"Not yet," she said, hating the inevitable, predictable turn in the conversation. "I'm going to be gone a few days-"
"Your number-one priority is making sure you're not a burden to Michael. That you're pulling your own
weight." "I understand that," she murmured with far more civility than she felt. "If you don't have a job, I don't see how," he said. "Michael understands the need for commitment-" "The striving for excellence, the goal of perfection." Brenna interrupted, irritated with the comparison he always made. "That's right." The Colonel paused, as he always did, for effect, to punctuate the importance of what he said next. "You're capable of pursuing excellence, but I'd settle for a little commitment."
Brenna rubbed her temple, rearranging the cards on the bed into a new pattern.Brenna sin . She frowned and reached for a new card.Brenna fled . Not liking that thought any better than the first, she stacked the cards on top of one another.
"Exactly what is it you expect this time?" she asked. Not that she'd be able to live up to it, but forewarned was forearmed.
"The same as always," he answered, his voice crisp. "But I'll spell it out for you. One. Get a job, Brenna.
And this time, be conscientious so you can keep it more than two or three months."
"It wasn't my fault the bar closed," she interrupted.
"Two," he said, ignoring her. "Stop taking advantage of your brother. Do you understand me?"
The do-you-understand-me was his signal he was finished. Thank God. Resorting to the dull obedience that had usually avoided a beating, she repeated, "I understand. Get a job. Pull my own weight."
"Very good."
"You're still coming to Denver?" she asked, hoping he'd say he wasn't.
"I am. I'll be there right after the Independence Day weekend."
"Maybe you should come sooner. Spend the Fourth here," she suggested, fully aware she would be in Nebraska with Cole. Some place where her father wasn't.
The suggestion seemed to catch him by surprise because there was a long pause on the other end of the line. "I'll give it some thought," he said at last. "Goodnight, Brenna."
"Bye," she murmured to the dead telephone line, and hearing a very different conversation in her head.
Hi, Dad, it's so good to hear from you. You wouldn't believe the awful week I've had.
Michael says you lost your job. What can I do to help?
And cows could fly. Her father hadn't offered to help her once, and she couldn't imagine him doing so. She hated that she wanted him to offer. Even more, she hated the realization that she might not turn down his help. After all these years, she still felt as though she could cut herself anytime on the double-edged sword of wanting his approval and wanting to run as far away from him as she could get.
Absently, she rearranged the cards again.Brenna is a fake . She didn't like that thought at all. However true, she intended to change.Brenna make luck . A better thought.
Chapter 15.
"So this is your Brenna."Grandmom's blue eyes were the same shade as Cole's, shot with gold that reflected the bright summer sun, and clear as a young girl's. She released Cole from her welcoming hug and opened her arms to Brenna. "I know I'm going to love you."
Whatever platitude Brenna tried to utter was lost in her awareness of the moment. She took the last step onto the porch of the white frame house and put her arms around Cole's grandmother. Feeling as though she had come home, Brenna swallowed back the lump that rose in her throat.
Grandmom was similar in stature to Nonna, and the indefinable scent of a woman who lived close to the land was the same, too. The crisp aroma of clothes dried in warm sunshine and the faint traces of lotion on her skin assailed Brenna with vivid memories. For a moment, Brenna imagined it was her own grandmother she was hugging. If Grandmom felt her tremble, she was kind enough to ignore it.
"Come in and help me fix each of us a lemonade," she said to Cole. She released Brenna from her embrace and opened the screen door going into the house. "Did you drive straight through from Denver?"
"Left bright and early just so we could enjoy afternoon lemonade with you, Grandmom," Cole said.
"Humph," Grandmom responded. "Tell that to someone who'll believe it." The smile on her face took the sting completely away from her words. She glanced at Brenna and added, "What he really thinks is that he's going to get a piece of apple pie."
"I'd believe that," Brenna said, with a grin. "I've seen how he is about pie."
Following them through the house to the kitchen, she was again overwhelmed with memories. Physically, nothing about the house resembled the one on the farm in Pennsylvania. Yet, she was reminded. Crocheted covers on the arms and backs of chairs, a north-facing window sill full of blooming African violets, and the cheerful tick-tock of a cuckoo clock could have come fromNonna's house.
Cole opened an ancient refrigerator and took an ice-cube tray out of the freezer compartment.
"A long time ago I thought I was getting a deal," he said, breaking the ice cubes apart. "I'd make a bargain with Grandmom to do extra chores, and she'd save me back a piece of pie. Years later, Grandpop told me she always saved the last piece of pie for me."
"Spoiled him rotten, huh?" Brenna said, imagining Cole as a boy, wheedling favors from his grandmother.
Grandmom poured lemonade into each of the glasses. "You bet I spoiled him every chance I got. I still do."
"Are Mom and Dad still in Scottsbluff?" Cole asked.
"They sure are, and you're going to be in a peck of trouble with your mother. She told me they didn't expect you until tomorrow."
"I decided to come early."
Brenna knew first hand just how antsy he'd been. He had become more expansive in his stories about his boyhood as they had gotten closer to the ranch. Brenna had trouble imagining him as a sullen teenager who couldn't wait to leave, his description of himself. The teenager might have wanted to leave. The man couldn't wait to return.
Grandmom led them back to the front porch.
"Cole said you like old stories, folk tales and such."
Brenna nodded. "That's right, I do."
Grandmom watched her steadily for a moment. "Most young folk would rather watch the television."
"She's not most people," Cole interjected. "Did I tell you she volunteers at the library doing story hour
for the little kids?" Brenna glanced at him in surprise. He said it like it was something to be proud of. Compared to the things he did, or those Michael or Jane did, her small contribution at the library was nothing. She found herself wishing, though, it was more.
The conversation turned toward the ranch's activities, the price of cattle, how many head had been sent to a feedlot, and other business. Sipping her lemonade, she let her gaze search to the horizon and back. The ranch was set in a shallow valley below a bluff. On the way from Denver, Cole told her the original thirteen hundred acres of the ranch came from his grandfather and great-uncle when they filed for adjoining homesteads under the Kincaid Act. She tried to imagine what the land must have looked like when Cole's grandfather first arrived. The occasional marsh full of ducks and geese and the rolling grass-covered hills were a far cry from the flat landscape Brenna had imagined Nebraska to be. She had a profound sense of homecoming that only deepened as she listened to Grandmom and Cole talk.
Cole swallowed the last of his lemonade and sucked an ice cube into his mouth. He stood up, tucked one hand into the pocket of his jeans, and offered Brenna the other one. "Ready to come see all my favorite hideaways?"
"Sure."
Grandmom waved them off the porch. "You two have a good time. We're going to have a simple supper tonight, so I don't need any help." "You'll ring the bell when Mom and Dad get back?" Brenna's gaze followed Cole's vague gesture to a large brass bell that hung from one of the porch posts. "The minute they get here." Cole and Brenna strolled hand in hand across the yard and followed a dirt road that led to the barn and several other outbuildings. "When I was a kid, we had grazing permits that gave us enough range to run five thousand head of cattle," he said. His gaze focused on the horizon for a moment before he glanced back at her. "Those days are gone. Forever, I think."
Brenna sympathized, having listened to enough news and seen enough television to know he was right.
"Was that all you raised-cattle?"
"Nope. Everybody had things going. Grandmom always had chickens and she sold the eggs. She still does, but to the neighbors, mostly. There's still one grocery left in Bayard where she sells them sometimes. Nothing like real farm-grown eggs from chickens that actually get to scratch in the dirt."
"And what was your thing?" Brenna asked.
"This." Cole stopped in front of a straw-filled enclosure that had a lean-to at one end. "Come on out, Matilda."
A huge pink pig with almost white hair ambled out, snorting as she came.
"This is Waltzing Matilda," Cole said, "otherwise known as Piglet Factory."
Brenna grinned. "She does kind of waltz, in her own fashion, anyway."
"Matilda, here, is the granddaughter of one of the sows I had when I was in high school. Each little pig was worth over a hundred dollars when we took it to market. After paying for feed and expenses, I got to keep the rest. I paid my way through college with that money."
"No piglets right now." Too well, Brenna remembered the silver spoon she had assumed was Cole's as a child. She knew from her own limited experience with her grandparents' farm just what hard work ranching was.
"She's due again in a couple of weeks," Cole said.
"She gives the phrase 'pig in a poke' a whole new meaning, doesn't she?"
Cole laughed and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. "You're weird, fair lady."
"But you like it," she said, looking up at him.
He dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. "Yeah," he responded, his voice husky, "I like it."
He was beginning to realize just how much. Every time he'd thought of Susan and Brenna at the same time, he'd deliberately squashed the impulse. Two women could not have been more different. He hadn't wanted to compare, but found himself doing so anyway.
Susan hadn't liked the ranch a bit. She thought the drive from Denver was long and boring and tiring. There was nothing to do after they got here. Cole's parents were boring, and his grandmother was a tiresome old woman. About his parents-sometimes Cole had agreed with that. But his grandmother was a different matter.
Brenna had been interested in the landscape as they traveled Interstate 25 from Denver, and she hadn't seen it as desolate at all. They had talked about the plains Indians, buffalo, sod houses and the dust-bowl years. She'd been curious about the ranch and his family, and he'd told her more than he'd ever told Susan. The rapport that sprang up instantly between Brenna and his grandmother was more than he had hoped for. She was right. He liked her and he liked having her here.
He and Brenna spent the next couple of hours traipsing over the ranch as Cole pointed out buildings and livestock. They walked through fields of waist-high grass, and they laughed over silly things that had no meaning beyond the moment and their enjoyment of each other. "Of all the places on the ranch," Cole said, "this is my favorite." They followed a narrow path through the tall grass to a clearing, which was dominated by a pond. The rooftop of the house was visible behind a rise on the other side of the water. They sat down on the trunk of a fallen cottonwood. "If we sit here very quietly for a few minutes, we'll see this place come alive," Cole said. He put his arm around Brenna, more aware of her than of the long afternoon shadows and the muted sounds of lapping water. He pressed a kiss against her temple, his eyes on the pond. A blue heron waded out of the marsh grass and stood stock-still at the edge of the water, its attention intent on something beneath the surface. Cole started to point at the bird, but Brenna had already seen it, her breath held as though even that slight movement would startle the bird into flight. A mallard, followed by a half-dozen ducklings, swam into view. Cole loved watching them, but that become much less important than watching Brenna's total involvement with them. Her face softened so much Cole realized how tightly in check she usually held herself. Her expression became wistful, and the sense of longing Cole saw made him want to give her whatever she dreamed of.
He caressed her cheek, softer than the down from ducklings, with the back of his hand. "I'm glad you like my favorite place," he whispered.
She leaned her face into his hand, her eyes still fastened on the serenity of the pond. "I love it."
"What have you been thinking about?"
"My grandparents' farm."
She was silent for so long he almost thought she would say nothing else.
Finally, "It was nothing like this, but it was exactly like this." She glanced at him and made a helpless gesture with her hand. "I don't know how to explain."
"I think I understand," he said, resting his cheek against her hair. "Peace. Serenity. A feeling that the rest of the world is less real than this is."
"Yeah. If this is reality, I'd like to have it all the time."
"And here I thought you were a city kid."
"Not in my heart," she answered. "I spent every summer that I could with my grandparents. And I loved going to the farm more than anything. No matter what else happened, no matter where my dad was stationed, the farm was always there."
"What happened to it?"
"After Nonna died, it was sold."
They fell silent again, and again, Brenna gradually relaxed. She leaned her head against Cole's shoulder.
"This is nice."
He brushed his cheek across her hair. "Yeah."
His reply was so soft Brenna felt it rather than heard it. The simple walk around the ranch answered many of her questions about him. She'd bet he still worked hard when he came to the ranch. A gym might help him keep his powerful physique, but it couldn't account for the calluses on his hands. She liked knowing he didn't shirk from hard physical labor even though he had chosen an essentially mental profession.
Cole slipped off the log and sat down next to it, using it as a back rest. He pulled Brenna down next to him, putting his arm around her shoulder and absently caressing the skin on her arm. Brenna closed her eyes and savored the sounds and aromas around her. Still, yes. Serene, too. But hardly quiet. The chirp of birds and the more distant trill of insects filled the air. The aroma of cut alfalfa assailed her, poignantly reminding her of her dream to have a place of her very own.
"How could you leave all this?" Brenna whispered, hardly aware she had spoken aloud.
"I love this place," he answered. "But I'm not a rancher. I don't have the fierce determination to make it work that my dad has."
"Does he mind anymore?"