“Me, too,” Cord agreed.

  Alec and Sam were pulling on gloves, masks and paper shoe-covers, while the EMTs and the deputies hung back, probably on the sheriff’s orders.

  The buzzards had retreated, but they probably hadn’t gone far.

  “You need us for anything?” J.P. asked Eli.

  Eli shook his head. “Thanks, but no. I’ll be in touch.”

  J.P. and Cord led their horses over the path the new arrivals had worn in the grass and onto the hard-packed dirt road. The animals were still jumpy, but they were calming down.

  The two men rode together until the road forked, one way leading to J.P.’s ranch house, the other toward Cord’s. It wasn’t a shortcut, which was why they hadn’t used it to reach the springs, where they’d met up with Eli earlier in the day.

  All of a sudden, J.P. felt as though he could fall face-first onto his bed and sleep for a month.

  Unless, of course, he could convince Sara to join him.

  He wouldn’t sleep in that case, but a month would be just about long enough.

  He turned his thoughts back to the problem at hand.

  As a landowner, in charge of more than five hundred cattle and a dozen horses, he didn’t have that luxury. Even if his own acres were clear, he wouldn’t be able to sit back and relax, because his neighbors would need all the help they could get.

  That was the way things worked in and around Painted Pony Creek and a thousand Western towns just like it—if someone’s house burned to the ground, folks pitched in, provided food and shelter and what consolation they could.

  Ranchers and farmers helped ranchers and farmers, and the townspeople did what they could.

  If somebody’s child got sick, fundraisers were held all over the county.

  Livestock lost to a blizzard, a wildfire or a flood?

  People gave till it literally hurt.

  The current crisis would be no different.

  This time around, it wasn’t a matter of money. But once the word got out, volunteers would show up and comb the land.

  The thought gave J.P. a lot of solace as he rode slowly toward his place.

  Once he reached home, he put Shiloh in the barn, rather than turning him out to pasture. He whistled in the other horses, too, and put them in stalls.

  After feeding them and making sure the electric watering system was working, he climbed into his truck and drove toward Cord and Shallie’s place.

  The moment he parked the truck, Trooper came running to greet him.

  His eyes burning a little at the welcome, he crouched to ruffle the dog’s floppy ears.

  “Hey, old buddy,” he said gruffly.

  Trooper licked his face and then grinned in that goofy way dogs do.

  Cord came out of the barn to wait for J.P., and he and Trooper walked over to meet him.

  “Long day,” J.P. said.

  “You’ve got that right,” Cord agreed. “Ours will be a lot shorter than Eli’s will, I guess.”

  They entered the barn together, Trooper trotting along at their heels.

  “What’s the prognosis?” J.P. asked, after he’d gotten as close to the wild horse as he dared and taken a good look at the animal’s injured leg. The colt didn’t kick up a fuss; he just nipped behind his mama and then began to nurse.

  “Good. We’ll have to keep an eye on the wound, though. Make sure there’s no infection.”

  “And when she’s well again?”

  Cord patted the mare’s neck gently. “She’ll go back to the herd, where she belongs.” He paused. “Provided Eli and Melba and their people have been able to put a stop to the harassment, that is.”

  “Yeah,” J.P. agreed on a long sigh. The sight of that trampled corpse bloomed in his mind, and he felt sick. “I’m not leaving it all up to them, though.”

  Cord shook his head. “No,” he said. “Neither am I.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  AS SHE DROVE away from Sully’s, Sara was struggling to recover her composure.

  The encounter with J.P., innocuous as it had been, had left her feeling a mite jittery.

  There was so much going on in her usually quiet life: Zachary’s return had thrown her for the proverbial loop, and she was worried about Eric, too.

  Deep down, she was always worried about Eric, had been ever since he’d gotten himself into all that trouble the summer before last. Once caught, he’d admitted his guilt, and he’d accepted his punishment—a year of community service—without complaint. He’d apologized to everyone who’d been affected by his actions and, where possible, he’d made restitution.

  In fact, Eric had behaved like a new person, no longer moody and sullen, applying himself at school and keeping a civil tongue in his head, with his teachers and other authorities and at home with Sara and Hayley.

  Seeing his father again, however, had flipped some kind of inner switch in the boy, or so it seemed to Sara.

  Eric was only seventeen, she reminded herself as she drove toward the boutique for her intended shopping experiment, and he’d sorely missed having a dad like most of his friends did. Now, without warning, his father was back in his life and he would need to process that, figure out what that would mean for him and how he ought to respond.

  Sara didn’t want to overreact to Eric’s change in temperament, but she didn’t want to hide her head in the sand, either.

  If there was one thing she’d learned about raising children, it was that parents—especially single ones—had to stay engaged at all times, no matter how tired or discouraged they were. They had to stand toe to toe, ready and willing to hold the line, and to somehow find a balance between enforcing the rules and being reasonably flexible.

  Lost in thought, Sara parked in front of the small elegant shop she rarely visited.

  The place had changed owners—and names—several times over the past couple of decades, starting out as Buttons & Bows and evolving from there.

  A year ago, two sisters had purchased the building, renovated it completely, filled it with stylish, high-quality clothing, designer shoes and handbags and artisan-made jewelry.

  Its new name was Fancy That, and it had proved surprisingly popular with the women of Painted Pony Creek and the surrounding area. The shop did a brisk trade with tourists, too, but Sara suspected the bulk of the profits came from online sales.

  The Merriman sisters, Kate and Melody, had both earned their living in public relations, before leaving Los Angeles to settle in a comparative wide spot in the road, and they knew how to work social media in particular and the internet in general.

  Melody, the younger of the two, was working alone when Sara entered the shop, causing the little bell over the door to jingle as it had been doing since the days of Buttons & Bows.

  That bell, Sara reflected, was probably the only thing in the store that had ridden out two decades of near-constant change.

  “Sara,” Melody sang with a smile. She was slender and tall, with shoulder-length strawberry blond hair and emerald green eyes.

  Colored contacts? Speculation was rampant in the Creek, even after a year.

  Did anyone really have eyes that vividly green?

  A little surprised that Melody recognized her, Sara shifted mental gears and smiled back. “Hi, Melody,” she said.

  Melody drifted gracefully from behind the glass counter, with its lit display of shimmering jeweled evening bags, Italian silk scarves and bright baubles. She was wearing a cornflower blue dress, made of soft cotton, and her feet were bare, pink toenails gleaming.

  So California, Sara thought, and then reprimanded herself for indulging in a snarky thought. She hardly knew either of the Merriman sisters, and she had no business judging them for their un-Montana-like ways.

  “How can I help you?” Melody asked.

  “I need to update my wardrobe a little,” Sara said, almost apologetically, glancing down at her jeans, tank top and blazer. She looked around and was nearly overwhelmed by the variety on offer—tailored pantsuits, spectacular evening gowns, cashmere jackets, gossamer blouses. “I’m starting small,” she added hastily, blushing a little.

  Which was silly. There was no way this poised, well-mannered young woman could guess that she was embarrassed because she wanted to impress a certain man.

  Not that that was the only reason she was there.

  “What’s the occasion?” Melody wanted to know. Her voice was low and smoky; rumor had it that she sang karaoke on the occasional Friday or Saturday night over at Sully’s.

  Sara, being secretly terrified that someone would force a microphone into her hand and shove her onstage, steered clear of karaoke nights.

  Easy enough, since she rarely went anywhere on the weekends, except to see a movie now and then.

  “No occasion,” Sara replied somewhat belatedly. She began to feel foolish, and then felt foolish for feeling foolish. She wasn’t a hermit, after all. She attended weddings and funerals and church potlucks, among other things.

  The upcoming picnic with J.P. sprang to mind and, for a crazy moment, she was drawn to the rack of lovely, floaty sundresses. Then she remembered that she would be arriving at said picnic on horseback.

  Melody, having followed her gaze, stepped over to the rack and showed Sara a gloriously feminine and subtly sexy pink floral dress. The pattern was muted, reminiscent of a watercolor painting.

  “This would be fabulous with your dark hair and peaches and cream complexion,” she said. She lifted a second hanger from the metal bar and held up another dress, this one turquoise, made of soft cotton.

  She had a peaches and cream complexion?

  That was news to Sara.

  Her skin-care routine consisted of washing her face with Dove and moisturizing with Noxzema.

  “I’d like to try them on,” she heard herself say, somewhat to her surprise.

  “I’ll start a room for you,” Melody replied with another smile. “Why don’t you browse on your own for a while? See what jumps out at you?”

  “Okay,” Sara said. Was she really paid to work with words? At the present moment, most of her vocabulary seemed to have deserted her.

  She needed to go home and lie down with a cool cloth on her head until she was herself again.

  “Would you like a bottle of water?” Melody inquired. “Or a cup of tea?”

  Sara shook her head, murmured a “No, thanks,” although she knew the water would have been a good idea. She was probably dehydrated.

  Yes, that explained everything.

  Except it didn’t.

  The encounter with J.P. explained everything.

  She approached a display of silky blouses, sexy ones with low-cut necklines, short-sleeved sporty ones that tied at the waist, full lacy ones with long sleeves that reminded her of angel wings.

  Concentrate, she ordered herself silently, admiring a bright red top bedecked in tropical flowers. When had she ever owned a blouse like that?

  Never, that was when. For nearly twenty years, she’d mostly worn T-shirts and shorts or jeans in summer, sweaters and sweatshirts—and jeans—in winter. She owned two decent suits, reserved for rare meetings with her publisher and agent, in New York, church services and the aforesaid weddings and funerals.

  Her wardrobe was, in a word, pitiful.

  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, she dressed like what she was—a mom.

  But, damn it, she was more than a mother—wasn’t she?

  Okay, she was a writer, and a successful one at that, but she worked at home and that meant the dress code was casual.

  Worse than casual.

  Sometimes she worked in pajamas and didn’t bother to brush her hair.

  Sara held on to the red blouse, added one of the flowing lacy ones and then selected a third, a simple long-sleeved affair in amber silk.

  She chose a couple of skirts, a pair of black slacks and some outrageous rhinestone-studded jeans in a deep shade of magenta.

  Finally, telling herself she was crazy the whole way, Sara retreated into a changing room and slipped out of her clothes.

  She tried everything on, and everything fit.

  Amazing.

  She put her own clothes back on and, having weeded out the doubtful prospects and misfits, carried her selections to the counter, where Melody was waiting with a smile.

  Sara, tallying prices in her head, silently questioned her own sanity.

  Again.

  The total was scary, even though it would barely make a dent in her bank balance.

  Sara regretted turning down that bottle of water, though, frankly, she thought a stiff G&T or a martini—dirty, with extra olives—might be called for at the moment.

  Melody, having rung everything up and swiped Sara’s credit card, chatted amiably as she wrapped each deliciously lovely garment in pale gold tissue paper stamped with the store’s logo.

  Like her older sister, Kate, Melody was beautiful.

  Did she have a significant other?

  Sara stole a glance at the woman’s left-hand ring finger.

  No wedding band or engagement ring.

  Melody was, most likely, available.

  Sara felt the faintest whisper of paranoia.

  She wondered if J.P. knew Melody—decided he must, given the size of the town—and then took the question further into the territory of the ridiculous.

  Had J.P. noticed Melody?

  How could he not have noticed her?

  She was breathtaking.

  Smart and sweet-natured.

  Just the type of woman most men found attractive.

  Hayley’s nickname for Sara landed in the center of her chest.

  Momster.

  Sara began to feel flushed, even a little light-headed.

  And, of course, because it was the last thing Sara wanted, Melody noticed immediately.

  She rounded the corner, took Sara gently by one arm and squired her to the velvet settee under a bay window.

  “Stay put,” the other woman ordered kindly. “I’ll get you some water.”

  Sara closed her eyes, mortified. Perspiration tickled between her shoulder blades and she was slightly queasy.

  Melody returned quickly with the promised water, unscrewed the cap and handed the ice-cold bottle to Sara, who took it gratefully, muttering an embarrassed, “Thanks.”

  “Shall I call someone?” Melody asked. “Maybe you shouldn’t drive.”

  “I’m all right,” Sara insisted. She always said that when asked, but this time it was true. The first few sips of water had done a lot to restore her equilibrium.

  Water, she thought, is a wonder drug, right up there with Imodium, Tylenol and Vicks VapoRub.

  Melody’s laugh was soft, sudden and musical. “I hope it wasn’t the prices,” she said.

  Sara laughed, too, and nearly spit a mouthful of water onto the hardwood floor in the process. “They’re definitely not typical around here,” she replied, “but then, neither are the things you sell.”

  “We’re thinking of expanding the store, adding a line of bridal gowns, bridesmaid’s dresses, et cetera,” Melody confided with a touch of excitement. “Now that Brynne Garrett’s offering wedding-planning services, we’re getting inquiries. So far, mostly from mothers of the bride or groom.”

  Sara thought of Brynne’s luncheon/interview with David Fielding. Brynne’s business, though relatively new, was already beginning to thrive, and unless Sara missed her guess, things would pick up even more if he was on board.

  The man was class personified.

  “Not a bad idea,” she mused between sips of water. “Maybe you’ve heard. Brynne has a big splashy wedding booked—triplet brides. Evidently, the theme is medieval, so there will be lords and ladies and knights in shining armor—quite a shindig.”

  Melody’s mouth rounded in surprise and wonder. “Wow,” she said. “I hadn’t heard.”

  “You might want to meet with Brynne,” Sara suggested. “You and Kate. Hear her plans for yourself.”

  “Do you think she’d be interested in some kind of cooperative effort?”

  Sara had finished the water, and Melody took the empty bottle from her. “It couldn’t hurt to talk to her,” she told the shopkeeper. “There are no bridal shops in town, so people have to buy elsewhere. Brynne likes to make things as easy for her clients as possible, so I think she’d be pleased if they could make their purchases locally.”

  “Hmm,” Melody said.

  Sara got to her feet, gathered her shopping bags and her purse.

  It was time to go home, get centered, prepare herself for another run-in with Zachary or an attitude from her son.

  “Let me help you.” Melody took two of the bags and followed Sara outside.

  Her car looked dusty and very Mom-ish as she unlocked it, opened the back door and stowed her purchases.

  Melody added two more bulging bags to the mix.

  “Thank you, Sara,” she said. “For shopping with us, I mean. And for giving me something to think about. Selling wedding gowns and other bridal goods might give the shop a real boost.”

  Sara merely nodded. She was talked out—and hoping she hadn’t overstepped by mentioning the possibility of crossover business with Brynne’s company.

  She drove home, conscious of the booty in the back seat, and hoped with all her heart that the house would be empty when she arrived.

  She loved her children, but she needed a little time to collect herself.

  She wasn’t exactly rattled—that had worn off, thank heaven—but she was something of an introvert, and she’d had enough sensory input to overload her circuits.

  The house was blessedly quiet when she entered.

  No teenagers arguing.

  No TV or computer blaring gaming sounds.

  No shouts of triumph or outrage when one avatar defeated another.