Come Sundown

by Nora Roberts

  the phone for a friend of hers. That poor girl dead for reasons we just don’t know. And Cora, bearing up all these years, not knowing if a child of hers is dead or alive. It just came over me so hard, and had me thinking how would I bear up, how would I live through if something happened to one of mine?”

  She rocked herself a little, sipped at the whisky. “There’s just no love like the love of a mother for a child, no matter how that child comes into their life, and no loss or grief to match it.”

  “We’re going to take care of ourselves, and look out for each other, I promise you. Don’t I let Callen tag along with me half the time going to work, or Rory? So I can keep an eye out for them?”

  Clementine smiled. “You’re a good girl most of the time, Bodine.”

  “I am. Now, I want you to do what I know you’re fretting about, and what you’d tell me to do in your place. You go, be with your friend at the hospital. She needs you.”

  “I haven’t finished dinner.”

  “I can figure it out. You go now. We’ve got snow coming, so you drive careful, and I want you to text me when you get home tonight. So I won’t worry,” Bodine said quickly.

  “I’ve been driving in Montana snow since before you were born. I would feel better being there for Sarah.”

  “Then you go.”

  “I will.” She rose. “Now, you put that chicken on a medium heat, let it simmer for another twenty minutes. Don’t go running off and leaving it to burn.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I got carrots and potatoes roasting in the oven.”

  Bodine listened to the detailed—and repeated—instructions as Clementine bundled up.

  On her own, she turned the burner on again, checked the oven, lifted the cloth on the bread dough Clementine said needed another fifteen minutes to rise.

  She poured her glass of wine, and thought about a mother’s despair, about a mother bearing up. One hadn’t been able to handle the loss. The other pushed through it.

  But both needed shoulders to lean on, friends around them. Family to fill the voids, friends who were the same as family.

  She looked out the window, saw the lights on in the shack.

  And going with impulse, texted Callen.

  You had dinner yet?

  It took a minute for his answer. Nope.

  Come on over and eat with us. I’ll even buy you a beer.

  This time the answer came in seconds. Pop the top and grab me a plate.

  Done.

  She went back, poked at the chicken, and thought all Clementine’s chicks would eat together in the roost tonight.

  * * *

  A day passed, then another, and Bodine couldn’t get the conversation with Clementine out of her mind. It didn’t matter that Clementine bounced back to her steady, stoic self, bringing the normal again.

  Maybe it lodged in her mind because Denise McNee had fallen into a coma, and seemed to hover in that misty place between life and death. Could it be a choice, which way she went? Was it always a choice?

  She wasn’t sure there were answers, but she decided to ask the questions.

  She rode down to the Equestrian Center, Leo’s hoof strikes bright as church bells on the hard road. Snowy fields spread all around her as winter kept a firm, frozen grip on everything.

  Still, the sky rolled blue and hawks circled through it. Maybe as February made its turn into March there’d be signs of spring.

  She saw her grandmother’s truck, Jessica’s SUV, steered Leo around them. Dismounting, she opened the doors, led him inside.

  Cora’s voice echoed. “Change leads and take her around the other way. You don’t need to hold on to that pommel now, Jessie.”

  “It feels like I do.”

  “Keep your back straight. That’s the way. Why don’t you take her into a trot?”

  “Okay. God, I’ll be sitting on a pillow again tomorrow.”

  Amused, as Jessica had done so twice already, Bodine tethered Leo to a rail, loosened his cinches.

  When she walked to the edge of the ring, she noted Jessica had the mare circling in a nice, steady trot.

  “Back straight.” Cora, on her favored Wrangler, watched with an eagle eye. “Move with her now, let her feel you’re with her.”

  To Bodine’s mind, her grandmother never looked better than when she sat a horse. Her checkered shirt tucked into jeans, her jeans tucked into bold red boots. Her pretty hair under a crisp turned-brim black hat.

  “Keep it going and change leads. Don’t think too hard, just do it.”

  “I did it!”

  “Of course you did. Now take her down, let her walk awhile. Keep those elbows down.” Cora turned her horse, caught sight of Bodine.

  Bodine put a finger to her lips, got a grin in return.

  “You feel how she responds?”

  “I do.” Jessica lifted a hand to adjust the riding helmet. “I honestly didn’t understand what you meant the first couple times. But I do now. I can’t believe I’m doing this. That I can start and stop her, walk and trot, go one way, then the other.”

  “And have fun with it?”

  “It is fun. Even if my ass, my legs, pay for it later. It’s such a feeling.”

  “You’re going to get an even better one. You’re going to take her from walk to trot to canter.”

  Even at a distance, Bodine saw Jessica’s eyes go wide, go huge.

  “Oh, Cora, I don’t think I’m ready. Honestly, I’m fine just poking along.”

  “You’re ready. You need to trust me, trust her, trust yourself. A little trot now. Keep those knees in, those heels down, elbows, too. Tell her what you want. That’s right. She wants to please you. You just want to give her another little nudge now, keep your form, give her the signal, and she’ll take it from there.”

  “What if I fall off?”

  “You’re not going to, but if you do, you’ll get back up. A little nudge, Jessie.”

  The pure anxiety on Jessica’s face had Bodine wondering if her grandmother pushed too far, too soon. But Jessica, lips pressed tight, rocked in the saddle, nudged with her heels, and moved smoothly into a pretty little canter.

  The anxiety melted into a kind of shock. “Oh my God!”

  “Move with her, that’s it. Elbows down! Look at you. Take her around. That’s beautiful, honey. Just fine. Bring her down again, easy.”

  Pulling Maybelle to a stop, Jessica pressed a hand to her heart. “Did that just happen?”

  “Got it on video.” Bodine stepped forward, holding up her phone. “The last few seconds anyway. You did great.”

  “She’s a faster learner than she thinks she is,” Cora said. “Take her around one more time. Walk, trot, canter.”

  “Why does that scare the crap out of me when I just did it?”

  “Do it again, and next time it’ll be easier.”

  “One more time,” Jessica complied.

  Bodine circled in place, following the novice rider and veteran mare round the ring with her phone.

  “I’m going to send you this video,” Bodine told her when Jessica led Maybelle back to the center of the ring.

  Breathless now, face flushed, Jessica frowned at the phone in Bodine’s hand. “Am I going to be happy or embarrassed?”

  “I think you’ll be impressed.”

  When Bodine started to get a mounting block, Jessica shook her head. “I don’t need one. Getting off is one of my top equestrian skills. But, oh, my aching butt.”

  “When you put more time in, ride more often, your butt won’t ache.” Cora dismounted smoothly. “Let’s see if you remember how to unsaddle your horse.”

  “Actually, I’ll do that.” Bodine took Maybelle’s reins. “I need to talk to Nana about something.”

  “Then I’ll head home, and into a hot bath.” Jessica gave the mare a rub. “Thanks, Maybelle. Thank you, Cora.”

  “You’re more than welcome. You’ve reminded me how much fun it is to teach somebody from the ground up.”
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br />   With Bodine, Cora led the horses back to the stall area. “I was going to unsaddle them here so Jessica got the practice, then rub them down at the BAC. But we can do that here if you need to talk to me. Want a Coke? We’ve got some in the tack room.”

  “I’ll get us some.” Bodine carried the saddle back, stowed it, grabbed the drinks.

  Cora had the second saddle on the post, already toweling off Wrangler. “What’s on your mind, darling?”

  “I never asked you because I didn’t want to make you sad.” Bodine picked up a fresh towel, got to work. “If it makes you too sad and you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll stop.”

  “This sounds serious.”

  “It’s about Alice. I think I understand why Grammy gets angry, and why Mom does. Grammy—you’re her daughter, and it makes her angry somebody hurt you so much. And Mom, it’s the same. And I think hurt of their own, too.”

  “I know that’s true, and we don’t talk about it much because it stirs up the hurt.”

  “I don’t want to do that.” As she brushed the mare, Bodine looked over at her grandmother. “I don’t want to add to the hurt.”

  “But you wonder about it. You’ve got questions stored up, and you’re somebody who wants answers.” As she worked, she met Bodine’s eyes. “You go on and ask.”

  “I guess it was Karyn Allison’s mother who gave me the push on this, Nana. How she just wanted to die, and she might. And I talked to Billy Jean’s mother myself, and know even though they weren’t close the way you hear Karyn and her mother were, her grief was beyond measuring. It made me wonder what it’s been like for you, all these years, not knowing for certain if Alice is…”

  “Alive. If she’s alive,” Cora finished. “I feel in my heart she is. I need to believe she is.”

  “But why aren’t you angry? I see Grammy and Mom angry, and understand it. I see you believing she’s just alive, and I understand it. But why aren’t you angry with it?”

  That formed the core, Bodine realized. She’d never known Alice Bodine, and the name alone lit an anger in her.

  “Alice just walked away, she cut all of you out of her life. What kind of person, Nana, doesn’t even let you know she’s alive and well somewhere? What kind doesn’t understand the hurt and worry or care?”

  “I was angry. Oh, angry’s a small word for it. I don’t have a word big enough.” And still she combed out Wrangler’s mane with patient hands, steady strokes. “She lit out the day of her sister’s wedding. Her sister’s happiest day. The night of, really, as we pieced it together. Left a note how she wasn’t going to settle like Reenie for the chains of marriage, the boredom of ranch life. Got some shots in there about how I never understood her, didn’t love her the same as I did Reenie. Hurtful. Deliberately hurtful. Alice had a way of poking her thumb in your eye.”

  Though Bodine kept her thoughts to herself, she wondered if leaving hadn’t been a favor to the rest of the family.

  “I didn’t want to tell Maureen and Sam, didn’t want to spoil their honeymoon. But they stayed in a cabin that night, and when they came back to say good-bye to everybody before they left on their honeymoon, I had to. Then I had to make them go, had to tell them—and I honestly believed it right then—Alice was just stirring everybody up as she liked to do, and would be back in a few days.”

  “But she didn’t come back.”

  “She didn’t come back,” Cora echoed. “Postcards here and there for a while. I hired a detective. I wasn’t going to make her come back. She was eighteen, so I couldn’t anyway, but it’s no good trying to lock somebody in who wants to go. I just wanted to know she was all right, that she was safe … but we couldn’t find her.”

  Drawing in a breath, Cora stroked a hand over Wrangler’s neck. “I stopped being angry, Bodine, because being angry didn’t change a thing. I’d ask myself: Had I been too hard on her, too easy on her? I was working to keep the ranch going, then the dude ranch, and the bare start of the resort. Had doing all that taken too much away from being a mother to her?”

  Self-blame wouldn’t do, Bodine thought. No, she wouldn’t allow it.

  “Nana, I see how you and Mom are with each other. I see that and I know what kind of mother you were, you are. I hate knowing you’ve doubted yourself.”

  “Mothers do, every day. It’s funny, Bo, how a woman can bring two children into the world, raise them up the same way—the same rules and values, indulgences and disciplines. And still two separate people come out of it all.”

  For a moment Cora rested her cheek against Wrangler’s neck.

  “My Alice, she was born with hard edges. She could be funny and sweet, and, God, charming. But where Maureen thrived on the ranch, Alice always felt limited by it. I know Alice felt I favored Reenie, but when one child is working hard to do well in school, and the other is skipping classes, well, one child’s going to be praised and the other punished.”

  Cora let out a sigh, a half laugh. “Alice never seemed to understand how it all worked. When she was in a good place inside herself, she was a delight. Bold and questing and curious. Where Reenie could be too serious, too worried about all the details fitting just right, worried too much about pleasing everybody at once, Alice would pull her out of that some, tease her into some adventuring. A lot like Chase and Callen—but Callen … he didn’t have those hard edges, never in his life resented Chase for being what he was, having what he had. There’s the difference.”

  “And none of it mattered, or matters now,” Bodine said quietly. “Hard edges, resentments, bold or curious, she was yours. You loved her. You love her.”

  “I did, and I do. The loss of her? The knowing she’s chosen to forget me, forget all of us? It’s as keen as it ever was.”

  “How do you stand it? How do you get through it?”

  “I have to look at the whole picture, not just that dark, empty spot.”

  Digging peppermints out of her pocket, Cora fed them to the horses.

  “When your granddaddy died, the one you never knew, my whole world broke. I loved him, Bodine, so much I didn’t know how I’d take the next step in a world he wasn’t in. But I had your ma, and she needed me. I had Alice inside me. I had to take the next step.”

  After running a hand down Bodine’s braid, Cora picked up a hoof pick.

  “Your grammy and grandpa … I know Ma and I squabble now and then. Two women living in the same house are bound to. But there’s nothing in this world will ever brush away a speck of my love and gratitude for her and my father. They sold their own place to come here because I needed them. I couldn’t have gotten through without them. I might’ve lost the ranch, even with your uncles helping me.”

  “You could’ve let it go, sold it. No one would’ve blamed you.”

  Cora looked up, under the brim of her hat as she cleaned Wrangler’s right rear hoof. “My Rory loved the ranch. Risked everything he had to build it. I could never let it go, but without that help, I might have lost it. Instead, it thrived, and I know my Rory would be proud of what we’ve done.”

  Smiling now, she leaned against Wrangler’s foreleg, checked his hoof when he lifted it.

  “I have a daughter who’s a light in my life, a son-in-law who’s the best man I know. And three beautiful grandchildren who make me proud every single, solitary day. I have a full life, Bodine, because I chose to live it. I have sorrows. No life is full without them. I miss my husband. It doesn’t matter how many years have passed since I’ve seen his face, heard his voice. I still see him, I still hear him, and it comforts me. I miss my daughter—the sweet and the sour of her. I can wish for another chance to be her mother without making all I have, all my blessings, less for that wish.”

  “You have a full life because you chose to live it, and you worked to make it.”

  “I did, but don’t think less of that poor girl’s mother, Bodine, because her grief overwhelmed her. Despair is a powerful, living thing.”

  “I won’t. I don’t think less of her. But I can t
hink more of you, Nana, for being stronger than despair and braver than grief.”

  “My sweet girl,” Cora murmured.

  “I see how strong you are, Nana. Strong and smart, and loving with it. I see those things in Grammy, and in Mom. It’s not taking anything away from the men in our family for me to say I’m proud to be the next one holding the Riley, Bateau, Bodine, Longbow line. And for you, I’ll hope that wherever Alice is, she’s made a good life for herself.”

  “You’re a treasure to me, Bodine. A shining bright, rich