Big Sky, Loyal Heart

by M. L. Buchman

  Then he almost did stumble and fall into a mud puddle when he saw who it was.

  “Mom! Dad!” He rushed up to open their doors and welcome them. They’d never actually been out to the ranch. “Sorry it’s such miserable weather for your visit, but I’m so excited you’re finally here.”

  He’d tried to get them to come sooner, but they were classic New Yorkers and rarely traveled west of the Hudson River. That, and they were always trying to convince him to move back to The City.

  “Ha!” At their inquiring looks he just hugged them again. Every time he’d been home, Dad had launched a campaign of making sure to list every still eligible woman from his past. Another attempt to get him to return East. “Man, oh man, do I have some news for you!”

  Of course, at the rate things were going, he just might be back in New York after all and they’d be the ones getting the last laugh.

  Patrick really wished he knew where Lauren was.

  He’d love to introduce them.

  “You sure you don’t want to go out there?” Emily had tipped her chair back enough to glance sidelong out the window of Chelsea’s office. “They look pleasant enough.”

  “They aren’t even human.” Lauren wasn’t moving from this couch even if a herd of elk arrived to prod her along with their pointy antlers.

  “What do you mean?

  “They aren’t people. They’re parents.”

  “Parents of your lover,” Emily finally stopped looking outside through the window.

  “Stop saying stuff like that.” Lauren tried to sink lower, but there was a dog sleeping on her feet.

  “Stuff like what?” Chelsea stepped into the office from the barn’s main aisle. She was still wrapped in dripping rain gear with a set of reins in her hand. Her gray horse looked suspiciously over her shoulder at Lauren.

  “Lauren is having a panic attack because Patrick’s parents just arrived.”

  “Ooo! I didn’t even think of that. You get to meet the ’rents, Lauren. That’s so cool! It’s like your relationship is a thoroughbred racer zipping through the pack so fast that it’s a blur. That happened to me. It was a couple Christmases ago. I came to babysit Emily’s kid, met Doug, and bang!”

  “What went bang?” Julie came up beside Chelsea. Now there were two women and two horses staring at her. The doorway was so crowded that Julie’s horse had to use the office’s inside window that normally offered a view of the barn’s main aisle. It was a horizontal slider, and the half that moved was open. He stuck his head through the window and snuffled at her face from mere inches away to see if she was of interest.

  Lauren really wished she wasn’t, but between the three women, two horses, and a dog, she was becoming resigned to her fate.

  “Doug and me,” Chelsea held up her left hand with a simple gold and diamond wedding ring on it. “There I was, Ms. World Traveler, figuring I’d settle down in a decade or so and eventually find a good man to help keep my toes warm. I hit the ranch and never left.”

  “Cost me a good nanny,” Emily groused. “Not sure if I’ve forgiven him for that yet.”

  “Good thing I’m better at horses.”

  “You were great with Tessa,” Emily unwound enough for the sincerity to shine through. “You’re going to be amazing when you have your own kids.”

  Chelsea, for once, was silent. But her face turned as bright red as her hair.

  “How long have you known?” Lauren asked while Julie and Emily just stared at her in shock.

  “Just a couple days. We didn’t want to take away the thunder of your wedding, Julie, so we were going to wait to tell anyone. I guess I kinda messed that up.”

  Julie threw her arms around her. “No! It’s perfect. Nathan and I want to start trying right away. Maybe we can have our babies nearly together. Maybe I already am. It’s my time,” she laid her hand on her belly. “So maybe…”

  “This is getting completely out of hand!” Lauren was doing what she could to not hyperventilate.

  All three women turned to her, but none spoke. There weren’t even looks of sympathy or understanding. They were all simply waiting, as if they knew something that she didn’t.

  Even the two horses standing patiently behind their riders turned to share a look.

  There was no way that her stray thought of a child this morning could show on her features. It. Wasn’t. Going. To. Happen!

  “She’s stubborn,” Chelsea finally sighed. “She’s so like you, Emily. You’re like cosmic twins or something.”

  Lauren could only blink at that. She was like Emily? Why would anyone even think to compare them? They weren’t even on the same scale.

  “I heard about the job you did on the caribou and the bear,” Julie said thoughtfully. And suddenly the excited bride-to-be shifted aside and Julie became Henderson Ranch’s top horsewoman. “I know where Mack took you and that’s some tough tracking. I talked to him and Mr. Gibson about it and they both said they couldn’t have done better. And taking down a grizzly that fast and clean. Don’t know if even I could have done that. We’ll have to work on your horsemanship some before you’ll make a great guide. I saw you come in yesterday and your basic instincts are very good.” Julie turned to face her maid of honor. “Nice job on the horse selection, Chels. Colette is dead-on the right horse for her. Emily,” Julie faced her across the office. “I bet I could have her ready by next year. Take some of the load off me so that I can fulfill a few of the construction contracts I’ve got stacking up.”

  Emily made a thoughtful sound.

  “But I won’t be here next year.” Lauren would be two thousand miles away.

  Again they all looked at Lauren as if waiting for something.

  Well, it’s true. She was going to be back in New York soon.

  Wasn’t she?

  Chapter 11

  Patrick still hadn’t found Lauren, but at least he’d found Nathan.

  He’d been sitting in the lodge’s main room where the wedding would be held, since the weather outside kept getting worse.

  It was a great, lofted space rising over two stories. It had towering windows at both ends, one facing the cabins and the Rockies, and the other facing the pasture and the Great Plains. Most of what was visible in that direction was Larson land—Julie’s family.

  The massive stone fireplace had been lit.

  Deep leather couches and chairs had all been turned until they were lined up like pews. The altar was a simple wooden arch. A pair of potted roses, which had been growing on the sunny southern porch until this latest storm, were still full of white and red blooms. The room was so big that the baby grand piano was almost invisible in one corner.

  Nathan had been sitting quietly in the middle of the room when Patrick had led their parents in.

  “What are you doing, groom boy?” Patrick had called out, but Nathan didn’t turn.

  “Not much. Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.”

  “A. A. Milne,” Dad called out and Nathan leapt up to hug his parents. Mom wasn’t much of a hugger, but he held on to her especially long as she patted his back.

  They settled in quietly with Nathan and simply enjoyed the late morning light and the fire’s warmth. They talked of his parents’ latest classes: Dad was working on a new Modern-Interpretations-of-Shakespeare seminar, and Mom said they were close to another prosthetics breakthrough in her bioengineering lab. Patrick would have to make sure she met Stan. He could have so much more than hooks, no matter how much he insisted he didn’t give a hoot. Maybe Mom could work out some kind of prototype and get grant money for Stan to get a new arm.

  They’d been in the great room-turned-wedding venue for close to an hour when someone peeked in.

  Julie yelped with pleasure and came running up the aisle. She hugged Mom and Dad like she was already part of the family, then she sat on the bench-high stone hearth, close enough to Nathan to hold his hand.

  Dad sniffled and surreptitiously wiped at his eyes afterward.
r />   Would Patrick be the mush of the relationship just as Dad was? When the other person in the relationship was Lauren, that was a given—anyone would be a mush in comparison.

  “Patrick?” Nathan hit him in the shoulder.

  “What?” Patrick might have hit him back except he’d wait until Julie wasn’t sitting to his other side. He filed away a note for later retribution.

  “Julie was asking you something.”

  “Oh, sorry. Wandering brain.” Maybe he’d let his brother off the hook this time. It was his wedding day after all.

  Julie leaned in. “You know that if you mess up with Lauren, you’re going to have a whole lot people angry with you. Right?”

  “Who’s Loren?” Mom and Dad were looking at him strangely. Loren Maxwell was a fellow professor and a good friend of the family. He was also a sixty-two-year-old three-time divorcé.

  “Lauren with an a-u, not an o. She’s… Hold it. Who would be angry with me?”

  “Me, for one. Emily, for two.”

  “Yo,” Nathan raised his hand. “Seriously, bro. If you—cover your ears, Mom—screw this up the way you usually do, you’re toast.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  “Then Chelsea, Mark…”

  “Mack,” Nathan continued. “Colonel Gibson. Did you know that he did part of Emily’s wedding ceremony? She just told me the story this morning. The President was there and the colonel. Together they—”

  “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Patrick held up both hands. “We’ve only known each other for about a week.”

  “Suck it up and do it right for once. This time it counts,” Nathan emphasized it with a knuckle punch on Patrick’s upper arm that really stung. Retribution, as soon as he was clear of Julie, was definitely back on the list.

  “I just wanted to introduce her to Mom and Dad. That’s all.”

  This time Julie, the most pleasant-tempered person on any ranch except maybe Chelsea, actually leaned forward and cuffed him lightly on the side of the head.

  “And you don’t think that is scaring the daylights out of her?”

  “What? Why would it?”

  Dad sighed and shook his head. Even Mom looked distressed.

  “What? You guys aren’t scary.”

  “Son, she doesn’t know that. If you want us to meet your friend, you should ask her first.”

  “I would. If I could find her!” This conversation just kept getting crazier.

  “I can’t believe you’re one of our best guides,” Julie groaned. “How do you track anything if you can’t even find the woman you love?”

  “What?” His parents practically shouted it in unison.

  Patrick shrugged. He did love Lauren. “I guess this conversation could have gone better.”

  “Well, at least he’s smart enough not to deny it,” Nathan noted and Julie nodded in agreement.

  “Better than either of us were doing at this stage,” and they shared one of those melty movie looks.

  “Hold it,” Patrick felt as if he was being tag-team battered by this whole conversation. He kept having to stop it just to keep himself from stroking out at all the changes going on. “Just…wait a moment!”

  And everyone did. Except Julie, who glanced aside and actually started to giggle.

  “What?”

  “I just had a conversation with Lauren that was a lot like this one. Different, but kind of the same as well.”

  “How did she take it?”

  “No better than you,” Julie’s grin just kept getting bigger.

  “Where is she?”

  “Now that would be telling,” Julie glanced away as if averting her gaze.

  “I need to find her.”

  Then he more felt than heard something close behind him.

  “In that case,” Lauren leaned down and whispered. “You should try actually looking for me.”

  Coming through the kitchen and down the hall past her room—where she’d used a bath towel to get Rip at least moderately dried off—had let Lauren hear enough to prepare herself a little before she’d entered the fray. If bravery was what was called for, then bravery she would provide. Even knowing Chelsea was pushing her buttons intentionally didn’t make it any easier being called a chicken—especially not when she started her crazy chicken dance again.

  “Hello,” she stepped around the chairs until she was beside Julie and facing the Gallaghers. “I’m Lauren Foster.”

  “Isleen Gallagher.”

  “Liam.”

  They both offered solid handshakes. They were both shorter than Nathan, making Patrick by far the standout in the family. Nathan had his father’s features, but his mother’s slightly more solid frame. Patrick was the opposite, his father’s slim frame, but his mother’s beauty transformed onto male features.

  “So, why do you need to find me?” She sat on the hearthstone beside Julie, across the close circle from Patrick. Rip shoved his way into the middle of the circle, solicited a dog scratch from the whole circle, then curled up on the floor.

  Patrick looked at the Malinois and then he looked at her closely.

  “I know,” she mouthed to him. She’d come a long way since Rip’s first appearance had made her faint.

  “Proud of you,” he mouthed back.

  It was about the nicest compliment she’d ever had. She closed her eyes for a moment to take it in and hold it close. A Delta Force compliment might be a “Well done” but not much more. Her parents might have noted her good grades, but that was about their level of positive reinforcement in her childhood.

  Patrick’s “Proud of you” made her heart pick up its pace, but feel as if her blood flow slowed and calmed at the same time.

  “He was looking for you so that he could tell you he loves you,” Nathan was clearly enjoying himself by his tone.

  Lauren opened one eye to look at Julie, who nodded a confirmation.

  She opened the other to look at Patrick, who had never lied to her.

  He shrugged that it was true.

  And just that fast, her calmness was seared away by the fire’s heat and rushed up the chimney.

  Patrick opened his mouth to try and explain why this was happening in front of everyone instead of quietly, somewhere romantic, just between the two of them.

  Then he closed it again. Some things were a lost cause.

  But Lauren’s eyes just kept getting wider and wider until he was half afraid she’d turn into an anime caricature of herself.

  He opened his mouth again but still didn’t know what to say.

  Not even if his parents, brother, and soon-to-be sister-in-law weren’t there as well.

  “I do,” was all he could think to offer. “You’re the only woman there will ever be for me, Lauren.”

  Her mouth dropped open to emphasize her impossibly wide eyes even more. Then she blinked hard. When she looked at him again, it was with narrow, honey-colored slits.

  “Since when?”

  He scratched at his head. “Since the moment I fell into the mud puddle, I guess. At least it sure feels that wa—”

  “Julie!” Chelsea’s shout filled the room as the front door slammed behind her. “You’re getting married in two hours, girlfriend. Enough fooling around. Shower, hair, dress. It’s time, and Ama is waiting. We are going to pamper you so good that you’re going to want to marry us rather than that handsome hunk holding your hand. Come on.” Chelsea strode right into the circle, grabbed Julie’s hand, and dragged her away before she could even kiss Nathan on the cheek.

  “Patrick,” Chelsea called back over her shoulder as she led Julie upstairs. “Make sure your brother is at least dressed and moderately clean. If he’s going to marry someone as amazing as my BFF Julie, he’d better get it together and do it now.” She continued making sure everything was in order even as her voice faded away, then was cut off by the closing of an upstairs door.

  “You okay for a sec, Nat?”

  “Sure. I’m dying to see how you dig your way out of this, Pat
. Should be a good show.”

  “Thanks. You’re totally useless as a big brother, you know that, right?”

  “And I’m proud of it,” and Nathan leaned back in his chair to watch the show. “I need popcorn.”

  His parents looked bewitched, bothered, and bewildered, but Patrick couldn’t remember the reference for that at the moment.

  He looked at Lauren and his heart simply stuttered.

  “I—”

  But Lauren wasn’t looking at him. She was looking up over his shoulder.

  Patrick spun around to follow the direction of her gaze.

  Emily and Michael were standing at the door. Emily was waving for Lauren to come join her. It had a very military look to it—a sharp jabbing point at Lauren, then an upswept arm with a flat hand.

  She jolted to her feet.

  “No. Wait.”

  Lauren looked down at him. He could see her need to go. She’d turned all stainless steel soldier military.

  Another glance over his head, and he could only assume that Emily repeated the gesture.

  Lauren squatted quickly, resting a hand on Rip’s collar. “Be quick.”

  “I—” How was he supposed to be quick? Just dive in…he’d had plenty of practice at that lately. “I love you, Lauren Foster.” He had no idea what else to say.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  She reached out a hand to brush it down his cheek. “Best I’ve got at the moment. But I’m not running away, if that’s of any comfort. Surprises the daylights out of me that I’m not.”

  All he could do was nod. By the time he repeated the gesture, she was gone.

  “What a strange young lady,” his Dad said slowly. “I like her, but I’m not quite sure why yet.”

  Patrick turned to his Mom. First impressions had to count for something.

  “What your brother said,” she pointed across at Nathan.

  “What?” He turned to Nathan. His brother was lounging back as if all of his wedding nerves had been sloughed off in the last few moments. He grinned.

  “Don’t blow this, Pat.”