“Not in my mail,” he interrupted before she really got up a head of steam. “I’m warning you, little girl. I’m not babysitting this one. If she gets tired of taking a light out to the outhouse, she’s just gonna have to camp on somebody else’s living-room floor.”
“Oh, she won’t be any problem, Jake. Really. She just wanted to talk to Clovis and José and everybody. You know, get local color. Stories and traditions and songs and stuff.”
Jake scowled heartily. “Well then, we’ll have to get that Little Doggie Chorus in shape real quick, won’t we?”
“Jake!”
“It’s foaling season, Lee. I’m not going to have some college greenhorn interfering with the men. They have enough to do.”
“Just for a few weeks,” she pleaded. “I’m going to be there for spring break, so I can help out then. I promise she won’t get in your way.”
“Spring break?” He couldn’t help a small grin. “I thought you were runnin’ off to the beach with all your Ivy League buddies.”
“Well, I...they...” Another sigh, but this one suspiciously quiet. “I miss home,” she finally admitted. “Do you mind? I’m still getting used to this.”
“I told you you should go someplace with mountains.”
“Jake...”
He leaned back a little farther, stretching out a crick in his back from where he’d been wrestling with a stallion who didn’t particularly like the vet. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, eyes closed as he massaged the offending muscles. “It’s gonna cost an arm and a leg to fly you back now. Betty could have had the tickets in the mail three weeks ago.”
“Because I paid for these. You have enough on your hands right now without funding my homesickness.”
“Don’t be ridiculous—”
“It’s too late to argue. I have my tickets. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, take care of Amanda. I promise, you’ll love her, Jake. She’s really the greatest person on earth.”
“Ahem.” An old joke, going back to the days when Lee had been a kindergartner and fallen in love with the little boy sitting next to her.
“Except for a certain brother I know,” she gave in with a giggle, just like she always did.
“And don’t forget it,” he demanded on a growl. He knew she could hear his smile. He had another brother and sister, older than Lee, out in the world now in their professions. He was close to all three. But Lee was the baby. His kid sister. The dreamer and the poet and the will-o’-the-wisp that was sadly missing from the cold, hard ground outside and the empty rooms inside. Lee was his favorite, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
“Please be nice to her,” his little sister begged, not knowing what she asked. “Just till I get there.”
Now Jake was rubbing at his eyes. He was tired, he was sore, and he was frustrated. But most of all, listening to the life in his little sister’s voice, he was lonely. He’d spent his entire life working for the day when his family could successfully escape the ranch, and now he missed them with a hard ache that just wouldn’t ease.
“I’ll be nice to her.”
Ten minutes later he found himself standing at the front window, a beer in hand and his gaze out to the fences and buildings that stretched out across the high mountain plain nestled amid the Wind River Mountains. José was loading the tractor with feed for a run to the pasture, and Clovis was grooming his horse, a solid little paint named Montana. The other hands were out seeing to fences, and his cook, Maria, was humming out in the kitchen.
The buildings were clean and neat, the fences solid and the work areas open and uncluttered. A few horses clustered in the breaking pen and another group could be seen grazing in the near pasture, all sleek and fast and bright-eyed.
Jake knew the place looked prosperous. It should. He’d busted his butt to make it look that way. People driving through the gates of the Diamond K gaped at the magnificent vistas, the tidy red outbuildings and the long, low stone-and-wood ranch house with the smoke that always curled above a roaring fireplace. The new ones marveled at Jake’s luck to be able to live where he did, and the old ones shook their heads in wonder that he’d been able to hang on to it the way he had. Not one of them saw what Jake did when he looked out this front window.
Jake didn’t see the smooth beauty of a well-run ranch or count the money on the hoof that roamed his pastures. He didn’t see the ragged clutter of the mountains or the vast Wyoming sky. All Jake Kendall could see when he looked out his window was the prison those mountains had become.
The ranch was a success. His sisters and brother were grown, happily exploring their new lives beyond the borders of the Diamond K. And Jake, who had worked so very hard for just that, was left behind. He was trapped by his own success, and couldn’t see a way out anymore. And now, like a bad joke, he was going to have to face Lee’s newest mentor, who was everything that was missing from his life.
Everything he couldn’t have.
Downing the rest of his beer in one slug, Jake took one last look out to where the sun glittered off the distant snowy peaks. He was going to have to talk to Amanda Marlow. But he wasn’t going to have to do it just yet. Turning away from the window, he tossed the can into the trash and picked his hat back up. There was work to do. It was spring again. He should have been in a better mood.
Instead, his past had come back to haunt him.
