about a thing over at the clinic. I’m sure Jim has everything under control.”
Val smiled. “I’m sure he does.”
“We came in early to vote. Already did it.”
“Well, that’s where I’m going right after breakfast.”
“Glad to hear it. Oh, are you feeling up to a bit of shopping? We need some things if I’m going to do any real cooking today. Jim can do it if you’re not feeling well today.”
“I’m feeling fine, Estelle. Write up a list. I’ll take it with me and go to MonMart right after I vote.”
“Wonderful. I like seeing you getting out and about.”
“I like it, too,” Val murmured.
She looked out the window while she ate Estelle’s delicious scrambled eggs and homemade coffee cake. Her yard looked like fall. Mums and marigolds, the hardiest of plants, still bore scattered blooms, but there’d been enough heavy frosts at night to decimate everyone’s flower gardens. Still, it was her yard and she loved it, just as she loved her house. Jinni had thought the ranch house quaint when she first saw it, but Val thought it perfect for Rumor.
After vet school she had looked for a place to move and set up a practice. She’d found an ad in a trade journal that piqued her interest—an established small-animal clinic in a small town in Montana. After calling the man who was selling and bombarding him with questions, she had made the trip to Rumor and looked everything over for herself. Indeed, the town was small. She had never lived in a town without stoplights and heavy traffic, and Rumor, along with its surrounding countryside boasting so much incredible scenery, had struck Val as utterly charming. Money was not one of her problems; her parents had left her and Jinni very well off. She had made an offer for the clinic, which the owner accepted, and the day she’d arrived in Rumor she had looked for a reputable building contractor. The rather run-down clinic had become the modern and attractive Animal Hospital, and while those renovations were going on, her house had been built on the vacant land that had been included in her purchase.
So she had never thought of her house as quaint; to her it was warm and cozy and comfortable. Jinni would be much happier living in Max Cantrell’s fabulous mansion than she could ever be in a cozy little ranch house like this one, Val knew, but for her needs it was perfect.
Finished with breakfast, she got up and carried her dishes to the sink. Estelle immediately tut-tutted. “If you do the work around here, what do you need me for? Here’s the grocery list. Go vote and have a good time shopping.”
Laughing, Val took the list and went for her purse. Before leaving the house she told Estelle, “I’m going over to the clinic for a minute to check on those pups born yesterday. Then I’ll be gone…probably for a couple hours.”
“Take your time,” Estelle advised. “Relax and enjoy the day. It’s another beauty, and this weather won’t last much longer.”
Everyone said it, over and over again. Chuckling under her breath, Val left the house and walked toward her animal clinic. Everything might not be perfect in her world, but she was thankful for what was.
Chapter Two
Life was good for Reed Kingsley, and he knew it. He also knew that if some calamity should suddenly destroy his parents’ great wealth, and his own, he would still have a good life. Reed believed that his greatest personal asset was a genuine fondness for the human race. In simple terms, he liked people.
Reed considered his having grown up on a ranch to be a stroke of luck, since he had loved country living from the time he was big enough to sit a horse. In his heart, though, he believed he would have derived a connection to the land if home had been a two-acre operation instead of the many thousands making up the Kingsley Ranch.
That attitude wasn’t due to a lack of respect for his family’s good fortune. Nothing had ever been handed to the Kingsleys free of charge. The family had worked hard to make their ranch successful, and the fact that it was the biggest and most productive in the area was merely a result of their efforts.
Now, of course, the elder Kingsleys were able to enjoy the fruits of their labor. At age sixty-five, Stratton, Reed’s father, still mounted a horse and checked on the herds of healthy, hardy cattle in his fields, but not with the dedicated regularity of his early years. Stratton was becoming a gentleman rancher, a little more so each year. He had good men working for him, young cowboys full of vinegar, and the rides he took these days were more for enjoyment than necessity.
Then, too, he had MonMart on his mind. The immense discount store in Rumor was the flagship for what would soon become a national chain. Russell, Reed’s older brother, was the driving force behind MonMart’s inception and rapid expansion. Stratton was content to leave the kudos for MonMart’s astounding success to Russell—and most of the enormous responsibility, as well. He showed up at the administrative offices just often enough to keep his fingers in the pot and let everyone know that he backed his eldest son one hundred percent.
Reed couldn’t boast of anything as audacious as MonMart as a personal accomplishment, but then, he wasn’t the spitting image of his father, either, as Russell was. Russell could talk cattle, horses, land, irrigation and anything else that went with ranching but it was all business to him. To Reed the land was so much more than a means to make money.
Reed had never envied Russell’s business acumen or his younger brother Taggart’s long-ago declared and seemingly permanent independence from the family coffers. Tag was happily married and made his living as a carpenter—an extremely competent carpenter, by all accounts. In his own way, Tag was as much of a success as Russell, their father and Reed himself.
Reed also had a sister, Maura, and he considered Jeff Forsythe, who’d been in the family since age six, as another brother. All the Kingsley kids were married or engaged, except for Reed. Not that it bothered him to be the only hold-out. After all, his siblings had fallen in love and he hadn’t. He sure wasn’t going to get hitched just to join the pack.
Besides, he was happy as he was, content with his routines. For instance, he drove from his house—built awhile back on Kingsley land, same as Russell’s house was—to his parents’ home for early morning coffee. Carolyn, his mother, sometimes slept in, but usually she was up and active, planning her day and willing to talk about it. Stratton was always awake early, usually with plenty to say about the ranch, the MonMart chain, the family, the national and global news, or any other subject that might arise. It was a good way to start the day, and Reed rarely missed a morning.
Sometimes he did work at the ranch for his dad, and after that he drove to Rumor and put in a few hours at MonMart. Russell seemed to appreciate his input, and Reed enjoyed his time at the superstore.
Then he almost always went by the volunteer fire station. He was Rumor’s fire chief and even when no one else was at the station, he liked checking equipment and making sure everything was in order. Last summer’s fire had devastated the landscape for miles around and could have been worse; it could have turned and destroyed the town. It was a sobering thought, and Reed knew that while he’d always taken his job as fire chief seriously, the Rumor fire intensified his dedication to civic duty hugely.
This morning, Election Day, he drank coffee with his folks and discussed the candidates on the ballot. Around nine he drove to the Rumor courthouse, where voting booths had been set up in the lobby. He voted, then chatted with everyone he ran into, and finally turned his SUV back the way he’d come, toward MonMart. The superstore sat on twenty
