The Marriage Pact

Chapter Ten


FOR THE NEXT week, Tripp made good on his decision to steer clear of Hadleigh Stevens at all costs, but the urge to see her—hell, to do a lot more than that—only got stronger, more primal. He did everything he could think of to distract himself, starting with an all-night poker game in Spence Hogan’s basement and progressing to marathon episodes of Pawn Stars viewed on his laptop, arguments with Jim over everything from the best way to scramble eggs to the current political situation and reading every word of every piece of junk mail as it arrived.

No doubt about it, Tripp was forced to conclude, he was falling apart, and his next career—as a stalker—seemed likely to commence at any moment.

At night, he slept in fits and starts, when he slept at all, and tossed and turned the rest of the time. Come the next morning, even coffee, buckets of the stuff, made in the fancy steel-clad megabrewer he’d bought online—following his discovery that all the merchants in town had to offer were updated versions of the one Jim already owned—failed to ratchet up his mood by so much as one notch on his inner pissed-off-ometer.

It would have represented real progress just to go from bone mean to reasonably civil, but that seemed beyond him. Jim declared him about as companionable as a bee-stung grizzly with a bad tooth, grumbled that it would take a NASA engineer to operate that miserable excuse for a so-called coffeepot Tripp had paid the earth for, and that was before the cost of overnight shipping was added on.

In the end, father and son, both of them testy as hell, managed to work out a grudging compromise. Jim’s machine reappeared in the kitchen, having been rescued from a dusty shelf in the cellar, but Tripp’s ultramodern number with the chrome spouts and the built-in grinder stayed, too.

That trip into town for breakfast had gone pretty well, since they were both hungry, but things started going downhill when they left the café and headed out to shop for what the old man snidely referred to as “cruise-wear,” having decided that his usual jeans and Western-cut shirts and boots would do just fine, and it was a waste of good money to buy a bunch of duds he’d never wear again.

By the time the dust settled, their haul from the shopping jaunt amounted to some toiletries, a modest supply of underwear and socks, dress slacks in black, gray and navy blue, one pair of lace-up shoes, which Jim claimed he didn’t need, and wouldn’t be caught dead in, any place he might run into somebody he knew.

And what the deuce was wrong with the boots he only wore for special occasions and could still polish to a respectable shine, he’d like to know?

A few presentable shirts, with buttons instead of snaps, two clip-on ties and a single dark suit jacket completed the travel wardrobe.

On the way to the checkout aisles Tripp suggested springing for a nice set of luggage, but Jim glowered and shook his head. There wasn’t a damn thing wrong with the suitcase he’d bought for his and Ellie’s honeymoon up at Yellowstone, and he could use that.

They’d bickered, matching each other stubborn for stubborn, during the whole drive back to the ranch, exchanged scowls and very few words through lunch and then supper, and they both did some door slamming, too.

Frankly, it had been a weight off Tripp’s mind, dropping the old man off at the airport in Cheyenne a few days back so he could catch a flight to Idaho Falls. From there, he’d made his connection to Seattle, spent the night there and finally boarded his Alaska-bound cruise ship first thing the following morning.

The cruise would take ten days, and Tripp sure was ready for that much peace and quiet. If not more...

It would be just him and the dog, the horses and a few cattle, none of which would give him backtalk or criticize his taste in coffeemakers.

The ever-present construction crews had slipped his mind in the beginning, but he’d soon figured out that he could stay out of their way most of the time by saddling up and heading out to the range.

Problem was, there were more crews there, replacing fences, putting up the new hayshed.

There was no rest for the wicked in the house or the barn, either, because the carpenters hammered and power-sawed and drilled holes all over both places, calling out to each other, asking questions or swapping jokes, all of which were unintelligible because every man there seemed to have a row of nails pressed between his lips from daybreak till quitting time.

When he couldn’t take it anymore, Tripp surfed the internet until he found an ad for a private livestock sale, over in the next county, loaded Ridley into the passenger seat of the truck and drove almost a hundred miles to a ranch called the Double-Sorry.

Hell of a name, he thought, pulling onto a driveway as long and rutted as the one back at Jim’s place. The field closest to the barn was lined with cars and farm trucks and a few horse trailers, but at least there weren’t any foreclosure notices posted, as far as Tripp could tell.


In fact, the house and barn looked sturdy and well maintained, and the fences seemed to be in good shape, too.

All of which was encouraging. As badly as Tripp wanted to buy cattle, and plenty of them, along with a string of decent horses, he certainly didn’t relish the idea of taking advantage of somebody else’s misfortune, financial or otherwise.

After giving Ridley a chance to get out and stretch his legs, Tripp put the dog back in the truck, rolled the windows partway down so the air could circulate and headed toward the weathered fruit stand near the barn, intending to sign up for a bidder’s card. A ruddy-cheeked woman greeted him jovially, her eyes twinkling as she handed him a clipboard with a simple form attached, along with a pen that had bite marks on the shaft.

The auctioneer was already hitting his verbal stride somewhere inside the barn, and the spectators overflowed through the gaping doorway, some of them craning their necks in an effort to watch the ongoing sale. Others stood around chatting amiably, paying no more attention to the goings-on than if they’d met up in front of the post office, instead of an auction out in the countryside.

“Don’t you worry,” the bright-eyed woman said, when Tripp handed back the clipboard and the pen. He hadn’t been worrying, actually, but an explanation wasn’t required, so he didn’t correct her. “There’s a lot of folks lookin’ today, but not all that many buyin’.” That said, she turned halfway around on her stool and shouted, “Charlie, Roy, Beanie—kindly get yourselves out of the way and let this fella through!”

Tripp smiled to himself. Evidently, he was a hot prospect, somebody with money to spend and a serious interest in acquiring some horses and cattle. Which, of course, he was, although he hadn’t made any attempt to advertise the fact.

“Thanks,” he said, but he was thinking, Beanie?

“My name’s Chessie,” the woman said, extending a hand reddened by hard work and passing years.

Tripp shook Chessie’s hand and found that she had a grip like a longshoreman’s. “Tripp Galloway,” he said, even though the information was right there on the form he’d just filled in.

Chessie studied him thoughtfully. “You any relation to Jim Galloway, over by Mustang Creek?”

“He’s my dad,” Tripp replied. He and the old man had gotten on each other’s nerves plenty of times lately, but the quiet pride he took in who Jim was and what he stood for hadn’t lessened one iota.

“He’s a good man.” Chessie smiled widely again, showing her dentures. “You tell him Chessie and Bert Anderson said howdy.”

“I’ll do that,” Tripp promised, ready to start for the barn where, thanks to Chessie’s brisk but kindly command, a gap had opened in the doorway.

“You don’t look a thing like him,” Chessie remarked, obviously in no rush to add another buyer to the mix, even after clearing the way for him. “Jim, that is.”

Tripp chuckled. “I get that a lot,” he said.

Chessie nodded, as though some long-held and cherished conviction of hers had just been verified. “Well,” she said, “I guess I’d best stop bending your ear and let you get in there for a look at the livestock. Bert and me, we decided we can’t take one more Wyomin’ winter, and it’s time we retired anyway. Don’t have any kids to pass the outfit down to, and we sure can’t take all these critters along with us when we leave.” She paused, drew a catchy breath, let it out again. “I don’t mind telling you, I’ll miss these four-legged hay-burners, though, and this place, too, once we’ve been wherever we’re going for a while and the novelty’s worn off.”

Tripp nodded in response. He waited, in case Chessie had more she wanted to say. Sometimes, he thought, with a pang of sympathy, it was easier to confide in a stranger than a friend, and it appeared that was the case here.

But Chessie really was through talking. She smiled and made a shooing motion with one hand. “You go on now,” she said. “I’ve kept you long enough.”

Tripp took the woman at her word, smiled a goodbye and headed for the action. Turned out, the barn was considerably bigger than it looked from outside, and that was a good thing, because the place was packed to the walls.

A space had been cleared in front to show the livestock up for sale, and the auctioneer, a small man with a big voice, stood on a bale of hay, wearing a headset and chiding some onlooker, albeit humorously, for expecting to get something for nothing.

Tripp smiled again. He’d never been to Chessie and Bert’s ranch before, but it was familiar territory just the same. As a boy, he’d tagged along with Jim to farm sales much like this one, and he’d learned, primarily because of the example his dad had set, to listen a lot and say very little, to check out the calves or bulls or cow ponies or whatever else was on the block very carefully, decide how much he was willing to pay and stick to that decision, no matter what. “Look these people straight in the eye, boy, and show respect,” he’d counseled, early on, as the two of them bumped over country roads like the ones Tripp had just traveled. “They’re not necessarily glad to be selling off their land or their horses and cattle or their hogs or equipment or whatever else. Some don’t have a choice, and leaving behind the place they’ve worked and struggled and prayed to hold on to, come hell or high water—like their parents and grandparents before them, often as not—well, that kind of thing’s not just hard on a person’s pride, having to be the one who finally had to let go. That kind of sorrow runs so deep, it becomes part of a man or a woman.”

Now, glancing around the shadowy, hay-and-manure-scented barn, Tripp felt a brief but keen pang of pure sorrow because Jim wasn’t standing beside him, arms folded, watching the proceedings from under the brim of whatever hat he was wearing out at the time.

For a second, Tripp’s throat constricted and his eyes burned, and he missed his dad as surely and deeply as if Jim had died instead of sailing out to look at totem poles and glaciers and vast expanses of tundra for a week and a half.

A man led a black-and-white gelding up to the front, the horse turned its head to look right at him, and Tripp felt a subtle tug, followed by a swift wrench and the silent, instinctive certainty that he and this horse had established some inexplicable and unbreakable connection.

He kept his expression passive; like the man who had raised him, Tripp knew better than to let himself show anything beyond a mild interest, never mind the eagerness he actually felt. He waited for the bidding to begin, stayed silent as the auctioneer extracted a few tentative offers from the bystanders, but the blood was pounding in his ears and it was all he could do not to wave his bidder’s card like a flag.

“This is a fine cutting horse,” the auctioneer reminded the crowd in a tone of aggrieved surprise, implying that these folks, of all people, ought to know excellent horseflesh when they saw it. He sighed as he consulted the stack of index cards in his left hand, as though refreshing his memory, though Tripp would have bet he knew all about that paint, right down to the creature’s bloodline and the number of teeth in his mouth. A few beats passed before the man looked up. “Apache—” he put a slight emphasis on the name, as if he’d just made an interesting discovery “—Apache here can practically herd cattle all by himself. He’s just five years old, according to Bert, and he’s as sound as they come.” A beleaguered pause. “Now, who’ll give me—?”


The number he mentioned next got no response at all.

The auctioneer lowered the suggested price.

There was some foot shuffling and a few murmurs, but no one bid.

As much as he wanted to jump in, Tripp held his tongue. The price didn’t matter to him—he could afford to pay many times what the auctioneer was asking and was prepared to do that—but in some ways, buying at auction was like a sport, and there were some unspoken but time-honored rules, the first and foremost of which was never seem eager.

So he waited, a little amused to realize how hard that was to do.

By now, the auctioneer was practically pleading.

Someone in the crowd finally took the bait, and the bidding picked up after that. When the moment was right, Tripp touched the brim of his hat.

The auctioneer saw him, shouted in recognition of the bid, jabbing an index finger in Tripp’s direction. Then, naturally, he asked for more.

Tripp was in no hurry—he could do this all day, he thought, provided he went back to the truck every so often to let the dog out for a few minutes—but it was surprisingly difficult not to bring the bidding to a close by doubling or even tripling the current offer.

More foot shuffling ensued, along with more murmuring.

But no one topped Tripp’s bid.

The auctioneer tried again, but nobody moved or spoke. Finally the man shouted, with all the excitement of a tent-show preacher selling salvation, “Sold to the gentleman cowboy in the custom-made boots!”

The good-natured gibe made Tripp grin, since he’d made a point of wearing the regulation brand of jeans and a cotton shirt purloined from Jim’s closet, but the boots—which were indeed custom-made—couldn’t be helped. He’d only brought the one pair with him from Seattle, and none of his dad’s well-broken-in shit-kickers would have fit him.

None of this mattered to Tripp anyhow; what counted was the simple fact that he owned a horse again.

It had been too damn long.

Growing up on a ranch, he’d always had at least one hay-burner to feed, water, groom, clean up after and finally ride, but when his favorite gelding, Partner, had died unexpectedly during Tripp’s first year of college, the loss had hit him hard. To his way of thinking, he should have been there, had the chance to say thanks for all the good times they’d had together, he and Partner, and say his farewells. But it hadn’t gone down like that, and Jim’s quiet assurance that the horse hadn’t suffered, while comforting, didn’t take the ache out of the experience.

If asked why a cowboy, born and bred, didn’t have a horse, Tripp would have responded in easy practicalities—in college, he hadn’t had the time or the money to board one. After graduation, having qualified for flight school, he’d joined the air force, undergone extensive training and then gone to war.

After his discharge, he would’ve explained, he’d flown commercial jets all over the world and was often away from home for days at a time. Besides, keeping a horse in Los Angeles—or Seattle, either—didn’t make sense to a man raised in the country.

Yep, he’d have said all those things, and they were true enough, but now, having just filled an emotional gap he hadn’t let himself dwell on over the years, Tripp knew he’d had another reason, too.

He’d been scared to care for another living creature the way he had for Partner.

Ridley represented the first real chink in his armor. Tripp had bought the pup, the last guy to be picked for the team, from some jerk selling the most recent litter from the back of a beat-up truck. And never mind that just about the last damn thing he needed was a house pet. He’d made the purchase anyway—twenty dollars, marked down from fifty, according to the sales pitch—planning to find the dog a good home.

Instead, he’d wound up giving the animal a temporary name, and that was the deciding factor. Tripp Galloway learned an important fact about himself right then: naming something—especially when that something came equipped with a pair of hopeful brown eyes, four feet and a heartbeat—meant forging a bond that couldn’t be broken.

All these thoughts ran through Tripp’s head as he stood there in the Andersons’ barn, watching as Apache was led away to make room for another horse.

He bought that one, too—a neatly put together little buckskin mare he could imagine Hadleigh riding—and the sturdy chestnut gelding that was offered next.

Tripp knew he’d need more than three horses, since Jim’s were all just about ready to be put out to pasture. Not to mention fifty to a hundred head of cattle, if the homeplace was going to live up to being called a ranch. But this was a start.

And, damn, it felt good.

Outside, in the chilly dazzle of the afternoon sun, he paid and took one of Chessie’s neighbors up on his offer to haul the two geldings and the mare over to Tripp’s place in his trailer in return for a modest fee.

The two men shook hands on the deal and, after giving Ridley another airing, Tripp and his dog headed for home.

They stopped at Bad Billy’s drive-through for a couple of cheeseburgers, one for each of them, along with a large order of curly fries to share, and Tripp, suddenly starving, wolfed his food down with only a little more restraint than Ridley did.

It was already starting to get dark when they reached the ranch. Tripp felt lonely, for a moment, knowing the house was empty. He was glad Jim had actually taken a vacation for once in his life, but he’d been missing the old coot.

Fortunately, there was work to do, with three of the four empty stalls in the barn to prepare for immediate occupancy. The current collection lined the pasture fence, waiting to go inside to be fed, watered and put up for the night.

When the other truck arrived, headlights piercing the darkness, pulling a dented horse trailer, Tripp was ready to unload the newcomers and get them settled in with the others. Ridley, sensing big doings, was practically beside himself with excitement, running in circles and barking his fool head off.

Tripp finally had to shut the dog in the tack room for a good fifteen minutes, just to keep him from getting trampled.

Once he’d paid the owner of the trailer and watched him drive off, and all the horses were safely in the stalls, he turned Ridley loose again, and the two of them ambled over to the house, ready to call it a day.

* * *

“NO GETTING AROUND it,” Hadleigh told Muggles ruefully, when they’d been back home for about fifteen minutes. “I owe Melody an apology.”

Muggles, seated on her favorite hooked rug in the corner of the kitchen, tilted her golden head to one side and perked up her ears, looking for all the world as if she not only understood but completely agreed with the statement Hadleigh had just made.

She even whimpered sympathetically.

“You are absolutely right,” Hadleigh answered, shaking her head as she surveyed the stacks of mismatched pots and pans, skillets and kettles she’d pulled from their customary cupboard and piled on the counter practically the moment she and Muggles came through the door. When she was upset, she had to be doing something, preferably constructive, and she’d been feeling a rising need to sort out her possessions, to clear the board, so to speak, and start over.

It was a worthy goal, and the kitchen cupboards were as good a place to begin as any, but the argument she’d had with Melody weighed so heavily on her mind, and her heart, as well, that she wasn’t going to get anywhere. This was just busywork. Avoidance, basically.

First things first. The slogan had been one of Gram’s favorites, and she’d said it so often that the words were probably imprinted in Hadleigh’s DNA, a fact that could be considered a blessing or a curse, depending on a person’s viewpoint.


Hadleigh had accomplished a great deal in her professional life—designing quilts, teaching her techniques online and in classes at home and all around the country—and she loved everything about her work, On the other hand, following Gram’s well-intentioned dictum had also turned her into a card-carrying perfectionist, an often driven perfectionist, with a distinct tendency to steamroll past or over any obstacle or opposition she happened to encounter.

But Melody wasn’t an obstacle or an opponent; she was one of Hadleigh’s two dearest friends. In spite of many ups and downs over the years, she and Bex and Melody had been closer than most sisters.

Okay, so Melody was outspoken and sometimes infuriatingly blunt.

She was also loyal to the death, generous, funny and a million other good things.

“Coming with me?” Hadleigh asked, her hand on the back door’s knob.

Muggles, possibly on drama overload, yawned expansively, flopped onto her belly and rested her muzzle on her outstretched forelegs, rolling gentle brown eyes at Hadleigh. All of this combined to form a nonverbal reply. Not unless you insist.

“I don’t blame you one bit,” Hadleigh said. “You can stay here and hold down the fort. I’ll be back after I’ve said ‘sorry’ and eaten my share of crow.”

Muggles sighed expressively, closed her eyes and promptly fell asleep.

As Hadleigh ducked out, smiling in spite of the butterfly convention warming up in her stomach, the dog gave a single snuffling snore.

Five minutes later, Hadleigh drew a deep breath, straightened her spine and knocked firmly on the outside door of Melody’s studio.

Melody’s eyes were red-rimmed and a little puffy.

“I’m sorry,” the two women said at the same time.

In the next moment, they were hugging, both of them blinking back tears.

“Me and my big mouth—” Melody lamented when the hug ended.

Hadleigh’s words tumbled over her friend’s. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper—it was childish.”

“You’re both right,” said Bex, who always served as referee when the need arose. “Melody, you don’t have to blurt out any opinion that comes to mind, and Hadleigh, you don’t have to take yourself and everything else so seriously.”

Both Hadleigh and Melody laughed.

Hadleigh shut the door behind her and slipped out of her coat.

“I’ll make us some tea,” Bex announced cheerfully. “Herbal, of course, since neither one of you needs caffeine.”

Melody nodded, smiling now, and took Hadleigh’s coat from her, hanging it on one of the pegs next to the door.

“And,” Bex added, on her way to the kitchen, which adjoined Melody’s studio, “I think this would be a good time to show Hadleigh what you’ve been working on, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Melody agreed with a glance in the direction of her drafting table, where a small sheet of canvas covered her latest project.

“But wait until I get back!” Bex called from the kitchen.

Melody spoke in an exaggerated whisper, meant to carry. “I wanted to keep this a secret—until Christmas, anyway—but Bex is such a snoop I couldn’t pull it off.”

“I heard that!” Bex sang out.

Hadleigh and Melody exchanged amused smiles.

“I really am sorry I acted like such a prima donna,” Hadleigh said softly.

“And I’m really sorry I didn’t keep my thoughts to myself,” Melody responded, giving Hadleigh’s hand a brief squeeze.

Hadleigh lifted one eyebrow. “So you meant what you said? About me being in love with Tripp all this time? Without really knowing it, I mean?”

Melody huffed out a breath, looking dejected again and a little tense. “Yes,” she admitted. “I meant what I said, Hadleigh. I think what I think, and I can’t pretend otherwise—but I didn’t have to say what I did.”

Hadleigh pretended to ponder Melody’s reply, but the truth was, her friend’s sometimes brutal honesty was so much a part of her that she couldn’t always rein it in. The miracle was that Melody ever held back an opinion, whether it was good, bad or indifferent.

“Fair enough,” Hadleigh finally said. “Which isn’t to say I’m prepared to agree.”

“Right.” Melody’s smile was bright with relief and with humor.

“What are you two talking about in there?” Bex called over the shrill whistle of the teakettle.

Again, Melody and Hadleigh laughed in unison.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Melody called back.

Bex didn’t answer, but she looked grimly determined, not to mention hopeful, when she came in, carrying Melody’s grandmother’s china teapot, three matching cups and saucers, sugar, milk, artificial sweetener, cloth napkins and silver spoons, all carefully arranged on a basket-weave tray.

“Friends again?” she asked.

Melody placed an arm around Hadleigh’s shoulders and squeezed, and Hadleigh returned the favor.

“Friends again,” they confirmed.