Big Sky Summer Part 4

Mitch looked at Walker.

And, finally, the two men shook hands.

Was she imagining it, Casey asked herself, or had she just heard the sound of antlers locking in combat?

CHAPTER FOUR.

CASEY FELT AS JUMPY as a cat crossing a hot griddle, with Walker seated across the sunporch table from her, consuming a respectable stack of Doris's pancakes, Shane at his left elbow, Clare at his right. Both kids actively jockeyed for his attention, and he managed to strike a remarkably diplomatic balance, taking in every word of their chatter and weighing it all, somewhere behind those calm green-gray eyes of his.

Poor Mitch might have been invisible, at least as far as Clare and Shane were concerned, and they didn't spare their mom a whole lot of notice, either.

Casey wasn't bothered by this-she understood their yearning to connect with this man they didn't know was their father-but the guilt was another matter. She'd always been able to rationalize keeping the secret, out there on the road, far from Walker and the place he called home, but now she didn't have a constant round of concert tours and other distractions to serve as buffers. The reality of what she had cost these children, and this man, all the while thinking she was doing the right thing, keeping them safe, was now up close and personal, in her face, a table's width away. Denial, she realized, required distance-in close proximity to Walker, she might as well have been trying to spin plates on top of long sticks.

Once, amid the chatter of his children, Walker looked over at her, caught her gaze and held it, somehow making it impossible for her to look away. And what she saw in his eyes only reinforced the conclusion she'd already reached: that there was a crisis coming, an inevitable collision of deception and truth, and there would be casualties. That she stood directly in the line of fire was a given-and the least of her worries. Casey's greatest concern was the havoc this revelation would wreak in the lives of her children and, yes, in Walker's, too.

Yet again, the question pealed in her heart like sorrowing church bells announcing a funeral: What have I done?

Exhibiting surprising sensitivity, Mitch, sitting beside Casey at the table, reached over to squeeze her hand lightly. Another person, she thought with a stab of regret, who hadn't been fooled. Mitch-and how many other people?-must have known all along that Walker was more than a family friend. Very possibly, her longtime manager had merely been pretending to believe Casey's claims that the children's fathers were anonymous donors. He'd been willing, for whatever reason, to play a small part in her private soap opera.

An achy warmth enfolded her heart just then, and she gave Mitch a grateful glance, which he acknowledged with a wink.

"So can we, Mom?" Shane's eager voice jarred Casey back into the present moment. "Please?"

Fl.u.s.tered, Casey felt color bloom in her cheeks. She'd missed whatever had been said before, and now everyone at the table would know she hadn't been listening.

Walker came to her rescue in a way so offhand and easy that she could have kissed him-which, of course, was something she'd already been obsessing about anyway, for very different reasons. "We'll head out to the ranch and do some horseback riding," he recapped, "and I'll bring the kids back here after supper, if that's okay with you."

Casey swallowed, offered a wobbly smile and a nod of a.s.sent. If she'd heard the original request, she might well have refused it, if only to avoid being alone with her manager for a while longer. She wasn't afraid of Mitch, far from it, but she didn't feel like her usual sc.r.a.ppy self, either. Whatever he planned to propose-Mitch never showed up when she was off the road without a specific reason, generally one that would fatten his fee-she would honestly consider, and probably refuse. She knew her mind, and she was certainly no pushover, but the exchange was going to take more emotional energy than she could spare at the moment.

Both Shane and Clare cheered uproariously now that she'd given her permission, drowning out any possibility of conversation, and all three dogs got to their feet, suddenly alert, barking out a chorus of canine excitement.

"Can they come, too?" Shane asked Walker, big-eyed with hope, referring, of course, to the Labs.

"Sure," Walker said gruffly. How could anyone miss the love in his face, in the roughness of his voice, as he returned his son's gaze? And how had she managed to ignore the wide-open s.p.a.ces of Walker's heart-a heart big-sky expansive enough to hold not just his children, but a trio of chocolate Labs clamoring to join the festivities?

By comparison, Casey thought sadly, she was the Grinch, with a ticker the size of a walnut.

Chaos reigned as the meal ended and Clare and Shane rushed to clear the table and load the dishwasher-always their shared responsibility-each racing to be the first one finished, evidently, laughing and elbowing each other out of the way, good-naturedly for once. The dogs, clueless but wild with delight, only increased the mayhem.

"This is giving me a headache," Mitch said, quickly retreating to the guesthouse.

On the one hand, Casey was glad he'd gone, because it was hard enough to think with Walker sitting there looking so unspeakably good, the dogs barking, the kids carrying on. On the other, though, she was, however briefly, alone with Walker.

And that sparked a kind of delicious terror inside her.

"You and I need to talk," he told her quietly, in a tone that held regret as well as finality. "Soon."

Casey's heart had shimmied up into the back of her throat and lodged itself there, beating so hard that she felt submerged in the sound of blood pumping in her ears. She merely nodded, unable to speak.

Walker's expression was not unkind, but it was obvious, from his tone of voice, that he wasn't going to give an inch of ground, either. He'd reached critical ma.s.s, the proverbial hundredth monkey, and this time there would be no going back, no reasoning with him, no changing his mind.

He meant to claim Clare and Shane as his own, once and for all, and publicly, whether she wanted him to or not.

Once the children and the dogs had all been loaded into Walker's pickup truck, the figurative floodwaters slowly subsided, and Casey could, at last, hear herself think.

She brewed a cup of tea and went downstairs to the soundstage, turning on a single lamp, the only light in the huge room besides the green, blue, yellow and red LEDs blinking back at her from various pieces of high-tech equipment.

Casey opened the battered guitar case she'd first glimpsed under a glittering Christmas tree when she was still a child herself, reverently lifted out the instrument on which she'd played her first, stumbling chords, picked out the initial uncertain notes, made her earliest attempts at composing songs. Eventually, after many incarnations, some of those tunes had become hits, catapulting her to fame.

Remarkable.

The guitar fit comfortably in her arms, and she smiled sadly as she looked down at the open case-both Clare and Shane had taken backstage naps in that unlikely cradle, as tiny babies, bundled in denim jackets on loan from the band or the roadies, nestled among rolled-up souvenir T-shirts or blankets brought in from the bus.

Remembering, Casey's heart turned over again.

She began to play softly, feeling her way into the sweet flow of music that had always been her solace, her hiding place. Even before she'd learned to play the guitar or any other instrument, she'd sung along with the radio or her grandparents' stereo system. According to family lore, she'd tackled singing first, and talking later on.

There, in the music, her private refuge, if only for a little while, she lost her fears and her worries and her doubts, and her everyday self with them.

THE TRUCK WAS a rolling uproar-both kids talking at once, the dogs scrambling to change places every few minutes, like some canine version of the Keystone Cops-the wind whipping past open windows and swirling inside to jumble it all into primordial chaos.

Walker loved it, but his delight in Shane and Clare's company was bittersweet, too. In a few hours, it would be time to say goodbye and take them back to their mother and her world, the one they knew so well-and he had no place in.

It was something of a relief to see Brylee's rig parked in the driveway when they pulled in at the ranch house-Walker, grimly independent all his life, suddenly felt the need for his sister's moral support.

She stood on the steps of the side porch, blue-jeaned and wearing a flannel shirt over a T-shirt, battered boots on her feet, her smile as wide as the Big Sky River that flowed through Parable, through the middle of Three Trees, and rolled on by Timber Creek Ranch, in a hurry to reach the distant coast. Her dog sat obediently at her side, tilting his large head to the right, ears perked in curiosity as he took a silent roll call and found himself up two kids and three dogs from the norm.

Walker had no more than stopped the truck when Shane and Clare both tumbled out, hitting the ground running like just-thrown riders racing for the fence at the rodeo, with a p.i.s.sed-off bull hot on their heels. The Labs, quieter now, followed, probably trying to gauge Snidely as friend or foe.

Brylee met the kids halfway, and the three of them ended up in a huddle hug, laughing and jumping around like happy fools on a trampoline.

Walker hung back, taking it all in. It was a scene he wanted to remember, etch into his heart and mind, so he could come back to it when he felt the need, and savor the sight and the sounds.

Snidely greeted the Labs with some sniffing and some cautious tail wagging and, as quickly as that, the dogs were all friends. They dashed off to explore the wonders of a genuine barnyard on a genuine ranch, Brylee's faithful German shepherd leading the pack.

Brylee's eyes were gleaming with happy tears when the hugging and jumping finally subsided long enough for everybody to catch their breath.

"What a terrific surprise!" She beamed, apparently crediting Walker with the working of this particular miracle.

Brylee loved Clare and Shane; she considered them her honorary niece and nephew-if only she knew-kept their most recent pictures taped to the refrigerator in her apartment kitchen, was forever sending them texts or emails or small gifts.

"Opal said to thank you for all that bread," Walker told his glowing sister, oddly uncomfortable in the face of all that joy.

"Every single bit of it got sold!" Clare put in. "Mom said the bake sale took in a small fortune."

"Good," Brylee said, slipping one arm around Clare's shoulders and one around Shane's and giving them each a squeeze. Her eyes were full of questions, though, as she studied Walker's face.

"We're going riding," Shane said to Brylee. "Will you come with us?"

Brylee, still looking at Walker, raised one eyebrow in silent question.

"Absolutely," Walker said. When, he wondered, was the last time he'd seen Brylee looking so happy?

Anyhow, they all ended up in the barn, choosing which horses they wanted to ride-Walker steered the kids toward the gentler ones-saddling up, leading the animals out into the penny-bright sunshine of a Sunday afternoon in summer.

Brylee, like Walker, had been riding since before she could walk or talk, but as far as he knew, she hadn't done more than groom her trusty black-and-white pinto gelding, Toby, in months. She'd told Walker once, in a weak moment, that some things, like certain kinds of music and the company of her horse, touched places so raw inside her that she had to back away.

Recalling this, Walker was heartened to watch his sister instructing Clare and Shane, who were fair riders but lacking in experience, as easy in the saddle as if she'd been born there. This was the old, spirited, devil-take-the-hindmost Brylee, the one Walker knew best and loved without reservation.

With Brylee leading the way, Clare alongside on Tessie, the four of them headed for the foothills rippling at the base of Big Sky Mountain like ruffles on a fancy skirt. Walker followed on Mack, while Shane bounced cheerfully beside him, riding chubby, mild-mannered Smokey.

The four dogs brought up the rear, behaving themselves and sticking close to the band of horses and riders, though not so close they were in danger of being kicked or trampled.

"This is great!" Shane said enthusiastically, his backside slapping hard against the saddle as Brylee eased Toby into a slow trot and the other horses followed suit.

Walker laughed. "You're going to be mighty sore tomorrow if you don't get in rhythm with that horse," he told his son.

His son. He wanted to shout it from the mountaintop: my daughter, my son, my children.

"I'm trying," Shane answered, smiling fit to light up the whole county.

Walker showed him how to stand up in the stirrups-sometimes that helped a rider get in step, so to speak, with his mount-but the boy's legs weren't quite long enough to reach.

When they got to the creek, some fifteen minutes later, Walker got off Mack, walked over to Smokey and adjusted the stirrups to suit Shane.

"I guess I'm sort of out of practice," Shane said, keeping his voice low so Brylee and Clare, who were having a fine old time girling it up, wouldn't overhear.

"That'll be easy to fix," Walker a.s.sured him. "It's been a while since you and your sister came for a visit, after all, and my guess is, you haven't had many opportunities to ride horses in the meantime."

Shane studied him solemnly, swallowed once. "I wouldn't mind being here more often," he said, choosing his words with such obvious care that Walker's heart hurt a little. "If you wanted me-us-Clare and me, I mean, hanging around and stuff."

Careful, Walker counseled himself, because his most powerful instinct was to gather the boy in his arms, tell him how much he wanted Shane and Clare to play bigger parts in his life. How very much he wanted to tell them they were his, try his d.a.m.nedest to make up for lost time, hear the world call them by their rightful surname, which was Parrish, not Elder.

"You can hang around as much as your mom will allow," Walker finally replied. "How's that?"

"She'll say you're busy and we'll be underfoot," Shane answered with bleak certainty.

Walker's throat hurt. He cleared it, in order to speak. "I reckon that part of it is my call," he said cautiously. Then, after a long pause, he added, "Suppose I have a talk with her?"

Shane brightened, but his delight faded as quickly as it had appeared. "You can try," he said. "Mom's pretty hardheaded, though. Everybody says so."

Walker chuckled, a rusty sound, saw-toothed enough to draw blood, the way it felt coming out. "That's true," he allowed gently, "but I reckon she's had to be a bit on the hardheaded side to raise you and your sister into the people you are, and build a world-cla.s.s career at the same time."

Shane appeared to consider this, but in the end, Walker suspected, the finer points went over his head. He was only thirteen, after all, in that in-between place, neither boy nor man, an ever-changing sketch of the person he would become as he grew to manhood. "I guess," he said, sounding unsure.

"Are we going to ride or stand around and yammer?" Brylee interceded, the smile on her face seeping into her voice. She hadn't dismounted, and neither had Clare.

Walker laughed, shook his head and swung back up into the saddle, the reins resting loosely across his right palm. "You ready?" he asked Shane in a quiet aside.

Shane nodded, proud and determined. "Ready," he confirmed.

They rode for another hour, until the dogs started lagging behind, tongues lolling, signaling that, as Walker's dad used to say, they'd had about all the fun they could stand for one afternoon.

Back at the barn, Brylee and Clare continued to chatter while they unsaddled their horses and put them away in their stalls. They talked while they brushed the animals, too, and the whole time they were feeding them.

"How come women talk so much?" Shane asked innocently. He and Walker had been performing the same tasks as Brylee and Clare right along, but only a few words had pa.s.sed between them. It wasn't that there wasn't anything to say-working together, side by side, was its own kind of communication, rendering speech unnecessary.

"I have no idea," Walker answered in all honesty. "I guess females are just wired that way."

"Maybe," Shane agreed. "Mike-that's my mom's lead guitarist-says girls think if things get too quiet, somebody's mad at them."

Walker weighed the pros and cons of that theory. "That's a little on the simplistic side, I think," he said. "My guess is, strong women-like your mom and Brylee and Clare-don't worry too much about whether or not anybody's mad at them. They're too busy doing the things they figure they ought to get done."

Shane nodded thoughtfully, and Walker would have given a lot to know what was going on in the boy's mind just then. What had it been like for him, on the road with Casey and the band for most of his young life? Had he ever felt scared, facing new places and new people at every turn? Did he ever wish he could just light somewhere, attend regular school, make friends and play on the softball or soccer team?

He didn't really know Shane, or Clare, for that matter, and that realization, oft-visited though it was, shook him, made him feel wistful and p.i.s.sed off and a whole pa.s.sel of other things, too. He clamped his jaw down tight so he wouldn't say it, wouldn't blurt out the facts. While it was probably right, the claim that the truth set people free, it was equally true that it could scorch the earth, destroying everything in its path, leaving nothing but rubble in its wake. It could break hearts.

Maybe, he reflected glumly, it was already too late to rectify the situation without doing more harm than good.

He was fairly sure Casey believed exactly that-and she might be right.

"Spaghetti for supper?" Brylee asked when the horses were taken care of. Two ranch hands were already busy feeding the rest of the livestock and attending to other end-of-the-day ch.o.r.es.

The kids approved of the suggestion loudly and with vigor, but Walker remained pensive, thinking of all the time they'd wasted, he and Casey and the kids. And while he figured he could love the woman if he was ever fool enough to trust her that much, right about then, if she'd been handy, he'd have read her the riot act from start to finish, and then started all over again just in case she'd missed anything.

Whatever happened between him and Casey, Walker thought, he was through playing games, through watching from the sidelines while his children grew up, through with the lies and the pretending and all the other bulls.h.i.t.

If the four of them-he and Casey, Clare and Shane-couldn't be a family, well, so be it. It wasn't an uncommon problem, in the modern world-folks dealt with it, did the best they could.

All Walker could have said for sure as he fed and watered all four dogs on the side porch, the sounds of laughter and cooking and table-setting rolling out through the screen door between there and the kitchen, was that he was done doing this Casey's way.

Yes, there would be consequences. He'd just have to find a way to work through them, the way a man worked through a hard winter or a long-term heartache.

MITCH FOUND HER, eventually, probably drawn by the faint strains of her guitar and a song that wouldn't quite come together.

Companionably, Casey's manager sat down on the bottom step, rested his elbows on his knees and his chin in one palm.

"You and the cowboy," he began. "Is it serious?"