Cowboy Ever After: Big Sky Mountain. Maisey Yates

let it fall. “It seems like a pretty big coincidence that Madison would choose that particular name. She must have overheard it somewhere.”

      “Probably,” Tara allowed. Then she added, “Kendra, look at me.”

      Kendra shifted her gaze from drinking in the sight of Madison and Lucy, frolicking against a backdrop of blooming flowers of every hue, to Tara’s concerned face.

      “You’re not afraid she’ll come back, are you?” Tara prompted, almost in a whisper. “This Emma person, I mean, and try to take Madison away?”

      Kendra shook her head. She was at once comforted and saddened by the knowledge that Madison’s biological mother hadn’t wanted her baby enough to fight for her.

      The woman had demanded money, naturally, but she’d signed off readily enough once Jeffrey’s American lawyers got the point across that the buying and selling of babies was illegal.

      “She’s relinquished all rights to Madison,” she finally answered.

      Tara sighed. “It’s hard to understand some people,” she said.

      “Impossible,” Kendra agreed. Oddly, though, she wasn’t thinking of Madison’s birth mom anymore, but of Hutch.

      The man was a mystery, an enigma.

      He fractured women’s hearts with apparent impunity—there always seemed to be another hopeful waiting in the wings, certain she’d be the exception to the rule—and yet kids, dogs and horses saw nothing in him to fear and everything to love.

      Was he actually a good man, underneath all that bad-boy mojo and easy charm?

      “Still planning to sell this place, then?” Tara asked with a gesture of one hand that took in the mansion as well as the grounds.

      Kendra nodded. “I’ll be putting the proceeds in trust for Madison,” she said. She hadn’t told Joslyn and Tara everything, but they both knew Jeffrey had fathered the little girl. “It’s rightfully hers.”

      Tara absorbed that quietly and took another sip from her iced tea. “You won’t miss it? The money, I mean? Living in the biggest and fanciest house in town?”

      Kendra’s smile was rueful. “I’m not broke, Tara,” she said. “I’ve racked up a lot of commissions since I started Shepherd Real Estate.” She looked back over one shoulder at the looming structure behind them. “As for missing this house, no, I won’t, not for a moment. It’s a showplace, not a home.”

      Tara didn’t answer. She seemed to be musing, mulling something over.

      “So,” Kendra said, “how’s the chicken ranch coming along?”

      At that, Tara rolled her beautiful eyes. “It’s a disaster,” she answered with honest good humor. “The nesting-house roof is sagging, the hens aren’t laying—I suspect that’s because the roosters are secretly gay—and Boone Taylor still refuses to plant shrubbery to hide that eyesore of a trailer he lives in so it won’t be the first thing I see when I look out my kitchen window every morning.”

      “Regrets?” Kendra asked gently. Madison and Lucy seemed to be winding down; moving in slow motion as the shadows thickened. After a bath and a story, Madison would sleep soundly.

      Tara immediately shook her head. “No,” she said. “It’s hard, but I’m a long way from giving up.”

      “Good,” Kendra said with a smile. “Because I’d feel guilty if you were having second thoughts, considering I was the one who sold you the place.”

      “You might have warned me about the neighbors,” Tara joked.

      “Boone isn’t so bad,” Kendra felt honor-bound to say. She’d known him since childhood, known his late wife, Corrie, too. He’d lost interest in life for a long time after Corrie’s death from breast cancer a few years back, but last November he’d up and run for sheriff and gotten himself elected by a country mile. “He’s just stubborn, like most of the men around here. That’s what gets them through the hard times.”

      Tara’s eyes widened a little. “Does that apply to Hutch, too?”

      Kendra stood up, beckoned to her tired daughter. “Time to get ready for bed,” she called to Madison, who meandered slowly toward her—proof in itself that she was exhausted. Like most small children, she normally resisted sleep with all her might, lest she miss something.

      The puppy trotted over to Tara, nuzzling her knee, and she laughed as she bent to ruffle her ears.

      “If you think Lucy’s perfect,” she said, instead of goodbye, “just wait till you meet her sister.”

       CHAPTER THREE

      THE NEXT MORNING after church, Kendra gave in to the pressures of fate—and her very persistent daughter—and drove across town to Paws for Reflection, the private animal shelter run by a woman named Martie Wren.

      Martie, an institution in Parable, oversaw the operation out of an office in her small living room, surviving entirely on donations and the help of numerous volunteers. She’d converted the two large greenhouses in back to dog-and-cat housing, though she also took in birds and rabbits and even the occasional pygmy goat. The place was never officially closed, even on Sundays and holidays.

      A sturdy woman with kindly eyes and a shock of unruly gray hair, Martie was watering the flower beds in her front yard when Kendra and Madison arrived, parking on the street.

      “Tara said you might be stopping by,” Martie sang out happily, waving and then hurrying over to shut off the faucet and wind the garden hose around its plastic spool.

      Kendra, busy helping Madison out of her safety rigging in the backseat, smiled wryly back at the other woman. “Of course she did,” she replied cheerfully.

      “We’re here to see Lucy’s sister,” Madison remarked.

      Martie, at the front gate by then, pushing it wide open in welcome, chuckled. “Well, come on inside then, and have a look at her. She’s been waiting for you. Got her all dolled up just in case the two of you happened to take a shine to each other.”

      Kendra stifled a sigh. She wanted a dog as much as Madison did—there had been a canine-shaped hole in her heart for as long as she could remember—but she’d hoped to find a permanent place to live before acquiring a pet. Get settled in.

      Alas, the universe did not seem concerned with her personal plans.

      She and Madison passed through the gate, closing it behind them, and Martie led the way onto the neatly painted front porch and up to the door.

      The retriever puppy did indeed seem to be waiting—she was sitting primly on the hooked rug in the tiny entryway, with a bright red ribbon tied to her collar and her chocolate-brown eyes practically liquid with hope.

      Kendra immediately melted.

      Madison, meanwhile, placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head to one side, studying the yellow fluff-ball intently.

      The puppy rose from its haunches and approached the little girl, looking for all the world as though it were smiling at her. Where have you been? the animal’s expression seemed to say. We’re supposed to be having fun together.

      Madison turned her eyes to Kendra. “She’s so pretty,” she said, sounding awed, as though there had never been and never would be another dog like this one.

      “Very pretty,” Kendra agreed, choking up a little. She saw so much of her childhood self in Madison and that realization made her cautious. Madison was Madison, and trying to soothe her own childhood hurts through her daughter would be wrong on so many levels.

      Martie, an old hand at finding good homes for otherwise unwanted critters, simply waited, benignly silent. She believed in letting things