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

by Patricia McLinn

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “But you want me to butt out?”

  “You can’t help, Pete.”

  “And you can?”

  “Not much,” she conceded. “But I can tell you a few things. First, I’ll quote Mama right back at you: ‘Do what you’ll feel good about thirty years from now.’” Their eyes met, and beneath the seriousness, they shared a wry affection for Irene’s sayings and her wisdom. “Second, I’ll tell you, now that Angie Lee is dead, I’ll have to live with regret that I didn’t at least consider her request to see me ten years ago.”

  “I didn’t know—”

  “Nobody knew. Not even Irene and Ted.”

  She knew Pete’s eyes were on her, but she kept hers on the blessedly straight road. As long as she kept the tires in the ruts, the truck could almost drive itself.

  Pete drew in a breath as if to say something. She hurried on.

  “Maybe, after thinking about it, I still would have said no, but I didn’t think. I let the old pain take control and I jumped on the opportunity to give back Angie Lee a little of her own by rejecting her.” Confession might be good for the soul, but it was hell on the nerves. “What you have to decide, Pete, is if you’re reacting to Boone out of fear, and if you might someday regret slamming the door on him.”

  When his words finally came, they were halting, confused.

  “I guess...I don’t know, Cambria. I guess the thing is I don’t want anything to, you know, mess things up.”

  She stopped the truck and turned off the engine.

  “Pete, there is nothing—nothing in this world and probably beyond—that could make us stop being a family. More than the sun rising, more than the sun setting, you can count on that.”

  Her brother shot a look at her from under his brows, color rising on his neck, but a smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, I know. It’s just, sometimes...”

  She saw the sheen in Pete’s eyes.

  “You have got to know that Mama won’t ever quit being your mama. In fact, I hate to break it to you, brother of mine, but you will never let your hair grow or skip church as long as she’s around. She won’t even have to say much. She has her ways. Believe me.” Their eyes met in amused understanding. She added solemnity to her next words. “And dad won’t ever quit being your daddy.”

  “I do know that. I really do. But...Well, you know.”

  “Yes, I do know. I truly do, Pete. With a patchwork family like ours, sometimes you worry if the seams might come apart. But you know that antique quilt Jessa has on the wall behind the register?” He nodded. “She’s had it as long as I’ve known her. One day in our apartment in D.C. something...well, something came up. I found myself staring at that quilt, and I realized that where it showed wear wasn’t in the seams, but in the fabric. The fabric might split, but those seams held, Pete.”

  Pete stroked the initials on his baseball hat—P.A.W. for Peter Andrew Weston—and one side of his mouth lifted in a half grin that twisted at her heart. “Pretty stupid thing to worry about, huh?”

  “No, not stupid. Entirely natural.” She drew a quick breath. As long as they were being open...“Just as it would be natural for you to have wondered about your birth parents, Pete. To wonder what traits you inherited from them. Haven’t you ever wondered where you got your long legs or your coloring or—”

  “Or my big feet?” He shot a quick grin at her that triggered a simultaneous urge to grin back and to cry.

  “Or your eyebrows, say.”

  Pete shook his head and, although those distinctive features had drawn down in concentration, his mood clearly had lifted. “No, I don’t think I have wondered about it much.” His frown cleared and a grin lurked. “It’s like Mama always says, ‘It’s not what you’re given, it’s what—’ ”

  “ ‘You make of it,’ ” she completed in unison with him.

  His smile faded almost immediately. “But what could I tell Boone? I mean, I don’t want him to misunderstand or—”

  “So you tell him the truth, as straight as you can. About what you want and how you feel.”

  “But with him gone, I don’t know...”

  “You might start by reading Boone’s letter. I just happen to have it with me.”

  Giving Pete privacy to read his letter, Cambria got out of the truck and walked several yards down the road to where a bank of earth offered a seat, with the dirt at her feet, the sweep of blue sky over her head and, around her, the drying green of native grasses.

  She saw none of it.

  She saw the remembered words on a single piece of paper that sat in the top drawer of her bureau. Words written in a strong, upright hand in black ink on stark white paper.

  I haven’t told you why I love you, Cambria. I love your fierce loyalty, your blunt honesty, your straightforward approach to life and people, your tough-mindedness—and your heart, which you try to keep hidden behind all that. Do you know how often you fail at that? Every time you smile. Every time you look at your family or your friends or your land, especially those mountains. And when I hold you in my arms, I thank God for letting me see that.

  Boone Dorsey Smith had seen beneath her prickly surface, to what she was, what she could be. As he had with the old cabin. She smiled faintly to herself at the metaphor. But the more she considered it, the more true it held. He’d seen potential in the cabin, given of himself to bring that potential out, and he’d left it a better, stronger and more appealing structure.

  Not a bad accomplishment.

  Even when Boone tried to step between the people he loved and their problems, instead of standing beside them, it was because he had so much love to give.

  He had been honest with her about secrets that were solely his. For that matter, he had been considerably more open about his childhood than she had. He’d also been more honest about his attraction to her, while she’d told herself she felt nothing.

  But even lying to herself, she’d reached out for his touch.

  Because she did trust him the way he’d talked about—at a basic, fundamental level. She raised her head, staring unseeingly at a clump of silver gray sagebrush. She trusted Boone with her secrets, with her heart.

  Can you accept the secrets and forgive the slips?

  “I think I can, Boone,” she whispered to the air. “I think I can.”

  “Cam! Hey, Cam!”

  Pete’s shout brought her to her feet though she still felt slightly dazed by her own thoughts. She started toward him. He grinned, yet he somehow looked older, more mature. She searched his face. She saw traces of Boone, but she also saw Ted’s steadiness and Irene’s generous heart. Most of all, she saw Pete, and the individual he was making of himself.

  “Let’s go back to the house, Cam.” He looked around. “Unless you’re serious about cutting firewood and not just using it as an excuse to get me to talk.”

  She laughed, even as a tear slipped down her cheek. She hugged him hard and kissed him on the cheek, realizing that before too long he’d be too tall for her to do that even with a stretch.

  “Hey, what’s with the mushy stuff?” But he squeezed her ribs in return before releasing her.

  “Firewood was a ploy, all the way. Who needs firewood in the middle of summer?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Marlene? It’s Boone... uh, Bodie. Bodie Smith.”

  “Oh. Hello.” The voice over the phone line was wary.

  “I’m not calling to make trouble, Marlene. I just wanted you to know you were right.”

  “Right?”

  “About letting the boy have his own life.”

  “You saw him?” She sounded almost afraid to ask, but not quite able to stop herself.

  “Yes. I saw him. He’s a good kid, Marlene. And he’s happy. He’ll turn out fine. He’s got a good head on his shoulders and a good heart. And he’s got a family that loves him and supports him. He doesn’t lack for anything, not anything vital. And he wants nothing from us—from me. He made that c
lear in no uncertain terms.”

  “Oh, Bodie...I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” His chuckle held little humor. “What for? I’m the one who made a mess of this—seventeen years ago and now.”

  “I’m sorry you were hurt.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, too. Sorry I wasn’t the sort of person you felt you could have counted on to help and understand seventeen years ago.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Bodie. I made it through fine. Like I told you, I have a good life.”

  “I know. But I’d still like to be the kind of person someone would turn to. I’m working on that.”

  Boone had been back in North Carolina a full month—longer than he’d stayed in Wyoming. But in his mind, the past month slid away unnoticed, almost unreal, while the days at the Weston ranch stood out vivid and beckoning.

  It sure hadn’t been much fun coming back.

  With Cambria’s voice echoing in his heart, he’d vowed to clear time and energy so he could design. But he’d handled everything with Bodie Smith Enterprises for so long that it was like trying to turn the Queen Elizabeth II around in mid-ocean. He couldn’t just drop his responsibilities—strings, as Cully called them. He had to find someone else, the right someone else, to take charge of each one, as well as make sure the newly spread out strings didn’t get hopelessly tangled.

  No easy job for a man who’d never paid attention to which of his employees was good at what because it didn’t matter as long as Bodie Smith did it all.

  In the back of his head he’d thought his changes would stir enthusiasm among his employees. Instead they were outright skeptical. A few seemed wary of more responsibility, but most seemed braced for when the boss changed his mind and snatched it all back.

  He’d had a devil of a time talking Hannah Chalmers out of quitting as head of advertising. It turned out she’d been frustrated a long time with the tight reins on her authority. Reading her memos with a new perspective, he saw that. He’d been blind to it before Cambria Weston.

  At night he was either not sleeping because he was thinking about Cambria and the other Westons or he was not sleeping because he was thinking about Kenzie. Had she, like Hannah Chalmers, sent out signals for years that he held too tight a rein on her? Signals he hadn’t received until the only solution his sister saw was cutting ties?

  He wrote her a letter. In fact he wrote six letters, tearing up five. The sixth, sent to the last address he had for her in Maryland, came back with Addressee Unknown. No Forwarding Address across the front in smeared red ink.

  He considered writing to Cambria, or calling, or catching the first flight west, or walking toward the setting sun as long as his body held out. But the same question always stopped him: what would he say to her?

  Could he tell her he’d become or even hoped to become the man who could give her the love she needed?

  He didn’t like the answers.

  All in all, he’d spent a miserable month turning his life and business upside-down. Some days wanting to return to the way things were, some days afraid he’d do just that.

  On one of the worst days. Cully arrived.

  When the door opened without warning, Boone turned from staring out the window toward the heavily wooded hillside beside Bodie Smith Enterprises. He dredged up a smile. “Hey, Cully. Where’ve you been?”

  Cully took his time studying Boone before moving into the room, slamming the door behind him and taking a chair with his usual insolent ease. “Louisiana. Doing a job for somebody. You look like hell.”

  “Nice to see you, too.”

  “Boone, I’m telling you—you look bad. You didn’t look that hot when you came back from Wyoming, but now...” He shook his head. Elbows on the chair arms, he steepled his fingers over his middle, and surprised Boone.

  “Tell me what you were thinking about when I walked in.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Spill it, Boone. What’s on your mind?”

  “Marlene.”

  “What about her?”

  “Remember what I told you Marlene said, about why she didn’t turn to me when she found out she was pregnant, why she handled having the baby and putting it up for adoption by herself?”

  You would have taken over like you always did, Bodie.

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  “I was thinking about that one night—”

  “Looks more like you’ve been thinking about something all night, every night,” Cully muttered.

  Boone ignored that. “I was thinking about what she said and how I used to think that if I took charge, even if I made a mistake, I only hurt myself. Now I’ve realized it’s not only me who can get hurt by my mistakes. Pretty damn arrogant, wasn’t I?”

  “Not bad for a dictator.”

  Boone nodded. “Yeah, that’s what Kenzie called me. Cambria called me general manager of the universe. And that’s the other part—if I don’t hurt people outright, I drive them away. Marlene. Employees who’d like to think for themselves now and then. I found Phil updating his resume right before I left for Wyoming.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “Lately he hasn’t had time to send it out.”

  Boone sobered immediately. “Not just friends and employees, either. There’s Kenzie. And now...”

  “And now you’re thinking you’ve added the Westons to the list.” Cully understood. Boone was grateful for that. Even more grateful his friend didn’t try to extend sympathy.

  Cully tugged a sheet of paper free from an untidy stack on the desk. He cocked an eyebrow at the drawing. A doodling, really, but something new. “Looks like you regained at least one thing, though.”

  “It’s a start.” After a long drought, it was a blessed drop of rain. “Cully, you found Pete for me, how’d you feel about looking for Kenzie, maybe paving the way.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What do you mean, maybe?”

  “Might not need to look for her. Might already know where she is.”

  “You’ve been in touch with Kenzie and you didn’t tell me? I have a right to know where she is. You should have told me—”

  “So you could take over?”

  That hurt. Because it was true. All this good intentions...The intercom buzzed. Boone jabbed the button. “Yeah, Phil.”

  “Call on line two, Bodie. It’s Pete Weston.”

  Cully’s eyebrows rose. He started toward the door. “Sometimes you get a second chance to escape that mousetrap, Boone.”

  “Put him through, Phil.”

  Cully paused at the door only long enough to give him a thumbs-up sign of encouragement.

  Boone let out a long breath before picking up the receiver.

  “Pete?”

  “Hello, Boone.”

  “Is everything okay? Your family, Cambria—”

  “Yeah, yeah, everything’s okay. Your letter said to call anytime, and Cambria said...Well, I didn’t want to leave things, uh, the way they were. I, uh, I reversed the charges. Your letter said—”

  “I’m glad you did. I didn’t think you’d call.”

  For an instant he thought that might have been too honest. Pete sounded even more strained when he spoke again.

  “I wanted to tell you I, uh, read your letter. I thought about the things you said and some stuff Cam said I needed to decide.”

  Boone’s throat grew narrow and dry. “What did you decide?”

  “I still feel the same about who’s my father. I gotta be honest. Now, or thirty years from now, you’re never going to be my father, Boone.”

  It hurt. He couldn’t deny it.

  “Okay, Pete. Like I said in the letter, I won’t try to push into your life anymore.”

  “Yeah, I know. But, you know, I thought we...we did okay as friends, you know?”

  Boone tried to keep his voice steady through the buffeting of emotions. “Yeah, I thought so, too.”

  “Okay, then. So, I sort of thought, you know, if you wanted to be friends, well, that might be okay. We could try it, a
nyhow. But no stuff about giving me things.”

  Boone squeezed his eyes tightly shut again, then opened them slowly, letting go of expectations, letting go of the way he’d thought things had to be, letting go of a lot of old ideas about love and being loved.

  And discovering he could live without them.

  He could accept another way.

  The way Pete was giving him a chance to learn, and Cambria had given him the wisdom to try.

  “I...” He swallowed hard. “I’d like that.”

  More cautiously than he’d approached any exchange in his lifetime, Boone volunteered a tentative comment about the Colorado Rockies’ pitching rotation.

  Pete answered with enthusiasm heavily laced with relief.

  They’d never be Kevin Costner reconnected with his father. Boone and Pete would never have that field of dreams, but Boone found himself smiling. He and Pete were starting a connection based not on the past but the present.

  “I better get going,” Pete said into a pause.

  Boone fought the urge to keep him on the phone. “Okay. I hope we can talk again soon.”

  “Well, that’s...Uh.” Pete’s indrawn breath filled the phone line. It came out in a spurt of words. “You know you’ve got four days left on the month you paid for, and your cabin—the one you used—is empty Fourth of July weekend. So why don’t you come on out? Your not finishing the month really messes up the bookkeeping, you know.”

  Boone’s grip on the phone tightened.

  “Did your sister say that?”

  “No,” Pete admitted. “Mom did.”

  No words coming to mind, Boone grunted acknowledgment.

  “She misses you.”

  Boone knew Pete didn’t mean his mother. “She said that?”

  “She doesn’t have to. I can see it. She’s my sister.”

  “It’s complicated, Pete.”

  “That’s what she said. She said there were a lot of issues.”

  “She’s right.”

  Pete gave a huff of breath. “Well, maybe the two of you should get busy and figure out all those issues. Cam used one of Mom’s sayings on me, you know, saying for me to decide what I wanted to do about you by figuring what I’d feel good about looking back on thirty years from now. Seems to me you two should do that, too,”