“Did she paint any of the others?” Mary asked, gesturing around the living room.
“No…actually, this is the only painting we have of hers.”
“She gave the others away?”
“Not exactly,” Letty admitted, feeling a flash of resentment. With all her mother’s obligations on the ranch, plus helping Dad when she could during the last few years of his life, there hadn’t been time for her to work on what she’d loved most, which was her art. Letty’s mother had lived a hard life. The land had drained her energy. Letty had been a silent witness to what had happened to her mother and swore it wouldn’t be repeated in her own life. Yet here she was, back in Wyoming. Back on the Bar E, and grateful she had a home.
“How come we’re eating in the dining room?” Lonny muttered irritably as he came downstairs. He buried his hands in his pockets and made an obvious effort to ignore Mary, who stood no more than five feet away.
“You know Mary, don’t you?” Letty asked pointedly.
Lonny nodded in the other woman’s direction, but managed to do so without actually looking at her.
“Hello, Lonny,” Mary cooed. “It’s a real pleasure to see you again. I brought you some rolls—hot from the oven.”
“Mary brought over some homemade dinner rolls,” Letty reiterated, resisting the urge to kick her brother in the shin.
“Looks like those rolls came from the Red Springs Bakery to me,” he muttered, pulling out a chair and sitting down.
Letty half expected him to grab his knife and fork, pound the table with them and chant, Dinner, dinner, dinner. If he couldn’t discourage Mary by being rude, he’d probably try the more advanced “caveman” approach.
“Well, yes, I did pick up the rolls there,” Mary said, clearly flustered. “I didn’t have time after work to bake.”
“Naturally, you wouldn’t have,” Letty responded mildly, shooting her brother a heated glare.
Cricket scooted past the two women and handed her uncle a plate. “Anything else, Mommy?”
Letty quickly checked the table to see what was needed. “Glasses,” she mumbled, rushing back into the kitchen. While she was there, she took the peas off the burner. The vegetable had been an expensive addition to the meal, but Letty had bought them at the market in town, remembering how much Lonny loved fresh peas. He deserved some reward for being such a good sport—or so she’d thought earlier.
Cricket finished setting the table and Letty brought out the rest of their dinner. She smiled as she joined the others. Her brother had made a tactical error when he’d chosen to sit down first. Mary had immediately taken the chair closest to him. She gazed at him with wide adoring eyes while Lonny did his best to ignore her.
As Letty had predicted earlier, the meal was a disaster, and the tension in the air was thick. Letty made several attempts at conversation, which Mary leaped upon, but the minute either of them tried to include Lonny, the subject died. It was all Letty could do to keep from kicking her brother under the table. Mary didn’t linger after the meal.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” Lonny grumbled as soon as Letty was back from escorting Mary to the front door.
She sank down in the chair beside him and closed her eyes, exhausted. She didn’t have the energy to argue with her brother. If he was looking for an apology, she’d give him one. “I’m sorry, Lonny. I was only trying to help.”
“Help what? Ruin my life?”
“No!” Letty said, her eyes flying open. “You need someone.”
“Who says?”
“I do.”
“Did you ever stop to think that’s a bit presumptuous on your part? You’re gone nine years and then you waltz home, look around and decide what you can change.”
“Lonny, I said I was sorry.”
He was silent for a lengthy moment, then he sighed. “I didn’t mean to shout.”
“I know you didn’t.” Letty was so tired she didn’t know how she was going to manage the dishes. One meal, and she’d used every pan in the house. Cricket was clearing the table for her and she was so grateful she kissed her daughter’s forehead.
Lonny dawdled over his coffee, eyes downcast. “What makes you think I need someone?” he asked quietly.
“It seems so lonely out here. I assumed—incorrectly, it appears—that you’d be happier if there was someone to share your life with. You’re a handsome man, Lonny, and there are plenty of women who’d like to be your wife.”
One corner of his mouth edged up at that. “I intend to marry someday. I just haven’t gotten around to it, that’s all.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, what are you waiting for?” Letty teased. “You’re thirty-four and you’re not getting any younger.”
“I’m not exactly ready for social security.”
Letty smiled. “Mary’s nice—”
“Aw, come off it, Letty. I don’t like that woman. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“—but I understand why she isn’t your type,” Letty finished, undaunted.
“You do?”
She nodded. “Mary needs a man who’d be willing to spend a lot of time and money keeping her entertained. She wouldn’t make a good rancher’s wife.”
“I knew that the minute I met her,” Lonny grumbled. “I just didn’t know how to put it in words.” He mulled over his thoughts, then added, “Look at the way she let you and Cricket do all the work getting dinner on the table. She didn’t help once. That wouldn’t sit well with most folks.”
“She was company.” Letty felt an obligation to defend Mary. After all, she hadn’t asked the other woman to help with the meal, although she would’ve appreciated it. Besides, Lonny didn’t have a lot of room to talk; he’d waited to be served just like Mary had.
“Company, my foot,” Lonny countered. “Could you see Mom or any other woman you know sitting around making idle chatter while everyone else is working around her?”
Letty had to ackowledge that was true.
“Did you notice how she wanted everyone to think she’d made those rolls herself?”
Letty had noticed, but she didn’t consider that such a terrible thing.
Lonny reached into the middle of the table for a carrot stick, chewing on it with a frown. “A wife,” he murmured. “I agree that a woman would take more interest in the house than I have in the past few years.” He crunched down on the carrot again. “I have to admit it’s been rather nice having my meals cooked and my laundry folded. Those are a couple of jobs I can live without.”
Letty practically swallowed her tongue to keep from commenting.
“I think you might be right, Letty. A wife would come in handy.”
“You could always hire a housekeeper,” Letty said sarcastically, irritated by his attitude and unable to refrain from saying something after all.
“What are you so irked about? You’re the one who suggested I get married in the first place.”
“From the way you’re talking, you seem to think of a wife as a hired hand who’ll clean house and cook your meals. You don’t want a wife. You’re looking for a servant. A woman has to get more out of a relationship than that.”
Lonny snorted. “I thought you females need to be needed. For crying out loud, what else is there to a marriage but cooking and cleaning and regular sex?”
Letty glared at her brother, stood and picked up their coffee cups. “Lonny, I was wrong. Do some woman the ultimate favor and stay single.”
With that she walked out of the dining room.
“So how did dinner go?” Chase asked his friend the following morning.
Lonny’s response was little more than a grunt.
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
Although his friend wouldn’t appreciate it, Chase had gotten a good laugh over this dinner date of Lonny’s with the gal from the hardware store. “Is Letty going to set you up with that Brandon woman again?”
“Not while I’m breathing, she won’t.”
r /> Chase chuckled and loosened the reins on Firepower. Mary Brandon was about as subtle as a jackhammer. She’d done everything but throw herself at Lonny’s feet, and she probably would’ve done that if she’d thought it would do any good. Chase wanted to blame Letty for getting Lonny into this mess, but the Brandon woman was wily and had likely manipulated the invitation out of Letty. Unfortunately Lonny was the one who’d suffered the consequences.
Chase smiled, content. Riding the range in May, looking for newborn calves, was one of his favorite chores as a rancher. All creation seemed to be bursting out, fresh and alive. The trees were budding and the wind was warm and carried the sweet scent of wildflowers with it. He liked the ranch best after it rained; everything felt so pure then and the land seemed to glisten.
“That sister of yours is determined to find you a wife, isn’t she?” Chase teased, still smiling. “She hasn’t been back two weeks and she’s matchmaking to beat the band. Before you know it, she’ll have you married off. I only hope you get some say in whatever woman Letty chooses.”
“Letty doesn’t mean any harm.”
“Neither did Lizzy Borden.”
When Lonny didn’t respond with the appropriate chuckle, Chase glanced in his friend’s direction. “You look worried. What’s wrong?”
“It’s Letty.”
“What about her?”
“Does she seem any different to you?”
Chase shrugged, hating the sudden concern that surged through him. The only thing he wanted to feel for Letty was apathy, or at best the faint stirring of remembrance one had about a casual acquaintance. As it was, his heart, his head—every part of him—went into overdrive whenever Lonny brought his sister into the conversation.
“How do you mean—different?” Chase asked.
“I don’t know for sure.” He hesitated and pushed his hat farther back on his head. “It’s crazy, but she takes naps every afternoon. And I mean every afternoon. At first she said it was jet lag.”
“So she sleeps a lot. Big deal,” Chase responded, struggling to sound disinterested.
“Hey, Chase, you know my sister as well as I do. Can you picture Letty, who was always a ball of energy, taking naps in the middle of the day?”
Chase couldn’t, but he didn’t say so.
“Another thing,” Lonny said as he loosely held his gelding’s reins, “Letty’s always been a neat freak. Remember how she used to drive me crazy with the way everything had to be just so?”
Chase nodded.
“She left the dinner dishes in the sink all night. I found her putting them in the dishwasher this morning, claiming she’d been too tired to bother after Mary left. Mary was gone by seven-thirty!”
“So she’s a little tired,” Chase muttered. “Let her sleep if it makes her happy.”
“It’s more than that,” Lonny continued. “She doesn’t sing anymore—not a note. For nine years she fought tooth and nail to make it in the entertainment business, and now it’s as if…as if she never had a voice. She hasn’t even touched the piano since she’s been home—at least not when I was there to hear her.” Lonny frowned. “It’s like the song’s gone out of her life.”
Chase didn’t want to talk about Letty and he didn’t want to think about her. In an effort to change the subject he said, “Old man Wilber was by the other day.”
Lonny shook his head. “I suppose he was after those same acres again.”
“Every year he asks me if I’d be willing to sell that strip of land.” Some people knew it was spring when the flowers started to bloom. Chase could tell when Henry Wilber approached him about a narrow strip of land that bordered their property line. It wasn’t the land that interested Wilber as much as the water. Nothing on this earth would convince Chase to sell that land. Spring Valley Ranch had been in his family for nearly eighty years and each generation had held on to those acres through good times and bad. Ranching wasn’t exactly making Chase a millionaire, but he would die before he sold off a single inch of his inheritance.
“You’d be a fool to let it go,” Lonny said.
No one needed to tell Chase that. “I wonder when he’ll give up asking.”
“Knowing old man Wilber,” Lonny said with a chuckle, “I’d say never.”
“Are you going to plant any avocados?” Cricket asked as Letty spaded the rich soil that had once been her mother’s garden. Lonny had protested, but he’d tilled a large section close to the house for her and Cricket to plant. Now Letty was eager to get her hands in the earth.
“Avocados won’t grow in Wyoming, Cricket. The climate isn’t mild enough.”
“What about oranges?”
“Not those, either.”
“What does grow in Wyoming?” she asked indignantly. “Cowboys?”
Letty smiled as she used the sturdy fork to turn the soil.
“Mommy, look! Chase is here…on his horsey.” Cricket took off, running as fast as her stubby legs would carry her. Her reaction was the same whenever Chase appeared.
Letty stuck the spading fork in the soft ground and reluctantly followed her daughter. By the time she got to the yard, Chase had climbed down from the saddle and dropped the reins. Cricket stood awestruck on the steps leading to the back porch, her mouth agape, her eyes wide.
“Hello, Chase,” Letty said softly.
He looked at her and frowned. “Didn’t that old straw hat used to belong to your mother?”
Letty nodded. “She wore it when she worked in the garden. I found it the other day.” Chase made no further comment, although Letty was sure he’d wanted to say something more.
Eagerly Cricket bounded down the steps to stand beside her mother. Her small hand crept into Letty’s, holding on tightly. “I didn’t know horsies were so big and pretty,” she breathed.
“Firepower’s special,” Letty explained. Chase had raised the bay from a yearling, and had worked with him for long, patient hours.
“You said you wanted to see Firepower,” Chase said, a bit gruffly. “I haven’t got all day, so if you want a ride it’s got to be now.”
“I can ride him? Oh, Mommy, can I really?”
Letty’s blood roared in her ears. She opened her mouth to tell Chase she wasn’t about to set her daughter on a horse of that size.
Before she could voice her objection, however, Chase quieted her fears. “She’ll be riding with me.” With that he swung himself onto the horse and reached down to hoist Cricket into the saddle with him.
As if she’d been born to ride, Cricket sat in front of Chase on the huge animal without revealing the least bit of fear. “Look at me!” she shouted, grinning widely. “I’m riding a horsey! I’m riding a horsey!”
Even Chase was smiling at such unabashed enthusiasm. “I’ll take her around the yard a couple of times,” he told Letty before kicking gently at Firepower’s sides. The bay obediently trotted around in a circle.
“Can we go over there?” Cricket pointed to some undistinguishable location in the distance.
“Cricket,” Letty said, clamping the straw hat onto her head and squinting up. “Chase is a busy man. He hasn’t got time to run you all over the countryside.”
“Hold on,” Chase responded, taking the reins in both hands and heading in the direction Cricket had indicated.
“Chase,” Letty cried, running after him. “She’s just a little girl. Please be careful.”
He didn’t answer her, and not knowing what to expect, Letty trailed them to the end of the long drive. When she reached it, she was breathless and light-headed. It took her several minutes to walk back to the house. She was certain anyone watching her would assume she was drunk. Entering the kitchen, Letty grabbed her prescription bottle—hidden from Lonny in a cupboard—and swallowed a couple of capsules without water.
Not wanting to raise unnecessary alarm, she went back to the garden, but had to sit on an old stump until her breathing returned to normal. Apparently her heart had gotten worse since she’d come home. Much worse.
“Mommy, look, no hands,” Cricket called out, her arms raised high in the air as Firepower trotted back into the yard.
Smiling, Letty stood and reached for the spading fork.
“Don’t try to pretend you were working,” Chase muttered, frowning at her. “We saw you sitting in the sun. What’s the matter, Letty? Did the easy life in California make you lazy?”
Once more Chase was baiting her. And once more Letty let the comment slide. “It must have,” she said, and looked away.
Four
C hase awoke just before dawn. He lay on his back, listening to the birds chirping outside his half-opened window. Normally their singing would have cheered him, but not this morning. He’d slept poorly, his mind preoccupied with Letty. Everything Lonny had said the week before about her not being herself had bounced around in his brain for most of the night.
Something was different about Letty, but not in the way Chase would have assumed. He’d expected the years in California to transform her in a more obvious way, making her worldly and cynical. To his surprise, he’d discovered that in several instances she seemed very much like the naive young woman who’d left nine years earlier to follow a dream. But the changes were there, lots of them, complex and subtle, when he’d expected them to be simple and glaring. Perhaps what troubled Chase was his deep inner feeling that something was genuinely wrong with her. But try as he might, he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. That disturbed him the most.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Chase rubbed his hands over his face and glanced outside. The cloudless dawn sky was a luminous shade of gray. The air smelled crisp and clean as Wyoming offered another perfect spring morning.
Chase dressed in his jeans and a western shirt. Downstairs, he didn’t bother to fix himself a cup of coffee; instead he walked outside, climbed into his pickup and headed over to the Bar E.
Only it wasn’t Lonny who drew him there.
The lights were on in the kitchen when Chase pulled into the yard. He didn’t knock, but stepped directly into the large family kitchen. Letty was at the stove, the way he knew she would be. She turned when he walked in the door.