Part of the Bargain. Linda Miller Lael

word “husband” jarred Libby a little, bringing an unwelcome image of Aaron into her mind as it did, and she didn’t speak again until the house came into sight.

      Originally the main ranch house, the structure set aside for the general foreman was an enormous, drafty place with plenty of Victorian scrollwork, gabled windows and porches. It overlooked a sizable spring-fed pond and boasted its own sheltering copse of evergreens and cottonwood trees.

      The truck lurched a little as Ken brought it to a stop in the gravel driveway, and through the windshield Libby could see glimmering patches of the silver-blue sparkle that was the pond. She longed to hurry there now, kick off her shoes on the grassy bank and ruin her stockings wading in the cold, clear water.

      But her father was getting out of the truck, and Cathy Barlow, Libby’s cousin and cherished friend, was dashing down the driveway, her pretty face alight with greeting.

      Libby laughed and stood waiting beside the pickup truck, her arms out wide.

      After an energetic hug had been exchanged, Cathy drew back in Libby’s arms and lifted a graceful hand to sign the words: “I’ve missed you so much!”

      “And I’ve missed you,” Libby signed back, though she spoke the words aloud, too.

      Cathy’s green eyes sparkled. “You haven’t forgotten how to sign!” she enthused, bringing both hands into play now. She had been deaf since childhood, but she communicated so skillfully that Libby often forgot that they weren’t conversing verbally. “Have you been practicing?”

      She had. Signing had been a game for her and Jonathan to play during the long, difficult hours she’d spent at his hospital bedside. Libby nodded and tears of love and pride gathered in her dark blue eyes as she surveyed her cousin—physically, she and Cathy bore no resemblance to each other at all.

      Cathy was petite, her eyes wide, mischievous emeralds, her hair a glistening profusion of copper and chestnut and gold that reached almost to her waist. Libby was of medium height, and her silver-blond hair fell just short of her shoulders.

      “I’ll be back later,” Ken said quietly, signing the words as he spoke so that Cathy could understand, too. “You two have plenty to say to each other, it looks like.”

      Cathy nodded and smiled, but there was something sad trembling behind the joy in her green eyes, something that made Libby want to scurry back to the truck and beg to be driven back to the airstrip. From there she could fly to Kalispell and catch a connecting flight to Denver and then New York….

      Good Lord—surely Jess hadn’t been so heartless as to share his ridiculous suspicions with Cathy!

      The interior of the house was cool and airy, and Libby followed along behind Cathy, her thoughts and feelings in an incomprehensible tangle. She was glad to be home, no doubt about it. She’d yearned for the quiet sanity of this place almost from the moment of leaving it.

      On the other hand, she wasn’t certain that she’d been wise to come back. Jess obviously intended to make her feel less than welcome, and although she had certainly never been intimately involved with Stacey Barlowe, Cathy’s husband, sometimes her feelings toward him weren’t all that clearly defined.

      Unlike his younger brother, Stace was a warm, outgoing person, and through the shattering events of the past year and a half, he had been a tender and steadfast friend. Adrift in waters of confusion and grief, Libby had told Stacey things that she had never breathed to another living soul, and it was true that, as Jess had so bitterly pointed out, she had written to the man when she couldn’t bring herself to contact her own father.

      But she wasn’t in love with Stace, Libby told herself firmly. She had always looked up to him, that was all—like an older brother. Maybe she’d become a little too dependent on him in the bargain, but that didn’t mean she cared for him in a romantic way, did it?

      She sighed, and Cathy turned to look at her pensively, almost as though she had heard the sound. That was impossible, of course, but Cathy was as perceptive as anyone Libby had ever known, and she often felt sounds.

      “Glad to be home?” the deaf woman inquired, gesturing gently.

      Libby didn’t miss the tremor in her cousin’s hands, but she forced a weary smile to her face and nodded in answer to the question.

      Suddenly Cathy’s eyes were sparkling again, and she caught Libby’s hand in her own and tugged her through an archway and into the glassed-in sunporch that overlooked the pond.

      Libby drew in a swift, delighted breath. There was indeed a skylight in the roof—a big one. A drawing table had been set up in the best light the room offered, along with a lamp for night work, and there were flowering plants hanging from the exposed beams in the ceiling. The old wicker furniture that had been stored in the attic for as long as Libby could remember had been painted a dazzling white and bedecked with gay floral-print cushions. Small rugs in complementary shades of pink and green had been scattered about randomly, and there was even a shelving unit built into the wall behind the art table.

      “Wow!” cried Libby, overwhelmed, her arms spread out wide in a gesture of wonder. “Cathy, you missed your calling! You should have been an interior decorator.”

      Though Libby hadn’t signed the words, her cousin had read them from her lips. Cathy’s green eyes shifted quickly from Libby’s face, and she lowered her head. “Instead of what?” she motioned sadly. “Instead of Stacey’s wife?”

      Libby felt as though she’d been slapped, but she recovered quickly enough to catch one hand under Cathy’s chin and force her head up. “Exactly what do you mean by that?” she demanded, and she was never certain afterward whether she had signed the words, shouted them, or simply thought them.

      Cathy shrugged in a miserable attempt at nonchalance, and one tear slid down her cheek. “He went to see you in New York,” she challenged, her hands moving quickly now, almost angrily. “You wrote to him.”

      “Cathy, it wasn’t what you think—”

      “Wasn’t it?”

      Libby was furious and wounded, and she stomped one foot in frustration. “Of course it wasn’t! Do you really think I would do a thing like that? Do you think Stacey would? He loves you!” And so does Jess, she lamented in silence, without knowing why that should matter.

      Stubbornly Cathy averted her eyes again and shoved her hands into the pockets of her lightweight cotton jacket—a sure signal that as far as she was concerned, the conversation was over.

      In desperation, Libby reached out and caught her cousin’s shoulders in her hands, only to be swiftly rebuffed by an eloquent shrug. She watched, stricken to silence, as Cathy turned and hurried out of the sunporch-turned-studio and into the kitchen beyond. Just a moment later the back door slammed with a finality that made Libby ache through and through.

      She ducked her head and bit her lower lip to keep the tears back. That, too, was something she had learned during Jonathan’s final confinement in a children’s hospital.

      Just then, Jess Barlowe filled the studio doorway. Libby was aware of him in all her strained senses.

      He set down her suitcases and drawing board with an unsympathetic thump. “I see you’re spreading joy and good cheer as usual,” he drawled in acid tones. “What, pray tell, was that all about?”

      Libby was infuriated, and she glared at him, her hands resting on her trim rounded hips. “As if you didn’t know, you heartless bastard! How could you be so mean…so thoughtless…”

      The fiery green eyes raked Libby’s travel-rumpled form with scorn. Ignoring her aborted question, he offered one of his own. “Did you think your affair with my brother was a secret, princess?”

      Libby was fairly choking on her rage and her pain. “What affair, dammit?” she shouted. “We didn’t have an affair!”

      “That isn’t what Stacey says,”