Wind River Ranch
Jackie Merritt
ONE STRONG COWBOY…From the moment Dena Colby returned to Lander, Wyoming, handsome rancher Ry Hardin was there for her. Her father had just died and left her the ranch. But Dena had no intention of lowering her defenses for anyone, least of all her father's foreman. Dena might be saying "hands off," but Ry knew better.The darn fool woman needed him, even if she was too stubborn to admit it. This former cowgirl - now city girl - belonged in his strong cowboy arms, and he'd fight heaven and earth to get her there… .
When He Kissed Her Again, She Held Nothing In Reserve, (#u5d3c9be4-94a1-5625-9e72-bea25f4b9d65)Letter to Reader (#u4cc3eb19-5f01-5148-9528-40b0eec28a29)Title Page (#ucac4854c-863a-58e1-b5d7-3bad2f227711)About the Author (#u7871c649-165c-5519-9562-531429b8bce5)Prologue (#u1c18c7d9-18f7-5694-9fb5-e00778fdc9b1)Chapter One (#ubcf9beb5-c2cf-5b79-85b6-4b4c0e071f46)Chapter Two (#ud7975e23-dfc7-5aaf-ae27-58d65a8c2d04)Chapter Three (#u7f1fdbdf-5d93-5ea1-83a8-c28df59120cc)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
When He Kissed Her Again, She Held Nothing In Reserve,
not even a tiny part of herself, just in case this never went beyond tonight.
It was a risk for a woman like her, giving everything to a man who’d sworn off marriage for good. She knew it, too. She’d taken almost the same vow, but hers had been tempered with I will only marry again if I meet the perfect man.
Well, no one was perfect, but Ry Hardin was darned close. She was already feeling emotionally committed to him, and if he didn’t reciprocate, she could be in for some big-time heartache.
But what else was new? Wasn’t she so used to heartache that she wouldn’t know how to behave if it should suddenly disappear?
In the next heartbeat she wasn’t thinking about anything....
Dear Reader,
THE BLACK WATCH returns! The men you found so intriguing are now joined by women who are also part of this secret organization created by BJ James. Look for them in Whispers in the Dark, this month’s MAN OF THE MONTH.
Leanne Banks’s delightful miniseries HOW TO CATCH A PRINCESS—all about three childhood friends who kiss a lot of frogs before they each meet their handsome prince—continues with The You-Can’t-Make-Me Bride. And Elizabeth Bevarly’s series THE FAMILY McCORMICK concludes with Georgia Meets Her Groom. Romance blooms as the McCormick family is finally reunited.
Peggy Moreland’s tantalizing miniseries TROUBLE IN TEXAS begins this month with Marry Me, Cowboy. When the men of Temptation, Texas, decide they want wives, they find them the newfangled way—they advertise!
A Western from Jackie Merritt is always a treat, so I’m excited about this month’s Wind River Ranch—it’s ultrasensuous and totally compelling. And the month is completed with Wedding Planner Tames Rancher!, an engaging romp by Pamela Ingrahm. There’s nothing better than curling up with a Silhouette Desire book, so enjoy!
Regards,
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
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Wind River Ranch
Jackie Merritt
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
JACKIE MERRITT and her husband live just outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. An accountant for many years, Jackie has happily traded numbers for words. Next to family, books are her greatest joy. She started writing in 1987 and her efforts paid off in 1988 with the publication of her first novel. When she’s not writing or enjoying a good book, Jackie dabbles in watercolor painting and likes playing the piano in her spare time.
Prologue
Carrying her medical bag, purse and an assortment of file folders, Dena Colby walked into her primary place of employment, Meditech Home Care, which consisted of an office in the front of the building and a lab in the back. It was nearly six, and she was through for the day except for returning the files she had used for today’s appointments and checking her schedule for tomorrow’s. She was currently working days, although all of the employees’ shifts fluctuated on a twenty-four hour basis. Dena was an RN and enjoyed working for a company that supplied around-the-clock home nursing visits when prescribed by a physician.
There were only a few people in the office, one of whom was the receptionist, Gail Anderson. Gail was talking on the phone and she waved and motioned at Dena. “One moment, please. Dena just came in. I’m going to put you on hold while I transfer your call to her phone.”
Dena deposited her load on her desk. “Who is it, Gail?” Wearily she sank into her chair. It had been a busy day, and she was tired, definitely ready to go home, have a hot shower and put up her feet.
“A man named Ryson Hardin. He said it was urgent that he speak to you as soon as possible. He’s on line three, Dena.”
Dena frowned slightly. “I don’t know a Ryson Hardin. How urgent could a stranger’s call be?” She stared at the blinking light of line three on her telephone for a few seconds, then rather belligerently reached for the receiver. If Hardin was using “urgent” to try to sell her something, she was apt to let him know what she thought of such tactics. She spoke coolly. “This is Dena Colby. What can I do for you?”
She heard the man clear his throat. “Miss Colby, this is Ry Hardin. I used your father’s personal telephone directory to locate you. I... have some very bad news.”
Dena gripped the telephone tighter as a barrage of emotions and memories struck mercilessly. “What sort of bad news?” she asked, the sharpness of her voice caused by a sudden acute fear.
“It’s about your father. Simon...died this morning.”
It didn’t sink in. Dena sat there statue still, holding the phone to her ear without saying anything.
“Miss Colby, did you hear what I said?” Ry asked. He’d expected shock, but he hadn’t anticipated total silence from Simon’s daughter. He hadn’t wanted to be the person to call Dena Colby, but the only other candidate for the discomfiting job was Nettie Bascomb, the housekeeper, and Nettie was up there in years and so shaken over Simon’s death she was all but incoherent.
Dena’s thoughts were beginning to coalesce. But denial was rampant in her system. This had to be some sort of cruel joke. “Who did you say you are?”
“Ryson Hardin. I’ve been the foreman on your father’s Wind River Ranch for three years, Miss Colby. I’m surprised my name isn’t familiar.”
He doesn’t know, Dena thought dully. Mr. Hardin did not know Colby family history. There were people who could have told him, Nettie for one. But maybe Nettie had left the ranch, for some reason, since their last correspondence.
“What happened?” Dena asked in a lifeless voice.
“To Simon?”
“Of course to Simon,” she replied impatiently. “Who else would I be asking about?”
“Sorry,” Ry said gently, realizing the shock he’d anticipated from Dena Colby was beginning to develop. “Dr. Worth thinks it was a cerebral hemorrhage. He can’t say for sure without an autopsy, which, of course, is your decision to make. The doc believes it happened some time this morning. Your father had taken a pickup truck and gone to the south end of the ranch early this morning. No one—the ranch hands, Nettie and myself—was alarmed when he wasn’t back by noon. Simon rarely announced or explained his plans for the day. By three I began wondering, however, and I asked Nettie if Simon had taken lunch with him. When she said no, I had everyone start looking for him.”
Dena’s voice had become quite hoarse. “And you found him dead.” In the far recesses of Dena’s mind was the fact that Nettie was still at the ranch. It was small comfort at this moment, but somewhat relieving regardless.
“Not me, personally, but yes.” Two of the hands had spotted Simon’s pickup from a hilltop. They were on horseback, and had ridden hard and fast from that hill to the truck. Simon was still in the driver’s seat, slumped over the wheel. Dr. Worth’s opinion was that he had died instantly. Ry didn’t think he needed to explain every tiny detail to Dena Colby during this call, figuring that she had enough to digest with what he’d already told her.
He couldn’t possibly grasp the true nature of Dena’s state of mind. She could just barely think; her heart was pounding hard enough to hear and her hands were shaking like twigs in a high wind. Her mouth was so dry that speaking was almost impossible.
“I—I’ll catch the first flight out,” she mumbled thickly.
“If you let me know your flight schedule, I’ll meet your plane, Miss Colby.”
“I...” She was beginning to crack. Her father had died without forgiving her. He was too young to die, barely fifty years old, and now there was no longer a chance of forgiveness, of reconciliation. “Th-thank you for calling. I’ll be in touch.” She put down the phone.
“Dena?” It was Gail, looking at her across several desks with a worried expression. “Are you all right?”
“My...my father died this morning,” Dena said in a choked whisper.
“Oh, Dena, I’m so sorry.” The phone rang and Gail sent it an irritated look before answering it.
There was a self-protective numbness in Dena’s system, which she knew had to be dispelled. She had to call the airlines for a flight from Seattle to Casper, Wyoming, and another from Casper to Lander... and rearrange her work schedule with Gail... and go home and pack. And all she wanted was to sit there and do nothing
These days Dena didn’t concern herself with the concept of pretty. She wore her nearly black hair short for the sake of convenience. Lipstick and blusher—used sparingly—were her only cosmetics. Her clothing was purchased with comfort in mind, and she didn’t even own a cocktail dress, as she had rarely dated since her divorce three years ago, and those occasions had always been strictly casual. She lived a quiet life with one all-consuming goal, to reconcile with her father, who had stated angrily, sternly and emphatically that he would never speak to her again when she had rebelled against his insistence she go to college and instead had married Tommy Hogan right out of high school. At the time she hadn’t cared how Simon felt about it. He’d been an overly strict parent with—in her opinion—unrealistic, old-fashioned ideas of how she should live her life.
It was only later on, when Tommy had proved to be the lazy, immature and not very honest person that Simon had declared him to be, that Dena realized in this case her father had been right. The whole Hogan family—dozens of them—were cut from the same cloth. Regardless of the many clashes with her father, Dena had absorbed Simon’s ethics and standards. The Hogans, including Tommy, had had no ethics. It had been quite a blow for Dena to look at her husband one day, who’d been unshaven, out of a job again and hanging around their pathetic little house in town drinking one can of beer after another, and realize what a horrible mistake she had made. Tommy was not going to change and suddenly turn into the kind of man she had thought him to be before their marriage.
Or maybe she hadn’t thought at all, beyond his handsome face and happy-go-lucky personality, she had decided with a sick feeling in her stomach.
That very day she had driven out to the ranch with the intention of making amends with her father. She had walked into the house, and Simon had immediately left it without a word. Nettie had smiled weakly. “Hello, honey. How are you?”
Dena’s knees had given out, and she’d folded onto a chair. “He hasn’t forgiven me, has he?” she’d said to the housekeeper. “Will he ever?”
Nettie had looked as though she didn’t know where to put herself. Finally she had offered what she’d obviously thought was consolation. “Give him a little more time, honey.”
Time had done nothing. In almost five years, while Dena had been getting her life on track, obtaining a divorce—which had infuriated the Hogan clan to the point of some of them telling terrible lies about her that had gotten back to Dena—leaving Winston, the small town where she had attended school and then lived after her marriage, moving to Seattle and entering a nursing program while holding down a job to support herself and her education, and finally receiving her nursing certificate and acquiring her present position with Meditech, she had tried contacting her father too many times to count. Her letters had not been returned, but neither had they been answered. Simon had never come to the phone when she’d called the ranch. True to his word, he had not spoken one syllable to her, either aloud or by mail.
And now he was gone.
Nausea roiled in Dena’s stomach, and she also felt cold and sweaty. She knew the signs; if she didn’t do something she was going to faint. Pushing her chair back from the desk, she leaned over and put her head between her knees. Vaguely she registered Gail saying goodbye to whomever she’d been talking with on the phone.
Then Gail was next to her, squatting to be on her level and rubbing Dena’s back. “You’re white as a sheet. I have some water. Can you take a drink?”
Slowly Dena sat up. “Yes, thanks.” Accepting the paper cup of water, she sipped. “I felt as though I was going to black out.”
Gail’s expression was sympathetic. “I know.”
“I’m okay now. I... I have to call the airlines.”
“I’ll do it for you. When do you want to leave?”
“Tonight, if possible.” She and Gail were friendly enough for Gail to know that she was from Wyoming. But she hadn’t told anyone about the heartrending break with her father, or the details of her unhappy and truly ludicrous marriage. Dena sometimes wondered why she had rebelled against her only living parent to the point of hurting herself, but it wasn’t a subject that she could discuss with even her closest friends.
“Seattle to Casper, right?” Gail asked.
Dena nodded. “Then Casper to Lander.”
“You just sit there and get yourself together. I’ll call the airlines right now.” With an air of efficiency—which was completely sincere as Gail Anderson was an extremely competent woman—the receptionist returned to her desk and began looking through the phone book.
Dena still felt numb, and maybe it was best, she reasoned. If her emotions started running wild, she might not have the strength to see this through.
And strength, both physical and emotional, was going to be crucial in the next few days. As dull-witted as her mind seemed to be at the present, she at least knew that much.
One
Returning to Wyoming was traumatic for Dena. It was something she had wanted to do for so long, and to be going now under these conditions was almost incomprehensible. Anxiety ate at her during the flight from Seattle to Casper, and again on the much smaller plane bound for Lander. For some reason, she couldn’t picture the ranch without her father. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe Ryson Hardin—no one would be so cruel as to call a woman with a lie of that nature—but envisioning the place without Simon was next to impossible.
At the same time, sitting stiffly in her seat, Dena wondered why she wasn’t weeping. Her throat had felt tight and achy since Mr. Hardin’s call, but she had not shed one tear. Unquestionably she suffered the sorrow one would expect to feel from such news, and yet she wasn’t able to release the tight grip she had on her emotions. In truth, she felt as though she were trapped in some sort of terrible nightmare, and in the back of her mind was the childlike knowledge that nightmares lasted only a short while. It was such an inane sensation—she was an intelligent woman and fully cognizant of the difference between a nightmare and reality—and yet she couldn’t eradicate it.
The plane landed at the Lander airport at three in the morning. She should have been exhausted and wasn’t; obviously she was running on adrenaline.
Deplaning with the handful of other passengers arriving in Lander at this unholy hour, Dena walked through the gate and glanced around, ardently hoping to see Nettie. She had called the ranch, once she’d known her flight schedule, and Ry Hardin had answered almost immediately, as though he’d been sitting near the phone waiting for it to ring. Dena had been hoping to hear Nettie’s voice, but when she’d asked about the older woman, Hardin had said she was in her room, ostensibly lying down.
“This has hit her pretty hard, Miss Colby,” he’d said.
“Maybe...maybe she will feel up to meeting my plane,” Dena had said unsteadily. But then she’d told Ry Hardin her arrival time, and he had said that he would be at the terminal.
Nevertheless, the hope that she would see Nettie instead of a stranger waiting for her was still with her. That hope faded away as she saw a man walking toward her. Without a dram of genuine interest in Hardin himself, she took in his physical appearance. He was a tall, rugged-looking man with dark hair and eyes. His clothing was jeans, boots and a hat that he removed and held in his right hand as he approached her. He looked as much like a rancher as any man she’d ever seen.
“Dena Colby?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Ry Hardin. Do you have luggage?”
“One bag.”
“We’ll collect it and be on our way. You must be tired.”
“No...no, I’m fine.”
Ry looked at her curiously. She was an attractive woman, small and slender, dressed in navy slacks, a white blouse and a navy cardigan sweater, unbuttoned. She did not appear to be devastated, as he’d thought nught be the case, although her eyes were a little too bright. Feverishly bright, he amended in his private assessment of Simon’s daughter.
They walked to the baggage department, and Dena’s one suitcase appeared almost at once. Ry carried it and escorted her outdoors to his vehicle. Rather, it was a ranch vehicle, Dena realized when she read the sign on the door: Wind River Ranch. It was then she remembered that all of the ranch’s vehicles bore that same sign.
She also realized there were many details about her home that she hadn’t thought of in years. Her concentration regarding anything in Wyoming had been focused almost entirely on her father. She bit down on her bottom lip painfully hard. She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to walk into the house she’d grown up in and feel its emptiness.
They were well under way before either said anything. Ry spoke first. “Nettie said you’re a nurse.”
Dena jumped and turned her gaze to the man behind the wheel. She had actually forgotten he was there. “Pardon?” she said.
Ry repeated himself and added, “Nursing is an admirable profession. One of my sisters in Texas is a nurse.”
Dena tried to think of a response. She liked making new friends, and Ry Hardin seemed like a nice guy. But these were not ordinary circumstances, and there was no way she could concentrate on small talk.
She quietly murmured, “That’s nice,” and then unconsciously turned her face to the side window, again immersed in the agony of why she was in Wyoming in the middle of this dark night.
Her spiritless reply relayed her state of mind to Ry, who decided to say no more. If she instigated a conversation during the drive, he would, of course, participate. But he didn’t expect that would occur, and he drove with his gaze straight ahead on the road.
After a few miles, however, he did say something else. He’d gone through the same shock and grief that Dena Colby was suffering right now with each of his own parents, and he wanted to let her know that he, too, was affected by Simon’s sudden death. “I’m very sorry about your father, Miss Colby. I liked working for him. And I respected him.”
Drawing a breath, Dena pulled herself out of the doldrums enough to answer. “Thank you. And call me Dena,” she said. Colby was her legal name again, as she had petitioned the court for resumption of her maiden name at the tune of her divorce, which had further infuriated the Hogans, who had already been incensed over the divorce. That was when she’d started hearing some of the completely groundless lies they had been spreading around town about her, and it was also when she’d made her decision to leave Wyoming. There’d been no chance of a career in any field in Wmston, and she had wanted to make something of her life. She remembered now that she had also hoped that her leaving the area would shake her father’s determination to disown her.
It hadn’t worked.
As for Ry Hardin liking and respecting Simon, she didn’t doubt it. If memory served her correctly, Simon had usually gotten along with his hired hands. In fact, he had gotten along with most people. It was only with her, his daughter, his only child, that he’d been so hard and unyielding.
Dena released a long sigh of utter anguish and stared through the window again. The countryside was familiar even in the dark, and she attempted to force herself to concentrate on landmarks. Anything was better than thinking of her reason for at long last coming home.
But thoughts of home and the past would not be squelched, and she finally stopped fighting them. Besides, not all of her memories were painful. Her mother, for instance, had been completely kind and loving. While Opal Colby had been alive, Dena had been a happy child.
And Simon had been a happier, more just man. Yes, now that she thought about it, he hadn’t been so strict and demanding while his wife had lived.
And neither had Dena been so rebellious, she had to admit. In retrospect it seemed that once Opal’s sweet and gentle ways were no longer a buffer in the family, there was no family. Simon went his way every day, detouring only long enough to make sure Dena was behaving herself, which meant no makeup, the right kind of reading material and television programs—only his opinion counted, of course—very little time on the phone and a dozen other symbolic slaps in the face.
At least that was the way Dena had interpreted her father’s harshly issued orders and oft-repeated remarks of disapproval. For a girl in the throes of puberty who had so recently lost her mother, life was miserable. Many times she had muttered to herself that she hated her father, which had not been the truth at all. What she’d wanted so much she had ached from it was for him to hug her, speak kindly to her, tell her he loved her and even tuck her into bed at night as he had sometimes done before her mother’s death.
Now, as an adult with medical training, Dena knew that when her mother died Simon hadn’t been able to overcome his grief. He’d become hard because of internal misery, and as he hadn’t understood the emotional ups and downs of a teenager, he had continued to treat Dena as the child she had once been. He could handle a child; he hadn’t known how to deal with a budding woman. Dena had written of these things in her letters, but to her knowledge Simon had never read one of them. It was heartbreaking to envision him having destroyed or discarded her letters without opening them, but what else could she think?
The lights of Winston—still some miles ahead—gave her a jolt. She sat up a little straighter, wishing there was a way to reach the ranch without driving through the town. There were so many bad memories connected to Winston—her marriage, the Hogan family and their lies, her divorce, the fact that everyone in town knew her father would not say hello to her should they meet on the street. It was the way of small towns everywhere: everyone knew everyone else’s business. She had not once missed Winston or anyone living there, and she felt no guilt over feeling that way, either.
Ry noticed her more alert attitude and thought it a good sign. With her having been raised on a ranch, Winston was the closest thing she had to a hometown. His own past was similar; he’d grown up on a ranch in Texas near a town that was about twice the size of Winston, and he had many fond memories of his school years in that town.
Ry slowed down to the speed limit as they passed the town limits. Not a car was moving on the main street, not a person was in sight. The windows of some buildings were lighted. Winston was beginning to wake up, but it was still so very early, just approaching dawn.
“You must have gone to school here,” Ry said.
“Yes,” Dena said, offering no further information.
Ry sighed inwardly, but he couldn’t take offense at Dena Colby’s reticence. She had to be hurting, and since she hadn’t come home to visit her father during Ry’s employment at the Wind River Ranch, he really couldn’t begin to guess what was going on in her mind. Guilt, perhaps? He was suddenly curious about something he’d never even thought about before. Why hadn’t Dena come home for three years? It might have even been longer than that, as his knowledge of Dena’s absence was limited to his employment on the ranch.
In the next instant he realized that her dignity was very much like Simon’s. Had he ever seen Simon Colby lose control of his temper, for example? Or let anyone into his inner thoughts? Yes, Ry thought, he had liked and respected his employer, but he had never felt close enough to the man to call him a friend.
The ranch lay twenty miles on the other side of Winston. Dena felt the rigidity of her body relax some when they were again on the open road, although she was still tenser than normal. She gulped hard. It wouldn’t be long now, less than a half hour, and then the true nightmare would begin. She tned to think of something else. The question of how many times she had traveled the distance between the ranch and Winston came to mind. She knew every inch of this stretch of road, every curve and dip, except for—
“The road has been paved,” she said in surprise, more to herself than to Ry.
But he heard and thought she was speaking to him. “Wasn’t it paved when you lived here?”
“It was gravel.”
“Probably been a lot of changes made in the area since you moved to Seattle,” Ry said. He wasn’t trying to be snide or judgmental. His comment seemed perfectly normal to him.
Dena’s head jerked around. “What do you know about my leaving?” She’d been under the impression that he knew nothing of Colby family history, but now she wondered. And if he did know of her and Simon’s sad relationship, who had told him? Was she still the victim of lies and gossip around Winston? She didn’t mind anyone knowing the truth of her past, but she despised the possibility of even a stranger believing some of those lies.
Ry was startled by the defensive tone of her voice and became a little defensive himself. “I don’t know anything about you, so don’t get your dander up at me. Your business is yours and mine is mine. That’s the way I live my life.”
She felt properly chastised and said no more on that subject. Truth was, which she was fully aware of, she was overly sensitive about the past. She should not have spoken to Ry Hardin in such an abrasive manner. Why wouldn’t he snap back at her?
Besides, he’d been nice enough to crawl out of bed in the middle of the night to meet her plane, and she appreciated it.
“I haven’t thanked you for picking me up,” she said. “Let me do so now. I...I haven’t been myself since your call.”
“Forget it,” Ry said quickly. “I know you’ve got a lot on your mind.”
She put her head back and closed her eyes. “Yes, I do,” she said in a near whisper. There was something warm and friendly about Ry Hardin, which she would have been happy to pursue at any other time. But she wasn’t going to be in Wyoming long enough to concern herself with new friendships. She had arranged a week away from her job, figuring seven days should be a long enough time to deal with the morbid and heartbreaking details of burying her father. Her eyes squeezed more tightly shut for a moment. Could she get through the upcoming week without a breakdown? She felt on the verge of one, although she’d never experienced any such affliction before. But she’d worked with patients who had lost every hold on their senses because of a shock or even just the rigors of ordinary, everyday life. The thought of mental incapacitation was horrifying; she had to maintain an even keel, no matter how emotionally devastating the next few days might prove to be.
Ry was surprised and pleased that Dena hadn’t become angry over his defensive comeback. Even more pleasing was her remembering to thank him right after what could have been a serious breach between them. Obviously she was basically a nice person, and he himself would much rather be friends than enemies with anyone. Besides, it wasn’t his intention to alienate Simon’s daughter. It had crossed his mind that Dena could be his boss now. It was certain that someone was going to have to take over Simon’s duties, and why wouldn’t that person be Simon’s only child?
Not that Ry would ever kiss up to anyone to keep a job. But he liked living and working at the six-thousand-acre Wind River Ranch. He liked Wyoming, for that matter, and he would rather stay on at the Colby ranch than start looking for another job, no matter who picked up the reins.
Dena knew the mile-long ranch driveway was fast approaching, and her hands nervously clenched on her lap. Painful thoughts darted through her mind. She should have found a way to force her father to talk to her. Why had it never occurred to her that time might run out? The unhappiness that was so much a part of her life was her fault. If she had returned to the ranch before this, and followed Simon around until he grew weary of the silence between them, she would not be coming home now with such a heavy heart.
“Here we are,” Ry murmured, making the turn onto the ranch road. He sent his passenger a glance, and saw her sitting stiffly still and staring out the front window. His heart reached out to her. Losing a loved one was a hell of a thing to go through. Whatever kind of woman Dena Colby was, she was another human being, and he felt her grief in his own soul.
At first sight of the ranch house and outbuildings, illuminated by yard lights on tall poles, Dena caught her breath and held it. She felt light-headed from a lack of oxygen before she finally breathed again, and by that time Ry had braked to a stop next to the house. He turned off the engine.
“I’ll get your suitcase,” he told her, implying that she should just get out, go inside and not concern herself with her luggage.
“Thank you.” Her hand crept to the door handle. There were lights on in the house, and she suddenly knew that Nettie was waiting for her. Mobility returned in a rush, and she pushed open the door, got out and hurried to the back of the house. Taking the three steps to the porch, she crossed it quickly and opened the door that led to a mud room and then the kitchen.
Nettie materialized, her long, gray hair still in her nighttime braid, and wearing a robe and slippers. With tears running down her cheeks, she opened her arms.
“Child” was all she said.
Dena stepped into the circle of the older woman’s arms, and that was when the dam broke. All of the tears she hadn’t shed seemingly came at once. The two women held each other and sobbed together.
Ry passed them with Dena’s suitcase and they never noticed. Feeling the sting of tears himself, he brought the suitcase to the bedroom that Nettie had told him had always been Dena’s.
Then he let himself out the side door of the house and walked down to the barn. He always got up early; today was just a few hours earlier than usual. Grabbing a shovel, he began cleaning stalls.
Although this was not one of his regular jobs on the ranch, it beat standing around and feeling bad by a mile.
Two
At 8:00 a.m. Dena was on her way back to Winston. Using one of the ranch cars, she drove the familiar road, thankful that it was sparsely traveled, as her mind was too overloaded to concentrate on anything but the sudden tragic turn of her life.
She felt rocky from lack of sleep and because she hadn’t been able to eat more than a few bites of toast this morning. She knew what she was doing to herself. Even people without medical training knew that one shouldn’t stop sleeping and eating because of a shock. But that’s what people with a heart did, wasn’t it? The kind of shock she had received, the nightmare she was living through, all but disabled a person. Certainly it destroyed normal routines and habits, and only God knew how and when she was going to regain her usual sensibilities.
Dena harbored an impossible wish: that she could avoid Wmston altogether. But it was where Dr. Worth’s office was located, and Nettie had told Dena that the doctor had to see her posthaste. Dena was certain she knew why—that question of an autopsy.
The funeral home was also in Winston. If Dena had the power to eliminate one day from her life, this would be it. There were others that had caused an enormous amount of trouble and grief, but none to compare with what today demanded of her.
Dr. Worth had been the Colby family physician for as long as Dena could remember, and Nettie had said that his office was still in the same place it had always been. Once Dena reached the town limits, it took only a few minutes to get there. There was a small parking strip next to the building, and she pulled into a space and turned off the ignition. Panic rose in her throat. She didn’t want to do this. Neither did she want to visit the funeral home after talking to Dr. Worth and plan her father’s burial. How did one converse coherently and with a reasonable amount of intelligence about such things?
Tears welled and she wiped them away with a tissue. Then, drawing a deep breath, she took her purse and got out of the car. She had phoned Dr. Worth at his home this morning and he had told her to meet him at his office at eight-thirty. She was right on time.
With every cell in her body throbbing like a toothache, she walked to the side door of the building—another of Dr. Worth’s instructions—and rang the bell. The door opened almost at once. Dr. Worth gave her a quiet smile. “Hello, Dena. Come in.”
“Hello, Doctor,” she whispered hoarsely.
He led her to his personal office and sat her in a chair near his desk. Even through the haze of pain clouding her mind, Dena realized that Dr. Worth had aged since she’d last seen him. She was thinking about the changes time wrought on everyone and everything when Dr. Worth spoke.
“I understand you’re a nurse now,” he said, seating himself at his desk.
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll have a better understanding of what we must discuss.”
“You want to do an autopsy.”
“No, I have to know if you want an autopsy.”
Dena swallowed the lump in her throat. “The ranch foreman said you diagnosed the cause of Dad’s death as a cerebral hemorrhage.”
“I did, and I still believe my initial diagnosis. But if you have any doubts...”
“Was there any chance of foul play?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. Simon died quite naturally. It’s just that sometimes family members are driven to know the exact and precise cause of death.”
“I don’t feel that way, Doctor. Unless there is good reason for an autopsy, I don’t want it.”
Dr. Worth nodded approvingly. “I’m glad to hear that. Dena, you have to know how sorry I am about Simon’s death. How are you holding up?”
Dena turned her face away. “Not...well,” she said in an unsteady voice.
“You look drawn and exhausted, but that’s to be expected, I suppose, when you flew all night to get here. Are you eating?”
“Not...much,” she whispered.
Dr. Worth eyed her thoughtfully. “One of life’s most traumatic experiences is the death of a loved one. There’s a hole in the world that wasn’t there before, an emptiness within oneself, and the memories we carry of that person seem to bombard us with cruel clarity. We tend to feel guilty over every disagreement with that person and any event where we think we might have done things differently.”
“I could have done things differently, Doctor.”
“But the problems you and Simon had are long in the past, Dena,” Dr. Worth said gently. “You must try not to dwell on what happened so many years ago.”
Dena’s eyes dropped to her hands on her lap. She could tell the good doctor that nothing had changed during those years, that she had tried and tried to reconcile with her father and he had died without forgiving her. She could talk for an hour about the letters she’d written and the phone calls she’d made, but what good would it do?
All she said was, “I’ll try, Doctor.”
“Good,” he replied, appearing satisfied that his little pep talk had worked.
Dena rose from her chair. “I won’t take up any more of your time, Dr. Worth. Thank you for seeing me.” She started for the door, then something occurred to her and she stopped and turned. “Was Dad getting regular checkups, Doctor?” “Simon rarely showed his face in this office, Dena. Essentially he was a very healthy man.”
“Then he wasn’t on any medication that you know of?” There were some drugs that could wreak havoc with the circulatory system, and if Simon was taking any kind of medication, she wanted to know what it was.
“If he was, he didn’t get it from me. Dena, try to take comfort from the swiftness of Simon’s death. He died too young, but the way he went was much better than a long, lingering illness.”
Dena hated remarks like that, even though she knew Dr. Worth was still attempting to ease her pain and there was even some truth in what he’d said.
But suddenly she couldn’t talk about her father’s death a second longer. “Thank you for your time, Doctor,” she repeated and hurried out.
In her car it occurred to her then that she might run into someone she knew while in Winston, a thought that nearly brought on a fit of hysteria. Holding her hand to her throat, she took several deep breaths and told herself to calm down. She might as well face the fact that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of avoiding people’s sympathy during her week in the area.
Or could she? Where was it written that she had to have a public service for her father? She could confine the sad event to—Groaning, she put her head in her hands. Nettie would be appalled. Dena could see herself and Nettie standing alone in the cemetery, listening to a prayer administered by...who? A minister? Someone from the funeral home? Oh, what a pitiful picture, she thought with a fresh gush of tears. And it would be an improper, insulting rite for a man of Simon Colby’s stature. She was being selfish again, thinking of herself and the discomfort of a public display of grief.
Wiping her eyes, she put on dark glasses and forced herself to start the car. She would go to the funeral home and then get out of Winston. And if she ran into a dozen acquaintances—unlikely but possible—with vulturelike words of sympathy and only partially concealed expressions of morbid curiosity, she would handle it.
She had no choice.
That night Dena was able to eat dinner and to talk to Nettie without choking on her own words, probably because she felt so head-to-foot numb. It was even possible to walk through the house, remember her father and not fall apart. When she went to bed she was able to sleep, and any troubling dreams she had during those hours vanished when she awoke.
Ry thought she seemed unnaturally calm, not at all like the tense, jumpy, crushed woman he had picked up at the airport.
In truth, he didn’t see all that much of her, as he took his meals with the men and slept in the bunkhouse. But once he spotted her walking outside, and when a load of barbed wire and posts were delivered the afternoon just before the day of the funeral, he took the invoice from the driver of the truck and went into the house. Nettie was in the kitchen with flour up to her elbows, kneading a large batch of bread dough. Nettie had always taken pride in the good meals she served Simon and his men, and her pragmatic attitude was that people had to eat whether she was grieving or not. She looked up as Ry walked in.
“I need to talk to Dena, Nettie.” Nettie was a little bit of a woman, spry as a spring robin and much stronger than she looked. Ry estimated her age around sixty, but she could be ten years older or younger. Age, either his or hers, was not something they had discussed.
“I think she’s in the living room,” Nettie told him.
“Thanks.” Ry left and headed for the living room. From the doorway he saw Dena seated in a chair and staring blankly into space. Her vacant expression bothered him, and he wondered what, exactly, was going through her mind to cause it. Of course it had everything to do with Simon’s death, he knew that, but weren’t tears and sobs better than such concentrated stillness? Was she deliberately holding her emotions in check? That didn’t seem very healthy to Ry.
But who was he to judge Dena’s method of dealing with grief? Everyone on the ranch was affected by Simon’s death, in one way or another. The men were unnaturally subdued, working without the wisecracks and tomfoolery they often engaged in. Nettie was carrying on in spite of her sorrow, and he had willingly taken over the operation of the ranch for the time being. Taken Simon’s place, actually, although he felt certain that Dena would resent that concept should anyone voice it.
Well, he sure as hell wasn’t going to say any such thing to Dena, but he did have to interrupt her present revene. The invoice in his hand demanded a decision he didn’t feel he should make.
“Dena?” he said.
Slowly her head came around. Her look of total disinterest struck him as one containing a question—who is this man walking into my father’s living room? In truth she’d been miles into the past, thinking of her mother and envisioning how much differently things would have turned out had Opal lived.
She blinked, as though coming awake, and said, “Yes?”
Ry entered the room and walked over to her. “Dena, do you have the authority to sign checks for the ranch?”
She blinked again. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
Ry frowned. She seemed a million miles away and was speaking very slowly. Actually she seemed so withdrawn from reality that he started worrying about her. For certain he didn’t like bothering her with business at a time like this, but he had no choice.
“I have an invoice here that’s marked C.O.D.,” he said, “and someone has to write a check for $1,254.33. My name’s not on the checking account. I was wondering if yours is.”
Lines appeared in Dena’s forehead. Why ever would he think such a thing? “Of course it’s not,” she said, becoming slightly more alert. She paused to think about the amount of the check he needed and ended up speaking a bit suspiciously. “What did you buy for twelve hundred dollars?”
That hint of suspicion in her voice didn’t sit right with Ry. Grief stricken or not, Dena had no right to intimate that he was anything but a hundred percent honest, which he was. His face hardened and so did his voice. “I didn’t buy anything. Simon ordered barbed wire and posts to cross-fence one of the big pastures. The material has just been delivered, and the driver is waiting for payment.”
His defensive tone startled Dena. Good Lord, couldn’t she say anything to him without having her head bitten off? He’d done the same thing during the drive from the airport. What had she said then to cause such a reaction? Her head was aching and she couldn’t remember the incident clearly.
But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t have mustered any genuine anger today if her life depended on it, especially not over something like this. “Ry, you’re the foreman. You handle it, please.”
“How?”
“I really don’t care,” she said listlessly.
Ry could hardly believe his ears. “You don’t care. Dena, do you have any idea how many decisions have to be made nearly every day about something on this ranch? Do you care about that? Let me go one step further. Do you care about the ranch at all?”
Did she? It wasn’t a question Dena had spent any time pondering. She’d grown up on this ranch, but did it mean anything to her? Should it mean something to her?
She didn’t like that Ry Hardin had just brought to light a brand-new aspect of this ordeal.
“Just so you know,” he said flatly, “this isn’t the only situation where someone’s going to have to write checks. I think you should do something about that.”
“Like what?” She was truly puzzled by his attitude.
“Get your name on the checking account.”
“And how do I accomplish that? Simply walk into the bank and tell someone I want access to my father’s money?” Dena shook her head. “They’d either laugh me out of the bank or call the sheriff.”
Ry looked at her for a long moment. “Call Simon’s lawyer.”
“I didn’t know he had one.”
“Well, he did. His name is John Chandler.” Remembering the hell she was living through, Ry spoke with less tension. “Dena, hasn’t it occurred to you that Simon probably left the ranch to you?”
It took a second for that unlikely idea to sink in, and when it finally did she retorted, “Don’t make me laugh.”
Ry felt thunderstruck. “Well, who else would he leave it to?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.” Dena waved her hand. She’d had enough of this conversation. In fact, she wanted to sink back into the hole Ry’s appearance had pulled her out of. “Please go away. I don’t want to talk about any of this.”
“What you should be saying is that you don’t want to face any of this.” Ry shook his head. “I think you’re in for one very big surprise, lady.” Turning on his heel, he walked out.
“Oh, just shut up,” Dena muttered wearily, but Ry was already gone and didn’t hear her. It was just as well, she thought, although she was not going to put up with Ry Hardin or anyone else badgering her about the ranch. She was here for one week, and several days of that week were already over. The funeral was set for tomorrow. Someone had put an obituary in the newspaper announcing the time and place, so there would undoubtedly be a horde of people there.
But it would be her final agony. After tomorrow she could start returning to normal.
Dena laid her head back and looked at the ceiling. What was going to happen to the ranch? Did Ry really care or was he just concerned about his job?
She clenched her hands into fists. Damn him for giving her another worry, another reason to weep and feel helpless.
Outside, Ry walked back to the trucker. “There’s no one to sign a check, so I can’t pay you today. I could call your company and arrange a later payment, or you could take the wire and posts back to Lander.”
The man shrugged. “Makes no difference to me. What d’ya wanna do?”
Ry thought for a moment. Why was he so shook about this? About Dena’s disinterested attitude? To hell with it. If she didn’t care what happened to her father’s ranch, why should he? He probably wouldn’t be here to put in that new fence, anyway.
“Take ’em back,” he said, and gave the man the invoice. “If and when things ever get straightened out around here, we’ll order again.”
The man got into his truck and drove away.
There were two rooms in the house that Dena had been deliberately ignoring, her father’s bedroom and his office. The mere thought of entering Simon’s bedroom gave her cold chills. It was Nettie who had gone in and chosen the clothing for Simon’s burial, and it was Ry who had delivered them to Andrews Funeral Home. Dena appreciated their consideration. Nettie’s, she understood. Ry was a different matter. Ry bothered Dena in a strange way, one she couldn’t quite put her finger on. When she thought of him, that is, which wasn’t often. In fact, she was discovering that she was able to blank out her mind on many subjects. Maybe that was what overwhelming grief did to a person, she thought. If something was too painful to think about, you simply bury it so deep in your psyche it stayed buried.
Still, Ry’s comments about the checking account and having to pay bills and such had penetrated the soothing fog Dena preferred over saber-sharp reality at the present, and she geared herself up for a look at ranch records. It was not something her father had ever invited her to do, but she had to concede the fact of her age before she’d left the ranch, and also the dissension that had existed between her and Simon.
A shiver rippled up her spine as she opened the office door and stepped in. The room was as drab as she remembered. Dull, dark paneling on the walls. Worn carpet. It was depressing. Old furniture, a musty odor. For that matter, the entire house was drab. Because of Nettie it was clean, but Dena was positive no one had done any interior painting or even changed the placement of one piece of furniture since she’d left the ranch at eighteen years of age.
To be painfully accurate, nothing had been changed or improved since her mother’s death. Opal had been a natural-born homemaker, and everything in this old house that was now dull, nicked, snagged and all but ready for the junk pile had been bright and pretty and warmly inviting while she lived.
When Opal became ill, Simon had hired Nettie to take over the housekeeping and the preparation of meals for the ranch hands. Nettie had fit in at once. She and Opal had become close friends, and Nettie had suffered as much as Dena and Simon over Opal’s courageous battle with cancer.
And then it was over and nothing had ever been the same. Dena swallowed hard. She could fall apart so easily, and she would if she let herself dwell on the past. The present was difficult enough to deal with; dredging up her mother’s long illness and death was inviting disaster.
She shut the door behind her and walked over to the ancient desk Simon had used. There was a stack of ranching journals on one corner, a cup containing an assortment of pens and pencils about dead center, and some papers and file folders on the opposite corner. Dena sat in the old leather chair behind the desk and started to cry.
“Damn,” she whispered. She hadn’t come in here to cry. How was the human body able to produce as many tears as she had shed since her arrival home and Nettie’s emotional welcome? She carried a pocketful of tissues, because even while blocking out what she could of the emotional trauma caused by her father’s untimely death, tears would suddenly overwhelm her.
Taking one out, she wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Then she drew a deep breath and began opening drawers. In the bottom right-hand drawer she found a checkbook. Lifting it to the desk, she opened it. Seeing Simon’s handwriting caused more tears, and this time she let them flow. If only she’d seen this wonderful scrawl in replies to the dozens of letters she had written him over the years. How could he have been so hard as to protect and maintain a vow of silence where his only child was concerned, especially when she had tried so hard to atone for her rebellious behavior? Surely he had heard about her and Tommy’s divorce, and her departure from Winston.
But maybe he had also heard the lies that the Hogan clan had viciously spread far and wide about her.
Sighing helplessly, Dena again pulled out a tissue. Her stilldamp eyes widened in surprise when she read the amount of money in this checking account—over sixty thousand dollars. Well, there was certainly enough money to pay any bills that might come up, and to handle the men’s payroll for an extended period.
But it was in the bank and no one could sign checks. Maybe she had better call that lawyer, as Ry had suggested in a rather overbearing manner. Her hackles rose for a few moments. How dare Ry Hardin treat her as some kind of idiot child? Just who did he think he was?
Mumbling to herself about Ry being no more than an employee and acting like lord of the manor, Dena looked for and found her father’s personal telephone directory. She flipped pages until she saw John Chandler’s name and number, then reached for the phone and placed a call. After two rings a male voice came on the line.
“Hello. This is John Chandler. As I notified all my current clients of my vacation before I closed shop for two weeks, you must be unaware of my schedule. I will be back in the office on the fifteenth, so please either leave a message at the beep so I may return your call at that time, or call me again. Thanks for your patience.”
The message startled Dena so much that she hung up rather than identifying herself for John Chandler’s recorder. The man was on vacation and obviously not aware of Simon’s death. The fifteenth, Dena mused, glancing at the calendar on the wall. Four days away. Maybe she would still be here, maybe not.
But did she dare leave without solving the checkbook dilemma? Someone had to be given access to ranch money. The men couldn’t work without pay, nor could the ranch function without supplies.
She sat back in her father’s chair, stunned by the responsibility suddenly thrust upon her. She should not have to deal with this on top of her father’s death.
But the problem was not going to vanish just because she wished it would.
What on earth was she going to do?
Frowning, she wondered if anyone knew where John Chandler had gone for his vacation. Was it possible that he’d gone nowhere and was merely resting at home?
No, if he was in the area he would have heard about Simon.
Wait a minute. If Ry knew Simon’s lawyer was a man named Chandler, maybe he knew more—like, for instance, where he’d gone for his vacation. If she discovered the attorney’s location, she wouldn’t hesitate a moment in calling him. She needed legal advice, and the sooner the better.
Before going outside to look for Hardin, Dena went to her bathroom and washed her teary face. There was nothing to do about her puffy eyes except hold a cold, wet washcloth on them for a few minutes. It helped some, but there really was no way to conceal the ravages of so much sorrow. She brushed her hair and applied lipstick. It was the best she could do, and she left it at that.
Then she headed for the kitchen. Nettie was sniffling while she cut up chickens, breaking Dena’s heart all over again. Battling her own raw and wounded emotions, she cleared her throat.
“Nettie, would you have any idea of where I might find Ry?”
“He was looking for you about a half hour ago.”
“He found me and left. This is about something else.”
“Oh. Well, I never have tried to keep track of the men, honey. He could be anywhere on the ranch.”
“All right, thanks.”
Leaving the house through the back door, Dena stopped to look around. To her surprise, she spotted Ry walking into the barn. It looked as if he was carrying a large coil of rope.
Hurrying across the expanse of ground between house and outbuildings, she entered the barn and called, “Mr. Hardin?”
In the tack room Ry heard her and disgustedly shook his head. So he was Mr. Hardin now. What a peculiar woman.
“In here,” he yelled out. He pushed the coil of rope farther back on the shelf, fitting it in between other coils and some gallon containers of harness and leather oil. There were still harnesses hanging on wall hooks from the days when everything done on the ranch was accomplished with teams of horses. And saddles on racks, and bins of old horseshoes and metal parts and leather strapping to repair harnesses. As the tack room occupied a corner of the barn, there were two windows, one in each outside wall. Dust motes danced in the sun’s rays coming in through the east window. Simon obviously had never thrown anything away, and from the day Ry started working on the Wind River Ranch he had itched to clean out this room. At least half of its contents should be hauled to the dump. Some of it, of course, was saleable. But in Ry’s opinion, whatever was not needed in today’s operation should be either sold or discarded.
Dena walked in. Rather, she stepped just inside the doorway and stopped. In the years since she’d left, not one single thing had changed in this room. It was the same as the house, she realized, in need of a thorough going over.
Her gaze moved to Ry, and she suddenly felt accusatory. He was the foreman and certainly could have fit a little tack room cleaning into his work routine. Even if he hadn’t had the ambition to do it himself, he could have assigned the job to one or more of the other men.
“This place could use a good cleaning,” she said flatly.
Ry was in no mood for snide remarks. Rather than agree with her, which he most certainly did, he drawled, “Seems fine to me.”
“Are you saying you don’t see anything that could use some improvement in here?”
Because she sounded sarcastic, Ry took his time in looking around. When he finally brought his gaze back to her, he said, “I’m surprised you care about clutter and dust in here when you don’t give a damn about the overall operation of the ranch. Must be the female in you.”
Dena’s face colored, but she shot back, “A sexist remark if I’ve ever heard one.” Her mind, she realized, was shockingly dull, and for a few moments she couldn’t remember why she was even in the tack room. Why on earth was she standing here and trading insults with this man?
Then it came to her. “The tack room is more your business than mine. Clean it or wallow in the dirt, it’s all the same to me. The only reason I came out here was to find out if you knew where John Chandler went on his vacation.”
“Didn’t know he took one. I’ve only talked to him a couple of times. He’s not my lawyer.”
A dead end. Dena frowned and turned to leave.
“Hey,” Ry called. “If you really want to run him down, you might try calling his secretary. Her name is Sheila Parks. It’s possible she left town, too, but who knows?”
Dena stopped, one eyebrow raised. “Meaning she took her vacation the same time as her boss?”
Ry shrugged. “Makes sense to me.”
It did make sense. “I would imagine Ms. Parks is listed in the telephone book.”
“Beats me,” Ry said. “And it’s Mrs. Parks, but I don’t know her husband’s first name. Can’t be that many Parks in the area, though.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Ry didn’t like the way they’d talked to each other about the tack room. There was no earthly reason for them to bicker, and he decided then and there to turn things around. “Dena. I agree with you about cleaning up this place,” he said quietly. “I’ve wanted to do it since I started working here.”
Relief flooded Dena’s system over the drastic change in Ry’s voice and demeanor. The last thing she wanted was to be at odds with anyone right now. “But Dad wouldn’t let you, would he?”
Her perception surprised him, but why should it? If anyone had ever really known Simon Colby, it would be his daughter.
Ry took a step closer to her. “There’s something else I’d like to say. I’m not normally short-tempered, and I’ve snapped at you more than once. I’m sorry for it and it won’t happen again.”
She looked into his dark eyes and felt the sting of tears in her own. Her voice was husky when she spoke. “There’s really no reason for you and me to disagree about anything. I’m sorry I was so sharp-tongued about the condition of this room. If I’d thought at all before sniping at you about it, it never would have happened.”
Ry nodded in understanding. “You’re going through a bad time, and I guess you’re entitled to a little sniping.”
“I’m not sure that even grief entitles a person to treat other people rudely.” She managed a brave little smile that nearly broke Ry’s heart. He had to forcibly stop himself from moving closer to her and pulling her into his arms. Strictly to comfort her, of course.
“See you later,” she said then, and turned and left.
Ry walked to a window and watched her leave the barn and head for the house. Dena Colby aroused a complexity of emotions within him. Was it all because of the tragedy she was having to face more or less by herself, or was there more to it?
He wished he knew the answer to that question, because it suddenly seemed very important.
Three
There were three Parks listings in the telephone book, two with a rural address, one in Winston. Dena tried the town number first. A female voice sang out a cheery, “Hello?”
“Hello,” Dena said. “I’m trying to locate Sheila Parks, secretary to John Chandler. Is there any chance I might have reached her home?”
“Sheila’s my mother-in-law, so you didn’t miss it by much. Actually all three Parks in the directory are related. But that’s beside the point, isn’t it? Getting back to Sheila, she’s not in the area right now. I’d be happy to take your number and have her call you when she returns.”
Disappointed, Dena pressed on. “Would it be possible for you to tell me where she is, and if she can be reached by telephone?”
The woman was still friendly, but Dena noticed that a bit of reserve had entered her voice when she said, “Sheila’s on vacation. Who did you say you are?”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t say. My name is Dena Colby, and it’s really Mr. Chandler I need to speak to. I called his office and apparently he, too, is on vacation. Do you know where he went, by any chance? I wouldn’t be bothering anyone about this if it wasn’t extremely important. You see, Mr. Chandler is...was my father’s attorney, and Dad...passed away quite...suddenly.” It was so difficult to say, and Dena hadn’t thought of that in advance. She cleared her throat and continued. “I really need to talk to Mr. Chandler about...well, several things.”
“Please accept my condolences, Ms. Colby. I believe Sheila mentioned John and his wife vacationing in England. As far as reaching Sheila, she and Doug, my father-in-law, are traveling in their motor home. They could be almost anywhere, although they did talk about exploring the New England states. I’m sorry I can’t be more help, but that’s really all I know. Oh, except that they’ll be back soon. Shall I ask Sheila to call you when she gets home?”
Dena thought a moment. “No, that won’t be necessary. Mr. Chandler will be back on the fifteenth, and I’ll wait and talk to him. Thank you for speaking to me.”
“You’re quite welcome. You said your last name is Colby. I just remembered reading Simon Colby’s obituary. Is he your father?”
“Yes. Goodbye, Mrs. Parks.” Dena put the phone down before Mrs. Parks could get in any more questions. Dena appreciated the woman’s friendliness and trust, but the conversation had started getting uncomfortably personal.
She sighed heavily. Merciful God, how was she going to cope with it all?
But it wasn’t a matter of merely coping as far as the ranch went, was it? No one could pay bills or write payroll checks. That was much more than an emotional upheaval. And what about supplies? Groceries?
Too worried to sit still, Dena left the office to find Nettie. The housekeeper was still in the kitchen.
“Nettie,” Dena said, walking in. “I’m afraid we have a real problem. How are you fixed for groceries?”
Nettie looked at her with some surprise. “Land sakes, honey, you had me alarmed for a second. The cupboards, freezer and pantry are loaded with groceries. Why would you think that’s a problem?”
“Because no one on the place can sign checks.”
“Oh. Well, everyone will still have plenty to eat. You see, when I run short of supplies I drive to town and shop at Whitman’s Food Mart. Simon arranged a charge account with Whitman’s, so I wouldn’t have to bother him about kitchen money. Land sakes, it’s been that way for years and years. Don’t you remember?”
“No, I don’t remember.” She still didn’t. It hurt to think how self-centered she’d been in her teens, but facts were facts. Small wonder she and Simon had butted heads so often.
Dena rubbed the back of her neck. “Is there anything you’d like me to do, Nettie?”
“You mean help with the cooking?”
“Or anything else.”
“No, honey. Don’t concern yourself with the household chores. You have enough on your mind.”
“I also have a splitting headache. I think I’ll lie down for an hour or so.”
“You go right ahead and do that.”
Dena went to her bathroom, swallowed two over-the-counter headache pills with a drink of water, then continued on to her bedroom. Lying on her bed, she closed her eyes and slept.
The next morning Dena didn’t even wonder if she would get through the funeral without falling apart. That soothing numbness had returned in the night, and she showered, dressed and ate a light breakfast on automatic pilot.
As she’d suspected, hordes of people attended the service. She had told the funeral director to make it as short and emotionless as possible. No singing, she’d said adamantly. No sad songs or eulogies. Simon Colby would not have wanted an emotion-filled service, with people weeping their hearts out because of soul-wrenching music, and neither did she.
To her chagrin, most of the attendees reconvened at the ranch to eat and talk about Simon. Everyone that came brought something, a cake, a casserole, a ham. It all passed in a blur for Dena, except for a few stand-out incidents. For one, she could hardly believe her eyes when Tommy was suddenly standing before her.
“Hello, Dena. Sorry about your dad, even if the old guy did give you and me a hard time.”
She stared at the man to whom she’d once been married. Tommy was as handsome as ever, reeked of cologne and looked prosperous. But she would bet anything that he had either borrowed the money for the new clothes he was wearing, or he’d charged them. In her experience, Tommy had never set a dollar aside for an emergency, and she couldn’t believe that irresponsible trait had evolved into thriftiness during her absence. What if she hadn’t had a savings account when the call came about Simon’s death? How would she have paid for her flight home?
“Hello, Tommy,” she said, while marveling that she had once believed herself to be madly in love with this man. Of course, in those days she hadn’t known that a handsome face was Tommy’s one and only asset. In fact, looking at him now, she felt pity. It was an impersonal pity and in no way touched her soul. But it was sad that he had no ambition to better himself. She would be surprised if he even had a steady job.
He grinned at her, that cute grin that used to give her goose bumps. “You’re looking good.”
She smirked because she couldn’t look worse if she’d tried. Oh, her black dress was attractive and her hair was nicely arranged, but her face was puffy and the tastefully small amount of makeup she had put on this morning was long gone.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” she said. Recalling his initial remark about Simon giving them a hard time, she added, “Especially in light of your dislike of Dad.”
“Hey, you didn’t like him very much, either. And you had good reason. We both did. If he would have shelled out a few bucks when we needed it, we might still be married.”
“It was not his place to ‘shell out a few bucks,’ Tommy. And if you care to remember, we always needed money. What did you expect him to do, give us a weekly paycheck? If you have the gall to blame Dad for the breakup of our marriage, don’t tell me about it. Now, if you’ll excuse me...”
She wound her way through the crowd, stopping briefly to accept condolences and words of sympathy, some of which she appreciated as they were from old friends of her father’s, neighboring ranchers, for instance. Eventually she reached the other side of the room. She was glad to see Tommy leaving through the front door, and wondered why he had bothered to get all dressed up and attend the funeral of a man he’d despised. Surely he hadn’t supposed she would be thrilled to see him. And how dare he make derogatory remarks about Simon, today of all days?
Had Tommy married her because he’d thought her father would support him? What a ghastly idea that was, but it probably should have occurred to her before this.
Still, it was water under the bridge and totally immaterial to not only today’s events but to her life in general. She really had no feelings at all for Tommy. There were memories, of course, some good, some bad, but feelings? No, there were none within her.
Another incident that stood out occurred when most of the crowd had dispersed and only a few people remained in the living room. They were talking to Nettie. Dena hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and she went to the kitchen. Nibbling on a piece of ham, she stared out the window over the sink with her back to the room.
She felt drained and empty. For years she had been passionate about reconciling with her father. Without that driving force gnawing at her vitals, life seemed rather purposeless. Could she simply go back to Seattle, her job and friends, and act as though she hadn’t received the worst possible blow fate could have dealt her?
“Dena?” She turned slightly. Ry was standing there. “Are you all right?” he asked.
For the first time since she had met this man, she really saw him. He looked clean and crisp in his dark gray Western pants and shirt. There was a black string tie at his collar, and his black leather boots looked smooth as satin and shiny as a mirror. He wasn’t as handsome as Tommy. Rather, his features weren’t as perfectly arranged as Tommy’s. But he was tall and strongly built, and there was a mature, outdoorsy handsomeness to his face that Tommy would never attain. Tommy relied on being cute and thought the world owed him a living; Ry earned his own way and would probably be insulted if anyone referred to him as cute.
“I’m okay,” she told him. Ry had spoken to her before this today, but she honestly couldn’t remember what he’d said. In fact, much that had occurred—at the cemetery, especially—had seemed to vanish from her mind. Temporary memory loss, she thought. A measure of self-protection. It was natural and normal, and she was glad she didn’t recall every painful detail of the day.
Ry walked over to the table and took a cookie from a container. There was a lot of food left, and some plates and bowls to be returned to their owners when Nettie got her kitchen organized again.
Munching on the cookie, Ry looked at her. “I wanted to commend you for planning a sensible service.”
“A funeral is bad enough without wringing every drop of emotion out of everyone attending it,” she said quietly.
“Agreed. I arranged similar services for my parents.”
“You’ve lost your parents, too? Do you have any other family?”
Ry recalled mentioning one of his sisters the night he’d picked her up at the airport, but saw no good reason to remind Dena of it. “Two sisters,” he said. “They both live in Texas. I guess you’re an only child.”
“Yes.” Dena was suddenly choked up. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
Ry nodded. “Then we won’t. Dena, about the ranch...”
She cut in. “I’d rather not talk about that, either, if you don’t mind.”
“All I was going to say was that you can count on me to be here for as long as you might need my help. It’s pretty apparent that you don’t know what’s coming next, and while I feel Simon left you the ranch, I guess anything is possible. Whatever happens, I’ll hang around until you know your next move.”
“The other men won’t.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Can they work without paychecks? I don’t think so.”
“You just might be surprised about that. Besides, someone will have the authority to keep the ranch going, either you or a court-appointed manager.”
Dena frowned. “Are you saying that if Dad didn’t leave the ranch to me, the court will take over?”
“The state, Dena, and only if there’s no will. As methodical a man as Simon was, I can’t believe he didn’t have a will. Have you talked to John Chandler yet?”
“He’s out of town until the fifteenth.”
“Well, that’s only a few days away.”
“But I might not be here.”
Ry looked startled. “You’re not thinking of leaving so soon, are you?”
“I have a job in Seattle.”
“You have a lot more than a job here.”
“You’re only surmising that.”
“True, but it doesn’t make sense that you would leave before knowing exactly what Simon had in mind for the ranch.”
“If he had anything in mind for the ranch.” Even if there’s a will, I won’t be in it. Dena had a sudden strong impulse to explain everything to Ry, but she was so ashamed of the rebellious behavior that had caused the rift between her and her father that the impulse vanished with her next breath.
Ry’s information was disturbing. She couldn’t picture the ranch in the hands of a court-appointed stranger.
Neither could she imagine her father being negligent about a will. She didn’t believe that she was the recipient of Simon’s earthly possessions, but if there was a will, someone was. Her eyes narrowed slightly on Ry Hardin, who had finished the cookie and was dusting crumbs off his hands. Maybe Simon had left the ranch to him? Just how close had he and Ry gotten during their three-year association?
The question came out of her mouth almost as soon as it appeared in her mind. “Were you and Dad close?”
Ry gave his head a slight shake. “Not personally, no. He was my employer, and I respected his knowledge and abilities with the ranch. I believe he respected me in the same way.”
“And that was the extent of your relationship?”
Ry raised an eyebrow, giving her a questioning look. “Were you thinking there was more?”
“I never thought about it one way or the other.”
“Until now,” Ry said softly. “Now, why would that idea even cross your mind? And what difference would it make if Simon and I had been the best of friends?”
“No difference at all,” Dena answered quickly. But he was surprisingly perceptive, and she was embarrassed that he had so easily grasped the motivation behind her question. Nettle walked in then, which put an end to Dena’s and Ry’s conversation.
“Everyone’s gone,” Nettie announced, looking at the food on the table and counters. “Goodness, I won’t have to do any cooking for a week.”
Dena took advantage of Nettie’s intrusion. “I’m going to lie down, so if you’ll both excuse me...”
“Of course, honey,” Nettie said sympathetically.
“Sure,” Ry said. “We can talk again later.”
Dena had no intention of picking up their discussion where it had left off. If her father had left the ranch to Ry, so be it. Speculation on that subject was a useless endeavor, and she wished she hadn’t given Ry the impression that she was concerned about it.
But as she left the kitchen and walked down the hall to her bedroom, she knew that she was going to still be here on the fifteenth. It wasn’t that she wanted the ranch for herself, but she had to know who was going to end up with it. In truth, she would much prefer Ry owning it than the state.
She prayed her father had left a will.
Dena came wide awake and was startled to see that her bedside clock flashed only 10:43 p.m. She lay there doubting that she would get back to sleep for hours, and wished that she hadn’t come to bed so early in the day.
At least she had gotten through the worst of it without uncontrollable anguish, she told herself. There was an acute ache in her heart that she suspected would be there for a very long time, but she would have to learn to live with it.
“Oh, Dad,” she whispered into the darkness of her room. An overwhelming sadness enveloped her. He was gone, forever out of reach. She would write no more letters and pray for an answer. She would do her job, see her friends and try to fill the void in her life with something other than the hope that would no longer be a part of her.
She would never have the chance to say, “Dad, I love you,” or hear from him, “Dena, I love you now and always have. Let’s forgive each other, forget the past and go on from here.”
She started sobbing into her pillow, so overcome by grief and remorse that she wondered if she would ever get over it. How could he have not answered her letters? How could he have held on to anger for so long? She was his only child. Was it possible that he had never loved her?
I can’t lie here and think about it. I can’t let go like this. Throwing back her blankets, Dena jumped out of bed. Hastily she shed her nightgown and put on a sweat suit and sneakers. Then she made her way through the dark house and went outside through the back door.
The night air was cool and refreshing. She breathed in huge gulps of it. The yard lights made an after-dark stroll possible, and she began walking. There were sounds other than her footsteps and breathing—the chirping of crickets, the distant bawling of cattle, the stamping of the horses in the corrals—comforting, familiar sounds. A yellow dog that belonged to one of the men came up and sniffed her. Dena looked down at him. “Hi, boy.” She kept on walking. The dog wandered off. Going beyond the glow of the yard lights, she stopped to look up at the stars. It was a beautiful night, cloudless and clear, and the millions of brightly shining stars was a moving sight.
After a few minutes, she sighed, turned back and started hiking around the lighted compound. The exercise felt good. She’d been functioning in a fog, which was fine, as it had helped her get through the most emotionally devastating experience of her adult life, but that was over now. Her mind was clear again, and she had only herself to rely on to pick up the pieces. She would stay in Wyoming through the fifteenth, then go home.
But Seattle didn’t feel like home anymore, and the ranch and Wyoming did.
“Damn,” she whispered, brushing away a tear. She had cried enough for tonight.
“Dena?”
She nearly jumped out of her skin. With her heart pumping hard and fast, she turned to face the voice. Relieved to see it was only Ry, she said, “Oh, it’s you. I thought everyone was sleeping.”
“I think everyone else is.”
“Why aren’t you?”
“I’d throw that question back at you if I didn’t already know the answer. I’m sorry you’re having trouble sleeping, but I guess it’s understandable.”
“So,” Dena said, “what’s your excuse for scaring the living daylights out of me?”
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“No, well, I suppose not, but do you usually wander around in the dark?”
“It was a difficult day, Dena, not only for you.”
“Are you worried about your job?” Are you so anxious to find out if you inherited the Wind River Ranch that you can’t sleep?
“I’ve never had any trouble finding work, Dena. No, I’m not worried about my job.”
“You strike me as the sort of man who falls asleep before his head hits the pillow, so something must be on your mind and keeping you awake.”
Ry looked off into the night. “I honestly don’t know what’s bothering me.”
Dena studied his profile. He seemed troubled, and the day had been difficult. As painful as it was to admit, he’d known her father better than she had. Her memories of Simon were years old; Ry’s were as fresh as the night air.
Ry’s gaze came around to land on her face. “You bother me.”
“Me!” she exclaimed incredulously. “Why on earth would I cause you any sleeplessness?”
“Don’t know. Maybe I’m worried about your attitude toward the ranch.” And maybe you’ve gotten under my skin for some unfathomable reason. He’d noticed her pretty face and good figure, but only as he noticed most pretty women—impersonally. He wasn’t a man to go after every attractive woman he met, and, in fact, it had been some time since he’d had any real interest in a member of the opposite sex. There were several good arguments against opening that particular door with Dena Colby. One: he suspected very strongly that she was going to be his employer. Two: she was not a naturally open and friendly person. Even in grief one’s true personality came through, and Dena struck him as a loner.
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