A Cold Creek Reunion (5 page)

Caidy and her grief had been another reason Laura had tried to convince Taft to postpone their June wedding, just six months after the murders, but he had insisted his parents wouldn’t have wanted them to change their plans.

Not that any of that mattered now. Caidy had become a beautiful woman, with dark hair like her brothers’ and the same Bowman green eyes.

“You look fantastic,” Laura exclaimed.

Caidy made a face but hugged her again. “Same to you. Gosh, I can’t believe it’s been so long.”

“What are you up to these days? Did you ever make it to vet school?”

Something flickered in the depths of her eyes but Caidy only shrugged. “No, I went to a couple semesters of school but decided college wasn’t really for me. Since then, I’ve mostly just stuck around the ranch, helping Ridge with his daughter. I do a little training on the side. Horses and dogs.”

“That’s terrific,” she said, although some part of her felt a little sad for missed opportunities. Caidy had always adored animals and had an almost uncanny rapport with them. All she used to talk about as a teenager was becoming a veterinarian someday and coming back to Pine Gulch to work.

One pivotal moment had changed so many lives, she thought. The violent murder of the Bowmans in a daring robbery of their extensive American West art collection had shaken everyone in town really. That sort of thing just didn’t happen in Pine Gulch. The last murder the town had seen prior to that had been clear back in the 1930s when two ranch hands had fought it out over a girl.

Each of the Bowman siblings had reacted in different ways, she remembered. Ridge had thrown himself into the ranch and overseeing his younger siblings. Trace had grown even more serious and solemn. Caidy had withdrawn into herself, struggling with a completely natural fear of the world.

As for Taft, his answer had been to hide away his emotions and pretend everything was fine while inside he seethed with grief and anger and pushed away any of her attempts to comfort him.

“I’m looking for Taft,” Caidy said now. “I had to make a run to the feed store this morning and thought I would stop and see if he wanted to head over to The Gulch for coffee and an omelet.”

Oh, she loved The Gulch, the town’s favorite diner. Why hadn’t she been there since she returned to town? An image of the place formed clearly in her head—the tin-stamped ceiling, the round red swivel seats at the old-fashioned counter, the smell of frying bacon and coffee that had probably oozed into the paneling.

One of these mornings, she would have to take her children there.

“Taft isn’t here. I’m sorry. He left about a half hour ago. I think he was heading to the fire station. He did say something about his shift ending at six.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.” Caidy paused a moment, tilting her head and giving Laura a long, inscrutable look very much like her brother would do. “I don’t suppose you would like to go over to The Gulch with me and have breakfast, would you?”

She gazed at the other woman, as touched by the invitation as she was surprised. In all these years, Taft hadn’t told his family that she had been the one to break their engagement? She knew he couldn’t have. If Caidy knew, Laura had a feeling the other woman wouldn’t be nearly as friendly.

The Bowmans tended to circle the wagons around their own.

That had been one of the hardest things about walking away from him. Her breakup with Taft had meant not only the loss of all her childish dreams but also the big, boisterous family she had always wanted as an only child of older parents who seemed absorbed with each other and their business.

For a moment, she was tempted to go to The Gulch with Caidy. Her mouth watered at the thought of Lou Archuleta’s famous sweet rolls. Besides that, she would love the chance to catch up with Caidy. But before she could answer, her children came barreling out of the cottage, Maya in the lead for once but Alex close behind.

“Ma-ma! Gram made cakes. So good,” Maya declared.

Alexandro caught up to his sister. “Pancakes, not cakes. You don’t have cakes for breakfast, Maya. We’re supposed to tell you to come in so you can wash up. Hurry! Grandma says I can flip the next one.”

“Oh.”

Caidy smiled at the children, clearly entranced by them.

“Caidy, this is my daughter, Maya, and my son,
Alexandro. Children, this is my friend Caidy. She’s Chief Bowman’s sister.”

“I like Chief Bowman,” Alex declared. “He said if I start another fire, he’s going to arrest me. Do you think he will?”

Caidy nodded solemnly. “Trust me, my brother never says anything he doesn’t mean. You’ll have to be certain not to start any more fires, then, won’t you?”

“I know. I know. I already heard it about a million times. Hey, Mom, can I go so I can turn the pancakes with Grandma?”

She nodded and Alex raced back for the cottage with his sister in close pursuit.

“They’re beautiful, Laura. Truly.”

“I think so.” She smiled and thought she saw a hint of something like envy in the other woman’s eyes. Why didn’t Caidy have a family of her own? she wondered. Was she still living in fear?

On impulse, she gestured toward the cottage. “Unless you have your heart set on cinnamon rolls down at The Gulch, why don’t you stay and have breakfast here? I’m sure my mother wouldn’t mind setting another plate for you.”

Caidy blinked. “Oh, I couldn’t.”

“Why not? My mother’s pancakes are truly delicious. In fact, a week from now, we’re going to start offering breakfast at the inn to our guests. The plan is to start with some of Mom’s specialties like pancakes and French toast but also to begin ordering some things from outside sources to showcase local businesses. I’ve already talked to the Java Hut about serving their coffee here and the Archuletas about offering some of The Gulch pastries to our guests.”

“What a great idea.”

“You can be our guinea pig. Come and have breakfast with us. I’m sure my mother will enjoy the company.”

She would, too, she thought. She missed having a friend besides her mother. Her best friend in high school, besides Taft, had moved to Texas for her husband’s job and Laura hadn’t had a chance to connect with anyone else.

Even though she still emailed back and forth with her dearest friends and support system in Madrid, it wasn’t the same as sharing coffee and pancakes and stories with someone who had known her for so long.

“I would love that,” Caidy exclaimed. “Thank you. I’m sure Taft can find his own breakfast partner if he’s so inclined.”

From the rumors Laura had heard about the man in the years since their engagement, she didn’t doubt that for a moment.

Chapter Five

T
o her relief, her children were charming and sweet with Caidy over breakfast. As soon as he found out their guest lived on a real-life cattle ranch, Alex peppered her with questions about cowboys and horses and whether she had ever seen a real-life Indian.

Apparently she had to have a talk with her son about political correctness and how reality compared to the American Westerns he used to watch avidly with their gnarled old housekeeper in Madrid.

Maya had apparently decided Caidy was someone she could trust, which was something of a unique occurrence. She sat beside her and gifted Taft’s sister with her sweet smile and half of the orange Laura peeled for her.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Caidy said, looking touched by the gesture.

Whenever someone new interacted with Maya, Laura couldn’t help a little clutch in her stomach, worry at how her daughter would be accepted.

She supposed that stemmed from Javier’s initial reaction after her birth when the solemn-faced doctors told them Maya showed certain markers for Down syndrome and they were running genetic testing to be sure.

Her husband had been in denial for a long time and had pretended nothing was wrong. After all, how could he possibly have a child who wasn’t perfect—by the world’s standards anyway? Even after the testing revealed what Laura had already known in her heart, Javier has refused to discuss Maya’s condition or possible outcomes.

Denial or not, he had still loved his daughter, though. She couldn’t fault him for that. He was sometimes the only one who could calm the baby’s crankiness and he had been infinitely calm with her.

Maya didn’t quite understand that Javier was dead. She still had days when she asked over and over again where her papa was. During those rough patches, Laura would have to fight down deep-seated fury at her late husband.

Her children needed him and he had traded his future with them for the momentary pleasure he had found with his latest honey. Mingled with the anger and hurt was no small amount of guilt. If she had tried a little harder to open her heart to him and truly love him, maybe he wouldn’t have needed to seek out other women.

She was doing her best, she reminded herself. Hadn’t she traveled across the world to give them a home with family and stability?

“This was fun,” Caidy said, drawing her back to the conversation. “Thank you so much for inviting me, but I probably better start heading back to the ranch. I’ve got a buyer coming today to look at one of the border collies I’ve been training.”

“You’re going to sell your dog?” Alex, who dearly wanted a puppy, looked horrified at the very idea.

“Sue isn’t really my dog,” Caidy explained with a smile. “I rescued her when she was a puppy and I’ve been training her to help someone else at their ranch. We have plenty of dogs at the River Bow.”

Alex didn’t seem to quite understand the concept of breeding and training dogs. “Doesn’t it make you sad to give away your dog?”

Caidy blinked a little, but after a pause she nodded. “Yes, I guess it does a little. She’s a good dog and I’ll miss her. But I promise I’ll make sure whoever buys her will give her a really good home.”

“We have a good home, don’t we, Grandma?” Alex appealed to Jan, who smiled.

“Why, yes, I believe we do, son.”

“We can’t have a dog right now, Alex.”

Laura tried to head him off before he started extolling the virtues of their family like a used-car salesman trying to close a deal. “We’ve talked about this. While we’re settling in here in Pine Gulch and living with Grandma here at the inn, it’s just not practical.”

He stuck out his lower lip, looking very much like his father when he couldn’t get his way. “That’s what you always say. I still really, really, really want a dog.”

“Not now, Alexandro. We’re not getting a dog. Maybe in a year or so when things here are a little more settled.”

“But I want one now!”

“I’m sorry,” Caidy said quickly, “but I’m afraid Sue wouldn’t be very happy here. You see, she’s a working dog and her very favorite thing is telling the cattle on our ranch which way we want them to go. You don’t look very much like a steer. Where are your horns?”

Alex looked as if he wanted to ramp up to a full-fledged tantrum, something new since his father died, but he allowed himself to be teased out of it. “I’m not a steer,” he said, rolling his eyes. Then a moment later he asked, “What’s a steer?”

Caidy laughed. “It’s another name for the male version of cow.”

“I thought that was a bull.”

“Uh.” Caidy gave Laura a helpless sort of look.

While Jan snickered, Laura shook her head. “You’re right. There are two kinds of male bovines, which is another word for cow. One’s a bull and one is a steer.”

“What’s the difference?” he asked.

“Steers sing soprano,” Caidy said. “And on that lovely note, I’d better get back to the bulls
and
steers of the River Bow. Thanks for a great breakfast. Next time it’s my turn.”

“Alex, will you and Maya help Gram with clearing the table while I walk Caidy out? I’ll do the dishes when I come back inside.”

To her relief, her son allowed himself to be distracted when Jan asked him if he and Maya would like to go to the park later in the day.

“I’m sorry about the near-tantrum there,” she said as they headed outside to Caidy’s pickup truck. “We’re working on them, but my son still likes his own way.”

“Most kids do. My niece is almost ten and she still thinks she should be crowned queen of the universe. I didn’t mean to start something by talking about dogs.”

“We’ve been having this argument for about three years now. His best friend in Madrid had this mangy old mutt, but Alex adored him and wanted one so badly. My husband would never allow it and for some reason Alex got it in his head after his father died that now there was no reason we couldn’t get a dog.”

“You’re welcome to bring your kids out to the ranch sometime to enjoy my dogs vicariously. The kids might enjoy taking a ride, as well. We’ve got some pretty gentle ponies that would be perfect for them.”

“That sounds fun. I’m sure they would both love it.” She was quite certain this was one of those vague invitations that people said just to be polite, but to her surprise, Caidy didn’t let the matter rest.

“How about next weekend?” she pressed. “I’m sure Ridge would be delighted to have you out.”

Ridge was the Bowman sibling she had interacted with the least. At the time she was engaged to Taft, he and his parents weren’t getting along, so he avoided the River Bow as much as possible. The few times she had met him, she had always thought him a little stern and humorless.

Still, he’d been nice enough to her—though the same couldn’t have been said about his ex-wife, who had been rude and overbearing to just about everyone on the ranch.

“That’s a lovely invitation, but I’m sure the last thing you need is to entertain a bunch of greenhorns.”

“I would love it,” Caidy assured her. “Your kids are just plain adorable and I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that you’re back in town. To tell you the truth, I’m a little desperate for some female conversation. At least something that doesn’t revolve around cattle.”

She should refuse. Her history with Taft had to make any interaction with the rest of the Bowmans more than a little awkward. But like Caidy, she welcomed any chance to resurrect their old friendship—and Alex and Maya
would
love the chance to ride horses and play with the ranch dogs.

“Yes, all right. The weekend would be lovely. Thank you.”

“I’ll call you Wednesday or Thursday to make some firm arrangements. This will be great!” Caidy beamed at her, looking fresh and pretty with her dark ponytail and sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

The other woman climbed into her pickup truck and drove away with a wave and a smile and Laura watched after her for a moment, feeling much better about the morning than she had when the previous Bowman sibling had driven away from the inn.

* * *

Taft had visitors.

The whir of the belt sander didn’t quite mask the giggles and little scurrying sounds from the doorway. He made a show of focusing on the window he was framing while still maintaining a careful eye on the little creatures who would occasionally peek around the corner of the doorway and then hide out of sight again.

He didn’t want to let his guard down, not with all the power equipment in here. He could just imagine Laura’s diatribe if one of her kids somehow got hurt. She would probably accuse him of letting her rambunctious older kid cut off his finger on purpose.

The game of peekaboo lasted for a few more minutes until he shut off the belt sander. He ran a finger over the wood to be sure the frame was smooth before he headed over to the window to hold it up for size, keeping an eye on the door the whole time.

“Go on,” he heard a whispered voice say, then giggles, and a moment later he was joined by Laura’s daughter.

Maya. She was adorable, with that dusky skin, curly dark hair in pigtails and Laura’s huge blue eyes,
almond-shaped on Maya.

“Hola,”
she whispered with a shy smile.

“Hola, señorita,”
he answered. Apparently he still remembered a
little
of the high-school Spanish he had struggled so hard to master.

“What doing?” she asked.

“I’m going to put some new wood up around this window. See?” He held the board into the intended place to demonstrate, then returned it to the worktable.

“Why?” she asked, scratching her ear.

He glanced at the doorway where the boy peeked around, then hid again like a shadow.

“The old wood was rotting away. This way it will look much nicer. More like the rest of the room.”

That face peeked around the doorway again and this time Taft caught him with an encouraging smile. After a pause, the boy sidled into the room.

“Loud,” Maya said, pointing to the belt sander with fascination.

“It can be. I’ve got things to block your ears if you want them.”

He wasn’t sure she would understand, but she nodded vigorously, so he reached for his ear protectors on top of his toolbox. The adult-size red ear guards were huge on her—the bottom of the cups hit her at about shoulder height. He reached out to work the slide adjustment on top. They were still too big but at least they covered most of her ears.

She beamed at him, pleased as punch, and he had to chuckle. “Nice. You look great.”

“I see,” she said, and headed unerringly for the mirror hanging on the back of the bathroom door, where she turned her head this way and that, admiring her headgear as if he had given her a diamond tiara.

Oh, she was a heartbreaker, this one.

“Can I use some?” Alexandro asked, from about two feet away, apparently coaxed all the way into the room by what his sister was wearing.

“I’m afraid I’ve got only the one pair. I wasn’t expecting company. Sorry. Next time I’ll remember to pack a spare. I probably have regular earplugs in my toolbox.”

Alex shrugged. “That’s okay. I don’t mind the noise. Maya freaks at loud noises, but I don’t care.”

“Why is that? Maya, I mean, and loud noises?”

The girl was wandering around the room, humming to herself loudly, apparently trying to hear herself through the ear protection.

The kid looked fairly protective himself, watching over his sister as she moved from window to window. “She just does. Mom says it’s because she has so much going on inside her head she sometimes forgets the rest of us and loud noises startle her into remembering. Or something like that.”

“You love your sister a lot, don’t you?”

“She’s my sister.” He shrugged, looking suddenly much older than his six years. “I have to watch out for her and Mama now that our papa is gone.”

Taft wanted to hug him, too, and he had to fight down a lump in his throat. He thought about his struggle when his parents had died. He had been twenty-four years old. Alex was just a kid and had already lost his father, but he seemed to be handling it with stoic grace. “I bet you do a great job, protecting them both.”

The boy looked guilty. “Sometimes. I didn’t on the day of the fire.”

“We’ve decided that was an accident, right? It’s over and you’re not going to do it again. Take it from me, kid. Don’t beat yourself up over past mistakes. Just move on and try to do better next time.”

Alex didn’t look as if he quite understood. Why should he? Taft rolled his eyes at himself. Philosophy and six-year-old boys didn’t mix all that well.

“Want to try your hand with the sander?” he asked.

Alex’s blue eyes lit up. “Really? Is it okay?”

“Sure. Why not? Every guy needs to know how to run a belt sander.”

Before beginning the lesson, Taft thought it wise to move toward Maya, who was sitting on the floor some distance away, drawing her finger through the sawdust mess he hadn’t had time to clear up yet. Her mom would probably love that, but because she was already covered, he decided he would clean her up when they were done.