Will put the glass down on the bar and walked to the window, gazing out at a dust devil whirling across the yard. “Whole damned ranch is blowing away,” he muttered.
“So how long ago did Beau leave?” Rose asked.
“Three years. We had a blowup that ended everything. He announced that he had an offer to take his old job back at a higher level and salary. I told him it wasn’t fair for him to own half the ranch while I did all the work to run it. He pretty much told me that I could take the ranch and go to hell. He wanted nothing more to do with it, or me.
“As things got even nastier, it became clear that the only way to settle things was for me to get a loan and buy out his share. I didn’t want to do it, Rose. I knew it would be a hardship, and tha
t it would put the ranch at risk. But Beau wouldn’t back down. When he signed over the deed and I handed him that big check, I told him I wouldn’t care if I never saw him again. And I didn’t see him—until today.”
“I take it you called him about Jasper.”
Will nodded. “It was hard. I almost asked Erin to do it. But I figured that would be the coward’s way out. And I knew he loved Jasper. We all did.”
“At least the ranch is all yours,” Rose said.
“Only if I can hang on to it. When I took out that mortgage, the ranch was in good shape. We’d had plenty of rain, plenty of graze, and beef prices were up. Even then it wasn’t easy to come up with the payments on the loan. But now . . .” Will’s shoulders sagged. “We haven’t had a decent rain in a year. The whole damn county is blowing away. And with everybody selling off their cattle early, the prices are down.”
Will stared out the window for the space of a long breath. “The way things are going, I won’t have enough cash to pay the bank this fall.”
“Beau’s got money. Can’t he help you out?” Rose asked.
Will shook his head. “The money he got for the ranch is tied up in his house and in the clinic he built for his wife’s practice. Even if I thought he might help, I’d rather cut off my arm than ask him. That would mean reneging on the deal we made, something I’ve never done in my life.”
“What about Erin? Does she know?”
“Not yet,” Will said. “I’m still waiting for the right time to tell her. She needs to be prepared, but it’ll break her heart. Chances are, unless some miracle happens, we’re going to lose the Rimrock.”
* * *
Jasper had never been a churchgoing man. But with a crowd expected and no way to hold a funeral outdoors in the dust and heat, the local community church was the only option.
Erin, in the blue dress she’d bought for her high school graduation, sat in the front pew between Will and Beau. She could sense the cold resentment flowing between the brothers, making her feel like some sort of safety barricade, placed there to protect them from sniping at each other.
Her mother’s funeral was painfully fresh in her mind, as it would surely be in Will’s. Erin remembered the service in the same church, the spring bluebonnets on her mother’s casket. She remembered sitting exactly where she was sitting now, clasping her father’s hand until her knuckles ached. Beau and his family had been in Europe at the time, so they hadn’t been here. In Will’s book, Beau’s absence had been just one more strike against his brother.
Beau’s wife and daughter filled out the pew on his right. April, a sweet, sunny six-year-old, looked like a miniature of her dark-haired mother. She sat with her hands folded in her lap like the little lady she was. Rose occupied the spot on Will’s left, with Sky, his wife Lauren, and their three lively youngsters taking up the pew behind them.
The rest of the seats were filled with friends, neighbors, and cowhands who had worked with Jasper. Glancing back, Erin caught sight of Kyle, sitting with his mother. She forced herself to put him out of her mind. Today wasn’t about him or their relationship. Today was about honoring the end of a life.
Jasper’s casket, a plain pine box adorned with an arrangement of wildflowers, golden chamisa, and sage, spoke of the man who lay inside—honest, brave, wise, funny, and kind to the bone. The pallbearers—Will, Beau, Sky, and three long-time ranch hands—had carried the casket into the church. Now it sat on its stand in front of Erin, so close that she could have reached out and touched it. Jasper had always been there for her, to offer support and unconditional love. It was still sinking in that the man who’d been a vital part of her whole life was gone.
Now, with so many decisions to make and challenges to face, she needed his salty wisdom. What would he say to her about Kyle if he were here? What would he advise her about getting married? But she would never know the answer to those questions. She would never hear Jasper’s voice again.
* * *
The service was mercifully short. When it was over, Rose walked with Will and Erin to the car for the drive back to the Rimrock. There, a feast of donated casseroles, salads, breads, and desserts would be laid out on the buffet table in the great room for folks who’d come to pay their respects to Jasper’s ranch family.
As she waited for Will to climb into the car, she watched people coming out of the church to their vehicles. Not far away, Sky Fletcher was loading his attractive family into their SUV. Rose had yet to be introduced to Sky, but she’d recognized him on sight. Half Comanche and half Bull Tyler, with sharp cheekbones and riveting blue eyes, the foreman of the Rimrock was unmistakable. His wife was, as Will had described her, a stunning woman. Tall and willowy, with cinnamon hair and a model’s elegant carriage, she was busy strapping her three young children into the backseat of the vehicle. It was hard to believe she was Garn Prescott’s daughter. Maybe they would get a chance to talk at the house.
As Will drove out of the parking lot and swung the car onto the main road out of town, Rose settled back against the seat.
Tomorrow she would make the long, sad drive with Will, Erin, and Sky to the church cemetery in the Hill Country. By the time they arrived, with the casket lovingly cushioned in the bed of Will’s truck, the sexton would have dug the grave in the spot Jasper had reserved for himself when he’d buried his sweetheart so many years ago. By the time they got back to the Rimrock, it would be dark.
And then what? Rose asked herself. She hadn’t booked a return flight to Wyoming because she hadn’t known how long she would be staying here. She still didn’t know. But something told her it might be a while. She still had the issue of her neglected property to resolve. But there was more.
Sitting with her in the cab of the truck were two people she’d come to care about—a troubled man and a young woman on the cusp of adult life. Both of them were grieving. Both of them were facing loss. Maybe she needed to be here for them, to lend her support and pass on what little wisdom she’d gained over the years.
Maybe this was where Jasper, her oldest and dearest friend, would have wanted her to be.