“Well, we don’t want to hurt him by bringing up old pain. I know just how that is.”
There was such a depth of sorrow to her mom’s voice, and Callie felt immediately... Uncomfortable. Wounded. She didn’t like that the subject of her sister always made her feel this way. But it did.
“Callie Patrice. Please pay attention to the frosting. You’re the only one who does this with me. And you know how much I like the cookies. If you’re just going to slap it on like a coat of paint...”
“Sorry,” Callie said.
But she couldn’t get away from the feeling that her mom had suddenly gotten irritated with her because she had imagined the daughter who should be here in her place. And what might’ve been. Her mom had never said anything like that to her. Not outside of her sixteenth birthday, and events surrounding it. And Callie had been...
She knew she’d hurt her mom. She did.
But she’d been hurt, too.
It had happened once. Only once. But the wound it had left behind had been so deep that it had never fully healed. Not between either of them. She knew her mom felt bad about it. She knew her mom regretted saying it.
She also knew that her mom believed it to be true.
And there was no amount of “I’m sorry” that could make it different.
But Callie couldn’t be sorry for the way she’d been born. And she couldn’t feel the same grief for someone who had died years before the fact, either. And it was one of those islands that stood between her and her mother, and kept them from really understanding each other. Kept them from connecting.
“Anyway,” Callie said, clearing her throat. “He’s a good guy.”
“I’m so pleased for you,” her mom said, clearly taking the olive branch, and deciding to restart. “I hope that you start a family soon.”
Guilt tensed her stomach and she knew she couldn’t let that go. She couldn’t go pretending she was on the verge of giving her mother grandchildren.
“Well, I’m not finished with the rodeo. And Jake doesn’t expect me to be. He was my friend for a long time. He understands how much it matters to me.”
“Oh, honey,” her mom said. “But his expectations will change now that you’re his wife. If he’s traditional like you said, then he’s going to want you at home taking care of him. And you can be angry at me all you want for forcing you to learn to cook things, but I know that’s what he’s going to like. You’ll get to give him the kind of family life he didn’t have.”
“Oh, I... Mom...”
“You can’t honestly think that you’re going to keep riding when you have a husband at home. I know he’s not in the rodeo anymore.”
“Well now, he’s got his ranch, but we don’t mind spending a little bit of time apart.”
“That’s just not responsible,” her mom said. “You have to be there for your husband. Your marriage is more important than riding horses.”
“No,” Callie said. “Riding horses has always been important to me.”
“Callie, you have a husband.”
“And if... If Boone gets a wife, does he have to quit?”
“It’s different,” her mom said. “It’s different, and I think you know that.”
“It’s different,” Callie echoed. “It’ll just always be different for me, won’t it? You’re never going to be proud of what I do.”
“Callie, what you do is nice, but it’s not—”
“They all make their careers out of the rodeo. And nobody questions it. It’s all fine and dandy when it’s them. I thought that at least when Jake and I were married, and you knew that he didn’t mind... Well, I figured you would see that it’s a valid thing to want. That I’m serious.”
“I believe that you’re serious,” her mom said. “I just also believe that I have more of an understanding of what’s really important in a woman’s life.”
Frustration filled Callie, and she let her frosting knife clatter onto the counter, uncaring about the mess it made.
She felt sixteen again. Sixteen and opening a box with a necklace in it, rather than the hunting knife she’d wanted. That she’d been expecting. That all her brothers had gotten.
She’d realized then. That it didn’t matter what she did. That it was all playing to her mom. That she just needed to grow up and be a woman the way she recognized it.
She hadn’t shown her disappointment, not then.
It was what had happened after that that had caused problems, and Callie could regret those, and still be angry at the situation.
“It’s not fair,” she said.
“You know what isn’t fair?” her mom asked. “I want just a little bit of time a year with you, where we do the kinds of things that I want to do. Not just sitting in a dusty arena watching you ride. I want you to frost cookies with me for an afternoon and not have a fight. Can you do that?”
Callie was stricken. Because this was the closest they’d come to that kind of fight they’d had all those years ago. To her mom outright saying she just didn’t like the way that Callie was. The way that she’d turned out.
Totally different to how Sophie would have been, she was sure.
And her mom didn’t have to say that for Callie to know it.
“Fine,” she said, picking the knife up from the counter. She ran her finger through the frosting, wiping it off the granite, and then she lifted it to her lips and licked it right off. “Let’s frost some damn cookies.”
* * *
GOING UP IN the hills with his father-in-law, his brothers-in-law and weapons was something that Jake hadn’t fully thought through. And they all looked at him with a kind of keen interest when the targets were set up and they were all in position. They had driven all the way up to the snow, the white-capped mountains around them majestic, and the sheer cliffs steep, so if they wanted to dispatch him and get rid of his body handily, he could see multiple ways for that to happen.
“Frankly,” Boone said, slinging his gun down from his shoulder. “I’m surprised that somebody was able to tame her.”
Jake chuckled. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”
“It’s a damn good thing,” her father, Abe, said.
“What is?” Jake responded.
“Callie having something, someone, in her life other than the rodeo. Poor girl feels a little put upon, I know, but there’s a limit to how far women tend to go.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure I did her any favors. I indulged her for too long.”