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But Kaley had seen her father’s face when Jim had asked him what it was like to loose a clip of bombs on a peasant village—the instant change of subject and mood. Hadn’t Jim once stopped to think that their father had left that all behind as quick as he could? He hadn’t stayed in the service; he’d done his duty, then come straight home to Colorado, back to what mattered. “I didn’t realize,” she said carefully as Jim continued to glare his defiance. “I thought—”
“That I’d grown out of all that? Changed my mind, decided I’d rather punch cows the rest of my life than pilot a jet? You’ve always believed what you want to believe. Dad needed somebody and it wasn’t going to be you—you’d already run off to college and married your city slicker. So who did that leave holding the bag?”
“But Dad couldn’t do it alone.” The illness that had finally claimed him had sapped his strength for years before the end. “There was no way he could have kept the ranch going without your help.”
“I know that.” Jim rubbed a big hand tiredly up his face. “And I didn’t begrudge it while he was here. But he’s gone now, so what about my dreams?”
What could she say to that? “If I’d known you had any—” She stopped at his harsh laughter. “I mean any apart from ranching. But you didn’t tell me, Jim. I thought you loved it here.”
“You thought I felt the way you do,” he said flatly. “Just because I didn’t whine didn’t mean I was happy.”
She let out a slow breath. Another thing she hadn’t seen, just as she’d missed Richard’s true feelings about children. Was she that selfish and blind?
“I tried to make a go of it,” Jim continued, lifting the lid to the sugar bowl once more and dropping it, raising it and clinking it down again. “Tried hard since Dad was gone. I don’t want to lose this place any more than you do. But I don’t want to be chained to it, Kaley. Looking up when the jets fly over from Colorado Springs, wishing I was up there, not stuck down here with a jar full of pink-eye ointment and an irrigation ditch to muck out.”
She put her knuckles to her mouth and bit down, thinking hard. “Will it help any now that I’m back? That should free up some of your time. Maybe we could go halves on the chores…” At least, once her baby was delivered they could, if Jim would be patient that long. “If you took private flying lessons, maybe rented a plane?” But that could hardly be cheap and money had been tight around the ranch for years; they were just barely holding their own with her teaching salary added to the ranch’s profit… And now that she’d no longer be teaching… I’ll have to think. There had to be some way.
Jim shook his head. “I wish you’d gotten that letter. This was easier to say long distance.” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out on four simple words.
“I’ve already joined up.”
WHAT NOW, WHAT NOW, what now? Kaley wondered, scrubbing a hot washrag over her face. She’d had to excuse herself and go upstairs, as much to gain time to think as to freshen herself. What am I going to do now? If she’d had a day to think things out—even half a day—but in reality she had less than an hour. Jim was due at the induction center by noon.
He’d signed the papers and for the next four years, he belonged to the air force; she might as well ask them for one of their jets as for her brother back. He was as good as gone.
And he’d said they had more things to talk about. I’ll say! Kaley glanced down at her stomach, then grimaced. No, that wasn’t fair, to mention her baby now, when there was nothing he could do to help her. It would only make him feel guiltier when he felt bad enough already. Braced on the cool porcelain, she leaned over the sink, staring down into the darkness of the open drain, like the hole Alice fell down to Wonderland. She’d dropped into a whole new country. Not the safe and comforting one she’d been fleeing to, had counted on for the past miserable month.
It isn’t fair!
No. She sucked in a breath and held it. She was the one who hadn’t been fair, telling herself that Jim was satisfied with his life. Time to grow up, Kaley. Mothers really ought to be grown-ups. She touched her stomach for luck, squared her shoulders and went back downstairs.
Jim was sitting out on the back stoop, staring off toward the high country. She sat down beside him, their shoulders brushing, glanced at him and had to smile, he looked so miserable. “It’s not that bad, flyboy. I’ll manage.” Somehow. “Me and Whitey. You’ve done it for years. Now it’s my turn.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed painfully and he shook his head. “I haven’t told you the half of it yet. Wish I’d kept a copy of that damn letter to show you now.”
What could be worse than his leaving? “What else?” she said lightly.
“You remember after Dad died, when I told you we’d have to have more cash to keep going? That the books were in much worse shape than he’d let on. When I asked you for more money and you couldn’t let me have it?”
She nodded. “I’d just paid for my first semester on my master’s degree.” And she and Richard had just moved into a bigger, fancier house out in Scottsdale. Richard had set his heart on it, had said it projected the right kind of image for his new position in the firm, and they’d already put the money down when her father died.
She winced, remembering. “I felt awful about that. But you got a loan anyway, in the end, a third mortgage from the bank.”
Jim put his head down on his forearms, which were resting on his knees. “Not from the bank, Kaley. That’s not where I ended up getting the money.”
“But you said—”
“I lied, all right? The bank wouldn’t risk a third mortgage, what with the loans they hold on us already.”
She felt her heart stutter. “Where did you get it, then?” Jim had wanted a chunk—forty thousand.
“Borrowed it from Tripp McGraw.”
“Tripp.” Her hands felt cold—icy—and the day darkened. Someone was feeling very sick to her stomach. Kaley dropped her head between her knees and gulped air.
“Kaley?” Jim thumped her back. “Hey!”
“How could you?” Anyone in the whole wide world but Tripp McGraw! “How could you?”
“I could, ’cause he would, and we had to have that money to keep going. And that—this—is why I didn’t tell you. You didn’t want to know.”
“No, I didn’t. Don’t.” She’d closed the door on Tripp McGraw nine years ago, when he’d broken their engagement, and she’d never looked back. Hadn’t dared. The only way to happiness had been to pretend Tripp didn’t exist. Never had. “We have to pay him back immediately!”
“That’s what I suggested in my letter. We’ll have to sell. To him, if we don’t find a higher bidder. He’ll deduct his loan from the purchase price and—”
“Are you out of your mind?” Kaley pushed herself upright to stare at him. “Sell the ranch?” Four generations had struggled to hold this land, and now Jim was going to trade it for an airborne toy? A shiny toy that was only his on loan from the government?
“Yes, sell it, why the hell not?” Jim stalked off the steps and wheeled back again, eyes blazing. “You don’t want it—you’re an English teacher, not a cowgirl now! I’m supposed to hang on to your dreams for you if you won’t do it yourself? You call that fair?”
Slowly, Kaley shook her head. “No…” She put one hand to her stomach, the other to her cheek and found it wet—knuckled the tears away and tried to smile.
“So what exactly do we owe Tripp, and when is it due?”
CHAPTER THREE
WATCHING LONER WALK INTO the buyer’s trailer had been harder than Tripp would have thought possible.
“Loads well,” Huckins noted with satisfaction as the stallion followed his man up the ramp, ears pricked, dark intelligent eyes taking in the new conveyance with his usual bold curiosity.
“Yep.” All my horses load well. That the Californian should be surprised wasn’t the best of signs. A horse that feared the ramp—well, that said more about the animal’s handler than it did about the horse. Should have insisted he ride him before I agreed to sell. Watching Huckins in the saddle, Tripp would have known for sure if he deserved the stallion. If he had the patience, and the know-how, and the appreciation that he ought.
For Pete’s sake, McGraw, that’s just a damn horse! Not your virgin daughter.
Smartest, fastest, finest cutting horse he’d ever owned. With more cow sense than a twenty-year-old bull. Tripp had bred him himself, begun gentling him within an hour of his foaling. Loner and he had had the best kind of understanding.
The back gate of the trailer was swung shut with a careless bang. Tripp winced inwardly and set his back teeth. I owed him that much, to watch Huckins ride.
Too late now. He brushed his thumb across his shirt pocket, and the folded check rustled softly. Cold comfort at this moment. He’d never dreamed this would hurt so much. Never dreamed he’d need to do it.
Huckins had first phoned him months ago after Loner had ranked a close second for the National Cutting Horse Association World Champion of the year. The Californian had offered a truly astonishing sum should Tripp ever care to sell.
Back then, selling Loner had been unimaginable. Downright laughable. The chunky buckskin was going to be Tripp’s foundation sire for a line of cutting horses the likes of which had never been seen before. McGraw horses that would spin on a dime and give you eleven cents change. A line of cutters that would bring the ranch a second source of income, to offset the sickening swoops in the cattle market.
Instead, here he was, cashing Loner in like a forgotten check he’d found in the back of his wallet. Because there was one thing in the world Tripp needed more than the country’s finest cutting horse, and that was land.
Tripp swallowed and found his throat aching. “Well…” He held out his hand. “You’ve got a long drive ahead of you.”
“Don’t worry about him, McGraw. I’ll treat him well. Like the prince he is.”
You do or you’ll find me on your doorstep! “Sure.” Tripp turned on his boot heel and walked. Land, he reminded himself, trying to drown out the sound of Huckins’s pickup starting up behind him. Land—that magical, crucial word. No, make it two words. Enough land.
Maybe he’d stop by Cotter’s, before he went home, cheer himself up. Plant his feet on the land Loner had bought him.
JIM WEDGED his duffel bag onto the floorboard of his truck and closed the door. Walked around to the driver’s side, and stood, fingering the handle. “I hate to leave you like this. It isn’t right.”
“Can’t see you’ve got much choice.” And by now Kaley was swaying with fatigue and shock. She just wanted him gone so she could crawl up to bed. Sleep first, figure it out later, she told herself. “Stop worrying. I’ll be all right.” Somehow. She shuffled forward and hugged him fiercely. “Now, go knock ’em dead, flyboy. Make me and Dad and Whitey proud.”
She waved till his pickup had topped the first rise, then her shoulders slumped and her smile flattened to a trembling line.
Closing her eyes, she stood, hearing the quiet creep in around her. Each time she returned, she marveled how quiet it was out here. It had never mattered when, come suppertime, there’d be family at the table. One hand crept to her stomach, then she turned and went inside.
AFTER SHE’D USED UP all the hot water showering, Kaley wrapped herself in a white terry-cloth bathrobe, the one she’d taken from her mother’s closet after her death. It had been Kaley’s for years now, since she was fourteen. Had accompanied her to college, then out to Arizona. But Richard had never liked it, so on one of her visits she’d left it here, where it belonged. One more raggedy, comforting landmark waiting for her return.
Lying on her bed, she bit the sleeve, her nose brushing its fuzzy nap. Oh, Mama, what now? To come home—and find it yanked out from beneath her feet just when she needed it the most! Tears trickled down her cheeks. She flung her forearm across her eyes, mopping up the flow, shutting out the awful day. Sleep now, figure it out later.
SHE LAY ON HER BED, listening to the approaching engine—a shiny black hearse idling into the backyard. Whitey sat behind the wheel, with her father riding shotgun—same way they’d always driven the ranch truck. They’d come to tell her about her mother’s fall. “Too sassy,” Whitey said. “That was always her problem. If she could have saddled a locomotive, she’d have tried to ride it.”
Her father nodded bleakly.
“We thought we’d take your baby, too,” said a man dressed in a doctor’s green surgical scrubs and mask, coming in the kitchen door behind them. “That’ll save a second trip.”
“Aaah!” Kaley sat up, heart lurching, breath coming in terrified pants. “Oh…” She stared around her old bedroom. Horrible dream, somehow worse for its silliness. She pulled in a shuddering breath and tried to hold it. Let it out in a gasp. Couldn’t have been asleep for long—the angle of sunlight slanting across the windowsill had barely changed. “Only a dream,” she muttered, rubbing her stomach.
A bad-luck dream.
No! No, not at all. Simply foolishness—nothing but exhaustion and stress.
Knock-knock.
“Whitey?” She swung her legs off the bed and stood—wobbled and caught hold of the footpost.
Knock-knock-knock!
Whitey, of course. Jim had told her he’d been staying in town all this week at his widowed sister’s. They’d had an awful fight when Jim had decided to sell out. After she’d slept, Kaley had intended to drive down and find the old man, tell him to come back, stop worrying, everything would be fine. So he’d saved her the trouble. And this was the reason for her nightmare; she’d woven the sound of his approaching truck into her dreams.
The knock came a third time as she reached the bottom of the stairs. What’s he knocking for? Whitey owned the kitchen—owned them all and the ranch, too, by right of seniority and survivorship. He’d been her grandfather’s hired hand and best friend. Knocking ’cause he’s on his high horse—he’s still mad, she realized, crossing the mudroom. But not with her. She opened the door with a big smile. “Hey, you—”
Not Whitey. Her gaze collided with a chest that was younger, broader, harder, that blocked most of the doorway. With a big fist poised in the act of knocking. Her widening eyes lifted to a face she hadn’t seen close up for nine years.
Tripp.
His hand unfisted and rose on to his face. He touched his scarred cheekbone with his knuckles, then his hand whipped aside, aborting the motion.
That scar like a comet, a shooting star, which he hated and she’d loved. A radiating tracery of fine white lines, starkly vivid now against his reddening face.
Reddening because he knew that she knew the why of that gesture. It was a holdover from childhood, a reflexive attempt to shield his face from the eyes of a stranger, from the eyes of someone he didn’t trust. A sign of surprise and dismay.
I thought I cured you of that.
His hand came to rest on the doorjamb alongside her head. She’d forgotten how much taller he was than she. She’d always loved that about him, his size and strength. “I thought you were Whitey.” Belatedly she realized she was standing there in nothing but her old bathrobe, its coarse fabric stinging skin that had suddenly gone achingly, wincingly, alive.
“Kaley.” Her name came out in a croak, and Tripp shook his head—more wonder than denial. His hazel eyes drifted down over her, were veiled by dark lashes as his gaze dropped to her naked feet.
Under the pressure of that gaze, she stepped back, her hands moving to her belt, instinctively tugging it tighter. She felt her own cheeks go hot. Damn, she’d wanted time to nerve herself for a meeting with him! And she’d gone to bed with wet hair—it must be a mess.
“What are you doing here?” he asked as his eyes traveled back to her face.
He had no right to look at her this way. He’d willingly, ruthlessly, wastefully forfeited that right nine years ago. “Not selling to you, that’s what.” Jim shouldn’t have borrowed from you, and you should have had the decency not to loan! But that was all in the unmentionable past and would stay there. “I’m not selling to anybody,” she amended.
“You’re—? But—” Another wave of ruddy color swept his face. “Now wait a minute!” He advanced into the room and she retreated the way she’d have dodged back from a hot stove—then frowned. She was in no mood to be pushed around in her own kitchen.
“Your brother and I have an understanding,” Tripp growled, reaching for her arm.
She retreated another step. “He didn’t check with me, Tripp.”
“He said you didn’t care. That you’d be delighted to sell. That he had full power of attorney.”
“He does, but he was wrong—dead wrong. I’m not selling.”
Tripp had gone so pale the scar had vanished on his cheek. He caught her shoulders as if to shake her—she narrowed her eyes at him and tipped up her chin. Don’t you dare!
Instantly he let her go. “I sold my—” He tried again for a level tone. “I sold a stallion this morning, Kaley, to raise money for the down payment on this ranch.”
“This ranch isn’t for sale.”
“I can’t get him back.”
“I’m sorry, Tripp, but what am I supposed to do? Give up my home, instead?”
“Yes! It’s not your home anymore. You don’t need it, can’t keep it the way it should be kept, and I can. You damn sure should sell it!”
“Well, I won’t.”
Eyes locked, they glared at each other as if the first to blink would lose all. He’d been twenty-four the last time she’d faced him. Nine years of Colorado weather, the hard, outdoor life of a rancher, had burned the last hint of boyhood out of him, leaving him fined down to taut muscle and hard bone. Unsmiling. Once he would have seen the humor of them facing off like a couple of cursing cats. No more.
Just as her eyelashes shivered, he spun away, looked wildly around the kitchen as if in search of something to smash or punch, then swung back again. “Did Jim explain this to you? This didn’t happen overnight. I bailed him out May before last—loaned him forty thousand for six months.”
“Yes, he told me.” Not two hours ago. Jim had borrowed Tripp’s money and used it to buy early calves in the spring, meaning to fatten them and sell them in the fall. His hope had been to make a big enough profit that he could afford to hire a manager for the ranch, leaving him free to enlist in the air force. “I risked big, yeah, Kaley, but the payoff could have been terrific!”
Could have been. If the price of beef hadn’t dropped through the basement. Had Jim sold at that point, he’d have ended up worse off than he started, by the time he reckoned in feed, labor and overhead. Better to hold the calves till the following fall and pray their price would rise.
“But he couldn’t pay me off come roundup,” Tripp continued. “So I let the loan ride for another year.”
“That was very…considerate of you,” she admitted.
“Considerate! What were my choices? Calling my loan and ruining your brother, since he hadn’t a hope in heaven of paying? Or doing without money I could have used myself for another year?”
He’d been extremely generous—or extremely crafty. Ruthlessly foresighted. Because Tripp hadn’t simply let the loan ride—he’d forced Jim to sign a further contract. “You may have done without your money for a year, but it bought you a first option on our land.” An option to buy, if ever Jim decided to sell. Tripp had an unbreakable right of first offer, first refusal.
