Wind River Ranch

In the next instant he realized that her dignity was very much like Simon’s. Had he ever seen Simon Colby lose control of his temper, for example? Or let anyone into his inner thoughts? Yes, Ry thought, he had liked and respected his employer, but he had never felt close enough to the man to call him a friend.

The ranch lay twenty miles on the other side of Winston. Dena felt the rigidity of her body relax some when they were again on the open road, although she was still tenser than normal. She gulped hard. It wouldn’t be long now, less than a half hour, and then the true nightmare would begin. She tned to think of something else. The question of how many times she had traveled the distance between the ranch and Winston came to mind. She knew every inch of this stretch of road, every curve and dip, except for—

“The road has been paved,” she said in surprise, more to herself than to Ry.

But he heard and thought she was speaking to him. “Wasn’t it paved when you lived here?”

“It was gravel.”

“Probably been a lot of changes made in the area since you moved to Seattle,” Ry said. He wasn’t trying to be snide or judgmental. His comment seemed perfectly normal to him.

Dena’s head jerked around. “What do you know about my leaving?” She’d been under the impression that he knew nothing of Colby family history, but now she wondered. And if he did know of her and Simon’s sad relationship, who had told him? Was she still the victim of lies and gossip around Winston? She didn’t mind anyone knowing the truth of her past, but she despised the possibility of even a stranger believing some of those lies.

Ry was startled by the defensive tone of her voice and became a little defensive himself. “I don’t know anything about you, so don’t get your dander up at me. Your business is yours and mine is mine. That’s the way I live my life.”

She felt properly chastised and said no more on that subject. Truth was, which she was fully aware of, she was overly sensitive about the past. She should not have spoken to Ry Hardin in such an abrasive manner. Why wouldn’t he snap back at her?

Besides, he’d been nice enough to crawl out of bed in the middle of the night to meet her plane, and she appreciated it.

“I haven’t thanked you for picking me up,” she said. “Let me do so now. I...I haven’t been myself since your call.”

“Forget it,” Ry said quickly. “I know you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

She put her head back and closed her eyes. “Yes, I do,” she said in a near whisper. There was something warm and friendly about Ry Hardin, which she would have been happy to pursue at any other time. But she wasn’t going to be in Wyoming long enough to concern herself with new friendships. She had arranged a week away from her job, figuring seven days should be a long enough time to deal with the morbid and heartbreaking details of burying her father. Her eyes squeezed more tightly shut for a moment. Could she get through the upcoming week without a breakdown? She felt on the verge of one, although she’d never experienced any such affliction before. But she’d worked with patients who had lost every hold on their senses because of a shock or even just the rigors of ordinary, everyday life. The thought of mental incapacitation was horrifying; she had to maintain an even keel, no matter how emotionally devastating the next few days might prove to be.

Ry was surprised and pleased that Dena hadn’t become angry over his defensive comeback. Even more pleasing was her remembering to thank him right after what could have been a serious breach between them. Obviously she was basically a nice person, and he himself would much rather be friends than enemies with anyone. Besides, it wasn’t his intention to alienate Simon’s daughter. It had crossed his mind that Dena could be his boss now. It was certain that someone was going to have to take over Simon’s duties, and why wouldn’t that person be Simon’s only child?

Not that Ry would ever kiss up to anyone to keep a job. But he liked living and working at the six-thousand-acre Wind River Ranch. He liked Wyoming, for that matter, and he would rather stay on at the Colby ranch than start looking for another job, no matter who picked up the reins.

Dena knew the mile-long ranch driveway was fast approaching, and her hands nervously clenched on her lap. Painful thoughts darted through her mind. She should have found a way to force her father to talk to her. Why had it never occurred to her that time might run out? The unhappiness that was so much a part of her life was her fault. If she had returned to the ranch before this, and followed Simon around until he grew weary of the silence between them, she would not be coming home now with such a heavy heart.

“Here we are,” Ry murmured, making the turn onto the ranch road. He sent his passenger a glance, and saw her sitting stiffly still and staring out the front window. His heart reached out to her. Losing a loved one was a hell of a thing to go through. Whatever kind of woman Dena Colby was, she was another human being, and he felt her grief in his own soul.

At first sight of the ranch house and outbuildings, illuminated by yard lights on tall poles, Dena caught her breath and held it. She felt light-headed from a lack of oxygen before she finally breathed again, and by that time Ry had braked to a stop next to the house. He turned off the engine.

“I’ll get your suitcase,” he told her, implying that she should just get out, go inside and not concern herself with her luggage.

“Thank you.” Her hand crept to the door handle. There were lights on in the house, and she suddenly knew that Nettie was waiting for her. Mobility returned in a rush, and she pushed open the door, got out and hurried to the back of the house. Taking the three steps to the porch, she crossed it quickly and opened the door that led to a mud room and then the kitchen.

Nettie materialized, her long, gray hair still in her nighttime braid, and wearing a robe and slippers. With tears running down her cheeks, she opened her arms.

“Child” was all she said.

Dena stepped into the circle of the older woman’s arms, and that was when the dam broke. All of the tears she hadn’t shed seemingly came at once. The two women held each other and sobbed together.

Ry passed them with Dena’s suitcase and they never noticed. Feeling the sting of tears himself, he brought the suitcase to the bedroom that Nettie had told him had always been Dena’s.

Then he let himself out the side door of the house and walked down to the barn. He always got up early; today was just a few hours earlier than usual. Grabbing a shovel, he began cleaning stalls.

Although this was not one of his regular jobs on the ranch, it beat standing around and feeling bad by a mile.

Two

At 8:00 a.m. Dena was on her way back to Winston. Using one of the ranch cars, she drove the familiar road, thankful that it was sparsely traveled, as her mind was too overloaded to concentrate on anything but the sudden tragic turn of her life.

She felt rocky from lack of sleep and because she hadn’t been able to eat more than a few bites of toast this morning. She knew what she was doing to herself. Even people without medical training knew that one shouldn’t stop sleeping and eating because of a shock. But that’s what people with a heart did, wasn’t it? The kind of shock she had received, the nightmare she was living through, all but disabled a person. Certainly it destroyed normal routines and habits, and only God knew how and when she was going to regain her usual sensibilities.

Dena harbored an impossible wish: that she could avoid Wmston altogether. But it was where Dr. Worth’s office was located, and Nettie had told Dena that the doctor had to see her posthaste. Dena was certain she knew why—that question of an autopsy.

The funeral home was also in Winston. If Dena had the power to eliminate one day from her life, this would be it. There were others that had caused an enormous amount of trouble and grief, but none to compare with what today demanded of her.

Dr. Worth had been the Colby family physician for as long as Dena could remember, and Nettie had said that his office was still in the same place it had always been. Once Dena reached the town limits, it took only a few minutes to get there. There was a small parking strip next to the building, and she pulled into a space and turned off the ignition. Panic rose in her throat. She didn’t want to do this. Neither did she want to visit the funeral home after talking to Dr. Worth and plan her father’s burial. How did one converse coherently and with a reasonable amount of intelligence about such things?

Tears welled and she wiped them away with a tissue. Then, drawing a deep breath, she took her purse and got out of the car. She had phoned Dr. Worth at his home this morning and he had told her to meet him at his office at eight-thirty. She was right on time.

With every cell in her body throbbing like a toothache, she walked to the side door of the building—another of Dr. Worth’s instructions—and rang the bell. The door opened almost at once. Dr. Worth gave her a quiet smile. “Hello, Dena. Come in.”

“Hello, Doctor,” she whispered hoarsely.

He led her to his personal office and sat her in a chair near his desk. Even through the haze of pain clouding her mind, Dena realized that Dr. Worth had aged since she’d last seen him. She was thinking about the changes time wrought on everyone and everything when Dr. Worth spoke.

“I understand you’re a nurse now,” he said, seating himself at his desk.

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll have a better understanding of what we must discuss.”

“You want to do an autopsy.”

“No, I have to know if you want an autopsy.”

Dena swallowed the lump in her throat. “The ranch foreman said you diagnosed the cause of Dad’s death as a cerebral hemorrhage.”

“I did, and I still believe my initial diagnosis. But if you have any doubts...”

“Was there any chance of foul play?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. Simon died quite naturally. It’s just that sometimes family members are driven to know the exact and precise cause of death.”

“I don’t feel that way, Doctor. Unless there is good reason for an autopsy, I don’t want it.”

Dr. Worth nodded approvingly. “I’m glad to hear that. Dena, you have to know how sorry I am about Simon’s death. How are you holding up?”

Dena turned her face away. “Not...well,” she said in an unsteady voice.

“You look drawn and exhausted, but that’s to be expected, I suppose, when you flew all night to get here. Are you eating?”

“Not...much,” she whispered.

Dr. Worth eyed her thoughtfully. “One of life’s most traumatic experiences is the death of a loved one. There’s a hole in the world that wasn’t there before, an emptiness within oneself, and the memories we carry of that person seem to bombard us with cruel clarity. We tend to feel guilty over every disagreement with that person and any event where we think we might have done things differently.”

“I could have done things differently, Doctor.”

“But the problems you and Simon had are long in the past, Dena,” Dr. Worth said gently. “You must try not to dwell on what happened so many years ago.”

Dena’s eyes dropped to her hands on her lap. She could tell the good doctor that nothing had changed during those years, that she had tried and tried to reconcile with her father and he had died without forgiving her. She could talk for an hour about the letters she’d written and the phone calls she’d made, but what good would it do?

All she said was, “I’ll try, Doctor.”

“Good,” he replied, appearing satisfied that his little pep talk had worked.

Dena rose from her chair. “I won’t take up any more of your time, Dr. Worth. Thank you for seeing me.” She started for the door, then something occurred to her and she stopped and turned. “Was Dad getting regular checkups, Doctor?” “Simon rarely showed his face in this office, Dena. Essentially he was a very healthy man.”

“Then he wasn’t on any medication that you know of?” There were some drugs that could wreak havoc with the circulatory system, and if Simon was taking any kind of medication, she wanted to know what it was.

“If he was, he didn’t get it from me. Dena, try to take comfort from the swiftness of Simon’s death. He died too young, but the way he went was much better than a long, lingering illness.”

Dena hated remarks like that, even though she knew Dr. Worth was still attempting to ease her pain and there was even some truth in what he’d said.

But suddenly she couldn’t talk about her father’s death a second longer. “Thank you for your time, Doctor,” she repeated and hurried out.

In her car it occurred to her then that she might run into someone she knew while in Winston, a thought that nearly brought on a fit of hysteria. Holding her hand to her throat, she took several deep breaths and told herself to calm down. She might as well face the fact that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of avoiding people’s sympathy during her week in the area.

Or could she? Where was it written that she had to have a public service for her father? She could confine the sad event to—Groaning, she put her head in her hands. Nettie would be appalled. Dena could see herself and Nettie standing alone in the cemetery, listening to a prayer administered by...who? A minister? Someone from the funeral home? Oh, what a pitiful picture, she thought with a fresh gush of tears. And it would be an improper, insulting rite for a man of Simon Colby’s stature. She was being selfish again, thinking of herself and the discomfort of a public display of grief.

Wiping her eyes, she put on dark glasses and forced herself to start the car. She would go to the funeral home and then get out of Winston. And if she ran into a dozen acquaintances—unlikely but possible—with vulturelike words of sympathy and only partially concealed expressions of morbid curiosity, she would handle it.

She had no choice.

That night Dena was able to eat dinner and to talk to Nettie without choking on her own words, probably because she felt so head-to-foot numb. It was even possible to walk through the house, remember her father and not fall apart. When she went to bed she was able to sleep, and any troubling dreams she had during those hours vanished when she awoke.

Ry thought she seemed unnaturally calm, not at all like the tense, jumpy, crushed woman he had picked up at the airport.

In truth, he didn’t see all that much of her, as he took his meals with the men and slept in the bunkhouse. But once he spotted her walking outside, and when a load of barbed wire and posts were delivered the afternoon just before the day of the funeral, he took the invoice from the driver of the truck and went into the house. Nettie was in the kitchen with flour up to her elbows, kneading a large batch of bread dough. Nettie had always taken pride in the good meals she served Simon and his men, and her pragmatic attitude was that people had to eat whether she was grieving or not. She looked up as Ry walked in.

“I need to talk to Dena, Nettie.” Nettie was a little bit of a woman, spry as a spring robin and much stronger than she looked. Ry estimated her age around sixty, but she could be ten years older or younger. Age, either his or hers, was not something they had discussed.

“I think she’s in the living room,” Nettie told him.

“Thanks.” Ry left and headed for the living room. From the doorway he saw Dena seated in a chair and staring blankly into space. Her vacant expression bothered him, and he wondered what, exactly, was going through her mind to cause it. Of course it had everything to do with Simon’s death, he knew that, but weren’t tears and sobs better than such concentrated stillness? Was she deliberately holding her emotions in check? That didn’t seem very healthy to Ry.

But who was he to judge Dena’s method of dealing with grief? Everyone on the ranch was affected by Simon’s death, in one way or another. The men were unnaturally subdued, working without the wisecracks and tomfoolery they often engaged in. Nettie was carrying on in spite of her sorrow, and he had willingly taken over the operation of the ranch for the time being. Taken Simon’s place, actually, although he felt certain that Dena would resent that concept should anyone voice it.

Well, he sure as hell wasn’t going to say any such thing to Dena, but he did have to interrupt her present revene. The invoice in his hand demanded a decision he didn’t feel he should make.

“Dena?” he said.

Slowly her head came around. Her look of total disinterest struck him as one containing a question—who is this man walking into my father’s living room? In truth she’d been miles into the past, thinking of her mother and envisioning how much differently things would have turned out had Opal lived.

She blinked, as though coming awake, and said, “Yes?”

Ry entered the room and walked over to her. “Dena, do you have the authority to sign checks for the ranch?”

She blinked again. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

Ry frowned. She seemed a million miles away and was speaking very slowly. Actually she seemed so withdrawn from reality that he started worrying about her. For certain he didn’t like bothering her with business at a time like this, but he had no choice.

“I have an invoice here that’s marked C.O.D.,” he said, “and someone has to write a check for $1,254.33. My name’s not on the checking account. I was wondering if yours is.”

Lines appeared in Dena’s forehead. Why ever would he think such a thing? “Of course it’s not,” she said, becoming slightly more alert. She paused to think about the amount of the check he needed and ended up speaking a bit suspiciously. “What did you buy for twelve hundred dollars?”

That hint of suspicion in her voice didn’t sit right with Ry. Grief stricken or not, Dena had no right to intimate that he was anything but a hundred percent honest, which he was. His face hardened and so did his voice. “I didn’t buy anything. Simon ordered barbed wire and posts to cross-fence one of the big pastures. The material has just been delivered, and the driver is waiting for payment.”

His defensive tone startled Dena. Good Lord, couldn’t she say anything to him without having her head bitten off? He’d done the same thing during the drive from the airport. What had she said then to cause such a reaction? Her head was aching and she couldn’t remember the incident clearly.

But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t have mustered any genuine anger today if her life depended on it, especially not over something like this. “Ry, you’re the foreman. You handle it, please.”

“How?”

“I really don’t care,” she said listlessly.

Ry could hardly believe his ears. “You don’t care. Dena, do you have any idea how many decisions have to be made nearly every day about something on this ranch? Do you care about that? Let me go one step further. Do you care about the ranch at all?”

Did she? It wasn’t a question Dena had spent any time pondering. She’d grown up on this ranch, but did it mean anything to her? Should it mean something to her?

She didn’t like that Ry Hardin had just brought to light a brand-new aspect of this ordeal.

“Just so you know,” he said flatly, “this isn’t the only situation where someone’s going to have to write checks. I think you should do something about that.”

“Like what?” She was truly puzzled by his attitude.

“Get your name on the checking account.”

“And how do I accomplish that? Simply walk into the bank and tell someone I want access to my father’s money?” Dena shook her head. “They’d either laugh me out of the bank or call the sheriff.”

Ry looked at her for a long moment. “Call Simon’s lawyer.”

“I didn’t know he had one.”

“Well, he did. His name is John Chandler.” Remembering the hell she was living through, Ry spoke with less tension. “Dena, hasn’t it occurred to you that Simon probably left the ranch to you?”

It took a second for that unlikely idea to sink in, and when it finally did she retorted, “Don’t make me laugh.”

Ry felt thunderstruck. “Well, who else would he leave it to?”

“I haven’t the foggiest.” Dena waved her hand. She’d had enough of this conversation. In fact, she wanted to sink back into the hole Ry’s appearance had pulled her out of. “Please go away. I don’t want to talk about any of this.”

“What you should be saying is that you don’t want to face any of this.” Ry shook his head. “I think you’re in for one very big surprise, lady.” Turning on his heel, he walked out.

“Oh, just shut up,” Dena muttered wearily, but Ry was already gone and didn’t hear her. It was just as well, she thought, although she was not going to put up with Ry Hardin or anyone else badgering her about the ranch. She was here for one week, and several days of that week were already over. The funeral was set for tomorrow. Someone had put an obituary in the newspaper announcing the time and place, so there would undoubtedly be a horde of people there.

But it would be her final agony. After tomorrow she could start returning to normal.

Dena laid her head back and looked at the ceiling. What was going to happen to the ranch? Did Ry really care or was he just concerned about his job?

She clenched her hands into fists. Damn him for giving her another worry, another reason to weep and feel helpless.

Outside, Ry walked back to the trucker. “There’s no one to sign a check, so I can’t pay you today. I could call your company and arrange a later payment, or you could take the wire and posts back to Lander.”

The man shrugged. “Makes no difference to me. What d’ya wanna do?”

Ry thought for a moment. Why was he so shook about this? About Dena’s disinterested attitude? To hell with it. If she didn’t care what happened to her father’s ranch, why should he? He probably wouldn’t be here to put in that new fence, anyway.

“Take ’em back,” he said, and gave the man the invoice. “If and when things ever get straightened out around here, we’ll order again.”

The man got into his truck and drove away.

There were two rooms in the house that Dena had been deliberately ignoring, her father’s bedroom and his office. The mere thought of entering Simon’s bedroom gave her cold chills. It was Nettie who had gone in and chosen the clothing for Simon’s burial, and it was Ry who had delivered them to Andrews Funeral Home. Dena appreciated their consideration. Nettie’s, she understood. Ry was a different matter. Ry bothered Dena in a strange way, one she couldn’t quite put her finger on. When she thought of him, that is, which wasn’t often. In fact, she was discovering that she was able to blank out her mind on many subjects. Maybe that was what overwhelming grief did to a person, she thought. If something was too painful to think about, you simply bury it so deep in your psyche it stayed buried.

Still, Ry’s comments about the checking account and having to pay bills and such had penetrated the soothing fog Dena preferred over saber-sharp reality at the present, and she geared herself up for a look at ranch records. It was not something her father had ever invited her to do, but she had to concede the fact of her age before she’d left the ranch, and also the dissension that had existed between her and Simon.

A shiver rippled up her spine as she opened the office door and stepped in. The room was as drab as she remembered. Dull, dark paneling on the walls. Worn carpet. It was depressing. Old furniture, a musty odor. For that matter, the entire house was drab. Because of Nettie it was clean, but Dena was positive no one had done any interior painting or even changed the placement of one piece of furniture since she’d left the ranch at eighteen years of age.

To be painfully accurate, nothing had been changed or improved since her mother’s death. Opal had been a natural-born homemaker, and everything in this old house that was now dull, nicked, snagged and all but ready for the junk pile had been bright and pretty and warmly inviting while she lived.