LITMIR.BIZ

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      “I see,” murmured Michelle into the bleak silence. “Well, to be perfectly selfish, I’m glad. I think Jim could use the help. Whenever I’ve seen him this past summer, he’s been looking frazzled. That hand of his is an absolute sweetheart, but he reminds me of a pet tortoise a roommate of mine had years ago—sort of dried up and deliberate. I have a hard time picturing him getting his boot up into a stirrup, much less catching a calf.”

      Kaley glanced at her in surprise. “You’ve met Whitey, too? How long have you lived in Trueheart?” She’d tried to make it back for two or three weeks every summer. Alone, since Richard always begged off. But these past two years, she’d been working on the master’s degree she needed to maintain her teaching accreditation and her schedule of classes had prevented her visiting. Haven’t been home since Dad’s funeral, she realized with a pang of guilt. A lot could change in eighteen months.

      “Just over a year,” Michelle said. “I bought Simpson’s café down on Main Street. It’s Michelle’s Place now—best breakfast in southwest Colorado, if I do say so. Gourmet suppers on Friday and Saturday nights, with plans to expand to six nights if I can ever find a decent sous chef.”

      “Just what the town needs,” Kaley said approvingly. “A serious restaurant. When I lived here, a hot date was steakburgers for two at Mo’s Truckstop out on the highway.”

      “Still is, for the older crowd,” Michelle admitted. “And most of the truckers and cowboys. But some of the younger set are giving me a chance. Then there are the yuppie commuters moving up from Durango, plus the dudes and the tourists.”

      Whenever Kaley and Jim spoke on the phone, Jim complained about the way southwestern Colorado was changing. Five-acre ranchettes replacing working cattle ranches. Outsiders moving in with money that the locals couldn’t hope to match. Values they didn’t want to match. Ideas of ways to “improve” a country that the natives liked just the way it was and always had been.

      So far the cattlemen north of Trueheart were holding their own, with most of the changes confined to the town, Jim had reported. Suntop Ranch, the largest outfit in this part of the state, seemed to exert some sort of gravitational pull, holding the smaller ranches like Kaley and Jim’s Circle C safe in its orbit. So far.

      Still, as the land folded itself into deeper and greener valleys, steeper ridges that lifted toward massive peaks, looming dark against a rosy sky, Kaley looked fearfully for signs of change. She ticked off each familiar landmark as she came to it with a sigh of relief. On her left the sign to the Ribbon River Dude Ranch—guests still Welcome. Then to her right, the turnoff to the private airport with its bluff overlooking the distant town, where courting couples parked on summer nights to “watch the planes take off.” Then they were coasting down the foothills into Trueheart, past Mo’s Truckstop, past the tiny Congregationalist church with its modest white steeple, where, once upon a time, so long ago it almost seemed like a fairy tale, Kaley had planned to be married.

      And if Tripp McGraw had really wanted to marry me? She touched her stomach and tipped up her chin. Well, he hadn’t. And if he had, she wouldn’t be carrying this precious passenger. Much as they’d hurt at the time, things worked out for the best. Would do so again, she told herself firmly.

      Michelle glanced at her watch as they turned onto Main Street. “Speaking of breakfast, I hope you’ll let me feed you a magnificent one. Eggs Benedict maybe? Or buckwheat pancakes with native berries?”

      “Some other time I would love that,” Kaley assured her. “But I want to catch Jim before he rides out for the day, so…”

      Michelle made a ticking sound with her tongue. “He doesn’t know you’re coming?”

      “No.” Kaley had hoped till the last day—till the very last hour—that she and Richard could work things out. She’d have felt disloyal airing their differences—temporary differences, she’d been so sure—before her younger brother. Especially since Jim had never, in all these years, quite warmed to his brother-in-law. Why give him further reasons to disapprove, when what she wanted was a larger, happier family, not a family divided?

      “No, I didn’t tell him, but it doesn’t matter.” There’d always be a place for her and hers at the ranch. A wave of weary gratitude washed over her as she braked the car before Michelle’s Place. She was luckier than so many single mothers. Because no matter how desperately lonely she’d been this past month, she wasn’t alone. She could count on her brother, count on her welcome, count on her bedroom being there, bed made and pillows fluffed, her favorite childhood books lined up on her shelves, her great-grandmother’s old pine wardrobe standing ready for her clothes. Whether she deserved it or not, she had a place in the world, reserved in her name. While such a sanctuary waited, she’d count herself among the lucky.

      “Well, if it turns out you miss him,” said Michelle, opening her door before the car had stopped, “don’t hesitate to come back into town and let me feed you.”

      “Thanks.” Though if she missed Jim, it was bread, butter and milk, then she’d crawl upstairs for a hot shower and a round-the-clock collapse.

      Michelle gathered up her purse and overnight bag, swung her long legs out of the car, slammed the door and leaned back in the open window. “Thanks again, Kaley.” She glanced aside as a red pickup tooted its horn and turned into her parking lot. “And here comes Sam Kerner, riding point. I’m going to get no end of grief that there’s no coffee waiting.”

      The local vet, a big-animal specialist. Likely as not, Sam was stopping in to Michelle’s on his way home from tending a sick cow. Kaley smiled wearily. Her landmarks were all holding true.

      “And Sheriff Naley,” Michelle added as a gray pickup followed the red into her lot. “Kaley, if you ever want to just…talk. About anything at all? Breakups are tough—I should know. Anyway…” She shrugged and smiled her wide, rueful smile. “I live upstairs here and the coffeepot’s always on. Stop by any ol’ time.” She glanced back the way they’d come. “Oh, now, here comes a customer to die for. Do you know Tripp McGraw?”

      “Vaguely. Well, guess I should let you get cooking.” Kaley revved the engine, lifted a hand in farewell as Michelle hastily straightened. “See you!” She had barely time to swing out from the curb before Tripp’s oncoming truck. It loomed up in her rearview mirror, its driver a dim, wide-shouldered shape beyond the glass. He was towing a horse trailer behind, she noted, as she accelerated and he slowed for his turn. But no—oh, no—he’d only slowed to wave to Michelle and now he was driving on.

      He followed her for a block or two, and Kaley drove with hunched shoulders, hands clenching her wheel, though she was being silly. There was no way Tripp could know this car was hers. She’d been dodging him successfully for years.

      Still, she averted her face as she made her turn north toward the mountains, and she let out a pent breath when he drove toward the east. “Whew!” she whispered, and drew in a shaky breath. Downhearted and tired as she was this morning, he would have been one local landmark too many.

      CHAPTER TWO

      KALEY DROVE the last ten miles to the ranch in a haze of exhaustion. The early sun shining in her eyes made her squint, and once her lashes drooped, conscious thought dissolved into drifting images, the present blurring with vivid memories of the past. A fine herd of Black Angus crosses on Suntop land—the Tankerslys always had the best. Five pronghorn antelope on a hill overlooking the highway. Buzzards riding an early morning thermal to the south—something dead over there, maybe? No snow on the peaks yet in August, but soon, soon. She hadn’t skied in years, used to love to, but maybe this year… With a baby coming on, Kaley? For a moment she’d actually forgotten!

      On her left now was the road to the McGraw ranch. The McGraw brand was burned into the arching plank signboard: M Bar G. Brands… His should have been a comet, a shooting star…that way he used to touch his scarred cheek when he encountered someone unexpectedly, or when he was sad or uncertain… She’d caught his hand more than once, drawn it down to her lips and kissed it…

      Her

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