Slade and Kally: Letting Go of the Reins, Book 1

by AE Rought

  He was honestly sorry. I was sure of it. The fact remained he did it in the first place. He went behind my back, dug into Matt’s past and never told me, never even told me the kind of criminal I’d lived with for over a year. How was I to get past it? Ilene distracted me from musing, grabbed my hand, guiding me to the stairs. “He also said the orange tabby cat misses you.”

  My heart ticked a sad beat with just the thought of the orange kitty. Slade had watched while I had slowly taught him to trust me and won him over from the half-wild barn cat. I had just told Susan I missed him moments ago. Is he psychic? He knows how to cut me to the quick.

  Hands on my shoulders, Ilene ushered me up the stairs. I stopped halfway, the carpeting tickling the underside of my toes. “Get up there and get cleaned up, Kally. We’ve got lots to do today. Don’t forget about Michelle’s spa party tonight!”

  “How could I forget?” I’d put massive effort into letting the girly party slip my mind. The last thing I wanted, after a week away from paradise on the ranch, was to endure a conclave of the pack of prissy females Ilene worked with. I would be happier in the corner of the sofa at the Fourth Moon.

  Slade and Kally: Letting Go of the Reins, Book 1

  Chapter Sixteen

  The phone didn’t ring again, no matter how Slade willed it to. The silvertone thing sat inert in his hand. He’d learned to trust his gut instincts while he was on the force, and he propped the handset on his shoulder knowing in the bottom of his gut it had been Kally who had called and then hung up. If he hadn’t been out milking cows, he’d have been in to catch the phone when it first rang. He could have talked to Kally, and maybe her voice would’ve filled a little of the emptiness she left behind. He sighed and hung the phone back on the base.

  Nothing felt right without Kally. The house was quiet, he’d been moody as hell and the past two days he’d walked past the Christmas tree without turning the lights on. Standing in the office doorway, Slade looked back at the phone, the partial connection to the woman who held his heart. The familiar longing rose, and he stuffed it down. “I love you, Kally.” Then, cursing his ranch operating tasks, he shoved on his Stetson and stalked to the foyer.

  Crinkling rose from the cat food bag when he fished out a bowl of kibble for Kally’s tomcat. He didn’t feed the critter table scraps often since she had left, but the next morning, he had purchased a bag of dry food and started putting a bowl of it inside the barn door. The cat was one of the few links he had left to Kally, and he planned to take good care of it, even if it still behaved like Slade was a nuisance to his feline existence.

  The early morning air might well have had teeth for how cold and biting it was when he stepped out the front door. Bowl of kitty chow in one hand, he pulled the sherpa-lined jacket collar tight to his chin and shuffled across the drive toward the barn. Silence blanketed the ranch like new fallen snow, except for the tarp over the hay bales flapping in the early December air. It was an eloquent reminder of how soon he and the hired hands would be driving the cattle to the main shelter from the upper pens.

  Mental note—call Red about helping with the drive.

  Jack nickered softly from the pewter shadows of the barn when Slade pulled the doors open. “Hey, boy.” The horse’s rump was warm when he patted it. The horse flicked his tail.

  Beneath a bale of hay the yellow lantern eyes of the tabby cat watched Slade. He put the bowl in its normal place, beside the rack of bridles and gear in the tack corner and then walked backward out of the barn. When he reached the corner of the cattle pen the ornery cat scurried from hiding to wolf down the food. Slade shook his head. Cantankerous animal. Just need a comfortable distance, don’t you?

  Just like Kally.

  He buttoned the neck of his jacket against the cold wind whipping down Rancher’s Row. The rustic Christmas wreath rocked on its peg. Slade was hardly in the spirit to fix it. He turned to stomp back to the house but stopped to admire the scenery Kally had reminded him to appreciate. Dawn lit the drive and the vehicle coming toward him. Slade didn’t need to see the make or know the model. He knew whose vehicle it was by the sound of the engine. A heavy sigh expelled from his chest in a snow-white plume. Yup. Here comes Rosie.

  Slade was certain his mother and honorary mom were in cahoots. He could picture his mother calling Rosie, plotting long distance on how Rosie could smother him with double the normal mothering in Kally’s absence. They treated him like a broken hearted individual, someone to be coddled and cooed to, and it was the last thing he wanted. He shrugged his shoulders, then tipped his head in acknowledgement of her rather than retreating to the carpentry workshop or his bedroom to clean his guns.

  Distancing himself from Rosie was separating himself from the support and nurturing she needed to give. Slade wouldn’t deny her the chance.

  Tires crunched on the gravel churned up by the snowplow. She put the vehicle in park and left the motor running when she climbed out. Her smile was genuine. His wave was half-hearted. “Morning, Rosie.”

  “How are you managing today, Slade?”

  His gaze fell but recouped quickly with a sense of implied strength. “I’m managing just fine. My socks could be whiter, and the answering machine catches more calls than me. Otherwise…”

  Her dark eyes were more piercing in the fresh light of sunrise. “Well, that’s not saying a whole lot.”

  Another sigh escaped him. “What’s to say? There’s work to do and no time to waste on moping. Pouting doesn’t get a damn thing done.”

  “Very true.” She slapped his shoulder good-naturedly. “So what can I help you with today?”

  Mischief crept into his voice. “Well, we could muck out the stalls…”

  “Um…no. I think I’ll pass.” Her laughter was a familiar unguent to soothe his wounded spirit. “What else is on your to-do list?”

  Slade tipped his Stetson back and scratched his brow. “Reckoning on the date on the calendar, we need to plan the annual sleigh ride, start thinking about a Christmas dinner menu, then there’s cattle feeding, stall mucking…” He attempted a weak smile. She, however, raised an eyebrow and tapped a foot. “And then there’s forgetting about Kally for a while.”

  She patted his forearm and then turned to the passenger side door. The hand-embroidered bear on the back of her jacket was emblazoned by the morning sunlight, and always reminded Slade of the story she used to tell, one of the legends of how Devils Tower was created. “Hey, Rosie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you tell the Devils Tower creation story this year at the Christmas party? Maybe a bit of the old might wash away new hurts…”

  Her sharp, almost bird like features softened. “Of course I can. Now how about we get the sleigh ready?” She opened the passenger side door. “Climb in. I’ll drive.”

  He shrugged, not willing to argue with a preheated car in the December chill. Tilting his hips, he slid into the warmed seat. “Works for me.”

  “I thought you’d agree.”

  The heater circulated air scented with sage and George’s pipe tobacco. It was a warm and earthy combination, reminiscent of when he had worked side-by-side with his parents and their friends the Thompsons to build the first timeshare ranch houses. Things were simple then, even though there was always work to be done. Since graduation, he’d gone to the academy, taken a position on the Hulett P.D. and sank into a questionable hell when he started dating Adelle.

  “You’ve gone quiet.” Rosie prodded his thigh. “Where’s your mind? On Kally?”

  “Actually, no. I was wondering what the hell I was thinking when I started dating Adelle.”

  “Probably wasn’t thinking. With her figure and blonde hair, I doubt many men do think around her.”

  Slade snorted. He couldn’t articulate a more appropriate response to Rosie’s commentary on the base nature of men around the blonde she-devil. Slade wasn’t impervious to Adelle’s powerfully feminine mystique. He’d once worshipped at her feet. He might still be with her if h
e hadn’t caught the girl in a lip lock with Tom Masters. Thank God Tom shined the true light on Adelle’s nature. If Slade had stayed with Adelle, she would’ve driven him to the top of the P.D. ladder while she sucked his soul dry and siphoned off all his money.

  If he was honest with himself, he fully expected Adelle to have pushed him off the top of the ladder if they’d stayed together long enough. Shortly after his parents had asked for his help, she had wandered off to Tom’s greener pasture.

  Better him than me.

  Rosie took the back way to what his father Pine called the “big barn”. The monster of a building had taken months to construct and housed the majority of the ranches equipment and vehicles. It also sheltered his dad’s prized possession—a hand-built sleigh his father and grandfather had built together.

  Grandpa Carlson and his dad had spent many summers tinkering, cutting and shaving, getting the sleigh ride worthy. The finishing year was marked by Slade’s grandfather losing his battle with cancer. He had chosen to spend his last day before entering hospice care beneath blankets, riding on the sleigh while Pine drove. The entire Carlson family rode with Grandpa. They all shared Grandpa’s smile and not one eye had been dry. Slade wiped away a tear and ran his fingers along the runner.

  So many memories. He had hoped to add new ones to the list when he brought the sleigh out this year. One of the gifts he wanted to give Kally this year was a quiet, moonlight ride with her piled beneath the blankets and a cup of hot cocoa in her hands.

  Rosie derailed him from his melancholy track when she switched on the old radio on the tool bench and cranked up Madonna’s version of Santa Baby. She shimmied down the length of the tool bench, to the bag of shop rags Pine kept in the corner. With a dramatic roll of her hips, she pulled the bag open and fished out polishing cloths for them both, draping them over her shoulders like tattered feather boas when she sashayed back to him and sang the chorus, badly.

  The frown he’d sheltered under for days dissolved. A smile rose, high and hard until he was squinting back tears and laughing himself sick. “Interesting spin on Christmas. Rosie. I think my mother would be shocked.”

  “Yeah, well it got you out of your funk. Come on, boy, grab the polishing creams and let’s get this baby shiny.”

  Rummaging through the cabinets beneath the worktop for the tins of Pine’s handmade polishing creams, Slade let go of his worries and left the past where it belonged. He tossed the leather treatment tin to Rosie, who climbed into the sleigh and worked the softener into the bench seats while he kept the wood wax and buffed the outer walls until the white oak boards shimmered. The rails would be the last things touched, a check of all the solder points and a fresh coat of black paint on the struts and supports.

  Rosie dragged the piled blankets back around to the tailgate of her SUV and placed them in. She shut the tailgate, pushed closed the window and then dusted off her hands. “I’ll get these washed and use your mother’s herbal linen rinse.” Hands on her hips, she admired their morning’s effort. “The sleigh looks damn good. Your dad would be proud.”

  “And Santa Baby would be jealous.” Slade laughed and tipped his Stetson to hide behind the brim.

  “Ready to head back to the house?”

  “Yup. I hear lunch calling my name.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t say Tabasco was calling.”

  “Tabasco depends on what I end up eating. Flapjacks and syrup don’t pair so well with tangy heat.”

  They rode back in silence until Rosie pulled into the main circle drive. She placed a hand on his forearm. “Slade, honey, I will be the first person to tell you to forget about a girl like Adelle. I’ve encouraged you to focus on something other than Kally. But she is so deep in your heart there won’t be any cutting her out without killing you.”

  The ache, the emptiness bloomed in his chest, forcing a sigh out of him. He didn’t need to speak. Rosie saw right into his heart.

  Her fingers tightened on his arm. “Call her, Slade. Apologize. Even if you don’t think you’ve done anything wrong.”

  “I tried.” He kicked at a lump of sawdust on the floor. “Kally shut me down, told me she’d heard ‘sorry’ too many times before.” The statement still sat in his craw, irritating the hell out of him. He was being punished for what that bastard Matt had done.

  “Then find a way to say it, or don’t. At least call her. And don’t give me crap about getting her voice mail, or Ilene’s answering machine. If the machine picks up, leave a damn message.”

  “Okay.” He opened the door, and she loosened her grip on his arm when he climbed out. Slade gazed back into the vehicle. “Thanks for helping today, Rosie. And for kicking my ass just now. I promise I will call her.”

  “Good deal.” She nodded, and he closed the door.

  Sun and shadows chased Rosie’s vehicle down Rancher’s Row. Slade stood on the front step, looking out over the ranch Kally had taught him how to love again. Snow covered the rolling landscape and coated the trees in an image Kally had called “frosting on a Christmas cookie”. It was a phrase he would never forget. Rustic, beautiful and with the sun shining on the hollows, so very empty without her. Turning his back on the Fourth Moon’s winter beauty, he scuffed his boots across the mat and opened the door.

  An air of expectancy hung in the office, as if even the phone had been waiting for him. Slade took the handset, carried it into the living room where he stepped on the clicker cord and turned on the lights of the Christmas tree before dropping into the armchair by the fireplace. His gaze followed the strings of lights around the tree while he drew a deep breath and punched in Ilene’s phone number.

  His guts twisted into an uncomfortable ball, and there was suddenly not enough air in the living room. Each ring brought a renegade thump of his heart and pushed the knot in his throat higher. The let down of the answering machine message was almost a relief. “Hi, you’ve reached the Rogers. We’re not in right now. Please leave a message, and someone will get back to you.”

  “Hi, Kally.” What do I say now? God I feel like such an idiot blubbering a message anyone could hear. “Things haven’t been the same at the Fourth Moon. Even your tomcat misses you. I’ve been feeding him lately. He likes the food but still hates me. I hope you’re all right. I…” Just say it, Slade. “I miss you and would like to talk sometime. Call me, okay?”

  He disconnected the call but hung onto the phone. “Love you, girl.” She wouldn’t hear those words, not yet.

  Slade and Kally: Letting Go of the Reins, Book 1

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ilene and I hit the Starbucks at Camel Drive and S. Douglas Highway. After the weird flipping in my stomach and dark Italian roast coffee, I was ready to put some food down there. The Top Pot apple fritter melted in my mouth before Ilene had the car in park and fished her cheese danish out. We sat in the car, nibbling doughnuts and sucking down caramel macchiatos while she laid out the day’s plans.

  “First, we need to hit a grocery store and pick up some food for the party tonight.” She penciled a checkmark on the list in her hand and nibbled her danish while I tore into my second doughnut. “Then hit a liquor drive-thru and get you some,” she shuddered, “beer. And then figure out what to do with it all after we get home.”

  I balled up my wrappers and napkins like I’d done with Slade, slam dunking the wad into the bag on the seat. “Done.” I swigged down another gulp of the syrupy sweet drink. “With food in my tummy, we can do whatever you want.”

  A smirky half-smile bloomed on Ilene’s face. “Well, I see you’ve picked up a few interesting traits from your cowboy.”

  My chin fell nearly to my chest. “He’s not mine anymore. Never really was…”

  “Yes he was, and yes he is.” She grabbed my hand and forced me to look at her. “I know what Slade did upset you, Kally, but he did it out of love and instinct.” My chin dropped again. I didn’t want to look into her eyes, so earnest and unguarded. She refused to allow me to shy away from rea
lity, lifting my chin until she could pin me with her gaze. “He loves you and you love him. Sooner or later you’re going to have to face it.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “You are going to have to talk to him and work through this.”

  If I heard his voice, talked to him, I’d turn to mush. The resolve I called on to move to Ilene’s would melt away. “I’m not sure I’m ready.”

  “Maybe not, but you two will talk...eventually. You know you are welcome to stay with us indefinitely. I have a gut feeling you will be going back to the ranch.”

  Sarcasm reared its ugly head. “From your gut to God’s ears.”

  She stuffed the last of her danish in her mouth, stowed the coffee in a cup holder and pulled back out on the street. “Grocery store, here we come!”

  We ended up at Ilene’s favorite store, a fussy, foodie kind of place where even the vegetables had aristocratic names. Ilene, in her glory, disappeared into the produce section, while I went straight on to the protein and cholesterol-laden meats and dairy. When we met near the checkout, she had an elegant arrangement of fruits on a clear tray. I held a black-bottomed platter of meats and cheeses. Ilene eyed my deli tray with amusement. “Going for the old ‘heart attack on a plate’ thing tonight?”

  “Only if I eat the whole thing.” I winked and she laughed while she wiggled her skinny butt into the express lane. Our last stop was a drive-thru liquor store, a terribly western source of fascination for an old Michigander like me. It was an exhilarating sense of getting away with something, like being a teenager at a dirt two-track party out in the woods. We giggled for blocks. Ilene’s eyes sparkled. “That just never gets old.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Back at home, we stuffed the trays into the fridge and left the beer in the garage where it would stay cold and not take up any more room. Ilene whistled for Tinker and Zip, the Pomeranian terror twins and then pointed at the phone. “How about you check the phone messages so I can put the puppers out?”