The sky was still overcast when Clay walked out of the house and headed to the bunkhouse. He noticed a small drift building in front of the pickup as he walked by. Damp air chilled him as he breathed it in, but the cold helped settle him. He told himself he needed to call a halt to the feelings he was starting to have. The one thing Randy had gotten right this morning was that they were both workers on this ranch. Allie was the owner’s daughter. He and Allie had always had a certain something between them, but that didn’t mean she was interested in him as anything more than a ranch hand.
The snow was deep on the steps to the bunkhouse, and Clay used his boots to open up a wide pathway. When he tried to open the door, it would not budge. The knob turned, but the door was stuck.
“I’m guessing the latch is frozen. Ice,” Clay muttered to himself. Nothing happened easily around here, and that was fine with him.
He put his shoulder to the door and pushed. It opened.
Light came into the bunkhouse through the side windows. He barely noticed the layer of dust on the plank floor of the long room. Everything was brown in the shadows. Seven metal cots lined the north wall, nails sticking out of the raw wood boards above each short headboard. An old shirt that used to be white and was now gray hung from one of the nails, and the other homemade hooks looked ready to hold more belongings. The cots were still neatly made with the top of the white sheets folded back over khaki blankets. There were no pillows.
Clay eyed the last bunk in the lineup. That one had been his. No nails had been hammered into the wood above that cot, which made him realize that his cot had been added later than the others. He had squeezed the other ranch hands when he moved in. None of them had said anything, though. He wondered now what other cues he’d missed back then.
Like with the other cots, the top blanket on his went to the floor on both sides, so he couldn’t see under it. He did wonder briefly if his old suitcase was still there. No one had mentioned his belongings when they sent him off to jail. He had never heard what had happened to that suitcase. Someone had probably thrown it out by now. It had been with him for all twelve of his years in the foster care system, but it didn’t look like much so he didn’t think anyone would hesitate to toss it. It had been where he’d kept his drawings, though.
By now he could see through the window that Allie was walking over here, picking up her feet in the packed snow like she was walking through a layer of thick sand. That meant the snow must be melting a little. Clay would look under his old cot, but he didn’t want to be going through those drawings when she was around. Too many of his drawings had been of her. The thought of her seeing them made him hope someone had thrown that suitcase away without bothering to open it. Not that there was anything improper in the drawings; they were just starry-eyed. As he remembered, he’d even drawn roses around the border of one of her portraits.
He shook his head just thinking about it. He supposed every man had a sentimental streak when he was young. That didn’t mean he wanted anyone to know about it, though.
Clay moved deeper into the room. A rock fireplace dominated the wall by the outside door. There were still ashes in the grate and a glass canning jar on the simple pine mantel. Three brown leather sofas were gathered in front of the fireplace. A scarred coffee table stood in the middle of them, and a pole lamp stood to the side.
Clay remembered some good times, sitting around that fireplace in the evenings with the other ranch hands. Sometimes the cook would make them all cocoa when a blizzard was howling outside.
He continued gazing around and saw the door to the left that opened up into what everyone had called the new kitchen when he’d been here. It had been added to the bunkhouse a few months before he got there. A new large bathroom had been added, as well. He walked over and looked into the kitchen. Black-and-white linoleum covered the floor. A long counter lined the wall across from the door, its length interrupted by the double sink in the middle. The dark green countertop was tile. The cabinets had been painted white. Two regular-sized refrigerators sat to the left of the door, and a double-oven gas stove was on the wall opposite.
Large square windows dominated the far white corner of the kitchen, and that’s where the rectangular oak table sat, three chairs to each side and one on each end. In the winter, when the shades were rolled up, that was the warmest corner in the bunkhouse, including the sofas by the fireplace. A bookcase stood under the left window, not that there were many books. The ranch hands joked that the bookcase was nothing but a fancy display for the cook’s philodendron plants. Clay and Mark used to sit in that corner, playing chess at the table and discussing the problems of the world.
Clay looked closer and remembered the Bible that stood in the bookcase. He and Mark had been doing something called the Easter Challenge that year. The church had invited everyone to read the Gospel of Luke.
Clay went over and slipped the Bible off the shelf. Mark had his own Bible in the main house; this one had been left behind by some ranch hand Clay never knew. The gum wrapper he’d used to keep his place in the Bible was still there. As he recalled, neither he nor Mark had gotten very far in the story before that night interrupted both their lives.
Clay set the Bible back where it had been, noting for the first time that the shelf had rust rings where metal planters had sat for years. Someone must have eventually thrown the planters away.
He heard the door open in the other room, and he turned slightly.
Before long, Allie stood in the doorway of the kitchen. She had a loose knit scarf around her neck, the red of the scarf making her cheeks look even pinker than they did from the cold. Allie always had liked color.
She looked around and shook her head. “I thought we at least had some pictures on the walls out here. It’s pretty dreary. We’ll fix it up for you.”
Clay shrugged. “I’ve lived with worse. It’s okay.”
He knew he’d said the wrong thing when he saw Allie’s face crumple a little.
“We’re not going to let you live in a place that’s as bad as prison,” Allie said, her voice firm. “You can stay in the house.” She paused and added softly, “In Mark’s old room.”
Clay looked at her. He’d seen less resolute faces on men headed to solitary confinement. “There’s no need for that. You’ve no reason to feel guilty.”
Her eyes flashed at that. “The least we can do is see that you have a nice room. I figure other parolees get paid for the time that they work for someone.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Clay said shortly.
“You might have ended up with a regular parole if it wasn’t for my father,” Allie said in a rush.
Clay was silent.
“It’s the truth then?” Allie said as her shoulders slumped and she stared at the floor.
Clay hated seeing her look miserable. And it certainly wasn’t justified. “I never qualified for parole.”
Allie looked up at that.
“Before you can be considered for parole, you have to say you are sorry for what you did,” Clay continued quietly. “I never did what they said I had so—”
Clay couldn’t take his gaze off Allie. As he watched, her eyes grew round.
“You wouldn’t admit it,” she finally said. “Not even to get out of prison.”
* * *
The silence between them stretched long.
Finally, Allie shifted her stance. More light was coming in the windows, and it sounded like the wind had died down outside. She had known Clay was proud and stubborn, but she almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“When would you have gotten out on parole?” she asked then. “If you had done what they asked?”
“Last year about this time,” he said.
Allie nodded for lack of anything else to do. “Please, do take Mark’s bedroom if you’d like. It’s much warmer in the house.”
Clay shrugged. “I’m guessing Mark’s room has been kept for him, just the way he left it.”
Allie nodded. Her father had insisted on that, and she had half agreed with him so neither one of them had disturbed it much. They even left his comb on his dresser and the books he was reading on his nightstand. She had changed the linens before Jeremy came, but no one else had stayed in the room in the past four years.
“Jeremy can sleep on the airbed in my dad’s room,” Allie continued. “He spends half of the night there anyway. He likes to sleep with his grandpa.”
She could see Clay considering her words.
“Thank you,” he finally said. “But I’d do better out here. I’m sure there’s firewood out by the back door, and we’ll be able to turn the water on today. Randy might want to stay in the bunkhouse, too. It’ll be like old times.”
He was trying too hard to convince her, Allie thought, but she wouldn’t argue. “I’ll take the bedding in and let that go through the washing machine while we’re working in the barn. You’ll have your meals with us no matter what.”
Clay looked relieved when she accepted his decision. She supposed he might like the solitude of the bunkhouse after being in prison.
“I suppose we should see to the animals first,” she finally said. “Once we have some hot water to work with, I’ll run the mop over these floors, as well.”
Clay nodded. “Let’s go to the barn then.”
Allie followed him as he walked out the door.
The number of things she was responsible for was growing, she told herself. She missed her mother. She had spent her childhood trying to control more than she could with her father and brother. She wasn’t about to become involved with a man she could not trust.
Which reminded her of something.
“My father has a note for you,” she said to Clay as they approached the barn. “He wanted me to be sure and take you back to the house before Randy got back. He thought the note might be private.”
“Private?” Clay stopped and turned around. “For me?”
Allie nodded. “I didn’t ask from whom.”
Her father liked to be secretive, but she wished he had given her some clue. She could tell Clay looked worried. She wondered if there was any way the parole board had sent him a message telling him to come back. She knew she should want something like that to happen, but she didn’t.
Clay was here, and he seemed to want to stay. At least, she thought so.
“We should get things set up in the barn first,” Clay said. “Let’s check on the pump. And we should turn the propane heater on here in the bunkhouse and in the tack room off the barn.”
“I’d like to take another look at the Appaloosa horses, too,” Allie said.
“I knew you couldn’t resist those horses,” Clay said, grinning. “They’ll eat you out of house and home, but you’re going to like having them here.”
Allie didn’t even bother to reply. She’d forgotten how well he’d known her when he lived on the ranch. It would be easy to step back into their old friendly ways. But that robbery had changed everything. She didn’t know if she could ever trust him again.