Home on the Range Read online

  “Stubborn, yes, but not overinflated, surely.” Sam Stafford came into the room and winced. “Nick, it’s really okay if you don’t repeat all the same downright foolish mistakes I’ve got on my record. Take the girls to go see this woman. What have you got to lose?”

  His father was offering parenting advice?

  Sam Stafford, a man who put the ranch above everything else, including his three sons, had the nerve to advise him?

  Anger didn’t just crawl up Nick’s spine; it vaulted. And at that moment he wanted to go toe-to-toe with the man who’d made everything more important than raising children. But then he noted how Sam gripped the back of the chair for support. How his pallor had grayed with the simple effort of walking into the kitchen. Sam Stafford was ill, and Nick bit back the words he wanted to say. Now wasn’t the time or the place, and if Sam didn’t recover, that time might never come.

  He glared from one to the other, put his hat firmly in place, and strode out the door. What he wanted to do was to ride high into the hills of central Washington under the guise of shifting cattle and sorting calves, but he stopped himself halfway to the barn.

  I don’t want to talk to anyone.

  I don’t need anyone.

  He had his girls, this beautiful ranch, a nice home in the fairly new subdivision overlooking Gray’s Glen, and he wanted for nothing except…

  He sighed and really longed to punch something—anything—and if his brother Colt strolled by right then, he’d be the most likely target. He didn’t, which left Nick downright frustrated and unnerved but not one bit depressed, no matter what the rest of his family thought.

  “Daddy, look!” Six-year-old Dakota did a death-defying leap from a tree limb, tossed in an aerial spin, then rolled like a tumbleweed when she hit the ground. “I almost stuck the landing,” she yelled across the wide expanse of fresh green grass. “Wanna see me do it again?”

  His heart hadn’t climbed into his throat when she twirled off that tree branch.

  It leaped.

  “Uncle Colt’s going to saddle up True Moon for me tomorrow,” added Cheyenne from the porch, with just the right touch of in-your-face attitude. “He said I’m doing great with the pony and I’m ready to graduate to the bigger horse.”

  All the more reason to pummel his brother, for sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong, although True Moon was a gentle mare, perfect for learning, which meant Colt was probably right. That made Nick madder yet.

  He stared at the girls, so marvelous and beautiful, both of them longing to be true ranch kids. The fact that their mother hadn’t wanted ranch life for her girls didn’t bother them. It bothered him. For just a moment he wondered what the cloaked therapist would say about that. He pushed that aside and addressed Cheyenne. “We are not discussing this now. Gotta go.”

  Dakota scrambled his way, not caring where they were going or why.

  Cheyenne shuffled along, eyes down. The stubborn set of her jaw took him back a couple of decades to the reflection he saw in the daily mirror. She climbed into the back seat, fastened her belt, and stared out the window, chin in palm, disenchanted with everything.

  Dakota hopped in, pulled the shoulder strap at least five feet farther than necessary, seated the buckle with a firm snap, and sat back. “Why are we going home so early?”

  “We’re not going home,” Nick told them as he steered the truck down the curving drive.

  “Is it a surprise?” she asked, wriggling. “I love surprises. Good ones, that is. Can we stop at our house so I can feed Stripey? She’s probably hungry by now.”

  “Her name’s not Stripey; it’s Snickers,” Cheyenne scolded from her side of the back seat. “She doesn’t even want to come when you call her that. Stripey’s about as dumb a name as you can find for a cat without stripes.”

  “That makes it more special,” Dakota declared in a smug voice. “And cats don’t come to anybody, usually, so you’re just showing how much you don’t know.”

  “Dad, she’s such a brat!”

  Nick glanced up in time to see Dakota mime Cheyenne’s face and gestures in an absolutely perfect caricature of her older sister. “Dakota Mary, cut it out.”

  “I didn’t say anything.” Dakota pointed to her left. “She just likes bossing everybody around, and if they don’t do things her way, she acts like a big baby.”

  “I’m not the six-year-old,” Cheyenne shot back smoothly. “But I suppose when you’re in first grade, you think you’re big stuff. For a little kid.”

  “I’m almost seven, and I’ll be in second grade soon, and you’ll be staying in third grade, so there won’t be too much difference, will there, Miss Smarty Pants?”

  Nick had just turned down the first gravel-covered, winding road when Dakota fired that shot.

  Cheyenne’s head jerked up, and for the first time in months he saw real emotion on her face. “You don’t know anything. Shut up.”

  Dakota pressed her mouth into a thin line, then smiled and stayed quiet, knowing Cheyenne wouldn’t be able to resist glancing her way, and when she did, Dakota swung her back toward her sister and looked out the window, humming as if nothing Cheyenne did bothered her.

  Which only made Cheyenne angrier.

  He made the next turn, deeper into the forest, pretty sure the girls needed a boxing ring instead of therapy. But maybe that’s why they needed therapy. Weren’t little girls supposed to be more easygoing?

  “Are you about to dump us in the woods?” Cheyenne wondered as he aimed the car through a long copse of trees. “Like Hansel and Gretel? Dad, do you have any idea where you’re going?”

  “I do.” And when the small hillside bungalow popped into sight at the last minute, Cheyenne made a light whistling noise through her teeth and Dakota screeched, amazed. “It’s like half gingerbread, half wicked witch,” she said. “Dad, who lives here? Why are we coming to their house? Is that a house?” she added, as she scrambled out of her seat belt. “Like for real?”

  “Hi, girls.” Elsa didn’t wait for them to come to the door, and Nick was grateful for that. She moved through the doorway with an easy smile, not too big, not too small, and he had to hand it to her. She looked way more comfortable talking to them than she had when she had spoken to him. “I’m Elsa.”

  The girls stared up at her like she’d grown two heads or perhaps suspecting the smoke from the chimney came from a simmering cauldron inside.

  “No jokes?” she asked, glancing from one to the other. “Like where’s my braid? Why aren’t I wearing gloves? Can I freeze whole cities with a wave of my hand?”

  “It’s not nice to make fun of people’s names, is it?” Dakota asked, puzzled. “I think Elsa’s the prettiest princess of all, except maybe Cinderella, but they both have long blond hair, like you. So that’s nice, I think.”

  “Thank you, Dakota. And this is Cheyenne?” She shifted her attention to his oldest daughter. “Cheyenne, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Eyes down, Cheyenne dug her toe into the forest floor.

  “Shall we go in?”

  “Why?” Dakota asked.

  “It’s warmer,” said Elsa as she held the wooden screen door open. “I haven’t had a fire in three days, and it was great, but the rain and the wind from this new storm pushed me to break down and make another one.”

  “But the sun’s out now.”

  “When half of your house is underground, the dirt keeps it cool in the summer and protected in the winter,” she explained lightly. “But this time of year, when temps go up and down quickly, sometimes I need a little fire to take the chill off.”

  “Your house is weird,” Dakota announced as she stepped through the outside door. “Not inside. This is kind of normal, but outside it’s really weird.”

  “Dakota.” Nick frowned down at her. “That’s impolite.”

  “Yet apt.” Elsa swung the door shut as they all filed into the broad front room. “It’s an odd house because it started as an octagon built into the side of
the hill. So three sides of the octagon are buried and five sides are open to the outside with windows. But the last person added that room to the side, so it messed up the configuration. Now it looks like a crooked mushroom.”

  “Why would someone bury a house?” Dakota’s expression said that made no sense, and Nick couldn’t disagree. “I think that means I’m right, Dad. It’s definitely weird.”

  “Maybe not everyone likes the same things, DakoDUH.” Cheyenne shot her a sharp look from across the room. “Maybe some people like things done a different way. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it weird.”

  Dakota plopped onto the edge of a big chair, clearly more at ease than her older sister. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it,” Dakota answered reasonably, with just enough edge to try to set her sister off. “I just said it was really weird. That’s all.”

  “And you were right,” Elsa told her easily. “Mr. Stafford, would you like to sit here?” She pointed to the couch facing the fire. She didn’t give Cheyenne any direction, which was probably for the best, because if she did, Cheyenne would most likely pick the exact opposite to do. He took a seat, set his cowboy hat down on the table, and breathed deep.

  “You paint?”

  Elsa turned to look where Cheyenne was pointing and nodded. “Not well, but yes.”

  “All of those are yours?” Cheyenne wondered and moved toward the clutch of canvases leaning against the far wall, taking her own sweet time doing it.

  “They are.”

  Nick sat stiff and straight, kind of like the collar around his neck. Was this woman going to beat around the bush all day? Pretend this was a social visit? Put things off ? Because one of them had things to do, a lot of things. They were in the thick of spring planting, a new crop of designer seed calves was due to start dropping out of handpicked heifers, and his father had a Friday afternoon appointment for a follow-up to his health problems. On top of that, he’d promised to help rebuild town buildings lost in the wind-fed spring fire a few weeks back, and they were almost ready to start erecting the walls of their new log cabin church. Inactivity didn’t exactly work for him. He was just about to nudge things along when Cheyenne made a face of disinterest at the paintings and came back their way. “We’ve got pretty pictures at our house.”

  Nick stared at her. Not only was that inconsiderate, but they really didn’t have all that many pictures in the house, except of the girls. Whitney had taken a few of the things she’d liked from the walls, and he’d never thought or cared about replacing them.

  Elsa accepted Cheyenne’s statement easily. “I’ve been in a blue-gray funk for a while. It’s probably time to change it up a little.”

  “Well, they’re ugly.”

  “Cheyenne.” Nick stared, aghast. “Apologize.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Sorry!” She said it in a smart aleck singsong voice as she fell into a seat, and there was nothing in her attitude that seemed one bit sorry about anything. “I just don’t see the point in painting stuff that comes out dull and grungy.”

  “What colors would you use, Dakota?” Elsa seemed unaffected by Cheyenne’s insolence as she directed her attention toward his younger daughter.

  “Purple!” Dakota’s smile said purple was exceptional. “And maybe pink, but not the baby pink stuff.”

  “Oh, of course not,” Elsa agreed. “Far too common.”

  “Right!” Dakota bobbed her head, grinning. “I like dark pink with silver sparkles the best,” Dakota continued, while Cheyenne seemed quite content to say as little as possible. “Dad got me a shirt like that for Christmas and I love it so much!”

  “Bright and sparkly works for me,” Elsa told her. “Sometimes I like quieter colors. And sometimes I like things bright and festive.”

  “Me too!”

  Nick was just about to move things along by bringing attention back to Cheyenne, when a mad flutter of wings brushed the front door.

  Cheyenne’s head snapped up, startled.

  Dakota’s mouth dropped open, and then she screeched in excitement.

  “You’re a jerk, you’re a jerk, you’re a jerk!”

  Cheyenne’s brows shot up. So did Dakota’s.

  “Let me in, let me in, let me in!”

  “That would be Hoyl.” Elsa moved easily as if she hadn’t planned for the bird to return just about then.

  “That’s your bird?” Dakota breathed the question, eyes wide.

  “You’re letting it in here?” Cheyenne’s voice squeaked, and she pulled back into the corner of her chair while Dakota stood up, fascinated.

  Elsa opened the door. The bird fluttered in and went straight to his perch near the cage. “Bawk! Don’t stare, don’t stare, don’t stare! Let me in, let me in, let me in!”

  “He’s talking.” Dakota made a full-fledged, wide-eyed look of surprise and did a dramatic tumble onto the couch cushion. “I didn’t know you could really teach a bird to talk, Elsa! I thought it was stuff on TV!”

  “Does he know what he’s saying?” Nick asked as Elsa swung the cage door wide for the macaw. “I mean, is he just saying words or did he really want to come in?”

  Elsa shook her head as the bird settled into his cage with a last flap of bright red wings. “I don’t know. Sometimes it seems as if he knows what the outcome will be, but then he can be totally random.”

  “You let him out of the house on purpose?” Cheyenne had stayed tucked in her seat, but now she stood up and crossed the room, staring at the noisy bird. “You let him out of the house and he comes back?” she asked again, as if the concept was unbelievable.

  “He does. He likes to fly free, but he loves to come home.”

  Her words struck Nick hard. He’d thought that about Whitney a few years before. That she’d have her fling and realize there was nothing better than home sweet home.

  He’d been mistaken.

  “I can’t believe he comes back.” Cheyenne breathed the words softly. Moving closer, she extended her hand toward the cage, then rethought the idea quickly. “Does he bite?”

  “Hasn’t yet,” Elsa joked. “But birds don’t come with guarantees.”

  “He’s beautiful.” Cheyenne stared up at the bird, eyes wide. “How did he get so many pretty colors? Birds around here aren’t colored like that.”

  “If he was living in the rainforest, he’d blend,” Elsa explained. “Bright blossoms, green leaves, yellow flowers. The colors there are bold, like Hoyl. If he lived outside in the Pacific Northwest, he’d stand out and become food for some wild creature.”

  “Then why let him out?” Cheyenne turned completely and aimed a full frontal look at Elsa. “Why risk his life? Isn’t it better to keep him safe in here?”

  “Ah, the age-old debate of safety versus freedom.” Elsa studied the bright-toned bird and made a face of regret. “It’s a difficult choice every day because you’re right, Cheyenne. One day he might not come back, but if I never give him the chance to be himself, what kind of person am I?”

  “Sane?” Nick meant it as a joke, but when she winced, he got the same vibe he’d noted the other day.

  “I’ve been called worse.” She said the words, but the tight set of her jaw gave her away. Poking fun at mental health was unacceptable, and maybe everyone in her profession felt the same way. “So, Cheyenne.”

  Nick held his breath because they’d been there for twenty minutes and this must be the moment of truth.

  “Yeah?” Cheyenne looked back over her shoulder, and he had to give it to Elsa. The bird had been a total icebreaker, just like she predicted.

  “Mrs. Willingham is my sister.”

  Cheyenne’s face drooped. “Oh.” She turned her back on the bird and returned to her chair, looking utterly alone. “I should have known.” She directed a hard look at her father. “I told you I didn’t want to do this, but did you listen? No. You never do.” She sat, eyes narrowed, piercing Nick with the intensity of her gaze. Looking from father to child, Elsa saw the resemblance. Not a ph
ysical pairing, but a personality pair, for sure. Their stature and expression mimicked each other. Sometimes that meant if she could help one, it helped the other. Other times it just meant they were both rock-solid stubborn.

  Elsa sat back in her chair, hands folded. “Do you like Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat?”

  Cheyenne made a face. “Um, for babies. Yayuh.”

  “Remember how the cat got into trouble?”

  “By getting out every toy there was!” Dakota bounced on her couch cushion, excited. “And he bounced up and down with them! And then he fell down, and so did everything!”

  “Yup.” Elsa didn’t say anything else. She just sat back and let Cheyenne take a moment. “The cat got himself into big trouble, and then he tried to solve it by doing more dangerous stuff. He also had an amazing magical machine that came along and cleaned everything up. Real life isn't like that.”

  Cheyenne gulped visibly but didn’t hesitate to blow Elsa off. “And now comes the lecture about making good choices.” She groaned, dramatic. “They sent me to the school counselor this year. Boring!” She sang the word, still confrontational. “What’s wrong with hating school? What’s wrong with wanting to just stay home? What’s wrong with being different?”

  Nick shifted his attention to Elsa, waiting for the answer too, but she shrugged and stood. “Good questions. We’ll address them the next time we get together. Girls, can you each take one of these dog bones out to Achilles? He’s in the yard, waiting patiently. I want to talk to your dad for a minute.”

  “I’m not coming here again. Ever.” Cheyenne snatched up her hoodie, didn’t grab a dog treat, and stomped out the door, letting it slam behind her.

  “I’ll feed the dog!” Dakota took two biscuits from the bin Elsa held out and skipped out the door. “Sorry my sister’s a brat!” she sang out as she opened the screen door, just loud enough for Cheyenne and the grownups to hear her. “See you soon, Elsa!”

  “Thanks, Dakota.”

  Nick had stood up when Cheyenne flounced out the door. He picked up his hat as Elsa turned his way, and he cringed slightly. “Those are my girls.”