At the time, she’d figured he was merely out in the kitchen making coffee, or even whipping up some breakfast. He was a fair cook, and he seemed to enjoy it.
She’d gotten out of bed, pulled on a robe and headed for the kitchen, in search of the man she loved.
Instead, she’d found the note.
Have to go, Brody had written. Something came up.
That was it.
Have to go, something came up.
The tears that had threatened before, after the dream, sprang up again. Carolyn hugged herself, chilled, and gazed at her own woebegone face, reflected in the big mirror behind the counter.
“Nobody likes a crybaby,” she told her image.
And then she cried anyway.
* * *
“WHERE’D YOU GET the dog?” Conner asked the next morning, with affable interest, as Brody carefully lifted the bathed, brushed and still-skinny critter down from the passenger side of his truck, onto the grassy stretch of ground between the main ranch house and the barn.
“His name’s Barney,” Brody replied. He’d hung that handle on the stray after taking him by the vet’s office that morning for a checkup. And he’d been so glad over the dog’s clean bill of health that he’d named him after the doctor. “He showed up at my door last night, in pretty sorry condition, so I took him in.”
Conner grinned and crouched to look the dog in the eyes, much as Brody had done the night before, when Barney turned up on his doorstep.
“Well, hello there, Barney,” Conner said, putting out his hand.
To Brody’s mingled amazement and irritation, the dog laid a paw in Conner’s outstretched palm.
Man and dog shook hands.
“I’ll be damned,” Brody muttered, impressed, then worried. Maybe whoever had taught Barney to shake hands was out combing the countryside for him, right now. Maybe somebody loved him, wanted him back.
Conner, meanwhile, stood up straight again. “I guess Doc must have checked for a microchip and all that,” he said.
“First thing he did,” Brody replied. “No chip, no identification of any kind.”
“You gonna keep him?” Conner ventured, as Valentino trotted out of the back door, joined the group and sniffed Barney from head to tail.
“Yeah,” Brody said. “I’ll keep him. Unless his original owner tracks him down, anyway. Doc’s assistant took his picture, and she’ll upload it onto several lost-pet websites, just in case...”
“But?” Conner prompted.
“But my gut says he’s in need of a home.”
“Mine, too,” Conner agreed. He had been frowning until then, but suddenly, the grin was back. “It’ll be good for you,” he preached. “The responsibility of looking after the poor critter, I mean.”
The words, though he knew they were well-meant, raised Brody’s hackles a little just the same. Was he going to be the Irresponsible One for the rest of his life, while Conner got to play the Good Brother?
Before he could figure out a way to answer, Davis came barreling down the hill in his truck from his and Kim’s place. Kim rode beside him, her smile visible even through the dusty grunge covering the windshield.
“Kim’s pinch-hitting for Tricia today at the shop,” Conner said.
Brody felt a pang of alarm, remembering how tuckered out his sister-in-law had seemed the day before. “Tricia isn’t having trouble, is she?”
“No,” Conner replied, raising a hand to greet the new arrivals. “She just enjoyed yesterday so much that she wanted today to be just like it.”
Brody chuckled, partly amused and partly relieved.
An instant later, though, the worry was back. Women were fragile creatures, it seemed to him. Lisa, for instance, couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds sopping wet; she hadn’t stood a chance against two tons of speeding steel, not driving that little car of hers.
He’d always had access to his inheritance and his share of the ranch profits, even when he was staying as far away from Lonesome Bend as he could. Why hadn’t he gotten her a sturdier rig to drive?
“Brody,” Conner said suspiciously. “Where’s your head right now?”
“You know where,” Brody replied, as Davis parked the truck and he and Kim got out of the vehicle and started toward them. Kim was wearing a lightweight sweater with big pockets, where her impossibly small dogs, Smidgeon and Little Bit, were riding.
Barney whimpered and moved behind Brody, leaning against the backs of his legs. He could feel the animal trembling.
Seeing that, Kim smiled, crouched down and set the two Yorkies on the ground. Ignoring Valentino, who was probably considered old news by now, they wagged their stumpy little tails and one of them growled comically.
“Now, come on out here,” Kim cajoled, addressing Barney. “Smidgeon and Little Bit aren’t going to hurt you.”
Kim definitely had a way with animals, and Barney’s reaction was proof of that. Probably drawn by her gentleness, as well as his own curiosity, he came out of hiding to stand at Brody’s side. His plume of a tail wagged once, tentatively.
The Yorkies nosed him over and then lost interest and tried to start a game of tag with Valentino. They were absolutely fearless, those two. Or maybe their brains were just so small that they couldn’t grasp the difference between their size and Valentino’s.
“Come have supper with us tonight,” Kim told Brody, when she was standing upright again. “You look a little ribby to me, like this dog.”
Brody’s mouth watered at the mere suggestion of Kim’s cooking, not to mention a chance to avoid another lonely evening.
“Is this a setup?” he asked good-naturedly. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that everybody was hoping he and Carolyn would get together.
“Of course it is,” Kim replied with a laugh, looking at Brody but slipping an arm around Davis’s waist and giving him a brief squeeze. “Why fight it?”
Brody laughed, too, despite the little thrill that quickened in the pit of his stomach at the thought of being in the same house with Carolyn. He folded his arms and countered, “Why not?”
Kim punched him. “You’re just like your uncle,” she said.
Whatever that meant.
That he was a stubborn cuss, probably.
The quality came free with the Creed name, one to a customer but guaranteed for life.
Conner and Davis, meanwhile, moved off toward the house,
