“You didn’t think it was stupid when we bought it,” Rianna pointed out.
“Well, I think it’s stupid now,” Maeve countered, without turning around.
Rance put the truck in gear and laid rubber.
He was a rancher now. He had to keep those cattle as calm as he could.
He covered the miles between town and the Triple M as fast as he dared with his children in the truck. When he got to the ranch, Jesse was already there, saddling up out in front of the barn.
“Go inside and stay there,” Rance said to Maeve and Rianna.
Maeve gave Jesse an odd look when she got out of the rig, and even took a step toward him. Then, because it was raining harder than it had been in town, she grabbed Rianna’s hand and the two of them raced for the house, leaving the shopping bag behind.
“Keeg’s on his way,” Jesse said with a grin. “This ought to be fun. Just like the old days, when the Triple M was a real cattle ranch.”
“Fun?” Rance mocked, irritated. He was worried about Maeve, but the cattle were already restless, bawling and churning in a mass of confusion out there in the pasture. One good clap of thunder, and they’d probably trample one another or stampede through one of the fence lines. “We’ll be lucky if none of us gets struck by lightning!”
“I’m always lucky,” Jesse told him, with an easy grin. Then he swung up into the saddle and tugged at the brim of his hat.
Rance hurried inside the barn to saddle the gelding, and one of the other horses for Keegan. Snowball was itching to go, but she wasn’t up to a job like this one.
When he rode out of the barn, Keegan was just driving up. He’d stopped at his place, evidently, to exchange his customary suit for jeans, a work shirt and boots. They’d all be wet through next time the clouds opened, but Rance didn’t give a damn.
By then, he was thinking about one thing, and one thing only—keeping two hundred head of cattle from killing themselves.
Jesse leaned to open the gate, gave a whoop and rode for the herd.
Rance and Keegan followed.
It felt good, all of them being together on horseback like that, but for Rance the sentiment was short-lived. The thunder was deafening, and a streak of lightning snaked down out of the sky and came within sizzling distance of Jesse.
His horse reared, and Jesse let out another yee-haw and grinned like an idiot.
They made a good team, and they were containing the cattle, when Keegan suddenly gave a shrill whistle and pointed toward the house. Maeve was over the fence and bounding straight toward them, like the devil himself was on her tail.
At least twenty head of cattle turned in her direction, barely slowed by the wet, slippery ground.
Both Rance and Keegan rode hard to reach her, but Jesse got there first, moving like fire along a ground fuse. He leaned down, grabbed her by one arm and hauled her up into the saddle seconds before the cattle would have trampled her to death.
He sat like a statue, Jesse did, controlling his horse with one arm and holding Maeve with the other, while those beeves cascaded around him. Ran on past.
Rance scanned the fence line, to make sure Rianna hadn’t followed, then heeled his horse up alongside Jesse’s.
Maeve scrambled into his arms and clung.
Rance closed his eyes, holding her as tightly as he dared.
She buried her head in his neck, sobbing.
He stroked her back. Waited. Later, he’d give her what-for for pulling a damn fool stunt like that, but for the moment, he was just glad she was alive.
“Rianna!” she finally cried. “I told her about the e-mails—I had to tell somebody. And then I went to my room and cried for a while, and when I g-got back, she was gone—and I couldn’t find her s-stupid pink car—”
Rance’s heart, just now beginning to beat again, seized up once more. He turned to Jesse and Keegan—they’d been close enough to hear, but with the cattle bawling and thunder shaking the ground, he couldn’t be sure.
“Rianna’s taken off in that toy car of hers!” he shouted.
“Damn,” Jesse said grimly.
“Let’s go find her,” Keegan added.
Rance nodded. They rode back to the yard, where Rance let Maeve down off the horse with strict orders to go in the house and stay there. The cattle would have to fend for themselves; he had one little girl lost, and he wasn’t about to put the other at risk.
“It’s my fault!” Maeve wailed.
“Go in the house!” Rance yelled.
She turned and dashed through the rain, disappearing into a sheet of gray.
ECHO DROVE SLOWLY ALONG the road to the Triple M, squinting through the windshield. Snowball panted in the passenger seat next to her, fogging up the windows, giving a little anxious yelp every once in a while.
Echo’d gotten a frantic call from Maeve, twenty minutes before. Sobbing, the little girl had babbled something about e-mails, and said she thought Rianna might be on her way to town, alone. When Echo had asked where Rance was, Maeve had said he was herding cattle, with Jesse and Keegan.
Terrified, Echo had left the shop in Ayanna’s care, loaded Snowball, who insisted on going along, into the Volkswagen, and started for the ranch.
Maeve thought Rianna was driving her Barbie car. If so, she couldn’t have gotten very far—could she?
And what was Rance thinking, leaving his daughters alone in that big house while he played cowboy?
Suddenly, Snowball gave a loud woof, then turned backward in the seat and tried to claw her way over it.
Echo brought the car to a stop at the side of the road.
The dog pawed at the passenger door and yelped frantically, frenzied.
Praying there were no cars coming the other way, Echo leaned across, unsnapped Snowball’s seat belt and pushed open the door. The dog shot out into the rain, baying now.
Echo struggled to open her own seat belt, got out of the car and was immediately blinded by a curtain of rain. When she caught her breath, and wiped the water from her eyes, she saw Snowball running back in the direction they’d come, heedless of the storm.
Echo sped after her, slipping and sliding in the mud, barely able to see. The wet wind buffeted the breath from her lungs, more than once, and she was gasping by the time she found the little car, overturned on the side of the road.
Fear surged through her. She looked all around her, but there was no sign of Rianna, or of Snowball. Then, from over the steep, grassy bank, she heard the dog howling.
Praying, half aloud and half under her breath, Echo kicked off her shoes and followed the sound, shouting, “Rianna! Snowball!” as she slithered and stumbled down over that bank.
The creek, the same one she and Rance had ridden beside on horseback that day, lay below, swollen and angry with rainwater and debris of all kinds.
“Rianna!” Echo shrieked.
She fell, got up, fell again.
Snowball yowled.
Forget the Universe, Echo thought. Put me straight through to God.
“Echo!” The voice was thin and small, and very frightened. And it was Rianna’s. “Echo, help me—”
Flailing blindly through brush and over logs, Echo reached the creek’s edge. Rianna, having tumbled into the stream, clung to a bare tree root, and Snowball gripped the back of the child’s T-shirt in her teeth, hind legs scrabbling for purchase as the furious water washed over the little girl’s face.
Echo didn’t think.
She didn’t pray.
She just jumped right into that ice-cold creek and grabbed until she got a firm hold on Rianna. She dragged her up onto the bank, and the two of them were lying there, trembling with exhaustion, when Rance, Jesse and Keegan came down from the road, on foot, a blur of wet denim and muddy boots.
Both arms wrapped around Rianna, Echo wept with relief.
CHAPTER 17
RANCE TORE OFF HIS LINED denim jacket, soaked on the outside but relatively dry on the inside, and, dropping to one knee, bundled the garm
ent around Rianna’s small, shivering form. Her teeth chattered, and her lips were blue. She had a few visible cuts and scratches, but at least she was conscious.
Echo, lying on her side in the grass and stones and mud, rolled onto her back and stared up at the sky. Between the pounding rain and the roar of the storm-swollen creek, it was no use talking, but her gaze found Rance’s and locked on.
“Are you hurt?” he mouthed.
She shook her head, raised herself onto her elbows and promptly collapsed again. Rance yearned to gather her up, but he had Rianna.
Keegan crouched, lifted Echo into his arms and started up the bank toward the road. Jesse did the same with the dog, falling in behind Rance, still carrying Rianna, trying to will his own strength into his daughter.
Once they reached high ground, they stopped for a brief conference.
“It’s too far to town, especially in this weather,” Keegan yelled, over the rain. He opened the door of the pink car and set Echo gently in the passenger seat. Rance placed Rianna on her lap and buckled them in together, while Jesse maneuvered the sodden dog into the back, from the driver’s side.
“You’re going to be all right,” Rance told Echo, Rianna and the dog, hoping to God it was true.
Echo nodded, holding Rianna close.
“We’ll take care of the horses,” Jesse said, catching hold of Rance’s gelding’s reins before getting back on his own. Keegan nodded and mounted up, too.
And Rance squeezed behind the wheel of the Volkswagen.
Echo stared out through the windshield, which was practically opaque with steam and rain. Rianna rested her head against Echo’s chest and closed her eyes, then gave a slight, shuddering sigh.
Back at the ranch house, Rance parked as close to the back door as he could, flipped the seat forward so the dog could get out, and rounded the car for Rianna.
“Sit right here till I come back for you,” he told Echo.
Of course she didn’t. She’d lost her shoes somewhere, and picked her way barefoot over the dirt, keeping pace with Rance as he sprinted for the kitchen door, where Maeve stood waiting, framed by the light behind her.
Once they were inside, Echo spoke for the first time since Rance had found her down there by the creek, clasping his daughter in her arms. “Get her out of those wet clothes,” she said, with a nod to Rianna.
Rance nodded. “You’ll be okay here for a few minutes?”
Echo returned his nod.
“I’ll get you a bathrobe,” Maeve told Echo.
“Thanks,” Echo answered, dropping into a chair at the kitchen table. The dog slumped down at her feet, in a pool of water, and sighed.
Rance took Rianna upstairs, stripped her to the skin and wrapped her in a blanket.
“You hurt anywhere, honey?” he asked her. His voice sounded gruff.
Rianna started to cry. “No,” she said. “I thought I was going to get drowneded, Daddy. Then Snowball came and she bit my shirt. Then Echo—”
Rance drew her close for a moment, held her tightly. “You rest,” he told her, silently thanking the good Lord for big favors. “I’m going downstairs to make sure Echo’s okay and call the doctor.”
Rianna lunged for his neck with both arms. “Take me with you, Daddy,” she pleaded.
He blinked his eyes dry and lifted her off the bed. “No problem, short stop,” he said.
When the two of them reached the kitchen, Jesse and Keegan were there. Jesse crouched in front of Echo’s chair, chafing her hands between his, while Keegan built a fire in the old wood stove they used on winter mornings, more for atmosphere than heat. A fresh pot of coffee chugged away on the countertop.
Maeve watched the whole scene from a little distance, as though longing to be part of it and, at the same time, afraid of being swept away in some invisible current.
Rance squeezed her shoulder lightly as he passed, then set Rianna in the antique rocking chair over by the stove.
Echo, swathed in one of his old bathrobes, looked up at him.
“I called the clinic,” Jesse told Rance, rising and stepping back. “Doc says it’s better to stay put, if everybody’s breathing and nobody’s bleeding. He’ll get here was soon as he can.”
Keegan turned from the stove, bent to ruffle Rianna’s hair and straightened. “Jesse, we ought to go out and see to those cattle,” he said.
Jesse nodded, and in the next moment, they were gone again.
“I never thought I’d drive a pink car,” Rance said, just to get the conversation started.
Echo smiled, then a laugh bubbled from her throat. “I won’t tell anybody if you don’t,” she said.
He grinned, paused to cup the curve of her cheek in one hand. He’d hardly known this woman any time at all, but she’d changed everything. When he’d seen her on that creek bank, wet and bedraggled because, with the help of her dog, she’d just saved his daughter’s life, a lot of rusted cogs and gears had suddenly ground into motion.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She beckoned, and he leaned down to listen. Whispered the name she’d kept from him up to then.
He grinned.
“I like it,” he said.
“Tell us!” Rianna pleaded from the rocking chair. The fire in the stove was snapping behind its murky glass door, brightening the room.
Echo put a finger to her lips and smiled.
“Not yet,” Rance told his daughter.
He poured coffee for Echo, when the pot stopped perking, and started a batch of hot chocolate for Maeve and Rianna.
Rianna accepted her cup eagerly, and slurped, but Maeve, busy towel-drying the dog, shook her head when he brought her the mug and wouldn’t look at him.
He put the cup on the table and dropped to his haunches beside her. “Maeve,” he said. “Talk to me.”
“It’s my fault that Rianna and Echo and Snowball almost drowned in the creek,” she told him, still averting her eyes.
He caught her chin in one hand, made her look at him.
Rianna got out of her rocking chair, trundled over and climbed into Echo’s lap, wanting to be held.
“Mommy wrote love letters to another man,” the child announced.
Echo caught Rance’s eye, but she didn’t say anything.
“Not letters, e-mails,” Maeve corrected, a stickler for facts even in her current state of almost unbearable guilt.
“I know about the e-mails,” Rance said. “It’s not what you think.”
Maeve’s eyes widened with bruised hope. “I didn’t mean to look at them,” she said. “They fell out of Granny’s purse—”
“It’s okay,” Rance told her. He hooked an arm around his daughter’s neck and pulled her close so he could plant a kiss on top of her head.
“How can it be okay?” Maeve asked.
“It just is,” Rance said, glancing at Echo again.
“Was my mommy bad, like one of those ladies on the soap operas?” Rianna inquired, and she looked really worried about the answer.
“No,” Rance replied. “Your mommy wasn’t bad. Just lonely sometimes.”
“I wish I hadn’t told Rianna,” Maeve confided, as though Echo and Rianna had suddenly vanished and they had the room to themselves. “She’s just a little kid.”
“But you had to tell somebody, didn’t you?” Rance asked gently.
Maeve bit her lower lip, nodded.
Rance got to his feet, went into the pantry and brought out a big can of chicken noodle soup. By the time he’d heated the stuff on the stove, and Rianna, Maeve, Echo and the dog had all had some, Doc arrived.
He examined Rianna, pronounced her fit, gave her a shot and ordered her to bed.
She was asleep before Rance left her bedroom.
Echo came under Doc’s attention next, but she preferred to stay in the kitchen, in Rance’s bathrobe, with her feet curled beneath her.
Maeve went upstairs to look in on her sister.
Doc, meanwhile, checked out the dog. “Looks li
ke we’ve got a third patient here,” he said, feeling Snowball’s belly.
Echo instantly tensed. “Is she hurt?”
“No,” Doc answered. “She’s fixing to spring a few puppies on us, though.” The older man looked up at Rance. “You got an old blanket around here?”
Rance went upstairs and plundered the linen closets until he found one.
Maeve followed him back down.
The first pup was born five minutes later. A second followed, then a third. There were four by the time Doc said the whole thing was over.
Rance, feeling as though he’d just witnessed the birth of quadruplets, sank onto the bench lining one side of the kitchen table.
Echo had been kneeling on the floor the entire time, across from Doc, stroking Snowball and whispering words of encouragement. Her eyes shone with tears when she looked up at Rance.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” she asked.
Rance could hardly bear the naked emotion in her face. She was going to have to give this dog up one day soon, and all the puppies with it. She grieved, and yet she seemed suffused with joy.
“Shouldn’t there be more than four?” Maeve asked, frowning. “I thought dogs always had big litters.”
“Not necessarily,” Doc said. Rising, with a creak of old bones, he went to the sink and scrubbed his hands.
Snowball licked her babies and gave Echo a grateful glance as she helped them nestle against the dog’s belly.
Rance almost had to turn away, because it was a powerful thing to see.
“Best I get back to the clinic,” Doc told them, reaching for his bag. “On the other hand, on a day like this, only the hypochondriacs make it in.”
“The roads are pretty bad,” Rance said, and though he was talking to the doctor, he was looking at Echo. “Maybe you ought to stay the night.”
Doc shook his head. “Can’t do it,” he said. “If I were you, Rance, I’d call Cora. She hears about this through the grapevine, there’ll be hell to pay.”
Grimly, Rance nodded.
He saw Doc out to his car, then came back inside and made the call to Cora. He had to talk fast to keep her from jumping into her truck and wheeling it on out there, and by the time he hung up, Echo was back in the rocking chair and Maeve was sound asleep in her lap.
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