True Heart. Peggy Nicholson

with white shirts and red bandannas—and Whitey had packed his duffel, growled something about the line camp and stalked out. Emma doubted she’d see him before the snow flew, if then, stubborn old coot.

      Considering that she’d had tears in her eyes when she’d said this, Kaley couldn’t find it in her heart to blame the woman. Because even in good times, Whitey was best taken with a large dose of wide-open spaces. Given the claustrophobic confines of a spinster-fussy cottage festooned with crocheted lace doilies and silk flower arrangements, and considering what must be his present mood of black despair, Kaley was sure he’d have tried a saint, much less his loving sister.

      Kaley only hoped that he wasn’t driving the cowboy up at Sumner camp half-crazy, too. Adam Dubois. Kaley had never met the man. He was a stranger Jim had hired in the spring, and who knew how patient he’d be with an unexpected guest, especially when that guest was an elderly, endlessly opinionated cowboy. Line camp men took jobs in the high country for a reason. As a breed, they tended to be loners, happiest without company.

      And even if—faint hope—all was bachelor bliss above, Whitey was too old for these remote and rugged mountains. He needed his own soft bed in the little house Kaley’s grandfather had built for him forty years ago out back of the barn. Needed a propane heater at night, a hot bath when he wanted one, decent meals and proximity to somebody who cared for him.

      So here she was. Kaley ducked under a low-hanging branch and tightened her knees; the chestnut surged uphill, ear tips almost touching with alert interest, hooves clopping softly on the dirt trail. It was nearly noon now, though she’d left the ranch at dawn. Assuming that she’d find Whitey in camp, rather than have to hunt him down out on the mountainside, still they’d be driving bad roads home in the dark.

      Of course there was one advantage to this. She’d miss Tripp again.

      She’d managed to duck him all yesterday. He’d come by once while she was in Trueheart and left her a note on the back door. Just four brusque words: We’ve got to talk.

      Then he’d returned after supper. She’d seen him from the slope of Cougar Rock Pasture, where she’d walked out to admire the sunset. Standing motionless under the trees, she’d watched Tripp hammer on her back door, then open it. She’d clenched her hands to fists at that. Thinks he owns the place already? They would have to talk.

      He’d emerged in a minute, apparently satisfied that she wasn’t hiding within, to stand glaring around the property.

      He’d stalked to the barn, no doubt figuring she was feeding the horses or chickens, then moments later he’d reappeared, a tall, unmistakably masculine shape in the gathering dusk, broad of shoulder, narrow of hip, turning slowly on his long horseman’s legs, staring out across the darkened pastures and slopes that he meant to own.

      She should have gone down to him. No use making things any rougher between them than they already were. Not when, thanks to her brother, Tripp had her dead to rights.

      She couldn’t bring herself to smile and do it. Not yet.

      She needed time to get the bitter pill down and keep it down. Bitterness piled on top of old bitterness, but still, there it was. Thanks to Jim she owed him. Owed him big-time. All the wishing in the world wouldn’t change that, any more than it had changed his mind nine years ago.

      Tomorrow she’d have to face him and work something out.

      But that was tomorrow, and today was today, Kaley reminded herself, squaring her shoulders. Today the sky was a color of high-altitude cobalt that Phoenix, with its streams of glittering, smog-belching traffic, would never match. Breathing deep, the cool air fragrant with pine, she tipped her head back to watch a black dot against the blue—a golden eagle, wheeling high above the granite pass toward which Sunny was climbing. She smoothed her palm round and round the top of her saddle horn, and laughed aloud. Oh, I’m home all right! However uncertain and terrifying her future, the present was sweet as wine. Kaley Cotter and daughter are home again.

      THE LINE CAMP STOOD in an alpine meadow, starred with late-blooming asters and goldenrod, encircled by the shivering gold of turning aspens. A one-room log cabin built by Kaley’s great-grandfather and added onto by every generation of Cotter since—a lean-to here for feed and tack, a shed for wood there, a rough pole corral that fenced in a small vegetable garden, keeping the crops safe from marauding cattle, if not the rabbits and deer.

      Three horses lazed at the far end of the pasture, in the shade of the trees. They lifted their heads and whinnied as Sunny trotted down the slope toward the cabin, then went back to their grazing. The line man would have five horses in his string, at least, Kaley figured. If two were missing, then he was out prowling the meadows. And Whitey must be, too, on a borrowed mount, since he’d driven his rattle-trap pickup to the trailhead and left it there.

      She tied off Sunny and knocked on the screen door. “’Lo the house!”

      Something stirred beyond the sun-spangled, rusty mesh.

      “Anybody home?” When nobody answered, Kaley opened the door.

      Lying in a bunk against the far wall, Whitey heaved himself to his elbows and blinked. “Kaley?” He swiped a gnarled hand across his unshaven face. “Kaley-girl?”

      She crossed the bare, dusty boards in four strides. In all the years she’d known him, Whitey had never slept past seven. “Whitey, what’s wrong?” She knelt beside him and touched his bristly cheek, then cupped a palm to his forehead. “You’re sick?”

      “Had a wreck yesterday. Nothin’ t’speak of.”

      A wreck was cowboy for a fall. One to speak of. Minor spills didn’t count. “You’re okay?” She checked the urge to whip off the dingy blanket that covered him and see for herself.

      “Banged up m’damn knee.”

      “Good one or bad one?” A cow had crushed his right knee between a gate and a fence post years ago. He limped badly at the best of times.

      His snort was a rueful laugh. “M’good one’s not so good now.” He touched her shoulder, the shy touch of a child. “What’re you doin’ here, girl?”

      “Come to bring you home. We’re not selling the ranch, Whitey. Not if I can help it.” She patted his hand, then stood hastily as his eyes glistened. He’d never survive her seeing him cry. With her own eyes brimming, she turned briskly on her heel. “Where’s Chang?”

      She spotted the circular heap of frizzy white-and-copper hair, coiled in a battered easy chair that was pulled up to the wood-burning stove. Trust Chang to claim the best seat in the house. “Hey, Chang.” She stooped beside the ancient Pekingese and warily offered her knuckles for his identification.

      A wavering growl issued from somewhere within the furry mound, and one brown goggle eye cracked open to regard her with weary malevolence. “Let’s go home, old guy.” The mountains were no place for a short-legged lapdog. “Mellowed a bit, hasn’t he?” she observed when he didn’t lunge for her. Oh, she’d stayed away too long! Even Chang had changed.

      “Just losing his teeth and too dang proud to gum you,” Whitey grunted. From the shuffling and groaning behind her, he was struggling into his jeans.

      “The hand here—Dubois?” she asked without turning. “Any chance he’ll be stopping back by for lunch?”

      “That Cajun? He never shows before dark.”

      Meaning that Whitey’s presence was probably proving a strain. Kaley’s eyes wandered to the bunk on the opposite wall from Whitey’s. A book on dinosaurs, of all things, rested on a Mexican blanket tucked to drum-tight perfection. “Too bad. I wanted to meet him.”

      She’d be needing at least two dependable hands to help with fall roundup. Jim had said Dubois could be trusted, but Kaley preferred to see for herself. Some cowboys had problems taking orders from women. If that was going to be an issue, she needed to know sooner rather than later.

      She scratched Chang’s tasseled ear