A Stranger in the Family (Book 1, Bardville, Wyoming Trilogy)

by Patricia McLinn

  He didn’t grab for the door handle and his hands didn’t tighten around the briefcase, but Cambria noted with some satisfaction that his foot braced against the floorboard, exactly where the brake would be if he were driving. She took the turn onto the highway with enough speed to spew the scant gravel and raise a spray of dust. Pete would be proud of her. She clamped down on a grin.

  “You should put that in your brochures,” Boone said.

  “What?”

  “Free roller-coaster rides.”

  She clamped down harder on the grin. “You don’t like my driving, Mr. Dorsey?”

  “I’m in awe of your driving, Ms. Weston,” he said in perfect deadpan. “And that’s something, coming from someone who grew up where moonshiners outdriving the revenuers was such great sport they turned it into stock car racing.”

  “It’s not sport out here, just a way to get around.”

  “Is that what you were doing this morning out in the truck? Just getting around?”

  “In a way. I was dropping off irrigation pipe for Ted to set up.”

  “Irrigation pipe?”

  “We can’t count on nature giving us enough water for the hay and grain we need to get the cattle through the winter. If you were looking for a fancy dude ranch to stay at, you’ve come to the wrong place. This is not a spa with a few horses and cattle added for atmosphere. This is a working ranch.”

  She inwardly cringed at her defensiveness. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “I could help, you know.”

  “There’s no need—”

  “I’d like to. I don’t know much about irrigation pipe, but I can drive a pickup. Maybe not to your standards, but I can get by.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Okay, Cambria. We’ll see.”

  She had the impression she had not heard the last of this.

  She drove in silence, Boone Dorsey apparently content to observe the countryside without requiring any commentary from her.

  “Where’d you see our brochure?” she demanded abruptly.

  “What?” He turned to her and the discomfiting suspicion popped into her mind that she’d asked the question partly because she’d wanted to see his face instead of the back of his head.

  “You said we should add roller-coaster rides to the brochure. Where’d you see it?”

  “I don’t know. Must have picked it up somewhere.”

  She narrowed her eyes and shot him a sidelong look that should have pinned him to the seat. “You couldn’t have. We don’t have a brochure.”

  “How do you get bookings?”

  “Through the state tourism guide.”

  “Well, that must have been where I read about your place, then.”

  All her instincts told her it was a lie. Well, not all her instincts, because some of them were telling her this was a mighty attractive male of the species.

  The last time her instincts had been at war this way had been seven years ago. When she’d first met Tony Sussman.

  Then the war had been between her attraction to a high-energy, ambitious, going-places man and some niggling doubts about both his means and his ends. She’d been young enough and hopeful enough to shush her cautionary instincts so thoroughly that they went into hibernation until it was too late.

  Now, as they reached the first straggling buildings of Bardville, a car horn beeped and Cambria absently returned the wave of Sheriff Milano.

  It had taken her four long years, a dose of heartache and a final slap in the face to realize that despite his declarations of love and his marriage proposal, Tony’s true interest had been in trying to sell himself. And he’d been more than willing to go to the highest bidder.

  She’d learned her lesson. This time the bundle of instincts screaming their attraction would just have to lump it. She’d take no chances.

  If that made her cynical, as Irene said, then she was cynical.

  Cambria pulled into a parking spot that split the difference between Jessa Tarrant’s shop and the cafe, and was only a couple of blocks from the co-op association where she would order the replacement pipe Ted needed.

  “I’ll meet you at the cafe in an hour.” Even to her ears, it more resembled a drill sergeant’s order than a friendly rendezvous.

  Boone stopped her exit by leaning across her body to wrap his right hand around her left forearm as she reached for the door handle.

  “I thought we got past yesterday’s bad start, Cambria. I apologized, and I could have sworn you accepted. Didn’t you?”

  His face was too close. She looked out the driver’s window without focusing.

  “I accepted.”

  “Then what have you got against me, Cambria?”

  She brought her head around to face him, tightening her facial muscles against the probing of his gray eyes, and answered a demand with a demand.

  “Why did you come here?”

  “Little rest and relaxation, like everybody else.”

  She shook her head slowly. “You don’t belong here.”

  “I belong here as much as anybody else.”

  “There’s nothing here to interest someone like you.”

  His eyes flickered with a reaction she couldn’t define before the steel closed over them again. He released her arm, but still met her stare for stare.

  “How about you?”

  It took a heartbeat for her to understand he was saying she interested him.

  It took a handful of rapid heartbeats to get the breath to answer. “I don’t socialize with guests. Not that way.”

  “Never?”

  “Never. Besides—” She pointedly looked from his expensive shirt to the butter-leather briefcase at his feet. “I don’t think a small-time Wyoming rancher’s your type.”

  “You don’t know anything about me.” He seemed to deliberately smooth his gruff voice. “I’m a country boy, born and bred. I’ve got that in my blood.”

  He gave half a grin, inviting her to join in.

  Stubbornly she shook her head again. “You don’t belong here. You don’t...fit. I want to know why you came here.”

  Foolishly, she really thought for a moment that he’d tell her. Then she saw the curtain of evasion drop over his eyes.

  “Not to do anybody any harm, Cambria.” Still watching her, he leaned away and reached behind his back to open his door. A tinge of amusement colored his voice as he added, “So you can retract those porcupine quills.”

  * * * *

  “I just don’t know what gets into Irene sometimes,” Cambria grumbled a half hour later to Jessa Tarrant.

  Having ordered the pipe and picked up some electrical supplies Ted needed for repairs, Cambria had stopped at Jessa’s shop for floor wax and cleanser.

  She felt edgy, restless, and if anyone in the world might understand that, it was Jessa.

  Attending different colleges in Washington, D.C., they’d met at a seminar as juniors and hit it off. That summer they’d both interned on Capitol Hill and shared a tiny studio apartment—the kind of forced intimacy that would make or break a friendship. For them, it was make. While Cambria remained in D.C. over the next few years, Jessa had taken public relations jobs in several other cities before returning to D.C. But whether they lived in the same city or not, the friendship endured through good times and bad.

  “Of course you know what got into Irene,” Jessa disagreed with a slight smile. “It’s what always gets into her— her heart’s bigger than her business sense. Making special provisions to take this guest in before you’re open, agreeing to give him meals, that’s vintage Irene—and that’s exactly why you came back here two years ago.”

  True. The bed-and-breakfast operation, which the Westons had begun to add income, had instead been a money drain under Irene’s stewardship. Her warmth and generosity drew plenty of guests, but no profit. Now Cambria ran the business, leaving the hospitality to Irene. And they were finally in the black.

  “If I have to keep an eye on this guy, it’ll really me
ss up my schedule for getting the rest of the units in shape,” Cambria grumbled.

  “Why would you have to keep an eye on him?”

  “Oh, you know... Can’t just leave a guest with nothing to do.”

  Jessa’s brows rose, and Cambria knew her friend was remembering the number of times Cambria had done just that, saying it was probably the best service Weston Ranch Guest Quarters could offer visitors.

  Cambria tipped her head slightly toward the back of the shop. Jessa’s eyes followed to where Rita Campbell hummed comfortably as she transferred bug repellent from a box to a shelf. Jessa had hired Rita a month ago to help in the shop, though Cambria suspected the recently divorced fifty-something Rita might be getting more help than she gave. Rita was nice, but her presence put a damper on confidences between the two friends.

  By implicit agreement, they moved toward the front of the store.

  “So what’s this guest doing while you’re in town?” Jessa pitched her voice low. “This is Irene’s day at the hospital, isn’t it?”

  Cambria nodded. “He came in with me.”

  “He— Why?” Cambria couldn’t tell if her friend was more surprised that she’d agreed to bring the guest to Bardville or that he’d agreed to come. Bardville serviced the needs of the community and surrounding ranches, but it held no lure for tourists. “I mean, uh, you should have brought him in the shop. We can always use a customer.”

  “I think he had other things to do.”

  Jessa’s raised brows asked what things he could have to do in Bardville.

  “For someone who says he’s here to rest and relax, he seems strung pretty tight,” Cambria said. “He brought his briefcase into town.”

  “Why?”

  Cambria shrugged. Glancing out the shop’s front window, she said slowly, “If I’m not mistaken, he’s making business calls right this moment.”

  Jessa came to stand beside her. The front window gave a view to a figure standing across the street at the outdoor public phone bolted to the brick wall of the bank. A few years back the space between it and Toffeen Pharmacy had been turned into a ten-by-ten-foot park. No one knew why the phone had been added, though its position provided protection from the wind.

  But not enough, apparently, as Boone Dorsey planted a big hand firmly on papers that threatened to flutter out of the open briefcase perched on the small shelf under the phone. His other hand took notes as he cradled the receiver against his shoulder.

  “Capable hands,” Jessa said slowly. “He’s quite attractive.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “I don’t know anything about him. Besides, he’s a guest, a customer.”

  Jessa brushed that aside with a characteristic quick gesture. “I haven’t seen you so...so ruffled by a man in a long time.”

  “There’s something about him.”

  “Oh.”

  “No, not, ‘oh.’ Not that way,” she said with perhaps unnecessary vehemence. “There’s something that just doesn’t ring true. I can’t put my finger on it.”

  Telling him she didn’t socialize with guests should have been the end of it. But her edginess hadn’t eased.

  “Maybe that’s part of it, Cambria. But there’s more. You’re attracted to this man,” Jessa said stubbornly.

  “Hey, are you encouraging me to jump this guy’s bones? This stranger? I’d think you of all peo— Oh, God...I’m sorry, Jessa.”

  Because there was truth to what her friend had said, and because that truth made her uncomfortable, Cambria had tried to deflect it. Only she’d deflected it right into her friend’s vulnerability. She hadn’t stopped to think about her words’ impact until she saw Jessa’s wince.

  “No, it’s okay, Cambria. You’re right. In a way, I’d be the last person to advise being pleasant to any stranger, but I’m working on that. And the counseling is helping, a lot. But what are you doing?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. You haven’t opened up to anybody in a long time. I know you were hurt by Tony, but you can’t let that stand in the way the rest of your life. I’m not saying this is the guy, but someday...”

  Across the street Boone hung up, closed the briefcase, then immediately began to dial. Enough numbers to make it clear he’d reeled off a calling-card number and long distance number, both by heart.

  Cambria felt as if a gust of wind had blown her off a familiar road onto a strange one. Jessa Tarrant telling her to take a risk? Jessa encouraging her to forget the hurt of the past and open her heart again?

  “I don’t know what to say, Jessa,” she admitted.

  “Well, don’t make a huge thing of it. I just don’t want you to completely close yourself off, especially if it’s partly because of my...situation.” Jessa slanted a look at her that mingled amusement and a hint of concern. “Besides, you always did have a thing for hands.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Cambria said, relieved at the switch to teasing.

  At that moment Boone Dorsey turned and looked directly toward her and Jessa, as if he’d felt the weight of their scrutiny. Jessa stepped to the side, where the magazine rack hid her from view. Cambria stood her ground, though her heart pulsed slightly faster.

  They were too far away from each other, and the distortion of the window intruded, yet Cambria had the impression that his eyes had locked with hers. And she wished irrationally that she could know if the steel that protected his secrets remained as impregnable.

  “Just be careful.” Jessa’s earlier amusement had totally evaporated.

  “No need,” she lied, finally breaking the look by turning to her friend. “He thinks I’m a porcupine.”

  * * * *

  “Hey—you still there, Boone?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” he automatically said into the mouthpiece, though his eyes remained on Cambria Weston’s profile.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing. Nothing’s happening.”

  “Boone...”

  He shook his head clear of distraction and turned his back to the woman in the shop window across the street. “Cully, nothing’s happening,” he repeated.

  “Yeah?” Skepticism flooded the word, but a sigh of acceptance followed. “Okay. Finish what you were saying.”

  “I was finished. I told you everything’s fine. I checked in with the office, dealt with a few things by phone that will hold them until I can find a fax outlet somewhere around here.” A sound came across the wire that indicated Cully Grainger’s lack of interest in Boone’s business arrangements. “That’s all I have to say. You made me promise I’d call when I got here, and I’ve called.”

  “What about what’s happening there with the Westons? You haven’t said anythi—”

  “No, I haven’t,” Boone snapped. “I promised that, too, and I’ve never broken my word to you, dammit, Grainger.”

  “No, you haven’t.” His friend’s voice came back even and cool. “I wasn’t questioning your word. I was saying you haven’t said anything about his family.”

  “They’re just like you said they were.” Boone’s mind drifted back to when Cully had first told him about his son. Had it really been just a month ago?

  You found him ? Is he...okay ?

  He’s fine, Boone. Healthy. Seems like a normal kid.

  Where?

  Wyoming. A ranch. Nice place, not real fancy. His family takes in guests during the summer.

  His family...

  Father, mother, sister and the boy. It’s a second marriage for the parents. They’ve been married twenty-four years. The sister’s older. Thirty, maybe. She’s the father’s girl. They seem close. All of them.

  Tell me about him.

  His name’s Pete—Peter Andrew Weston. He’ll finish his junior year in high school this June. A few B’s, mostly C’s. Not real sure about college. He’s a regular kid from all accounts, who’s had a very regular life. Up till now.

  “How do you like them?”

  Cu
lly’s question brought Boone back to the present. He pushed his hair back from his forehead with his free hand and let out a slow breath. “Fine. I like them fine. They’re nice people. All of them.”

  There was a pause on the line, as if Cully Grainger was delving into his words for more meaning.

  “Boone, are you okay about this? I could come—”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You sound edgy.”

  “I’ve got cause, don’t you think? It’s not every day a man finds... Well, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Another of those pauses. “You know, I think you need a kick in the head now and then to shake up some of those strange notions of yours, but if you need somebody around, you know I’d—”

  “I know.”

  “Okay. Well, hang in there, Boone. And give me a call when...well, when it’s settled.”

  “I will.”

  “Okay. See you.”

  “Yeah, see you... And, Cully? Thanks.”

  He wasn’t entirely sure his final words were heard before the line went dead.

  * * * *

  The old-fashioned bell tinkled over the shop door as Boone entered. From the looks the three women gave him, it could have been a blaring alarm.

  “Hello. Thought I saw you in here.”

  Though he addressed the words to Cambria, he smiled first at the older woman at the far end of the second aisle. She smiled back. The younger woman with her back to the magazine rack didn’t, maintaining a neutral expression.

  He hadn’t made a success of his business by being overly sensitive, so he ignored the lukewarm response, as well as Cambria’s frown, and raised an eyebrow to her.

  Cambria’s hazel eyes glittered with annoyance, but she knew her social duty.

  “Rita and Jessa, this is Boone Dorsey. He’s staying at the Guest Quarters. For now.”

  He nearly grinned. She didn’t bother with subtlety. Her rider said it flat-out—she didn’t expect, didn’t particularly want, him to stick around.

  “Rita Campbell and Jessa Tarrant,” Cambria said, completing the introduction.

  Boone’s interest heightened at hearing the latter name. So the younger woman was the one Irene had mentioned as Cambria’s good friend, the one who’d come here from Washington with her. This could be interesting.