Then it was their oldest child’s turn when he came into the kitchen.

“You’re going to Colorado tonight,” his father informed Hugh-Jay.

They had a ranch there, and a third property due north in Nebraska.

“Why?” Hugh-Jay made the mistake of asking, in a perfectly respectful tone of voice. He was, in his mother’s opinion, the best natural cowman in the family, not to mention also being the nicest of any of her four children. Hugh-Jay was kind to everybody, good with cattle, even better with horses. His father seemed determined, however, to keep him away from cattle and buried in paperwork and accounting, which was the sort of business for which he had no aptitude at all. Chase and Belle were the ones with the heads for numbers. Hugh-Jay was the diplomat and animal lover, and Bobby… well, nobody quite knew what Bobby was good for.

“Dad,” Hugh-Jay said calmly, “I want to take that lame horse to the vet.”

“He can limp for another couple of days.”

Hugh-Jay looked startled at his father’s cavalier words. He frowned at his mother, an expression she read as both concern for the horse and confusion at his father’s apparent hypocrisy about the welfare of their animals. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then merely asked, “What’s going on in Colorado?”

“That’s what I want you to find out. Something’s funny about the bills. You get out there and see if he’s hiding anything from us.”

The “he” to whom he referred was their ranch manager.

“Dad.” Hugh-Jay’s protest was a gentle rebuke. “He’s a good man.”

“Maybe he is, but it won’t hurt to prove it.”

Behind Hugh Senior, Annabelle made small sweeping motions with her hands, her way of telling her son to go, get out of here.

“Yes, sir,” Hugh-Jay said with a sigh, “but I can’t leave until this afternoon.”

“Why not?”

He smiled at his father, then at his mother, as he pulled a red feed-store cap onto his wheat-blond hair. He had a plain, pale face that radiated his bighearted nature, and which only burned-or blushed-and never tanned.

“Believe it or not, Dad, I have a life outside this ranch.”

He was the only Linder sibling who was married, and with a child.

“We won’t any of us have a life if we don’t attend to this ranch,” his father retorted. The elder Hugh Linder was a beefier, more handsome version of his oldest son; he exuded a natural leadership quality that none of his children had yet grown into for themselves.

Instead of arguing, Hugh-Jay winked at his mother and started to leave the kitchen.

“Hugh-Jay?”

He looked back at Annabelle, who asked him, “Are you all right?”

He gave her a friendly, puzzled look. “Sure. Don’t I look all right, Mom?”

After an instant’s hesitation she nodded, saying nothing more.

His father backed down for a moment, at least about one thing. “Don’t worry about that horse, son.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll get it to the vet myself, if I have to.”

Hugh-Jay smiled his gratitude, gave his parents a wave, and continued on toward the front door, which they heard him thoughtfully close, not slam as any of their other children might have done.

Belle almost escaped as she ran out of the house on her way back to her fledgling museum. She’d only come home to shower and change clothes. But she didn’t make it out the front door in time to avoid hearing her father shout, “Belle! What time did you get in last night?”

Belle backed up, stuck her head in the kitchen and said, “I didn’t, Dad. I stayed in town, and I’m twenty-three years old, for heaven’s sake, so why are you still asking me questions like that?”

Her expression, more than her words, said he’d insulted her.

“Because you should be thoughtful to your mother.”

“What did I do to Mom?”

“She fixed a plate for supper for you, and you never showed up.”

“I never asked her to do that, Dad, did I, Mom?”

“You’ll be late for work,” he said, changing tack.

“What? You don’t even think it’s real work, Dad.”

“Anything worth doing is worth-”

“Mother, tell him to stop.”

She sounded pent-up with resentment.

Annabelle smiled at her daughter, who had the blond, big-boned look of her father and her oldest and youngest brothers. If Annabelle could have, she would have waved a magic wand to make Belle, her second child, as pretty and as happy as she was serious and sensitive. Too serious, in her mother’s opinion, and too sensitive to slights, but maybe that’s what happened to a girl who grew up with younger brothers who constantly teased her unless somebody else sat on them. It had never seemed to be in Belle’s nature to give as good as she got, except when she was misunderstanding what was said to her. Short of that, she was more likely to run away, slam a door, and simmer until she eventually exploded out of all proportion to the remembered crimes. Annabelle said lightly, “No, you didn’t ask me to set a plate, but you might just as easily have shown up and complained if I hadn’t done it.”

Belle rolled her eyes.

Her mother observed that but held onto her own temper. In a light, teasing tone, she said, “Tell your dad that if he doesn’t like the hours you keep, he can buy you a little house in town, Belle. Then he won’t have to know what fathers shouldn’t be knowing anyway.”

“You know I don’t earn enough to pay him rent!”

“Who said anything about rent?” Annabelle joked.

“Don’t treat me like I’m irresponsible,” Belle shot back.

“What? Belle, I would never call you, of all people, ir-”

Belle interrupted. “Dad, I got that buffalo head I was after, so if you could write me a check and leave it in my room?”

And then she was gone.

“I can’t say anything to that girl,” Annabelle complained to her husband when Belle was gone.

“I don’t know why she rushes to get there,” Hugh grumbled back. “That museum is going to get five tourists a year and most of them will be friends of ours from out of town. I think she’s only doing it to make me spend money on it.” He was bankrolling his daughter’s project-which seemed mostly hobby to him-in the hope that it might lead to an actual job for her and her history degree. “Now she wants me to pay for a mangy old buffalo head?”

“Oh, stop it,” Annabelle shushed him, but halfheartedly. “She’s right. You complain it isn’t a real job and then you expect her to act like it is. You offer to finance it and then you complain when she takes you up on the offer.” She tugged on her husband’s shirtsleeve. She thought Hugh was growing quite distinguished-looking now that he was in his fifties and his thick blond hair was turning silver. She also thought that their children would be shocked-Belle, especially, would be horrified-if they knew how much their mother still loved to be alone in the master bedroom with their father with the door locked. When he turned toward her, she smiled and said, “Why is it that we can’t seem to get rid of our kids?”

Chase, Bobby, and Belle still lived-mostly-on the ranch.

He grinned down at her and said, “Well, I’m doing my best here to run them off.”

When she laughed, he leaned over and kissed her mouth.

“Have I ever mentioned that you’re the prettiest woman in town?”

“Just the town? Not the whole county?”

Annabelle, whom he’d married and brought up from Dallas, was the one from whom their son Chase had inherited both his good looks and his charm. In their family of blond giants, only she and Chase had dark hair and blue eyes and tawny skin; in a family of accomplished and confident people, the two of them carried themselves with the air of people who had always been especially well-loved and admired, and for whom good things came more easily than they did to most people. The fact that Annabelle was also nice was a source of some pride throughout the county. People bragged about her, about the whole Linder clan: “Good people, lot of money, but they don’t put on airs, ’cept maybe that girl Hugh-Jay married.”