Luke was the ward financial clerk and spent hours in the clerk's office and Charlie had to wonder just how things had gone before she and Fo arrived on the scene.
Sunday dinner that afternoon was singularly satisfying. Everyone showed up dressed appropriately, and no dogs did show up at all, which was wonderful. Angela didn't show up either and her absence was so comfortable that Charlie felt guilty. Even the little kids pitched in to help get it on the table. When it went more smoothly and serenely than any meal yet, Charlie felt that she had made a positive impact here at least a little bit. As they cleaned up, Chase totally baled, and Jamie accidentally knocked a whole jug of milk off the counter, but all in all, it felt like a success.
Fo and Charlie and then Luke ended up on the porch rockers late that afternoon at Charlie's house and she was amazed at how smoothly Luke fit into the friendship she and Fo had spent a lifetime forging. Time with Luke with them was every bit as comfortable as it had been before they'd come here. She still had a crush on him, but she tried to ignore it and simply enjoy her high country summer. She'd still never seen him spend any time with Lindie or show any affection to her and she had to wonder about that, but it truly wasn't any of her business.
As they sat and lazily rocked, she asked Fo about a certain nurse at the hospital she knew he had an interest in and when he gave her a goofy grin she perked right up. Apparently he liked this girl more than he'd let on at first. She turned to him and said, "Out with it Fo. What have I been missing?"
He chuckled. "You haven't been missing anything. I just happen to have found out when and where she takes her lunch and we've been eating together for three days now."
"And?" He smiled and didn't say anything and she had to repeat her question. "And? Have you asked her out yet?"
"Of course not! That would require far more bravery than I have and you know it!" She groaned and he laughed. "Give it a rest, Chuck. She'll ask me sometime hopefully and then I won't have to get out of my comfort zone."
"Geez you're a wimp, Fo! It's just a lucky thing the good Lord made you gorgeous or you'd never even go on a date. Do you know how many years I've been praying for you to finally find the right girl? Like three! Since about the second you got home from Brazil to be exact. At the rate we're going here, you're going to be seventy before you even get a gut to ask someone out!"
At this Luke sat up and turned and looked at the two of them. Stared at them really. Both of them met his gaze and finally he said, "What's going on? Why are you hassling him to go out? Are you two not, um, like together? I thought you two were an item."
Fo laughed and Charlie looked at Luke blankly and asked, "Like an item item? Fo and me?" Luke nodded and then Charlie laughed too. "Oh heavens no! That would be like dating my brother. Ick! No offense Fo. Sorry. You truly are adorable, but… Well, you know."
Luke continued to look at them as if he didn't know whether to believe them. "You're kidding, right?"
Fo leaned up and slapped him on the knee. "Dude, she's Charlie. I couldn't date Charlie. Get serious."
Still looking from one to the other of them, Luke couldn't hide his skepticism. "Is there a problem with Charlie? You two have been practically inseparable for years. Why could you not date her?"
"Of course there's a problem with Charlie. She's Charlie."
At this she had to interrupt. "Now you're not sounding all that complimentary, Forest Eldridge." She turned to Luke. "There's not really anything wrong with me, I promise, but I'm just… We're only… We could never date. That's all. We're too good of friends."
"I thought you were supposed to marry your best friend. How can you be too good of friends?"
Charlie simply shrugged looking at him wishing she could ask him about him and Lindie, but she didn't dare. She was watching his eyes and he seemed to get almost a bit wary and Charlie said, "Fo and I really are just like a brother and sister. We always have been. But I do wish he'd get a little more driven about finding his princess charming."
Fo interrupted their look. "You have no room to talk, Charlie. You're not any closer to finding the prince."
Charlie went back to lazily rocking. "I have an excuse. I have to get through my stupid law school. So there's no hurry for me. You're all but done."
"You don't have to go to law school, Charlie. You could find that gut you were talking about and tell your parents you don't want to be an attorney."
She sighed. "It's not a gut thing. It's an effort thing. I honestly think it's going to be easier to make it through law school than to convince my parents I don't need be an attorney. I'm sure they know I have no interest in it."
Luke was staring at her again. She looked back at him and he finally cracked a smile and returned to rocking. "You two are putting me on. So are you joking about both law school and being an item, or just about going to law school?"
She stopped rocking and turned to him as Fo chuckled. "You deserved that Charlie. It really is ridiculous beyond ridiculous. This is going to take years and years of your life. At some point you need to grow up and quit being such a wuss. Your prince is going to give up on you and marry a waitress."
Charlie busted up laughing. "Holy brutal, Fo! A waitress? Oh my! You’re forgetting that theoretically there are some single, eligible men in law school." She turned to Luke. "See. You can't be an item when you're that painfully honest. A girlfriend would kill you."
Luke smiled. "I guess I see what you mean."
The funny thing was Charlie and Lindie were becoming truly good friends. Even though Lindie was nineteen and Charlie was twenty-three, their friendship came incredibly easy. Lindie must have understood that Charlie wasn't judgmental of her in the slightest because they hit it right off, in spite of Lindie's naturally quiet personality. One evening Charlie needed to go shopping and Fo had actually finally asked his nurse friend out, so Charlie called Lindie and together they took the Taco Rocket and headed into Kalispell.
Lindie was soft spoken, but she had a nutty sense of humor and they laughed the whole time they looked through the mall there. They'd almost made it back to the ranch compound when the Taco Rocket began making the noise. Charlie tried to warn Lindie that they were going to end up walking, but even that cracked the two of them up and they laughed all the last mile of the gravel lane as they walked carrying their packages. Before turning off toward her house, Lindie told Charlie, "You should get Luke to look at your car. He can fix anything."
The next day when the computer in the kitchen went on the fritz, Evie said the same thing to Charlie. And indeed, when Luke came in for dinner and she mentioned it to him, he had it working in no time before he headed back out for evening chores.
Before riding lessons the next afternoon, Charlie took the Taco Rocket in search of a new helmet at the farm and ranch supply and ended up walking the last ways in again. She told Lindie what had happened during their lesson and the two of them laughed together again as they rode. Luke came in during the lesson and seemed pleased about the helmet, but he asked Charlie what was up with her car out on the gravel road. She told him, "Sometimes it stalls. It'll be fine again when I go get it this evening, don't worry." He simply looked at her and shook his head as he headed back out of the arena. She and Lindie laughed at him this time.
Charlie finally got up the guts to ask Lindie when she and Luke were getting married. They were riding side by side around the arena watching the girls ride and Lindie looked at her and admitted, "Actually, I'm trying to talk him out of getting married, but he's pretty hard to convince." She glanced down at Jamie asleep on the horse in front of her. "We're not really in love with each other."
She dropped her eyes self consciously. "I made some pretty stupid decisions a while back. One of them was to trust Chase. Please don't tell anyone, but this is Chase's baby not Luke's. Luke just felt like he needed to marry me to make up for Chase not staying with me. I appreciate what Luke is trying to do, but I think it might be a better idea to give the baby up for adoption rather than make Luke feel he has to marry me out of responsibility. Someday he may end up hating me for it.
“I know that sounds cold hearted to give it up." She hesitated, "But honestly, I had a lot of hopes and dreams before this happened. And much as I do love Luke, I mean we've practically grown up together. Much as I love him, it's more like a brother than a husband. Does that make sense?"
"It does. I know exactly what you mean. Fo and I are that way. And I don't think putting your baby up for adoption sounds cold hearted. I think it means you love your baby enough to want it to have a happy, stable home where the parents do love each other and the baby will be desperately wanted. As opposed to being an oops."
She paused and then continued. "I think it's okay to have hopes and dreams for yourself Lindie. I've never been married, but I would imagine it's hard enough without trying to make a go of it without being in love. It's not truly any of my business, but if you feel strongly about it, you'd better keep trying to talk to Luke. His sense of duty is strong, but he also obviously cares a great deal for you."
Lindie nodded. "He does. He's a wonderful man. The best. But he's also pretty stubborn when he thinks he's right."
"I can only imagine. How come you don't wear an engagement ring?"
"Oh, he tried to get me to go shopping with him several times, but I'm not really a ring kind of a girl. It would always be in my way. And it's not like it would symbolize some eternal, true love anyway."
This last comment sounded almost bitter and it broke Charlie's heart. She reached over and patted Lindie's arm. "Hang in there. Everything will work out however it's supposed to, in the end.”
****
Thinking back on that conversation that night as she laid down to go to sleep, Charlie decided she truly believed that. When the people involved were honestly trying to do their best, God had a way of ironing out the wrinkles. She tried to keep an objective point of view in spite of her lingering crush on Luke. She genuinely liked Lindie and wanted the best for both her and her baby. It was too bad Chase had so few scruples. And that Lindie hadn’t kept stronger morals and been wiser.
****
Things had been going well at the Langstons, but that all seemed to come to a grinding halt one afternoon when Richard happened to be out of town at a bull auction. To start with, when Charlie and Madge were trying to figure out why the printer was caput, Evie cut Elsa's hair while at the same time Elsa cut Jamie's. They were all sitting in a row like a miniature assembly line. Evie had a lovely neat handful of two dark braids and Jamie looked as if he'd been caught in the lawn mower.
That same day, Charlie wondered if she was smelling cigarette smoke on Tuckett. He had been spending a lot of time hanging around with the ranch hand that watched Charlie and gave her the creeps. She knew the ranch hand smoked. She hoped Tuckett had just been around the smoke and not actually smoking.
And then Angela came in from the airport in a bad mood for some reason. Her bad mood escalated rapidly when she saw the new haircuts Charlie hadn't had time to remedy yet, and then from somewhere Angela produced a bottle of wine and she started drinking. Charlie was shocked and immediately took the four kids to the swimming pool to get them away from her and her influence. Charlie thought she had things relatively under control by the time Luke showed up a little later to join them. All three of the little ones started to squeal his name and even Tuckett said, "Hey, Luke."
Charlie was just trying to discretely explain what was going on up at the house when a pretty blonde girl she had never seen before showed up. Luke didn't look very happy about her appearance, but he introduced her politely enough. "Charlie, this is our neighbor, Summer Harmon. Her dad is another rancher up the road and she comes sometimes and swims or uses the tennis courts. Summer, this is Charlie Evans from Connecticut. She's staying with us this summer and helping out with the kids for us before heading off to law school this fall."
Summer had given Charlie a halfhearted smile and then turned abruptly away to begin to all but hang on Luke. She was so obviously here to see him that Charlie looked around, wondering how in the world this girl had known Luke was taking some down time with the kids and was in the pool for once. It was the only time he'd been here with them since Charlie had gotten here and she wondered if somehow the other girl had been spying on him. She gave that thought up because of the sheer distances here and then just for a second, wondered if Luke had invited her. Almost immediately she rejected that thought, knowing without a doubt he would never encourage another woman when he was engaged to Lindie.
Charlie had no idea how Summer had known Luke was here, but Summer certainly wasn't wasting her time about nearly drooling all over him. She was hounding him so hard that Charlie wasn't the least bit surprised when he abruptly got out and went back to the bunkhouse, and then left again in his pickup truck. The fact that Summer wasn't far behind him in leaving came as little surprise.
Once she was gone, Tuckett looked after her car heading down the gravel lane with disgust. "Poor Luke. She's like a blood sucking leech or something. Always stuck to him when she's around. It drives him crazy. He can't even take an afternoon off for once."
Charlie tried to look for the positive. "At least she didn't stay long."
Tuckett laughed. "No. Not after Luke left. She's not in love with any of the rest of us, I guess. It’s too bad she doesn’t have a thing for Chase. He has all the time in the world to spend with her." He changed the subject. "Come on Charlie. I'll have you a cannon ball competition."
For the next half hour they had a cannonball competition. Fo showed up in the middle of it and then won. It probably wasn't very fair because he was so much bigger than everyone else, but the little kids laughed and cheered for his gigantic splashes anyway.