Hidden in a Heartbeat (A Place Called Home, Book 3)

by Patricia McLinn

  “And this husband of hers – this Daniel Delligatti – I don’t care what they say about what a great pilot he is and what he’s doing with that search and rescue – I say he’s not really an American, and no one can tell me different.”

  “Ellyn,” took up Barb, not to be outdone, “who used to be such a nice girl, always so smartly dressed by her mother, started living out there after she came back, and became, well, I hate to say it – ” The relish in her tone belied her words. “ – but hard. Even Colonel Griffin ended up being a disappointment, with falling back in with that group and marrying Ellyn, who’d already been married once and had two children.”

  Rebecca felt as if her head were spinning one way and her stomach another. They faulted Kendra and Daniel for marrying after they had a child, and now they were faulting this colonel from marrying someone named Ellyn because she’d been married before?

  “And Luke Chandler ... At least Daniel Delligatti has manners, even if he is a foreigner. You’d think someone who’d spent his early years here in Far Hills would know to answer a few civil questions about his family, and what his plans are. Why, all I asked was when he was going to settle down, and he said When hell freezes over and walked away.”

  “So rude,” murmured Barb.

  “And the women he’s taken up with!” With dizzying details of who was related to whom and what their family scandals were, Rebecca heard a full accounting of Luke’s romantic relationships since he’d returned to Far Hills. She tried to excuse herself twice. Both times Helen simply tightened her hold.

  “And I just say,” continued Helen, “it’s awfully funny how much time he spends with Marti Susland. Course she’s worth a good bit of money. Besides, it’s always been said Luke Chandler loved that ranch better than any human being.”

  Rebecca didn’t think her situation could get any more uncomfortable ... until the green truck rolled past, now with the top of Emily’s head visible in the child seat in back.

  “Speak of the devil,” Helen said, glaring toward the truck.

  “And there’s another one ... That Emily. Treats her like a princess, Marti does, but if you ask me, Matthew Delligatti isn’t the only child on that ranch who’s not legitimate.”

  Over a renewed queasiness, Rebecca protested, “She was an orphan. From that hurricane on Santa Estella.”

  In the middle of the next block, the green truck made a lazy U-turn amid light traffic, and headed back, now on the near side of the street.

  “That’s what they say.” Helen put her hands on her hips. “You’ve got to wonder why they would have let a single woman over forty adopt a child if everything was ... proper.”

  Freed at last, Rebecca edged away. Not even the habits of a lifetime could make her smile. “I really need to run now. Good day.”

  She ducked into the Market, heading down an aisle unseeingly. At the back of the store, she drew in air, then exhaled long and slow. She looked around for an appropriate token to take to Marti. In all Antonia’s lectures on such matters, she’d never covered the niceties of going to lunch at a working cattle ranch where you thought your hostess might have been a long-ago enemy of the man you suspected was your father.

  Rebecca settled on macadamia nuts in an interesting jar and a stem of carnations from a bucket by the registers.

  Back outside, she blinked against the brightness, looking left, then right, before spotting the green truck practically straight ahead.

  As she climbed in, she smiled at the dark-hair preschooler in the childseat in the back of the four-door pickup.

  “Hi. You must be Emily. I’m Rebecca.”

  She received a shy smile in return. “Mama said you’re coming to lunch.”

  “Yes, I am. Your mother invited me.”

  Rebecca was pulling her seatbelt across her body when Luke spoke. “If you’re looking for your friends. They left.”

  “They’re not my friends,” she said sharply. “I was looking for the truck when I came out of the store.”

  “Could have fooled me. Three of you looked downright cozy.”

  “I was simply being polite. Helen is my landlady and it’s reasonable to want to remain on good terms with her.”

  “If you say so,” he said evenly. “What I wonder about is if that dash inside the Market was meant to keep me from seeing you with them, or to keep them from knowing you were with me?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Cold and precise, her words were meant to end the conversation. She asked over her shoulder, “Emily, did you have fun at day care?”

  “Babysitting co-op,” Luke corrected.

  Rebecca gritted her teeth, but gave the child another smile as she amended, “At the babysitting co-op?”

  She’d needed the macadamia nuts, she told herself while listening to Emily’s happy account of her morning. It was the reason she’d asked Luke to drop her off.

  Or was Luke right? Was part of the reason she’d ducked away so that Helen and Barb wouldn’t know he was picking her up. So she wouldn’t be tarred by the same brushes they wielded with such abandon?

  She had reasons not to trust the people at Far Hills Ranch with her real reasons for being here. Still, she felt suddenly smaller.

  * * * *

  “Those clothes will work fine.”

  Marti had come out the kitchen door to greet them as soon as the truck pulled up between a new four-wheel-drive and a bright blue pickup. Marti freed Emily from her seat, and the girl dashed into the house. Then Marti gave Rebecca a quick survey and made her pronouncement.

  “Uh, good,” Rebecca said, feeling rather lost. She glanced down at her cotton shirt, cabled sweater, sturdy khaki slacks, and heavy-duty black shoes. “I needed to be able to walk around the grounds.”

  Marti patted her arm absently. “I’m sure you had a good time.”

  “Fine for what, Marti?” Luke demanded.

  “To ride out after lunch. We’re going to help you move that herd to the North Uplands this afternoon.”

  “Marti – ”

  “With all of us, we can move them without pulling the rest of the boys off their other work. And Rebecca’ll want to join us, won’t you? To see more of how the ranch works? Of course, you will. C’mon in now and meet everyone and get something to eat.”

  With that, Marti headed in.

  “Guess you’re going to get your wish to ride, Ms. Dahlgren.” Luke said. He made it sound like this was all her doing. “If I can find you a proper mount after lunch.”

  * * * *

  The first thing Rebecca rode after the generous, chaotic lunch was another pickup.

  Generous hardly did justice to the spread Marti had on an oval table set by a large kitchen window that looked out over Far Hills land. The macadamia nuts, placed in a glass dish, looked like a single apple in an orchard. Wheat, white and rye bread, two kinds of rolls, thick roast beef, sliced meatloaf, chicken by the piece or the slice, tomatoes, lettuce, mustard, mayo, butter, homemade pickles, potato salad, bean casserole, fruit salad, chips and dessert ... oh, dessert.

  “I’ve never had chocolate cake like this before,” she said.

  “Secret ingredient’s coffee,” said Kendra Jenner Delligatti. “If you can get Marti to give you the recipe, you’ll know you’ve arrived.”

  Kendra was one of the reasons the lunch had been chaotic. One of many reasons, as the various branches of the family had gathered from their homes elsewhere on Far Hills Ranch at the main house.

  By the time they’d had that conversation about dessert, Rebecca thought she had the outlines of the relationships clear. Kendra and Grif were cousins, and Marti’s niece and nephew. Grif was the only son of Marti’s oldest sister, who had died when Grif was a boy. Kendra was the only daughter of the middle sister, who had died a few years ago.

  Grif, now a colonel in the army and the commander at nearby Fort Piney, had recently married Ellyn, a widow with two children, Meg and Ben.

  Fran Sinclair, as well as being Marti’s friend, was Ell
yn’s step-mother-in-law from her first marriage, and clearly a great favorite of everyone.

  Kendra wrote part-time for the local newspaper’s print and online editions, and was married to Daniel Delligatti, a pilot who ran the region’s search and rescue operation. Their four-year-old son, Matthew, was going to have a sibling around New Years.

  Kendra, Grif, Ellyn and Luke had spent childhood summers together on the ranch, along with a couple other youngsters.

  That was as far as Rebecca had gotten. Except to see the easy camaraderie and teasing that seemed built on a bedrock of respect and affection. Maybe that only came when you’d known someone from childhood.

  “The number of occupations you all have is fascinating,” Rebecca said. She was seated beside Ellyn, with Luke straddling a turned-backward chair next to Kendra, whose husband leaned against the back of her chair. Grif was on the phone with his office in the other room, the two younger kids were playing and the two older kids were assisting Marti and Fran in putting away the voluminous leftovers – she’d refused other offers of help, but Ben and Meg had begged to do it in order the cut the time before they could start riding.

  “A lot of people away from ranching country don’t realize how many ranchers have other jobs – not always by choice,” Kendra said. “Farmers, too. I didn’t realize it myself, until I started working for the Far Hills Banner.”

  “She’s got a big paper back East interested in an essay on the subject,” said her husband.

  “Daniel,” she scolded mildly, “we said we weren’t going to say anything unless it was for-sure.”

  “Aw, this is family. Besides, it’ll happen. They’d be fools not to buy that piece.”

  “Plenty of fools back East,” said Luke.

  “Luke,” protested Ellyn and Kendra simultaneously.

  “Of course,” Rebecca said brightly. “There are fools everywhere. Just as there are one-dimensional people everywhere.”

  “You mean Luke?” Daniel asked, with pure deviltry in his eyes.

  Now the rebuke was, “Daniel!”

  Rebecca felt her cheeks heat at having her dig brought out in the open. What on earth would they think of her? Trading barbs with Luke Chandler in private was bad enough.

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have – ”

  Luke was talking at the same time, and his deeper tones covered her words like a bass drum over a violin. “That’s me. Ranching’s what I know, and it’s what I do.”

  She made another effort to made amends. “Many people are never lucky enough to know what they want to do, much less do it.”

  He tipped his head and raised one brow, which she translated as a “Suppose so.”

  “This one?” Fran scoffed, tapping Luke on the shoulder. “This one was meant to square off with Mother Nature from the get-go. And stubborn? He’d be sick as all get-out, with a throat looking like raw meat, and he’d never admit it. Could have been dying and he wouldn’t have admitted it.”

  “Dyin’ would’ve been better than that stuff you made us take.”

  Groans and grimaces from the other Far Hills Ranch summer veterans confirmed Luke’s opinion.

  “Tell us the truth, Fran,” said Kendra. “Was it really horse liniment? That’s what we all thought.”

  “Oh, you – bunch of babies,” Fran said as she headed off.

  “Don’t let him fool you, Rebecca,” said Ellyn. “Luke’s a man of unsuspected depths. Take his recognizing Daniel was playing Chopin one time.”

  He glared at Ellyn, clearly letting her know he didn’t appreciate her revelation. The sweet-faced woman returned a grimace that clearly said a lot of good glaring at her would do him, since she’d known he wouldn’t appreciate it – that’s why she’d done it.

  “Sometimes having people around who’ve known you since you were a kid is a pain in the butt,” he muttered.

  “Language, Luke,” came the mild scold from Marti as she passed by.

  “Wait a minute,” Rebecca objected, “you said you didn’t know classical music.”

  “Can’t say I know it. More a passing acquaintance.” He shrugged.

  Kendra hooted. “Typical Luke. He always was the most close-mouthed individual you’d ever hope to meet,” she said to Rebecca.

  “Man’s gotta have some secrets.”

  “I think you’ve got several other men’s share of secrets, Luke,” Kendra retorted.

  “Why would you make a secret of knowing classical mus – Ouch!” Rebecca’s turn toward Luke had been brought up short by a painful and unexplained tug at her scalp.

  “Oh, Emily, honey, what are you doing?” Ellyn asked. “You know you don’t pull hair.”

  Rebecca pivoted in the opposite direction, releasing the tension on her hair, and discovered Emily Susland standing behind her, holding a length of Rebecca’s hair that had swung over the chair back. Beside her was Matthew Delligatti.

  “Not pulling,” Emily said.

  “Good point,” Luke contributed. “Rebecca’s the one who moved.”

  Ellyn shot him a stern-mother look that appeared to have no effect. “But it hurts Rebecca,” she explained to Emily. Without releasing the hair, Emily said to Rebecca. “Sorry.” Then she held up her fist as if she’d captured a prize and pointed at Matthew. “See. Just like mine.”

  “Let go of Rebecca’s hair, Emily,” instructed Marti calmly as she came up behind her daughter.

  Emily complied as she presented her grievance to her mother. “Matthew said I didn’t have hair like anybody else.”

  “Mine hair like Daddy’s,” Matthew said, beaming as he parroted something he’d clearly heard.

  And with that innocent comment of the little boy, proud of his thick, dark curls because they were so like those of the father he’d come to know recently, Rebecca understood so much. Too much. She understood his joy at the connection, at finding at least the beginnings of an answer to where did I come from? She understood his pointing it out to other children. And she most deeply understood how Emily felt the need for her own connections.

  Even simply another female with straight, dark hair.

  Marti scooched beside her daughter, her brown and gray waves in marked contrast to Emily’s smooth fall of hair. “Our hair doesn’t look much alike, does it? You have such beautiful hair.”

  “Yes,” Emily said in impatient and innocent egotism. “But I showed him, Mama.” She waved toward Rebecca. “Like mine.”

  “This,” said Daniel with a smile that drew responding smiles from the other adults, “is beginning to sound like a shampoo commercial. C’mon, Matthew.” He hoisted his son on his hip. “Let’s go round up some dogies.”

  Luke swung out of his chair. “How many times I gotta tell you, Delligatti? Cattle, head, cows, critters – not dogies.”

  The awkward moment passed amid chuckles and the bustle of getting a group all headed in the same direction.

  But Rebecca found herself wondering a short time later as she led her assigned horse to the trailer, what Marti was saying to Emily, as they sat on the steps by the kitchen door, the little girl’s hand resting so trustingly in the woman’s. And she felt an inexplicable stab of longing.

  *****

  Helen Solsong was right about one thing. Nothing in Rebecca’s upbringing had prepared her for an afternoon like this.

  They rode in pickups because, Marti told her, that was the fastest way to get riders and horses to where they needed them. They loaded the horses into a large trailer and the humans into the trucks, and headed out in a surprisingly short time.

  She was relieved she was assigned a seat beside Ellyn Griffin in the pickup driven by her husband, with the two kids riding in the back of the slow-moving vehicle. She’d had enough of being in pickups with Luke. Ellyn passed the time by telling stories about childhood summers at Far Hills Ranch, with occasional additions from Grif. After thirty minutes of driving, Rebecca had to ask, “Are we still on Far Hills land?”

  “Oh, yes.” said Ellyn. “The sectio
n where the main ranch and our houses are is just the original home ranch. Whenever land became available, the Suslands bought up whatever they could. The only area where the Suslands always had luck was business.”

  “Are you talking about the curse?”

  Ellyn glanced toward her husband. “Legend might be more accurate. But, yes, that’s what I mean.”

  “Did bad things really happen to the Suslands?”

  “Get Marti to show you the genealogy chart. It’s amazing – a little eerie, even – the number of unnatural deaths. Although Marti seems to think there’s been a sort of corner turned when it comes to the legend,” Ellyn said. “But you should talk to her about that. She’s the expert on the family.”

  “Here we are.” Grif pulled up behind the trailer.

  Luke, already astride a black-maned buckskin, was assigning positions as the rest of them mounted up. Fran and Kendra, with Emily and Matthew, would drive a pickup to meet them at the gates to these North Uplands where the cattle would spend their next couple weeks.

  Rebecca swung her right leg wide to be sure she cleared the unfamiliarly bulky saddle and came to rest in its deep sway more emphatically than she would have liked, only to look up into Luke’s assessing gaze.

  All he said was, “You and Daniel head to where the south and east legs of the fence join, then turn around and move the critters ahead of you. Slow and steady. Don’t run any pounds off them.”

  That, Rebecca found, was sometimes easier said than done.

  Many of the cows, with their calves alongside, moved placidly ahead of the horses, especially when those horses’ riders hollered, waved their hats and swung their ropes now and then. She picked up those tricks by watching Daniel, a hundred yards or so to her left, and at a much greater distance, Ben on her right. She caught glimpses of the others farther ahead.

  But as they moved over a hill into a wide valley, then up a higher hill, a few cows pivoted and lunged and whirled away like lumbering, four-footed basketball players trying to get around a defender. Her horse responded like a star defender without any coaching from her. In most of the catch-and-retrieve maneuvers, she was simply along for the ride, doing her best to not hinder Chester.