Come Sundown

by Nora Roberts

  Nana decided to expand the dude ranch. There’s paperwork involved, a salary to negotiate, a job description, a contract.”

  “You’d have all that either way,” Chase pointed out.

  “Aw, Bo’s just steamed up because Abe came to you instead of her.”

  Maureen aimed a cool look at her younger son. “She’s right to be. The men may outnumber the women at this table, but that doesn’t give you more weight. And right is right. Abe should have gone to his boss, and that’s Bo. I’m going to attribute that mistake to his stress and worry over Edda. I hope you’ll do the same, Bodine, and give him some understanding on it.”

  Anger deflated, a little. “I can. I do. But—”

  “The ranch and the resort are like you say.” Sam continued to sip his whisky. “They’re separate. Your grandmother was smart enough to see, all those years back, that your uncles weren’t going to be able to put in all the time and work needed to run a ranch of this size, and none of their boys—or girls”—he added with a glance at his wife—“showed any interest. So she worked up the dude ranch, saw how she could draw on that and keep the working ranch.”

  He took his time, sipped his whisky. Not a person sitting at the table would have thought to interrupt.

  “Then after I came into it, she put her head together with her mother and yours, and came up with big plans. No question we’ve got smart, forward-thinking women in this family, and we have two business enterprises that provide us with the life we want to live, in the place we want to live it. And they both honor your granddaddy’s memory. But they’re not just business enterprises, and we’re never going to forget that.”

  “No, sir,” Bodine said. “I don’t forget that.”

  “I know you don’t, though there are times I miss seeing you around, in the paddocks, in the stable, in the barn. A man can miss his girl.”

  “Daddy.”

  “He can miss her and be proud at the same time. What we can’t forget, and don’t, is what we have, what we’ve made—starting with your grandmother—is a community, and a family. Abe’s worried about his wife, and doing everything he can to take care of her—whether or not she wants it. And knowing Edda, she’s put up some fight over it. I don’t think he meant any disrespect to you by talking it out with Chase first.”

  “He probably didn’t.” But Bodine still aimed a stare at Chase.

  “I just talked to the man, and now I’ve told you what’s what. You just let me know what you decide.”

  “I’ll do that.” She rose. “I’m going to take a walk, figure out how to handle all this.”

  Rory waited until Bodine was safely out of earshot. “Jeez, what’s the big deal? Mucho sensitivo. It’s just—”

  He broke off and withered under his mother’s stare. “Until you work in a man’s world without a penis, you can hush about it. You can think about that while you help Clementine clear and wash up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Within five minutes, Chase sat alone with his father at the table. “I just talked to the man,” Chase said again. “And I’m offering to let her have, if he’s agreeable, our best horseman—one we just acquired—for a solid four months.”

  “It’s a balancing act, son. Women, business, family. It’s all a balancing act. How about you and me go out on the front porch, smoke a couple of cigars, and complain about women? Doing that now and again helps the balance.”

  “I’ll get my coat.”

  * * *

  Bundled in her own coat, Bodine walked off the lingering mad in the cold, clear air. Overhead, the countless sweep of stars shimmered as pinprick lights in an indigo sky. The moon, nearly full, sailed—a round, white ship over quiet seas.

  The air around her moved briskly, carrying the scent of pine and snow and animal. She heard a cow low, an owl call, saw the slinking shadow of one of the barn cats.

  The two happy mutts, Clyde and Chester, raced around her for a while; then, since she didn’t seem interested in play, they raced off to find their own fun.

  As the mad cleared, she used the room to lay out a plan for what to do next. She’d need to speak to Abe and Edda, and since her father was right about community and family, she needed to rid herself of resentment before she did. Once rid of it, she still needed to make it clear that the buck started and stopped with her.

  She’d need to make one of the housekeeping staff temporary head. Otherwise, she’d end up dealing with the scheduling and minor issues every week. Potentially daily.

  And she needed to prepare herself, to have another plan waiting in the event that two of her key people decided to retire altogether rather than come back.

  The idea made her sad, just sad. Abe and Edda had been key staff at her grandmother’s early incarnation of the dude ranch, and had stuck with them through all of the changes, all of the expansions.

  She could and would find qualified replacements, if necessary. But they wouldn’t be Abe and Edda, and for some reason, accepting that made her feel lonely as well as sad.

  She turned toward the stables instead of the shack. Callen could wait a bit longer.

  After unlatching the big door, she walked inside, inside the scents of horses, hay, manure, grain, liniment, and leather.

  As she walked down the wide, slanted concrete, some equine heads on either side poked out from their stalls. Some blew a greeting, but she continued on where one was watching her, waiting for her.

  “Hey there. There’s my boy.” She rubbed the cheeks of the Appaloosa she called Leo due to the leopard spots over his white hide.

  He butted his head against her shoulder, looking at her with his sweet, fascinating blue eyes.

  A man could miss his girl, she thought. A horse could miss his girl, too.

  “I’m sorry. I haven’t been around much, I haven’t been paying attention. The last couple weeks…”

  She shook her head, went inside the stall, took up a brush to run it over his flanks.

  “No excuses. Not between us. You know what? Tomorrow we’ll ride to work. You can visit the resort horses for the day, and we’ll have a good, strong morning ride. And a good, strong ride home again tomorrow night. I’ve missed you, too.”

  She pulled a carrot out of the pocket Leo was nibbling at. “You always know. Just don’t tell anybody.”

  While he crunched, she laid her head on his neck. “I’ll figure it out, right? I’ve got it half figured already. I’d still like to boot Chase in the ass, but I’ve got it half figured.”

  She gave Leo a couple of quick rubs. “I’ll see you in the morning. Bright and early, too.”

  Since the idea of a good, strong ride pleased her, she wandered out of the stables, scratching a few more heads on the way, before aiming her steps toward the shack.

  Small, rustic with its cedar shakes and little front porch, it stood a muscular stone’s throw from the main house, and an enthusiastic spit from the bunkhouse.

  Originally it had been built with its peaked roof and square windows for the dude ranch. A few other cabins that once were scattered through the trees had been scrapped for supplies in the building of the resort. But they’d kept the shack, for the occasional overnight guest, for storage, as a very unofficial playhouse.

  And now for Callen Skinner.

  A horseshoe knocker graced the barn-style front door, but Bodine used her knuckles to knock while she watched the smoke pump out of the chimney on the bunkhouse side of the shack.

  Callen pulled the door open, stood in the backwash of light. He said, “Howdy, neighbor.”

  “Howdy back. Got a minute?”

  “Got plenty of them. Did you eat yet?”

  “Yeah, I just … Oh.” When she stepped in, she saw the plate on the table. “You’re eating. We can do this later.”

  “Nothing wrong with now.” To prove it, he shut the door behind her. “Want a beer?”

  “No, I’m good.”

  He crossed back to the table, picked up a remote, and switched off the old black-
and-white movie on the TV.

  It was a small, efficient space, holding the kitchen and living areas, which had been spruced up nice enough by her mother. The bedroom rayed off the kitchen with a bathroom so tiny she wondered how he managed to shower without banging his elbows and knees.

  “You going to sit?”

  “I really hate to interrupt your dinner.”

  “You won’t if you sit and talk while I eat it. Take off your coat. The stove keeps it warm enough.”

  The little potbelly in the corner did its job, Bodine thought, tossing her coat on the back of the living room chair.

  She sat across from him at the square two-seater table. “You cook?”

  He cut a bite from a fried-up rib eye. “Enough to get by. I could’ve had dinner in the bunkhouse, but I had some things I wanted to get done.”

  A folder sat beside him, closed now.

  “Just in the neighborhood?” he asked her.

  “As it happens. I like this neighborhood.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You didn’t get in touch to tell me LaFoy was no damn good, so I hired him.”

  “You said to get in touch if he was no damn good, and he didn’t strike me that way. He’s good with the horses, knows his way around, appears to listen when you talk to him, and got on fine with everybody else when we toured around. We had a couple come by just to look at the horses with their preschooler. He was polite and personable. I figured that did the trick, though I wouldn’t say he’s sharp as an average tack.”

  “Well, I had the same take, so that’s good enough.” She sat back, sighed. “Here’s the thing, Skinner. It seems Abe’s not coming back until spring. He’s worried about Edda, wants to keep her from doing much for a while, so he’s taking her to spend time with family here and there, to keep her occupied.”

  Listening, Callen sawed off more steak. “Sounds like a good idea, considering.”

  “We talked about you going back and forth, filling in, filling in more come January, but that’s not going to work now.”

  “You need to plug that hole all the way.”

  “I do. Dad and Chase both say if you want to switch over to the resort for the winter, that’s fine with them. If you want, you and I can talk about salary, as you’d move off the ranch books officially and onto the resort’s until Abe comes back. If you don’t want that, as you came here to work the ranch’s horses, that’s fine, too. If that’s the case, I’d just like you to keep filling in until I can hire somebody to plug that hole.”

  He scooped up some mashed potatoes, washed them down with beer. Said, “Hmm.”

  “I’ve been doing the scheduling for that area and for housekeeping since Edda got sick. I can pull from the staff I have to fill the housekeeping position, but I can’t pull from the BAC and Equestrian Center for a horse manager. Even if Maddie wasn’t pregnant, she’s not a manager. Not yet anyway. And I don’t think she much wants to be. So I’d have to go outside for it. I can do that if you don’t want to take it on.”

  He ate some, thought some. “Can you lay out the details? Salary, yeah, but duties, responsibilities, what kind of autonomy’s involved if it’s official? Temporary, but official.”

  “Absolutely.” It set her mind at ease he’d ask rather than jump to either yes or no. “If you give me your e-mail address, I can send it all to you. In writing.”

  “You can have my e-mail.” He rattled it off. “But if you don’t have every detail inside that head of yours I’ll eat my hat. And I like wearing it.”

  She considered a moment. “Beer in there?” She wagged a thumb at the refrigerator, then waved him down before he could stand to get it for her.

  She pulled out a Moosehead, popped the top in the open mouth of the bull bottle opener on the wall. And took a long sip.

  “I like beer.” She took another pull. “I like wine fine, but, boy, there’s nothing like a cold beer.”

  She sat, and ran through the job description, the duties, the responsibilities, the expectations, who reported to whom, the liabilities, the resort policies.

  It was a long list. She paused, drank more beer.

  “Are you sure you don’t want this in an e-mail?”

  “I’ve got it. Most of it makes sense.”

  She intended to send the e-mail anyway.

  When she named the salary, he ate more steak, mulled it over.

  “Seems fair enough.”

  “Good. Do you want to take some time to think about it?”

  “Just want to clear it with Sam and Chase.”

  “I told you they’d cleared it already.”

  “You did. But you didn’t hire me on here, they did. I’d like to get their go-ahead in person. Since I expect they’ll give it, just as you said, I don’t need any time. I’ll take you up on it. Though it causes me some hardship for a few months.”

  “Hardship? How?”

  Taking a pull of his beer, he gave her a long study over the bottle, gray eyes assessing. “Well, it’s a tricky business to make a move on you when you’re my boss. Sister and daughter of my bosses, tricky enough, but doable. Straight-up boss, that’s something that’ll take some figuring out.”

  She eyed him over her own beer. “We’ve both got too much to do for you to be putting any moves on me—or for me to have to dance around them.”

  “Never too much to do for that.” He gave her an amused and considering study. “How good a dancer are you?”

  “I’m very light and quick on my feet, Skinner. And I really need this to work, so don’t complicate it.”

  “It’s not my fault you grew up so damn pretty. How about this: You and me make a date. First of May, that’s a good day. Spring’s come around, and you won’t be my boss anymore. I’ll take you dancing, Bodine.”

  The fire crackled in the old potbelly, a reminder of heat and flame.

  “You know, Callen, if you’d given me that flirtatious look and that smooth talk when I was twelve going on thirteen, my heart would’ve just stumbled right out of my chest. I had such a crush on you.”

  Now his grin didn’t flash. The smile came slow and silky. “Is that so?”

  “Oh my, yes. You with your skinny build, half-wild ways, and broody eyes were the object of my desperate affection and awakening hormones for weeks. Maybe even a few months, though at the time it seemed like years.”

  She gestured with her beer. “The fact that you and Chase considered me a nuisance at best only added to the secret longing.”

  “I expect we were mean to you half the time.”

  “No, I can’t say you were. You crushed my adolescent heart with mild disdain, which is just how boys of fourteen and fifteen look on girls of twelve. And like a girl of twelve with a first crush, I got over it.”

  “I had more than a couple moments of interest in your direction when you hit about fifteen.”

  Surprised, she took a slow sip of beer and decided to use his own words. “Is that so?”

  “You took your time blooming, but you got it right. I noticed that.” He rose, got himself another beer, held up a second in offer. She shook her head. “Hard not to notice, or squash the interest. But that would’ve put me at, what, about eighteen. And at eighteen I was already thinking about when I’d light out and make my fortune. Added to it, you were my best friend’s little sister.”

  “That’s never going to change.”

  “But you’re not so little anymore. And that three years or so difference between us, that doesn’t matter once you grow up. Plus, I’m back.”

  “Did you make your fortune, Callen?”

  “I did well enough. More, I did what I needed to do. I learned what I needed to learn. Now I’m back, and for good.”

  When her eyebrow winged up, he shook his head.

  “I’m done lighting out, done needing to. This is my land. It’s not about the owning of it, but waking up in the morning knowing you’re where you want to be, having good work to do and good people around you.”

  Hi
s words struck a chord with her. “You lost most of the broody.”

  “A good part of the pissed off, too, seeing as they went pretty much hand in hand. Now, about that date.”