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

by Patricia McLinn

  “And her?”

  “And her.”

  “Well, like I said, I can’t remember females running the opposite direction from you when you took time to get your nose off the grindstone and look back at them. ‘Specially not now. You’re a successful man, Boone.” The faintest whisper of envy came through those words, and for the first time Boone wondered how his friend felt about the meteoric rise of Bodie Smith Enterprises. “All the world says so.”

  “Guess that depends on your definition of success,” he muttered, an image of Ted Weston’s weathered, smile-creased face coming to mind. “And what exactly did I do that got the world so hot and bothered, anyhow?”

  “Well, first, you built a better mousetrap. And second, you stood out in front of the world and said you believed in it. Both pretty rare.”

  “Then how come I feel like I’m the mouse that’s caught in this trap?”

  An instant’s regret clutched at him at making the admission. He’d always been the one to handle things, to take care of things...But this was Cully.

  His oldest friend gave him a rueful, commiserating smile.

  “Because you, my friend, make one hell of a good mousetrap.”

  * * * *

  Ted and Pete had left with the first group of riders. The four-wheel drive was loaded and ready for Irene and Jessa to drive out, and the chaos of vehicles, horses and people had settled into mere confusion. Cambria took a deep breath and pushed her hair back from her face.

  That’s when she spotted Irene talking to the tall stranger, with Jessa sitting silently in the four-wheel drive, and Boone looking as if he wished the guy would disappear.

  “Of course you’ll come out and have a meal with us,” Irene said as Cambria walked up. “A friend of Boone’s can’t come all this way and not have something to eat.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, but I have a flight I have to catch.”

  “Oh, our local airport?” Irene asked with her gentlest smile.

  “Yes’m, then a connecting flight from Denver.”

  “Then you have plenty of time, because June Reamer, who handles the car rentals there, said she didn’t have to be back to work until after eight because the only remaining flight today is eight-thirty.”

  Cambria thought Boone groaned, but that might have been the breeze through the cottonwood leaves.

  “Say ‘thank you,’ Cully, and give it up,” Boone muttered.

  “Oh? This is the famous Cully Grainger, is it?” Cambria stepped forward with a hand outstretched. This time she knew she heard a groan.

  But Boone performed the necessary introductions, and Cambria shook hands with the tall man whose mouth seemed to flirt constantly with a grin and whose eyes strafed her. His blue-green gaze barely seemed to touch her, yet she felt examined, cataloged and permanently memorized. She rocked back slightly, and a tinge of apology crept into his grin. Then he slid on sunglasses, and she could have put the whole thing down to imagination if she’d been another kind of woman.

  “Do you ride. Cully?”

  “I can get by.”

  “Good, then you can join Boone and me on the trail. Unless you’d rather drive with Irene and Jessa?”

  Boone and Jessa both glared at her, but Cully Grainger, after a faintly bemused glance at Irene, said, “Thanks, I’ll take my chances on the trail.”

  It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to question somebody when you were riding single file. Especially not with the object of the questions consistently managing to get between the questioner and the questionee.

  Cambria was sufficiently frustrated by the time they got to the meadow to let Boone spirit his old friend away from her almost immediately. She’d bide her time.

  Chapter Eight

  “Dad and Cambria and a bunch of the guys are going to hike a ways up the canyon, you want to come?”

  Pete divided the question between Boone and Cully, whom he’d just met.

  “The guys?” Boone asked.

  “The guys on the team.”

  “No, thanks, Pete. We’ll stick around here,” Boone said quickly, unwilling to examine the illogical surge of relief that the “bunch of guys” accompanying Cambria to that canyon were nearly a decade and a half younger than she. But that fact—plus the fact that she’d have Ted’s escort—allowed him to concentrate on other problems and to minimize contact between Cully and the Westons.

  “Speak for yourself,” Cully contradicted. “I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs. See you later, Boone.”

  Boone snagged his friend’s arm as he started to follow Pete. “Cully—”

  The other man didn’t quail beneath the wealth of warning in that single word. “Boone, quit bird-dogging me. I’m not going to spill any of your beans.”

  There wasn’t much Boone could do but let Cully go. He debated following, saying he’d changed his mind. But what good would that do? He couldn’t stop Cambria from asking questions and he couldn’t make Cully any more close-mouthed than he already was, which, come to think of it, was pretty damned close-mouthed. He’d only show how uncomfortable it made him to have the two of them within speaking distance, which would rouse even more of Cambria’s suspicions.

  Besides, he thought as he caught sight of Jessa Tarrant sitting alone on a rock upstream, he could better spend his time asking his own questions.

  “This seat taken?”

  Jessa gave a faint smile. “Help yourself.” She scooted over, making room on the flat stone. “But let me warn you, the springs in this seat are shot.”

  “See what you mean.” He shifted, trying for a more comfortable accommodation between himself and the rock. “But the view’s great. Want some?” He held out one of the bunches of grapes he’d snagged before heading her way.

  “Thanks.” She ate a grape. “If you were looking for a great view, you should have gone with Cambria and your friend and the others. The canyon’s great.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  She gave him a searching look. “You’ve seen it?”

  “Yeah. Wouldn’t mind seeing again, either, but I’d had my fill listening to Cambria try to grill Cully on the ride up.”

  “Are you surprised?”

  “No. I just wish I knew why she thinks she has to be so suspicious of me. Why she won’t open up. Why it’s one step forward and two back with us.”

  He shut his mouth with a snap. For somebody who’d meant to ask questions, he talked too damned much.

  After a thoughtful silence, Jessa spoke softly. “I’d say the answer’s the same to all of those. Cambria doesn’t trust very easily.”

  He slanted a look at Cambria’s best friend. “Why?”

  She shook her head. “You wouldn’t think much of your friend if he told your secrets, would you?” she asked. “But I can tell you about one thing that hasn’t helped.’’

  He waited, watching her shred the grape stalk with quick, jerky motions.

  “I had a—a situation back in D.C. Cambria and I shared an apartment at the time and she went through a lot of it with me.”

  “What kind of situation?”

  Jessa Tarrant looked at him, then at the sky and creek, finally settling on her hands. She tightly laced her fingers.

  “I was stalked. I guess most people would say I was the victim of a stalking, but I hate that—victim.”

  “Damn. Did he—”

  “He never got close enough to do me any real physical harm—Cambria was a big reason for that. She took it seriously from the start. Even before I did. Long before the authorities did. I used to tease her about not trusting anybody, about being so suspicious. Not anymore. I never even went out with this guy, and he destroyed my life. My work, my home, my friends—I could never get free of him.”

  “Couldn’t they catch him?”

  “They finally did, and he’s in jail, though not on stalking charges. At the time the law didn’t deal with this sort of situation.”

  “So you came out here for a fresh start.”

  �
��Yes. Cambria helped me find the shop and a place to live. She helped me feel safe again, and then she started badgering me to reach beyond where I feel safe.” Jessa looked up, staring into his eyes, gauging him. “She’s a remarkable person.”

  He swallowed, not wanting to show too much, knowing if he showed too little he’d lose this potential ally. He met her eyes.

  “Yeah, she is.”

  “She doesn’t trust easily, but when she does, she’s the most loyal, most giving friend or—” she quirked an eyebrow at him and gave the next phrase a faintly ironic, questioning tone “significant other that anybody could hope for. And once she trusts, if the trust is broken, it hurts her so deeply that she finds it very hard to ever forgive.”

  Boone Dorsey Smith recognized a warning when he heard one, even cloaked in the reserved accents of Jessa Tarrant.

  * * * *

  The twitch at the corner of Cully Grainger’s mouth might have been from suppressing a grin, and heaven only knew what lurked in those laser eyes now hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. Cambria didn’t care. She’d run out of time.

  The group had already explored the lower part of the canyon and started the return trip to the meadow. Up to this point, Cully had managed to avoid Cambria’s subtle efforts to isolate him. So, to hell with subtle.

  She snagged his arm when he would have passed her, and held on while several others went by on the narrow path, until they were the only ones left.

  “Something I can help you with?” His mouth gave that twitch and his sunglasses pointed in the direction of her hand on his arm.

  She let go, but she didn’t relent. “Yes. You can answer some questions. What brought you to Bardville?”

  “I was in the neighborhood.”

  “Oh, really.” She packed a full load of skepticism into that.

  He appeared totally undaunted. “Near enough. I was checking something out for someone just over the Montana border.”

  “Checking out what?”

  “I believe the appropriate phrase here is, ‘I am not at liberty to say.’ ”

  “I understand you’ve known Boone a long time.”

  “Most all his life.” He started down the path, and she kept pace.

  “So you knew him when his father was alive.”

  “Yep.”

  “Having his father die and having to help his mother when he was so young must have really changed him.”

  The mirrored sunglasses were trained on her. If she hadn’t been so intent on what he had to say, she might have found it unnerving. “Not changed so much, as made his tendencies hard habits.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Even before his pa died, Boone took on things, taking care of things more than the rest of us. My aunt Philly used to say Bodie collected responsibilities the way some kids collected baseball cards.”

  “It helped get his family through.”

  As soon as the words became sound, she wanted to kick herself. What was she doing defending Boone? Especially to his longtime friend?

  “That it did. But the man doesn’t know when to quit. Doesn’t know when it’s time to let somebody else carry the responsibility.”

  “You mean, with his job.”

  He paused, finding the right footing on a water-splashed rock as they reached nearly level ground. “Yeah.”

  “I agree. He’s working too hard, trying to do everything himself. Nobody can carry that sort of burden forever. Something’s got to give.”

  Though she couldn’t see his eyes, she had the sense he was measuring her. “You told him that?”

  “Yes. He says you’ve told him the same thing.”

  “Does he now?” he murmured.

  “Not that he seems to listen to either of us.”

  “Hasn’t listened much to me ever. Maybe being here will change some of that.”

  Cambria wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he meant by that. It didn’t matter anyhow. They were getting too far off what she wanted to know, and they were nearly to where a group milled around the grill and filled their plates from Irene’s bounty spread out on folding tables.

  “Why do you think he’s staying here so long?”

  Cully chuckled, a rumbling mirth that barely disturbed the lines of his face. “You looked in a mirror lately? Better yet, have you seen a reflection of yourself from his eyes? A man doesn’t walk away from that easy.”

  Cambria felt a flush, hot and tingly, rising through her body. Its most disturbing aspect was how damn good it felt.

  Before she had to think of something to say, she caught sight of Boone striding toward them. Apparently Cully did, too.

  He stepped in front of her, his back to Boone, masking her from Boone’s view. With one hand, he held her upper arm, keeping her in place; with the other, he raised his glasses and studied her through narrowed eyes.

  “What do you—”

  He interrupted as if he hadn’t heard. “Boone’s the best man I know. If I was in hell and had one chance to get out, he’d be the man I’d call on.” He dropped the glasses into place and his mouth gave that twitch again. “He also needs to be hit upside the head now and then. You look to me to be just the woman to do it.”

  He released her arm, turned on his heel and intercepted Boone, still five yards away, steering him toward where Ted held out plates to them.

  Cambria had the feeling she was missing something...but what? She had no answer. But the feeling didn’t fade as Boone maneuvered Cully away from her until the shadows lengthened and everyone started back to the main house. If anything, it grew stronger as she watched Boone say goodbye to his longtime friend, standing by Cully’s beige rental car, their faces serious, their handshake firm enough to edge toward pain.

  * * * *

  “I see you in the boy, Boone.”

  Boone closed his eyes for half a minute. “I wasn’t sure if I really saw it or if I wanted it so badly I made it so. But that makes it more complicated. What if they see—”

  “They’d have to be looking,” Cully said. “It’s the eyebrows, the shape of the head. His coloring’s different, and that makes it harder to see. But what’s the difference—you’re going to tell them, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. When the time’s right.”

  “Not as easy as you thought it’d be?” Cully asked.

  “I didn’t think it would be easy, but it’s even harder than I thought. Harder to know what to do. Harder to—I don’t know what to call it—intrude? But a hell of a lot harder to think about just stepping away.”

  “From him or her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Cully cleared his throat. “You want me to approach the family, Boone? It might be easier, coming from a less interested party.”

  “No,” he said slowly. “I’ll take care of it myself.”

  “Now, how did I know you were going to say that?” Cully asked with resignation.

  * * * *

  They started a campfire in a circle of stones in front of the bunkhouse. In a week there would be strangers here. But for tonight it was a circle of friends and family, telling stories, laughing with one another.

  Cambria looked across to where Boone listened to Pete, who sat beside him.

  Somewhere inside her she accepted that he belonged in this circle.

  She could see Boone as a young boy, gawky and thin, then older as he started to fill out—so clearly it was as if she’d been there. She could see him as the boy described by him and by Cully. And she could see the man he’d become. The man Cully Grainger said was the best he knew.

  “You’ve really made progress with the new cabin,” Jessa said from beside her.

  Cambria smiled as her gaze went to the shadowy form beginning to rise on the concrete piers. It would be about fifty percent bigger than the structure that had stood on the far side of the creek, and though she couldn’t envision the finished product the way she suspected Boone could, she had faith it would be a vast improvement. She’d already figured th
at if reservations stayed at last year’s level, they could make their money back on it by the end of this season.

  “Boone and Pete have made progress. I’m the unskilled labor on this project.”

  “He’s quite talented, isn’t he?”

  Cambria had told Jessa one night over a plate of nachos and margaritas about discovering that their bed-and-breakfast guest was Bodie Smith. Cambria had still been steaming, but Jessa, while she shared her surprise, did not participate in her outrage. When Cambria cooled off, Jessa had speculated about what sort of pressures would bear down on a man in Bodie Smith’s position.

  “Don’t you think so?”

  Jessa’s voice startled Cambria out of her reverie.

  “What?”

  “That Boone’s talented.”

  Cambria sidestepped that. Just as she wouldn’t tell Boone about Jessa’s past, she wouldn’t discuss his problems designing with anyone else. “Must be to have such a successful business.”

  “That doesn’t rely on talent.”

  Before Cambria could formulate an answer to that, Jessa made an announcement that turned the conversation in a totally different direction.

  “I told him about what happened in Washington.”

  “You told...Boone?” She stared at the friend. Jessa looked as calm as she sounded. “Why?”

  “Because you didn’t.”

  “It’s not my decision to tell your business. But I don’t understand—”

  “I wanted him to understand you better.”

  “Me? That makes no sense.”

  Jessa shrugged with a faint smile. “It does to me. I also told him because I trust him.” She looked Cambria directly in the eyes. “Do you?”

  Cambria looked away, her gaze locking with the man across from her. They were illuminated by sparks, separated by fire.

  “I don’t know. I wish I did.”

  It wasn’t until she was in bed that night that she wondered if her own words had meant that she wished she knew if she trusted Boone Dorsey Smith, or she wished she trusted him.

  * * * *

  A brisk, warm breeze made Monday morning perfect for hanging out the bedding for the cabins that would hold their first guests come Friday, when Memorial Day weekend kicked off the official opening of the Weston Ranch Guest Quarters.