And Then You Fly Read online

  She didn’t know. Her gut told her that all that mattered now was what stood between him and his brother, at least for the time being.

  Bree stood and pulled the big, fluffy duvet back. “Come to bed,” she said to him, as if those were the most natural words to pass between them.

  He turned to look at her. She saw the question in his eyes. They hadn’t brought anything with them, they hadn’t planned to stay the night. They both wore jeans and heavy shirts. The light on the bedside table remained illuminated, his eyes remained focused on hers as she unbuttoned her jeans and slid them off.

  When she stood and began to unbutton her shirt, she heard him take a deep breath. She expected him to turn, to look away, but he did not. She shrugged her shirt off her shoulders and climbed into bed.

  “Jace, come to bed,” she said again, reaching her hand out to him.

  “Bree—”

  “Come to bed.”

  Jace stood and unbuttoned his shirt. She kept her eyes focused on his in the same way he had with her. His eyes questioned as his hand moved to the button on his jeans, as if he was waiting for her to tell him to stop, but she did not. Nor did she turn the light off that she could easily reach from her side of the bed.

  He hesitated, unsure what he should do.

  Her hand remained outstretched to him, even though her arm rested on the bedding. He let his jeans drop to the floor, and pulled the covers back on his side of the bed. As he climbed in, Bree slid over and wrapped her arm around his waist, bringing her head to rest on his shoulder.

  “I wish…” he whispered.

  “Me too,” she answered.

  When they woke the next morning, his friends were gone. They found a note in the kitchen apologizing that they’d had to go to the restaurant. They left instructions for the coffeemaker, and a basket of muffins on the kitchen table.

  Bree and Jace moved around each other slowly. They’d fallen asleep easily given the lateness of the hour, but there remained a tentativeness of things unspoken between them.

  Something had changed. It wasn’t the same as Bree coming into his room the night before, seeking his comfort. This time they’d found comfort in one another. As they waited for the coffee to brew, Jace opened his arms and she filled them. Bree wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his chest.

  “Sometimes it’s almost too easy,” he said.

  “I know.”

  But both of them knew they couldn’t afford to let it be, not in the long run. Jace had been right. The timing wasn’t right, and as easy as it would have been to simply let things happen naturally between them, there would come a time when they would regret it. There would come a time when each of them would have to face the very issues they were facing now. Ignoring them would never make them go away. They would continue to resurface until they were finally acknowledged.

  They made the drive back to the ranch in near silence, but it was a comfortable one.

  “When is the auction?” she asked.

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  They had two whole days and maybe three nights, and then it would be time for him to go home. Jace no longer felt the need to ask her if he should find a place to stay in town. He knew they would sleep in each other’s arms, yet neither of them would let it go beyond that.

  They fished, they talked, and they tried to dance, but Jace’s knee hadn’t healed well enough for him to do more than sway with her to the music. They sat on the porch and looked at the stars, and then held each other close as they slept.

  The pretense of Jace staying in the other side of the cabin was dropped. He moved his travel bag over to her side, and came and went from her door.

  They invited Red to join them at the bull bucking, and he went along enthusiastically. Bree sat nestled between the two men on the bench seat of Jace’s truck.

  “Been a long time since I’ve gone to see anyone buck bulls,” Red said.

  “It’s become a way of life for me recently,” answered Jace. “Although it’s been a long time since I tried to cover one myself.”

  His friend Billy Patterson convinced him he had more talent as a saddle bronc rider than he did as a bull rider. Jace had been skeptical at first, but soon believed Billy called it correctly. He’d spent several months out on the rodeo circuit riding broncs, and did well. He almost always ended up in the money, but his heart hadn’t been in it. Settling down on the ranch with his parents had been the best decision he’d made in a long time. He had a knack for recognizing good bucking bulls, the same as his father had. Soon he hoped they’d be able to add broncs to their list of rough stock.

  In the end, there was one bull Jace bid on. He made arrangements to pick him up on his way back to Montana in the morning. Red offered to let him bring the bull down to the ranch, but Jace knew the logistics of doing so would be far more complicated than Red imagined.

  Bree enjoyed watching the bulls and riders. Every time he’d looked at her she had a big smile on her face.

  Jace didn’t want to think about taking that smile away when he left the next day. He had to remain steadfast, and he knew it. Saying goodbye wasn’t going to be easy for either of them. And for now, he didn’t know when they’d see each other again.

  ***

  They agreed not to make plans as they lay next to each other that night. There weren’t any rules about not talking, or texting, or even seeing each other. The only thing they’d agreed to was come morning, Jace would drive back to Montana, and Bree would stay at the ranch.

  Saying goodbye was as hard as they both knew it would be. Jace held on tight, hoping she’d give him just another minute before she pulled away. She did. Several minutes passed when they both pulled away at the same time.

  “I can’t tell you how much I’m going to miss you,” Jace said.

  “Me too,” she answered.

  When her eyes filled with tears, he almost lost his resolve. He wanted to tell her to come with him—their troubles be damned. He wanted to assure her they could work through them together, side by side, and come out of it in the same place, the same way they would if they each did it alone, but he’d be lying.

  “It is so hard to say goodbye to you,” he said.

  “For me too,” she held on tighter. “I don’t want to let go.”

  “Me either.”

  Finally Jace knew he had to. He kissed her softly, took her hands from around his waist and stepped away. The hardest part was turning away from her, but he had to do it. He watched her standing there in the rear view mirror, as he pulled away.

  ***

  Two days later, Bree ventured into the dining hall for breakfast. She hadn’t since Jace left, but morning and night, there had been a knock on her door. When she answered, there was a tray of the morning or evening meal waiting on the table on the cabin porch. She never saw who delivered it, but she knew it must’ve been Red.

  “Good morning,” he said cheerfully when she walked into the dining room.

  “Good morning,” she answered, “mind if I join you?”

  “Nothin’ I’d like better.”

  They talked amiably, as though the last few days had fallen into the same routine they’d been since she arrived at the ranch.

  “Headin’ out to do some fishin’ today. Wouldn’t mind some company.”

  “I’d like that,” she answered. She saw him eye her plate, taking notice of how little she ate.

  “I’m okay Red,” she answered without him needing to ask. “You’ve kept me well-fed the last couple of days.”

  “Let’s get out on the water and work up an appetite then.”

  He took her to a spot they hadn’t been before, and their hours fell back into the rhythm of their earlier days.

  ***

  Jace made the trip back to Montana with less than a handful of stops. Once he picked up the bull, he only stopped a couple of times to check on it, and rest his leg.

  He pulled into the ranch outside Helena a little after nightfall. H
is house was dark, but he could see his parents’ place lit up like a welcoming beacon.

  He got the bull settled into a pen of his own, released the trailer from his truck, and drove up to his parents’ house.

  His mama was on the porch waiting for him as he climbed the steps.

  “It is so good to see you,” she said, wrapping her arms around his shoulders when he got close enough for her to. He saw his daddy standing behind her, smiling.

  “Brought back a good bull did ya?” he said.

  “I did that.”

  “And I trust the rest of your trip went well?” his mother asked.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow Mama,” he answered. “I’m beat.”

  “I’ll be by in the morning to make breakfast.”

  “Nah. I’ll come to you tomorrow.”

  She raised her eyebrows in question.

  “It’s all good Mama. I know you’re dyin’ to hear, but you’re just gonna have to wait until I get some rest.”

  “You’ve waited this long Carol,” his daddy added. “A few more hours aren’t gonna kill you.”

  “Just might,” his mama muttered.

  Jace didn’t keep his mother waiting overly long the next morning. He showed up just after sunrise wishing he’d been up earlier to help his father with the morning chores.

  “You’re in some trouble,” he told her when he walked in.

  “By the look on your face when I asked about your trip last night, I know you aren’t the slightest bit angry with me Jace Rice. So don’t think you can intimidate me now.”

  “Can’t fool you, can I?”

  “How is she?”

  “As amazing as she’s always been.”

  “So forthcoming…I have to admit, I’m surprised. I expected you to by more tight-lipped about her.”

  “No sense. Seems you know more about how I’m feeling than I do. Trying to keep it a secret from you is a waste of time.”

  She laughed, but quickly grew serious again. “What’s next for you Jace?”

  “I have to figure out this thing with me and Tuck. I’m at a loss about how to, but I gotta.”

  “If she had anything to do with you coming to that conclusion, I’ll love her until the day I die.”

  “Some I suppose. Mostly she convinced me there were a lot of good reasons I needed to try harder.”

  “Oh, before I forget, Billy Patterson called your daddy while you were gone. Said he’d been trying to reach you.”

  “Wasn’t much cell coverage where I was, but I don’t remember getting a message from him.”

  Jace told his mother about his time with Bree, the abridged version of it anyway, and then went in search of his father.

  “What did Patterson want?” he asked when he found him.

  “Wants to talk to us about partnering with the rough stock.”

  “In what way?”

  “Ben Rice and his brothers want to expand their rough-stock business at the Flying R in Crested Butte. Given Billy’s experience on the rodeo circuit, and the contacts he has, along with what we’re doing here, they think it would be better to partner rather than try to build it on their own. Billy’s all for it.”

  If anyone knew about bucking horses, it was Billy Patterson. It was almost as though Billy read his mind. He’d been thinking about expanding into broncs while he was in Idaho. He hoped Billy and the Rices were interested in raising bulls too.

  “They want us to come down to Crested Butte,” Jace told his father. “It won’t be easy for both of us to go, but if we fly, I think we can minimize our time away.”

  “I’ve been givin’ this some thought son, and I believe it’s time for us to hire a full-time ranch manager. Particularly if we can make a deal with Patterson. I can see you needing to be in Colorado on a regular basis, and while I can fill in for you in the short term, I’m gettin’ too old to do this kind of work day-in and day-out.”

  Jace hadn’t considered that even with a full-time staff of hands to help, the ranch work might be too much for his daddy. Now that he was paying attention, he could see the exhaustion on his father’s face. He remembered the conversation he’d had with Tucker when they went to Crested Butte for Thanksgiving. He’d told Tuck he thought their father was winding down his life. Getting involved in this ranch was the antithesis.

  “I’m sorry Daddy, I didn’t—”

  “Stop right there. Partnering with you was my idea, and I knew there would be hard work involved. I’m still as committed as ever.”

  “You got anybody in mind? You don’t need to talk to me about it. Whatever decision you make, I’ll be fine with.”

  With hiring a ranch manager next to settled, they started making arrangements to go to Crested Butte.

  His mother was going with them, but on their way, she wanted them to take her to Monument. She planned to stay there while they went to Crested Butte to meet with Billy Patterson, Ben Rice, and his brothers.

  Chapter 7

  What would you think about me staying on here a while longer?” Bree asked Red a few days later.

  “I’ve been waitin’ for you to say so.”

  “Why Red? Are you some kind of shaman?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. But I’ve been where you are, more than once in my life.”

  From the first day he sat down and had breakfast with her, Bree felt as though she was supposed to meet Red, that they’d been brought together for a reason.

  She’d asked around and discovered that the Dugan family had owned the ranch for decades. She wasn’t sure why she and Zack hadn’t met him when they were there together, but she also saw it as serendipitous. She wouldn’t have felt as comfortable spending time with Red if they’d met before.

  They went to Salmon again, and stopped in to see Annie and Dave. Bree felt as uncomfortable around them as she had the first time. That was how she knew she wouldn’t have felt the same way she did with Red if he’d known Zack.

  “I don’t think you’re ready to go home yet.”

  “See? How do you know that? I mean, seriously, why do you think I’m not ready?”

  “You haven’t done what you came here to do.”

  “And what is that? What am I here to do? Because I have to admit, as hard as I try, I can’t seem to figure it out. I know what I wanted to do while I was here, but now I’ve come to the conclusion that it isn’t something I can force. It has to happen on its own.”

  “Then I’d say you’re gettin’ closer than you think.”

  As frustrated as she was with him for talking in riddles, if she was honest with herself she understood more than she was willing to admit. Wouldn’t it have been neat and tidy if she’d simply been able to go to a few of the places she and Zack had been together, cry her heart out, and then move right into the acceptance phase of grief? She knew better.

  Early on Bree had faced the denial phase of grief. Both in denying it happened, and then denying herself the time and space she needed to be on her own to grieve.

  Coming to the ranch had been about isolation. She hoped in being so, she would be able to push herself through the remaining phases. Maybe that was the problem, she was spending too much time intellectualizing her grief rather than allowing herself to feel it.

  “I have to stop thinking about it so much,” she said, not sure if Red was still listening to her.

  “I agree.”

  “Really? First you challenge me, and then you wait for me to process through it, and simply agree with everything I say?”

  Red turned and looked at her. She waited for him to say something. About the time she was ready to give up and walk away he said, “You know what you need to do. Get out of your own way and do it.”

  “More riddles,” she huffed.

  “On that note,” he rose, “I’m going out of town for a few days. I hope you’re still here when I get back, and we have the chance to fish together before you go back to Colorado.”

  Bree’s eyes filled with tears. “Red?”

&n
bsp; He stood behind her, put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “You’re gonna get through this Bree. Give yourself the time and space to do it. You said it yourself, this isn’t something you can force.”

  He walked away, leaving Bree sitting on the front porch of the main lodge. She’d never felt more alone than she did right then.

  ***

  Jace made arrangements to stay at Billy and Renie Patterson’s place in Black Forest, while his mom and dad stayed with Tucker and Blythe. He told them he was going straight there when they drove into town. His mother argued with him about it.

  “You can drop it,” he told her. “I’m not showing up at their house unannounced.”

  She kept at him, insisting that they were both being stubborn. Once they saw each other, it would be different, she told him. Since Jace was driving, he pulled into Billy’s, essentially ignoring her. He climbed out of the truck, grabbed his bag, and walked into Billy’s house without looking back. It might mean he’d be stranded there for the night, but he didn’t care.

  He felt the way he’d expected to feel, an outsider in the life that had once been his. If he hadn’t met Renie Fairchild, who was now married to Billy Patterson, none of this would be happening. Life’s chain of events might be entirely different.

  It wouldn’t have changed what happened in the past though, so regardless of how it came about, his role in the accident would’ve come to light one way or another.

  He’d met Renie first, at Black Mountain Ranch, when they spent a summer working the dude ranch together. Through her, he met Billy Patterson, and even though it had been complicated for a while, the three had become close friends.

  Then last Thanksgiving Jace reconnected his parents with another branch of the Rice family, who they hadn’t seen since they were kids. Renie’s mother, Liv, married Ben Rice, and through that connection, Jace’s family was invited to join theirs in Crested Butte for the holiday. That was when Jace and Tucker met Blythe Cochran, who was now Tucker’s wife.