A Stranger in the Family (Book 1, Bardville, Wyoming Trilogy) Page 5

  “No misunderstanding to do. I saw his license. In fact, I joked about it being like that old movie, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, only this Mr. Smith comes to Wyoming. Get it?”

  Yeah, Cambria got it. What she didn’t get was why this Mr. Smith had come to Wyoming, or why he felt the need to lie about his last name.

  She ended the conversation with June, but didn’t move from her perch on the arm of the chair by the phone

  This man—whatever his real name—didn’t fit the mold of their usual guests, that much was certain. He also gave her an odd sense of familiarity. He volunteered nothing about himself, but drew out Irene and Ted and Pete one by one with questions, the same way he had drawn her out. He was attractive. Charming. Charming...Deliberately charming.

  In that moment the vague sense of deja vu coalesced into a statement: He reminds me of Tony.

  A simple sentence, fraught with danger signals.

  If Irene fretted that Cambria had become cynical, Tony Sussman was the reason. Cambria’s former fiancé had provided an unforgettable lesson in the dangers of trusting.

  There was little physical similarity between this man and her former fiancé. Except perhaps the readiness and warmth of the smile—in Tony’s case both polished and practiced tools of his political trade. Otherwise the differences in looks, style and dress would have put Tony in a Brooks Brothers’ ad and cast Boone as the Marlboro Man.

  But she just might have hit on the real similarity—both were trying to sell something. The charm, humor, smiles, even the hot looks directed at her, all were part of a campaign.

  But what did Boone have to sell, and why on earth did he seem to be targeting her family?

  An image of Pete sitting on the porch steps with their guest last night, his face eager as he listened to the stranger’s words, came into her mind. Her hands curled into themselves.

  Maybe she was being paranoid. Maybe she was imagining all this. But if she wasn’t...She wasn’t taking any chances.

  This time she wouldn’t flinch from finding out what was going on.

  Even if it meant spending a lot of time around Boone Dorsey—Boone Smith. A dangerous amount of time.

  Cambria put her plan into action when the men came in for lunch.

  “Want to take a ride this afternoon?”

  Their guest’s single raised eyebrow was nearly as blatant an expression of surprise as the looks she got from Ted and Irene.

  “A ride?”

  His caution irked her. He had no reason to be suspicious of her. “A ride. On horses. What’s the matter, you afraid I’ll take you out to the canyon and leave you?”

  “Will you?”

  “Not until you’ve paid your bill.”

  “Cambria!” Irene’s reproach eased under Boone’s laughter.

  “I’ll be sure not to pay until I’m safely in the car, ready to leave, and can hand it through the window.”

  Damn, she didn’t want to be amused by him. “In the meantime, I thought you’d like a tour, and the best way to see the place is on horseback.”

  “I’d like that. Unless you need a hand this afternoon, Ted?”

  Ted watched Cambria closely, but he immediately assured the other man. “No, no, you two go ahead and enjoy yourselves.”

  “Good, then I’ll meet you in the barn, Mr. Dorsey.” Cambria paused, knowing she’d pulled everyone’s attention to her. She packed in plenty of skeptical emphasis as she added, “Or should I call you Mr. Smith?”

  From the corner of her eye she saw that Irene and Ted looked confused. But most of her attention was focused on Boone. She saw a flash of surprise quickly replaced by wariness, then that, too, was smoothed over.

  “You can if you like, but I’d rather you call me Boone.”

  “Smith is the name you used to rent a car, isn’t it?”

  “It is my name,” he said.

  “You told me—us—your name’s Dorsey.”

  “Cambria, have you been checking up on Boone?”

  She didn’t turn away from studying him to answer Irene. “Maybe somebody should. June Reamer happened to call and happened to mention—”

  “A lot of ‘happeneds’,” he murmured.

  “That he used the last name Smith to register for the car. A car he paid cash for, by the way.”

  “Dorsey is my name, too—Boone Dorsey Smith. There’re so many Smiths in the world, sometimes it’s easier to go by Boone Dorsey.”

  “That’s reasonable. But you have no reason to explain to us.” Irene reached across the table and patted his hand.

  Cambria couldn’t shake the impression he was uncomfortable with the whole conversation about his identity. That impression strengthened when he gave her a calculatedly disarming grin and asked, “Is the ride still on?”

  “I like to know who I’m riding with.”

  He met her look with one as direct, but the opaque gray eyes remained capable of hiding many secrets. “I told you: Boone Dorsey Smith.”

  “Cambria...”

  She broke her challenging stare at him to meet her stepmother’s kind eyes, and couldn’t refuse their request for peace.

  “I’ll meet you in the barn in ten minutes. Boone.”

  * * * *

  “How come that cabin’s over here by itself?” Boone gestured to a ramshackle structure that appeared intent on sinking into the dusty green and golden brown landscape.

  They’d been out three hours and had circled back to the main ranch, but hadn’t yet crossed the creek that separated this structure from the others. A footbridge crossed the creek a little farther up from where they’d paused to water Jezebel and Snakebit.

  “We don’t use it. The creek bed changed twenty, thirty years ago and left it alone on this side of the creek. It’s not worth fixing up. We’d have to put in a full bridge and special drainage and plumbing, plus getting electricity and everything over here.” She squinted at the structure. “Besides, it’s ugly, and the rooms are cramped and dark. One of these days we’ll tear it down for whatever lumber we can get out of it.”

  “Okay if I take some pictures?”

  She shrugged and reined Snakebit to a halt. “It’s your film to waste.”

  To her mind he’d already wasted a lot of film. She’d taken him past empty winter pastures, to more distant pastures where cows with new calves awaited warmer weather, when they would be taken up the mountains to where higher ground offered better summer grazing.

  He’d taken pictures of cows and calves. He’d taken pictures of the patterns of fences where pastures intersected, of clouds billowing into a thunderstorm on a distant horizon, and of a prairie dog town she’d pointed out. He’d even taken pictures of her demonstrating the most basic of cutting moves on Snakebit.

  Wasting film on this wreck of a cabin fit right in.

  She dismounted and dropped Snakebit’s reins far enough from the cabin to keep out of the shots Boone took from astride Jezebel.

  He hadn’t done a thing she could take exception to. He hadn’t asked many more questions than any fairly curious person might. And she hadn’t come up with any brilliant ideas of what this stranger could possibly hope to gain from charming the Weston family of Bardville, Wyoming.

  Maybe she was being paranoid.

  Sunlight filtered through cottonwood leaves above him as if for the express purpose of highlighting strands of gray that filtered through his dark hair.

  In profile his face was concentrated, intense. The black slash of his brow stood out above the camera and the strong thrust of his jaw below it. He muttered something to himself. He had a strong mouth, wide, with the bottom lip slightly fuller than the top.

  He shifted his hold on the camera as he turned it for a vertical shot, and Cambria gladly followed that diversion from his mouth. Jessa was right, he did have capable hands. Long-fingered, but in no way delicate. The palms were broad, the knuckles pronounced enough to declare them a workman’s. With one blunt-tipped finger, he adjusted the ring on the lens to sharpen t
he focus. Powerful and deft.

  A flutter tickled down her backbone like a localized breeze.

  She looked away, focusing beyond the overhanging branches and past the cabin to the ragged bulk of the Big Horn Mountains. Spring had not yet reached the white caps frothing on their crests. Some white would remain intact from last winter to next, on to the one after and beyond. The melting from other crests would keep rivers running and fields greening—with an assist from human diversion and ingenuity—through the summer.

  Some might prefer the heaven-piercing grandeur of the Rockies, but she found comfort in the Big Horns’ long, uneven line stretching across her western horizon like a painter’s thickly laid swipe of color. Many people would find little comfort in the ancient pile of rock and stone, cut by wind and water, inhabited by tenacious plants and tough animals. But she did. They oriented her, gave her a sense of direction as long as they were in sight. She knew how she felt about them, and she knew how they’d treat her. They weren’t predictable, but they didn’t lie—except to the foolish.

  To the person who knew how to look and where to look, they offered a beauty of awesome strength and another of heart-aching delicacy.

  A creaking of leather pulled her head around to see Boone Dorsey Smith dismounting. He didn’t have the ease of an accomplished horseman, but he swung his right leg over Jezebel’s rump and stepped to the ground with the assurance of someone who knew how to use the muscles that bunched and flexed in his thighs.

  An image exploded in her head, an image of hands and mouths and thighs and a dark-haired man.

  “You know, this has potential.”

  “What?” She swallowed hard to get the word out, and it sounded like it.

  He glanced up from the camera, one side of his mouth raised slightly. His gaze sharpened and he straightened, lowering the camera and giving her his full attention.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No.”

  He watched her, unblinking, alert, yet relaxed, the trace of a half smile lingering. Like a cat outside a mouse hole, she thought.

  She straightened. She was no mouse.

  “I just can’t figure what you think has potential.”

  His eyes stayed on her another moment before he turned toward the structure.

  “This cabin.”

  She snorted. “Potential for a junk pile. Or a bonfire.”

  “Don’t you dare,” he muttered, lining up another shot of the cabin. His tone was intense enough to snag her attention. “That would be a terrible waste.”

  Before she knew what he was about, he turned the camera on her and clicked off three quick shots. He stopped only when she ducked behind Snakebit.

  “Talk about a terrible waste,” she grumbled.

  “No waste, Cambria.” He watched her, but she didn’t meet his eyes. Still, she caught the motion of his shrug and knew when he looked away. He added, almost to himself, “I don’t waste things. Comes from growing up poor, I guess.”

  Eyes still on the cabin, he started moving away. She followed. She had questions, and he’d given her an opening.

  “That was in North Carolina—where you grew up?”

  “Yeah, North Carolina. In the mountains. Blue Ridge,” he added absently as he rotated the zoom lens to close in on a corner of the building that looked to her as uninteresting as a pair of boards forming a corner could be.

  She didn’t bother trying to discern what he saw in it. She had other corners she wanted to turn.

  “So, your parents weren’t well-to-do?” Which would mean he’d earned, not inherited the expensive clothes, luxury car and fine leather.

  “You could say that.” Irony loaded his words. “Daddy died owing everybody and his brother, so Mom had two kids and a mostly invalid mother-in-law to support, and not much education. Yeah, you could safely say we weren’t well-to-do.”

  “Oh.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at her, the half smile in place. “Hey, don’t look so tragic, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

  “I don’t...” The automatic response faded. She did feel bad. She knew what it was like to have scars, and to have them probed. Even if his light tone tried to imply he didn’t care, she didn’t buy it. Not completely. Irene had a phrase about something being “half kidding, whole earnest.” That’s how Boone Dorsey Smith sounded.

  “It’s old news.” If anything, his tone was lighter. “About the only carryover from those days is that I don’t much care for being in debt. Not even a credit card’s worth.”

  So he paid for a rental car in cash. Not for any nefarious reasons, but from the remnants of a financially insecure childhood.

  “You must have worked really hard.”

  “Yeah, well, I had luck, too. The army did me good. Went in right after high school. Left North Carolina, saw some of the world. It wasn’t the life for me—hated the haircuts,” he added with a grin. “But it taught me a lot. Never even held a camera until I went in the army.”

  He regarded the thousand dollars worth of electronic wizardry in his hands. Then his expression shifted. When he spoke again, Cambria had the impression he’d nearly forgotten her.

  “I wish I’d had a camera before that, to have pictures...I lost some things when I left for the army. People.”

  “Your mother?”

  She’d kept her voice soft, but he still started slightly. His eyes met hers in an instant of gray regrets before he looked off toward the mountains.

  “Yeah. Gran first, then Mom. My kid sister was finishing high school. I’d just come home, started—uh, started building a life. Maybe if I’d taken more notice, or if I’d taken more of the burden off her before...It was like Mom felt we could take care of ourselves then, so she could quit fighting so hard. She was worn out. Not even fifty years old and she was worn out.”

  Even while Cambria felt his pain, she pushed aside a slice of envy she had no right to feel. No right at all. She’d had Irene to fight for her. Nobody could have asked for more.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Long time ago. Kenzie’s the one who bothers me now.”

  “Kenzie?”

  “My kid sister. Haven’t seen her in nearly five years. Said she was sick of my trying to run her life.” His mouth tilted in self-mockery. “That and dictator might’ve been the nicest things she said about me.”

  “I can’t imagine not seeing Pete. That must be tough on you.”

  She saw his love and hurt and confusion. But only for a moment. Boone Dorsey Smith might open the door on his secrets now and then, but it was a good stout door and he could slam it closed with a smile.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to bring in the clouds. Let’s say I see you as lucky, growing up here. And having Ted and Irene...and Pete.”

  “Growing up wasn’t all easy.” Before he could ask the question she saw in his eyes, she hurried on. “I guess no place is ideal, and every kid has problems. The trick is getting past that, learning that sometimes things start out bad, but turn out okay.”

  He gave her a peculiar look.

  “Yeah, sometimes they do.”

  Chapter Four

  Boone was definitely no monk. He’d seen things in Cambria’s eyes. He’d felt it in the air that seemed to shimmer with unspoken connections. And he figured, from what he’d seen of her and from her little speech about not dealing socially with the guests, that she would run in the opposite direction...once he laid to rest her fears that he was here to do her family harm.

  Until he did that, though, she’d stick to his side, keeping an eye on him and tormenting him with impossibilities.

  He could tell her the truth of why he’d come—if he wanted to get kicked out.

  But he couldn’t afford to get kicked out. Not until he’d gotten to know his son and made absolutely sure he didn’t need for anything. Beyond that...

  Well, he’d figure that out once he’d done those other things.

  In the meantime he should stay far from his son’s adopted sister.


  He just wished she’d cooperate.

  The evening after their riding tour, Cambria had deftly intervened when Pete had been about to accept an offer for help with math homework at the kitchen table. Instead, she’d settled Boone in the den with a magazine he hadn’t wanted to read, with herself on the couch as a most distracting watchdog.

  Thursday she’d driven him into town, shown him where to have film developed, then disappeared while he’d made phone calls and given the fax at the library a workout. Leaving town, he’d suggested stopping by the high school and giving Pete a lift home. She’d taken him in the opposite direction to view a historical marker of a none-too-heroic overrunning of an Indian camp.

  That night, when dinner conversation had turned up the fact that Boone hadn’t seen Field of Dreams, Pete had been flabbergasted.

  “How could you not have seen it?”

  “I don’t get to the movies much,” he’d explained. Pete had been too intent on remedying the appalling lapse to be interested in causes.

  “Well, you’re going to see it right now, because Cam gave me a copy for Christmas.”

  By the time the movie had ended, with Kevin Costner reconnected with his dead father through a magical game of catch, Boone’s emotions had felt raw. He’d sidestepped Pete’s efforts to talk about the players portrayed and retreated to his cabin—away from Cambria’s too watchful eyes.

  When she’d insisted on driving him into town again Friday, Boone had bluntly said he’d thought she’d had work to do. “I have a few things to pick up” was all she’d said.

  Friday night, when he’d hoped to spend time talking with Pete, Cambria had organized an outing to an Alfred Hitchcock double feature being shown by the local junior college. At least he hadn’t gotten misty-eyed over those films.

  There wasn’t much she could have done to prevent Irene from including him in a picnic lunch before Pete’s baseball game. But the most he saw that night of Cambria were the threads of light around the drawn curtains in her cabin. Probably because Pete had had a date and Ted and Irene were off to the Mooneys’ fiftieth anniversary party.

  By Sunday morning Boone was irrationally annoyed at Cambria for avoiding him the night before, after spending the week being irritated at her none-too-subtle maneuvers to keep him away from her family or making sure she was on hand to keep an eye on him.