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A s Kirstin turned off onto Fox Hollow Road, she decided she shouldn’t go home just yet. If her father looked the wrong way at her, she might bite his head off. Just before the bridge that spanned the river to touch the west corner of the McLendon property, there was a pullout where people parked to launch their boats from state land or to take their dogs for runs off leash. She decided to take a short walk. A cooling-off period.
She turned left and pulled in beside an old Camaro with a dented back fender. Then she cut the engine of her truck. Correction, she reminded herself. It’s not my truck. Like everything else in my life, it belongs to the Conacher Ranch. She couldn’t help but resent that even though she knew that someday the entire operation would become hers. That wasn’t the same as working to buy something for herself. Not the same as having a sense of accomplishment and pride. Even her savings account didn’t feel as if it were truly hers. Every dollar had come from her father’s pocket.
So many people thought she was lucky. Kirstin Conacher, the girl who’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, a girl who played at being a rancher and had never had to work hard for anything. They were so mistaken. She busted her ass every single day, and anyone who’d ever held a genuine silver spoon in their mouth knew that it soon started to taste like cheap metal, bitter on the tongue.
She swung out of the truck, beeped the remote to lock the cab, and pushed the keys into her jeans pocket. A walk would take the edge off. She set her stride along the well-traveled trail, trying to appreciate the natural beauty that surrounded her. Groves of aspen and cottonwood lent touches of apple green to the thick stands of evergreen. Rocky beaches curved in and out along the river’s edge. Craggy mountain peaks rose like divine sculptures against the azure Montana sky. The air cooled her cheeks and tasted of the flora that thrived in the riparian area. To her, it was home, and nowhere else in the world could ever equal it.
She just wished she could feel happy and content here. But meeting Cam and then being rejected by him had felt like the final blow in a sense, dashing her hopes of ever having a normal life. Her father, as much as she loved him, was to single men what bear spray was to grizzlies. What guy in his right mind would ever put his livelihood at risk to start a relationship with her? Not even Cam, who seemed to have depth and be a caring person, had wanted to tangle with her dad. And she couldn’t blame him. He had a mother and a son for whom he was responsible.
She walked over the rocks to reach the water’s edge and stared across the river at Cam McLendon’s camp. She supposed he’d been right to nickname it the Hillbilly Village. A small vintage travel trailer sat facing her. It must have been renovated, because the exterior paint, crisp white divided by a blue stripe, looked brand-new. It was an adorable RV, reminiscent of days gone by, and she would have loved to see the interior. Behind it were two dusty-looking tents, and to the left of them sat a small reddish brown cabin. A gray late-model SUV was parked near the trailer. An old Ford truck sat behind it, sporting so many dents and scrapes that it looked as if it might have been entered in a demolition derby.
Not much to look at, she thought. But to her, that camp represented all the things she wanted in her own life. The people there were chasing a dream, and they were enduring hardship as a family to grab hold of it. The present, and all its daily trials, wasn’t their focus. In their minds, they saw what the land could one day be, and they were determined to make it happen. Cam had created a home from very little. And, yes, he’d been inventive to make his mother and son comfortable. But even from where she stood, she could sense the intense love that emanated from the hodgepodge. If only some of it would rub off on her.
Tears filled her eyes and ran in scalding streams down her cheeks. Cam might not even know how very blessed he was. In the end, he and his family would achieve their dreams, and together they would enjoy the fruits of their determination and sacrifice. The way things were going, she doubted she might ever experience the love of a good man or get to have a child of her own. And, if her dad had his way, nothing she ever possessed would truly belong to her.
Daddy would just give her everything.
She turned and moved back up the slight grade to the forest. Pieces of driftwood had been cast upon the rocks, left by a swift winter current to lie there, harden, and lose all semblance of life. They were beautiful-twisted and weathered pieces of what had once been gorgeous trees. Someday when she grew old, she might resemble that wood, a withered outline of what she might have been.
Good luck, Cam, she thought. I hope a new chapter opens up for you and that it’s wonderful beyond all your expectations.
Maddie MCLendon had been worried for hours. Her son, Cam, had left at six that morning, and he still wasn’t back at camp. Her biggest fear was that something horrible might happen to him. Every time her grandson, Caleb, was late, she fretted about him, too. She didn’t know how she could survive losing another loved one. Since her husband Graham’s death, her boys had become her everything. She’d read that her fears about losing someone else were a normal part of the grieving process, but Maddie disliked being normal. And she sure as heck didn’t want to be a weight around her son’s neck.
Relief flooded through her when she heard the rumbling sound of Cam’s diesel truck. She shut down her computer and got up from her office chair, groaning under her breath because her legs were stiff from sitting for so long. Her right knee sometimes gave her fits, and that was the case today. She felt pretty good, though, and that was a bonus. She’d gotten a treatment last week and had suffered through most of what she thought of as her chemo hangover days. Though Cam was gone a lot working, even he had started to notice that she felt under the weather every couple of weeks, and he kept asking if she was okay.
Last spring, she’d made a judicious decision not to tell him that she’d been diagnosed with colon cancer. The same disease had killed his father less than a year and a half before, and when she learned she had it herself, she couldn’t manage to hit Cam with the news. He was a strong-willed and resilient man, but he loved people to a fault, investing too much of his heart and often too much of his time into caring for others and trying to make them happy. He’d spent most of his adult life focused on rearing his son and supporting his parents. She wanted Cam to chase after his dreams and to have his own piece of the pie.
Maddie had achieved all her dreams. She’d been blessed with a wonderful husband, the love of her life who’d fulfilled all her girlhood yearnings for a hero and romance. For years, they’d stood side by side, working to create their own little dynasty and raising their children. Maddie never looked back and felt that she’d been cheated out of anything. She’d had it all.
Now it was Cam’s turn, and she wouldn’t derail him by telling him that she was battling for her life. Heck, no. If she lost the war, she’d have plenty of time to warn him, but until then, she was a tough old broad, she was responding well to treatments, and she could get through this without her son holding her hand.
As was her evening habit, Maddie quickly tidied her work space and then the tiny kitchen. She’d already made her bed that morning. The vintage trailer had been redone, inside and out, and it amazed her how perfectly the designers had utilized the square footage. Compared to her former home, this place was a postage stamp, but it was cozy and warm, and she tried to keep it looking nice.
She stepped into the miniature full bath to brush her hair, originally a short cut that had grown out a bit, much to her relief. Cropping her mane had seemed like a practical choice for camping, but instead she’d awakened each day to a nightmare of reddish brown spikes that refused to lie flat until she wet them down and blew them dry. With the extra length she had now, the style was more controllable. Not that tamer hair helped much with her looks. Light though her treatments were, the new chemo drug that was regularly infused into her bloodstream had taken its toll. Her skin was dry and crinkly. She’d been what she liked to think of as pleasingly plump before her surgery. Now her fat deposits felt like balloons that had lost all their air.
Oh, well, she thought. I’m not losing my hair. That’s a miracle. And I’ll gain all the weight back when I get through this and be a plump grandma again. Caleb won’t worry aloud about me getting too thin anymore after he hugs me.
As she stepped out of the trailer, she skimmed an appreciative glance over the sturdy wooden steps with a handrailing that Cam and Caleb had built for her. So sweet . They had done everything they could to make her comfortable here. It had been a difficult transition at first. She’d missed her spacious high-end home. But now she loved being here. The relaxing sound of the river, the breathtaking views of the Bitterroot Mountains from her windows, and the forest across the stream seemed to embrace and soothe her.
Once on the rocky gravel that Caleb had spread over her front yard to cut down on mud being tracked inside, she made a mental note to call her sister in Missouri soon. Maddie had flown back there to have her tumor removed, and she’d stayed with Naomi for the first few rounds of her chemo. Now they chatted as often as possible. Naomi and her husband, Chuck, were the only members of Maddie’s family who knew about her cancer, and during those first three months, they’d been so supportive. Naomi loved getting phone calls from Maddie that began with “I’m still cancer-free!”
She pushed open the gate and left her spacious front yard, wondering where Caleb had gotten off to. He’d come to her trailer after he’d gotten home from school and eaten a snack to hold him over until dinner. But she hadn’t seen him since, and until now she hadn’t missed him. That was one drawback of being a writer. She slipped away into another world and forgot all about the real one.
She went directly to the wall tent that Cam had transformed into a multifunctional living area. He called it the cook shack. She found her son already standing over the propane stove, preparing a cast-iron skillet for cooking. He’d put on a bibbed apron because he still wore his work clothes: a crisp dress shirt, Western jeans, and well-conditioned riding boots. In Maddie’s opinion, he was an extremely handsome man. Whenever she told him so, he laughed and said she saw him through the eyes of love.
“You sure had a long day,” she said. “Did the guy make an offer?”
Maddie hoped that Cam had gotten a nibble. He needed to make a ranch sale. She wasn’t overly worried about money, but for Cam’s peace of mind, he needed to carve his own niche in this market.
“Nope. He just walked the land and found fault with everything. It’s a gorgeous property. I don’t know what his problem is.” He stepped over to give her a quick hug. “No worries. Someone else will go wild over it.”
Maddie flashed a smile. “Only a matter of time.” She glanced at the skillet. “What are we making tonight? I’m done working for the day and ready to help.”
“I’m going for simple tonight with ground beef goulash.”
Maddie knew that no meal Cam cooked was ever simple. He loved to create different dishes from scratch and had an uncanny sense of what flavors complemented others. She stepped over to the utility sink, a stand-alone fiberglass tub with running water, to wash her hands. Then she set herself to the task of rinsing and chopping the vegetables he’d taken from the fridge.
“Mom,” Cam said. “You don’t need to do that. Standing in one spot makes your back hurt.”
Maddie had fibbed about her bimonthly chemo treatments, telling her boys that she was going into Missoula for physical therapy. She’d had minor back surgery several years ago, so they had accepted that explanation without question. “My back feels awesome tonight. Where’s Caleb?”
“He offered to take care of the horses for me.” Cam winked over his shoulder at her. “It’s my turn, but I think hunger drove him to be generous.”
Maddie laughed. “When he got home from school, he ate an entire row of Oreos, an orange, a bunch of carrot sticks, and then half a bag of chips. I think he volunteered out of the goodness of his heart, not because he’s starving.”
Dinner was over and the kitchen was clean in what seemed to Maddie a blink.
Caleb dried the last skillet and then turned to them. “Let’s take the dogs for a walk,” he said. “It’s, like, still way light out. We’ve got time.”
“I walked a huge ranch today, son. Can we save it for tomorrow night?”
Caleb groaned, which made Cam sigh.
“All right,” Cam said. “I’m in, but no farther than the slough tonight. Deal?”
Cam quickly laid a fire in the woodstove so that the wall tent would be toasty warm when they returned. Along the river, it grew cold as the sun went down, and of an evening, they liked to sit in here to catch up on each other’s day. Cam had found upholstered swivel rockers and created a comfortable conversation area. Sometimes Caleb did his homework while they chatted. Other nights he went to the prefab cabin that he and his father shared as sleeping quarters to watch TV on Cam’s sixty-inch flat-screen. High-speed Internet had been installed shortly after Maddie had arrived in mid-August.
As they set off for their walk, Maddie and Cam set a slower pace while Caleb raced ahead with the dogs, Boomer, Bingo, and Bear, all three black-tri Australian shepherds. Maddie’s six cats joined the parade at varying distances. Cam had ordered an eight-by-eight shed to house the felines, and Maddie went out each day to care for them. Coyotes were numerous around their land, so she put her cats inside at night to keep them safe.
“Oh, how I love it here,” Maddie said.
“I’m glad you like it, Mom. When I brought you here, I worried that it wouldn’t be your cup of tea. It’s a big change.”
“It’s gorgeous, and I have no regrets,” Maddie assured him.
And it truly was gorgeous. The cottonwood and aspen leaves added lighter dollops of green to the verdant slough terrain. To her left, Cam and Caleb had fenced nearly twenty acres for the horses, and the equines were enjoying their newfound freedom. All four of them came running to the barrier to greet them. Maddie and her son stopped to pet them before resuming their pace. She was glad Cam was tired and walking slowly. That allowed her to watch her step and protect her knee. She had no idea what was wrong with it, only that it didn’t trouble her all the time.
Her arm bumped Cam’s as they ambled along. “Caleb’s right, Mom. You’re getting thin. I just felt your shoulder bone.”
Maddie forced a laugh. “Bless your heart. But the truth is, I still can’t feel my ribs.”
He sighed. “I know you want to be a good sport about our move, but you’ll tell me if you aren’t feeling well. Right?”
Maddie evaded giving a direct answer. “I’m feeling as fit as a fiddle!”
“Well, I’m glad. And it’ll be much nicer for you once our residences are built.”
He bent his head, watching his feet as he walked. Normally he threw sticks for the dogs or played around with Caleb, but that evening he seemed to be in a thoughtful mood.
“What is it, Cam? Did something go wrong during the land showing?”
His hair lifted in the breeze and shone like shellacked hickory in the fading sunlight. “Not during the showing, but afterward.”
She studied his profile. He had his father’s chiseled features and generous mouth. “Want to talk about it?”
A hint of a smile curved his lips. “I was starving on the way home and stopped at the Cowboy Tree for a bite to eat. I met a beautiful young woman while I was there. She asked me to sit at her table, and I really enjoyed chatting with her.” He watched Caleb romping with the dogs. The teen had grown muscular over the summer, filling out his jeans and Western shirt in places he previously hadn’t. “Have you ever met a perfect stranger and started talking as if you’d been friends for years?”
Maddie nodded. “How do you think I ended up with your dad? So this lady is pretty special, I take it.”
“I think so. I shared things with her that I’d never blurt out to other people, and she reciprocated. But as intriguing as I found her to be, I can’t see her again.”
“Why?” Mystified, Maddie sent him a questioning look. “You finally meet someone appealing and put the kibosh on the possibilities without going on a date?”
“Her name is Kirstin Conacher.”
Maddie stopped dead in her tracks. Cam slowed to a halt and turned to face her. “You see? That put chocks in front of your wheels, just like it did mine. I know what you’re thinking: that seeing her only once could mean big trouble for me. But I didn’t know who she was until after I sat down with her.”
“Yes, it could mean trouble,” Maddie agreed. “With a few negative comments about you to key people, Conacher could ruin your reputation across this valley before you get your first sale.”
“So you’ve heard about what he does to guys who mess with his daughter.” Cam didn’t phrase it as a question.
“Everyone in this valley has heard about it. I may stay busy with my work, but I do get out sometimes. I go to book club meetings at the Rustlers’ Gulch Library now. I play bingo. I visit the little bookstore and chat with people. Everyone knows we bought the land that borders his, and I’ve been told more than once not to get on his bad side.”
Cam nodded. “That’s why I told her I couldn’t see her again. She didn’t seem angry, but I could tell she was disappointed.”
“And?” Maddie prodded.
“The minute I told her, I wondered if it was a mistake.”
Maddie huffed out a breath and gazed off through the trees. She wanted so badly for her son to stop putting everyone else first and follow his heart for once. But Sam Conacher could destroy him. “I’ve seen her in town, driving a pickup with the name of her father’s ranch painted on the door. Though I suspect she’s a spoiled brat, she appeared to be friendly with everyone she encountered, so maybe I’m wrong about her. And I have to admit she is lovely.”
“I thought she’d be spoiled, too. But she’s not. It’s too bad she’s Conacher’s daughter. If she weren’t, I’d be like a bear after honey.”
A wave of regret washed over Maddie. Was she really going to let Cam put his own life on the back burner again? She was a firm believer that some people were fated to be together. What if Cam passed on the opportunity to get better acquainted with Kirstin and never met another young lady who intrigued him as much?
Maddie’s income could cover their expenses. Besides, even if Conacher did his worst, Cam could always practice his profession in Idaho, where he also had a license. It would be rough on him to travel back and forth, but he could roll with the punches and eventually recover.
“You rarely meet a woman and feel this interested.”
He shrugged. “It’s no big deal. There are other fish in the sea.”
“Yes, but when are you going to find one that makes you happy?”
“What are you saying, that I should risk ruining my future in this valley? She seems nice, but dating often comes with promising starts and dismal endings. Not to mention that Conacher would squash me like a bug as the finale. I’ve heard stories that curl my hair. Some young car salesman ended up losing his job for riding with Kirstin when she took a Corvette off the lot for a spin. When Conacher heard about it, he got him fired.”
“And you’re going to take a pass just because her father’s a jerk.”
Cam gave Maddie a bewildered look that made her laugh.
“Think about it, Cam. My income will cover us during a slump, and you can always travel south to sell property. What would your father say if he were here?”
Cam shoved his hands into his back pockets. “That I’ve got a fabulous chance to be successful here and not to blow it.”
“Graham McLendon never backed down from anyone,” Maddie reminded him. “Men like Sam Conacher are bullies, and he hated bullies. If he were here right now, he’d tell you to see the lady again, and to hell with her father.”
Cam finally smiled. “He would, wouldn’t he? I can almost hear him.” After a moment, he added, “I got her phone number. Maybe we can arrange to meet again somewhere. If so, I’ll be extra careful.”
“Careful as in careful not to be seen with her?” Maddie hated the thought of that, but she also understood Cam’s sense of obligation to her and his son. “It’s beautiful weather. A long walk and a picnic would be fun. You could walk over the bridge and meet her across the river. That way, your vehicles wouldn’t be seen together.”
“That’s a great idea.”
Maddie heard the dogs moving toward them. Both she and her son turned to watch Caleb circle the bounding balls of multicolored fur as he ran. She could only pray that Cam could satisfy his curiosity about Kirstin without crossing swords with her father. People who lived in Rustlers’ Gulch referred to Sam Conacher as an ornery old son of a bitch.
Cam had no real estate appointments the following day, so he texted Kirstin.
I knew I’d regret not seeing you again. Is there any way you can meet me tomorrow for a walk along the river and a picnic afterward? I’ll bring the food and drink.
She didn’t text back right away, and Cam sat staring at his phone like an idiot. When it finally hummed a notification tone, he jerked as if he’d been stuck with a pin.
I can only get away around noon, our lunch hour. I can tell Dad that I’m taking two hours and work late tomorrow night. Where should we meet?
Cam smiled. As crazy as it was, he felt better now. He sensed that they had a lot in common, and he hated when he liked the first part of a story and never got to find out how it ended.
Just before noon the next morning the farrier came. Kirstin’s father said that he didn’t want a bunch of stuff going on around the horses while they were being reshod. A few of them were still green and got nervous. He gave both Kirstin and Miguel a large chunk of the afternoon off. Kirstin feigned reluctance to be gone for so long, saying she’d planned to do this or that. He waved her away and told her to get her hair cut or something.
Kirstin couldn’t believe her good luck. She could spend more time with Cam than she’d hoped. She arrived before he did and left her truck where she had parked it the prior afternoon. Then she moved into the cover of the trees to wait for him. Leaning against the rough bark of a ponderosa, she watched the roadside pullout for his vehicle to appear. Instead he arrived on foot, carrying a medium-size cooler in one hand. The blue lid matched the deep color of his eyes.
Her heart leaped, and excitement coursed through her. Today he wore old jeans, faded with wear, and a denim shirt, sleeves rolled back over his thick forearms, tails tucked in at the waist to reveal his Western belt and shiny buckle. When he reached the forest and caught sight of her, he waved. Sunlight slanted through the tree boughs, dappling his hair and making it gleam one moment, then casting him in shadow the next.
“Hey!” he called out.
“Hey, yourself.” She walked to meet him. When they drew close, he flashed her a grin that sent shivers down her spine. What was it about him that made her feel like this? “This was a fabulous suggestion, Cam. It’s a great day for a walk and a picnic.”
“I’d like to leave this where we’re going to eat.” He lifted the cooler slightly. “You have any ideas?”
Kirstin knew this side of the riverbank by heart. “Farther downstream, there’s a grassy knoll that would be perfect. It’s a little too close to our ranch proper for comfort, but Dad’s supervising the farrier. I’m pretty sure he won’t go riding and possibly see us.”
“Sounds perfect.”
They struck off, walking side by side. The occasional brushes of his sleeve against hers made her acutely aware of him. He moved with an easy grace, as sure-footed on the rocks as she was. Faint hints of warmth emanated from his solid body. She caught the scent of his woodsy cologne and suspected that he’d shaved recently.
“You’ve got a better view of our camp from here,” he told her. “What do you think?”
She stopped to study the Hillbilly Village even though she’d done so only yesterday. He described how he had buried a three-hundred-gallon tank at the other side of his mother’s trailer to serve as a makeshift septic tank and regularly filled another tank the same size to supply them with water.
He pointed out where their first building would go up. “It’ll be a huge workshop. Some might call it a barn, I guess. We’ll have residences at the front-one upstairs, which will be mine and my son’s, and one downstairs for Mom. It’ll be nice, with wood siding and shingled rooflines. I think we’ll be happy there. Later we plan to build a nice home.”
“What’ll happen with the shop residences afterward?”
“We have a conservation easement in our riparian area, so the rules are strict to protect the property. But I talked with a conservation agent, and it’ll be okay if we rent them out.”
“Awesome. It’s always good if a property produces income. Will you farm the land?”
“Oh, yeah, although I may not do it myself. I’m better off selling real estate. But I’ve been approached by a couple of guys who might grow alfalfa each year for a large percentage of the cuts. That works for me. It won’t cost me a fortune to feed my horses and cows over the winter, and I won’t be neglecting my career.”
“You have cows?”
“I sold them before coming here, but I plan to buy more.”
They reached the grassy knoll and left the cooler while they continued to walk. She hadn’t misjudged him in the bar yesterday. He could walk at a fast clip over rugged terrain without getting winded. Their conversation bounced like a Ping-Pong ball from one topic to another, an easy flow of exchanges that relaxed her. Then he slowed the pace a bit. “You have only two hours. We should probably go back now to eat.”
Kirstin told him how she’d gotten an unexpected leave of absence for the afternoon. “Dad thinks I’m getting a haircut.”
“Won’t he notice if you don’t?”
“I only get the ends trimmed when I go in. He won’t notice.”
He shot her an irresistible grin.
When they struck off walking again, it was her turn to point out and identify different parts of the Conacher Ranch, which now lay across the river from them. When he saw the post-and-beam houses and the outbuildings in the distance, he whistled.
“Wow. That stable is incredible. Not that the homes aren’t. Only I can’t help but think your horses have better digs than we will when our place is finished.”
She laughed. “You’ll have a great home, all that you need, anyway. I get lost in the ranch manager’s house. It’s too big for one person. I’d rather have a small bungalow.”
Later they sat side by side on the grassy knoll with the cooler in front of them. Cam was glad that he’d decided to see her again. She was absolutely beautiful, and he still had the feeling that she was one of a kind. He knew for certain now that he should make it a point to get better acquainted with her. He liked her down-to-earth view of life. She’d proven herself to be a good walking partner, fit enough to give him a run for his money, yet still feminine. There was so much about her that appealed to him, especially her low-key laugh, which rang with sincere humor and wasn’t loud or obnoxious. He’d dated a gal once who sounded like a horse neighing. Her laughter had seemed forced and had driven him crazy.
Kirstin complimented him on the picnic offerings, simple fare but homemade. Thick turkey sandwiches with all the trimmings; potato salad made from scratch, a portion of which he would serve to his family that night; a light cucumber salsa; and a cream cheese dip, accompanied by corn tortilla chips. He’d brought chilled white wine and canned soda as well. She chose to have wine, which he poured into red plastic cups.
“This is fabulous, Cam.”
She ate as if she were starving, and he liked that about her, too. Women who picked at food and pretended to have no appetite bothered him. He enjoyed cooking, and food, it seemed to him, should be appreciated, not necessarily in large amounts, but with enthusiasm.
When she tasted his cucumber salsa, she closed her eyes with a blissful expression on her face. “Oh, my God, that’s good. Recipe, please. Sometimes, just for the heck of it, I cook for myself at my place, and I’d love to make that. It would be great as a veggie dip.”
“I’ll text it to you,” he promised. “Why don’t you cook more often?”
“My father has a housekeeper who prepares all his meals, so I mostly eat at his place. But I don’t want to end up being a person who can’t put a meal together, so at least once a week I make a nice dinner, cutting down the recipe as much as I can. I do leftovers only twice.” She held up two fingers. “No matter how good something is, I can’t stomach anything for more than three days.”
“I’m the same way.” Cam studied her profile as she dabbed the corners of her mouth with a section from a paper towel roll. “What kind of stuff do you cook?”
“I’m clear across the board.” She talked about surfing the Internet for dishes that sounded good. He chuckled when she shared stories about her abysmal failures, his favorite being a homemade bread recipe to which she’d added three times more yeast than needed, resulting in dough overflowing the bowl inside her oven. “What a mess! Now I make sure that I’ve read the amounts correctly.”
She sobered, fell quiet, and stared at the river. Cam hoped he hadn’t said or done something to offend her. Finally she said, “I feel kind of bad about yesterday, the things I said about my dad. I thought it was important to be honest with you, but now I wonder if I was entirely fair to him.” A flush rode her cheeks. “I shouldn’t talk negatively about my father. He’s a good person at heart, and there are underlying reasons for his behavior that I didn’t mention yesterday.”
Cam could think of no good reason for a man to hold his daughter hostage at home. “Well, nothing you said about him differed much from things I’d already heard.”
She sighed. “My poor dad. His behavior has become legend in this valley. People wag their tongues constantly about him, never stopping to wonder what changed him.”
“What did?”
She shook her head. “If we see each other again, maybe I’ll tell you. I promised myself that I wouldn’t be glum today.”
“Aw, come on. Now you have piqued my curiosity.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It’s just a very sad situation, Cam. That’s not how I want you to think of me, some gal who always talks about herself.”
“I don’t think that, so let loose.”
She hesitated. “Okay. You asked for it. I believe my dad holds himself to blame for my mother’s death.”
Cam winced. “Why? She died from cancer. That’s a natural cause.”
She glanced over at him. “I need to have your word that you’ll never repeat this. I’ve never told anyone, and my father would be extremely upset if this became more fodder for the gossip mills.”
Cam never gave his word lightly. “I can’t think of anyone I’d want to tell or need to tell. So you have my word that I won’t.”
She took a deep breath and released it. “After I was born, my mother started having female trouble. Eventually her gynecologist wanted her to have a complete hysterectomy. She kept getting cysts on her ovaries.” She lifted her cup to take a sip of wine and then sent him a questioning look. “Are you uncomfortable discussing female stuff?”
Cam shook his head. “No, of course not.”
She licked her lips and swallowed, her dainty larynx bobbing in her slender throat. “Her periods were extremely heavy, so much so that she grew anemic. I can actually remember that, so it must have spanned several years. It got so bad that she had to get iron shots fairly often, and the injection site always burned and ached afterward, sometimes for days. It was as if she had a reaction or something.” She gazed across the river. “Both my parents wanted more children, my father especially. He hoped to have a son who’d someday run the ranch.” She forced a smile. “Not that he feels a woman can’t do that. It’s just easier on a man physically. One night-I can’t remember how old I was, maybe eight-I heard them arguing upstairs in their bedroom. They rarely fought, so it frightened me, and I huddled at the bottom of the steps, listening. Mama was crying. She told Daddy that she wanted another child as much as he did, but she couldn’t go on like she was. Daddy asked her if she could hang tough for another six months. If they couldn’t make a baby in that amount of time, she would have the surgery.”
Cam’s stomach knotted. “Oh, God.”
Kirstin nodded. “Yes, oh, God, and I say it prayerfully.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I was just a kid. I didn’t understand any of it then. I only knew my mama was sick, and my daddy didn’t want her to let a doctor make her feel better. After that, it seemed to me that she just got well. I know now that she stopped getting any cysts. She never got one again so far as I know. She remained healthy, had regular exams, and went through what seemed to be a normal menopause.
“When I was sixteen-maybe just turned seventeen-she started getting what she called ‘whinges’ in her side. Sharp pains. They’d come and go. They’d last for only a little bit, making her press a hand over the spot and gasp, but she felt fine otherwise. I remember her saying that she thought it was her appendix flaring up. When she went for a checkup, the gyn found nothing that alarmed him. He said the appendix can become inflamed. He’d known patients who had warning flare-ups but had never gone into full-blown appendicitis. He told her what to expect if she did and to go directly to the hospital.”
“Was your dad concerned?”
Kirstin sent him a scolding look. “Of course he was concerned. He loved her with all his heart. But she’d been thoroughly examined and there was nothing to indicate something serious was wrong. And he was no longer bent on having another kid. I was born in his early forties. He was in his late fifties by then.”
Cam had heard his mom say that ovarian cancer was a stealthy killer that often went undiscovered until it was too late. “So the gyn missed the cancer.”
She nodded. “It was probably a tiny tumor at the time. He had no reason to suspect cancer, so he palpated her ovaries like a doctor does in any routine exam.”
“Dear God. He missed it, and she ended up dying.”
Kirstin nodded. Her face had gone pale. “I helped Dad care for her. If I hadn’t, the ranch might have gone under. He was with her as much as he could be. At the end, he bought her things she liked to eat, things she craved. If he thought she might like something we didn’t have on hand, he’d drive to town late at night even though he was exhausted from busting his ass all day. Raspberry sherbet. Later, when dairy upset her stomach, he got different flavors of sorbet. He spooned broth into her mouth. He adored her, and watching her die nearly killed him.”
Cam didn’t need her to connect all the dots. “So your dad blames himself because he asked her to postpone getting a complete hysterectomy years earlier.”
She nodded. “If he hadn’t asked her to wait another six months, she would have had no ovaries later, thus no ovarian cancer to kill her. I can see his reasoning, flawed though it may be.”
Cam digested that. He tried to imagine how he might feel in a similar situation, and he had to admit he would wish he’d never asked his wife to wait before she had a surgery that would have eventually saved her life. Of course, Sam Conacher hadn’t known back then that she would never have the surgery at all. “Damn, that’s rough.”
“One night right after she died, he got roaring drunk-even drunker than usual. I was awakened by a loud crash, and I found him on his knees in the living room. He was sobbing, rocking back and forth, and saying, ‘Annie, forgive me. Annie, forgive me.’” She shivered. “He was so plastered he never even knew I was there. He said, ‘If it would bring you back, I’d put a bullet in my brain. I swear to God I would. But nothing will bring you back, and with me gone, our baby girl would have this ranch dumped on her shoulders. I can’t do that to her.’”
Cam understood Sam Conacher now in ways he almost wished he didn’t. It was a lot easier to just dislike the guy.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
“I believe I asked you to,” he replied. “Besides, yesterday I told you stuff I rarely talk about. I’m not proud of that period in my life, the mistakes I made, not only getting Becky pregnant but also putting her through a disastrous marriage that never should have happened. I haven’t seen her since Caleb’s birth, but I don’t think her life has gone well. Multiple marriages with kids from different fathers. Sometimes I wonder if her inability to stick with one man is my fault.”
“That’s crazy. I’m sure having a baby and then giving it up left her with some emotional scars, but you were no more responsible for that than she was.”
“Do you know how weird this feels?” he asked, giving her a long look. “We’re friends. I don’t know how that happened so fast.”
“Me, either. Something just clicked between us. I felt the connection yesterday and still do today.”
“It’s a good thing, making friends,” Cam told her. “None of us ever has enough of them.”
“I have fewer than most,” she confessed. “Lots of acquaintances, and I think most of them like me, but not many people I can call whenever I just need to talk. Those kind of relationships require an investment of time, and I don’t have much to spare.”
Cam heard what she didn’t say, that it was easier to stay home than to go out with acquaintances and upset her father. She was such a pretty woman and sweet as well. She was wasting the best years of her life. But who was he to talk? Back in California, others had thought the same thing about him, but Cam would never feel that he had misspent a single day. He’d raised a fine son, and he’d been there for his parents when they needed him.
She grew quiet again. Then she said, “If my dad knew I told you all that, he’d want to wring my neck.”
Cam hooked an arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick hug. He could tell by a quick inhalation of the scent of her hair and shirt that she’d worked on the ranch until she’d left to meet him. The varied scents told a story of haying horses and cows and feeding grain. To him it was familiar and yet alluring when combined with her feminine essence.
“Your father will never hear it from me,” he assured her. “And it’s probably been good for you to get it off your chest.”
She looked him directly in the eye. “So, tell me, Cam. Do you plan to see me again?”
“That depends on you.”
“I’d love to,” she replied. “Just say the word.”
“Tomorrow?”
She smiled. “Is this our version of jumping in with both feet?”
“I’m not one to jump into anything, but I don’t hesitate to move cautiously forward when something feels right.”
“Lunchtime works great for me. There’s a place farther downstream where rocky fingers divide the river into thirds, creating narrows I can jump across. I can walk here from the ranch, and my father won’t think twice about it. I often go walking during my break, and this has always been one of my favorite places to do that.”
Cam yearned to kiss her. Her lips, a pale rose-pink color, shimmered in the sunlight. A strand of jet hair lifted in the breeze and slid over her cheek. He decided to resist the urge, though. They were, as she’d pointed out, close to her father’s ranch, and they were in plain sight.
“Can you be gone long enough for a walk and lunch?” he asked her.
“Yes, around two hours, and tomorrow I’ll bring the food. I’ll make our picnic tonight and hide my cooler out in the woods so Dad will never know I’m meeting you.”
“Normally when my schedule is clear, I do a lot of driving around, looking at expired listings and watching for property for sale by owners, but I can head home for lunch.”
“We’re on,” she said with a grin.