She beamed at them, and started clearing the table.
“Good Lord, Garland,” Jed said, as she drifted serenely from table to sink. “I hope you’re planning to drop the other shoe sometime this century.”
She brought over coffee mugs, a plateful of brownies, and an ear-to-ear grin. “We compromised.”
“Yeah?” Tessa said. “How?”
Enjoying watching them fidget. Garland took her time filling their cups. “We-e-ell” she said, sliding back into her chair, “we talked and talked about it ... argued a little, too,” she admitted, “but for one thing, I’m not going to apply to Cornell.”
“Hallelujah,” Tessa muttered.
“Rick’s father suggested Colorado State at Fort Collins. He says it’s first rate.”
“I could have told you that,” Tessa said.
“You did. Mom, but you know what they say about familiarity. Anyway, I figure I could stay in Fort Collins during the week; spend my weekends at the Chavez ranch with Rick, then rent a place in the summers in Telluride, with me assisting in the clinic until I qualify for full partnership, at which point we’ll move up there permanently. That’ll give us lots of time to plan just the kind of house we want.”
“You plan to marry him, I assume?”
“Well, yeah. Mom. We thought next summer, after we graduate from the university.”
“You’re thinking of buying into this Telluride veterinary practice and building a house up there?” Jed asked. “You’re talking big bucks, Garland.”
“We talked about that, too. As far as the house and property goes . . . well, Rick’s grandfather left him pretty well fixed— “
“Oil money,” Tessa interjected for Jed’s benefit.
“But buying into the practice will be my responsibility.” She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I called Gav from New Mexico, Mom. We talked over Uncle Lloyd’s offer, and we’d like to accept it. Gav’s decided he’s not cut out to be a politician himself— too much glad-handing, he says— but he loves the process. He’d like to open his own office as a consultant when he has more experience under his belt, and his share of the proceeds would give him something to start building the capital he’ll need.
“I know it’s a shock, after all the rigamarole you went through— “
Tessa stared at her daughter. “You two are sure about this?”
“There’s no access to that piece from the Hatton holdings, so selling it won’t matter to us— or you—one way or the other.” She reached out to grasp her mother’s hand. “Look at it this way: the Wagners have never expended much affection on Gavin and me, so why not make ‘em pay for the privilege of seeing the last of us?”
Tessa tapped the table with her fingers, the beat quickening as she considered Garland’s words. “Yeah,” she finally said, “why the hell not? But I hope you’re not thinking of accepting their first offer.”
“Hardly likely,” Garland drawled.
Garland helped Tessa wash up the dishes and tidy the house. Not that there was much tidying to do. The house was sparsely furnished—a couple of dark overstuffed armchairs and a ratty-looking braided rug in front of an ancient television set in the living room; outdated photo calendars decorating the walls of the small, dim bedrooms—and the dust too ingrained to yield to a casual once-over with a damp rag. It was a depressing place, Tessa thought as she went from room to low-ceilinged room. She wondered if Jed would get a dog after his father died. Something big and bouncy and cheerful. Like me.
It was dark by the time Garland said her goodbyes, promising to call in the morning to see if anything was needed. Jed and Tessa stood on the porch as she carried the empty canvas carryalls back to the truck. The moon had risen; the air smelled newly washed and fragrant with sagebrush.
“I’m rested now, thanks to you,” Jed murmured to Tessa. “If you want to leave, too— “
“Do you want me to?” she asked. He shook his head. “Then I’ll stay for as long ...”
As long as what? You need me? Want me? Tessa wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. “I’ll stay,” she repeated.
Jed looked in on Pop. “No change,” he said, then suggested they finish the wine. “Can’t be more than a half a glass apiece,” he said, holding the bottle up to the light. “Hardly worth saving.”
So they sat and sipped and talked. Jed asked Tessa if she was comfortable with Garland’s decision.
“Which one? Selling the land Barry left them or marrying Rick Chavez?”
“Both, I guess.”
Tessa twirled the glass between her fingers, watching the liquid deposit red sheets of film that slowly slid back to replenish the dwindling supply. “When I cut the fence up on Hayden’s Bald—was that only yesterday?—I noticed that the bark on that big cottonwood tree, the one anchoring the fence where it turns back north, has expanded over the wire you wound around it, almost burying it. I don’t recall how long ago that was, but I remember you taking three turns on each strand—”
“— six strands, one foot apart,” Jed said. “Already buried you say?”
“Pretty near.” She took a sip of wine and looked at him over the rim of the glass. “There’s no way to put a stop to that expansion, Jed, or the force behind it. That tree just keeps on growing, going its own way. Just like Garland and Gavin. So you let ‘em go.”
“Whether or not you want to.”
“Whether or not.” She cocked her head, thinking it over. “I think mostly I do, but it takes a little getting used to.” Her lips quirked in a half smile. “I just wish it hadn’t happened so fast.”
“And all at once,” Jed said gruffly.
“You, too, huh?”
“Oh, yeah.” He yawned and stretched. “Who wants to take the first shift?”
“I think you just answered that,” Tessa said. “I’m not sleepy yet—too much to think about. It’s going on midnight, Jed. Suppose I call you at—“ she looked at her watch—“three o’clock?”
Two hours later, despite her best efforts, including repeated pinches on the tender underside of her arms, Tessa fell into a light doze from which only moments later it seemed—she was aroused by a long, labored groan. She sprang guiltily to her feet and crossed the three steps to the bed, waiting for the creaking of the hastily abandoned rocker to subside before bending lower. The trite phrase that sprang horrifyingly to mind when she held her fingers to the old man’s neck proved all too apt.
Quiet as the grave.
Tessa stood quietly, staring down, a few moments longer, then drew the sheet up and over his face.
She tiptoed out— why, she could not say— and closed the door behind her. In the dim light of the hall, she could just make out the flashing figures on her watch. Ten minutes after four. Hadn’t someone once told her that most natural deaths occur at four in the morning? That, too, seemed apt.
She entered Jed’s room, quietly undressed, and slipped in beside him. The bed was narrow and hard. The kind a monk would have, she thought. She kissed his cheek.
He sighed and, gently grumbling, turned towards her. “Is it time?”
“It’s over, Jed,” she whispered. She felt his lashes brush against her temple. “Ten minutes ago.”
“Finally over,” he muttered. “My God.” His arms came around her, hard. His hands, feeling her nakedness, tensed. “Tessa?”
“Love me, Jed. Ever since that first time, I’ve thought of little else. You said we couldn’t go back to the way it was, and I no longer want to. I may lose you, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take. Love me . . . please.”
He needed no further urging.
In daylight it might have been grotesque, this juxtaposition of death and exuberant life. But there, in the darkness before dawn, it seemed right and good.
Their joining was gentle. His kisses were soft on her throat, teasing on her mouth. Then, as his thrusts went deeper, his lips thinned and hardened. He ducked his head and lifted one full breast to catch the hardened nipple between his
teeth. She cried out, arched up against him, and they climaxed together.
He fell back against the pillow and smoothed her hair from her brow. He didn’t have to see her face to know the spacing of the eyelids he kissed, nor could darkness disguise the shape of the long legs, twined with his, that he’d known all his life.
Tessa fell asleep in his arms. When she woke—at what she estimated, by the stretch of the sunlight across the rumpled bedclothes, as midmorning—she was alone. Ten minutes later her teeth had been brushed, hair combed and tied into a ponytail, jeans, shirt, and shoes donned. The cloudy bathroom mirror told her she looked ... well, presentable. But she felt great. Terrific in fact. A feeling hardly affected by the sobering sight of the closed bedroom door.
The kitchen was empty.
“Jed?” There was no answer, Jed?”
She opened the door and stepped out on the porch. There, out in the long, storm-drenched grass, sat the old rocker from Pop Bradburn’s room, a couple of big old suitcases, and a black enameled strongbox on top of which perched a cheaply framed snapshot of a smiling woman holding a small boy by the hand.
It looked, Tessa thought, like something assembled for an arty photograph.
Hearing a funny crackling sort of noise, she descended the porch steps and almost tripped over a bale of straw, one of several lined up along the front of the house. Peering cautiously around the corner, she saw Jed busily engaged in stacking more bales of straw against the weathered clapboards.
Tessa straightened. “What on earth are you doing? There’s a dead man inside, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Jed turned to look at her. “That’s not something a person forgets.” His expression was serious. Very intent. “I called Doc Strunk at first light; he’s long since come and gone. He’s probably at the town hall now, filing the death certificate.”
“So what’s all this about?” Tessa said, indicating the straw.
“I’ve already notified the guys at the firehouse.”
“About what?”
“About burning the house down.”
Tessa stared at him. “Jed, please. If this is your idea of a joke— “
“No joke, Tessa. What I figured is ... well, I remember your dad saying once that for people like us the home place is as vital to the life we choose to lead as the beating of our hearts, and I believe that. I truly do. But for Walt Bradburn, this place was the only thing. He couldn’t get his own sisters off the ranch fast enough; he had no love to spare for Aggie, the dearest, bravest woman who ever lived; he treated me like a hired hand at best.
“My God! Look at this sorry place!” he cried, waving an impassioned hand at it. “There’s no love in it ... never has been.”
“But it’s yours now, Jed. You could fix it up ... paint it, put in bigger windows maybe. You could even plant some flowers,” she finished lamely.
Jed reached her in two long strides. He grabbed her shoulders; she winced as his fingers dug into her muscles. “It’s his house, not mine. Always was; always will be. I never want to set foot in it again.” He turned defiantly towards it. “His house, mean and cramped as his heart, and now it’ll be his funeral pyre.”
She looked at him, aghast.
“They do this in India, you know, except there the widow’s expected to add herself to the flames. At least Aggie was spared that.” He resumed stacking the bales. “Only a few more to go, Tessa. If you’ve got anything of yours in the house, you’d better get it out.”
Tessa swallowed the protest that sprang automatically to her lips. There was nothing she could do, and the more she thought of it, the more she had to grant the rough justice of it.
She stood a moment longer, allowing the tension to subside, then ran inside to collect her things. She paused in the kitchen to grab a spoon and the jar of peanut butter she’d brought with her. Okay, so her breakfast menu was peculiar; there was damn little about this particular morning that wasn’t.
By the time she emerged, Vince Higgins and the other hands had already assembled. It was hard to tell from their expressions what they were feeling. Shocked? Curious? Excited? Maybe a little bit of everything.
She smelled gasoline. Turning, she watched as Jed sprinkled it solemnly, almost ceremoniously, on the bales. Setting the can aside, he stood quite straight. He closed his eyes for a long moment. Then he pulled a box of wooden matches from his pocket, struck one, then a dozen or so more, one after the other, and sent them spiraling into the waiting bales.
It didn’t take long. The wood was old and dry and eagerly consumed. Tessa linked her arm in Jed’s and pulled him back from the heat. “Where were you planning on living?” she asked.
“Well, I’ve got a place fitted out in the barn, with a desk and a fireproof safe I keep all the ranch papers in. It’s sort of my hideaway. My books are there, a few nice paintings I’ve picked up-over the years at the Ouray art show, a cot, and a big comfortable chair. I’ll manage.”
His hideaway?
She slid a wondering look at him. His fine dark eyes were narrowed against the leaping flames. Getting to know this man she thought she’d known all her life might be quite an adventure.
She reached up to pull gently at the tip of his long nose. “What would you say to moving in with me?”
He hugged her tight against him and smiled down at her. “I was beginning to think you’d never ask.”
Epilogue
A passing shower during the previous night had left a powdering of snow on the peaks jagging up beyond Hayden’s Bald.
Seeing it, Tessa sighed. “Summer’s almost over . . . Gav and Garland will be back in Boulder in a fortnight.”
Jed turned in his saddle to look at her. “Fortnight?” he repeated, amused.
“A little something left over from Scott,” she said. “The only thing, in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t, but I’m glad to hear it. Speaking of leftovers, what happened to that lump-headed brute of Barry’s? I haven’t noticed him giving the other horses a hard time lately . . . not that I miss him.”
“Didn’t I tell you? I gave him to Marion Shelby.”
“Good Lord. I thought you liked her!”
“I do, Jed. In fact I spent most of a day with her looking at Arabians. She bought herself a couple of real beauties. They’re pretty green though, so on the way back we stopped off at Skywalk for a tour of my training facilities.”
He grinned. “Tour, huh?”
“Smartass,” she returned mildly. “Anyway, Turnip caught her fancy. She said she’d never seen a horse who thought so much of himself. She says he reminds her of Scott.”
“Except Shelby’s not ugly.”
Tessa, recalling Scott’s blandly expressed willingness to pursue Garland whether or not she was his daughter, shrugged. “The way I look at it, everyone should have an ugly, ornery cuss like Turnip to cope with at least once in life.”
“Not this cowboy!” Jed said.
“You had Pop.”
“True,” he admitted.
“And now you have me.”
He laughed and guided Bolt close enough to Mackerel to give her an arm’s-length squeeze. “Ornery, yes; ugly no.”
“Give me a few more years and wrinkles.”
“Never!”
She beamed at him. “As I was saying, the twins will be back in Boulder soon, and—”
“Have they given Lloyd an answer on his offer yet?”
“Well, I know they turned down the first two, and Gav persuaded Garland they should hold off on the third until he has a chance to consult with the guy he worked for this summer.”
“Leaving Uncle Lloyd twisting in the wind.”
“Uncle Jack, too. Gav’s a strong believer in equal opportunity.” They grinned at each other. “I was. hoping Garland could help with the calves, but what with one thing and another— “
“One thing being Rick Chavez?” She nodded. “Those calves must be strapping teenagers by now,” Jed said. “When were you hoping t
o bring them down?”
“Before we have any more snow up there . . . next weekend maybe?”
“Suits me. I’m not due for dinner at the White House until the following week.”
She gave him a startled, gape-mouthed look, then swatted him with her hat. “Race you to the top!”
Tessa, having the advantage of initial intent, took the lead. She pulled up at the place where she had cut the fence three weeks earlier. “What do you think?” she asked when he joined her.
“Easy enough,” he said, dismounting. He unstrapped the leather bag containing the coils of wire from Bolt’s saddle. He held out his hand for the cable splicer Tessa was carrying. “I’ll splice the strands here, then reinforce it with added wire. Shouldn’t take long.”
“What I meant was, what do you think about taking down the whole shebang— posts, wire, everything. Bradburn and Hatton,” she cried, waving her hat in the air. “All for one; one for all!”
“The two musketeers?”
Tessa, reminded of the long absent third, sobered. “Yeah. Better than one.”
Jed blew on his hands, rubbed them, then stuck them in the pockets of his flannel-lined denim jacket. “Look at me,” he muttered. “It’s not even autumn yet— not officially, anyway.”
Together they gazed at the mountains’ snow-freckled flanks. “Well, you know what the old timers always say about Colorado weather,” Tessa said.
“Winter and July,” Jed quoted, recalling the last time he’d thought of that, sitting across the table from her in the kitchen of the house that no longer was.
Grateful beyond measure for her ministering presence, unable to deny her connection to his heart and soul, he had found the old sham of fraternal affection impossible to resurrect. It was only later he realized that in the process of exorcising the pretense, the connection had strengthened.
Connection, he reminded himself, not chains.
Colorado High Page 28