“I couldn’t sleep.”
“You were doing a damn good impression.”
“At home. I thought I’d wait for you, and I fell asleep. Savannah? The baby?”
“Great and really pretty. I think. She’s my first straight out of the oven. Here.” He pulled out his phone. “See for yourself.”
Bodine blinked her bleary eyes, focusing on the image of a tiny bundle swaddled in a pink-and-white blanket and wearing a pink cap. “She’s not really pretty. She’s gorgeous. What did they name her?”
“Aubra. Aubra Rose.”
“Did you hold her?”
“I’m going to admit I didn’t want to. Rather handle sweating dynamite, but I got roped into it. And it was a moment. There were lots of moments.” He swiped through to show Bodine other pictures of the baby—in her mother’s arms, her father’s, her grandmother’s. And finally his.
Bodine’s thought, studying him with his niece, was: besotted.
“Mostly I have to wonder why any woman would go through that. I’m not ashamed to say I got out of the room as much as I could, but they kept pulling me back in. Yeah, lots of moments.”
He finally pulled off his boots, then stretched out beside her, both of them still dressed. “I didn’t do any of the work, and I feel like I climbed a couple mountains.”
He shut his eyes. “And in the moment, I said I’d take the boy for a few hours a couple days this week, give them some rest time. I’ll figure out what to do with him. Pony rides, let him scoop up some horse manure. Nothing a boy likes better at that age.”
“Miranda—the kids activities coordinator—can help you out.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure.”
“Might save my sanity.” He let his mind start to drift. “So, how was your evening?”
“Intense. Mom and Alice got into a big fight before dinner. yelling, shoving.”
“What?” His brain fired up again. “What?”
“Actually, it started with Aubra Rose. I mentioned the baby coming, and Alice got going, then she and Mom got into it. It’s a revelation to see your mother fight with a sibling the way you might do yourself. And Nana started to break it up, and Alice went off.”
She turned a little more so they were stretched out face-to-face.
“She remembered things, Callen. Mixed-up things, silly, petty, kid-stuff things, but she remembered. She called Nana ‘Ma.’ Not ‘the mother’ the way she has been. She called my mother ‘Reenie.’ It was a lot. Really a lot. Maybe a breakthrough. I don’t know. Nana’s sure it is, and it worries me she’s got her hopes up, because Alice could get up tomorrow and not remember any of it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with having your hopes up. You ought to do the same.”
“Maybe. Chase, Rory, and I had a little meeting later, in the barn. We figured Dad’s got Mom—and during the day Rory and I will keep an eye out there. Chase is taking Grammy, Rory Nana, and I get Alice. She could lean too hard on Rory, and she’s still easier with me than Chase. All I have to do is figure out how to take the lead there. Today was the first day without the nurse rotation, and boom, intense.”
“You’ll handle it. We should get undressed and actually get in the bed.”
“Yeah. In a minute.”
In a minute they’d both fallen asleep just as they were.
*
The man known as Sir fashioned a rough cane out of a sturdy branch. It helped him when his legs got too shaky to finish his ranch work.
The dog died on him, but dogs were easy to come by. He’d get another when he felt up to it.
He considered shooting the horse—more trouble than it was worth—but felt while a man could do without a dog for a bit of time, a man without a horse was hamstrung.
So he fed it sparingly, rationing out the grain.
He took more time with the cow. The cow still produced milk, even if milking the thing exhausted him.
He wheezed as he walked, but he could walk. At least until the coughing struck. When it did he had to stop, sit, suffer through it.
In a few days, when he felt better, he’d go for more medicine, shell out the money for feed, for hay.
Start hunting for a new, young wife. One strong enough to plow the plot and plant it. One vital enough to give him sons. One comely enough to give him pleasure.
This was his waiting time.
He told himself every night when he crawled into bed that by morning he’d be strong again. Strong enough to start that hunt.
He’d readied the basement, and there she would stay. And as she plowed the field so he would plow her. As the field produced its bounty, so would she produce hers. From his seed.
Every night he slept with a revolver under his pillow, and a bullet ready to dispatch anyone who tried to stop him from defending his God-given rights.
PART FOUR
A Return
You’re searching, Joe,
For things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings—there are no such things.
There are only middles.
—Robert Frost
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
If Jessica had to run her feet off half the day, she’d do it in great shoes. According to the app on her phone, she’d logged more than seven thousand steps, and it was still shy of noon.
Even better, her big weekend event would absolutely rock.
As a nod to the bright sun—and Montana—she paired her great shoes with her Stetson over a low, smooth ponytail.
She thought of it as an East-meets-West fashion statement.
On her hot pink stilettos—think spring!—she strode back from the Mill yet again, intending to swing through the Saloon and the Feed Bag, but stopped when Bodine pulled up in one of the resort cars.
“Tell me this weather’s going to hold for the weekend,” Jessica said.
As she stepped out of the car, Bodine looked up at the big, blue sky. “It looks good for it. We might get a quick flurry tonight, but it’s sun and sixties tomorrow. And a good thing,” she added. “We’re getting the camps set up.”
“I’ve got event guests in Riverside Camp and the Eagle’s Nest tonight. Will they be ready by check-in?”
“Riverside’s ready now, and the crew’s setting up Eagle’s Nest. Your guests will be glamping tonight, no problem.” She tapped Jessica on the shoulder. “So, no need for you to go out there and nag the crew.”
“Nagging the camp crew, off my list. I really want this one to run smooth.”
“The Cumberland family reunion, right?”
“Family reunion–slash–birthday party. The matriarch will be a hundred and two tomorrow. I’m fascinated and terrified. A hundred and two. Have you seen the cake?”
“Not yet.”
“It’s nearly finished, and rather than nag that crew I’ve looked on in awe. It’s huge and gorgeous and clever. Towering really, with symbols and decorations marking milestones in her life. I’m taking pictures for the website. It’s truly one of a kind. And big enough to feed the seventy-eight people attending, whose ages range from seven months to that hundred and two.”
“You’re practically bouncing.”
“I know!” With a laugh, Jessica gestured toward the Mill. “There’s something about it. The continuity, longevity, the big, spread-out family coming together. They’ve been sending pictures and mementoes for weeks. They’ve booked the Mill for the whole weekend, and we’ve arranged everything they’ve sent, like a fun museum of their family’s history. It’s like another world for somebody with hardly any family history and no close relatives.”