Dances with Wolf (19 page)

Abby exhaled roughly.
“What about after that?”

“Well as time went on, it got harder and harder to think about facing you again. Call me a coward.”

“Okay. Coward.” He laughed, but when he looked over at her, she sure wasn’t smiling.

“I cared for you, Abby. So much. But a part of me thought maybe I was doing the best thing for you by staying away.”

“What are you talking about? You have no idea how devastated I was. I was crushed. My whole life changed, in a matter of hours.”

“But look at it from my side for a sec. I was just a kid, and they were grooming me into some kind of rodeo superhero. I didn’t have a second to myself. And yeah, sure, I thought about you all the time. But I couldn’t come clean with you about why I’d left, and I didn’t have any free time to pick up where we’d left off.”

“I
want
to believe you, Wolf, and I want to forgive you, you must know that. But what about the champagne tasting? As soon as I let my guard down and started to trust you, you let me down again.”

“I’m so sorry about that, I really am.” He paused. He wasn’t just trying come up with the next line that would charm her or win her forgiveness—he was digging for a deeper truth, the kind he rarely admitted even to himself. “I think I need to work on being more honest with you, making sure to tell you what I’m thinking, how I’m feeling, instead of telling you what you want to hear.”

“Like what?”

“Like admitting that I was in that much physical pain, and that the pain wasn’t nearly as bad as the fear that it might mean my competing days could be coming to an end.” He could see he’d reached her, at least a little bit, but it wasn’t about that anymore. “I guess I just wasn’t ready to let you in that close yet, but I want to now. I really do, Abs.”

“I know you
want
to do your best.” She sounded so weary, so filled with sorrow, and it shamed him to know he’d been the cause of it. “But I need you to actually
be
your best. I’m just not sure if you’re up to that yet, and I
know
I can’t put myself through this again.”

He wanted to tell her that he loved her, that he always would, but that would be a cheap shot, wouldn’t it? It was the truest thing he could think of, and yet it’d feel like a lie if he said it now. But God, he’d never loved anyone as much.

“I don’t want to put you through it, either. I only want you to be happy, whether…”

“What?”

“Whether it’s with me, or with somebody else.” He couldn’t believe he was saying this—it felt like he was ruining his very last chance with her—but he meant it. “You’re going to make
somebody
the luckiest guy in the world. I just wish it were me.”

He looked out toward the river, where a lone hawk soared toward the Swan Mountains. He and Abby had grown up in this terrain, the two of them. He couldn’t imagine appreciating its rugged beauty alongside anyone but her.

“Was that really so hard?” Abby asked. “Being honest with me, finally?”

He sidestepped Stella and turned back to look at Abby from the doorway. “No. I suppose it wasn’t.”

“And waiting six years? Was it worth it?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t.” He didn’t know what more to say, but he didn’t want to leave her like this, either. “I do know I’m sorry, though.”

Not waiting for her reply, he walked down the Macreadys’ steps, wondering if he was doing it for the last time.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The clatter of Wolf
’
s boots down the Macready porch stairs ricocheted across Abby’s heart. It was the one sound she’d hoped never to hear again in her lifetime—Wolf leaving. But it
had
happened again, just the same. And this time, she’d practically
pushed
him out.

Once his truck had circled the driveway and gotten onto the main road, she rolled to a standing position from the couch and called Stella to her side. The dog looked at her through half-closed eyes. Had that really just happened? She buried her face in Stella’s ruff and blew gently into one of her ears. But she was unmoved, ducking from her owner’s embrace. Then she took a few dignified steps across the hooked carpet, circled three times, and sat across the room to stare at her owner as if in mortal judgment.

“Forgive him, are you nuts? Don’t you remember how much it hurt me when he left?” She was well aware of how crazy she looked, speechifying yet again to a dog about love, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her. “Don’t forget how many nights we spent curled up in bed crying our eyes out. And not one word from him. Even Bridget didn’t know where he’d disappeared to, not at first. We all thought he was in trouble.”

The idea of the rodeo life was tainted for her, and always had been. She could, however, understand Wolf’s need to compete now that she knew it had saved the Olsens from financial disaster. What other skills did a teenager have, after all, other than the ones he’d grown up with? Riding, roping, fixing fences—that was the legacy Jess Olsen had passed on to his boys, and Abby couldn’t deny the practicality of that. But why leave the people you supposedly love behind, spending only a few days a year with them after a lifetime of closeness? And why keep going with the cowboy life when your body was clearly breaking down, and you were running out of reasons to keep going?

“I guess I just don’t understand men,” she confided to Stella. “Specifically, Olsen men.” Stella thumped her tail in response. “Come on, girl, let’s head outside and see Beau. I want to go for a ride.”

Stella reached the center of the pasture before Abby could pull on her boots. The grass was as high as Abby had ever seen this time of summer, but once she’d spotted Beau, the horse followed Stella cheerfully toward the barn.

Beau nosed into the bridle before she could undo the throat latch. “Aren’t we eager today? What—you think the grass is going to taste that much better on the other side of the hill?” With a nod at Stella, Abby trotted toward the gate swiveling around once again as she reached down to slide the latch closed.

Beau jumped sideways, throwing Abby briefly off-balance before she regained her seat and teased him into a canter up the hill. “Beauregard, you really are full of it today.” She increased the pressure of her legs on his flanks and he leaped into a full gallop, dodging the potholes and volunteer scrub pines that appeared in these driest weeks of the Bigfork summer. Abby felt Stella at the gelding’s heels, heard her panting as she struggled to stay near them, then sensed her drop back.

“What’s gotten into you, buddy?” she asked him, leaning forward as she grasped a fistful of mane. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get rid of me.”

When they reached the top, a summit that yielded the best views of the lake, Beau kept going. In vain, Abby shortened his reins, leaning as far back as she dared over his hindquarters. “Beau, leave it!” she shouted.

But Beau continued on his rampage, scurrying through knee-high bushes, rocks flying in his wake. Abby stopped trying to get him to stop and leaned into Beau’s body to avoid taking a hell of a tumble. Sure enough, Beau rose on his hind legs, his forelegs pummeling the air like a boxer’s fists. Abby held on for dear life, and at last, succeeded in bringing him to a tremulous halt. With the reins in one hand, she slid over his wet flanks and stood by his head, willing him into submission. Stella joined her and the three of them took their time reaching a normal respiration. What the hell was that?

Beau’s chest and neck sprouted half-inch-long welts, the work of wasps and bees whose nests Abby and her dad watched for under the eaves of the barn and destroyed every few days. This time Beau hadn’t escaped. The insects must have given chase up the hill.

With a sigh, she sat down on a rock and began to pet Beau’s nose. The horse whimpered in gratitude while Abby studied his huge golden eyes. They glistened with relief, and something else. Fear. “Trust me,” she whispered to him. “They’re gone, baby. You’re okay.”

Beau continued to look down on her, his face twitching at irregular intervals, his eyes widening as the wind rustled through the branches, a sound he must have mistaken for the buzzing of bees. She’d seen this look before. Just hours before, on Wolf’s face. Hadn’t he looked as exposed, as vulnerable as Beau was now? Wasn’t he just as spooked?

What if the same theory she’d developed to work on her horse clients could be applied to a twenty-four-year-old man? Horses operated from fear half the time; did Wolf, too? The answer came to Abby as she gently leaned on Beau’s left side, letting him know that she was in charge, that she would be riding him back down the hill.

Wolf was afraid, he was almost certainly afraid, that he might not actually have a chance with her—maybe even a chance to be happy at all. He didn’t even have a high school diploma. That could be remedied easily enough, but it might not feel that way to him. Just like a horse whose only experience was in a ring, what Wolf really lacked was the confidence to move out and beyond the rodeo world. When she thought about it, she realized how small the circuit really was—nothing but a club, a tiny one at that, for overgrown boys whose values didn’t match up with those of an ever-changing world.

Suddenly, the scenes Wolf had only hinted at became vivid for her. The nights in the trailer, bedding Bullet down before he could look for a place for himself to sleep. The after-parties at some random bar, the beer and stale pretzels that were a poor substitute for a good sit-down dinner at a Bigfork restaurant with family and friends. Real friends.

It was true, Wolf would always draw a crowd wherever he was. But something told Abby he’d really missed his high school band of brothers and his family on his six-year sojourn. He’d been so alone.

Wolf had every right to be proud of his ranch over at Choteau, but didn’t it take more than a few knick-knacks from Murdock’s and Herberger’s to make a house a home? With a pang of longing so deep it almost made her gasp, Abby remembered the night on the couch in front of the fire. With Stella at her feet, Wolf less than an arm’s length away, hadn’t she experienced the deep content of a homecoming? So maybe it wasn’t the surroundings that counted; it was the person you were with.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Wolf paused in front of the weekday offerings of Bigfork Village Florist. Before he could even launch Phase A of his new plan, here he was, thwarted by this meager small-town selection.

“May I help you, sir?” A girl no older than sixteen beamed at him, revealing braces.

“I need a corsage.” And who better to ask than a high school kid with a mouthful of metal? “Something really special.”

“Bride or groom?” she asked. “Or member of the wedding?”

“Nope. More like a prom corsage.” He felt ridiculous, but he didn’t expect this would be the last time.

“Prom was like, three months ago. Well, mine, anyway.”

“Not prom, exactly, but something like that. A little more sophisticated. Do you have any yellow roses?”

“In the back. There are some tiny ones that just came in. I can cut you a few.”

“And maybe something that looks like wheat, or dried grass? That’d be cool, right?”

The girl looked at him with unchecked skepticism. “I can make it look cool, I guess. Why don’t you pick out what you want from the back and I’ll put it together? Like, pick the color ribbon you want.”

“Ribbon?” Wolf repeated.

“Yeah, that’s, um, a word for a piece of decorative string that florists use to beautify the arrangement.”

“Very funny.” Karma was a bitch. He’d ditched a sixteen-year-old girl on prom night six years earlier, and now, another sixteen-year-old stood here mocking him.

“What color’s her outfit?”

“She’ll probably be in jeans and a work shirt.”

“Jeans?” she asked, like jeans were the tackiest thing in the world.

“Yeah, jeans. They’re blue, and made out of a surprisingly durable fabric, called denim.”

The girl laughed, but now he was done joking around with her, choosing instead to picture Abby’s initial confusion, the way her feet would tap impatiently as he revealed first one, then another of his surprises, spreading them out at her feet like a purveyor of rare gems. He hoped she’d see them that way, anyhow; he had to pray she’d stick around past the confusion and the annoyance to see how sincerely he meant to win her back, to give her back what he’d taken away in high school.

“Do you want a boutonniere, too?”

“Sure, a single yellow rose, with a sprig of wheat.”

“And a light blue ribbon. Blue goes with almost everything.” She stared at the lapels of Wolf’s Carhartt jacket.

“Gotta rent myself another tuxedo,” he murmured to himself as he turned toward the door. Little did he know he’d be back in a penguin suit only a few days after the wedding.

“We don’t have any of those,” the smart-ass said. Didn’t she realize this was Wolf Olsen she was talking to?

Again, he ignored her. He was getting good at this. “I’ll be back in about twenty,” he called over his shoulder.

He pulled up to the parking lot in front of Conrad’s Formalwear and willed himself out of the car. His knee was better today, but his obliques were still screaming in agony. The display window revealed an Elvis-like neon blue brocade jacket with shiny black lapels, a dark red version that looked like Grandma Olsen’s prized living room sofa, and a white linen tux, complete with a pink silk bowtie.

“Bingo.”

Ten minutes later, he carried a Conrad’s bag with its crisp white shirt and boxed bow tie (pre-tied; he couldn’t be expected to learn everything from scratch) and the white linen jacket to the car. He smiled, relaxing a tiny bit—he was more than halfway through his to-do list. Abby’s face rose up in his thoughts, the way the yellow roses would illuminate her. Looking out over the parking lot, he realized something: even if he didn’t win her back, even if he wasn’t her happily-ever-after, he wanted her to have this experience, to give her this gift.

He didn’t know if he could make her whole again, but he wanted to try.

It was easy enough to order the limo. Apparently, they weren’t in high demand in rural Montana on a mid-summer Tuesday. The driver even offered him a discount and a free bottle of champagne. But Wolf had already taken care of that, with six bottles of 2010 Schramsberg from the Jug Shop. The owner had picked it out especially for them. She was an old friend of Doc and Marcie
’
s, and Wolf had been careful not to arouse her suspicions. If Donna caught a whiff of the surprise he
’
d planned, she
’
d tell half the town.

Next he would enlist the cooperation of Mark and Bridget. No, not Bridget. If she knew all the details she might tell Abby, and he couldn
’
t afford to have that happen. He
’
d just have to ask Bridget in on part of it, the hardest part, getting Abby back to the Mountain Lake Lodge tomorrow night.

“Bridge, pick up.” Damn that sister of his. Now that she was married and settling into the prospect of motherhood, she hardly bothered to answer her cell phone. Once it had been the center of her social life. Now the core of activity was prepping the baby
’
s nursery, each day more embellished with items in every imaginable shade of pastel. If Wolf hadn
’
t seen one of the sonogram pictures himself, he
’
d swear Bridge was having quadruplets.

He tried again. This time, she answered.

“
Hey, Uncle Wolf.
”

“Very funny. You
’
re making me feel a hundred years old.” Her, along with the aching pain in his side.

“How do you think Mark feels? He’s the one without the prospect of a good night
’
s sleep on the horizon.”

“Question is, how are you, sis?”

“
Apprehensive, excited, sleepless.
”

“Okay, well…I have one small favor to ask before you turn into a pumpkin.”

“You mean, before I push
out
this pumpkin?” She smiled across the miles.

Wolf smiled back even though Bridget couldn
’
t see him: a clueless dude about to make a final play for the woman of his dreams, for Bridget
’
s best friend, for Abby.

He held the phone close and told her what he needed of her. “And have Mark call me back, okay? This is going to have to be a team effort.”

Though he longed to stay in Bigfork for the next two days, near Abby in spirit if not actually
with
her, there was plenty to do at the ranch. The drive back to Choteau would give him time to go over the details, to make sure everything was perfect before going back to Bigfork to actually pull it off.

He arrived just before dusk. As he drove up his driveway, Bullet whinnied and loped next to the truck. “Easy girl,” Wolf called out, then warned, “And not a word to Abby.”

He parked at the cabin, then rounded back to the barn to feed the horses. Bullet nudged him, nibbling around his back pockets for carrots. “Atta girl,” he said. “Abby may not be that interested in your owner, but she
’
s not going to be able to resist you.”

That night, he ate in front of the fire, remembering Abby
’
s hair strewn across the couch pillows, her arms outstretched as if to gather in the warmth of the hearth. He slept with images of her interwoven in his dreams, and woke with a smile, his arms clasped around an imaginary form next to him. If his plans didn
’
t unravel, maybe this invisible substitute would be replaced by the real thing soon enough.

The drive back to Bigfork seemed to take forever. Bullet, groomed to perfection, her mane braided by none other than Wolf himself, her tail flowing nearly down to her fetlocks. One of Bridget
’
s first assignments when Wolf returned was to help Mark trailer Abby
’
s horse over to the Olsen ranch, where both mares would be adorned with ribbons and flowers, then driven up to Mountain Lake Lodge to await Abby
’
s arrival. Wolf understood how corny this might seem, like a medieval knight
’
s ploy to win his maiden fair, but what did he have to lose?

…

On Tuesday afternoon, as Abby and Bridget were chauffeured up the long winding driveway toward Mountain Lake Lodge, Abby tried to ward off an unwelcome gust of memories. But could you call a moment a memory when it had occurred only days earlier? These were more like fragments of a nightmare, fragments that had haunted her ever since Bridget and Mark climbed into their getaway truck last Saturday and drove from their reception with a throng of well-wishers waving from the deck.

She
’
d never thought she’d return here so soon. It was a Double Indignity—just desserts for a girl dumb enough to let the same man embarrass her twice in one lifetime.

She remembered his apology, of course, the humility shining through his eyes. She’d thought he might break down, then and there, standing in her doorway. But had he been sincere? Or had it just been desperation doing the talking?

He was a little boy, she decided. If things didn
’
t go his way, he pouted or changed tactics. Sure, he might have meant what he said, while he was saying it, anyway. But
saying something
meant nothing.
Doing something
was what counted, and Wolf’s actual deeds had brought her only pain and regret.

So why the phone call two days ago asking her to come with Bridget to the Lodge? She
’
d offered to drive Bridge up, but Wolf had insisted he would provide the transportation. She
’
d wanted to ask questions, her voice was laced with impatience, but she managed to hold back.

When the limousine pulled up beneath her window, she felt a jolt of excitement that she quickly tried to suppress. Inside, Bridget was stretched out across two seats, fanning herself, her shoes kicked off, freshly-pedicured toes turned toward the open window.

“Seriously?” Abby peered in. The limousine driver stood patiently as he held the door for her. “What
’
s going on here?”

“Don’t ask me,” Bridget said. “I’m as clueless as you are.” Abby didn’t believe her for a second. “I’m just along for the ride.” She leaned forward and pressed both hands on the knees of Abby
’
s jeans. “I see you dressed up for the occasion, as usual.”

“Hey, I worked all morning. And these are clean. Pretty clean, anyway.” She removed Bridget
’
s hands gently. The truth was, her best friend looked good, and she didn’t want the dirt from her work jeans to rub off on Bridget’s hands. “The real mystery is, why are you so dressed up?”

Bridget shrugged.
“Wolf asked me to. I decided to do what he wanted for a change.”

“Is Mark involved in this, too?”

“Could be.”

“I can see you
’
re not going to be my source.” Abby folded her arms and leaned back. The countryside looked different from the seat of a limo, she had to admit. It wasn’t half-bad to kick it in the luxurious back seat.

When they arrived, the parking lot was empty. Except for a few employees
’
trucks parked near the kitchen, the sleek limousine was the only vehicle in the lot.

“I
’
m supposed to tell you to stay here for five minutes, then come on up to the main entrance.” Abby nodded, then clenched her hands together as she watched Bridget climb the stairs slowly and let herself in.

She waited, trying not to let her thoughts run away with her. What if this was Wolf
’
s idea of a practical joke? There was no way to re-do the wedding. Besides, why would Bridget and Mark want to? For the two of them, it had been a storybook event. She was the only one in the cast of two hundred who
’
d been miserable that night. Well, maybe Wolf hadn’t had the time of his life either, she had to admit.

At the top of the stairs, she looked down the ribbon of highway to see if she could spot his truck. Except for late-summer shifts in the landscape, the metamorphosis from emerald green to saffron fields, the emergence of rocks in the middle of the river, the highway was clear and unchanged. The first set of doors on the deck was locked. She peered through the double-pane windows to look for Bridget, but couldn
’
t see anything but her own reflection.

She tried a side door. It yielded and Abby let herself inside. The dance floor, where Bridget and Mark had clung together, masked by repurposed layers of bridal tulle, was deserted. Dozens of chairs were piled to one side. Except for one table at the far end, the round tables were all folded and stacked up against a wall. “Bridget?” she called out. “Mark?” Her voice echoed against the walls.

She squinted and drew closer. One table was set with a long, fluttering tablecloth. Tea candles on an oval mirror were lit and flickered in the nearly dark room. There were four gold plates, four napkins, four sets of silverware, and a large bouquet of yellow roses in a crystal vase. Just like the roses that grew on the arbor outside the Olsen’s porch, the ones with inch-long thorns that Wolf had spared her from when he caught her in that unplanned somersault down the rickety stairs. She’d looked into his eyes and he into hers. That was the moment, wasn’t it? The moment she’d realized she would never, ever want anyone or anything in her life more than this strong-limbed, curly-headed brother of Bridget’s.

Behind the kitchen door, two flickering shadows. The music began. It was a sweet country song, Abby could never remember the name of it, of the boy-loses-girl, boy-finds-girl, boy-marries-girl genre. Still no sign of Bridget or Mark, or Wolf, for that matter. She knew something was happening, something big, and she needed to know what it was—now.

A mirrored ball began to rotate, projecting a thousand tiny crystal lights against the dark walls. Something near the ceiling caught her eye, a long white object of some kind being lowered on a pulley system. It was a sign, slowly unfurling. Abby gasped when she saw what it read:

BIGFORK HIGH SENIOR PROM 2008

“Oh my God,” she said to herself. “What is happening?” She reached under her hair and loosened a tortoiseshell barrette. By the time she reached the center of the floor, her hair had fallen protectively around her shoulders.