Big Sky Mountain(2)

Maggie, a pretty woman with short hair, gamine eyes and very nice clothes, finally chuckled and laid down her expensive fountain pen.

“You’re not getting a word of this, are you, Kendra?” she asked.

Kendra smiled and shook her head. “I’m sorry. From the moment I realized the house might be available, I’ve been fidgety.”

Maggie collected her handbag from a drawer of her desk. “Then let’s go and do the walk-through,” she said. “Then we’ll come back here and take another shot at running the numbers for Madison’s fund.”

“I’d like that,” Kendra said, feeling almost giddy.

“Follow me, then,” Maggie said, jangling her car keys.

The cottage had been freshly painted, Kendra noticed with a pang of sweet avarice, and so had the picket fence out front. The flower beds were in full bloom and the lawn, newly mown, smelled sweetly of cut grass.

It was so easy to imagine herself and Madison living here.

“I knew you were selling the mansion, of course,” Maggie said when they got out of their cars and met on the sidewalk in front of the colonial. “But I guess I thought you’d be in the market to buy a place, rather than rent.”

“I did plan on buying,” Kendra answered, letting her gaze wander over the sleeping-in-the-sunshine face of that perfect little house, “but I’m learning that it’s wise to be open to surprises.”

Maggie smiled and opened the creaky gate. “Isn’t that the truth?” she responded.





CHAPTER FOUR



WHEN HUTCH FINALLY caught up with Brylee, she was in her small but well-organized warehouse on the outskirts of Three Trees, helping to stack boxes as they were unloaded from the back of a delivery truck.

Clad in jeans, sneakers and a blue U of M pullover, she looked more like a teenager than a thirty-year-old woman with a successful business and a bad-luck wedding day to her credit. Her russet-brown hair hung down her back in a long, fairly tidy braid, and she hadn’t bothered with makeup.

She didn’t notice Hutch right away and he used those moments to gather his resolve, all the while wishing he felt something for Brylee—God knew, she was beautiful and she was sweet and she was smart. She was definitely wife and mother material—but she didn’t stir him down deep where it counted and that was a deal-breaker.

At last Brylee stilled, like a doe catching the scent of some threat on the wind, she turned her head his way and saw him standing just a few feet inside the roll-up doorway of the warehouse,

Her large eyes, bluish today because of the color of the shirt she was wearing, looked hollow as she took him in and he knew she was weighing her options—seriously considering walking away without deigning to speak, if not shooting him down where he stood or running him over with the first handy forklift.

Brylee had a temper and she could be as hardheaded as any statue, but she was no coward. She spoke sotto voce to the other workers, all female, all of whom were staring now, as though Hannibal Lector had just appeared in their midst, wearing the leather mask and holding a plate of fava beans, and then came slowly toward him.

Brylee ran a small but thriving party-planning company that sold home decor items and various gifts. She had a network of sales people that covered a five-state area, holding lucrative little gatherings in people’s homes, and operated a thriving online store, as well.

“Hello, Hutch,” she said, indicating her nearby office with a nod and leading the way.

He fell into step with her after muttering a gruff “hello” of his own.

The office was small and furnished in early army surplus. Brylee evidently reserved her creative capacities for choosing and photographing products, training her “independent home decor consultants” and coming up with innovative marketing strategies. Here, in this little room off the warehouse, she handled the practical end of things.

“I wondered when you’d show up,” she said once they were inside her enclave with the door closed against listening ears.

“I wanted to come and see you right after the—well, after—but I was persuaded that it wouldn’t be a good idea,” Hutch replied. He stood with his back to the door, while Brylee perched on the edge of her beat-up steel desk, with her arms folded and her head tipped to one side in skeptical anticipation.

“I could have spared you the trouble of paying a visit,” Brylee replied quietly. She looked strained, exhausted, a little pale, but pride flashed in her changeable hazel eyes and stiffened her generous mouth. “I don’t have anything to say to you, Hutch. Nothing I’d want written in the Book of Life, anyway.”

“Well,” he drawled, after stifling a wry chuckle, “it just so happens that I have something to say to you.”

Brylee arched one eyebrow and waited. She looked bored now, but wary, too. What, she might have been wondering, was this yahoo going to spring on her now?

Hutch shoved a hand through his hair. He’d left his hat in the truck, but otherwise he was dressed as usual in work clothes and boots. Whisper Creek Ranch practically ran itself these days, well-staffed and well-organized as it was, but he still felt the need to get up every morning before the sun rose and tend to the business of herding cattle, mending fences and all the rest.

Today he hadn’t been able to keep his mind on the routine, though, and it was a damn confusing situation, too. He thought about Kendra 24/7, but he’d been drawn to Brylee ever since that broken-road wedding that didn’t quite come off.

“I can’t say I’m sorry for what I did,” he said straightforwardly. “Going through with that ceremony would have been the mistake of a lifetime—for both of us.”

“Yes, you made that pretty clear,” Brylee answered, her tone terse. “Is that what you drove all the way from Whisper Creek to tell me?”

“No,” Hutch said, standing his ground. “I came to say that you’ll find the right man, no matter what you think now, and when you do, you’ll be damn glad you didn’t marry me and wreck your chances to be happy.”

“Maybe I’m already ‘damn glad I didn’t marry you,’” Brylee reasoned tartly. “Did you ever consider that possibility?”

He grinned. “That one did occur to me, believe it or not,” he said. “I should have made you listen to me, Brylee, before things went as far as they did.”

“That was my grandmother’s dress I was wearing,” she said, after a short pause. “It had to be restored and altered and specially cleaned. I spent a fortune on the cake and the invitations and the flowers and all the rest. It’s going to take weeks, even with help from my friends, to send back all those wedding gifts.” Her shoulders moved in the ghost of a shrug. “But, hey, what the heck? You win some, you lose some. And besides, who needs six toaster ovens anyhow?”

Tears brimmed in her eyes and she looked away, fiercely dignified.

“Brylee,” Hutch said, not daring to touch her or even take a step in her direction. “I know you’re hurt. I’m sorry about that—sorrier than I’ve ever been about anything in my life. And I’m more than ready to reimburse you for any of the costs—”

“I don’t want your money!” she flared suddenly, looking straight at him now, with fire flashing behind the pride and sorrow in her eyes. “This was never about money—I have plenty of my own, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I know that, Brylee,” he said gently.

“Then what did you expect to accomplish by coming here?” She held up an index finger. “Wait, let me answer for you,” she added. “Your conscience is bothering you—what passes for a conscience with you—and you want me to say all is forgiven and we can be friends and go on as if nothing happened.” With that, Brylee slipped past him and jerked the office door open wide. “Well, you can just go to hell, Hutch Carmody, and take your lame apologies with you.” A sharp, indrawn breath. “Get out.”

“You might want to try listening to what’s really being said to you, Brylee, instead of just the parts you want to hear,” he told her calmly, not moving. “It would save a lot of wear and tear on you and everybody else.”

“Get. Out.” Brylee parsed the words out. “Now.”

He spread his hands in an “I give up” gesture and ambled past her, across the warehouse, which was as still as a mausoleum, and out through the doorway into the sunshine.

Walker Parrish, Brylee’s brother, had just driven up in a big, extended-cab pickup with his stock company logo painted on the doors. He raised rodeo stock on his ranch outside of Three Trees, where he and Brylee had grown up.

Hutch stopped. He frankly wasn’t in the mood for any more yammer and recrimination, but he wouldn’t have it said that he’d tucked his tail and run from Walker or anybody else.

“We-e-e-l-ll,” Walker said, dragging out the word. “If it isn’t the runaway bridegroom.”

Hutch wasn’t about to give an inch. “No autographs, please,” he retorted dryly. He wasn’t looking for a fight, but if Walker wanted one, he’d come to the right man.

Walker chuckled and shook his head. Hutch knew women found Brylee’s big brother attractive, with his lean but wide-shouldered build and his rugged features, but so far he’d managed to steer clear of marriage, which should have made him at least a little sympathetic to Hutch’s side of the story, and clearly hadn’t.

“I can’t imagine what you’re doing on my sister’s property right now,” Walker observed, his water-gray eyes narrowed as he studied Hutch.

Hutch took his time shaping a reply. “I felt a need to offer an apology,” he finally said, his tone level, even affable. “She wasn’t in the frame of mind to accept it.”

“I don’t reckon she would be,” Walker said. “Far as I’m concerned, Brylee always was half again too good for you, and in the long run you probably did her a favor by calling off the wedding. None of which means I wouldn’t like to smash your face in for putting her through all that.”

While Hutch privately agreed with much of what Walker had just said, he wasn’t inclined to explain his repeated attempts to put the brakes on before he and Brylee and half the town ended up in the church on that fateful Saturday afternoon. And he’d come to Three Trees to apologize to Brylee, not her brother.

“If you want a fight, Walker,” he said, “I’ll give you one.”

Walker appeared to consider the pros and cons of getting it on right there in the warehouse parking lot. In the end, though, he shook his head. “What goes around, comes around,” he finally said. “You’ll get what’s coming to you.” Then, as an apparent afterthought, he added, “You planning on entering the rodeo this year?”

“Don’t I always?” Hutch answered, mindful that Walker provided the bulls and broncos for such events all over the West, including the one in Parable. He was well-known for breeding almost unrideable critters.

Walker grinned. “Here’s hoping you draw the bull I have in mind for you,” he said. “He’s a real rib-stomper.”

“Bring him on,” Hutch replied, grinning back.

With that, the two men, having said their pieces, went their separate ways—Hutch heading for his truck, Walker going on into the warehouse.

Behind the wheel of his pickup, Hutch ground the key into the ignition.

He didn’t know what he’d expected of this first post-disaster encounter with Brylee, but he’d hoped they could at least begin the process of burying the hatchet.

After all, neither of them were going anywhere.

Parable and Three Trees were only thirty miles apart, and the two communities were closely linked. In other words, they’d see each other all the time.

He sighed and drove away. Maybe there was something to Brylee’s accusation that, in coming on this fool’s errand, he’d been more interested in soothing his own conscience than making any kind of amends, but at least he’d tried—again—to set things right, so they could at least be civil to each other.

He figured it was probably too soon and wondered if the anti-Hutch internet campaign would ramp up a notch or two, since several of the key players—Brylee’s friends and employees—had basically witnessed the confrontation.

These days everybody was an ace reporter.

“Well, cowboy man,” he muttered to himself, “you’re batting a thousand. Might as well go for broke.”

Reaching the highway, he rolled on toward Parable.

And Kendra.

* * *

MADISON WAS THRILLED with the new house when Kendra sprang the surprise on the little girl after picking her up at preschool that afternoon, and Daisy was thrilled with the spacious backyard.

The small colonial boasted two quite spacious bedrooms, plus a little cubicle Kendra planned to use as a home office, and two full baths. The kitchen was sunny, with plenty of cupboard space and a small pantry, and there was a large, old-fashioned brick fireplace in the living room. Closer inspection revealed small hooks in the wooden mantel for hanging Christmas stockings.

All in all, the place was perfect—except, of course, for being a rental and therefore impermanent. Kendra had asked Maggie about buying the house, but Maggie was understandably reluctant to sell. She said it would be like putting a price on her childhood, and she couldn’t do that.

“This is my room!” Madison exulted now, standing in the center of the space with window seats and built-in bookshelves and shiny plank floors worn to a warmly aged patina. The folding closet doors were louvered, and the overhead light fixture was small but ornate.

Daisy gave a single joyous bark, as though seconding Madison’s motion and making a claim of her own.

Kendra laughed. “Yes,” she said to both of them. “This is your room.”

“Am I going to have a bed?” Madison inquired matter-of-factly.

“Of course,” Kendra replied. “We’ll visit the furniture store over in Three Trees and you can pick it out yourself.”

The town of Three Trees was actually smaller than Parable by a couple of thousand people, but it boasted a large outlet mall that drew customers from all over that part of the state, along with a movie house, a large bookstore and a Main Street lined with shops.

“Can we go now?” Madison asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Kendra replied. Her gaze fell on Daisy. Shopping for furniture with a puppy in tow didn’t mesh.

The next question was inevitable, not to be forestalled. “Can Daisy come with us?” Madison wanted to know.

Sadly, Kendra shook her head. “That won’t work, sweetie. But she’ll be fine at the guesthouse, I promise.”

Madison mulled that over, then her face brightened again. “All right,” she said. “Daisy must be tired from playing with Lucy all day. She can take a nap while we’re gone.”

“Good thinking,” Kendra said, holding out a hand to her daughter. “Let’s get going.”

Daisy was remarkably cooperative when they got back to the guest cottage. She lapped up half the water in her bowl, munched on some kibble, went outside with Madison to take care of dog business and returned to settle on her soft bed in the kitchen, yawning big.

Kendra’s heart swelled into her throat as Madison crouched next to the puppy, patting its head gently and whispering, “Don’t be scared, okay? Because Mommy and I will be back before it gets dark.”

For the thousandth—if not millionth—time, Kendra wondered what life in that series of foster homes had been like for Madison. Had she felt safe, secure, loved?

According to the social workers, Madison’s care had been exceptional—most foster parents were decent, dedicated people, generous enough to make room in their homes and their hearts for children in crisis.

Still, Madison had been passed around a lot, shuffled from one stand-in family to another. How could she not have been affected by so many changes in her short life?

Kendra was pondering all these things as she fastened the child into her booster seat in the backseat of the Volvo, and then as she slipped behind the wheel and started the engine. “I’m not going anywhere, you know,” she felt compelled to say, making an effort to keep her voice light as they pulled out onto Rodeo Road.

She didn’t so much as glance at the mansion either as they passed it or in the rearview mirror; it might have been rendered invisible.

Maybe, as some scientists claimed, things didn’t actually exist until someone looked at them.

“Yes, you are too going somewhere,” Madison responded, after a few moments of thought. “You’re going to Three Trees so we can buy a bed!”

Kendra laughed, blinked a couple of times and focused her attention on the road, where it belonged. “That isn’t what I meant, silly.”

“My first mommy left,” Madison said, perhaps sensing that Kendra’s conversation was leading somewhere.

“Yes,” Kendra said gently. “I know.”

“But you won’t leave,” Madison said with reassuring conviction. “Because you like being a mommy.”

Kendra sniffled. Blinked again, hard. “I love being your mommy,” she replied. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, kiddo. Remember that, okay?”

“Okay,” Madison said, her tone almost breezy. “Some of the kids at preschool have daddies, not just mommies.”

The ache of emotion slipped from Kendra’s throat to settle into her heart. Part of the child’s remark echoed to the very center of her soul. Not just mommies.

“My daddy died,” Madison went on. It was an exchange they’d had before, but repeating the facts seemed to comfort the little girl somehow, to anchor her in a new and better present. “He’s in heaven.”

“Yes,” Kendra said, thick-voiced. She considered pulling over for a few moments, in order to pull herself together. “But he loved you very much. That’s why he sent me to find you.”

Thank you for that, Jeffrey. In spite of everything else, thank you for bringing Madison into my life.

The topic ricocheted with the speed of a bullet. “Is the cowboy man somebody’s daddy?”

The question pierced Kendra’s heart like an arrow. They were near the park, and she pulled over in the shade of a row of hundred-year-old maples, all dressed up in leafy green for summer, to regain her composure.

“I don’t think so,” she managed, after swallowing hard.

“I like the cowboy man,” Madison said. A short pause followed and when she spoke again she sounded puzzled. “Why are we stopping, Mommy?”

Kendra touched the back of her right hand to one cheek, then the other. “I just needed a moment,” she said.

“Are you crying?” Madison sounded worried now.

“Yes,” Kendra answered, because it was her policy never to lie to the child, if it could be avoided.

“Why?”

“Because I’m happy,” Kendra said. And that was the truth. She was happy and she was grateful. She had a great life.

Still, there was the daddy thing.

As a little girl, lonely and adrift, tolerated by her grandmother rather than loved, Kendra had longed for a father even more than she had for a dog or a kitten. She could still feel the ache of that singular yearning to be carried, laughing, on strong shoulders, to feel protected and cherished and totally safe.

She was all grown up now, perfectly capable of protecting and cherishing her daughter as well as looking after herself and a certain golden retriever puppy in the bargain. But could she be both mother and father to her little girl?

Was she, and the love she offered, enough?

“I don’t cry when I’m happy,” Madison said as Kendra pulled the car back out onto the road. “I laugh when I’m happy.”

“Makes sense,” Kendra conceded, laughing herself.

They drove on to Three Trees, parked in front of the furniture store and hastened inside, hand in hand.

And they found the perfect bed almost immediately—

it was twin-size, made of gleaming brass, with four high posts and a canopy frame on top. A dresser, a bureau and two night tables, all French provincial in style, completed the ensemble.

Kendra paid for their purchases—the pieces were to be delivered the next day, bright and early—and before they knew it, they were almost home again.

Madison, seemingly deep in thought for most of the drive, piped up as they pulled into the driveway. “Mommy, we forgot to buy a bed for you.”

“I already have one, honey,” Kendra responded, stopping the car alongside the guesthouse. She’d selected a few modest pieces from the mansion to take along to the new place. Most of the furniture in the main house was too big and too fancy for the simple colonial. There was a queen-size bed in one of the guest rooms that would work, a floral couch in the study, and they could use the table and chairs from Opal’s old apartment.

Kendra wanted to leave room for some new things, too.

She parked the car and turned Madison loose, and they raced each other to the guest cottage, where Daisy met them at the door, barking a happy greeting.

Kendra set aside her purse, washed her hands, and searched the cottage fridge for the makings of an evening meal. She was chopping the vegetables for a salad, to which she would add leftover chicken breasts, also chopped, when she heard a vehicle coming up the driveway.

Peering out the kitchen window, she saw Hutch Carmody getting out of his truck.

Her stomach lurched and her heartbeat quickened as she hurriedly wiped her hands on a dish towel and went outside. Daisy and Madison, who had been playing in the kitchen moments before, rushed out to greet him.

Soon they were all over him.

He laughed at their antics and swung Madison off the ground and up onto his shoulders, where she clung, laughing, too.

The last of the afternoon sunlight caught in their hair—Hutch’s a butternut color, Madison’s like copper flames—and the dog circled them, barking her excitement.

Kendra couldn’t help being struck by the sight of the man and the little girl and the dog, looking so happy, so right.

She went outside.

“I was here earlier,” Hutch told her, easing Madison off his back and setting her on her feet, where she jumped, reaching up, wanting to be lifted up again. “You weren’t home.”

Kendra couldn’t speak for a moment, knowing, as she somehow did, that she might never get the image of the three of them together out of her head. It had been unspeakably beautiful, like some otherworldly vision of what family life could be.

“Hello?” Hutch teased, when she didn’t say anything, standing close to her now, his head tipped a little to one side, like his grin. All the while, Madison was trying to climb him like a bean pole and he finally swung her back onto his shoulders.

“Come in,” Kendra heard herself say, her voice all croaky and strange.

He nodded and followed her into the guest cottage, ducking so Madison wouldn’t bump her head on the door frame. This time when he put the child down, she seemed content just to hover nearby.

He accepted the chair Kendra offered him at the small dining table and the coffee she brought him—black, the way he liked it.

Funny, the things you didn’t forget about a person—mostly small and ordinary stuff, like coffee preferences and the way they always smelled of sun-dried cloth, even after a day spent hauling cattle out of mud holes or digging postholes.

Kendra gave herself a mental shake, sent a protesting Madison off to wash her hands and face before supper. Daisy, of course, tagged along with her small mistress, though she cast a few glances back at Hutch as she went.

“Join us for supper?” Kendra asked, hoping she sounded—well—neighborly.

Hutch shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said, offering no further explanation, which was like him.

Kendra could hear Madison in the bathroom, running water in the sink, splashing around, talking non-stop to Daisy about the new house and the new bed and whether or not they’d be allowed to watch a DVD that night before they had to go to bed.

“Why are you here?” she finally asked very quietly. And this time, it wasn’t a challenge. She was too tired for challenges, too wrung-out emotionally from the things Madison had said in the car.

Hutch sighed.

The distant splashing continued, as did the child-to-dog chatter.

“I’m not entirely sure,” he said at some length, taking Kendra aback a little.

She couldn’t remember one single instance in all the time she’d known Hutch Carmody when he hadn’t been completely sure of everything and everybody, especially himself.

“That’s helpful,” she said mildly.

Any moment now Madison would be back in the room, thereby curtailing anything but the most mundane conversation.

“Joslyn tells me there’s a cleanup day over at Pioneer Cemetery on Saturday,” he finally said, after casting about visibly for something to say. “There’ll be a town picnic afterward, like always, and, well, I was just wondering if you and Madison and Daisy might be interested in going along.” He paused, cleared his throat. “With me.”

Kendra was astounded, not so much by the invitation as by Hutch’s apparent nervousness. Was he afraid she’d say no?

Or was he afraid she’d say yes?

“Okay,” she agreed, as a compromise between the two extremes. She wanted, she realized, to see how he’d react.

Would he backpedal?

Instead he favored her with a dazzling grin, rose from his chair and passed her to set his coffee cup, still mostly full, in the sink. Their arms brushed and his nearness, the hard heat of his very masculine body, sent a jolt of sweet fire through her.

“Okay,” he said with affable finality.

Madison was back by then, holding up her clean hands for Kendra to see but obviously more interested in Hutch than in her mother.

“Very good,” Kendra said approvingly, and began moving briskly around the infinitesimal kitchen, setting out plates and silverware and glasses—which Madison promptly counted.

“Aren’t you hungry, cowboy man?” she asked Hutch when the tally was two places at the table, rather than three.

He looked down at Madison with such fondness that Kendra felt another pang of—something. “Can’t stay,” he said. “I have horses to look after and they like their supper served on time, just like people do.”

Madison’s eyes widened. “You have horses?” From her tone she might have asked, “You can walk on water?”

“Couldn’t very well call myself a cowboy if I didn’t have horses,” Hutch said reasonably.

Madison pondered that, then nodded in agreement. Her eyes widened. “Can I ride one of your horses sometime? Please?”

“That would definitely be your mother’s call,” Hutch told her. It was grown-up vernacular, but Madison understood and immediately turned an imploring face to Kendra.

“Maybe sometime,” Kendra said, because she couldn’t quite get to a flat-out no. Not with all that ingenuous hope beaming up at her.

Remarkably, that noncommittal answer seemed to satisfy Madison. She scrambled into her chair at the table and waited for supper to start.

“See you on Saturday,” Hutch said lightly.

And then he tousled Madison’s hair, nodded to Kendra and the dog, and left the house.

“Are we going to see the cowboy man on Saturday?” Madison asked eagerly. Once again, it struck Kendra that, for a four-year-old, the child didn’t miss much.

“Yes,” Kendra said, setting the salad bowl in the center of the table and then pouring milk for herself and Madison. Daisy curled up on her dog bed in the corner, rested her muzzle on her forepaws, and rolled her lively brown eyes from Madison to Kendra and back again. “The whole town gets together every year to spruce the place up for the rodeo and the carnival. Lots of people like to visit the Pioneer Cemetery while they’re here, and we like it to look presentable, so you and I and Hutch will be helping out there. After the work is done, there’s always a picnic, and games for the kids to play.”

“Games?” Madison was intrigued. “What kind of games?”

“Sack races.” Kendra smiled, remembering happy times. “Things like that. There are even prizes.”

“What’s a sack race?” Madison pursued, a little frown creasing the alabaster skin between her eyebrows.

Kendra explained about stepping into a feed sack, holding it at waist level and hopping toward the finish line. She didn’t mention the three-legged race, not wanting to describe that, too, but she smiled at the memory of herself and Joslyn tied together at the ankles and laughing hysterically when they lost their balance and tumbled into the venerable cemetery grass.

“And there are prizes?” Madison prompted.

Kendra nodded. “I won a doll once. She had a real camera hanging around her neck by a plastic strap. I still have her, somewhere.”

Madison’s eyes were huge. “Wow,” she said. “There were cameras when you were a little girl?”

Kendra laughed. “Yes,” she replied, “there were cameras. There were cars, too, and airplanes and even TVs.”

Madison pondered all this, the turning gears in her little brain practically visible behind her forehead. “Wow,” she repeated in awe.

After supper, Madison had her bath and put on her pajamas, and Kendra popped a favorite DVD of an animated movie into the player attached to the living room TV.

Madison snuggled on the floor with Daisy, one arm flung companionably across the small dog’s gleaming back, and the two of them were quickly absorbed in the on-screen story.

Kendra, relieved that she wouldn’t have to sit through the movie for what must have been the seventy-second time, set up her laptop on the freshly cleared kitchen table and booted it up.

She’d surf the web for a while, she decided, and see if there were any for-sale-by-owner listings posted for the Parable/Three Trees area. She was, after all, a working real estate broker, and sometimes a well-placed phone call to said owners would produce a new client. Most folks didn’t realize all that was entailed in selling a property themselves—title searches and tax liens were only some of the snags they might run into.

Alas, despite her good intentions, Kendra ended up running a search on Hutch Carmody instead, using the key word wedding.

The page that came up might as well have been called “We Hate Hutch.”

Kendra found herself in the odd position of wanting to defend him—and furiously—as she looked at the pictures.

Brylee, the discarded bride, heartbroken and furious in her grandmother’s wedding gown.

Hutch, standing straight and tall and obviously miserable midway down the aisle, guests gawking on either side as he held up both hands in a gesture that plainly said, “Hold everything.”

The condolence party over at the Boot Scoot Tavern, Brylee wearing a sad expression and a T-shirt that said Men Suck.

Beware, murmured a voice in the back of Kendra’s mind.

But even then she knew she wouldn’t heed her own warning.

After all, what could happen in broad daylight, in a cemetery, with Madison and half the county right there?





CHAPTER FIVE



“DOES THIS SEEM a little weird to you?” Kendra asked Joslyn on Saturday morning as they helped Opal and a dozen other women set out tons of home-prepared food on the picnic tables at Pioneer Cemetery. “Holding what amounts to a party in a graveyard, I mean?”

Joslyn, who looked as though she might be having trouble keeping her center of gravity balanced, smiled and plunked herself down on one of the benches while the cheerful work went on around her. “I think it’s one of the best things about small towns,” she replied. “The way life and death are integrated—after all, they’re part of the same cycle, aren’t they? You can’t have one without the other.”

Thoughtful, Kendra scanned the surrounding area for Madison, something that came automatically to her now, and found her and Daisy industriously “helping” Hutch, Shea and several of the older girl’s friends from school pull weeds around a nearby scattering of very old graves. The water tower loomed in the distance, with its six-foot stenciled letters reading “Parable,” its rickety ladders and its silent challenge to every new generation of teenagers: Climb me.

“I guess you’re right,” Kendra said very quietly, though by then the actual substance of her friend’s remark had essentially slipped her mind. An instant later, though, at some small sound—a gasp, maybe—she turned to look straight at Joslyn.

Joslyn sat with one hand splayed against either side of her copiously distended stomach, her eyes huge with delighted alarm. “I think it’s time,” she said in a joyous whisper.

“Oh, my God,” Kendra replied, instantly panicked, stopping herself just short of putting a hand to her mouth.

Opal stepped up, exuding a take-charge attitude. “Now everybody, just stay calm,” she commanded. “Babies are born every second of every day in every part of the world, and this is going to turn out just fine.”

“G-get Slade,” Joslyn managed, smiling and wincing at the same time. “Please.”

No one had to go in search of Joslyn’s husband; he seemed to have sonar where his wife was concerned.

Kendra watched with relief as he came toward them, his strides long and purposeful, but calm and measured, too. He was grinning from ear to ear when he reached Joslyn and crouched in front of her, taking both her hands in his.

“Breathe,” he told her.

Joslyn laughed, nodded and breathed.

“It’s time, then?” he asked her, gruffly gentle. His strength was quiet and unshakable.

“Definitely,” Joslyn replied.

“Then let’s get this thing done,” Slade replied, straightening to his full height and easing Joslyn to her feet, supporting her in the curve of one steel-strong arm as they headed for the parking lot.

Opal took off her apron, thrust it into the hands of a woman standing nearby and hurried after them, taking her big patent leather purse with her.

Shea materialized at Kendra’s side with Madison and Daisy and leaned into her a little, her expression worried and faintly lost.

Kendra wrapped an arm around the teenage girl’s slender shoulders and squeezed. “Everything’s going to be all right,” she said softly. “Just like Opal said.”

“They forgot all about me,” Shea murmured, staring after her stepparents and Opal as they retreated.

“No, sweetheart,” Kendra said quickly. “They’re just excited because the baby’s coming and maybe a little scared, that’s all.”

Shea bit her lower lip, swallowed visibly, and rummaged up a small, tremulous smile. “A baby brother will be hard to compete with,” she reflected. “Especially since he really belongs to them and I don’t.”

Kendra knew Shea adored Slade—her mother, his ex-wife, was remarried and living in L.A.—and she also knew that Slade loved this girl as much as if he’d fathered her himself. And Joslyn loved her, too.

“You belong to them, too, Shea,” Kendra assured the girl. “Don’t forget that.”

Madison, perhaps sobered by Shea’s mood—the two had been hanging out together since Madison and Kendra had arrived with Hutch—slipped her hand into Kendra’s and looked up at her with wide, solemn eyes.

“Are babies better than big kids?” she asked very seriously.

Kendra’s heart turned over. “Babies are very special,” she answered carefully, “and so are the big kids they turn into.”

As she spoke, Hutch stepped into her line of sight, and something happened inside Kendra as she watched him watching Slade and Joslyn’s departing vehicle. Opal sat tall and stalwart in the backseat.

What was that look in his eyes? Worry, perhaps? Envy?

Back in high school, Kendra recalled, Joslyn had been Hutch’s first love and he hers. Most people had expected them to marry at some point, perhaps after college, but they’d grown apart instead, from a romantic standpoint at least. They had remained close friends.

She, Kendra, had been his second love.

Maybe that was why he hadn’t stepped in when she threw herself into an ill-fated relationship with Jeffrey Chamberlain, way back when. Possibly, letting her go had been easy because he hadn’t really been over Joslyn at that point.

In fact it could well be that he still wasn’t over her, even though she was happily married to his half brother and about to give birth to their first child.

Now you’re just being silly, Kendra scolded herself silently, straightening her spine and raising her chin. Besides, what did it matter who Hutch Carmody did or did not love? He’d hurt every woman he’d ever cared about—except Joslyn.

“Do you want me to drive you to the hospital?”

The question had come from Hutch and he was looking at Shea as he spoke. Although he and Slade were still working on being brothers, he was already an uncle to Shea and she was a niece to him.

Shea shook her head, slipped away from Kendra’s side and held out a hand to Madison. “The three-legged race is starting soon,” she said to the little girl. “Want to be my partner?”

Madison nodded eagerly and crowed, “Yes!” for good measure, in case there might be any ambiguity in the matter.

“Let’s go check out the prize table then,” Shea said. And just like that, they were off, racing through the grass, Daisy and Jasper, the Barlows’ dog, bounding after them.

“Slade and Joslyn do realize,” Kendra began, without really meaning to say anything at all, “that Shea is worried that they won’t love her as much once the baby is here?”

Hutch, standing nearer than she’d thought, replied quietly, “Slade and I may have our differences,” he said, “but the man is rock-solid when it comes to loving his family.” A pause followed, then a wistful, “Not a trait he learned from our dad.”

Picking up on the pain in his words, she looked at him directly.

They were essentially alone together, under those leafy, breeze-rustled trees, because everyone else had gone back to what they were doing before Joslyn had gone into labor—setting out food, pulling weeds, mowing grass, generally getting ready for the festivities that would follow on the heels of the cleanup effort.

Hutch, meanwhile, looked as though he regretted the remark about John Carmody, not because he hadn’t meant it, but because it revealed more than he wanted her or anyone else to know.

“Tell me about your dad,” Kendra said, pushing the envelope a little. She remembered the elder Carmody clearly, of course, but she hadn’t really known him. He’d been a grown-up, after all, and a reserved one at that, handsome like Slade and almost religious about minding his own business.

Hutch took her hand, and she let him, and they drifted away from the others to sit on rocks overlooking the town of Parable, nestled into the shallow valley below. “Not much to tell,” he said in belated reply to her earlier request. “The old man and I didn’t see eye to eye on most things, and he made it pretty plain that I didn’t measure up to his expectations.”

“But you loved him?”

“I loved him,” Hutch confirmed, staring out over the town, past the church steeples and the courthouse roof. “And I guess, in his own way, he probably loved me. Do you remember your dad, Kendra?”

She shook her head. “He was long gone by the time I was born,” she said.

Remarkably, as close as they’d been, she and Hutch hadn’t talked much about their childhoods. They’d been totally, passionately engrossed in the present.

Now Kendra thought about her mother, Sherry, beautiful and flaky and too footloose to raise a little girl on her own. In a moment, Kendra was right back there, like a time traveler, standing in the overgrown yard in front of her grandmother’s trailer, clutching Sherry’s fingers with one hand and gripping the handle of a toy suitcase in the other.

She’d been five years old at the time, only a few months older than Madison was now.

“I’ll be back soon, I promise,” she heard Sherry say as clearly as if a quarter of a century hadn’t passed since that summer day. “You just sit there on the porch like a good girl and wait for your grandma to get home from work. She’ll take care of you until I can come and get you.”

Maybe the suitcase, hastily purchased in a thrift store, should have been a clue about what was to come, but Kendra was, after all, a child and a trusting one at that. She hadn’t known she was being lied to, not consciously at least.

Most likely Sherry hadn’t known she was lying, either. Never mean, Sherry had always meant well. She just had trouble following through on her better intentions.

In the end, she’d leaned down, kissed Kendra on the top of her head, promised they’d be together again soon, this time for good. They’d get a house of their own and a dog and a nice car.

With that, Sherry waggled her fingers in farewell, climbed into her ancient, smoke-belching station wagon and drove away.

Kendra simply sat and waited—it wouldn’t have occurred to her to wander off or run after Sherry’s car.

When her grandmother arrived home a couple hours later, she got out of her car, lit up a cigarette and drew deeply on the smoke. Then she crossed the overgrown yard to stand there frowning down at Kendra.

With her bent and buckled plastic suitcase beside her, Kendra looked up into her grandmother’s lined and sorrow-hardened face, and saw no welcome there.

“Just what I need,” the old woman had said bitterly. “A kid to take care of.”

But Alva Shepherd had given Kendra a home, however reluctantly.

She’d put food on the table and kept a roof over their heads and if love and laughter had been lacking from the relationship, well, nobody had everything. If Sherry hadn’t dropped her off that day, she probably would have been killed in the car accident that took her mom’s life six months later.

After that, her grandma had been a little nicer to her, not out of compassion—she didn’t seem to grieve over losing a daughter or Kendra’s loss of her mother, apparently regarding it as a fitting end to a misspent life—but because Kendra became eligible for a small monthly check from the government. That made things easier all around.

“Kendra?” Hutch tugged her back into the here and now, still holding her hand.

“There are too many broken people in this world,” she said, thinking aloud.

Hutch simply gazed at her for a long, unreadable moment. “True enough,” he agreed finally, almost hoarsely. “But there are plenty of good ones, too, built to stay the course.”

Happy noises in the distance indicated that the games were about to start and picnic food was being served. Hutch was right, of course—these sturdy people all around them were the proof, teaming up to tend the grounds of a decrepit old cemetery, to serve potato salad and hot dogs and the like to old friends and new, to hold races for children who would remember sunny, communal days like this one well into their own old age.

In that moment, Kendra felt a wistful sort of hope that places like Parable would always exist, so babies could be born and grow up and get married and live on into their golden years, always in touch with their own histories and those of the people around them, always a part of something, always belonging somewhere.

It was what Kendra had wanted for Madison, that kind of stability, and what she wanted for herself, too—because her story hadn’t ended with her overwhelmed grandmother on the rickety porch of a double-wide that had, even then, seen better days. Because Opal had taken her into her heart and Joslyn had been the sister she’d never had, and the generous souls who called Parable home had taken her into their midst without hesitation, made her one of them.

Tears brimmed in her eyes.

Hutch, seeing them, stopped and cupped a hand under her chin. “What?” he asked with a tenderness that made Kendra’s breath catch.

“I was just thinking how perfect life is,” Kendra admitted, “even when it’s imperfect.”

He grinned. “It’s worth the trouble, all right,” he agreed. “Want to enter the three-legged race? I can’t think of anybody I’d rather be tied to at the ankle.”

She laughed and said yes, and threw herself headfirst into the celebration.

* * *

PARABLE COUNTY HOSPITAL was small, with brightly painted white walls, and most of the staff had been born and raised within fifty miles of the place, so folks felt safe when they were sick or hurt, knowing they’d be cared for by friends, or friends of friends, or even kinfolk.

Hutch hadn’t been there since his dad died, but now there was the baby boy, born a few hours before, ratcheting up the population by one. The numbers on the sign at the edge of town were magnetic, so they could be altered when somebody drew their first breath, sighed out their last one or simply moved to or from the community.

Slade, standing beside him, rested a hand briefly on his shoulder. After the races and the picnic and the prizes, he’d dropped Kendra and Madison and that goofy dog of theirs off at their new digs before heading home to shower, shave, put on clean clothes and make the drive back to town.

“You done good, brother,” Hutch said without looking at Slade.

Slade chuckled. He hadn’t taken his eyes off that little blue-bundled yahoo in the plastic baby bed since they’d stepped up to the window. “Thanks,” he replied, “but Joslyn deserves at least some of the credit. She handled the tough part.”

Hutch smiled, nodded. The kid hadn’t even been in the world for a full day and he was already looking more like John Carmody, as did Slade, by the second. He guessed it was the old man’s way of keeping one foot in the world, even though he was six feet under. “What are you going to call him?” he asked.

“Trace,” Slade answered, with a touch of quiet awe in his voice, as though he didn’t quite believe his own good fortune. “Trace Carmody Barlow.”

Hutch wasn’t prepared for the “Carmody” part. While Slade was technically as much a Carmody as Hutch himself was, their dad hadn’t raised him, hadn’t even claimed him until his will was read.

Slade interpreted his half brother’s silence accurately. “It’s a way of telling the truth,” he said. “About who Trace is and who I am.”

Hutch swallowed. Nodded. “How’s Joslyn?” he managed to ask.

“She’s ready to take the boy and head home to Windfall,” Slade said with another chuckle. “Opal and I overruled her, insisting that she spend the night here in the hospital, just to make sure she and the baby don’t run into any hitches.”

Windfall was the aptly chosen name of Slade and Joslyn’s ranch, which bordered Hutch’s land on one side. Slade had bought the spread with the proceeds from selling his share of Whisper Creek to Hutch and, as convoluted as the situation had been, Hutch would always be grateful. He was a part of that ranch and it was a part of him, and losing half of it would have been like being chopped into two pieces himself.

“I see you brought Kendra and her little girl to the cleanup today,” Slade remarked lightly.

Hutch looked straight at him. “Some first date, huh?” he joked, not that it actually was a first date, considering that he and Kendra had once been a couple. “A picnic at a cemetery.”

Slade grinned. “I took Joslyn to a horse auction the first time we went out,” he reminded Hutch. “Maybe chivalry runs in the family.”

“Or maybe not,” Hutch said, and they both laughed. Shook hands.

“Thanks for showing up to have a look at the boy,” Slade said.

Hutch nodded, said a quiet goodbye and turned to go while Slade stayed behind to admire his son for a little while longer.

Shea and Opal were standing in the corridor when Hutch got there, talking quietly with a beaming Callie Barlow.

“That’s one fine little brother you’ve got there,” he told Shea.

Apparently over her earlier angst at no longer being the only bird in the nest, Shea smiled brightly and nodded in happy agreement. Callie hugged her step-granddaughter, her own eyes full of tears.

“He’s the best,” Shea murmured.

“Congratulations,” Hutch said to Callie. It was, if he recalled correctly, the first word he’d ever said to the woman, even though he’d always known her. It wasn’t that he’d judged her—he supposed she’d loved the old man once upon a time, since she’d had a child with him—but Hutch’s mother’s heartache and rage over the affair was still fresh in his mind. Until Trace, acknowledging Callie would have seemed like an act of disloyalty to his mom, as crazy as that sounded. After all, she’d died when he was twelve.

“Thank you, Hutch,” Callie said, dashing at her wet eyes with the back of one hand.

“You look skinnier every time I see you,” Opal put in, giving Hutch the once-over and frowning with devoted disapproval. To Opal, everybody in Parable was her concern, one way or the other. “You need me to come out to Whisper Creek and cook for you for a couple of weeks. Put some meat on those bones. And who ironed that shirt—a chimpanzee?”

Hutch grinned, though he felt a thousand years old all of a sudden and bone-weary in the bargain. “Nobody ironed it,” he said, even as he wondered why he’d risen to the bait. “It’s permanent press.” He’d taken the garment out of the dryer and pulled it on just before leaving the house to drive back to town.

“There’s no such thing as ‘permanent press.’” Opal sniffed. “A shirt ought to be ironed.”

That seemed like a good time to steer the conversation in another direction. “I appreciate your offer, Opal,” he said honestly, “but Joslyn’s going to need you to help take care of Trace.”

“Joslyn’s mama is on her way to Parable as we speak,” Opal replied succinctly. “She’ll provide all the lookin’ after that family needs, at least for a week or two. I’ll be at your place first thing tomorrow morning with my suitcase, so be ready for me.”

Hutch opened his mouth, closed it again.

There was no point in arguing with Opal Dennison once she’d made up her mind, which she obviously had. If she meant to take over his house—or his whole life, for that matter—she’d do it. She was about as stoppable as a tornado gobbling up flat ground.

Best to just get out of the way and wait for the dust to settle.

“See you tomorrow,” he finally said.

“Pick up some spray starch on your way home,” Opal ordered. “And a decent iron, too, if you don’t have one.”

He pretended not to hear and walked off toward the elevator.

* * *

THE ELEVATOR DOORS opened, and Kendra came face-to-face with Hutch when she stepped out.

Even after spending much of the day in his company over at the Pioneer Cemetery, she felt startled by the encounter. Unprepared and very nervous.

“Where’s Madison?” he asked, his gaze drifting lightly over Kendra’s cotton print sundress, which she changed into after the picnic, and then back to her face.

Kendra found her voice. Stepping past him, she remembered that she’d come to the hospital on a mission—to see her best friend’s brand-new baby for the first time. “Downstairs,” she answered automatically. “The receptionist is looking after her.”

“I’ll say howdy to her on my way out,” Hutch replied.

He entered the elevator. The doors whispered shut between them and Kendra was left with the odd sensation that she’d imagined the whole exchange, if not the whole crazy day.

Had she really entered—and lost—a three-legged race at a cemetery picnic?

Seeing Callie and Shea and Opal in a happy huddle, she joined them.

“How’s the new mama?” she asked.

Shea rolled her eyes. She was flushed and twinkly with excitement, like a girl-shaped topiary draped in fairy lights. “Would you believe Joss wants to go home—right now? Dad and Opal are making her stay the night, though—just to be on the safe side.”

“So I guess that means Joslyn’s doing just fine,” Kendra said, smiling.

“She’s amazing,” Callie put in. “And so is little Trace. Lordy, he looks just like his daddy. Slade Barlow in miniature, that’s him.”

“Dad’s walking about a foot off the ground,” Shea said, pleased.

“Hutch’s mama would roll over in her grave if she saw him wearing that wrinkled shirt out in public,” Opal fretted, her gaze focused on the closed elevator doors. “She took pride in things like that.”

Kendra blinked, confused.

“Don’t mind Opal,” Shea said in a conspiratorial whisper, slipping an arm through Kendra’s. “She’s suffering from a laundry fixation at the moment—it’ll pass.”

“Oh,” Kendra said, no less confused than before but allowing herself to be swept into Joslyn’s room.

Her friend was sitting up in bed, hair brushed, face scrubbed and glowing, eyes lively with joy. “Did you see him yet?” she asked, her tone happy and urgent.

Kendra laughed. “Not yet,” she admitted. “I just got here a minute ago.”

That dazed feeling, as if she couldn’t quite catch up with herself, was still with her.

There were flowers everywhere, making the small quarters look and feel more like a garden than a hospital room.

Joslyn beamed. “I can’t wait to have another one,” she said.

“Whoa,” protested Slade, from the doorway, grinning. “We just got out of the delivery room a couple of hours ago, woman.”

“Come here and kiss me,” Joslyn told him.

Shea laughed and made a face. “Gross,” she said fondly.

By that time, Slade had crossed the room, bent over Joslyn, and touched his mouth to hers. The air crackled with electricity.

Kendra, still befuddled, remembered the bouquet of yellow carnations she was carrying and found a place for it among the tangle of color filling the room nearly to overflowing.

A nurse brought little Trace in then and placed him gently in Joslyn’s waiting arms. The sight of the three of them—father, mother and child—was a poignant one to Kendra and she felt a warm twinge of affection—along with a touch of envy. The latter was followed by a swift plunge into guilt, because she loved Madison so fiercely, and wanting to bear a child of her own seemed almost greedy.

Joslyn’s gaze over the baby’s downy head rested warmly on Kendra for a moment and the kind of understanding only close friends can share passed between them.

Shea took a cautious step forward. “Could—could I hold him?” she asked.

Joslyn smiled at the girl. “Of course,” she replied easily. “Here—let me show you how to support his head....”

As simply, as beautifully, as that, Shea took her place in this newly expanded family—and then there were four.

Kendra was so choked up she nearly fled the room, fearing she’d cry and Joslyn would misunderstand.

“I’ll pay you a visit when you get home,” she told her friend, aware of Callie and Opal entering the room behind her. The walls were starting to close in; she needed fresh air and space to recover her equilibrium.

What was wrong with her, anyway?

“Wait,” Joslyn said when Kendra would have made her exit. “There’s something I want to ask you before you go and it’s important.”

Kendra, mystified and strangely hopeful, approached the bedside. Shea, holding the baby expertly, made room for her in the small, cozy circle, and Slade looked at her with a smile in his eyes.

Up close, Trace was so beautiful that he claimed a piece of Kendra’s heart, right then and there, and she knew she’d never get it back, never even want to get it back.

“Will you be Trace’s godmother?” Joslyn asked softly, reaching out to cover Kendra’s cool and somewhat unsteady hand with her own warm one. Her grasp was firm.

The request was a simple one and yet it touched Kendra to the center of her soul, an unexpected grace. “I’d be proud,” she managed in a ragged voice.

Joslyn squeezed her hand. “Good,” she said, tearing up herself. “That’s good.”

Overcome, Kendra touched Trace’s tiny head, turned and hurried out of Joslyn’s hospital room. The instant she crossed the threshold, the tears came in rivers and she ducked into the women’s restroom to pull herself together.

At one of the sinks, she splashed cold water on her face, not caring that she’d ruined her mascara. She used a moist paper towel to wipe away the dark trails on her cheeks, drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders, ready to face the world.

For the most part, anyway.

Downstairs Madison was ensconced at the main desk, coloring importantly and enjoying being the center of attention.

It threw Kendra a little when she realized that Hutch was there, too, chatting amicably with the receptionist. Barely out of her teens, the young woman, whose name tag read Darcy, looked up at him with an expression that resembled wonder, hanging on his every word.

Kendra found herself withdrawing slightly—she might have been able to hide her puffy eyes from Madison, but Hutch was another matter. He noticed right away and she knew he probably wouldn’t ignore the only-too-obvious fact that she’d been crying, very recently and a lot.

He might even deduce that, while she was very happy for Slade and Joslyn, she was feeling oddly hopeless at the moment, and that would make her too vulnerable to all that cowboy charm.

“Maybe I ought to drive you and Madison home in my truck,” he said, straightening and stepping back from the tall reception counter. “I can call one of the ranch hands to bring your car back over to your place.”

Hutch’s attention had fully shifted by then, entirely focused on Kendra, and the receptionist seemed not just miffed but crestfallen, as though the sun had suddenly stopped shining for good.

“Mommy cries when she’s happy,” Madison announced. “She told me so, when we went to buy my bed at the store in Three Trees.”

Hutch’s mouth quirked upward at one side. “Crying and driving don’t mix very well,” he said easily, huskily. “Especially when there’s precious cargo aboard.”

“What’s precipitous car-blow?” Madison asked.

“It’s what you are,” Hutch told the child, though his eyes hadn’t left Kendra’s face.

There was no question of refusing to accept his offer of a ride home; that would make her look like a careless mother, willing to risk her daughter’s safety in order to protect her pride, which, of course, she wasn’t. And never mind that she was perfectly capable of operating a motor vehicle; it wasn’t as if she’d been drinking, for Pete’s sake.

For these reasons, and others not so easy to recognize, she gave in.

She even said, “Thank you.”

Outside Hutch sprinted over to the Volvo to fetch Madison’s car seat from the back, and within a few moments he was installing the gear inside his extended cab truck. His hands moved with a deftness Kendra well remembered as he hoisted Madison into the seat—he, the bachelor rancher and local heartthrob, might have performed the task a million times before.

Madison loved being fussed over by a daddy type—what little girl didn’t?—and if she’d been wearing a dress instead of those little jeans and a T-shirt, she probably would have stood right there in the hospital parking lot and twirled her skirt.

A softness settled over Kendra’s heart as she looked on, but it was soon replaced by a flicker of dread. She could certainly prevent herself from falling in love with Hutch Carmody, but could she prevent Madison from buying into the illusion?

Hutch, despite his wild ways, was decent through and through. He genuinely liked people, particularly children, and he talked to them with a rare, enfolding ease that naturally made them feel special, even entirely unique.

It wasn’t a deception, Kendra concluded sadly, not really. The problem was that, to Hutch, every child was special and every woman. Every dog and horse, too.

She tried to shake off these thoughts as she climbed into the front passenger seat, once Madison was settled, and buckled herself in for the short ride home.

If she didn’t allow herself to care too much for this man, she reasoned fitfully, as Hutch took the wheel and started the truck’s engine, maybe Madison wouldn’t care too much for him, either.





CHAPTER SIX



MADISON, AFTER GREETING a wildly joyful Daisy the moment they entered the new house, where there were still boxes all around, accumulated over several days of moving, took Hutch by one hand and practically dragged him from one room to another, showing the place off. Of course the dog followed them, occasionally putting in her two-bits with a happy little bark.

Kendra, emotionally winded from a long and eventful day, remained in the kitchen doing busywork, washing her hands at the sink, debating whether or not she ought to brew some coffee. The stuff could keep her up half the night, but as she remembered only too well, Hutch could drink the strongest java at midnight and still enjoy the sleep of the innocent and the just.

Talk about ironic.

Still Hutch had brought her and Madison safely home from the hospital visit to see the newest member of the Barlow clan—she was going to be Trace’s godmother and the honor humbled her—and she owed the man the courtesy of a cup of coffee if he wanted one.

He’d pretty well gone to the wall that day, Hutch had, and he’d been a big part of some very memorable experiences for both her and Madison. At his suggestion, she’d left the keys to her Volvo at the hospital reception desk, and a couple of his ranch hands were already en route from Whisper Creek to pick up the vehicle and bring it to her.

Yes, the least she could do was offer the man coffee.

She didn’t dare think about the most she could have done.

In the distance she heard Madison’s ringing laugh, the dog’s excitement at having the family intact and a visitor thrown in as a bonus, and Hutch’s now-and-again comment, all along the lines of, “Well, isn’t that something.”

By the time the three wayfarers got back to the kitchen, Kendra had brewed a coffee for Hutch and an herbal tea for herself, using the one-cup wonder machine brought over from the big house. The device looked massive in this much smaller room, and way too fancy, but it served its purpose and for now that was enough.

“This is quite a change from the mansion,” Hutch observed quietly as Madison hurried for the back door, calling over one shoulder that Daisy needed to go outside, and quick!

Kendra merely smiled and held out the cup of black coffee.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Hutch said, taking the mug. It looked fragile as a china teacup in his strong rancher’s hands. “Thanks.”

She inclined her head toward the table and he drew back a chair, but waited until she sat down with her tea before he took a seat himself.

His manners were yet another of Hutch’s contradictions: he would leave a woman practically at the altar, wearing her heirloom wedding dress, break her heart right there in the presence of all her friends and family, but he opened doors for anyone of the female persuasion, whatever her age, and his male elders, too.

Through the open screen door, with its creaky hinges, Madison could be heard encouraging Daisy to hurry up and be a good girl so they could go back inside and be with the cowboy man.

Hutch grinned across the expanse of the tabletop and Kendra grinned back.

“This has been quite a day,” she said, wondering if Hutch had the same odd mixture of feelings as she had where Slade and Joslyn’s new baby was concerned. He was clearly happy for the Barlows, but she knew he wanted kids, too—it had been a favorite topic between them, back in the day, how many children they’d have, the ideal ratio of boys to girls, and even what their names would be.

A weary sort of sorrow overtook Kendra, just for that moment, and nearly brought tears to her eyes.

She shook it off. No sense getting all moody and nostalgic.

“That it has,” Hutch agreed in his own good time, which was the way he did everything. The habit could be exasperating, Kendra reflected, except in bed.

Whoa, she thought. Don’t go down that road.

A warm flush pulsed in her cheeks, though, and he noticed, of course. He always noticed what she’d rather have hidden, and overlooked things that should have caught his attention.

She looked away for a moment, recovering from the sexual flashback.

Madison and the dog came back inside, which helped Kendra calm down, and Madison sort of hovered around Hutch like a moth around a lightbulb.

Kendra finally sent Madison into the living room to watch the cartoon channel for the allowed half-hour before bath and bed, not because she wanted to get rid of her, but because the child’s obvious adoration for Hutch was so unnerving.

Only cartoons could have distracted Madison from this admittedly fascinating man and even then she was reluctant to leave the room.

As soon as they were alone, Kendra opened her mouth and stuck her foot in it. “Don’t let her get too attached to you, Hutch,” she heard herself almost plead, in a sort of fractured whisper. “Madison’s already lost so much.”

Hutch looked stunned; he even paled a little, under his year-round tan, but in a nanosecond, he’d gone from stunned to quietly furious.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he demanded, and though he kept his voice low, it rumbled like thunder gathering beyond the nearby hills.

Kendra let out a long breath, closed her eyes briefly, and rubbed her temples with the fingertips of both hands. “I wasn’t saying—”

He leaned slightly forward in his chair, his bluish-green eyes fierce on her face. “What were you saying, then?” he pressed. She knew that look—he wasn’t going to let this one go, would sit there all night if he had to, until he got an answer he could accept as the unvarnished truth.

“Madison is only four years old,” she said weakly. Carefully. “She doesn’t understand that your charm, like sunshine and rain, pretty much falls on everybody.” She tried for more clarity and spoke with more strength now. “I don’t want her getting too fond of you, Hutch. You’re so nice to her and she might read things into that that aren’t there.”

Hutch shoved a hand through his hair in a gesture of pure annoyance. His jawline went a bloodless white, he was clenching his back molars together so tightly. “You think I play games with people—with kids?” he finally asked, as though the concept had come out of left field and mowed him down. “You think I get some kind of kick out of making them believe I care so I can kick their feelings around later, just for the fun of it?”

Kendra hiked up her chin and met his gaze straight on. “Maybe not with children,” she allowed evenly, “but do you ‘play games’ with women? That’s a definite yes, Hutch. And I’m sure Brylee Parrish isn’t the only person who’d be willing to back me up on the theory.”

“You believe all that—” he paused, looked back over one shoulder, probably to make sure Madison hadn’t wandered back into earshot and, seeing that she hadn’t, finished with “—crap on the internet?”

Kendra’s chuckle was light, but edged with a degree of bitterness that surprised even her. “Pictures don’t lie,” she said. “Besides, this goes back a lot further than your infamy on the web. Maybe you’ve forgotten that one of those broken hearts was mine?”

He looked as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “And maybe you’ve forgotten that we had something good going for us before you decided to kick off the traces and become Lady Chamberlain.”

“It wasn’t like that at all!” Kendra whispered.

“Go ahead and rewrite history to suit yourself,” Hutch rasped, pushing back his chair and standing up, his half-finished coffee forgotten. He made the move so quietly that his chair didn’t so much as scrape the floor, but rage was hardwired into every lean, powerful line of him. He set his hands on his hips and looked down at her for a long moment, then added, “The fact is, sweetheart, you walked out on me.”

A knock sounded at the screen door just then, and a man’s face appeared on the other side of the mesh. “Brought the car,” he said, jangling the keys.

Hutch crossed the room, yanked the screen door open, and stormed right past the guy without even glancing at him.

The ranch hand looked at him curiously and extended the Volvo keys to Kendra, who had followed Hutch as far as the threshold, even though she had no intention of pursuing him. All the things she wanted to say to Hutch—okay, scream at him—were lodged painfully in the back of her throat, where she’d barely managed to stop them.

“Thank you,” Kendra said mildly, taking the keys from the visitor’s hand.

“You’re mighty welcome,” the weathered cowboy replied with a practiced tug at his hat brim. A mischievous twinkle lit his eyes. “Seems like this wouldn’t be a good time to hit the boss up for a raise.”

Kendra smiled at the joke. “You’re probably right,” she replied.

Hutch’s truck started up with a roar, and both Kendra and the ranch hand winced a little when the tires screeched as he pulled away from the curb.

The cowboy shook his head, smiled ruefully and turned toward the other Whisper Creek truck waiting in the short driveway alongside the house, a second man at the wheel.

Kendra waved, closed the screen door, then its inside counterpart, hung the keys on a nearby hook and turned to find herself facing her daughter.

Madison and Daisy stood side by side, in the middle of the kitchen, their heads tilted at exactly the same angle, their gazes questioning and worried.

Kendra had to smile at the picture they made, even though she was still so irritated with Hutch that she felt like tearing out hanks of her own hair.

“The cowboy man didn’t say goodbye,” Madison said, and her lower lip wobbled slightly.

It was one of those rare times when only a lie would do, Kendra decided ruefully. “Actually, Mr. Carmody was in a big hurry, and he asked me to tell you goodbye and say he was sorry he had to rush off.”

Madison, being an intelligent child, looked skeptical and unappeased, but she accepted the fib—to a degree. “I heard mad voices,” she challenged Kendra after a few beats.

They’d been so careful not to yell, she and Hutch, though she’d wanted to and it was probably safe to assume Hutch had, as well. Madison had picked up on the energy of the exchange, rather than the actual words.

“It’s time for your bath and a story,” Kendra said moderately, striving for normalcy. How could Hutch claim, for one moment, that she’d been the one to break them up? He’d virtually handed her over to Jeffrey and walked away whistling.

“You should be nice to people,” Madison lectured. “That’s what you always tell me.”

Kendra placed splayed fingers gently between her daughter’s shoulders and started her in the direction of the main bathroom. “Let’s have this discussion another time, please,” she said.

Daisy’s toenails clicked on the hardwood floor behind them as she and Madison headed down the hall, Madison resisting ever so slightly as they went.

“But you forgot supper,” the child reasoned.

Sure enough, Kendra realized, the evening meal had completely slipped her mind. “You’re right,” she replied, at once chagrined and glad to find common ground, even if it was a little shaky. “Tell you what—we’ll feed Daisy and then, after you’ve had your bath, I’ll whip up a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches for us. How would that be?”

Madison looked up at her and something in her small, obstinate face relented. “I like grilled cheese sandwiches,” she admitted.

Kendra smiled. “Me, too,” she said.

With Madison stripping and Daisy supervising the whole enterprise, Kendra managed to prepare the little girl’s bath—a few inches of warm water with bubbles.

Madison climbed in and Daisy rested her muzzle on the edge of the bathtub, watching her small mistress, brown eyes shining with love.

“Can Daisy get into the tub, too?” Madison asked, reaching for her pink sponge and the duck-shaped bar of soap she favored.

“Not this time, sweetie,” Kendra said, since that seemed better than a flat no.

Madison huffed out a sigh and began her ablutions, perfectly capable of bathing herself.

A few minutes later, she announced, “I’m clean now, Mommy!”

Smiling, despite the quiet but persistent ache in the region of her heart Hutch still claimed, Kendra gave her a kiss and reached for a towel.

* * *

HUTCH HAD ALWAYS been good at letting stuff roll off his back—he’d had to be—but that tangle with Kendra back at her place made him want to fight.

With anybody, about anything.

When the lights of Boone’s cop car flashed behind him, just before the turn-in at Whisper Creek, it almost pleased him to pull over.

“What?” he snapped, rolling down the window on the passenger side of the truck so Boone could peer in at him.

“You headed for a fire?” Boone countered. “I clocked you at fifty in a thirty-five back there.”

Hutch swore under his breath, tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Sorry,” he lied, glaring through the windshield at the dirt road ahead. It did some twisting and turning, that old road, before it joined the highway and rolled right on into Idaho and Washington.

At the moment, he sure felt like following it till it ended at the Pacific Ocean.

“Look at me, Hutch,” the sheriff said, and he sounded dead serious.

Hutch turned his head, met Boone’s gaze. “Write the ticket and be done with it,” he growled.

“Well, who spit in your oatmeal this morning?” Boone asked, folding his arms against the base of the window and studying Hutch intently.

“I’ve got a lot on my mind right now,” Hutch snapped. “All right?”

Boone sighed, shoved a hand through his dark hair. “I know that,” he said, “but I can’t let you go speeding around my county, now can I? Pretty soon, folks will be saying I turn a blind eye when my friends break the law and I can’t have that, Hutch. You know I can’t.”

“So write the ticket,” Hutch reiterated. He just wanted to be gone, to be moving, to be riding hard across darkening ground on a horse or climbing Big Sky Mountain on foot—anything but sitting still.

“Have it your way,” Boone said. He took his ticket book from his belt, scrawled on a piece of paper, ripped it free, and held it out to Hutch, who snatched it from his hand and barely managed to keep from chucking it out his own window out of sheer cussedness.

“Thanks,” Hutch told him, glaring.

Boone laughed. “I’d say ‘you’re welcome,’ but that would add up to one too many smart-asses per square yard.” He wouldn’t unpin Hutch from that penetrating gaze of his. “I’m off duty and I was headed for home until you went shooting by me like a bat out of hell,” he said companionably. “Why don’t you follow me back over to my place? We’ll have a couple of beers and feel sorry for ourselves for a while.”

Hutch had to chuckle at that, though it was against his will and he resented it. “All right,” he agreed at last, and grudgingly. “Long as you promise not to run me in for drunk driving after plying me with liquor.”

“You have my word,” Boone said with a grin. “See you over there.”

With that, he backed away from the window and strolled back to his cruiser where the lights were still swirling, blue and white, causing the few passersby to slow down to gawk.

Boone’s land, situated on the far side of Parable from where they started, was prime, fronting the river and sloping gently up toward the foothills, but it had the look of a place bogged down in hard times. The double-wide trailer was ugly as sin, and there were a couple of junked-out cars parked in the tall grass that surrounded it.

The double-wide had rust around its skirting, the makeshift porch dipped in the middle, and there was an honest-to-God toilet out front, with a bunch of dead flowers poking out of the bowl. Boone and his wife, Corrie—she’d never have stood for a john in the yard—had planned to live in the trailer only until they’d built their modest dream house, but when Corrie died of breast cancer a few years back, everything else in Boone’s life seemed to stall.

If he’d had a dog, folks said, he’d have given it away. He had sent his two young sons, Griffin and Fletcher, off to live with his sister and her family in Missoula, where he probably figured they were better off.

Running for sheriff, after Slade announced that he wouldn’t be seeking reelection, had been the first real sign of life in Boone since Corrie was laid to rest and for a while optimistic locals had hoped he’d get his act together, bring his kids home to Parable where they belonged, and just generally get on with things.

Parking behind the cruiser, Hutch felt an ache of sorrow on his friend’s behalf—Boone had loved Corrie with all he had, from first grade on through college and in some ways, it was as if he’d just given up and crawled right into that grave with her.

“I swear this place looks worse every time I see it,” Hutch remarked after getting out of the truck. There should have been two little boys running to greet their dad after a day at work, he thought, and a dog barking in celebration of his return, if not a woman smiling on the porch of the new house.

Instead it was dead quiet, like a graveyard with rusted headstones.

“You sound like the chicken rancher,” Boone responded dryly, cocking a thumb in the direction of the neighboring place where Tara Kendall had set up housekeeping the year before. “She says this place is an eyesore.”

Hutch had to grin. “She has a point,” he said. Then, aware that he was pushing it, he added, “How are the boys?”

Boone, starting toward the sagging porch, tossed him a look. “They’re just fine with their aunt and uncle and their brood,” he said. “So don’t start in on me, Hutch.”

Hutch pretended to brace himself for a blow from his oldest and best friend. “You won’t hear any relationship advice from me, old buddy,” he said. “These days, I’m on America’s Ten Most Unwanted list, which hardly makes me an authority.”

“Damn straight,” Boone grumbled. “And that’s where you belong, too. On a master shit-list, I mean. I knew all that womanizing was bound to catch up with you someday.”

Hutch laughed and followed his friend into the trailer. Boone always said what he thought; nobody was required to like it.

The inside of the double-wide was clean enough, but it was dismal, too. Full of shadows and smelling of the bachelor life—musty clothes left in the washing machine too long, garbage in need of taking out, the remains of last night’s lonely pizza.

Boone opened the refrigerator and took out two cans of beer, handing one to Hutch and popping the top on another, taking a long drink before starting back outside again to sit in one of the rickety lawn chairs on that sorry excuse for a porch.

Hutch joined him.

“Old friend,” Hutch ventured, looking out over what passed for a yard, “you need a woman. And that’s just the start.”

Boone grinned ruefully. “So do you,” he said. “But you keep running them off.”

Hutch sipped his beer. It was icy cold and it hit a dry spot, way down deep, unknotting him a little. “Slade’s a dad now,” he remarked, letting the gibe pass. “Can you believe it?”

“Hell, yes, I can believe it,” Boone responded. They had a three-cornered alliance, Slade and Hutch and Boone. Slade and Hutch, being half brothers, hadn’t gotten along until after the old man died, but Boone was close friends with both of them and always had been. “One look at Joslyn and Slade was a goner. Mark my words, they’ll have a houseful of little Barlows before too long.”

Hutch chuckled, but his thoughts had taken a somber turn just the same. “I reckon they enjoy the process of making them, all right,” he said. A pause followed and another slow sip of cold beer. “What do you suppose it is about Slade, that’s missing in you and me?” he asked.

Boone didn’t pretend not to understand the question, but he took his time answering. “I hate to admit it,” he finally replied, “but I think it’s just plain-old backbone. Slade’s not afraid to throw his heart in the ring and risk getting it stomped on. You and me, now, we’re a couple of cowards.”

Hutch absorbed that for a while. It was a tough truth to acknowledge—he wasn’t afraid of anything besides climbing the water tower in town and giving up a chunk of his ranch to some vindictive ex-wife—but he couldn’t deny that Boone had a point. Therefore, he didn’t take offense. “What scares you the most, Boone?” he asked quietly.

Boone studied the horizon for a few moments, weighing his reply. “Loving a woman the way I loved Corrie,” he said at long last. “And then losing her in the same way I lost Corrie. I don’t honestly think I could take that, Hutch.”

They were quiet for a long time, beers in hand, gazes fixed on things that were long ago and faraway.

“Your boys are growing up, Boone,” Hutch ventured, after a decent interval. “They need you.”

“They need what they have,” Boone said, his voice taut now, his grip on his beer threatening to crush the can between his fingers, “which is a normal life with a normal family.” He paused, swore, shook his head. “Hell, Hutch, you know I can’t take care of them the way Molly does.”

Hutch bit back the obvious response—that if Boone would just get his act together, he could make a home for himself and his boys, like millions of other single parents did. But who was he to talk about having it together, after all?

He didn’t have kids and a wife waiting at home, either.

Didn’t even have a dog, for God’s sake, since Jasper had moved in with Slade.

For whatever reason, Boone didn’t point out the holes in Hutch’s own story, but that didn’t mean he’d let him off the conversational hook, either.

Fair was fair and Hutch had been the one to set this particular ball rolling.

“That’s quite a hubbub Brylee’s friends are stirring up on the web,” Boone said.

Hutch swallowed a sigh—and a couple more gulps of beer. “I am,” he replied gravely, “a casualty of the digital age.”

Boone laughed outright at that. “And innocent as the driven snow on top of it all,” he added, before swilling more beer. As Slade had done when he held the office, Boone rarely wore a uniform—he dressed like any other Montana rancher, in jeans, boots and shirts cut Western-style. Now he unfastened the top two buttons of his shirt and breathed in as if he’d been smothering until then. “You and me,” he said, “we’re destined to be crusty old bachelors, it seems.”

Kendra filled Hutch’s mind just then. He saw her in the kitchen at his place, starting supper. He saw Madison, too, and even the dog, Daisy, hurrying out of the house to greet him when he got out of his truck or climbed down off his horse.

“I guess there are worse fates,” Hutch allowed, but his throat felt tight all of a sudden and a little on the raw side.

“Like what?” Boone asked, gruffly companionable, still reflective. He was probably remembering happier days and hurting over the contrast between then and now.

“Being married to the wrong woman,” Hutch said with grim certainty.

Boone sighed, finished his beer and stared solemnly at the can. “I wouldn’t know about that,” he answered, and though his voice didn’t actually break, there was a crack in it. He’d been hitched to the right woman, was what he meant.

Finished with his own beer, Hutch stood up. He had work to do at home and besides, the emptiness would be there waiting, no matter how long he delayed his return, so he might as well get it over with. “We’re a pair to draw to,” he said, tossing the can into a wheelbarrow overflowing with them in roughly the place where Corrie used to set flowers in big pots.

Boone stood, too. Tried for a grin and fell short.

“You signed up for the bull-riding again this year?” he asked, referring to the upcoming rodeo. The Fourth fell on a Saturday this year, a convenient thing for most folks if not for Boone, who would surely have to bring a few former deputies out of retirement to make sure Parable County remained peaceable.

“Course I am,” Hutch retorted, feeling a mite touchy again. “Walker Parrish promised me the worst bull that ever drew breath.”

“I’ll just bet he did,” Boone said with another chuckle, throwing his own beer can in the general direction of the wheelbarrow and missing by a couple of feet. “When it’s your turn to ride, I reckon a few of the spectators will be rooting for the bull.”

Hutch started toward his truck. Twilight was gathering at the edges of the land, pulling inward like the top of a drawstring bag, and his horses would be wondering when he planned on showing up with their hay and grain rations. “No different than any other year,” he said. “Somebody’s always on the bull’s side.”

“You might want to think about that,” Boone answered, and damn if he didn’t sound serious as a heart attack. Him, with his sons farmed out to kinfolk, however loving, and the weeds taking over, threatening to swallow up the trailer itself.

Hutch stopped in his tracks. “Think about what?” he demanded.

“Life. People. How time gets away from a man and, before he knows it, he’s sitting in some nursing home without a tooth in his head or a hope in his heart that anybody’s going to trouble themselves to visit.”

“Damned if you aren’t dumber than the average post,” Hutch said, moving again, jerking open the door of his truck and climbing inside.

“At least I know my limitations,” Boone said affably.

“Thanks for the beer,” Hutch replied ungraciously, and slammed the truck’s door.

He drove away at a slower pace than he would have liked, though. Boone had already written him up for speeding once and he wasn’t above doing it again.

By the time he got back to Whisper Creek, he’d simmered down quite a bit, though what Boone had said about the pair of them being cowards still stuck in him like barbed wire.

A familiar station wagon, three years older than dirt, was parked next to the house when he pulled in.

Opal, he realized, had arrived early.

He muttered something under his breath, got out of the pickup and went directly into the barn, where he spent the better part of an hour attending to horses.

It was almost dark by the time he’d finished, and the lights were on in the kitchen, spilling a golden glow of welcome into the yard.

Stepping inside, he nodded a howdy to Opal, refusing to give her the satisfaction of demanding to know what the hell she was doing in his house. For one thing, he already knew—she was frying up chicken, country-style, and it smelled like three levels of heaven.

“Wash up before you eat,” Opal ordered, tightening her apron strings and eyeing him through the big lenses of her glasses.

“I generally do,” Hutch said mildly, running water at the sink and picking up the bar of harsh orange soap he kept handy.

“Look at those boots,” Opal scolded with that strange, gruff tenderness she reserved for people in need of her guidance and correction. “Bet the soles are caked with manure.”

Hutch sighed. He’d scraped them clean outside, on the porch, as he’d been taught to do around the time he started wearing boots.

“With you over here,” he quipped, “who’s going to nag Slade Barlow?”

“Shea’s mama got in early,” Opal replied, spearing pieces of chicken onto a platter with a meat fork. “So I figured I might as well get started setting things to rights around here.”

Hutch dried his hands on a towel and grinned at her. “You’re off to a good start with supper,” he conceded.

She chuckled. “I made mashed potatoes and gravy, too, and boiled up some green beans with bacon and onion to boot. Sit yourself down, Hutch Carmody, and eat the first balanced meal you’ve probably had in a month of Sundays.”

He waited until all the food was on the table and Opal was seated before taking a chair, wryly amused to recall that this was just the scenario he’d imagined for himself earlier.

Only the woman was different.