Now that they were back at the ranch, Travis wanted Coralee to settle in and make the ranch her home, the home they shared. As far as he was concerned, they had been spending too much time at the Yellowstone and it was disrupting their ability to settle down in their marriage.

Coralee was homesick, she couldn't help it. Texas was strange and alien territory to her. She already missed the mountains and the green pastures, not to mention Montana's Big Sky. Texas was a place she was struggling to get used to.

The heat, the brown landscape, the snakes, and the poisonous insects, she hated all of it. Travis tried to reassure her, reminding her that when the monsoons came, the landscape would turn green again. She wished what he told her was enough, but it wasn't.

The baby was what made this bearable. She was almost four months old and had finally entered the "magic baby" phase. She gurgled, she giggled, she smiled, and she laughed. She loved her baths, when Coralee bathed her she splashed the water with her little arms and legs.

Travis was a doting father, he would tuck her under his arm grab the diaper bag, and carry her down to the corrals. She was the pet of all the hands. Travis looked forward to the day when he could take her for a ride.

She was an easy baby, not fussy, and not prone to things like colic and an upset tummy. Coralee loved to nurse her, and Lucy had started grasping hold of her mother's finger as she nursed. She was learning to cherish these days, at six months she would start her on solid foods and the day would come when Lucy would refuse her breast.

It was wonderful, this crazy thing called motherhood, and Coralee pondered having a second child. She did not know if she could survive another four-month bout of severe nausea. Travis had not mentioned having a second child yet, but she knew he wanted another. It was all a matter of could she survive it.

She had put Lucy down for a nap and took the opportunity to go outside. Right now the Texas weather was calm, but Travis had been watching the skies for signs of much-needed rain. It had been unusually dry, and Travis went to great lengths to assure her that the rains would come. In the meantime, their wells still yielding, and the water was sweet. But he was depending on the rains coming. He kept the tanker truck that he used to fight fires full. If there were a lightning strike, there would be a fire, it could not be avoided.

Coralee would rather have flooding than fires. Of the two perhaps floods were more destructive, but she had grown up with forest fires and dreaded them. They kept the land cleared around the dwellings and the barns and though she'd never experienced a fire that had come close, even the thought of it scared her.

Shelley scratched at the door, letting her know she wanted in. Now that they had the baby the dog would often return to the house on her own. Shelly would stop and take a long drink of water, then would push open the door to the baby's room and flop down on the floor. She considered the baby her charge and would give Coralee an anxious look every time Lucy would start crying.

She was smiling at the antics of her dog when her cell phone rang. "Yes Travis," she said, "The pup's here, she's in the baby's room."

She could hear Travis laughing on the other end. Shelly was a well-behaved pup and was becoming a good guard dog, but she also had a mind of her own. Since the baby came, she was coming up to the house on her own, to check on the baby was the only reason they could think of. Where the baby went, she went, and it could not be avoided.

"I'm on my way to the house, does Elena have dinner ready?"

"Yes." Elena had fixed pot roast and Coralee hated it. Travis loved it, but it was one of the dishes she flat-out refused to fix, even though she was cooking more now, mostly out of boredom.

"See you in a few," Travis answered and hung up. A few minutes later he pulled up, and Shelly, recognizing the sound of the ATV, ran to greet him.

He bent down and ruffled her oversized ears. "You deserted me for the kid again, am I going to have to consign you to baby duty?" He turned to Coralee, "Is the baby awake?"

"Go check, she's probably due for a feeding. Your turn to change her diapers." She watched him disappear, then emerge holding their daughter. She went and got a bottle and heated it, then gave it to him.

He fed it to Lucy who began sucking it vigorously. He smiled, "She's got a good appetite. I've got something I have to tell you, and I don't want you to get upset. I've got to go on the road again and I need you to stay here. I'll leave the pup with you."

"I could go to the ranch…" she started to say but he shook his head, "You need to stay here, hon, this is your home, now, not the Yellowstone, I want you to start spending more time here."

"Well, how long will you be gone?" she asked and sat on the arm of his chair.

"Six weeks, maybe. You know," he drawled, "When she gets a little bigger, we should start taking Lucy with us. You haven't ridden since she was born and maybe it's time for you to start riding again. See how it feels, you know. You need to compete, I know it's been a while, but it will come back, I promise."

"Who's going to take care of Lucy?" What he was suggesting was not so far-fetched. She felt like she'd gotten a little lazy since Lucy was born, but part of it was from a fear of what riding would feel like again. Her sore lady parts were getting better, although sex made her a little sore it had gotten better.

"I thought of that. We could hire a nanny to bring with us, I don't want to leave the baby behind. Some of the girls might be willing to take care of her, but that's not why they're there. If I could find someone who was familiar with horses and knew the circuit a little that would be perfect. I want to start bringing you with me, I hate leaving you at home."

"I'd like to not get left behind. And you're right, I need to start showing again, it's just that I'm afraid that it's going to hurt. I'm a little bit of a coward, but you're right, I need to start riding again. Elena and Raul have big families, maybe they could find someone for us."

"Well, as soon as I leave, why don't you saddle up one of your horses and get back in the ring? Take it slow, don't rush it, and I'm sure you're going to discover how much you miss it. I'll be home in no time at all, you'll see, and we can make plans to get you back in the shows."

Ryan had Katie puzzled. He'd held her all night while they slept, but he hadn't touched her, even though she would have been willing she hadn't received so much as a peck on her cheek. He'd been a perfect gentleman, he had brought her coffee and had sat next to her at the breakfast table, but that was it.

With the way he was acting, she had hoped for more. She wondered if he was telling her he would be her friend but only her friend, if so, he had left her frustrated. How far did she have to go when it came to paying penitence? Hadn't he ever made a mistake that he wanted to be forgiven for?

Today the ranch was breaking colts. She noticed that Rip and Lloyd wanted them to get them saddle-ready that day, but she liked taking longer. She liked to lunge at the colts, talking to them, observing them, and looking for little nuances in their behavior. She was all right with lunging them under saddle, but her style was to take her time. She and Coralee had a gentle touch and had learned their father's method of breaking, only he didn't call it breaking.

"You're gentling them, getting them to trust you. What you're doing is letting them know what you're doing isn't going to hurt them." Both girls envied the way their father seemed to have with horses. What they didn't know was that Benjamin was often at odds with his brother and his father with the way he did things. The colts and fillies he trained were often better behaved than the others, they just thought he was too damn slow.

And while most of the hands insisted on riding stallions or geldings, Benjamin often preferred riding mares. Sure, you might not be able to ride one for a couple of days a month, but there was always a horse to ride somewhere. In his opinion, that was no great sacrifice. He thought mares were smarter and better behaved, and if they could be temperamental, that was something that could be lived with.

"You're too slow," Lloyd complained to her.

"You're just in too much of a hurry," she replied, "Just wait, my horses are going to be more rideable in a shorter space of time. Did you forget who taught me?"

"You're just like your father," Lloyd walked away shaking his grey head.

It was not taking much to realize that things were not right on the ranch. Uncle John was not looking very good and she had seen that look before. Gemma's father had had "the widow maker" and it was only sheer luck and a prompt Medivac that had saved him. Her grandfather had to make a major lifestyle change that had bought him another ten years. She wasn't familiar with Uncle John's doctor, she didn't even know who he was, but her uncle was being monitored closely. Bitchy Beth probably knew what was going on, but she wasn't to let Katie know what was going on.

She'd talk to Kayce but he'd left the ranch with Monica and the kids. It made dinner more strained with fewer people sitting at the table, but she bet it had done Kayce good. For herself, she wouldn't even be here if it weren't for Ryan, but maybe that was a lost cause, and she should seriously consider heading to Texas.

There was one thing that she needed to do, head to Helena and talk to Jamie. She doubted that Beth had informed him of the state of his father's health, and he needed to know. She wanted to know about the details of Uncle John's will. Her father would inherit his ten percent of the ranch, but she understood that there was too much she didn't know about the family's estate. And there was also the mystery of who in the family held power of attorney.

Rip was the foreman; Rip was the one who needed to give her permission to take a couple of days off. She could have played spoiled brat and just took the days off anyway but that's not how she rolled. She was a Yellowstone wrangler now, and she treated her position with respect.

Fortunately, Rip was amenable, asking her which days she wanted. He didn't lift an eyebrow when she said she was going to Helena, she and Jamie were cousins after all, and they'd always been close. Since it only took two or so hours to get there, why didn't she leave tonight after dinner? She could stay at a hotel and call Jamie. She agreed that sounded like a plan, and thanking him, she went back to work.

After she got off work, she took a shower but decided to forego dinner. Gator's spread smelled good but she wanted to get on the road. She could eat on the way, evening though she'd be settling for a second-rate dinner.

The traffic was heavy at first, but it was slowing down. It had gotten dark and had started to rain, but that only added to her determination to keep going. It occurred to her that she didn't know if Jamie would have plans. Jamie was an attractive guy and though he might deny it he attracted his fair share of women. What if he was on a date? She couldn't just barge in, but maybe they could talk and make plans for tomorrow.

She was too eager to reach Helena and decided to skip dinner. She could find someplace to eat after she talked to Jamie. Whatever he had going on, she had to make him understand that they needed to talk. She had to let Jamie know that something was up and he needed to know.