“Red Man’s getting up in age too, but he’s still got enough piss and vinegar to go when you ask him to.”
“How old is he?” Cody asked.
“He was born when I was about your age, so I guess that makes him about twenty-three now. I had one that looked just like him before that, a sorrel named Buckshot. C’mon. We’re done jawing. Let’s go into the barn and I’ll show you how to get this horse saddled up.”
* * *
Janice couldn’t help feeling a little hurt when Dirk summarily dismissed her, but she knew he had a point. Cody would have been far too distracted had she hung around. Still, she couldn’t help being anxious because Dirk hadn’t been around many kids. He’d surprised her with the patient way he’d handled Cody’s questions though. She reassured herself that they’d seemed to hit it off just fine.
“Hey, Janice.” Donna Knowlton greeted her with a smile. “Come on in. I just made a pot of coffee.”
Janice followed Donna to the kitchen where she sat at the breakfast bar while Donna poured out two cups. “Where’s your son and your mama?” Donna asked.
“Cody’s outside getting acquainted with Dirk and Red Man. Mama’s still feeling under the weather.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Donna’s brows met with a look of concern. “Is she OK?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Janice shook her head and stirred her coffee. “She says it’s just her arthritis, but we’re gonna talk when I get back. I think keeping the place up is way too much for her. Besides that, the old house needs repairs we can’t afford. I know she’d considered moving up to Helena before Cody and I came home. She has a widowed cousin who has a nice place in one of those high-end retirement communities. She invited Mama to move in, but I think she’s stayed here for Cody and me. Now I feel guilty about it. I thought things would work out for all of us once I got here, but it’s been a lot harder than I expected.”
“Times are tough for a lotta folks,” Donna replied sympathetically. “We were considering selling our place as well, but it looks like Dirk might finally be able to turn things around if I can only keep Wade and Justin out of his way.”
“So you believe in Dirk’s new breeding program?”
“I do, but Wade wants nothing to do with ranching anymore, and my husband’s too set in his ways to give Dirk the free rein he needs to make a go of it. With any luck, Justin and I will be wintering in Arizona this year, which will give Dirk a free hand to do things exactly as he sees fit without Justin’s well-meaning interference. He’ll need help though. He can’t run the place by himself.” She gave Janice a thoughtful look. “How’s it working out between the two of you?”
Janice diverted her gaze into her cup. Her relationship with Dirk wasn’t exactly a secret from his family, but she wasn’t ready to talk about it, especially with his mother. “I don’t know. Has he said anything about it?”
“No.” Donna laughed. “He wouldn’t, but I have eyes in my head. You’ve been good for him, Janice. I can’t tell you how different he’s been. I even caught him whistling once. If that isn’t proof of a Knowlton man in love, I don’t know what is. Justin only whistles after…well…” She gave a slow sly smile. “Let’s just say, only when he’s particularly…content.” Donna winked.
Janice flushed from her neck to her hairline. “I’m just taking this one day at a time.”
“Smart girl.” Donna nodded.
Janice drained her coffee cup and glanced out the window. “I’m a bit anxious about how it’s going with Dirk and Cody.”
“Then why don’t we go out and see?” Donna suggested. “I need to call Justin in to clean up for dinner anyway. He always loses track of time when he’s tinkering in the workshop.”
“But I promised Dirk I’d stay away for an hour,” Janice said. “He thinks Cody won’t listen as well if I’m there. He’s probably right.”
“Well that doesn’t mean we can’t watch them unobserved for a few minutes,” Donna said. “Come and sit on the back porch with me. We might not be able to hear everything, but we can see the corrals just fine from there.”
“If you’re sure we won’t get caught.”
“I’m sure. I kept tabs on my boys for years unnoticed. They didn’t get away with half the things they thought they would.”
Cody was already on the horse, sitting solid as a rock and trotting circles around Dirk who looked on with an expression of approval. The sight of them together filled Janice with emotions she couldn’t even name.
At Dirk’s nod, Cody nudged the horse into an easy lope.
“Will you look at that!” Janice declared, but Donna didn’t answer. She glanced at the other woman to find her leaning heavily on the porch rail. Her face had visibly paled.
“Are you OK, Donna?” Janice asked.
“No, Janice. I don’t think I am,” Donna murmured in reply. “Please excuse me. I need to go inside for a moment.”
“Should I get Dirk? Or Mr. Knowlton?” Janice asked in growing alarm.
“No. I’ll be fine. I—I just need a minute.”
Janice had never seen Donna Knowlton so discomposed. As soon as Donna left her, Janice descended the porch steps, heading toward the corral in rapid, ground-eating strides.
“Mama, I loped the horse,” Cody exclaimed. “Mr. Dirk says I’ll earn my spurs in no time.”
“That’s wonderful, Cody! I’m so proud of you,” Janice declared, then slanted an anxious gaze to Dirk. “I’m worried about your mother. She seems to have taken ill all of a sudden. She got real pale and quiet. Does she have any heart problems or anything like that?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Shit! Where is she?” Dirk demanded.
“In the house. I think maybe you should go and check on her. I’ll take care of Cody and Red Man.”
Dirk looked like he wanted to vault over the panels but then thought twice. “Go get my father, would you?” He was out the gate and jogging toward the house before she could even reply.
* * *
“Mama! Where the hell are you?” Dirk opened the door with a bellow.
She was slowly descending the stairs, her hand tightly gripping the banister and her face unusually pale. He bounded up the stairs as fast as his C-Leg would allow. “Are you OK?”
“I am now. I’ve just had a bit of a shock is all.”
“What do you mean? What kind of shock?”
“I need to sit down, Dirk…and so do you.”
He led her to the sofa and lowered himself beside her. “Damn it all, Mama. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Take a look at this.” She produced a Polaroid photo. It was Dirk as a kid in hat and boots smiling at the camera from atop his favorite horse, Buckshot.
“It’s me and Buckshot. What of it?”
“Can’t you see it?” she demanded.
“See what?”
“My God! The resemblance can’t be denied. That boy out there is the spitting image of you!”
“Impossible. You’re seeing things, Mama.” His chest constricted even as he spoke the denial.
“How old is Cody?” she demanded.
“He’ll be ten soon. In March I think,” Dirk choked out his answer while counting months backward. Holy fuck. It couldn’t be!
“Were you and Janice ever… Did you and she…”
He could barely hear her anymore over the roar in his ears. He shoved the photo into his pocket, pushed off the sofa, and banged out the door. He was halfway across the yard when he met his father and Janice hurrying toward the house.
“She’s fine,” he answered his father’s look of alarm.
“Thank you, Jesus!” Justin exhaled.
Dirk dug his keys out of his pocket and headed toward his truck. He didn’t even trust himself to look at Janice.
She trailed after him. “Where are you going?”
“Not now, Red.” He kept walking.
“Please!” She latched onto his arm. “You’ve got to tell me what’s wrong?”
He shook her off, snatched the Polaroid out of his shirt pocket, and shoved it in her face.
“I don’t understand.” Janice frowned at the picture, her forehead wrinkling. “It looks just like my son, but how could you have a picture of Cody?”
“That ain’t Cody.”
“Then who…” She looked up at him with brown eyes growing fearfully wide. “Oh my God. It can’t be…”
“You got some major explaining to do, Red, but I can’t trust myself to hear it right now.”
“Let go, Dirk,” she whispered. “You’re hurting me.”
He released the arm he hadn’t realized he’d taken hold of. “That so?” he hissed. “Well, I can barely fucking breathe.”
* * *
Dirk headed straight to the Stockman, the only watering hole in Twin Bridges, settling into a corner and ordering a bottle of Pendleton. He’d knocked back several shots of the whiskey and was already halfway to shit-faced when his brother walked in. “What the hell are you doing here?” Dirk sneered over his glass.
Wade straddled a chair with a shrug. “They say misery likes company, and since you’re one miserable sonofabitch, here I am.”
“Thought you went back to Bozeman,” Dirk remarked after a time.
A pretty waitress in a low-cut top came to take Wade’s drink order. “Nothing for me, thanks.” He waved her away and then pushed back his hat. “I did for a few days, but I’ve got a court date in Virginia City tomorrow, so when Mama called to say she was making a brisket, I drove down a day early. As it turns out, most of Sunday dinner went to those ugly dogs of yours. Seems no one but them had much appetite.”
Dirk threw back another shot. “You see Janice?”
“Briefly,” Wade replied. “She left almost the minute I got there. Can’t say I blame her. She was pretty distraught.”
“She was distraught?” Dirk gave a derisive snort. “I just found out she had my kid and never even told me! How could she lie about something like that…to me…to Grady. I still can’t fucking believe this!” Dirk shook his head.
“Do you know for sure he’s yours?” Wade asked. “You and I both know that Mama’s got a powerful yen for grandkids.”
“That may be, but she ain’t delusional, Wade. You seen the picture?” He made to refill the glass but then changed his mind and swigged straight from the bottle.
“Yeah, I saw it.”
“I have half a mind to demand a DNA test.”
“You need to think carefully about that, bro,” Wade warned. “I can understand your desire to know for certain, but think what it could do to the kid. Do you really want to go there? Besides, Janice has every right to refuse.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do then?”
“I don’t know, but seems there’s a helluva lot of unanswered questions—questions only she can answer. There’s probably nothing worse than living with the knowledge that you made bad decisions over misunderstandings—I speak from experience. You accused me of jumping to conclusions about you and Rachel. I made that mistake and have lived to regret it. Deeply. Maybe you’re doing the same thing to Janice.”
“I can’t talk to her, Wade. It’ll get real ugly real fast if I even try.”
“I know the photo’s pretty damning, but it’s not enough to try and sentence her without even giving her a chance to explain. Don’t you think she deserves to speak her piece?”
“Yeah, like all the chances you gave me and Rachel?” Dirk scoffed.
Wade groaned. “I was an asshole, all right? Rachel might be alive today if only I’d listened instead of making accusations.”
Dirk set the bottle down and sharply eyed his brother. “What are you saying?”
“That I know you and she didn’t betray me. Deep down I’ve always known it. I wanted to believe it to assuage my own guilty conscience. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Took you damn long enough to see it,” Dirk grunted.
“Look, I can’t change what’s happened between us in the past, but I want to help you through all this shit. Don’t make the kind of mistakes I made.”
“What’s the point?” Dirk demanded. “Whether she lied or not, I don’t see how we can ever get past this. How could I ever trust her?
“There you go again. At least hear her side of the story before you pass judgment.”
“Will you take off the fucking lawyer hat already?” Dirk snapped.
“I’m not speaking as a lawyer, Dirk. I’m trying to be a brother, just like you were for me when I nearly drank myself into a coma. By the way, you don’t need this any more than I did.” Wade snatched the bottle from Dirk’s hands. He held it at a distance, shaking his head with a wistful look. Dirk could see the desire for a drink in his brother’s eyes and grudgingly admired Wade’s self-restraint. He’d never expected Wade would give up booze completely, especially given how long and hard he’d hit the bottle after Rachel’s accident.
“I can’t even tell you how much I’d like to join you in that bottle,” Wade said, “but I’m done with self-destruction.” He shoved it across the table and out of reach.
“I’m guessing things ain’t so peachy with Peaches?” Dirk remarked.
“Her name’s Nikki, dammit! And, yeah. I fucked it all up royally by issuing ultimatums when I should have given her some time and space. I was a dickhead. Nikki is the best thing that’s happened to me in nearly four years, and from what I’ve heard, you could say pretty much the same about Janice.”
“Then you don’t know shit,” Dirk retorted. “There’s no fucking comparison!”
“Then you better get your damn head straight and think real hard about what’s really on the line here. You’ve spent the past four years busting your ass…for what? I was there once too. Didn’t care about anything but proving myself to the world. I thought I was making a better future for my family but what did that really get me? I lost it all, Dirk. Wife and baby. Now you’re doing the same thing. So I gotta ask, what are you killing yourself for?”
“For the ranch, dammit! You might not give a shit about the place, but I still do.”
Wade raised a hand with a black look. “Wait just a damn minute. It’s time we got this straight between us. It isn’t that I don’t care. I just don’t see how any private ranch is gonna survive into the future, let alone thrive, when we’ve got fat-ass government bureaucrats legislating the life out of farmers and ranchers across the country.”
“Then why don’t you put your money where your big fat mouth is and do something about that?” Dirk challenged. “You’ve got the friggin’ law degree. Why not put it to work for some real good?”
Wade sat back. “As it turns out, I’ve been thinking about just that. A lot of thinking actually.”
“That so?”
“Yeah,” Wade said. “I might take a job up at the capital. I’m thinking I might try to work my way into the state legislature.”
“Then that’s all the more reason for me to keep on at the ranch,” Dirk said. “I’ve got a plan to get us back in the black. It’s on the brink of coming together. I only need more time.”
“I still have my doubts, but let’s just say it does happen as you planned. What then? You really think you’re gonna be satisfied with your thankless ranching life? The cattle ain’t gonna keep you warm at night.”
“Look, I already had it all figured out—before she walked in and wreaked havoc with my life.”
“That so?” Wade cocked a brow. “So now you’re just gonna let her walk back out again? You’re deluding yourself if you think everything is just gonna settle back the way it was before. You need her and you know it.”
“Screw that. And screw you too.”
“You
saying you don’t care about her?”
“Fuck off, Wade!”
Wade smirked. “I’ll take that as an affirmative.”
“All right. If you have to stick your goddamn nose into my business. Yeah. I do care about Janice. I always have, and that already scared the ever-lovin’ shit out of me even before all this!”
“If you were wanting to take her on with a kid before this happened, what’s the real problem here? You should count it a damned blessing if the boy is really yours. Seems to me you’ve all the more reason to work this out.”
“Now you’re making me feel like a self-centered asshole.”
“If the boot fits…” Wade slouched back and cocked his hat with a grin. “You might actually be the biggest asshole I know, but you’re still my brother and I care about you. What’s more, whether you deserve her or not, Janice seems to care too.”
Wade was right. He’d been an asshole. But now he realized he had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Chapter 17
Janice’s heart leaped into her throat at the sight of Dirk shadowing the doorway, but she refused to let him see how much she hurt. “How’d you get in here?” She opened a drawer and emptied the contents onto the bed beside the suitcase.
“Your mother let me in,” Dirk said. “What are you doing?” He had to navigate around the boxes and Bubble Wrap that littered the bedroom floor to get to her.
“What does it look like?” She glanced up at him. “I’m packing.” She slammed the drawer shut, barely missing her own fingers.
“We need to talk.”
“Now you want to talk? What about two days ago?” She snatched up a pillow and hit him with it. It wasn’t nearly enough, so she followed with an attempted punch to his gut, but he grabbed her wrist before she could land it.
“Maybe I was a dickhead two days ago.”
“Yeah, you were.” She laughed bitterly. “But maybe that hasn’t changed. Now is not a convenient time, Dirk.”
“What I came for can’t wait any longer.” He stepped beside her and shut the suitcase, forcing her to acknowledge his questions. “Is he really mine? Is Cody my son?”
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