Stripped Bare (6 page)

I trekked up the hill and into the lot. Crisp air brought scents of freshly fed hay, the musky dust of cowhide, and the hint of manure, only starting to ripen with the day's thaw. The cows paid scant attention to me as I meandered along the softening ground, checking to make sure none needed my help. Robins celebrated spring in the soft morning air. The cows munched hay Robert had fed them earlier, their grinding teeth and their huffing breaths adding a beat to the birds' song. At least here, peace reigned.

Assuring myself the ladies would be okay without me for a spell, I plodded to the house. The whistle from a BNSF coal train floated from the tracks that ran along the highway twelve miles north. Some mornings, the air at Frog Creek was so still and magical that the sound made the long, impossible journey to be here in this special place. I understood how it felt.

I stumped up the back steps, closed my fingers around the wooden door handle, and pulled, slipping into the covered porch. Worn pegs crowded with coats and jackets lined two walls. A simple bench with peeling paint flanked one wall, with boots, old tennis shoes, and even a collection of mismatched flip-flops tossed underneath. I peeled off my coat and manure-crusted boots, kicked them out of the way, and padded to the back door.

I entered the sunny kitchen and slid along the old linoleum. I only got as far as the fridge before I stalled out. Most of my brothers and sisters have real, grown-up refrigerators. The kind that stand taller than a barefoot preteen. A modern appliance with two doors and shelves and drawers and even a separate freezer compartment. I was sure my fridge was the same as the model in
I Love Lucy
's kitchen. I couldn't use the freezer nestled in the top because it frosted over so quickly.

I slipped from the kitchen. The house, not counting the unfinished basement, was probably spacious by homesteaders' standards. I loved all one thousand square feet of it, even if most folks would find it dowdy and cramped.

The silence nearly crushed me. Was it only yesterday that Carly's annoying rap music competed with Ted's complaints that we were out of eggs? What had Carly said about her plans? She wasn't much of a morning person. But she'd seemed even more growly than usual. She'd refused breakfast, finished off the milk by drinking from the carton and shoving it back in the fridge. With a “See ya,” she tromped out the back door. Ted hadn't been far behind her. Then, I'd been happy for the peace.

How would I tell Carly she'd lost another loved one?

A creak from above sent a zing shooting through me. I tore through the dining room to the short hallway leading to the bedroom and bathroom. I wrenched open the door to the attic. “Carly?”

“Yeah,” she hollered back.

Cool relief showered me. “I didn't know you were home.” I started up the steep stairs where I piled her folded laundry, books, shoes, and any other things I cleared from the rest of the house. “Where's your pickup?”

Her head appeared around the top of the stairs, long blonde hair draping across her face. Puffy eyes and a red nose paired with her hoarse voice. “By the fuel tanks. Just a sec. I'll be down.”

She knew. I'd dreaded telling her, but I didn't trust the job to anyone else. What had they said? What would I say now? I backed down and waited for her by the front door, where I strained to see to the far side of the barn, to the fuel tanks.

The attic door clicked shut and Carly trudged from the hall, shoulders slumped under her backpack, hands thrust deep into her jeans pockets. “Hey.”

I stood in the living room between the office we'd converted from a closet, and the couch. I held my arms out and she walked into them. But she seemed done crying and impatient with my touch. She straightened quickly.

“I'm so sorry, Bird,” I said.

Her eyes swam, but the tears stayed put. “Yeah. It sucks.” She looked above my head, out the window.

I gave a quick glance outside, then back at her. “Is someone filling up your pickup?”

Her gaze dropped to the floor, over to the wall, and with a sigh of resignation she answered, “Yeah. Danny.”

Danny Hayward. Her sometimes boyfriend. Though not since last spring. I didn't put much effort into hiding my surprise or disappointment. “He's the one who told you?”

She frowned. “He called me from town last night and I went to get him.”

“And you stayed out all night?” That wasn't what I wanted to say, but I couldn't find the words to show how sorry I was for not being here to tell her. Sorry it happened at all.

Carly's sweet face hardened in defense. Most folks said Carly took after the Edwardses, with her Swedish blonde, blue-eyed beauty. But one look in her intelligent, fiery eyes branded her as a Fox, and more specifically, as my oldest sister, Glenda's, daughter. “We sort of needed each other.”

As Rope and Nat's grandson and ward, Danny lived at the Bar J. He'd care about Eldon, too. But Danny wasn't a solid friend. “Okay. I'm home now. Maybe Danny can take your pickup home and we'll get it later.”

She shifted her backpack and her eyes darted to the office, then back to me. “Danny's pretty upset about Granddad and he doesn't want to go home.”

“I'm sure he's sad, but what about you? Eldon was your granddad. Besides, being with Rope and Nat might be the best thing for him.” What lame reasoning. But Carly should be with me or the rest of the Foxes. Not with a kid who had dragged her into trouble before.

Her face closed like a window in a storm. “He needs a friend, okay?”

“And you're the only friend he has?” Damn. I wasn't helping her one bit.

She thrust out a hip in annoyance. “No. But I'm the best one.”

Danny drove Carly's ten-year-old Ford in front of the house and tapped on the horn. She'd inherited the black F-150 when Brian died four years ago. She rarely let mud cake its sides or dust settle inside. For her, it was a gas-powered shrine.

Carly struggled too hard to be tough. I sighed. “You don't have to be strong for everyone.”

She frowned at me, then out the window at the pickup. Danny rested his forehead against the steering wheel, looking limp as a pile of dirty laundry. “Danny.” She paused. “He's not so strong.”

I backed up a little to give her space, both physically and in conversation. “What are you planning to do?”

Gallant young man that he was, Danny held the horn down a little longer this time.

She stepped around me and put a hand on the front doorknob. “We're going to school. Be around our friends.”

Apparently tired of waiting, Danny climbed from the pickup. Instead of looking frail like Nat or lanky like Rope, Danny resembled a rhinoceros. He had about as much charm and wit as one, too. His dirt-colored hair always looked like it needed to be washed, and stains pocked his T-shirts. He clomped up the porch steps and flung the front door open, yelling, before he saw me, “Come on.”

When he recognized me standing in front of the window, he paled and his mouth went slack. His red-rimmed and veiny eyes testified to his tears.

I ought to show some sympathy for the kid, but my main concern was Carly. “Go on to school. I'll bring Carly.”

His eyes lumbered from me to Carly. A whine crept into his voice. “I thought she'd come with me.”

Carly's expression put up the generational fence, planting her on one side, sword raised in defense of Danny, and me on the other, no weapons handy. “I want to be with my friends. Don't you get that?”

Sure I did. “Okay. Milo Ferguson needs to talk to you first, then I'll take you to school.”

Danny drew in a quick breath. Of course, he naturally feared the law.

Carly stuck out her chin. “What does he want?”

A cat shrieked and I jumped out of my socks. My heart slammed into my ribs before I realized it was my phone. Carly loved to change the ringtone. Last week it had been a baby crying. Before that, some awful rap song. I scowled at her and her mouth ticked into a hint of a smile before grief quashed it. I pulled my phone from my shirt pocket.

“Kate Conner?” a male voice more stated than asked. “This is Glenn Baxter.”

Not what I expected. I held up my hand to Carly in a wait-a-second gesture.

“I understand you're Carly Edwards's guardian,” the voice continued.

“That's right.” Was I really talking to one of the world's wealthiest men? I pictured Glenn Baxter from the few images I'd seen on TV. He had a lanky build and the pasty complexion of someone who spends his days behind a desk. Dark hair with dashes of salt at the thin temples. He was probably somewhere in his midforties.

“First of all, my condolences for Eldon Edwards's death.”

Murder. Eldon's murder. Ted's injury. Reality threatened to surge past my feeble wall. “Thank you.” Now I held up one finger to Carly and padded into the kitchen so they wouldn't have to listen.

He cleared his throat as if in a funeral parlor. “You may know Eldon and I had an agreement in place for the sale of the Bar J.”

His respect for the dead only created an avenue to talk business. Mom might be right about him being an East Coast … well, what she said. “Nope. Didn't know that.”

Oil dripped from his voice. “The problem is that he passed away before he signed the agreement.”

“Passed away” sounded so much better than “murdered.”

I was only slightly more hospitable than Mom would have been. “My niece lost someone she loves. We've all lost a respected member of our community. What is it I can do for you, Mr. Baxter?”

Again, that sorrowful voice felt like biting on aluminum foil. “I'd like to conclude the sale of the Bar J with Carly Edwards. I understand she's Eldon's only surviving heir. Five million dollars would go a long way to ensuring your niece a fine future.”

That was the price Eldon settled on? If he had the hundred thousand acres “they” said he did, five million was about one-tenth of the market value. Sounded like the upstanding Mr. Baxter was fixing to swindle Carly. “I'm not convinced Eldon wanted to sell. Not at that price, anyway.”

“Oh, believe me, Eldon agreed. He had good reason to get out while he could.” It sounded like those threats used car salesmen toss out:
I've got three people interested in this beauty. They're getting their credit checked right now.

“I'll let Carly know you called.”

His voice crawled from my phone on eight spindly legs. “Her grandfather told me working a ranch was no life for a young girl.”

This had the coppery taste of a lie. Carly spent a good portion of her weekends at the Bar J. She loved working cattle with Eldon. Carly would probably be living full-time at the Bar J if she didn't have to be at school five days a week.

“Thank you for passing that along.”

An undercurrent of frustration soured Baxter's sweet words. “Of course. I only hope you'll let me talk to Carly so she can consider carrying on Eldon's final wishes in good faith.”

I said something nice that Dad would have approved of, and severed our connection. I stood for a moment. Would Eldon really have sold the Bar J?

I returned to the living room. The front door stood open, letting in the crisp morning air. Danny and Carly headed for the idling pickup. She was probably telling him she'd see him later. Except she climbed into the driver's side and Danny ran to the passenger door.

I took off for the porch. “Carly! Wait!”

She didn't. Gravel spewed from her tires before Danny even closed his door.

Dust rose as Carly gunned it around the bend and rattled over the AutoGate, disappearing between the gap. My fingers tingled with cold before I turned and walked back inside.

*   *   *

I woke up to the smell of chocolate chip cookies, something that ought to draw me to the kitchen with anticipation. Instead, I wanted to run to the toilet and puke. The clock told me I'd been asleep for four hours. I rolled over and grabbed my phone from the bedside table. Because Ted is sheriff and I sometimes acted as dispatch, the number for Broken Butte Community Hospital was programmed into my phone. They told me Ted's condition was stable and that he hadn't regained consciousness yet.

I flopped onto my back again and stared at the ceiling for a second.

Damn it, Carly.

I'd stood in the living room after she and Danny drove away. Maybe it would be better for her to be with friends. Teenagers often leaned on each other more than on parents or someone like me, a sad excuse for a surrogate mother.

No one could love her more than I did, though. Trust that she could deal with this new tragedy in her own way warred with my desire to help her. She'd call if she wanted me. That wasn't enough, but what else could I do?

I climbed from my cocoon and padded to the dresser for clean underwear.

“Oh, good, you're awake,” Louise said from the doorway.

I jumped and yelped before turning to see my older sister advancing on me. All boobs and belly and outstretched arms, dressed in her mom jeans and decorated sweatshirt. “Louise, what are—”

“I dropped the kids at school this morning and heard about Ted. I came right out, but you were sleeping. Oh, honey, I'm sorry. How is he?”

I backed away, but not quickly enough.

Louise yanked me into a smothering hug. “Oh, you poor thing. Do Mom and Dad know?”

I disengaged myself. “Yep.”

“I don't suppose they were sympathetic.” She folded her arms in disapproval. “That's why I'm here. At a time like this, family needs to pull together.”

Or not.

“You slept so long that now I've got to pick up the kids. But we can come back out if you want.”

Sending the kids out here and leaving herself at home had more appeal. “No. Thanks anyway.” I started pulling on my clothes. If you grow up with four sisters wedged into one bedroom and a bathroom with no door, you've got nothing to hide.