2

Pike flicked off the Christian music station as he pulled up to Hearts Crossing ranch. He wasn’t feeling much peace on earth and was definitely in no mood for more joyful noise. Jamming on the brakes in a cloud of dust by the barn, he slammed the door of his dust-crusted, black Silverado half-ton pickup truck as he got out.

“What? You lose a patient?” called out his brother Hooper, ranch foreman and the oldest of the eight. He loped over from the trio of covered wagons he’d been readying for another of Hearts Crossing’s Wild West Adventures. Fourteen city slickers would be arriving in the morning for a five-day pioneer wagon train experience along the foothills at the perimeter of the ranch.

Pike swallowed, wistful. Normally, he went along and loved every second of the trip. Not that he regretted his offer to help out Doc Fahmy, long his mentor. But today, his first, hadn’t been a good one.

“You could say that.” Pike leaned against a hitching post, circling his head around and stretching his neck to untie the knots. “Densmores’ dog has cancer.”

“Aw, nuts. Not Elway?”

“The very same.”

“Cool dog.” Hooper shook his head. “Can’t fix it, then?”

“Nope.” Pike sighed in regret. Hearts Crossing had several faithful, well-loved dogs at any given time. “No choice but to advise putting him down. And not just me. Nerces and I discussed it before he left for Egypt.” He unwound his shoulder muscles now. “You know how he believes in compassionate dignity, not last-ditch efforts at all costs.”

Hooper nodded this time. “I do. He was great when we lost Patches.” Both were quiet, recalling their Border collie. Finally Hoop cleared his throat. “Did you have to deal…with her?”

The way Hooper’s voice italicized the pronoun, Pike knew exactly who he meant. A bitter taste stabbed the tip of his tongue. “Yep. And she accused me of some Martin conspiracy against her. Like I plan to kill her dog because she messed with our brother and made a fool of herself at the hoedown. Blast the woman.”

Hooper let out a long whistle between his teeth. “Now, now, she’s never been one to think before she flaps her lips. Make that think before she does anything at all. When she’s got her dander up about something, I don’t reckon she can help it.”

“Aw, Hoop. You’re too good to be true. You’d see good in a…in a gargoyle. She’s nothing but trouble.” Pike spoke hastily before remembrance of her soft and warm in his arms, all needy and fragrant, surfaced again. Far healthier to recall her vile, accusatory words.

Hoop’s hand on Pike’s shoulder was firm but gentle. “I been where she is, Pike. Don’t think any of us know what we’d do when we get walked out on. How we’d act. Who we’d take it out on.” He looked down at his toes. “Until it happens.”

The awful memory smacked at Pike, of Hooper’s wife abandoning him and their baby daughter five years ago. Somehow Hoop’s faith had kept him stable and sane, free from bitterness, and Pike didn’t know how his brother did it. Nothing seemed to shake him. “You’re right, Hoop. I’ve no idea how that feels. But alcohol?”

“I hear some folks take comfort in the bottle.” Hoop shrugged. “It’s dead wrong, but I don’t see myself as the Lord’s appointed judge. I reckon we ought to add Daisy to the prayer list at devotions tonight.”

His older brother’s words comforted Pike a little. “Elway, too.”

“Think Daisy’ll be at the reunion picnic next week?” Hoop asked out of nowhere.

Pike shrugged, wondering why his heart pounded. “I’d like to think not, but everybody always goes. And she’s bound to know Kenn won’t, him being in California helping Christy’s mom move.” Dusk had fallen deep around them. He muttered, “Wish I had time for a ride. Always find the world a better place with Outlaw underneath me.”

“Maybe you can ride that pinto of yours along with the wagons tomorrow morning for a bit before you head for town.”

“Maybe. Hey?” He looked at his brother intently. “You don’t mind being shorthanded for the next couple of wagon trains, do you?”

“Nah. Stuff happens. Nerces needs you. Christy’s mom needs her and Kenn.” He stretched his arms over his broad shoulders. “I know we all like family to participate in the trips as much as we can, but we all got our own lives now. Bragg and I got two wranglers to help out ’til you and Kenn are back in the saddle. One of them has EMT training so it’s all good, but I’m sure gonna miss you.” He touched the brim of his broad Stetson, and Pike grinned. A certified paramedic, Pike was medical official for most of the trips.

“Speaking of a sibling not going on a wagon train trip…” Hooper’s drawl came out slower than usual. He pointed straight at the chuck wagon. Their sister Kelley, a sous chef for a Denver restaurant, took time off her day job to take charge of the meals on the trips as “Cookie.” Her down-home, yet trendy, grub was renowned and one reason folks came back for repeat adventures.

“What? Kelley’s not going? She sick or something?”

Hooper’s cheeks rounded before he blew out a gust of air. “Nah, she’s set for tomorrow. For now. But she told me today she’s seriously thinking about buying a little restaurant in Sunset Hills. Be her own boss.”

“What?”

Hoop nodded, lips a thin smile.

Pike shivered as a little splinter of the world he knew crashed down. “But she’ll make time for the trips. Of course she will. She loves being chuck cook.”

“I dunno. She says restaurantin’ is 25 hours eight days a week. But she wants to give it a try. Sounds like a warning to me.”

Pike laid his face in his hands.

“It’ll be OK, Pike. It always is.”

And it always was. Hearts Crossing had survived near-bankruptcy. Losing Pa to cancer. Hoop’s heartbreak. Bragg’s misadventures with steroids. Still, Pike didn’t like the possibility.

They headed toward the big ranch house. “We’re all grown up now. Kel already lives in Denver most times. It’s not so weird for kids to want to leave home and try new things.”

“Like you?” Pike relaxed and guffawed. “Your house is about fifty yards from the one you grew up in.” One hand gestured at the big house, the other pointing to the little modular bungalow sided with logs that Pa had brought in when Hoop married Lynn.

“Why, an eye for an eye, little brother. You’re still sleeping in your childhood bedroom. With your horsey-print bedspread.”

“Oh, blow it out your ear.” He gave Hoop a playful brotherly punch on the triceps. “Ma got rid of that one years ago. It’s something from Ralph Lauren now. Although I admit there’s a pony somewhere.” He sighed, not letting Daisy Densmore inside the door to his mind. “Someday I’ll have my own house on the place, like you. If I can ever find Miss Perfect.”

“Miss Perfect? Nobody’s perfect. Just ask me. Besides, you mean, Miss Needy.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that why you dumped Sandy? Because Miss Modern Woman didn’t ‘need you?’” Hoop sing-songed the last two words.

Pike’s face warmed at the recollection of the young woman who had stolen his heart a few years back. But he’d gotten it back quick enough.

“I broke up with Sandy because she didn’t want kids. She was way, way too emphatic about it. Ms. Sandy Modern Woman Tabris on the fast track said kids would derail her plan. And of course I want somebody to need me, and I want to be needed back.”

With an eye roll, Hoop shouted joyously, “Hey, I think that’s Ma’s enchiladas I smell!”

Pike’s mouth watered, but this time, a flash of Daisy Densmore’s tragic face flickered behind his eyelids, and he hated his lack of self-control.

Somebody to need me.

****

In the sunset, Daisy’s red Mustang rumbled up the road to her parents’ ten acre ranchette, Elway sound asleep in the back seat. As she parked and grabbed her filled reusable grocery bags, her heart tumbled with love and grief at sight of him. Pike Martin was of course right, and she’d been too stubborn and snippy to let him know, to apologize.

And stubborn and snippy she’d likely remain. Those arms of his around her last week had felt too good. She needed any and every reason she could muster to avoid him.

Of course, that way, Mom would have rudeness to count against her.

The rustling shopping bags woke Elway, and he gleefully followed Daisy into the house. Then again, it just might be the scent of the ground sirloin she planned to cook up for his supper. It was always his birthday treat, but he wouldn’t be having another, so she was determined to spoil him now. Every single night until…

In the meantime, though, he glared at her balefully when she pointed to his soft sheepskin bed in the corner of the breakfast room. Suppertime was a ways off, and she got started on one of her specialties that she knew her father was going to love.

While she chopped up a storm, Pops came into the kitchen with his coffee mug. Surprise racked his weather-worn face. For years, he’d wrangled every day in the great outdoors at the Silver Spur ten miles south of Promise before affording his own little ranch and small herd of cutting horses. She knew her retreat from the fresh, wide outdoors of Mountain Cove to the hustle-bustle of Fort Collins had been just one of the factors that had confused and hurt him.

“I can hear that car of yours for five miles,” he joked, giving her a stiff hug as he reached for his Keurig single-cup coffee brewer. “Best present I ever got you. What are you up to, sugar?”

“Mom told you about Elway?”

“’Course. She called soon as she got back to the shop.” Grey eyes troubled, he glanced at the dog. “Sure gonna miss that pup.”

The words started up a new ache in her gullet. “Well, cooking is how I relieve stress,” she managed. Saddling up was another, but it was too dark to go for a ride. Ah, she’d missed her horse bad in Fort Collins. And she still had to peruse the yellow pages for another suitable vet. It sure sounded like she better get Elway into see one, pronto.

“Never thought you much of a kitchen gal,” Pops mused as the coffee maker hissed. Well, he was right.

“I’ve gotten really good.” She smiled at him. Something of a daddy’s girl, she understood his disappointment in her, but she also remembered getting away with murder as a kid and reckoned he had forgiveness somewhere in him, and likely not long off. Mom was the bitter, resentful one despite spending every Sunday morning in the front row at Mountainview Community Church. “This is my version of chicken fajitas, and you’re going to love it.”

“Appreciate it. You sure didn’t learn cooking from your mom.”

Oddly she felt suddenly protective of her mother. “Aw, Pops. She’s always so busy at the shop.”

“Not criticizing her. Never been too picky myself. Chuck house at the Silver Spur. Take-out and microwave here at home. Her fish sticks tacos are pretty good, though.”

She chuckled. “You’re right about that. I remember whipping them up in the dorm room.”

“And look at you now!” Pops gestured at the piles of chopped vegetables and spices, the fry pan heating up olive oil. The quizzical way he looked at her required an explanation.

“Well, not to bring up a sore subject, but…but Tony wanted a hot meal every night.” Her smile faded, and the bitterness simmered. “No matter I taught and coached as many hours as he did. So…I learned, and I have gotten good. I can pretty much make something out of nothing. Started out quick, easy. Like Mom taught me.” She forced a laugh. “Then I watched enough Food Channel to get pretty creative and fancy. I even took cooking classes at the university extension.”

“Worked. Smells great. But, sugar…that’s why folks get to know one another before…before.” His voice shook and he spent longer than he needed adding a mocha toffee coffee creamer to his mug. In better times, they would have shared a laugh at the girly flavor.

“I know, Pops. I know what I did was wrong. And I’ll get out of your hair soon as I get some money saved.”

“Just so you know, I don’t mind if you stay here. Well, forever. It’s—”

“I know it’s Mom. I know she loves me in her way, but I also know—”

“Daisy, you broke her heart,” her dad burst out. “She’d been planning your wedding since the day you were born. And then…”

You eloped. We’d never even met him. How could you? You didn’t even tell us. We weren’t even welcome at your wedding! I wanted you to wear the locket I wore, and your grandmother and great-grandmother before me.

Her mother’s painful wail still haunted Daisy at night, and her stomach clenched.

She and Tony had spent one more academic year in Mountain Cove before the move to Fort Collins, and Mom’s displeasure—and Grandma’s—had never wavered.

And Daisy paid for it every day.

Especially having a Golden Boy for a brother who had married Miss Platinum. At least at three, her little nephew Owen didn’t yet know the details of her degrading fall from respectability.

If only she could redo the past. “Oh, Pops, I know it was wrong. I was wrong. But Tony, he was so impetuous. It was contagious.”

“Worse, we never even knew you were dating him. We thought…” Pops coughed gently. “We thought you and Kenn Martin were a sure thing.”

Daisy shrugged, uncomfortable. “Kenn was so busy in the summers leading wagon train tours. Gone for five days at a time. I wanted a man who was home every night. I fell head-over-heels for Tony, and Kenn wasn’t around to tell. Oh, Tony was ambitious. He wanted to get out of here. See more of the world. Kenn, he…” She stopped, not daring to sound critical of another Martin brother. “He made it clear he’d never leave Hearts Crossing. It was home. But me, I’d never been farther away than college.”

“But you obviously cared about Kenn. Last week you...”

“Sure made a fool of myself trying to get him back.” New shame flooded her. “I’d heard he was still single, so I thought maybe…maybe he still pined for me.” She swallowed hard, cheeks hot. Although she was no longer in love with Kenn, he represented the down-home stability so opposite of the husband who’d humiliated her. If he’d opened his arms to her, why, she’d have gotten some respectability back. But… “But Pops, I’d had too much to drink. I know it’s not a good excuse but…”

He flinched, his disappointment, make that embarrassment, so huge he couldn’t meet her gaze. At least he didn’t recoil when she put down her Sandoku knife and touched his arm.

“Pops, I am not an alcoholic. I definitely don’t have a drinking problem. You must believe me. I barely ever drank. That’s why it hit me between the eyes.”

He sighed. “It might be nice if you explained that to the Martins. I mean, sugar, you had a flask in your pocket.”

Humiliation heated as she recalled her liquid courage. “A souvenir from Las Vegas Tony got me on our so-called honeymoon.” Oh, she’d laughed at the time, but now she saw it as another unkind jab at the way she’d been raised. “But, Pops, I’m not…I don’t…”

The Martins. Something more to explain, to apologize for. To get absolution. Ah, the list was getting long.

“You’re right, Pops. Of course, you’re right.”

“You didn’t….drive drunk to the hoedown now, did you, sugar?” The worry etching her father’s forehead broke her heart in an entirely different way. She might be all grown up, but she realized a father’s anxiety over his offspring never lessened. Truth was, she’d been risky and foolish and let him down big-time.

She stared down at her toes as the heat of shame blazed her skin. “No. I mean, not on the main highway. I…I started to tipple soon’s I turned off to Hearts Crossing.” His harsh intake of breath almost derailed her, and she could barely meet his gaze. But she forced herself to witness the disappointment glazing his sweet brown eyes. “But I’ve never done anything like that before. Honest, Pops. The flask was my defense against…Kenn rejecting me. Which he did. I am so, so sorry.”

“Sorry’s a big word. Seems you ought to spread it around.” The kindness in his voice overran any hint of his disillusion with her, and she almost wished he’d rant at her like she deserved.

She tried to explain again. “Pops, I needed something, someone, and I just didn’t know what or who it is.” She mused, fingers tightening around a knife handle. “Still don’t.”

Her heart tumbled to her toes as her father’s work-roughened hand reached out to brush her cheek.

“Aw, sugar, you might just try the Lord.”