She didn’t want anyone talking her out of her insanity. Thankfully, Angelina didn’t seem to think it insane when she caught Katherine packing. Not only did the woman swear to secrecy, but she gave Katherine a sort of divine blessing with her “May God’s grace and peace go with you.”
Please, God, let this trip be fruitful. Katherine harbored a crazy mix of fear and hope as she’d landed in Rapid City, rented a Jeep Liberty, and picked up an atlas.
As if to add visual credence to her jumbled emotions, the landscape in this stretch of Montana was at once harsh and beautiful, jagged rock pushing through lush carpets of field grass that rolled over hill and beyond, dotted with purple and white flowers, and bordered by miles upon miles of fencing. A perfect big blue sky told her that she had pointed her Jeep in the right direction coming out of the airport.
Maybe this wasn’t insanity after all. Her ever-present headache had nearly subsided, and for the first time in months, she suspected she was thinking clearly.
She would talk Rafe Noble into helping her, even if she had to hog-tie herself to his truck until he said yes. She wasn’t leaving Montana without a check written out to Mercy Doctors. Or, if he wouldn’t give her the money, a thumbs-up to the plan she’d concocted to raise the cash. Even she had to admit her plan had facets of brilliance.
“I like to drive,” she finally answered Cari. “What is the latest on our insurance claims?”
Katherine passed a car piled with luggage and two children with headphones staring out the passenger windows. She waved at them and they waved back. Her heart gave a small tug. Bradley didn’t want children—they would stand in the way of his political aspirations. But deep inside, Katherine wanted at least one. A little girl, with long braids, who would wear red cowboy boots.
“Your grandfather’s insurance company is suing the Breckenridge Foundation and Noble for the damages, but his people are saying he isn’t at fault—”
“He drove the wrong way—”
“They called it reckless driving, and his insurance only covers it so far. They’re claiming it was an honest mistake. Our insurance company will go after them, but we might have to eat the damages.”
“It’ll wipe us out. We don’t have coverage for this kind of thing.” She kicked the AC on high, seeing heat ripple against the highway. “Besides, it wasn’t an honest mistake.” An ace that she planned on using, should Noble put up a fuss.
“Despite what you smelled, Katherine, according to the police reports, he wasn’t legally drunk.”
Katherine had done her research on Rafe Noble over the past three days, and everything she read screamed trouble. Worse, he’d managed to slide out of said trouble with his slick charm and boyish smile every single time.
That only fueled her anger. She’d show Noble exactly what he’d cost her . . . and how to atone for his crimes.
“Besides,” Cari continued, “Noble is MIA. His agent isn’t answering questions, and I can’t nail down a forwarding address. He has a place in Texas, but the number is disconnected.”
“I just wish that guys like him didn’t get away with their stupid behavior. Anyone else would be handcuffed to their hospital bed.”
“Listen, Katherine, Bradley isn’t going to let him walk away from this. You can bet that by the time he’s done, Rafe Noble will have paid through the teeth.”
Get in line.
She wasn’t sure why, but that only made Katherine feel worse. Maybe it was because she wanted Noble to want to help, not to have to force him. But that might be expecting a bit too much, even for her. . . .
“I’m glad you’re getting away,” Cari said, cutting through her thoughts. “Forget about New York. Do some shopping; buy a new outfit. This will all be sorted out when you get home.”
“I hope so.” Katherine switched lanes to fly past a semi. “Thanks, Cari. I’ll be in touch.” She clicked off, then pushed the Play button on her CD player.
A collection of books on CDs had caught her attention at the last place she gassed up, and she couldn’t believe that they’d had the B. J. King Western—the one she’d shoved into her suitcase. It seemed like providence, a sign from God or something to help her find the courage to face Noble, so she’d purchased it.
She didn’t expect to feel a kinship with the heroine, a widow with an infant, left on her own in the middle of Wyoming.
WYOMING, 1933
Mary Sutton stood at the edge of the grave, her feet in the dry, lifeless soil, the hot sun sending a trickle of sweat down her back, and knew that she’d never be whole again. The baby fussed in her arms, and Mary readjusted Rosie’s bonnet, pulling it low so the dirt couldn’t find her eyes. Even so, it caked her little mouth and nose, just as it dusted Mary’s skin, her dark pleated skirt, the once-white blouse. She felt soiled all the time.
Or maybe that feeling came from deep inside her soul.
“’Bout ready, Mrs. Sutton?”
Mary turned and squinted at Matthias Thatcher, the man she’d agreed to marry, to raise Charlie’s daughter. Her stomach turned. Matthias was fifty, with a paunch that told her exactly what she’d spend her time doing, and he owned the land where Charlie had run their tiny head of cattle. Matthias wasted no time telling her that he owned her, too. He didn’t own her soul. But they had to eat, so . . .
“I’m ready, sir.”
He didn’t hold out his hand to help her into his Ford Model A. Charlie had dreamed of owning a car, and when Matthias drove out to the fields—usually to harass her poor husband—Charlie had stopped his work to watch the dark machine motor toward him. If Matthias’s whiskey-induced diatribe affected Charlie, he didn’t show his irritation as he let his gaze wander over the sleek machine.
It felt traitorous to ride in it now, away from their two-room shanty to Matthias’s big two-story house. Just like every rancher in Wyoming, Matthias hadn’t had a decent crop of calves for years, and his herd had dwindled to a handful of bony cows unable to reproduce. But he made his money in his vast land holdings, in squeezing the small rancher of every drop of profit and working him until he crumpled into the soil at the age of thirty-one.
Leaving behind a child, a wife, and nothing else.
Mary swallowed back a wave of grief and soothed the baby. At least Charlie had seen his daughter before his heart gave out. She’d given him that much.
They pulled up to the unpainted house. It sat in a dip between two weather-beaten, grassless hills. The effects of the last dust storm had piled dirt against the barn and porch. Dirty curtains flapped from the open windows, and a pot of dead geraniums told her that Mrs. Thatcher—God rest her soul—had been a woman of hope.
Matthias’s bulk jiggled the car as he got out. “Preacher’s inside. Hurry up.”
Mary thought he might grab her case from the jump seat, but he marched into the house without so much as a glance backward.
She had no time for tears. Rosie needed a home. She needed work. Mary eased open the door. Weakness rushed through her, a ripple of despair that had the ability to crumple her. She couldn’t do this. A tear squeezed out, and she wiped it against Rosie’s head, brushing her lips against her daughter’s skin.
“Mary!” Thatcher stood on the porch, the preacher behind him.
She saw anger in his eyes and stiffened. Please, Lord, help me.
“Can I get your case for you, ma’am?” The voice beside her, a soft drawl, seemed calm against her racing heart.
She looked up, way up, into the blue, shadowed eyes of one of Thatcher’s hands. He tugged on his work-worn cowboy hat with a gloved hand. Wearing a dark blue, long-sleeve shirt pushed up at the forearms and a pair of faded brown canvas work pants, he looked about twenty-two, just a couple of years older than her.
He lowered his voice. “You okay, ma’am? It’s awfully hot out here.”
She managed the slightest nod.
“It’s going to be all right,” he added.
Mary closed her eyes, suddenly angry that he might have the slight
est inkling of what it felt like to bury a husband and marry another in one day. “Go away,” she whispered.
But he didn’t move, was still standing there when she opened her eyes. In his expression she saw a compassion that found all the bleeding places inside her.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said quietly. “I promise.”
Perhaps it was his solemn tone or maybe his honest eyes. Maybe it was the way he picked up her case and put his hand under her elbow to help her across the dusty yard. Or maybe it was the way he met Matthias’s dark eyes with a look of his own. Whatever the case, Mary believed him. And that belief gave her the courage to go inside with the preacher and marry the man who had killed her husband.
Katherine ejected the CD from her player and sighed. Poor Mary. How horrible to be so desperate you had to marry for necessity instead of love. What were Mary’s choices, really? Back then, women didn’t have careers, couldn’t get an education. What would Katherine have done? She hoped not the same thing.
Tapping her brakes, Katherine took the Jeep off cruise and turned west off Highway 59, following the signs to Phillips, thinking of the unnamed ranch hand in the story. Obviously, he knew something of Thatcher, probably even how his first wife had died, but he hadn’t stopped the wedding. Maybe he couldn’t. If it had been Bradley, he would have simply paid old Matthias off or brought him up on murder charges.
But did that make Bradley any different from Matthias? The thought chafed her as she drove into Phillips. She was being too hard on him.
Katherine found the tiny Main Street quaint, with its old grocery store hosting coin-operated rides out front, a bookstore, and a corner saloon. She slowed for the light and saw a community park, then the bleachers of a school stadium and the low building of what she assumed to be the county school. To her left, the cutest diner fashioned from an old railroad car advertised the best pies in Montana.
Katherine pulled into the diner lot, parked next to a pickup that made her Jeep seem like a gnat, and got out. She stretched, and the fresh air tasted clean and pure. Maybe all she needed was a clear schedule without the foundation and her grandfather to dodge and even Bradley hovering over her.
The last thought sent a twinge of guilt. She’d call him tonight as soon as she got settled in with her uncle Richard.
The door jangled as she opened it, and she entered a small room that sucked her back in time to a bygone era—soda fountain stools along a Formica counter, orange booths along the wall beneath the windows. Two guys sat at the counter, their hats pushed back, boots resting on the bar rail. Another sat at the far end, dressed in oily coveralls, nursing a cup of coffee. And a woman and a young boy sat in a booth sipping malts. A jukebox spilled out country-western tunes, and the smells of french fries and hamburgers filled the space.
Presiding over it all at the counter stood a woman with her blonde hair captured in a high ponytail. She wore a pair of jeans and a bright pink T-shirt.
The woman glanced at Katherine, and for a second she looked like she’d seen a ghost. Her face drained of color, and her mouth opened. “What are you doing here?”
Lolly had spent her life wishing for this moment and then revoking that wish, burying it deep inside, hoping it would never resurface. She wasn’t sure whether to cry or leap the counter and crush to her chest the beautiful Katherine Breckenridge. She was here, in the flesh, Felicia and Bobby’s daughter.
Lolly could hardly breathe.
“What did you say?” Katherine frowned and approached the counter.
Egger Dugan, the local salvage-yard owner, set down his coffee cup. Quint and Andy, ranch hands from the Silver Buckle, looked up from their plates of burgers and fries, and Maggy St. John glanced at her from where she and her son, CJ, sat.
Oh no, had she really spoken her thoughts aloud? Lolly swallowed, forcing away those wishes, those buried hopes, because once upon a time she’d promised . . .
“I’m sorry, ma’am. You just don’t look like you’re from around here.” Lolly put on her best Western accent and a wide smile, hoping it hid the thumping of her heart. “C’mon and sit down. What are ya hankerin’ for? I’ve got my best rhubarb pie today.”
Katherine was even more beautiful in real life with her dark brown hair—probably from her father, only on Katherine it looked like mink’s fur, all shiny and sleek—and big hazel eyes. She had the Russell genes in her curves, long legs, and elegant fingers wrapped around the leather bag at her shoulder. She wore a pair of jeans, red cowboy boots, and a brown, cap-sleeve, cotton prairie blouse that made her seem like she’d walked off the streets of Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival.
If only. But those had been Lolly’s dreams—to be among the beautiful and famous of Hollywood—not Katherine’s. It hit her that she didn’t have the foggiest notion what Katherine’s dreams might be.
Katherine sat down on a stool, then stared up at the menu board on the back wall. “What’s good here?”
“Everything, of course.” Lolly laughed, and her heart gave a small leap when Katherine smiled.
“How about a piece of that key lime pie,” Katherine said. “And a glass of milk.”
Lolly felt a strange sense of pride as she poured Katherine the milk and cut her the pie. She’d turned out all right. Beautiful, articulate, smart.
Seeing Katherine sitting in her diner, enjoying Lolly’s cooking—well, it filled Lolly’s throat. Never in her wildest, most hopeful dreams had she ever truly believed that sweet baby Kitty-Kat would grow up and find her way to Phillips.
Which brought her back to—“So, what are you doing here? Phillips isn’t a regular stopping-off place.” Lolly kept her tone light while filling Andy’s glass of root beer.
“Staying at my uncle’s place.” Katherine glanced up at her. “Maybe you know him—Richard Breckenridge?”
Lolly didn’t flinch. “Oh, sure. Everyone has heard of the Breckenridge Bulls. They’re famous for their breeding. R. B. also raises sheep.” She waved at Maggy and CJ as they left the diner.
Katherine dug into her purse and pulled out what looked like a folded page ripped from a magazine. She smoothed it out on the counter, and Lolly recognized it as the article detailing the incredible story of Nick Noble and Cole St. John. It also advertised the Silver Buckle’s fledgling—and now nonexistent—dude ranch business.
“I’m looking for the Silver Buckle dude ranch,” Katherine said, taking a bite of pie. “By the way, this is divine.”
Lolly tried to ignore the way Katherine’s words found soft soil and took a deep breath. “Thank you. And, uh, the Buckle . . . well, I’m not sure that they—”
“We work at the Silver Buckle,” Quint said, wiping his mouth. “It’s about ten miles out of town. You can follow us out if you want.”
Lolly swallowed a strange spurt of panic. Not that she didn’t trust Quint. No, her fear ran deeper. Katherine shouldn’t be here, around these cowboys, this life. She was young—twenty-five by Lolly’s knowing count—young enough to not know better.
“I don’t think that—”
“Hey,” Katherine interrupted her, wiping her mouth, staring at the wall behind Lolly. “Isn’t that a picture of Bobby Russell?” She stood up, leaning over the counter to peer at it. “It’s signed to his sister, Laura.”
Lolly didn’t have to look at the picture to see it—Bobby, astride a bucking bull, his arm high, his legs clamped around the animal’s girth. One of his winning shots.
Katherine sat back down, eyes shining. She looked at Lolly. “Do you know my father?”
And just like that, Lolly knew she had to hustle Katherine out of town as soon as possible, or they were all in for a world of hurt.
CHAPTER 4
RAFE USED TO LIVE FOR FANS. Loved to hear them call his name, flirt with him, wear T-shirts with his face printed on their chests. Occasionally he took a group of them out for dinner, let them fawn over him. He wished Nick could have been there to watch.
Now, nearly a week since he
’d destroyed his career, Rafe sat at the kitchen table with his laptop and wished everyone would leave him alone. From letters of encouragement to outraged parents berating him for leading their precious ones astray, fans barraged his Web site and filled his MySpace account with comment after comment, some even starting online brawls.
And if that weren’t enough, he kept hearing, “So, you owe me. And I need your help.”
“I can’t help you,” he’d said right before he’d hung up on Katherine Breckenridge. He couldn’t remember ever being that big of a jerk. Then again, the old Rafe Noble had died, probably right beside Manuel.
Everything inside this Rafe just wanted to drop off the face of the earth.
“I’m going to catch up with Nick. He’s fixing fences by Rattlesnake Creek. Do you want to join me?” Piper, Nick’s wife, stuck her head in the kitchen doorway.
She and Nick had moved into the old hunting lodge on the hill behind the house. For a former journalist, she fit like a glove into ranch life, with the exception of her aversion to meat. According to Stefanie, Piper’s freelance writing business had kept gas in the trucks and groceries in the pantry throughout the winter. These days, everyone pitched in to keep the ranch from going under.
“Nope,” Rafe said, trying not to be sullen.
Piper gave him a sad smile. “Answering fan mail?”
“Hard to type with one hand.”
“I can help you later, if you’d like.”
Rafe shook his head. “Thanks. I think I’ll just get some sleep.”
“I have a two-way radio with me if you need anything.”
He nodded. He’d have to be on his last breath before he called Nick or any of the Nobles for help. He closed his laptop, drumming his fingers on the titanium surface.
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