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  “Hey. How are things out there?”

  Since he hadn’t stood to give her a hug, she wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her cheek on the top of his head. Her husband was a small-framed man, but solid muscle. “Want to come out with me when you’re finished with that coffee? We’ve got a couple horses that could use some work this morning.”

  His answer was a sigh. “I’m pretty sore after the weekend.” His gaze dropped back to the iPad, that had gone dark. “Not that I have anything to show for my aches and bruises.”

  “Bad draws?” She had years of practice at saying the right, sympathetic thing. The score in the rodeo ring was only fifty percent under the cowboy’s control. The bulls were assigned by random draws—and not all of them were star performers. But bad draws couldn’t explain his sad bulldogging times.

  “I guess.”

  She rinsed out the cup she’d taken with her to the barn, then refilled it. Still lots left in the pot. Both girls had become coffee drinkers after they turned sixteen and were allowed to drink the beverage at home. Mattie no longer needed to make a full pot every morning. But it was one of those habits that was tough to break.

  Like cooking too much food and checking the girls’ rooms for dirty clothes when it was time to do laundry. And waiting for them to come through the back door after the school bus drove by...

  She leaned her back against the counter, sipping the hot coffee and eyeing her husband. He was looking at the iPad again, as if her presence was nothing but an interruption. That was when she noticed the key was no longer on the counter.

  “I found a key on the floor by your jacket this morning.”

  Wes nodded, head still lowered. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “So... what’s it for?”

  Wes hesitated a moment before answering. He seemed annoyed that she felt it necessary to ask the question and he answered with exaggerated patience. “I crashed with the Wilkinson’s this weekend. Peter gave me a key to their guest cabin and I forgot to return it. I’ll put it in the mail later today.”

  A wild impulse rose in her—a desire to take his silly iPad and toss it into the garbage. What was he reading on there that was so damn fascinating? After four days apart, was it so unreasonable of her to expect to have a proper conversation with her husband?

  Mattie willed herself to be calm. She’d try again, bring up another subject.

  “Jake wondered if you’d bought any yearlings?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  She raised her eyebrows. There was no point in telling him they only had twenty-two horses in their stables right now. Wes was gone a lot, but he still made all the business decisions around here—and paid the bills. He was aware that last year they’d barely broken even. And without new clients or horses, they’d be lucky to do as well this year.

  “What’s going on, Wes?” she asked softly.

  He grabbed onto his mug with both of his tough, sun-darkened hands and gazed down into it, his posture sagging with a sort of sadness Mattie had never seen in him before.

  “Why won’t you look at me?”

  He did raise his head then, but only briefly. Getting up from the stool, he went to the far window. The house had been designed open concept with a seamless transition between kitchen and family area. A river-rock fireplace with a heavy walnut mantel grounded the south end of the room. Large paneled windows to the west and north looked out to the pastures and Flathead Lake in the distance.

  Mattie set down her mug next to her husband’s and went to stand beside him. She’d lived with this view for nineteen years, but never took it for granted. From here you could see almost all of their land. And it was beautiful.

  Wes shifted, putting an extra foot between them. “Mattie—I’ve been thinking it’s time to sell.”

  “What?” This was something they’d never discussed. She wouldn’t even have considered it an option. “But—this land is...” She couldn’t find the words to go on. She’d been raised to consider land the most important and valuable thing in the world. Her father’s ties to the Circle C were blood and marrow deep. And, being married to Wes, she’d come to feel the same way about Bishop Stables too.

  “I’m getting too old to rodeo, but I’m not interested in breeding and training Tennessee Walkers. That was Mom and Dad’s thing. Not mine.”

  She wasn’t surprised that he was making this admission. She’d suspected as much for years. “But—what about the girls?” This land was their heritage, their birthright. But then an ugly suspicion rose up in her. Unlike her father who had made no secret of his disappointment in fathering four daughters, Wes had never seemed to care that they had no sons. After the twins were born he’d agreed with her that their family was complete. “Would you be saying this if we had a son?”

  “Of course... Hell, Mattie, that’s not what this is about.”

  She was relieved to hear that. But only for a second. She was beginning to see that he’d been thinking about this a long time, and by the firm set of his jaw, he’d already made up his mind.

  Without any discussion with her.

  This was not how their marriage worked. At least, up until now it wasn’t.

  “But, how will we earn our living? We have four years of college to pay for.”

  “Only because you pushed the girls to go. I still don’t know why. Neither of us went—and we did just fine.”

  The further education of their daughters had been a no-brainer to her. With Wren, it hadn’t been an issue. She’d been excited to go, had already picked out a program at the University of Colorado. Portia, however, had required some persuading.

  Mattie had been shocked when Wes sided with Portia, and they had argued privately for over a week. “Let her learn a trade, instead,” Wes had said. “She could be a hairdresser or work in one of those nails places. I see them everywhere I go.”

  Finally he’d backed down and gone silent on the subject, leaving her to persuade her lovely, less academic daughter that secondary education these days was a must.

  But all of this had taken place a year ago. She wasn’t going to let him pull her back into that argument now.

  “Even if the girls could fund college on their own—what about us? How will we support ourselves, not to mention save for our retirement? It’s not like we have a big nest egg set aside.” Making payments to registered plans had never seemed important. After all, they weren’t yet forty.

  “The proceeds from the ranch will be enough to take care of the girls.” Wes hesitated. “And you.”

  Mattie stared at him. Finally he was looking at her, too, and his eyes didn’t look like Wes’s anymore. They were cold and distant as a stranger’s.

  Understanding hit her like a bullet. She gasped, felt a physical pain explode in her gut. This must be what it’s like to die. You’re living your life—and suddenly you aren’t.

  When he didn’t say anything, she was forced to put words to the awful thing.

  “You want to sell the ranch. A-and you want to leave me.”

  He moved restlessly from the window, to the sofa, where he straightened a cushion before shifting to the fireplace. Resting one hand on the walnut mantel, he turned back to look at her. “Yeah.”

  Mattie clasped her arms around her torso, feeling a wintery chill, and also, a sense that this simply couldn’t be happening.

  It was only last Christmas that she and Wes had sat in this very room talking about their future, once the twins were off to college. One more year of rodeoing, he’d promised her, and then he’d have more time to dedicate to the ranch and more time for her. Maybe they’d take a few trips—see a bit of the world outside the continental US.

  Was he going through some sort of midlife crisis?

  “Is this about Dex’s accident last spring?”

  In May a cowboy had been killed in the rodeo ring in Texas. Dex Cooper had been a bull-rider, competing in the same event as Wes. Mattie had found out about the death online, when she was checking for her hu
sband’s scores. A video of the accident had even been posted on YouTube, but she hadn’t watched. It appalled her that people filmed these things—and then, rather than deleting them, actually put them on the Internet for other people to view.

  Who were these other people who got such thrills out of tragedy?

  Reading about the incident had been horrible enough. It was her worst nightmare, of course, that Wes would be mauled by a bull and be terribly injured—or worse.

  The fact that it had happened to some other woman’s husband, this time, didn’t make it easier to bear.

  But what troubled her even more was that Wes hadn’t called to tell her what had happened. She’d assumed he hadn’t wanted to frighten her. But in the past, he’d shared everything with her. The good. And the tough.

  When he came home, she could tell the accident had affected him deeply. How could it not? But even then he refused to talk about it, leaving the room if she so much as mentioned Dex Cooper.

  That was when Wes’s rodeo scores had started dropping.

  It was so obvious now, Mattie couldn’t believe she hadn’t made the connection earlier.

  “Dex’s death is part of it,” Wes agreed. “You know I was planning to quit next year anyway. But that kind of cinched matters for me. And I started wondering what it was all for, anyway. All those years in the rodeo ring. Sure I won some belt buckles and made some money. But for what?”

  Finally he was being honest. But why had he waited until it was too late?

  “You rodeoed because you loved it. And the money you earned helped us raise our daughters.”

  Unconvinced, Wes glanced over the pictures on the mantel. His parents and hers. Their daughters. Their wedding photo. God, they’d been young.

  “I understand why you’re quitting the rodeo. It’s time.” Few men continued to compete into their thirties, and even less once they hit forty. “But why sell the ranch? Seems to me that it’s the perfect time to be expanding—not getting out.”

  Wes rubbed his face and sighed. “You don’t get it. I’m done, Mat. I’m just...done.”

  How dared he say that? “What about the rest of us? I’m not done. I love this ranch and I’ve worked harder at it than anyone. And what about Portia and Wren? If we sell, where are they going to go for Christmas and the summer break? This is their home.”

  “You don’t get it, Mat. You think the girls are going to keep coming back here all the time—well they won’t. They’ll get a job in the city and they’ll meet a guy and we’ll be lucky if they visit one week out of the year.”

  Maybe. Eventually. But there were a lot of years to go before that day. “Aren’t you rushing things a little?”

  “The twins are eighteen. How much time did you spend going back to the Circle C once you were that age?”

  Heat flared over her. “That’s not a fair comparison. Those were different days. And Hawksley wasn’t the kind of father that you are.” Her father had been disapproving and distant—always. He’d never given any sign that he cared whether his daughters came to visit or not. The only ties Mattie felt to the Circle C were to her sisters. The four of them, despite the gaps in their ages, were very close.

  “Parents have to step back when their kids are grown. That’s just how it is.”

  He’d never talked like this before. “Our roles change,” she agreed, talking slowly, trying to figure out who this man was. She’d always felt that their parenting styles blended perfectly. But looking back now she could see that Wes had connected better with the girls when they were younger. Their adolescent stage had confused him. And maybe he’d pulled back more than she realized. “But they still need us.”

  “Portia and Wren haven’t needed me since I taught them to drive.”

  “Why are you being so literal? You know being part of a family is more than doing jobs for one another. Family provides our emotional bedrock. None of us ever grow out of the need to be loved.”

  “And I’ll never stop loving them,” Wes said, his voice subdued once more.

  The implication of his words hit her with another ferocious stab of pain.

  He’d never stop loving their daughters.

  But he had stopped loving her.

  * * *

  A Week Later

  Nat Diamond left his doctor’s office in Polson with a feeling of relief at an unpleasant task finally behind him. Ever since his mother’s death, twenty years ago, the result of a misdiagnosis, followed by a drug which had stopped her heart cold, he’d had a profound, if somewhat illogical, distrust for the medical profession. He’d been dreading that appointment for weeks. Now, the day opened up to him full of possibilities.

  He’d start with lunch. The Mexican place on the shore of the Flathead was his favorite. He’d order steak fajitas and a glass of Corona. Then treat himself with a long ride on the new colt when he got home.

  The colt had turned out to be a nice surprise. Spirited, but anxious to please too. Handsome and gaited, strong and graceful. He couldn’t wait to show him off to his neighbor Mattie. When she’d sold the horse to him three years ago, she’d said he had promise. But she’d be thrilled to see just how much.

  At the restaurant, Nat asked for a booth at the back and sat so he could look out at the lake. The patio had been closed off for the season and at the moment nary a boat could be seen over the expanse of the silvery blue waters, speckled with whitecaps. The Flathead was the biggest freshwater lake this side of the Mississippi and it didn’t take much wind to get all that water churned up.

  Despite the cooler temperatures—and the knowledge that snow would soon be coming—Nat was relieved summer was over. He didn’t care for the influx of cottagers and vacationers who jammed up the roads with their cars, and the lake with their motor boats every July and August. September was the best, but October was good too.

  He’d enjoy this month while it lasted.

  The gal who seated customers walked by, disrupting his view as she led an older man to the table next to his. Nat gave a double-take. It was Jake Webster, foreman at the Bishop’s place.

  “Hey there, Jake. Want to join me?”

  Jake nodded, then took the bench seat with his back to the lake. “Good to see you, Nat. I’ve been meaning to call. You must be planning to move your cattle in soon.”

  “Next week. You in?”

  “Absolutely.”

  One long day of work would see the job done. In the past, when they’d had more cattle on the Double D, pushing the cows down closer to home for the winter had required a two-day trail ride. Nat had loved those days riding with his mother and father, eating dinner around the campfire and sleeping under the stars.

  Recent years, though, he’d been downsizing the operation. He’d leased a large portion of his land to a neighbor to the south. Reduced the herd. It was easier this way. And he sure didn’t need the money.

  Jake ordered enchiladas and a beer and with their drinks came a basket of tortilla chips and a small bowl of watery salsa. Trying to scoop some up, without dripping on the table, was a challenge Nat almost never met.

  “I thought we’d bring the cows in next Monday. With the twins in college, I suppose Mat will want to come. And Wes, if he’s home. Should I call her, or will you pass on the invite?” Nat worded this carefully, because he was treading potential dangerous waters here. Mattie loved any excuse to be out on the range riding all day. Her husband, despite his horse-breeding operation, and love of the rodeo, did not.

  Nat wasn’t sure if it was the work—or himself—that Wes objected to. They’d been friends once upon a time. How could they not be, when they’d grown up on adjacent ranches? But once Wes married Mattie, that had changed.

  Wes was away from home a lot. And he made it clear that he didn’t want Nat stepping in to fill his shoes while he was gone. Good old Jake—decades older than Mattie—was there to handle any problems that came up.

  Only Jake couldn’t handle everything.

  And it was Wes’s own fault that
he wasn’t home more. If Nat were Mattie’s husband, he sure wouldn’t be taking off to a new rodeo every second week.

  Tensions between them eased a little when Nat married Julia. But his marriage hadn’t lasted five years before Julia moved back to Seattle. He should have known better than to pluck a woman out of the city and try to transplant her on a ranch.

  He’d resumed his bachelor lifestyle without much difficulty. And Wes had gone back to glowering at him if he spoke so much as one sentence to his wife.

  Their food came then, and Nat was half finished his plate before he realized Jake hadn’t answered his question. He looked up to see Jake pushing food around on his plate.

  Nat set down his fork. “What’s up?”

  “Well. It’s Mattie. I’m kind of worried about her.”

  “Why?”

  Jake sighed. He wasn’t one to gossip, especially not about the Bishops, about whom he felt incredibly loyal. But sometimes a man had to make a call and speak up, if the situation warranted it.

  And this time, apparently it did.

  “She hasn’t stepped outside of the house for a week.”

  That wasn’t like Mattie. “Is she sick?”

  “Don’t think so. She says not. But she won’t let me in to check on her.” Jake swallowed. “Thing is, Wes drove off seven days ago, without his trailer or his horse.”

  Jake raised his eyes from his plate, and in his tired gaze Nat could see his concern. The reason for it was obvious. If Wes hadn’t taken his horse, then he wasn’t off to another rodeo. So where had he gone?

  CHAPTER THREE

  There was not a single tea leaf left in Mattie’s kitchen. She’d gone through so many pots in the last week that she’d depleted not only her favorite English Breakfast, but also all the herbal brands her daughters had accumulated over the years.

  She’d also worn out two decks of cards playing solitaire. She found the game soothing, for some reason. Shuffling and dealing the cards, logically sorting them, keeping her mind busy so she couldn’t dwell on the unthinkable thing that had happened last Monday morning.