by Isla Bennet
You’re okay. You’re fine. Calm down. Lucy didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath, and now gulped air in and out. Tourism was the town’s lifeblood, but during the day there were more out-of-towners about than people who called Night Sky home. And tourists, or “city folk,” as her great-aunt called them, were too easy to spot. They talked fast and drove impatiently—maybe struck dumb that the place had need for only four traffic lights—and didn’t quite understand that in a rural town like this one, there wasn’t much reason to rush anything.
They were the ones who you really turned a suspicious eye to, and the odds weren’t good that a stranger could creep into town, cause trouble and creep away without having to answer to the law.
A few minutes later a white sedan with a blue-and-green logo reading To-Go Cab entered the lot. She clambered into the backseat and rattled off her great-grandfather’s address.
The driver spied her in the rearview mirror. “Shouldn’t you be in school?” There was doubt in his heavily accented voice, making the word sound more like skoowell.
“It’s teacher conference day,” she lied, adding a cheerful smile as she got settled. “Meter running yet?”
Confused, the driver blinked a few times but pressed on the accelerator and headed away from the gas station. “It is now. Is this a drop-off or—”
“How long can you wait?”
“Depends on how much you can pay.”
Lucy had counted twenty-two bucks in her wallet this morning, which was a huge chunk of her savings from her allowance. She wasn’t sure how long it would take to tell Peyton Turner that she didn’t want a father.
In truth the idea of having a real dad around was strange and … interesting.
But it was a total novelty. After all, her mother had taught her how to change a tire and wrangle cattle, how to mow a lawn and fight for herself.
And why should she get to have a dad when Anna hadn’t? Anna was the one who’d never gotten in trouble, who’d always remembered when to use her indoor voice and pick up her toys. She was the one who had made their mom happy … and deserved to have a dad.
The ride seemed to take forever, even though it was more like seventeen minutes. Finally the driver stopped the car, turned in his seat and said, “Made up your mind, kid? Am I droppin’ you off or waitin’ here?”
The fare to get here had put a serious dent in her cash. “Drop off.” She paid and slid out of the cab, pausing to check out the ginormous van parked at the curb. It was white but covered with splashy flowers and an advertisement for something called Gardens of Edie.
At the security gate she almost laughed in relief when her great-grandfather’s butler let her inside without giving her the third degree.
“Afternoon, Lucy. What brings you by?” Jasper said when she moseyed past the museum-like foyer and parlor to the sitting room, nonchalantly glancing around to check for signs of her father.
She’d gotten up early this morning to map out her story. Now it was time to deliver. With a solemn expression she said, “I had an upset stomach thing at school. Mom’s swamped at the ranch and said I could hang here for a while. Is that cool with you and Gramps?” If she outright asked for her father, Jasper would see through her lie in a hot minute.
“Nathaniel’s in the city on business today. I’ll call Valerie and let her know you got here safely. How did you get here, by the way?”
Crap. “I—” Lucy racked her brain in record speed “—called a taxi at school. Mom probably won’t answer because she’s … uh … castrating a bull today. Plus I already texted her.”
The butler paled a little at the word castrating. “All right. I’ll get you a glass of ginger ale and a few crackers.”
Lucy impatiently waited for him to go into the kitchen before she searched the entire main level for her father. No sign of him. And it was weird that Jasper hadn’t mentioned whether he was home.
What if she’d gone to all this trouble for nothing, and he was out on an errand?
Or …
Now there really was a queasy feeling in her belly. What if her father had left town again, without even telling her goodbye? He owed her that much, didn’t he?
Not that she wanted him hanging around in the first place.
She bounded to the dining-room table just as Jasper was setting out a plate of unsalted crackers and a glass of ginger ale. “Thanks, Jasp.” A puzzled frown answered her and it hit a second later that she’d been running and now sat in a fancy high-backed chair with her knees pulled up against her chest—against her “upset” stomach. Casually she lowered her feet to the floor and reached for a cracker, avoiding that something’s-not-right-here look. “So …” Did my dad skip town again? “… what’s with the flower power van out front?”
“Never heard anyone call my wheels that before,” a high-pitched female voice said. A short woman with an explosion of crazy-curly blond hair and wide blue eyes paused in the dining-room entryway. Her laugh made Lucy think of a million tiny bells. “But I like it. Flower power van. Nice.”
Jasper took a few steps toward the woman, but stopped short and jammed his hands in his pockets—probably because the dirt smeared all over her beige smock was about to give him hives. “Is there something—”
“Forgot the shed key.” The woman shrugged sheepishly, her peony-patterned gloved hands full with a pair of lumberjack work boots and a small shovel.
“You might need that,” Jasper muttered.
Maybe it was that lazy southern accent, or the woman was just a fan of dry sarcasm, but she smiled slowly until a deep pair of dimples bracketed her mouth. “Guess I might.”
Curious, Lucy sipped her ginger ale and watched Jasper head into the mudroom to retrieve the key. “Are you Edie?” she asked the woman.
“Not me,” she replied with another smile, this one friendly, open. “I’m Hope Fortune.”
“Cool name.”
“Thanks. Edie was my aunt. Gardens of Edie was her business, and I learned pretty much all I know from her, so when she passed away it just made sense for me to take over. At least for a while.”
“Never heard of your business.”
“It’s based out of Meridien.”
“Are you the new gardener here?”
“Yes, it’s her first day,” Jasper answered stiffly before Hope could respond. Careful to avoid contact with her filthy gloves, Jasper slid the key beneath the shovel in her palm. “Miss Fortune, this is Mister Turner’s great-granddaughter, Lucy. Her father’s visiting so don’t be alarmed if you see him coming and going.”
Ah, so he was still in town.
Key in her possession, Hope continued to linger as if she was stuck where she stood and didn’t know it. With fair skin, a teeny diamond in one nostril, and dressed in a peasant blouse and worn-looking used-to-be-black jeans, she reminded Lucy of a faerie in one of those New Age books in the little bookshop in town.
“Off I go then,” Hope said abruptly, briskly, as she clambered off the way she had come.
Jasper’s gaze followed until she was out of his line of vision, then he busied himself brushing cracker crumbs off the table onto his cupped palm. Then he grabbed a wet mop and trailed after Hope’s footsteps, muttering something about dirt.
Lucy took that as a cue to get moving. She slunk out of the dining room and upstairs. She knew which room had belonged to her father when he’d lived here before; it was the one room in this enormous house she’d never entered.
Today the door was unlocked. Carefully she twisted the knob and opened it just a crack.
“Um, hello?” she whispered into the opening, then, greeted with silence, she stepped inside. At the foot of the bed was an open suitcase with clothes spilling out of it. A similar case that was closed sat on top of the bed. The air smelled like some woodsy guy cologne and a little bit like soap.
Lucy turned slowly, taking in the room’s details. She spotted a picture on the bureau that seemed to have tipped over and she righted it, doing a do
uble take at the image. Her parents. Together. They were just kids then, her mom still flat-chested and her dad without even the shadow of a beard on his face. It was surreal to see them like this, friends but maybe even something more.
Her mom had told her again and again that he’d been her best friend for ages, but they’d never been boyfriend and girlfriend. Sure, her mom was perfect to fool around with, but not good enough to date.
“A chip off Anthony Turner’s block, eh, Dad?” she mumbled, laying the picture facedown the way she’d found it. Just remembering the stories people told about her ladies’ man of a grandfather warranted an eye roll.
She rifled through one suitcase, then, bored to find only clothes and shoes jammed inside, she moved on to the other. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she unzipped the case and carefully extracted a stack of official-looking files and photographs, lots of her father in all different places: on a medical bus with a group of people, sitting atop a camel, trekking through what looked like wreckage after a storm, sporting a beard and shaggy hair and reading to two little boys with beautiful dark skin who looked like they hadn’t eaten in all their lives.
Lucy picked up a file stamped MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÈRES/DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS. She’d heard of that, but didn’t know much about it, just that it was some international charity organization.
It didn’t make any sense that the guy who’d hooked up with her mom and skipped town could be the same as the one in these pictures.
She spread the files in front of her and started to read the contents, her eyes skimming over the words—surgeon and assignment and disaster.
In the hospital library yesterday she’d heard Manuel address him as Doctor Turner. But from the way he’d been dressed she’d right away pegged him as the hotshot Nip/Tuck doctor type. Not the travel-all-over-the-world-to-help-people type.
Guilt singed her fingers as she hastily put everything back, but she paused when she noticed the double frame peeking out from beneath all the papers and pictures.
Stunned, she stared at her and Anna’s kindergarten pictures. Had her mom given this frame to him, or had he taken it from their house when her back was turned? Why would he want to have their pictures, anyway? It wasn’t like he could actually care about his daughters. They were a part of their mom—the best part, she sometimes said—and he’d left her high and dry.
Unsettled, Lucy continued to straighten up, her curiosity stirring more questions that probably wouldn’t get answered unless she admitted all the dumb, impulsive—and illegal, if taking into account truancy and trespassing—things she’d done today.
No point in getting busted when she hadn’t even done what she’d come here to do.
It would be a close call, but maybe she’d be able to get home without anybody suspecting a thing. Well, anybody except Jasper, who would wonder why she had taken off with a stomachache. And Sarah, who was probably itching to grill her about where she’d gone today. Could she pull it off?
Maybe, Lucy thought, racing down the wide staircase as quietly and quickly as she could, just maybe …
At the bottom step she almost toppled over, coming face-to-face with her dad.
… or maybe not.
“WHOA … EASY NOW, Brute,” Valerie coaxed with a careful mixture of calmness and firmness in her voice as she pulled the reins toward her stomach and shifted backward to slow her newest horse’s pace. The sorrel gelding had a big stride and was better than most at roping and cutting straight out of purchase, but he was still green and even temperamental.
At her command he stubbornly bucked, bouncing her once, twice—hard—in the saddle, but she held fast and squeezed him with her knees against his sides until he came to a full stop. The brim of her hat took away some of the sting from the afternoon sun, but she still had to squint through the brightness to see the hands who’d helped round up the cattle. With the land moist from yesterday’s rain, the westward pasture slope was a good place to push the cattle for fresh grazing.
“How’re you doing, Coop?” she called out to the ranch’s head foreman, who’d taken four days off last week with complaints of a sore back. Cooper Calhoun was in his sixties, and had worked the ranch in her uncle’s era. He had good instincts and superb knowledge of the land, but was set in his ways and not too keen on change—particularly the leadership of a woman he remembered as a “young’un underfoot all the time.” Today she had been reluctant to have him along, but he’d brushed off her concerns and insisted that he wasn’t yet old enough to be put out to pasture.
“Better’n you, by the looks of things,” Coop answered, guiding his horse toward her. Jack, Cordelia and three of their part-timers approached, their horses’ hooves kicking up dust and dirt in their wake. “Ask me, you’re playing with fire with that gelding. That’s a loose cannon you’re sitting on.”
Valerie rolled her shoulders to relieve the stiffness that had settled there. Brute wouldn’t get any more comfortable or experienced with their routine if she didn’t take him out. The autumn cattle drive, in just over two weeks from now, would be the ideal time to work him. But first he needed to get used to the ranch, the herd, the environment and, most important, the handler. “Loose cannon, hmm? Good thing there’s not a spark on my ass.”
The others chuckled, and Coop flushed deep rose in his already ruddy complexion.
“Aw, now, don’t tell me you’re getting soft, Coop,” teased Cordelia. “If there’s a horsewoman out there to tame a wild one, it’s Val. Plus she and I’ve got something y’all don’t—female magic.”
The men made loud noises of protest and Valerie snickered, watching them get riled up. She tipped her high-crowned hat back far enough to wipe the sweat from her hairline. There was a decent breeze up in the mountains, but her group had been steering horses and wrangling cattle most of the day, which made for grimy clothes, sweaty skin and sore bums.
“Female magic works on male beasts of any species, especially the human variety,” Cordelia boasted with a deep-dimpled grin.
Her husband lowered his head, embarrassed. “For goodness’ sake, Dee …”
She shrugged, feigning innocence. “What?”
“I think he’s trying to tell you that’s too much information,” Valerie offered.
Cordelia angled her horse close enough for her to reach out a hand and squeeze Jack’s biceps. He settled his blue-eyed gaze on her and she lowered her lashes for an instant before turning her horse and riding away from the group toward the remaining scatter of cattle that had yet to be wrestled west.
The men followed, debating a different subject. Valerie brought up the rear, cautious of her gelding but with her attention now split. She watched her cousin ride off into the distance, her tangled black hair flying, her flannel overshirt billowing in the wind. With one private look, Cordelia and her husband had spoken volumes to each other. And despite the fact that they were filthy and smelled of prime horseflesh, there was clear desire in the look they shared.
What was it like to be that close, that in tune with another person?
Part of Valerie wanted to know, but a larger part didn’t. There was a unique layer of vulnerability in letting someone get close enough to know you that well. And it was too dangerous to dabble with.
To focus her thoughts on the task at hand, Valerie leaned forward on Brute and whipped the reins. “Daylight’s wasting, everyone. Let’s finish up and we’ll have dinner at the main house. Dinah’s got stew and biscuits on the menu for tonight,” she called out to the group as Brute carried her past them.
The men whooped and hollered. There was nothing like the promise of a hearty, hot meal to boost morale.
Another hour later, Coop led the way to the stables. The sun was just starting to drop low in the sky and the warmth in the air was disappearing fast. The floodlights, landscape lighting and lamplights were already ablaze, battling the inevitable darkness with a soft yellow glow.
Valerie was looking forward to sitting down to dinner as much as the ot
hers—maybe more. After seeing Peyton yesterday, she’d had virtually no appetite and one hell of a restless night. It had felt good to be outdoors today, dealing with animals. Animals, she could understand. Men, not so much.
Certainly not the man who’d invaded her dreams last night.
“Get it together,” she murmured aloud, leading Brute by the reins to his stall where she would remove his gear and give him a brushing.
“Who’re you talkin’ to?” Coop asked from the next stall, peering at her curiously under his battered cowboy hat. He held his horse’s lead in one hand and halter in the other, apparently too invested in her one-sided conversation to head to the tack room.
“Uh—n-nobody,” Valerie floundered, jumbling her words into an unintelligible mess. She started for Brute but slipped a little on a scatter of hay under her boot.
“I’ll be damned. That horse’s got you all spaghetti-legged,” Coop declared, gathering the interest of the others.
“Not at all, Coop,” she rebutted with a steely look. After a sleepless night followed by a day of hard work, her nerves were live wires. “You’re more than welcome to head to the bunkhouse after you’re done with that. Unless you want to stay for dinner.”
In other words, Undermine me again and you’re not welcome at my table.
“I’ll …” he gestured with the halter toward the tack room “… just put all this away, then get washed up and meet y’all at the house.”
That was as close to an apology she was going to get from Coop, who considered himself among the “last of the real cowboys.”
She watched him saunter off with hunched shoulders and a bow-legged gait, then swiftly but thoroughly brushed Brute. In the barn, where she’d gone to sweep up the loose hay that had found its way out to the stables, Cordelia caught up with her.