THE DAYS found a pleasant, monotonous rhythm. Mari watched the sunrise and ate saltines to fend off nausea. She worked on stripping the house down to its bare essentials and scrubbing away all hints of its former owner. Afternoons were spent on the deck, working on songs and soaking up the beauty of her surroundings. She napped in the Adirondack chair and spent most evenings at the Moose, singing in the lounge.
Once a week she spoke with either Sheriff Quinn or one of the attorneys who were chomping at the bit to take Bryce to court. They couldn’t stick him with anything related to Lucy’s death, but they were eager to make an example of him on the wildlife charges-twenty-nine counts worth. Ben Lucas was pushing for a plea bargain that involved fines and community service. The U.S. attorney was talking about bigger fines, probation time, and forfeiture of the ranch. Bryce had moved back to his home in L.A. in a show of disdain for the prosecuting attorneys. It was Mari’s fondest wish that they throw him in prison for the rest of his unnatural life, but she knew that would never happen. The wheels of justice seldom ran over men like Evan Bryce.
A month had passed since she had challenged J.D. to come find her when he was ready. He had yet to take her up on it. She wondered ten times a day when and how she should tell him that while they had not managed to make their relationship work, they had managed to make a baby. She put it off, thinking that maybe tomorrow he would show up and tell her he loved her.
Foolish hope, but it was better than no hope at all. It was better than thinking about what would happen if he never came back. She would have to go to him, because he had a right to know, but what transpired in her imagination after she made the announcement was most often the fight of the century. He would insist on “doing right by her” because that was the way he thought, and she would tell him to go do the anatomically impossible because she was not about to settle for a marriage based on obligation.
“Here’s another fine mess you’ve got yourself into, Marilee,” she muttered on a long, weary sigh. She rubbed a hand absently over her tummy, a gesture that was fast becoming habit. The life inside her was far too small to be felt, but just the knowledge that it was there made her feel less alone. Often she would close her eyes and try to imagine their child-a dark-haired little boy with his daddy’s stubborn jaw, a little girl with an unruly mop of hair. Then she would think of raising that child alone and her heart would ache until she cried. And then she would think of J.D., living his life of emotional celibacy, his life pledged to the ranch, his heart pledged to no one because he was afraid of having it broken.
Or so she thought. Romanticizing again, Marilee…
“Well, at least I’ll get a song out of it,” she murmured, and jotted down two lines in her court reporter’s notebook.
She sat in the Adirondack chair, staring out at the magnificent beauty all around her and pretending to smoke with cut-off lengths of striped plastic drinking straws. The motion was soothing. The deep breathing relaxed her. The beauty of the place healed her and offered a kind of nameless comfort that soothed her heart. In the background, Mary-Chapin Carpenter sang softly through the speakers of a boom box, a voice as familiar and low and smooth and smoky as her own.
The mountains in the distance were deep blue beneath the sky. That big Montana sky, as blue as cobalt in this late part of the day, streaked with mare’s-tail clouds. A gentle breeze swept the valley, swirling the tassels of the beargrass and needlegrass and red Indian paintbrush. The heads of the globeflowers along the creek bobbed and swayed. Overhead, an eagle circled lazily for a long while. A pair of antelope wandered out from behind a copse of aspen trees and came down to the creek to drink, casting curious looks at the llamas down the way.
Mari absorbed it all, her mind processing the images into words, snatches of melodies coming to her on the wind. She wrote down desultory lines in the notebook with a felt-tipped pen that leaked. The afternoon slipped away with the slow descent of the sun. From time to time she heard Spike barking, then he would come check on her as if to let her know he had things under control. When he tired of his reconnaissance missions, he curled up beneath her chair and went to sleep.
And so it was he missed his opportunity to prove himself as a watchdog, not rousing until the heavy footfall of boots sounded on the side porch. He darted out from under the chair, then threw his head back and barked so hard, his front paws came up off the deck.
Rafferty stepped around the corner of the house, planted his hands at the waist of his jeans, and scowled down at the terrier. “What the hell is that?”
“Spike. My dog,” Mari announced with no small amount of indignation.
She pushed herself up out of her chair and brushed at her wrinkled jeans and baggy purple T-shirt, uncharacteristically self-conscious. Her heart had picked up a couple of extra beats. She could see by her reflection in the glass doors that her hair was a mess. Your hair is always a mess, Marilee. She scooped a chunk of it behind her ear.
J.D. snorted as if to say he didn’t count anything as small as Spike to be a real dog. Spike glared up at him, not about to back down. A little like his mistress, he thought, chuckling to himself. Slowly, he hunkered down and offered the dog a chance to sniff his hand. A moment later he was fondling the terrier’s ears and scratching the back of its muscular little neck.
“What he lacks in size, he makes up in volume,” Mari said.
“Takes after you that way.”
“Very funny. What are you doing here, Rafferty?” she asked, scowling, cringing a little inwardly at the defensiveness in her tone. In a perfect world she would have been calm and cool. But this was not a perfect world. She knew that better than most people.
J.D. rose slowly and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Came to see to the stock,” he said, poker-faced.
Mari nodded slowly, not believing a word of it. “You’re about a month late.”
“Had a lot on my mind.”
“How’s Del?” she asked, not certain she wanted to hear what he’d had on his mind. There was no guarantee it was anything good.
“Seeing a psychiatrist in Livingston once a week. Guy was in ’Nam. They go fishing together and talk. He’s doing okay.”
“I’m glad.”
She narrowed her eyes a little and did a head-to-toe assessment of him. He wore a clean blue oxford button-down that had seen an iron recently, dark jeans, boots that still had a little shine on them. No hat. His lean cheeks were freshly shaved. His dark hair was neat except for the little cowlick in front. She wanted to reach up and brush it with her fingers.
“You’re not exactly dressed for chores,” she said. “Got a hot date in town?”
“Well…” he drawled, “that remains to be seen.”
Her heart kicked hard against her rib cage. She arched a brow and tried like hell not to look encouraged. “I see.”
“How you doin,’ Mary Lee?” he asked softly, capturing her gaze and holding it steady. He wanted to go to her and touch her face and tangle his fingers in her hair. He wanted to sink his lips down against hers and kiss her for a year. He wanted to lay her down somewhere soft and make love to her forever, but there were things they needed to settle first.
I’m lonely. I miss you. I’m pregnant. “Fine.” She raised her hands to show him both were in working order. “My days as a monoplegic are over.”
“You’re happy here?”
Not without you. “Very.”
“You’ll stay?”
“Forever.”
He spent a moment digesting that, then nodded slowly.
“You’re not going to tell me I don’t belong here?” she asked.
“No, ma’am.”
“You’re not going to swear at me for being an outsider?”
“No.”
“You’re not going to try to run me off?”
He pressed his lips together and shook his head.
She laughed her deep, husky laugh. “That’s what I hate about you, cowboy, you just never shut up.”
One corner of his mouth tipped up. “You talk enough for both of us.”
Mari tipped her head and fought the grin that threatened. “Touché.”
She moved to lean back against the deck railing, crossing her ankles as if she felt nonchalant. If there had been a pack of cigarettes on the table, she would have been tempted to light half a dozen simultaneously, but there were only her cut-off straws and the leaky pen. Her nerves were stretched as taut as piano wire. She resisted the urge to rub her hand over her tummy.
“So, you came to see the llamas,” she said, her fingernails digging into the railing.
J.D. looked straight at her. “I came to see you.”
“What for?” She braced herself for an answer she didn’t want to hear. That he wanted to tell her it was officially over between them, that he wouldn’t be taking her up on her offer. That he still wanted to buy her land. If he said one word about the land…
J.D. glanced down at the table for a moment, rolling a length of plastic straw with his finger. She had some scribbled lines in a notebook. Song lyrics, he supposed. Her handwriting was as messy as her hair. He stalled, amazed at the amount of courage he was having to dig up for this conversation. He’d spent a month storing it up and losing it, arguing with himself about his future and his motives. He had practiced what he would say on the way down here, and now he stood here, saying nothing.
Mary-Chapin Carpenter sang softly in the background, saving them from an oppressive silence.
Finally, he sighed and faced her. “Well, Will and Sam are starting over. You came here to start over. I thought maybe you and I might start over too.”
Mari’s breath caught in her throat. “Why?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking these past few weeks,” he said quietly. “I’ve been wrong. About a lot of things.”
“And I’m one of those things?”
“I’ve been alone all my life, Mary Lee,” he whispered.
She knew instantly what he meant. That he had been emotionally abandoned as a child. That he had protected himself ever since. That he was letting down his guard for her.
“I reckon I thought it would be safer, easier,” he said. “But it’s just lonely and I’ve grown weary of it.”
She had been alone too. Alone inside herself while she went through the motions of fitting in in a world where she didn’t belong. She knew the unique ache of that kind of loneliness.
“What do you say, Mary Lee?” he asked, spreading his hands, his heart pounding at the base of his throat. “You gonna give a hardheaded cowboy a second chance?”
She looked at him standing there in his good clothes, clean-shaven, and his hair combed, and her heart nearly overflowed. You’re hopeless, Marilee. Hardheaded didn’t begin to describe him. He was contrary and ornery and they didn’t see eye to eye on much of anything. And he was closed and stubborn and opinionated… And he was good and honest and strong and brave, and she loved him. No question that she loved him.
The air went out of J.D.’s lungs when she smiled that wry smile.
“Does this mean you’ll actually take me on a date?” she asked suspiciously.
“Dinner and dancing?”
“Dancing?” She sniffed, mischief sparkling like diamonds in her eyes as she pushed herself away from the railing. “You can’t dance.”
He took a step closer, squaring his shoulders at the challenge. “Can so.”
“Cannot.”
A smile played at the corners of his mouth. “Come over here and say that, city girl.”
Mari stepped up to him with her hands on her hips and looked him in the eye. “Show me.”
Carefully he took her in his arms and danced her through a slow two-step around the deck. While Spike looked on from the cushion on the Adirondack chair, they moved in perfect unison to a sweet, pretty song about Halley’s comet and innocence and simple joys. He moved with grace and confidence, guiding her, holding her in a way that made her feel safe and protected and small and feminine. Above them the sky turned purple with twilight and the moon rose in the east, a huge white wafer above the jagged teeth of the Absarokas. Down the valley the coyotes began to call.
Mari kept her gaze locked on J.D.’s, searching for a truth she wouldn’t count on him speaking. That he could give her his heart. That she could trust him with hers. That the years of wariness hadn’t left him permanently isolated.
She caught the slightest whiff of aftershave, and tears of love filled her eyes as she slid her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his chest, slowing their dance to a shuffle. He was a man as hard and unyielding as the land that bred him, and she might spend the next fifty years tearing her hair out over his stubbornness, but she wouldn’t trade a second of it for all the gold in California.
She mouthed the words against the soft cotton of his shirt, like a precious secret, like prayer. I love you.
J.D. wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss to the soft tangle of her hair. His heart felt huge and tender in his chest, beneath her cheek. Looking out across the valley to the mountains beyond, he felt both old and new, strong and vulnerable. He felt as if they were the only two people on earth, alone in paradise, starting fresh. He vowed to do it right this time. No lies, no games, cards on the table, nothing held back.
The music slowed. The sweet harmony of twin fiddles faded away, and the last notes were played on the guitar.
Their feet stilled.
Their hearts beat.
Mari held her breath.
And Rafferty tipped her chin up and gazed down into her blue, blue eyes and whispered, “I love you.”