early wealth had long been lost. By the time Frannie made her debut, little more than respect filled the Stuart coffers. They were an aging but cordial and modern-thinking people. She was their adventurous darling with places to go and things to do. Frannie was a few months past forty, with her daring adventures behind her, when she returned to Belle Terre with Lucky, a babe in arms.
Undaunted by the scandal of bearing an illegitimate child, she settled on the farm, living quietly, meagerly, as was apparent in her bedroom, which Lincoln realized now was pitifully lacking in the feminine pleasures that would have become her. Frannie might have been reduced to creating her own unforgettable fragrance of wild roses and dried flowers, but her capacity for love, her courageous sense of adventure, never faltered.
It was, instead, bequeathed to Lucky. And, as he stared at a photo, encased in a tarnished silver frame, Lincoln realized both had been Frannie’s ultimate gift to him, as well.
Caught up in recollections of two wide-eyed boys sitting before a fire, listening to stories of where she’d been and what she’d done, Lincoln continued his sentimental passage. As he came full circle, his lips tilted in a poignant smile for old memories and old friendships that could never be again.
When he returned to the porch, the last rays of the sun had painted the sky a deep vermilion, seeming to set the world ablaze. Lincoln hadn’t meant to stay, but, wrapped in light so familiar, he found himself drawn to the steps.
To sit where he’d sat with Lucky. To remember the dreams they’d dreamed on days like this. The days when they were so sure they would live forever and be friends forever and share every great adventure the world had to offer.
“Every great adventure, planned right here.” Lincoln looked at the photograph still clutched in his hand. “Even the last, the one that would destroy our friendship as we knew it.”
Wearily Lincoln stood. Making note of the step in need of repair, he crossed the overgrown yard to Diablo. Speaking quietly to the grazing horse, he mounted. Hesitating, he watched as light warming the walls of the house faded and darkened, leaving it in shadows. A lonely derelict, waiting.
“For what?” Lincoln wondered aloud. But he didn’t need to wonder. He knew.
“For want of love and laughter, a home becomes a house,” he whispered, quoting his beloved Frannie. “For want of life, a house becomes a hovel.”
Frannie Stuart had been dead nearly seven years. Lucky, for three months. He couldn’t change the past, but as he turned Diablo from the Stuart farm, Lincoln vowed that no matter how long it took, he would repay a debt incurred six years before.
A debt called in today, by a letter from the grave.
“Let’s go home, Diablo,” Lincoln murmured hoarsely. “I have work to do, a lady to find, and promises to keep.”
Two
“Special delivery.” Basket in hand, Haley Garrett stood in the open doorway, waiting for Lincoln to abandon his intense study of the evening sky. As she’d spoken, his shoulders tensed. When he turned, a pallor lay over his sun-darkened face.
“Lincoln?” Alarm threaded through Haley’s voice. “Is something wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Blinking, clearing his vision, Lincoln denied her concern. “Nothing’s wrong. My mind was wandering, I thought…”
“That I was her?” Troubled by his mood, Haley stepped into his office uninvited. “Yes, Lincoln, her. Linsey Stuart, the woman for whom you’ve searched for weeks.”
“How do you know about Linsey?”
Setting the basket laden with food on his desk, she smiled ruefully. “It would be hard not to know, since your search has been conducted by telephone and our office isn’t exactly soundproof.”
Lincoln moved to his desk. “I never meant to disturb you.”
“You didn’t. I haven’t said anything before because it was none of my business.” Haley tilted her head, negating the great difference in their size as she held his gaze. “As your veterinary partner and friend, I’m making it my business now.”
Lincoln grasped a pen, tapping it on his desk. “I haven’t held up my end of our agreement?”
Catching his hand, she stopped his drumming. “Just the opposite. You’re driving yourself. Take today, for instance. You were called to Petersens’ to deliver a breech colt at 3:00 a.m. To Hank’s dairy at 6:00 a.m. to deal with a sick cow.”
Releasing him, she ticked off more stops. “You admitted skipping breakfast, then lunch. If Miss Corey hadn’t worried and sent this basket, I suspect you would skip dinner.”
“How does skipping meals affect our partnership, Haley?”
“Partnership.” Haley emphasized her point. “That’s the key word. I could have made some of those calls. Given how hard you’ve been working, I should have made all of them.”
“Today was too much for me,” he drawled. “But not you?”
“Yes. Because I’m not consumed by a problem.” Taking a tarnished frame from his desk, she asked, “Is this Linsey Stuart?”
Lincoln’s gaze turned to the photo plundered from the Stuart farm. Where a step awaited repair. “Linsey, Lucky and me. In Montana, our last year at smoke jumpers annual training.”
“Linsey Stuart parachuted into forest fires?” The woman in the photograph was small, with an aura of elegance. Haley could believe an adventurous sportswoman, but not smoke jumping.
“No one believed she could do it then, either.” Lincoln’s mouth quirked in a melancholy smile at Haley’s disbelief. “But she did. We all did. That’s where our paths crossed— the first summer of jumper training. Lucky and I had been friends all our lives—the moment we met her, she fit.
“Linsey grew up in an orphanage, we became her family.” He glanced at the photo of three figures dressed for a jump, exhilarated by the challenge. “We were a team— Lucky Stuart, Linsey Blair, Lincoln Cade. We were called the Three L’s.”
“This was taken the last year—was it your last jump?”
Lincoln struggled to ease the constriction in his chest. “After the photograph was taken, Lucky was called home. His mother was ill. Two months later he came back. We jumped one more time.”
Haley wondered why only one. Lincoln loved jumping. It was in his voice. Even now. “What happened?”
Lincoln’s gaze lifted to Haley. But his mind, and perhaps his heart, had stepped back in time. Memories couldn’t be hurried. Keeping the gaze that saw another face, she waited.
“We were in Oregon.” His voice was distant, as if it came from the faraway place of his thoughts. “The fire had burned for weeks, with jumpers fighting winds as much as the blaze. We were backing each other, as always, when the current shifted and the fire turned, cutting us off from the rest of the crew.”
He fell silent; she waited. Again her wait was rewarded.
“Lucky had a knack for maps—he recalled a river. We ran for it and into a slide. Our radios were broken. A head injury left me confused, unsteady on my feet. I couldn’t walk out.”
“But Linsey and Lucky did?” Haley dared comment into the staccato retelling of a life-and-death drama.
“Only Lucky.” Lincoln turned to the window, seeing wind-fanned flames and falling earth beyond its panes. “The fire turned again, and we stumbled on a shack on secure ground. By then it was clear I’d suffered a concussion at the least. Lucky calculated that with burned ground, the slide, and the river as fire breaks, we had a little time before the blaze circled around. Leaving Linsey to look after me, he walked out alone.”
“Through the fire, Lincoln?”
“Through