Kate dried the bowl and put it away. She hung up the dishtowel. “I hate to leave you here alone.”
“I’ll be fine.” Megan managed another smile.
Her cousin wasn’t fooled. Kate was seven years older. As a teenager, she’d often baby-sat Megan and Shannon. She’d been there when Bunny had drowned. Kate had been the rock that held steadfast for Megan then and five years later when her father had died in an automobile accident.
Their grandfather’d had a stroke shortly after his son died and lived the rest of his life in a wheelchair, hardly able to speak. It was all so sad—
Hot tears filled her eyes, startling her.
“Megan?” Kate said, concerned.
Megan grabbed a tissue and mopped her eyes. “I’m feeling terribly sentimental today. The wedding and all. Wasn’t Shannon lovely?”
“Yes. Rory has been good for her.”
Megan nodded.
“I can spend the night,” Kate offered. “Jess took the children home. I have my car here.”
Kate had brought over the roses that filled every vase in the house. The family green thumb belonged to her.
“Actually I prefer the quiet. It’s been so hectic lately, I’m looking forward to not feeling compelled to talk to anyone or be social. Besides, I’m going out to check on a mare as soon as I change. If she’s foaling, I’ll be in the stable the rest of the night. You go home and take care of your family. You’ve done enough here today. Shoo.”
“Okay,” Kate agreed. “Come over for dinner tomorrow night. The guys have promised us fresh fish.”
Megan had to decline. “I have late classes on Mondays.” She walked her cousin to the driveway and waved her off.
It wasn’t until Kate’s taillights disappeared that she felt the loneliness close in on her once more. She stood at the top of the stairs, on the way to her bedroom, and listened to the silence of the old mansion that had sheltered several generations of Windoms.
Their grandfather, the family patriarch, had died during the spring, which was why Shannon had postponed the wedding until June. Now Megan was totally alone in the family homestead. It gave her an odd, unsettled feeling.
Like being the last of her kind.
Which wasn’t true in the least. She had her two cousins, who’d been her friends and mentors all her life. She had her uncle, plus the two new cousins, Jeremy and Amanda. She knew everyone in Wind River, population one thousand, and the county. Besides her cousins and their families, other ranchers lived around the lake and along the county road. She wasn’t alone, not at all.
After changing to a shirt, jeans and boots, she did go to the stable. The light flickered when she turned it on. If the electricity was going to go out, she’d better check the flashlight and fill the oil lantern. After doing so, she looked in on the mother-to-be.
The mare slept peacefully, waking only when Megan leaned over the stall. The horse rose and came to Megan, blowing gently into her ear and reminding her of the way a lover might tease during their lovemaking.
An image formed in her inner vision. Kyle Herriot. Now that her cousin was wed to his best friend, would she be forced to endure his company often?
Rather than recoiling from the idea, she studied it from several angles, trying to assess her own reactions.
The past wasn’t his fault. Nor was it hers. It was just there, a barrier as big as a boulder field laid down by the glaciers that had moved through these parts thousands of years ago.
Her grandfather had hated the Herriots because his fiancée had run away from him only days before the wedding and eloped with Sebastian “Sonny” Herriot instead. Megan wondered what had caused the flight.
A neighboring woman had once said her grandfather’d had a terrible temper during his youth, that he and his fiancée had had a fierce quarrel over her brother, who was in jail for cattle-rustling and needed a lawyer. Grandfather had refused to help. Megan supposed Kyle’s grandfather had supplied the necessary funds.
Sad, what people do to their lives.
The hot rush of tears assailed her again. She hugged the mare and pressed her face into the rough mane, then drew away. “Go back to sleep, love.”
Honestly, if weddings affected her this much, she was going to have to swear off attending them. She smiled, but the odd tumult inside didn’t let up.
A warm, furry body wrapped itself around Megan’s legs. Tabby dropped a mouse at Megan’s feet.
“Thanks,” she said wryly, bending down to pat the cat. “I think I’ll let you keep the mouse. I hope this was the only one.”
Satisfied that all was well here, she flicked out the light and headed for the house. On the deserted patio, she paused, feeling the rush of overwhelming emotion again.
Her father had wept here, alone in the night, for the wife he’d lost.
Megan sensed, if not his presence, then his grief, terrifying to the child she’d been at the time, utterly sad to the adult she was now. The soul of Sean Windom had died that night, although his body hadn’t gone until five years later, when he’d had an automobile accident.
Drunk again, people had whispered. Driving too fast.
A sixteen-year-old at the time, she had vehemently denied he’d wanted to die. Now…now she wasn’t so sure.
The thought seemed a betrayal of her father’s memory. Pushing it out of her consciousness, she wondered why the past weighed so heavily of late. Since her grandfather’s death in March, it had preyed on her mind and emotions.
The specter of cleaning out drawers and closets loomed over her. It was something she should do, but she dreaded it. Kate and Shannon would help, but she wasn’t ready to face that task just yet.
Another shiver chased down her spine. Glancing once more around the patio, she slowly entered the house and felt its haunting emptiness. She walked upstairs, but instead of going to her bedroom, she went to the suite that had belonged to her parents.
She hadn’t been back in here since she and her cousins had gone through and disposed of the clothing and personal items. Jess had searched the room last summer, sure he would find a clue to his sister’s death. They had found only the usual things—photo albums, mementos from anniversary dinners, birthdays and the few vacations they’d had.
Gazing at the portrait of her mother, Megan was overwhelmed with love and despair and questions.
“Why?” she whispered, staring into green eyes that were so like her own. “Why were you out on that lake? Why were you with a man hated by our family? Why?”
The woman in the portrait returned her stare, the rose-petal lips caught forever in a soft, dreamy smile of perfect happiness, her belly flagrantly rounded with child.
The painting had been commissioned by her father for the couple’s first anniversary. The unborn child was a girl. Herself. Megan Rose Windom, her parents’ only child.
Closing her eyes, she tried to recall those early years. The happy times, she termed them. She had dozens of pictures of picnics, horseback rides and birthday parties to prove it. Her mother had been radiant in each of the early snapshots. When had their lives changed?
The past haunted her like a ghost at a banquet, demanding attention but refusing to show itself fully. Sometimes she got flickers of memories, but not enough…never enough to put the pieces together….
Turning abruptly, she fled down the hall to her room.
Dressed for bed, instead of climbing in the four-poster, she lingered with one knee on the window seat as she observed the moonstruck landscape sweeping