Chapter 13

Jarrod's recovery was not as quick as he would have liked, so Nick and Heath decided that Heath would accompany Alice with her husband's body back to the Taylor ranch near Lancaster. They left the next day on the train, and once the doctor released him, Jarrod opted to take the train from Grove Junction back up to Stockton, suggesting Nick ride home and take all the horses – the ones Taylor rented, his horse and Heath's horse – with him and get them where they belonged.

"You gonna be all right traveling alone?" Nick asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Jarrod assured him. "It's not much of a trip, but I'm better off not bouncing around on horseback."

"You're gonna be going down to Lancaster eventually, though, aren't you?"

"As soon as I'm better up to it," Jarrod said. "Alice will need help probating her husband's estate, and I get the feeling she's gonna want to sell that ranch and move on. She'll have the money to raise her child now. I hate to say it, but I've been thinking it, and so have you. Hiram being killed is the best thing that could have happened to her."

Nick had to agree.

They parted company as soon as Nick put Jarrod safely on the train to Stockton the morning after Heath and Alice left for Lancaster. They would both be home by dinner time, Jarrod arriving a bit earlier if there were no delays on the train, and there weren't any. Jarrod came into the house almost reluctant to take his hat off and show the white bandage on his head injury, but he did it, and got the immediate, "Oh, Jarrod!" from his mother and sister.

"It's not that bad," Jarrod said. "I just took a little hit in the head." Then he smiled at his mother. "It just matches yours."

Victoria knew she had a bruise on her face too, but you forget those things when your son presents his own injury.

"We thought you'd go to Lancaster with Alice," Audra said.

"Heath went with her," Jarrod said. "I'm not really up to that long a trip yet, but it should only be a few more days and I'll head down there to help her out with the estate."

Victoria took him by the arm and led him to the settee in the living room. "Is Nick with you?"

"No, he's bringing the horses back up," Jarrod said. "I took the train to avoid all the bumping around."

"Can I get you some coffee?" Audra asked as Jarrod sat beside his mother on the settee.

"Audra, that would be wonderful," Jarrod said. Then he looked at his mother. "I'm not having any alcohol at all for the next three or four days, until I'm sure my hard Barkley head is better healed."

"How are things otherwise?" Victoria asked as Audra went to the kitchen. "Have you resolved your feelings about Alice any?"

"We've made peace," Jarrod said. "I realized I wasn't seeing things from the point of view of a woman about to have a baby. One thing I remember from when you were having Audra and Eugene – "

"Oh, please," Victoria said quickly, remembering her own mood swings and sometimes unreasonable behavior.

Jarrod laughed. "You didn't know I was paying attention, did you?"

"You were 14 and 15," Victoria said. "I should have known you were, but at that point I thought you were more interested in girls than in any new brother or sister."

Jarrod laughed again. "Anyway, when I started seeing things the way Alice was seeing them, with child and enduring a bad marriage to boot, I understood her confusion and indecision. We talked. And with Hiram gone, one very big load of anxiety has been removed for her. I hate it when a man's death proves to be more beneficial to his family than his life."

"I understand," Victoria said, "and I hate it too, and I hate that I agree that sometimes – this time – that seems to be true."

"I'm hoping when I get to Lancaster, I'll find a woman more at ease with herself. I don't know how long I'll be down there, but I plan to help her get things in pretty good order before I leave her on her own."

Victoria wondered how that time between her son and his client was going to go. Jarrod was very professional, but something very personal had passed between him and Alice, in Barstow and here at the ranch and in Grove Junction. Victoria wondered what was going to happen once they were alone together, now that she was no longer married and now that they apparently had resolved their differences and made peace.

Her oldest had married and hoped that by this point in his life, he'd be raising children with Beth, but that was stolen from him. Now, he was taking on the trials of a widow, about to have a baby, for whom he already had complicated feelings. It was a sensitive place for him to be, in this 35th year of his life following an awful 34th year. Victoria didn't exactly worry about it, but she wondered.

And secretly, Jarrod wondered, too.

The End