As the finishing touch, Tricia removed the price tag from the blue chicken and laid the toy tenderly on the bed, the way she might have set out a teddy bear for a child.
“There,” she said aloud, though there was nobody around to hear. Talking to herself—she had definitely been alone too much lately, she decided ruefully, especially since Natty had left to visit her sister.
Conner popped into her mind, but Tricia blocked him out—with limited success—and told herself to think about Hunter instead. In the end, she had to bring up the phone picture again just to remember what Hunter looked like.
And even then the image didn’t stick in her mind when she looked away.
* * *
NOT GOOD, CONNER thought when he pulled in at the ranch and saw Davis, his uncle, waiting in the grassy stretch between the ranch house and the barn. Davis’s expression would have said it all, even if he hadn’t been pacing back and forth like he was waiting for a prize calf to be born.
“What?” Conner asked, once he’d stopped the truck, shut it down and stepped out onto the running board.
Davis was an older version of his son, Steven, with the same dark blond hair and blue eyes. He was a little heavier than Steven, and his clothes, like Conner’s, weren’t fancy. He was dressed for work.
Steven had a ranch of his own now, down in Stone Creek, Arizona, not to mention a beautiful wife, Melissa, a six-year-old son named Matt and another of those intermittent sets of twins, both boys, that ran in the Creed family.
In fact, if Conner hadn’t loved Steven like a brother—had the same strong bond with his cousin that he’d once shared with Brody—it would have been easy to hate him for having more than his share of luck.
“Did you get the serum?” Davis asked, as though Conner were on an urgent mission from the CDC, carrying the only known antidote to some virus fixing to go global.
Conner gave his uncle—essentially the only father he’d ever known, since his own, Davis’s older brother, Blue, had died in an accident when Conner and Brody were just babies—a level look. “Yeah,” he answered, “I got the serum. Didn’t know it was a rush job, though.”
Davis sighed, rummaged up a sheepish smile. “We’ve still got plenty of daylight left,” he said. “Kim and I had words a little while ago, that’s all. She put my favorite boots in the box of stuff she’s been gathering up to donate to the rummage sale. I took issue with that—they’re good boots. Just got ’em broken in right a few years ago—”
Conner laughed. Kim, Davis’s wife, was a force of nature in her own right. And she’d been a mother figure to her husband’s orphaned twin nephews, never once acting put upon. It was a shame, Conner had always thought, that Kim and Davis had never had any children together. They were born parents.
“I reckon it would be easier to buy those boots back at the rummage sale than argue with Kim,” Conner remarked, amused. The woman could be bone-stubborn; she’d had to be to hold her own in that family.
“We won’t be here then,” Davis complained. “I’ve got half a dozen saddles ready, and we’ll be on the road for two weeks or better.”
“I remember,” Conner said, opening a rear door and reaching into the extended-cab pickup for the boxes of serum he’d picked up at Doc Benchley’s clinic. There were still a few hours of daylight left; if they saddled up and headed out right away, they could get at least some of the calves inoculated.
So Conner thrust an armload of boxes at Davis, who had to juggle a little to hold on to them.
“You’ll be here, though,” Davis went on innocently. “You could buy those boots back for me, Conner, and hide them in the barn or someplace—”
Conner chuckled and shook his head. “And bring the wrath of the mom-unit down on my hapless head? No way, Unc. You’re on your own with this one.”
“But they’re lucky boots,” Davis persisted. “One time, in Reno, I won $20,000 playing poker. And I was wearing those boots at the time.”
“We’re doomed,” Conner joked.
“That isn’t funny,” his uncle said.
Davis and Kim lived up on the ridge, in a split-level rancher they’d built and moved into the year Brody and Conner came of age. Because Blue had been the elder of the two, the firstborn son and therefore destined to inherit the spread, the ranch belonged to them.
Conner occupied the main ranch house now, and since Brody was never around, he lived by himself.
He hated living alone, eating alone and all the rest. He frowned. There he went, thinking again.
“Everything all right?” Davis asked, looking at him closely.
“Fine,” Conner lied.
Davis was obviously skeptical, but he didn’t push for more information, as Kim would have done. “Let’s get out there on the range and tend to those calves,” he said. “As many as we can before sunset, anyhow.”
“You ever think about getting a dog?” Conner asked his uncle, as they walked toward the barn. “Old Blacky’s been gone a long time.”
Davis sighed. “Kim wants to get a pair of those little ankle biters—Yorkies, I guess they are. She’s got dibs on two pups from a litter born back in June—we’re supposed to pick the critters up on this trip, when we swing through Cheyenne.”
It made Conner grin—and feel a whole lot better—to imagine his ultramasculine cowboy uncle followed around by a couple of yappers with bows in their hair. Davis would be ribbed from one end of the rodeo circuit to the other, and he’d grouse a little, probably, but deep down, he’d be a fool for those dogs.
Reaching the barn, they took the prefilled syringes Conner had gotten from Doc Benchley out of their boxes and stashed them in saddlebags. They chose their horses, tacked them up, fetched their ropes and mounted.
Once they were through the last of the gates and on the open range, Davis let out a yee-haw, nudged his gelding’s sides with the heels of his boots, and the race was on.
* * *
VALENTINO LOOKED LIKE a different dog when Becky brought him out into the waiting area, all spiffy. His coat was a lovely, dark honey shade, and when he spotted Tricia, he immediately started wagging his tail. She’d have sworn he was smiling at her, too.
“See?” Becky bent to tell him. “I told you she’d come back.”
Tricia felt a stab at those words—she was only looking after this dog temporarily, not adopting him—but when she handed over her ATM card to pay the bill, she got over the guilt in short order.
Good heavens, what had Doc done? Performed a kidney transplant?
Taking Valentino’s new collar and leash from her bag, Tricia got him ready to leave. While she was bending over him, he gave her a big, wet kiss.
“Eeeew,” she fussed, but she was smiling.
“Looks like we’re due for a change in the weather,” Becky commented, nodding her head toward the big picture window looking out over the parking lot and the street beyond. She sighed. “I guess it’s typical for this time of year. Winter will be on us before we know it.”
Tricia had noticed the dark clouds rolling in to cover the blue, but she hadn’t really registered that there was a storm approaching. She’d been thinking about Valentino, and Hunter’s text message—and Conner Creed.
“Let’s hope the snow holds off until after the big rummage sale and the chili feed,” Tricia said, her tone deceptively breezy. If the weather was bad, the campers and RVers wouldn’t show up for that all-important final weekend of the season, and if that happened, she was going to have to dip into her savings to pay the bills.
“Amen to that,” Becky said,