The Wrangler’s Christmas Gift (The Malones of Grand, Montana #4)

Chapter Twenty-Two

C olt sat at the back of the room, watching the rehearsal events. It was pretty miraculous, how much they’d accomplished in a few short weeks. He was creating a short time-lapse movie to surprise Kendall with before he left, as a way of making up for the intrusion of himself and his camera. But her welcome into their hodgepodge family had allowed him to hope that he’d gone from uninvited guest to one more name on that list.

The place had been transformed. Potted cedar trees flanked the tall windows; sculpted mini boxwoods stood along the aisle. Pine boughs, holly and mistletoe were draped with cranberry-colored fabric over wrought-iron supports, lending a fresh green scent to the air and making the already-elegant room into an indoor winter wonderland.

Just as miraculous was how quickly Kendall and Brade had pivoted in response to the various upheavals leading up to the big day. Kendall had agreed to let Doug Andrews sit in the front row with Coralee and Ashley and Jason. Colt had a few still shots of Kendall speaking with her parents and it was clear that she was the one in charge. Love had given her strength not just to set boundaries, it seemed, but to be kind in doing it.

Diana looked different today, too. The hard-eyed brittleness had melted into something softer, and when she looked at Hetty or spoke with her, her face shone.

As for Lucas and Bayleigh, everyone was offering prayers of gratitude for the safe arrival of their daughter. According to Brade, being down one groomsman didn’t matter next to being up one healthy niece.

And then there was Father Patrick.

Or JP Malone.

That was the biggest pivot of all. Brade had requested his birth father accompany him down the aisle, along with Hetty, rather than conduct the wedding ceremony.

Brade, who had no family but those he’d discovered in Grand, wanted both his newfound parents to celebrate him as a son, nothing else. Besides, he wanted someone holding on to Hetty in case she decided to swoon again.

As far as finding an officiant at such late notice, Father Patrick himself had found an alternative.

Colt crossed his arms and slid down in the seat, letting his long legs rest beneath the chair in front of him as the newly appointed officiant walked into the room: their festival nemesis, school secretary, book club czar, town busybody and apparently ordained via the internet to conduct weddings in the state of Montana—who knew?—Sue Anne Nylund.

“Well, well, well,” Sue Anne said, shucking off her coat and smiling broadly at the roomful of people. “This is going to be such fun!”

He wanted to go home. All this effort and expense for a happily-ever-after crapshoot.

“Hey. Not a fan of weddings, I’m guessing?”

Colt looked up as a man sat in the chair next to him.

Sawyer Lafferty, who’d been a great help with the festival nativity scene, had been busy lately taking care of Piper, who was sick with a cold, and Leila, who was trying not to catch it herself.

“Hey, Sawyer. Just tired, like everyone. How’s Leila?”

“Freaked out. Bayleigh’s due date was a week after ours.”

“Scary stuff.”

“Truth, brother.” He tipped his chin toward the group up front. “They’re rolling with everything like champs, though.”

“Good start,” Colt said, hoping his neutral tone made up for whatever expression Sawyer had glimpsed earlier.

“After the year they’ve had,” Sawyer said, “they can get through anything.”

“Here’s hoping.”

Sawyer turned in his chair and the look on his face made Colt lean away.

“You don’t really know them,” Sawyer said. “And yeah, the odds of any relationship lasting a lifetime are pretty much fifty-fifty. I’m walking evidence of that. But when people have gone through a lot already, when they’ve proven their loyalty, their willingness to change and grow, they don’t fit that population anymore. They’re outliers. My first marriage was a mistake. My second was not. Leila and I have our share of challenges but we’re sticking together. We’re it, for each other. Kendall and Brade are outliers, too. I’ve seen them together. You haven’t. This isn’t an impulse thing. This is for life.”

Colt held up his hands. “All right, all right. Happy ending for everyone. Glad to hear it.”

Why wouldn’t he be glad for someone else’s happiness? Just because it didn’t work out for him—or his mom or Em’s mom or Hetty or anyone he knew, really—didn’t mean it shouldn’t work out for others, right?

Sawyer lifted his eyebrows. “Some brides would be losing their shit about everything that’s happened in the last few weeks but look at Kendall. She couldn’t care less.” He shook his head. “From what I hear, this is a big deal. People change, Colt. Look around you. If the lost Malones of Grand, Montana, can find their way back to each other, then anything’s possible.”

A whistle sounded at the front of the room as Kendall got everyone’s attention.

“Places, everyone,” she shouted.

“That’s my cue.” Sawyer got up, clapped him on the back, and took his place next to Brade. At Kendall’s side were her sister Ashley, Diana and Emmet. Hetty stood on one side, her hands folded in front of her face, looking up at the wedding party with a wobbly smile.

Colt crossed his arms and hunkered down farther in his seat. He wanted to grab Festus and head back to LA.

Em stood up there as if Kendall was one of her best friends forever, as if she and Diana hadn’t spent the past month scrabbling for territory in Hetty’s heart.

Hetty Malone was throwing herself into her newly rediscovered role of mother-of-four, but it was her fifth child, her third daughter, the one who knew her best, who was the most at risk of having her heart broken. How could you compete with biological children?

You couldn’t.

Em had bought into the story Hetty was creating, that they were all one big happy family, but Colt feared she was headed for disappointment.

Yet as he watched the people standing up front, going over their words, where they’d stand, he saw an easiness among them, the way they touched each other’s arms casually, leaned against one another in laughter, made suggestions, took advice. These people were more than friends. They were, as Sawyer Lafferty said, outliers. Whether bound by blood or law or love, they were in each other’s lives forever.

Maybe that made the difference. He and Tammy had been doomed from the start—he knew that now. They’d been friends, he, Tammy and Em, all sheltering under Hetty’s wide wings, until even those weren’t enough for Tammy. If only she’d been willing to tell someone other than him what she’d been going through. Hetty would have helped. Em would have understood. But Tammy refused and things got worse. She’d needed saving and he’d tried to save her. It had seemed romantic at the time, but what did he know of romance? What did either of them know about love?

Tammy was okay now. She had moved to Maui and was living in a tiny house on wheels that doubled as a roadside fruit stand. According to social media, she and her partner were homeschooling their little boy, mostly on the beach. She’d found what she needed.

Nobody gets through life alone. No man is an island, as the poets said.

He wanted what the group up front had. He wanted to be inside a circle like that.

But he was an outsider and didn’t know how to change that.

*

Heather saw that Colt was having a hard time being here. She read it in every line of his body, from the tightness in his jaw, to his fists jammed across his chest. Yet he stayed. For her? For the pictures?

She knew he could turn her story into a documentary that networks would pant after. Perhaps he still would. She’d always known that. Maybe they’d make it happen, once this was all over and they’d adjusted. But what did adjustment mean to Colt? Would he go back to LA and once more let them drift out of his life? He was lonely—she knew that in the marrow of her bones. He’d always been lonely. But he didn’t need to be. She was here.

Em was here.

And there was something between those two. She felt it. But the wariness of childhood hung heavy over them both. Em didn’t forgive easily and Colt, loyal to a fault, would rather suffer in silence than betray a confidence. Em didn’t believe this about him, but Heather knew it.

The week after that conference, when he’d left their cats at home without water or food, she’d done some digging. She’d been suspicious that Tammy’s home life was worse than the girl let on but she felt she had to respect her privacy.

That had been a mistake. Was it still a mistake? Didn’t Em deserve the truth?

“Hetty?” Em said. “You’re supposed to sit down now.”

“Oh!” she said with a laugh. “Sorry, everyone, I’m wool-gathering.”

Em gave her an odd look, then looked across the room at Colt. “Is he sending up bad energy? Colt,” she called. “Happy thoughts for the happy couple, okay?”

Colt got to his feet and strode out of the room without pausing to get his jacket.

A gust of cold air wafted into the room behind him.

Kendall and Brade exchanged a look.

“It’s my fault,” Sawyer said. “This is bringing up some bad memories. I told him to shake it off.”

Oh, Colt.

“I’ll talk to him,” Heather said.

“No,” Em said. “He can freeze his ass off if he wants, but you just got out of the hospital.”

“I wasn’t—” Heather began.

“Don’t even bother,” Em interrupted, holding her hand up, palm out. “He doesn’t get to feel sorry for himself at someone else’s wedding, just because he screwed up his own life.”

Ashley sent a dark look toward Kendall’s father. “Sing it, sister.”

“Maybe he could take Lucas’s place as groomsman,” Brade suggested.

“Yes!” Kendall said. “Great idea!”

“Seriously?” Em said. “You’re going to gather all Hetty’s strays and give them a place in the wedding party?”

“He’s not a stray,” Kendall protested. “Neither are you.”

Em waved her off. “You guys have been great about welcoming me into the family, but you don’t need to worry about Colt. He’ll be fine. If there’s one thing he knows, it’s how to look after himself.”

Nevertheless, Em went after him. Heather watched her jog out of the room and her heart flooded with a mixture of pride and pain. This girl, who’d been through so much, was such a powerhouse. Blind, sometimes, flailing and undirected at times, but so willing to stand up for what she believed in. Jolene would be so proud of her.

Colt had reasons for being who he was and if he wasn’t ready to speak his truth yet, then that was his problem. He hadn’t gotten up one morning deciding to be an asshole. Assholery had been bequeathed to him by one bad card after another. Even if Em didn’t have patience, Heather would wait. She’d been waiting, after all.

If only she’d been able to have him with her for longer. Maybe, like Em, he could have found what he’d needed.

Unless…was there still a chance?

All those photos he’d taken, for her. That he could have used, for himself. The story, her story…

Maybe if Tammy had known Heather’s story, she’d have trusted her. Maybe the events that had blown apart a wonderful friendship between three vulnerable young people would never have occurred. Colt and Tammy wouldn’t have leaped into a bad marriage. Em wouldn’t have been betrayed by her two best friends.

Maybe Heather ought to have shared her story.

She couldn’t change the past, but maybe if she let her story out to a wider audience, as Colt suggested, with the vast material he’d gathered, maybe someone else could find the strength to overcome their own demons, to make better choices.

Control the narrative, Colt advised her. Well, who better to show her how?

*

Em found Colt in the parking lot, chasing Festus around the snowy yard.

“You left your dog in the truck all this time?” she said.

He gave her a look. “It was one hour. It was that or leave him in the cabin for longer. He’s got a lot of coat, Em, but if you want to be mad at me for one more thing, go ahead. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

She shoved her arms into her jacket, already freezing. Didn’t matter? Why did he sound so defeated?

“Are you leaving?” she asked, surprising herself.

“I might as well. I’ve spent time with Hetty. I got the images she wanted. Christmas is over. The wedding doesn’t involve me and there’s plenty of drama here already without me adding to it.”

She hugged her arms. He was going to leave. They’d sorted out nothing about their relationship, whatever it was. He’d go back to Los Angeles, continue his life as a wrangler or filmmaker or location scout. She’d go back to Chinook and continue her life raging against the patriarchy. Or compiling data sets and marking essay questions for students who just wanted to be free for some weekend party.

Suddenly she was so tired.

“Why, Colt?” she asked, her voice quiet.

“Why what, Em?” He let his arms drop to his sides, as if in surrender. “What do you want to know? I’ve tried to be a good guy here, but you don’t trust me. I don’t know what to do to convince you that I’m not…whatever you think I am.”

“Why did you come here?”

He knelt down, gathered a handful of snow and tossed it for Festus, who ran after it with enormous joy.

“Hetty asked me.”

“Why the pictures?”

He shrugged. “I guess she wanted to, I don’t know, give me a job. She’s a kind woman. Kinder than she should be.”

His words echoed what Hetty had told her, that Colt wouldn’t feel comfortable here unless he had a role to play. Had Hetty been masterminding them all this whole time?

For what reason?

“You’re using her,” she said, desperate to goad him into something resembling truth. “This is catharsis, if not a commercial opportunity. Tell me I’m wrong.”

He shrugged. “Two things can be true, Em.”

“Really?” A snowflake landed on her cheek and she dashed it away. “Like you helping Father Patrick with the animals, even though you can’t be trusted to house-sit three cats.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned away. “You’ll never let that go, will you?”

“How can I? Colt, maybe it’s a tiny thing in the grand scope of life, but you knew what it meant that Hetty trusted you that weekend. You knew what Jasper—” She broke off and looked away.

Suddenly Colt was in front of her. He gripped her jacket with both hands and stared down into her face, so close she could see the lines around his eyes. “Is that it?” he demanded. “Is that the thing you’ve been holding against me all this time? Or is it that I married your best friend?”

“You didn’t just marry her, Colt.” She looked away, unable to stand the intensity of his gaze. “You…you cut me out. We were three friends, together, until suddenly you didn’t need little Em anymore.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Then what was it like? Tell me!”

He dropped her jacket and stepped back, breathing hard.

“Tammy didn’t want you to know, Em.”

“Know what?” Her pulse was racing. “That she got tired of me? That she wanted you to herself? That you were too busy banging your girlfriend to meet your obligations to Hetty that weekend?”

“I wasn’t ‘banging Tammy,’” he burst out. “I was on my way to Hetty’s house when she called me. I planned to deal with her and then spend the rest of the weekend with the cats.”

He broke off and turned away.

“And?” she said. “You dealt with her? And then what?”

He shook his head. “I promised her I’d never tell anyone.”

Em threw her hands up in front of her. “Fine. Don’t explain. It’s so much easier that way, isn’t it? We get to be angry with each other and nobody has to ever admit to being hurt.”

He hung his head. “I know I hurt you and, Em…I’m so, so sorry.”

“You hurt Hetty, too, but for some reason, she’s let you off the hook for that. Wait.” The truth hit her in the face. “Whatever it is, she knows, doesn’t she? You told her.”

Tears tightened her throat. Colt, Tammy and now Hetty had all been in on whatever it was, but nobody wanted to tell poor little Em.

“She figured it out, Em. I didn’t tell her.”

When he lifted his face, she saw anguish in his eyes.

He hesitated, then took a deep breath. “Tammy was pregnant, Em.”

Once, Tammy had been the sister Em had always wanted. She was funny, fearless, smart. She had the tight posture and hard eyes of someone who’d had to grow up too fast, but she knew how to ignore the mean girls at school and taught Em to do the same. Tammy knew about Mako, how she and Jolene had run, how he’d found them. That awful night when he’d broken into the house. Em realized now that Tammy had never said much about her own life, only that she couldn’t wait to be on her own.

But she got along with Colt, too, and not once had Em picked up vibes of anything more than friendship. For a while, they’d been a small, tight pack, no jostling for position, no favorites. Tammy recognized that Em and Colt had a deeper history, that they were…connected by it. It hadn’t bothered her. The three of them were best friends forever.

Then Tammy began drifting away. And Colt followed.

A flash of something white hot and ugly shot through her.

“Pregnant,” she said. “I knew it.”

Colt’s eyes widened. “Not by me, Em. God.” He grimaced. “We weren’t…we didn’t…she was just a friend.”

“If you say so.” Tears prickled the backs of her eyes. He’d married her later on, hadn’t he? Em and Hetty had found out on Facebook. What did that say?

“Aw, Em, come on. It wasn’t like that.”

“Anyway.” She gave her head a brisk shake. “What does that have to do with what happened that weekend?”

“Tammy had a…” Colt began, looking away. “Her mom wasn’t…”

“What, Colt? Why couldn’t you let Tammy’s baby daddy look after her? What was so important about being with her that weekend that you—” Em stopped, her throat closed shut.

She would never forget the look on Jolene’s pale face when she’d handed tiny Jasper to her, a bright blue bow around his fluffy neck. How thin and weak she’d been. Em had known then, without having the words for it, that her mother wouldn’t be around much longer, that this was her way of giving Em something to love for after she was gone.

“Jasper needed you,” she whispered. “Hetty’s cats needed you.”

I needed you.

“I know, Em, and I’m so sorry. But Tammy needed me more.” Colt looked off to the horizon. “Her mom kicked her out. Her mother’s boyfriend was the father of her baby.”

*

Tammy would forgive Colt for telling her story, he hoped.

She’d understand. She knew how much Em and Hetty had meant to him.

“Oh, no,” Em whispered, her hand against her mouth.

Rather than face the fact that her latest boyfriend was a sexual predator, Tammy’s mother had thrown her out of the house, called her horrible names, disowned her.

For weeks, Tammy had kept it to herself, gone from friend to friend, and couch to couch, but before she could process what had happened to her and how she would face it, the decision was made for her.

“She called me when I was on my way to Hetty’s place,” he said, shuddering at the memory. “Crying, just losing it. When I found her, she was in her car, bleeding. No health insurance, no money, no partner. She was a kid, Em.”

“Desperate.” Em’s face was ashen in the moonlight. “Like Hetty, all those years ago.”

“Worse.” Bitterness filled his mouth. “She didn’t even have love to hope for. Em, I had to fight to get her to the hospital. She was losing the pregnancy, a child she wouldn’t have been able to care for, a child she hadn’t asked for, from a man who’d been horrible to her, and yet she wanted it.”

He shook his head. Tammy had been so starved of love that this baby had been her hope of a new start, a new life. It would never have worked, of course. He only had to look at his own mother to see how that worked out. Yet, Tammy had fought him tooth and nail, screaming and crying.

When they’d gotten to the emergency room, he’d stayed with her. Her own life force, it seemed, had leaked out along with the child that was never meant to be. They’d given her a D&C to stop the bleeding, and she’d needed a transfusion. All weekend, Colt had let them think he was the young, clueless boyfriend, preferring to take their tight-lipped judgment, rather than have Tammy face the humiliation of the truth.

“You should have helped Tammy bring the bastard to justice,” Em said. But her tone was soft now.

“Yeah, but she wouldn’t let me tell anyone. Nobody. Not even Hetty.” He winced. “Oh, Em, I couldn’t leave her, not even for Bruiser and Rosie. Even for Jasper. I knew they’d survive. But I wasn’t sure she would.”

He’d done the best he could, for a friend. And it had cost him another friend.

“I couldn’t leave her. She was so broken. She had nobody and I didn’t know what else to do. So, yeah, we went to Vegas and got married. I had to take care of her somehow. She had no one else. It was a mistake. I knew it almost right away. It took her a little longer.” He hazarded a look into her eyes. “I hoped you’d forgive me, in time. I’m so sorry, Em. I’m so sorry.”

She reached for him and they clung together, two lost souls mourning the past, and perhaps, if they were lucky, creating a chance to overcome it, finally.