Larkspur Road (36 page)

A charcoal and rose dusk streaked above the Crazy Mountains as Sophie McPhee turned her Blazer onto the private gravel drive that would lead her home.

The drive was called Daisy Lane, and the rambling two-story timber house looming a half mile in the distance was the Good Luck ranch house built by her mother’s grandfather more than ninety years ago.

Three generations of her mother’s family had called it home, and it had been
her
home the first eighteen years of her life. Sophie wondered with quiet desperation as darkness stole over Lonesome Way if it truly could be her home again.

Would this house or this town
feel
like home, after all this time, after everything that had happened? Would any place ever again feel like home?

She swallowed, hoping it would. But the emptiness inside her seemed as if it would never go away, never allow her to feel anything but loss and anger ever again.

Back in San Francisco, friends had told her she wouldn’t
always feel this way, that things would get better. The platitudes sounded nice and Sophie knew they were well-meaning, but they bounced off her like drops of cold water hitting a sizzling skillet.

Her throat tightened as she neared the head of Daisy Lane and the Blazer’s headlights caught the gleam of the big white house and the familiar landmarks of the now empty Good Luck barns and sheds and paddocks. The same-old, same-old words of encouragement weren’t doing a thing right now to help her fight the fist of pain squeezing her heart.

She didn’t have any idea what—if anything—ever would.

All she’d been able to think to do was to leave her old life with all its tears and mistakes behind, and to start over.

And here in her hometown of Lonesome Way was the only place where she’d imagined having the strength to try.

As the flaming rose sun slipped behind the mountains, and darkness swallowed the foothills, a tiny flicker of hope made Sophie catch her breath. The sage-scented air, the vast miles of rugged rolling land, were familiar. Comforting.

Home
.

On that thought, the kitchen window suddenly glowed with a bright, cheerful light. Her mother was expecting her. Sophie had called from the road. Next on was the living room lamp, gleaming with welcome. And then the porch light sprang to life, illuminating the old white wooden swing and her mother’s carefully planted rosebushes.

A crystal wind chime tinkled sweetly, swinging in the night breeze, and there were the wide porch steps where she’d perched on countless summer afternoons as a girl, playing jacks with Lissie and Mia.

A rush of emotion filled her as she switched off the ignition and climbed down from the Blazer on tired feet. Even as she grabbed her purse, the front door of the house swung open and her mother appeared in the doorway. Not quite as
tall as Sophie, she was thin and angular, wearing a loose blue cotton top and jeans, her feet bare in the summer night.

Diana McPhee hurried out onto the porch. Her chin-length fair hair was peppered with gray, her eyes reflected a mixture of eagerness and concern. Sophie was struck by the fact that nearing sixty, her mother was still a strikingly pretty woman.

“Sophie! Thank heavens. I was starting to get worried.”

As Sophie moved toward her, her throat ached with unshed tears.

“I’ve been holding dinner. Guess you must’ve hit some major traffic on—”

Then her mother saw her face and broke off. Sophie knew how she must look—pale, sad, tired, with the tears that were always close shimmering in her green eyes. She was so sick of the tears. She blinked them back and forced a smile.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Mom. There was construction, and at one point, believe it or not, I was so distracted that I took the wrong turn and had to backtrack.”

“Well, now, that happens. You have a lot on your mind.” Her mother’s arms went around her, hugging very gently as if she were afraid Sophie would crack in pieces. But her voice was brisk and bracing as she touched her daughter’s toffee-colored hair, tumbling in soft curls around a beautiful face with wide cheekbones a model would covet, a generous mouth, and dimples when she smiled. But Sophie was definitely not smiling now.

“You’re here, Sophie, that’s all that matters.” Her voice was overly cheerful. “Leave your bags, we’ll get them later. Let’s go inside. I’ve fixed your favorite—meat loaf and biscuits, garlic mashed potatoes, and a big salad—oh, Sophie…honey, what’s the matter?”

Sophie’s feet had frozen on the threshold of the ranch house. Behind her flowed the night, full of stars and a crescent of moon, the buzz of insects, the lone cry of a hawk.
The cool night wind rustled delicately through the ponderosa pines. And ahead of her loomed her past, the house of her childhood and teen years, warm and faded yet so familiar it was startling.

She felt herself teetering between two worlds.

She couldn’t move, could only stare past the entry into the rectangular living room, with its big chintz-covered sofa and matching love seat, warm maple end tables, and the black walnut TV stand centered along the far blue wall. She took in the massive stone fireplace, the bookshelves, and her father’s favorite tan leather chair in the corner beside the reading lamp.

How many times had she torn through this door, or downstairs from her room, to see his long legs stretched across that chair, his feet propped on the footrest, his hooded eyes intent as he watched a football game or devoured the newest Tom Clancy novel—or slanted a stern glance at her as she hovered uncertainly in the doorway, just as she was doing now?

Her father’s granite voice seemed to scratch the air around her, blasting his opinion of all the ways she fell short of his expectations.

You forgot your spelling list at school. How do you expect to pass the test? That’s just plain irresponsible, Sophie. You’re eight years old. I expect more from you than that.

How much time have you wasted talking to Lissie Tanner on that phone? You weren’t raised to spend half your day jabbering about nonsense.

All your daydreaming is nothing but foolishness. Stop living in the clouds, Sophie. There’s plenty of work around here that needs to be done.

Worst of all, that F in Geometry during her junior year.

Damned laziness. You wouldn’t know hard work if it kicked you in the butt. Why don’t you use your God-given brain, girl?

She’d never been able to please Hoot McPhee. But then, no one had. Not even her mother, though, somehow, for most
of the years they’d been married, she’d put up with him—Sophie didn’t know how. And finally, when he stepped way over the line, even her mother couldn’t look the other way anymore.

Hoot had perhaps been hardest on her brother, Wes, who’d responded to the never-ending reprimands by leaving for Missoula and the University of Montana at the age of eighteen, and never looking back.

Wes had gone on to law school at the University of Texas, taking out student loans and working two jobs all the while so that he never had to ask his father for a dime above basic tuition. And he hadn’t called home or come home more than three or four times in the years after his high school graduation. He hadn’t returned to Lonesome Way for Hoot’s funeral either.

Hoot McPhee had been gone five years. But for a dizzying instant as Sophie stared into the living room, she could have sworn she sensed her tall, formidable father in that chair.

“It’s the first time I’ve been back…since the funeral,” she murmured as her mother came up behind her. “For an instant, I could almost see him sitting there—”

Sophie drew a breath and told herself to stop acting crazy. She walked into the living room, her flats clicking across the hardwood floor, and touched her hand to the back of the tan chair.

“Sorry, Mom. I know if he were here, you wouldn’t be.” After her mother had divorced him, Sophie’s father had spent the last few years of his life living alone—or with one or another of a succession of women—in a cabin on Bear Claw Road. “I probably wouldn’t be here either,” she added with a rueful smile. “I’m just being stupid. Emotional, as he would say.”

“No, you’re not, not in the least. I don’t wonder it seems strange to you to come in here and not see him. But a lot of things are different on the ranch now, Sophie. I’ve sold all
the livestock and leased most of the grazing land. It’s not the same as when your father was here, running cattle, running everything.” Her mother’s gaze held hers. “All the years you lived at home, he was here—we both were, together. So you’ve barely been in this house without him here—of course it feels odd to walk in and not see him.”

Sophie studied her mother. She didn’t look the least bit upset. Which was a wonder. Sophie couldn’t imagine how her mother could talk about Hoot so calmly, almost dispassionately, as if he hadn’t been discovered having an affair with the mayor’s wife, Lorelei Hardin, during Sophie’s junior year of college—and who knew how many other women he’d cheated with before that?

Sophie was still reeling from finding out about her own husband’s infidelity. When would it stop, that ice-pick-to-the-heart pain? After a year—or two—a decade?

It’s only been a few months,
she told herself.
You won’t always feel this rage, this pain. This blinding sense of betrayal. Mom survived. She’s a normal, rational human being. You’ll become one again, too.

But she knew she’d never trust any man again. Sophie couldn’t ever see that happening. No way.

And she would be careful not to share her heart again, much less give it away. To anyone. The pain was too intense. The risk too great. She understood that now.

“You know, Mom,” she said quietly. “It’s because of Hoot that I tried so hard to make things work with Ned. I always dreaded the possibility of a second generation of divorce in the family. I needed someone different from Hoot, someone who’d hold to his vows. Who’d encourage me and laugh with me and not tear down the people he was supposed to love. I thought I found him. So I kept trying for so long even after…”

Even after Ned became so distant, burying himself in his work. Putting Sophie and their life together on the back burner.

Somewhere along the line, Ned had let go of her and their marriage, and committed himself instead to his drug of choice—his own ambition.

In the end he’d had much more in common with Hoot McPhee than Sophie could have dreamed the day she walked down the aisle in swirls of white silk, seed pearls, and taffeta, making promises to love, honor, and cherish.

But she didn’t know that—not until the day she found out about Cassandra Reynard.

“I really thought we’d last. Forever.” She turned away from her father’s chair. “Which just goes to show how much
I
know.”

“There’s no sense in blaming yourself. None at all.” Taking her hand, her mother determinedly led her into the kitchen, lips pursed and concern sharpening her gaze. “Not one bit of this is your fault. I know Ned told you it is, but he’s full of it. Don’t let him screw with you any more than he already has. Divorce isn’t a family curse, passed on from one generation to another. It just happens. And
he
cheated, not you. You gave him countless chances to keep your marriage together. A damn sight too many, if you ask me.”

Sophie had to grin as she carried the wooden salad bowl brimming with greens and tomatoes and peppers to the square table. Her even-keeled mom rarely got so worked up. Obviously, Ned was high up on her shit list.

“Good to know you have my back, Mom.”

“Family sticks together.” Diana brought over the platter of sauce-laden meat loaf surrounded by garlic mashed potatoes and set it down. “That man better never show his face around here or he’ll
really
get a piece of my mind.”

The table was set with a robin’s egg blue tablecloth and her mother’s prettiest blue and yellow dishes. Matching napkins were folded atop each plate. Sophie’s gaze was drawn to the bouquet of wildflowers filling an oval white vase in the center.

It all looked so festive and inviting.

Mom’s trying so hard to make this easier for me.

But nothing was easy these days.

Sophie needed to lift her own mood, or else fake it, for her mother’s sake. Which meant not thinking about Ned or about how she had to find a job, or wondering how she was going to restart her life.

“Everything looks great. You made too much food, though, Mom.”
Especially since these days I have the appetite of a flea.
She slid into a chair, reached for the salad bowl. “How’s Gran?”

“Same as always.” Diana gave a tiny smile at the mention of her mother. “She still has more energy than a windstorm and still thinks good always wins out in the end. Not such a bad philosophy, I guess. She’s coming to dinner tomorrow night. Be prepared, she’s planning to tell you how to fix your love life.”

“What love life? I’m done with a love life.”

“Not if your grandmother has anything to say about it. I give her a week at most before she seriously gets on your case.”

“Maybe coming home wasn’t such a great idea.” Seeing her mother’s alarmed expression, Sophie regretted her flip words. She felt a rush of warmth for her mother, for this house, for the Montana night that seemed to enfold them, at least at this moment, in a cocoon of safety.

“I’m just joking.” She hugged her mom. “I’d rather be here than anywhere else in the world right now.”

And she meant it.