CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER ONE
THE ENVELOPE LOOKED harmless enough. Plain, white, legal-size, with rancher Holden McKenna’s name and address printed neatly in the center. No forwarding address. No stamp or postmark. But Holden didn’t notice. His mind wasn’t on the mail that Elaine, the family housekeeper, had picked up from the large mailbox a half mile up on the county road from the McKenna Ranch and brought unopened to the house as she did every weekday.
He’d found the pile stacked on his desk when he’d come back from his morning horseback ride. As usual, there was a lot of mail to deal with, all part of running a ranch the size of the McKenna spread in the Powder River Basin.
As he sliced through the envelope with his letter opener, he thought about the woman he’d lost but still loved, Charlotte Stafford, his neighboring rancher. The two of them had been estranged for years and often involved in all-out war. Still, this morning he felt something he hadn’t in a very long time—hope. Because of that, he wasn’t feeling his fifty-five years. He felt like that young buck who’d fallen head over heels for her when they were teenagers. The thought made him smile.
Part of his good mood could also have had something to do with the fact that it was finally summer in Montana after a long, cold, snowy winter. An array of wildflowers bobbed in the breeze, birds warbled from the tops of the dark-leafed cottonwoods, and sunshine poured in the ranch house windows with a promise of warmth—at least for a while. After all, this was Montana, and summer was the shortest season of all.
But he knew that the main reason he was smiling was Lottie, as he’d always called Charlotte. The last time he’d seen her, she hadn’t gone for her bullwhip or her gun when she saw him. True, she’d been grieving over her eldest son’s arrest, but she’d let him hold her. He saw that as progress.
He wasn’t completely delusional. He knew it was improbable that he and Lottie could ever find their way back to each other, but he could dream, couldn’t he? Not that anyone in the town of Powder Crossing would bet on the two of them ever finding peace, let alone some kind of romantic bliss. Their rivalry was now carved deep in the basin’s history because of his betrayal and Lottie’s determination to hate him until she died.
“I’m going to pick up Holly Jo from school since they’re getting out early today,” his housekeeper said, sticking her head into his den and startling him out of his reverie. “Last day of school for the summer.”
He blinked, uncomprehending for a moment. He’d been so lost in thought that he’d forgotten even the envelope he was holding in his hand—not to mention the stack of mail still sitting unopened.
“Holden?” Elaine said as she dropped her hand to her hip and gave him that chastising look he knew so well. A few years younger than him, she’d been with the ranch as far back as he could remember. Her mother had originally been in the ranch’s employ, so Elaine had grown up here on the McKenna spread. She was much more than the housekeeper. He didn’t know what he would do without her.
“Holden, seriously? You don’t remember last night, the conversation at dinner about the big birthday trip? The one Holly Jo has been talking about for weeks? I guess you also don’t remember that I’m picking her up from school and we’re going shopping in Billings, staying at the Northern Hotel, making a weekend of it?”
“Right,” he said as it came back to him. “Her promised thirteenth birthday present. She’s redecorating her room.” Before he’d brought the girl to the ranch, Elaine had done the then-twelve-year-old Holly Jo’s room in pinks. A mistake. She’d hated it even more than the ranch. “I’d forgotten it was this weekend. Any idea what she’s planning to do with the room? Given the way she dresses, I hate to think what her idea of decorating will be.”
“She’s thirteen going on thirty. You told her she could do anything she wanted,” Elaine reminded him.
“I did, didn’t I.” He nodded, aware that he had no business raising a teenage girl at his age. But years ago, he’d promised her mother that if anything happened to her, he would take care of her daughter. Neither thought it would come to that. But after a bout with cancer, Holly Jo’s mother had died, and he’d brought the city girl back to the ranch. She hadn’t been happy about it any more than his grown children had.
