He brought the sweatshirt to his face and inhaled deeply, and wondered what his life would have been like if he’d made a different choice.
Chapter Four
In my wildest nightmares, I never would have thought I’d be stuck in a blizzard with Cody Ryan,” Stevie said as she picked up her bag and dug around in it, hoping that she had tucked in a candy bar, but all she located was a couple of pieces of peppermint that came in the sack with the last hamburger she got from Sonic.
When Cody came out of the bathroom wearing gray sweats and white socks, he asked, “Are you color-blind?”
“Just messin’ with you,” she said.
She turned away as if she didn’t want him to see her expression, but he thought he heard a catch in her voice.
“I’ve got another pair of sweats in the bag and they are pink if you’d rather have them,” she muttered.
“These are fine.” Cody hung his jeans, shirt, and a pair of boxer shorts on nails beside the door. “I just hope my jeans are dry by the time Jesse gets here. Thank goodness you’re tall so that the bottoms are long enough, but this sweatshirt is a little snug across my shoulders.”
She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. “You’ll survive until your clothes get dry. As warm as this room is, I don’t reckon it will take long.”
“I am grateful for a change of warm, dry clothing, so thank you. What’s really on your mind, Stevie? You look like you’re about to cry. Did I do something wrong?”
“No, not this time.” Stevie kept her back turned to him. She had worked so hard to keep up a brave front in front of him that she was determined not to cry.
“Is it time to talk about that big gray animal?” Cody asked.
“No, that’s not what…” Her voice quivered.
“You talk and I’ll make breakfast,” he said.
She flopped down on the sofa and stared out the window at the sheet of white still falling from the sky. “I’m in a tack room with no shower, no electricity, with a baby alpaca and a litter of kittens, and my mother keeps popping into my head with advice. I don’t want to just hear her, Cody. I want to be able to sit at the table with her, to see her smile at me, to hear her talk to her, tell her about my day…”
Cody stopped peeling potatoes and sat down beside her. “This will pass. It will stop snowing, and we’ll get rescued, and then you can spend time with your mother.”
“My mama died before…” She willed the tears welling up in her eyes not to fall down her cheeks. “Just before Mother’s Day.”
“I’m so sorry, Stevie. I didn’t know. Mama might have mentioned it when I called, but then Dad was taken to the hospital when his meds disagreed with him, and with all the excitement of Jesse and Addy getting married, the twins coming into our lives and…” he said, stumbling over his words.
Stevie pushed her curly red hair back behind her ears. “I understand, but I miss her so much.”
He scooted over closer to her and draped his arm around her shoulders. “I can’t even imagine how it would feel to not have my folks around. When we thought Dad had a stroke a few months ago, it scared me really bad. I was in London, getting ready for another assignment, and all I could think of was why wasn’t I home with him and Mama.”
“I gave up a partnership in a big vet firm in Tulsa, to move back here.” Stevie laid her head on his shoulder, glad for even that much human touch. “When I talked to her on the phone last spring, Mama said she wasn’t feeling so well. I started making arrangements to move at that time, but I didn’t know until I got here that she had terminal cancer. When I fussed at her, she said that she didn’t want to worry me, and she didn’t want me to change my life because of her.”
“I remember Ruth being a kind, sweet person. She and my mama were on that historical planning committee together, right?” Cody asked.
“She loved to volunteer both on city projects and at the hospital, just wherever she was needed, after she retired from teaching at the elementary school,” Stevie said.
“Have you talked to anyone about how you’re feeling?” Cody asked.
“What good is talking?” Stevie sighed. “It won’t bring her back. If she would have told me when she was first diagnosed, I could have been home six months before and spent more time with her.”
“No, it won’t bring her back, but talking to someone like a therapist might help you find some measure of closure,” Cody said.
“Maybe,” Stevie agreed. “Just talking to you has helped. I heard that Sonny had to be taken off that trial medication he was on. Is that why you came home?”
“I felt so helpless sitting there, waiting four hours before I could catch a plane, and that seemed like the longest trip I’ve ever taken,” Cody answered. “My heart was heavy, and I kept asking myself why in the hell I hadn’t just gone to ranching. Dad raised all us three, and not a one of us stayed on the ranch.”
“But he was and is so proud of all of you,” Stevie said.
“I know, but…” Cody sighed. “He was already out of the hospital when I got home, but it could have gone the other way. I understand how you feel, Stevie, and I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.” She managed a little bit of a smile.
“Tell me your earliest memory of your mother.” He removed his arm and went back to the stove.
“Only if you’ll tell me your first memory of Pearl.” Stevie missed the warmth of his arm lying softly around her shoulders. “But first I’m going to brush my teeth and put on fresh clothes.” She stood up and headed to the bathroom.
“How do you like your steak?”
“Medium rare.” She picked up her bag and closed the bathroom door behind her.
Once inside the tiny restroom, Stevie put the lid down on the toilet and then sat down. She leaned forward, covered her eyes with her hands, and let the tears come.
That’s enough! her mother scolded. Wash your face. Get cleaned up and go talk to Cody. You need this, Stevie.
“What I need is to be out of here and back to work,” Stevie argued, but she stood up, ran a basin of cold water, and wet a couple of paper towels. She shivered when she peeled out of her clothing but felt like a new woman when she had clean sweats on her body and her teeth brushed. She even took the time to get all the tangles out of her curly red hair and pull it up into a messy bun.
“Best I can do, Mama,” she said to her reflection in the tiny mirror above the sink.
You are beautiful. You are smart. I’m proud of you. Her mother had told her that so many times she couldn’t count them on both hands.
“Thanks, Mama,” she said, and managed a weak smile.
When she opened the door, the smell of sizzling steaks filled the air, and Cody was singing “Millionaire” and surprisingly enough his deep voice had almost as much grit in it as Chris Stapleton’s.
“What brought that song to mind?” she asked. “Is there a woman in your life that makes you a millionaire like the lyrics say?”
“Not yet, but I can always hope there’s one out there in the future that will make me feel like I’m rich in a way that doesn’t have a thing to do with dollar bills,” he answered. “When I was in the Doctors program, I couldn’t ask a woman to give up her life and follow me around in countries like I’ve been in, but now that I’m home, things are different.”