Petticoat Ranch by Mary Connealy Page A

been. . .he’s been. . .” She thought it best to break it to him gently. “The thing is. . .my husband—the girls’ father—is. . . He’s. . .” Sophie could find no gentle way. “He’s dead.”
    The man was watching her like a hawk, hanging on every word. What little color he had faded from his poorly washed face. Sophie hated to go on, but there was no solution to this in silence. “I buried him myself two years ago. There can be no mistake. So you can see why the girls and I are. . .” Sophie faltered then went for a Texas-sized understatement, “. . .interested in who you are.”
    The man quit rubbing his head. He was staring at her and listening so intently, it was as if every word she spoke was coming straight from the mouth of God. “Earlier you asked me about a name?”
    “Clifton Edwards.”
    His eyes narrowed, and Sophie leaned closer along with the girls.
    “Clifton Edwards. Cliff,” he muttered. “It means something to me.”

    He felt himself withdraw from the women as he searched inside himself. Visions flashed one after the other. A towering mountain. A battlefield. A half-naked Blackfoot charging him with blood in his eyes. A star. A silver star pinned on his shirt. When he saw the star, the floodgates opened. He sat upright so quickly Sally almost landed in his lap. “Clifton Edwards. I remember. No, I’m not Clifton Edwards. I’m Clayton McClellen. I’m Cliff ’s brother. His twin brother.”
    Sophie gasped at the same time she reached her hand out to supportthe man’s unsteady shoulders. “Cliff didn’t have a brother. He didn’t have any family.”
    “Yes, he did. We’d been separated for years. My ma couldn’t stand life in the West and went back to her family in Boston. We were young, three or four, but even then I knew I wanted the life we were living in Montana. Pa said Cliff hated it, so Ma took him and left me.”
    Sophie shook her head. “But. . .Cliff never said a word about you. Or about a father.”
    “Pa died while I was away fighting the war.” Clay tried to make sense of what she said. Could Cliff have been so indifferent to Clay that he wouldn’t even mention his twin brother’s existence? “I guess when he picked my mother over Pa and me, he decided we were dead to him.”
    Sophie’s blue eyes were kind and warm. Even though Cliff was long dead, Clay envied his brother. Sophie said, “No, I don’t think that’s true. Cliff used to talk about having a son. He wanted one so much. He said often enough that he was the last of his family line, and he wanted someone to carry on the name.”
    “The child would have been carrying on my mother’s family name if Cliff called himself Edwards,” Clay said bitterly.
    “Yes, but his name wouldn’t be his doing if he didn’t know you and your pa existed. Three’s awfully young. Maybe. . . Did you ever see your mother and brother again? Is it possible he forgot he had a brother?”
    “Forgot? How could he? I never forgot him. Never!”
    “But did your pa talk about him? Did he keep the memories alive for you?”
    Clay nodded as he thought of the stories his pa had always told about the mischief he and Cliff had gotten into as toddlers. He thought of the sympathetic way his pa had talked about how unhappy Clay’s mother had been during the brutal Montana winters. Clay had seen the sadness in Pa and he knew, even then, that Thomas McClellen had missed his wife and had loved her until the day he died. His pa had kept the memories alive, and he’d made those memories good ones. Sohe was never angry at his mother and brother. Only lonely for them— terribly, endlessly lonely—especially for the twin brother that he knew was out there somewhere. And then he’d heard that Cliff had died.
    “Maybe your ma didn’t do that for Cliff,” Sophie said gently. “I know he would have wanted to have a brother. There was a loneliness in Cliff. I think in some way he knew you existed and he missed