Yellowstone: Love and Cowboys

Jamie Junior and the Rest

I feel sorry for Jamie, I don't think he's the villain. 

They argued over who would pay the tab but Jamie insisted and would not hear of splitting. "Then I leave the tip," Coralee said and that was the only concession Jamie would agree to.

They drove back to the capitol building so she could pick up her truck and follow him to his house. She wondered how hard it would be to find her way as she trailed him as they navigated the unfamiliar streets.

Jamie's house was older but had a big, well-kept yard. It didn't look like the house of a bachelor but of someone who had a family or was planning to have one.

Inside it looked like the typical bachelor's house, with a lot of leather furniture. Why are men so fond of leather furniture, she asked herself. She didn't know if it suited the cousin she knew, but maybe the furniture that had come with the house. Jamie was busy, and maybe would not have the time to pick out furniture, and as far as she knew he didn't have a girlfriend to help him.

She liked the fireplace; it was old-fashioned red brick with what looked to be a hand-carved mahogany mantle. A few pictures were sitting on it, the largest was of a young boy, less than a year old with red hair. She walked over to get a better look, "Jamie, who is this?" she asked.

He came and removed it gently from her hand and replaced it. "That's my son, I thought I told you about him."

"Maybe you did, and I forgot. I'm especially forgetful these days, another pregnancy symptom. The more pregnant women I talk to, the weirder pregnancy-related things I discover. What's his name?"

"I named him after me, right now we call him 'little Jamie'."

"God, you men, why do you have to name your sons after you?" She smiled at him to let him know she was kidding. "It's so egotistical, at least you could give him a different name, so he'd have his own identity. If we had a boy, I'm sure Travis would want to name it after him. I think I may insist that this be our only child to avoid that." She paused and took a breath, "Tell me, does Uncle John know?"

Jamie shook his head.

"Well, does anyone besides me know?"

Jamie gave her a strange look, he had trouble making eye contact with her and suddenly she knew the worst.

"Oh god, Jamie, no. How did Beth find out?" she asked him.

"Well," he said slowly, "She wasn't supposed to. She'd gotten herself arrested for being in a bar brawl in Bozeman and had to spend the night in jail. She called me the next day and I had to drive to Bozeman and clean up her mess."

"God," Coralee said, "She's thirty-seven years old and still is depending on others to bail her out instead of taking responsibility for herself. I remember when Uncle John would call up Dad and tell him that Beth had gotten into some kind of trouble and ask him if he could get her out of it. Beth was lucky that she had an uncle who was an attorney, that saved Uncle John a lot of money."

"Well, this time it was up to me. I got the plaintiff to drop charges, reminding her that in Montana you can't claim self-defense in a bar fight. Beth wanted a ride back to the ranch. I didn't want to take her, I had things to do but I gave in like I always do.

"Like Uncle John expects you to," she prompted him, and he nodded.

"We started to head back to the ranch. She turned around, I don't remember why, and she saw the baby's car seat in the back and asked me if I had a kid. And asked me the sex and what I named it."

He sat down and put his head in his hands. "She started saying, 'God gave you a son? You had my baby and my uterus cut out of me and god gave you a son? I'm going to take him away from you, I don't care who I have to kill. She's also said that she's going to kill me, too. I'm scared, Coralee."