High Country Homecoming Page 13

  Once he closed the gate behind them and remounted, they started riding along the four-strand barbwire fence to check for rotting posts and downed wires.

  The deeply rolling pasture, with its lush, early spring grass and backdrop of the snowy Rockies, belied his words. The grandeur of it all made his heart ache for what he’d missed all these years, here in the shadows of God’s most beautiful creation. And all he would miss in the future.

  He dismounted, lifted a section of sagging barbwire and hammered it to a wooden post with a U-shaped fence staple, then tackled the strand of wire below it.

  After he finished the section of fence, they rode on to the top of the next rise, where a vista of ranchland spread out beneath them. To the west, the house and barns of the ranch were partly hidden by a heavy stand of pines, and beyond were sawtooth peaks of the Rockies on the horizon.

  “This is a beautiful place, isn’t it? Just like a postcard.” Chloe twisted in her saddle to look at him. “So, what happened to the Cavanaughs? They were nice folks, as I remember.”

  “Foreclosure. Dad kept a close eye on this county and swooped in to snap up property whenever he could.”

  “But if he hadn’t nabbed it, then someone else would have, right? I can see why he’d want to buy adjoining land if he could.”

  “You were probably too young to understand what Dad was capable of, when you lived here. There’s good reason why a lot of folks around here resent anything to do with the Langford name.”

  “So, what did he do?”

  “The Cavanaughs were struggling that year, like a lot of other ranchers because of drought. Dad basically had the bank in his pocket, and he pulled some strings to make sure they weren’t offered any leniency when they fell behind on their mortgage. When they went under, the foreclosure auction was poorly advertised and he bought this place for pennies on the dollar. They were good folks, Chloe. And he treated them like dirt.”

  “That’s so sad. He could be a cruel, hard man toward his family and people who worked for him.” She propped an elbow on her saddle horn and rested her chin on her upraised palm as she admired the beautiful landscape. “I remember kicking him in the knee when I was seven, because he’d been mean to my dad.”

  Devlin laughed out loud at the memory. “I saw that and thought it was the best thing ever because no one ever crossed my dad. My brothers and I wouldn’t have dared.”

  “Maybe it was a little too impetuous, though. He tore into my dad about me being a brat, saying we’d need to leave if I ever did that again. I got grounded in our cabin for three days.”

  She studied the view toward the mountains. “So, did he buy up any other ranches adjoining yours?”

  “The Nelson place, but that was years ago. He got the Branson ranch through a foreclosure sale just before he got sick.”

  “So, what did he do with all of that land?”

  Devlin shrugged. “It all got absorbed into the home ranch—part of the pasture rotation for livestock. He sectioned off the buildings and twenty acres or so from each ranch for rental.”

  “He was...quite a business man,” Chloe said tactfully.

  Devlin reined his horse toward the fence line again and Chloe followed. “Dad always told people that he wanted to fend off wealthy buyers from the West Coast who were trying to gobble up property for their vacation homes and resorts, so he could keep this part of the Rockies pristine.” Devlin snorted. “Such an honorable goal. But the truth was that he only wanted to build his empire—and have each of his kids take over a surrounding ranch. But Heather died young, and none of us boys wanted to come back.”

  “Except Jess.”

  “Not him, either. He dreamed of following the rodeo circuit to save money toward vet school. He wanted to share a vet clinic with one of our cousins. But he was the good son, who gave up his dreams to come back and take over the ranch when Dad got Parkinson’s and started to fail.” Devlin tried to rein in the bitter edge in his voice. “I’m not proud of the fact that Tate and I found excuses to stay away.”

  “But you were in the midst of your military career. You couldn’t just come home.”

  “I could’ve tried for a hardship or dependency discharge, though. I should have. But Dad and I were always like oil and water, and he didn’t want me here, but I should have been here for Jess.”

  He hadn’t ever admitted it aloud, but it was true.

  Chloe stared at him, aghast. “Your dad didn’t want you here? What kind of man treats a son like that?”

  “The day I left for the service, he said that if I chose the military over my family duty at the ranch, he didn’t want me coming back. I was to never set foot on the ranch again. And it wasn’t just a fit of temper—he meant every word. To make it even more clear, he said he planned to disinherit me.”

  “Oh, Dev. I’m so sorry.” She stared at him, her face a mask of shock and horror. “That was so unfair.”

  “My choice wasn’t part of his plans for the future of the ranch, and no one defied my father.” He shrugged away her concern as if the past didn’t really matter. As if he no longer cared. He hoped she believed it.

  “Being Dad, he never relented. And after he got sick, I figured it wouldn’t be good for him to have me around to aggravate him when he was already in such fragile health. But I still should have come back to help Jess, and just kept out of Dad’s way, somehow. Even now I regret that I didn’t. I failed Jess, the ranch and even my dad when they needed me most.”

  “You’ve got that wrong.” Chloe’s eyes sparked with indignation. “Your dad was the least forgiving man I ever met, and he failed you from the time you were a boy. I wish I could tell him about the harm he did. How much he hurt people. He had no right.”

  Dev could imagine Chloe standing up to him right now, toe to toe and refusing to back down, just as she had as a little girl, defending her father. The image almost made him smile.

  “The irony is that after he passed away, the lawyers discovered his will had never been changed...so maybe he’d just bellowed a threat in a fit of anger.”

  “Yet he never asked you to come home.”

  “No. And I figured I had my military career, so if he didn’t want me in his life, so be it. I didn’t need his money or his ranch. What I wanted was to have my father back, but I guess we were both too stubborn and too proud...and then it was too late.”

  She sidestepped Bart closer to Devlin’s horse and reached over to rest a hand on his. “I’m so sorry, Devlin. Truly. That’s just so sad.”

  The touch of her small hand on his warmed his heart and made him wish they were standing on their own two feet instead of on horseback, so he could pull her into a comforting embrace.

  “Dad did teach me one last thing I won’t forget.” Devlin looked over his shoulder to the east, toward the Langford ranch. “No matter how bad things are, you’ve just got to try harder. Because you can’t ever make peace with the past after someone is gone.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Walking into the Pine Bend Community Church on Easter morning, surrounded by the Langfords, brought back so many memories that Chloe’s heart felt like it was overflowing. How many times had she walked through these heavy oak doors with Grandma Betty and the three boys?

  Pastor Bob was still here, greeting folks at the door. He was as portly and jovial as ever, though his hair had silvered and he didn’t remember her at all.

  “Chloe Kenner,” she repeated. “My dad was a foreman at the Langford Ranch for a few years, but he didn’t come to church. I always came with Betty and the Langford boys.”

  Recognition sparked in his warm brown eyes. “Now I remember. You were a sweet little thing—with such beautiful red hair. My wife always said she wished we’d had a daughter just like you.”

  Chloe thought for a moment. “Five boys, right?”

  He chuckled. “Good memory. But now
we have our girls—five daughters-in-laws whom we dearly love. It happened in God’s good time and we just had to be patient.”

  The sweet scent of the Easter lilies and the burning candles at the altar filled the air as Chloe followed the rest of the family through the narthex, where church members were quietly chatting, and on into the sanctuary.

  Jess, Abby and Betty filed into a pew near the back, with the twins alternating between them, and Chloe followed. They were not only on time, she thought with a smile, but the girls had avoided all potential mud puddles and other disasters, and were adorable in their matching pink ruffled Easter dresses, white patent shoes and little white purses.

  Chloe twisted in her seat and looked toward the back of the church. Dev had received a phone call just before leaving and had promised to follow in his own vehicle. But where was he? He’d certainly looked grim when he’d walked away with his cell phone at his ear.

  She gazed up at the twelve towering stained glass windows depicting Bible stories—six on each side of the sanctuary—that had entranced her as a child. Sunshine beamed through the windows on the east side, sending rays of brilliant color slanting across the pews.

  “It’s wonderful to be here again,” she whispered to Betty. “It’s such a beautiful old church. Just sitting here gives me such a sense of peace.”

  “I’ve been coming here since I was a baby. I know just what you mean.” Betty reached over to give her hand a quick squeeze and nodded toward a couple sitting a few pews away. “Have you met Abby’s dad and new stepmother? Don and Darla Peterson are the nicest folks. They’ll be coming for Easter dinner.”

  The organist began to play “Beautiful Savior” just as Devlin slipped into the end of the pew next to Chloe. “Sorry,” he said in a low voice. “After the phone call, I saw someone I knew out in the narthex and I couldn’t get away.”

  The family had filled the pew and there wasn’t much room left. Even when Betty scooted over a few inches to make room, he was so close that his leg brushed against Chloe’s skirt. She could feel the warmth of him and breathe in his faint scent of pine-and-sandalwood aftershave.

  He’d carried her to his car after the Dooleys had tried to assault her along the highway. He’d held her after she’d become woozy outside her cabin.

  But this was the only time she’d been this close to him without being in the midst of some sort of an emergency, she thought wryly. And by the time the service was over, she couldn’t focus on anything but him—this masculine, kind, wounded protector from her past.

  It was staggering to think of all he’d been through as the son of a heartless man. An injured warrior. A man who had lost a woman who must have been the love of his life, since he’d refused to even talk about her. And yet he was so sweet and kind to Jess’s little girls, and had been thoughtful in so many ways. He’d even bared his soul to her about his nightmares, though she knew he’d hated to reveal that weakness to anyone.

  Her heart melted a little more with every day she saw him at the ranch, even though she knew there was no point in thinking beyond these few months.

  Her sister had offered her an incredibly generous job opportunity in Kansas City so that she could claw her way out of debt. An opportunity she could not afford to refuse.

  And Devlin would move on as well, to find happiness and fulfillment far away from the ranch that held so many bad memories.

  But she would always wonder about what might have been.

  * * *

  After church, everyone headed back to the ranch, where the kitchen instantly became a flurry of activity with Abby, Betty, Darla and Chloe tackling Easter dinner.

  Abby’s father, Don, played a board game with the twins in the living room, to keep them from being underfoot in the kitchen, and Jess went out to the barn to check on a mare that had foaled during the early morning hours.

  After looking in on the new filly with him, Devlin headed up to his cabin to change from his sport jacket and slacks into jeans and a navy oxford shirt, and let Daisy outside for a while.

  Much more adept at managing her cast now that it had been almost two weeks since her surgery, Daisy hobbled around to do her business and whined when Devlin put her back in the cabin.

  “Sorry,” he murmured, cradling her neck between his hands and ruffling her fur. “It’s too far for you to walk to the house, and there’s too much commotion today anyway. Maybe next time.”

  At the purr of a motor coming up the trail, he turned and saw Chloe pull the four-wheeler to a stop. She’d changed as well, from a pretty blue skirt, sweater and heels, into jeans and a deep green sweater that made her complexion glow and seemed to spark the ruby highlights in her hair.

  “I figured you’d come up here,” she called out to him. “How is Daisy doing?”

  “I let her outside, but she really doesn’t want to be left alone again. She’s almost like Velcro, wanting to stay by my side wherever I go.”

  “Why don’t you bring her down? She can hitch a ride in the four-wheeler. When I said I was coming up to my cabin to change, Abby told me to drive up and see if you wanted to bring her.”

  “I figured there was just too big of a crowd.”

  “Nah. The twins love her, and she’s really sweet and quiet. No trouble at all. That’s a direct quote from Jess.” Chloe grinned. “It’s Poofy who’s the problem. He thinks the house is his racetrack and has been ricocheting off the walls since we got home. I hear he’ll be banished to the yard when we eat.”

  “Then there’s something to be said about peaceful middle age. Right, Daisy?” he said as he lifted her into the back of the four-wheeler and climbed into the front, next to Chloe. “Thanks. I always feel guilty about leaving her alone.”

  “When does she go back to the vet for her checkup?”

  “The appointment was Thursday, but I moved it up to tomorrow. I just want to make sure she’s healing well, but she’ll probably have her cast on all of this month and maybe a few weeks into May.”

  “I hope they weigh her. She looks so much better already, and even her coat is starting to grow back. Can I come along? I’d love to hear what the vet has to say.”

  He hesitated, “If you don’t mind a couple other errands on the way. I need to pick up some things for Betty, unless someone else goes to town sooner, and I want to stop at the sheriff’s office.”

  “To see your old friend?”

  “If Lance is there.” There it was again—the same flicker of emotion he’d seen in her eyes when the deputy had come to arrest the Dooleys out on the highway and she’d realized who he was. “Otherwise I just need to drop something off for him. I get the feeling you don’t care for him much.”

  She cut a quick, troubled glance at Devlin as she pulled to a stop in front of the house. “Both of you were five years older than me, so we were basically on different planets. I didn’t know him.”

  A tactful nonanswer if he ever heard one, but apparently she wasn’t going to elaborate.

  Once they were back in the house, Chloe disappeared into the kitchen to help with the final Easter dinner preparations, while Daisy headed for her favorite spot by the fireplace and kept a watchful eye on the twins until Betty called everyone to the dining room.

  Jess laughed when Daisy followed the girls to the dining room table and sat dutifully behind their chairs. “Look at that. She thinks she’s guarding her little herd of sheep,” he said. “She wants to keep them safe.”

  Chloe faltered to a stop, a platter of sliced ham in her hands. “I hadn’t thought of that. What if she wasn’t Farley’s service dog? What if some rancher had her guarding a herd of livestock and she got hurt, then wandered off? He could want her back.”

  She looked so stricken that Devlin lifted the platter from her hands and put it on the table. “You said you posted notices all over town, though. Someone would’ve seen them by now and passed the word. Right?�
��

  “Or they might in the future.” Chloe bit her lower lip. “I know that’s what these dogs were bred for, but I’d feel bad if someone picked her up only to drop her off in the middle of nowhere, with a flock of sheep.”

  After Grandma Betty led the family with table grace, the adults began passing an array of serving dishes that didn’t seem to end.

  Even Sunday meals offered a plentiful variety of foods, but this—his first family holiday meal in almost ten years—blew Devlin completely away.

  Ham. Tender roast beef. Mashed potatoes, au gratin potatoes and bowl after bowl of different vegetables. A half dozen salads and Grandma Betty’s homemade cloverleaf rolls that were so buttery and tender that they melted in his mouth.

  By the time the dishes were cleared, he couldn’t imagine eating another bite. But then, after the first round of dishes were in the dishwasher, the desserts were set out on the oak buffet in the dining room.

  Bella’s awestruck eyes rounded as she walked along the buffet and looked at the towering cake with lemon-curd filling, topped with fluffy frosting dazzled with pastel sprinkles on top. And three kinds of pie.

  “I want a taste of everything,” she said.

  Abby steered her back to her chair. “Let’s start with the one you think you’ll like best, sweetie, and go from there.”

  “Thanks, Abby, Darla and Chloe. Having all of this help has been quite a change from when the boys were young and I was the only one doing the cooking.” Betty brought in a fresh pot of coffee and began refilling cups. “Back then I did as much as I could beforehand, but by the time everyone was served I just wanted to go lie down.”

  “I can only imagine,” Chloe murmured as she began serving the desserts as everyone asked for the one they preferred.

  Betty stopped behind Darla and rested a hand on her shoulder. “At Christmas we were all truly blessed to welcome Don and Darla to our Christmas dinner, and Abby, of course. Now I can’t envision a holiday meal without them.”