Intimate Secrets

Then she heard Ivy’s sweet laughter. Eyes adjusting to the sunlight, Josie saw her daughter standing in the crib, trying to catch dust motes in her chubby little hands.

Just the sight of Ivy filled her with a wave of relief that threatened to drown her. She got up quickly and took her daughter in her arms, needing to hold her, to assure herself that Ivy was safe.

But the initial fear she’d felt on waking receded slowly, the memory of the man in the pines too fresh. Too real.

Odell Burton was dead. And Josie O’Malley didn’t believe in ghosts. But just thinking she’d seen him had shaken her more than she wanted to admit. Especially since at that moment she’d been feeling safe.

As she and Ivy ate oatmeal on the porch in the morning sun, she tried to get back that feeling of peace, however brief, she’d felt the day before. Logically, she knew she’d seen a man—just not Odell.

But the memory of the man watching her and Ivy from the trees still clung to her like the remnants of a bad dream. Something about him had scared her. And Josie prided herself on not scaring easily.

The last time she saw Odell had been on her family’s ranch in Texas. She’d turned to find him watching her and realized he’d just come out of the barn. He had an odd expression on his face. He looked almost nervous.

That wasn’t like him. She’d known him since they were kids. His father raised rough stock for rodeos down the road from the O’Malley Ranch.

But there had always been something about him— She shivered. His interest in her had always unnerved her. Even when they were kids. Worse, when they were older and he’d realized she wasn’t interested in him. Odell had a hard time accepting no. It was probably one of the reasons he’d gotten in trouble with the law at such an early age.

She fed Ivy a few bites of oatmeal, then relinquished the baby spoon, although Ivy was getting more oatmeal on her face than in her mouth.

Josie knew that even thinking she’d seen Odell was some kind of subconscious reminder of everything she still feared from two years ago. She and Ivy were safe. But obviously, her subconscious didn’t believe it.

Maybe it was because she’d been thinking about going home to Texas. Just the thought of going home filled her with excitement—and anxiety. It had been two years. She’d broken all ties with her family when she’d taken off the way she had. Not that it could have been helped under the circumstances. Still, she wished things had been different.

Going home meant facing more than Odell’s ghost. More than her father and brothers. She couldn’t be sure what kind of reception she’d get at the O’Malley Ranch. But at least she knew what to expect from Clay Jackson.

Clay. She closed her eyes for a moment, unconsciously smiling at a distant memory. Clay had grown up on the adjacent ranch, the Valle Verde. He’d been her brother Dustin’s age. Six years older, the boys had seen her only as a kid—and a girl at that.

But Clay was always kind to her, and from the time she could remember she’d had a crush on him. When he went away to college, she dreamed of the day he’d return home to the ranch—and her. She knew that once he saw her all grown-up he’d fall for her, just as she’d fallen for him so many years before.

Unfortunately, she thought, her smile fading, he hadn’t come back. He’d fallen in love with a woman named Maria and he’d become a deputy sheriff, and he appeared to have no intention of ever returning to ranching.

Then one day he’d just reappeared. She’d looked up and there he was framed against the Texas sky, his broad shoulders blocking out the sun.

Except it wasn’t exactly as she’d dreamed. She heard through the ranch rumor mill that the woman he’d fallen in love with after college had run off with someone else, Clay had turned in his badge, and being the youngest, he’d come home to take over the ranch so his father could retire.

He’d just turned thirty. Josie, twenty-four.

Prize-winning horses and Clay, right next door. Unfortunately, she hadn’t known then that he’d brought more than just a fine string of horses to the Valle Verde. He’d brought the bitterness of a man who’d lost the woman he’d loved and had sworn never to love again.

She opened her eyes now, all the old regret coming back. She’d naively believed she could heal his broken heart, if Clay would give her the chance. If he’d see her as a woman—and not the tomboy she’d been. He’d once told her she was the wildest thing east of the Pecos, wilder than an “unbroke” stallion.

She hired on in his stables, mucking out the stalls, although she had a degree in ranch management. It wasn’t until later that she’d found out Clay had only hired her as a favor to her family. It seemed Clay arrogantly believed he was the man who could handle her. That he would be the one to tame her wild spirit as a favor to her father and brothers.

How wrong he’d been. In the end, he’d only succeeded in spurring her to live up to his expectations—and her foolishness had ultimately cost her dearly.

Clay Jackson had never seen her as anything more than Dustin’s wild kid sister. She doubted that would change when they saw each other again.

She looked over at her daughter, who was now banging the high-chair tray with her spoon and dropping globs of oatmeal to the floor with her other hand.

One thing was certain. She was ready to go home to Texas. But did she dare?

She turned at the sound of a car coming up the road. “Here comes Millie,” she told her daughter.

Ivy stopped banging her tray to look out the porch screen at the approaching car. “Miwillie!” she cried, all smiles.

Josie lifted her daughter from the high chair and wiped her face, kissing the wriggling, giggling toddler’s damp, clean cheek when she’d finished.

“Mornin’,” Mildred Andrews called as she joined them on the porch. Mildred was short and squat, a small gray-haired woman in her early sixties with a pleasant round face and an ever-present cheerfulness. She made Ivy laugh. She made Josie smile. There was something so homespun about the grandmotherly woman. And best of all, she loved children—especially Ivy. They’d hit it off immediately, and Josie felt secure knowing Mildred was caring for her daughter. She was the grandmother Ivy would never have.

“I thought I’d take Ivy into the big city,” Mildred was saying. The big city Millie referred to was the tiny town of Three Forks, Montana, named for the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin rivers that joined outside of town to make the Missouri River. “Can I get you anything from the grocery store?”

Josie scribbled down a quick list, the heavy weight of anxiety lightening at just the sight of Mildred. Ivy let out squeals of delight as the older woman took the list and Ivy out to the car. Ivy loved to go “bye-bye.”

It wasn’t until later, standing on the porch, watching Mildred pull away, Ivy waving and throwing wet kisses from the car seat in the back, that Josie felt a stab of doubt, like a thin blade of ice piercing her heart. She told herself she had nothing to worry about. Ivy was in good hands with Mildred. But she knew that wasn’t what worried her. Dead or not, Odell Burton and the past were still haunting her.

SHE HEADED FOR THE STABLES, knowing work would be the only thing that could get her mind off her worries.

By early afternoon, she was feeling better and relieved to see Mildred’s car coming up the dirt road in a cloud of dust. Ivy’s cherub-cheeked face peered out from the back seat.

Josie walked up the hillside to the cabin where she and Ivy lived, a rustic two-story log structure with a screened-in porch off the front and a deck and stairs off the back of the second story.

From the porch, Josie could see not only the stables and main ranch house, but beyond, across the valley and the Madison River, to the tops of the grain elevators in town.

But the view from the second-story deck off the back was her favorite. She often stood there, looking over the pines to the pale yellow band of sandstone known as the Madison Buffalo Jump. For years, before the Native Americans had horses, the site was used to harvest buffalo on foot.

Josie couldn’t imagine a time when buffalo roamed this river valley. She especially couldn’t imagine a time before horses. She’d had a horse since birth and had been riding almost as long. She loved horses and understood them in a way she’d never understood men.

Ivy was already out of the car and headed up the steps by the time Josie reached the cabin. She stopped at the car to help Mildred carry in the groceries. A widow, Mildred often stayed over. They’d fallen into the habit of having dinner together, with Mildred surprising them with her favorite dishes.

“Your daughter causes a commotion everywhere she goes,” Mildred said, laughing as she lowered a bag of groceries to the table.

“A commotion?” Josie asked, eyeing Ivy as she let the screen door slam behind her.

The cabin was narrow, built tall rather than wide. It ran shotgun style from living room to kitchen with a set of open stairs on the left up to the second-floor bath and two bedrooms.

Josie heard Ivy let out a squeal as she took off across the living room after Millie.

“What did Ivy get into now?” Josie asked with a pretend groan as she set down her armful of groceries, then turned to grab her daughter as she toddled past. She scooped Ivy into her arms and hugged her tightly. She couldn’t seem to hug her enough. Everything about the child filled her with awe. Josie never knew she could feel like this. It was the second revelation in her life.

“She was an absolute angel!” Mildred said in Ivy’s defense. “It’s not her fault that she’s so adorable that even good-looking, smooth-talking cowboys can’t resist her.”

“Good-looking cowboys?” Josie asked, feeling the first prickle of unease as she put the wriggling Ivy back down.

“Even at the store,” Mildred continued as she began putting Josie’s groceries away. “He just couldn’t take his eyes off her. He finally had to come over and say hello.”

Josie felt a wave of anxiety flood her.

Mildred looked up and saw her reaction. “Oh, it wasn’t like that. He was perfectly adorable. Polite with an accent like yours.”