CHAPTER TWO.

THE WAY HUTCH figured it, a solid week should have been plenty long enough for the fuss over the wedding-

that-never-was to die down, but when Sat.u.r.day afternoon rolled around again and he sat down at his computer to get a quick read on the gossip situation, tired from rounding up strays with the ranch hands since just after dawn, he was promptly disabused of the notion.

This jabber-fest was getting worse by the moment.

Apparently he'd made every "jerk" list in cybers.p.a.ce, not just locally, but worldwide. Indignant females from as far away as the Philippines thought he ought to be tarred and feathered, and a couple of Brylee's girlfriends, bless their vengeful little hearts, had set up a page on one of the major networking sites solely for the purpose of warning every woman with a pulse to steer clear of Hutch Carmody.

The reverse version, he supposed, grimly amused, of an old West "Wanted" poster.

Of course, this being the digital age, there were pictures up the wazoo-Bride-Doll Brylee, flushed and furious in her over-the-top dress, stomping on her bouquet in the church aisle. Brylee, outside in the bright June sunshine, probably only moments after the first shot was taken, wrenching the taped-on "Just Married" sign from the back of the limo that would have carried the two of them over to the Community Center for the reception, ripping the cardboard in two and flinging the pieces into the gutter. Brylee, later still, hair pulled back and caught up in a long, messy ponytail, face puffy and scrubbed clean of makeup, her gown swapped out for jeans and a T-shirt bearing the motto Men Suck. She was surrounded by a dozen or so of her friends, at a table in the center of the Boot Scoot Tavern, the jukebox lit up behind her. No doubt, it was playing a somebody-done-me-wrong song.

Hutch sighed. He hadn't escaped the amateur paparazzi himself-these days, every yahoo and his Aunt Bessie had a smart phone, and they were mighty quick on the draw with them.

One memorable image showed him standing in the center of the sanctuary, clearly uncomfortable in the penguin get-up he'd rented from Wally's Wedding World, over in Three Trees, the neighboring town, looking pale and bleakly determined not to get married no matter what he had to do to avoid it. And those were just the stills-there were videos, too. In one thirty-second wonder, he could be seen climbing into his rusted-out pickup truck, right there in the Presbyterians' gravel parking lot, and in the next, he was heading for the horizon, a dust plume spiraling behind his rig.

Yep, that was him all right, beating a hasty retreat, like a yellow-bellied coward on the run.

That impression rested sour on the back of his tongue.

Someday, he suspected, when Brylee met up with her own personal Mr. Right, got hitched for real, and had herself a houseful of kids, she'd thank him for stopping the wedding and thereby preventing certain catastrophe.

At present, though, that particular "someday" seemed a long way off.

Weary to the aching marrow of his bones, Hutch logged off the internet, pushed back from the rolltop desk that had been in his family since the Lincoln administration, and stood up, stretching luxuriously before retrieving his coffee mug and ambling out of the little office behind the ranch house kitchen.

Taking Slade's advice, he'd kept a low profile since the day that, like the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attacks, would forever live in infamy. Against his own better judgment, he hadn't gone to see Brylee in person, called her on the phone, or even sent her an email.

He hadn't done much guilt-wallowing, either, which might be proof that he really was a "selfish, heartless, narcissistic b.a.s.t.a.r.d," as members of Team Brylee universally agreed, at least online. By now, the group probably had its own secret handshake.

Hutch regretted hurting Brylee, of course, and he certainly wished he could have spared her the humiliation of that very public breakup, but his overriding emotion was a sense of relief so profound that it still made his head reel even after a week.

Train wreck, averted.

Apocalypse, canceled.

Check and check.

Running into Kendra Shepherd at Slade and Joslyn's place after the debacle had definitely thrown him, however-slammed the wind out of him as surely as if he'd been hurled off the back of a bad bull or a sun-fishing bronco and landed on hard ground.

He'd loved Kendra once and he'd believed she loved him.

He'd expected to spend the rest of his life with the woman, happy to make babies, run Whisper Creek Ranch with Kendra at his side, a full partner in every way.

Instead, enter Jeffrey Chamberlain, he of the nominal t.i.tles and English estates, practically a prince to a woman like Kendra, brought up in a small Montana town by a grandmother who resented the responsibility of raising her errant daughter's child. Chamberlain had been visiting friends at the time-Hollywood types with delusions of living the ranching life in grand style-and d.a.m.ned if Sir Jeffrey hadn't struck up a conversation with Kendra at the post office one fine day and parlayed that, over the coming weeks, into a romance so epic that it could only have ended badly.

Not that Kendra had fallen for Chamberlain right away-at the get-go, she'd insisted he was just a friend, interesting and funny. Hutch, though nettled, had reluctantly-okay, grudgingly-accepted the explanation.

Down deep, he'd been out-of-his-gourd jealous, though, and soon enough the bickering commenced.

Chamberlain, knowing full well what he'd set in motion, had found excuses to stay on in Parable and he just bided his time while things got worse and worse between Hutch and Kendra.

Inevitably, the bickering escalated to fiery yelling matches and, worse, single words, terse and biting, punctuated by long, achy silences.

Eventually, Kendra had given Hutch an ultimatum-trust her or leave her.

He'd chosen the latter option, being a stubborn, hard-headed cowboy from a long line of stubborn, hard-headed cowboys, never really thinking she'd go at all, let alone stay gone; everybody knew they belonged together, he and Kendra. After a semidecent interval, though, she'd hauled off and eloped with Jeffrey.

There were still days-moments, really-when Hutch couldn't believe it had come to that, and this was one of them.

Now, standing in his kitchen, he closed his eyes, remembering.

Kendra had called him three days after tying the knot down in Vegas.

Even then he'd wanted to say, "This isn't right. Come home."

But he'd been too cussed proud to take the high road.

He'd wished "Lady Chamberlain" well and hung up in her ear. Hard. They'd seen each other numerous times afterward, the way things shook out, especially after Chamberlain bought his way out of the marriage and crossed the pond to resume his Lord-of-the-manor lifestyle while Kendra remained in Parable, rattling around in that hotel-sized mansion on Rodeo Road.

Small as Parable was, he and Kendra had come close to patching things up a few times, making another start, but something always went wrong, probably because neither one of them trusted the other any further than they could have thrown them.

They'd been civil last Sat.u.r.day night at Slade and Joslyn's noisy supper table, but Kendra had looked ready to jump out of her skin at any moment, and as soon as the meal was over and the dishes were in the machine, she'd grabbed up her little girl and boogied for town in her boxy mom-car.

What had happened to that little BMW convertible she used to drive?

"She wasn't expecting to see you tonight," Joslyn had explained, touching his hand once Kendra and the child were out of the house.

Hutch had slanted an evil look at his half brother. "I know the feeling," he'd said.

Slade had merely looked smug.

Now with another long, dirty workday behind him and lunch a distant memory, Hutch stood there in his stupidly big kitchen and tried to shift his focus to rustling up some kind of a supper, but the few budding science experiments hunkered down in the fridge held no appeal. Neither did the resoundingly empty house-by rights, the place should have been bursting with noisy ranch kids and rescued dogs by now. Instead it was neat, cold and stone silent.

Hutch sighed, shoved a hand through his hair. Stepped back from the refrigerator and shut the door.

Upstairs he took a quick shower and donned fresh jeans, a white shirt and go-to-town boots.

He'd hidden out long enough, d.a.m.n it.

By G.o.d, he was through keeping a low profile-he meant to fire up one of the ranch trucks, drive into Parable to the b.u.t.ter Biscuit Cafe, claim one of the stools at the counter and order up his usual cheeseburger, shake and fries. As for the joshing and the questions and the speculative glances he was bound to run into?

Bring it, he thought.

KENDRA HAD HAD a week to put that off-the-wall encounter with Hutch the previous Sat.u.r.day night behind her and she was mostly over it.

Mostly.

She'd been busy, after all, overseeing the move of her real estate company from the mansion on Rodeo Road to the little storefront, catty-corner from the b.u.t.ter Biscuit Cafe, enrolling Madison at the year-round preschool/day-care center and scanning the multiple-listings for cozy two-bedroom houses within a reasonable radius of Parable.

In a town like that one, smaller properties were always hard to find-people didn't necessarily sell their houses when they retired to Florida or Arizona or entered a nursing home. They often pa.s.sed them down to the next generation.

At present, Kendra's choices were a double-wide trailer in the very court where she'd grown up so unhappily with her grandmother-no possible way-what resembled a converted chicken coop on the far side of Three Trees, which was thirty miles away, or the cramped apartment over old Mrs. Lund's garage on Cinch Buckle Street, which rented for a tidy sum and didn't even have its own entrance.

With her fifteen-thousand-square-foot mega-mansion on the market, already swarming with cleaning people and painters these days in preparation for showing-she and Madison had taken up temporary residence in the estate's small guesthouse.

Given that two different potential buyers, both highly qualified, had already expressed interest in the main residence, Kendra had no intention of getting too settled in the cottage, cheery and convenient though the place was. Upscale homes were much easier to sell than regular houses, at least in that part of Montana, because so many jet-setters liked to buy them up and visit them once in a blue moon.

For now, though, the guesthouse was sufficient for their needs. Madison loved the big yard, the thriving flower gardens and the swing on the mansion's screened-in sun porch. The four-year-old was content to share the cottage's one bedroom with Kendra, take meals in the tiny, sun-splashed kitchen, and ease, an hour or two at a time, into the preschool program, where there were plenty of playmates around her own age.

Already Madison's fair skin was golden, having absorbed so much country sunshine, and she didn't cry at the prospect of even the shortest separation from Kendra.

Tara Kendall stopped by the real estate office just as Kendra was about to close up for the day. She and Madison planned on picking up a takeout meal over at the b.u.t.ter Biscuit, then eating at the small white wrought-iron table at the edge of the rose garden on Rodeo Road.

"Can we get a dog now?" Madison was asking for the umpteenth time, when Tara breezed in, pretty with her shoulder-length brown hair expertly layered and her perfect makeup that looked like no makeup at all.

"Do I have an offer for you," Tara said, with a broad grin. She wore a sleek yellow sundress that flattered her slight but womanly figure, and her legs were so tanned she didn't need panty hose. "My golden retriever, Lucy, just happens to have a sister who still needs a home."

"Gee," Kendra drawled, feeling self-conscious in her jeans and T-shirt. "Thanks so much for that suggestion, Tara."

Madison was already jumping up and down in antic.i.p.ation. "My very own dog!" she crowed.

Tara chuckled and reached out a manicured hand to ruffle Madison's bright copper curls. "Oops," she said, addressing Kendra in a singsong voice that sounded warmly insincere. "Did I just put my foot in my mouth?"

"More like your entire leg," Kendra replied sweetly. Tara, a relative newcomer to Parable, had fit right in with her and Joslyn, turning a duet into a trio-the three of them had been fast friends from the beginning. "We're not ready for a dog yet, since we don't really have a place to-" She paused, looked down at Madison, who was glowing like a firefly on a moonless night, and reconsidered the word she'd intended to use, which was "live," diverting to "permanently reside."

"We have the cottage," Madison pointed out. "There's a yard and Lucy's sister could sleep with us."

"Says you," Kendra said, but with affection. She remembered how badly she'd wanted a pet as a little girl, but her grandmother had always refused, saying she had enough on her hands looking after a kid. She wasn't about to clean up after a dog or a cat, too.

"You promised," Madison reminded her sagely. She was so like Jeffrey-she had his eyes, his red hair, his insouciant certainty that everything good would come to him as a matter of course-including golden retriever puppies with sisters named Lucy.

"I said we could get a pet when we were settled," Kendra clarified patiently after shooting a see-what-you've-done glance at a singularly unrepentant Tara. "We'll be moving soon."

"So will the dog," Tara put in lightly. "Martie Wren can only keep her at the shelter for so long, then it's off to-well-wherever."

"Thanks again, Tara," Kendra said. She knew her friend meant well, but the woman wasn't known for her good judgment. Hadn't she given up a great job in New York, heading up a world-cla.s.s cosmetics company, to buy, of all things, a dilapidated chicken ranch on the outskirts of Parable, Montana?

Huge tears welled in Madison's eyes. "n.o.body wants Lucy's sister?"

At last, Tara looked shamefaced. "She's a beautiful dog," she told the little girl gently. "Somebody will adopt her for sure."

"You, for instance?" Kendra said.

"I guess she could live with Lucy and me for a while," Tara decided, shifting her expensive hobo bag from her right shoulder to her left.

Madison grabbed Kendra's hand, squeezed. "We could just look at Emma, couldn't we?"

"Emma?" Kendra echoed, dancing on ice now, Bambi with all four limbs scrabbling for traction.

"That's what we'd call Lucy's sister," Madison said matter-of-factly, her little face shining more brightly than the sunset gathering in shades of pink and orange at the rims of the mountains to the east. "Emma."

Emma. It was Madison's birth mother's name. Did she know that?

How could she? She'd been only a year old when Emma gave her up.

"Why Emma'?" Kendra asked carefully, hoping to hide her dismayed surprise from the child.

Tara, she instantly noted, had already read her face, though she couldn't have known the significance of the name, and she looked way beyond apologetic.

"It's a pretty name," Madison said. "Don't you think so, Mommy?"

"It's lovely," Kendra conceded. "Now, shouldn't we pick up our supper and head for home?" She glanced at Tara. "Join us? Nothing fancy-we're getting takeout-but we'd love to share."

Tara blinked, clearly uncertain what response she ought to give. "Well-"

"And it would be fun to meet Lucy," Madison went on. "Is she with you?"

"As a matter of fact," Tara said, "yes. She's in the car. We just came from the vet's office and-"

"You're both welcome," Kendra insisted. Firstly because Tara was a dear friend and secondly, because she was enjoying the other woman's obvious discomfort. "You and Lucy."

"Well," Tara murmured, with a weak little smile, "okay."

Kendra smiled. "Let's go, then," she said, jingling the ring of keys she'd just plucked from her purse.

She shut off the inside lights, stepped out onto the sidewalk and locked up behind them. Leaving Kendra's Volvo in the parking lot out back, they crossed the street to the b.u.t.ter Biscuit Cafe. Tara's flashy red sports car was parked on the street in front of the restaurant, the yellow dandelion-fluff dog, Lucy, pressing her muzzle against the driver's-side window, steaming up the gla.s.s.

Kendra's heart softened at the very sight of that dog, while Madison rushed over to stand on tiptoe and press the palms of both hands against the window.

"h.e.l.lo, Lucy!" Madison cried gleefully.