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  Didn’t need anyone.

  “Read them, Chan. When you get home. You need to.”

  “I know. My pride and my anger and my selfishness prevented me from knowing this child for almost fifteen years.”

  “I’ll tell ya, honey, I had no idea what the hell you were talking about today, but I get it now. I had to have said something about…your dad, the letters…”

  “Don’t try to figure it out, Jed. I’m trying to move past it now, make it up to Carlos, and Maria. And to you, if you’ll let me.”

  “You don’t need to make anything up to me, darlin’. I’m here for you, always. You know that.”

  “I do now. You made things clear today.”

  “Sorry. Again.”

  “Sorry you did it?”

  “No, sorry it had to be done.”

  “Neanderthal.”

  “Brat,” he whispered.

  “Hear the owl?” I said after a long period of silence that felt right, natural.

  “Mmmhmm. Whole family lives out back of the barn.”

  “We don’t have owls in the city.”

  “Yes, you do. You just can’t see or hear them with all the noise.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “What were you doing up here all by yourself?”

  “Reading emails, feeling sorry for myself. Thanks for hanging out.”

  “My pleasure, darlin’,” he said absently, his hand in my hair, slow strokes soothing the proud woman into docility. “This is where you come when you’re upset.”

  “Yet you shout and bellow and call for me, and it doesn’t occur to you to come in here and look. Ever. Why is here the absolute last place you look?”

  “Maybe I like the thrill of the chase.”

  “Now that I can believe.”

  Jed ran the backs of his fingers over my cheek. “This is the safest place for you to be, and it’s just smarter to look in all the unsafe ones first. Like wells, and rivers …”

  “Mmmmm…”

  “… and over cliffs…”

  “Uh huh.”

  “In lakes, streams, and cowboy bars…”

  “Oh, my.”

  “No matter where you go, babe, I’ll find you.”

  I sighed and ran my fingers along a muscular forearm. “I don’t want to do this tomorrow.”

  “I know.” His hand in my hair felt so good. “I know, sweetheart, but it’s one of the have-tos. You’ll have your fair share of want-tos, but not tomorrow.”

  I sat up and my eyes met his. “It’s around this time that a man worth his salt starts telling a woman what she wants to hear, especially when she’s so…overwrought.”

  “A man worth his salt never sugarcoats the truth, especially to a woman who knows better.” He brushed his thumb across my lips. “Overwrought or not. Here’s another,” he whispered. “You’ll be stronger tomorrow than you are today, and I’ll have your back. I promise you that.” He pulled me right onto his lap, my legs to the side, my ass in his crotch. And then he kissed me. He did it soft, precious. Then the kiss turned fierce, possessive. It was a fitting and necessary kiss. He broke it and stared at me, his fingers tender against my cheek, a gleam in his eye, determination etched on his face. “You’re not the girl who left here fifteen years ago.”

  “No.”

  “What are we doing here, Chan?” His eyes bore into me in that deep way a woman can feel all the way to her bones.

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I know,” I amended, “I just don’t know how to proceed.”

  “This is wrong.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  “You’re Charles Asher’s daughter.”

  “I’m a grown woman.”

  “I’m twelve years older than you.”

  “I know what I want.”

  “I’m not going to make love to you and then let you get on a plane Sunday.”

  “Then don’t.” Jed arched a brow in question. “Don’t let me get on that plane Sunday.” I lay my hand against his cheek. “Chase me, Jed. I won’t run too fast.”

  “Chandler, I can’t.”

  “You won’t, you mean.”

  “All right.” He drew his brows together. “I don’t want just a roll in the hay with you…” He looked around. “—pun definitely intended—especially the day before you bury your father.”

  “What is the difference, Jed…really?”

  “The difference is I’ve had my time of one night stands and relationships that go nowhere, or stay right there, as long as there’s a bed close by. I’m done with that, and I’m not going there with you.”

  “I love you.” God. I said it, and I did it sober, if a little emotional. But when didn’t those words leave a woman’s lips without emotion attached?

  “I know you do, honey. I take that seriously.”

  “This is about me staying, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, frankly, it is. I’m not going to bed you every time you decide to drop by, and I’m not going to love you from two-thousand miles away.”

  “Are you saying you’ll love me if I stay?”

  “No.”

  The sharp stab to my chest was fierce. Tears sprang to my eyes. I moved off his lap and turned my face away.

  “Chandler.”

  “What?”

  “Come back here.”

  “No.”

  “Chan.”

  “I don’t think I should be sitting in your lap for this conversation.”

  “And I think you should, but I’ll let it slide for the moment. Look at me.”

  I did.

  “What is it you heard just now?”

  “That you don’t love me.”

  “Well then let me clarify: if you don’t stay there is no way in hell I will allow myself to love you…to fall in love with you. You’ve been gone fifteen years and I’ve only known you as the little girl I have always loved. You are not that little girl anymore, and a weekend of getting to know you again will not be enough—for me. You have a hell of a lot of things to consider, decide on and think about in general, and starting a thing with me should not be in your mind, or heart, right now.”

  “But it is.”

  “Then keep it there, let it sit, get to know it a little, and don’t be in such a damn hurry. I’m not going anywhere…except to bed. Alone.”

  “I hate reasonable men.”

  “Get over here, young lady, right now.”

  My belly did a thousand flips as I moved closer to him. He pulled me onto his lap. “Next time I put you in my lap, I take you off it, too.” He tipped my chin up and kissed me. It was tender and it lingered. “I like you here. Plan on spending a lot of time just like this.”

  I ground my ass into his crotch. “Like this?”

  He swatted my hip and maneuvered me onto my back. “I’ve had a hard-on since you got out of that fancy car Thursday night. You think grinding that beautiful ass on me is going to change my mind?”

  “It was worth a try.”

  “Smile for me, babe. It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I did, and it was genuine.

  “Stay, Chan. Get to know yourself. Get to know me. I heard what you said to me, loud and clear. Give me a chance to say it back honestly, with some sort of future attached, because it’s the only way I’ll do it.”

  “I can stay a week, and then I have to go back—regardless of what I decide to do, I have to go back for some period of time. I have a business to run and decisions to make.”

  “I understand. A week. I’ll take that.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to reward my decision with a little trip to the boneyard?” I arched my brows. “Give this little cowgirl a ride?”

  “That damn mouth again. You’re begging for the wrong ride, little cowgirl.” And then he kissed me.

  Boy, did he ever.

  The Short Goodbye

  The sun did not come out the day I buried my father. People across three counties stuffed themselves into The 1st
Presbyterian Church, and more stood outside, straining to hear the service. Then those same people drove the dirt road to the rolling hill a mile south of the house, and under an expansive oak tree with Grace’s Lake below, Charles Asher was laid to rest next to my mother and his parents.

  I stayed behind after the crowd left the gravesite for the house. Jed and Maria stood in the background. Carlos stood over the open grave, a red rose in his hand. Jed set his hand on my arm.

  “I’ll take Maria to the house. Guests will be wanting something to eat.”

  When they left, I walked over to the honey-haired boy I hadn’t said two words to since the viewing.

  He stared into the dark hole in the ground, his face a mask of loss and wonder. A red rose sat in his overlarge hands. Blue sky peeked out from behind threatening thunderclouds as a bitter wind swept up the hill rattling the leaves of the old oak. Carlos was half a head taller than me, and lean. His eyes were my father’s and his curved, sensuous mouth belonged to him alone. I saw nothing of Maria in the handsome young man, but maybe I’d see it in time. Did this boy standing next to me know who I was, who I was to him? What did my father look like standing next to a son instead of a daughter? Did they laugh, share inside jokes, go riding together? Did my father discuss his day around the dinner table? Was he hard on him about school, like he had been with me? Did he hug him and love him?

  Papa! Papa!

  Tears burned my eyes as I studied the headstones of my mother, my grandfather William, and my grandmother, Sarah. A fourth stone would soon grace this land under the stately oak, and I wondered if I, too, would one day rest here. Would Jed? Would Maria and Carlos? We were a family now, but of course they had been one for fifteen years, and I was coming late to the party. Oh, I’d been invited, in a way; it just took me a decade and a half to show up.

  Carlos tossed the rose into the grave and then he lowered his head onto my shoulder. For fourteen years my brother walked this land, slept in a bed in the house I grew up in, laughed, cried, got the flu, had tantrums, wet the bed, refused to take a bath, ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pet horses, snatched handfuls of alfalfa from the ground and held it to his nose, vowing never to forget such a fragrance. I had missed it. I had missed it all.

  I slipped my arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. I kissed the top of his head.

  He smelled like Montana.

  The hum of voices filled the early evening like a song on some distant radio—familiar and satisfying. People milled around the house and the grounds outside with plates of food and cups of drink in their hands. Many laughed and reminisced about the Charles Asher they knew; others put on a somber face, believing that was more appropriate. Maria played hostess to the many who knew her as lover and common-law wife to the second-generation rancher, and mother to his only son.

  Carlos stuck close to me, and I spent most of the afternoon absently running my hand down his back or clutching his meaty one after finding it had slipped stealthily into mine. This had been the extent of our interaction since I got here. I did not know what to do about my brother, how to talk to him, how to reconcile him, how to incorporate him into my life. This was uncharted territory for me, and I was desperate to get it right. I had a brother. He was mine, for better or worse. So far, worse had not entered into the picture, and I didn’t expect it to.

  While Maria got herself and Carlos settled again in the house, Jed and I sat on the porch with a couple of beers.

  “It’s quiet,” I said.

  “Yeah. Love this time of night, right before the sun disappears and there’s still light left over the mountains. Gives ‘em a rich color you don’t see any other time.”

  “Mmmm. Nicely put, Ranch Hand. You promised me a ride…of some kind. How ‘bout it?”

  He laughed. “Oh, lord, girl.”

  “C’mon, Jed,” I whined. “I haven’t been on a horse in…”

  “A month?”

  “Six weeks. How did you know?”

  “No matter where you live, Dutch, you’ll find a horse to ride somewhere. Let’s go.”

  “You scare me, old man.”

  “Don’t underestimate how well I know you, fifteen years or not.”

  “I’m going to get those two goddamned words tattooed on your ass if you don’t stop.”

  “Tattoo mine, and I will most definitely tattoo yours.”

  “Charming.”

  Laughing, we entered the stables, and the familiarity hit hard. The smell of the horses, the hay, and the way being here made me feel, was as familiar as breathing. As I walked the aisle between the stalls and the wall lined with leather and tack, I ran my hand over the soft muzzle of each horse as I passed, speaking low and moving on. Dad always kept a dude string for family and friends—horses that existed for the pure pleasure of riding. They looked happy and well tended.

  I came to the horse in the last stall. I knew him as if he were my own, and in fact had gone to sleep the last two nights dreaming of him. In the dream, he was all mine, as if Charles knew we belonged together. In the dream, we rode through fields golden with fall and memories, and in those dreams I felt alive again. He was as my father predicted he’d become. His muzzle was pink like a baby’s behind, while his mane and his tail were golden blond. He was uniformly dappled gray and white, as if a stencil had been used to color him. His eyes were clear and gray. He pushed his soft nose into my hand and moved his lips, kissing my palm.

  “Mugsy,” I whispered.

  Jed patted the horse’s neck. “How did you know?”

  “Dad talked about him in an email. Has he been saddled and ridden yet?”

  “Yeah. He’s a good, strong four-year-old. He’s ready for you, darlin’. Your daddy made sure of that.”

  Instead of saddling Mugsy, I put a simple head collar on him and mounted him bareback. Jed took my cue, and did the same with a big bay named Paul. We set out into the twilight. No one was around, the men having taken the rest of the day and tomorrow off in honor of my father.

  Mugsy was easy to ride, and was everything a four-year-old should be. Twenty in horse years, he was sweet with a need I felt in him, a need to break free, to run, to feel the wind in his hair; all that I, too, longed for. The decision to take him unsaddled had been a good one: we bonded immediately, and it took the slightest pressure from my knees and calves to command him.

  I coaxed Mugsy into a gallop and we took off. I rode him hard down the path leading out to the dirt road, then steered him between rolls of hay, the horse’s hooves kicking up the fresh scent of alfalfa as if newly mowed. Jed caught up to me on Paul.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and off he took, through the field toward the pasture.

  “Don’t let him intimidate you, baby. He’s a big bully.” I nudged Mugsy on and we caught up easily. “Follow me,” I said, and took off. I rode up the hill we’d left just hours ago. The dirt over the grave was dark and moist. I jumped down off Mugsy and let him graze.

  “He needs a headstone.” I crouched down and ran my hand over the moist dirt. “I never expected this. I thought I had more time.”

  “We all did, babe.” Jed took my hand and brushed the dirt from my palm, my fingers, rubbing his hand over mine and taking on some of the dirt like a burden. I held his hand and led him down the hill to Grace’s Lake, a natural groundwater lake that never seemed to dry up. My mother loved this spot, so said my dad, and he would bring me here to play and swim and frolic while he tended her grave. He was at his happiest, most relaxed, at his most tender when he was here. It was a beautiful lake—small by lake standards, perhaps it was more of a pond, but the sign Dad erected read Grace’s Lake. Who was I to argue?

  The horses fed on grass as Jed pulled me to the ground at the lake’s edge.

  “I’ve always loved this spot.”

  “I know. Your dad did, too. He came almost every day the last handful of years.”

  “I wish I’d known her—known them together. I had no one to teach me how to…how to do this.”
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  “You were a well loved child, Chandler. That’s how you learn to love.”

  “Yes, I know. You’re right.” I looked at Mugsy grazing on the long green grass next to the oak tree.

  “He’s beautiful, Jed—perfect.”

  “Collin’s done good work with him, getting him used to the ranch, the saddle, the bit. Collin, by the way, is a fine horse trainer, and probably not too appreciative of you coming along and taking that Azteca from him.”

  I looked out at the lake. “He’s a fine trainer, I know. I’ll speak to him.”

  Jed sighed. “This is your home, Chandler. You can do what you want. Just bear in mind who you’re dealing with. We all have a purpose, and Collin knows his and he’s comfortable. He’s a valuable part of the ranch, and he’s a proud Montana man. There’s a way to approach this.”

  Duly chastised, I agreed. The cool air kissed my forearms where I’d rolled the sleeves of the flannel up, yet I was warm next to Jed. “I’ve spent hours reading emails my father sent me the last few years.”

  “Yeah,” Jed said, staring into the lake. “He was sure proud of himself when he finally found his way around the computer. Made business planning a lot easier, too.”

  “I left a few he sent me unopened, until Thursday night.”

  “I saw your light on up there as I was going up to the house.”

  “I couldn’t sleep. Sorry again. Last thing I wanted to do was fight with you, Jed.”

  “I know, sweetheart. Let it out. You’re here and there’s a lot of emotion going on. At some point, though, you’re going to have to find some closure.”

  “You sound so…not Montana.”

  He laughed. “What, we’re just a bunch of close-minded Neanderthals up here in Big Sky country?”

  “Yes. I mean, not many fellas out here are as…evolved as you are—in a brutish sort of way.”

  “Oh, Chan, stick around. You’ll learn something.”

  “Well,” I said, “It was interesting, catching up on what’s been going on here. I suppose if I’d opened a letter or two I’d be even more caught up.”