Big Sky Wedding

by Linda Lael Miller

  Zane kissed her once more, briefly and gently, and then he was sitting up, getting out of bed, finding the clothes she’d lent him after they came in out of the rain, putting them on. He paused in the bedroom doorway, a figure framed in faint light, coming from where Brylee didn’t exactly know, and she heard him sigh, a heavy sound that settled over her chest like a chilly blanket and made it hard to breathe.

  “Brylee,” he said. That was all.

  It wasn’t a question or a statement, it wasn’t a reprimand, and it wasn’t a promise, either. He said it again, in a husky voice, and then he turned away, and the doorway was dark and empty with his absence.

  Brylee pulled the rumpled covers up over her head and snuggled down into the soft, tangled, still-moist sheets. She waited to feel something—rage or grief, joy or sorrow, but there was only the sweet aftermath of being loved the way she’d yearned to be loved, and blessed exhaustion overtook her in the next moment

  She slept.

  * * *

  ZANE RECKONED HE must have driven home to Hangman’s Bend by rote, because he had no conscious recollection of actually making the journey, not then and not years and years later, whenever that particular night, the one that changed everything, came to mind.

  He hadn’t noticed whether it was raining or not, recognized a single landmark or even sustained one clear, cohesive train of thought. No, for him, what had happened with Brylee was all about feelings, emotions, concepts—not words. The flesh-and-blood woman he’d just left was all he knew or wanted to know. The awareness of her, her image, her voice and her scent, the silken smoothness of her skin against his own—all of those things pulsed inside him, like a new heart, strong and steady but definitely prone to breakage.

  Reaching his place, though, Zane began to come home to himself, as well, noted that all the lights in the house were off, except for one burning in the window above the kitchen sink. Cleo and Nash were home—or they weren’t.

  Did it matter? Probably, he decided distractedly, but right then he couldn’t seem to drum up even a ghost of a preference, one way or the other. He shut off the truck, got out and walked into the darkened barn to check on Blackjack, as he did every night, and the gelding greeted him with a sleepy and faintly quizzical nicker.

  Zane grinned, relieved the universe as he knew it seemed to be reassembling itself around him, bit by bit, falling back into place like the scattered pieces of some cosmic puzzle, and left the animal to settle back into horse-slumber and whatever equine dreams might await him there. Slim was at the kitchen door, as usual, when Zane turned the knob and stepped inside.

  “Yo, dog,” he said gruffly, bending to pat the mutt’s head.

  Slim squirmed past him and headed for the yard, intent on night business, and Zane waited until he came back a few minutes later before closing the door again.

  “You here all alone?” he asked Slim, who wagged his scruffy tail in good-natured reply.

  “No,” said a familiar and definitely human voice from the arched doorway opening onto the shadowy dining room beyond. “He’s not.”

  With that, Landry flipped a nearby light switch, and the sudden illumination from the new fixtures, with their tubelike, megabright fluorescent bulbs, made Zane blink.

  “Well,” he said, after letting a beat or two go by, making his way to the new refrigerator and extracting a bottle of water. “I’m glad you made yourself at home, anyway.”

  Landry, barefoot, clad only in a pair of gray sweatpants and his usual surly outlook, ran a hand through his hair and proceeded into the kitchen, offering no reply. Instead, he stepped around Slim, opened the pantry door and rummaged around inside for a while, eventually emerging with a box of cereal.

  “You already wear out your welcome at the Somerset Inn or what?” Zane asked, after a long swig from the water bottle. At the moment, he would have preferred whiskey, but there wasn’t any on hand and, just now, that was probably a good thing.

  “Something like that,” Landry said, helping himself to a bowl, a spoon and a jug of milk from the fridge. “I won’t be around here for long—at least, not under your roof—so don’t get your skivvies in a twist, okay?”

  Skivvies? Zane had to chuckle at this verbal vestige of days gone by. “If you’re hungry,” he said, with affable irony, taking a seat at the card table and settling as best he could into one of the metal folding chairs, “just dig right in.”

  Landry gave a grumpy snort, probably meant to pass for a laugh. A derisive one, of course. He took the chair across from Zane’s, poured cereal into the bowl, sloshed a few dollops of milk over it and began to crunch away.

  “Are Cleo and Nash around?” Zane asked presently. It seemed like a nonincendiary question. Those were in relatively short supply, right now.

  “I assumed they were with you,” Landry responded, with a shake of his head, talking with his mouth full. “Wherever that might have been.”

  Zane suppressed a sigh. “Where were you today, Landry?” he asked evenly. “I tried to call you a couple of times.”

  “I was buying a truck,” Landry said, as though this interesting fact should have been out-and-out obvious to anybody with enough brains to walk and chew gum at the same time. “Guess you didn’t notice it, parked out there by the barn.”

  “Guess I didn’t,” Zane answered, emptying the water bottle and setting it down in front of him with a slight clunk.

  “I bought a buffalo, too,” Landry went on, looking up from his cereal now, still not smiling, though there was a faint gleam of—of what, mischief?—in his eyes.

  “You bought a what?”

  Landry looked mighty pleased with himself while he chewed industriously on his late-night snack. “A buffalo,” he repeated, eventually. “I’m starting a herd.”

  “Hold it,” Zane said. “One buffalo doesn’t make a herd—and what the hell do you know about them, anyhow?”

  Landry raised one bare shoulder in a desultory half shrug, spooned up the last of his cereal, then unceremoniously raised the bowl to his mouth and downed the remaining milk in three noisy gulps.

  “This,” he said, raising his voice slightly, the way some people did when they addressed the hard-of-hearing, or foreigners who might or might not speak the language, “is a pregnant buffalo. The foundation of a dynasty. Once I’m a little better situated, I plan to send for a bull, too. That’ll get things rolling.”

  “This is cattle country,” Zane pointed out, though the remark was a lame one and he knew it. He hadn’t been surprised that Landry had purchased a truck—that was a statement that had more to do with machismo than reliable transportation—but a buffalo? He was a suit-and-tie man from a big city—had he ever even seen one of those critters, except on Animal Planet or maybe at the zoo?

  Landry put down the empty bowl, licked away his milk-mustache with one swipe of his tongue and grinned like the certifiable fool he was. “Did you know that bison meat is leaner than beef?” he countered, letting Zane’s words hang in the air, unacknowledged. “Get with the program, big brother. Today’s consumer is more health conscious than ever before. The market is just beginning to take off.”

  Zane closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again. He guessed that must be because obesity was at an all-time high all over the developed world and rising steadily, but he wasn’t out to start an argument, so he kept the factoid to himself. “And you’ll be rich in no time.”

  Landry looked cocky. “I’m already rich,” he retorted, “but that’s beside the point.”

  Zane held on to his perspective, such as it was. “And you found this pregnant buffalo, where? It’s not as if they’re readily available, even out here in the golden West, like sheep and cattle and goats.”

  “I ran an internet search, of course,” Landry answered expansively. He stood, carried his bowl to the sink. Cleo wasn’t even around to see the gesture, Zane thought grudgingly, and his little brother was already trying to score points with her. Landry glanced back over one shoulder, grin
ned at Zane, and for the first time since he’d arrived in Montana, there was no chill in the expression. “Bessie’s on her way out here from North Dakota by train right now, bun in the oven, a classic two-for-one deal.”

  Zane wanted to roll his eyes, but he didn’t. The peace between him and Landry was still too fragile and, damn it, he did love the maniac, and that was a fact, inexorable as death and taxes. “It’s a little late in the year for a calf, don’t you think?” he ventured carefully.

  “There’s a timetable?” Landry countered airily, returning to the table.

  Outside, a vehicle pulled up, quickly followed by a second rig, both with their high beams on. The lights blazed across the kitchen wall like twin comets, causing Zane to squint against the dazzle. Doors closed, goodbyes were exchanged and both cars drove away again.

  “Never mind,” Zane told his brother wearily. Hell, he was no expert on livestock, he reminded himself. For all he knew, bison mamas gave birth year-round, like the human variety.

  A moment later, Nash burst into the house, just ahead of Cleo, and the kid seemed only slightly taken aback when he saw Landry.

  He immediately shifted his focus to Zane. “You should have stayed for the fireworks,” the boy crowed, laughing and mussing up Slim’s ears as the dog jumped on him in delighted welcome, practically knocking him to the floor. “It was awesome!”

  Of course, Zane wasn’t inclined to mention that he’d experienced a few fireworks himself earlier that night, in Brylee Parrish’s bed; the experience was obviously too personal, and too private, to discuss with anybody but Brylee herself. In addition, he still needed to sort through a lot of raw emotions, most of them entirely new to him, try to make some kind of sense of what had happened, figure out where he and Brylee ought to go from there.

  If, indeed, they went anywhere at all. Their lovemaking had changed him in profound ways, maybe forever, ways that confused and troubled him even as they filled him with a strange rush of exultation every time he allowed himself to remember, but that didn’t mean Brylee felt the same way. By now, she might be wallowing in regret, furious not only with herself, but with him, too. Considering the way she’d behaved after they’d merely kissed outside the Boot Scoot, it wasn’t a huge stretch to imagine her mad enough to spit nails.

  “Hello, again,” Landry said, evidently addressing Nash.

  Cleo finally stepped inside, closed the door, set aside her big purse and hung up her baggy gray cardigan sweater with the patches on the elbows. She glanced curiously at Zane, as though his eyes had spontaneously changed color or he’d sprouted an extra limb since she’d seen him last, but she must have picked up on the general mood, which was dicey, because she bit back whatever she’d been fixing to say.

  “Did my dad come back?” Nash asked Landry, straight out. “Have you seen him? Heard anything from him?” The tone of the kid’s voice and the sudden, rigid stillness of his skinny frame gave no indication whether he was hoping for a yes, or for a no.

  Landry frowned, standing in deference to Cleo’s presence and giving her a brief nod for a greeting, but Nash definitely had his full attention.

  “One email,” Landry said. “He needed money.”

  Nash’s Adam’s apple bounced along the length of his neck a few times, and he swallowed audibly. “Did you give it to him?” he asked, so softly that hearing him was a challenge, even in that weighted silence filling the room. “The money, I mean?”

  Landry sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “He’s a hard man to refuse.”

  “Did he say anything about me?” Nash persisted, after digesting Landry’s answer for a few seconds. The kid looked so wan by then that Cleo trundled over and touched his forehead with the back of one hand, checking for fever.

  “No,” Landry replied, with just enough hesitation to indicate that he wished he’d slipped a lie in ahead of the blunt truth. “No, he didn’t mention you. But I’m sure that was just an oversight....”

  Nash’s face contorted in a way that was painful to see, for Zane at least. The boy didn’t say anything, though. He just pushed his way past the two older brothers he barely knew and hurried in the direction of his room. A slam sounded in the distance, and Slim, who had traipsed after Nash, came back alone, his ears drooping, rebuffed.

  Zane started to follow Nash’s trail, but Cleo stopped him in his boot prints with a firm, “Let the boy go. He’ll be fine, but he needs to be by himself right now.”

  Landry sighed and shoved a hand through his already-rumpled hair. Maybe he’d been asleep when Zane got back from Brylee’s place, but haggard as he looked, it seemed more likely that he’d been trying to sleep. And failing miserably.

  There was more on his brother’s mind, Zane thought vaguely, than a big future in the bison-wrangling business, but he flat-out didn’t have the energy to pursue the matter right then. Between Nash and the interlude with Brylee, his circuits were already on overload.

  Cleo got busy setting up the coffeemaker for morning, putting away the jug of milk Landry had left on the last counter standing, and Zane bent to console the confused dog with a few words and a quick backrub.

  “What was that all about?” Landry asked, jabbing a thumb in the direction Nash had gone.

  “Three guesses,” Zane answered crisply. “And the first two don’t count.”

  “Dad?” Landry inquired blankly.

  “Bingo,” Cleo affirmed, sounding sad and very, very tired.

  With that, everybody went their separate ways, Cleo to her room, Zane to his, Landry to whatever corner of the house he’d chosen to crash in. They were still short one bed, so he must have bought himself a sleeping bag in town or something.

  Maybe, Zane reasoned, his brother had even outfitted himself with a tent and a portable stove and plenty of other outdoor gear. Until a little while ago, he’d hoped Landry’s plans included heading back to Chicago, sooner rather than later, but now it seemed that Little Brother might just be stupid enough, stubborn enough, to set up a camp over there on his part of the ranch and dig in, bent on cornering the bison market before winter.

  Still shaking his head when he reached his room, Zane took his phone from his shirt pocket and checked the time. It was eleven forty-five—too late to call Brylee.

  But he did it, anyway, because he’d slept with the woman, after all, and some kind of acknowledgment was definitely in order.

  * * *

  BRYLEE HEARD A persistent, jangly sound, tried hard to ignore it and realized she couldn’t. What if someone was hurt or ill? What if Casey and the baby were stranded somewhere along the road between Parable and Three Trees?

  She sat up in bed, switched on the lamp and picked up her cell phone, yawned out an inelegant, “Hello?”

  “You’re awake, then.” The voice was Zane’s.

  And the sound of it jolted Brylee into full sensibility, in the span of a mere moment, something even the late-night ringing of her phone hadn’t done.

  “I am,” she confirmed, quite unnecessarily.

  Zane cleared his throat. “Tonight was—” He fell silent, and she could feel him searching for just the right words to let her down easy.

  Brylee squeezed her eyes shut, waited. The man certainly hadn’t wasted any time clarifying the situation, had he?

  Zane began again. “Tonight was incredible, Brylee. You were incredible.”

  Tears brimmed along her lower lashes, sudden and hot. Her heart pounded so hard she could feel it on the outside of her body, and in unusual places, too, like her knees and elbows and the balls of her feet. An odd, semihysterical giggle escaped her, wouldn’t be held in.

  “Who is this?” she quipped, dabbing at her cheeks with the back of one hand.

  Zane laughed, a quiet, thoroughly masculine sound.

  Brylee pushed a lock of hair back from her forehead.

  On the rug beside her bed, Snidely chased rabbits in his sleep, all four legs moving.

  The silence lengthened, but it wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it was fain
tly electrical.

  Finally, Brylee asked, “How do you define incredible?”

  He chuckled, and that was as nice to hear as his laugh had been. “In this case,” he replied gruffly, “I’d define it as incomparable, as better than any other night of my life.”

  Brylee’s throat thickened, and her eyes scalded with fresh tears. “You said it yourself,” she said gently, cautiously. “It’s too soon, Zane. We have to put on the brakes, before it’s too late.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  BRYLEE’S PRONOUNCEMENT THAT it was time to step back from each other for a while, catch their breath and get some perspective made perfect sense to Zane. After all, they’d actually been acquainted for about five minutes, a fact he’d tried to remind her—and himself—of the night before.

  Before the lovemaking. The epic, apocalyptically good lovemaking that had rocked Zane to the foundations of his being, altered his worldview—hell, his view of this and any other universe that might be out there—had turned him, essentially, from one man into another.

  Was this a bad thing? That seemed unlikely, if only because the whole Brylee experience had an almost sacred feel to it, but it might be a long time before the dust settled enough for either one of them to see clearly.

  He sighed. There were his own words again, back to bite him in the ass. It’s too soon.

  On the other hand, how the hell was he supposed to do without the woman, give up everything he’d been searching for all his life? It would be easier to swear off oxygen and water.

  Now that his entire psyche had just been flame-gunned and then rebuilt so completely that he’d have to get to know himself all over again, and staying away from Brylee Parrish was probably the only remedy for what ailed him.

  Once the phone call was over, he’d stood there in his dark room for a long time, staring out at a shadowy, moon-washed landscape, wondering how he was going to survive this.

  He didn’t even attempt to sleep—it would have been futile, draining rather than restoring him—and by morning, he was like a wild man, pacing, anxious, unable to focus on anything but the shattering prospect of losing something he’d never really had in the first place.