“Kate, honey, how did all this start?”
“Mom was upset because Gran told the reporter about some buried treasure rumored to be hidden at the drive-in. Supposedly Gran’s great-grandfather lived on a ranch there at the time and told her the story. She thought it would make her book more interesting.”
It had certainly made his morning more interesting, though he would have preferred waking up naked and next to Kate. That would have been interesting enough. “All I heard was the part about not wanting anyone to find ‘the body.”’
“We should call the sheriff.”
“Not so fast,” Dustin warned. “If your mother isn’t, uh, in her right mind, you don’t want to make things worse.”
“Maybe we should call a lawyer, or a doctor.”
“Your mother can’t cry forever,” he said, hoping he was right. “Give her a chance to explain before you call for reinforcements.”
She sighed. “You’re right.” Kate stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly. “Where’s Danny?”
“Still sleeping. Gert wore him out last night. I think they watched movies ’til midnight.”
“Figures. She likes the company.”
“Me, too.” They smiled at each other for a long moment.
“I was going to go see Emily today and take her some groceries. I’m not sure if I can do that now. But if I go, do you think Danny would like to ride along?”
“I think he’d like that a lot. He has a crush on you, you know.”
“I’ve noticed. He’s a nice kid, Dustin,” she told him.
“Yeah,” he said, before kissing her again. “I know.”
“I’d better get back,” she said, pulling away. “Do you think maybe Mom was involved in a hit-and-run accident last night?”
“I can’t see your mother doing anything illegal,” he assured her, but over the top of Kate’s head he saw the sheriff’s car pull up in the drive. “Kate?”
“What?”
“Maybe you’d better go tell your mother that the sheriff is coming.”
“Oh, my God,” she breathed, peering around him. “He’s going to arrest her.”
“I doubt it,” Dustin said, setting her away from him and turning her toward the kitchen door. “Go. I’ll see what he wants.”
He made sure she went inside before heading toward Jess Sheridan, who had just stepped out of his car. “Jess? Hey.”
“Hey, Dustin,” the man said, settling his hat on his head. “It’s going to be another hot one.”
“Yeah, it sure is.” He shook the man’s hand and waited for the reason he was here, knowing Sheridan would get around to it in his own time.
“I could have called,” Jess said, “but I was out this direction anyway.” He looked around. “Where’s the boy?”
“Still asleep.”
“Good. I wanted to tell you that Lisa is out of jail, as of yesterday. She supposedly completed a drug treatment program and got time off for good behavior.”
Dustin felt like someone had punched him in the gut. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I thought you should know.”
“Thanks.”
“You’ve got custody, right?”
“Yeah, so far. We go to court again in September.”
Jess nodded and opened the car door. “Good. Take care of the boy and call me if there’s any problem.”
“Thanks.” He watched the sheriff put the car in reverse and turn around before heading back to the road. Jess Sheridan hadn’t brought good news, but at least he hadn’t arrested Dustin’s future mother-in-law.
“IT WAS JUST A NIGHTMARE.” Martha sniffed and tossed a large handful of tissues into the trash. “I guess I just had a bad dream.”
“You expect us to believe that?” Kate crossed her arms over her chest and thought once again about calling a doctor, preferably one who carried sedatives around with him. “After crying for half an hour about a body at the drive-in and how gold hunters might find it?”
“It was quite a nightmare, I must say,” her mother declared. She reached into her purse and found her lipstick. “Excuse me. I’m going to go freshen up.”
Kate watched as her mother left the room and headed around the corner for the bathroom. “What do you think, Gran?”
“I think we’re lucky the sheriff didn’t come into the house,” her grandmother said. “There’s no telling what Martha might have told him.”
Kate reheated her coffee in the microwave and then sat down at the kitchen table. “What do you think she was talking about?”
“I’m not sure,” her grandmother said, but she avoided Kate’s gaze and instead went over to the window. “Looks like Dustin’s working on the roof. That man is always working.”
Kate wondered if he had his shirt off. If he was thinking of last night. Or planning how they would be together tonight. “Maybe I should take Mom home. She isn’t in any condition to drive.”
“I’m going to sell him the ranch, Kate.” Gert left the window and shuffled over to the table and sat down. “If you don’t want the Lazy K, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Gran—”
“Don’t say anything now,” her grandmother told her. “You have another week here to think about what you want to do, but I can’t run this place much longer. It needs a man and it looks like it’s got one, so I might as well make it official.”
Kate took a deep breath. She’d never thought the ranch would leave the family. “I don’t think Dustin can afford to buy a ranch, Gran. And where will you live? Certainly not in the Good Night Villas with Mom?”
“I’ll make Dustin a good deal. Lord knows neither you nor Jake needs money. Jake has his own place free and clear and you have your fancy career. Your mother is fixed just fine for money, with or without the Lazy K so it’s not like we’re gonna go broke.”
“No,” Kate said, feeling as if she was going to lose something she didn’t know she wanted so much. “I guess not.”
“It’s yours, though,” her grandmother said, “if you want to stay.”
“What is?” Martha said, entering the room. “Are you trying to bribe Kate with this ranch again, Mother?”
“I’m not discussing my business with a crazy woman, Martha,” Gert declared. “Are you feeling better?”
“I am,” she said. Kate saw that her mother had combed her hair and put on lipstick. Her eyes were still red and puffy, but at least she wasn’t crying anymore.
“So, who’s in the drive-in?”
“Don’t start, Mother.”
Kate frowned at her grandmother, then took her mother’s arm. “Let me drive you home. I’d planned on visiting with Emily for a while this morning.”
“I’m perfectly capable of taking myself home. Besides, I’m playing bridge with the girls this afternoon.” She avoided looking at either one of them and fussed with her blouse, making sure it was tucked neatly into her skirt.
“Do you want to come out here for dinner tonight?”
“No, thank you, dear,” Martha said. She dropped her lipstick into her purse and snapped it shut. “I think I’ll go to bed early tonight. I could use the rest.”
“Hmph,” Gert said, looking worried. “I should say so.”
Kate walked her mother to her car, but Martha didn’t say a word until she got behind the wheel. “I’m sorry I frightened you.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Of course,” she said, but to Kate she looked ten years older than she had yesterday. “I just need some time to rest. That article in the paper just…upset me, that’s all.”
“Gran’s book has upset you from the beginning,” Kate said, leaning down so she could look through the open car window. Her mother’s fingers gripped the steering wheel, but she didn’t say anything. Instead she fussed with her keys and started the car, so Kate had no choice but to back away and let her mother leave the ranch.
It was one of those mornings she should have stayed in bed—with D
ustin. Dead bodies, gold hunters, sheriffs, hysterical mothers and career decisions would have been ignored, at least until after she’d rolled on top of his naked body and had her way with him.
SHE WOULD NOT MAKE that mistake again, Martha decided. At first she’d thought that newspaper article was the last straw, that there was nothing to do but to come clean and confess everything.
And then she’d seen her mother’s face. How could she tell her ninety-year-old mother the truth? Gert couldn’t live forever. Let her find out in heaven, when some nice angels would gather around her and explain everything. That would certainly be much easier than hearing it this way.
And the mess that would follow couldn’t be helped. There were a few people around town who would remember and understand, but there were lots more who would judge without knowing what it was really like to have a best friend.
A best friend was someone you would do anything for.
“YOUR LIFE IS SO much more exciting than mine,” Emily declared, tucking her baby to her breast.
“I guess that depends on how you define ‘exciting.”’ Kate suffered another unfamiliar twinge of envy as she watched Emily feed her baby. “I thought I was coming home for a peaceful vacation with my family.”
“And instead?” Emily’s face took on that expression of blissful contentment as the baby began to nurse. “An affair with your grandmother’s foreman, a mysterious dead body and a grandmother trying to get famous.”
“Exactly. I should be writing all of this down for the show. My boss would love the ‘mysterious dead body’ part.”
“I personally prefer the romance,” her friend said. “I’m glad you brought Danny with you. John could use some male company.”
“I’ll take him back to the ranch with me for the afternoon, okay?”
“You have to ask?” Emily laughed. “My mother’s taking the girls with her to Marysville, so that will work out great. I hate to ask this, but when do you have to go back to New York?”
“Next Saturday. I could make my boss happy and leave the day after tomorrow, but I won’t.”
“You can’t leave now,” Emily said, “not until you decide what to do about your mother, never mind the ranch and Dustin. And you promised to go out to lunch with Elizabeth and Lorna, too, remember?”
She remembered. And looked forward to it, too, though she didn’t really think she’d fit in.
“If I stayed,” Kate said, thinking out loud, “I’d live with my grandmother out on the ranch. With Dustin so close, I’m not sure if that’s a good idea or not. If he started dating someone else, it would be messy. And if I started dating someone else, it would be even messier.”
“You’re not ready to admit that he’s the one man for you, huh?” Emily shook her head. “I can’t believe it.”
“He slept with someone else and made a baby while he was going out with me,” Kate reminded her. “He might not make the best husband.”
“That’s history. He’s a responsible father now. People change. And people grow up. Look, you could buy your mother’s house and live here in town.”
“By myself in a house with four bedrooms? The place is huge.”
“It’s the nicest house in town. Forget the past. Marry Dustin and fill it up with kids.”
“He hasn’t asked.” She watched Emily lift the tiny baby to her shoulder to burp her. “And what would I do here in Beauville?”
“Run the ranch. You’ve always loved that place. I assume you have some money saved so you could afford to get it going again?”
“Yes,” she said, thinking of her hefty savings account. She’d never been a big spender, having learned frugal ways from Gert, and writing for daytime television was a lucrative career. “When I was eighteen that was all I wanted, Dustin Jones and the Lazy K. Makes me wish I hadn’t grown up,” she admitted, watching Emily comfort her fussing baby. “Can I hold her?”
“If you don’t mind if she spits up on your clothes.” Emily leaned over and tucked the baby, bundled in soft cotton, into Kate’s arms.
“I don’t mind.” She kept her voice quiet, as the baby’s eyelids closed. Her little lips pursed, as if she wondered where her lunch disappeared to. “You make all of this look so easy, Em.”
“It’s hard work—don’t let anyone tell you different,” Emily drawled. “But first, Kate, you have to decide what you want. If it’s that big career, then run—don’t walk—to the airport before you start breaking hearts.”
“And if it’s Dustin and the ranch?”
“The two go together?”
“I think so.”
“Then tell him you’re thinking about staying and see what happens.”
“You make it sound so easy.” She could hold this baby all day long, Kate decided. It was too bad she had a barn to paint and her grandmother’s latest chapters to read, a mystery to solve and a mother to comfort—plus a man to love and his son to care for.
“It is easy,” Emily insisted, struggling off the couch. “You sit there and rock the baby while I go clean up, then we’ll plan your future.”
“Okay,” Kate agreed, inhaling the sweet scent of baby as she lifted her closer. “You win. I want one of these.”
“Don’t tell me,” Emily said. “Tell that cowboy of yours.”
“He’s not ‘my cowboy.”’
Emily laughed. “Sure he is. You’re the only person in town who doesn’t know it.”
There was a lot she didn’t know, Kate mused, rocking slowly so the baby would sleep. She didn’t know if Dustin loved her, didn’t know whether or not she should take over the ranch, and certainly didn’t know whose body was buried at the former Good Night Drive-In.
But she did know she was in love. That was something to think about.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
GERT DIDN’T UNDERSTAND what all the fuss was about, but it boded well for the success of her book. Seemed like everyone in town wanted to know what she was writing about or if she knew the location of the gold—as if she’d tell if she did—and did Gert need any more stories or photos because so-and-so was going through her mother’s things and there was quite a bit of information there. The Jeffersons were upset, since they didn’t want anyone knowing their great-great-grandfather had come to town when he jumped off a train, having escaped a murder conviction in California. And Irene Gardiner wanted to make sure that no one found out her mother was illegitimate. The phone rang a lot more than it ever had, not that she had to answer it. Kate did that for her.
Kate did a lot of things that helped Gert spend more time writing. She made coffee and cleaned. She cooked and shopped and proofread each chapter of the manuscript.
“You’re a good girl,” Gert told her. “I don’t know what I would do without you.” It was a pretty big hint, but Gert didn’t care. When a person was as old as she was, she was allowed to say anything.
So she said things like, “You’d have to go a long way to find a man as good as Dustin Jones” and “I hope I see your children before I die.” Sentiments like that were bound to make the girl think twice about leaving for New York.
The boy came around, too. He and Gert drank coffee milk and ate cookies. Gert promised to make cinnamon rolls as soon as her book was done because she had no time for baking now. She was in the 1960s already, so it wouldn’t be long before the book was done. She hadn’t much cared for the sixties—except for Martha’s wedding in 1969—so she didn’t intend to dwell on much of it. There were some things worth skipping over, some things just too painful to write about.
“Gran?” Kate stood in the entrance to the living room. “Do you want to take a break for lunch?”
“No, thanks, dear. You and Danny go ahead without me.” She wanted to finish this section before she stopped for a sandwich and a nap. Besides, Kate needed to get used to being with the boy. She would make a good mother, that girl would. Gert could see them from where she sat. Danny never strayed far from Kate’s side, which was good. Dustin would be in soon, too, since
he’d taken to eating lunch in the main house.
Kate was getting real good at fixing lunches, and painting outbuildings. And Gert had heard her talking to Dustin about cattle prices and land management. Danny started talking about getting his own horse and Emily’s little boy had been over to play three times in three days. Jake and Elizabeth were bringing the new baby over to visit tomorrow.
Yes, Gert thought, going back to her memories of the 1960s. Everyone was acting like one big happy family. Everyone but Martha, who refused to talk about her mother’s book except to beg her to stop working on it.
“ARE YOU SURE YOU don’t mind?” Dustin hesitated at the kitchen door. “I’m not going to be back from Marysville until evening. There’s no knowing how long these stock auctions will last.”
“It’s okay,” Kate said, though she wasn’t sure what she would do with an eight-year-old boy for the entire day. Danny was quiet enough, but there seemed to be a lot going on behind those serious brown eyes. She’d give a lot to know what the boy was thinking, especially when she caught him staring at her.
“Tomorrow’s Friday,” Dustin said. He lifted her chin with his index finger. “We have a date?”
“We’d better,” she said. “We haven’t been alone in a long time.”
“Between grandmothers and kids, it’s not easy,” the man agreed, then brushed a kiss across her mouth.
“Maybe we should sneak off to the hayloft tonight.” There hadn’t been much chance to be alone with him. Gert was typing and Danny was gathering his trucks together to play with by the back door, which meant Kate could at least get a few kisses.
“I can’t ask Gert to baby-sit Danny so her foreman can have sex with her granddaughter.”
“I guess not.” Kate sighed. “But you have to admit it’s tempting.”
“Tomorrow night,” he promised. “Let’s go out to dinner, just the two of us. We haven’t had much time to be alone this week,” he said, voicing her thoughts.
“I’d like that.”
“Okay.” The next kiss lasted much longer, until Kate’s knees turned weak and she wondered how on earth she could wait until tomorrow night before being alone with him. The only reason they stopped was because they heard Danny singing as he came around the corner of the house.
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