by Kim Redford
Homer tore off another bit of paper, appearing quite pleased with himself.
“That’s some kind of power.”
She set Homer on her shoulder, and then Aristotle flew up and landed on her other shoulder. She tapped the paper with her fingernail, considering the situation. She guessed she shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but still it seemed more than a little on the odd side. And yet she was glad to have her shingles back, or at least the ones that hadn’t been used as projectiles in that mad chase down Wildcat Road.
While she and the pigeons contemplated the return of the shingles, she saw a pickup turn under the ranch sign, rattle over the cattle guard, and chug its way up her lane. Rowdy was back…
He parked near the returned shingles, got out, and walked over to her. “What’s going on?”
She pointed at the shingles and then raised the note so he’d notice it.
“You’re kidding me.” He laughed, shaking his head as he glanced from her to the shingles and back again. “You look as if you’ve just stepped out of a fairy tale with a bird on each shoulder and a gift on your front lawn.”
“I’m not sure it’s a gift if it was yours in the first place.” She held out the note. “Better have a look.”
He took it, read it, and simply shook his head. “The Buick Brigade strikes again.”
“Homer and Aristotle seem to think so, too.”
“I guess they’d know.” He knocked his knuckles against the top of the shingle stack. “What do you want to do about it?”
“Roof? Maybe the sooner the better?”
“We’ll get to it.”
“I like the patio.”
“Good.” He walked away from her and looked out over the pastures. “I’m making progress now, but I can only do so much during the holidays.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
“I wish you weren’t so understanding about the situation.”
“I could be more understanding if I knew the situation.”
He glanced back at her and then quickly looked away. “Belle, it’s just that…I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
She held back a sigh. If he didn’t want to go there, she didn’t want to go there. “Maybe we ought to call Sheriff Calhoun. There’s no point in him hunting down thieves if they aren’t thieves anymore.”
“Yeah.” Rowdy jerked out his phone. “I’ll do it.”
She couldn’t help but think he’d do about anything to keep from talking to her. But so be it. She just wanted to get through Christmas without a blowup, so it suited her fine, or it would’ve if it didn’t worry her.
“Sheriff, I’m here at Belle’s ranch.” Rowdy glanced at her as he punched speakerphone. “Shingles again.”
“What! Again?” Sheriff Calhoun hollered in an irritated voice.
“They returned them.”
Sheriff Calhoun laughed, loud and long. “Buick Brigade.”
“What do they have to do with shingles?” Rowdy asked.
“Stuff’s getting returned all over the county.”
“Who’s doing it?”
“I’m betting the Everett brothers. They’re troublemakers, but basically good-hearted wild ones. And they’ve got mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers just like everybody else.”
“So?” Rowdy asked.
“It’s Christmas. A word or two in the right ears by the ladies of Destiny could make a big difference.”
“If they hadn’t snatched Belle’s shingles, they might have gotten away with the other stuff,” Rowdy said thoughtfully.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Sheriff Calhoun said. “Bottom line, Belle, do you want to withdraw your complaint?”
“Yes, I do.” Belle walked over to Rowdy so she was closer to the phone. “It’s Christmas. I want everyone to have as wonderful a holiday as possible.”
“Thanks,” Sheriff Calhoun said. “That’s the way it ought to be, particularly here in Wildcat Bluff County.”
“But if they pull something like that again…” Rowdy tapped his fingertips on top of the shingle stack.
“Right,” Sheriff Calhoun agreed. “Hopefully, this run-in with the Buick Brigade will turn their lives around.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Belle said. “They do seem to have a way of getting things done.”
Sheriff Calhoun chuckled again. “If I could hire them, well…I’d probably be out of a job.”
Belle smiled, thinking he could very well be right.
“Anything else?” Sheriff Calhoun asked.
“That’s all,” Belle said. “And Sheriff, please have a very Merry Christmas.”
“Thank you. Same to you.”
Rowdy clicked off and tucked his phone back in his pocket. “Well, that’s that.”
“After our wild ride chasing them down the road with shingles coming at us hard and fast, this seems sort of anticlimactic,” Belle said.
Rowdy shook his head. “Isn’t that what you want? Things nice and quiet and easy.”
“That’s the theory.” She looked at Homer and then Aristotle. “But when you work for the Buick Brigade, I suppose you take it as you get it.”
He laughed harder. “Are we working for the ladies of Destiny now?”
“I’m honestly beginning to think Lulabelle & You is simply a sideline until I solve whatever it is they want me to solve.” She hesitated, glancing around again. “And I don’t even know how I came to this point.”
“Nobody ever does.”
She smiled, shaking her head. “At the very least, you have to admit it’s just flat-out interesting to know them.”
“Yeah…at the very least.” He looked at the pigeons. “Do you think it’s about time we went to see the ladies again?”
“I can’t get the schoolhouse off my mind. It’s so lovely and yet so tragic. That fire. It’s as if hot embers are still smoldering in that building just waiting to reignite.”
He nodded, obviously catching her meaning because he’d been there with her.
“You’re a firefighter. If a fire extinguisher won’t work, you’d use anything and everything in your firefighting equipment to extinguish that blaze forever, wouldn’t you?”
He gave her a slow smile that spread from his lips to his eyes. “That’s easy to answer. Yes.”
“Okay. We’re in agreement. Maybe it’s not any normal kind of firefighting, but it’s still what firefighters do. They’re first—and maybe last—responders. They save. They heal. They give hope.”
“We do our best.” He grew quiet. “Sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes it’s just right.”
“Let’s make this just right.”
And with those words, she heard the flutter of wings again. She looked to her right shoulder. Homer perched there. She looked to her left shoulder. Aristotle perched there. She looked into the sky and saw a pigeon circling lower and lower until he descended to the returned shingle stack.
“Speaking of the Buick Brigade,” Rowdy said. “Looks like you’ve got incoming mail.”
By now, she wasn’t even too surprised because things had started to move fast. She walked over to the new bird, slowly reached out so as not to startle him, and extracted the pigeon-gram.
She rolled it open and read out loud, “Students require a teacher. News awaits you. Socrates is home.”
“Hello, Socrates,” she said. “Welcome home.”
Socrates flew over to Rowdy, perched on his shoulder, and started to preen his feathers.
“Friend of yours?” Belle no longer felt amazed at the sight, but she was still impressed at the wonderful bond between people and birds.
“Yeah.” He stroked a fingertip down Socrates’s back. “I bet he’s glad to be home with his friends.”
“At this rate, we may need to enlarge their coop.”
&nbs
p; “It’ll do for now.”
“I hope so. I don’t know when we’d get time for another project.”
“Busy, huh?”
She just shook her head. “Like I’m the only one.”
“Belle,” he said, turning serious. “About all this house business and—”
All three pigeons suddenly took to wing, swooping around Belle’s head and then Rowdy’s before they took off for the barn.
“What was that?” Belle asked.
“Goodbye, I guess.”
“I suppose we weren’t taking care of business.”
“The Buick Brigade’s business.”
“What other kind would the pigeons think important?”
“Nothing that I can think of.”
“Me either,” Belle said.
“It’s kind of late to start out for Destiny right now.”
“Too late.” She turned back toward the house, but he didn’t follow her, so she glanced at him. “Rowdy?”
He looked at the house, the barn, the road and then back at her. “I need to go take care of something. I’ll see you in the morning.”
And he left her standing there, all alone.
Chapter 32
“Dad, I love Belle.” Rowdy sat in a rocking chair on the veranda the next morning at Holloway Farm & Ranch. He turned a mug of coffee around and around in his hands.
“I thought as much.” Bert held his own mug of coffee, not drinking, just staring. “Did you tell her what you’ve been doing at her ranch?”
“No. I’m scared that if I tell her, I’ll lose her.”
“You can’t let it drag on.”
“She thinks I’m a good, honest man.”
“You’re my son. I raised you to be a good, honest man. And you’re exactly that man.”
“Maybe I was, but I’m not anymore.”
“Nothing’s changed.”
“Everything’s changed,” Rowdy said.
“This whole thing with Lulabelle & You Ranch wasn’t your idea. You’d never have done it if you hadn’t drawn the short straw.”
“I know…but it doesn’t change the fact I went along with it.”
“True.” Bert took a sip of coffee as he looked out over the land. “What can I do to help?”
“You’re listening to me. That always helps.”
“We share our troubles.”
“True.”
“Your mother…now that was a rough patch. Sickness is hard no matter which way you turn.”
“We got each other through it.”
“Woman trouble.” Bert sighed. “Now that’s the worst. A man can only control it so far.”
“And we’re used to being in control of our lives, our land, our cattle…you name it.”
“But not our women.” Bert sipped coffee again. “We like strong.”
“Belle’s strong.”
“That’s what you’ve got to count on now. She’s smart and strong…and she has a kind heart.”
“What if she tosses me out the door and goes back to Dallas? What would I do?”
“You know damn well what you’d do.” Bert glanced at his son with a gleam in his eyes. “You’d go after her, and you’d find a way to bring her home.”
Rowdy nodded, turning his mug around in his hands again. “If nothing else, we Holloways are persistent, aren’t we?”
“How else do you think I finally persuaded Hedy Murray, the most independent and cantankerous woman on this green Earth, to give me a chance? Persistence and, well…enough love to last a lifetime.”
“I’ve got both. And they’re all for Belle Tarleton.”
“You got the guts. Go for it.”
Rowdy set his mug down and then stood up. “Right now I’m taking her to see the Buick Brigade.”
“Ah, the lovely ladies of Destiny. Maybe they’ll throw a bit of fairy dust your way and change your luck.”
“I could sure use some good luck.”
“Couldn’t we all.”
“After Destiny, I’ll find a way to tell Belle the truth, come hell or high water.”
“That’s my boy.” Bert stood up and gave Rowdy a big bear hug. “Love. That’s what life is all about. Nothing else is worth a hoot without it.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He walked down to his pickup where he’d parked in front. And it was his regular truck. He was done with the rattletrap that wasn’t safe enough or good enough for Belle. It was fine out in the back pasture, but out on the highway he didn’t trust it. Anyway, he’d had enough of his disguise. He was back to wearing a pearl-snap shirt, pressed Wranglers, his favorite rodeo buckle, and his python boots. Life didn’t get much better than when you were comfortable in your own skin…with your own, well-earned name.
He sat down inside, pulled on his seat belt, and started the engine. He appreciated the growl of the one-ton engine because it meant he had the power to haul plenty, if and when he needed to on the ranch. And Belle would be safe inside this vehicle with him driving it. Above all, he wanted her safe.
He hit Wildcat Road and headed for Lulabelle & You Ranch. He had to break the habit of trying to stay out of trouble so he didn’t set off his bad luck. It hadn’t worked in the past, so why would it now? He was headed toward a collision with Belle, and he was ready to get it over with.
If she loved him, she’d understand…or come to understand after he’d explained the situation. If she didn’t, she could use it as an excuse to break up with him. Maybe she’d break up with the whole county and go back to the big city. If she did that, well…he was strong enough to live with a broken heart, if that’s what it finally came to, but he had no intention of going there.
By the time he reached the turnoff for Belle’s ranch, he had his feet under him in a way he hadn’t since he’d agreed to the deception and met Belle. He realized now that the entire debacle had been so wrong for him, so against his personal principles that he’d been living a lie for weeks and it was eating him up inside. No more. He’d moved past being Bert Two, but he wasn’t a weak-willed Rowdy either. If you were going to be a cowboy poet and every other thing it took to run a honking-big ranch, you better have a will of iron.
He drove under the Lulabelle & You Ranch sign, over the cattle guard, and up the lane to the circular drive. Plenty of shingle stacks now. And someday they’d be on top of the roof instead of on the ground. In the meantime, he wasn’t going to let their location worry him. He’d about completed the patio in back, and Belle could start using it right away.
He was surprised to see her waiting on the porch. She must be anxious to get to Destiny and find her answers. He’d be glad to learn what actually happened in that fire, too. She walked toward him with a little spring in her step, looking fine like she always did in her own personal line of Western wear and cowgirl boots. She’d tied a red bandana around her throat so she looked a little jaunty with her green sweater and black skinny jeans… The sight made him hungry all over again.
She opened the door, hopped inside, set her black purse on the floorboard, and gave him a big grin.
“Looks like somebody’s excited about their trip to Destiny.” He said the words, but he was really focused on her lips because she’d painted them red to go with her bandana, and all that did was remind him of that time in the shower when she’d worn nothing but red silk and pink skin. That particular memory still had the power to stoke his fire.
“Oh yes…and I got a good night’s sleep.”
“No interruptions?” He glanced at her before he headed back toward the road, suddenly realizing how the very idea of another man in her bed affected him. He could easily pound something.
“A certain guy I know wasn’t there, so no interruptions at all.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“I’m glad you got a
good night’s sleep.”
“Thanks.” She reached over and squeezed his arm. “I hope you did, too.”
“I did.”
“I missed you.”
“Missed you, too.” He realized he’d gone all stilted in his words because he was trying to get over that image of another guy.
“So…am I to assume we’re expected in Destiny?”
“I wouldn’t bet against it.”
“Doris again?”
“We’ll head there first,” he said. “If that’s not the right house, she’ll tell us where to go.”
“Okay.” Belle clutched her hands together in her lap. “To tell you the truth, I’m a little tense about today.”
“Why?”
“So much rides on what we learn about the schoolhouse fire.”
“It doesn’t have to, not really,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“We could go forward with your plans no matter what we learn or don’t learn.”
“I guess that’s true, if Craig was onboard.” She glanced at Rowdy. “But I don’t think that’d be right.”
“Maybe not, but it’s an idea.”
“Thanks. We’ll see how it goes.”
He continued down the highway, letting the whine of tires on pavement muffled by the vehicle set the tone. He was quiet. She was quiet. He figured they were both gathering their thoughts for the coming meeting. He hoped they’d learn something useful, but no one could ever be sure with the ladies.
When he reached the top of the cliff overlooking the Red River, he turned west and followed the two-lane road into Destiny. Nothing had changed on Main Street. The four three-story Victorian homes still stood side by side on large lots. The painted ladies were as pretty as ever with their bright colors. On the other side of the street, the five single-story buildings with Western false fronts painted white continued to promote their business with hand-carved, hand-painted signs that hung above the boardwalk under a connecting portico. On either side of the businesses, twelve small, single-story farmhouses in pastel colors with peaked roofs still spread out, six to each side.
He made a U-turn, drove back down the street, and parked in front of the Victorian house painted fuchsia with purple trim to accent its wraparound porch, octagonal turret room, ornamental trim, and multi-peaked roof. A wide entry staircase with an elaborately carved handrail led up to Doris, who stood on the portico under the purple gingerbread-laced edge of roof. Next to her stood Louise, Blondel, and Ada.