know, sweetie, I know,” Nicole said, determined not to let Thorne McCafferty bulldoze his way into her life…or her heart.
* * *
Thorne walked into the barn and shoved thoughts of Nicole out of his mind. He had too many other problems, pressing issues to deal with. Besides Randi’s and the baby’s health, there were questions about her accident and, of course, the ever-present responsibilities he’d left behind in Denver—hundreds of miles away but still requiring his attention.
The smells of fresh hay, dusty hides and oiled leather brought back memories of his youth—memories he’d pushed aside long ago. As the first few drops of rain began to pepper the tin roof, Slade was tossing hay bales down from the loft above. Matt carried the bales by their string to the appropriate mangers, then deftly sliced the twine with his jackknife. Thorne grabbed a pitchfork and, as he had every winter day in his youth, began shaking loose hay into the manger.
The cattle were inside lowing and shifting, edging toward the piles of feed. Red, dun, black and gray, their coats were thick with the coming of winter, covered with dust and splattered with mud.
After a day of being on the phone, the physical labor felt good and eased some of the tension from muscles that had been cramped in his father’s desk chair. Thorne had called Nicole, his office in Denver, several clients and potential business partners, as well as local retailers as he needed equipment to set up a temporary office here at the ranch. But that had just been the beginning; the rest of the day he’d spent at the hospital, talking with doctors or searching for clues as to what had happened to his sister.
For the most part, he’d come up dry. “So no one’s figured out why Randi was back in Montana?” he said, tossing a forkful of hay into the manger. A white-faced heifer plunged her broad nose into the hay.
“I called around this afternoon while you were at the hospital.” The three brothers had visited their sister individually and checked in on their new nephew. Thorne had hoped to run into Nicole. He hadn’t.
“What did you find out?”
“Diddly-squat.” Another bale dropped from above. Slade swung down as well, landing next to Thorne and wincing at the jolt in his bad leg. His limp was still as noticeable as the red line that ran from his temple to his chin, compliments of a skiing accident that had nearly taken his life, though the scars on the outside of his face were far less damaging than those that, Thorne imagined, cut through his soul. “I talked to several people at the Seattle Clarion where she wrote her column, whatever the hell it is.” Slade yanked a pitchfork from its resting place on the wall.
“Advice to the lovelorn,” Thorne supplied. Drops of frigid rain drizzled down the small windows and a wind, screaming of winter, tore through the valley.
“It’s a lot more than that,” Matt said defensively. “It’s general advice to single people. Things like legal issues, divorce settlements, raising kids alone, dealing with grief and new relationships, juggling time around career and kids, budgeting…hell, I don’t know.”
“Sounds like you do,” Thorne said, realizing that Matt had maintained a stronger relationship with their half sister than he had. But then that hadn’t been difficult.
“I take a paper that prints her column. It’s been syndicated, y’know. Picked up by a few independents as far away as Chicago.”
“Is that right?” Thorne felt a sharp jab of guilt. What did he know about his sister? Not much.
“Yeah, she adds her own touch—her quirky humor—and it sells.”
“Since when did she become an expert?” Slade wanted to know.
“Beats me.” Matt scratched the stubble on his chin. “Looks like she could’ve used some pearls of wisdom herself.”
Thorne kicked at a bale, causing it to split open. Why hadn’t Randi come to him, explained about the baby, confided in him if her life wasn’t going well? His back teeth ground together and he reminded himself that maybe she didn’t know things weren’t on track, maybe this baby was planned. “Okay, so what else did you find out?” he asked, refusing to wallow in a sea of guilt.
Slade lifted a shoulder. “Not a hell of a lot. Her co-workers, of course, all figured out she was pregnant. She couldn’t really hide it. But none of them admitted to knowing the father’s name.”
“You think they’re lying?” Thorne asked.
“Not that I could tell.”
“Great.”
“No one even thinks she was dating anyone seriously.”
“Looks serious enough to me,” Matt grumbled.
Slade reached across the manger and pushed one cow’s white face to the side so a smaller animal could wedge her nose into the hay. “Move, there,” he commanded, though the beast didn’t so much as flick her ears. Wiping his hand on the bleached denim of his jeans, he said, “Randi’s editor, Bill Withers, said that she’d planned to take a three-month maternity leave, but he’d assumed she’d stay in town, because she told him that as soon as she was on her feet and she and the baby were settled in, she was going to work out of her condominium. She had enough columns written ahead that they’ll run for a few weeks. Then, she’d be back at it again, though she didn’t plan to start going into the office until after the first of the year.”
“So there was no trouble at work?”
“None that anyone is saying, but I get the feeling that there was more going on than anyone’s willing to admit.”
“Par for the course. Reporters, they’re always ready to snoop into anyone else’s business—they’ve already been calling here, you know. But ask them about what they know and all of a sudden the First Amendment becomes the Bible.” Matt snorted and picked up the used strands of baling twine. “Does anyone at her office know anything about her accident?”
“Nope.” Slade dusted his hands. “They were shocked. Especially the ones she was supposedly closest to. Sarah Peeples, who writes movie reviews gasped and nearly fell through the floor, from the sound of her end of the conversation. She couldn’t believe that Randi was in the hospital and Dave Delacroix, he’s a guy who writes a sports column for the paper, thought I was playing some kind of practical joke. Then once he figured out I was on the level, he got angry. Demanded answers. So, basically, I drew blanks.”
“It’s a start,” Thorne said as they finished up. The wheels had been turning in his mind from the moment he’d heard about Randi’s accident; now it was time to put some kind of plan into action. Slade forked the last wisps of hay into the manger. “I’ll catch up with you,” he said as he traded his pitchfork for a broom. “Pour me a drink.”
“Will do.” Thorne followed Matt outside and dashed through rain cold enough that he knew winter was in the air.
Once in the house again, Matt built another fire from last night’s embers and Thorne poured them each a drink. As they waited for Slade, they sipped their father’s Scotch and worried aloud about their headstrong sister and wondering how they would take care of a newborn.
“The problem is, none of us know much about Randi’s life,” Thorne said as he capped the bottle.
“I think that’s
