t know if they’ll go for it. They’re all set to fly to Bermuda.”
“If we don’t do it here, they can get someone else. Even at triple the rate,” she added.
Crawford sighed. “I’ll call you back.”
The photo counter of the drugstore was in the far corner at the front of the store. Rosa heard the small chime that indicated someone had broken the signal when she crossed it, heading straight for that area. Bailey’s party was approaching fast and she needed to get everything in place if her present was to be ready in time.
The store wasn’t one of the chain types that look the same no matter which one you stop in. This was an old-fashioned store that still had a soda fountain in the back and a candy counter opposite it. The pharmacy was along a side wall and aisles held everything from hair products and cosmetics to diapers and pregnancy kits. The place was well lighted, the gaslights having given way to electricity during the early twentieth century.
Rosa smiled at a man in line as she passed him.
“Good morning,” he said.
She smiled wider, and nodded, but did not alter her step. A commotion in the back of the store had her looking in that direction.
“It’s her.” Rosa heard the whispered remark from a young woman who was pulling on Adam’s arm. Rosa’s eyes locked with his. The young woman turned around as if she didn’t want Rosa to see her or she wanted to say something that she didn’t want Rosa to hear. There were three other women the same age as the one talking to Adam sitting on stools with ice-cream sodas in front of them. Rosa acknowledg
ed Adam with a nod and continued toward the photo lab.
It appeared she couldn’t go anywhere in the Valley without running into him. After their discussion and lovemaking, she tried avoiding him. She’d told herself she didn’t want to see him, but each time she heard a deep voice, she turned her head expecting to find him nearby. He’d been there more times than not. He seemed to be inside her head and knew exactly where she was going before she got there.
“Hi.” A young woman smiled widely at her. “I’ll get your photos,” she said without asking for her claim ticket. She turned to find the bag in a large bin of unclaimed packages. It didn’t take her long. Rosa was aware that Adam was in the store and she was nervous and jumpy just knowing that. She wanted to get out and return to the task she needed to complete. The one thing she didn’t want was to stand and make small talk with him. He’d made his feelings known to her. There was no need for them to pretend friendship. He’d offered it, but his actions proved different.
Unfortunately, this was not her lucky day. As she paid for the developed film and turned with her package, Adam and one of the young women were coming forward. She couldn’t get to the door without running into them. Rosa stopped.
The young woman with him looked to be about eighteen. She hung back a step as if she didn’t want to speak to Rosa. Adam took her arm and brought her forward.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hello,” Rosa answered.
“Rosa, this is my cousin, Tommie,” Adam said.
“Tomasina,” she corrected in a stage whisper. “Thomasina Evans,” she said louder and directly to Rosa.
“Tommie wants to be a model. She thought you might be able to give her pointers on how to get started.”
It was a question Rosa got more often than anything else. She’d been asked to speak at her old high school in Dallas one year and the first question was the same as Thomasina’s. The girl was tall and slender. She had good bone structure and beautiful hair. She had all the qualities needed to make a model except her posture. Modeling would fix that.
“It takes a lot of work,” Rosa said.
“I know,” she said a little too fast. “But I’m willing to work hard.”
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