too much like it, I hope,” Tricia said. “And that’s what we are, isn’t it? A pair of city slickers?”
“Speak for yourself,” Sasha joked, folding her arms decisively in front of her little chest and jutting out her chin. “I might live in a city, but I know how to ride a horse.”
“Yes, you do,” Tricia conceded. “Now, what do you say we head for home? Valentino probably needs to go out for a walk, and Winston likes to have his supper early.”
“Can we give Winston sardines?” Sasha asked. “It’s Sunday, and he always gets sardines on Sunday. That’s what you said.”
“It is indeed what I said,” Tricia answered, nodding to Carolyn as the other woman waved goodbye and walked off. “And I am a woman of my word.”
“Good,” Sasha said, in a tone of generous approval.
Tricia took the little girl’s hand. “Let’s go thank Matt’s dad and mom for inviting us to the barbecue,” she said. “Then we’ll go home and walk Valentino and give Winston his sardines.”
Sasha yawned widely and against her will, politely putting a hand over her mouth. It was still fairly early in the day, but she’d been running around in the fresh air for a couple of hours now, laughing and playing with a horde of energetic country kids, and she probably wasn’t over the jet-lag of the trip from Seattle.
By the time Sasha had had a warm bath and watched part of a Disney movie on DVD, she’d be asleep on her feet.
“Can I send the text to Mom and Dad?” she asked, when goodbyes and thank-yous had been said, and the two of them were back in Tricia’s Pathfinder, headed toward home. “I know how to do it.”
Tricia smiled, remembering the message she’d received from Sasha before, from the aquarium in Seattle. “Sure,” she said. She pulled over to one side of the road, just long enough to extract the cell from her purse and hand it to Sasha. “Remember, your mom and dad’s plane didn’t leave Sea-Tac until this morning, so they’re still in transit.”
Sasha sighed in contented resignation. “And that means they won’t get the message until they land. I know that already.”
“I did mention it before, didn’t I?” Tricia admitted, in cheerful chagrin.
“That’s okay, Aunt Tricia,” Sasha said, already pushing buttons on the phone like a pro. “You’re probably tired, like me.”
Love for this child welled up in Tricia, threatening to overflow. “Probably,” she agreed, her voice a little husky.
By the time they pulled into the driveway alongside Natty’s venerable old Victorian, Sasha had finished transmitting a fairly long text message to her parents and put the phone aside.
They could hear Valentino barking a welcome-home from the bottom of the outside stairway, and he was all over Sasha with kisses the moment Tricia unlocked the door.
She was about to reprimand the dog when Sasha’s delighted giggles registered.
They were having fun.
“I’ll get the leash,” Tricia said, stepping around the reunion on the threshold. She set her purse and phone on the counter and glanced at her computer monitor, across the room, wondering if Hunter had sent her any emails. There would be plenty of time to check later, she decided, collecting Valentino’s sturdy nylon lead from the hook on the inside of the pantry door.
Sasha and Tricia took the dog for his much-needed walk, bringing along the necessary plastic bag for cleanup, and Winston was waiting when they got back, prowling back and forth on his favorite windowsill and meowing loudly for his dinner.
Sasha fed the cat an entire tin of sardines from Natty’s supply downstairs, while Tricia gave Valentino his kibble and freshened his bowl of water.
Since both Sasha and Tricia were still stuffed from all they’d eaten at the barbecue, supper would be contingent on whether or not they got hungry and, if they did, it would consist of either leftover pizza from the night before or cold cereal, sugary-sweet.
They watched a movie together, then Sasha went into the bathroom to bathe, don her pajamas and dutifully brush her teeth, all of these enterprises closely supervised by Valentino. In the meantime, Tricia folded out the living room couch, retrieved the extra bed pillows from the coat closet and fluffed them up so Sasha would be as comfortable as possible.
The little girl insisted on checking Tricia’s cell phone, just in case there had miraculously been an answer from Diana and Paul, and seemed mildly disappointed when there wasn’t. “Missing your mom and dad?” Tricia asked softly, sitting down on the hide-a-bed mattress while Sasha squirmed and stretched, a settling-in ritual she’d been performing since she was a toddler.
“A little bit,” Sasha admitted wisely. “But I like being here with you and Valentino and Winston, too.”
Tricia kissed her forehead. “And we like having you here,” she said. “In fact, we love it.”
Sasha snuggled down in her covers, while Valentino took up his post nearby, eschewing his dog bed for a hooked rug in front of the nonworking fireplace. “And you love me, too, right?”
Tricia’s throat tightened again, and she had to swallow a couple of times before she replied, “Right. I love you very much.”
Sasha’s eyes closed, and she sighed and wriggled a little more. “Love—you—” she murmured.
And then she was sound asleep.
BRODY AND CONNER stood in the side yard of the main ranch house that blue-skied morning, keeping the length of a pitchfork handle between them, watching as two shiny RVs pulled out onto the county road, one after the other. Both horns tooted in cheery farewell and that was it. Melissa and Steven and the kids were on their way back to Stone Creek, Arizona, in the Bradmobile, while Davis and Kim were heading for Cheyenne, where they intended to pick up their just-weaned Yorkie pups.
And Conner was alone on the place with his brother, which was the only thing worse than being alone on the place period. Brody served as a reminder of better times, when they’d been twin-close, and instead of assuaging Conner’s loneliness, it only made him feel worse, missing what was gone.
Since country folks believe it’s bad luck to watch people out of sight when they leave a place, especially home, Conner turned away before the vehicles disappeared around the first bend in the road and made for the barn. He’d saddle up, ride out to check some fence lines and make sure the small range crew moving the cattle to the other side of the river, where there was more grass, was on the job.
The crossing was narrow, through fairly shallow water, and the task would be easily accomplished by a few experienced cowpunchers on horseback, but Conner liked to keep his eye on things, anyhow. Some of the beeves were bound to balk on the bank of that river, calves in particular, and stampedes were always a possibility.
Conner was surprised—and not surprised—when Brody fell into step beside him, adjusting his beat-up old rodeo hat as he walked.
“So now that the family is out of here,” Brody said mildly, “you’re just going to pretend I’m invisible?”
Conner stopped cold, turning in the big double doorway of the barn to meet Brody’s gaze. “This is a working cattle ranch,” he reminded his brother. “Maybe you’d like to sit around and swap lies, but I have things to do.”
Brody shook his head, and even though he gave a spare grin, his eyes were full of sadness and secrets. “Thought I’d saddle up and give you a hand,” he said, in that gruff drawl he’d always used when he wanted to sound down-home earnest. He came off as an affable saddle bum, folksy and badly educated, without two nickels to rub together, and that was all bullshit. No one knew that better than Conner did, but maybe Brody was