out. You’re super smart. You took care of me for years. This will be a piece of cake for you.”
A piece of cake. That tone of voice...
Oh, God, her sister sounded just like their mother. Ten years ago, Mom and Dad had been yanked away from them forever, killed in a pointless car accident. At nineteen, Sophia had become the legal guardian of Grace, who’d still had two years of high school left to go.
Nothing had been a piece of cake. Sophia had quit college and moved back home so that Grace could finish high school in their hometown. Sophia had needed to make the life insurance last, paying the mortgage with it during Grace’s junior and senior years. She’d tried to supplement it with modeling jobs, but anything local only paid a pittance. For fifty dollars, she’d spent six hours gesturing toward a mattress with a smile on her face.
It had really been her first acting job, because during the entire photo shoot, she’d had to act like she wasn’t mourning the theater scholarship at UCLA that she’d sacrificed. With a little sister to raise, making a mattress look desirable was as close as Sophia could come to show business.
That first modeling job had been a success, eventually used nationwide, but Sophia hadn’t been paid one penny more. Her flat fifty-dollar fee had been spent on gas and groceries that same day. Grace had to be driven to school. Grace had to eat lunch in the cafeteria.
Now Grace was embarking on her own happy life and leaving Sophia behind. It just seemed extra cruel that Grace would sound like Mom at this point.
“I have to run,” her mother’s voice said. “I love you, Sophie. You can do this. Bye.”
Don’t leave me. Don’t ever leave me. I miss you.
The phone was silent.
This afternoon, Sophia had only wanted to hide away and fall apart in private. Now, she was terrified to. If she started crying again, she would never, ever stop.
She nearly ran to the hall closet and pushed aside the old coats and jackets to find the fuse box. They were all on, a neat row of black switches all pointing to the left. She flicked a few to the right, then left again. Then a few more. If she reset every one, then she would have to hit the one that worked the refrigerator.
It made no difference. The refrigerator was still dead when she returned to the kitchen. The food was still thawing in the sink. Her life still sucked, only worse now, because now she missed her mother all over again. Grace sounded like Mom, and she’d left her like Mom. At least when Mom had died, she’d left the refrigerator running.
What a terrible thing to think. Dear God, she hated herself.
Then she laughed at the incredible low her self-pity could reach.
Then she cried.
Just as she’d known it would, once the crying started, it did not stop.
I’m pregnant and I’m scared and I want my mother.
Sophia sank to the kitchen floor, hugged her knees to her chest, and gave up.
* * *
Would he or wouldn’t he?
Travis rode slowly, letting his mare cool down on her way to the barn while he debated with himself whether or not he’d told the sister he would check on the movie star tonight, specifically, or just check on her in general. He was bone-tired and hungry, but he had almost another mile to go before he could rest. Half a mile to the barn, quarter of a mile past that to his house. A movie star with an attitude was the last thing he wanted to deal with. Tomorrow would be soon enough to be neighborly and ask how she was settling in.
The MacDowell house, or just the house, as everyone on a ranch traditionally called the owner’s residence, was closer to the barn than his own. As the mare walked on, the house’s white porch pillars came into view, always a pretty sight. The sunset tinted the sky pink and orange behind it. Mesquite trees were spaced evenly around it. The lights were on; Sophia Jackson was home.
Then the lights went out.
On again.
What the hell?
Lights started turning off and on, in an orderly manner, left to right across the building. Travis had been in the house often enough that he knew which window was the living room. Off, on. The dining room. The foyer.
The mare chomped at her bit impatiently, picking up on his change in mood.
“Yeah, girl. Go on.” He let the horse pick up her pace. Normally, he’d never let a horse hurry back to the barn; that was just sure to start a bad habit. But everything on the River Mack was his responsibility, including the house with its blinking lights, and its new resident.
The lights came on and stayed on as he rode steadily toward the movie star that he was going to check on tonight, after all.
Travis couldn’t ride his horse up to the front door and leave her on the porch. There was a hitching post on the side that faced the barn, so he rode around the house toward the back. The kitchen door was the one everyone used, anyway.
The first year he’d landed a job here as a ranch hand, he’d learned real quick to leave the barn through the door that faced the house. Mrs. MacDowell was as likely as not to open her kitchen door and call over passing ranch hands to see if they’d help her finish off something she’d baked. She was forever baking Bundt cakes and what not, then insisting she couldn’t eat them before they went stale. Since her sons had all gone off to medical school to become doctors, Travis suspected she just didn’t know how to stop feeding young men. As a twenty-five-year-old living in the bunkhouse on canned pork-n-beans, he’d been happy to help her not let anything get stale.
Travis grinned at the memory. From the vantage point of his horse’s back, he looked down into the kitchen as he passed its window and saw another woman there. Blond hair, black clothes...curled up on the floor. Weeping.
“Whoa,” he said softly, and the mare stopped.
He could tell in a glance Sophia Jackson wasn’t hurt, the same way he could tell in a glance if a cowboy who’d been thrown from a horse was hurt. She could obviously breathe if she could cry. She was hugging her knees to her chest in a way that proved she didn’t have any broken bones. As he watched, she shook that silver and gold hair back and got to her feet, her back to him. She could move just fine. There was nothing he needed to fix.
She was emotional, but Travis couldn’t fix that. There wasn’t a lot of weeping on a cattle ranch. If a youngster got homesick out on a roundup or a heartbroken cowboy shed a tear over a Dear John letter after a mail call, Travis generally kept an eye on them from a distance. Once they’d regained their composure, he’d find some reason to check in with them, asking about their saddle or if they’d noticed the creek was low. If they cared to talk, they were welcome to bring it up. Some did. Most didn’t.
He’d give Sophia Jackson her space, then. Whatever was making her sad, it was hers to cry over. Tomorrow night would be soon enough to check in with her.
Just as he nudged his horse back into a walk, he caught a movement out of the corner of
