Big Sky Summer Part 5

Casey stopped playing, placed her guitar gently back in its case, lowered the lid and snapped it closed. "By 'the cowboy,'" she replied, "I a.s.sume you mean Walker?"

"Don't try to throw me off, Case," Mitch said with a note of sadness in his voice. "We've known each other too long for that."

Casey looked away. "Walker is a-friend," she said, because the first person she told about her relationship with Walker was not going to be Mitch Wilc.o.x, no matter how much she respected him and appreciated all he'd done for her over the years. No, Clare and Shane had to hear what she had to say before anyone else and, after them, Brylee. This was, after all, a family matter.

"If you say so," Mitch agreed, still seated on the stairs. Out of the corner of her eye, Casey saw him spread his hands in a gesture of helpless acceptance. "I'm not here to talk about Walker Parrish."

"You could have fooled me," Casey replied sweetly, though the joke fell a little flat, flopping between them like a fish out of water.

"I care about you, Casey," Mitch went on in a concessionary tone. "And about the kids, of course." With Mitch, Clare and Shane were always an afterthought. A logistical problem. "That's why I'm here-in Parable, I mean."

She looked straight at him then, dread leaking into her soul through the holes in her heart. "What?" she asked, somewhat stupidly.

"I care about you," Mitch repeated.

A silence fell, very awkward and pulsing with all sorts of nebulous meaning.

"I care about you, too," Casey finally replied.

Mitch seemed to relax slightly, and a grin spread across his face. "Then maybe there's a chance," he said.

"A chance for what?" Casey had no clue, though later she would reflect that she ought to have known where this conversation was headed. In some ways, she'd always been aware of the undercurrent in her a.s.sociation with Mitch.

He looked affably hurt. "I know you're not in love with me," he said carefully, "but I'm proposing all the same. You're tired and burned out, Casey. You need someone to take care of you for a change."

She blinked, unable to believe what she was hearing. Yes, she'd suspected once or twice that Mitch had a "thing" for her, but it came and went. Every few years, he got married, then divorced, then married again. Each time that happened, she'd shaken her head in confused concern, but she'd never entertained the idea of joining the lineup.

"You're a good friend, Mitch," Casey said, trying to be gentle and, at the same time, firm. "I'm grateful for all you've done for me, careerwise, but you're right, I don't love you."

"Love is overrated," Mitch offered with a casualness she knew he was putting on for the sake of his pride. "Where has the fantasy of happily-ever-after gotten you so far, Casey? Two children, no husband-all the money and fame in the world can't make up for the loneliness you're bound to feel when Clare and Shane grow up and go off to live their own lives."

Casey blinked. Where has the fantasy of happily-ever-after gotten you so far, Casey? Was Mitch implying that she'd been in love before and wound up with a broken heart? True or not, that was private turf-no trespa.s.sing allowed.

"Where has what gotten me so far?" she demanded, feeling testy and dizzy and very disoriented, as though she'd wandered onto the set of a play with a worldwide audience and didn't know her lines. This was the stuff of her nightmares-going onstage, finding herself unable to sing or play her guitar or even think.

"Let's take the gloves off," Mitch said with a lightness that made her want to cross the room and slap him across the face-hard. "I know Walker Parrish is the father of your children, Casey-" He paused, raised both hands, palms out. "Don't deny it, please. Shane looks just like him, and Clare bears a resemblance, too, though you have to look more closely to see it."

"I don't believe this," Casey said, although she did believe it. Like Job, the thing she had most feared had come upon her. "That's just-speculation, Mitch. Dangerous speculation. What do you think gossip like that could do to Shane and Clare?"

Mitch simply looked at her for a long moment, his expression maddeningly tolerant and even gentle. "Stop," he said. "I'm not going to blow your cover, Casey-I love you, and I love the kids. But after all the years we've worked together, I think I deserve the truth."

"I think you need to leave now," Casey said evenly.

"I'm not going anywhere," Mitch replied flatly and without rancor. "Not before you agree to marry me, anyway."

She gaped at him. "Marry you?"

"It's not as if I'm the Elephant Man or the Incredible Hulk," Mitch pointed out. "I've been your partner, Casey. Your mentor and your advisor and, most important, your friend. Maybe I can't offer pa.s.sion and all that other fairy-tale malarkey, but I understand you. And I can give you companionship, security, a good name-"

"A good name?" Casey broke in, incensed. She'd come in for her share of trash talk, having two children without benefit of marriage, but she was d.a.m.ned if she'd apologize for doing her honest best. Besides, this was her business, not Mitch's. Friend or not, he didn't have the right to pry or make judgments-especially not with his marital track record.

"Maybe I could have been more tactful," Mitch allowed.

"I doubt it," Casey observed sharply. She was glad she'd put her cherished guitar away, because if she hadn't, she might have been tempted to smash it over Mitch's head. "No, Mitch. That's my answer. No. And, furthermore, I'd appreciate it if we could pretend this conversation never took place."

"In that case," Mitch said, looking broken, "perhaps this is the time to offer my resignation as your manager."

"That might be for the best," Casey said, shaking on the inside, solid on the outside. If it hadn't been for Mitch, she might never have gotten past playing in cheap bars and opening for loser bands in third-rate venues, yet while she certainly owed him a debt of grat.i.tude, she did not owe him her soul.

Mitch said nothing after that. He simply set his jaw, got to his feet and headed back up the stairs. Fifteen minutes later, after she'd crept into the vast kitchen to brew another cup of tea with shaky hands, Casey heard the rental car start up and saw her old friend driving away-probably for good.

"Oh, h.e.l.l," she told the two cats curling around her ankles. They kept a low profile when the dogs were around, but invariably appeared when Casey needed comforting.

Doris opened her apartment door. "Did you say something, dear?" she asked.

Chagrined, Casey shook her head, managed a lame smile. "That was a lovely breakfast you prepared for us," she said. "Thank you."

Doris looked benevolently suspicious. "Are you all right?"

"Why do you ask?" Casey retorted, teasing. "Because I complimented you on your cooking skills?"

"No," Doris said, "because Mitch Wilc.o.x just drove out of here like the devil himself was on his tail, and I haven't seen hide nor hair of Clare or Shane since breakfast. The dogs, either."

Casey felt her shoulders slump a little. "The kids are with Walker," she admitted, "and the dogs went along for the ride."

"I see," Doris replied, her tone and expression annoyingly cryptic.

No, you don't see, Casey wanted to argue, knowing all the while that she didn't have a leg to stand on. I'm about to lose the two most important people in my life, possibly forever, and I've got n.o.body to blame but myself.

"I'm fine," she said instead.

"Of course you are, dear," Doris agreed charitably and without a shred of sincerity. "Do you need anything? Because if you don't, I'll just watch my Sunday-night programs and then turn in early. Mondays are always crazy around here."

From Casey's viewpoint, every day was crazy around Casa-Too-Grande, but it was a good kind of crazy.

"Good night," Casey said.

Doris replied in kind and ducked back into her private quarters, closing the door softly behind her.

Casey stood in the middle of her ma.s.sive kitchen, in the heart of her ma.s.sive house, and felt as bereft as a lone polar bear on an ice floe. Was this what it all came down to-after all her work and her struggles, all her hoping and believing, all her trying and failing and trying again?

Loneliness was loneliness, after all, even in the midst of luxury.

Basically, it was the story of her life. As a child, she'd rattled around in her grandparents' stately pile, haunting the vast, echoing rooms like a little ghost searching for the doorway to heaven. If it hadn't been for Lupe, the housekeeper, and Juan, the gardener as well as Lupe's devoted husband, he of the whistling expertise, she might have gone days without anyone saying a word to her.

How was it that she'd come so far, only to wind up right back where she'd started?

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE CRITTER, SITTING FORLORN and slat-ribbed in front of the supermarket, well away from the automatic doors, looked like a wad of dryer lint with legs and eyeb.a.l.l.s. Walker, parking his truck, considered the dog as he shut off the engine and got out, noticing how people came and went without so much as a glance in the animal's direction. Even in a good place like Parable, some folks had a tendency to look the other way, pretending they didn't see a problem when they didn't have a solution handy.

Walker Parrish, for better and sometimes for worse, was const.i.tutionally incapable of turning his back on trouble-the old man had seen to that, not by preaching, but by saying a few well-placed words and setting an example. When you see trouble, boy, Barclay always said, don't you walk away thinking someone else will deal with it. Roll up your sleeves, put some steel in your spine and wade in.

So, having no other choice-at least, not one he could live with-Walker approached the stray slowly, careful not to startle it. From the looks of him, this fella had already experienced his fair share of trouble, and more besides.

"Hey, there, lintball," he said affably, keeping his distance.

The dog scooched-Brylee's word, apt in this instance-backward on his skinny hind end, as if trying to hide himself in the shadows between the blue-metal mailbox and the DVD vending machine, probably expecting to be kicked or chased off, or both.

"You sure are ugly," Walker commented, still as a pond on a windless day, his gaze fastened on the dog's upturned and patently sorrowful face. A few minutes earlier, as he was leaving Casey's place, Brylee had called him on his cell phone and asked him to stop by the store for milk, some lightbulbs and a certain brand of flowery shampoo, and he'd agreed. He hadn't been looking forward to setting that ultrafeminine bottle of shampoo on the counter-the brand that apparently inspired o.r.g.a.s.ms in the models in the TV commercials-for the checker to ring up and maybe even run a hold-it-up-and-yell price check, but he supposed he ought to be grateful she hadn't asked for tampons.

The dog made a throaty, whimpering sound and moved, ever so slightly, toward Walker.

Walker crouched, put out a hand. "Come on over here, boy," he said. "I won't hurt you."

Meanwhile, people went into the store, and others came out. Walker and the dog remained invisible, it seemed.

Tentatively, the critter crept forward and gave Walker's knuckles a wary sniff, then a brief lick, before retreating again.

Though saddened to see any living thing in such a fix, Walker was also glad to have a distraction. Before making the stray's acquaintance, he'd been all churned up on the inside, full of things he intended to say to Casey the first chance he got. Of course, there hadn't been an opportunity when he took the kids and the dogs home, mainly because they'd sort of hovered, his son and daughter, like reporters waiting outside a courthouse for a big verdict to be handed down by the grand jury.

Between Brylee's shopping list and this hard-luck dog, Walker had other things to think about, and that was a good thing.

"Wait here," he told the critter, standing up straight again, scouting around for anybody who looked as though they might have dumped a helpless animal in the last little while. Considering the sorry shape the dog was in, it had probably been at least a month since he'd been run off or abandoned or simply wandered away from home and gotten lost.

Hoping the latter was the case, Walker went inside the store, tracked down the lightbulbs and the milk and the embarra.s.sing shampoo, adding a large bag of kibble, a couple of plastic pet bowls and a toy skunk with a squeaker inside to his cart just before taking his place in the express-checkout lane.

The woman in front of him surrept.i.tiously counted the number of items in his cart and seemed disappointed to discover that he was under the limit.

When Walker's turn at the register came, he asked the twentysomething clerk about the dog out front. Did she have any idea who it belonged to?

The clerk, someone he didn't know since he lived closer to Three Trees than Parable and generally did whatever shopping he couldn't avoid there, shook her head and sighed. She had a strange haircut, some kind of Mohawk, and wore too much eyeliner, giving her the look of a beleaguered racc.o.o.n, though he figured she was probably a nice enough person on the whole.

"You could take him over to Marti Wren-she runs Paws for Reflection, the shelter," the clerk suggested. "She'll take him in if she's got the kennel s.p.a.ce."

Walker absorbed this information as if it were new, nodded, handed over a bill and accepted change. "Thanks," he said, noncommittal. He knew Marti-she was a good woman with a generous and caring heart-but somehow leaving the lintball with her or anybody else didn't sit well. Just how many times could a creature be dropped off someplace without giving up all hope?

Outside, he noted that the dog was still in his hiding place. The animal's brown eyes glowed luminous in the gathering darkness, patient as those of a suffering saint.

Walker stowed his purchases in the truck, drove it up close to the front door and got out, leaving the engine running.

"I reckon you'd better come with me," he told the dog.

Miraculously, the dog seemed to agree. He low-crawled out of his shadowy nook, like a soldier hauling himself through a hail of gunfire on forearms and elbows, dragging the rest of his body along with him.

Walker opened the pa.s.senger door, and the four-legged saint eyed the interior of the truck, rummaging up his last shred of faith in human nature to take one more chance.

Hoping the creature wouldn't bite off one of his ears, Walker lifted him off his unsteady feet and set him inside, to ride shotgun.

The dog trembled, but if he had any fight left in him, he held it in reserve.

No collar, Walker noted after double-checking, which meant no tags or other visible identification and almost certainly no microchip.

"You're gonna be fine from now on," Walker told his newly acquired sidekick. In this small thing, if not the larger terrain of his life-namely, the realm occupied by Casey and his unclaimed children-he could make a p.r.o.nouncement like that one, without qualification, and know he'd be able to follow through.

It was something, anyway.

The newcomer rode quietly all the way to the ranch, though Walker wasn't sure whether he was glad to find himself in safe company or simply resigned to a whole new kind of nothing-much.

Twenty minutes later, Brylee put a hand to her mouth when Walker carried his quivering protege into the kitchen in both arms, like a shepherd bearing a lamb back to the flock. Snidely, snoozing in a corner of the room, looked up, yawned and went back to sleep.

"What on earth happened to that poor thing?" Brylee asked, quietly alarmed, eyes full of compa.s.sion and a fair portion of righteous indignation, going by the way she jammed her hands onto her hips and jutted out her elbows.

"That's anybody's guess," Walker answered mildly. He pa.s.sed Brylee to head into the laundry room; she shuffled ahead to turn on the water in the big sink next to the washer and search the cupboards for Snidely's grooming supplies.

Gently, Walker soaked the dog with the sprayer and scrubbed him repeatedly, unable to raise any suds at all until after the third rinse. Brylee, meanwhile, crooned to the dog as the animal huddled shivering in the laundry sink, enduring.

Once most of the dirt was gone, the critter looked less like a lintball and more like an actual dog, a midsize mixed breed of questionable lineage. He was black, it turned out, floppy-eared and slightly cross-eyed, with no visible injuries or illness, and no spare meat on his bones, either.

While Walker toweled the dog dry, Brylee went back to the kitchen, where she could be heard explaining this new turn of events to Snidely and asking him to be nice.

Walker smiled at that, but when he and the former lint-wad joined the others, he would have sworn Snidely had understood Brylee's kindly lecture and decided to abide by her suggestions. He sniffed at the painfully thin wayfarer; then, amazingly, walked over to his bed, one of several placed at various household locations in case of sudden dog exhaustion, picked up his favorite toy, a red plastic fire hydrant, with his teeth, brought it back and set it carefully at the black dog's feet.

"Isn't that sweet?" Brylee marveled.

"It's weird, that's what it is," Walker commented, wondering if he was hallucinating or something. In his experience, dogs might tolerate each other's presence, but they tended to be territorial about their possessions and their food.

Brylee dismissed Walker's remark with a wave of one hand. "What's his name?" she asked.

"d.a.m.ned if I know," Walker said. "I just found him outside the supermarket, remember? And he hasn't shared any information."

Brylee made a wry face, then shook her head once, in case the face hadn't expressed her low opinion of his intelligence clearly enough. "You're being deliberately obtuse," she cried with despairing good humor. "This dog needs a name, so he knows there's a place for him in the scheme of things. He'll need a veterinary checkup, too, and maybe some special vitamins to build him up."

"Thank you, Dr. Doolittle," Walker said.

Brylee's whole face lit up. "That's it!" she cried jubilantly. "We'll call him Doolittle!"

Walker chuckled. "Whatever," he said, studying the dog's unimpressive countenance. "It's probably a pretty apt handle, considering what he's likely to contribute around here, which won't be much."

"Wrong," Brylee argued on a swell of conviction. "Doolittle might not herd cattle or guard against marauding intruders, but he'll be excellent company, and that's worth something, isn't it?"

"I reckon it is," Walker concluded as the dog gazed up at him in wary adoration.