“I like it here,” Mother said.
Amy rolled down her window and slowed the car to study the town. Now that her mother was safe beside her, she had the time to give in to curiosity. Small towns had always seemed so foreign to her.
Ordinary, Montana, possessed more charm than Amy had expected.
Tall, black lamps with glass heads, imitating old-fashioned gas lamps, lined both sides of the street. Hung from brackets mounted high on each post, peat-lined wire pots overflowed with pink ivy geraniums and white alyssum.
The New America Diner caught her eye. It advertised an all-day breakfast—bacon, eggs, toast and “the best home fries this side of Butte” for $4.99. The New America must have been “new” way back in the fifties, but now showed its age in an old sign and flaking paint. Every table in the window was full, though. That said all a person needed to know about the place.
The scent of roast beef drifted on the tame breeze.
A tall, handsome man stepped out of the diner and nestled a cowboy hat onto his dark hair. He was herding two small children. A woman wearing jeans, a plaid shirt and red cowboy boots followed. They looked happy.
Amy couldn’t really remember what happy felt like.
Two boys scooted by on bicycles. “Turn right,” the second boy yelled to the one at the front. “Let’s go to the park.”
On the other side of the diner stood the police station, then a store called The Price is Right, boasting gently used clothing.
A sign on a pretty shop caught her eye. To Boldly Grow.
Amy laughed. A Star Trek fan, just like herself. She’d have to meet the florist one day. Amy had gotten hooked on reruns of the original series. She loved the sci-fi corniness of it and had become a Trekkie, but only in secret. Tony had been disgusted with her, said it was unsophisticated, dumb. Told her not to tell his friends.
With a shrug, Amy thought, I don’t care what you think anymore, Tony.
Time to become proud of her own idiosyncrasies.
The Stars and Stripes hanging above the door of the post office waved in a gentle breeze.
“Simply lovely.” Mother sighed.
“Yes, it is,” Amy murmured.
She glanced at the expanse of green and brown fields under the huge Montana sky as they drove toward the ranch. She breathed deeply of young sprouting grasses and dark earth.
Mother caught her breath. “Oh, Amy, it’s so beautiful, isn’t it?”
Amy nodded, captivated by a landscape that had felt foreign to her only yesterday.
They arrived at the ranch and Amy came around the car to open Mother’s door and help her out.
Mother stood and took in the landscape and the weeping willow on the lawn and the white house with the blue shutters.
“Oh, what a pretty place.” She sighed.
Hank came out of the house and walked toward them, a soft smile splitting his face as he stared at her mother. Amy tried to see her as he would.
She looked almost perky, wearing her favorite dress—the navy-blue-and-white polka-dotted, short-sleeved one Amy had given her for Christmas two years ago.
Her hair was a perfectly groomed, sleek little cap of gray with strands of auburn running through it—few and far between these days. An older version of Amy’s own green eyes watched Hank. Wrinkles creased the corners of her eyes and mouth, deeper than Amy remembered them being. Even so, Mother was aging gracefully. She was a lovely sixty-five-year-old.
Hank approached and extended his hand. “Hello. You must be Amy’s mother. I would have recognized you anywhere. I see she got her beauty from you.”
Amy nearly rolled her eyes before she realized he wasn’t laying on phony flattery. He was serious and Mother blushed.
“Mother, this is Hank Shelter.” Amy rested her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “Hank, my mother, Gladys Graves.”
Hank took the hand he held and placed it on his forearm. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Graves.”
“Call me Gladys. It doesn’t sound as old, does it?”
Hank smiled at her. “We’ve got a room ready for you.”
“You have?”
“Yes. It looks out over that flower garden.”
“I love flowers, don’t I, Amy?” She didn’t wait for her daughter’s response, Amy noticed, she was so taken by the big cowboy giving her his undivided attention.
Hank drew Gladys under the shade of the tree, where they talked quietly like old friends, leaving Amy to get Mother’s one bag out of the trunk.
Later, Amy settled herself in the room tucked under the eaves in the attic, three flights up. Hank carried her suitcase upstairs and set it on the homemade patchwork quilt covering the bed. When he stood up, he banged his head on the low, slanted ceiling.
“I hope this room works out for you,” he said, removing his cowboy hat and punching the dent out of it. “You know, I thought your mother would be a lot younger than she is.”
Amy crossed the room—three short steps—to the window to open it. She couldn’t breathe. The room was too small, no larger than her childhood room in Butte. How was she going to sleep in here, with the dark-stained wooden ceiling bearing down on her like a weight?
At least the walls were dry. No water stains on musty wallpaper—unlike that long-ago room. This room smelled like dry cedar.
Finally answering Hank, she said, “Most people assume that my mother will be younger than she is. I was a relatively late child.”
“Me, too,” Hank said.
Amy stared out at the view. At least there was plenty of space outside. Hank’s land seemed to go on forever.
She looked over her shoulder at him. “I’ve wondered why there’s such a big age difference between you and Leila.”
“Leila and I had different mothers. Her mother died when she was little. Dad married his second wife, my mom, years later. Leila was fifteen when I was born. My mother died years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Amy mumbled. Her mother was a burden at times, but Amy couldn’t imagine life without her. “So that’s why you and Leila are so different?”
“Yup. As different as night and day. She takes after Dad.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry this room isn’t much.”
“It’s fine.” She paced to the bed—three short steps from the window.
Hank blushed. “Naw, it isn’t big enough. We’re full to the rafters right now. You can move to the second floor once this set of kids leaves.” Hank stood inside the door with his hands in his pockets.
“When is that?” she asked.
“At the end of this week.”
So many children came through here. How could he stand to say goodbye so often?
“That’s a shorter visit than I would have thought,” she said.
“They got here two weeks before you did. They stay for three weeks, leaving us one week out of each month to pull the ranch back together and get ready for the next set.”
Hank leaned his big shoulder against the doorjamb, filling the doorway, making the room feel about as small as the nearly nonexistent closet. He smelled lemony and a touch spicy. Tangy. So unlike the thick aftershave Tony used.
Even three feet away, Amy felt heat radiating from his big body. She sure wouldn’t need many blankets if she slept with him.
She pulled up short at that thought. If she slept with him? Where on earth had that come from?
Standing abruptly, she opened her suitcase. “This room will be just fine,” she told Hank in her best take-charge tone, fooling him even if she couldn’t fool herself. He left the room.
After unpacking, she returned to the first floor and went in to dinner. Mother was already there with everyone else, sitting at the other end of the table on Hank’s right. They talked quietly throughout the meal. Mother lapped up the attention like a flower starved for moisture.
A frisson of guilt fluttered through Amy’s stomach. She should have given Mother more of her time in Billings. What kind of daughter was she?
THE FOLLOWING MORNING,
after settling Mother in the living room with tea and magazines, Amy went in search of Hank.
“I need to get into that office,” she said when she spotted him near the open front door.
He pretended he didn’t hear her and turned to leave, but Amy knew there was no way he hadn’t heard her. She ran across the foyer and shut the door before he could leave.
She squeezed between him and the closed door and said, “Where is the key?” She wasn’t taking no for an answer today.
He stepped back. “I lost it?”
She shook her head and laughed. “Uh-uh. That lie smells as bad as the pile of manure behind the stables.”
He reached into his pocket. Amy wondered why he looked wary. What on earth was in that office?
HANK OPENED the office door and allowed Amy to step inside ahead of him.
He tried to see the room from a visitor’s perspective.
Rodeo belt buckles, tidy and free of dust, lined a shelf along one wall. A profusion of photos in matching frames covered the walls above the shelves in marching order.
Hundreds of unframed snapshots of children in small white cowboy hats papered another wall, his favorite part of the house.
Two overstuffed burgundy leather armchairs, one on either side of his massive desk, and bookshelves lining two walls filled the floor space.
Hank shied away from looking at the papers that littered the desk.
Amy wandered closer to the photographs above the belt buckles.
In one, Hank sat on a rearing horse, holding on to the reins with one hand.
Another showed the same pose, but on a bull who had his hind legs in the air and his massive head and chest near the ground, straining with all his might to unseat his rider, while Hank sat erect on the bull’s back.
“Dear God!” Amy exclaimed, and pointed to one of the photos. “That bull’s head is three times the size of yours.”
“Yeah,” he said. “They are big animals.”
She pointed to a photo of a bull chasing a clown. The bull, Razorblade, had tried to gore Hank’s backside a split second after he’d jumped over a fence. Razorblade’s horns had taken a sizable chunk out of the wood.
“That was the last time I volunteered to be a clown,” Hank said, smiling. “Won’t do it again anytime soon. Most dangerous job in the rodeo.”
Amy stared at Hank, looked him up and down.
“How tall are you?” she asked.
“Six-two.” What did that have to do with anything?
She nodded toward the photo. “You’re a big man, you’ve got wide shoulders, great biceps, but you’re dwarfed by that bull.”
She looked angry, but he was too caught up in her comment on his biceps to worry.
“What on earth possessed you to do something so foolish?” she asked in a harsh voice. “Cowboys are every bit as mortal as anyone else on earth.”
Hank bristled. “The regular guy was sick. You have to have a clown to distract the bull once he’s tossed his rider, to give the guy a chance to get out of the way.”
She shivered. “But why would a person get on a bull in the first place?”
Hank bit the inside of his cheek, then said, “I guess you have to be raised in the culture to understand it.”
Amy frowned and stepped away. “You’re right. My apologies. Rule number one in business, don’t criticize the client’s work.”
He heard the unspoken end of the sentence, “Or his hobby or whatever the rodeo is to him.” Her calling him a client rankled. Reminded him she was here to work.
She gestured toward the chaos on top of the desk. It looked like every paper that had ever entered this house was stacked there.
Hank hated like hell for her to see the paperwork that way, but he’d never figured out how to deal with it. Willie was no help. He couldn’t file, either.
“Tell me what’s what here,” Amy said. “Where are your ledgers?”
Hank cleared his throat. “My what?”
“The ledgers,” Amy repeated.
Hank couldn’t breathe, knew that his face looked blank. He didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.
“Your financial statements?” she asked.
He gestured toward the piles scattered around the room. “You’ll find everything to do with the ranch here. Any of the older stuff my dad took care of will be in the drawers or in there.” He pointed to a short filing cabinet tucked into a corner behind the door.
Amy frowned at the confusion. “But the rest of the ranch is so neat.”
The tips of Hank’s ears felt hot. Man, he hated this. Yeah, he was good at lots of other things, but not paperwork, or office stuff.
He needed to get out of here and spun around to head into the hall.
“But—” He heard her speak as he hit the hallway racing. He set his feet in the direction of the door. If he hurried, he might get out of here before she managed to catch him and complain about his methods. She’d have every right. The screen door slammed shut behind him when he left the house.
She stayed in that office for hours. She’d only been here for two days, but today Hank missed her in his truck and in the stable doing chores. At the start, he’d had plans to get her off his ranch as soon as possible. Yet now, irrationally, he wanted her around longer.
He wanted her to spend time with him, not to uncover things that were better left hidden.
She made him feel his own faults too keenly, but she also made him long for things he hadn’t thought about in years. Sharing, teaching new things, holding, kissing.
He needed to show her more of his land, to make her proud of him and the work he did with the kids.
She was a smart lady. She’d have her work done by the end of the week if he didn’t slow her down in some way. And inspiration for that came the moment he spotted Cheryl.
“You like Amy, don’t you?” he asked the little girl.
Cheryl nodded.
“Do you want to spend time with her in the office?”
Cheryl nodded again.
“Okay, you can do that. Just knock on the door.”
Using Cheryl to keep Amy away from all of that paperwork was low, but a man did what a man had to do in this life.
A TIMID KNOCK on the closed office door pulled Amy away from her task. She straightened and rubbed the small of her back.
“Come in.”
The door opened slowly, then Cheryl stepped into the room.
“Yes?” Amy asked.
The child stared at her with wide dark eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Work. I’m busy,” Amy blurted, unnerved by the wisdom in those eyes—a child old before her time.
Cheryl approached the desk and patted Amy’s lap. “Can I sit here?”
“I—” Amy tried to say no but couldn’t. Cheryl had already wiggled her way under Amy’s skin. She nodded.
Cheryl climbed onto her lap. “Can I work, too?”
Amy placed a timid kiss on Cheryl’s head. She handed her a sheet of paper and a pencil, then started shuffling piles of envelopes and receipts around on the desk, trying to concentrate on work again. But all she could think about was Cheryl’s weight on her legs and the warm breath that whispered through the child’s open mouth onto Amy’s hand.
Amy felt her throat clog. The skin on the back of Cheryl’s neck looked as pale as a newborn chick’s. Amy ran one finger down her nape and found it unbearably soft.
A ragged sigh escaped Amy as she set her hand on the girl’s shoulder. Tenderness welled in her. She gave in to the inevitable. The child was capturing her heart.
HOURS AFTER he’d sent Cheryl in, Hank stood in front of the closed office door, his office door, hesitating to face that woman again. He came out on the short end whenever he talked to her. Remembering her asking why anyone would get on an angry bull, he felt a lump form in his throat. She’d meant, who would be that stupid? Sometimes he’d wondered that himself. Well, she’d sure pegged him, hadn’t she?
But what about al
l the others involved in the rodeo? They had more than a few useless screws rattling around their brains. He knew for a fact they weren’t all stupid.
He cracked the knuckles of his right hand, then the left. He had to find a way to make her like him and his ranch.
“You gonna stand there all night?”
Hank whirled to find Hannah’s elfin face peeking around the kitchen door.
“Supper is getting cold,” she said. “Amy will be hungry. Cheryl, too.”
As quickly as she had appeared, Hannah was gone. Hank heard the clatter of plates as she set the dining room table.
Taking a deep breath, he knocked.
“Yes?” came the muffled response. Even through the thick oak door, she had a beautiful voice.
“Melodious,” he whispered. He’d always wanted to use that word.
The door opened in front of him and there she stood, pretty, flawless and unwrinkled. He felt dirty from the football game with the kids. He’d only had time to wash his hands and splash water on his face. He hadn’t even combed his hair. He flattened it against his head with both hands, trying to tame it.
“Mangy.” He’d always wanted to use that word, too.
“I beg your pardon?” A frown creased Amy’s forehead.
“Nothing.” He smiled thinly. “I was just wondering if you wanted to join us for dinner.”
AMY TOOK HER CHAIR at the table beside Willie. Mother sat on Hank’s right. Hank chose what looked like the biggest piece of chicken on the platter and placed it on Mother’s plate. They smiled at each other.
Amy felt a twinge of envy that they were developing a bond already, while all she seemed to do was aggravate the man in one way or another. But sometimes, the way he looked at her made her feel…good, itchy, very, very female.
Mother laughed and Amy felt that flicker of envy again.
Oh, get over yourself, and let Mother enjoy her visit here. Even with the reprimand, Amy’s attention rarely left the opposite end of the table and the meal stretched on.
Afterward, Amy retreated to the office. She stared at the photos of the many children on the wall, the ones Hank had brought here after his son died. Was one of these kids Jamie? Hank must have started his family so young, when he was barely out of high school. Was that how they did things in rural communities?
No Ordinary Cowboy Page 7