Her feet were bare, and there was a tiny tattoo of a rose at the base of her left big toe.

  “Not now,” Sara replied, eyeing the inky flower. “That’s temporary, right?”

  Hayley rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mother,” she gibed. “I’m the obedient kid, remember? Eric is the rebel.”

  Sara took the remote from her daughter’s hand, switched off the power and sat up as straight as possible, given her deep fatigue and the fact that she might just have thrown away her one chance at lasting happiness of the man-and-woman kind.

  “We need to talk. About you being the obedient kid and Eric being the rebel.”

  Hayley huffed out a major sigh. “We don’t have to do this, Mom,” she said, sounding both reasonable and annoyed. “I know you love me as much as you love Eric. I was just being bitchy. I had cramps when we talked on the phone earlier.”

  “You don’t have them now?”

  “No,” Hayley replied. “I took some ibuprofen and lay down with a heating pad on my belly. When they come back, I’ll do both those things again.”

  “Sometimes it sucks to be a woman,” Sara observed wryly.

  “From the looks of you, being a woman is sucking more than usual at the moment. What happened, Mom? Did you and J.P. have a fight?”

  Sara shook her head and decided it was time to find out how much her daughter actually knew about what amounted to an affair between her mother and J.P. McCall.

  The idea that what she had with J.P. might never be anything more than an affair, a fling, made Sara ache all over, inside and out.

  “Not a fight,” she answered. “A discussion.”

  “What kind of discussion?”

  “It’s complicated,” Sara confessed. “What he wants, what I want, what’s best for you and Eric.”

  “Never mind Eric and me,” Hayley said, sounding almost angry. “You’ve given up enough for us as it is, Mom. It’s time you got to live for yourself, at least some of the time.”

  Sara’s eyes filled. “Thank you for that,” she said. “But I’m always going to love you and your brother to the nth degree.”

  “We’ll be out of the house and on our own pretty soon,” Hayley pointed out, leaning to pluck a handful of tissues from the box resting on the coffee table and handing them to Sara. “You need a life, Mom.”

  Sara dried her eyes, sniffled a couple of times, blew her nose.

  “Gross,” Hayley decreed, without rancor.

  Sara laughed. It was a shaky, wobbly sound. “Thanks a lot,” she said, nudging her daughter lightly in the ribs.

  “Are you okay, Mom? I mean, really okay?”

  “I am,” Sara confirmed. “Don’t worry about me.”

  Hayley eyed her thoughtfully, heels planted on the edge of the couch cushions, arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees. “Do you love J.P., Mom?”

  “Yes,” Sara said. She wasn’t about to go into detail, of course, but Hayley deserved the truth—as much of it as she could handle, that was. “I do. And he says he loves me.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Hayley asked.

  Sara thought that over for a few moments, then replied, “I’m not entirely sure.”

  “I think you’re scared,” Hayley said with conviction. “Because the sperm donor hurt you so badly.” She raised blond eyebrows, twisted her ponytail into a bun on top of her head and then let it unwind in a flurry of gold. “Don’t let that ruin things for you, Mom. And don’t let Eric ruin things, either.”

  Sara didn’t respond, but she didn’t look away from Hayley’s earnest young face, either.

  “Take a risk, Mom,” Hayley urged softly, giving her mother a one-armed hug. “Give this thing with J.P. a fighting chance, will you? Let yourself be happy.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  IT WAS A good thing J.P. could have found his way back to the ranch blindfolded, because for all the attention he paid, he might as well have been wandering somewhere on the astral plane as he covered the distance between Sara’s place and his.

  For all practical intents and purposes, he’d been absent from his body the whole time, his mind exploring a grim potential future—one without Sara.

  It wasn’t, as the old saying went, a pretty picture.

  He returned to the present moment with a jolt as he pulled up in front of the ranch house and Trooper came bounding toward the truck, in a literal cloud of dust, barking in frenzied welcome.

  The sight of that goofy old dog twisted J.P.’s heart.

  They’d been apart a lot since Eric Worth’s accident, and he’d missed Trooper sorely, which was something of a dichotomy, given that J.P. had never been happier than he was in Sara’s company, whatever the circumstances.

  Yep. He definitely loved her.

  And the situation was downright crazy.

  Maybe even too good to be true.

  He got out of the truck, and before he could shut the door behind him, Trooper literally leaped into J.P.’s arms, licking his face with happy urgency.

  J.P. laughed, holding the dog firmly, and turned his head to one side. “Whoa,” he said. “I’m glad to see you, too.”

  He set Trooper down gently, patted his head.

  The door leading into the ranch house kitchen opened—the front door, oddly enough, was on the other side of the structure—and Becky and Robyn spilled out.

  His nieces resembled Josie, their mother, with their blond hair and denim-blue eyes. Becky, the eldest at fourteen, was already making the transition from child to young woman, but Robyn, who’d just turned twelve, was still gawky, all knees, elbows and eyeballs.

  As he watched them approach, he wished he could freeze time. Today, Becky and Robyn were innocent, perfectly and purely themselves, safe in the circle of their extended family.

  Soon enough, too soon, the outside world would teach them to question everything they thought they knew—about themselves, about life and love. It would teach them all about men and women, joy and sorrow, laughter and tears.

  All of that was inevitable, of course. Natural and right.

  But knowing it squeezed his throat shut for a few moments.

  “Are you going to stick around this time, Uncle J.P.?” Robyn chimed. “Gram says she’s seen Dickens’s Christmas ghosts more often than she’s seen you lately.”

  J.P. laughed, pulled the girl against his side with one arm, held her there for a long moment, then let her go.

  “I’ve been a little busy,” he said. “But, yeah, I’m planning to stay close to home for a while.”

  “Gramps wants to clear away some brush, over at the cabin,” Becky put in. She was the more circumspect of the two, quiet and reserved, unlike her outgoing mother. “Gram keeps telling him to drop it, that it’ll keep, but he won’t. She says he has a bee in his bonnet when it comes to that project.”

  J.P. felt a pang of chagrin. He’d been the one to suggest that he and his dad clean up the small burial plot behind the homestead cabin; he hadn’t followed through with the plan and now the man he loved and respected most in the world had been disappointed.

  Frustrated, too, no doubt.

  “I think Gramps would look really funny in a bonnet,” Robyn remarked, squinching up her freckled nose.

  “It’s just an old-people saying, ding-dong,” Becky scoffed. “A figure of speech. There is no bonnet, and no bee.”

  “Be nice,” J.P. told his elder niece, but he was grinning, too.

  The image of his father in a pioneer woman’s broad-brimmed bonnet was funny, bee or no bee. The old man, with his weathered visage and gray hair, definitely wouldn’t be able to carry off the look.

  “We’re having fried chicken for supper,” Robyn informed her uncle as the three of them headed for the house in a sort of moving huddle, Trooper trotting happily alongside. “Gram makes the best fried chicken.”

  “True that,” J.P. agreed, going for urban cool and, going by the expression on Becky’s upturned face, missing by the proverbial country mile.

  When they entered the house, they found the old man at the sink, peeling potatoes, while his busy wife dissected a plump chicken carcass, one of three, at the butcher block nearby. Her special mixture of flour, seasonings and bread crumbs sat on the end of the nearest counter, waiting.

  Sylvia McCall liked to say she used more than eleven herbs and spices, and she meant to be just as secretive about the recipe as the Colonel himself.

  “Well,” she cried, beaming even as she tried to scowl, “look what the cat dragged in.”

  J.P. noticed Robyn pulling out her smartphone and keying something into the Notes app.

  “I’m writing down every weird thing Gram and Gramps say,” she announced, “for future prosperity.”

  “Posterity,” Becky corrected loftily and with a sniff. “Dingbat.”

  “Rebecca,” Sylvia warned, though mildly. “We do not call each other names in this house. Never have, never will.”

  J.P. recalled some of the things he’d called his sisters, back in the day, when one or both of them had been roped into babysitting little brother. They hadn’t been any worse than dingbat, actually, but they’d sure gotten under Clare’s and Josie’s skins.

  For almost a year, he could rile Clare into a typical teenage frenzy of angry diatribes just by whispering stink as he passed her.

  Of course, because he kept his voice just above a whisper when he tormented his eldest sister, she’d been the one to get in trouble.

  He sighed. Next time he spoke with Clare, he’d apologize for being such a little shit back then.

  “How long till supper?” he asked. “I’ll feed the horses and grab a shower—”

  “Start with the shower,” his dad said. “I’ve already fed the horses.”

  “I was thinking we could head over to the cabin tomorrow morning, now that it’s relatively safe to wade through tall grass, and clear away some brush,” J.P. said by way of a reply. “You up for that, old man?”

  John McCall was trying not to look pleased, but he didn’t quite manage it.

  J.P. felt another tug in his heart.

  One day, his dad wouldn’t be here to josh around with. It was time to stop taking him for granted, as if he’d live forever. Start spending real time, having real conversations.

  The same went for his mom. His sisters, his nieces, his friends.

  And especially, Sara.

  “I guess I could fit that into my schedule,” J.P.’s dad said. “What time are we leaving for the homestead?”

  “Right after we feed the horses,” J.P. answered. “Say, six thirty?”

  “Hell,” his dad retorted with mock sternness, “that’s the middle of the damned day. I don’t know what to make of your generation.”

  J.P.’s mom smiled and rolled her eyes. “Hush up, John McCall,” she told her husband. “I remember when your father used to fuss about you sleeping in till noon while he rolled out no later than four a.m. to do all the chores. And kindly don’t swear in front of the girls.”

  “What about my generation, Gramps?” Robyn asked earnestly. “What do you make of us?”

  The old man grinned, wiped his hands on a dish towel, and turned away from the sink to tug at one of his younger granddaughter’s blond pigtails and give Becky a one-armed hug. “Your generation, my little cowgirls, will save the environment, feed the hungry and find a cure for every illness known to man.”

  Robyn looked thrilled. “You think so, Gramps?”

  “I think so,” he said gently.

  “It’s a tall order,” Becky remarked thoughtfully. “But we’ll try.”

  “You’ll succeed for sure,” their grandfather replied, and he sounded as though he believed every word he’d said.

  J.P.’s eyes were smarting a little, all of a sudden, so he went off to shower and change clothes. He figured the burning sensation was a delayed reaction to the dust that had roiled up around the truck when he drove in.

  When he’d showered, dried himself off and put on clean jeans and a T-shirt, he returned to the kitchen.

  Only his mom was there.

  “Where is everybody?” J.P. asked, opening the refrigerator and helping himself to a beer.

  Sylvia chuckled. “They’re outside, bathing poor old Trooper in the yard. He was getting pretty dusty.” A pause. “You really ought to have that driveway paved, J.P.”

  J.P. took a swig of beer, savored it. For now, he had plenty to think about, his mother’s suggestion included, but when supper was over and the rest of the evening had gone by, he knew thoughts of Sara would close in on him and pound him into a lonely pulp.

  “Trooper loves a good hosing down,” he said. “And I’ll think about the driveway.”

  “How are Sara and her kids?” his mother asked.

  So, no blessed period of distraction, after all.

  Damn.

  “They’re doing pretty well, considering what they’ve been through lately.”

  “Is there anything you need to tell your old gray-haired mother, J.P.?” Sylvia asked with a twinkle. “About a wedding, maybe?”

  Mothers, J.P. decided, possessed an uncanny ability to jump to conclusions, especially in cases like his and Sara’s.

  “Mom,” he drawled, stretching the word a little.

  She sighed. “All right, all right. I’ll leave it alone.”

  “A likely story,” J.P. said.

  “Just tell me everything is okay between the two of you.”

  “I can’t,” he admitted with a sigh of resignation. His mom had obviously guessed that he loved Sara, so he’d give her just enough information to appease her curiosity—he hoped. “We’re taking a time-out—as she put it.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Sylvia said. She’d put the potatoes on to boil, and now she was breading the chicken, getting ready to drop it into the bacon fat sizzling in the huge cast-iron skillet that had been in the McCall family since covered-wagon days. “Sara’s probably got all she can handle, with her boy hurt so badly and that rat fink of an ex-husband back in town.”

  For Sylvia McCall, rat fink was the mother of all insults.

  It made J.P. smile a little, even though he wasn’t sure how he was going to get through the days—and especially the nights—ahead.

  “He’s met his match in Sara,” he said. “Evidently, his plan was to get himself appointed to administrate the trust funds his father put in place for Eric and Hayley. It seems Zachary’s wallet is a little thin these days, and he’s looking for ways to fatten it up.”

  “That’s terrible!” his mother said, adjusting the gas in the burner under the big skillet, lowering the blue flame. “What kind of man steals from his own children? From anybody, really, but his own children?”

  “Zachary Worth,” J.P. answered after willing his back molars to stop grinding together. “Sara’s tough, and she can handle this, but there’s another problem.”

  “What?” Sylvia looked sincerely worried.

  “Worth has been trying to turn Eric against her, and he’s using me to do it.”

  “Using you? How?”

  “A word here, a word there. You know the drill. I’m going to be the evil stepfather. Once she and I start living under the same roof, Sara won’t have time for her kids anymore. That kind of drivel.”

  “Some women do that,” Sylvia said sadly. “Get a new husband and pretty much forget all about their kids.”

  “Not Sara,” J.P. replied with certainty. “If she had to choose between me and her children, she’d choose her children. And that’s one of the reasons I love her so much. Her character is rock-solid.”

  He must have looked sad, because his mother went to the sink, washed her hands and came over to hug J.P.

  Looking up at him, she said, “So are you, J.P. McCall. You’ve sown more than your share of wild oats, and there were times when your dad and I fretted because you couldn’t—or wouldn’t—settle down, but you’ve turned out to be as fine a man as your father, and that’s saying something.”

  She stepped back from J.P., eyed the beer can in his hand and frowned. “Just watch your alcohol intake, son. A few generations back, on my side of the family, by the way, we had a drunkard in our midst.”

  J.P. sucked in a breath, pretending to be horrified. “Say it ain’t so!” he teased. “Was this miscreant a blood relative, or did he marry into the family?”

  Sylvia laughed and swatted at him, washed and dried her hands again, and went back to dredging chicken parts through her eleven-plus herbs and spices. “She,” his mother corrected. “And, yes, she did marry into the family, but she was still an ancestor.”

  “Life was hard in those days,” J.P. remarked charitably. “Nothing but work from sunup to sundown. Chopping wood, carrying water, weeding and hoeing the vegetable patch. Having to wear corsets and long heavy dresses and pinchy shoes all the time. Maybe she needed a nip or two to keep from going out of her everlovin’ mind.”

  Sylvia made a mildly indignant face. “It wasn’t like that for Mabel,” she said. “She was a real princess, from someplace back East. Her father owned a factory. Never lifted a finger from the day she married into the family.”

  J.P. frowned. “How do you know all this?”

  “Diaries,” she said. “We have a pile of them, your father and me. It’s all there. Practically the whole history of my kinfolks and his.”

  “Seriously?” J.P. was fascinated, and he thought Sara might be, too, in her capacity as a writer. “How is it that you’ve never mentioned these diaries?”

  “You wouldn’t have been interested,” Sylvia answered with a little tilt of her chin. “Now, get some of my old towels out of the laundry room, go outside and help dry off your dog. He’s not coming in here sopping wet. It’s all I can do to keep these floors clean as it is!”

  J.P. raised the beer can in a salute, finished off its contents, tossed it into the recycling and headed for the laundry room.