The Scent of Rain and Lightning

  Annabelle leaned forward and kissed his broad sweaty forehead.

  “Mom!” He laughed a protest. “I’m filthy.”

  “Smelly, too.”

  “You look dirty, Daddy!”

  He grinned into the backseat. “I am, pumpkin. Daddy needs a bath.”

  Annabelle thought about her daughter-in-law taking a long, leisurely bath and thought about telling him to hurry home. Instead, afraid of interfering again, she just smiled, though her eyes were threatening to fill again. “Well, I never claim that you’re my perfect son, just that you’re my good one.”

  He leaned into her palm a little, then straightened his head again.

  “Not all that good. But I’m fine, Mom.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Don’t worry about us.”

  “Your mother loves you,” she said, her tone lighter than her feelings.

  He squeezed her hand, gently released it, and stood up. He smiled one last time into the backseat, blew his daughter a kiss, and walked back to his truck with a wave. Later, Annabelle would feel those moments were the greatest gift God ever gave her: a last chance to see her firstborn up close, to hold his face in the palm of her hand, to kiss him, to tell him she loved him one last time.

  He drove his truck around her car, turned right at the corner, in the direction opposite his home, and was gone.

  ABOUT THE SAME TIME Annabelle pulled the Caddy into the barn, with Jody slumped over asleep in her car seat, Hugh Senior led his lame horse back into the vet’s stable, where a goat, a llama, and another horse were already in residence. As he led the limping mare into a stall, the goat baaed. The treatment of the horse was overseen by the doctor who had diagnosed an infection requiring some surgical cleaning.

  “She’s got a fever, Hugh. We’ll operate tomorrow.”

  “How serious?”

  “Not very, at least not yet, but if you’d waited a few days—”

  “I should learn to trust my son’s instincts about animals more than my own. Hugh-Jay knew to bring her in now. I hope he has better instincts about people than I do, too, and not just about horses.” His initial confidence about the rightness of his actions in regard to Billy Crosby had ebbed on the drive from the ranch. Uncharacteristically, he was second-guessing his decisions and feeling worried about whether he had done the right things all the way along the line with the young man he’d sent off to jail.

  The vet’s face took on a knowing expression. “I heard about Billy Crosby.”

  “Already?”

  “Heck, Hugh, he got arrested a couple of hours ago, right? That’s a lifetime, in terms of it getting around the local grapevine. I’ll be surprised if it isn’t already news in five counties.”

  His patient’s owner laughed. “What exactly did you hear, Doc?”

  “That he did some bad things. Sliced the throats of a dozen head of cattle, mutilated a couple of them—”

  Hugh grimaced. “It was one pregnant cow and no mutilation.”

  “My my,” the vet said wryly, “I’m surprised to hear the news got exaggerated. Who ever heard of that happening around here?”

  Hugh Senior stroked one side of the horse’s silky neck and smiled.

  “I wouldn’t worry about your instincts about people,” the younger man told the older rancher. “All the boys that you and Annabelle have helped over the years? Not a one of them has turned out like Billy. He’s the exception that proves the rule of your generosity in helping these kids.”

  “I never have understood what that means, ‘proves the rule.’”

  “Me, either.” The vet laughed. “Maybe it’s not even true.”

  “One thing’s true. Billy takes exception to the rules.”

  The vet remembered Hugh-Jay Linder’s story about the carload of rough-looking strangers who had moronically tossed out a burning cigarette. The idea of a wildfire unnerved him even more than most people, because of all the helplessly caged animals in his care. Whenever there was a story in the news about a burning stable, he broke out in a cold sweat of dread and pity. When it was arson, he could barely contain his rage. He was about to mention the cigarette incident to Hugh Senior as another example of idiots who didn’t follow rules, but before he could, he got distracted by the appearance of a swelling on the shank of the horse’s injured leg. He walked back into the stall to take another look, and the story faded from his memory.

  The rancher traded places with him, walking out of the stall as the doctor walked in. As they passed one another, he clasped the vet’s shoulder. “You’re a good man, Doc. Thanks for taking care of us.” When he walked outside, he was startled to see how much closer the storm had drawn to Rose. The clouds looked like a billowing curtain hung from heaven to earth and extending north and south for miles. Lightning flashed spectacularly throughout them. There was nothing more breathtakingly beautiful in the world, in his opinion, than a thunderstorm approaching Rose from across the wide, flat, empty fields. He wouldn’t have traded sights like this for all the nightclubs in New York or trolleys in San Francisco.

  The breeze ahead of the gigantic clouds had turned into gusts, and the temperature had dropped already.

  Hugh hurried to his truck, holding onto his hat and hoping to get a couple more errands done before he headed back west through the blowing curtain of clouds to Annabelle and home.

  THE RAIN STILL hadn’t started to fall by the time Laurie walked to Bailey’s Bar & Grill for supper, letting the wind whip her hair and blow around her bare legs. She’d been so hot all day that the new cool temperature felt good. She felt good. She’d had a luxurious long bath, washed her hair, shaved her legs, made a couple of phone calls that left her feeling excited, and then changed into white shorts, sandals, and a rose-colored T-shirt that flattered her flawless complexion. She knew she should take her car, because of the weather, but assumed she could get a ride whenever she wanted one. Her sister-in-law had agreed to meet her there, so Belle could drive her home, if it came to that. If Belle couldn’t, then Laurie figured she could bat her eyelashes and several men would hop off their bar stools to help her.

  When she walked into Bailey’s, heads turned, which pleased her.

  A few people called out her name, but she walked on toward the back.

  I’m meant for bigger things than this, she thought with scorn.

  When they had more money, Hugh-Jay could take her to places she’d always wanted to see, like New York and Paris. Maybe she’d take trips without him, too, like the one she’d talked Annabelle into giving her.

  As she walked confidently toward the rear, Laurie smiled to herself.

  The Broadmoor Hotel. That was more like it, where she belonged.

  Rose never had fit her right; it felt like a granny dress that nobody with any style would wear. She’d hoped that marrying a Linder could move her up and out in the world, but all it did was plant her deeper. She felt buried here, suffocated, with all her best talents wasted.

  On the other hand, she was unique here, and she liked that.

  Feeling the pleasure of being admired and the relief of being without her child for a night, she slid onto the long wooden bench in a booth across from Belle. Laurie liked being with Belle, because she looked so pretty and full of personality by comparison. A glass of beer was already sitting in front of her sister-in-law. The scent of grilled burgers, onions, and steaks permeated the big room, and Laurie sniffed appreciatively. “I may get a rib eye tonight,” she announced, with the confidence of a woman who never gained an ounce. When a waitress came by, she ordered a bottle of Bud “with a frosty glass and a slice of lime.” She’d heard they did that in Mexico—put lime in beer. There was a bowl of peanuts in the shell, and she dipped a hand into it. By evening’s end the floor of the grill would be littered with shells and crunchy underfoot.

  “Where’s Meryl?” she asked Belle.

  “At the office. Where’s Hugh-Jay?”

  “Your dad sent him out to the Colorado place.”

>   “Did you hear what happened last night?”

  “At the ranch? Yeah.” Laurie took a sip from the beer the waitress brought her, and looked back toward the front door of the grill. “Oh, God, look what the rain dragged in.”

  Belle looked where she pointed and saw her two younger brothers coming in the door with rain dripping off their slickers and plastic-covered hats. The storm had finally arrived in Rose. A downpour was visible in the brief moment before Bobby closed the front door again. At the same time, the music got drowned out by the sound of rain pounding on the tavern’s tin roof.

  “I can’t go anywhere,” Belle groused, “without my family showing up.”

  “At least you’ve got family in town,” Laurie complained. She was still bitter about her own parents leaving her to fend with marriage and motherhood on her own.

  “Got room for a couple of thirsty cowboys?” Chase asked when he and Bobby walked up to the booth.

  “Don’t you have any other friends?” Belle demanded.

  “Yeah,” Chase said with a grin, “but they’re not as pretty as yours.”

  Belle rolled her eyes, which made Chase laugh.

  Bobby started to slide in beside Laurie, but Chase grabbed his shirt and said, “You’re not sitting there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she doesn’t want to sit by you, do you, Laurie?”

  “You’re too big for this booth,” she told Bobby.

  He wasn’t fat, but his broad back and big arms and shoulders made him wide. Flushing, he got up without arguing.

  Laurie scooted over to give Chase room to sit beside her. He was as tall as his younger brother, but not as bulky; his width was in his shoulders, so his slim hips didn’t crowd her, though they somehow ended up touching hers anyway.

  They made a striking couple, both dark-haired and good-looking.

  Instead of taking the seat beside his sister, Bobby pulled up a chair at the open end of their booth and straddled it backward. “Man,” he said, shaking water off his left hand. “Wet out there.”

  “Don’t shake that thing on me,” Laurie complained, which made Chase laugh again.

  “You,” Belle said with a disgusted look, “have a dirty mind.”

  “Takes one to know one,” he told her with a smirk.

  “And you’re one, all right,” an unexpected male voice said, beside him.

  “Meryl!” Chase said, looking up at his older brother’s best friend. Meryl had the look of an ex–football player who might one day put on weight, but at the age of twenty-four he was still fit. Unlike Bobby and Chase in their blue jeans, Meryl had on a blue suit and a white shirt accented with a bolo tie—with a sterling silver clasp in the shape of a rearing horse—that Belle had given him for Valentine’s Day.

  Belle suddenly looked happy. “How’d you get away from work?”

  Meryl winked at her. “Got lucky. Power went out.”

  “Bobby,” Chase ordered, “get out of the way and let Meryl sit by his girlfriend.” He shook his head in mock befuddlement. “Although what he sees in you, I’ll never know—”

  “Shut up, Chase,” Meryl said.

  “No, really,” Chase continued to tease. “She can’t take a joke, she’s oversensitive, and when she talks about all that history stuff, she can bore a stuffed bear to death—”

  “Don’t talk about your sister like that,” Meryl said in a tone that surprised them all into silence. He sounded angry and serious. He looked down on his best friend’s brother, his girlfriend’s brother, his own potential brother-in-law, and said, “Has it ever occurred to you that Belle is just sensitive like normal people, and she only seems oversensitive to you because you’re such an insensitive lout? Has it ever occurred to you that maybe your jokes aren’t funny? Have you ever thought that she might be interesting to people with brains, people who are actually interested in things like history?”

  “Lighten up, Meryl.”

  “No, you lighten up, Chase. Lighten up on your sister. It’s time you gave up that teasing crap. She’s put up with it for years, but I’m the one who’s sick of it. I ever hear you talk like that about Belle again, I’ll stuff a fist down your mouth to shut you up.”

  For a moment nobody moved.

  Laurie looked impressed with Meryl’s aggressive defense of Belle.

  Belle’s eyes shone with tearful gratitude.

  Ever irrepressible, Chase grinned. “Did you forget you’re a lawyer now? You don’t have to get tough. You can just sue me. So if you love her so much, when are you going to marry her?”

  Meryl slid into the booth beside Belle and put both of his arms around her, pulling her close to him and then kissing her deeply enough to make his future brothers-in-law hoot at the couple.

  When he finally stopped kissing her, he still didn’t let her go.

  “This isn’t how I’m going to ask you,” he said, “not here, not in front of them.”

  “Some people are just born into the wrong families,” she told him.

  “You’re telling me!” Meryl exclaimed, and as the mood lightened, he kissed her again, quick and hard and affectionately, taking all of her lipstick and leaving her looking proudly thrilled.

  A little later, when Belle excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, Chase leaned across the table and said, “Come on. You’re telling me you think my sister is easy to get along with?”

  “She is for me, Chase. I don’t know what your problem is.”

  “And you really think the history of this county is fascinating?”

  “I’m interested in what she’s interested in. You might try that sometime.”

  Chase leaned back and laughed. “I’m interested in women who are interested in me.”

  Meryl laughed, too. “Well, there’s a surprise.”

  TWO HOURS and several beers later, after they’d all had steaks, the owner of the grill, Bailey Wright, walked up to the head of the booth, behind Bobby. He was a big man in his thirties, beefy, as befit the proprietor of a joint that specialized in hamburgers. Grease from cooking them stained the white chef’s apron tied at the back of his neck and around his girth. The jukebox was blaring over the rain and thunder, and his place was festive and cozy with talk and laughter, good smells and flowing drinks. Every now and then the lights blinked on and off, which made the jukebox stop, but each time it happened, Bailey just yelled in his foghorn voice, “No worries! We’ve got a generator! We’ll keep cookin’, you keep eatin’.”

  That always got a laugh, even from the locals who’d heard it many times before.

  “I just talked to your dad,” Bailey Wright informed the three siblings.

  “Here?” Chase started to get up.

  Bailey waved him back down. “He’s not here. He called on the phone. He gave me a message. He said you three—” He looked from Chase to Belle, then put a hand briefly on Bobby’s right shoulder. “—shouldn’t even try to get back out to the ranch tonight. You can’t get through. He said the highway’s washed out in that low place, and you’ll get swept away if you try. So he’s got a room at the Rose Motel for you boys, and another one for himself—”

  “What’s he doing in town?” Bobby asked.

  “That’s what I just told you,” Bailey said patiently, if not quite accurately. “He took a horse to Doc Cramer, tried to get home, but got stopped by the water over the highway.” He looked at Belle. “You’re supposed to stay with Laurie tonight.”

  “I can stay at the museum,” she said in an argumentative tone.

  “We could all stay at Laurie’s,” Chase said.

  “No, you can’t!” Meryl Tapper and Bailey Wright said at the same time, sharply.

  Chase made a show of jumping backward in comic reaction, and Bobby snorted.

  “Your father specifically told me to tell you not to do that,” Bailey said to him. “He said Laurie’s got enough on her hands with a three-year-old, and the last thing she needs is the extra trouble you’d cause her.”

  “Tha
t sounds like Mom talking,” Belle said, sounding grumpy about it.

  “Jody’s at the ranch tonight,” Laurie said.

  Bailey shrugged. “He must not have known that when he said it.”

  “Aw,” Chase said, “but we could make it a party.”

  “I wouldn’t advise that,” Bailey said as he walked away.

  “Oh, well, he’s got us a room.” Chase lifted his latest beer and took a drink, “He’d be pissed if he had to pay for something we didn’t use.” He twinkled at Laurie. “But, hey, if you want, maybe I can slip out of the motel a little later.”

  She blushed and threw a handful of peanuts at him.

  Meryl, his brother’s best friend, eyed him over the top of a beer glass, and said, “You wouldn’t want to stay at Laurie’s house, Chase. She’s not ‘interested’ in you, are you, Laurie?”

  “Not like that,” she said, and blushed again.

  ALL EVENING LONG a progression of people dropped by their booth to say howdy, to ask about what Billy Crosby had done, and to send along regards to Annabelle and Hugh Senior. The four Linders and Meryl didn’t notice when the door opened one more time and the din of noise suddenly quieted. They didn’t think anything of it when they heard one more voice addressing them.

  “Got you a special place back here, huh?”

  They looked up and saw Billy Crosby standing behind Bobby’s chair.

  “Oh my God,” Belle whispered to Meryl, who took her hand again.

  Billy wore a distinctive straw cowboy hat with its brim tightly rolled on each side and the straw blackened as if it had been burnt. Tied up over the crown of it was a leather chin strap he pulled down when he needed to secure the hat atop his head. He was known for his hat, and perversely proud of being teased that it was ugly.

  Chase slid out of the booth and stood up. “What are you doing here?”

  “Out of jail, you mean? Why would a man who didn’t do nothin’ be in jail in the first place, Chase?”