not their father. He had finally lost control of them, and sadly, he had to die to do it.
Chapter 6
It took Gemma and Caroline a few days to settle in. Gemma loved the new décor in her cottage, and managed to fit everything in, although it was barely bigger than a dollhouse, but she enjoyed spending time there when she wasn’t with her sisters or outdoors. And Caroline’s trip to Ikea with Morgan was fruitful. Caroline had an eye for design too, and following Gemma’s example, she went a little wild, picking things she liked. Morgan got the lavender bedroom she’d wanted, and they’d picked a cowboy theme for Billy. Caroline didn’t know how much time they’d be spending there, probably not much, but the rooms looked comfortable and inviting, fresh and new when they’d finished. They borrowed a truck from the ranch to bring everything home. The dilemma was assembling the furniture once they brought it back, but Thad and the kids pitched in and figured it out, Gemma lent a hand, and by that afternoon, like magic, the little guesthouse was decorated. They even had rugs and curtains. Kate was vastly impressed with the effect both her sisters had achieved, and Morgan said she liked it better than her bedroom at home. They had bought new pots and pans too, and bright colored china and glasses, towels, and large framed photographs to put on the walls. Gemma’s little cottage was fancier, but Caroline’s had a good look too, and they had fun doing it.
Thad was making himself available to both girls, and was impressed with what they had achieved in a short time. The day after Caroline arrived, all three sisters and Morgan and Billy went out to dinner, and went bowling afterward. Caroline acknowledged that it had been a good idea to spend some time at the ranch before they went to Aspen.
“I used to hate coming here,” she admitted, as the kids bowled and they waited for their turn. It still reminded her of her father, but with a space of their own to retreat to, it no longer gave her that oppressive feeling. He had taken up every inch of space wherever he was, not only physically, but psychologically. She always felt like she couldn’t breathe when she was around him. “It feels better now,” she admitted to her sisters, although her children said they missed him. She was embarrassed to admit that she didn’t.
Billy had loved the idea that he had a real cowboy as a grandfather, in contrast to Peter’s very East Coast intellectual parents. Peter’s was the kind of family Caroline had always wanted. His father was a publisher and his mother had been a political journalist before she retired. They had a house in Maine where she and Peter took the kids for a week every year at the end of August, and spent time with his sister and her three children. She was a physics professor at Harvard, and like Peter, her husband was in high-tech finance.
Their childhoods had been very different from Caroline’s, and at first she had felt like trailer trash when she was around them. Born in Texas, and raised on a ranch in Southern California, she didn’t have the same highbrow background they did. Jimmy had been uncomfortable around Peter’s parents when they met at the wedding, which Peter and Caroline had insisted on having in San Francisco, where their friends were. It was a small affair at a stuffy club that was affiliated with Peter’s father’s club in New York. Jimmy had worn cowboy boots and a Stetson with a suit to the wedding, and at twenty-two, Caroline had nearly died of embarrassment, compared to the well-tailored dark blue suits of Peter’s family and guests from New York, and Boston, where his mother was from.
But the marriage had worked well, despite their different backgrounds. Caroline deferred to Peter for most big decisions and even small ones. Their children went to the best private schools, and after the first few years, Peter stopped teasing her about what he called her redneck background. He had been impressed by the ranch, although they seldom went, and acknowledged that her father was an interesting man, and not nearly as simple and modest as he pretended to be. He was a powerhouse, and had an extraordinarily good grip on the concepts of finance, and had made some very successful investments with little advice from anyone, just using his