Stay (12 page)

Lucas tossed his bag into the sink. “How is she?”

“Holding up.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Yes, Guardian, that bad.” The words were said with a sneer. “Your son will be born in four months, maybe sooner. Do you plan to be there? You have an opportunity to raise your own child, something you were denied with Sara.”

Lucas opened his mouth to answer, but he closed it again. He had no answer. That was a low blow. Nathan knew how to hit him where he lived.

“You know, I never liked you much, but I certainly never pegged you for a coward,” Nathan said.

Lucas clenched his fist. “I can blacken that other eye for you.”

Nathan shook his head. “You won’t. You won’t because there was a day when I stood in your shoes and just like you I slunk off with my tail between my legs, a bloody deserter. As it happened I came across a fellow and he told me a story about a ring. He opened my eyes. Do you remember that, Guardian?”

Lucas licked at his bruised lip. He needed the metallic taste of his own blood to ground him in the present. “I remember.”

“Perhaps there’s a story associated with that.” Nathan pointed at the chunk of gold hanging on a chain around Lucas’s neck. “I suggest you ask the person who gave it to you. She may provide the answers you seek. I’m not supposed to remember half the things I do, but we aren’t privy to everything, Guardian. Even you don’t know everything.”

Lucas wrapped his fist around the hunk of metal. It felt hot in his hand. “Where’s Sara?”

“She and Katie are visiting friends in California,” said Nathan.

“Why aren’t you with her?”

“I was with her, but the sheriff, Cass Weber, gave me another call a few months back. From what he said I suspected I’d find someone like me. I didn’t realize I’d find you. When I arrived in Bozeman, I discovered you’d already run off.” Nathan threw his bag of peas down onto the table as if issuing a challenge. “I knew it was you the minute I met the sheriff. I could smell you.” Arms crossed, he glared at Lucas. “Sydney plans to move the cows up to the high country next week. It will be difficult and dangerous work in her condition. I thought you should know, Guardian.”

His mother looked up from her weeding. “Is he gone?”

Lucas nodded.

“Who is he, Lucas?”

“Someone I know from a long time ago.”

“You can’t kid a kidder, son, so don’t even try.” She rose to her feet. “You forget, I know everyone you know from a long time ago. It’s not as if a nobleman from England could keep his identity a secret out here in the Badlands. Besides…”

Lucas held the chunk of gold tight in his fist. “Besides… What?

His mother turned away and looked off toward the distant hills. “Do you know a mother can recognize her own child by his smell?” She glanced back at Lucas and rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I mean. It’s like the cows or the horses‌—‌any animal. Every child has his or her own unique smell.”

“I must be dense,” Lucas said, “Because I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“The moment I held you in my arms, the moment I brushed my lips over the top of your head and inhaled your scent, I knew.”

“Knew what?”

“I knew you were different.”

Lucas felt a sudden need to sit down. He perched on the edge of a large rock. “Different?”

“You know the story of your birth, don’t you?”

“Dad always said I was born in a late spring blizzard.”

His mother nodded. “It’s true, you were born in a blizzard, but he left out the rest of the story because he didn’t know the rest of the story. I never told him.”

“He never knew the…? What are you talking about?”

She brushed the hair from his eyes with a gentle hand. “Yes, there was a blizzard the night you were born, a terrible blizzard. Your father had taken your brothers down the road to help your grandmother plow her lane and they got stuck there for the night. The snow was too deep and the winds too strong. It wasn’t safe for them to drive home. I wasn’t worried. I told them to stay put.” She shrugged by way of staving off any questions. “You weren’t due for another few weeks.”

“So what happened?”

“I woke in the middle of the night to a big flash of light and a crash of thunder. Lightning in the middle of a blizzard… Can you imagine?”

“Yes, Mom, I can.” He made room for her to sit beside him. “Go on.”

“I got up to check and see if there had been any damage. It sounded so close, as if it was right on top of the house. When I reached the kitchen I tried to flip on the light switch, but nothing happened. The power had been knocked out. I intended to pick up the phone, to see if I had phone service, but halfway across the kitchen my water broke.” She shook her head. “There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t leave the house. Nobody could come to me.”

Lucas took her hand. “It’s all right, Mom. It wasn’t your fault.”

She smiled up at him. “I’m not saying it was. If I had called your father I guarantee he’d have killed himself trying to get home. I couldn’t let that happen. So I prepared the best I could.”

“Jesus. I feel responsible, Mom. You were there all alone because I decided to arrive in the middle of a blizzard.”

Her voice was soft. “I wasn’t alone.”

“What did you say?”

“I said I wasn’t alone.” She squeezed his hand. “You know you’re the first person I’ve told. Nobody knows about this.”

Lucas had to know. “Who was with you?”

“He didn’t tell me his name.” She shook her head. “Or if he did I don’t remember hearing it. I was otherwise occupied. I was lying in the middle of the kitchen floor. There was another flash of lightning. It lit up the whole house. Sparks shot through the room. I thought maybe the house had caught fire and here I was, stuck on the floor, in labor. And then the door blew open and there he stood in the open doorway, taking up all the space. He was a big man, a big, strong man.” She paused for a moment. “I didn’t know what to do, what to think, but I didn’t really have the wherewithal to be afraid of him. He walked right in like he owned the place and he stayed with me, helped me. When you were born, he caught you.” She smiled a small smile. “He held you even before I did.”

“What happened then?”

“You cried. He wrapped you in a blanket and placed you on my stomach. And he left.”

Lucas turned to her. “He left? He walked out into the blizzard and disappeared?”

“Yes.”

“Mom, you didn’t find that odd?”

“Of course I did. Why do you think I never told anyone?”

“Why are you telling me now?”

“I suppose I’m telling you for a few reasons. The first is because you showed up here with no explanation and you refuse to talk about the woman you left behind. The second is because of Nathaniel Henry Neville. The moment I met him I knew the two of you had something in common and whatever it is, you both have it in common with the man who appeared that night. It’s like the scent of your own child, you recognize it.”

Lucas nodded.

“But there’s another reason.”

“What’s that?”

His mother wrapped her hand around his, about the hand clutching the chunk of gold. “This. You’ve kept it all these years.”

“You said it was my good luck charm. You found it the night I was born, although finding a…” He slapped his forehead. “I’m an idiot, a perfect idiot. He carried through with his threat to send me back as an infant. Of course you didn’t find a piece of gold lying around. He gave it to you. The archangel gave it to you.”

His mother paled. “I wouldn’t even dare whisper those words down a well at midnight. How can you…?”

He interrupted her question. “I can say the words because I know they’re true.”

Lucas opened his hand. Both of them stared down at the chunk of gold. “He must have told you something about this. The archangel never gives without reason.”

Lucas knew from firsthand experience he was asking her to accept the impossible, and yet his mother had kept silent all these years. She had to have known the man who’d appeared the night of his birth was more than a man.

His mother pursed her lips. At last she blew the words out of her mouth all at once. “He said the gold would lead you home. I don’t know what he meant.”

Lucas burst into laughter. “He always speaks in riddles, Mother. It’s the way he amuses himself.”

“Son, I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

Lucas heard the tremor in his mother’s voice. He put an arm around her shoulders. “I understand, Mom. Don’t worry. I came here seeking answers. You had them all along.”

A peaceful silence fell between them. Through it Lucas heard the buzzing of bees, the song of a robin. A butterfly lighted beside him on the rock. The wings were a lovely pale blue.

“Will you go back then, to this woman you left behind?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m going home.”

Stay

amn, will this rain ever stop?

Sydney had swept out the barn and the tack room, oiled all the tack, checked and rechecked her supplies of grain. Now, hands on hips, she stared out the open barn door wishing, hoping and praying she’d see Lucas’s truck slipping and sliding down that muddy road, making a beeline for her.

Yeah, right
.

The only thing swirling down the road was wind, wind and more wind.

He’s not coming, Syd. He’s never coming back. Give it up
.

She rubbed a hand over her growing belly, felt the baby give a reassuring kick in response.

“That’s okay, bud. We’ll make do.”

Syd threw on her rain slicker and stomped back to the house. She needed to get the cattle moved up country and this prolonged rainy spell was starting to piss her off. It didn’t help that her mother and father kept postponing their return. She was stuck at the main house watching over the herd instead of returning to her own cabin and maybe putting in a few shifts at the ER.

Her father had promised to be back in time for haying, but Syd wasn’t convinced he’d show. He didn’t want to leave her mother and her mother wanted to stay in Arizona.

He’d said years ago he’d turn the ranch over to her eventually. Well, it seemed to Syd he’d already done it in deed if not in fact.

The phone rang the minute she sat down to pull off her muck boots. “Hang on,” Syd mumbled. Pulling off muck boots while pregnant wasn’t easy. At last she pushed herself off the bench and walked into the kitchen in her bare feet.

“Hello?

“Oh, hey, Cass. What’s up?

“Hold on, I’m having trouble hearing you.” She moved the receiver aside to brush the wet hair away from her ear. “What did you say, Cass?

“Craig Anderson’s been trying to reach me? Why?

“No. He’s joking, right?” Syd stared at the ceiling.

“Shit, Cass. How the hell am I supposed to get my cattle up into the mountains if the slide trail is washed out?

“No, I can’t truck the entire herd; that would break me. Hauling the bulls up there costs enough as it is.

“Out of the question, I’m not going to use the gold. The gold stays right where it is.

“There’s got to be a way to get through.

“When can you get up to check it out?

“This weekend?” She shook her head. “I can’t wait that long.

“No, Cass, I can’t wait.