Pearl (31 page)

“Callie isn’t going near your kids after she turns three,” Pearl teased. “I don’t know what they’ll try to get her to do.”

“No worse than you and I did.” Sammie smiled, whipping her dark hair over her shoulder. Pearl caught the working men’s gaze trailing over Sammie’s figure. You’d never guess the slim but voluptuous girl had three children.

 
“Just wait until I get you back to Oregon,” Sammie threatened. She called out again to her youngest daughter, who was now digging holes in the dirt in the middle of the arena.

“I’m never going back to Oregon,” Pearl said softly.
 

“I know, I know. I don’t blame you. We’ll be getting out of there as soon as Sam finds a real job. Hey, speaking of Oregon, I heard a rumor that Roy is getting a divorce.”

“From whom?” Pearl asked, mildly interested.

“Oh, you know. I told you he got married a few years ago to the trashy blonde who was in Trisha’s pack. I still can’t believe Trish got her right hook on me. Anyway, they have two kids. Sad, really, but can’t blame her for leaving.”

“No,” Pearl said. “Can’t blame her for that.”

“Sadie! Spike! Get your sister!” Sammie cried out to her other children. Sadie was the oldest, the one Sammie was pregnant with when she got married. She jumped off the tractor she was playing on and raced to her little sister’s side.
 

“Kids are gonna kill me,” Sammie muttered.
 

Sam slid up behind Sammie, snatching her down from the fence. “What’s that, doll, wanna have another?”

“I swear, Sam Murray,” Sammie snarled. “If you knock me up one more time, I’m knocking you out.” She giggled as her husband pulled her close and kissed her hard on the lips.

“Sounds like a dare,” he said.

“Get a room,” Pearl said, trying not to smile.

“There’s enough of them,” Sammie said. “We decided to let the older two sleep in the teepee this week. That way they can stay up all night doing God knows what with the sky and crap that Billy does with them.”

“What does Billy do?” a male voice said, coming up from behind.
 

Pearl turned to see her brother hop the fence over Sammie and into the corral. Sammie ducked with a scream.

“We were just talking about you putting your major to good use,” Pearl said. Billy was fresh out of high school. Eighteen. Lean and broad. He no longer looked like her baby brother. He was spending the summer, as he did every year, at the ranch—at least until college started in the fall.

“What are you doing again?” Sammie asked. “Astronaut buff or whatever?”

Billy smiled. He always had patience for Sammie. “Astrophysics and astronomy.”

“Yeah, stars and stuff,” Sam said. “Billy takes the kids out every night when it’s dark and shows them the constellations.”

Pearl smiled proudly. “I bet they get a kick out of that.”

Billy strode up to Molly. “Can’t wait to take my little niece out, but your mama says you’re too young to stay out late.”
 

Pearl laughed. “Please, you won’t be here long enough for that to happen. You’re eighteen. I’m surprised you haven’t taken off for Mexico.”

Billy looked up at the stables, where a young pretty trainer was taking the horse out to ride. “Maybe I like what I see here.”

Pearl sighed. “My little brother dating is something I will never get used to.”

“You just may have to, Precious Pearl,” Vernie said, sneaking up to Pearl’s side. “That boy got all your daddy’s good looks. He won’t be single for long.”

“Hell, I’d date him if I was younger,” Sammie admitted without shame.

Billy heard that and turned his red cheeks away from them with a smile.
 

“What the hell?” Sam asked.

Sammie shrugged. “I didn’t say I would now. Just when I was younger. I liked those sweet, deep, innocent guys.”

“No, you didn’t,” Sam scoffed.
 

Sammie smiled. “Well, I’d like to think I would have. Besides, I’m old now, and stretch marks like tiger scratches all up and down my stomach.”

Sam nuzzled his wife’s neck. “Just the way I like it.”

Pearl shook her head. “You guys give me a headache.”

“Sam, quit molesting the guests!” Ben yelled out to his older brother.
 

Sam took a bite at Sammie’s neck before pulling back. “Come on, let’s go grab that cabin before the kids know we’re gone.”

Sammie rolled her eyes but obliged all too willingly.
 

Vernie took out her fan and swatted at the flies swarming around. “I better get to the kitchen. Gonna have some hungry folks banging down my door if I don’t get to it.”
 

Pearl patted Vernie lightly on the shoulder, and the two shared a soft smile.
 

“Hey, Vernie,” Ben called out. “You free for babysitting tonight?”

“I’ll snatch that sweet baby any time you two are crazy enough to let me take her,” Vernie said.

Ben grinned widely. “I’m taking the wife out for our anniversary dinner.”

Vernie smiled at Pearl’s blushing cheeks. “Ah, of course. Three years?”

Pearl nodded.
 

Vernie kissed Pearl lightly on the forehead before heading back to the lodge. “You just bring that baby to me any time. Hope we’re still here when you get home.”

“Thanks, Vernie!” Ben called out.

“One more time around?” Pearl asked her husband as his pace quickened to a swift trot. Ben smiled at her, lifting Callie’s hand to blow her mother a kiss.

Billy hopped up on the post, sitting beside a lounging Pearl.
 

“You know she’s fine, right?” he asked. “Ben wouldn’t do anything he thinks would harm her.”

Pearl sighed. “Of course. It’s just…you wait, you’ll see. You’ll never be at ease when your kids are doing something risky.”

“Dad says that to me all the time,” Billy said. “By the way, when is Dad coming?”

“Not ’til next month,” Pearl said. “He and Janet are taking a little trip out to Napa.”

Pearl smiled when she thought of her father. She had begged him to go with his girlfriend on a trip. He was a doting grandfather who never spent more than a few weeks away from his granddaughter, and leaving the state seemed unbearable to him. But she had coached him to go. He needed to lead his own life, and Janet was the perfect start to that.

“Good for him,” Billy said.

“Yes,” Pearl said. “Good for him.”

“You know,” Billy began, “it’s strange sometimes. I think about Mom, and I have my moments when I really wish she was here with us. She just missed out on so much.”

“I know,” Pearl said. “I think about that, too.”

“But you know she would be blown away by what she sees here,” Billy said, looking down at his big sister. “She would be really proud of you.”

“You too, kiddo,” Pearl beamed.

“And,” he continued, “really, I think about her, and I miss her, but I don’t know, Pearl, I wonder if Mom was here, then maybe this wouldn’t be.”

Pearl tilted her head up to her brother, his eyes softening with his slight grin. He was more a man than she had ever imagined him to be, and more the friend than she could have ever wished for.

“I guess I just look at you and Ben and Callie and think, ‘Isn’t this the way it was all supposed to be?’”

Pearl’s eyes filled with tears as her gaze drifted from her brother to her beautiful family as they rode in the rich desert sun. Her daughter squealed with laughter as her husband kissed his daughter’s head and then turned to catch his wife’s loving expression, and he smiled.
 

Yes
, she thought,
how truly wonderful that life is just as it was supposed to be.