Chapter Eight
“G ot a minute?”
Cal found his mother in the basement of the house he’d grown up in. She was halfway up a step ladder, hauling boxes of Christmas decorations down from the top shelf of a cupboard.
Tonight was Halloween. They hadn’t even had Thanksgiving yet. Wasn’t it a bit early for Christmas decorations?
He came up beside her to steady the ladder, and help retrieve the last of the boxes, nonetheless. “I’m not even going to ask what you’re doing with these,” he said, with the patience of a saint, and a deliberate lack of curiosity.
Sometimes it was best not to ask why.
“I’m looking for Halloween masks for Jett and Mardie. They’re taking Claire on her first trick or treat in Marietta this evening.”
“Huh.” Well, okay.
“Are you here to talk about your next move when it comes to courting Beth Evans?”
Mothers knew. They always knew. Denial was pointless. “Could be. Yes.”
She came down the ladder and brushed her dusty hands against each other. “What’s on your mind?”
Well. “Beth’s been on my mind, as you know. Although, I don’t really know how you know.”
She smiled inscrutably.
“So, yes. I like her. And there’s Sam to think of and Red’s not long in the ground, and we’re going into business with her, and I don’t want to misread the situation, or get it wrong.”
“Honorable. On the other hand, you’ve been sitting on your feelings for that woman for a while, and it seems to me that Beth’s developing feelings for you, too. Proposing marriage…”
“That was a spur-of-the-moment business proposal.”
“Hmm. Not to mention all the baking.”
“She had time on her hands and money in the bank. I think she just felt like baking one day and forgot to stop.”
“All your favorites…”
Honestly, mothers knew everything .
“How did Dad court you ?” He had Seth’s example to follow if he wanted to, and before that, Jett’s. As far as he could tell, they’d both relied heavily on charm, being a good catch, and stepping in to help their women out. He was doing the last one—he’d spent half of yesterday realigning Beth’s barn doors so they’d close properly and keep her horses and Sam’s pony warmer come the depths of winter.
Of course, Beth no longer thought of him doing those things as helping her out. He was now taking care of Casey acquisitions. It was getting harder to do chores for her.
When it came to charm, he’d been standing behind the barn door when that had been handed out, and as for being a… what did they call it? A high-value man?
He was hardly that.
People always said he was a chip off the old block—a son writ strongly in his father’s image. Seeing as his father was too dead to ask directly, here he was. “What did Dad do to make you think he was the one? That’s the man I’m going move to Montana for?”
She handed him a box of tinsel and came down off the ladder. “I met your father at a church dance in Louisiana,” she said, her voice soft with remembrance. “He asked for the first dance and the last dance on my card. And then he claimed all the ones in between, and by the end of the night I knew I’d found my man.”
“Sweet, Mom. But not exactly helpful . What did he actually do in all that time to impress you?”
“Well, it wasn’t his dancing,” she said with a sudden guffaw. “Which is why I made sure all you boys knew how to dance by the time you hit your teens.” She held out her arms to initiate a waltz. “Come on, show me what you got.”
“ Mom. ”
“Waltz with me, Calvin.”
He was plenty old enough to know what to do with a mom-order disguised as a request. Sighing, he put down the box, took his position, and fell into step.
“We had another name picked out for you before you were born, your father and me. Not even going to mention it, that’s how bad it was. And then when you came along there was something about you that was so wise and watchful and patient, and gentle. We named you after your father’s father, because he had those traits, too. You never got to meet him, but I wish you had. He lived simply and loved deeply. A smile from his wife or his sons could light him up like a Christmas tree. Burned cookies from his new daughter-in-law who hadn’t yet conquered the wood-fired-stove made him beam. To be in his presence was to be grateful that a man so strong and true and fearless in his love existed. Your father had that, too. From the moment we met, he made me think I was the prettiest, cleverest, most fascinating woman in the world and not for one second did he ever let me forget that he was blessed that I chose him above all others. Does that sound so hard?”
“Not exactly.” But Cal wasn’t used to wearing his heart on his sleeve. “Except Red and Beth got married and I wasn’t ever going to take what wasn’t mine, so I’ve been hiding those instincts for a very long time. I don’t have status or charm. I’m not special. And expressing my love doesn’t come easy. What if I’m not enough? What if I’m just a poor second choice.”
“No, Cal. No. Never that.” She put her soft palm to his cheek and made him meet her gaze. “I wish you could look in the mirror and see yourself the way others see you, because you give so much to others, and you don’t even know you’re doing it. I don’t for one second believe that Beth thinks of you as a runner-up. She drew no grand prize the first time ’round. Trust me. You’re not Beth’s second choice. You’re her second chance .”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
*
To Cal, Halloween had always been less about trick or treating and more about remembering the faithful departed. Or in some cases, the unfaithful dead that a person held in their heart, regardless.
For the past three years, he’d been wishing Red alive. Wishing it so that Beth wouldn’t be alone and Sam would have his dad back. Wanting his childhood friend back, because the not knowing was hard on them all.
This year, he had different bones to pick, and a confession to make. One that would square away—in his mind, at least—his actions and values and plans for moving on.
He got back to his cabin as the light began to fade—held up by a lame horse in need of a fresh stall and a poultice. The waft of arnica horse liniment came with him and he headed for the shower, stepping under the stinging, steaming spray to wash the day’s grime away. He dressed afterwards as if he was meeting friends for a drink in a bar. Clean-shaven. Presentable. And then he brushed the snow from three of his deck chairs and the little metal fire dish, threw some tinder and smaller lengths of dry pine in to get the fire started, and went back into the kitchen. He returned with leftover stew and three opened beers. One for him, one for his father, and one for Red.
He didn’t plan on talking to them together—his father never had cared much for Owen ‘Red’ Evans. Too reckless, he’d said once when Cal had quizzed him on the subject. Too undisciplined, not always truthful, and never paid enough attention to the little things.
“Guess you were right,” he murmured to his father, setting one of the beers down in front of an empty chair.
Thing was, you couldn’t be reckless or careless in this part of the world and get away with it. It would cost you. As Red had finally discovered.
“You could have mentioned Red was dead,” Cal grumbled to his father. “You could have showed me where to find him.” Hell, maybe he had ? “You could have showed me sooner and saved Beth and Sam some rough years.”
Search and rescue had found Red’s truck easily enough, once the weather had cleared, but there’d been no sign of Red. Cal and his brothers and dozens of others had combed every inch of that river for thirty miles in both directions. How the hell had Red traveled from there up to Hooper’s Crossing on foot? Had someone else been with him? Had he caught a ride? How?
Maybe it wasn’t his dad he should be talking to. Maybe it was Red’s ghost that needed addressing.
“Here’s your beer, you skinny mutt. Because you sure as hell had no meat on you when I found you.” He took a deep pull of his own beer and sat back and took to eating and thinking and choosing his words carefully. He wasn’t a superstitious man in the everyday sense, but All Hallow’s Eve, when the veil between worlds was supposed to be thinnest, deserved at least some consideration.
“It’s good, though, that we got to put you to rest,” he continued, between mouthfuls. “It was hard on people, the waiting and hoping. The not knowing. Hard for Sam and even harder for Beth to stay strong for him, you know? And she did. She never cracked. Well,” he revised. “Maybe a few hairline fractures the day we found you.”
The coroner would be able to tell them more, eventually, but there’d been no visible signs of foul play or animal attack. Best guess, Red had climbed the tree to get out of the deep snowfall, tried to wrap up and stay warm, and then died of exposure.
“Where were you going? Who were you meeting? A woman? I know you had them. And to lie to Beth and tell her you were going hunting with me? Dick move, man.”
Red had known Cal was in Deadwood watching TJ ride bulls. Red had lied to Beth, and used Cal’s name for cover, and it hadn’t been the first time. “I came home and got hauled straight into a police interview. Had to hand over my phone to prove my whereabouts. I even had to call on a bunch of pro bull riders and rodeo folk to provide statements as to my whereabouts. You did Beth dirty, and I hate that. You did me dirty, too.”
He took another long pull of beer. He’d be heading for another in no time flat.
“Beth could hardly look me in the eye. Best she could do was nod in the direction of my feet. And Sam…” That grieving, sad little soul. “Every damn day he came at me, asking if I’d gone looking for you, and there was no way I could look him in the eye and say no, now could I? Every damn day for a year, in the half-light of dawn or in my lunch break, I went somewhere new. And if I was too busy to take time off during the day, I’d go driving at night. I’d check every drinking hole between here and Big Fork in the hope you had amnesia or was shacked up somewhere being a fool.”
He snorted softly and finished his beer and started picking at the label rather than put it down.
“It took an intervention from Mason to get me to stop. Mason. Making sense and looking out for me. He wanted to know why I was still searching for you. Was I trying to clear my name? Because, newsflash, I was already in the clear. Did I have survivor’s guilt because I hadn’t been there to save you? A martyr complex? Both? Was I just too damn stubborn to ever give up? Why couldn’t I just stop and get on with my life? Good questions, hey.”
They’d made him think.
But Cal’s psyche was far more plainly built than that.
“The reason I kept looking for you long after everyone else had given up was because whether you were a good man or not, Beth and Sam needed you. That was the beginning and the end of it for me, because above all, I’m a very simple man. I was doing it for them.”
He took another deep breath. Time to wrap this up.
“Here’s to closure, man. I miss you, but I don’t miss the not knowing. Sam’s happier than I’ve seen him in a long while, and he’s growing like a weed. Beth’s happier, too, now that we’re buying into the ranch. I’ve got a lot of admiration for her, Red. More than you ever had. She’ll do well in Marietta. Says she’s ready to start over. Can’t begrudge her that.”
So, yeah.
“Good chat.”
“You done yet?” a voice came from the shadow of the steps and startled him silly because he hadn’t heard anyone drive up.
Granted, he was on the deck facing the mountains rather than the track, but still… “Beth?”
“The one and only. Don’t stop. I want to hear more about you looking for my husband every day for a year so as not to disappoint my son.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to hear the sound of me swearing? And then the sound of me heading inside to get more beer?”
“There’s two full beers open on the table,” she said.
“They’re taken.”
“Red and…”
“My father.”
“Ah. How are they?”
Seriously? “Who would know? I talk, they listen.”
“And you do this often?” she asked delicately.
“Once a year.”
“I see.” She came closer, took her gloves off and made a show of warming her hands over the firepit flames. She wore a padded coat belted in at the waist and the fur lined hood tamed her flyaway hair and framed her heart-shaped face just so. She had big doe eyes, a pert nose, and lips that haunted his dreams. He’d never seen her look prettier.
“Sam not with you?”
“He’s trick-or-treating in Marietta with his best friend and then having a sleepover.” She dusted fresh snow off the chair beside him and took a seat.
“Be right back,” he muttered and returned a minute later with two more beers and slightly more composure. He opened both, set one on arm of her chair and returned to his seat. Better.
He had no idea what to say to her. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough,” she said quietly. “For what it’s worth, I never once thought you had anything to do with Red’s disappearance, or, as it turns out, his death. I was horrified when I heard you’d been called in for questioning. Red’s lie to me made trouble for you when I repeated it, and I felt so guilty.” She looked to the empty chair in which he’d mentally seated Red’s ghost. “I expected better of him.”
She always had, thought Cal.
And there were so many times Red simply hadn’t delivered.
“What happened on my wedding day, Cal? Why did Red turn up late? Why did you miss it completely? You were supposed to be his best man.”
No. Nope. He wasn’t ever planning to talk about how he’d found Red with a redhead in a Motel8, both of them naked and damn near unconscious with booze. No remembering shoving Red in the shower and driving the woman to the emergency department for fear she had alcohol poisoning. It hadn’t been the first time Cal had hauled Red out of a hole. It had been the first time Cal had betrayed Beth, though. And it wore like a stain on his soul.
No. Nope. For better or for worse, he was taking that secret to the grave.
“You still managed to get married, didn’t you?” He smiled faintly. “It was what you wanted.”
“I know Red was hungover. I could smell it on him.”
Red had wanted him to drop the woman at the hospital and circle back to pick him up and get him to the church on time, but Cal’s conscience hadn’t allowed him to leave until the woman had been seen to. Eight hours later…
Gotta love an overburdened hospital system.
Suzie, that was her name. Red had picked Suzie up at a bar the night before, where she’d been drowning her sorrows with the help of a few pills.
Suzie sent Cal a Christmas card every year—these days with a picture of herself, her husband, and their two little girls, and a long rambling letter to go with it, listing all their achievements each year.
Every year, Suzie scrawled T HANK YOU, COWBOY straight across the middle of it all with a thick black sharpie and every year it made him laugh as he tried to read the summary beneath.
Suzie’s story wasn’t his story to tell. “He’d had a bit to drink, yes. He regretted it.”
“You were his best man. He looked up to you, relied on you to keep him out of trouble, and you didn’t.”
“He was a grown man. We’d had his buck’s party the week before. As far as I knew, he didn’t have any plans to go drinking the night before the wedding.”
“He was with another woman.”
Cal said nothing. How much did she know?
“Red said he didn’t even know her name, that he’d picked her up in a bar,” she said quietly. “I chose to believe him. And that was the start of our marriage.”
He did have one truth he could tell. “I couldn’t have stood there and watched you marry him, Beth. Not knowing what I knew. Not knowing what you knew. Couldn’t do it. I figured you’d made your choice and the least I could do was respect it.” They’d all been so young . Not a lick of maturity to be found in any of them back then. “I saw the photos afterward. You made a pretty bride. You both looked so happy.”
Chalk that one down to things he told himself in the dead of night to ease his guilty conscience.
“I was pregnant. I was relieved Red showed up at all,” she said bluntly. “And we did make the best of it. Tried to, at any rate. I needed to believe that one day he’d become a better man. If not for me then for Sam. Things we tell ourselves in the dead of night, yeah?” She picked up her beer and took a chug. “Cheers, Mr. Casey. You raised a mighty fine man. And here’s to you too, Red. I’ve been thinking about you a lot, you lying, cheating, miserable disappointment of a man. I’ll keep the best memories of you alive for Sam—I promise you that, because every kid deserves a father they can be proud of—but I’m done pretending to myself that I chose wisely and married a good man. I didn’t. And I forgive you, because I’m ready to move on.”
She raised her beer to the sky, and sat back in the chair, took a long swallow of beer and then laughed abruptly. “Catharsis. Is that how you do it?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Well, yeah. It’s your party.”
“Then that’s how it’s done. Issues have been aired, feelings discussed, and it’s time to move on.”
“Not all feelings,” she murmured. “There’s still a few we haven’t tabled.”
Cal resumed scratching at the edge of his beer bottle with his thumbnail. “Why are you here?”
“Am I unwelcome?”
“Never.” His gaze met hers and something sparked. A connection born of the ashes of the past but bright and hopeful, nonetheless.
“I had a free evening, and I’ve been thinking about you a lot. Who you are. What you’re prepared to do for the people you care about. How you don’t seem to realize how much good you bring, just by being you.” She stood restlessly, and made her way to the deck railing, little more than a slender silhouette against a backdrop of towering peaks. “I know I come with baggage, a bad temper, and impulsive behavior, and I’m pretty sure I’m misreading your signals. Why would you want to take up with someone like me? But your family keeps pushing you at me and why would they be so mean if you weren’t interested in me? They’re not mean people. So, you might be. Interested. And it’s a brand-new world and if you were, that would be brilliant.”
Hope was a powerful aphrodisiac.
He stood and crossed the deck to stand beside her, holding out his big, calloused paw. “I’ve never danced with you in the moonlight.” And he wanted to. He was damn near trembling with the need to do so. “Would you do me the honor?”
He’d always known that if ever this woman put her hand in his, the stars would shine a little brighter.
Wasn’t that something.