by Rachel Lee
A huge, aching chasm of a difference.
* * *
Cliff Martin watched Holly Heflin with dislike. She was still a pretty sprite, with wavy auburn hair and bright blue eyes. He felt that all too familiar surge of desire for her and had to battle down memories of how her gentle curves had felt in his arms. But too much lay between them for him to like her. While Martha had defended Holly more than once, he had the wounds to show for how she had treated him. A long-ago summer affair, brief, fleeting, had left him an angry man for a long time and convinced him that Holly was as self-centered as a woman could be. Martha’s talk of her youth hadn’t helped one whit.
Regardless, now he was tied to this woman by Martha, who for reasons he couldn’t begin to understand had made him executor of her will. Not that there was a lot to carry out. And there was Holly, a woman even more beautiful than at twenty, now part of his life again whether he liked it or not. He didn’t like it.
What had Martha been thinking? He was grateful to her for protecting his leases. It would have killed his ranching operation to give up all that land. But what was with the ten years? And the stuff about Holly following her dream?
Not that he cared about Holly’s dreams. Holly’s dreams had nearly killed him once. To his way of thinking, she wasn’t trustworthy. Maybe Martha felt the same, and had put the leases in her will to ensure Holly didn’t kick him off the land. But damn, this was going to be miserable. He needed that woman like he needed a hole in his head.
But for all he had wanted to think Holly was an uncaring witch, nothing could make him believe those tears weren’t real.
He didn’t get any of this, but he supposed it didn’t matter. Martha had gone her own way, quirky and delightful and always surprising. Why should she end her life any differently?
He watched Holly decline to go to the church for a covered-dish supper. Martha had wanted no memorial, but others were going to give it to her anyway. How that would have made her laugh.
But her niece seemed determined to follow her aunt’s wishes. He watched her walk to her car, a slender woman with beautiful auburn hair and blue eyes, and thought how utterly alone she looked. And how very sexy. Since those thoughts had gotten him in trouble once before, he clamped down on them hard, and wished them to hell.
No way was he going to fall for that blue-eyed seductress again.
With any luck, Holly Heflin would blow back out of town as fast as she had blown in, taking whatever funds Martha had left her and leaving the ranch to rot. She was a city girl, after all.
He wondered if she’d let the house and barn turn to dust. He certainly wasn’t going to do all the maintenance for her as he had done for Martha. He didn’t owe her that and she wouldn’t even qualify as a neighbor.
Damn, he felt angry for no good reason that he could figure out. He’d had a low opinion about Holly for years, so no shock there. Absolutely no reason to be angry all over again.
Cussing under his breath anyway, he skipped the potluck and headed home. He had a ranch to take care of and only one task remaining as far as Martha went: to take her niece to the bank and see that the accounts got turned over to her.
And, he supposed, to ensure she didn’t try to sell the ranch. It didn’t look as if she would care, so what the hell.
Trying to get himself into a better mood, he turned on some music on the radio, discovered a sad country song and turned it off again.
Damn, he thought. “Martha, why do I get the feeling you left me a mess and I don’t even know how bad it is yet?”
Of course there was no answer.
* * *
Holly arrived at the ranch with sand in her eyes and lead in her heart. She climbed out of the car and looked around, memories whispering to her on the breeze. As a child she had absolutely loved coming out here. As a young woman, after Cliff, the charm had rested entirely with her aunt’s company.
Turning, she surveyed the changes. Cliff must have rented damn near all the land, to judge by how close the fences were now. But he’d also kept the place up for Martha, and sooner or later she was going to have to thank him for that no matter how the words stuck in her craw.
Memories wafted over her. She’d spent some summers here as a small child, then when she’d grown up her visits had been shorter because she had a job, but still she had come, for Martha. With one exception, every memory was good. Time and frequent visits, at least, had mostly cleared Cliff from her memories of this place. It almost seemed that only Martha remained here.
Great-Aunt Martha had been the kind of woman that Holly hoped she’d grow up to be: tough, independent, doing things pretty much her own way, but kind and loving to the core.
She made herself brush away her reaction to Cliff and climbed the steps of the porch to the front door. Her key still worked and she stepped into the past, into familiar smells that carried her back over the years, into familiar sights, into a place that had always been her second home.
In that instant, knowing she would never see Martha again, she burst into the tears she’d been trying to hold back.
She’d always felt close to Martha, despite the miles that had separated them for so long, and it hurt to realize she could never again pick up the phone and hear her aunt’s voice.
Never again.
* * *
Keeping busy seemed to be the only answer. Holly was used to being busy all the time, and sitting around her aunt’s house weeping and doing nothing went against her grain. Martha, thank goodness, hadn’t been sick. She had died suddenly and unexpectedly of a stroke, a merciful way to go, for which Holly was grateful. But it also meant the house was in pretty good shape inside as well as out. Not a whole lot of housework to occupy her, other than putting away the groceries she had bought and changing bed linens.
That left going through things. Martha had been a minimalist most of her life, buying very little, keeping very little that she didn’t use. But in going through drawers and looking at photos, Holly found plenty to carry her into memory. Pictures of her visits here, pictures of her parents, photos of Martha’s own parents and grandparents. She wasn’t awash in photos, as Martha hadn’t been one for taking very many, but there were enough to be cherished.
The furnishings showed their age and use but were still serviceable. The house seemed to be ready for her, and she wondered if Martha had intended that. Maybe.
She certainly hadn’t left any unfinished chores behind her.
Finally, unable to bear any more, she headed for the bedroom she had used during her visits. The big stuffed teddy bear Martha had given her as a child still occupied the rocker in the corner. Holly fell asleep hugging it and thinking of her aunt, the last of her family.
* * *
Morning brought no relief. Sleep had been disturbed, and she hardly felt any more rested than yesterday.
Then she remembered something Martha had been definite about. “You want to do something for me? Plant a tree.”
So she decided, after choking down her breakfast, that today she would go find a tree to plant just for Martha. Its importance grew in her mind as she thought about it. Martha had wanted it, and Martha would get it.
After she finished washing her dishes, Holly gripped the edge of the counter, closed her eyes, and tried not to hear the empty silence of the house around her. She couldn’t believe she wouldn’t hear Martha’s voice at any moment. Couldn’t believe that Martha was really gone.
God, it was beginning to hit. Numbness had begun wearing off yesterday, but now it seemed to be deserting her completely.
Hot tears rolled down her cheeks, and her heart ached as if a vise gripped it. She had known it would hurt to lose her aunt, but she hadn’t imagined this. It was every bit as bad as when her parents died in the car crash. Every bit, and that grief still haunted her.
Martha had bee
n her anchor ever since, her family, the person who kept her from feeling like an orphan, and now Martha was gone.
Never had Holly felt so utterly alone.
She wept until she could weep no more, until fatigue weighed her down and her sides hurt from sobbing. But at last quiet returned to her mind and heart. Temporarily, anyway. She fixated on getting that tree, the one wish of her aunt’s that she could still carry out.
She washed up, dressed in jeans and a hoodie, the clothes she wore when she was working with the children, and stared almost blindly at her reflection in the mirror.
Who was she? It almost seemed as if she had become a stranger to herself, as if grief were sweeping huge parts of her aside. Closing her eyes, she thought of the kids she worked with back home in Chicago, kids who were always hungry, often cold, flotsam in a sea beyond their control.
Thinking of them grounded her again, reminding her she had a purpose, and purpose was the most important thing of all.
When she finally stepped outside to face the day’s duties, she paused in the drive, feeling the spring breeze of Conard County, Wyoming, whisper all around her. Here the air was almost never still, and it seemed to carry barely heard words on it, as if it were alive.
She opened herself to it, letting it wash over her like a tender touch, the kind of tenderness she wouldn’t feel again, the tenderness of mother, father, aunt.
She took time to walk around the house taking in the small changes, having random thoughts about what she could do with this place. Her job as a social worker lay back in Chicago, but as she strolled around she realized that an ever-present tension had begun to evaporate. Today she didn’t have to walk on those streets; she didn’t have to visit tiny apartments in public housing where despair seemed to paint the walls. She didn’t have to deal with the problems of too-skinny children who were having trouble in school or at home. She didn’t have to wage a battle against desperation and hopelessness. Not today.
Then, squaring her shoulders, she strode to the car. A tree. She needed to get a tree.
She saw a vehicle coming up her driveway. A dusty but relatively recent pickup of some kind. Who could possibly be coming out here?
She didn’t have to wait long for her answer. She quickly recognized Cliff’s silhouette behind the wheel. A few seconds later he pulled up beside her.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
She resisted the urge to tell him it was none of his business, because she might have to deal with him for a long time to come. “My aunt wanted me to plant a tree in her memory. I was about to go look for one.”
He glanced at her rental. “Hard to carry in that. I was coming if to see if you wanted to take care of the bank account transfer. The sooner we clear the decks, the happier we’ll both be.”
Her teeth tightened. He really wasn’t going to let her forget. “Fine,” she said shortly.
He looked at her car again. “You planning to stay long?”
“I have a couple of weeks before I have to get back. If that’s long, then yes.”
“One rain and that car won’t get anywhere. You’ll bog down.”
“It’s a rental,” she said defensively, feeling as if he was criticizing her somehow. “Do you ever say anything that’s not critical?”
He paused. “I call things as I see them. So did your aunt. How about you?”
“What I see is a man I intended to thank for helping Aunt Martha, but right now I couldn’t choke the words out to save my life. You’re rude.”
His lips tightened, but his response was mild. “I see a little of your aunt in you.”
She didn’t respond. Ordinarily she would have taken that as a compliment, but right now she wasn’t in the mood. Besides, with this man, it must have been a sideways condemnation of some kind. He had plenty of reason to hate her, she knew, but after ten years, shouldn’t he be over it? Stupid question, she thought immediately. Her own behavior still troubled her after all these years.
“Well, climb in my cab. I can carry a tree in my bed better than you can in that car, and we can take care of the bank.”
She wanted to refuse. Oh, man, did she want to tell him to take a hike, and even more so because of the antipathy that radiated from him. She was starting to feel a whole lot of dislike for him, too. Before, she’d never disliked him, but now she wondered if she had been more wise than foolish all those years ago.
Damn this unwanted sexual attraction. Any woman would feel it, she assured herself. It was just normal. He was that kind of guy, a real-life hunk.
She didn’t want it, though. Not one little bit. She’d tasted that apple a long time ago, and it hadn’t been enough to keep her here. She’d grown up, but she was beginning to wonder if he had.
She had to give in to reality. He was right—carrying a tree would be easier in his truck.
Setting her chin, she marched around and climbed in the cab, prepared for a couple of unpleasant hours, not the least of which would be the way her body kept wanting to betray her mind and heart.
Chapter Two
As unneighborly as it felt, Cliff didn’t say a word on the way to town. What were they going to talk about anyway? Discussing Martha didn’t seem exactly safe right now, although maybe he was wrong.
On the other hand, he didn’t want to renew his relationship with Holly. Not in the least. A summer-long torrid affair a decade ago had left him scarred and her...What had it done to her? She’d turned her back on him readily enough, giving him all the reasons why she couldn’t stay in this county. She’d suffocate, she’d said. She had important things to do, she’d said. She was going to be a social worker and save the world, or at least part of the world.
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and thought that social work didn’t seem to be agreeing with her. She looked entirely too thin, for one thing. He couldn’t judge anything else because she was grieving for her aunt, after all, but if he’d been looking at a horse showing those signs, he’d have been thinking “worn to the bone.”
Fatigue seemed to wrap around her. She didn’t really have the spark he remembered. Much as he didn’t want to, he wondered if social work had gutted her in some way.
But damned if he’d ask. She’d be leaving here in two weeks. By the grace of heaven, he hoped that wouldn’t be long enough to open scars or get him all tangled up in her barbed wire again.
Because that was how he thought of it: barbed wire. Her departure had scored him deep, like a million sharp knives. No freaking way was he going through that again.
Of course, he thought, she might not be the same person any longer. He might not even really be drawn to the woman she had become. So far he hadn’t seen much to like. It was almost as if he were the enemy, not the other way around.
Which got him to wondering how she had justified her cruelty. Ah, hell, leave that can of worms alone. Take her to the bank, help her buy and plant the damned tree, and then forget she was on the same part of the planet with him.
Listening to his own thoughts, however, yanked him up short. He was thinking like a kid again. She was causing him to revert. Well, to hell with that.
He was relieved the bank took only a few minutes. He showed the paper the lawyer had given him, Martha’s account was moved into a new one in Holly’s name and it was done.
Mercifully soon, they were climbing into his truck again. Holly, however, seemed to sag. Finally he couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
“What’s wrong?”
“Did you see how much money she left me? Cliff...I’m stunned.”
“Well, you could take a decent vacation. Looks like you need one.”
She bridled, but only a bit, not as she once had. What the hell had quenched her fire? “That’s more than a vacation or even ten. And what do you mean I look like I need one?”
“You look too thin and exhausted,” he said bluntly. “Whatever kind of work you’re doing, it’s not good for your health.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I never did.” He waited for an explosion that didn’t come. Oh, this was bad. This wasn’t the Holly he remembered at all. Now, right alongside his annoyance at having her around for a while, he felt the first tendrils of worry. Was she sick?
None of his business anymore, he reminded himself. She’d made sure of that.
The town didn’t have anything like a big nursery. Around here, most planting was reserved for hay, alfalfa and vegetable gardens. But there was a corner at the feed store where it was possible to buy houseplants and some ornamental trees. Not a huge selection, but no huge demand, either. They would order stuff in, though, if, say, someone wanted to plant a windbreak or something bigger.
“What were you thinking of planting for her?” he asked as they stood looking at the tiny selection.
“Well, she always said she wanted to leave a small footprint in the world, so it should be something native.”
He hesitated a moment, wondering how far into this he wanted to get. “What are you looking for? Fast growing, flowering?”
“I want something pretty that will last. It doesn’t have to grow fast.”
He pointed. “That tulip poplar over there will give you fantastic autumn foliage. Almost like aspens, which are related. It’s pretty hardy, though.”
She looked at the tree, which right now was little more than a twig with a few leaves. “Will it get really big?”
“It’ll grow into a great shade tree.”
That decided her. Ten minutes later he was carrying it out to his truck for her.
* * *
Holly felt as if someone had let all the air out of her. Grief? Maybe. More likely it was the release of the constant tension she lived with in Chicago. Fatigue seemed to envelop her, demanding she go home and fall asleep for hours, if not days. But she still had to plant a tree. She doubted that could be safely put off for too long.
