Linda Miller - Big Sky Mountain

Kendra wanted nothing so much as a child and, during their brief marriage, Jeffrey had denied her repeated requests to start a family. It was a bitter pill to swallow, learning that he’d refused her a baby and then fathered one with someone else, someone he’d met on a business trip.

She’d done what Jeffrey asked, not so much for his sake—though she’d loved him once, or believed she did—as for Madison’s. And her own.

The search hadn’t been an easy one, even with the funds Jeffrey had set aside for the purpose, involving a great deal of web-surfing, phone calls and emails, travel and so many highs and lows that she nearly gave up several times.

Then it happened. She found Madison.

Kendra hadn’t known what she’d feel upon actually meeting her former husband’s child, but any doubts she might have had had been dispelled the moment—the moment—she’d met this cautious, winsome little girl.

The first encounter had taken place in a social worker’s dingy office, in a dusty desert town in California, and for Kendra, it was love at first sight.

The forever kind of love.

Months of legal hassles had followed, but now, at long last, Kendra and Madison were officially mother and daughter, in the eyes of God and government, and Kendra knew she couldn’t have loved her baby girl any more if she’d carried her in her own body for nine months.

Callie brought Kendra back to the present moment by reaching for the teapot in the center of the table and refilling Kendra’s cup, then her own.

“Do you think it’s over yet?” Kendra asked, instantly regretting the question but unable to hold back still another. “The wedding, I mean?”

Callie’s smile was gentle as she glanced at the clock on the stove top and met Kendra’s gaze again. “Probably,” she said quietly. Then, without another word, she reached out to give Kendra’s hand a light squeeze.

Madison, meanwhile, stirred on the window seat. “Mommy?”

Kendra turned again. “I’m here, honey,” she said.

Although Madison was adjusting rapidly, in the resilient way of young children, she still had bad dreams sometimes and she tended to panic if she lost sight of Kendra for more than a moment.

“Are you hungry, sweetie?” Callie asked the little girl. Slade’s mom would make a wonderful grandmother; she had a way with children, easy and forthright.

Madison shook her head as she moved toward Kendra and then scrambled up onto her lap.

“It’s been a while since lunch,” Kendra suggested, kissing the top of Madison’s head and holding her close. “Maybe you’d like a glass of milk and one of Opal’s oatmeal raisin cookies?”

Again, Madison shook her head, snuggling closer still. “No, thank you,” she said clearly, sounding, as she often did, more like a small adult than a four-year-old.

They’d arrived by car the night before and spent the night in the Barlows’ guest room, at Joslyn’s insistence.

The old house, the very heart of Windfall Ranch, was undergoing considerable renovation, which only added to the exuberant chaos of the place—and Madison was wary of everyone but Opal, the family housekeeper.

Just then, Slade and Joslyn’s dog, Jasper, heretofore snoozing on his bed in front of the newly installed kitchen fireplace, sat bolt upright and gave a questioning little whine. His floppy ears were pitched slightly forward, though he seemed to be listening with his entire body. Joslyn’s cat, Lucy-Maude, remained singularly unconcerned.

Madison looked at the animal with shy interest, still unsure whether to make friends with him or keep her distance.

“Well,” Callie remarked, getting to her feet and heading for the nearest window, the one over the steel sink, and peering out as the sound of a car’s engine reached them, “they’re back early. They must have decided to skip the reception.”

Jasper barked happily and hurried to the door. Joslyn had long since dubbed him the one-dog welcoming committee and at the moment he was spilling over with a wild desire to greet whoever happened to show up.

With a little chuckle, Callie opened the back door so Jasper could shoot through it like a fur-covered bullet, positively beside himself with joy. There was a little frown nestled between the older woman’s eyebrows, though, as she looked toward Kendra again. “This is odd,” she reiterated. “I hope Joslyn is feeling all right.”

Shea, Slade’s lovely dark-haired stepdaughter, just turned seventeen, burst into the house first, her violet eyes huge with excitement. “You’re not going to believe this, Grands,” she told Callie breathlessly. “The music was playing. The bridesmaids were all lined up and the preacher had his book open, ready to start. And what do you suppose happened?”

Kendra’s heart fluttered in her chest, but she didn’t speak.

A number of drastic scenarios flashed through her mind—a wedding guest toppling over from a heart attack, then a cattle truck crashing through a wall, followed by lightning boring its way right through the roof of the church and striking the bridegroom dead where he stood.

She shook the images off. Waited with her breath snagged painfully in the back of her throat.

“What?” Callie prodded good-naturedly, studying her step-granddaughter. She and Shea were close—the girl worked part-time at Callie’s Curly Burly Hair Salon in town, and during the school year, Shea went to Callie’s place after the last bell rang, spending hours tweaking the website she’d built for the shop.

“Hutch called the whole thing off,” Shea blurted. “He stopped the wedding!”

“Oh, my,” Callie said. The door was still open, and Kendra heard Joslyn’s voice, then Opal’s, as they came toward the house. Slade must have been with them, but he was keeping quiet, as usual.

Kendra realized she was squeezing Madison too tightly and relaxed her arms a little. Her mouth had dropped open at some point and she closed it, hoping no one had noticed. Just then, she couldn’t have uttered a word if the place caught fire.

Opal, tall and dressed to the nines in one of her home-sewn and brightly patterned jersey dresses, crossed the threshold next, shaking her head as she unpinned her old-fashioned hat, with its tiny stuffed bird and inch-wide veiling.

Slade and Joslyn came in behind her, Joslyn’s huge belly preceding her “by half an hour,” as her adoring husband liked to say.

By then, the bomb dropped, Shea had shifted her focus to Madison. She’d been trying to win the little girl over from the beginning, and her smile dazzled, like sunlight on still waters. “Hey, kiddo,” she said. “Since we missed out on the wedding cake, I’m up for a major cookie binge. Want to join me?”

Somewhat to Kendra’s surprise, Madison slid down off her lap, Rupert the kangaroo dangling from one small hand, and approached the older girl, albeit slowly. “Okay,” she said, her voice tentative.

Joslyn, meanwhile, lumbered over to the table, pulled back a chair and sank into it. She looked incandescent in her summery maternity dress, a blue confection with white polka dots, and she fanned her flushed face with her thin white clutch for a few moments before plunking it down on the tabletop.

“Do you need to lie down?” Callie asked her daughter-

in-law worriedly, one hand resting on Joslyn’s shoulder.

Madison and Shea, meanwhile, were plundering the cookie jar.

“No,” Joslyn told her. “I’m fine. Really.”

Opal tied on an apron and instructed firmly, “Now don’t you girls stuff yourselves on those cookies with me fixing to put a meal on the table in a little while.”

A swift tenderness came over Kendra as she took it all in—including Opal’s bluster. As Kendra was growing up, the woman had been like a mother to her, if not a patron saint.