Brooding, Katie chewed her cookie. Wade’s love for his daughter was clear and it had been just as evident growing up that her father had felt the same way toward Jillian. And there’d been no mistaking that those feelings didn’t extend to Katie.

  “What’s the matter with me that everyone always finds me lacking?” She finally dared ask.

  It had been a question she’d harbored most of her life and while she’d feared the answer she needed to know. It didn’t matter what the response was as it couldn’t be any worse than always finding herself alone or abandoned.

  Jillian’s eyes went round. “Lacking? Whoever said that?”

  “Nobody had to say it when it was clear by their actions. Mother never cared enough to ask about me. Father was always with you and you certainly never wanted to spend any time with me.”

  While she’d let Jillian have the sofa so her sister could stretch her legs and keep her feet up, Katie had curled into the armchair. She tucked her feet closer now. Somehow the action made her feel less vulnerable.

  “Katie, when I went into Mother’s room it was the same. She bemoaned her ailments, begged me to stay longer but it was never about me either. I think she was afraid and looking for reassurance.”

  Katie shook her head. “Even before she became ill she never had time for me. If she wasn’t accepting ladies for tea and luncheons, or fussing with the house and her volunteer work, she was with father. Her conversations with me usually consisted of her agenda for the day and what would be expected of me in her absence.”

  “I’m sorry. I know she wasn’t the warmest woman.”

  “I kept telling myself that’s all it was but it was hard to believe when father was no different. If he wasn’t with her he was with you. I used to beg him to take me with him, with you, but he always refused. Why, Jillian?” Her voice cracked. “Why didn’t he want me?”

  Jillian’s eyes swam with tears. “I just think he didn’t know what to do with you. He and I had the same interests, so it was easy.” She wiped her cheek dry. “Father only knew work; it was all he talked about. When he read, it was medicine journals and, anytime we were together, conversation was limited to veterinary things. I spent a lot of time with him, Katie, but it was work. Always work. And I think because you didn’t even have that in common with him he simply felt he had nothing to say.”

  It made sense, but it didn’t make her any less angry. “We could have had things in common if he’d taken me with him, just once. I have no desire to be a vet but I’ve come to love horses, and I don’t know and I can’t explain it but I feel I have a connection with them.”

  It took some maneuvering with her extended belly but Jillian managed to shift to her side. She tucked a pillow behind her back. “I’ve noticed.” She smiled once she was comfortable. “So has Wade.” Her eyes fixed on Katie. “So has Scott.”

  Hearing his name tore her apart. Her parents were gone and while the scars of their indifference continued to sting they were nothing compared to what Scott’s rejection had done to her.

  “Katie, what’s happening between you two? I know you’re not sharing a bed despite the fact you clearly already have. I’ve seen the way you look at each other; I know you care for each other.”

  Katie looked down. “I thought he did. He proved today just how wrong I was.”

  “Katie, there must be—”

  “I never wanted to marry him. Yes, we made love on our way from Chico; I can’t explain that either. I’ve never felt anything like the attraction I feel for Scott. He was so nice and attentive over our meal, he never judged me about being in jail.”

  She shrugged, careful not to spill her steaming tea. “When we stopped for the rain, well, it just felt natural and right. But it was his idea to marry me.” She struggled, and failed, to hold back her tears. A few slipped into her tea. “Why would he do that if he was just going to leave me for a whore?”

  “I don’t know why he did that, Katie. Neither does Wade. It’s not like Scott at all.”

  “That’s what Shane said. In the end, it doesn’t really matter if it’s like him or not, the point is he did it.”

  “Katie, whatever is possessing Scott to do this, it’s not because there’s anything wrong with you.”

  “If there’s nothing wrong with me why did he throw up after the first time we made love?” Katie looked up in time to see Jillian cringe.

  “That doesn’t mean—”

  “Of course it does. Has Wade ever vomited after making love with you?” She held Jillian’s stare until her sister had no choice but to concede.

  Finally Jillian shook her head. “But did he say why?” her sister asked.

  “I asked. He wouldn’t tell me. Jillian, he won’t talk to me. Even after we made love in the barn—”

  Jillian grinned. “The barn?”

  Katie’s cheeks burned. “He was showing me how to groom Ranger.” She waved away her sister’s chuckle. “Anyway, he looked as sick after as he had the first time. When I asked him, he said it wasn’t me. But what else am I supposed to think? And then today to leave me for a whore...”

  Katie set her tea down. “I couldn’t breathe. I screamed at him not to leave me and he did anyway.” She looked at her sister through a veil of tears. “How can I not wonder what’s lacking in me when everybody I’ve ever loved couldn’t be bothered to love me in return?”

  Then, unable to bear the raw pain in her heart, Katie buried her face in her hands. She wept for the little girl who’d spent hours alone in her room, talking to her doll and pretending the toy was all she needed. She cried for the young woman who’d gone to parties to feel less alone and who’d returned feeling even more isolated. She broke for the woman who’d given her heart to a man who didn’t want it.

  She hadn’t heard Jillian move but suddenly her sister’s arm was around her shoulders. It was the first time Katie could remember someone holding her as she cried. Uncurling herself from the chair, Katie rose and as much as Jillian’s pregnant belly allowed, hugged her sister.

  “I love you, Katie.” Jillian’s voice warbled through her own tears. “And I’m so sorry I never told you. I’m sorry you felt you weren’t enough. We were selfish, Katie, the lot of us. That’s our failing not yours.”

  Katie clung to Jillian until her tears were mostly spent and the hurt in her chest was down to a dull ache rather than a slicing pain.

  Sniffing, Katie stepped back. “Thank you,” she said as she mopped her cheeks.

  Jillian wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Don’t thank me for hurting you.”

  “I know I didn’t help matters. I wasn’t as nice as I could have been either. I’ve always envied you, Jillian, and as I got older it ate at me more.”

  “You’ve envied me? Why, because I had father’s attention?”

  “More than that. You knew what you wanted from a young age and you went after it with purpose. And, yes, you had father’s attention but you also came west, made a life for yourself, made a family.” Katie had to fight the fresh surge of emotion. “I paled in comparison. I still do.”

  Jillian’s face went fierce. She grabbed Katie’s arm and squeezed. “I don’t want to hear that again. There is nothing inadequate about you. Do you know it was I who used to envy you?”

  Katie couldn’t have been more surprised. “What? Why?”

  Jillian eased her grip, took Katie’s hand, and led her to the sofa. Katie bit her lip to keep from smiling at the way Jillian had to brace an arm on the back of the furniture before sitting.

  “You think it’s funny now, wait until it’s your turn.”

  Katie dismissed that. Married or not, if Scott intended to share a bed with a whore he’d not be sharing hers as well. Which meant she’d have to be content being an aunt. And because the thought of never being a mother was an unbearable one, she changed the subject.

  “How could you have envied me? I had nothing.”

  Jillian shook her head. “You had friends, lots of them. And fire. Maybe you didn’t pour it into an education like I did but there’s always been a little wildness in you. Where I often felt weighed down by the constant battles I faced chasing my dreams, you were the rainbow in the room. Bright and free. Do you know why I was so angry when you and Annabelle had that water fight in the kitchen? Because something so simple, so fun would have never entered my mind. You live in the moment, Katie, and that can be a glorious thing. I’ve often wished I could be more like that.”

  Katie simply gaped at her sister. Jillian had been jealous of her? Never in a thousand years would she have thought such a thing possible.

  Suddenly Jillian winced, wrapped her arms around her belly.

  “What’s wrong?” Katie asked, ready to bolt out the door and fetch Wade.

  “Nothing.” Jillian smiled. “I get sharp twitches sometimes. Both Eileen and the midwife tell me it’s perfectly normal.”

  Katie pressed a hand to her thumping heart. “Thank God. I thought you were going into labor.”

  Jillian ran her palms over her belly. “Not for another week or so.”

  “I’m happy for you, Jillian. I mean that. Wade is a good man and Annabelle is sweet as pie.”

  Jillian took Katie’s hand. “Don’t give up on your happiness, Katie,” she said as though she suspected Katie had done just that. “There was a time I didn’t think Wade and I had a chance either.”

  “There was?”

  For the next hour, she listened to Jillian’s story of her trip west, how Wade had been sure when she’d shown up at his barn to do surgery on his cow that her presence was nothing more than a practical joke on Scott and James’s behalf.

  “Those men and their practical jokes on each other.” Jillian shook her head. “They’re like children sometimes. In fact Wade wanted to believe you and Scott were pulling one on him when you came back alone earlier but...”

  The “but” sat heavy in the room until Katie urged Jillian to continue her story.

  Jillian talked about how angry Wade had been when the cow she’d operated on had later died. How he’d blamed her. Though he’d soon come around to see she’d done all she could, the rest of the town hadn’t been so forgiving.

  “Wade defended me more than once. And the more time we spent together, the more I felt things I too had never felt for a man before.” She winked. “There was no wagon in the rain but there were stolen kisses in this parlor, at my house.” She sighed. “Katie, I’d never felt anything like I did when I was in Wade’s arms.”

  “If it was so wonderful, why didn’t you think it was going to work?”

  “Because his first wife Amy had been a midwife. She was thrown from her horse one night on route to help deliver a baby and died. Wade had vowed he’d never again marry a woman who wasn’t happy being a wife and mother. Not only didn’t he want to again leave Annabelle motherless, but he’d always felt he wasn’t enough for her, that the reason she’d wanted to work as a midwife was because he wasn’t enough for her.”

  Katie shook her head. She’d been wrong about so many things. “Did he ask you to choose between being a vet and him?”

  “At first, yes. I tried to explain that his wife wanting to work didn’t make him less, it made her more, but he couldn’t see it that way. And I hadn’t worked as hard as I had to give it all up, even for a man I loved.”

  “What changed?”

  “One of the men who took great exception to me being a woman doctor tried to take Annabelle’s best friend at Eileen and James’s wedding.”

  “And you offered yourself instead. Scott told me,” she said when Jillian raised a questioning brow.

  “It was me he was after anyway. But luckily, Wade got to us in time. It scared him though, scared both of us enough to want to do whatever it took to stay together. I was willing to stay and hope in time the town would come to accept me as a doctor. If not, well, he was worth more to me than a job. And Wade realized that I wouldn’t be truly happy if I couldn’t be a vet and he wanted me to be happy. He didn’t want to stand between me and my dream.”

  It was a heck of a story and even more reason to be proud of her sister and everything she’d accomplished but Jillian and Wade’s story was different than hers and Scott’s. Katie didn’t seen how her own could possibly have the same happy ending.

  “I’m glad it worked for you, Jillian, but it’s not the same with me and Scott. Wade told you what his problem was. Scott won’t tell me his. Instead of confiding in me, his wife, he dumped me with his friend and went to slake his lust with a whore.”

  “There must be a reason for his behavior, Katie.”

  “I’m sure there is, but I’ve asked and he won’t tell me. And be damned if I’m going to beg now. Maybe I could have before but not anymore. I can forgive a lot of things, Jillian, but not infidelity.”

  “First, let me say I don’t blame you.” Then she continued with a deep sigh and a grin. “I didn’t want you to take exception to my ‘long-suffering sigh’ before I could explain in this case—and most—it just means I wish things could be different, not that it’s your fault.”

  Katie’s lips pulled. “I guess I was always quick to assume the worst from you. I’ve kept it, you know, all this time.”

  “Kept what?”

  “The music box you gave me when I was ten. I played it all the time, felt closer to you, less alone, when I did.”

  “Oh, Katie.”

  “I brought it with me. It was one of the few things in that house I cared about but the robbers broke it.”

  Jillian gave her a hug. “I’ll get you another one.”

  “I’m sorry, Jillian. For everything.”

  Jillian squeezed hard. “Me too. But things will be better now.”

  Katie’s thoughts turned to Scott and while she and her sister had crossed a bridge and things would indeed be better between them from there on in, the same couldn’t be said for her relationship with Scott.

  Whatever chance they’d had, whatever marriage they’d had, ended when he’d chosen to walk away from her.

  When Shane told him Katie had wanted to ride out alone, Scott had had more than a few troublesome thoughts. What if she got lost? What if, despite her apparent ease with horses, she were thrown and hurt? He’d raced Chancy home while keeping his eyes open for Ranger or a prone Katie lying on the ground. It wasn’t until the yard came in sight and he saw Ranger prancing in the paddock that he drew a full breath.

  She’d made it safely.

  Despite the relief, his shoulders remained tight with knots. Not because he wasn’t damn glad Katie was safe but because the one thing he’d always hoped to avoid—divulging his past—couldn’t be avoided any longer.

  He walked Chancy the rest of the way to the corral gate, casting a wary eye around the yard. He wouldn’t be surprised if Wade was also lying in wait, hoping to get in a free punch.

  But the only things moving in the yard were the chickens in the coop and the horses in the paddock. That was strange. He’d expect Annabelle to be racing about or Wade to be fixing one thing or another, as something always seemed to need repair or tending on a ranch. He didn’t like the stillness. It wasn’t common this time of day. Usually Jillian would have laundry flapping on the line or—

  Maybe the baby had come early.

  Scott loosened the cinch on Chancy’s saddle, then, knowing his horse wasn’t going anywhere, took off running for the house. He leapt up the steps and nearly collided with Katie when she opened the front door.

  She squealed, though she managed to contain most of it behind the hand she clasped to her mouth. Then recognizing him, she lowered her hand, reached it behind her and closed the door.

  He was about to ask if Jillian had had the baby when Katie came round swinging. It wasn’t a punch but the slap across his cheek caught him as unaware as Shane’s fist had. It cracked like a whip in the silence. Dammit, she’d landed her blow in the exact same spot as Shane’s. Glaring, Katie tugged on the hem of her blouse, grabbed her skirt and marched down the steps.

  Rubbing his smarting jaw, he leapt off the porch. “Katie, I know you’re mad but if you’d just—”

  She spun again and he took a step back because she still had venom in her eyes.

  “I don’t ‘just’ have to do anything and you stay out of that house. Jillian’s resting.”

  He glanced toward the front door. “Did she have the baby?”

  “No, she’s just tired. Now go away and leave us both alone.”

  Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Not after working himself up to telling her about his past. He loped around her, blocked her path.

  “I’d like to explain.”

  Katie tossed her braid over her shoulder. “I don’t particularly care what you want at the moment. Any more than you cared what I wanted when you left me in the street for that whore.”

  He’d known what it had looked like from her point of view but he’d been too surprised by Charlotte’s appearance to look at Katie. He was looking now. The depth of how deep he’d hurt her was all over her face. Shame and regret waged war inside his chest. He should have taken the time to at least explain he wasn’t going to bed Charlotte before going to her.

  “It’s not what you think, Katie. Let’s go to my bunkhouse, I’ll tell you everything.”

  Her cheeks flamed nearly as red as her hair. “If you think I’m going to fall into bed with you after you’ve had your way with that woman, you’re plumb stupid.”

  He didn’t mind being called stupid but the insinuation that he was the kind of man who’d expect sex with her, when he knew good and well she suspected he’d just bedded a whore, was insulting. Had he really fallen so low in her eyes?

  “I never said anything about touching you, did I?” Feeling his own anger rise he pushed his hat up his forehead. “I said I wanted to explain myself and I’d rather not do it in the middle of the yard.”

  “You’ll have to forgive me if what you want isn’t foremost in my mind at the moment.”

  She skirted around him but again he intercepted her. He lowered his voice, though the yard remained as empty as it had been before.

  “I never slept with Charlotte. Not today, not ever.”

 

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