Melodie could do no more than nod her head gratefully. It was too much to hope that his offer was motivated as much out of concern for her as out of respect for her mother. Separated only by the expanse of a scarred, old table, it was hard not to ponder how different her life would have been had she married Buck like her heart had instructed her instead of Randall as dictated by her conscience. A conscience shaped by the rigid dogma of a religion that had somehow convinced her that eternal occupancy in hell could be purchased by one youthful mistake. Had she but been able to turn her back on that conviction, Melodie wondered if all her days might have started out with coffee and conversation instead of her usual dosage of censure and silence.
Uncomfortable with the faraway look in Melodie’s eyes, Buck bolted down his breakfast and hastened to leave, stating that he had to look after the livestock. Melodie envied him. She longed to take comfort in the kind of hard physical labor that had characterized her life. Buck wouldn’t hear of it as he bade her get ready for the long day ahead.
After lingering over a breakfast left mostly untouched, Melodie considered the black suit that she intended to wear for this sad occasion. She had purchased it a short time ago and worn it only once—at her husband’s funeral.
Slipping into the cool, black silk, Melodie relived that terrible day. Since her own mother had been too ill to travel the long distance to be at her side, she suffered through the ceremony alone. A few of Randall’s engineering associates had shown up to pay their respect as well as some of the hired hands from the dude ranch that she had been managing. The modest gathering meant a great deal to Randall’s parents who were so bereft at the loss of their only child that they could barely acknowledge his widow, a woman they had felt all along was beneath their son. They felt little need to offer Melodie any more than their condolences.
On some subconscious level, she felt herself entitled to little more. Beneath her black veil, Melodie was secretly relieved that the hand of fate rather than a legal document had dissolved her marriage. Not only was she convinced that Randall would have fought with all his might against a divorce, Melodie herself had been raised that once you make your bed, you sleep in it—crumbs and all. So she did her best to graciously accept the sympathy offered her without shattering anyone’s image of a marriage that had always looked better from the outside than the inside.
Their duty done, Randall’s friends scurried self-righteously back to their fancy Tucson offices to embrace the little calculators that ruled their world. Her in-laws returned to Denver to pick up the silken thread of their social lives, and Melodie proceeded to tender her resignation before the end of the week. Although far from feminine or traditional, her job was something she enjoyed and was good at. It also helped pay for all those expensive toys that Randall accumulated in a futile effort to look richer than he really was.
Melodie’s boss, Peter Hamlein, hated to see her go. Initially he hadn’t thought a woman capable of acting as head wrangler, but he’d been in a bind and decided to give her a chance. Melodie had proven him wrong, working long hours beside the men beneath the blistering Arizona sun and treating every aspect of the operation as if it were her own. Peter assured her that the work ethic she brought with her from Wyoming was in short supply in this snowbirds’ paradise. In addition to her excellent horsewoman skills, Melodie was the best people person he’d ever had in the position. An important part of the job required placating the rich dudes who spent a fortune to be waited on hand and foot for the entirety of their vacations. Pete offered her more money in hopes of getting her to stay on, but she was clearly anxious to get home to her ailing mother. Melodie could offer him no more than a couple of weeks’ notice to help him get things in order for her replacement.
She had been in the process of packing her bags when she received news of her mother’s death.
Certain she couldn’t make it through another funeral as bleak as Randall’s, Melodie took comfort in the fact that many old friends and neighbors were sure to be in attendance today. Grace had been well liked and respected in the community as one of their most stalwart pioneers. Forcing her feet into a pair of dark pumps, Melodie walked over to her mother’s cloudy mirror and surveyed her appearance. The dead look in her eyes came as no surprise. She pulled her long blond hair into a severe bun, pinned it down with forceful jabs, and waited for Buck to tell her it was time to go.
Chapter Three
Buck looked handsome in a Western-cut black suit that emphasized his lean muscularity and made him look rather like the CEO of an up-and-coming company on the verge of a hostile takeover. Ever the gentleman, he opened the passenger door of his pickup for Melodie and helped her in.
Feeling suddenly awkward in anything other than a comfortable pair of cowboy boots, Melodie struggled to gain her seat without revealing any more of her legs than necessary to the man, who even in this moment of deep apprehension, made her so totally aware of her long-forgotten womanly allure. Tensing beneath the tawny scrutiny of his eyes, she still felt his helping touch. Had he noticed how bow-legged she had become from living in a saddle?
Buck wasn’t aware of any such imperfections as he allowed his gaze to trace the lines of the slender legs in question. Despite her efforts to make herself look plain, Melodie was as pretty and fragile as a china doll. Unadorned with anything other than naturally long lashes, her eyes appeared so large and luminous that a man could fall into their vulnerable depths and never find his way out. A sudden longing to free a single blond tendril from the captivity of that tight bun startled Buck. For the briefest fraction of a second, he considered reaching out to take the hands folded so demurely in Melodie’s lap and offering her the solace of human touch on this sad day.
The thin gold band she still wore on her finger was an effective deterrent to that foolish impulse.
It rankled him to see her still wearing that ring.
Over the years Buck had come to conclude that the only thing that milksop Randall had over him was money and breeding. The money part didn’t bother him much, but he was mighty sensitive about the fact that his mother had abandoned him as easily as she might have dumped a stray off at a shelter.
Thinking Melodie had jilted him for status and money, over the years Buck had taken perverse comfort in casting her motives in a bad light. That she continued to wear her dead husband’s ring indicated that she might have actually loved him. He wondered if that disagreeable taste in his mouth wasn’t the lingering extract of jealousy.
Grace hadn’t expounded about her son-in-law’s untimely death when she informed him that Melodie was quitting her job managing that fancy dude ranch and finally coming home. They’d had a long, unspoken agreement never to mention Randall’s name in each other’s presence, and Grace wasn’t one to break it—even if the fellow in question was dead. Buck was left, however, with the definite impression that Grace would not grieve his passing one iota more than he himself did.
A thin drizzle of rain spit against the windshield as Buck drove the short distance to the church where Grace had spent every Sunday morning since he had known her. And where he had accompanied her for the better part of the last two years. To his surprise, he found more peace within that humble little church than he had in all the years of trying to prove himself to a world he once thought completely against him. Framed against the backdrop of the majestic Pinnacle Mountains, the white chapel took on the modesty and serenity of a nun. Though Buck would have preferred mingling Grace’s ashes with the loam of her beloved mountains rather than boxing her into a formal ceremony constrained by four walls, he knew that the community needed the chance to publicly mourn the passing of one of their most faithful members.
He intentionally arrived early so that both he and Melodie could say their private farewells to the woman who meant so much to each of them.
Once inside, Melodie drew a sharp breath at the sight of the coffin positioned at the front of the church where she had been both baptized and confirmed. Inexplicably exhausted by the miles she had traveled, she had been in no shape to stop by the funeral home to pay her respects yesterday.
Buck squeezed her shoulder in sympathy. “You okay?”