Her friend smirked openly. “I love you, Tessa. But a city girl like you voluntarily setting foot in a barn? Not a chance.”
“Thankfully, Fern made arrangements for her pets. I’ll get them to their new owner, sell her farm, and be done with it.”
“You’re sure that’s all the sparks flying thick and fast between you two were about?”
Tessa just rolled her eyes. She wasn’t going to dignify that with an answer.
Charlotte studied Tessa’s face with the quiet intensity she usually reserved for her wedding gown sketches. “You know, it’s been four years since Mick died. Nobody would blame you if you hit it off with?—”
“Don’t.”
“I’m just saying?—”
“And I’m saying I’m not interested in some patronizing vet who thinks a woman in heels can’t handle farm life.”
“All right, all right.” Charlotte held up both hands in surrender. “Subject changed. How are the gown photos coming along? I finished the beadwork on the Sinclair design and it looks stunning, if I do say so myself.”
Tessa let the conversation shift to safer ground—necklines and lace and the major New York wedding boutique that had expressed interest in carrying Charlotte’s line. This was territory she understood. Fabric and lighting and the perfect angle to photograph a train sweeping across a barn floor. Not barn diabetic cats, llamas with skin conditions, and blue-eyed veterinarians who said exactly what they thought without a shred of social finesse.
Through the window, she saw Makayla standing beside a horse, watching with rapt attention as the farrier trimmed its hooves. Her daughter’s face was transformed. Lit up. Open in a way Tessa rarely saw anymore.
When had Makayla stopped looking like that?
The question unsettled her even more than the unpleasant encounter with the cowboy vet.
She pushed it into a mental drawer and closed it, the way she did to most things that threatened to crack the smooth surface of her life. She turned back to Charlotte to talk about silk organza and French seams.
That evening, after Makayla was asleep in her room above the Fashion Bow-tique—their apartment was small but bright and very much theirs—Tessa sat at her desk and stared at the business card the oil company man had slipped into her hand after the reception. He was the stranger who’d been talking to Molly earlier.
He’d been polished and polite, without a sincere bone in his body. She knew the type all too well—men with a lot of money and very little sentiment or substance. Nice suit, firm handshake, straight to the point. He’d heard about Fern’s property on Lake Stillwater. He understood she might be coming into ownership. He’d like to discuss a very generous offer, at her convenience.
Fern’s farm was 100 acres of meadows and forests with almost a half-mile of shorefront along the lake, including the prettiest little beach on the whole lake. A realtor or property developer being interested in the farm wouldn’t have surprised her. But an oil man? What did he want with Fern’s place?
She set the card down and opened her laptop, scrolling through the photos she’d taken of Charlotte’s latest gown. The bodice beading was exquisite. She would need to shoot it in natural light, maybe against the weathered wood of the barn door at the Foster Ranch—Jenna had offered her property for photo shoots anytime.
Her phone buzzed. She stared at it, startled. A text from her mother. Judith never texted her.
The Whitmore School has an opening in their strings program and I’ve reserved an audition for Makayla over spring break. Call me.
Tessa set the phone down with a shudder. Today had been tiring and she didn’t have the mental fortitude to deal with Judith right now.
Tomorrow was the will reading. After that, she would dispose of the animals, sell the property, and get back to the life she’d built here. The store, the gown business, her friends, Makayla’s school and activities.
Simple.
She ignored the small, stubborn voice in the back of her mind warning her that nothing involving Fern Lawrence had ever been simple.
2
The foal was dying.
Dillon knelt in the straw beside the little sorrel filly, his hands moving with a steadiness that belied the urgency hammering in his chest. She’d been born two hours ago in a tangle of long legs and slick membrane, and for the first twenty minutes, everything had looked fine. Then she’d stopped trying to stand.
“Is she gonna make it?” Tom Beecham hovered in the stall doorway, his weathered face creased with worry. At seventy-three, Tom had been ranching since before Dillon was born, and he’d seen his share of foals come and go. But this mare was his granddaughter’s horse, and the foal was supposed to be a Christmas present, and the granddaughter was five, and Christmas was already past.
No pressure.
“She’s got a partially collapsed lung,” Dillon said, not looking up. “I need to get her stabilized.”
