Return To Big Sky

by Jade Cary

  “Sounds good.” He hopped down and took my hand. It appeared, for the time being, we were friends again. Jed was not deep, but deeper than most around here. I’d take that, for now.

  The fields, yellowed and left fallow each year after the last cutting, created a world of golden warmth, and it was in the fall that I always felt my best. The landscape was different; something was missing. I said as much.

  “Bunkhouse, probably,” Jed said. “Used to be over there.” He pointed past the last corral about a hundred feet, where there was dead space instead of the long wood and stucco-sided structure that had been divided into ten small rooms and two large bathrooms—one on each end—for the ranch hands. I loved going in there when I was a kid. My father, and by extension, Jed, thought it was grossly inappropriate for a little girl to wander into a space where grown men lived, but I loved how it smelled, and I loved their bawdy talk. Over the years, those men taught me to curry a horse, muck stalls, play liar’s poker, gut a fish and swear like a sailor—and those were just the things Dad and Jed knew about. All remnants had been hauled away, as if the bunkhouse never existed.

  “Makes me sad, not seeing it here, hearing the men laughing and singing.”

  “Just as well.”

  His tone, those words—something wasn’t right. I decided to let it go, for now. I’d get it out of Collin, or one of the other guys, later.

  We walked toward the barn, past the corrals and branding stations. The barn was as I remembered it: the loft where I would hide from Jed or my father, especially when it was time to come in for the evening, the wide open space where hay was piled after release from their bales, spread out to dry until barrels-full were carted off to the stables or into storage for the winter.

  “I spent hours in here. We would rake the hay into a giant pile, then jump into the middle of it from the loft, over and over and over again, until we were exhausted. Then, we’d talk…”

  “About what,” he asked.

  “Dreams. Kid dreams, kid fears, and some secrets shared that none of us ever repeated. Sometimes, during the hot summer, I would come in here alone to think, to cool off, to wish my daddy back.” I stared at the window above me. “He’d say, ‘Now you sit right here by this window, and before you know it, Daddy’ll be back. You’ll see me coming down the road in the dust clouds’, and I would go up into that loft and wait…and wait…”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “How could you?”

  “Do you wish I did?”

  “Sometimes. Hard to remember when I wanted you to go away and when I wanted to marry you.”

  He moved my hair off my shoulder. “The wishing I’d go away coincided with you getting scolded, I’m guessing.”

  “Probably.” I looked up at the loft. “Anyway…”

  “I fetched you a time or two after a two-hour search and some frayed nerves. You’d fall asleep up there while you were waiting to be found.”

  “There was so much to do. I have friends whose kids are constantly saying they’re bored, so the parents buy them more crap that requires nothing more than sitting still. It’s a crime.”

  “I hear you.”

  “I had some great times here. If these walls could talk. I was never bored. Lonely, sometimes, but never bored.”

  “That’s because there’s too much to do on a working ranch.”

  “It was a nice way to grow up.” I looked around the barn, at the old tools still hanging on hooks, the equipment that would not see daylight again until late fall, before the first snow. “Yet I’ve spent much of my adulthood trying to forget this place.”

  “It wasn’t a waste, Chandler. You went to school; you made a success of yourself in New York. One thing never changes.”

  “What’s that?” My eyes blurred.

  “You can always come home.”

  “Who’ll be there, Jed? When I come home, who’ll be there?”

  “I will.”

  Jed pointed out changes to the main corral and he talked about all the people who’d come and gone over the years.

  “I’ll take you into town when things are settled. You won’t believe the changes.” He held my hand as we walked.

  “So, Jared Andrew Brooks, Jr., Esquire. Sounds nice.”

  “Better than Ranch Hand?”

  I laughed. “I like Ranch Hand. Tell me about it.”

  “I graduated early, took the bar, passed the first time and joined a firm in Helena. I hated it. They had me doing estate planning, which was not my thing. I wanted to be a trial lawyer, but I was young, low man in the firm, and I was good with figures, so…”

  “So,” I finished, “as long as you were doing something you hated, you might as well do it for someone you like, right? How did Charles steal you away?”

  “He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “Intriguing. Doing something you hate has its price, is that it?”

  “Oh, I did more than estate planning for Charles.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a lot of things.”

  “Like what?” I persisted.

  “Like, things.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yup.”

  He turned me so I faced him. “Drop it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I asked you to. Let’s get through burying your father, and then we’ll talk. There’s a lot to go over.”

  “His estate?”

  “Yes. It’s complicated.”

  “And I don’t have the head for it? Or, is it more like, ‘don’t worry your pretty head’?”

  “Cut it out, Chandler Elise.”

  My heart skipped at the formal use of my name, something he only did when he was serious. “I’ll drop it for now, then,” I said.

  “Thank you. What about you?”

  “Boarding school, then Pratt. I fell in love with New York…”

  “Because it’s so different from this.”

  “Yes, I guess so. I have my own architectural firm, as you know. It’s doing well. I live in an old building I wish I’d designed. I make a lot of money doing what I love, I shoot pictures of the city to relax.” I wanted to stop there but I couldn’t. “I grew a thick skin once I realized I had only myself to rely on. Everything I have is because of me.”

  He put his arm around me as we walked toward the stables. “Did it ever occur to you that your daddy gave you those skills? You sat under that big desk in his office and did who-knows-what while he held meetings about buying and selling and business matters. You think nothing sunk in, that you acquired all these smarts at some east coast school? You’re selling yourself and your upbringing short, honey.”

  “He sent me away.”

  “I know. I wish I’d been here.”

  “What would you have done…had you been here? Would you have let me go?”

  “No.”

  “Truth?”

  “Truth.”

  My arm around his waist tightened and his arm around my shoulder did likewise. “Why did he do it?”

  “Maybe he felt like you wouldn’t have reached your potential here, Chan.”

  “And what do you think?” I whispered. He stopped walking.

  “You were part of this place, babe. Even now, with your east coast sense and your satellite radio and leather seats, and your view of Central Park and your ribbon cutting…”

  “You read the New York papers, do you?”

  “Only when you’re in ‘em.” Jed brushed the hair off my face. “You’re a beautiful, land-fed woman, Chandler Asher, and Montana is in your blood. Whether you were sent to the moon, or you stayed right here, you’d have found every ounce of your potential.”

  I threw my arms around his neck and his arms went around my waist. Silent tears fell on his shoulder. He rubbed my back and pressed his face into my hair. I wanted him. I wanted to stay in his arms, like this, forever. Nothing had ever come to me before so clearly as this.

  “I�
�m sorry, Jed. I wasn’t very pleasant last night.”

  He eased me far enough away to look down into my eyes. “You’ll find a place to put all this, honey. I promise,” he said, “And one more thing: I loved taking care of your father. I wasn’t born to this, but it’s in my blood, same as you.” He paused. “I’ll take care of you, too, if you’ll let me.”

  “I’ve done it so long on my own I don t know another way.”

  “I’m a patient man.”

  We walked in silence for a while. I took it all in, warming to the familiar and steeling myself against the new. “What brought you here, Jed? I mean, you were always just…here.”

  “I came from Seattle, stayed with my aunt in Sheridan before I started college. I came here at a time when I needed roots; I needed a man to look up to. Charles was that man.”

  “I never knew that. He loved you very much.”

  “And I loved him.” Jed took a deep breath and led me along on our walk. “My father was a hard-drinking Boeing man who came home every night to a wife who stopped caring and a son who couldn’t stop no matter how bad he was treated. He took off when I was fifteen. By the time I got here, I was aching for some sense of what life was all about. I found it here. Your dad wasn’t perfect, sweetheart, but he did the best he could. Find a way to that. Okay?”

  “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  “Of course you do. Life is full of choices. You can carry the anger or you can try to understand his side of it and reconcile yourself to it.” He led me across the property toward the stables.

  “You got married, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “It didn’t work out.”

  I looked at him and arched a brow. “That’s it?”

  “What do you want to know? That I got stupid, married someone way too young for me?”

  “Thinking with the wrong head again, Ranch Hand?”

  He stopped, turned me to him and said, “That mouth again.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You were always a bit of a smart-ass. ”

  “Yeah.”

  “Careful, babe.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, seven years old or thirty, it doesn’t matter to me.”

  I laughed. It just came. His mouth curled into a half-smile that weakened my legs. I uttered the only thing that came to my mind.

  “You wouldn’t dare.” It came out on a whisper, as a challenge, as permission, perhaps. I did not know. I was out of my mind.

  “Test me,” he whispered right back. He waited for a reaction, another burst of temper, some kind of communication that in no uncertain terms would I allow such a thing, a hey, wait, a whoa, Nelly. When I rewarded him instead with a challenging smirk, he wrapped his arms around my waist and cupped my bottom with his right hand. It was forward, out of line, and I did nothing about it. I questioned if I was ready to hear it from this man who had always been a man to me, not an equal, not a playmate, not a buddy, but a man. A virile man who was behaving in kind with a woman who gave as good as she got. He popped the flat of his hand over the seat of my jeans. Then he dipped me back and planted a kiss right on my mouth. It was a chaste kiss, as kisses go, but I felt it all the way to my toes. While I savored the taste he left on my lips, he unceremoniously dropped me to the hard dirt.

  “Jed,” I screeched.

  He looked down at me with a smirk. “Get up, before I forget I’m a gentleman.”

  “Gentleman, my ass.” I slapped his offered hand away, and he laughed and stuck it out again for me to take. He pulled me to my feet and I brushed the dust off my seat. His smile was huge. He was enjoying this.

  “You wanna see the stables, then, Miss Asher?”

  I whacked him in the gut and ran squealing toward the stables. He was hot on my heels, and caught me at the door. He lifted me off my feet, my back against the hard front of him, and I felt his erection press against my backside. I knew it was not wrong to look upon Jed as something other than the young guy who worked for my father. I was a woman of thirty, for God’s sake, and I was no virgin. Still, this was moving in a direction I never thought would come to fruit.

  He carried me into the stables, the horses harrumphing amid my squeals of mock indignation. He sat me on two wired bales of hay and kissed me again. This time the kiss was soft, tender. When I returned the kiss, he pulled away, those eyes narrowing again, only this time I saw the flame set in his warm irises.

  “Not sure how right this is,” he whispered.

  “What if I told you it was just fine.”

  He brushed his fingers over my cheek and glided his nose over mine. We did not move, the only sound coming from the agitated animals inside the stalls. The smell of animal, manure, hay and the sweet, spicy citrus smell of the man standing before me sent my head spinning. On the eve of my father’s viewing, bedding Jed Brooks would have been in incredibly bad taste, yet the chemistry, the sparks that flew between us suggested that doing anything but would be unnatural. His eyes sparkled in the dim lights of the stables, his upper lip twitched, and I could see the outline of his erection at the front of his jeans.

  “Goddammit,” he whispered against my mouth before running his tongue over my bottom lip and then taking my lips tenderly between his.

  “Let’s ride,” I whispered when he lifted his head.

  “Let’s get through the viewing, huh? We’ll ride later.”

  I nodded and he rested his forehead against mine. He’d lifted me. He’d pulled me out of whatever crazy funk I was in, and I could see things a bit clearer now.

  Just in time to host the viewing of dear ol’ dad.

  Papa

  We arrived at the funeral home, and I met with the funeral director. My father lay inside a satin-lined coffin. I could not understand why a person would want to be laid out for all to see when they’re dead. Charles looked nothing like I remembered. Lying in this elaborate box, he was not the large, robust man I remembered. He looked small and lost. In an attempt to make him look peaceful by setting his mouth in a relaxed line, the mortician had made him look constipated. His coloring was what you’d expect of someone who was no longer breathing, and his hair had been combed in a way Charles Asher never would have combed it. He looked like a schoolboy. I wanted to remember loving him, not how he looked now. I’d been angry for so long, conjuring up that love was difficult. I didn’t hate him. I was mad at him. Looking down on the Charles Asher who no longer was, I realized it was a fool’s game to be mad at a dead man.

  “Daddy.” I started to cry. “Shit…sorry, Dad. Ugh, God…” I felt foolish, sitting in an empty room crying over his coffin. What I needed to say should have been said in person, before today. For the first time in my life, the phrase, ‘You can never go back’ resonated. He wouldn’t have liked the tears. Tears made him nervous. “I’m sorry I spent so much time away.” I sniffed. “I was so mad…God…Oh, get over it. I haven’t cried in years. You’re going to have to put up with it a minute.” I stared at his stiff form and something compelled me to straighten his tie. And then I placed my hand over his. It was cold and hard and not of the living. “You look like shit, Daddy. I should have done this myself.”

  “Is everything all right, Chandler?” Willard Alcroft, the only son of Alcroft & Sons Mortuaries, poked his head in. I’d gone to school with Willard. He looked like a mortician at five, and he looked like one now. I dabbed at my eyes.

  “Willard, did my father wish to be…seen like this?”

  “Well,” he said, moving into the room to stand beside me. He looked down at my father. “It’s what’s…done, is all. Why, doesn’t he look well?”

  “He’s dead, Willard. Of course he doesn’t look well. It’s not your fault,” I added when his face fell. “You did your best, as always.” I sighed. “I know ‘it’s done’ like this, but will people be shocked if we keep the casket closed?”

  “Not shocked, but, well…it’s kind of expected, Chandler. People are
coming to pay their respects to your papa. Folks like looking at a face when they do it, is all.” Willard looked into the coffin again and I thought I saw him wince. “Let me try again. You step out and let me have at him.” A hideous guffaw that would have gotten me in deep with Jed and several others sat low in my belly. I bit the inside of my cheek as I walked out.

  “What’s up?” Jed asked. “We should probably get started.”

  “Charles looked like a bowl of warmed up stew, Jed. Willard’s taking another crack at him.” He arched a brow and then laughed. That was all the encouragement I needed.

  “Oh, God, we’re going to hell,” I said, dabbing at my eyes.

  “Chandler?” Willard poked his head out the door a few minutes later.

  I turned to Jed. “Please help me.”

  We followed Willard Alcroft into a small room off the main viewing room. Jed and I looked into the casket.

  “What do you think?” Willard asked.

  It was surreal seeing him laid out like this, when all I’d known of him was strength and vitality. He stood six-four and had always hovered at 200 lbs. or greater. To me he looked like Lorne Greene from Bonanza. The man in this box was not the man I knew, was not my father—no matter how hard Willard worked to convince me different.

  “Jed?”

  “It’s about as good as it gets,” Jed mumbled through a tight mouth.

  I nodded to the frazzled mortician. “Thanks. You did a great job, Willard. I think we’re ready.” To me, my father looked no different than five minutes ago.

  The doors opened, and I set about the task of receiving mourners and guests. People from miles around came, many I did not know or remember. With those I knew, we caught up on life, loves and losses. Charles’ body was on display, and utterances of how fine he looked made me feel better, though I knew they were lying. As I sat with a man Dad had gone to high school with, the room got quiet. I turned to the door and tears filled my eyes.

  Maria was still beautiful, her figure full and womanly, the way I remembered. Her hair, long and luxurious, was pulled off her face and cascaded down her back. She was in her fifties, but looked twenty years younger. She stood straight and tall and proud on perhaps the worst day of her life.