* * * *
Emily was in bed and Luke finally had Marti’s attention Thursday night to talk about grazing the North Uplands section. Then the kitchen phone rang.
“If you think we can do it without overgrazing up there,” Marti was saying as she headed for the phone. “That’s my concern. Hello? Oh, hello, Rebecca.” She turned and looked at him significantly as she identified the caller. “How are you?”
He kept his face blank. That took some doing when an image surged into his head – an image of a woman with her arms stretched wide, her head tipped back, her dark hair hanging loose and a trickle of water sliding down her long, smooth neck, beneath layers of clothes, down to where a man’s mouth could bring another kind of moisture. Bad enough Rebecca had interrupted his thoughts too many times to count – at least more times than he wanted to count – now she was interrupting ranch business.
“Uh-huh. ... Oh, yes, Vince is right. You should see it.” A couple more neutral uh-huhs confirmed Marti was listening.
“Oh, that doesn’t mean you have to miss lunch,” Marti said at last. “I have just the solution. Luke’s heading up that way himself tomorrow morning. He has to pick up truck parts in Billings. So, he’ll drop you off on his way, do his business and pick you up on his way back. You can get Emily at the babysitting co-op on your way through town, and we’ll have lunch when you get here.”
Marti’s mouth twitched like she was fighting a grin, and her voice was breezy enough to skitter tumbleweed.
“I can’t imagine why it would be a problem. But I’ll check. He’s right here.” She clamped a hand over the mouthpiece, and addressed him. “Rebecca’s got an appointment at the Little Bighorn site in the morning. She’s worried she might hold us up for lunch. Since you’re going up – ”
“You said to wait for UPS to deliver the parts.”
“The way you grumbled, I knew you’d never be that patient,” she retorted. “Admit it, you were planning on going up.”
He’d been thinking of sending Walt. That didn’t appeal anymore.
“You heard what I told Rebecca – that okay with you?”
He’d have been deadset against the idea if he hadn’t gathered that Rebecca was trying to backpedal her polite rear end out of spending time with him. However, even the prospect of making prim Rebecca squirm didn’t wipe out another cause for caution.
“Marti are you – ?”
“You want me to tell her you said no?”
He swore. Marti started to hush him, then seemed to remember Emily was not in earshot.
“Fine.”
Marti uncovered the mouthpiece, and looked away. “Luke says that will be fine. He’s looking forward to it. He’ll pick you up at eight. That should get you up there in plenty of time. And we’ll see you at lunch! Good-bye.” She hung up in record time.
“Pick her up at eight,” Marti said. “She’s staying in that attic apartment of Helen Solsong’s. Now, tell me about the North Uplands.”
He gave her a long, warning look before he let himself be drawn back into ranch business. “With the dryness lately, we need to keep them up top longer. We’ll have to move them more to avoid overgrazing, and that’ll keep me and the boys – ”
“Ellyn and Grif will help. Meg and Ben, too. Kendra’s out, but Daniel can sit a horse, and I can still do a thing or two.”
“Yeah, you can do a thing or two.”
On horseback, and meddling in a man’s life – if he let her.
CHAPTER FOUR
Breathing hard from the steep climb, Rebecca reached the big monument, then turned to look down the hill at the scattering of white markers for men who’d also made a last stand on this hillside, but whose names were seldom remembered.
She’d taken advantage of her Park Service contact being tied up with an unexpected conference call and of an imposing iron gate being open to walk the land.
She smiled slightly at her mental use of that phrase – Marti’s influence, obviously.
To the south and slightly west she could see the rising line of mountains that she supposed were the Big Horns. Down their spine, farther south yet, was Far Hills Ranch.
In the wide space between that distant landmark and where she stood, the land rolled and bucked, now placid and fertile judging by huge rectangles of crop-green, then ragged and folded in on itself like a quiche someone had poked a finger into. One finger-poked area beyond the iron fence created a gap that gave her a view of water, curling around a cut bank, lined by cottonwood trees.
Did the fields prosper thanks to irrigation ditches kept open by a man who might strip his shirt and bend and –
No. She would concentrate on what she’d come here for. Putting thoughts of the starkly silent and uncomfortable ride here out of her mind. Giving not another thought to the man who’d sat beside.
Focusing on the markers, she noted their simplicity, and their dignity. The markers, white marble rectangles with slightly rounded tops were set amid a feathery bed of tall grasses. Probably the same sort that had grown on this hillside more than a century ago, maybe a thousand years ago. Turning from summer green toward the straw color of the tall grass Luke had been cutting that first day ...
Luke Chandler. He could never be anything except an enigma to her – and an obstacle if she let him. Just as she would never be anything to him.
She knew what sort of man he was. She’d heard it from Helen before she even met him. That her own observation and Evvie’s version absolved him of being the worst kind of womanizer didn’t absolve him completely. And she was not the sort of woman to interest that sort of man.
As long as she remembered that, she’d be okay. She wouldn’t let her emotions or her senses lead her into folly. She didn’t need to concern herself about his emotions, because it was blindingly clear that a man like that didn’t fall –
“That’s where some say he fell.”
Rebecca jolted at the voice from behind her.
A woman about her own age, dressed in the gray shirt, green slacks and straw ranger hat of the National Park Service stood beside her. Her name tag said Lorraine Talkng Bear. She nodded to Rebecca.
“Down there, by the river. And without their leader, the blue soldiers didn’t know what to do. They tried to get back up here. Some did. Not enough.”
Custer. She was referring to George Armstrong Custer. Glory hound or hero, Custer was probably the primary attraction for many park visitors. And the fall that this ranger was talking about was of the last-stand kind.
“Why is the monument here if he fell there?” Rebecca asked.
“Maybe they didn’t think tourists would be willing to climb down there and then all the way back up,” she said with a smile. “It’s sure a good view up here. Besides, it would upset all those images of the gallant officer fighting to the end amid his devoted men – songs and paintings and stories. And that’s still the official version.”
“With all those things saying he fought to the last, what makes you think he fell down there?”
“Oh, that’s always been the account from our people.”
“Our people?”
“I thought – I assumed... You’re not Indian?”
“No, I’m from Delaware,” Rebecca said inanely.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, no, nothing to be sorry for. It was a – ”
Natural mistake.
The words never came out of her mouth. She didn’t know if it was a mistake. Her hair was barely a shade lighter than the other woman’s. Her eyes and skin had a lighter tint, but that didn’t mean they didn’t witness Native American blood.
Native American made as much sense as Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Pakistani, Indian and Asian – all of which she’d wondered about. More sense, since the letter’s clue had brought her to an area criss-crossed by the history of many tribes.
She made herself smile. “It’s fascinating to hear the Native American accounts.”
“Indian’s fine with me.”
She listened attentively to accounts passed down by the handful of survivor Crow scouts who had fought with Custer, and by the Cheyenne and Lakota who had defeated him and his troops that day.
She immersed herself in the information, as well as the knowledge gained from the administrative staff, Chief Historian and Chief of Interpretation and Visitor Services. That left only a corner of her mind to face a new recognition.
She’d been so focused on the individual identity of the man who had helped conceive her that she had given little thought to where he might fit in a broader picture.
Oh, she’d realized he might well have a family, other children. A whole different life that wouldn’t include an unexpected daughter. She’d been very clear-eyed about that – at least she had since outgrowing her childhood fantasies of a large, warm family that would welcome her with open arms.
Since she’d searched in earnest as an adult, she’d been so focused on her personal history, she hadn’t given thought to the possibly of having a heritage, an ethnic history that she knew little or nothing about.
* * * *
“Did you get what you needed?” She made her polite inquiry as the truck Luke drove with such competent nonchalance merged onto I-25, heading south.
“Got what I ordered. Can’t tell yet if it’s what I need. You?”
She certainly hadn’t ordered any of her conversation with Ranger Talking Bear. Had it given her what she needed?
“Something happen?” He’d shifted his scarred left hand to the top of the steering wheel, allowing him to turn more toward her. A bug under a microscope couldn’t have felt as closely scrutinized as she did.
“No. Nothing. I mean, nothing out of the ordinary. I got good information from the rangers.”
She launched into an explanation of what she’d seen and been told – as it pertained to her work for Fort Big Horn. Her immersion in the familiar details ended abruptly with the sound of a yawn.
“I’m so sorry I’ve bored you.” She didn’t care if he did object to her using sorry when she clearly didn’t mean it.
“It was more your topic than all you.” Irked at him as she was, she couldn’t deny a sliver of amusement. Talk about damning with faint praise. “History shouldn’t bore you. The study of the past can be fascinating – with the right teacher.”
“No matter the teacher, there’s nothing going to budge the past an inch one way or the other. Nothing you can do to make it worse or better or different.”
Were they still talking about the academic study of history, or had he shifted the topic? Or was she reading too much into it?
“Without knowing history,” she protested, “you make the same mistakes over and over again.”
“Not if you’re smart.”
Grim and terse, the words flashed a huge “Stay Out” sign.
Her mouth opened to push right past that sign before her mind caught up. It was exactly the sort of impulse she’d fought all her life. The sort that made her foolishly wade into the mess and swirl of emotions.
She opened her leather notebook. There was no further conversation until they reached town.
“Oh, Luke, would you mind dropping me at the Far Hills Market while you get Emily? I would have picked up something to bring to Marti earlier, but ...”
But she’d thought she wouldn’t be going to this lunch, until Marti outmaneuvered her on the phone last night.
“There’ll be plenty to eat.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Always thought the point of lunch was to eat.”
“It’s simply a polite gesture.”
“Marti doesn’t set much store in gestures.” Clearly neither did he.
“However you might feel about such things, a hostess thinks better of a guest who brings a token of appreciation for the invitation.”
“You’re going to the wrong places if you’re only welcome because you bring something.”
“Just because you don’t give a ... a darn what people think of you,” she said, slewing around in the seat to glare at him, “doesn’t mean the rest of us have to forget our manners.”
“Okay.” He’d stopped the truck, and now he shifted toward her, his arm along the back of the seat, so his hand could have grasped her shoulder, if he’d wanted to.
“Okay?”
“Okay, go get your token – not that the Market’s got a big stock of tokens – and I’ll come by after I’ve picked up Emily.”
Giving into her temper was not the thing to do. Especially since they’d stopped by the post office, almost directly across the street from the Market. Both the post office and Market had a steady stream of customers, many of whom nodded at Luke.
As a fall-back position, she adopted chilly dignity. “Very well. Thank you.”
“Welcome.”
She gave him a quick look as she closed the truck door, and wished she hadn’t. He was laughing. At her. Again.
With tension lengthening her back and tightening her shoulders, she crossed the wide street – aware of his watching every step – and was nearly to the Market, when a voice brought her up short.
“Oh, Rebecca! How delightful to run into you,” gushed her landlady, Helen Solsong. “I have so wanted to introduce you to my dear, dear friend Barb Sandy. Barb, this is dear Rebecca Dahlgren. Of the Delaware Dahlgrens.”
Rebecca nearly groaned. “How do you do, Ms. Sandy.”
“Oh, please, do call me Barb.”
Her smile twisted at the sound of a powerful truck engine being given more gas than necessary. Rebecca refused to look, the other women’s heads spun around fast enough to do “The Exorcist” proud. The growls of disapproval weren’t bad, either.
“That man.” Helen’s tone shifted from acid to sugar in a breath. “Rebecca, dear, I’ve been meaning – ”
“Excuse me.” A weathered woman with two pre-school kids trailing her was unable to push her loaded shopping cart clear of the doorway because Helen and Barb Sandy blocked her way.
Rebecca automatically stepped back. The two older women hesitated, then followed. As the shopper pushed the cart down the slight ramp, then struggled to turn it to the right, Barb said, “I’m surprised she has any money to spend on food with all the cash that Herb of hers spends at the Ranchers Rest.”
Helen nodded sagely. “You wouldn’t think she’d have so many children with him spending all that time there, and I hear she’s expecting – again.”
Neither had made any effort to lower her voice, and Rebecca saw red creeping up the woman’s neck as she began loading groceries into the back of a dirt and rust-streaked pickup. Rebecca looked away, an old queasiness kicking up.
Grandmother, why do the ladies at the pool whisper about me?
She’d come back from a swimming lesson at the country club. She was six, and for the first time, an uneasiness she’d never given voice to had crystallized. Those looks, those whispers among the mothers of the other children truly were directed at her.
Her grandmother had looked at her over the top of her half-glasses without putting down three engraved invitations she held.
Don’t be hysterical, Rebecca.
I’m not. I’m – She blinked her eyes to a furious dryness. Is it because ... because I don’t have a father?
It’s because your mother is a fool. And you are her daughter. They’ll whisper about that forever. It’s all the more reason you must never – never – give them cause to whisper more. You have a responsibility to the Dahlgren name to see that you add no more disgrace.
Only much later did she understand the significance of having no father – that she was a permanent badge of her mother’s foolishness.
“The seventh!”
Barb’s disapproving voice snapped Rebecca back to the present.
“It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Barb,” she started in the polite formula, “but I really must – ”
“Oh, no, you c
an’t go,” objected Helen, wrapping both hands around Rebecca’s arm. “I hardly get to see you.”
“Work keeps me busy.”
“I would hope you wouldn’t be working so much that you would be prevented from spending time with congenial company.”
She couldn’t conceive of company much less congenial than these two women. But she couldn’t let them guess that.
Why not? It was another voice. One that sounded suspiciously like Luke Chandler.
Because they would think I was rude.
You’re worried what they’d think?
“I worry about you working so much,” Helen was saying. “and now I hear you’re taking on a job for the Suslands at Far Hills Ranch.”
“I hope to, yes. I enjoy my work tremendously,” she said brightly. “And I’m learning a great deal about ranching.”
Barb satisfied herself with a disparaging sniff. Helen said, “You might learn more than your upbringing has prepared you for out at that ranch, Rebecca.”
“Marti Susland has been wonderful,” she heard herself saying. Whatever the letter-writer might have felt about or experienced from the Suslands, Marti had been absolutely pleasant and helpful.
Helen pursed her mouth. “Looks can be deceiving.”
“True. So true,” concurred Barb.
“What I say is that’s a strange group at Far Hills Ranch. Live and let live’s all very well for some who don’t care what kind they associate with – I’ve got higher standards.”
“I’m sure you do, but I really should be goi – ”
“And I consider it my duty to warn a young woman like you – someone from a good family –
“I’m sure there’s no cause to warn me – ”
“You know that Kendra had that son of hers a good two years before she got around to marrying the father? Came back here pregnant, not married and expected everyone to bow down to her just because her mother had been a Susland and she’d been on TV. Not an anchor, even, just a reporter.” Helen’s tone indicated that might have been the worst sin of all.
Hidden in a Heartbeat (A Place Called Home, Book 3) Page 7