The McBride boys came to help at Red Rock, and together they did Ceil’s entire batch of newborns in five days as predicted. All was quiet at both ranches. This in itself made Randee nervous. Every night she thanked her lucky stars Chase had decided to stay for a while; she would have been too nervous to sleep if she’d been at the ranch alone. Not that knowing he was outside in that one-room cabin didn’t cost her a night or two as well.
Ceil had the McBride boys spending a few nights with her. Rex was stuck in the hospital and was an ornery old grump.
As the end of April neared, the snow was gone in the valley, leaving the ground soggy and cold. The endless Montana skies were thick with clouds most of the time, rain adding more moisture that would be needed later in the summer. There was still an occasional snow flurry, but Randee didn’t mind because she knew the weightless flakes would melt in a matter of seconds on the ground. The earlier promise of a warm spring was upon them.
Randee’s tension had eased somewhat over the last three days and the weather helped raise all their spirits, except for Rex, who had seven more days in the hospital and took it upon himself to make sure everyone there was a miserable as he was. Rex complained every evening about the food and anything else he could think of, and by his ninth day every nurse and the orderly had absorbed their fill and told Randee they couldn’t wait for her to take the cantankerous old bastard home. He was driving everybody nuts.
“You be here at six sharp tomorrow morning,” Rex said when he was finally cleared for release. He obviously didn’t want to waste one minute of time.
“The doctor has to release you in the morning, and he doesn’t do rounds until nine,” Randee pointed out. “We’ll get the chores done and then we’ll be in.”
“Damn it, Randee. I want to get out of here!” Rex whined like a spoiled child.
“Not any more than the staff wants you out. See you when we get here. Love you. ’Night.”
“Good night, Chase,” her uncle said.
“See ya, Rex.”
Randee gave an exasperated sigh, and she and Chase left the room. “He’s going to drive us absolutely crazy,” she muttered as they walked down the hospital hallway. “The doctor told me today that Rex will be laid up for several weeks, possibly months! He’ll drive himself bat-shit and drag everybody along with him.”
It was pouring rain as they left the hospital. They had been eating together regularly, but Ceil had decided to stay home tonight and catch up on a few things around her house so that she would be free to take care of Rex upon his return. She had been to the hairdresser and even bought a new silk blouse.
“When I talked to Ceil today”— Randee thought back to their phone conversation earlier—“you’d have thought she was going to her prom.”
“I know,” Chase said as he guided the Bronco down the black, shiny, two-lane highway. “They’re so in love. Why don’t they get married?”
Randee shrugged. “I asked Rex once, and he said he was waiting for her to ask him.”
“Was he serious?” Chase asked, not taking his eyes from the road.
“I don’t know. At first I thought it was a cop-out, but the more I think about it, the more I think he might have been serious. I’ll have to ask Ceil one of these days.”
The rain was relentless and the driving slow, and a huge branch of lightning touched down within a hundred yards of the truck. It was so close that the thunder was almost simultaneous.
Randee closed her eyes, trying to shut out the noise. “I hate lightning. When I was ten, my father, mother, Rex and I were taking cattle up to the range. We got into a thunderstorm like this about three miles from camp when all of a sudden there was a blinding white light and a giant roar went right through me. When I could see again, there, lying on the trail in front of me, were a cow and her calf. They were both killed instantly. I could smell the burned hair like branding, while steam was coming off both their bodies. I’d been watching them seconds before and then…well, Dad made us get off our horses and lie in a little gully right next to their bodies ’til the storm passed. It seemed like forever. I hated every second.” Randee shuddered. “And of course my parents’ plane went down in a storm like this.”
“Come here,” Chase said, pulling her thigh toward his.
She slid over and snuggled into the warm security he offered. This felt so right. “It’s early yet. What are your plans for the rest of the evening?” Chase’s voice was low and sexy, and the deep timbre made Randee let out a nervous sigh. No one would be home but the two of them.
“I need to fix up my bedroom for Rex. I’m going to put him in my room and move upstairs. So I need to take care of that, but it shouldn’t take long.”
Chase tucked her even closer, into him if that was possible. After a pause he said, “How ’bout we share my cabin tonight, so you can get some sleep. We’ll make room for Dusty too.”
Randee closed her eyes and slowly breathed in Chase’s masculine scent that was him. Her heart seemed to be pounding in her ears. Was he serious or just trying to raise her spirits with idle flirtation? Would she blow his mind if she said it sounded good? Would she blow her own mind? How strange, not to know what to do. But did she really want only a tiny taste of what he could offer?
And then there was the rest of her baggage. She loved him; there was no question. He was kind and considerate to everyone, the kind of man that you hung on to for a lifetime and beyond. The way his blue eyes looked at her when she least expected it—while riding behind the cattle, as she cared for the horses, sometimes as they did the dishes after supper, late in the evening as they sat in their two high-back leather chairs reading—made her weak in the knees and soft everywhere else. And yet, Randee had given her heart and soul to another man from the city who had left her. She’d lived with him through college, spent every waking minute thinking of him, and at the end he’d walked out of her life without a backwards glance, leaving her scared and alone.
“Well, what do you say, Green-Eyed-Lady, will you bunk with me?”
Chase was serious. He was definitely serious. So, what was her decision? How did she know that he wouldn’t love her and leave? She didn’t. It was that simple. And she wasn’t sure that was okay.
“Chase, there are a lot of things you don’t know about me. I have some serious baggage.”
“Well, why don’t you let me help you unpack it?” he said. “I’m a good listener.”
That made her a little annoyed. “So am I, Chase, and you haven’t shared a single thing about your past with me. What makes you think I would burden you with mine when you don’t trust me with yours?”
He paused. After a solid minute of silent driving he finally said, “Okay. I guess that’s fair. Ask me something and I’ll see if I’m willing to answer you.”
Really? Randee felt that even this was a major victory. She wanted to ask a question that wouldn’t seem too threatening, at least at first. “Have you ever been married?”
“Yes, I was, but it didn’t work out.”
“Can you tell me what happened?” She couldn’t help asking.
“God, I really have trouble going down this road.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a damn ugly road. For now can you just trust me to know I want nothing to do with her ever again?”
“Sure,” Randee said, sliding back toward him.
Chase sighed. “Some night we’ll share a bottle of wine and I’ll tell you that whole story, but if we start on this tonight…believe me, it will be a huge buzzkill. I’m sorry.”
Randee was surprised. Chase could have just bashed his ex, like most men, but he hadn’t gone that route. Still, she could hear the hurt and disappointment in his voice.
She wanted to trust him. He’d promised to tell her later, but she didn’t want to open up her past until he was willing to share his own. She also knew she needed to answer his earlier question about spending the night with him, and she had to do it before they got home. So she steeled herself and spoke.
“I don’t think staying with you tonight would be such a good idea, Chase. Bunking together, I mean.” Even as she spoke the words, Randee couldn’t believe she was saying them. Not when she wanted a man as much as she did this one. “I’m a wounded doe when it comes to matters of the heart. I have a very hard time separating love and sex. My love is not…free. It comes with conditions that I’m sure you’re not willing to discuss.”
Chase looked insulted. “Free? I never thought your love was free, whatever that means. God, Randee, what do you take me for?” He paused and shook his head, almost said something, stopped. Then: “I honestly answered the question you asked. I’ve told you about my childhood and my parents. I’ve opened up as much as you have. I’m willing to talk of some things, but if you demand that I tell you every damn detail of my life before I came to Triple Creek, you can forget it. Is it so wrong to not want to talk about my past?”
They pulled off the main road onto another, following the wide and fast-moving Madison River. Chase drove without looking at Randee or saying another word. She watched a taut muscle twitch in his jaw and wondered just how much she’d tossed away. Probably everything.
You’ve done it now, Randee. Rex is coming home, and you may not get this opportunity again for a long time.
Chase cleared his throat as they pulled up the drive. “I’ll check the place out and turn in. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Randee tried to extend an olive branch. “You’re welcome to come to the house for a while. We could watch a little TV…”
“Randee,” Chase said, raking a hand through his hair. “I’m not in the mood for TV.”
Randee wasn’t surprised. Neither was she.
She went in the house and worked on her bedroom. As she did, a thunderstorm brewed. It continually grew worse with each passing minute.
Randee emptied three drawers of her clothes to make room for some of Rex’s, carried the garments upstairs to one of the bedrooms that was used only by guests. Every time she came into them to clean, a melancholy depression surrounded her, making her almost weepy. Her parents dreamt of filling the rooms with children born from their love for each other. After Randee’s birth there had been several miscarriages and then nothing. It had always been a secret dream of Randee’s to fulfill the wishes of her parents by bringing babies to Triple Creek Ranch. Clearly that was never going to happen.
She smoothed the covers of a pieced quilt and sat on the bed. Outside, thunder crashed. A vivid memory of her parents came to her as if by dream. Randee, age ten, opened their bedroom door without knocking, thunder rumbling the hardwood floor. The beautiful couple, dressed in warm winter nightwear, were locked in each other’s arms. Her mother’s head lay on her father’s broad chest, and Randee could still hear her father’s booming voice.
“Hello, angel. Need some company?”
Her parents had welcomed her with open arms as she crawled between them, and she’d slept the rest of the night like a baby. She wanted to be a parent like that now, comforting her own children during the storms of life.
Randee lay back on the bed, buried her head in a soft feather pillow, and cried.