Pepper focused on the bundle in her arms as she walked into Angel Crossing Medical Clinic. “I’m going to Exam One,” she said to Claudette, her right-hand woman at the reception desk.
“Who is this?” asked Claudette, her short dark hair streaked with highlights and spiked to fit her warrior-woman attitude in a grandmother’s body.
“We’ll give you everything as soon as I’m done with the exam.” The ring of boot heels followed Pepper. An uneven sound. She glanced back and caught the man grimacing. No time to worry about that.
“Okay, little darling, let’s just see how your ‘daddy’ was caring for you.” She ignored the snort from the cowboy.
She put him and everything else out of her mind, concentrating on the girl and the exam. She didn’t want to miss anything. But other than the dirty diaper—which Pepper changed from her own supplies—and a little diaper rash, the toddler was fine.
“So?” he asked when she finished with the final tug of the girl’s T-shirt.
“What about her vaccinations?”
“I... I... Of course she’s had them. I have papers in the truck.”
He didn’t know. “Allergies?”
He stood feet planted and long fingers tapping against his leg. “It’s all in her records. She’s fine. You just said so.”
She’d been working with patients ever since she’d started as an EMT in her teens, and read annoyance in the tightness of his mouth. She also saw fear in the tilt of his head. What to do? The child looked fine.
“You’re good to go, then, but little ones are quicker than their parents think and can easily get into things they shouldn’t. Let’s go see if Claudette can’t find cream for the rash.” Pepper scooped up the girl and walked out. The exam room as they’d stood there had suddenly gotten smaller. She’d started to think trouble might be what she needed in her life. Because trouble had started to look a lot like a good time, which she hadn’t had since...forever. Then smart Pepper reminded not-so-smart Pepper he was a patient’s father...and a cowboy. The kind of man she’d long ago figured out wasn’t for her. They might look pretty, but the shine wore off quickly.
She kept her gaze on Claudette and glanced at Chief Rudy, who had an odd look on his face as he stared down at his phone.
“What?” she asked because it was obvious that something had just popped up on the screen.
“I ran his name, but, well, I didn’t connect it... Hell—”
This was bad. The chief didn’t swear. It was a contest in town to see who could make him curse when they got pulled over or visited the station. The man just didn’t get provoked, and if he did, he didn’t say bad words. So that meant whatever he’d just discovered was horrible.
“His name is Arthur John McCreary.”
“Everybody calls me AJ,” the cowboy said irritably.
“You’re Daddy Gene’s cousin.” The words popped out of her mouth in shock as the connection fell into place.
“Yeah, Gene is...was my cousin. I told you that.” His voice had thickened with true emotion.
“Welcome to Angel Crossing,” Rudy said. “Sorry the circumstances aren’t better. Gene was a good man and a good friend.”
“Thanks,” AJ said and added, “I should have known. How many Peppers could there be in Angel Crossing?” He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Gene talked about you and your mama. Please accept my condolences.”
She nodded. Now she remembered him. He rode bulls and had dragged Daddy Gene from the ring when the animals had nearly stomped him to death. The one or two pictures she’d seen of AJ, his black hat had nearly covered his face.
“I guess I should take you to the ranch. Faye would never forgive me if I didn’t bring you out to say hello. Daddy Gene hoped you’d come for a visit one day, but I don’t think this is how he imagined it.”
Pepper’s directions to Gene’s ranch had included exact mileages, road names and landmarks. Even in the sameness of the rocky terrain, dotted with gray-green bushes and low trees, he’d easily found the turnoff that wound through a short downhill drive. Flatlands opened up for a distance before moving into another set of foothills that rolled into mountains. The ranch included a low house, outbuildings and corrals. The animals milling around ranged in color from white to shadows-at-noon black. But they weren’t cattle or horses or even goats.
He checked his rearview mirror to see his daughter, who was eerily quiet. Her head swiveled back and forth as she looked out the windows, staring wide-eyed, her lost-all-its-stuffing dog clutched tight in her fist.
Contrary as any McCreary, after days on the road wishing she’d quiet down, he wanted noise from his daughter now so he could stop thinking about Pepper. She somehow made scrubs look as good as painted-on jeans and a tight cowgirl shirt. She actually looked better than the buckle bunnies who’d been the honey to his bee for years. EllaJayne’s mama had been Miss Kentucky Rodeo two years before he’d met her.
He stopped the truck in front of the house that had a lumpy outline of clearly unplanned additions. It had been Gene’s home. He’d talked of the ranch with a lot of pride. Gene had retired from the rodeo circuit after a string of bad wrecks. Both Danny and AJ had tried to talk him out of it because he was the best at reading the animals. They’d been young and hadn’t understood what it meant to have a body that had been battered and broken again and again.
AJ knew he couldn’t stall any longer. Though he hated to intrude, his nearly maxed-out credit card and flat wallet told him otherwise. He had to swallow that pride and ask—beg for—their hospitality. He’d stay for the memorial, then move on. He’d come west for a brand-new start where no one had heard of the McCrearys of Pinetown, Kentucky.
He held EllaJayne firmly in his arms when he knocked on the weathered door. Up close, the ranch house looked like a cross between a trailer and a cabin.
“There you are,” said the woman who opened the door. “Come in.” Obviously, this was Faye, just as Gene had described her: “Stevie Nicks who bought her duds at Sheplers and her jewelry at swap meets.” She stepped back, pushing a drape of gray-streaked hair with strips of color like her daughter’s out of her watchful green eyes.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, finally remembering the manners that had been knocked into him with a spatula and fly swatter.
“Oh, my,” she said as tears filled her eyes. “Don’t you have the look of Gene? It’s just like he’s here. And those nice manners.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He and Gene looked nothing alike.
“And who is the gorgeous baby? Yours. Look at that hair, that skin. Oh, my, but she’ll be a beauty. Come here, sweetheart,” Faye said and held her hands out to his daughter. The little girl went right to her. “I bet I have a cookie you’d like. You can call me Grana. I always wanted someone to call me that. I’m in the Crone phase of my womanhood. The most powerful. You are in the Baby phase, still finding your power. But don’t worry. It’s there.”
He followed her closely in the wake of the deep scent of incense and sharp desert herbs. “Ma’am,”