“You were sayin’ about hardheaded Kendalls?” she asked, her thoughts still whirling around the relief of seeing Jake on his feet, the concern that he was going out to hurt himself again, the misery of knowing that he hadn’t even so much as turned her way while he’d stood there.
Betty gave a very unladylike snort and went back to her coffee. “The prime example, right there. We probably don’t have to worry about another Kendall carryin’ this place on. Jake’s gonna kill himself before he ever gets a chance to settle down and have children.”
Children. History, home, continuity. Amanda ached with the pictures that provoked, with the sudden, piercing yearning that she’d held tightly in check all these years. A place of her own, a piece of land to always come home to, to hand down with the stories of family, with the traditions of a place and a time, with the devotion of a person who knew the value of all those things.
Before Jake had a chance to wander back through, Amanda set down her cup and straightened to leave. “I think I’ll head off now, Betty.”
Betty nodded. “Thanks for puttin’ up with him. I notice he wasn’t gentleman enough to thank you himself.”
Amanda shrugged and turned for her computer, where it lay packed and ready with her work on the dining-room table. “He was a little preoccupied.”
“Will you be by again tomorrow?”
Amanda turned back to the woman just in time to see Jake appear in the living room, hat on, boots in hand, his one arm held close to his side, his gait slow and careful, his face harsh with the discomfort he thought nobody noticed.
Amanda turned abruptly away and walked back into the kitchen. “No,” she said. “I think I should probably spend a few days in the cabin. Besides...”
Betty scowled. “Don’t let him scare you off here.”
Amanda looked up in time to see that Betty’s gaze was directed not at her, but the door in toward the living room. Amanda turned to see that Jake had arrived, his features now much more composed, his posture straight and his manner deceptively easy.
He turned his attention to Amanda, and she saw the embers left from last night in the icy blue of his eyes. It almost robbed her completely of the power of speech. She clutched the computer to her chest like a lifesaver.
“Did I scare you off?” Jake asked.
Amanda forced herself to smile. “Hardly. It’s just that I have work to do today, too.”
Betty didn’t seem to feel the undercurrents in the room. She faced her boss with hands on hips. “Do I have to be your mama?” she demanded. “Remind you of your manners? Where I was brought up, it was proper to thank a person for stayin’ up all night with me to make sure I was all right.”
Jake allowed a smile then. Not the bright, winsome smile he’d given Betty before, but a tighter, slightly darker version. An expression of self-deprecation. “Did I forget to thank you?” he asked. “Thank you, Amanda. You were patient with me. Betty’s right. I can be...a little irritable when I’m not feeling well.”
Amanda tilted her head a little and returned his smile, trying her best to answer him without considering the last exchange they’d had. “The entire West seems to be a well-spring of understatement. You’re welcome, Jake. I hope Alabaster’s all right.”
A brief flash of surprise glinted in his eyes. “You going back to the cabin now? You can take Bill, if you want.”
“Thanks, but I’m going to town. I have some stocking up to do.”
He nodded and turned away. At the last minute, he flashed her a grin over his shoulder. “Don’t forget those fish.”
After the night Amanda had spent, she’d never have imagined laughing as she left. Even so, she did.
Amanda loved small towns. There was a definite pace to them, a taste that you could roll around in your mouth like fine old wine, a little musty, a little dry, a little fruity. There was a closeness that defied petty jealousies and transient arguments. Lost Ridge was no different.
Basically a one-street town with two stoplights, one funeral home and two clothing stores specializing in denim and flannel, it had been originally built in the late 1800s, with some of its original brick buildings surviving intact.
The bank had a new drive-up window and the theater had added a video arcade, but other than that, Amanda imagined that this town beyond the fringe of high-tourist Wyoming hadn’t changed appreciably in the last forty years. She wandered the stores and sidewalks like a traveler come home.
“Jake doin’ all right?” Ed Deevers asked as Amanda checked out at the market.
“Well,” Amanda hedged, noticing that three other patrons turned for her answer, “he’s back up working today.”
Ed just grinned, showing a big silver tooth beneath his walrus mustache. “Yep, that’s Jake’s way.”
“Hear you got elected to keep Jake in line yesterday,” Lila said when Amanda stopped by for the steak at Stilwell’s. “How’d it go?”
Amanda grimaced. “Well, I still have all my fingernails and about half of my sanity.”
Lila’s laugh scraped like a nail file. “If all I had to do was look at him, I’d be happy to volunteer,” she admitted. “But far as I know, he’s been laid up four times since he took over that ranch. Any more than that, he probably wouldn’t have anybody left workin’ for him. He just doesn’t take to vacations the way some of us do.”
