Peace in the Valley Read online

  “So?” Winnie came their way. “How was it?”

  “Amazing.” Lucy patted the hood, and Trey read the temptation in her expression. “It rides as smooth as it looks, but I’m going to have to think on it.”

  “Would you like to test-drive another?” Winnie waved toward the row of sleek, solid SUVs. “We’ve got more keys.”

  “No, but thank you. I need time.” She darted a glance his way, and Trey put his hands up in defeat.

  “Take all the time you need.”

  Relief softened the worry in her face. “Thank you, Hank.”

  The name made Winnie turn his way. She peered at him, then decided to let it be.

  Just as well.

  For the moment, Lucy could use his Jeep, and that would give her the time she requested. They said good-bye, and as they moved toward his SUV, an idea flooded him. He tossed her the keys. “Can you drive? I want to jot down a few notes.”

  “Sure.”

  He opened her door for her.

  She paused. Looked at him, then the door. And then she smiled as if a simple thing like having someone open a door for her was a surprise. If it was, then the men of Gray’s Glen were plain stupid because opening a door for a woman like Lucy should be an honor.

  He swung her door shut, got in, and grabbed his notebook from the center console box. Time. He jotted the words quickly as they came to him, just enough to feed his creative brain later, when he was alone with his thoughts and his guitar. Lucy. Choices. Home. Mountains. Moose. Loss. Coming back and moving forward.

  “You know the specs for that vehicle are online,” she told him after driving five minutes south in silence. “You don’t have to remember it all. A click of a button on that smartphone of yours and you’re uber-connected.”

  “Not note taking,” he said, eyes down. “Songwriting.”

  “In the car?”

  He nodded, jotting more discordant ideas until the legal pad page was half-full. “If I do it in the moment, then the emotions of the song are heightened. It’s hard to recapture the random things that come together in my head if I wait until it’s convenient.”

  She looked dubious for good reason, because if he had to point a finger at one thing that set up the idea, he couldn’t. But the combination of things set his brain in motion.

  “I’m failing to see a song option in test-driving a car. Or watching someone else test-drive a car. How do you turn that into a chart-topper?”

  “And that’s the indefinable mystery of the industry,” he muttered while he scribbled a few more notes. He sat back, studied the page, then set the notebook down. “I’ll play with the thoughts at the cabin later, when everything’s quiet.”

  “You need quiet to write?”

  “Sometimes. And sometimes a song floods my brain, and I can write on the tour bus with half-a-dozen yammering guys playing cards.”

  She didn’t act like she thought that was strange. She dipped her chin, gaze forward. “I hear you.”

  Her response made him look at her more closely. “Did you ever write a song, Lucy?”

  She lifted her right shoulder. “I tried a few times. They weren’t good.”

  “And you know this because?”

  “My late husband called them silly, sentimental ditties.” Her slight wince said the words still hurt. “His group liked deeper stuff. Rage-against-the-machine style. They went pretty dark after a while.”

  What kind of husband did that to his wife? He refrained from asking and chose his words with care. “That’s one man’s opinion, Lucy.” Trey kept his tone easy. “The best rockers are generally more open to the softer side of music. I’m sorry he wasn’t.”

  “Well, at the moment I’m real lucky to be able to write my name legibly by the end of the day, so it’s a moot point.”

  He jotted down two more thoughts. Single mother. No time or money. Then he shifted his attention back to her. “What did you love about the SUV?”

  She almost snorted. “Just about absolutely everything.”

  “Fair enough. What didn’t you like?”

  “Access.”

  He frowned, confused.

  “A van has side access doors for kids. They stream in, they stream out. I love the SUVs, but the practical issues of access are huge in daily life.”

  He hadn’t considered that. He’d been thinking size and seating and safety. “That’s a great point. So let’s go to Ellensburg on Tuesday if there’s someone to watch the kids. Or we could take them with us.”

  “Ashley’s in summer school, so that leaves us the three younger ones. Three kids test-driving a car.” She pretended fear, then smiled. “They’d probably get a kick out of it.”

  “Is Ashley a ninth grader?”

  “She will be if she passes. She’s a kid with an attitude, that’s for sure.”

  He’d seen that close up, so why would she deliberately put a kid like Ashley in with impressionable little kids? “Do you ever wonder if Ashley’s negative influence might affect your kids? They’re pretty susceptible at their age, aren’t they?”

  “Well, here’s the trending issue on that, Hank.” She’d come to the infamous stop sign he’d missed the morning before and rolled to a stop. “If no one ever gives you a chance, how do you pull yourself up? And if life hands you a host of negatives, how do you learn to see the positive?”

  “You’re hoping she’ll see your good example and straighten up.”

  “I’m hoping she’ll want to be the best she can be,” she corrected him gently. “That she’ll see the beauty in everyday things. Flowers. Kittens. Babies. Christmas trees. She was heading down a bad road. I offered her a way out, and hopefully a way up.”

  “What do you do if things get out of hand? I know it’s not my business, but—”

  “You’re right, it’s not.” She pulled into the graveled barnyard with the Double S ranch house on one side and the first barn on the other. “Ashley got dealt a raw hand, like so many others, and I believe she deserves a chance. You gave her a chance today, the opportunity to come here and ride.”

  “She’s outnumbered by adults, one of whom is a cop. I was playing the odds.”

  “And I’m hoping she’ll start making better choices. She’s smart and intuitive, but she’d rather wiggle her way out of work than get it done.”

  Trey didn’t get it.

  He’d always worked, always studied, always looked forward even when life pushed him back.

  “Not to belabor a topic, but even with your crazy family dysfunction, you can’t equate growing up here”—she motioned to the beautiful sprawl of the Double S—“to a five-room shack with drunken parents and no rules, a situation that only got worse when her father took off with another woman after my husband died. Losing Chase was the straw that broke his mother’s back, so for over three years, Ashley’s known nothing but sadness and squalor. Having known a similar set of circumstances, I’d like to change that if I can. I got a chance to clean up my act. So should she.”

  Would Ashley change? Could she? Could anyone, really, once they’d caved to the allure of drugs?

  “Hey, Mom! Look at me!”

  Cody’s excited voice drew Trey’s attention to the nearby paddock. Seeing Cody being led around the ring by Hobbs, another old-time Double S cowboy, took Trey back almost three decades. It was him up top on a saddle, scared to death but pretending not to be afraid because Colt and Nick would tease him unmercifully if he fell apart.

  “Keep those eyes right here, on me, son.” Hobbs had held his gaze back then. Feeling very small and very high, he’d stared into the cowboy’s eyes, and Trey knew he could be trusted. “Ain’t nothin’ to fear that can’t be conquered with time and trust, and that’s the truth of it.”

  He’d held on, watching Hobbs the whole time. Seeing Cody up there now, he began to see Ashley’s reality compared to his own.

  He’d been surrounded by choices money could buy, yes. But more importantly, he’d been surrounded by people who loved him. Ho
bbs. Murt. His father, in his own complicated way.

  And the trust fund from his parents’ death had come to him when he turned twenty-two. They’d messed up a lot, but they’d had insurance, and he’d used that to give himself the Nashville launch Sam had advised against. His father had ordered him to stay here, on the Double S. He talked legacy and responsibility and loyalty.

  Trey had understood his legacy. He saw his responsibility fully. He needed to show himself and his late parents that it could be done. A person could live his dream, achieve success, and still be a normal, God-fearing person, no drink or drugs involved.

  He’d been right—and he’d been grievously wrong. And here he was, back home. Surrounded by family and still alone. Now there was a country song for you.

  “Mommy!” Belle spotted them and raced their way. “Mizziebo let me help make ice cweam, and it was so good!”

  “Mizziebo?” The kid’s excitement was contagious, and her face and hands were slick with melted creamy goodness.

  “I’ve got wipes here.” Angelina came to their rescue from a porch table as Lucy answered.

  “Miss Isabo is what they’re supposed to call Angelina’s mother. But this one morphed it to Mizziebo, and it’s kind of stuck.”

  “My mother loves it,” Angelina added as she gently washed Belle’s pink cheeks. “It makes her smile every time she hears it.”

  Homemade ice cream. Little kids’ jumbled words. A whole family, attending church service together like you’d see in one of those greeting-card movies.

  Old thoughts of the Stafford’s discordant early life mixed with the new reality, and when Ashley came up from the lower paddock with Colt leading the way, Trey longed to see the promise in her. Fourteen years old, with so much ahead, but already embracing a path of dishonesty and lack of self-respect.

  She looked their way and flinched when she saw him watching.

  He knew that reaction too well. He’d lived it those last months with his beautiful wife, trusting stupidly.

  But he’d learned his lesson the hard way. Once a druggie, always a druggie, and Trey was pretty sure you could take that to the bank.

  Lucy’s kids were living a dream life as they roamed the Double S for the rest of the afternoon.

  She second-guessed herself every time she let them visit. For kids to see this grandeur and still be satisfied by their lack of material goods created a mental conundrum. Belle was too little to notice, but Cody and Cade weren’t. She should gather them up and take them home. A little went a long way when it came to all things Stafford. She slipped off the fence rail to do just that when Isabo rang the dinner bell.

  “Fried chicken!” Cade leaped off the adjacent rail like a shot. “And smashed taters, Mom!”

  “I’m so starvin’!” Cody had been playing by the swing set with Noah, Angelina’s young son. The two boys raced across the lawn, tagging after Cade, then copying his swagger on the porch.

  They were funny, cute, and adorably Western.

  She sighed and gave in. She’d missed her moment because there was no way to excise two hungry little boys away from a table laden with Isabo’s delicious food. “Wash your hands,” she called after them.

  “What if I don’t l-l-like fwied chicken?” Belle snugged her hand into Lucy’s and pushed against her side, nervous. “What if I just want some taters?”

  Lucy stooped down. “What are the suppertime rules?”

  Belle stared at the ground, stubborn. “I don’t ’member all of them.”

  “You do.”

  She scowled and scrubbed her toe into the ground before she sighed out loud. “Twy everything.”

  “Same rules apply here, kiddo. Or no treats.”

  “You mean like ice cweam?”

  “And s’mores. And cookies. You know the drill.”

  “Ugh.” Belle folded her arms tight around her middle and started to stomp off, but a pastel-toned butterfly caught her eye, flitting from wildflower to wildflower beyond the porch. “Mommy! Do you see it? A fwutterby!”

  “Butterfly,” Lucy told her softly, although the other word made much more sense. “Isn’t it beautiful, Belle?”

  “Oh yes!” Belle moved closer, then squatted, watching the butterfly flit here and pause there. “It’s so vewy, vewy beautiful, Mommy.”

  “I can catch it!” Noah spotted the attraction from the porch. He set his plate down, jumped down the last step, and made a mad dash across the yard. “I’ll get it for you, Belle, just hold still!” He raced into the taller grass, a bundle of almost-four-year-old energy. The butterfly moved up, then out, fluttering well out of reach. And when Noah jumped, the butterfly moved higher yet, in search of safer territories.

  Lucy assessed the action to no one in particular. “And there is the difference between two children. The look-and-see variety and the all-boy, let’s-catch-it style.”

  “I found his actions inspirational.”

  Trey’s voice, behind her. He’d been helping with the horses, and he smelled of horse, hay, leather, and something else. Something indefinable and delightfully enticing, but Lucy wasn’t there to be enticed. She kept her face placid. “Did you?”

  “Sure.” He had his hands in his pockets, and he rocked back on his heels slightly. “He saw her gazing in wonder at something beautiful and unreachable. His first instinct was to put down food and race to get it for her. How many grown-up guys think to do that?”

  “How many adult males set down a plate of food on purpose? None that I know of,” she agreed, and he laughed.

  “Proves my point. Chivalry is not dead, and it might actually be inborn, but we’ve started taking things like that too casually. The polite things. The nice gestures. Folks do it in Nashville all the time. But we should do it everywhere.”

  “The country crooner starts a trend.” She said the words lightly, but how nice would it be for that to be the norm again? Men being kind to women? Chivalry, alive and well in modern society? She’d never experienced such a thing, but her personal choices were partly responsible for that. “Kids sure could use more examples of kind, loving men. Raising boys can be a challenge for a single mom. Telling them how to be strong young men is very different from seeing the example set for them.”

  “You’ve given this thought.”

  She directed her attention to the porch, where Cade and Cody were filling their plates, right alongside Nick’s daughters. “I had little choice.”

  “Good point.”

  “But it’s hard.” She watched as the kids crossed the grass to one of the picnic tables in the shaded side of the yard. “Boys do better with an example to follow. I can talk until I’m blue in the face, and they pretty much let it go in one ear and out the other. Elsa says that’s normal to a point, but that I’m right too. Boys tend to pattern themselves after a role model, good or bad.”

  “Then I promise to be on my best behavior at your place,” Trey told her as Sam approached them.

  “About that,” Lucy began, but stopped when Sam stuck out his hand.

  She didn’t want to take his hand. She didn’t want to make peace with a man who suddenly got a clue because he was sick and didn’t want to face God with a pile of wrongs on his lackluster soul. She didn’t want to be part of his emotional healing, because people like Sam Stafford came late to the party and still wanted a fair share of the meal.

  But of course, that was what God exampled and what Christ taught. And then there was that little seventy-times-seven notation about forgiving one’s enemies.

  Lucy swallowed her pride. It left a bitter taste in her mouth and a hard aching spot on her soul. Old resentments had festered, and she needed to put a stop to that. Sam took her hand, and as she looked into the bright blue eyes he’d passed on to Colt, she read regret. Still, there was the obvious background strength of a man who’d built an empire too, so she wasn’t going to buy into the regret too quickly. “Mr. Stafford, how are you feeling?”

  “Better.” He gripped her hand with a firm but ge
ntle touch. “I wanted to thank you personally for allowing Trey to come by your place and help out. If I could do it myself, Mrs. Carlton, to make up for old stupidity and misplaced pride, I would. But I can’t, and Trey’s been gracious enough to step in.”

  “I think ‘collared’ would be a more appropriate term.” Trey touched his open shirt collar, but smiled as if he was okay being collared. “And I’m glad to do it. I need to keep busy, and I’m looking forward to jumping in. Lucy’s going to make me a list tonight so we’re all set to start tomorrow.”

  “Good to hear. Did you find a car today?”

  Trey shook his head and didn’t put her on the spot. “No, they didn’t have much in the way of vans, so we’re going into Ellensburg on Tuesday.”

  “A lot of good choices there. Lucy, tell me, did you teach yourself how to trim and train Christmas trees, or did the Wheelers show you what to do?”

  “Judd Wheeler gave us a basic lesson, then YouTube videos filled in the blanks. And I messed up a few trees before I got the hang of it,” she admitted.

  “Don’t we all?” Sam reached out and put his hand on Trey’s arm.

  When Sam swayed slightly, Trey reacted. “How about you come sit with Murt and Hobbs, and I’ll get your plate?”

  The look Sam shot him mixed frustration with acceptance, a humbling reality for a big, strong cowboy. “Probably a good idea.”

  He was sick.

  He was weakened.

  He was sorry.

  Lucy didn’t want to forgive him, and yet she didn’t want to stand in the way of his peace of mind either, and the irony of that wasn’t lost on her.

  “Lucy, grab food and come over here,” called Angelina. “I need wedding advice.”

  Wedding advice? Not her favorite topic, but she moved to the long stretch of tables set out on the side porch, filled with an enticing array of foods. Isabo had outdone herself as usual. As she filled her plate with chicken, potatoes, salad, and fruit, Lucy considered Angelina’s request.

  Angelina didn’t want her true thoughts on how badly marriage could go, how quickly the light of love could fade.

  She’d want thoughts on dresses and prayers and flowers and music, and that’s what Lucy would offer, because if she proffered her real opinion?