Christmas in Cowboy Country (22 page)

Several weeks later . . .

 

 

“I
'm glad we got away.”

Stone gave Annie's hand a squeeze as he helped her over a low fence. “We needed to, now that Christmas is over. Family is fine, but just you and me is even better.”

“I know what you mean. Mom did too. Dad, well, he just has to get used to the idea.”

They were staying at a lodge complex in the Wyoming backcountry, in their own private cabin, a big one close to hiking trails and cross-country skiing. They were out early to grab all the sunshine on offer during the short winter days.

“Rowdy would love it up here. I hope he's not missing us too much.”

Stone chuckled. “I talked to Nell while you were in the shower. She dotes on that dog. Says he'll do until she gets a grandchild. Hey, did you hear from Bree?”

“Yes. She's doing great. The kids are still over the moon about her showing up on Christmas Eve. Cilla told them that Santa took care of that, per your request.”

“Good.”

“Bree's thinking about baking at Jelly Jam. She wants to settle down in Velde.”

“You'd miss those little girls if they went away.”

“I really would. Brothers aren't everything.”

“I won't tell Sam or Zach you said that. Nice guys, both of them.”

Annie laughed and squeezed his gloved hand. “They didn't give you too much of a hard time.”

“Your dad let me know what to expect.”

“And my mom refereed.”

They walked on, plowing through the snow, following the blaze marks in the trees to stay on the trail. They'd finally had time to get to know each other better and the feelings between them ran deep.

They came out into a clearing. Annie tripped over a branch buried in the snow and fell headlong. She laughed as she rolled over. The snow was soft and feathery, almost dry.

“You okay?” Stone reached down, but she batted his hand away.

“Of course. I'm all bundled up.” Annie stayed there. “I'm actually warm. It's true what they say about snow being good insulation.”

“I wouldn't test that theory for too long if I were you.”

She didn't get up.

“Okay. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.”

He went to his knees, then lay down next to her, turning his head. “You look beautiful in white. I will never forget you in that cowgirl shirt and the matching Stetson. Thought you looked like an angel.”

“Hey, let's make some.” She straightened her arms and moved them up and down to make wings. Then she moved her legs from side to side, in, then out, to create an angel dress. Annie sat up carefully. “Your turn.”

“All right.”

He made the same moves but skipped the dress part. Stone sat up and scrambled to stand. His angel turned out much taller than hers, with very large wings and long legs. “Not bad.”

Then he pulled her up.

“Aww. They look like they love each other,” Annie said. “They're holding hands—I mean, wings.”

“So they are.”

In the space between the two figures, the tips of her wing and his wing crossed.

Stone brushed the clinging snow off Annie's back and shoulders, then helped her shake it from the hood of her jacket. She did the same for him.

“Had enough?”

“I think so.”

They took one more look at the silent angels and turned toward the lodge.

Their cabin was almost too big and comfortable to be called a cabin. But it shared some features with Nell's little hideaway.

The poufy bed was similar, just bigger, with an antique mahogany headboard-and-footboard set, and posts at each corner holding up drifts of white, filmy material. Stone took off his hiking boots and padded over to the bed in his socks, moving aside the sheer drape. He looked at it curiously.

“What do you call that stuff?”

“Chiffon.”

“Oh. Like the cake.”

“I would have said veils and gowns, but yes, there is chiffon cake.”

She headed for the overstuffed sectional sofa, wishing it was a love seat but unwilling to complain. She tucked herself into one end and pulled an afghan over her feet while she watched Stone set up cordwood for a fire.

Crouched, he still looked tall. He was absorbed in the task, taking the time to do it right. At last he lit a long match and ignited the handful of dry pine needles he'd used for kindling. The seasoned wood caught. Flickering flames soon turned into a blaze that made his rugged face glow.

“Nice.” He rose and turned to look at her, returning her smile. Then he moved to the sofa, choosing the other end.

“Comfortable, but too big,” he said after a while. “Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

Annie giggled and nodded. “Yes.”

They both got up and dragged out the wide center section and moved it by the wall, then pushed the ends together. He sat down again and she did too.

“That's better,” he said with satisfaction. “I like you next to me.”

She moved into his lap. “Doesn't get any ‘nex-ter' than this.”

“Mmm.” His voice rumbled in his throat, vibrating against her lips. She nuzzled his neck, letting her hand drift over the flannel shirt that covered his muscular chest.

Annie arched in his lap, sensually relaxed, cradled in his strong arms and held close. She murmured a protest when the jeans-clad thighs that warmed her rear shifted.

“We have to talk. Before this goes too far,” he said.

“That's the idea. And I don't want to talk.”

With a groan, he lifted her away from him and set her down on the cushion beside him. Annie took her revenge by thumping him with a pillow.

“We'll get back to what we were doing,” he said. “I promise. Don't hit me.”

She gave him a mock glare. “Why do we have to stop?”

Stone reached over and rummaged through the duffel bag he'd set by the sofa. “I have something to give you.”

“I'd rather be kissed.”

He didn't speak to that, just straightened up again, holding a box she recognized. It had a question mark on the side.

“Doesn't that belong to Nell?”

“She said I could have it.”

“Oh. Well, what for? It's too small to be useful. She didn't even remember what she'd kept in it.”

Stone chuckled. “That should be obvious.”

“Not to me.”

“It's marked with a question, so it's meant to hold a question.”

She took it from his hand, going along with the joke, whatever it was. Something rattled inside. “Sounds like a big one.”

“Look inside.”

Annie lifted the lid. The small box held a box that was smaller still, covered in pure white velvet, with rounded corners. She took it out and turned it around in her fingers. “What is this?”

“A ring. Open it and see.”

“In the shape of a question mark?”

“No.”

“Is it . . . oh my.” Her soft voice trailed off as she snapped open the box. A round diamond set in platinum caught the light of the fire. Stone turned toward her and caressed her cheek. The gentleness of his touch made her look at him.

“I know what I want, Annie. I'm ready for some changes in my life. The question is what you want.”

“Are you asking me to marry you?” She gazed at him with wide eyes.

“Yes.”

She was too stunned to say anything for a long moment.

“You don't have to answer right away,” he assured her. He lifted the diamond ring from its white silk nest. “May I?”

Annie held out her left hand. There had never been a ring on it. Until Stone, there hadn't been a man she would have wanted to put a ring on it.

He slid it onto her finger. “Take your time. Think it over. I can wait. You're worth waiting for. I love you.”

“I—I love you too.” Her voice was shaky. But she knew she did. “And you can have your answer right now. Yes.”

He nodded. Then he kissed her again. Annie never wanted to stop. And now she would never have to.

W
hen Virgil “Bull” Tyler left this life, it was said that his departing spirit roared like a norther across the yellowed spring pastureland, shrilled upward among the buttes and hoodoos of the Caprock Escarpment, and lost itself in the cry of a red-tailed hawk circling above the high Texas plain.

Later on, folks would claim they'd felt Bull's passing like a sudden chill on the March wind. But his son Will Tyler had felt nothing. Busy with morning chores, Will was unaware of his father's death until he heard the shouts of the husky male nurse who came in every morning to get the old man out of bed and into his wheelchair.

Will knew at once what had happened. By the time his long strides carried him to the rambling stone ranch house, he'd managed to brace for what he would find. All the same, the sight of that once-powerful body lying rigid under the patchwork quilt, the lifeless blue eyes staring up at the ceiling, hit him like a kick in the gut. He'd lived his whole thirty-nine years in his father's shadow. Now the old man was gone. But the shadow remained.

“Do you want me to call nine-one-one?” The young man was new to the ranch. Bull had gone through a parade of hired caregivers in the six years since a riding accident had shattered his spine, paralyzing his hips and legs.

“What for?” Will pulled the sheet over his father's face. In the movies somebody would've closed those eyes. In real life, Will knew for a fact that it didn't work.

“We'll need to call somebody,” the nurse said. “The county coroner, maybe? They'll want to know what killed him.”

Alcohol and pain pills,
Will surmised. But what the hell, there were protocols to be followed. “Fine, go ahead and call,” he said. “I'll be outside if you need me.”

Bernice Crawford, the plump, graying widow who'd been the Tylers' cook and housekeeper since Will's boyhood, met him in the hall. Tears were streaming down her apple-cheeked face. “Oh, Will! I'm so sorry!”

“I know.” Will searched for words of comfort for her. “Dad thought the world of you, Bernice.”

“He was a miserable old man,” she said. “You know that as well as I do. But he carried the burden God gave him, and now he's free of it.”

Will gave her shoulder an awkward squeeze before he turned away and strode toward the front door. He needed to breathe fresh air. And he needed time to gather his thoughts.

He made it to the wide, covered porch before the raw reality slammed home. Setting his jaw, he gripped the rail and forced himself to breathe. His father was dead. He felt the void left by Bull's passing—and the weight of responsibility for this ranch and everyone in it that was now his to shoulder alone. The morning breeze carried the smells of spring—thawing manure, sprouting grass, and restless animals. Hammer blows rang from the hollow beyond the barn, where the hands were shoring up the calving pens for the pregnant heifers that had been bred a week ahead of the older cows. The rest of the cattle that had wintered in the canyon would soon need rounding up for the drive to spring pasture above the escarpment on the Llano Estacado
—
the Staked Plain, given that name by early Spaniards because the land was so flat and desolate that they had to drive stakes in the ground to keep from losing their way.

As he looked down from the low rise where the house stood, Will's gaze swept over the heart of the sprawling Rimrock Ranch—the vast complex of sheds, corrals, and barns, the hotel-like bunkhouse for unmarried hands, the adjoining cookhouse and commissary, and the line of neat brick bungalows for workers with families. To the east a shallow playa lake glittered pale aquamarine in the sunlight. It made a pretty sight, but the water was no good to drink. With the summer heat it would evaporate, leaving behind an ugly white patch of alkali where nothing would grow.

Will scowled up at the cloudless sky. Last summer's drought had been a nightmare. If no rain fell, the coming summer could be even worse, with the grass turning to dust and the cattle having to be sold off early, at a pittance on the plummeting beef market.

Will had managed the ranch for the past six years and done it as competently as his father ever had. But even from his wheelchair Bull had been the driving spirit behind Rimrock. Only now that he was gone did Will feel the full burden of his legacy.

“Looks like we'll be planning a funeral.” The dry voice startled Will before he noticed the old man seated in one of the rocking chairs with Tag, the ranch border collie, sprawled at his feet. Jasper Platt had been foreman since before Will was born. Now that rheumatism kept him out of the saddle, he was semiretired. But Will still relied on him. No one understood the ranch and everything on it, including the people, the way Jasper did.

“When did you find out?” Will asked.

“About the same time you did.” Jasper was whip spare and tough as an old saddle. His hair was an unruly white thatch, his skin burned dark as walnut below the pale line left by his hat. The joints of his fingers were knotted with arthritis.

“You'd best start phoning people,” he said. “Some of them, like Beau, will need time to get here.”

“I know.” Will had already begun a mental list. His younger brother Beau was out on the East Coast and hadn't set foot on the ranch in more than a decade—not since he'd bolted to join the army after a big blowup with his father. The rest of the folks who mattered enough to call lived on neighboring ranches or twenty miles down the state highway in Blanco Springs, the county seat. Most of them could wait until after the date and time for the funeral had been set. But Will's ex-wife, Tori, who lived in Blanco with their twelve-year-old daughter, Erin, would need to know right away. Erin would take the news hard. Whatever Bull had been to others, he was her grandpa.

Neither call would be easy to make. Beau was out of the army now and working for the government in Washington. He had kept them informed of his whereabouts, but an address and a couple phone numbers were about all Will knew about his brother's life out East.

As for Tori—short for Victoria—she'd left Will eight years ago to practice law in town. Shared custody of their daughter had kept things civil between them. But the tension when they spoke was like thin ice on a winter pond, still likely to crack at the slightest shift.

The nearest mortuary was in Lubbock. He'd have to call them, too. They'd most likely want to pick up the body at the coroner's.
The body.
Hell, what a cold, unfeeling process. Too bad they couldn't just wrap the old man in a blanket and stash him in the Caprock like the Indians used to do. Bull would have liked that.

As if conjured by the thought of Indians, a solitary figure stepped out of the horse barn and stood for a moment, gazing across the muddy yard. Fourteen years ago, Sky Fletcher, the part-Comanche assistant foreman, had wandered onto the ranch as a skinny teenage orphan and stayed to prove himself as a man known across the state for his skill with horses.

“Does Sky know?” Will asked Jasper.

“He knows. And he said to tell you that when you're ready, he'll crank up the backhoe and dig the grave next to your mother's.”

“Sky's got better things to do.”

Jasper gave him a sharp glance. “Bull was good to that boy. He wants to help. Let him.”

“Fine. Tell him thanks.” Will looked back toward the barn, but Sky was no longer in sight.

Squaring his shoulders, Will took a couple of deep breaths and crossed the porch to the front door. It was time to face the truth that awaited him inside the house.

His father was dead—and the void he'd left behind was as deep as the red Texas earth.