is. I think Peter is more like Dad than she realizes. He makes most of her decisions for her, and she lets him. But she’s stubborn once she makes up her mind.” Gemma nodded agreement. It was the opposite personality from hers and her father’s. Kate was kind of a hybrid between the two. She wasn’t forceful, but she had her own opinions, and confronted things head-on, but in a gentle way. Caroline had been in hiding for most of her life. And Peter’s early criticism of her hadn’t helped. He loved her, but had been vocal about not liking where she came from, and his parents had added to it. They had wanted their only son to marry a debutante. Caroline was smart and loving, but not that.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” Gemma asked her. Kate thought about it and then nodded.
“Yeah, I am. What if she turns out to be a weirdo or a creep, or a really terrible person?” Kate responded.
“That would be sad, but at least we’ll know. Now that we’ve found her, I’m dying of curiosity. We don’t need her anymore, but she’s still our mother. I wish she’d turned up a long time ago. I could have used a mother then. Having just a father wasn’t enough. He tried to cover all the bases, but he was all guy, and pure testosterone, and Juliette didn’t really get deeply involved with him until we were in college. It was too late by then, and she was careful not to step on Dad’s toes and get too engaged. It was smart of her, because he wouldn’t have liked it if she had, but it didn’t do much for us. I’m past needing a mother now, unless she’s fabulously wealthy and would like to pay off all my debts.” Kate grinned. She worried about Gemma and the pinch she was in.
“How’s that going?” Kate asked her.
“Okay. The rent I’m getting for the house will pay my mortgage, but I’ve got a lot of debts, more than I realized. I’m going to need to take all the money jobs I can get for a while, to try and make up for the show getting canceled. I hate to do it, but I may need you to buy out my share of the ranch by the fall.” Kate nodded. She didn’t like it, but she wasn’t surprised. Gemma needed money, and soon, if she didn’t find another big job. She had an expensive lifestyle, and wasn’t shy about running into debt. Their father had complained about it to Kate before.
“Thad said he’d be willing to buy it if it comes to that,” Kate reminded her.
“How do you feel about that?” Gemma asked her.
“I’d rather not,” Kate said, “but I probably wouldn’t have the money fast enough to help you out. We don’t have that much liquidity. As Dad said, land rich and cash poor. If you want to cash out, I’d have to sell off some land to someone. It might as well be Thad, who has the best interests of the ranch at heart, and won’t encroach on us, or try to steal more.”
“I hate to do that to you.” Gemma felt badly about it but she had no choice. “We’ll see how things look in September. There’s almost no work in summer. Everything’s pretty dead.”
“Good, then you can relax here.” Kate smiled at her. They had finished cleaning up the kitchen by then. “I like having you here, Gem,” she said warmly and Gemma hugged her. “I’ll pick you up at ten tomorrow, and we’ll head out.”
“Too bad Caroline doesn’t want to come too.”
“She doesn’t need to,” Kate said easily. “You and I should be able to handle one mother between us.” Kate grinned and Gemma laughed.
“Hell, yeah. We handled Dad, didn’t we? The human tornado. Shit, our mother will be a piece of cake,” she said, and Kate laughed, as Gemma left. Tomorrow was going to be an interesting day, meeting the mother who had supposedly been dead for thirty-nine years. And now she was alive.
Chapter 7
Kate got all her morning chores done, and spent an hour in the office, returning calls, sending emails, and signing expense reports, before she got in her truck to pick Gemma up. When Kate got there, Gemma was standing on her porch in black designer shorts, a white T-shirt, and Italian sandals that laced up to her knee. She looked ten feet tall and very stylish, as she