The Ranch

“Are you keeping secrets from us?” Zoe teased her, and Mary Stuart laughed at her too. But Tanya just ignored them and went to finish dressing. She looked particularly spectacular that day in a pair of bleached jeans, and a peach colored T-shirt. She was even wearing a new pair of boots, a pair of apricot hand-embroidered ones that she had bought a while before in Texas.

And when they went to the dining room for breakfast with the other guests, Hartley was waiting for them. He looked very cheerful, and very comfortable as he put an arm around Mary Stuart, and said a warm hello to the others. He smelled of soap and aftershave, and looked very handsome in a white shirt and blue jeans, and Tanya couldn't help thinking that he and Mary Stuart looked terrific together. They looked as though they were meant to be, and Zoe agreed with her, as she commented on it later, on the way to the stables.

Little Benjamin was waiting for them there, and having everyone sign his cast. Tanya gave him a big kiss and an autograph, and a bunch of young girls asked her for one too, and their mothers let them. People were more relaxed about seeing her around, but no one was taking sneaky pictures of her, which she appreciated. And when Gordon saw her, he waved, he was saddling up a bunch of horses. As always they were among the last to ride, and Mary Stuart sat on a bench with Benjamin on her lap, nuzzling his neck, and talking to him. He was like a gift now.

“You sure scared us yesterday, you wild guy you,” she said, remembering the sight of him flying toward the stables on the runaway horse and then sailing into the air, and onto the rocky roadway.

“The doctor said I should have broken my neck, but I didn't.”

“Well, that's lucky.”

“Yeah, and my mommy cried.” He looked at Mary Stuart seriously then. “You were right. She says she's never gonna love the baby like she loves me. I told her you said so.”

“Good.”

“She said I'd always be special.” And then he brought tears to her eyes again with a gesture that hit her like a fist to the solar plexus. “I'm sorry about your little boy,” he said as he kissed her.

“Me too,” she said, as her eyes filled with tears and her lips trembled, and Hartley watched her. “I still love him very, very much,” she said, barely able to speak. “He's still very special.”

“Can you see him sometimes?” he asked, puzzled by death. They were the kind of questions Todd would have asked her at his age, and she would have tried to answer, but she was honest with him.

“No, I can't. Not anymore. Just in my heart. I see him there all the time. And in pictures.”

“What's his name?”

“Todd.” Benjie nodded, as though that were sufficient introduction. And then a little while later he got off her lap and went to look at the horses, and then back up to their cabin to his mother. He seemed satisfied with his visit, and then Mary Stuart and Tanya and the others went out with Gordon. Hartley was looking at Mary Stuart, and she smiled. Dealing with Benjamin was still painful. He was so direct with her, but maybe it was healthy for her. It certainly wasn't easy, and Hartley gave her a quick squeeze before she got on her horse and told her she was terrific.

“I don't know what I ever did to get so lucky,” she answered.

“Clean living,” he teased her. And they had a nice ride that morning. Zoe was looking tired, so she took it easy, and the doctors had gone for a rafting trip in Yellowstone, so she rode along with Hartley and Mary Stuart. And Gordon and Tanya rode on ahead, and he invited her to the rodeo that night. He was in it.

“Are you kidding? What events do you ride in?”

He looked sheepish for a minute. “Bulls and broncs. I've done it since Texas.”

“Are you crazy?” She'd been to those rodeos as a kid. The guys got stomped on and dragged around, half of them were brain damaged before they were thirty, the others had so many broken bones, they walked like old men even though they were in their twenties. “That is a really dumb thing to do,” she said, looking angry. “You're a smart guy, why risk your life for a couple of hundred dollars, or a silver buckle?” He had ten of them at home, but so what, if he wound up crippled?

“They're just like your platinum records,” he said quietly, not surprised at her reaction. His mother said the same thing, and so did his sisters. Women just didn't get it. “Like what you have to go through to get a gold record, or an Oscar. Look at the torture they put you through, rehearsals, threats, bad managers, tabloids. It's a lot easier riding a bronc for ninety seconds.”

“Yeah, but I don't get dragged around on my head in horse shit until I'm brain dead. Gordon, I disapprove of this,” she said sternly, and he looked disappointed. Maybe she was a big-city girl after all, and not a Texan.

“Does that mean you won't come tonight?” He looked crushed, and she shook her head, but she was smiling.

“Of course I will. But I still think you're crazy.” He grinned at her then and lit a cigarette. “What are you riding tonight?”