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Chapter One
If there was any animal stupider than a cow, Jess Cooper didn’t know what it was. Unless, he thought grimly, it was the cowboy who had been trying unsuccessfully for the past hour to outthink one.
He scowled at the empty meadow, the untouched salt lick, the grassy slope edged by brush where he had expected to find the half dozen black angus cattle that Mike Gonzales said he’d seen over that way yesterday.
He should’ve known better.
He sighed and reached up to remove his hat, then rubbed his fingers through his hair. Settling the hat back on his head, he reined his horse around and headed up the valley the other way. His bones ached and his stomach growled. He’d been too far from the ranch house to go back for dinner and the couple of sandwiches and thermos of coffee he’d brought along had disappeared hours ago.
But these few cattle were all that was left up this way. He’d brought the rest down over the past two days so they could be checked over and sorted before shipping. If he didn’t get them today, it would just mean coming back tomorrow. He straightened, ready to head down when a distant gleam, sudden and unexpected, caught his eye and made him blink.
There, glistening against the pine green backdrop across the narrow valley, the front window of the ranch house reflected the fiery brilliance of the setting sun. Its brilliance stopped him mid-movement, made him settle back in the saddle and smile.
“Like a diamond,” he said aloud, though if he’d been able to think of anything more precious than diamonds to compare it to, he would have. Had he seen mere jewels, he could easily have turned away. Diamonds were just sparkly stones. Distant and unreal. Meaningless.
Not like the ranch.
The Rocking R Ranch was real. It was several thousand acres of southwestern Colorado, mountains and valleys, meadows of timothy and clover, forests of aspen, pine and spruce belonging to Nathan Richards, the forthright and stubborn old man who was Jess’s boss. It was half a dozen horses, a couple of dogs, including Scout who was watching him intently, and just over three hundred head of black angus cattle, some stupider than others.
It was, “Home.” He said the word softly, barely breathing life into it. He felt funny saying it, as if not only the word but its implications were foreign to him.
And if he was honest, they were.
He’d been Nathan’s right-hand man at the Rocking R for nearly three years, the longest he’d been any one place in his thirty-four-year life. Half a dozen of those years he’d spent rodeoing until a bronc kicked him in the knee in Dodge City and ended his gold buckle hopes. After that he’d focused on ranch work, moving around, never finding a place he really liked – until he’d signed on with Nate. Now the Rocking R felt as close as he could imagine to a home.
It wasn’t House Beautiful, that was for sure.
“House Functional,” Nathan called the two-story log house he’d built thirty years ago when the first frame house on the land had burnt to the ground.
It was functional, Jess conceded. But there was also something special about it that called to him whenever he was down in Texas at a cattle auction, up in Denver selling their own beef, or even spending a Saturday night in town.
Used to be he didn’t care where he lay his head or where he woke up in the morning. Now when he was away, he never really stopped thinking about it – about the ranch, the cattle, the horses, Nate. The Rocking R was in his blood. Now he wanted to be here.
He’d even begun having hopes of owning the spread someday, making the old man an offer, putting his name on the dotted line. But to dare to call it home – to actually say the word out loud – still seemed to be tempting fate.
“Presumptuous,” his eighth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Peck, would have called him.
And about this Jess was afraid she would have been right.
Nathan disagreed.
Nathan Richards had had his share of dreams in seventy-nine hard-living years. “Gotta have ’em,” he’d told Jess the day he’d hired him.
They’d sat across from each other in the coffee stall at the cattle auction, the old man and the young one, the dreamer and the cynic, and Nathan had taken a deep swallow of the strong lukewarm brew and nailed Jess with his pale blue stare.
“Gotta have dreams,” Nathan repeated. “A man ain’t alive without ’em.”
Jess wasn’t sure about that. Dreams had done more damage than good to his own father. Les Cooper could never let go of the notion that he was destined to be the world’s champion steer wrestler. And he’d wrecked his marriages, all three of them, and his family in the pursuit of that dream.
Jess wanted nothing so grandiose. Generally he tried not to think about what he wanted in life.
“Don’t got any dreams?” Nathan had challenged him. “Young feller like yourself?”
Jess had shaken his head, reluctant to admit to any. It was too much like tempting fate. Nathan should know that. He’d known Jess’s dad. Les Cooper had worked for the Rocking R one spring before moving on.
“Damn shame, not to have hope,” Nathan’s pale eyes had regarded Jess thoughtfully. “What’s it like to be hopeless?” The word was an intentional goad.
Jess’s chin had come up. “I’m not hopeless,” he said, a rough edge to his voice.
“No?” Nathan shrugged. “’Pears so to me. What’s your future then? What do you want?”
Jess had wrapped his hands around the coffee mug, clenching it really, not daring to think about his future, his dreams. It was like wishing on a star. Childish. Foolish.
It was enough, he reckoned, to get from day to day.
But when Nathan continued to wait for his response, he ventured gruffly, “Own me a few head of cattle. Have a place to graze ’em.”
“Come work for me and you got it.”
Jess stared. It was too simple. Impossible to be that easy, he told himself. “My dad—”
Nathan shook his head. “You ain’t your dad.” He sipped his coffee. “Whaddya say?”
Jobs – especially jobs like the one Nathan seemed to be offering – didn’t just drop like roast ducks into the mouths of cowboys drinking coffee at a cafe. Least of all to washed up rodeo cowboys on the mend from four cracked ribs and a broke-in-three-places leg.
But Nathan Richards leaned forward and skewered him with a gaze. “’Sa matter? Don’tcha think you can do it?”
And Jess, never proof against a dare and hoping to hell he wasn’t like his dad, had replied, “Damn right I can.”
And over the past three years, with Nathan’s blustering encouragement and continual needling insistence on the necessity of looking with hope toward the future, Jess had dredged up a few dreams of his own.
Small ones to start with. That’d been hard enough.
Still, at the end of that first day’s auction, Jess had had the start of his herd. Three yearling heifers. Black angus, like Nathan’s, that he’d bought with most of his savings at Nathan’s insistence.
“Put your own brand on ’em,” Nathan had instructed.
Jess had blinked. “My brand?”
“Reckon you got one figured out,” Nathan said with a knowing look.
Well, yeah. What young boy hadn’t? Jess had doodled his own on more schoolbook covers and carved it into more trees than he could remember.
“I got one,” he replied, and come branding he had done it, even though he figured he’d end up selling them to Nathan when he moved on. But he hadn’t moved on. And now, three years later, with calves and others bought at auction, seventeen of them were branded with Jess’s own Bar JC.
Nathan had a way of making things work, of inspiring a guy to look ahead, to plan, to figure, to hope. Jess still wasn’t exactly comfortable with it. But now and then, he dared. Like when he broached the subject of the ranch last month.
“Buy me out?”
Jess had been afraid the old man would laugh and tell him that some dreams really were too big, especially for men like him.
“Not right away, I don’t mean,” he’d protested quickly. “I know you got a lotta years left.”
But Nathan’s blue eyes had got that faraway look in them, the one that Jess had learned to wait on, to sit quietly and expectantly while Nathan thought things through. So he shut his mouth and waited.
The old man stretched and stuck his sock-clad feet out toward the fire, then folded his hands on top of his flat belly. His blue eyes met Jess’s. “Don’t see why not.”
Don’t see why not.
The rest of the world would have had a million objections: Jess’s past, Jess’s present, Jess’s prospects.
God bless old Nathan Richards, Jess thought. He didn’t have one.
“The Bar JC. My place,” he said softly now, trying out the word as he looked around him. “My ranch.”
Someday.
But after he said it, he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder, almost expecting to see the ghost of Mrs. Peck scowling at him. But all he saw was the empty meadow behind him. That was comeuppance enough.
“And I gotta find my cattle,” he said to his horse, for they were in fact his, the ones somewhere up above this pasture. And with shipping day barely two weeks away, he needed to bring them down and look them over, get them shaped up and ready to sell. Putting his heels lightly to Dodger’s flanks, he rode on.
If he hadn’t spotted the cattle on the way up, they’d headed over the rise toward Sutter’s place. It’d take him another hour before they reached a fence so he could round them up and herd them home. Provided they’d stayed together, of course. And what were the odds on that?
His stomach growled, reminding him of the time. It was getting close on toward supper. He hoped Nathan wasn’t cooking anything that would burn.
The old man was a surprisingly good cook when he wanted to be.
“Course I am,” he’d said, offended, when Jess had first commented on it. “Wha’dya think? Was your grandmother taught me.”
Jess smiled now as the horse threaded his way through a stand of aspen, moving down the slope. His grandmother, Ella, had been as stalwart and responsible as his dad had not. While Les had worked when it suited him, then when it didn’t, had taken off, his mother had cooked and kept house for Nathan until her death. When Jess had run into Nathan at the auction three years ago, he had been surprised to learn that Nathan had never replaced her.
“No replacin’ Ella,” the old man had said simply. “She ran the show.”
Jess didn’t believe that, but he admired Nathan’s loyalty. He’d learned since then that Nathan was a better cook than Ella had ever been. Of course Jess had never said so.
Wouldn’t do to give the old man a swelled head.
He’d gone scarcely more than a mile up the mountainside and over it when he spotted the cattle – five in all, with four of them standing there looking at the fifth who’d got her head stuck between two strands of the barbed wire fence and couldn’t pull back out.
Jess glared at her. “Damn fool cow.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d done it. It wouldn’t be the last, unless he made some sort of contraption that would prevent her from poking her head where it didn’t belong. He could sell her, of course. Serve her right to wind up on somebody’s Sunday platter. But she was a damned fine-looking cow, sleek and fat. Hers had been the best of this year’s calves.
“Beautiful but dumb,” he told her now as he rode closer. She couldn’t even turn her head to look at him.
He dismounted, aware that range cattle didn’t like humans on the ground with them. Made ’em nervous. Them stomping around next to his boots made Jess nervous even as he slipped between two bovine bystanders.
“Think the grass is greener over there, do you?” he asked the cow as he eased the barbed wire over her ears.
She chewed stolidly on, stepping back when he nudged her with his shoulder. “C’mon. Move it.”
Freed now, she did, giving her head a little shake, doing it again when she realized she could. Then she turned and ambled up toward the creek, her companions following.
“Not that way!” Jess swung back into the saddle and headed after them, cutting them off and herding them downstream. Scout, seeing a job he enjoyed, moved in to help. The cattle balked, then finally moved, going at last the way he wanted them to go. But it was another forty minutes before he got them down into the meadow with the rest of the herd.
The wind came with a little nip now that the sun was gone. September days were warm, but the nights cooled off quick. A guy could feel winter coming, but it was still a ways off. No snow in the air for a while yet.
Jess shut the gate, then took his time, enjoying the peacefulness, the sense of belonging he felt every evening now as he headed back toward the house, prolonging the anticipation.
There would be warmth there, a fire, a meal, and Nathan.
After supper while Jess mended the tack, Nathan would grumble about the events of the day. Later, while they played checkers, he would tell Jess what letters had come in the mail, where his far-flung family was and what they were up to now. Some of them had tried to get Nathan to use email, but it was like talking to a post. He wasn’t interested. Couldn’t get reception up here anyway. Jess knew that and was just as glad. He didn’t need the outside world anymore than Nathan did. But he liked hearing whatever Nathan read to him from the letters. The old man talked about them so much that sometimes Jess felt as if they were his family, too.
The best kind of family, to his way of thinking – one he could enjoy second-hand without having to be responsible for.
He smiled now, thinking about them as he led Dodger into the barn and took off his saddle. Nathan’s only son was in the Foreign Service in Sri Lanka or some place on the other side of the world. He had grandsons in London, in Florida, and L.A. His only granddaughter was a librarian in New York. Nathan had gone to visit her in July.
“She can’t leave the big city and come out here?” Jess had asked when he took Nathan to the airport in Durango. He had worried about the old man making the trip on the little plane to Denver, then having to go miles in the airport to get the jet to New York.
“I reckon she could, but she’s pretty busy. I’m not.”
“She oughta come here,” Jess insisted. “She used to when she was a kid.”
“You remember her?” Nathan lifted one white brow.
Jess shrugged. “Seen her once or twice.”
“Pretty little thing, wasn’t she?”
Another shrug. “Don’t remember.”
“Ayuh.” Nathan’s skepticism was obvious, but Jess ignored it.
Yes, he remembered Alison Richards. And, yes, she had been pretty, with her long shiny brown hair, her wide grin that made dimples in her cheeks, and her deep blue eyes that followed him wherever he went.
But she’d been no more than seventeen the last time he’d seen her. And far above his touch. A diplomat’s daughter had little in common with a cowboy. Even if the age differential hadn’t existed, he’d never have approached her. They were from different worlds.
She’d had a bit of a crush on him that summer, and to be honest, he’d done some daydreaming about her – if she were older, if he were smarter. . . That sort of thing.
But he was smart enough to know that nothing would come of it. An intelligent, bright-eyed girl who’d seen the world – a girl like Alison Richards – would never get serious about a guy like him.
Didn’t matter anyhow. Getting serious about a woman wasn’t something Jess ever intended to do. He’d seen enough of marriage in his childhood to know that.
He had wondered, though, back in July while Nathan was gone, if the old man had told his granddaughter who his hired hand was. Would Alison Richards remember him?
He hoped not since the last time she’d seen him, he’d been sprawled in the dust and bleeding. The mere memory of that still made Jess squirm.
Still, he’d waited for Nathan to say something about Alison after he got back. The old man never did.
“So, did you have a good time?” Jess was finally forced to ask after several days when Nathan didn’t volunteer anything.
“Informative.” Nathan had nodded his head. “Good thing I went.”
Jess waited for him to elaborate, but he never did, just started talking about a longhorn bull he’d heard was for sale down El Paso way.
Jess sighed but didn’t ask anymore. A guy didn’t pry. Nathan’s granddaughter wasn’t his business. Wasn’t like he’d ever see her again.
But if Nathan’s granddaughter didn’t come up in the conversation, the longhorn did. Just this morning, in fact, the old man had brought it up again. “Maybe we oughta go down after shipping this fall, take a look at ’im.”
“What do we want another bull for?” Jess wanted to know. “And a longhorn at that?”
“Always gotta look to the future, Jess. Not sayin’ we want ’im. Just we might give it some thought.”
Maybe they would, Jess thought now, unbridling Dodger and rubbing him down. Maybe they’d buy the bull and bring him home. Maybe Jess could find a few head to add to his fledgling herd if he could afford it.
Or maybe, he thought, smiling and flexing his shoulders, he’d have all his money tied up in buying the ranch by then.
After that was the other thing Nathan had said this morning – that they’d have to talk about putting together a land contract, too.
Jess gave Dodger one last stroke, filled his bin, then headed for the house, Scout at his heels.
The reflected brilliance of the sun was gone now, but in its place, he saw the warm glow of light from the kitchen. His pace quickened as his stomach growled again, anticipating one of Nathan’s thick stews or a slab of beef and potatoes.
He stamped up the steps to the porch, one last cue for Nathan to put the meat on, just in case he hadn’t seen Jess ride in. Then he opened the door to the mud room, took off his boots and rolled up his sleeves. He ran hot water in the sink, splashing it over his face and arms, then ducked his head under the faucet. Groping for a towel, he rubbed his hair briskly and mopped his face, scowling at himself in the splotchy old mirror as he did so.
His hair needed cutting again. Used to be he got it done regular. On the rodeo circuit he’d had an image of sorts and a desire to impress the ladies. Now, with only Nathan to impress, he didn’t bother.
But Nathan could cut it. Better than playing checkers again and losing. He had a snowball’s chance in hell of ever winning a game against the wily old fox. Nathan always had something up his sleeve, and even when you thought you had him cornered, he’d distract you.
“Got a letter from Ali today,” he’d say and pat his pockets futilely. “Now what’d I do with it?” Or, with a glance at the kitchen, “Cathy Lee baked us an apple pie. Sure would like a piece. How ’bout you?”
And so Jess would ferret out the letter or cut each of them a piece of pie, and when finally he could get his mind on the game again, damned if he hadn’t forgotten his well-planned move.
It was only a matter of time until Nathan captured the last of his pieces and chuckled with satisfaction.
Letting the old man hack at his hair seemed a better bet all around.
Jess stuffed his feet into a pair of old moccasins, ran a comb through his hair, and, whistling softly under his breath, opened the door to the kitchen, sniffing hopefully, trying to guess what supper would be. He didn’t smell anything.
“Nate?”
He could hear the television in the living room. Nathan didn’t like television. He swore he never watched it, but Jess had his suspicions.
“Thought you didn’t like TV,” Jess had chided him just last week after Nathan had treated him to a long discourse on some situation in the Middle East while he washed up after supper.
“Don’t,” Nathan huffed. “Infernal idiot box.”
“So where’d you hear all this stuff you’re tellin’ me?”
“National Public Radio, of course.”
“Of course,” Jess had said diplomatically, then gave Nathan a bland smile.
“G’wan, get out of here,” Nathan grumbled. “’Less you wanta dry these dishes.”
Laughing, Jess had left. Now he grinned. It would be hard for Nathan to claim National Public Radio was on the idiot box tonight.
He crept quietly into the living room, spotting Nathan’s thinning white hair just visible over the top of the lounger that faced the set.
Whatever was on now had a laugh track and a very silly girl in a tutu doing pirouettes across a kitchen floor.
Jess shook his head. Boy, would he give Nathan a hard time about this!
He advanced stealthily until he stood directly behind Nathan’s chair, then cleared his throat. “What’s this? A re-run of News at Five?”
Nathan didn’t reply.
“Come on, Nate. ’Fess up. I caught you.”
Nathan didn’t move.
Jess frowned. “Nate?” He moved around the side of the chair, touched Nathan’s shoulder. “Nathan?”
But Nathan didn’t hear him. He didn’t see Jess or the girl in the tutu who pirouetted right out the door and into a commercial for laundry detergent. He didn’t feel Scout’s cold wet nose nudge his hand or Jess’s trembling fingers touch his cheek, then frantically grope for a pulse.
Nathan Richards was dead.
Jess Cooper could rope a steer with the best of them. He could brand a calf, ride a bull, break a horse.
He couldn’t talk on the telephone worth a damn at the best of times, and he sure as hell couldn’t call up Nathan’s family and tell them something like that.
“You tell ’em, Charley,” he pleaded with the doctor who’d met the ambulance at the hospital, examined Nathan’s lifeless body, then shook his head sadly and told Jess what he already knew.
Charley Moran clapped a hand on Jess’s shoulder. “Better coming from somebody who knows them.”
“I don’t!”
“Never even met them?”
“Yeah, well, once or twice, years ago. But I—”
“I’ve never met them at all. People don’t want to hear about the death of a loved one from a stranger. Believe me, Jess.”
People didn’t want to hear about the death of a loved one from anyone. Jess knew that.
He twisted the brim of his hat in his fingers, damning Charley silently with his eyes. A nurse bustled past with a patient in a wheelchair. Charley squeezed his shoulder sympathetically.
“He was a swell old man. The best.”
Jess nodded miserably.
“We’ll all miss him.”
Another nod.
Charley’s hand gave one more squeeze. “No one more than you.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Jess looked away. He still couldn’t swallow the awful lump in his throat.
“Dr Moran?” The nurse beckoned to Charley, and the other man gave him one last sympathetic look and hurried away.
Jess stayed right where he was. He still couldn’t believe it. Less than two hours ago he’d been whistling and contemplating a haircut as an alternative to letting Nathan scalp him in checkers. It hadn’t been more than an hour and a half since he’d called the ambulance.
There had been no hurry by that time, of course, and he’d known it.
Jess had seen death before. His mother. His father. His grandmother. The old lady at the boarding house in Grand Junction. Pete Cummins, gored by that bull down Gallup way. Countless cattle and horses. A guy ought to be used to it by now, oughtn’t he? Be able to accept the inevitability?
But, God Almighty, Nathan?
He’d never known a man more alive than Nathan, with his guileless blue eyes that belied his devilish grin. It was Nathan, not Jess, who always talked about the future, for crying out loud. It was Nathan who had always insisted on dreams, hopes, plans.
Jess had just gone along with them, echoed them. He tried again to swallow, rubbed a hand across his eyes.
“Damn you, Nathan,” he muttered. “How could you go and do something so stupid as die?”
He dragged his cell phone out of his pocket, then leaned against a wall and stared at the phone, unmoving.
He didn’t call. Couldn’t.
He shoved himself away from the wall again just as Charley was just coming down the corridor.
“Ah, good. You called?”
Jess shook his head. “Don’t have the number,” he mumbled, heading toward the door.
“Directory assistance,” Charley suggested to his back.
Jess didn’t think Directory Assistance existed anymore. But even if it did, it was beyond him right now. Talking rationally to a bunch of Nathan’s far-flung relatives was impossible.
“Boleyns will be calling you. Got to get things started.” Charley came after him as far as the doorway.
Tom Boleyn was the undertaker, efficient as hell. Jess had no doubt but that he could get Nathan buried without the advice and consent of any relatives at all. He got into the pick-up and flicked on the ignition, then shoved the gear shift into reverse.
“You can’t stall around on this,” he heard Charley call.
But Jess was already gunning out of the parking lot, throat tight, eyes blurred. He had some grieving to do and, as far as he was concerned, grieving came first.
He called Sri Lanka at three in the morning from Nathan’s house phone. The number was programmed in. He could have called as soon as he got home, but three a.m. was as soon as he felt he could say the words. It also seemed a safer bet than calling any place in the States – more likely to be daytime for one thing, and more likely to have a bad connection for another.
Jess knew he couldn’t tell anyone the news without his voice breaking. Nathan’s son, half a world away, didn’t have to know that.
The connection was better than he’d hoped it would be.
David Richards was shocked. His own voice broke, his pain apparent. “I’ll come as soon as I can,” he said. “I won’t get there in time to make the arrangements. Ali will do that. My daughter,” he clarified.
Jess didn’t need clarification. He just hoped to God he wouldn’t be expected to call her, and was vastly relieved when David said he’d take care of it.
“She’ll be devastated,” he told Jess. “No one loved Dad like Ali did.”
I did, Jess thought, but he didn’t say so.
“No, sir,” he said quietly as he stood barefoot in the darkened living room and stared unseeing out the window into the night.
“She’ll take care of everything. I’ll let you know when we’ll be arriving,” David went on.
“Okay.” It wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. But what else was there to say?
The connection crackled. “You can handle everything on the ranch?” David asked worriedly.
Jess had tried not to think about the ranch.
More than Nathan had died last night. Jess’s dream had died as well. But it didn’t seem fair to think of that now.
It seemed selfish, rotten. He felt guilty the instant the thought crossed his mind that no one would give him the shot that Nathan had been willing to give him. His dreams didn’t matter, Jess told himself furiously. It was Nathan who mattered, Nathan who’d been like a father and grandfather to him, Nathan who’d been for the past three years virtually all the family Jess had.
“I’ve never been much of a rancher,” David went on shakily, his voice still ragged. “I guess you know that.”
Jess struggled to keep his own emotions out of his. “Don’t worry, Mr. Richards. I can handle the ranch.”
You can’t go home again.
Alison Richards, like any good librarian, was familiar with Thomas Wolfe’s title – and his sentiment. She believed he was right – which was why she hadn’t been back to the Rocking R Ranch in ten long years.
She knew her father would be surprised to know she thought of the Rocking R as home. After all, she’d only spent a few summers there while she was growing up. She’d spent far more time in Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Hong Kong and Athens.
But it was in southwestern Colorado that she had invested her soul.
It was here in these mountains that she’d first given her heart.
Foolishness, she thought now, as she turned the rental car onto the narrow gravel road that led off the county highway and up into the mountains toward her grandfather’s ranch.
The foolish act of a foolish child. Fortunately no one save herself knew she’d done it.
“Just as well,” she said aloud. She shook her head at the folly of the fanciful young girl she had been. She’d read too many fairy tales.
“And too many westerns,” she told herself, smiling wryly now.
She obviously hadn’t watched enough television. Everyone who had knew that cowboys never hung around. Most of them made their careers out of riding off into the sunset at the end of the show. And the real ones weren’t any different.
Besides, Alison had grown up now and made a career of her own. She’d made hers by getting a degree in Information Retrieval which was, historically at least, Library Science. A prosaic, if fitting, end.
She had always loved books, and she had wanted to bring to other children the same enthusiasm for reading, for learning, for understanding and enchantment, for immersing themselves in other lives that she had known.
She was good at it, too. It wasn’t only books now – there were lots of other ways to provide those experiences for children. But she was a traditionalist at heart. She kept up on new titles and tried to remember her patrons’ taste in reading. She encouraged the young, sympathized with the old, and stayed late to shelve books after her tiny branch library closed.
And if her life wasn’t exactly what she’d dreamed it would be when she was five or seven or even seventeen, well, whose was?
She was happy enough. She had a good job, a steady boyfriend, a neurotic cat. She was a grown-up now. And she’d do well to remember it, Ali thought, coming back, as she was, to the scene of her youthful dreams.
She’d never imagined she’d come back like this.
She’d just seen Nathan two months ago. Her grandfather had been hale and hearty, as opinionated as ever, poking his nose in every aspect of her life, looking down it at her boyfriend, Jacob, scratching it at the antics of her cat.
She’d taken a week’s vacation to be with him. They’d gone to Ellis Island, to a Yankees game, to lunch in the open-air pavilion at Rockefeller Center. In the daytime they enjoyed the sights and sounds of New York.
At night they talked about the ranch – not the way it was now, but the way it had been.
“You oughta come back for a visit,” Nathan had told her, smiling, his feet stretched out and crossed at the ankle, one toe wiggling to tease the cat.
“No.” She hadn’t wanted to. It was perfect just the way it was, a sweet memory to be taken out and cherished, not the harsh reality to be faced as an adult.
But reality had a way of intruding, no matter what. She had just been going off to work yesterday morning when her father had rung her. Ali could still feel his words of her grandfather’s death as if they had been blows to her heart.
“I’ll get there as soon as I can,” her father had said. “But if you can make the arrangements, I’d appreciate it.”
“Of course.” She’d been numb, but once her dad had hung up, she’d drawn a deep breath and forced herself to move.
“Nobody gonna do it for you,” her grandfather always said. “The hard stuff? You gotta do it yourself.”
It was hard, but Ali knew she was the one who had to do it.
There was only one funeral home in the nearest town. It hadn’t been hard to track it down. She’d done as much arranging as she could over the phone. Nathan had, she discovered, done a lot of it himself.
“A great planner, your grandfather,” Tom Boleyn had said when she called. “Had everything all figured out. And, of course, he’ll be buried at the ranch in the family ground next to your grandmama.”
“Of course.”
“So,” he sounded as if he was ticking things off a schedule. “Visitation Friday noon to nine. Funeral at St Francis Church Saturday at ten? Everyone here by then?”
Ali had done some rapid calculations in her head. Her dad had the most distance and the most on his plate to deal with before he would arrive, but yes . . . “I think that should work.”
“Good enough. When you know your flight, let me know. Cooper can pick you up in Durango.”
For a moment Alison stopped breathing. “Cooper?”
“Jess Cooper. Your granddad’s man.”
Jess? Her granddad’s man? Alison couldn’t have said how long the silence lasted after that.
Tom Boleyn broke it finally. “Shall I have him pick you up?”
“I’ll rent a car,” Ali said hastily. “We all will. Th-thank you, Mr. Boleyn. I’ll see you Friday.”
She hung up and stared unseeing out the window. Jess Cooper.
It couldn’t be. Of course it wasn’t.
There were bound to be a dozen Jess Coopers in the west, maybe more. Nathan had never mentioned him, for heaven’s sake! Surely if his hired man were the same cowboy who’d worked for him all those years ago, her granddad would have said.
No, she thought now as she shut the last gate and climbed back into the car to head up the narrow track toward the ranch house, it wouldn’t be her Jess Cooper.
Except it was.
End of Excerpt
