lips twisted cynically. “Maybe they don’t in Rocky Ford, but southern California isn’t Rocky Ford, Montana, Dad.”
“Are you telling me you never had a clue that something was wrong before your friend mentioned it? Incidentally, I don’t have a lot of respect for someone who’s supposedly a friend carrying tales like that.”
“If there were clues, I never picked up on them,” Shep said. “As for Jeff talking about Natalie like that, wasn’t he trying to do me a favor? It was damned hard for him to broach the subject, and he risked our friendship to let me know what was going on. I don’t hold anything against Jeff, Dad. It would have been worse for him to know about it and not say anything.”
Lucas shook his head sadly. “Don’t see how it could have been any worse, Shep. All this time, I believed your marriage was solid as a rock and that both you and Natalie were happy. Now, here you are, divorced and miserable. You two should have had kids.”
“So we could have fought over their custody? Kids don’t hold a marriage together, Dad. Only love does that. Apparently, Natalie didn’t love me.”
“She did at first, didn’t she?”
“I thought so,” Shep said, letting his bitterness show again.
“Well, at least you have your practice,” Lucas said, obviously assuming Shep would find comfort in his work.
Shep wasn’t ready to talk about that. He didn’t know what he was going to do about his career. He’d spent so many years in getting an education, and they’d been hard years. Lucas had helped out financially with what he could afford, but a medical education, especially when it included a specialty, was extremely costly. Those were years of doing without, of barely getting by, years when he’d done very little beyond studying, working at whatever job he could find to earn a few extra bucks and living without enough sleep.
He’d been interning at Los Angeles General Hospital, on the very last leg of his education, -when he met Natalie Draper.
Her world had dazzled him. She had dazzled him. Beautiful, vivacious and without a care in the world, Natalie had had hordes of friends, most of whom had seemingly existed for one reason—the next party, whether it be a fundraiser, the opening of one more elegant or campy restaurant, or film-industry events, such as the Academy Awards gala. Always dressed in designer clothing, Natalie missed nothing that Hollywood and its icons had had to offer.
It had taken Shep a while to believe that a fashionable, wealthy, gorgeous young woman like Natalie Draper would want him. He’d definitely been head over heels for her, but a penniless intern was so far from her realm of existence, it had been a massive shock to finally realize that she was truly serious about him.
She’d taken him home to meet Daddy—and Daddy’s third wife. Brad Draper hadn’t been nearly as charmed as Natalie was by an almost doctor with a yet unknown future. But Shep still to this day had to hand it to Brad; he’d put aside his own misgivings and eventually welcomed him into the family.
Ten years, Shep thought with another onslaught of bitterness. Ten years down the drain. He was back to square one, or damned near. No wife, no practice and very little money weren’t exactly consoling, especially when he hadn’t seen it coming.
What kind of fool had he been?
He suddenly realized that Lucas was watching him with an uneasy expression. But why wouldn’t his dad be uneasy? He hadn’t given him any kind of answer to his comment about him at least having his medical practice, had he?
Well, he had none to give. When he himself knew what was coming next, he’d be glad to inform Lucas about it. Getting to his feet, he stretched and yawned. “I’m beat, Dad. I’m going to hit the sack.”
Lucas frowned. “Well, sure, son. Go right ahead.” Before Shep made it out of the room, he added, “What do you think of my next-door neighbor?”
“Andrea’s a very nice person,” Shep said evenly, omitting deliberately so much as a hint of the libidinous urges she had aroused in him all day. “Good night, Dad. See you in the morning.”
“Good night, Shep. Sleep well.”
Andrea slept well, but she awoke at 8:00 a.m. with prickly feelings of dissatisfaction. It had happened before in Rocky Ford, and she always blamed the sensation on impatience with herself over forever delaying that meeting with Charlie Fanon.
This morning, she wasn’t thinking of Charlie. The image in her mind’s eye was most definitely that of Shep Wilde. Too handsome, she told herself, even while tingling all over because he was so handsome. But Shep wasn’t the reason for the uneasiness she felt, either.
It took only a few minutes to come up with a logical diagnosis of the problem: there was no reason to get up. She could stay in bed for the rest of her life, and who would care? This doing nothing, or almost nothing, had to stop. It seemed she had made an unconscious decision to live in Rocky Ford, whether or not she ever introduced herself to Charlie, so it was time to start living.
And she knew precisely where the starting line was, too.
Throwing back the covers, she got up and padded barefoot to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. A glance out the window to her backyard had her grimacing. Before she could put her plan in motion, before she could go anywhere, for that matter, she had to shovel the driveway again. It wasn’t snowing this morning, but there were at least six inches on the ground.
Returning to her bedroom, she dressed in warm clothing and lined boots. Heading for her small garage and the snow shovel, she stopped and blinked in surprise. Her driveway had already been shoveled!
Lucas, bless his heart, must have done it before she was even awake. What a sweetheart.
She would thank him later on today, she thought as she returned to the house. After she had called on Kathleen Osterman, the owner and publisher of the Rocky Ford News. Yes, she was going to ask Ms. Osterman about a job. If there was nothing available at the newspaper, she would look elsewhere, but her first choice was definitely the local paper.
After coffee, toast and orange juice in the kitchen, she showered, did her hair and makeup and dressed in an attractive gray wool pantsuit. Under the jacket was a plain black sweater with a high neck. Her jewelry was gold earrings, a gold-and-black onyx pin on the lapel of her jacket and her gold watch. Stepping into her best black leather boots, she checked her appearance in the full-length mirror on her closet door. Satisfied with her reflection, she donned a long, dark gray overcoat, pulled on black leather gloves, slung her black leather bag over her shoulder and left the house for the garage.
Raising the door of the garage, she got into her car and started the engine. Giving it time to warm up, she thought of how differently one lived where winter was a true season. Cars needed extra antifreeze and snow tires, and people needed a wardrobe of warm clothing. She had never owned a winter coat before this year, for instance. Fashionable ski suits, of course, but nothing like what she was wearing today. She had found some of her cold-weather clothes in Rocky Ford, and some she had purchased from catalogs. Her overcoat, for example, had been purchased from an exclusive and very expensive house of fashion through their catalog.
When the heater was blowing warm
