Chapter 13.
The entire Barkley family was making plans to travel to San Francisco to meet Audra's train and the excitement in the house was palpable.
To herself, Emily acknowledged a small anxiety and disappointment about how her own life would shift with Audra's return: Victoria would not need her company and so the opportunities to enjoy the piano would decrease. And fewer evenings at the Barkley Ranch meant fewer buggy rides home with Nick.
Just as well, she sighed inwardly. God knows, she didn't want to fall in love with the man and it would be best if he didn't love her. A gentle separation made by outside forces might be a blessing.
Nick was not a man to keep his personal turmoil secret but neither was he much good at expressing it in a discreet or controlled manner. This time, he didn't storm or brood but his mood was off and his mother noticed.
Days before meeting Audra's train, Victoria approached him and asked, "Do you want to talk about it?" She had no doubt Nick's distraction concerned Emily.
"I asked her to marry me and she said 'no,'" he replied soberly.
"I see, " Victoria said, considering the problem. "Did she say 'no' or did she say something more than just 'no'?"
"What?" He stopped and thought a moment. "She said she's not ready to marry anyone – "
Victoria interrupted, "That's not 'no,' that's 'not now.'"
"And she said she can't marry me because she can't have children," he added.
"Nick," Victoria stated, "there are lots of very happy couples who do not have children. And, anyway, if you want children you can adopt."
"I know that," he said sadly, "but maybe she has a point."
Victoria had heard enough. "Nick Barkley," she announced with authority, "a very wise and very good person once said that love makes a family. Now who was that . . . " she pretended to wonder. "Hmm . . . Oh, that's right! It was Emily Barrett Powell who said that. Emily Powell once said to me, in reference to Heath, that love, not blood, makes a family."
Nick smiled at his mother and she put her hand on his arm.
"Don't push her, Nick," she reminded him, "but do not, for the love of God, do not let her go." And with that, she swept out of the room.
The family greeted a somewhat weary, somewhat stunned Audra at the train station in San Francisco. It did not take her long to recover, however, and soon she was bubbling over with excited reports on her European adventure.
Venice was beautiful, she said. Florence and Rome magnificent. Paris was pretty, she said, but it remained mysterious and foreign to her in its social mores and intrigues for which she had neither the language skills nor the guile to understand. London, on the other hand, was for her a shining metropolis of civility. But it was the English countryside she loved the best: The rolling green pastures, the formal gardens, the grand houses.
It was all wonderful, Audra said, but ultimately it felt confining to her and she was glad to be home. Or nearly home, anyway. She was eager to see Carl and she was tired of city life, any city, so she asked to go home to the ranch at the first opportunity.
By the next afternoon, life had resumed its normal patterns and rhythms for all members of the Barkley family, save for Audra and her mother who spent time alone together sharing the details of their lives that couldn't fit in their letters.
On the topic of Nick, Audra learned the extent of his time and emotional involvement with Emily and she expressed her surprise. She told her mother she had been sure Emily was the woman for Jarrod.
"On the surface, perhaps," he mother explained, "But remember, she left San Francisco and she loves our valley. She is an expert horsewoman, better than you even. And you watch them together: She calms him and he draws her out."
Heath and Sarah, too, were discussed. The trouble between them seemed to have been overcome and Heath was spending more time away from the ranch. Audra hoped a marriage was imminent and Victoria secretly believed that it was.
Foremost of all romances in Audra's mind was her own burgeoning commitment to Carl. It seemed to Victoria that Audra's attitude about it had matured and the matriarch knew her empire was about to change in significant ways. And that made her happy.