Montana Cowgirl

by Debra Salonen

  He bounded off the bed and crashed through the bathroom door. “We can be fast.”

  OC looked around the waiting room where they’d moved him after Jack stopped breathing. The honey brown walls reminded him of a spaniel he once owned. The framed posters were flowery and generic. Four long, narrow windows did little to provide either a view or sunlight.

  The designated spot for a wheelchair fit snugly between a low table filled with dog-eared, germ-laced magazines and an empty chair. A nurse had offered him the use of a wheelchair after he’d awoken to a shrill, insistent alarm coming from Jack’s monitor and lunged out of the makeshift bed without thinking.

  He’d fallen, of course, adding to the chaos surrounding Jack’s final moments on earth.

  OC didn’t know what he believed about death. He couldn’t say what happened after you died. But he’d seen movies with ghosts hovering over their dead bodies. He wondered if Jack’s soul had gotten a kick out of seeing OC being helped to his feet...foot...by two burly male orderlies.

  He hoped so.

  He glanced at the only other occupant in the room—a man in his early twenties, sprawled across three chairs.

  I was that limber once, he thought. Jack and I could sleep anywhere.

  They’d camped in places most humans didn’t know existed. Places where you kept one ear open for wolves, the other for bears. When they were in the backcountry, they rarely drank. A sip or two from the flask one of them brought. But once they hit town...look out.

  There was a time when they could drink any guy in the bar under the table. They’d had more than their share of laughs.

  But OC wasn’t laughing now. He’d stared reality in the face as Jack’s breathing became more and more labored. The nurses visited every ten minutes or so from one o’clock on. They’d fiddle with the morphine drip, check his vitals, and smile sadly or encouragingly at OC, depending on their temperament.

  The last thing Jack said that made any sense was, “Don’t hate Marla, OC. Her thing with money is like us with booze. She bought shit because she couldn’t not buy it.”

  OC wasn’t sure he believed that, but Jack obviously did. And, despite everything, Jack still loved his wife. He’d called out her name several times—in pain or regret, OC didn’t know.

  Don’t hate Marla.

  OC understood hate. He’d lived off the emotion for many periods of his life. Hate made him strong enough to survive a childhood that would have killed a lesser man.

  Hating young Paul Zabrinski for knocking-up his daughter made losing Bailey a whole lot easier. For a few years, he’d even managed to forget his role in her oft-expressed desire to leave Montana for good.

  Hating minorities, foreigners, flatlanders and freaks kept him from looking too closely at his own mistakes.

  “Mr. Jenkins?”

  A white-haired woman wearing a long-sleeve pink uniform top and stretchy gray pants stood in the doorway. “Are you ready to go downstairs?”

  “I told the nurse I could manage on my own but she wanted me to wait here.”

  The woman smiled broadly. “Thank goodness. Helping patients or their loved ones to the door is the only exercise I get.”

  “Given the size of her butt, she needs a mass exodus,” OC swore he heard Jack whisper.

  For a quiet man, Jack had a wicked sense of humor.

  The woman fussed with OC’s walker but finally managed to secure it to the wheelchair. Once in the elevator, she gabbed serenely the entire time it took to reach the main floor. She told him about Reno’s housing boom—or bust, depending on which newspaper you read, and the importance of getting a flu shot each year.

  “I lost a dear friend to pure stubbornness last winter,” she told him as she set the brake on his chair. “Don’t rob your loved ones of your presence simply because you think you’re tougher than a little germ.”

  The old OC would have cussed her out until she scurried off in tears. The new and hopefully improved OC meekly nodded and smiled.

  She wished him well and walked back inside.

  The desert air made his nostrils crinkle. One of the nurses told him they were predicting temperatures over a hundred and five today. Another reason to get in the air as soon as possible.

  That, and he needed to see his wife.

  He fumbled with the phone in his shirt pocket, but after a couple of tries he managed to call Louise.

  “Hello? OC? Is he gone? Has Jack passed?”

  He’d planned to call her from the waiting room but he hadn’t wanted to wake up the sleeping guy. “Yep. Just before dawn. I’m waiting for Bailey and Paul to come pick me up.”

  “I’m so sorry. I guess it’s for the best if he had cancer, but it’s still hard to believe we’ll never see him again.”

  “He told me he was coming back to make things right between us. That’s why she shot him.” OC’s throat squeezed tight. “He asked me not to hate Marla. How am I supposed to do that?”

  “You could pray.”

  He shook his head. He didn’t know where this sudden fascination with God and church was coming from, but he wasn’t having anything to do with it. He saw God every day in the crystal clear water in the high mountain streams, in the flecks of dark gold in his beautiful daughter’s hair, in his wife’s generous smile. He didn’t need to go to church or listen to a preacher tell him how to be a better man. Jack had given him the key, if OC was man enough to do it.

  “Quit hiding in a bottle, OC. You’re the best man I’ve ever known—my one true friend, but you act like the biggest horse’s ass around most of the time. Stay sober. And every once in awhile, say something nice to the people who love you. From the heart. Even if it scares the shit out of you to take the risk.”

  “How ’bout I start by telling you I love you, Luly?”

  Her voice sounded tearful. “I love you, too, dear heart.”

  “That doesn’t mean I can forgive Marla for what she did to Jack, but I’m not going to let hating her eat me up inside. Okay?”

  “That’s a wonderful start, my love. I’ll see you soon. I’m making pancakes for the children.” Her voice turned light and happy. “I adore them both, OC. Do you think there’s any chance Bailey and Paul might patch things up? I would love to be a grandma.”

  He looked toward the road and spotted a small silver rental car turning in. Bailey and Paul. He’d thought about the two of them a lot last night. He’d even conjured up the memory of his role in their break-up. “I don’t know, dear, but I’ll give it some thought. Bailey and Paul just pulled up. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

  He pocketed his phone and sat up, making sure he had the bag of Jack’s personal belongings the nurse had slipped over the handle. He hadn’t looked through any of it, but he assumed Jack’s billfold was there.

  Paul jumped out of the driver’s side, like a valet hoping for a big tip.

  I got a tip for you, kid. Quit trying so hard. My girl loves you, and you’re starting to grow on me.

  Any worries Bailey had about trying to convince her father she and Paul were still the same dysfunctional couple they had been before making love three...no, four, times, counting the quickie this morning, disappeared the moment she saw him sitting him in a wheelchair outside the hospital. He’s aged ten years.

  She put aside her own worries and got out of the rental car to help Paul.

  “Hey, Dad,” she said, leaning over to give him an awkward hug.

  When had his broad-as-the-mountain shoulders downscaled? “I’m really sorry about Jack. How are you doing?”

  OC made his usual gruff mumble about being okay but then he surprised her by patting the hand she’d placed on the arm of the wheelchair for support. “Being here with him was the right thing to do. No man should die alone when he’s got people who care about him.”

  His touch was warmer and more substantial than she expected it to be. He’d never been overly affectionate in the past.

  “Do you need anything before we head back home? How are you
on pills?”

  He took a deep breath, as if just then noticing he was outside in the open. “I slept a little once it was clear Jack was past the point of talking. And one of the nurses showed me how to set the timer on your mom’s phone. Every time it makes a ding-dong sound, I take a pill.”

  A second later, he reached across his body with his left hand and grabbed the handles of a large, heavy-gauge white plastic bag hanging down the back of his chair. “Jack wanted me to take his stuff. Said there was something for you in his wallet.”

  She carried the bag to the car as Paul stowed the walker in the trunk then pushed the wheelchair closer. She placed the bag on the floor of the backseat before stepping out of the way so OC could get in.

  She couldn’t imagine what sort of legacy Jack might have left her. He’d always been nice to her, but they were far from close. Marla wouldn’t have allowed such fraternization, for one thing. Jack’s wife seemed threatened by the fact OC had a child and she didn’t. Somehow, that wound up being Bailey’s fault.

  “We’re going to stop for breakfast, OC,” Paul said, moving the chair out of the way of the door. “We could pick up some breakfast burritos to-go, if you prefer, but my father taught me never fly on an empty stomach.”

  OC, who seemed preoccupied with fastening his seatbelt, made a whatever-you-want gesture.

  Paul used the chance to palm Bailey’s behind and give her a lusty look that made her knees quiver. The mutual attraction between them would have been obvious to anyone looking.

  She gave him a reprimanding scowl. Paul merely laughed, or, rather, started to laugh. Apparently realizing how inappropriate that might sound given their circumstances, he turned his chortle into a cough.

  OC looked up. “You’re not getting sick, are you? What’d you two do last night? Gamble till the wee hours?”

  “Not me.” Bailey put her hand to her heart. “I was in bed by nine.”

  Paul faked a yawn. She could tell it was fake because his eyes twinkled with humor. “I don’t sleep well in hotels. I was up and down all night.”

  He started to push the wheelchair toward the hospital, but paused to call over his shoulder, “Don’t worry, OC. I’ll get you home in one piece. I promise.”

  “That’s good. Lost all I intend to for awhile.”

  Bailey studied her father’s haggard profile, trying to decipher any hidden meaning in his words. He looked exhausted. Too wiped out to care about what she and Paul had done the night before.

  She closed the rear passenger door and got in.

  Would OC have a problem with her getting it on with an old friend? Probably. She recalled him threatening to “castrate the little prick” when he found out she was pregnant. But a lot had changed since then.

  She glanced sideways when Paul got behind the wheel. His aviator glasses hid his thoughts, but his grin was that of a happy, hopeful, satisfied man.

  She knew the feeling. Little pieces of her old self had been mortared back in place. Who knew there was such restorative power in heat and passion?

  “Everything okay? Are you ready to go home?” His warm hand settled on her bare forearm. Rock solid. Here and now.

  But what awaited them in Marietta? His family...well, his brother, at least, hated her. “I’m fine...considering I’m a complete and utter mess.”

  OC leaned forward. “Jack told me something last night that got me thinking about you two. He said history only repeats itself if we don’t learn something the first time around.”

  Bailey glanced at Paul. “That’s...interesting.”

  “You’re a good man, Paul. You two might have had a chance, if not for me pushing Bailey to have that abortion.”

  Bailey’s jaw dropped. The A-word. Had OC ever spoken that word out loud in her presence? She didn’t think so.

  Paul killed the motor and turned sideways in the seat so he could look at father and daughter. “Go on.”

  “I bullied Bailey until she didn’t have any choice,” he told him. To Bailey, he said, “And I beat the snot out of Paul.”

  Bailey looked at Paul. “What?”

  He held up his hand to let her father finish.

  “I did it because I didn’t want you trapped in Montana your whole damn life without a chance. ’Cause that’s what happened to my mama, and it killed her. I killed her.”

  Bailey turned too quickly and bumped her ankle against her heavy leather purse. Tiny pin-pricks of pain danced across her vision but she kept her focus on her father. “What do you mean you killed her?”

  “Ma was pregnant when she married my pa. In those days you didn’t have options. She couldn’t disgrace her family and she had no education, no skills to raise a child alone...so she got married, even though my pa was older, reckless and probably took advantage of her just because he could. He sure as hell didn’t love her. She did the right thing...but being noble wasn’t enough to make her want to live. She turned on the new gas oven and didn’t light it one day when I was at school. She was dead by the time I got home.”

  “My grandmother committed suicide?” She looked at Paul, trying to make sense of the idea. “But, you told me she died of influenza.”

  “Never told nobody the truth...except Jack. He said secrets undercut everything you build in life. No matter how strong the foundation, the whole thing will fall to shit if the ground under it caves in.”

  He looked at Bailey, first, then Paul. “I had no business sticking my nose in your business—even if I thought I was doing the right thing. I’m sorry.”

  He sat back without another word, eyes closed.

  Paul looked at her, his expression reflecting her shock. “Maybe we’ll pick up breakfast burritos on the way to the airport.”

  Bailey shrugged. She felt pummeled like a punching bag. Left hook followed by one to the gut. She looked over her shoulder. OC’s silver hair hung lank and oily. The eggplant-toned bags under his eyes made his cheeks even more gaunt than usual.

  She thought she’d excised the memory from her mind, but it came rushing back. As tough as it had been telling Paul her decision, nothing compared to the horror show at her house the night she told her parents she was pregnant.

  OC grabbed her by the shoulders and shook until she fought back. Physical intimidation hadn’t worked on her for years. His guilt-based mind games, though, did a number on her. He’d called her a selfish slut. Said she’d thrown away everything he and her mother had worked and sacrificed for.

  She’d felt so mixed up she’d wound up believing the most selfish choice was to keep it, regardless of which of the subsequent options she picked: marry Paul, give it up for adoption or raise it herself.

  In the end, she’d given in.

  Only now did she realize not once in all those shouting matches had it occurred to her to ask why OC cared so much about something that was her decision, her life.

  Would knowing the truth have made any difference, she wondered? Probably not at the time, but even a tiny bit of empathy might have pried loose a brick or two in the wall between them.

  Maybe.

  Chapter 16

  “The barn? Really? This is your idea of a hot date?” Bailey asked the man lounging like a sexy western-wear cover model on a bale of hay—over which he’d spread a brand spanking new sleeping bag. “Did you leave the price tag on it for a reason?”

  Paul grinned. “I was in a hurry. When you texted that you were on your way back from Bozeman, I did the math and figured out if I snuck out of Big Z’s without telling anybody, we might be able to steal half an hour to ourselves. Here.”

  He tapped the puffy red, green and gold plaid material.

  Bailey tried to act perturbed by the sudden booty call, but, honestly, she couldn’t pull it off.

  In the three weeks since their trip to Reno, she and Paul had had to scramble and plot to grab any time alone. His kids were here twenty-four/seven because their cousins were staying at Grandma and Grandpa Zabrinski’s. Plus, Chloe was doing so well with Skipper her mot
her agreed to let her participate in several Western Show events at the fair. So, every morning—despite the fact Bailey didn’t have a minute to spare—Bailey drove Chloe to this very barn to supervise her training.

  She kicked off her sandals and hopped up beside him. “Works for me.”

  Paul pulled her close. “Unfortunately, we have to hurry because I’m meeting a potential renter here at three.”

  “You found a renter already? Wow.”

  Paul had offered her the place, but Bailey’s money was invested in the infrastructure of her business at the moment. She couldn’t begin to even think about moving out of her parents’ house. Did her living arrangements compromise her sex life? Holy hell, yes. But if—the big if—she sold enough at her booth during the two weeks of the fair, she’d look into setting down some roots.

  The big if. She didn’t want to think about leaving. She wanted to think about staying forever. With Paul. Not that they’d talked about such things. Paul was too distracted and she was too nervous. What if her jewelry didn’t sell? What if her prices were too high? Her designs too different? Or what if people remembered the stuck-up Fair Queen who left town as if it had cooties and wanted nothing to do with her?

  She pushed away her fears and wrapped her arms around Paul’s middle, burying her face in his neck. He’d been pushing her to go “all in.” His optimism made anything seem possible. And he and his crew had pulled off the impossible, getting the fairgrounds ready for this two-week extravaganza.

  “Aren’t you burnt out? Did you sleep last night?” she asked, kissing his skin at the V of his Henley.

  “Sleep is for sissies.”

  He kissed her, his tongue impetuous, taking advantage of her willingness to play. The barn was warmed from the sunlight that found its way through a cracked window here, an open stall there. She felt at home here—and in his arms, and she was eager to recapture the memory of their first time.

  “How come we’re not in the loft?”

  “No hay. Can you imagine?” The mischievous glint in his true blue eyes made something elemental and pure take hold in her heart. “I hope the next renter shows better form than to let the hay mow run dry. Making love out in the open like this is dangerous. Anybody could walk in on us.”