Now Rory executed a quick, charming smile. “Let’s go. It’s a small, afternoon wedding, right? We’ll be done in plenty of time.”
“Oh, well, I’d like to…”
Leaning back in her chair, Bodine watched her clever brother seal the deal. “We’ll all go. Blow off some steam. Hell, let’s get Cal and Chase in on it. Come on, Jessie, you can’t go better than the Roundup and the Bitterroots on a Saturday night.”
“I’m not sure I—”
“Oh, come, Jess,” Chelsea insisted. “We’ll have a party without having to plan it or work it.”
“We’ll teach her to line dance.” Rory gave Chelsea a little shoulder bump, making her laugh.
While Rory and Chelsea wandered out again, making plans, Jessica sent Bodine a panicked look.
“Don’t think twice,” Bodine assured her. “It will be fun.”
“But now you’re going to have a bunch of people crowding in on your date.”
Bodine only shrugged. “We’ll get a bigger table. She forgot what she came in for. That’s Rory Longbow magic.”
“I’ll find out. Honestly, Bo, I can explain to them about you and Cal having a date.”
“No.” Appalled, Bodine held both hands up, palms out. “Big Montana no. It makes it too important, which is something I’d like to avoid with the family, and around here. And, the fact is, I haven’t hit the Roundup with Chase and Rory for months. We’re due. Get yourself ready for a genuine Montana night.”
Once she’d shooed Jessica out, Bodine sent Callen a text.
Word got out on the Roundup. Dinner and dancing for two just expanded to six. More dance partners. But don’t make any plans for after closing. I’ve already made them.
Minutes later, he texted back.
I’m good with a crowd. Before closing time.
“Good enough,” Bodine said aloud, then made a note to contact the manager of the Roundup when it opened for lunch and sweet-talk him into reserving a table that could hold six.
*
Callen got home later than he’d planned, but with plenty of time to shower off the horses and change into something clean. Maybe he had planned for a one-on-one night of dinner, conversation, dancing—and whatever happened next—but he’d grown up learning how to adjust both plans and expectations.
Besides, the way he looked at it, the party atmosphere might take some of the pressure off what happens next.
She said she had plans. He was pretty sure, the way they’d left things, what those plans would focus on.
He’d taken time that morning to rotate his sheets—stripping off the one set, putting on the second. One thing he knew for absolute certain: If their plans aligned, he wouldn’t spend his first night with Bodine in her bedroom in her family home.
That was just disrespectful to her family.
He stepped into the shack, took a quick glance around. Other than the sheets, already seen to, he didn’t have any picking up to do before entertaining a lady. He knew how to keep a small space neat enough: washing up dishes as he went, hanging up clothes.
He skipped his post-work beer. He’d have a couple at the Roundup, but since he was driving, he’d hold it to that. Heading toward the shower, he pulled his ringing phone out of his pocket, noted the display.
“Hi, Ma. Sure I got a minute. Plenty of them.”
He listened as he shrugged out of his coat, tugged off the bandanna around his neck. He tossed his hat on the chair, scraped his hand through his hair.
She didn’t ask for much, and never had. A son couldn’t say no even when it put a shadow over him.
“I’ve got time on Monday. I could come for you about four, if that works, drive you to the cemetery. How about I take you out for dinner after? Now, why would it be a bother to me to take my ma out to dinner? If Savannah and Justin want, I’ll take you all. The rug rat, too.”
He flipped open the buttons of his shirt as she talked.
“No, that’s fine then. Just you and me. How’s she doing? Not much cooking time left on the new one.”
He sat, pulled off his boots while his mother chattered on about his pregnant sister. When she’d wound down, thanked him one more time, he set the phone aside.
She didn’t ask for much, and never had, he thought again. So he’d take her to visit her husband’s grave. He would never understand her love and devotion to the man who’d gambled away his life, and the lives of his family, but he’d take her to lay her flowers, to say her prayers—and keep his thoughts on it to himself.
He reconsidered the beer, then shook his head. Grabbing one now was weakness not want. He stripped off his jeans, headed in to shower in the tiny bathroom.
And reminded himself that tonight and Bodine were a lot closer than Monday and graves.
*
About the time Callen stepped out of the shower and Bodine stood in front of the mirror doing a testing turn in the dress she’d decided on, Esther, who’d forgotten Alice, laid a cloth, as cold as she could get it, on her bruised jaw.
She’d already wept a little, knew she might weep again, but the cold helped ease the throbbing.
Sir had been so angry. She’d heard him shouting, and someone shouting back before he’d stormed in on her. She hadn’t finished her scrubbing, and that made him only madder. He hadn’t hurt her in a long time, but he’d hurt her then, dragging her to her feet by her hair, hitting her face, punching her stomach, taking his husbandly rights in a hard, mean way—harder and meaner than usual.
Someone had made him mad—a part of her knew that, but the other parts, long since indoctrinated, blamed herself.
She hadn’t finished the scrubbing. Though her internal clock and the slant of the sun through her tiny window told her it was hours before his usual visit to her. Her house hadn’t been in order. The house he’d provided her.
She’d deserved his punishment.
Now he’d gone off; she’d heard his truck leave, just as she’d heard someone—the one who’d shouted back—leave minutes before Sir had come in.
His face red with temper, his eyes dark and mean with it. His hands hard and cruel.
And it was her day of the week for sitting out for an hour, of sitting out in the air and not working. Just being allowed to sit and watch the sunset.
She looked mournfully at the door, the door he’d slammed as he’d gone out, cursing her for being a lazy whore. Though her face, her belly, and where he’d taken her so hard all hurt, she’d finished the scrubbing, using the water, gone cold, that had spilled all over the floor.
He’d knocked the bucket over. Or she had. Probably she had, as she was the clumsy one, the lazy one, the ungrateful one.
She told herself to make tea, to read the Bible, to repent her evil ways, but tears gathered in her eyes again as she stared at the door.