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Prologue
Peyton Patrick had never seen the allure of settling down in one place, but Cowboy Point was growing on her.
Spring helped.
So did the fact that Peyton was living in the little cabin her daughter Helena had been renting for a while now. Ever since Helena had come here and decided to stay in Cowboy Point when she had originally planned only to come and sniff around the place a bit.
It had drawn them all in, one by one.
Peyton had not exactly encouraged Helena’s plan to learn more about her father’s murky past. Because once she’d learned the truth about her husband, the depth of the lies and the shocking levels of deception, she would have done anything to walk away from all things Patrick Lisle forever.
And had tried, for that matter.
The man Peyton had known as Lyle Patrick was pretty worthless. There was no getting around that. Yet somehow he had managed to produce six pretty spectacular kids. Not that any of them were kids anymore. Three of them were Peyton’s and they were well and truly grown up now. Even Helena, her passionate youngest.
The idea of all six of the Lisle-Patrick siblings converging upon each other had kept Peyton up at night, imagining all the ways that could go wrong. She’d felt she had no choice but to call up Jenny Lisle and give her a heads-up.
And then had felt she had to come to this tiny little Montana town herself, too.
It was never going to cease to surprise her that Patrick Lisle’s secret second family coming here to Cowboy Point and meeting up with his original, out-in-the-open family, was not the disaster Peyton had expected.
On the contrary.
It had been months now, and it was pretty great.
Peyton and Jenny Lisle, Patrick’s actual, lawful wife despite the ceremony he’d gone through with Peyton, had taken one look at each other and fallen into peals of helpless laughter in a coffee shop up in Livingston.
Because they looked more alike than they didn’t. And that, after so many tears and too many dark days, was pretty funny, in the end.
These days, Peyton thought as she walked down the road that functioned as the main thoroughfare in the tiny little valley hidden away on the backside of one of the mountains that loomed up over Montana’s Paradise Valley, she considered Jenny a friend.
A good friend.
It was the beginning of June, and while there was still snow on the peaks, the sun was out. The air was warmer than it had been in months and there were hints of buds and growing things in the most unlikely places.
When Jenny had gotten here in February, the place had been packed with snow, frigid and cold. It had been a full-on Montana winter, but she had weathered it.
Not only that, she had something here that she’d thought she would never have again now that they were grown: all of her babies in one place.
At first, they’d all stayed together in Helena’s cabin—Raleigh liked to remind everyone that he had stayed and continued to stay in his trailer—and that had been more fun for Peyton than any of them, she was fairly sure. She hadn’t been at all surprised when Finn, her oldest, had declared that he was going to stick around for the time being, but would be finding his own place to live.
Sometimes, when they gathered in the cabin together again for a meal, she liked to call them her babies to their faces so she could watch all three of her adult children wince.
A mother did have her priorities.
This particular morning, she’d gotten up before dawn with Helena. Then she’d driven down the hill with her daughter to get the coffee cart up and running, so it could be ready to serve the steady stream of workmen and other early risers who expected Helena there, no matter the weather, no later than five AM.
When Peyton had been Helena’s age, she had not been nearly so responsible. Though this was something she kept to herself, as she’d also been prone to making far more mistakes than her daughter had.
The biggest one being the man she’d so foolishly fallen in love with.
Not that she could really beat herself up for those mistakes these days, because it had all led her here. It had brought her these children of hers, who she adored beyond reason. And because of them, it had brought her here, too.
Helena’s coffee cart was parked in the little lot to the side of the General Store that had been in the Lisle family forever, as far as Peyton could tell. On the other side of the store was the diner run by the oldest of Patrick’s sons, Tennessee Lisle. He was not that much older than Finn. In fact, the two of them—a lot like their mothers—had more in common than they didn’t.
That had been another gift of coming to Cowboy Point. Getting to witness her children get to know their half siblings, and the six of them somehow coming together like they’d always known about each other, and more, were best friends anyway.
She and Jenny couldn’t get over it.
Peyton imagined the two of them would talk some more about it today, because the family their separated families had made in the few short months they’d all been here was nothing short of magic. And she and Jenny loved talking about that magic.
Every moment of happiness they found now was a repudiation of the man who had caused them all such misery. They liked to marinate in each and every one.
She kept walking through the sweet morning, passing Tennessee’s house that was set back from the road on the other side of the seasonal creek, at the foot of what was known as Lisle Hill. Peyton could hear dogs barking from inside, and when she tipped her head back she could see the lighthouse that marked the top of the hill. And, rumor had it, would either open this fall as a bed-and-breakfast or possibly not at all, depending on the state of Dallas Lisle, the middle sibling of the Lisle half of things.
Dallas, to Peyton’s eye, seemed like the kind of man who’d let sadness turn gruff and stay that way. Sometimes she thought he was what her Raleigh would have become, if he’d had a little bit less of his father’s impossible charm.
That was the thing about the man she’d known as Lyle Patrick. He was outrageously charming. He could talk anyone into anything, and more than a few women straight out of their clothes. Peyton included.
She and Jenny talked a lot about that too. They had both succumbed. Hell, they’d both married him.
Today they were driving down into Marietta, nestled down at the foot of Copper Mountain. They intended to take advantage of the good June weather and walk around the charming little town, indulge themselves at the chocolate shop, have a burger at Grey’s Saloon, do a little bit of shopping, and head home.
Because that was what Peyton did now, in this new life of hers. She had a friend to wander around with, and she could actually spend time with that friend and talk about anything and everything. She didn’t have to constantly be looking over her shoulder. She didn’t need to keep her go bag ready, always, because there was no longer a reason to be forever on the run.
This was the first time she had stayed in one place this long since she was a little girl. She liked it.
Peyton waited at the bottom of the dirt drive that wound up and all over Lisle Hill, enjoying the clean, mountain air. And that sun with hints of summer that danced all over her, like blessings to come.
Across the street, she saw there was activity in one of the previously abandoned buildings and so she watched the comings and goings for a moment. This was going to be a new restaurant in town, and it was meant to be a fancy farm-to-table sort of place, according to Tennessee.
Peyton had assumed he’d be opposed to a new restaurant in town, but he wasn’t. I serve diner food, he’d said. Damn good diner food, but I don’t pretend I’m something I’m not.
Of course he didn’t, she’d thought.
The only other restaurant in town was Mountain Mama, the pizza and ice cream and favorite haunt of the locals. And maybe the grumpy bartender at the Copper Mine served some food—Peyton couldn’t say as she’d never been.
This morning she found herself thinking that this tiny little town sure was attracting a whole lot of new and interesting people and places. People were moving to this small town instead of away from it.
She watched some more newcomers—even newer than she was—who stood out in front of the renovated barn across the way, engaging in what sounded to Peyton like good-natured bickering. She suspected that meant that these four young women were the owners of the new restaurant. College friends by all accounts, who had for some reason chosen Cowboy Point as the place to open up their restaurant.
As she stood there, Peyton saw two of them get up on ladders. The other two began to lift up what she saw immediately was their sign. They held it in place for a moment, up above the doors. Peyton read the words written there in a lovely cursive: Crowded Table.
She liked the name.
But the bickering had not ended. She watched as they moved the sign an inch up and then an inch down. An inch left and an inch right.
She was so entertained by the spectacle of four women fighting cheerfully with each other that she almost missed the activity a little closer to her.
Kitty Bennett, the cook responsible for all the good food at Mountain Mama, came storming out from behind the restaurant. She was marching down the dirt road that led to the house where all three Bennett sisters lived, making it an easy walk to work.
But Peyton also saw her son Finn come into view, walking down the road from the apartment he was renting over the medical clinic. She watched them with interest, as an inevitable collision came closer and closer—
Something Finn could easily have avoided, she noted, as he was looking straight at Kitty. But he didn’t.
What he did instead was speed up just slightly, so that when Kitty hit the sidewalk she nearly ran right into him.
And would have if he didn’t reach out and put his hand on her elbow to steady her.
Peyton heard a vehicle on the dirt drive behind her, but she didn’t move. And when Jenny pulled up beside her and rolled down her window inquiringly, Peyton pointed across the road.
“Well, look at that,” Jenny murmured as she followed Peyton’s finger.
Peyton kept her eyes on her son, with that amiable smile on his face that some folks mistook for weakness—clearly missing how resolute that blue gaze of his always was. He was responsible to a fault, had been a better father to his brother and sister than their own father ever had been. Peyton always felt a surge of love for this boy who had made her a mother, side by side with a huge helping of guilt that she’d done it with a man who could never be anything like a role model for him.
But then, this was Finn. He’d figured out how to be a good man all by himself.
“They would have run right into each other,” she told Jenny. “Especially when Finn sped up a bit. But he caught her. Right there by her elbow, as you can see.”
Jenny nodded. “He hasn’t let go of her, is what I see.”
“And if I’m not mistaken, because I don’t know Kitty Bennett particularly well,” Peyton continued, “she’s blushing. Just a little bit.”
“I believe you’re right,” Jenny said, sounding delighted.
And then the two women who should never have met, and who shared more than any two women should have had to, grinned at each other.
Because the one thing they had vowed from the start was that one way or another, they would see to it that their children did not make the same mistakes that they had.
And if they could hasten that non-mistake-making activity along a bit?
Well. That was even better.
How kind of Kitty and Finn to get things moving along nicely.
And right on schedule.
End of Excerpt
