A Family For Rose

“That used to be your momma’s dog. Her name’s Tess.”

“Her eyes look funny.”

“She’s blind,” her father said bluntly. “That happens sometimes with old animals.”

“Do you have horses?”

“A few.”

“Are they blind, too?”

“No, but they oughta be. They’re old enough.”

Rose’s expression became pained. She looked at her mother. “Momma, I really have to go pee.”

“The bathroom’s inside, up the stairs and on your right. Go on. And don’t forget to wash your hands after.”

The screen door banged behind her and light footsteps raced up the stairs.

“Been a long time since there were any kids in this place,” her father said.

“I passed a house being built on the way in,” Shannon said, figuring it was best to get it out of the way. “In that pretty spot where I used to wait for the school bus.”

Her father nodded, rubbed the bristle of gray stubble on his chin and carefully studied the distant mountains. “I sold ten acres out by the black road to someone you used to know. Billy Mac, from the rez,” he said. “He paid some cash up front and he’s paying cash for half of each month’s mortgage payment, giving me the balance in work. I charged him interest just like a bank would. Seemed fair.”

For a few moments Shannon struggled to process what he’d just said. Billy Mac! Then the blood rushed to her head and her Scots/Irish spirit took over.

“You sold ten acres of land along the Bear Paw to Billy Mac? A guy you wouldn’t even let me date in high school?”

“Property taxes were due and the town...”

“Billy Mac?”

“I needed the money to pay back taxes, and you left, Shannon. I didn’t drive you off, you left of your own free will.”

Shannon pressed her fingertips to her temples. “You’re taking half the mortgage payment in labor?” Shannon glanced around at the neglected slump of the place. “Doesn’t look like he’s in any danger of drowning in his own sweat from all the work he’s doing around here. How much did you sell him the land for? Two hundred an acre?”

Her father never flinched. “He’s working hard and doing all right by me. I got no complaints,” he said. He shoved his hands deep in his pockets and rounded his shoulders. He refused to look at her, just gazed across the valley. The silence between them stretched out, long and awkward.

“I’d have bought that piece of land from you, Daddy,” Shannon said quietly. The anger drained out of her and, with it, the hopes and dreams of her fairy-tale homecoming. “You know how much I loved that spot.”

“Too late for that, isn’t it?”

“Too late for a lot of things, I guess.” Shannon felt empty inside. She’d been a fool to think that coming home would make life better. If it weren’t for Rose, she’d get back into her car and leave this place for good.

“How long were the two of you planning to stay?” he said, still not looking at her.

“I was hoping you might let us stay for a night or two,” Shannon said. “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

They heard Rose’s footsteps descending the stairs at a gallop. “You can stay as long as you need to,” he said. Curt, clipped, brusque. He wasn’t going to bend. Wasn’t going to soften. Wasn’t going to cut her any slack. Never had, never would.

“Thanks, Daddy,” Shannon said, biting back the angry words that burned on her tongue. “We won’t be much bother. We might even be of some help. I still remember how to do chores, how to drive the mowing machine and how to pitch bales of hay. I noticed the fields hadn’t been hayed yet. It’s getting late for the first cut and there can never be too many hands at haying time.”

Rose pushed the screen door open and rejoined them on the porch. She dropped to her knees beside the old border collie. “Hello, Tess. I’m sorry you’re blind.”

“Be gentle with her. She’s very old,” Shannon said. “Fifteen years, anyway.”

“I’ll be gentle, Momma. Do you think she’s hungry?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m hungry, too. We haven’t eaten since forever.”

“That’s not true, we ate lunch. You didn’t finish yours, remember? I said, ‘If you don’t finish your sandwich, Rose Chesney Roy, you’re gonna get hungry real quick.’ And now you’re hungry and we don’t even know if your grampy can feed us.”

Her father bristled at her words. “You like beans and franks?” he asked Rose, gruff as a bear.

Rose nodded up at him, wide-eyed. “And I like burgers and french fries.”

“You’ll have to settle for cowboy fare tonight.”

“Okay,” she said eagerly, scrambling to her feet. “Can you teach me to ride tomorrow, Grampy?”

He matched Rose’s intense blue gaze with one of his own and fingered his mustache. “This is a real busy time of year. I doubt I’ll have a chance.” They heard a vehicle approaching and Shannon turned to see a dark pickup truck bouncing down the last rutted stretch of ranch road, kicking up dust. “That’ll be Billy Mac. He’s been staying here while he builds his house.”

The anger that had drained from Shannon returned with a vengeance and heat rushed back into her face. “Billy Mac’s living here? With you?”

Her father nodded. “Bunks in the old cook’s cabin. Likes his privacy.”

The truck pulled up next to Shannon’s car and the engine cut out. Door opened. Driver emerged. Stood. Looked up at them. Shannon stared back. It had been ten years and people changed, but the changes in Billy Mac were the result of more than just the years. He stood just as tall, with those same broad shoulders and the lean cowboy build that had made him a star quarterback and rodeo rider. But he wasn’t a kid anymore. Whatever he’d been through in the past ten years had turned him into a man. He reached his fingers to the brim of his hat and gave her a formal nod.

“Hello, Shannon,” he said. “This is quite a surprise.”

“Hello, Billy. You sure got that part right,” Shannon replied. Her face burned as she remembered like it was yesterday his passionate and unexpected kiss, and how she’d slapped him afterward. “This is my daughter, Rose.”

Billy nodded again. “Nice to meet you, Rose.”

Rose skipped down the porch steps and stuck her hand out. “Momma told me it’s polite to shake hands when you meet people,” she said.

Billy took her little hand in his own for a brief shake. “Your momma’s teaching you good manners.”

“Supper’s about ready,” her father said. “Come on in.”

Billy hesitated. “The two of you have some catching up to do. I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding,” her father said, then turned before Billy could respond. The screen door banged shut behind him.

“Nobody argues with Ben McTavish,” Shannon said. “You should know that by now. You’re working for him, aren’t you? Come on in.” As much as Shannon dreaded sharing supper with Billy Mac, she dreaded sharing it alone with her father even more.

Billy’d gained a limp—probably from getting thrown off some snuffy bronc or bull. The injury made climbing the steps slow.

“Are you a real cowboy?” Rose asked when he reached the top step.

“Not anymore, Rose, but I used to be a fair hand at rodeo.”

“What’s rodeo?”

Billy glanced at Shannon. “Your momma hasn’t told you what rodeo is?”

Shannon smiled and tousled Rose’s curls. “I’ve been remiss.”

Billy gave Rose a solemn look. “Better ask her to bring you to the next rodeo, so you can experience it firsthand.”

“Can we go, Momma?” Rose asked, excited.

“We’ll see. Come on, supper’s ready and we need to get washed up.”

Billy opened the screen door and held it while Shannon, Rose and Tess went inside. Shannon had envisioned dirty dishes stacked in the sink, counters crowded with empty cans of food and trash everywhere, but the kitchen looked much the same as it had when she’d left. More tired and worn after ten years, but surprisingly neat. Her father was adding another can of generic pork and beans to the pot on the old propane cookstove.

“Won’t take long to heat,” he said.

“I thought Rose and I could share my old room,” Shannon said. When he didn’t respond except to nod, she took her daughter’s hand and led her up the stairs, remembering the feel of each worn tread, the creak of the floorboards, the way the late afternoon sunlight beamed through the west-facing hall window and splintered through the railings at the top of the stairs.

“Is this where we’ll be living, Momma?” Rose asked as they stood in the open doorway of the small room at the top of the kitchen stairs. The room was just as Shannon remembered. Just as she’d left it. Bed neatly made. Braided rug on the floor beside it. Posters of country-and-western singers pinned to the walls. High school text books stacked on the battered pine desk, as if waiting for her to return and finish up her senior year, as if she could step back in time and magically erase that unforgivable mistake she’d made, running off to Nashville with the slick-talking Travis Roy.

“I don’t know, Rose,” Shannon said, because in all honesty, she didn’t. “We’ll be staying here for a few days, anyway.” She felt a little dizzy, standing in this musty-smelling time capsule. A little sick at heart and a little uncertain. Coming back home hadn’t been such a good idea, after all, but she was here. The only thing she could do was try to make the best of it. She had to get beyond the little house Billy Mac was building on the very spot she’d coveted—and the fact that Billy Mac was downstairs in her father’s kitchen.

Billy’d had a tough-guy reputation in high school, maybe because being born on the rez had left him with a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas. But he’d been a wonderful athlete, and handsome enough to make all the girls swoon. He’d had his pick of them, too.

He’d asked Shannon out a couple of times, but even her father had heard that Billy was a player and warned her away from him. Though she’d heeded his warning, that hadn’t stopped her from being attracted to him, and it hadn’t stopped Billy from trying.

Though she’d been a year younger, Billy’d been her lab partner, and they’d shared an edgy class fraught with a different kind of chemistry that could have taken her down a completely different path and very nearly did. But along about then, Travis Roy moved to town, asked her to sing with his country-and-western band and then dazzled her with promises of a life of fame and fortune in Nashville.

Billy had asked her to his senior prom, but she’d gone with Travis, instead, and not just because of Billy’s reputation with the girls. Travis’s band was playing at the prom, and she’d written a song for him to sing. He was going to dedicate it to the graduating class as well as the song they’d recently recorded for an agent from Nashville. The song that was about to pave their way to fame and fortune. But Billy’d been at the high school dance, and he and Travis had gotten into it out in the parking lot. Billy’d flattened Travis in a fit of jealousy, busted his nose, then had the audacity to tell her he loved her.

As if that wasn’t enough, he’d showed up at the ranch a few weeks later under the guise of apologizing and found her crying on the porch after yet another argument with her father about her wanting to head to Nashville with Travis. He attempted to comfort her and one thing lead to another, culminating in The Kiss.

It was a kiss she’d never forgotten, a kiss that ignited enough passion to make her momentarily forget she was with Travis, but she’d come to her senses, slapped Billy and stuck with Travis, believing her life would be far more rewarding in Nashville with a country music star than with a guy whose sole aspirations were to win a rodeo belt buckle and to have his own ranch someday.

Shannon already knew about ranch life. She’d lived it for seventeen years and wanted something a whole lot more glamorous for the next seventy.

Shannon didn’t dwell on the fact that, had things turned out a little differently, if Travis hadn’t come to town, she might have ended up being a rancher’s wife. She’d never tell Rose about any of this, because there were some things a mother didn’t talk to her daughter about, but she still remembered that kiss and how it had made her feel. Ten years hadn’t dimmed the memory.

Rose fidgeted. “I’m hungry, Momma.”

“Me, too,” Shannon said. “I’ll let the room air out while we eat supper. We can share the bed tonight, so long as you promise not to thrash around too much. You kick like a little mule.”

“I won’t kick tonight, Momma. I promise.”

Shannon raised the window and leaned out on the sill, looking across the valley toward the craggy bluffs lining Wolf Butte, hazy and grayish blue in the afternoon sunlight. She drew a deep breath of the clear, cool air and let the wind draw it from her lungs.

She felt like weeping, but couldn’t. Not with Rose watching. She was still an outcast, unwanted and unloved. Daddy’d been happier to see Billy Mac than he had been to see his own daughter after ten long years. He’d let them stay as long as they needed, but they weren’t welcome here. He’d made that plain enough.

“Momma?” Rose’s hand slipped into hers. “Can we go eat now?”

“Yes,” Shannon murmured past the painful cramp in her throat and turned away from the window to accompany her daughter downstairs.

CHAPTER TWO

BILLY WAS SETTING the food on the kitchen table, cowboy style: pot of beans next to the pot of franks next to the plate of sliced white bread. Stack of mismatched plates, a coffee can full of silverware. Plastic tub of generic margarine. Plastic salt and pepper shakers. Roll of paper towels. Jug of milk. Four chipped cups that would do double duty for milk or coffee. Shannon smelled the sharp aroma of coffee as it started to perk.

Her dad was nowhere in sight.

“Your father went to the tractor shed,” Billy said, reading her questioning expression. “Said not to wait on him. He didn’t know how long he’d be.”

Shannon felt another bitter stab. He’d gone to find one of his bottles of whiskey. He used to have them stashed all over the place, hiding bottles the way squirrels hide their nuts. He was sitting out there somewhere, drinking cheap hooch to avoid his daughter and granddaughter.

“Come wash your hands in the sink first, Rose,” she said as her daughter started to sit at the table. They shared the soap, warm water and towel. Billy removed his hat before sitting, revealing a short haircut that didn’t quite hide a nasty six-inch scar on the left side of his head above his ear.

Rose stared at it as she climbed into her chair. “Does that hurt?”

Billy shook his head. “Looks worse than it is. The doctors had to put a metal plate in my skull. Here, Rose, have some beans.” He dished some out for her, adding a hotdog and a slice of bread.

“Thank you,” she said. “Why did they put metal in your head?”

“Rose, it’s not polite to ask questions like that,” Shannon said as she took her own seat. She tried unsuccessfully to catch her daughter’s eye, but Rose was still staring unabashedly at Billy.

“It’s all right,” Billy said. “I got hurt when the vehicle I was riding in hit a roadside bomb when I was in Iraq. The doctors had to put me back together again the best way they could.”

Shannon wondered how many more ugly surprises the day could throw at her. “You joined the military? I always thought you were going to be a big rodeo star or the highest paid quarterback ever for the Dallas Cowboys.”

“That might be a first for an Indian off the rez.” Billy’s grin was sardonic. “Signing up with the Marines seemed like a good idea at the time. The recruiter made it sound like an opportunity I’d be crazy to pass up. I’m glad things worked out better for you in Nashville, Shannon. A lot of talented musicians go there hoping to make a name for themselves, but not many do. You did real good.”

Shannon served herself up some beans and franks, avoiding his eyes. “Thanks.”

“Bet your next song tops the charts, same as all the others.”

“There aren’t going to be any more songs. For ten years I lived mostly on a bus and never knew when I woke up what state or town I was in.” Shannon concentrated on cutting up her hotdog into precise segments. “I’m done with that life.”

Billy had the good sense not to pursue the subject. He helped himself to the beans and took two slices of bread, laying them carefully on the edge of his plate, then hesitated, his fork poised. “Your father probably told you I bought that piece of land by the creek.”

Shannon studied her hotdog segments. “Yes, he did.”

“He put a for-sale sign out on the road about the same time I came back home. I didn’t have much money saved—the military doesn’t make a man rich—but I didn’t want anyone else buying a piece of the McTavish ranch, so I went to talk to him about a job. He ended up selling me the land and hiring me on at the same time.”

“Lucky for you,” Shannon said drily, poking at a piece of hotdog.

“I work at Willard’s part-time, too. Your father can’t pay me, but he’s letting me work off my mortgage.”

There was an awkward silence. Shannon forked her beans and hotdog segments together in a pile in the center of her plate and stared at them. She’d never faced a more unappetizing meal.

“I guess my father isn’t gentling mustangs anymore,” she said. “I don’t see any horses down in the corrals.”

“We shipped five out to auction last week. The Bureau of Land Management’s due to bring another batch in any day now, but McTavish doesn’t make much money taming wild horses for their adoption program. Barely enough to buy groceries, really.”

“What about horse training for the film studios?”

“He had some sort of falling-out with a studio over a dog being killed on location maybe five, six years back. He blamed them for it and quit. I don’t know the details.”

Shannon prodded her beans with the fork. The bread was stale and the swelled-up franks were downright suspicious. Who knew what they were made of? She pushed her plate away and reached for her glass of milk, taking a tentative sniff to make sure it hadn’t soured.

She gazed across the room to another time. “My mother was the mover and shaker around here. She trained the horses and the dogs. Daddy learned from her after he got busted up in that horse wreck and couldn’t work as a stuntman anymore. He did all right with it, but my mother was the best of the best.”

“She was a legend around these parts,” Billy said.

Shannon was surprised he remembered the strong-willed, independent-minded woman who had been her mother. She caught his eye and felt herself flush. “Finish your beans, Rose.”

“But, Momma...”

“Clean your plate and I’ll take you out to the barn to see the horses.”

Rose dutifully lifted her fork while Billy scraped his chair back and pushed to his feet.

“Coffee’s done,” Billy said. “I’ll pour.”

Shannon downed her milk in four big swallows and held her stained Bear Paw Bank and Trust cup out. He filled it with hot strong coffee. “Thanks,” she said. “How many hours are you putting in a week to work off your mortgage? What’re you doing, exactly?”

Billy set the coffeepot back onto the stove and returned to his seat with his own mug. “I work at Willard’s store, stocking shelves, mostly at night. For your father, I help with the mustangs and other odd jobs. Right now I’m working on the fence line down along the black road. It’s slow going. Most of the posts are rotted off and need replacing.”

“I don’t doubt that, but what difference does a good fence make if the gates are left wide open for the livestock to wander through?” Shannon was aware her voice was sharp but the question needed to be asked.

He pulled his chipped John Deere Dealership mug close to his chest. “There’s no livestock on the place. We’re planning on picking up some young stuff together at the fall auction, but the fences have to be repaired before we can do that.”

We? Shannon thought. “Daddy told me there were horses.”

“The only two horses he kept were Sparky and Old Joe. He gives them the run of the place, and they never roam too far from the barn.”

Shannon took a quick swallow of coffee, which burned her mouth. The pain helped her gain control of her emotions. Sparky and Old Joe had to be twenty-five years old if they were a day. She’d practically grown up astride Sparky, and Old Joe had been her mother’s favorite horse. She set down her mug, deeply shaken yet again. As gruff as her father acted, he still had a heart. For the animals, at least.

“I won’t beat around the bush, Billy. This place is falling down. It’s a shambles. My father may be broke but I’m not. Not completely, anyhow. I can pay whatever it takes to hire you on full-time. That is, if you think you can do the work, and I understand if you can’t, with your injuries. It’s a big job, a lot harder than stocking shelves at the store, but you’ll pay your mortgage off all the sooner.”

Billy’s eyes locked with hers and the heat in his gaze hit her like a forceful blow. He pushed out of his chair so abruptly that he lost his balance and had to grab for the edge of the table. He straightened, carried his plate and cup to the sink, then limped to the door, took his hat from the wall peg, pushed through the screen door with a squeak and a bang, and was gone.

“Is he mad, Momma?” Rose said in the silence that filled the room.

“I think so, honey.” Shannon sighed. “Finish your supper, Rose, and we’ll go find Sparky and Old Joe down in one of the barns.”

* * *

BILLY WAS ON his way to the cook’s cabin when he spotted McTavish down by the machinery shed, working on the tractor. Billy pulled his truck up beside the old red Moline tractor and cut the ignition. He and McTavish had been working on the tractor for a week now, every evening after supper. Robbing parts from three other tractors in various stages of decay to build one that could take on the job of haying. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, McTavish called it. The first mowing was already three weeks late. The grass was tall and going to seed. The neighboring ranchers already had their first cutting stored away in their barns.

McTavish wiped his hands on a greasy shop rag. “Thought I might try to fire her up tonight, see how she goes.”

Billy adjusted his hat, glanced toward the ranch house then back at the tractor. “Those plug wires look bad. I should’ve picked up another set today.”

“She’s got new plugs, new oil filter, new oil, fresh gas, good hydraulic lines. Tires are old but they’ll do. She might go, cracked plug wires and all.”

“If so, we could start haying first thing tomorrow,” Billy said.

McTavish nodded. “Be good to make an early start. We’re a little late this year.” McTavish hauled himself up onto the metal seat, pulled the primer knob and kicked her over. The Moline sounded as tired as the both of them put together. The tractor’s engine turned over but wouldn’t fire. McTavish’s shoulders slumped. “If just one damn thing would go right around here,” he muttered.

“I’ll go to town first thing and pick up a new set of plug wires at Schuyler’s,” Billy offered. “He opens early. We could still be haying by seven. Get the top field done, anyhow, maybe half of the lower.”

McTavish nodded again. “Save the slip. I’ll deduct it from your monthly payment.”

A killdeer flew across the front of the tractor and landed near the corral. Billy watched it hunt for insects in the weeds along the fence line. He plucked a stem of tall grass and nibbled on it. “Been thinkin’. Maybe I could cut my hours at Willard’s so’s I can work more hours here, when it’s busy times, like haying. And the fencing needs to be done before we buy the stock.”

“I can’t pay you, Billy. We talked about that before.”

“I don’t need much to get by.”

McTavish looked at him. “You’re building a house. That takes cash.”

“I got what I need to close it in for the winter,” Billy said softly. “There’s lots that needs doing around here if we’re bound to get this ranch back on its feet. Part-time won’t cut it. I’ll stock shelves at the store if I need spending money. Working full-time for you, I’ll pay off my mortgage all the quicker.”