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“When?”
With a sad smile, Sam said, “Sooner than I want you to, I’m afraid.”
“Will I like him?”
Sam nodded. “I think so. Most people do.”
“But not you.”
“It’s more complicated than liking him or not. You’ll see. Now, would you like a snack before you go back to bed?”
Caitlyn’s eyes narrowed, as if she knew that she was being manipulated. At nine she wasn’t as easily distracted as she had once been. “But, Mom—”
“The next time Jenny or Tommy or whoever it is calls, you tell them they’re to leave you alone. No, better yet, don’t say anything, just give me the phone. I’ll handle them. Now, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I guess.” She sniffed back her tears and the trauma, at least for the moment, seemed to have passed. Sighing loudly, Caitlyn walked to the window and looked in the direction of the barn. She ran her finger along the sill. “I was thinking.” She slid her mother a sly look.
“About?”
“You promised me a horse for my birthday, remember?”
“That I did, but your birthday isn’t until next spring.”
“I know, but Christmas is before that.”
“Still half a year away.” Six months—the same amount of time that Kyle had to spend in Wyoming.
Together mother and daughter walked up the narrow flight of wooden stairs to Caitlyn’s tiny bedroom, the very room where Sam had spent her childhood years. She shoved open the window. A slight breeze lifted the faded curtains, carrying with it the scents of dry hay and roses from the garden. Crickets chirped, their soft chorus interrupted by an occasional moan of a lost calf or the mournful howl of a coyote high in the mountains.
Caitlyn tumbled into her bed—the canopied twin that Sam had slept in—and tried to stifle a yawn. “Love ya,” she murmured into her pillow, in that moment looking so much like Kyle that Sam’s throat ached.
“Me, too.” Sam kissed her daughter on one rosy cheek, but before she could snag a pair of dusty jeans and a T-shirt from the floor and depart, Caitlyn stirred.
“Leave the light on.”
Sam grabbed the dirty clothes, but didn’t move from the room. “Why?”
With a lift of her shoulder, Caitlyn sighed. “Don’t know.”
“Sure you do. You’ve slept in the dark since you were two.” The hairs at the nape of Sam’s neck lifted. “Is something wrong?” she asked, “Something more than Jenny Peterkin’s phone calls?”
Caitlyn bit her lip, a sure sign something else was troubling her.
Still holding on to the wrinkled laundry, Sam lowered herself to the foot of Caitlyn’s bed. “Okay, honey, stop pussyfootin’ around. What is it?”
“I—I don’t know,” Caitlyn admitted, her face drawing into a worried pout. “Just a feeling.”
Sam’s throat went dry. “A feeling? Of what?”
“Like—like someone’s watching me.”
“Someone? Who?”
“I don’t know!” Caitlyn said, pulling the hand-pieced quilt to her neck, though it was over ninety degrees in the little room.
“You saw someone?” Oh, dear God, was someone stalking her child? It happened to famous people in the city, but sometimes perverted creeps followed children…. Please, please, God, no!
“I didn’t see anyone but…it’s just like, you know, when you feel that someone’s staring at you. Sometimes Zach Bellows looks at me funny, and even though his desk is behind mine and I can’t see him, I know he’s watching me. It’s creepy.”
“Of course it is,” Sam said, her heart pumping wildly. “But if you didn’t see anyone… When did this happen?”
“A couple of times at school, and then once when I was at the store.”
“Was anyone with you when this happened? A friend or a teacher or someone who might have noticed who was watching you?” Sam asked, trying like hell not to panic, when her stomach was twisting into painful knots.
Caitlyn shook her head.
“So why are you…worried tonight?”
Caitlyn chewed on her lip. “I—I just feel weird.”
“Well, that does it!” Sam pasted a smile on her lips, though her insides were churning. “You’re sleeping with me. And don’t worry about anyone watching you. We’ve got the greatest watchdog in the world and—”
“Fang?” Caitlyn laughed, the concern disappearing from her eyes.
“Yeah, and I lock all the doors and windows at night. This is all probably just your imagination, anyway. Come on.”
Dragging the quilt with her, Caitlyn scurried into the bedroom across the hall and jumped onto Sam’s double bed. She burrowed deep in the covers. “Can we watch TV?” she asked, a glint in her eye.
“I thought you were tired.”
“Please?”
Wondering if she’d been conned by the youngest flimflam artist ever to walk the planet, Sam agreed. She double-checked the locks on the doors, made sure that Fang was in his favorite position near the base of the stairs, then stole a glance through the kitchen window to the Fortune ranch. The night, illuminated by a quarter moon, was serene, not sinister; the only immediate problem looming in their future was Kyle Fortune. Sam climbed the stairs, listening to the third step creak as it always did, but knowing that her life and Caitlyn’s would never be the same.
Kyle swatted at a pesky horsefly with his clipboard as he walked through the stables and eyed the barrels of grain, tack, veterinary supplies, tools and bales of hay. Though it was early morning, not yet nine, he’d already been to the barn, three sheds, the machine shop and pump house. He intended to compare the notes and figures he’d scribbled down to the ledgers in the den, then input the data into the computer he’d ordered over the phone. Laptop, modem, software and printer were supposedly on their separate ways. The Fortune Ranch was finally going to join the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The stables seemed musty and close, the thick air already gathering heat. Sharp odors of horse dung, sweat, urine and oiled leather mingled with the familiar scent he’d always associated with this place. Aluminum buckets, pitchforks, shovels and rakes hung from hooks on the walls. Along with the fire extinguisher was a kerosene lantern, ready to be lit should the electricity fail.
He heard Joker, the only stallion fenced near the buildings, let out a piercing whistle. The stud was bad news, Kyle had determined, but he would miss the spotted beast when Grant decided to haul him to his place. Kyle would always associate the Appaloosa with seeing Sam again.
With that nagging thought clogging his brain, he slid his sunglasses from his pocket and onto the bridge of his nose as he stepped outside. Harsh sunlight glinted off the metal roof of the machine shed.
The stallion neighed again.
“It’s okay, boy,” a kid’s voice intoned.
Kyle stopped dead in his tracks. Balanced on the top rail of the fence was a girl—somewhere between eight and twelve, near as he could guess—talking to the damned horse. Fiery blond hair sprang from the restraint of a once-upon-a-time ponytail, and her arms and legs, sprouting from cutoff jeans and a yellow T-shirt, were tanned and long. Boots covered her feet, and dust and grime spattered her clothes. He couldn’t see her face, as she was turned the other way, concentrating on the horse.
“What’re you doin’ here?” Kyle asked, and she visibly started, nearly toppling from her perch as she glanced over her shoulder.
“Who’re you?” Blue eyes over a spray of freckles were indignant.
“I think that’s my line.” He walked forward, studying her, and realized in an instant that she was Samantha’s kid. She had the same proud tilt of her chin, the same full lips and straight, slightly upturned nose.
“I’m Caitlyn,” she said with an edge of defiance, as if he dared challenge her. Like mother, like daughter. “Caitlyn Rawlings.”
“Glad to meet you. I’m Kyle Fortune.” She stared at him without so much as flinching, holding his gaze fast, unlike most kids he knew. “I know your mom. Is she here?” he asked, his eyes scanning the parking lot for Sam’s truck.
“Nah.” The kid squirmed a little, as if she either didn’t trust him or knew she was somewhere she shouldn’t be.
“No?” He leaned against the fence, staring at the imp who was so like her mother. “But she does know you’re here?”
Caitlyn gnawed on her lower lip, as if contemplating a lie. Instead she hedged. “Kinda.”
“Well, either she does or she doesn’t.”
The girl’s eyes, a shade of summer blue, slid away. “She thinks I walked over to Tommy’s house. He lives over there….” She pointed a finger to the west. “But I took a shortcut through the fields and…”
“Ended up talkin’ to Joker.”
“Yeah. I’d better hurry,” she said, as if she suddenly realized she might be in trouble. She hopped to the ground and dusted off her hands, then hesitated. “Fortune? Like Mrs. Kate?”
“She was my grandmother.”
The kid grinned. “You were lucky.”
He couldn’t argue the point. “She left me this ranch.”
“So you live here now?” Her mouth rounded in awe and those blue eyes sparkled like sunlight on a mountain lake. “Wow, you are lucky.”
“You think so?” He glanced around, noticed the weather vane mounted over the roof of the stables—a running horse—as it turned with the wind. “I guess so. Anyway, I’ll be here for a while. Until Christmas.” Why did he feel compelled to tell her his life story? Probably the clarity of her eyes. And deep down, he’d always liked kids.
“What then?”
“I’ll probably sell the place.”
“Why?”
“It’ll be time.”
“If I owned it, I’d never sell it. My mom says it’s the best ranch in the valley.”
“Does she?” Kyle couldn’t help but be amused. An interesting kid, this Caitlyn Rawlings. Precocious, smart and, he suspected, a little cunning.
She was already walking backward toward the lane. “I gotta git. Mom’ll be callin’ over to Tommy’s if I don’t phone her first and tell her that I got there.” Whirling on her heel, she made tracks down the lane, and Kyle watched her go. Instinctively he knew she was a tomboy who caught grasshoppers, splashed in creeks, probably shot a .22 and built forts out of hay bales. He doubted if she ever played with dolls, dressed up in her mother’s old clothes or hosted a tea party. Yep, he thought, watching her slide between two strands of barbed wire and start running across the western acres, she was definitely Sam’s daughter.
“Well, look at you,” Grant said as he stepped through the screen door and eyed his stepbrother half an hour after Kyle had met Caitlyn. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were an honest-to-goodness cowboy.”
“Right,” Kyle drawled, sarcasm dripping from the single word.
“Got any coffee?”
“Instant.”
Grant’s grin inched a little wider. “What? No espresso or cappuccino or whatever the hell it is you city slickers drink?”
Kyle snorted. He couldn’t argue. His day in Minneapolis had usually started with a double latte, though he wasn’t about to admit it here. But he had to concede that his damned cowboy boots pinched a little and his jeans, newly purchased at the local dry-goods store, were still stiff with sizing. “Look, insult me all you want. I’m just bidin’ my time until I can sell the ranch and move on. This is day one of the next one hundred and eighty.”
“Noble of you,” Grant observed.
“Who ever said I was noble?”
“No one. Believe me.”
“That’s what I thought.” He’d never been one to pursue noble causes, didn’t know why anyone cared. Oh, sure, he held a grudging respect for people who fought for something they believed in, but he wasn’t surprised when the fight backfired and the erstwhile heroes got their teeth knocked in. Kyle figured as long as he didn’t break any laws or step too hard on anyone’s toes, nothing else much mattered. His only regret, and one that he’d buried deeper than he cared to admit, was Sam. Seeing her again reminded him just how close he’d been to her. But that was a long time ago. They’d been kids. They’d been as wrong for each other then as they were now.
Grant hung his hat on a peg near the back door, then slid into a chair at the old maple table, the same ladder-back one he’d claimed as a kid, as Kyle poured them each a cup of the stuff he called coffee. “So you saw Sam again,” Grant said as Kyle handed him a mug that was hot to the touch.
“Yesterday. She was workin’ with that devil you inherited.”
“Only one who can handle him.”
“That so?”
“Sam’s become quite a horsewoman.”
Was there a note of awe in his stepbrother’s voice? For some unnamed reason Kyle experienced a jab of jealousy. Not that he had any reason to care. “I suppose she has.”
Grant took a long swallow of coffee and wrinkled his nose. “No one bothered to teach you how to cook.”
“Tell me about Sam.” Sitting on one worn, maple seat, he propped the heel of one boot on the chair next to him.
“She’s been a godsend. When Jim got sick, she took over. Stepped right into her dad’s shoes. He taught her everything she knows about ranchin’, which is one helluva lot, and when he died, she ran things here as well as at her own place.” He swirled the contents of his cup and frowned. “Kate depended on Sam to keep things going when she wasn’t around, even though she hired one guy—Red Spencer—as foreman. He wasn’t as sharp as Jim, and Sam helped out when she could. Then Red retired and everything fell on Sam’s shoulders. Kate paid her and tried to find someone else, but no one was as honest and straightforward as Samantha Rawlings. No one else really cared about the ranch and then…well, Kate died and Sam stepped in.”
“Sounds like she walks on water.” This time Kyle was certain he’d heard a hint of reverence in his stepbrother’s voice.
“Don’t tell her that.”
He twisted his cup in his hands. “Or else you’re half in love with her.”
Grant grinned and ran a hand through his short, sandy brown hair. “Me? No way, and I pity the poor fool who is. She’s one mule-headed lady. I like my women a little bit less short-tempered.”
“Oh, yeah, right.” Kyle wasn’t convinced and didn’t bother hiding his feelings. Grant had been a bachelor for years, but he wasn’t immune to women—especially the smart, good-looking kind. Like Sam. “I met her kid today.”
“Caitlyn?”
“Mmm. She was here less than half an hour ago. Looks a lot like her ma.”
