of course, though he paused once to look back at Hadleigh in what might have been resignation. Then he, too, was gone.
Hadleigh didn’t move a muscle until she heard the front door close in the near distance, not with a slam but not with a faint click, either, just a firm and decisive snap.
She should be glad Tripp had left, considering she hadn’t wanted him there in the first place.
So why wasn’t she?
For a while, Hadleigh stood rooted to the kitchen floor, overwhelmed by all sorts of conflicting emotions—dull fury mingled with a strange, thrill-ride excitement, dread with an equal measure of relief, happiness all tangled up with sorrow.
Talk about confusing.
But, then, when had her feelings about Tripp been anything but confusing?
* * *
B ACK IN HIS truck, the fancy silver extended-cab rig he’d bought in Seattle a year or so before in a fit of homesickness, Tripp started the engine with the push of a button and gunned the motor once, just to hear the satisfying roar. The rain had finally let up, turning from a torrent to a misty drizzle, and the sun was already muscling its way through slowly parting clouds.
Despite his lingering agitation, the clearing sky lifted Tripp’s spirits.
Ridley sat alert in the passenger seat, watching Tripp intently, head tilted to one side as if awaiting an update.
After a quick, sidelong glance in the direction of Hadleigh’s house, Tripp shifted gears and commented, “It’s going to take a while to get back into the lady’s good graces.” He chuckled. “I always did like a challenge.”
Ridley just looked at him, comically puzzled.
Grinning, Tripp checked his mirrors and, since the coast was clear, pulled away from the curb, rear tires flinging up sheets of muddy water as they spun and then grabbed the pavement with a noisy lurch.
The rain had stopped entirely by the time they passed the town limits, giving everything a just-washed sparkle. The clouds had stretched themselves thin and then disappeared, and dazzling shafts of sunlight spilled between the crimson and gold-leafed trees amid broad pastures along both sides of the road, creating an almost sacred glow.
Even Ridley seemed a little stunned by the scenery.
Tripp, meanwhile, whistled softly as he drove, admiring their surroundings anew, even though he’d traveled that road a zillion times before.
On either side, cattle, Black Angus and Herefords mostly, grazed on wind-bent grass sprinkled with diamonds of rainwater, as did horses of just about every breed. Farther on, they passed whole herds of bison, lumbering and deceptively passive behind sturdy fences.
The sky arching over all of it, pierced at the horizon by the rugged peaks of the Grand Tetons, was blue enough to crack a man’s heart right down the middle.
Home.
He’d had some misgivings about coming back here to stay—and Hadleigh’s reception couldn’t have been described as encouraging in any way, shape or form—but now, breathing in this place, like air, taking in the rugged terrain soul-deep, he knew he’d made the right decision.
Whether the going was easy or hard, this was where he belonged.
This, not the big city, was where he was most truly himself, where he was genuinely free.
The closer he got to the ranch, the more certain he was.
The home place, not so creatively called the Galloway Ranch, consisted of four hundred acres tucked away in one of the valleys folded into the otherwise craggy high country. They could take a newcomer by surprise, these flat, green expanses of rangeland, appearing out of nowhere at the rounding of a bend or the cresting of a hill.
The same old rural mailbox, rusted but sturdy, stenciled with the family name in weather-faded letters, stood like part of the landscape at the base of the drive, as it had for as long as Tripp could remember, listing slightly to the left.
“Fasten your seat belt,” he told Ridley as they crossed the cattle guard. “It’ll be a bumpy ride up to the house.”
The
Hadleigh didn’t move a muscle until she heard the front door close in the near distance, not with a slam but not with a faint click, either, just a firm and decisive snap.
She should be glad Tripp had left, considering she hadn’t wanted him there in the first place.
So why wasn’t she?
For a while, Hadleigh stood rooted to the kitchen floor, overwhelmed by all sorts of conflicting emotions—dull fury mingled with a strange, thrill-ride excitement, dread with an equal measure of relief, happiness all tangled up with sorrow.
Talk about confusing.
But, then, when had her feelings about Tripp been anything but confusing?
* * *
B ACK IN HIS truck, the fancy silver extended-cab rig he’d bought in Seattle a year or so before in a fit of homesickness, Tripp started the engine with the push of a button and gunned the motor once, just to hear the satisfying roar. The rain had finally let up, turning from a torrent to a misty drizzle, and the sun was already muscling its way through slowly parting clouds.
Despite his lingering agitation, the clearing sky lifted Tripp’s spirits.
Ridley sat alert in the passenger seat, watching Tripp intently, head tilted to one side as if awaiting an update.
After a quick, sidelong glance in the direction of Hadleigh’s house, Tripp shifted gears and commented, “It’s going to take a while to get back into the lady’s good graces.” He chuckled. “I always did like a challenge.”
Ridley just looked at him, comically puzzled.
Grinning, Tripp checked his mirrors and, since the coast was clear, pulled away from the curb, rear tires flinging up sheets of muddy water as they spun and then grabbed the pavement with a noisy lurch.
The rain had stopped entirely by the time they passed the town limits, giving everything a just-washed sparkle. The clouds had stretched themselves thin and then disappeared, and dazzling shafts of sunlight spilled between the crimson and gold-leafed trees amid broad pastures along both sides of the road, creating an almost sacred glow.
Even Ridley seemed a little stunned by the scenery.
Tripp, meanwhile, whistled softly as he drove, admiring their surroundings anew, even though he’d traveled that road a zillion times before.
On either side, cattle, Black Angus and Herefords mostly, grazed on wind-bent grass sprinkled with diamonds of rainwater, as did horses of just about every breed. Farther on, they passed whole herds of bison, lumbering and deceptively passive behind sturdy fences.
The sky arching over all of it, pierced at the horizon by the rugged peaks of the Grand Tetons, was blue enough to crack a man’s heart right down the middle.
Home.
He’d had some misgivings about coming back here to stay—and Hadleigh’s reception couldn’t have been described as encouraging in any way, shape or form—but now, breathing in this place, like air, taking in the rugged terrain soul-deep, he knew he’d made the right decision.
Whether the going was easy or hard, this was where he belonged.
This, not the big city, was where he was most truly himself, where he was genuinely free.
The closer he got to the ranch, the more certain he was.
The home place, not so creatively called the Galloway Ranch, consisted of four hundred acres tucked away in one of the valleys folded into the otherwise craggy high country. They could take a newcomer by surprise, these flat, green expanses of rangeland, appearing out of nowhere at the rounding of a bend or the cresting of a hill.
The same old rural mailbox, rusted but sturdy, stenciled with the family name in weather-faded letters, stood like part of the landscape at the base of the drive, as it had for as long as Tripp could remember, listing slightly to the left.
“Fasten your seat belt,” he told Ridley as they crossed the cattle guard. “It’ll be a bumpy ride up to the house.”
The
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