K.C. continued to scrub the dishes and set them on a rack to dry. “I don’t know what I expected, Chay. It’s just so sad. I’m so sorry for you, to handle all of this, to…have this on your shoulders at our age.”
He came up behind her and embraced her, his chin resting on the top of her head as he pulled her into him. “We’re adults, K.C. We have responsibilities and this is mine.”
“I know, but….” She tilted her head back and rested against him. “This is just so much, so very much.”
“I’ve been handling this for years. I guess I can go on for a few more.” He gave the top of her head a quick kiss and started back to his dad, stopping only briefly at the door to take in the scene of K.C. at his ranch house kitchen sink.
Just as if she lived here.
Chapter Ten
K.C. stared at the calendar in disbelief but the word ‘August’ did not disappear. Her stomach tightened at the thought she had one more month here, one more month before she and Chay would have to be parted. She slapped closed the register book in front of her and grabbed her denim jacket off the back of her chair. The door whined open.
“Just back from town, sorry I took so long.” Dakota held out a packet of condoms, which K.C. quickly pocketed.
“You’re a star; sorry I had to ask, but Chay seems to be a bit lax in that department. He keeps changing brands, some of which are downright yucky.”
“Yucky, huh?” Dakota laughed. “Well, it’s pretty yucky all round but there ya go.”
“How much do I owe you?”
“Oh, we’ll settle later; I haven’t got the receipt on me.” She stopped to take in K.C.’s look. “Everything okay? You haven’t had an argument yet, have you?”
“Yet?”
“Oh, hell, K.C. A slip of the tongue. I only meant…I mean, I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Is that how he ends it? Is that what you’re thinking? It’s August and time for Chay to break up with his latest?”
“No, no, really. I just thought…you look so glum, I thought maybe you’d had a tiff or something.”
K.C. let out a deep breath. “No, we haven’t had a ‘tiff.’ We’re just…avoiding the situation, ignoring the question of what will happen. And his father is so ill—not to mention the fact he doesn’t seem to like me. He just sits and stares whenever I go over with Chay.”
“Well, he is pretty sick from what I hear. Maybe he sees you as a threat?”
“I don’t know.” K.C. shrugged into her jacket and stood for a moment, hands on hips. “Gosh, Dakota, I just don’t know. Chay has so many responsibilities, and I’m just one more thing to think about, I guess.” She bit her lip, meeting Dakota’s sympathetic glance. “I’m going to walk down to the barns and see if he’s around.”
“Would you tell him that Wexler girl wasn’t happy with Barney, and to please saddle Star for her instead tomorrow. She’ll be on his ride.”
“Will do—Star instead of Barney.”
“Thanks.”
K.C. locked up the office and they walked side by side in silence to the point where their paths diverged. Dakota faced K.C. “Honest, hon, I didn’t mean anything. I really believe Chay loves you. You know, from what the guys say to me and all, the poor man doesn’t know what hit him.”
K.C. smiled. “I thought you didn’t gossip?” Her voice was more upbeat.
“Well, every so often I make an exception for my rule. You know, rules were made to be broken….”
* * *
A chill wind had the horses circling in the far corral as Chay came out of the barns. He turned up his collar and pulled down his hat against the Wyoming weather, wondering if it would be an early winter.
“I have a message for you,” K.C. called as she climbed the corral fence and dropped down. “Dakota says to saddle Star instead of Barney for the Wexler girl.” She reached up and pulled his collar tight about his neck. “I’ll warm you up,” she said, and rubbed his cheeks with her soft hands. “And I’ve got a present for you, too.”
He bent to kiss her before he looped his arm with hers to go out the gate. “A present, huh? Well, there’s a lot of stuff I need….”
“Yeah, and this is one of them.” She held up the packet of condoms, and smiled.
“Ah-ha.” Chay took the pack and slipped them into his own back pocket. “So? Empty guest cottage? Ridgway bunkhouse? Your place? My place? Truck? Field? Office?”
K.C. had to stop she was laughing so much. “Chay Ridgway! What a mind! Is this all you think about?”
“Not quite all I think about. Sometimes I think about what a smart girl you are, and how lucky I am to have you. For a few seconds. And then I think…where can we do it today?”
K.C. laughed again. “Chay!” She mock-hit him and he, in turn, mock-ducked, protecting his hat and head. It ended with an embrace and a kiss that lifted K.C. off her feet.
Kissing her started something he couldn’t control, his jeans tightening and making him desperate to have her. He stood back, tried to get his mind somewhere else, and took her arm again. “So, what about Turner’s idea the west defines America?” he said with a smirk.
K.C. stopped in her tracks. “Chay! How the hell do you know about that? When did you read Turner?”
He glanced sideways at her. “Well, you want to be a historian or some such so I thought I had better brush up on my history. I took some books out of the library, and that was one of them. And, by the way, I don’t agree with his ideas when I have my little New York beauty in front of me—who is not from immigrant stock and not a westerner.”
K.C. sighed. “You never cease to amaze me, you know that. And all Americans are from immigrant stock; we’re a nation of immigrants.”
They got to his truck parked in front of the office. Chay opened the door for her. “All right: emigrant stock then. Your people never left New York.” He got in the driver’s side and started up the truck.
“You’re a real smarty pants, you know that, mister?”
“I’m a real tight pants right now and if we don’t get to the ranch soon, I’ll be taking you up there in the trees.”
Her giggles lifted his heart. He could so see a life with K.C., a normal life of family and friends unburdened by the worries about his father and the ranch. But that might be years away, and for now, he didn’t know how to rectify the situation, make it work when she went to New York. It ate at him.
“What are the winters like here?”
Her question intruded on his thoughts. “Huh?”
“Winter,” she repeated. “What’s it like?”
“Oh. Pretty heavy. Minus temperatures—”
“Minus temperatures?”
He took his gaze off the road to look at her. “I thought you knew. Winter in Wyoming is pretty severe. In Jackson Hole we get an average of four hundred and fifty inches of snow a year; minus twenty-seven is nothing nowadays. Used to be, like, minus sixty in the last century. Why? What did you expect?”
“I…I expected snow but, gosh, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t give it much thought.” Her eyes flickered with this new information. “Well, that’s it, then,” she said more brightly, “you’ll just have to come live in New York.”
The truck braked abruptly and Chay sat with his hands on the wheel, his gaze still ahead at the long vacant road. He cut the motor. Silence filled the car with a heaviness that almost made breathing difficult. He could feel K.C. panic, almost vibrating with her fear.
“K.C.,” he began.
“No! I didn’t mean…you know I was only kidding around, dreaming…No, Chay!”
He viewed her as one might view a trapped animal, trying to escape her words as an animal might wish to escape its cage.
“K.C., listen to me,” he began as gently as he could. “You knew this was going to end—”
“No! No, no, no, no, no! It doesn’t have to; we can work it out, we can find a way! Winter will be fine; it’ll be cozy. We’ll be holed up together studying and making love—surely you can study for
your high school equivalency and—”
“K.C., listen.” His own pain made him ache so, he could barely speak the words, his mouth dry now, fighting back his own tears. “K.C., we knew—we both knew—right from the beginning, this didn’t have a snowball’s hope in hell. You belong in your world, and I belong in mine. You have your dreams, your Master’s degree, and all I am is a high school dropout with a load of debts. And my dream…my dream is to get back my ranch—”
“But I can help you! Look, I thought about this,” she tried. “I really thought about this and after the M.A. I could get a job as a history teacher here perhaps, and write for journals, and help with the ranch—”
“I don’t want that.” He realized now she would think of a way, think up something to stay with him, give up her own dreams for him. Best to be blunt, best to be cruel, best to finish it once and for all. He looked out at a ray of sun kissing the mountaintops; someone once told him that was the finger of God, but at this moment, he couldn’t believe such a thing, couldn’t care if it was. He rubbed the ache in his forehead before continuing. “This was the dumbest thing ever. I tried to tell you. Right at the start, I tried.”
K.C. was sobbing now and it went right through him, as if her tears flowed into him as fire. “You’re saying this was your intention at the start?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you,” she cried.
He turned to her trying to muster a smirk. “Why do you think you’re so different from any other summer girl? What makes you think I’d treat you differently?”
“You love me. You said you loved me.”
“Words, sweetheart. Mere words.” He so longed to take her back in his arms, reach out and caress her once more, but it was never going to happen again, that scene had played itself out.
“You don’t mean that. I don’t believe you mean that.”
Chay started up the motor again. “You can believe whatever the hell you wish to believe, darlin’. But now I’m telling you the truth.” He stole one more painful glance at her tear-stained face before hurtling the final blow. He reached into his pocket and held out the condoms. “Here you go, K.C. You might need these for your next summer fling.”
Chapter Eleven
“K.C.? K.C.!” Breezy’s call woke her from a restless nap, but she lay in her bunk staring at the stain in the mattress above. “K.C.?”
The screen door into the women’s bunkhouse screeched and then banged closed.
K.C. listened to Breezy’s tentative footsteps coming around the row to find her. And then she was there, her hands on her hips, frown on her face, and sorrow in her eyes. “Bob told me you were off ill…and then Dakota told me how ill you actually were. Oh, sweetie.” She ducked under the top bunk and perched on the edge of the bed. “I’m so sorry. Really, I thought you were a keeper; I honestly thought Chay had come to his senses at last.”
K.C. leaned on one elbow. She couldn’t imagine what she looked like, but she knew it wouldn’t be a pretty picture considering she had been weeping for the last few days. Her eyes would be very red, that was certain. “I don’t think Chay has any sense,” she said at last, sniffing. “He certainly doesn’t have any heart.”
Breezy reached a hand out and stroked the girl’s knotted hair. “He has a very big heart where his father is concerned—you know that,” she said softly. “He just can’t figure out how to get a life of his own at the same time as looking after his dad.”
“I could. I tried to tell him—I was going to tell him I could get a student loan that would cover his living expenses in New York and all his rental money could go to having someone look after his father. But he just broke up with me without listening.”
“Oh, sweetheart, he would never have someone else look after his father. And that ranch is everything to him.”
“I know! But it would only be two years away. Was that so much to ask? Just so we wouldn’t have to be separated. Then I would gladly come back here. I told him that. I did.”
“Well.” Breezy stood up. “You have to eat, K.C. You have to get on with your own life now. I don’t want to sound like your mother—”
“Hah! You could never do that.”
“How are your parents, by the way? I guess they are long back in New York?”
“They’re fine. They’re at the beach now for the summer.”
“Well, lucky for some.”
“The only lucky thing is they are resigned to me leading my own life. With or without their money.”
Breezy’s clenched fists rested on her hips. “And to lead that life, you need fuel. Look, I know it’s not going to be easy seeing Chay around, and not easy concentrating on work but, K.C., life goes on. Believe me, I know. I’ve loved enough men and had enough broken hearts to fill a book the size of War and Peace. And War and Peace would be a mighty good title for it, too. You show that Chay Ridgway just what he’s missing—one strong woman he should have spent the rest of his life with! Now, do you want me to bring you something to eat? And then tomorrow, you get washed, fixed up, and break that man’s heart!”
* * *
Chay felt a kind of nausea, an emptiness that churned his gut, made him unable to concentrate. He had saddled Barney again for the Wexler girl when he had been told Star, and he rode through a gate without closing it properly, a situation that could have caused all sorts of problems for the working ranch. It was a ‘no, no’—something he had never done, something that should never happen. His head perpetually ached, and the smell in his father’s living room made him want to puke.
“Why the heck didn’t you agree to use that oxygen concentrator thing? Why have that crappy tank all the time? It’s a pain in the backside.”
“What’s got your goat today?” his father growled, slipping the mask off for a moment. “You know damn well this is cheaper. Cheaper by far. And doesn’t make that damn noise.” He slipped the mask back on for a moment, then took it off, a stream of coughs wracking his thin body. “It’s that girl, isn’t it? She leave you? Best one yet you brought home. What’s the matter with you? Can’t keep ’em satisfied?” Some rheumy laughs ended in more sputtering.
“Yeah, that’s it, Dad. I’m no good in bed; I can’t keep it up. You can think that if you like, you old fart.” He stomped into the kitchen and got the water hot and sudsy to wash up the dishes. Pictures of K.C. floated through his mind, her smile, her laugh, her kiss, how she looked as she undressed in front of him, the sound of her voice, the very feel of her as they made love. He wouldn’t have that any more. He had been so stupid, so dumb. Surely they could have worked things out. Surely…. He held a plate in his hand, the soap sliding down its surface, a string of bubbles plopping into the water below. Outside, the sky was fading into evening and streaks of color grabbed the distant hills, orange and cerise and mauve. Two years in New York? Would it be so bad? But, no, he couldn’t leave his father. His father. He’d lost his temper with his father.
He hurled the plate against the wall and watched it shatter into a dozen gritty pieces.
“Shit!” he said to himself. “Shit! What the hell have I done?”
* * *
“Chin up, chin up,” K.C. said to herself as she strode into the dining room. “Please let there be a space with staff other than Chay, please don’t even let me see him, please don’t let everyone stare at me, please don’t let anyone make a comment. Please, please, please.”
“Good to see you back, K.C. Hope you feel better.” One of the servers leaned over and scooped scrambled eggs onto K.C.’s plate. She moved down the breakfast buffet, trying to keep her eyes straight ahead and not look for Chay as she normally did, but it was difficult. Very difficult.
“Hash browns? Bacon?” A low voice reached her from the other side of the buffet, a guy in kitchen whites holding up a dipper of tempting potatoes. “Or maybe you’d prefer a drink with me later tonight?”
K.C. looked at the friendly face. Everyone obviously knew she and Chay had split. Had they been e
xpecting it? Had they been counting the days until Chay pulled his usual trick? Taking bets even? She mustered as much courage as she could and looked the pleasant young man in the eye. “I’ll just take the potatoes for now and save the dessert for later,” she quipped. The server raised a brow.
She moved along and found a seat with Dakota, who was deep in conversation with Bob. “Mind if I join you?” she asked before sitting down.
“Of course not, K.C.! I’m so glad to see you back among the living. How are you feeling, dear?” Bob gulped a splash of his coffee. “Better, I hope.”
“Oh, yes. Thank you for asking. I feel much better. As Dakota can confirm,” she added with a smile.
It was difficult to muster that smile, but muster it she did. She got her butt on the bench and faced her boss. “It’s good to be back to work,” she fibbed. “I feel so much better,” she repeated, as if convincing herself. She wondered how much longer she could keep up this charade. Everyone must know. Everyone obviously knew. They must be used to it by now—Chay breaks up with someone at the end of every summer, doesn’t he? Do they sit around and wait for it? Laugh about the poor victim who’ll take his bait? Were they laughing about her now?
She looked Bob in the eye. “Only a couple more weeks to go, isn’t it? Do you look forward to the guests leaving, so the ranch can deal with cattle and other important things?”
“Not really,” he replied. “I like having the break from herding cattle and dealing with feed and stock prices and so on. I like having the human company, seeing people who maybe get out from cities and live a country life for a week, enjoy themselves. And I love having the extra staff around—people like yourself and Dakota, hearing about their lives and where they’re going after they leave here.”
She started to say, ‘Chay told me’ but caught herself before the words were out. “I understand there’s a round-up coming. Is that true? Will I be here for it?”
“Not sure, to tell you the truth. And it’s not as exciting as in the old days, I’m afraid. We haven’t set a date, K.C., but I’ll let you know.”
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