Betting the Rainbow (Harmony)

by Thomas, Jodi

  “I miss you, Rea.” Noah finally broke the silence.

  She couldn’t speak. She just waited. Missing seemed too small a word to hold how lonely she felt.

  “I haven’t had a drink since Big knocked me out. I’m not going back to the rodeo circuit. Those days are over.” He looked down at his boots as if trying to remember a speech. “I’ve been fixing up my old place. It still looks like hell, but Tannon Parker said he’d start hauling in the cattle I bought next week. Thought I’d start with a hundred head and work my way up.”

  “Why are you here, Noah?”

  He looked down at his feet again. “I’d like to see the baby. If he’s mine, I want to claim him. None of this is his fault.”

  She nodded. “Wait out here. I’ll go get him.”

  When she returned, Noah was sitting in the west-facing chairs. She put Utah in his arms and stepped away.

  It was too hard to watch. Reagan walked back inside and forced herself not to look out the window. She knew Noah loved kids. He was always telling stories about what one of his cousin’s kids did. Or at least he used to love children. Reagan felt like she barely knew the man sitting in her front yard.

  When she heard Utah cry, Reagan rushed toward the door.

  Noah was standing there looking helpless. “I think he’s wet or hungry. I don’t know. He’s just not happy. I even tried singing to him.”

  “That probably made him mad. You can’t sing,” she said as she took the baby.

  “I can’t? Wish someone had told me. I’ve been singing for years.”

  “Believe me, Noah, we’ve all tried.”

  He looked like he was in deep thought. “That may explain why nobody ever passed me a hymnal in church.”

  She wasn’t falling for his charm. “I think the baby may be wet. I usually change him and then feed him a bottle as we watch the sunset.”

  Reagan held the fussy baby, but she didn’t invite Noah in.

  “Do you think I could come back some sunset and feed him?”

  “All right.” Reagan closed the door without saying good-bye.

  Noah stood on the porch staring at a door he’d felt comfortable just walking through for years. But not now.

  He’d worked till he dropped every day and he still couldn’t sleep. Now Rea wouldn’t even talk to him.

  Walking back to his truck, he had no idea how to fix what he’d broken, but he wasn’t sure he could live without her.

  No matter how long it took, he’d keep trying.

  Chapter 34

  DELANEY FARM

  DUSTI DROVE INTO TOWN TO MAIL ANOTHER SET OF PHOTOS to Kieran O’Toole. This would be the fourth and last installment of what she called her Living in Harmony series. She’d had great fun with the old camera he’d said belonged to his dad. Something about looking at the world with a camera in her hands made everything seem different, far more interesting, a wonder in her everyday world.

  She hadn’t known how much she missed it until now.

  In every packet she mailed to New York City, she included a letter thanking him for all his help and telling him she was counting down the days until the trip to Vegas. She and Abby had repacked her suitcase half a dozen times trying to decide just what she should take. This tournament was relatively small compared to all the others in Las Vegas, but the money was great; all she had to do was place in the money. Even the lowest money win would be enough to send Abby back to school.

  In truth, she’d been so busy taking the pictures she hadn’t thought much about the game. Her win was all that the folks in town talked about, and if possible that made her more nervous than anything else. Everyone was counting down the days with her.

  Mrs. Mills, Kieran’s granny, even answered the door for her weekly egg delivery by saying, “Five more days, Dusti. Five more days. Are you excited?”

  “Of course,” Dusti answered, feeling more fear than excitement. “I just dropped some eggs by and wondered if Kieran had called to tell you he got my pictures. Our phones at the farm aren’t dependable.”

  “No, dear, he hasn’t called, but I’m sure he will. Do you have time to come in for a glass of tea?”

  Dusti wanted to dart back to her truck now that she’d found out what she needed to know, but the old lady was too sweet to disappoint, so she nodded and followed her to a kitchen that hadn’t been remodeled in fifty years.

  As they drank sweet tea, Dusti searched for something to say. “I guess you know your grandson taught me to play poker. That’s why I won the other night.”

  “I know, dear. He’s pretty good at the game. Never could beat me, though.”

  Dusti’s eyes widened. “You taught him to play?”

  “Sure. I had to do something with him every summer, and I’m not one for baseball. Back years ago, my husband always played on Friday nights. I decided if I wanted to keep up with my man’s night out with the boys, the easiest way was to become the dealer. So I set up a table in the backyard and made sweets. Even when my husband suggested changing locations, none of the other men would hear of it.” She grinned. “They liked my sweets.”

  Dusti laughed. “Mrs. Mills, you’re brilliant.”

  “I am, dear.” She laughed. “Want me to get out the cards and show you a few secrets? I didn’t watch men play for twenty years without learning a few tricks, along with the recipes, of course.”

  Dusti almost jumped out of her chair and hugged the woman. No one at the game had been as good as Kieran, and she’d just found his master.

  Mrs. Mills stood and pulled her phone from her apron pocket. “Mind if I call my friend? She always plays. Didn’t win as often as I did, but picked up two husbands at the poker table.”

  “Of course. I’d love to meet her.”

  When Mrs. Mills produced the deck from her hutch drawer, she added, “These lessons don’t come free. I’ll expect pecans with those eggs every week come fall. One week’s delivery for each lesson. Fair enough?”

  “You got yourself a deal.”

  The doorbell rang. Dusti waited in the kitchen, but she could hear the laughter.

  “When you called, I dropped everything and came right over. The girls are riding again,” the newcomer announced.

  Both women laughed as they moved into the kitchen.

  Dusti stood and turned to face Martha Q Patterson, the owner of the town’s bed-and-breakfast.

  “Morning, Mrs. Patterson,” Dusti said, thinking of all the wild stories she’d heard about Martha Q and her seven husbands.

  “Call me Martha Q. If you’re sitting down to play poker with us, you’re sitting down as an equal. We’ll try not to take advantage of you.”

  Mrs. Mills nodded. “If either of us had decided to play in that game at the Truman farm, you wouldn’t be packing your bag.” She winked as if she were teasing, but Martha Q added “amen” like it was the gospel truth.

  Dusti found it hard to believe that Kieran’s sweet little granny was friends with a woman who folks used to claim had slept with every man in town. And that there were cardsharps in a town of goldfish.

  Mrs. Mills patted Martha Q’s hand. “Now, we’re not playing for money today. We’re here to help this girl learn to play in Las Vegas. She’s not going into a friendly kitchen game, she’s going into the lion’s den, and no one, including my grandson, can prepare her for that game but you and me.”

  “Does anyone in Harmony know that you two have played in Vegas?” Dusti found it almost impossible to believe they’d kept such a secret for so many years.

  “No one alive.” Martha Q winked.

  “You killed them?”

  Both women laughed. “No, dear,” Mrs. Mills said. “We outlived them.”

  “Before I play with you, Dusti Delaney, you have to swear you’ll never tell anyone about this game. You’ll go to your grave with our secret.” Martha Q shru
gged. “I don’t much care about it myself. I start half the rumors about me, but Mrs. Mills is a lady. A very proper Methodist to boot. I wouldn’t want people talking about my friend.”

  “How long have you two been friends?”

  Both shrugged. Finally, Martha Q answered, “More years than I admit to being alive.”

  Dusti raised her hand, loving that she’d stumbled onto such a secret. “I swear.” Even if she thought about telling somebody, no one would believe her.

  “Then let’s play some poker.”

  Three hours later Dusti left with a loaf of Mrs. Mills’s banana bread and a few secrets of the game. She might not be able to reach Kieran, but at least she was still learning. A few more lessons and she just might have a chance at getting into the finals.

  On the drive home she laughed about all the stories she’d heard. The two had once run off to Vegas when they were in their fifties. Mrs. Mills was newly widowed and Martha Q was between husbands.

  They’d slipped away, both telling lies as to where they were going. Mrs. Mills had won so much cash they’d been afraid to leave the casino. Martha Q had stuffed the cash in her bra while Mrs. Mills ran to get the car. Every man in the place tried to pick Martha Q up on her way out.

  Martha Q claimed secret friends are far better than secret lovers, and Dusti had no doubt it was true. They’d stood beside each other through marriages, deaths, and rumors.

  When all this was over and Abby had gone off to school, Dusti planned to spend her one night a month out at Mrs. Mills’s house. Playing cards with her and Martha Q was far more fun than playing games at Buffalo’s Bar and taking a chance at going home with a crazy cowboy who didn’t stay till dawn.

  She laughed as she turned onto Rainbow Lane, remembering how she’d asked Martha Q if she’d ever waited for the right man to come along.

  Martha Q had answered, “Yes, and he did, several times.”

  Chapter 35

  NOAH MCALLEN’S RANCH

  NOAH WATCHED CATTLE BEING UNLOADED ONTO HIS LAND. It felt good. It felt right. A hundred head was just a start on what he needed, but that was all he could handle right now. Between working on the house and mending fences, every muscle in his body hurt, but it was a good kind of ache.

  Working for a living was much harder than rodeoing. The heroes are the men who get up and work every day, all day long. Somehow the world got it mixed up. Sitting on a bull for eight seconds is nothing compared to sitting on a horse from sunup to sundown.

  Noah loved it, though. The fresh air. The solid sleep from being too tired to think once the lights went out. The cool mornings. The stars. He hadn’t known he’d missed it so until he returned.

  Tannon Parker, who owned the trucking company in town, had ridden out with the last shipment to make sure all was running smooth. He and Noah’s father were both in the same business, but they’d always been friendly, even lending each other trucks when a huge job came in.

  Tannon jumped down from the truck. “Your dad’s going to be proud of you, Noah. He used to talk about how you wanted this place as soon as you turned eighteen. He said you had big dreams.”

  Noah shrugged. “I want to get it up and running before he finds out about what I’m doing. He never cared much about the ranch; it was always the rodeo he loved.”

  Tannon nodded. “And you, is it the ranch or the rodeo?”

  “It’s the ranch. It always has been. I just lost my way for a while. I love the rodeo, but like Dad finally found out, you can’t build your life on arena dirt.”

  Tannon glanced over at the house. “Looks like you’re rebuilding the old place.”

  “I’m turning it into a bunkhouse.” Noah didn’t want to tell anyone that he couldn’t stand the thought of living in a home alone. The bunkhouse made more sense. “There’s another house in the north pasture I can stay at for now. It’s small, but it’ll work. All I need is a bed and shower.”

  “Someone said you were living in a tent.” Tannon glanced over at the remains of a campsite.

  “Yeah, that lasted until it rained.” He guessed everyone in town knew he and Reagan had been dating. Hell, they probably knew she’d kicked him out. It wouldn’t take many brain cells to figure out what the fight had been about the night of the poker game. Half the town was there.

  Noah needed to change the subject fast. “I guess Dusti Delaney is getting ready for her big trip. She loved to party in Harmony. No telling what she’ll find to do in Vegas.”

  Tannon nodded. He wasn’t a man who gossiped, but he would state the facts now and then. “Everyone is throwing her a farewell party next week. You’re welcome to come. Just bring a six-pack or something you baked and I bet they’ll let you in.”

  “I don’t cook,” Noah answered, “and the six-pack will be root beer. I’ve given up drinking.”

  Tannon looked serious. “I’m glad to hear that, Noah.” He stepped back on the truck. “Hope to see you there.”

  As he drove off, Noah wondered how many people in town thought he had a drinking problem. He hadn’t really noticed it before, but there were a lot of people, like Tannon Parker and Tinch Turner, who’d never offered to buy him a drink. They shook his hand. Told him they were proud for his wins. Tinch had come over to help him get ready for horses, and Tannon probably had more important things to do besides ride out with cows. Yet both men had stopped by. It was like they were welcoming him home, this time for good.

  He’d never thought he had a drinking problem, and he wouldn’t blame his troubles now on the bottle. Someone was always waiting at Buffalo’s Bar to buy him a drink. For the first time he thought there might be just as many outside the bar wishing he’d quit. His sister was always threatening him. Hank had told him to grow up. Big Biggs had cussed him out more than once when he carried him out on nights Noah couldn’t walk straight.

  The world was a lot more complicated sober. But there was a world out there that he hadn’t paid much attention to until now. A world of neighbors helping each other. A world where a man’s worth was measured by something other than the size of the buckle he won.

  By the time he’d taken care of the cattle and paid the men who’d helped, Noah decided working for a living wasn’t as easy as it looked, but he planned to give it his best shot.

  After he cooled down and fed his horse, he rode out to the little house that had been built for a foreman’s family forty years ago. It was decorated in abandoned-furniture décor, but livable. The water and fans worked; that was good enough for now. Noah thought he’d probably live at the bunkhouse with the men once it was complete.

  Now that the fences were up and cattle coming in, he’d hired out the finishing work on the bunkhouse. Once done, the new part of the building would have an office for him and ten rooms for men upstairs, with kitchen and open area downstairs.

  Noah showered and put on clean clothes, then drove over to the Truman place to watch the sunset with his son. At first he’d just used seeing the baby as an excuse to see Reagan, but every time he held Utah, the boy tugged at his heart. As long as she’d let him come over, whether she talked to him or not, he’d keep coming.

  When he pulled up, Reagan was already in one of the western chairs, waiting.

  He expected her to leave as soon as she handed him Utah, but for the first time she stayed.

  Noah didn’t want to push his luck, so he talked to Utah. “We got a hundred head on the old place today,” Noah started. “Tomorrow we’ll brand them and give them their shots. I wish you could see the herd of half-grown cows. Branding is lots of fun and it don’t hurt them. Sure tosses around the cowboys, though. One got hit so hard today that he flipped over like a pancake.”

  Noah glanced over to see if Reagan was listening. Dear God, how he missed talking to her. She’d always been the one he could talk to. The one who cared about him.

  “Hank says as soon as I get the corrals
back in place, he’ll sell me twenty horses. Right now the hands coming in are bringing their own mounts, but a good cowboy needs more than one horse some days. I figure I’ll have at least a dozen good mares that will foal by next spring.”

  Reagan finally looked at him. “You know, Noah, he doesn’t understand a word you say.”

  “I know, but if you can talk to him about growing apple trees, I can talk about ranching. He’ll need to know ranching someday.”

  “What makes you think I talk to him about trees?”

  “Joe’s cousin told me. Said Joe and Maria say the last Truman walks around talking to the baby like he needs to know all there is to know about orchards.”

  “Joe doesn’t understand half of what I say.”

  Noah smiled. “He doesn’t have to understand English to recognize crazy.”

  She rolled her eyes, but he thought he saw the hint of a smile.

  “Utah’s asleep,” Noah said. “You want me to carry him in?”

  He expected her to say no. Every night he’d come, she’d made him hand her the baby at the door. Only this time she just nodded and walked ahead of him so she could hold the screen door open.

  Noah carried the baby slowly up the stairs and into her room. He knew, without asking, that the crib would be next to her bed.

  Just before he laid Utah down, he kissed him on the forehead. At first he’d come to see the baby because he knew it was the right thing to do, but now, Noah realized it was more than that.

  For a long while he just stared down at Utah. In this little baby lay his future. Reagan had been right to say she’d take the baby if Noah couldn’t. She’d understood, even before he did, that they were the kid’s only chance.

  When he stepped back, she moved forward to straighten Utah’s blanket and noticed the red stain on the blanket’s blue corner.

  “Blood!” She whispered the word, but her voice shook with panic.

  Noah looked down at his hands. “Rea, it’s not the baby. Don’t worry. It’s me. It’s not the baby.”