stay on at the Colby ranch than start looking for another job, no matter who picked up the reins.
Dena knew the mile-long ranch driveway was fast approaching, and her hands nervously clenched on her lap. Painful thoughts darted through her mind. She should have found a way to force her father to talk to her. Why had it never occurred to her that time might run out? The unhappiness that was so much a part of her life was her fault. If she had returned to the ranch before this, and followed Simon around until he grew weary of the silence between them, she would not be coming home now with such a heavy heart.
“Here we are,” Ry murmured, making the turn onto the ranch road. He sent his passenger a glance, and saw her sitting stiffly still and staring out the front window. His heart reached out to her. Losing a loved one was a hell of a thing to go through. Whatever kind of woman Dena Colby was, she was another human being, and he felt her grief in his own soul.
At first sight of the ranch house and outbuildings, illuminated by yard lights on tall poles, Dena caught her breath and held it. She felt light-headed from a lack of oxygen before she finally breathed again, and by that time Ry had braked to a stop next to the house. He turned off the engine.
“I’ll get your suitcase,” he told her, implying that she should just get out, go inside and not concern herself with her luggage.
“Thank you.” Her hand crept to the door handle. There were lights on in the house, and she suddenly knew that Nettie was waiting for her. Mobility returned in a rush, and she pushed open the door, got out and hurried to the back of the house. Taking the three steps to the porch, she crossed it quickly and opened the door that led to a mud room and then the kitchen.
Nettie materialized, her long, gray hair still in her nighttime braid, and wearing a robe and slippers. With tears running down her cheeks, she opened her arms.
“Child” was all she said.
Dena stepped into the circle of the older woman’s arms, and that was when the dam broke. All of the tears she hadn’t shed seemingly came at once. The two women held each other and sobbed together.
Ry passed them with Dena’s suitcase and they never noticed. Feeling the sting of tears himself, he brought the suitcase to the bedroom that Nettie had told him had always been Dena’s.
Then he let himself out the side door of the house and walked down to the barn. He always got up early; today was just a few hours earlier than usual. Grabbing a shovel, he began cleaning stalls.
Although this was not one of his regular jobs on the ranch, it beat standing around and feeling bad by a mile.
Two
At 8:00 a.m. Dena was on her way back to Winston. Using one of the ranch cars, she drove the familiar road, thankful that it was sparsely traveled, as her mind was too overloaded to concentrate on anything but the sudden tragic turn of her life.
She felt rocky from lack of sleep and because she hadn’t been able to eat more than a few bites of toast this morning. She knew what she was doing to herself. Even people without medical training knew that one shouldn’t stop sleeping and eating because of a shock. But that’s what people with a heart did, wasn’t it? The kind of shock she had received, the nightmare she was living through, all but disabled a person. Certainly it destroyed normal routines and habits, and only God knew how and when she was going to regain her usual sensibilities.
Dena harbored an impossible wish: that she could avoid Wmston altogether. But it was where Dr. Worth’s office was located, and Nettie had told Dena that the doctor had to see her posthaste. Dena was certain she knew why—that question of an autopsy.
The funeral home was also in Winston. If Dena had the power to eliminate one day from her life, this would be it. There were others that had caused an enormous amount of trouble and grief, but none to compare with what today demanded of her.
Dr. Worth had been the Colby family physician for as long as Dena could remember, and Nettie had said that his office was still in the same place it had always been. Once Dena reached the town limits, it took only a few minutes to get there. There was a small parking strip next to the building, and she pulled into a space and turned off the ignition. Panic rose in her throat. She didn’t want to do this. Neither did she want to visit the funeral home after talking to Dr. Worth and plan her father’s burial. How did one converse coherently and with a reasonable amount of intelligence about such things?
Tears welled and she wiped them away with a tissue. Then, drawing a deep breath, she took her purse and got out of the car. She had phoned Dr. Worth at his home this morning and he had told her to meet him at his office at eight-thirty. She was right on time.
With every cell in her body throbbing like a toothache, she walked to the side door of the building—another of Dr. Worth’s instructions—and rang the bell. The door opened almost at once. Dr. Worth gave her a quiet smile. “Hello, Dena. Come in.”
“Hello, Doctor,” she whispered hoarsely.
He led her to his personal office and sat her in a chair near his desk. Even through the haze of pain clouding her mind, Dena realized that Dr. Worth had aged since she’d last seen him. She was thinking about the changes time wrought on everyone and everything when Dr. Worth spoke.
“I understand you’re a nurse now,” he said, seating himself at his desk.
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll have a better understanding of what we must discuss.”
“You want to do an autopsy.”
“No, I have to know if you want an autopsy.”
Dena swallowed the lump in her throat. “The ranch foreman said you diagnosed the cause of Dad’s death as a cerebral hemorrhage.”
“I did, and I still believe my initial diagnosis. But if you have any doubts...”
“Was there any chance of foul play?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. Simon died quite naturally. It’s just that sometimes family members are driven to know the exact and precise cause of death.”
“I don’t feel that way, Doctor. Unless there is good reason for an autopsy, I don’t want it.”
Dr. Worth nodded approvingly. “I’m glad to hear that. Dena, you have to know how sorry I am about Simon’s death. How are you holding up?”
Dena turned her face away. “Not...well,” she said in an unsteady voice.
“You look drawn and exhausted, but that’s to be expected, I suppose, when you flew all night to get here. Are you eating?”
“Not...much,” she whispered.
Dr. Worth eyed her thoughtfully. “One of life’s most traumatic experiences is the death of a loved one. There’s a hole in the world that wasn’t there before, an emptiness within oneself, and the memories we carry of that person seem to bombard us with cruel clarity. We tend to feel guilty over every disagreement with that person and any event where we think we might have done things differently.”
“I could have done things differently, Doctor.”
“But the problems you and Simon had are long in the past,
