Big Sky Country

“I guess that’s understandable,” she said, keeping her back to him as she filled a good-sized foam cup and popped a lid onto the top. “Wanting folks to know the truth, I mean.”

Slade was on his feet, retrieving his hat from the counter, turning the brim slowly in his hands. “I don’t reckon it will surprise anybody,” he reminded her, recalling the gossip that had started so many schoolyard brawls while he was growing up.

Callie had been barely twenty years old when she’d taken up with Carmody; naive and alone in the world, and fresh out of some fly-by-night beauty school in Missoula with nothing but her license to cut hair, the old trailer she’d grown up in and the two hardscrabble acres sloping down to Buffalo Creek behind it. Her beloved “granddad” had been dead two years by then.

“I’m sorry, Slade,” she said now. “For all you had to go through on my account, I mean. Practically everybody I knew said I ought to put you up for adoption, once I knew John had intended to marry someone else all along, but I just couldn’t do it. I guess it was selfish of me, but you were my boy and I wanted to see you grow up.”

“I know,” Slade said, as he stooped to kiss her forehead. He’d heard all of it before, after all, and while he understood Callie’s personal regrets, the fact of the matter was, he was glad she’d kept him. She’d sacrificed a lot, working long hours to build the business that had supported them both, though just barely sometimes, passing up more than one chance to get married, move away from Parable and finally enjoy a degree of respectability.

Instead, she’d stuck it out, right there in the old hometown, where she believed she had every right to be, as did her son, whether John Carmody, his high-society bride or the snootier locals had liked it or not.

Slade had tried to put it into words how grateful he was for the rock-solid courage she’d always shown, for the example she’d set by working hard, standing her ground and just plain showing up for life and doing what she could with what she had. Because of her, he’d grown up strong, sound-minded and at home in his body, with a quiet confidence in himself and in his own judgment that had never failed him, even during a tour of duty in Iraq and the rough patch when his marriage ended.

He paused in the doorway, hat in hand, looking back at her. “You can retire now,” he said. “Maybe go on a trip or something.”

Callie laughed, the sound almost musical. “That’ll be the day, Slade Barlow,” she replied. “If you think I’m going to accept a big check from you and spend the rest of my life eating bonbons and taking tours of other people’s gardens, you’d better think again. Why, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t have this place—and what would all my clients do without me?”

Slade shook his head, a grin quirking up one corner of his mouth. “Just give it some thought,” he said, full of a strange, sweet sadness. “There’s a whole world beyond the borders of this town, Mom.”

Callie waved a dismissive hand and reached for the broom again. “Maybe so,” she said, “but I’m staying right here.”

“You’re stubborn as hell, you know that?”

“Where do you think you got it?” she countered.

Like his looks and the framework of his bones, he’d always figured most of his pigheadedness had come down from John Carmody, but now he recognized the quality as the downside of his mother’s fierce persistence.

He waved once, crossed to his truck, got in and drove away.

He should have been at work half an hour ago.

By this time, he reckoned, all his deputies and Becky, the longtime receptionist, were probably fixing to send out a search party, complete with cadaver dogs and a plan drawn out on a grid.

The idea made him smile as he headed back toward the courthouse.

* * *

JOSLYN KIRK OVERSLEPT that morning, and when she opened her eyes, it took her a few seconds to recognize her surroundings and realize she was right back in the one place she’d sworn never to set foot in again—Parable, Montana.

Joslyn sat up in her sleeping bag—she’d arrived late the night before and hadn’t bothered to put sheets on the antique brass bed—and looked around, taking in the cabbage-rose wallpaper, the worn planks in the floor and ornate woodwork, the heavy wardrobe that served as a closet.

She was in the guesthouse behind the mansion that had been her home for most of her childhood. Memories swamped her—on the other side of the broad green lawn, her mother would have been sitting on the screened-in sunporch on a bright morning like this one, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. The housekeeper, Opal, would have been busy in the huge kitchen, preparing breakfast.

Now, her mom was in Santa Fe, living with husband number three, a successful artist. Husband number two, Elliott Rossiter, had died in prison of an embolism, and heaven only knew where Opal was by now. She and Joslyn had parted tearfully, with promises to stay in touch, but they’d lost each other’s trails years ago.

Joslyn sighed, pushed back her long brown hair and wriggled out of the sleeping bag. There was no sense in moping about the past—she’d come back to Parable for a reason, and she needed to get on with the plan.

So she could leave again.

After a brief stop in the bathroom and a quick splash at the sink, she padded barefoot into the tiny kitchen and groped through various plastic shopping bags until she unearthed the cheap coffeepot she’d purchased the day before, along with a few other essentials, at the big discount store out on the highway.

She fumbled with the pot, then the small can of ground coffee beans, then the old-fashioned water spigot.

A rap at the door interrupted the process, but only briefly. She’d be useless without coffee, and, besides, she knew who the visitor was.

“Come in!” she called.

There was a metallic jiggle at the front door, and a moment or two later, Kendra Shepherd, Joslyn’s best friend since forever, stepped into the kitchen.

Blonde and elegant like a ballet dancer, Kendra looked ready to take on a new day in her crisp green suit and high heels. She ran Shepherd Real Estate, and she was clearly making a success of the enterprise.

“You really should lock the door at night,” Kendra said, right off. “Parable has its share of petty crime, you know.”

“As long as it’s petty, why worry?” Joslyn said offhandedly with a little shrug, leaning to peer at the buttons on the coffeepot, looking for one labeled On. Finding it, she jabbed at it with the tip of one index finger. She straightened, smiled at her friend, feeling not the least bit self-conscious in her flannel pajama bottoms and oversize T-shirt.

“I’m serious,” Kendra fretted. “Coming from Phoenix like you do, I’d think you would be more careful about your personal safety.”

Joslyn plundered the shopping bags again, this time looking for cups and artificial sweetener. “Okay,” she said, distracted by the desperate need for a caffeine fix. “Point taken. I’ll lock every door and window from now on, and maybe adopt a rottweiler with overt killer instincts.”

Kendra smiled and drew back a chair at the compact kitchen table, which seated two. “Still a smart-ass after all these years,” she remarked, sounding almost wistful.

“It’s a coping mechanism,” Joslyn said, only half kidding. She pushed her hair back again and regarded her friend with affection. “Thanks for doing this, Kendra—giving me a job and letting me rent the guesthouse, I mean.”

Kendra straightened her elegant spine. She’d pinned her pale, silky hair up in a loose knot at her nape, and her simple jewelry—gold posts in her earlobes and one bangle bracelet gracing her right wrist—looked quietly classy. Her eyes were a pale, luminous green.

“I’ve missed you, Joss,” Kendra said, as Joslyn pulled back the other chair and sank into it. “It’s great to have you back in town...” She paused then, lowered her eyes.

“But?” Joslyn prompted gently.

“I can’t quite figure out why you’d want to be here, after what happened.” Color rose in Kendra’s cheeks, but she met Joslyn’s gaze again. “Not that any of it was your fault, of course, but—”

The coffeepot began to make sizzling noises, and a tantalizing aroma filled the air. “I have my reasons,” Joslyn said. “I’m counting on you to trust me, Kendra—at least for the next few months. When I can explain, I will.”

“People have been getting mysterious checks in the mail lately,” Kendra said speculatively, “from some big law firm in Denver. And I know you sold your software company....”

Joslyn bolted to her feet, hurried over to the square foot of counter space where the coffee machine stood, turned on the water in the sink and hurriedly rinsed the two plain mugs she’d purchased the day before. “I sold the company,” she admitted, feeling a wrench of loss as she said the words, even though it had been a done deal for weeks now. “But I don’t see what that has to do with people getting unexpected checks.”

“The recipients of the checks have one thing in common,” Kendra persisted. She hadn’t gotten where she was by being slow on the uptake. “They’d all invested in your stepfather’s—business.”

A knot clenched Joslyn’s stomach and moved up her windpipe and into her throat. “Coincidence,” she murmured, when she could manage to speak.

Her hands trembled a little as she pulled the carafe out from under the trickling stream of coffee and sloshed some into each of the mugs.

“If you say so,” Kendra said mildly.

As Joslyn turned, a cup in each hand, Kendra pushed back her chair and stood. “I’d better run,” she added. “I have a closing this morning, and then I’m showing a chicken farm for the seventeenth time to the same potential buyer.” She looked down at her shoes. “Do you think I should wear boots instead of these heels?”

Joslyn was so relieved by the change of subject that she didn’t protest. “Probably,” she agreed, imagining Kendra high-heeling it around a chicken farm.

“Would you mind stopping by the office once or twice, just in case someone drops in wanting to look at a property? Slade Barlow has a habit of coming over to ask if the Kingman place has sold.”

The name registered in an instant, like a sharp dart to the esophagus, and Joslyn had to swallow before she could nod. As kids, she and Slade had lived in different worlds, hers rich, his poor. Back then, she’d been his brother Hutch’s girl, which hadn’t helped, either. Although Slade had never actually come out and said as much—he’d barely spoken to her at all, in fact—she’d known what he thought of her: that she was spoiled, self-centered and shallow.

Worse, he’d been right.

When the financial roof had caved in and all those honest, hardworking people realized they’d been cheated out of their savings by the town’s onetime favorite son—Joslyn’s stepfather, Elliott—her charmed life was over. Once popular, Joslyn had found out who her real friends were, and fast. Only Kendra and Hutch had stuck by her. Soon after Rossiter’s arrest, she and her mother had packed what they could into Opal’s old station wagon and left town in the dark of night.

The recollection still shamed Joslyn. Running away went against everything she believed in.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Kendra reminded her. She’d always been perceptive—so perceptive, in fact, that sometimes she seemed to be a mind reader. Like now, for instance. “Nobody blames you for what happened, Joss.”

That lump was back in her throat, aching and bitter, and it was another moment before she could say anything. Joslyn put the mugs down on the table, nearly spilling their contents, and forced herself to meet Kendra’s eyes.

“But you still think I shouldn’t have come here,” she said, her voice small and uncommonly shaky.

Kendra reached out and touched Joslyn’s arm. “Most folks around here understand that you didn’t have anything to do with the scam,” she said. “For pity’s sake, you were just a kid. But some are still carrying a grudge. They might say things, do things—”

Joslyn closed her eyes tightly for a moment, then resolutely opened them again. Nodded her understanding.

She was doing what she knew she had to do, even if she couldn’t precisely explain the reasons, but one thing was definite: it wasn’t going to be easy.

CHAPTER TWO

ONCE KENDRA HAD GONE, Joslyn showered, pulled on jeans and a short-sleeved cotton top, white with tiny green flowers, slid her feet into her favorite pair of sandals and got to work.

She unpacked the two large suitcases she’d brought from Phoenix and put away her limited clothing supply, then rolled up the sleeping bag and looked around for a place to store it. This was a challenge, since space was at a real premium in the guesthouse, but, with some effort, she managed to stuff the unwieldy bundle under the bathroom cabinet. Next, she helped herself to a set of time-softened sheets that still smelled faintly of fresh air and sunshine and hastily made up the bed.

Riding a swell of ambition, Joslyn set her high-powered laptop on the small desk in front of the living-room window, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to fire it up and log on. She’d worked too many eighteen-hour days designing and redesigning software, marketing the innovative game she’d developed and patented and finally selling the whole enterprise to a multinational corporation for big bucks.

She’d been a very rich woman—for about five minutes. Now she had a secondhand car, enough money in the bank to cover a year’s living expenses—if she was frugal—and, for the first time since she was seventeen, some peace of mind.

Arriving in Parable by night had been one thing, though, and venturing out in broad daylight, where she was bound to run into the locals, was another. Still, she needed groceries, since she’d only bought nonperishables the day before, and she had promised Kendra she’d stop by at the office and keep an eye out for drop-ins.

Plus, she reminded herself stalwartly, she hadn’t come back to Parable to hide.

The reasons for her return were far from concrete, as many times as she’d rolled the whole situation through the cogs and gears of her brain. Obviously, she wanted to make things right with the people her stepfather had cheated. At the same time, she knew she wasn’t responsible for another person’s actions.

So why had she come back? Why had she sacrificed so much, giving up a good job, selling the company she’d built by working nights and weekends, forsaking her luxury condo and her dream car?

The only answer Joslyn could have given, at that moment or any other, was that something—her overdeveloped conscience?—had driven her back. The compulsion to return had been cosmic in scope, as impossible to ignore as a tsunami or an earthquake.

The mandate, it seemed to her, had arisen from some secret part of her soul, pushing her to take the next step and then the next, operating almost entirely on faith.

It was like walking a tightrope blindfolded. There was no turning back, and if she didn’t keep moving, she was sure to lose her balance and fall.

Joslyn sighed and headed for the door, moving resolutely.

Visiting Kendra’s office meant going inside the main house, of course—and she knew she’d be beset by all sorts of memories as soon as she set foot over the threshold—but there was something to be said for just getting things like this over with. Kendra lived on the second floor and ran her real-estate firm out of the huge living room, where, as of Monday morning, Joslyn would be working full-time.

Might as well bite the bullet and brave the first and inevitably emotional reentry while she had some privacy. After sucking in a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Joslyn crossed the wide lawn where flowers of all sorts and shades and fragrances rioted all around her, climbed the wooden steps to the enclosed sunporch and reached for the handle of the screen door. Locked.

Joslyn sighed, recalling Kendra’s remarks about Parable having its share of petty crime these days. Evidently, her friend practiced what she preached, but, since she hadn’t offered a key, the front door was probably open.

Joslyn descended the steps and followed the familiar flagstone path around to the side of the house, running parallel to the glittering white driveway with its layers of limestone gravel.

The front yard, like the back, nearly overflowed with flowers, and Joslyn heard the somnambulant buzz of bees and the busy chirping of birds as she paused to look around. For a moment, she felt like Dorothy in the movie version of The Wizard of Oz, thrust with tornado force from a black-and-white world into a breathtakingly colorful one.

Except for a tasteful wooden sign suspended from a wrought-iron post by brass chain—Shepherd Real Estate, Locally Owned—everything looked the same as it had when she lived there.

Four Georgian pillars supported an extension of the roof, and the windows, mullioned glass salvaged from some country house in England in the aftermath of World War II, shone in the sunlight like so many diamond-shaped mirrors. The front doors were mahogany, hand-carved with leaves and birds and unicorns and all manner of ornate curlicues. A heavy brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head added to the grandeur of it all.

After steeling herself for another emotional jolt, Joslyn tried the knob. It turned.

Joslyn pushed open the door and moved into the shadowy coolness of the massive foyer. Soaring two stories high, the entryway echoed with the ponderous ticking of the oversized grandfather clock dominating the inside wall.

Multicolored light spilled through stained-glass skylights, and two grand staircases stood on either side, sweeping upwards to the second floor. The one on the left opened on to the side of the house where her room—more of a suite, really—had been, along with spacious quarters for guests and a private sitting room with its own fireplace. The master suite, with its decadent bath, an honest-to-goodness ballroom, and a sizable library occupied the opposite side of the structure.

Joslyn took a step toward the stairs, like someone hypnotized, but stopped herself before she could go any farther.

This wasn’t her home anymore. It was Kendra’s, she reminded herself silently.

Yes, Kendra was her friend—probably her best friend—but that didn’t mean Joslyn could go poking around in the old house, looking behind doors to see what had—and hadn’t—changed in the years since her departure.

She peeked into the living room—Elliott had always referred to it as “the parlor”—and saw that Kendra had made good use of the space. There were two desks, both antiques, both equipped with computers and modern phones. The bookshelves on either side of the gray-white marble fireplace were stuffed with manuals but otherwise tidy.

The elegant round table in the center of it all sported a sparkling cut-glass bowl with an exquisite pink orchid floating inside.

Joslyn blinked, and, for the merest fraction of a second, the room was the way she remembered it—cheerfully cluttered, with the bookshelves spilling paperbacks and hardcovers and DVDs, and two huge sofas, upholstered in beige corduroy, flanking the hearth. The TV was blaring, newspapers and magazines littered the floor, and Spunky, the cocker spaniel, barked joyfully, as if to welcome her back after a long absence.

Another blink, and, of course, it was all gone.

They’d taken Spunky with them the night they fled, she and her mom and Opal, and he’d lived to a ripe old age.

Joslyn shook off the twinge of longing she felt and moved farther inside the room. A comfortable seating area filled one corner, but there were no customers waiting, so it was an all-clear. She’d done her duty as far as her friend was concerned, she decided, at least for the time being.

Turning on one heel, Joslyn practically ran out of that house, haunted, as it was, by the ghosts of her pampered youth, and zipped around back to the cottage to fetch her purse and car keys. She needed to cook—like reading, making her favorite dishes and trying new recipes were forms of personal therapy for her—and that meant a trip to the market.

The limestone gravel crunched under the wheels of her car as she drove onto Rodeo Road and turned right.

Parable, population 10,421 according to the sign at the outskirts of town, boasted at least two supermarkets and the discount store she’d visited the day before to buy necessities, but Joslyn liked Mulligan’s Grocery, the mom-and-pop establishment across the street from the Curly-Burly Hair Salon, because the meat and produce were organic.

It had been a lot of years, though. Was Mulligan’s even there anymore? Or had the small family business gone under, done in by competition from the bigger stores and the rocky economy?

Her heart lurched a little when she rounded the corner and saw cars in the store’s grassy parking lot and an open sign in the front window. The soda machine, probably a valuable collector’s item by now, still stood next to the screen-door entrance, along with an ice holder and rows of propane tanks for barbecuing.

Cheered, Joslyn parked her car, got out and headed for the door, looping her purse strap over one shoulder as she went.

The same sense of déjà vu she’d experienced in the living room of Kendra’s house swept over her as she stepped inside.

She might as well have entered a time warp, things had changed so little. The bread and candy racks were right where she remembered them being, and the floors were still uneven planks, worn smooth by several generations of foot traffic and stained from a thousand spills. The brass cash register, another relic of days gone by, like the soda machine, occupied the same counter in the same part of the store. Only the people were different.

Mr. and Mrs. Mulligan, already old when she’d known them, were probably long dead. Joslyn didn’t recognize the gangly man behind the counter or any of the other customers.

The tension that had drawn up her shoulders, without her really noticing, eased so suddenly that it left her a little dizzy. Her mind occupied with memories and ingredient lists, she’d forgotten to dread encountering one or more of her stepfather’s numerous victims.

That was bound to happen, sooner rather than later, most likely, but for now, Joslyn dared to hope she’d wandered into a confrontation-free zone.

Please, God.

Except for a nod of greeting, the clerk at the counter didn’t pay her any particular attention, and neither did the few shoppers gathering food from shelves and coolers.

Joslyn took a cart, one of the half dozen available—it had a rattle and one hinky wheel—and started down the first aisle. She hadn’t bothered to make an actual list, since she needed practically everything.

She was standing in front of the spices, picking out the must-haves, like paprika and poultry seasoning, when she suddenly realized someone was watching her.

Joslyn looked up into a pair of eyes so blue that they might have trapped fragments of a sky darkening its way toward evening. Her heart fluttered up into the back of her throat and flailed there as she registered the man’s identity.

Slade Barlow.

A badge glinted on his belt, reminding her that he was the sheriff of Parable County now, and he carried his hat in one hand and a bottle of water in the other.

Be out of town by sunset, Joslyn imagined him saying, in a slow, thoughtful drawl, befitting his jeans, Western shirt and polished boots.

“Hello,” she said, sounding stupid in her own ears and feeling as stuck as a deer caught in the dazzle of oncoming headlights.

A slight frown creased Slade’s tanned forehead. His hair was dark and short, though not too short, and those new-denim eyes were slightly narrowed.

“Joslyn?” he asked.

She bit her lower lip, nodded, wishing she’d worn a pair of shades and a baseball cap, so she could have pulled the brim down over her face.