“Does Gramps have a dog?” Clay asked excitedly.
“Three or four, I imagine.” Gramps had named his dogs after cartoon characters. Molly remembered Mr. McGoo and Mighty Mouse. Yogi and Boo Boo had been two of her favorites. She wondered if he’d continued the practice with more recent dogs.
“That’s it!” she said, pointing at two tall timbers. A board with BROKEN ARROW RANCH burned in large capital letters swung from a chain between them. The brand was seared on either side of the ranch name.
“I don’t see the house,” Clay muttered.
“You will soon,” she promised. Molly took a deep breath. They’d been on the road for two days and it felt ten times that long. Her heart was ready for sight of the house, ready to absorb the wealth of emotion that stirred her whenever she remembered those childhood summers.
Her ten-year-old Taurus crested the first hill, and she gazed intently ahead, knowing it was here that the house came into view for the first time. She could hardly wait for her sons’ reaction. Could hardly wait for them to suck in their breaths with awe and appreciation. Could hardly wait to show them the home that would now be theirs.
It wasn’t Tom or Clay who gasped, but Molly herself. The house, at least the outside, was nothing like she remembered. It sat forlornly, revealing years of neglect and abuse. Most of the shutters were gone, and those that remained hung askew, dangling by a couple of nails. The paint had blistered and peeled, leaving behind large patches of sun-parched wood. Two of the posts along the porch had rotted away, and the railing around the front showed gaping holes as unsightly as missing teeth. A turquoise tarp was spread across the roof over what had once been her bedroom, presumably to stop a leak.
“Are you sure this is the same house?” The question came from Tom.
“This isn’t it … is it?” Clay’s words seemed to stick in his throat.
“The Addams family would love this place,” Tom said sarcastically.
Molly felt her sons’ scrutiny, but was speechless, not knowing what to say.
“Are we just going to stay parked here?” Clay asked.
Molly hadn’t realized she’d stopped. She squared her shoulders and forced herself to swallow the disappointment. All right, so the house wasn’t exactly the way she’d recalled it. She’d personally see to the repairs and the upkeep; it was her responsibility now. Her hands squeezed the steering wheel as a new thought struck her. If the outside was this bad, she could only imagine what had happened to the inside.
“We need to remember Gramps is ill,” she said more for her own benefit than her children’s. “He hasn’t been able to take care of things. That’s why we’re here, remember?”
“This place is a dump.”
“Thomas, stop!” She would hear none of this. None of it! “This is our home.”
“We were better off in the apartment.”
Molly’s fingers ached from her death grip on the steering wheel. “It’ll be just as beautiful as ever in no time,” she said forcefully, defying the boys to contradict her.
Either they recognized the determination in her voice or were too tired to argue.
Molly had half expected Gramps to be on the porch waiting for her when she arrived and was disappointed when he wasn’t. She pulled the car around to the back of the house, close to the barn where Gramps generally parked his vehicles. Two dogs, one of them hugely pregnant, began barking furiously.
She turned off the engine and a man stepped out of the shadows from inside the barn. He removed his hat and wiped his forearm across his brow, then paused to study her.
This could only be Sam Dakota. Her grandfather’s foreman. The boys scrambled out of the car, eager to escape its confines. They were obviously anxious to explore, but stayed close to the Taurus, waiting for her. The instant he was out the door, Clay squatted down and petted the pregnant dog, lavishing her with affection. The other dog continued his high-pitched barking.
Molly worried when she still didn’t see Gramps. Her immediate fear was that she’d arrived too late and her grandfather was already dead. Sam would’ve had no way of contacting her while she was on the road. It’d been foolish not to phone from the hotel, just in case … As quickly as the idea entered her head, she pushed it away, refusing to believe anything could have happened to Gramps. Not yet! She opened her car door and stepped into the early-afternoon sunshine.
Sam walked toward her, which gave Molly ample opportunity to evaluate his looks. After that first glimpse, when he’d briefly removed his Stetson, she couldn’t see much of his facial features, which were hidden beneath the shadowed rim of his hat. The impression of starkly etched features lingered in her mind, his face strong and defined. He was tall and whipcord-lean.
If his clothes were any indication, he didn’t shy away from hard work. His jeans were old, faded by repeated washings. The brightly colored shirt with the sleeves rolled past his elbows had seen better days. He pulled off his right glove, and even from a distance Molly could see that those gloves had been broken in long ago.
“You must be Sam Dakota,” she said, taking the initiative. She walked forward and offered him her hand; he shook it firmly—and released it quickly. “I’m Molly Cogan and these are my boys, Tom and Clay. Where’s Gramps?”
“Resting. He thought you’d arrive earlier. He waited half the morning for you.” The censure in his gruff voice was unmistakable.
Involuntarily Molly stiffened. Clay moved next to her and she slid her arm around his neck, pressing him close. “How’s Gramps feeling?” she asked, choosing to ignore the foreman’s tone.
“Not good. He had another bad spell this morning.”
Molly frowned in concern. “Did you take him to the clinic? Shouldn’t he be in the hospital?”
“That’d be my guess, but Walt won’t hear of it. It would’ve taken twenty mules to budge that stubborn butt of his.”
Molly smiled faintly. “My grandmother was the only person who could get him to change his mind, and that was only because he loved her so much.”
An answering smile flashed from his eyes. “Unfortunately he holds no such tenderness for me,” he murmured, then turned his attention to Tom and Clay. “Are you boys thirsty? There’s a pitcher of lemonade in the fridge.” Without waiting for a response, he led the way into the house.
With a mixture of joy and dread, Molly followed. She paused as she stepped into the kitchen—it was even worse than she’d feared. The once-spotless room was cluttered and dirty. A week’s worth of dirty dishes was stacked in the sink. The countertops, at least what was visible beneath the stacks of old newspapers, mail and just about everything else, looked as if they hadn’t been cleared in weeks. The windows were filthy—Molly could tell they hadn’t been washed in years—and the sun-bleached curtains were as thin as tissue paper.
Molly wasn’t nearly as meticulous a housekeeper as her grandmother had been; as a working mother, she didn’t have the time for more than once-a-week cleaning. Nevertheless she had her standards and this house fell far short of them.
“Is lemonade all you got?” Tom asked when Sam took three glasses from the cupboard. Molly was surprised there were any clean dishes left. “What about a Pepsi? A Coke? Anything?” Tom whined.
“Water,” Sam suggested, then winked at Clay, who had no problem accepting the homemade offering.
Tom tossed his mother a look of disgust and snatched up the glass of lemonade as if he was doing them all a favor.
“Your grandfather’s asleep in the living room,” Sam said, motioning toward it.
Molly