Come Sundown

by Nora Roberts

  He fumbled a little as he pulled them out. “I just wanted you to know … to make sure you know … I’m bad at this.”

  “Not from where I’m sitting. They’re beautiful, and thank you. If you don’t mind, could you keep them for me while we ride? I don’t think I’m good enough to hold flowers and reins at the same time.”

  “Sure.”

  After he stuck them back in his saddlebag, she reached over, gripped his shirt. “I guess I have to take care of this myself again.”

  She pulled him to her, felt a lift everywhere when his mouth met hers. When the mare shifted, she grabbed the saddle horn and laughed. “That’s the first time I’ve kissed anyone on horseback. Not bad for a novice.”

  “Hold on a minute.” He took her reins to keep both horses steady, and pulled her in.

  Reminding her, once she started his engine, he ran hot and smooth.

  “That was even better,” she told him.

  “I’ve missed you. It’s been a crazy few days, and it feels like weeks. I really missed you, Jessie. Maybe I could take you out tonight. Just out for dinner or something.”

  “Don’t you have to be home? Your aunt.”

  “They’re saying it’s best to take all that slow, not to throw everybody at her at once. I was going to make myself mostly scarce. We could have a date if you’re not busy with something.”

  “We could. But here’s another better. You come over tonight, to my place. I’ll cook you dinner.”

  “You’ll cook?”

  “I like to cook. I’d like to cook for you. I’d like you to come to my place. I’d like you to spend some time in my bed.”

  He smiled like he did everything. Slow. It always hit his eyes first. “I’d like all of that.”

  “I’ll make something we can eat anytime, so you can get there when you can get there.”

  “I’ve never known anybody like you.”

  “That makes us even.” She glanced around, laughed. “I’ve been riding. I’ve been riding and didn’t even realize it.”

  “It happens when you’re good and comfortable on a horse. You’ve got good form.”

  She slanted him a look. “Do I?”

  “In lots of ways. You want to try a trot?”

  “All right.” She lifted her face first, looked at the sky, the mountains, felt the air that held just teases of spring. “I do like riding outside. All right, cowboy, show me the ropes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Alice trembled throughout the drive from the hospital—the room with the bed that moved up and down, the red Jell-O, the door that opened and closed without locks—to the ranch.

  Vague pictures jumped in and out of her mind of a house with many, many windows instead of only one. Of a dog that didn’t growl and bite, of a room with bright pink walls and white curtains.

  Far-off sounds in her ears. Voices calling—Alice, Alley Cat—Stop being such a brat! Eat some of those peas if you want ice cream.

  The smell of … horses and cooking. A bathtub filled with bubbles.

  It frightened her, all of it, made her heart beat too hard and fast even when the mother held her hand.

  But more, everything went too fast. Everything. The car the sister drove while the grandmother … (Grammy, Grammy, such pretty red hair. I want red hair, too, a little girl’s voice said in her head, and laughter followed.)

  The grandmother with the red hair sat in the front of the car. Alice sat in the back with the mother, holding tight to the mother’s hand because the car went so fast, and the world kept changing.

  She longed for her quiet house, her still, quiet house. She wondered if this was just one of her dreams, the dreams she kept secret from Sir.

  Sir. Would he be at this home place? Would he be there waiting for her, waiting to take her back to her quiet house?

  Locks, locks on the door, the tiny window. Hard hands hitting, the belt whipping.

  She lowered her head and shuddered.

  “We’ll be there soon, baby.”

  The woman doctor had said it was all right to be nervous, to even be scared. She hadn’t ridden in a car in a very long time, and everything would look new and different. When she got too nervous and scared, she could just close her eyes and think of something that made her happy.

  Sitting outside her quiet house and watching the sunset made her happy. So she closed her eyes and pictured it.

  But when the road went from smooth to bumpy, she cried out.

  “It’s okay. We’re on the ranch road now.”

  She didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see, but she couldn’t help it. She saw fields and trees, snow melting away under the sun. Cows—not rib-racked, but … cattle—she remembered the word. Big, healthy, cropping through the snowmelt to eat.

  The road would turn in a minute, to the right. Was that a dream?

  When it did, her breathing came fast. She saw in her head, a pretty young girl—oh, so pretty!—with bright red streaks in her hair, driving a truck and singing along with the radio.

  “‘I see you driving by just like a Phantom jet.’”

  She heard the voice, not just in her head, but coming out of her mouth now. It jolted her, and the mother’s hand tightened on hers.

  The sister looked at her through the mirror, and sang back at her.

  “‘With your arm around some little brunette.’”

  A laugh, small and strange and rusty with it, broke out of her. The fields, the sky—oh God, so big—the mountains that didn’t look the same as from her little house stopped scaring her so much as she sang the next words. As the sister sang the ones after that.

  And they sang the chorus together.

  Beside her, the mother made a little sound, and Alice looked, saw her crying.

  She trembled again. “I did bad. I was bad. I’m bad.”

  “No, no, no.” The mother kissed Alice’s hand, her cheek. “These are from happiness. I always loved hearing my girls sing together. My girls have such beautiful voices.”

  “I’m not a girl. And a woman is—”

  “You’re always my girl, Alice. Just like Reenie.”

  The road rose and she saw the house. She made a garbled sound as her mind slammed between memories and a quarter century of enforced denial.

  “It’s a little different than it was,” the mother said. “We’ve added on some rooms, and opened up a couple of them on the inside. Different paints,” she continued as the sister stopped the car. “Some new furniture. Kitchen’s changed most I’d say. But it has the same bones.” As she spoke, the mother put an arm around her, rubbed at the chill. “Still the barn in the back, and the stables, the paddocks. The chickens, and we added pigs some time back.”

  Dogs raced up to the car, and Alice cringed.

  “Dogs! They growl, they bite.”

  “Not these two. They’re Chester and Clyde, and they won’t bite.”

  “Tail-waggers, both of them.” To Alice’s shock, the grandmother hopped right out. The dogs circled her, but didn’t growl, didn’t bite. They wagged all over as the grandmother touched them.

  “Tail-waggers,” Alice repeated.

  “Do you want to pet them?” the mother asked. Alice could only hunch her shoulders. “You don’t have to, but they won’t bite, and they won’t growl at you.”

  The mother opened the door of the car, slipped out. Panic spewed into Alice’s throat, but the mother held out a hand. “Come on, Alice, I’m right here.”

  Taking the mother’s hand, she inched her way across the seat. Cringed back when one of the dogs poked his nose in and sniffed at her.

  “Sit down, Chester,” the sister ordered. And to Alice’s surprise—and something she didn’t recognize as delight—the dog plopped his hind end down. It seemed like his eyes smiled. His eyes weren’t mean. They looked happy. He had happy eyes.

  She inched out a little more, and the dog’s butt wriggled, but stayed down.

  She put a foot on the ground. It wore a pink tennis shoe with
white laces. For a minute she stared at it, transfixed, moved her foot to assure herself it was hers.

  She put the other pink tennis shoe on the ground, breathed in, stood up.

  The world wanted to spin, but the mother held her hand.

  Clinging to it, she put one foot in front of the other.

  She wore a denim skirt—she hadn’t been able to put on any of the pants or jeans the women bought for her. But the skirt covered most of her legs, as modesty decreed. And the white blouse could be buttoned to the neck. The coat provided warmth that the old shawl she’d worn at her house hadn’t. Everything on her felt so soft, smelled so clean. And still she trembled as she stepped up on the porch.

  She stared at a pair of rocking chairs, shook her head.

  “We painted those just last year,” the sister told her. “I like the blue. Like the summer sky.”

  Now Alice stared at the open door, took a step back.

  The grandmother slid an arm around her waist. “I know you’re afraid, Alice. But we’re all here with you. Just us girls for now.”

  “Two cookies after chores,” Alice mumbled.

  “That’s right, my lamb. I always had two cookies for my girls after chores. No chores today,” the grandmother added. “But we’ll have some cookies. How about some tea and cookies?”

  “Is Sir inside?”

  “No.” Now the grandmother’s voice had anger in it. “He’ll never be inside this house.”

  “Ma—”

  “You hush a minute, Cora.” The grandmother turned to face Alice. “This is your home, and we’re your family. Standing here, we’re three generations of women who can take anything that’s dished out. You’re strong, Alice, and we’re here to stand with you until you remember how strong you are. Now, let’s go inside.”

  “Will you stay with me, too? Will you stay in the home like the mother?”

  “You’re damn right I will.”

  Alice thought of stepping out of the door left unlocked, and stepped through the open one.

  There were flowers in a vase, and tables, and there were chairs and couches and pictures. A fire—not a campfire, not a stove. A fire … place. A fireplace where flames simmered.

  Windows.

  Compelled, she walked, on her own, from window to window to window, marveling. Everything was so big, so far, so near. And not as frightening from inside. Inside seemed safe again.

  “Do you want to see the rest?” the sister asked.

  How could there be more? So much, so big, so far, so near.

  But.

  “A room with bright pink walls and white curtains.”

  “Your room? It’s upstairs.” The sister walked toward a staircase—so many steps, so much space. “Grammy remembered how you’d wanted pink walls, so I had my boys paint them like they were. As close as we could remember. Come up, see what you think.”

  “Let’s take your coat off first.”

  Alice hunched inside it. “Can I keep it?”

  “Of course you can keep it, honey.” Gently, Cora slipped the coat away. “It’s yours, but you don’t need your coat inside. It’s nice and warm in here, isn’t it?”

  “It’s cold in my house. Tea keeps you warm.”

  “We’ll have some tea in a bit.” Cora guided Alice to the stairs. “I remember the first time I saw inside this house. I was sixteen, and your daddy was courting me. I’d never seen stairs so grand. The way they go up, then split off in both directions. It was your great-grandfather built them. The story is he wanted to build the finest house in Montana to convince your great-grandmother to marry him and live in it.”

  “Sir built me a house. The man provides.”

  Cora let it go, led Alice down a wide hall, and into a room with pink walls and white curtains.

  “I know it’s not exactly the same,” she began. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep all your posters and…”

  She trailed off as Alice stepped away from her, her face astonished as she wandered the room, touched the dresser, the bed, the lamps, the cushions on the window seat.

  “It faces west for the sunset,” Alice murmured. “I sit outside once a week if I’ve been good. One hour, once a week, and watch the sunset.”

  “Did you have a window in your house?” the sister asked.

  “It’s a little window, high up at the ceiling. I can’t see the sunset, but I can see the sky. It’s blue and it’s gray and it’s white when the snow falls. Not like the room with no windows.”

  “You can watch the sunset every night,” the mother said. “From inside the house or from outside.”

  “Every night,” Alice repeated.

  Overwhelmed at the idea, she turned. Then jumped in shock when she faced a mirror. The woman wore a long skirt and a white blouse, and pink shoes. Her hair, gray like an angry sky, was braided back from a pale face with scoring lines.

  “Who is that? Who is that? I don’t know her.”

  “You will.” The mother put arms around Alice, around the woman. “Do you want to rest now? I bet Reenie would bring you those cookies and some tea.”

  Alice stumbled to the bed, dropped down to sit. The bed felt so thick, so soft, she began to cry again. “It’s soft. It’s mine? It’s pretty. I can keep the coat?”

  “Yes. See? You can cry when you’re happy, too.” The mother sat beside her, then the grandmother on the other side.

  The sister sat on the floor.

  In that moment, for that moment at least, Alice felt safe.

  * * *

  Though her feelings about bringing Alice home remained mixed and murky, Bodine put on a cheerful face as she walked into the kitchen.

  She found her mother and Miss Fancy at the counter, peeling potatoes. “I expected to see Clementine.”

  “I sent her home. We decided to keep new—or half-remembered—faces to a minimum this first day. And the nurse is already up there with Alice and your nana.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “Better, I think, than anyone expected.” Miss Fancy set a peeled potato aside, picked up another. “She had some bad moments, and she’ll have more, but by God, she had some good ones, too. We were right to bring her, Reenie.”

  “We were, and Ma seems easier already. I think she’ll get her first good night’s sleep tonight. Clementine got a chicken in the roaster before she left. We’re having it with mashed potatoes, gravy, your grammy’s candied carrots, and buttered broccoli. It’s a meal Alice favored once, so…”

  “I’ll give you a hand.”

  “No.” Setting down the peeler, Maureen wiped her hands on a dishcloth. “I want you to come up and meet her.”

  “But—”

  “We decided we’ll hold off on the boys, or having Sam go up. Keep it to women today. We’re going to take a tray up to her room for dinner, ease her in there, too. But she should meet you.”

  “Okay.”

  “You two go on. I’ll get these potatoes peeled and on the boil.”

  They went up the back stairs. “We all talked about keeping things calm and as natural as possible.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  “I know this is hard on you, Bodine.”