Luke’s Ride

Missy gave an exasperated big-sister sigh.

Luke ladled stew into JJ’s bowl and cut the meat into smaller pieces. He loved both his brother’s kids, but he felt a special bond with his nephew. He saw a lot of himself in JJ and wished his brother and sister-in-law luck when JJ hit his teens—they would need it.

He kept mostly silent during dinner, speaking only enough not to seem surly, listening to Katie’s account of her solo trip across country. He liked the way she laughed at herself for mistaking a state road number for an interstate in Missouri, driving ten miles behind a manure spreader, and silently applauded her quick thinking in following the snowplow over Wolf Creek Pass. Pretty dang good for a green Eastern driver.

“So where do you go from here?” Jake asked Katie while Shelby served the peach pie à la mode, with chocolate cake for Missy and JJ. “Once we let you go, that is.”

“I really hadn’t thought beyond bringing you the letters,” she said. “I’m kind of at loose ends right now.”

“Back to Connecticut?” Lucy asked.

“No, not there. I’ll have to return eventually to take care of some business, but not soon.” She massaged the faint ridges on her ring finger. “Right now I’m looking for a job.”

“What kind of job?” Shelby asked, cutting a second sliver of cake for JJ.

“I know a little about bookkeeping—I worked for a construction firm for a while.” She flushed. “And I love to cook. I don’t have any formal training, but I did some catering while I was in college.”

Lucy sat straighter. “Did you really?”

Luke could read his sister’s mind.

“Hold on, Luce,” Jake said. “The poor girl just landed—don’t try to draft her before she has time to take a deep breath.”

Lucy closed her mouth, but Luke knew she wouldn’t be able to hold her tongue for long.

Jake looked at his watch. “You’d better head to town if you’re going to open the Queen for the breakfast crowd.” He stood. “I’ll bring Katie’s bag in.”

CHAPTER EIGHT (#ue79c903c-b6ca-5deb-8908-9871437f3ec4)

KATHRYN HAD AWAKENED in so many different rooms since leaving Connecticut she needed a few seconds to orient herself. As driven as she’d been to flee from her husband’s betrayal, she still missed his warmth in the night, the many intimate details of living as a married woman. Longing to return to the comfort of the familiar tugged at her for a moment; she banished it with the memory of Brad’s and Britt Cavendish’s mingled laughter polluting her own private space.

Last night she’d been shown to Luke’s bedroom upstairs, since he now occupied the main floor guest room. Too tired then to notice much beyond the single bed covered with a bright Indian blanket, she now saw the framed museum-quality prints on the walls—Gauguin’s Tahitian women, Van Gogh’s sailboats drawn up on a beach, El Greco’s stormy skies over Toledo. Interesting decor for a cowboy bullfighter.

And here she was—Cameron’s Pride at last. The ranch and the Cameron family had assumed almost mythic qualities in her mind, but she had schooled herself not to expect too much. Finding the setting as idyllic as she had pictured, being welcomed like long-lost kin seemed too good to be real.

Lucy had brought her swiftly up to date before leading her out to the ranch: her father’s remarriage two years after Annie’s death, her brother Tom’s marriage and retirement from bull riding with a new career as a high school history teacher, and Luke’s crippling mishap only a few months ago.

Her thoughts stalled when they reached Luke Cameron, his brown hair and deep tan resembling his stepmother’s Indian-dark skin and black hair more than his father’s and sister’s redhead coloring. Her hand tingled as she recalled an instant of connection when their hands met, quickly broken when she mentioned his career as a bullfighter. Stupid of her—who could blame him for being bitter about his injury?

She lay for a few minutes longer, enjoying the luxury of not facing another day on the road. Later today she would take her leave with the proper thanks for the hospitality and carrying the precious box with her mother’s letters.

Her mind turned to Jake’s question: Where to from here? Her mission to reach Cameron’s Pride had absorbed her until now, but she needed to make plans for her future. Although she’d been frugal with her spending, her reserves wouldn’t last forever. At some point she would finalize the divorce proceedings she had set in motion. She should demand a hefty settlement from Brad, but she wanted nothing from him. For her own sense of self-worth, she needed to prove she could support herself by her own wits.

She could look for work near her mother’s relatives in New Jersey, but she’d never cared for the urban sprawl of the East Coast megalopolis. She might look for work in Maine—she had worked as a nanny on an island one summer in college and loved the open vastness of the ocean. Maybe she would just keep driving until she came to a town that took her fancy, someplace like Durango...

Loud whispers outside her door brought her back to the present.

“Hush, you’ll wake Katie.” The bossy big sister. “Uncle Luke’s gonna be mad.”

Kathryn smiled—apparently Missy and JJ were back. Tom’s wife, Jo, returned from a field trip to an archaeological site with Tom’s high school students, had arrived to pick the kids up after supper the night before. She had dropped her husband off first at their home because he had aggravated an old back injury helping to carry a student who had sprained her ankle.

And Kathryn had been changed back into Katie. Well, why not? Kathryn was Brad’s wife. She was done with him and with the name.

“Katie,” she said, savoring the name on her tongue. A new life, a fresh identify, one truer to her roots.