up on a pony or an arthritic mare.
“Okay,” Madison capitulated, not particularly pleased but willing to negotiate. “But I’m still going to want those boots.”
Kendra laughed. “Hurry up and finish your breakfast,” she said. “Then go and brush your teeth while I let Daisy out for a quick run in the backyard. You need to be on time for preschool and I have to get to the office.”
The spiffing-up process over at the mansion was winding down, according to reports from the painting and cleaning crews, and she already had two appointments to show the place, one at noon and one the following morning.
Things were moving along.
Why did it suddenly seem so difficult to keep up?
Madison set her spoon down, wriggled off her chair, and carried her mostly empty cereal bowl over to the sink. She stood on tiptoe to set it on the drainboard, humming under her breath as she headed back toward the bathroom.
Daisy started to follow her small mistress, but when Kendra opened the back door, the dog rushed through it, wagging her tail. Kendra followed.
The morning was glorious—the grass green, with that fresh-cut smell, and lawn sprinklers sang their rhythmic songs in the surrounding yards. Birds whistled in the branches of trees and a few perched on Kendra’s clothesline, regarding Daisy’s progress with placid nonchalance.
Madison returned to the kitchen just as Daisy and Kendra were coming in from outside. She opened her lips wide to show Kendra her clean teeth.
Kendra pretended to be dazzled, going so far as to raise both hands against the sudden glare, as if blinded by it.
Madison giggled, this being one of their many small games. “You’re silly, Mommy,” she said.
Kendra tugged lightly at one of Madison’s coppery curls and bent to kiss the top of her head. “Have I mentioned that I love you to the moon and back?” she countered, taking Daisy’s leash from its hook and snapping it to the dog’s collar.
“I love you ten times that much,” Madison responded on cue.
“I love you a hundred times that much,” Kendra pronounced, juggling her purse, car keys and a leash with an excited puppy at the other end.
“I love you the last number in the world times that much,” Madison said.
“I love you ten thousand times that much,” Kendra told her as they trooped outside and headed for the driveway, where the trusty Mom-mobile was parked.
“That isn’t fair,” Madison argued. “I said the last number in the world.”
“Okay,” Kendra answered, smiling. “You win.”
* * *
HUTCH MOVED FROM one stall to the next, assessing every horse he owned.
They were ordinary beasts, most of them, but they all looked too big and too powerful for a four-year-old to ride.
Was it too late to buy a pony?
He chuckled at the idea and shook his head. Whisper Creek was a working ranch and the horses pulled their weight, just as the men did. He’d be laughed right out of the Cattleman’s Association if he ran a Shetland on the same range as all these brush cutters and ropers. The sweet old mare he’d reserved for greenhorns had passed away peacefully one night last winter and much as he’d loved the animal, it hadn’t occurred to him to replace her. It was a matter of attrition.
Opal stepped into the barn just as he turned from the last stall, dressed for going to town. She wore a jersey dress, as usual, but a hat, too, and shiny shoes, and she carried a huge purse with a jeweled catch.
“I’ve got a meeting at the church,” she informed him. “After that, I thought I’d look in on Joslyn’s bunch, see how they’re doing.”
Hutch smiled, walked slowly in her direction. He’d already sent the ranch hands out onto the range for the day, assigning them to the usual tasks, which left him with nothing much to do other than look himself up on the internet and see how he was faring in the court of public opinion.
Not that he couldn’t have guessed. Team Brylee was probably still on the warpath, and so far a Team Hutch hadn’t come together.
“You don’t work for me,” he reminded Opal affably, as she had recently reminded him. “No need to explain your comings and goings.”
Opal stood stalwartly in his path, clutching her purse to her chest with both hands as though she expected some stranger to swoop in and grab it if she relaxed her vigilance for a fraction of a second. “I’m living under your roof,” she said matter-of-factly, “so it’s just