Part of the Bargain. Linda Lael Miller

Libby,” he said in a low, gentle voice.

      The tears that sprang into Libby’s eyes were not related to the tang of her father’s red-devil taco sauce. “He died,” she choked miserably.

      “I know that. You called me the night it happened, remember? I guess what I’m really asking you is why you didn’t want me to fly back there and help you sort things out.”

      Libby lowered her head. Jonathan hadn’t been her son, he’d been Aaron’s, by a previous marriage. But the loss of the child was a raw void within her, even though months had passed. “I didn’t want you to get a firsthand look at my marriage,” she admitted with great difficulty—and the shame she couldn’t seem to shake.

      “Why not, Libby?”

      The sound Libby made might have been either a laugh or a sob. “Because it was terrible,” she answered.

      “From the first?”

      She forced herself to meet her father’s steady gaze, knew that he had guessed a lot about her marriage from her rare phone calls and even rarer letters. “Almost,” she replied sadly.

      “Tell me.”

      Libby didn’t want to think about Aaron, let alone talk about him to this man who wouldn’t understand so many things. “He had…he had lovers.”

      Ken didn’t seem surprised. Had he guessed that, too? “Go on.”

      “I can’t!”

      “Yes, you can. If it’s too much for you right now, I won’t press you. But the sooner you talk this out, Libby, the better off you’re going to be.”

      She realized that her hands were clenched in her lap and tried to relax them. There was still a white mark on her finger where Aaron’s ostentatious wedding ring had been. “He didn’t care,” she mourned in a soft, distracted whisper. “He honestly didn’t care….”

      “About you?”

      “About Jonathan. Dad, he didn’t care about his own son!”

      “How so, sweetheart?”

      Libby dashed away tears with the back of one hand. “Th-things were bad between Aaron and me b-before we found out that Jonathan was sick. After the doctors told us, it was a lot worse.”

      “I don’t follow you, Libby.”

      “Dad, Aaron wouldn’t have anything to do with Jonathan from the moment we knew he was dying. He wasn’t there for any of the tests and he never once came to visit at the hospital. Dad, that little boy cried for his father, and Aaron wouldn’t come to him!”

      “Did you talk to Aaron?”

      Remembered frustration made Libby’s cheeks pound with color. “I pleaded with him, Dad. All he’d say was, ‘I can’t handle this.’”

      “It would be a hell of a thing to deal with, Lib. Maybe you’re being too hard on the man.”

      “Too hard? Too hard? Jonathan was terrified, Dad, and he was in pain—constant pain. All he asked was that his own father be strong for him!”

      “What about the boy’s mother? Did she come to the hospital?”

      “Ellen died when Jonathan was a baby.”

      Ken sighed, framing a question he was obviously reluctant to ask. “Did you ever love Aaron Strand, Libby?”

      Libby remembered the early infatuation, the excitement that had never deepened into real love and had quickly been quelled by the realities of marriage to a man who was fundamentally self-centered. She tried, but she couldn’t even recall her ex-husband’s face clearly—all she could see in her mind was a pair of jade-green eyes, dark hair. Jess. “No,” she finally said. “I thought I did when I married him, though.”

      Ken stood up suddenly, took the coffeepot from its back burner on the stove, refilled both their cups. “I don’t like asking you this, but—”

      “No, Dad,” Libby broke in firmly, anticipating the question all too well, “I don’t love Stacey!”

      “You’re sure about that?”

      The truth was that Libby hadn’t been sure, not entirely. But that ill-advised episode with Jess at the end of the swimming dock had brought everything into clear perspective. Just remembering how willingly she had submitted to him made her throb with embarrassment. “I’m sure,” she said.

      Ken’s strong hand came across the table to close over hers. “You’re home now,” he reminded her, “and things are going to get better, Libby. I promise you that.”

      Libby sniffled inelegantly. “Know something, cowboy? I love you very much.”

      “Bet you say that to all your fathers,” Ken quipped. “You planning to work on your comic strip tomorrow?”

      The change of subject was welcome. “I’m six or eight weeks ahead of schedule on that, so I’m not worried about my deadline. I think I’ll go riding, if I can get Cathy to go with me.”

      “I was looking forward to watching you work. What’s your process?”

      Libby smiled, feeling sheltered by the love of this strong and steady man facing her. She explained how her cartoons came into being, thinking it was good to talk about work, to think about work.

      Disdainful as he had been about her career, it was the one thing Aaron had not been able to spoil for her.

      Nobody’s fool, Ken drew her out on the subject as much as he could, and she found herself chattering on and on about cartooning and even her secret hope to branch out into portraits one day.

      They talked, father and daughter, far into the night.

      “You deserve this,” Jess Barlowe said to his reflection in the bathroom mirror. A first-class hangover pounded in his head and roiled in his stomach, and his face looked drawn, as though he’d been hibernating like one of the bears that sometimes troubled the range stock.

      Grimly he began to shave, and as he wielded his disposable razor, he wondered if Libby was awake yet. Should he stop at Ken’s and talk to her before going on to the main house to spend a day with the corporation accountants?

      Jess wanted to go to Libby, to tell her that he was sorry for baiting her, to try to get their complex relationship—if it was a relationship—onto some kind of sane ground. However, all his instincts told him that his father had been right the day before: Libby needed time.

      His thoughts strayed to Libby’s stepson. What would it be like to sit by a hospital bed, day after day, watching a child suffer and not being able to help?

      Jess shuddered. It was hard to imagine the horror of something like that. At least Libby had had her husband to share the nightmare.

      He frowned as he nicked his chin with the razor, blotted the small wound with tissue paper. If Libby had had her husband during that impossible time, why had she needed Stacey?

      Stacey. Now, there was someone he could talk to. Granted, Jess had not been on the best of terms with his older brother of late, but the man had a firsthand knowledge of what was happening inside Libby Kincaid, and that was reason enough to approach him.

      Feeling better for having a plan, Jess finished his ablutions and got dressed. Normally he spent his days on the range with Ken and the ranch hands, but today, because of his meeting with the accountants, he forwent his customary blue jeans and cotton workshirt for a tailored three-piece suit. He was still struggling with his tie as he made his way down the broad redwood steps that led from the loftlike second floor of his house to the living room.

      Here there was a massive fireplace of white limestone, taking up the whole of one wall. The floors were polished oak and boasted a number of brightly colored Indian rugs. Two easy chairs and a deep sofa faced the hearth, and Jess’s cluttered desk looked out over the ranchland and the glacial