Long Road Home (32 page)

“It couldn’t ever be bad,” Austin said as she pulled her shirt over the new lacy bra she’d ordered online. “But I have to admit that I was a bit worried at first about mice.”

“That’s what those fat barn cats are for,” he said. “You didn’t seem too concerned.”

She leaned up and touched her reddened, kiss-swollen lips to his. “That’s because you’re so good at distracting me.”

“
You’re
the distraction,” he said. Then pulled her into his arms for a deeper, longer, definitely Olympic gold medal kiss.

*

T
O MAKE ROOM
for all the family and friends, Mountain View Middle School’s graduation was held in the high school gym. A temporary stage had been set up for the students, who were sitting in metal folding chairs on the basketball court. The immediate families sat behind them, while other friends and well-wishers took to the bleachers.

The Murphys and Merrills took up the entire first row. The Murphys were represented by Sawyer, Ryan, Rachel, Cooper, Scott, Dan, Mitzi, and the Murphy brothers’ grandparents, Betty and Mike. The Merrill contingent consisted of Austin, Jack, Buck, and Winema, who’d scored a family ticket without a word of complaint from the PTA volunteers who’d organized the event.

“Kira Taylor wasn’t kidding when she said Sophie was going to win some awards,” Austin murmured to Sawyer the third time the girl, clad in a burgundy cap and gown, climbed the stairs to the stage.

“She’s one smart cookie,” Sawyer said. “And so far, after an understandably bumpy start, pretty easy.” He flashed Sophie two thumbs up as she caught his eye on the way back to her seat in the honors section between Becca and Parker. “And have you noticed that we haven’t heard a certain former BFF’s name called once?”

“I noticed,” Austin murmured. “And I’m not sure it’s seemly for adults to gloat about a child’s lack of achievement.”

“She stood Sophie up at her parents’ funeral,” he reminded her. “To go out on the lake with boys.” Who, he’d learned from Cooper, had gotten a citation for speeding the ski boat too close to the little kids’ shorefront wading zone.

“Good point,” she decided. “I’m giving myself permission to gloat.”

He took her hand in his and laced their fingers together in that easy, familiar way he had. “We’ll keep it to ourselves,” he promised.

Afterwards, in the New Chance’s private dining rooms that Brody had finished just in time for the celebration, they talked about what to do about the most surprising award Sophie had received. A week’s scholarship to Sea Camp on the coast in Shelter Bay.

“I thought you wanted to grow up and take care of horses like Dad,” Jack said.

“I do,” Sophie said. “But this is the coolest biology camp, where I’d get to go out on boats and study whales and puffins and tide pools and all sorts of coastal environment. The seas and the land and sky are all connected. We need healthy land, like the Murphys and Merrills are doing with their ranches, to have healthy seas, and we need healthy seas to protect our land. Parker said his older brother went a couple years ago and it’s really, really cool. But I never expected to win it! I didn’t even know Ms. Taylor had nominated me.”

“That’s so exciting, and we’re all really proud of you, sweetie,” Austin said. “But your birthday comes during those two weeks. What about your party?”

“I honestly never wanted that tea thing, anyway,” she admitted. “Not that it wouldn’t be fun, I guess. But I really was doing it for Mom.” There was a momentary sheen in her eyes she blinked away. “But Mom told me I’d do amazing things, and this is really, really amazing.”

“It is,” Sawyer agreed. “I knew a kid in my ranch management class who’d gone to it in high school. By the time we graduated, he’d switched majors and is now working studying orcas up in Puget Sound.”

“That would be so cool,” Sophie said. “Except I’m going to be a vet.”

“You’ve plenty of time to decide,” Austin said, trying not to feel guilty for the flood of relief that she’d escape the tea-hat-making challenge.

“It’s best to leave your options open,” Ryan said. “If I’d stuck with my first goal, I wouldn’t have ended up back here doing what I love.”

“This is an exciting time for you, Sophie,” Cooper added. “And a terrific experience.”

“Though we’ll miss you,” Austin admitted.

“It’s only two weeks,” Sophie assured her. “And maybe we can have a barbecue party at the ranch when I get back.”

“Absolutely,” Austin said. “For family and friends.”

“I’d like that.” Then the girl’s face suddenly fell. “But what about Misty?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of her,” Sawyer and Austin said together.

“Aren’t you going to come home every night?” Jack asked.

“No.” She didn’t tack on “idiot child,” but the tone was back, making Austin smile. She shared a look with Sawyer and knew yet again they were on the same wavelength. Sophie Campbell was getting her spunk back. “It’s too far away. That’s why it’s called a
sleep-away
camp.”

“I’m going to camp, too,” Jack piped up, not wanting to be left out of the conversation. “It’s not a sleep-away. But it’s still going to be cool. We’re going to study beaver dams and swim and row boats and do crafts with bark and stuff and even go up to the top of Modoc Mountain.”

“You’re going to climb a mountain?” Sophie challenged.

“Well, not exactly climb,” he admitted. “But even better, we’re going to ride the ski chairlift.”

“But not all the way to the top,” Winema entered the conversation. “Because that’s reserved for my people.”

“Really?” His freckled brow furrowed. “Why?”

“Because it’s holy land. Like a church. Or a shrine. We believe our ancestors’ spirits live among the clouds around the top of the mountain. So, we go there to collect herbs for ceremonies. And to talk, and pray to our ancestors.”

“Really?” Jack’s eyes widened.

“Really,” she said. “For thousands of years it’s where the spirits dwell in harmony with nature and man.” She glanced over at Sophie. “It’s all very interconnected, as you pointed out with your sea and land analogy.”

“Do you pray to
your
ancestors?” Jack asked.

“Every year on the summer solstice,” she said. “And other times. Just when I need to talk to them.”

“You’re really lucky,” Jack said, “that you can talk to them whenever you want.”

Winema smiled. “I am,” she agreed.

Austin glanced over at Sophie, whose expression revealed that she was remembering that special conversation with her mother before the funeral. Then the conversation moved on, to the plans for the Fourth of July rodeo and August’s Gold Dust Days, celebrating the commemoration of River’s Bend’s founding by Malachy Murphy.

To which Jack vowed that this year he was going to find the “biggest gold nugget ever!” Which was actually fool’s gold seeded along the river bank so everyone panning could find some, but not a person in the room was about to share the ploy.

As the sheet cake decorated with a mortarboard,
Congratulations
, and Sophie’s name created with royal icing Austin had made for the occasion was brought out from the kitchen, Austin looked around the table and realized how all these people, with so many interwoven connections, had, in a very special way, created the big family she’d always dreamed of.

38

“I
T SEEMS STRANGE
without Sophie here,” Austin said as she and Sawyer worked out in the corral with the colt. She appreciated his help since, although the colt was accustomed to her, it was good to get him used to being around strangers. Especially since the Flying Goose still took their cows up into the mountains for the summer, moved them around up there, then brought them back down, which involved a lot of different people and horses.

Being adaptable was especially important in this case, since the rancher planned to have the colt ridden by a swing rider, a cowboy who rides along the main body of the herd, keeping them bunched together and moving. Personally, Austin thought the Bar M’s and Sawyer’s way of just moving pastures was a great deal easier, especially since it had been proven better for the cattle, but she wasn’t one to tell others how to run their businesses. Unless it involved mistreating her horses.

“It’s also quiet during the day without Jack,” he said. “I saw Buck driving out when I came back from town.”

“He’s off to the VFW. He’s got it in his head that the ranch needs a new website, now that we’re out of the stock business. It’s long overdue,” she admitted. “But I’ve been so busy. So, he’s going to see if Dalton Osborne would be willing to take on the job.”

“He updated the Bar M’s last fall.”

“So Dan told Dad. I guess he’s also done Fred Wiley’s Feed and Seed and the New Chance.”

“Rachel says he’s better than the guy she hired to do the one for her catering business back east.”

“Well, I’m just glad Dad’s finally getting out of the house. Thanks to Layla.”

She glanced over at the house, which was partly covered with plastic now that Brody had started in on the remodeling for the pool. She’d feared her dad would balk at what he’d think of as charity, but all it had taken was to suggest that it would be a great surprise belated birthday gift from the community for Sophie, and he’d been all in.

It was funny, she thought. Although he’d always been loving but gruff with her, over the past weeks, Tom and Heather’s kids had managed to wrap him around their little fingers.

“I guess Brody took off for lunch.”

“Yeah. He said he had to drive over to K. Falls to pick up some stuff.”

“And Winema’s babysitting grandkids over at her daughter’s place. So,” she said. “It’s just us.”

“Just us. All alone,” Sawyer agreed.

“It seems, being two intelligent people, we should be able to think of something to do to fill the time,” she mused.

“I’ve got a suggestion.”

She tilted her head and looked up at the devils dancing in his eyes. “Great minds.”

*

A
T FIRST
J
ACK
was unhappy that Scott had chipped a tooth and had to go to the dentist on the very day that the campers were going to go up the mountain. He liked the other kids okay, but Scott was almost like a brother. Not old enough to be bossy, but it was good to have a guy to talk to about stuff. Like about his mom and dad dying. It was weird. There were times when he’d close his eyes and not even remember what they looked like. Which Scott had told him was normal, so his stomach had mostly stopped aching whenever it happened.

Scott had also told him how Cooper had taken him and his mom on the outlaw train ride, and how cool it had been, so Jack had asked Sawyer, who’d told him that he should’ve thought of that, and he and Austin would take him this very weekend.

Which was another thing. Before she’d gone off to that sea camp, Sophie had told him she thought Austin and Sawyer might get married. Which he thought would be really neat because then he’d have a new mom and dad. But she’d said that they might have other kids and what if they liked those kids better?

Jack didn’t think that would happen, because Scott was all the time saying that he really hoped his new dad and mom would have a baby brother or sister after they got married, and he said that Sophie was just being dramatic, like girls sometimes were.

It was all really confusing. Which was why Jack had come up with his secret plan.

*

“
Y
OU KNOW,”
A
USTIN
said after they’d let the colt run back to his herd in the pasture and put the tack away. “I just realized that you’ve never seen my bathroom. Brody remodeled it a couple years ago.”

“It’s a little hard to come up with a reason to go up to your room when your dad’s in the house. And I’m a little too old to be climbing up a tree to sneak in your window.”

“Yeah.” She swept a look over the snug blue
Bikini Kill
T-shirt clinging to his hot, sweaty, ripped torso. “I can tell how ancient you are. And have you noticed that all your shirts just happen to be girl bands?”

He grinned. Shrugged. “What can I say? I like women.” He took his time checking her out the same way she had him. “One particular woman especially. One who, unless my lying eyes deceive me, isn’t wearing anything under that shirt.”

Hers was a boring plain navy and felt as wet as his looked. The temperature had been building all day, feeling like an evening thunderstorm was brewing. Meanwhile, a storm of a different type altogether was rising in his eyes.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” she said. She rubbed the back of her neck. “I’m hot, sweaty, and I smell like a horse. What would you say to a shower?”

“You’re on.”

The shower in question was in the ensuite bathroom off her room. It was a walk-in, with no glass doors to clean, nor curtain to stick to your body on a cold winter’s day. The floor was heated, and for pure luxury, which they didn’t need today with the temperature climbing into the nineties, two red heat lamps had been installed overhead.

“Wow. There’s room for a party in here,” he said when he saw it.

“That was exactly the idea,” she said, pulling off her shirt.

There was a time, when she’d been younger and all the girls had been flashing their boobs, lifted up and pushed together by those silly water bras, at Sawyer Murphy that she’d been afraid if they ever did make love, he’d be totally turned off by her AA cups. Even the first time they’d made love, although she’d matured into a full A, she’d still wished that she could wave a magic wand and have Katy Perry’s or Scarlett Johansson’s breasts suddenly show up on her chest.

But amazingly, he’d loved them. Just as he made her lack of curves everywhere else seem sexy, running his hands and mouth all over the body that had been, like his, built by hard, physical work.

“God, I love your body,” he said, as he had so many times over the past days.

She’d already pulled her boots off before coming into the house. Now she shimmied out of her jeans, showing off the new scarlet, high-cut lacy bikini panties. An affair, she’d discovered, was dangerous to her credit card. “I’m glad to hear that,” she purred in a way she’d only ever done with Sawyer. “Since it’s all yours.”