“You know how Grady feels about him,” Cal said.

“Yeah, so what? Richard wasn’t cut out to be a rancher—we both know that. He has a right to come home now and then, don’t you think?”

Cal was silent for a moment. Then he said, “If I were you, I’d keep my eye on Ellie.”

Glen found himself frowning again. Cal had a suspicious nature but he hadn’t always been this cynical or distrusting. Glen traced it back to Jennifer Healy—Cal had been engaged to her a couple of years ago, and Jennifer had dumped him. Afterward Cal’s disposition had soured, particularly toward women. It bothered Glen and he’d tried a number of times to steer his older brother into a new relationship, but Cal didn’t seem interested.

“Well, I know for a fact that Richard can be a real bastard,” Cal added. “If you’re Ellie’s friend, like you say, you’d better warn her.”

“Warn?” Obviously Cal hadn’t been around her often enough. Ellie had a mind of her own and wouldn’t take kindly to his interference.

Anyway, he just couldn’t take Richard seriously as a threat. An annoyance, yes, but not a threat.

Eleven

As Savannah drove toward Bitter End, she considered the unmistakable fact that her family was worried about her. She’d shocked everyone by cutting her hair, no one more than herself. The decision had come on the spur of the moment, without warning or forethought.

She’d been washing her face as she did each morning and happened to catch her reflection in the bathroom mirror. For a long moment, she’d stood there staring.

How plain she looked. How ordinary. Carefully, critically, she examined her image and didn’t like what she saw. That was when she decided something had to be done. Anything. Not until she reached for the brush did she consider cutting her waist-length blond hair. One minute she was staring in the mirror, the next she had a pair of scissors in her hands.

Savannah knew she’d shocked Grady and Wiley that first morning. They’d come into the kitchen for breakfast and stopped cold, unable to keep their mouths from sagging open. Her brother squinted and looked at her as if she were a stranger. Not that Savannah blamed him. She felt like a stranger.

Naturally Grady, being Grady, had simply ignored the change after that and didn’t say a word. Frowning, he sat down at the table and dished up his breakfast as though there was nothing out of the ordinary. And Wiley, being Wiley, couldn’t resist commenting. He approved of the change and said so, forcing Grady to agree with him.

Savannah began to like her new look. Everything that followed after she’d cut her hair was a natural progression of this first action. She’d worn the ankle-length dresses for comfort and out of habit. The jeans were leftovers from her high school days and, surprisingly, still fit.

Of the three men Richard had been the most complimentary about the new Savannah. Her younger brother had done his best to flatter and charm her. To his credit his efforts had made her laugh, something she hadn’t done in quite a while. She worried about Richard and his finances, but again and again he assured her the check would be coming soon. The one who surprised her most was Grady. It was as if he’d forgotten about Richard, but her younger brother was smart enough to avoid him. He spent his evenings in town, and while Grady was out working, Richard practiced his guitar or serenaded her. The past few afternoons he’d joined her on the porch to keep her company. It helped distract her from thoughts of Laredo, and Savannah was grateful. A couple of times he’d attempted to talk her into going to town with him to, as he put it, live it up a little. He seemed to believe that all she needed was a new love interest. Another man, who’d take her mind off Laredo.

What Richard didn’t understand was that she couldn’t turn her feelings on and off at will. He prodded her, claiming it would lift her spirits to get out and circulate. While she appreciated his efforts, she wasn’t ready. In truth she didn’t know if she would ever be. Not that she intended to mourn the loss of her one and only love for the remainder of her days. She’d given herself time to accept that Laredo was out of her life; after that, she was determined to continue on as she had before.

Easier said than done.

Savannah’s hands clenched the steering wheel as she came to a particularly bumpy stretch of road. Although she knew Grady highly disapproved of her going back to the ghost town, she’d decided to do it, anyway.

Not because of the roses, either. She’d already discovered, the day Laredo had come with her, that no other flowers were to be found there, old roses or otherwise. The land was completely barren. Nevertheless, she felt compelled to return for one last visit.

Her reason was nebulous, hard to analyze or explain. But Savannah didn’t care. The why of it no longer concerned her. She felt drawn in some indefinable way to this lifeless empty town.

She was pitched and jolted around as she drove slowly toward Bitter End. Oddly, the truck seemed to remember each turn, and she followed without question, parking in the same spot and hiking the rest of the way.

As she neared the place, the memories of her last visit with Laredo immediately came to mind. For weeks now she’d managed to curtail her thoughts of him, telling herself it did no good to brood on might-have-beens; he was gone and nothing she said or did would bring him back. She had no choice but to accept his decision.

At least that was the sane and sensible approach. In reality it just hurt too damned much to linger over the memories.

Every time she stepped into her garden the first thing she saw were the trellises he’d built for her. The roses he’d fertilized and cared for had exploded with fresh blooms. She would cut and arrange them, knowing that his hands had touched these very stems.

It hadn’t been easy. None of it.

Caroline worried about her, too, and phoned frequently to check on her. Rather than come right out and tell her she was concerned, her friend manufactured excuses for her calls. She still wasn’t coming out to the ranch very often, but Savannah blamed Grady and his talent for frightening Maggie.

As she climbed onto the rocky ledge, Bitter End came into view. She stared at the church at the outskirts of town. The whole place looked peaceful and serene from here, and she wondered about the sadness and oppression she’d experienced on her last visit. Maybe it was her imagination, after all. Laredo’s, too. He’d shared her uneasiness and hadn’t been able to get her away fast enough.

But as she walked past the church and down the main street, the sensation returned. The feeling seemed to wrap itself around her, but Savannah refused to be intimidated. She wasn’t going to run away.

Not this time.

She moved forward carefully and deliberately. The sidewalks had been built a good two to three feet off the ground and were lined with railings. A water trough, baked for a hundred years in the unyielding sun, sat by the hitching post. Savannah advanced toward it, thinking that, instead of walking down the center of the street as she had with Laredo, she’d take the sidewalk and explore a couple of buildings along the way.

Just then she heard a bird’s mournful cry reverberating in the stillness. The wind whistled, a keening sound, as though someone was grieving some great loss. Sagebrush tumbled down the hard dirt street. She stopped, looking around, and realized there was something different.

“The rocking chair,” she said aloud. She was certain no chair had been there before. But now one stood outside the mercantile store, creaking in the wind, and her heart lodged in her throat.