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Big Sky Country

Page 17

by Linda Lael Miller


  Zip. She was one chapter from the end of the paperback biography waiting on her bedside table, and then she’d be fresh out. Since she hadn’t gotten around to applying for a card at the Parable Public Library—there wasn’t a bookstore in town as far as she knew—and she was too tired and sore to drive to Mulligan’s or the discount store to see what they had to offer, this was a problem.

  She peered out the front window, saw that Kendra’s car was in the driveway covered in dust, with the top up. There might have been a light on in the mansion’s kitchen, but she couldn’t be sure, since the sun was still shining.

  She paced for a few moments—realized that even that hurt—and stopped, reaching for her cell phone and tapping in Kendra’s number.

  Her friend sounded weary, but there was something else huddled in her rather cool “hello,” too.

  “How was your shopping trip?” Joslyn asked.

  “How was your horseback ride?” Kendra immediately retorted. Then she sighed and said, “I’m sorry, Joss. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

  Joslyn, no longer used to the way news traveled in small towns, still felt stung, even after her friend’s hasty apology. “No,” she said moderately. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “Don’t be mad,” Kendra said.

  “I’m not,” Joslyn told her truthfully. “A little confused, maybe. But mad? No.”

  Silence.

  “Kendra?” Joslyn prompted after a few moments.

  Kendra made a little choking sound, and Joslyn wondered if she was crying. “I’m sorry,” Kendra repeated.

  “We can talk about it another time,” Joslyn said gently. “It’s no big deal. I’ll let you go so you can get back to whatever you were doing when I called.”

  “You must have called for some reason,” Kendra sniffled, recovering a little.

  “I was hoping to borrow a book,” Joslyn said, wishing she’d never picked up the phone in the first place. Then, quietly, she added, “Not a boyfriend.”

  “Hutch isn’t my boyfriend,” Kendra assured her. “I don’t know why I bit your head off like that, Joss—I guess I’m just tired, after the party and everything, and now I have PMS and—well—none of that excuses what I did, does it?”

  “It’s okay, Kendra,” Joslyn said. “I’ll see you in the morning. Nine o’clock sharp.”

  “Wait,” Kendra almost pleaded. “Don’t hang up. I have this great memoir that I just finished reading. It’s about a woman who joined the Peace Corps back in the late sixties—I could bring it over… .”

  Joslyn hesitated. “Fine,” she said, at some length. “I’ll be waiting.”

  * * *

  SHE AWOKE SLOWLY THE NEXT morning, after spending half the night reading the book Kendra had loaned her, and when she remembered that today was the day she was to start her new job, Joslyn gasped and bounded out of bed.

  Lucy-Maude, curled up near her feet, gave a disgruntled and drawn out “Meooooow” in protest.

  Joslyn staggered into the bathroom, turned on the shower and stripped to the skin to stand under the spray, letting the water sluice away the last clinging remnants of an uneasy sleep.

  Determined not to be late on her first day at Shepherd Real Estate, she hurried to finish, dried off, brushed her teeth and dressed quickly in black pants and a pale blue shell top. Since she didn’t wear much makeup—just tinted moisturizer, a little mascara and a swipe of lip gloss—that task was soon finished, too.

  Her hair was frizzy from the shower, though, and she wanted to look professional when she got to the office but not priggish. Therefore, instead of winding her long brown hair into an all-business bun, she quickly braided it into a single plait, then turned her head from side to side, assessing the look.

  Just then, Lucy-Maude announced from the bathroom doorway that it was time she had her breakfast.

  Joslyn prepared a cup of instant coffee—since she’d be across the lawn at Kendra’s office for most of the day, it didn’t make sense to brew an entire pot—and fed Lucy-Maude her morning ration of kibble, keeping one eye on the clock the whole while.

  She sipped her coffee and thought about the night before when Kendra had practically insisted on bringing over the book. Joslyn had expected her friend to ask about the horseback ride with Hutch, but they’d both danced around the subject. Which might have been for the best.

  Joslyn had wanted to explain that she and Hutch were truly just friends, but it seemed so pat, that phrase. “Just friends.” People said it all the time, but what did it really mean?

  After a quick scan of her personal email and the Paws for Reflection site, where there was still no indication that anyone was missing a cat fitting Lucy-Maude’s description, Joslyn said goodbye to her feline roommate and set out for the mansion.

  She went around the house to the front entrance, found the door unlocked and let herself in.

  “Kendra?” she called, moving toward the office.

  Her friend sat at her desk, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy.

  Alarmed, Joslyn immediately dumped her purse onto the desk that would be hers and crossed to Kendra, resting a hand on the other woman’s slightly tremulous shoulder. “What is it?” she asked.

  “There’s— I’ve had news—” Kendra stumbled to reply. She didn’t rise from her chair, didn’t seem capable of it. “About Jeffrey.”

  “Your ex-husband?” Joslyn asked after swallowing. “Did something happen to him, Kendra?”

  Slowly, Kendra nodded. “He’s—very ill. Some kind of cancer. They don’t expect him to live, and—and he’s been asking for me… .”

  Most of the starch drained from Joslyn’s knees. She went to her desk chair, rolled it over beside Kendra’s and sank into it. “He’s in England?” she asked, very softly.

  Kendra nodded. “His mother called me,” she said numbly, staring into space. “Personally. You have no idea what it must have cost her to do that—and I’m not talking about the bill.”

  Joslyn bit her lip, recalling what Kendra had said about the breakup of her marriage to Jeffrey. His family had evidently despised Kendra from the beginning, done everything they could to undermine the relationship. “What are you going to do?”

  Kendra’s eyes filled with tears. “I have to go to him,” she said. “It isn’t a question of love, but Jeffrey was my husband—”

  Joslyn took her friend’s hand and squeezed. “Then go,” she replied, very quietly. “Of course I can’t list or sell properties without a real-estate license, but I’ll cover for you in every way I can.”

  “Thank you,” Kendra said. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be away, but I’ll check in whenever possible.”

  Joslyn didn’t reply to that. She gave her friend a hug, and then she helped her pack and book a flight to London.

  “One more thing,” Kendra told her, as she was getting into the car an hour later to drive to the airport in Missoula. “I hate to leave the house empty while I’m away. Would you mind moving in, just until I get back?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THINGS WERE RELATIVELY quiet around Shepherd Real Estate for the rest of the morning, and by the time Joslyn’s lunch hour rolled around, she had already explained to several callers that Kendra had been called away on personal business and wasn’t sure when she’d be back in Parable. She’d assured each one politely, evading all attempts to extract the exact reason for the sudden disappearance, that Kendra remained in contact with her office and any messages would be passed on.

  Not particularly hungry, Joslyn was already looking forward to going back to work after the break. She’d missed having a job, she realized, missed the routine of keeping regular hours and, especially, the challenge of learning new things.

  Heaven knew, she had plenty to learn about running a real-estate firm.

  Lucy-Maude was waiting patiently when she entered the guest cottage through the kitchen door after crossing the lawn from the main house.

  “Guess what?” Joslyn told the cat, washi
ng her hands at the sink in anticipation of whipping up a sandwich for lunch, unappealing as food sounded at the moment. Skipping meals tended to play havoc with her blood sugar levels, and then she got edgy and had a hard time concentrating. “We’re moving.”

  Like lunch, the idea of spending even a short time back in the mansion did nothing for Joslyn, but she could understand why Kendra wanted the place to be occupied during her absence. So many things could go wrong when a house stood empty—burst pipes, electrical fires and numerous other disasters that had to be dealt with quickly. And naturally, vandalism and burglaries were less likely to occur if someone was around.

  Still, for Joslyn, the place was her emotional Ground Zero; it was there that all their lives—her mother’s, Elliott’s, her own and even Opal’s—had imploded. From that centerpoint, the calamity had spread, scorched-earth fashion, throughout the community of Parable and far into the surrounding area.

  There had been so much sound and fury, not to mention years of fallout, that the aftershocks still rocked Joslyn—and certainly Elliott’s surviving victims—on the deepest level.

  Troubled, Joslyn refilled Lucy-Maude’s kibble bowl, then made herself a turkey-bologna and lettuce sandwich on white bread, but two bites were all she could force down, despite her best intentions. Her throat squeezed shut and refused to let any more food pass, and her stomach threatened to rebel.

  Once again, she asked herself what she hoped to accomplish by returning to Parable, anyway. Financial remuneration for Elliott’s theft had already been made, wherever possible—what else could she do?

  Besides lusting after a certain cowboy-sheriff who probably equated her with those dim-witted heiresses who were always turning up on tabloid TV. Best not to think about Slade Barlow and how he’d almost kissed her in the living room of that charming old ranch house he was renting, and how much she wished he had…

  Whoa, she thought, with a guilty grimace, rein it in, girl.

  Bottom line? She was stuck here, at least until Kendra got back from the U.K., and who knew how long that would take? In the meantime, there was a business to run, a promise to be kept.

  “What do I know about real estate, anyway?” she asked Lucy-Maude, who was having no trouble at all gulping down the extra ration of kibble. “Nothing, that’s what.” Joslyn flung out both hands for emphasis. “Zip. Zilch. Nada.”

  Lucy-Maude paused to give her an I-get-the-picture-so-chill-out kind of look, then went back to kibble crunching.

  “I am spending way too much time alone,” Joslyn fretted, tossing the remains of her sandwich and then rinsing the plate and the butter knife at the sink before placing them carefully in the drain board. They looked lonely there, with only that morning’s coffee cup for company—and the dish ran away with the spoon. “If you’ll pardon the expression, because technically, with you around, I’m not completely alone, but, well, you are a cat.”

  Lucy-Maude gave her a look of tolerant affection and continued to dine.

  Joslyn, over her rant, spent the next twenty minutes gathering necessities—toothpaste, toothbrush, pajamas, the memoir she’d borrowed from Kendra, et cetera—and stuffed them all into her suitcase for ease of transport. Then she collected Lucy-Maude’s kitty paraphernalia—her blanket bed, litter box and litter, and the bag of kibble—and set everything in the middle of the cottage’s living-room floor.

  There was a preponderance of stuff to be moved, Lucy-Maude’s and her own, it seemed to Joslyn. She’d been traveling light ever since leaving Phoenix, and now she was accumulating things again.

  Not good.

  If there was one lesson she’d learned since selling her company, her condo and her car, it was how little a person truly needed.

  On her first trek across the lawn to the mansion, she lugged her laptop and the suitcase, entering through the screen door of the sunporch, since she’d remembered to unlock it earlier in anticipation of the move.

  Rather than in her old room or one of the mansion’s several guest suites, Joslyn decided to take up residence in Opal’s quarters, next to the huge kitchen. It was a way, at least figuratively, of keeping one foot outside the big house, in the hope that she wouldn’t get sucked into some emotional vortex and then thrown back into white-water memories of a time she mostly wanted to forget.

  To think she’d missed this great, hulking house and the life she’d lived within its walls. Now, it seemed almost oppressive.

  Opal’s former space was nearly as large as the cottage out back, with a private bath—was it even possible to buy sinks and toilets and bathtubs in that strange shade of pink anymore?—and a sitting room, even a little stovetop and a miniature refrigerator. Here, Kendra hadn’t changed out the furniture—the inexpensive but serviceable couch, armchair, coffee table, floor lamps and TV set Opal had used were still there.

  It was a poignantly spooky moment for Joslyn, standing there looking around at the familiar apartment—it almost felt as though the beloved housekeeper had just stepped out to run some routine errand in her old station wagon or take something out of the oven or the clothes dryer.

  The backs of Joslyn’s eyes scalded for a moment as she wondered, yet again, where Opal was now—if she was well and happy, if she was even still alive. Maybe later, when the workday was over, she’d go online, try to find her old friend.

  And what would she say if she did locate Opal? “Remember me? Joslyn? I’m back at the Rossiter mansion—God knows why, really—some kind of self-punishment, I guess—and all that made me think about you”?

  Hardly. Besides, Opal would be considerably older now; even if she hadn’t passed away, she might well be infirm, closeted away in a nursing home somewhere. Better to leave the poor woman alone, Joslyn reasoned.

  But still she wondered, because she’d loved Opal dearly.

  Since there was more to be done in the apartment, Joslyn shook off the ache of nostalgia and began putting things away in the bedroom closet, the bureau drawers, the medicine cabinet.

  When she’d finished with all that, she transported Lucy-Maude’s things to the new quarters and, finally, Lucy-Maude herself, yowling indignantly inside a cardboard box with the flaps folded to secure the top and prevent escape, and turned the disgruntled cat loose in the small area they would be sharing until Kendra returned.

  Stealthily, Lucy-Maude explored the space, checking out the small bedroom, the retro bathroom and the mysterious realm behind the couch.

  Joslyn decided she’d go back for the few food items she’d left behind in the guesthouse later. She’d used up her lunch hour, and it was time to get back to work. Not that there was much to do.

  Resigned, she washed her hands again, left Lucy-Maude to her explorations and made her way through the kitchen and the formal dining room to the former parlor, from whence Kendra ran her agency.

  A sturdy gray-haired woman clad in capri pants, a plaid sleeveless shirt and a pair of oft-washed sneakers stood in the arched doorway, startling Joslyn a little, since she hadn’t heard her come in. The visitor’s eyes were tranquil, the color of clear creek water, and her skin, though wrinkled, glowed with good health and an amiable temperament.

  Like so many people in Parable, this woman looked vaguely familiar to Joslyn, but she couldn’t quite place her.

  “I’m Martie Wren,” the caller announced, putting out a work-roughed hand in greeting.

  Joslyn stepped forward, smiling, to shake Martie’s hand. “Joslyn Kirk,” she said. “If you’re looking for Kendra, I’m afraid she’s out of the office for the next few days—”

  Weeks? Months?

  “I was looking for you, actually,” Martie broke in cheerfully. “I run the animal shelter, Paws for Reflection. I’m here about the cat you found—you posted a notice on our website?”

  A tiny trapdoor opened in the pit of Joslyn’s stomach—she was already attached to Lucy-Maude and wasn’t ready to give her up, even though restoring her to her owners was the right thing to do—but she managed a smile. “C
ome in,” she said. “Sit down.”

  “Can’t stay long,” Martie said directly. “The critters keep us hopping over at Paws, if you’ll excuse the pun, and there’s a lot to get done before I can do any significant sitting down.”

  Joslyn kept smiling, though the near certainty that Martie had come to take Lucy-Maude back to her rightful owners made her heart feel bruised. “I understand,” she said quietly.

  Martie assessed her astutely. “Seems like you might be a little taken with this particular animal,” she observed.

  “A little,” Joslyn admitted. That was the understatement of the day. “But I imagine someone’s looking for her. She doesn’t strike me as neglected.” Pregnant, but not neglected.

  “I’d like a look at her in person, so to speak,” Martie said with a twinkle. “I know you put a picture of her up on the site, but there are a lot of gray cats out there. If she’s the one I think she is, she’s been looked after right along. But that isn’t the same as having a real home and being loved, now is it?”

  Having a real home and being loved.

  What a concept.

  “This way,” Joslyn said, mulling over Martie’s words as she led the way back through the dining room and kitchen to the staff quarters.

  Lucy-Maude had installed her royal self in the seat of the armchair, and she stretched luxuriously when Joslyn and Martie entered the sitting room, as regal as Cleopatra reclining on her barge.

  “Yep,” Martie said, advancing on the cat in a slow and nonthreatening way and putting out a hand for Lucy-Maude to sniff. “This is Carlotta, all right.”

  “Carlotta?” Joslyn echoed, knowing she must sound foolish. It wasn’t as if Lucy-Maude had been born with the name she’d given her, after all. So why was it such a jolt to hear the cat called something else?

  Martie nodded. “Carlotta’s sort of a community cat, I guess you’d say. Belongs to just about everybody. We’ve been trying to catch her to have her spayed and see to her shots, but she’s an elusive little dickens. She makes the rounds for meals and a safe place to sleep, if the weather turns bad or the coyotes are on the prowl.”

 

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