“Wayne, why did you vote the way you did?”

“Maybe I don’t like to be rushed into things.”

Maggie straightened and shoved stray hair out of her eyes. “That’s something, anyway. Something I can work with.”

The muscles of his jaw rippled along one side. “I’m not sure I like the idea of being the object of one of your campaigns, but I guess it comes with the territory.”

“It won’t hurt,” she said with a smile. “Not much, anyway.”

A silence fell between them, the pale wisps of their breath mingling and dissipating in the moonlit air. He pushed away from the truck. “What exactly is it you want from me, Maggie?”

“I want your promise to consider my proposal with an open mind.”

“I’ll consider that proposal of yours, if you’ll consider the possibility that my mind was open to it in the first place.”

She squelched the urge to argue his last point. “All right,” she said, extending her right hand. “I will.”

He slid his hand against her palm. It was wide and warm and rough with calluses.

His long fingers slowly closed around hers. “That’s something, anyway,” he said. “Guess I’ll find out whether or not it’s something I can work with.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Terry McLaughlin spent a dozen years teaching a variety of subjects, including anthropology, music appreciation, English, drafting, drama and history, to a variety of students before she discovered romance novels and fell in love with love stories. When she’s not reading and writing, she enjoys travelling and dreaming up house and garden improvement projects (although most of those dreams don’t come true).

Terry lives with her husband in Northern California on a tiny ranch in the redwoods. Visit her at www.terrymclaughlin.com.

Dear Reader,

When I began work on The Rancher Needs a Wife, I didn’t intend to write a story about stage fright. But as I sat at my keyboard and struggled with my writing fears – the doubts that appear every time I place my hands on the keyboard and whisper that I won’t be able to pull off the trick this time – I realised I could transfer some of my feelings to my characters. Not a nice thing to do, perhaps, but torturing characters is one way writers create stories.

Wayne and Maggie face their fears of public exposure in surprising ways. I hope you’ll enjoy their triumphs over their struggles as much as I enjoyed writing about them.

I’d love to hear from my readers! Please come for a visit to my website at www. terrymclaughlin. com, or find me at www.wetnoodleposse.com or www.superauthors.com, or write to me at PO Box 5838, Eureka, CA 95502, USA.

Wishing you happily-ever-after reading,

Terry McLaughlin

The Rancher Needs a Wife

TERRY McLAUGHLIN

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Karin,

who wondered what happened next.

CHAPTER ONE

WAYNE HAMMOND FIGURED two factors were responsible for the standing-room-only crowd at tonight’s school board meeting: a visiting celebrity and the rumor of a big donation. He doubted it was a sudden curiosity about educational policy or campus maintenance that was filling the high school auditorium’s dented metal chairs as fast as they could be unfolded.

Most of the folks who’d turned out on this cold September night in Tucker, Montana, had likely come to gawk at the man seated opposite Wayne’s chairman spot on the board’s makeshift dais. Hollywood superstar Fitz Kelleran slouched in his boneless style on a front row seat, his long, jeans-clad legs crossed at the ankles. One arm was slung across the back of his wife’s chair, where he toyed with the tail of her thick reddish braid with casual and absentminded affection.

Ellie Harrison Kelleran was a very lucky woman, and it wasn’t only because the widow had lassoed a marriage proposal from the handsome actor who’d arrived at her family’s ranch for a summer location shoot three months ago. It was because she’d deflected a potential proposal from Wayne.

He frowned down at the meeting agenda, remembering how he’d been easing his way into a courtship. He’d figured he’d keep things practical at first, pointing out the logic of a match between two longtime friends and neighbors, a match that would remove some of the fence line between their spreads. Ellie would gain a new daddy for the young daughter Tom Harrison had left behind when he died, and Wayne would get a head start on the family he’d always wanted.

Not the most romantic approach, maybe, but then he hadn’t thought Ellie was the kind of woman who needed it. That was before Kelleran had arrived at Granite Ridge Ranch and swept her right off her feet.

Wayne had been wrong about a woman before, and his own marriage’s failure was a painful testament to that. He’d thought fun-loving Alicia would settle into life on his ranch and quit her pining for the round-the-clock social whirl of Las Vegas. Looking back on it all, he could see what a fool he’d been to toss aside his usual caution and rush headlong into a relationship with a woman who craved the kind of attention he couldn’t provide.

But like most of the single men in Tucker—and likely some of the married ones, too—Wayne had taken one look at Alicia and fallen head over heels in lust. When he’d regained his balance, he’d found himself married to a woman who didn’t care for life on a ranch, wasn’t in a hurry to start a family and didn’t want to stay through another Montana winter. He didn’t intend to lose his footing again.

At the moment, however, he was thinking he might have slipped into a mess of a different kind. The audience continued to swell in a shifting, murmuring mass with dozens of staring faces, and a familiar discomfort had him hunching in his seat and poring obsessively through the thin stack of paperwork before him.

Stage fright. It unnerved him enough to keep him from the spotlight, but, on occasions such as this, he hunkered down and refused to let the panic prevent him from participating in community events or taking advantage of business opportunities. Tonight he’d force himself to sit with his fellow board members and remind himself, over and over, that no one had come to ogle him. He’d concentrate on the business at hand and the familiar faces in the front row and ignore the ocean of bodies beyond.

“Here comes trouble.” Board member Trace Bardett shoved a knobby black microphone into a short plastic stand under Wayne’s chin and jerked his head toward the woman striding down the crooked center aisle. “Ms. Hell-on-Heels.”

Maggie Harrison Sinclair. She had her mother’s blond hair and blue eyes, and her father’s rangy height and angular build, but her agile mind and uptown attitude were all her own. Throughout their high school days she’d made it clear that she was aiming for bigger landscapes and broader horizons. Plenty of classmates had dreamed of similar, exciting futures, but only Maggie had scrounged up the gumption and the guts to make her dream happen.

And now she seemed as out of place in this Stetsoned and Wranglered crowd as a Lotus at a stock car race, sleek and exotic and meant for something other than circling a dirt track.

She’d come back to Granite Ridge in June for her niece’s birthday celebration, and she was still there, camped out in the guest cabin. Rumor had it she was lying low, licking the wounds of a nasty divorce—some unfortunate tangle of infertility and infidelity, though Wayne hadn’t paid much attention to the gossip over which ex-partner had been guilty of which. Still, no one in Tucker had expected Maggie to stick it out this long, and even after she’d agreed to fill a temporary teaching vacancy at the high school, the local consensus was she’d head back to Chicago at the earliest opportunity. Exactly what that opportunity might be had been the source of lively conjecture.

Ignoring the curious glances cast her way, she aimed her fancy leather briefcase through the crush, marched to the front of the room and slid into the empty seat beside her former sister-in-law. Wayne caught himself staring and lowered his eyes, but a pair of flirty pink bows on sexy black heels hovered within his peripheral vision. And a few seconds after one endless leg lifted gracefully to cross over a shapely knee, the scent of some richly seductive perfume flowed over the papers lying below his unfocused gaze.

“Lordy.” Charlie Simms, seated to his left, leaned in with a gravelly whisper, and the extra-onions-on-the-burger smell riding on his breath went a long way toward banishing Maggie’s spell. “Legs like that should be locked up for inciting a riot.”

A few moments later Shelby Ingersoll and Alice Landry took their seats next to Charlie and Trace at the board table, and Trace reached over and flipped on the microphone. Everyone groaned as the sound system squealed abuse through the speakers tacked up near the stage curtains behind the dais, and Wayne waited for the worst of it to subside before calling the meeting to order. The crowd shuffled to its feet for the flag salute and then shifted back to wait through the routine of roll call, agenda adoption, minutes approval and reports.

At last the time arrived for new business. Wayne stared at his papers and cleared his throat, and then winced when the speakers whined in protest. “The board is pleased to announce,” he said, “that the newest member of our Tucker community, Mr. John Fitzgerald Kelleran, has generously pledged the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars to the local school district, specifically for improvements to the high school campus.”

Several whistles punctuated the applause that followed, nearly drowning out the feedback squawking in sync with the din. Kelleran shot Ellie a rueful glance before rising from his chair to face the audience and nod a brief and modest acknowledgment. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling and tugged him back into his seat.

Wayne smiled at her reaction. Marriage to a millionaire would never change Ellie. He only wished he could feel equally confident about Tucker. He was as grateful as any of them to have the money for the school, but a bit worried about the effect such largesse—and the deep pockets of its source—might have on the local economic balance.

He waited for things to settle down a bit before he continued with the business end of the proposition. “Mr. Kelleran requests that his donation be applied toward one specific purpose, whether that be for academic, athletic or structural use. The board is to consider the proposals presented to it, and to make its recommendation to Mr. Kelleran for his approval no later than the first of the coming year.”

“Shouldn’t take three months to figure out a way to spend the money,” Boot Rawlins called out from the back row. “I can think of a dozen ways between now and next week.”

Laughter and a buzz of conversational commotion followed Boot’s interruption, and Trace tugged the microphone closer. “Since there aren’t any other items of new business,” he said, “I move that we proceed to the next item on the agenda—communication from the floor.”

“I second that motion,” said Charlie.

The ladies of the board agreed, and Wayne settled back into his chair, coasting along with the political maneuver and preparing to consider the one proposal he expected to hear tonight. News of Kelleran’s offer had leaked the moment he’d made it, and it hadn’t taken long for a groundswell of support to rise in favor of one particular use for the windfall. It wasn’t a purely democratic system, but it seemed to work just fine for the folks in and around Tucker. No one liked to rock the boat—unless enough of them thought it should be capsized and sent to the bottom.

He reclaimed the microphone to recognize Frank Guthrie, father of two Tucker High students—a varsity lineman and an all-county first baseman—and president of the athletic boosters’ organization.

Guthrie strode to the front of the room and hitched up his silver rodeo-prize belt buckle before turning to face his fellow parents and community members. “In anticipation of a certain amount of money being suddenly made available to the high school,” he said, “it just so happens I have here a list for some equipment and materials, along with bids for the construction and labor required for setting things up.”

He raised a handful of papers. “I propose that the board approve the purchase of a new football and baseball scoreboard for the high school field, along with new metal stands to seat a crowd of two hundred.”

More whistles accompanied the cheering for Guthrie’s speech, and he bobbed his head and clapped with the others, crushing the edges of his list. “And it just so happens,” he continued, “that the total for these improvements is only a tad bit over twenty-five thousand dollars. The members of the booster club figure they can cover the excess amount with the proceeds from a barbecue dinner served up as part of the halftime celebrations during this season’s homecoming football game.”

With a flourish, he turned and handed Wayne the wrinkled papers and moved back down the aisle toward his seat.

“Are there any other proposals this evening?” Wayne asked as Guthrie’s copies were passed to everyone at the board table. He glanced down at a shopping list that seemed a little short on the details and a touch optimistic on the math.

“Oh, hell,” said Trace.

Wayne’s head snapped up, and he smothered a groan as one of the people in the front row raised her hand. “The chair recognizes Maggie Sinclair.”

She stood and began to pull thin, colored folders from her briefcase.

“Lordy,” Charlie whispered. “What the hell do you think she’s up to?”

“This better not take long,” Trace murmured none too quietly. “I told Janie I’d finish up here in time to fetch her mother home from bingo at St. Veronica’s.”

Maggie stepped to the front and angled herself to face the audience and the board. Her long, slim form, outlined in a snug pink jacket and skirt of some kind of lumpy burlap-like fabric, was no-nonsense straight.

“In anticipation of Frank’s anticipation,” she said, inclining her head toward Guthrie and his cronies on the other side of the room, “I’ve come here tonight prepared to make an alternative proposal for the use of the funds pledged by my brother-in-law.”

“Pushing the family connection,” Charlie muttered as Maggie handed some of her folders to Alice. “Playing hardball.”

“She’s got the balls for it,” said Trace.

His comment crackled faintly over the speakers, and sniggers spread in a wave through the room. Kelleran coughed behind his fist and sank lower in his chair, and Ellie glared at the three men at the board table.

Maggie flashed a cool smile at Trace and stepped closer. “Ladies and gentlemen of the school board,” she said. “Please take a good look at the stage behind you.”

Wayne swiveled with the others to gaze at the darkened area. He saw what he’d always seen there: wine-red curtains, a bedraggled backdrop and scraps of lumber tilted against cobwebby corners. He turned back in time to see Maggie hand Kelleran one of her neat packets.

“If you were to look more closely,” she continued, “you’d see curtains so threadbare they’re on the verge of disintegration. Lighting so old and damaged it poses an electrical hazard. Mice nesting among the flats and a questionable supply of costumes and props that should be hauled to the nearest landfill. As for the sound system, well, that’s the one thing that isn’t in a state of disrepair.”

“Thank God for that,” said Boot.

“That’s because there isn’t one,” she said when the audience had quit laughing at Boot’s remark. “Nothing beyond this one miserable excuse for a microphone and two poorly wired speakers.” She plucked the microphone from its little plastic stand. Right on cue, a painful squeal bounced off the auditorium walls.

Several members of the audience shifted uncomfortably as the feedback died with a strangled echo. Wayne noticed Kelleran paging through his packet with a frown.

“As you’ll see when you’ve had a chance to examine the paperwork I’ve given you,” said Maggie, “I’ve outlined and prioritized a list of purchases to replace broken and outmoded equipment, along with some basic necessities that would make the stage area both safe and useful for any number of school and community purposes.”

She flipped the switch on the microphone, set it back on the board table and shifted to face the crowd. “A functional school stage can be used and enjoyed by the entire student population, not only those involved in football or baseball. Students who participate in sports and students who don’t. Students who wish to appear before an audience and those who prefer to stay behind the scenes. Students who are male and female,” she added with a meaningful glance at the two female board members.

“I propose,” said Maggie, “that the school board use the funds so generously provided by actor Fitz Kelleran to promote the performing arts here at Tucker High School. I propose that the board repair and refurbish the high school stage area.”

When she took her seat, the kind of debate Wayne had hoped to avoid began in earnest. One audience member after another took the floor, arguing the value of gate receipts at sporting events versus box office income, or pointing out the numbers of students involved in athletics as opposed to those who might be tempted to try out for a play, or measuring the benefits of physical fitness against the development of talent off the playing field.

His unease intensified as the people he knew so well began to label and categorize and count each other as either pro or con, with the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars highlighting the differences.

Beside him, Trace pulled a cell phone from his pocket with a frustrated sigh and mumbled something about arranging transportation for his mother-in-law.

When the audience’s arguments began to spread throughout the auditorium and to grow a touch heated, Wayne called for order. “I’ll remind you all that the board has until the first of the year to make its final recommendation.”

“But if we get moving on this,” shouted Guthrie, “we could have the bleachers in place and the scoreboard ready for the homecoming game next month.”

“I move that we vote on both proposals tonight,” said Charlie. “No one has come up with anything else, and it’s obvious plenty of folks feel mighty strong one way or the other about this.”

“I second that,” said Trace.

Shelby and Alice straightened like stiff bookends on each side of the board table, tight-lipped and solemn, looking to Wayne to take the next step.

Damnation. His stomach twisted into a taut, queasy knot. This was the moment he’d been dreading since Maggie had pulled those little colored packets out of that briefcase of hers. He could feel the attention closing on him like a vise. He stared at the chipped veneer on the table, trying to block the image of dozens of eyes staring at him, and his head pounded.

“It has been moved and seconded,” he said, knowing he couldn’t do anything else, “that

the board vote tonight on the two proposals for allocating the donation pledged by Mr. Fitz Kelleran. All those in favor?”

Charlie and Trace quickly renewed their support.

“All those opposed?”

“Nay,” said Shelby.

“Nay,” said Alice.

It was up to Wayne to break the tie.

Logic pulled him one way; his conscience tugged him the other. And his hesitation over the matter only prolonged the panic playing havoc with his thought processes. At the edges of his vision he could see Charlie’s head shake in disbelief and Trace shift in an impatient move. And he could just make out a sassy pink bow on a pointy black shoe dangling from a long, slim foot attached to a spectacular ankle.

He surrendered to the inevitable and released the breath he’d been holding. “Nay.”

CHAPTER TWO

A HALF HOUR LATER, Maggie wobbled on her heels as she crossed the gravel lot toward Wayne Hammond’s pickup. She knew her fashion choices were impractical for the ranch lands of southwestern Montana, but she was unwilling to abandon this one small link to the sanity of city life. “Hey, Wayne! Wait up a minute.”

He turned to face her, his dark brown hair and Marlboro Man features nearly obscured by the wide brim of his black Stetson. As she crunched and lurched her way closer, he shot out an arm to steady her, and she was reminded just how tall he was. She was the same height as many of the men she knew, but even in her heels she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze.

And since this was Wayne, his gaze immediately dropped to the ground at his feet. The man was as bashful as ever.

“Thanks,” she said.

He released her arm. “You should get yourself a good pair of boots.”

“I’ve already got some.”

“I meant some real ones.”

“I know what you meant.” She wedged her hands into her tiny jacket pockets and wished she’d thought to pull on her wool duster before heading his way. “I have a pair of ‘real boots,’ too. But they don’t exactly coordinate with raspberry bouclé.”

“Raspberry bouclé.” One side of his mouth quirked in a half smile, and his eyes flickered up to meet hers for a second before lowering again. “Sounds nearly good enough to eat.”

She suspected, for a moment, that he might be flirting with her. But since this was Wayne, she figured the teasing tone in his voice was simply that—a mild and friendly pokeforold times’ sake. “Look,” she said, “I didn’t come out here to exchange fashion tips.”

“I’m relieved to hear it.” He toed the gravel with a worn leather boot. “Wouldn’t want folks around here to get the wrong idea about why I’ve suddenly taken up such an interest in raspberry bouclé and the like.”

He shot her another one of his shy glances, and she got the distinct impression he was enjoying some mysterious private joke at her expense. “No, I don’t suppose you would,” she said.

“Why did you come out here, Maggie?”

“To tell you that I’m surprised you voted the way you did,” she said. “And to thank you for doing it.”

She heard his deep intake of breath and his quiet, resigned sigh. “I didn’t do it for you,” he said.

“I know that.”

“Then why are you thanking me?”

“Maybe I’m trying to be neighborly.”

“Is that why you made your proposal?”

His glance this time was as sharp as the frosty air. “To be neighborly?”

“Are you implying my proposal isn’t?”

“There’s nothing wrong with your proposal.”

“With my methods, then.”

“I’m not implying anything.”

“So you’re coming right out and saying it.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets and cocked one hip against the truck door in a casual pose. “If you’re looking for a fight, Maggie, you’re going to have to look somewhere else.”

She flashed him one of her sweetest smiles. “Now, why would I want to pick a fight with one of the very people I need to convince that my proposal is the right choice for Tucker High?”

“I don’t know,” he said in a maddeningly reasonable tone.

He stood there, as solid and steady as ever, waiting with the kind of long-suffering patience that always seemed to ratchet up her frustration level, and she fought back the temptation to stalk away. She reminded herself that she needed his goodwill if her plan was going to succeed, and that she’d have to learn to deal with his special brand of stubborn passivity.

He’d lowered his head until his hat brim hid most of his face, but she could still see the slow curve of his lips.

“What are you grinning at?” she asked.

“I can nearly hear the wheels spinning in that clever head of yours,” he said. “Figuring all the angles, all at the same time. Probably looking to find the weakest link on the board and work on it until it snaps.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing? Working on you?”

His grin disappeared and his chin came up, the merest fraction of an inch, enough for her to see the faint glint of his eyes beneath the Stetson’s brim. Shadow and light slid over his features, highlighting the rugged arrangement of skin and bone. He’d been a good-looking boy. And he’d grown to be an extremely attractive man.

A strong man, a man who had refused to follow his mother’s desertion, who had dug in and struggled through his alcoholic father’s abusive decline and early death. A man who had battled to hold on to his family’s ruined ranch and then slaved to rebuild it. A man who would never be a weak link by any stretch of the imagination.

“I’d like to see you try,” he said in his deep, quiet voice.

“I’ll bet you would,” she answered.

“Could be interesting.”

“Could be at that.”

Something hovered and snapped in the cold space between them, something that had nothing to do with the echoing past or the current situation. And then his hat brim lowered like a blind to shut her out, and her tension floated away on a tiny cloud puff of a sigh.

“Guthrie did a lot of working of his own on that proposal of his,” said Wayne. “Talked up his idea with a lot of folks around here. Hammered out a kind of informal agreement on how things should be.”

“He never considered any possibility other than something connected to sports.”

“I s’pose there’s a bit of truth to what you’re suggesting. Guthrie’s mighty proud of those big boys of his. And he’s got another one coming along that promises to be every bit as big and fast and tough.” He settled back more comfortably and crossed his feet at the ankles. “And maybe nothing else came to mind because sports is something most everyone in town can relate to.”

“Maybe that’s because there’s nothing else to do.”

“Maybe so. It’s hard to find a variety of things to do when there aren’t more than a few thousand people in this and the next three counties put together. And most of them are busy with making a living off the land.” His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “And maybe sports are what most folks like to watch. And if they don’t, they can talk about how their neighbors’ kids did in the game the night before.”

“There’s more to life than ball games.”

“That’s right,” he said. “There’s rodeo.”

She folded her arms and glared at him. “You obviously agree with Guthrie.”

“I do?”

“And because you do,” she said, brushing aside his question, “why did you vote the way you did?”

“Maybe I don’t like to be rushed into things.”

“All right, then.” She straightened and shoved stray bangs out of her eyes. “That’s something, anyway. Something I can work with.”

“If you say so.” The muscles of his jaw rippled along one side and then the other. “I’m not sure I like the idea of being the object of one of your campaigns, but I guess it comes with the territory.”

“It won’t hurt,” she said with a smile. “Not much, anyway.”

A silence fell between them, the pale wisps of their breath mingling and dissipating in the moonlit air. He straightened away from the truck, and his dark eyes gleamed down at her. “What exactly is it you want from me, Maggie?”

“I want your promise to consider my proposal with an open mind.”

“I’ll consider that proposal of yours, if you’ll consider the possibility that my mind was open to it in the first place.”

She squelched the urge to argue his last point, deciding it would be better to let it go and close the deal. “All right,” she said, extending her right hand. “I will.”

He pulled his hands from his pockets and slid one of them against her palm. It was wide and warm and rough with calluses.

His long fingers slowly closed around hers. “That’s something, anyway,” he said. “Guess I’ll find out whether or not it’s something I can work with.”

“TEAM CAPTAIN and two-time All-County quarterback, Wayne Hammond!”

The dull roar of the homecoming crowd in the stands drowned out the electronic echo of the voice blaring from the speakers, and he throttled back the fear so his feet could move. He aimed for the straggly group of his senior class teammates arranged around the fifty-yard line and started across the field.

The jounce of the padding, the salty stink of his sweat, the hot puffs of breath shredding in the knife-cold night air as his uniform shirt shoved through them—he took it all in, every crystalline sensation, to crowd aside the swelling lump of panic. Trampled grass, slippery mud, the ground so hard beneath cleated feet, jarring his aching knee with every step.

It didn’t hurt, not really, not enough to be taken out of the game. He didn’t favor the leg, didn’t show the pain.

Didn’t let them know it hurt.

He used the pain. Focused on it—that’s what he always did. He pulled tight, pulled in, shut out the rest and went through the motions. Shook hands, Jed’s and Grizzle’s and Trace’s. Faced the stands, nodded and raised a hand. Stared into the lights, the icy white glare. Let the lights blind him to what was beyond—the faces, the people.

This was what he’d worked for, and waited for, and dreamed of and dreaded. All those practices, all those hits, all those sweet, sweet moments of release, of the ball taking flight, sailing toward the target on an invisible thread of energy connecting perfect motion with victory. Bones and muscles and imagination and will. Physics, just like the words on the tattered pages of the fat textbook resting in his locker.

He craved the quiet pleasure of that success and all the other victories, craved the dark silence of the room at home as he tucked another paper memento into the box beneath the bed. But it didn’t matter. Not really.

It wasn’t real, not any of it.

This moment wasn’t quiet, this sensation wasn’t pleasure. This was public—whistles and yells, the slap of fleshy palm to palm, the smell of popcorn oil and spilled beer, the staring eyes. Too many eyes, all aimed at him.

“Wayne!” The drink-slurred voice rose above the others. “Wayne!”

The old man. Drunk, as usual. But not too drunk to climb into a truck and get himself out here. He’d have to rush out of the locker room after the game, find a way to get his keys, make sure he didn’t kill himself—or someone else—getting home.

If he made it home tonight.

He pulled back, pulled deeper inside. Stared into the lights, focused on the pain, kept his chin high. He held, held.

It didn’t bother him, it didn’t matter. Not his fault, not his doing. It wasn’t real.

“Wayne!”

Someone laughed. The noise shifted. The crowd, the many-bodied, fickle, vicious thing in the stands, wavered in the dark shadows beneath the lights. A groan, a hush—the mangled-play, bad-call, missed- pass kind of noise.

His focus slipped, and he lost his way in the darkness, and the scene came into view, indistinct, a nimbus of cold, electric-white sparks at the edges. His father stumbled down the stands toward the fence at the edge of the field.

The faces, the stares. Horror, embarrassment, curiosity, pity.

The pity sliced at him, cut away bits and pieces of his resolve.

The panic clawed at him, ripped through him, tried to drag him away from the torture, away from the pain.

He stood and held, chin up. He didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

Couldn’t let them know how much it hurt.

“Wayne!”

“Wayne!” Someone in the crowd echoed his father’s loose-jawed, calflike bellow. “Wayne!” Someone else laughed.

He turned and saw…

No.

It doesn’t matter. It’s not real.

It’s only a dream.

A dream. Only a dream, nothing real. Only a memory. Too long ago to matter.

None of it mattered, not anymore.

Wayne groaned and kicked away the covers, rolling to sprawl on his back in his empty lake of a bed. Boone, his elderly yellow Lab, whined and padded across the floor and lifted his head to fit beneath his master’s waiting hand. Wayne stroked the dog’s fur, finding comfort in the contact with another living being as he lay waiting for the sweat to cool, waiting for the slick, queasy tremors to subside. They always did, after a while.

He stared at the shadows cast across his ceiling. His ceiling, his room, his house. Thick, sturdy lengths of roughhewn pine stretching to the lofty peak above him, dotted with familiar knots. There’s the one that curves like an Egyptian’s painted eye. There’s the one with the crack like a fishhook.

He inhaled deeply, settling, and scratched Boone’s ear the way the old dog liked it. In another moment or two he’d head down to the kitchen to start up the coffee and then climb back up here to shower. It didn’t matter what time it was. He’d begin the day, begin his routine.

He always did, after the dream. The work helped to sweep away the dregs of lingering shame. The dream didn’t matter when he had chores to do.

He rose and moved through the familiar motions, grateful in these predawn moments for the silence and solitude of his big, empty house. He ran his palm along the satiny surface of the long oak handrail to the ground floor and passed through dim rooms of richly grained wood and stacked rock, rooms done up in the tans and greens that reminded him of the forests at the eastern edges of his land.

The loneliness faded into the background for a while on nights like this. It took too much energy to pull in, to pull tight, to shove things back inside the shadows he’d fashioned for himself. He was relieved he didn’t have to hide his midnight pain from anyone else.

He measured coffee and poured water, while the bright lights of his kitchen banished the afterimages of the nightmare. He supposed those moments at the school board table the evening before—that replay of the old panic, when the sweat prickled on his skin and his voice box locked up and refused to move—he supposed it had been a kind of trigger. Most of the time he could control his fear of appearing in a public way. He’d faced it down, often enough, dragging himself behind any number of microphones, forcing himself to take on the presidency of the Cattlemen’s Association and settle into his supervisor’s seat at the county courthouse.

But when the shower spray hit him, hard and hot, the last bit of his dream came back to pummel him like the water. That last moment, before he’d struggled to full consciousness—that last moment had been a new torture, something he’d never before experienced.

Maybe he’d never dreamed that part because it hadn’t happened. Maybe he’d invented it—maybe the panic of the evening before had added some new layer to trick his mind and tease at his self control.

All his calm rationalizing and logical explanations deserted him, sliding and trickling like water down zigzag paths, swirling in a maelstrom as if to disappear down the drain.

It was no dream. It was a memory, something so painful he’d never revisited it.

He’d turned and seen…her.

Maggie Harrison, the most beautiful girl in the senior class. Tall and boyishly slim, cool and self-contained, supremely confident in her brains and her beauty and her close-knit, loving family. She’d held the kind of powerful popularity bestowed on those who let the world know they didn’t care whether or not they possessed it. And the fact that she never used it carelessly only increased its gravitational pull on her captivated friends.

He, too, had been caught helplessly in her orbit, too attracted to ignore her but too pulled back within himself, too locked away inside his problems to match the ease of her manner or respond to the effortless flash of her smile.

Even in those rare and precious times her smile had been aimed in his direction.

He tipped his head beneath the water and closed his eyes as it ran down his face like tears, remembering now in agonizing detail how she’d stood to one side of the game field, moments before accepting the home-coming queen crown, dressed in her sapphire-blue gown, leveling her sapphire-blue eyes on his. There’d been no pity or disgust in her expression—none of that for Maggie Harrison.

Maggie Harrison Sinclair. She’d always been out of his league, beyond the limits of his possibilities.

Unlike Ellie, the girl Maggie’s mother had taken in a few years before. Wayne had always suspected he shared a secret, silent kinship with Ellie. They’d been two lost souls longing for family and tied to the land. While he’d labored to rebuild the ranch his father had left in ruins, he’d dreamed of the day he’d call on her and invite her for a ride, to head out toward the aching beauty of the mountains and discuss…something. Possibilities of some kind or other.

He hadn’t known how to talk to a girl, how to make that first move toward a first date. He’d never figured he’d had a good opportunity, not with schoolwork and ranch chores and sports schedules eating up his time, not with his father sick or staggering around or passed out on some convenient horizontal surface. He’d never believed he had the right, not with the family finances edging near disaster and the future looking like a mighty flimsy enterprise. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to make a future with Ellie. But he figured he’d better start somewhere, or he’d end up alone.

But then old Ben Harrison had fallen ill, and his prodigal son Tom had come back to help out. Tom had taken one look at Ellie—all grown up, confident and capable—and he’d won the race for Ellie’s hand in marriage before Wayne had had a chance to stumble out of the starting block.

Suddenly restless, Wayne dressed and prowled through the silent house, past shapes graying in the dawn, rooms waiting for family and spaces wanting womanly touches. His ex-wife hadn’t cared about putting her own mark on this place. Maybe that was a good thing, since her personal style had never meshed with his. He knew his friends had been surprised when he’d proposed. They’d warned him that Alicia didn’t seem the type of woman to put down roots or to consider her man before herself.

But they didn’t understand his gnawing need for someone to move through the spaces of this house with him, someone to share a meal at his table or to visit with at night. Someone to give him the children he wanted, children who’d learn to tend the land beside him and inherit it when he was gone.

Someone who didn’t come from Tucker, someone who didn’t know the hurting, frightened person he was in his dream. Someone who’d see only the man he’d learned to pull from the deep, still, secret center of himself.

Battling back the torment of this waking, yearning dream and the ache of desires that chased him through the sleepless nights, he walked into his office and forced himself into the leather chair behind his desk. Now that his cattle had been brought down from summer’s mountain pastures and spread along the valley, it was time to turn his attention to preparations for hunting season. He tapped a command on his keyboard and waited for the computer file listing the first group of lodge guests to appear on the monitor screen.

And he ignored the loneliness squeezing him in its iron fist.

CHAPTER THREE

MAGGIE FINGER-COMBED her short, layered hair in the Granite Ridge guest cabin Friday morning and then paused, staring beyond her reflection to the log walls and beamed ceiling that had once seemed to press in on her. She gripped the edge of the dresser, remembering last summer’s plunge into failure and anxiety, the dizzying spiral drop that had left her gutted and clumsy with a case of the shakes.

Her first panic attack had sent her scurrying from Chicago. Her second had tempted her to extend her stay in Granite Ridge indefinitely. But Harrisons didn’t cry or crumble. And now her life had purpose again.

No more shakes, not today, not tomorrow, not next week or next month. “I’m back,” she told the Maggie in the mirror.

Behind her, one of her grandmother’s quilts spread across the tarnished brass bed, and a braided wool rug lay over pine plank floors. She smiled at the comforting familiarity and the sense of timeless belonging. The snug place was earthy and warm, and as different from the bedroom in her Chicago condo as it was possible to get while remaining on the same planet.

Her former Chicago condo, that was.

She pulled a cashmere sweater over her silk camisole top, adjusting the neckline to let a bit of lace show in the front vee. The ache of loss seemed duller this morning, and the fingers fastening a string of beads around her neck were steady.

Now she could admit that her rush to sell her share of the furnishings to her soon-to-be ex-husband during the divorce proceedings had been a mistake. At the time, all she’d wanted was to get clear and get out, but she missed her French mantel clock and the wide-mouthed majolica vase, the art deco bronze and the signed Konopacki print. When she’d quit her job and fled the city, she hadn’t known where she’d land. And her things certainly wouldn’t match the decor in this cabin her brother Tom had built for his wife and their baby girl.

A ripple of sorrow caught her by surprise. It seemed she’d done more grieving for her brother in the three months she’d spent here at Granite Ridge than she’d done three years ago, when the pain of his death was fresh and raw.

Her widowed sister-in-law had recovered and remarried, and her niece seemed delighted with the development. Even her mother, Jenna, had found herself a new husband. Now it was Maggie who was on her own, who was taking her turn to make a fresh start.

She intended to make the most of it. She believed in making the most of everything.

“Everything,” she said with a nod. “I’m back, and soon I’m going to be back on top.”

She smoothed her slim wool skirt over her hips and stepped into snappy heeled pumps with contrasting oxford-style top-stitching. Dressing as if she were heading to her former position at a private college-preparatory academy gave her the illusion of normalcy, even if she was about to climb into a mud-splattered sports utility vehicle and travel narrow county roads toward her temporary job teaching English classes at Tucker High School.

She collected her leather briefcase, slung a tweed overcoat over one arm and stepped into the knife-edged chill of a Ruby River valley morning. Sticky-fingered yellowed leaves clung to the willows edging Whistle Creek, and the serrated mountain peaks that seemed to hang close above wore a dusting of early snow. Overhead, geese called in their nasal tones, and underfoot the frosted ground crackled beneath her heels.

Memories floated about her like field haze as she bumped along the track leading to the creek bridge. She supposed it was the sharp bend in the gravel road that made her think of her first kiss with that fast-moving preacher’s boy behind the snack stand at the barrel racing tournament. And it must have been the faint scent of alfalfa in the cargo section that brought back the night she’d had one beer too many and let a Sheridan shortstop feel her up in the back of his daddy’s horse van.

Or it could be the eleven-month stretch of sexual deprivation that had her system keyed up over reruns of adolescent experiments in foreplay. Sentiment didn’t usually kick up her pulse rate and warm her from the inside out.

And dwelling in the past wouldn’t solve the problem of her future. There wasn’t a simple or convenient method to fill in the blanks, but she wouldn’t let that fact trigger another episode of shaky self-doubt. The divorce settlement had provided enough money to get her settled in the next place—wherever that might be. In the meantime, she had a roof over her head and time to spend with her family. Time to find a challenging placement, in an academically focused school in a stimulating urban setting.

Time to plot her steps and strategies, to win the battle she’d set in motion at the school board meeting.

She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, ready to transform all her frustrations into motivation and to focus her energies on her goals for the school theater. When she’d accomplished all she intended, sleepy little Tucker High wouldn’t know what had hit it. If there was one thing she knew how to stage, it was a campaign.

Around the last bend in the creek, perched on a knoll above the stumps of cottonwoods charred by last summer’s fire, she glimpsed the tall, white house where she’d spent her childhood. Constructed in the Victorian era responsible for its jutting angles and fanciful trim, the house had sheltered Harrisons for one hundred and twenty-five years. She loved its rambling wings and wide porches, the gables and bays, the nooks and crannies that still held her girlhood secrets and dreams.

She parked on the graveled side yard path and climbed the back porch steps, wincing when the screen door slapped the mudroom jamb. The aroma of the coffee kept fresh and waiting on a brightly tiled counter beckoned from her mother’s cheery kitchen. Beyond yellow-checked curtains at the sink window, puffy hydrangeas fading to mauve and the autumn-tinged leaves of hardy lilacs framed a view of freshly painted outbuildings and pasture land rolling on a grassland carpet toward the Tobacco Root mountains.

“Morning, Maggie.” Will Winterhawk, the Harrison ranch foreman, entered from the dining room and poured a mug of his own before settling at the oversize kitchen table. It still seemed odd to see him take his place there so casually, though he’d been an unofficial part of the family for over twenty years. Last month he’d made it official with a wedding, and he’d moved his small bundle of clothing and his dozens of boxes of books into Jenna’s lavender-scented bedroom suite at one end of the second-floor hall.

The fact that her mother had received a marriage proposal from a younger man—a certified hunk of a younger man—was deeply satisfying.

“Morning, Will.”

“You’re up early.”

She turned to face him and leaned back against the counter. “You know what they say about the early bird.”

“It catches the school board’s approval?”

She lifted her mug in acknowledgment. “You heard about that, did you?”

“News travels fast around here. You should remember that.”

She cocked her head. “Was that an observation or a warning?”

One of Will’s slow smiles spread across his dark features. “Take it any way you choose.”

Fitz Kelleran, barefoot and damp around the edges, jogged down the narrow service stairs and dropped a grade-school spelling text on the kitchen table. Even in worn work clothes, the man was ridiculously handsome. His golden-boy features and devilish charm had given him his start in the movies; his talent kept him on Hollywood’s A list. “Morning, Will.”

Will nodded a greeting.

Fitz headed for the coffee and nudged Maggie aside with his hip. “Morning, Margaret.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Margaret?”

“Oops. Sorry. I forgot that’s what your ex calls you.”

“You didn’t forget. You don’t forget a thing. In fact, you seem to have an annoyingly efficient instant recall of most conversations, word for word.”

“It’s not instant,” he said with one of his dazzling grins. “It’s permanent.”

“Except when it suits you.”

“That’s the annoyingly efficient part.”

“Children.” Jenna carried a laundry basket piled high with bath towels past the table, headed toward the mudroom. Her gold hair was threaded with silver, but her features and figure were still youthful. “Please. If you must bicker, take it outside.”

“It’s too cold to bicker outside,” said Fitz. “May we bicker in the office? How about whispered taunting? Only the tauntee would hear it, I swear.”

“Can it, Kelleran.” Maggie finished her coffee and turned to rinse the mug. “I don’t have time for any of your nonsense.”

“I could make it fast.” He leaned in and lowered his voice in a sample whisper. “Come on, Maggie. One good insult, to start the day right.”

“Can it, or I’ll tell Ellie you’re bugging me again.”

That shut him up fast. There was something oddly endearing about the way the man pretended to live in abject terror of her pint- size former sister-in-law.

Maybe that’s what had gone wrong in her own marriage. Not enough playful pretense or genuine concern. At least, not on her husband’s part. Alan was the premier member in their unequal partnership, the one with the blue-blooded background, the one with the ivy-league education and the finely tuned sensibilities. Recently she’d realized that his expectations weren’t so much a subtle tutoring as a smothering burden.

But it was too early in the day for regrets and recriminations. And she’d already spent too much time this morning indulging in memories. She needed to concentrate on the business she’d intended to discuss with Fitz when she’d headed to the house this morning.

“That was a nice offer that was announced at the board meeting last night,” she said. “Very generous.”

“Thank you.” He sipped at his coffee. “And that was an interesting proposal you made.”

“Interesting?”

“Very interesting.” He saluted her with his mug. “And well prepared.”

“Two compliments in one morning.” She waved her hand in front of her face. “I’m all aflutter.”

“I wouldn’t let the local males know you’re such an easy mark, if I were you.”

“Don’t worry about it. And don’t worry about my plans for the theater.” She settled back against the counter and crossed her arms. “I did my research.”

He nodded. “And plenty of it.”

“So…”

“So?”

“So, what do you think, Will?” she said, turning to the ranch foreman for a little extra

support. “Don’t you think improving the stage area would be a good use of those funds?”

“I think I’m going to have to think long and hard on this whole situation.”

“How long?” she asked.

“Until it’s over.” Will gave her a wink and sipped at his coffee.

“Then it’s a good thing you don’t have a part in making the decision,” she said. “But some people do. Some people have a serious responsibility.”

Fitz donned a suitably sober face. “Responsibility.”

“Yes. A very serious one.” She shook her head with a sigh. “Making the right decision is a heavy burden. It can impact the future in countless ways.”

“Hmm,” murmured Fitz. “I suppose I could deal with that burden by offering another donation next year.”

“Yes, you could.” She unfolded her arms and checked her manicure. “Or you could double this year’s.”

“Yes, I could.” Fitz’s serious frown slowly dissolved into a wicked grin. “But I won’t.”

She raised one eyebrow. “You won’t even consider the option?”

“Nope.” He rocked back on his heels. “I want to see you try to get people to change their minds. Ten bucks says you can’t do it.”

“I’m not going to bet on something this important.”

“Ten bucks, and the loser takes out a full-page ad in the Tucker Tribune. Winner chooses the wording.”

She choked back a laugh. “No.”

“Afraid you’ll lose?”

“It’s not a competition.”

“No one said it was.”

“It’s going to turn into one,” said Will. “I hope you realize that. Both of you.”

Before Maggie could respond, Jody, her twelve-year-old niece, bounded down the stairs. “Morning, everyone. What’s for breakfast?”

“Your gran mentioned something about French toast,” said Will. “I’m hanging around to see if she meant it.”

“Jenna’s making her French toast?” Fitz looped an ankle around a chair leg and snagged a place at the table. “Sorry to give such late notice, Will, but I won’t be helping you repair the south well house this morning. I quit.”

“You can’t quit,” said Jody as she dropped into her seat. She pulled a napkin into her lap and tucked hair the same reddish hue as her mother’s behind one ear. “You’re the boss.”

“Explain that to your mom,” said Fitz. “Please.”

Fitz may have purchased the ranch after the fire’s destruction pushed Granite Ridge’s shaky finances to the edge of bankruptcy, but Ellie remained in charge, managing the day-to-day details as she had since Tom’s death.

“You knew what you were getting into when you married her,” said Jody. “I warned you.”

“You did not.”

“Yes, I did. I said, ‘Fitz, watch out.’”

“That had nothing to do with marrying your mother. That was before I stepped in that pile of shit out behind the barn and ruined my dress loafers.”

“It could be the same thing, only different. Like a metaphor.” Jody shot him a smug smile. “We studied similes and metaphors in English this week.”

“And you obviously paid close attention.” Maggie decided to join the breakfast crowd and squeezed in beside Will. “That was a wonderful comparison. Slightly abstract, but loaded with meaning.”

Ellie strolled in from the dining room. She’d probably been up since dawn, working on the books in the office off the front entry. “Morning, everyone.”

Fitz caught her hand as she passed him on her way to the coffeepot. Maggie noticed the quick squeeze he gave her fingers before he released them, and the way his hot and hungry gaze followed her across the room.

Had Alan ever looked at her like that? She couldn’t remember. And surely a look like that would be something a woman would never forget.

“Time for the spelling review.” Fitz picked up the text and flipped through the pages. “Ready, Jody?”

“Ready.”

“Satellite.”

Jody dutifully spelled out the word as Jenna came back into the room and began to assemble breakfast supplies on the counter.

“Reception,” said Fitz.

Ellie selected a large skillet from the overhead rack and turned to adjust the flame under a burner. Jody spelled the word.

“Remote.”

Will tipped his chair back against the wall with the hint of a smile as Jody continued the exercise.

“Control.”

“Hold it right there.” Ellie spun around with the skillet in her hand.

“Oh-oh,” said Jody. “Bad timing.”

“Satellite reception?” Ellie glared at Fitz. “Remote control?”

Jenna’s shoulders shook with silent laughter, and Will’s smile spread across his face. Fitz’s innocent expression was a testament to his skill as an actor.

“It’s an experiment, Mom,” said Jody. “We’re studying subliminal advertising in English this week.”

“Subliminal,” said Fitz. “S-u-b-l—”

“I know how it’s spelled,” said Ellie. “And I know what the two of you are up to. And it’s not going to work.”

“I told you.” Jody glanced at Fitz with a sigh.

“You did not. You said it was a good idea.”

“The satellite TV hookup, not the spelling stuff. That was Fitz’s idea,” she told her mother.

“I can tell when something is Fitz’s idea,” said Ellie. “It’s usually harebrained and half-baked, and comes at me from every point on the compass for weeks at a time.”

“Got to give the man points for trying,” said Will.

Ellie aimed the skillet at him. “You stay out of this.”

“Thanks, Will.” Fitz gave him a comrade-in- arms nod. “I appreciate it.”

“I’m not risking my health on your account,” said Will. “I kind of like the idea of a couple more channels to watch late at night.”

“Since when do you watch TV at night instead of reading?” Ellie asked.

“Well, now…I’ve changed my habits of late,” said Will. “I thought it might be nice to watch some of those nature shows, but I guess there are plenty of other things I could find to do instead of reading.”

At the sink, Jenna made a strangled sound.

“Oh, for crying out loud.” Maggie rose from the table and began to crack eggs into Jenna’s big mixing bowl. “Get the satellite hookup, Ellie. Better yet, get Wes to drag cable out here. Hell, have him dig a ten-mile-long ditch and put it all underground so you don’t have to look at it. It’s not like your husband can’t afford it.”

“That’s not the point.” Ellie didn’t sound too sure of the point any longer, but that wouldn’t pry her stubborn grip from it. Once she’d dug into something, it could take a few sticks of dynamite—or an extra-strength dose of Fitz’s charm—to shake her loose.

“While you’re at it,” Maggie continued, “I’d like to have a hookup at the cabin. There are lots of educational shows I could be recording for school.”

“Hundreds of them,” Jody added.

Fitz stood and carefully removed the skillet from Ellie’s hands. He set it on the counter and wrapped his arms around her waist. “We missed one of my old movies last night. The one where I played a downhill racing skier.”

Ellie smiled and softened against him. “That was Robert Redford.”

“It was? I get myself mixed up with him sometimes.”

“In your dreams, Kelleran.”

“That’s my favorite cue.” He bent and scooped Ellie over his shoulder. Ignoring her shrieks, he headed toward the stairs. “And I’m suddenly in the mood to continue this discussion in private. Jenna, kindly save some French toast for two. The missus and I will have our breakfasts later.”

Jody shook her head with a worldly sigh. “Looks like I’ll need a ride to school again, Aunt Maggie.”

“Sure, kiddo.” She watched with a smile as her brother-in-law toted his bride up the stairs. “I’d like a chance to discuss this subliminal advertising concept with you.”

CHAPTER FOUR

MAGGIE SAT IN A lumpy booth at the Beaverhead Bar & Grill Friday night and stared at her best friend from her school days, Janie Morgan Bardett. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Wish I was,” said Janie as she shoved her empty beer glass to one side. “And on top of mistaking a grizzly for a brown bear, the idiot fumbled his load and the bear got within twenty paces before he finally got a shot into him.”

“At least it got so close there was no chance of missing a second time.”

Another autumn, another hunting season. Another round of tracking lore and venison recipe exchanges. Nothing much had changed in Tucker, it seemed, including the primary topic of conversation each year at this time.

Certainly nothing much had changed in Tucker’s only bar. The music in the jukebox, the beaver profile on the cocktail napkins, the ugly brown felt on the pool tables, the smudged walls and blue-hazed atmosphere, the aroma of hot grease and cold brews was all just as she’d left it fifteen years ago. Even the stale peanuts in the battered plastic bowls looked suspiciously familiar.

A loud crack behind their booth signaled the start of another round of pool. The betting was nearly as impressive as the bragging, if a woman had the kind of heart that fluttered over cowpoke paychecks and poorly disguised sexual analogies involving cue sticks and pockets. Apparently a pair of twenty-something coeds who’d hiked down from the Continental Divide found it all, like, totally fun.

“Speaking of fumbling loads…” Janie drummed her short-nailed fingertips on the table. “Why was Alan letting you investigate fertility treatments when he was…well…”

“Busy proving he wasn’t infertile?” Maggie sighed and took a fortifying sip of wine. Her personal life was a source of unceasing fascination, and Janie claimed her right, as former number-one confidante, to have first crack at the best and juiciest details. “Which he accomplished by knocking up one of his grad students.”

“I don’t understand.” Janie leaned forward. “I mean, all that effort with all those doctors, and then he goes and pulls something like that?”

“I don’t think it’s something anyone understands, including Alan. He had a history of risky behavior with grad students.” And as one of the most popular professors and academic advisors in the English Literature department of a Chicago university, he’d had a steady supply of fresh, young, poetry-adoring fans. “That’s how I met him.”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t married when you were dating him.”

“That only makes it slightly less unethical,” said Maggie with a weary sigh. “Although I did drop the class after I started sleeping with him.”

“Why were you the one most at fault in that scenario?” Janie asked with a frown. “He’s the one who was hitting on students.”

Maggie’s mouth twisted in a wry grin. “He didn’t have to hit very hard.”

“I hate to admit it, but he was a handsome bastard.”

“You don’t have to talk about him in the past tense. He’s still alive.”

“Yeah, well, he’s still a bastard, too.” Janie shook her head. “What did you see in the guy, anyway?”

“You mean, besides the incredibly good looks?” Maggie spun her glass in a slow circle. “He was everything I wanted to be. Sophisticated, refined. Knowledgeable about things like art and good food. He socialized with interesting, important people.”

“The one time I met him, he seemed like he had a stick stuck so far up his butt it would pop out his nose if he sneezed.”

Maggie grimaced. “He didn’t enjoy visiting here.”

And he’d elaborated on every reason why not. He hadn’t been able to find a common point of reference with any of the members of her family, so he couldn’t relax at the ranch. He was unable to comprehend Tucker’s ambiance, so he felt handicapped when trying to communicate with its citizens. He apologized for everything with genuine regret, and he made it all sound as if the root of the problem was his inability to appreciate things from a different perspective, but there was a simpler way of expressing the truth.

Alan was a snob.

“Well,” said Janie, “I don’t suppose I can blame him for that. Tucker doesn’t exactly compare to Chicago.”

“No, it doesn’t.” The soft thunk of a ball in the pocket was followed by a triumphant howl. “But then, Chicago doesn’t compare to Tucker.”

Maggie raised her glass and stared at the pale amber wine. “You and Trace have a good life here,” she said, “and you’re raising a couple of wonderful, beautiful girls.”

“They’re special, all right.” Janie sat back with a smug grin. “And I have to admit, I can’t imagine them being happy anywhere they didn’t have plenty of room to ride their horses.”

“I missed riding like that, when I moved away.” The homesickness for wide open spaces and the freedom to move through them on horseback had been a physical ache those first few weeks in her cramped college dorm room with its stark view of boxy high-rises.

“And now I bet you miss Chicago.” Janie sighed and leaned an elbow on the table. “All the things to do, the shows and the museums and the shopping.”

“Sure.” Maggie caught the eye of the bartender and signaled for refills. “I miss it every day.”

Janie straightened and waved as Trace sauntered into the room. He waved back at his wife, tossed a scowl in Maggie’s direction and stopped by the long, curved bar to engage in what appeared to be a serious conversation with Wayne.

“Wonder what that’s all about?” asked Maggie.

“You can’t guess?” Janie folded her arms on the table. “I have to warn you, you’ve landed on Trace’s shit list for that stunt you pulled at the school board meeting last night.”

“It wasn’t a stunt. Not exactly, anyway.”

“Damn,” muttered Janie. “Looks like girls’ night out is ending early. Here comes a double dose of man.”

Wayne and Trace approached the table, carrying their own drinks and the refills.

“Mind if we join you ladies?” asked Trace. He slipped in beside Janie and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.

“If you promise to behave.” Janie flicked a finger against the edge of his hat. “No school board business.”

Maggie shifted to the side to make room for Wayne. He handed her a second glass of wine and then slowly folded his lanky frame into the tight space.

“We were just talking about how much Maggie misses Chicago,” said Janie.

“Figures,” said Trace. “Things around Tucker aren’t half as lively as goings-on in the big city. Not without stirring something up. Umph.”

He jerked slightly and glared at his wife.

“So,” she said, “what do you miss most, Maggie?”

“The shopping, I guess.” She sipped her wine. “About this time of year, I started looking forward to the holidays. All the lights, the crowds. The parties.”

“Parties.” Janie leaned forward. “What were those like? Nothing like the ones around here, I’ll bet.”

“No.” Maggie shook her head, comparing the colorful, stomping, free-for-all fun of a barn dance to the little-black-dress formality of a college reception. “Not the same at all.”

“We can make our own kind of party,” said Trace. He cocked his head toward the dance floor, where a couple of cowhands were shuffling to and fro with the hikers. And then he swiveled out of the booth and turned to face his wife. “Dance with me, Janie,” he said. “Come and rub up against me like you used to.”

“How can a gal resist an invitation like that?” She shot a grin at Maggie and wiggled her way along the long bench seat. “That’s just about the hottest offer I’ve had in weeks.”

Maggie watched them walk to the dance floor, hand in hand, and flow into each other with the practice of a couple that knew each other’s every move. She smiled at Trace’s awkward bear hug of a dance hold and the way Janie’s eyes laughed up at him.

She held on to her smile, floating on her own sentimental mood. And then her smile died, bit by bit, when she glanced at Wayne and found him staring at her.

Those big brown eyes of his could be unsettling when he turned them on something other than the floor. Deeply set, filled with secret shadows, they seemed to bore right into her and probe at her sensitive spots. She waited in vain for the corners of his mouth to gradually tip up in one of his shy smiles to ease the intensity of his expression.

She leveled a challenging look at him, daring him to break away first, willing him to cut her loose so she could suck in the air she suddenly needed so badly. But he pinned her in place with that soul-deep gaze, held her absolutely still as he angled his big frame to the side and slid along the bench to straighten and stand over her, long-limbed and wide-shouldered and blocking out the room behind him, one big, tough hand extended toward hers where it rested on the table.

She hesitated to take it, and in the next moment grasped it to prove that his silent invitation didn’t unnerve her. And then he was slowly leading her toward the other pairs of bodies swaying in the smoke and the music, and guiding her just as slowly toward him, and pulling her smoothly into his arms.

She knew he was a working man, but it was still a shock to feel granite-hard muscle beneath the worn cotton of his shirt. She knew he was tall, but it was still a surprise to feel him rest his chin on top of her head. The feel and the fit of him was an alien thing, so different from the softer, shorter partner she’d grown accustomed to.

Tonight was filled with foreign sensations—the tacky floor clutching at her heels, the tang of pine and leather and yeasty malt, the powerful shoulder beneath her fingertips, the rasp of calluses against her palm, the heat of a wide, long-fingered hand spread low across her back. Foreign, and somehow familiar. A strangely intoxicating blend.

“Are you missing Chicago enough to be thinking about going back?” he asked. His voice rumbled through her.

“I’m not going back.” She lifted her chin and looked at him. “I don’t believe in going back—or backward. I’ll give some other city a try.”

His hand shifted to her waist, pulling her close as Trace and Janie swung into their path. Her chest brushed his shirt front, and her breath backed up in her lungs.

This was crazy. This spine-tingling reaction to a dance with an old school friend was pure foolishness. It was all these strange sensations—they were too much for her to process at once. It was the second glass of wine that was making her a little light-headed, and the thud of the bass from the jukebox that was making her pulse throb. And it might be the fact that she was out of practice with this kind of contact with an adult male. Other than a few brotherly hugs from Will and Fitz, she hadn’t been this close to a man in nearly a year.

He raised his hand again to the spot above her waist, and she was aware of the press of each of his fingers. She tipped her face back to find those deep, dark eyes of his trained on hers. They drifted slowly down to her mouth, and she realized that she’d let him kiss her, that she wanted him to kiss her. It was the light-headed, out-of-practice part of her that willed him to do it, begged him to do it.

With a final twang the music ended, and they parted from each other by slow and reluctant degrees—the subtle retreat of a shoulder, the slight shift of a leg, the long slide of his palm down her back, the soft tug of her fingers from his hand.

“Thank you, Maggie.”

She wanted to speak, to snap off the odd thing sprouting between them with a flip remark, but all she could manage was a nod.

He settled his hand again at her waist and guided her back to the booth where Janie was collecting her jacket and purse.

“I’m heading out,” said Janie with a quick, one-armed hug. “Got to hurry and get the sitter home before time runs out on the hot offer I got out on the dance floor.”

Maggie squeezed her back and promised to call soon to make a date for another girls’ night out.

When she turned, intending to invite Wayne to join her for another drink, she discovered he’d disappeared without a word.

Since it was Wayne, she should have expected it.

What surprised her was the quick, hot slap of disappointment.

CHAPTER FIVE

THEA GASTINEAU, the icy-gray and ramrod-stiff principal of Tucker High School, straightened her glasses on her thin nose and studied Maggie across the faculty room table during Monday’s lunch break. Maggie met her gaze with her most confident smile.

Thea tapped a clawlike finger on the proposal Maggie had slipped into her office mailbox that morning. “You’re sure you want to do this.”

“Absolutely sure.”

“A theatrical production of the sort you have in mind is going to take a lot of work. Especially on the tight schedule you’ve planned.”

“I have plenty of experience with extracurricular projects. I know what I’m getting into. And there are several reasons for choosing an early performance date.”

“Yes,” said Thea. “I can see that it would be good to have a project like this in motion before the next board meeting.”

Maggie’s smile widened. “That’s one of the reasons.”

“It’s going to be expensive.”

Maggie pulled one of her mother’s molasses cookies from a brown lunch sack. “I’ve developed quite a talent for soliciting community business donations.”

“This isn’t Chicago.” Thea set aside the proposal and picked up her plastic fork. “Folks here don’t have as much money to spare.”

“And because this isn’t Chicago, they’re going to be more generous with what they’ve got.”

The principal poked at a piece of limp salad lettuce in a small plastic container. “Tucker hasn’t been your community for a number of years.”

Thea’s matter-of-fact tone soothed the sting of her words. And Maggie was finished with feeling defensive about her long absence from her hometown. “This project will provide me with an excellent opportunity to get involved again.”

Thea glanced up. “You sound very certain of yourself.”

“I was hoping I sounded convincing.”

“That, too.” Thea pressed her thin, colorless lips together in a slight frown. “What is it you hope to gain from your time here at Tucker High, Maggie?”

“Besides a few paychecks?” Maggie broke off a bite-size piece of the cookie. “Precisely that—time. Time to decide what to do next. Where to go.”

“There’s no secret agenda here? No ulterior motives?”

“I’m planning a theater revue, Thea,” Maggie said with a reassuring smile, “not a coup.”

“It might be seen as one and the same.”

“And by some of the same members of the community I’m hoping to tap for donations and assistance.” Maggie washed the cookie down with a sip of milk. “It’s going to be quite a challenge. One I’m looking forward to.”

“At least you’re aware of the complications.” Thea finished her salad and reached for the container’s lid. “I see you’ve thought things through.”

“I always think things through. I like to know what I’m getting into before I take the first step.” Maggie brushed a few stray cookie crumbs from her slim black wool skirt. “Things may not always work out quite the way I’d planned, but at least I’m prepared to deal with any problems that might arise.”

“I appreciate the fact that you’ve already outlined several you may encounter.” Thea glanced again at Maggie’s preliminary paperwork. “And I don’t think those problems would have any negative impacts.”

“So…do I have your permission to proceed with my plans?”

“Yes, you have my permission.” Thea swept the papers into the folder Maggie had provided and set it aside. “But give me until the end of the week to get back to you on the budget items.”

“All right. And thank you.”

Maggie helped herself to another cookie and offered the last one to the principal. “What I’d really like, Thea, in addition to your permission, is your blessing.”

Thea lifted one thin, grey brow above the rim of her glasses as she accepted the cookie. “Wouldn’t they be one and the same?”

“Not necessarily.”

There was a long pause as Thea studied her again. Maggie tried not to squirm beneath that cool, assessing gaze.

“No, they wouldn’t be the same thing,” Thea said.

Maggie folded her hands on the table and leaned forward. “I’d like to secure as much faculty support as possible, or at least build a consensus before I start this project. I’ll begin meeting one-on-one with the other staff members this afternoon.”

“Ah, yes. The all-important communal consensus.” Thea smiled her wintry smile. “You may go through the motions of doing things the way we do them here—the way you must have learned things are done when you lived here before—but you still manage to put your own spin on them.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No.” Thea slowly shook her head. “Just different.”

“It might even be a good thing.”

“It just might be.”

Maggie sensed a slight thaw in the woman across the table and tipped forward a bit more. “There is one last favor you could do for me.”

“Oh?”

“There’s a small part in one of the skits you’d be perfect for.”

“Really.” Thea’s eyes sharpened on hers. “How small?”

Maggie sat back with a laugh. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”

“Yes,” said Thea with a slightly wider smile, “I think it will.”

JODY SQUEEZED INTO her usual spot beside her best friend, Chrissy Fowler, at the sixth grade girls’ lunch table. Down at the other end, one of their classmates gave her a nasty stare and made a show of whispering something to another girl.

“Don’t let that stupid ol’ Rachel Dotson get to you,” said Chrissy. “She’s just jealous. I think your new jacket is beautiful.”

“I didn’t pick it out, Fitz did,” said Jody for the third time that day. “And I didn’t want to say ‘no thank you’ and hurt his feelings.”

She smoothed a hand over the brightly colored nylon of her expensive ski parka, secretly delighted to have something so special. Most of the time she forgot her new stepfather was a movie star and a millionaire. He was simply Fitz, the fun and affectionate guy who’d married her mom. That was one of the reasons she loved him so much—he had a way of making everyone around him feel happy and included. Not because he could buy her things like the portable video player she kept in her room or the delicate, diamond-studded chain hidden beneath her sweater.

She laid her lunch bag on its side and pulled out her ham-and-Swiss-cheese sandwich, thick with extra lettuce, drizzled with wine vinegar and sprinkled with oregano, exactly the way she liked it. Gran’s fussy touches reminded her how lucky she was and helped erase the lingering unease of Rachel’s whispers.

“What kind of cookies did your gran give you today?” Chrissy leaned over the lunch table and peered into Jody’s bag.

“Molasses.” She spread a napkin over the table and set an apple to one side.

“The ones with the sugar glaze?” Chrissy grabbed the edge of the sack and dragged it a few inches in her direction. “Do you have any extras?”

“Enough to give you one, but that’s all.” Jody fingered her jacket’s zipper tag and darted a glance toward the seventh grade boys’ table. “I want to set a couple aside. For later.”

“For Lu-cas.” Chrissy tilted her head from side to side with her singsong chant. “Lu-cas Gu-thrie.”

“Shh.” Jody snuck a peek down the length of the table, but Rachel was busy sticking her big nose into someone else’s business. “I don’t want anyone else to know I like him.”

“I still think if you told Tanya in the seventh grade, and then if she told Kevin Turley—”

“Then he’d know for sure I like him,” said Jody, “and I’d be embarrassed if he didn’t like me back.”

“But he does,” Chrissy whispered, leaning closer. “You know he does.”

“No, I don’t.” Jody tried really hard not to get her hopes up, but it was too late. Her insides were tickling over Chrissy’s opinion—even if she was probably just sticking up for a friend.

There was always a chance.

“He says ‘hi’ to you all the time,” said Chrissy.

Jody shrugged. “He’s just being nice.”

“And Maryanne in the eighth grade said Kevin told her brother that Lucas said he thought one of the girls in the sixth grade class is real cute.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s me.”

“Maryanne thinks so.”

Jody absorbed a new wave of tingly pleasure over this latest bit of news as Chrissy helped herself to one of Gran’s cookies. She froze with it halfway to her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “Here he comes.”

Jody pasted on a bright smile as Lucas sauntered their way. Tall and gorgeous, and the best athlete in the seventh grade, he’d already crossed the cafeteria’s invisible boundaries to speak to her three times in the past ten days. Her heart pounded beneath her sweater and the blood swished in her ears like ocean waves.

“Hey, Jody,” he said with a toss of his chin. “How’s it going?”

“Hey, Lucas.” She swiveled on the narrow bench to give him a better view of her new jacket. “Want a cookie?”

“Sure.” He shifted the football he carried under one arm and held out his hand. “Thanks.”

Jody sat in agony while he took a bite and nodded approval. She racked her brain for something brilliant to say, something that would start a real conversation. Something that would entice him to sit down and talk back.

Except then she’d have to keep talking, too, and she’d never be able to eat, because her stomach would be too jittery.

But she had to say something. “When’s your next game?”

“Sunday.” He lifted what was left of the cookie in a vague farewell and headed back to junior high territory.

“God, he is so cute,” said Chrissy with a sigh.

“He really is, isn’t he?” Jody tried not to stare as he walked away, but it was terribly hard. She picked up the apple and took a bite, but she didn’t taste a thing while she chewed.

“And he likes you. I can tell.”

“He likes Gran’s cookies.” Jody breathed deeply and tried to quiet the butterflies in her stomach, relieved the encounter had gone so well. “But I don’t care. It’s a start.”

“Are you going to go to his game?”

“If I can get someone to take me into town.”

“I bet your aunt Maggie will, if you tell her why you need to be there.” Chrissy bit into her cookie and mumbled around the crumbs. “She’s so cool.”

“Yeah,” Jody agreed with a smile, “she sure is.”

“Are you talking about Mrs. Sinclair?” asked Rachel Dotson from the end of the table. “Not everyone thinks she’s so cool, you know.”

“Lots of people do,” said Chrissy. “Besides, you don’t know everything.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged it off. “But I do know what the junior high boys are saying about her. They’re ticked off that she won’t let Mr. Guthrie get started on the football bleachers in time for homecoming.”

“She’s not doing it all by herself,” said Jody.

Rachel ignored the comment and continued to stare at Chrissy. “They’re saying it’s all the Harrisons’ fault. Kevin’s sister heard Lucas tell Ronnie Wolf that he thinks all the Harrisons are losers.”

“Did not,” said Chrissy.

“Were you there?” asked Rachel. She gave Jody a pitying glance and whispered something to the other girls, leaving Jody and Chrissy cut out of the conversation.

“Don’t pay any attention,” said Chrissy. “Like I said, she’s just jealous. Lucas wouldn’t come over here if he was mad at you.”

“I should have been expecting this, I s’pose.” Jody sighed and began to pack up her lunch, too upset to consider eating Gran’s beautiful sandwich. “I’ve read in magazines about guys playing this game with girls.”

“What game?”

Jody sighed again. “Sending mixed signals.”

WAYNE LINGERED over the remains of his chili lunch special in a wide diner booth at the Beaverhead Bar & Grill on Monday afternoon, shaking his head over Ed Meager’s latest letter to the editor of the Tucker Tribune. Some people simply couldn’t let go of a bone, even after the dog on the other end had given up the tug-of-war and gone off to find something with a little more meat on it.

In Ed’s world, the sky was always falling. And if his current diatribe was on target, the atmosphere was going to be missing a whole lot of ozone when it hit the ground.

At the moment, the sky over Tucker was shedding the kind of rain that fell in soft, fat drops and sank deep into the soil—the kind of rain that would have been appreciated back in July, before a monstrous midsummer wildfire had wiped out hundreds of acres of pasture and timber land on the west side of the range. Out on Main Street, truck tires kicked up jets of spray over the glistening street pavement and passersby hunched inside their jackets. The temperature was dropping, and snow would surely follow, drifting to lower elevations in another month or so.

Inside the Beaverhead, the overheated air filmed the window beside him and tempted him to strip off his jacket. The peppery tang of Max’s chili hung in the air along with the odor of the chopped onions that had gone into it. On the kitchen radio, Clint Black wailed over the hissing grill and the chugging dishwasher. Milo Evers, in town to fetch supplies for Granite Ridge, leaned over his coffee at the counter, and across the room Susie Dotson scrubbed at a chocolate pudding smear on her youngest girl’s face, murmuring stern mother’s warnings in counterpoint to her daughter’s fussy whine.

Cute little thing—Amanda, that was her name. Always done up in neat pigtails with tiny plastic clips and bright ribbons, and shoes that looked like something NASA had designed for moon-walking Lilliputians. Today Amanda’s shoes flashed with pink lights when she moved, the way she was moving now, kicking in frustration against the edge of the vinyl seat as she arched and slid toward the floor in a slow-motion getaway.

He wondered what it would be like to slip a glowing pink shoe onto a foot that small, or to tie a ribbon on the end of a thin, silky braid. He longed to find out.

Loretta Olmstead, the lone waitress on duty, shuffled over with a fresh pot of coffee. “Sure is quiet in here for a Monday. More Rotarians usually stick around for lunch.”

“The meeting dragged on a bit longer than usual.” Wayne lifted his cup for a refill. “Most of the cattle got brought down from the high country over the last week or so. Folks have their hands full getting the herds settled in for the winter.”

Loretta stared out the window at the soggy street. “Still, I thought the weather might tempt them to stay inside. And Max made an extra batch of his berry cobbler.”

“Maybe I should perform a kindness and have seconds,” said Wayne with a smile. “Wouldn’t want to see Max get his feelings hurt.”

“You don’t need an excuse to have a second helping of something sweet,” said the waitress. “Could use a little fattening up, in my opinion.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, darlin’. Even if it sounds a bit underhanded, coming as it does from someone in the food service industry.” He grinned and ducked out of range as she flapped a hand at him.

“When are you going to get yourself a wife,” she asked, “or someone to make your berry cobbler for you?”

“I’ve got Benita.”

“Housekeepers don’t count. Besides, Benita’s got a husband of her own.”

“I like the way she cooks. And the way she keeps my house. She’d be a hard act for any wife to follow.”

“There’s more to tending to a man than picking up after him and filling his stomach.”

“You got someone in mind?” He fell into the familiar rhythm of the game he’d been playing with Loretta for years, a game that had been suspended for one short season during the months he’d spent with Alicia.

“What about that sweet Mary Wilcox, the Presbyterian Church secretary?”

“The one who plays the organ and sings like a tortured cat?” He shook his head. “She’s sweet enough, I s’pose, but I don’t think I could tolerate the sound of her clearing her throat at my bathroom sink in the morning.”

“You’re too damn picky,” Loretta said with a shake of her head. “Someone with your good looks and that big spread shouldn’t have this much trouble finding a replacement for the girl who ran out on you.”

“If my good looks and big spread weren’t good enough to keep one wife, why would they be good enough to catch another?”

“Nothing wrong with the bait, hon.” Loretta patted his shoulder. “You just gotta build up your confidence. Get in some dating practice. Get out there and do a little fishing.”

She pulled her pad out of her pocket and added another serving of Max’s cobbler to his tab. “Speaking of fishing, what are you up to with that Maggie Sinclair? Heard you two were getting a little too close for comfort out on the dance floor Friday night.”

“I don’t know that I’d agree it was all that close,” said Wayne, “but I will admit it was plenty comfortable.”

“Well, don’t go getting too cozy.” Loretta tucked her pad back into her chili-stained apron. “Everyone says she’s getting out of Tucker the first chance she gets.”

Even though he shared her opinion, Wayne found himself wishing he wouldn’t be subjected to these constant reminders of Maggie’s imminent departure. “Wonder why she took that job at the high school if she didn’t plan on sticking around a while?”

“Jobs don’t hold people in place when they want to be someplace else.”

Neither does a marriage, Wayne added silently. He took a sip of his coffee. Cooling already.

Loretta leaned over his shoulder and stared down at the paper. “Is that another of Ed’s letters?”

“Yep.”

“The ozone again?” She sighed when he nodded. “Gotta give the man credit for trying, I s’pose.”

“That’s a fine and generous thing to say.” Wayne winked at her. “Care to put it in writing and send it to the editor?”

The little bell over the main diner door jounced and jingled. Trace Bardett, Frank Guthrie and Jasper Harlan entered and crowded around Max’s specials slate, examining the day’s offerings while they stomped and shook the wet off like three big dogs.

Loretta wandered behind the counter. “Hey, boys.”

“Hey, Loretta.” Trace leaned over the plastic pie dome. “Is that Max’s cobbler?”

“Yep.”

“Think I’ll have me some of that.”

“Be right there.”

Wayne watched the men shift and hesitate before migrating toward his booth. He folded the paper and shoved it aside, bracing himself for the discussion of the donation that he knew was heading his way with them.

“Hey, Wayne.”

“Hey, Trace,” he answered with a nod. “Frank, Jasper.”

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