Big Sky Country

by Linda Lael Miller

“Of course she was.”

  Shea shook her head, and the expression in her eyes was obstinate. “I saw some paperwork—something to do with security clearance, so Mom can travel with Bentley sometimes after they’re married—and it said Mom had had one husband. Count ’em. One. And that husband was you, Dad.”

  Slade frowned. Soon after he and Layne had met, she’d told him about Shea’s natural father—said she’d known the guy in college, that they’d eloped, realized they’d made a mistake and parted ways, all within a few months. He’d known Layne was pregnant, this yahoo, and said he wasn’t ready to take on the responsibility of a family.

  At the time, Slade hadn’t cared about his wife’s past—only the present they shared and their future together. Responsibility? Bring it on.

  Except there hadn’t been a future together.

  “It was a short marriage, Shea,” he finally answered. “Maybe, in your mother’s mind, it didn’t count as the real thing.”

  “Oh, great. So that means I don’t count? I’m not ‘the real thing,’ either?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Slade said. Obviously, this wasn’t going to be a short conversation—or an easy one. He took a chair at the table, reached out to take Shea’s hand, give her fingers a brief squeeze. “Of course you count.”

  “Then adopt me.”

  “Shea—”

  “At least ask Mom about it, Dad.”

  Slade took a moment to collect his thoughts. “Why is this so important to you, Shea? You’re not a little girl anymore—in a couple of years, you’ll be in college.”

  “It’s important,” Shea said, her eyes filling with tears, “because once Mom and Bentley are married, with you mostly out of the picture, I’ll be his stepdaughter. And he’s a big advocate of me going to boarding school in the fall.”

  The truth hurts, Slade reflected glumly. He’d seen little of Shea since the divorce, mostly because of the distance between Montana and Southern California, and he wished he’d made more of an effort.

  “An adoption is pretty much out of the question,” he said. “But, tell you what, I’ll ask your mother if you can stay here in Parable for the coming school year. How would that be?”

  Shea sighed heavily. “Better than nothing, I guess,” she conceded. Then she perked up again as another idea struck her. “What if you and Mom got back together? You could adopt me then, couldn’t you?”

  “That isn’t going to happen, Shea,” Slade said gently, wondering how long the kid had been hoping he and Layne would reconcile. From the beginning, probably. “The deal is, if your mother agrees, you can go to school here next year instead of that other place. Take it or leave it.”

  Shea considered the offer. “You think she’d say yes—let me stay with you, I mean?”

  “She’s letting you spend the summer.”

  Shea’s face brightened. “Better than nothing,” she decided aloud.

  “Gee, thanks,” Slade gestured.

  “You’ll ask Mom?”

  “I’ll ask her. Tomorrow.”

  Shea bounded out of her chair, threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. Then she stood back. “You won’t regret this, Dad.”

  Slade laughed, but the sound was throaty, more like a cough. “Go to bed,” he told her.

  She kissed the top of his head. “Thanks, Dad,” she told him.

  And that was the whole conversation.

  Without further argument, Shea went back upstairs to her room.

  Jasper followed, stopping at the base of the steps to look questioningly back at Slade.

  “Go ahead,” Slade told the dog.

  Jasper clattered up the stairs behind Shea.

  And Slade sat alone in the kitchen for a while after they’d gone, thinking things through.

  When, after almost an hour, he hadn’t come to any new conclusions, he got up, locked the back door, shut off the lights and climbed the stairs where the air mattress waited.

  After brushing his teeth and trading his clothes for a pair of sweatpants, comfortably worn, he stretched out on the inflatable bed, stared up at the dark ceiling and cupped his hands behind his head.

  Morning would be a long time coming.

  * * *

  WHEN JOSLYN WANDERED OUT of the maid’s quarters the next morning in search of coffee, she found Opal already in the kitchen, fully dressed, coiffed and busy at the stove.

  “French toast,” Opal announced, with a nod toward the pan she’d been standing over, spatula at the ready.

  The aroma was a delicious swirl in the air—Opal’s French toast was special, more like a fried sandwich, always with some tasty filling in the center, like cream cheese and blueberries.

  Suddenly hungry, Joslyn padded over to the counter, helped herself to a mug from the hooks Kendra had artfully arranged near the coffeemaker, and poured herself an eye-opener. “You’re not supposed to be cooking,” she grumbled, well aware that Opal would be taking off for Slade’s place that very day and leaving her and Lucy-Maude alone in that big house. Glad as she was that her friend had decided to stay on in Parable, she also felt a little cheated at having their reunion cut short. “You’re a guest, remember?”

  “Drink that coffee,” Opal commanded cheerfully. “Maybe a jolt of caffeine will improve your personality.”

  Joslyn laughed. “Sorry,” she said. “I guess I am a little cranky.”

  “A little?” Opal teased.

  Joslyn sat down at the table, the scene of last night’s electrified supper with Slade Barlow seated practically at her elbow. Some of the buzz lingered, a silent zip that made her nerves leap under her skin.

  “You just got here,” she pointed out while Opal continued to supervise the French toast. “And now you’re leaving again.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to the ends of the earth, girl,” Opal responded, plopping the food onto a plate and bringing it to Joslyn along with a knife, fork and spoon. The syrup had already been set out, though she probably wouldn’t mess with perfection by adding any to her French toast. “I’ll be just outside of town, and we can see each other whenever we want.”

  Joslyn took a few more sips from her coffee mug as Lucy-Maude meandered in, tail high and twitching lazily back and forth. She leaned down to stroke the cat once as she passed close to her ankles.

  “I know,” she said. “It’s just—”

  Opal refilled her own coffee cup and joined Joslyn at the table. “Just that it’s Slade Barlow I’ll be keeping house for, and seeing me will mean seeing him, too? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  Joslyn set her mug down, picked up her fork, regarded her breakfast and laid the utensil back on the table. “I’m glad you’re staying in Parable, Opal,” she said carefully. “That’s what matters. As for Slade, well, it’s not like I’m avoiding him or anything. We are going to a horse auction together on Saturday.”

  Opal chuckled, shook her head. She looked younger than she had when she got off the bus in front of the service station, her eyes bright with purpose and mischief and that razor-sharp intuition Joslyn had forgotten the woman possessed. “Last night at supper,” she said, “you looked like you were about to jump right out of yourself. So did Slade, though he managed to hide it a little better.”

  Joslyn sighed. “He makes me nervous,” she admitted.

  Opal reached over, picked up Joslyn’s fork, and placed it in her hand. “Eat,” she said. “And between bites, tell me what it is about that man that scares you so much.”

  One taste of the French toast led to another. It was scrumptious, of course.

  And there didn’t seem to be any point in trying to steer the conversation away from Slade, since Opal would only steer it right back.

  Just the same, the truth—that she wanted him—was just too raw to tell, even to Opal. So she hedged a little.

  “He’s divorced, and he has a stepdaughter. The situation is complicated.”

  Opal sighed. “Lots of folks get things wrong the first time out, marriage
-wise, and do better when they try again,” she said. “Shea lives with her mother most of the year, from what she told me last night, while I was showing her through this big old house, and besides, I don’t think she’s the kind to cause trouble. As for complications—well, wake up and smell the bacon, girl—life is complicated.”

  Joslyn remembered being part of a stepfamily, how she’d felt different, somehow set apart, from the kids living under the same roof as both their natural parents. She’d been fond of Elliott, thought of him as her dad, but she’d also resented him for taking up so much of her mother’s time and attention. Elliott and Dana had traveled a lot when they were married, and even when they’d both been at home, they’d tended to get lost in each other.

  They’d tried to have more children, Joslyn knew, and when Dana hadn’t conceived, their disappointment had been palpable.

  In her little-girl mind, Joslyn reflected, she’d come to the conclusion that she wasn’t enough for them. To be completely happy, her mother and stepfather had needed other daughters or sons.

  If it hadn’t been for Opal, Joslyn thought, still surprised at the insights that had just surfaced in her mind, seemingly out of nowhere, she might have felt as bereft as a child as Kendra had.

  “Shea needs Slade’s full attention right now,” Joslyn observed in belated response to Opal’s statement about life being complicated. “They’ve been apart, and now they’re together, and they have to work out how that’s going to be. I’d just be another problem to sort out.”

  Opal’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “A ‘problem’? That’s all you think you’ve got to offer that man or his daughter?”

  “I don’t have a place in the equation, Opal,” Joslyn answered, believing it with her whole heart. She’d always been the extra puzzle piece, the one that didn’t fit with the rest of the picture. “One plus one does not come out to three, no matter how you juggle the numbers.”

  Opal just stared at her for a long time, shaking her head. “I don’t understand you,” she said finally. “Jossie-girl, I don’t understand you one little bit. Not right now, anyway.”

  Joslyn had no answer for that. She didn’t understand, either.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THERE WAS A BRIEF FLURRY of activity when Opal moved to Slade’s ranch, driven there, with her one suitcase, by her friend Martie Wren, but then, for Joslyn, it was business as usual.

  She worked hard at keeping busy over the next few days, managing Kendra’s office as best she could, given her limited knowledge of real estate, responding to emails and answering the telephone, printing out lessons for her online course and gobbling them up practically whole. She’d almost forgotten her innate passion for learning, for experimentation, for discovery.

  She’d been ready for hours that Saturday morning, the day of the livestock auction, when she finally heard Slade’s truck tires rolling over the snow-white gravel of the driveway, but she took her time answering the brisk knock at the sunporch door.

  No need to seem too eager.

  And besides, Slade was taking her to a horse sale, not the Cattleman’s Ball.

  Deciding what to wear had been a no-brainer—jeans, sneakers, a long-sleeved green T-shirt that would protect her arms from sunburn—swipes of lip gloss and mascara for makeup. She’d done her hair up in a ponytail, so it was less likely to stick to her neck if she got sweaty, and borrowed a baseball cap from Kendra’s closet so her nose wouldn’t peel. The ponytail fit nicely through the hole at the back of the cap.

  Dressed this way, Joslyn thought, as she crossed the sunporch to lift the hook on the screen door, nobody would think she was out to vamp Slade Barlow.

  But there he was. Tall, dark and definitely handsome, standing on the back steps with his hat in his hand and his head tilted to one side, he was definitely ripe for vamping. He wore a light blue Western-cut shirt, open at the throat, jeans that rested easy on his lower body and polished boots.

  His dangerously blue eyes took her in with a sweep of quiet appreciation. “Ready?” he asked. His voice was husky.

  Joslyn, not trusting her own, merely nodded that she was.

  Shea, meanwhile, waved from the truck. She was in the backseat with Jasper, and the girl’s smile was dazzling, even from that distance. In fact, Jasper seemed to be grinning from ear to ear, too.

  “I’m staying in Parable for a whole year!” Shea crowed excitedly, when Slade opened the passenger door for Joslyn and she climbed up into the seat. “Dad called Mom this morning and asked her if I could go to school in Parable, and she said yes!”

  Shea’s delight, like her smile, was effervescent and therefore contagious. Joslyn turned and smiled back at the teenager as she buckled herself into the seat belt.

  “That’s great,” she said, confused.

  But was it, really?

  Once he’d walked around the truck and gotten behind the wheel, Slade smiled and shook his head. “We’ll see if you’re still this excited after school actually starts and you realize this definitely isn’t L.A.”

  “Are you trying to get me to change my mind about staying?” Shea demanded, sounding a little hurt.

  Slade chuckled, the sound almost hoarse. It relaxed Joslyn a little, realizing he was wound up as tightly as she was, though she couldn’t be sure it was for the same reasons. “No,” he said. “I’m glad about it.”

  As Slade backed the truck down the driveway and eased out onto the street, Shea chattered on, this time addressing Joslyn. “I asked Opal to come with us, but she’s baking pies all day, and then she and Martie Wren are going to a bingo game over at the Legion Hall. Opal sent to Great Falls for all her stuff, and it’s arriving next week in a moving van, and—”

  “Shea,” Slade interrupted affably.

  “What?”

  “Come up for air,” he replied with a short laugh. “Take a breath.”

  Shea pretended to get huffy, sitting back hard in the seat and folding her arms. “You don’t have to act like a dad all the time,” she pointed out, “just because you’re in charge of me for a year.”

  Slade gave Joslyn a look, his eyes twinkling.

  Meanwhile, Joslyn considered the ramifications of Shea’s big news. It wasn’t as if she and Slade were in a relationship, after all—but even if they had been, none of what was going on was her business in any way, shape or form. She had no right to object, and no real reason, and yet—

  “I sure hope I find the perfect horse,” Shea piped up, somewhat fretfully, when they were out of town and on the highway to Missoula. The drive would take about an hour, Joslyn knew, and they’d pass through some breathtakingly beautiful territory along the way.

  “Something tells me you’re not going to be all that hard to please,” Slade remarked. “Not when it comes to horses, anyhow.”

  At that moment, Shea’s cell phone played an ear-jarring guitar riff, and she answered with an excited, “Tiffany? Hi! Sure, I can talk now—”

  Slade sighed. He’d rolled up his shirtsleeves before starting up the rig, and the muscles in his forearm flexed powerfully as he worked the gearshift. His fingers were long and deft… .

  Great, Joslyn thought, bringing herself up short. She’d been in the man’s truck for all of ten minutes, and she was already cataloging his body parts.

  “So if Opal’s baking pies and going to bingo,” she said, because the silence between her and Slade was too awkward, “she must be feeling right at home at your place.”

  Slade slanted a glance in her direction, and she thought she saw a flicker of concern in his eyes. “It all happened pretty fast,” he said. “Opal moving in with us, I mean. You’d just found her, as I understand it, and now she’s gone again.”

  Slade’s remark touched Joslyn’s heart in an unexpected way, made her throat tighten up. She’d been on her own for a long time, and she valued her independence—would defend it fiercely if any kind of threat arose—but she had narrowed her life to the point where she practically had to live it sideways to squea
k through. Now, suddenly, that nose-to-the-grindstone existence she’d created for herself was expanding, erupting, breaking open.

  She was terrified.

  Still, it was comforting to know her feelings concerning Opal’s abrupt departure for his ranch house mattered to Slade, even just a little.

  “Opal wasn’t happy being retired,” she said after swallowing. “She needs to be needed.”

  Don’t we all?

  Take me, for instance.

  When was the last time someone needed me? Besides Lucy-Maude or Jasper, I mean.

  “Well,” Slade answered easily, “Shea and I can sure fit the bill there. We definitely need her.” He paused and grinned a little at the exuberant conversation Shea was carrying on in the backseat via her cell phone. Everything was so important at that age, life or death. “Opal’s amazing—she’s only been with us a few days, and already there’s a place for everything, everything’s in that place. I have all the clean shirts a man could ask for, washed, starched and ironed, and you can see yourself in the backsplash behind the kitchen sink.”

  Joslyn laughed. “That’s Opal,” she said. “I imagine you’re eating pretty well, too.”

  “Too well,” Slade admitted. “If this keeps up, I’ll have a belly in no time. Give me a pair of mirrored sunglasses and one of those round hats, and I’ll look just like Jackie Gleason in Smokey and the Bandit.”

  The thought made Joslyn chuckle. She could imagine Slade years from now, with wisps of gray at his temples and deeper lines in his ruggedly masculine face, especially around his eyes, but it was almost impossible to picture Slade Barlow’s hard body gone soft.

  After that, they lapsed into an easy quiet, though Shea continued to field one phone call after another. She must have told a dozen different people that she was one, staying in Parable with her Dad—yes, for real—two, on the way to choose her very own horse, and three, she even had an actual job.

  The livestock sale, it turned out, was being held at a big auction facility, just that side of Missoula. There were trucks, horse trailers and people everywhere, as many women as men, and plenty of kids and dogs, too.