When she got back to the house, Gordon’s truck was gone. Andie Lee pounded up the stairs, pretending she had more energy left than she had thought. In her childhood room, she stripped and stood in the shower for the longest time, willing the hot water to wash away the traces of tension left in her muscles and her mind.
Tonight, for the first time in a long time, she’d have a chance of getting some sleep.
She was standing at the window drying her hair when the big white truck came rolling into the glow of the dusk-activated yard light. Gordon got out and slammed the door behind him, but she never heard him come into the house.
When her hair was only damp, she pulled on some soft pants and a T-shirt, stuck her feet into some flip-flops and went down the stairs. All the rooms were still dark except for the lamps they always left on in the huge old living area. She walked out onto the porch. He was standing down on the north end of it, one foot propped on the railing, staring out into the night, smoking a cigarette. He didn’t turn around.
“I guess you know that stuff’ll kill you,” she said.
After a heartbeat he answered. “Somethin’ will.”
She walked halfway to him and sat down in the swing.
“Hmm,” she said, “I thought you considered yourself immortal, Gordon.”
He gave his little bark of a laugh, set his foot on the floor, and turned around.
He looked at her. In the faint lamp glow that came through the window she couldn’t see his eyes.
“That was before the doc said cancer.”
She gasped. “What? You have…”
“Turns out he was wrong,” he said. “Even the experts can’t win ’em all.”
He walked to one of the leather rocking chairs, turned it to face her, and sat. He rocked it slowly back and forth.
“Made me think, though,” he said. “What’ll happen to the Wagontracks when I’m gone?”
The question stunned her. Gordon had never talked to her about anything personal before. He never talked to anyone like this. Not even Micah, as far as she knew.
“I’m thinking that would depend on your choice of an heir,” she said.
He gave a bitter chuckle.
“Just think, Andie. I’m the sixth generation Campbell in Montana, counting the first one who came directly from Scotland. Six generations. We’ve kept this ranch together through droughts and blizzards, Indian wars and rock-bottom cattle markets. Kept it together and added to it, Andie Lee.”
“You’re a famous breeder who believes the bloodline is everything,” she said, “and there’s no seventh-generation Campbell to carry it on.”
He grunted and took another drag on the cigarette.
“Ironic, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“The bloodline is everything,” he said. “Besides, a woman could never manage this ranch in a million years of trying.”
Anger flashed through her amazement to flare in her voice.
“That’s not what I meant. I don’t want anything from you,” she said. “I wish I’d never asked you to help us this time, but here we are.”
“That’s why I’m helping you now,” he said. “You put yourself through college and took care of a baby and graduated veterinary school and wouldn’t take money when your mother offered it. I respect that kind of guts.”
“Then respect my need to see Shane in the morning.”
“No. A week with nobody fawning over him will work wonders.”
“A week! You said overnight! I never thought you’d leave him so long! That’s way too long…”
“It’ll help make a man out of him. Every boy needs a time as a kid when he’s scared shitless and has nobody to depend on but himself.”
“You justify everything you do,” she snapped. “You could justify torture or rustling or murder for your own purposes. You’ve always done that!”
He shrugged and deliberately crossed one leg over his knee to put out his cigarette on the sole of his boot.
He had said a week when they first got back. When he’d told her to forget Shane for a week and find something to make her smile. She just hadn’t really heard it then.
“So. You can’t resist being the great dictator. I ought to leave here.”
“I thought we settled that, Andie.”
“I never said so. You always assume that when you make a decree everybody else agrees.”
“Because I’m always right,” he said. “Now calm down and go on up to bed. Get some sleep. The week’ll be gone before you know it.”
She wanted nothing more than to leave him, but she sat stubbornly in her place and pushed the swing into motion with her toe.
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