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  He wondered what was wrong, and while he was thinking about that, he also wondered what kind of person she was, what undefinable mechanism made her tick. It might be interesting to find out.

  The fog began to thin slightly as the day brightened. Annie huffed a heavy breath that steamed in the cool morning as she picked her way through the grass. Ryan adjusted his baseball cap. He wore it in lieu of a cowboy hat because he didn’t want to be a cliché.

  Just as he began to crest a gentle, rolling hill covered in knee-high, green grass, he saw a place where a post on one of the older stretches of fence had sagged to the ground, leaving a gaping opening that might as well have been labeled COW EXIT. He sighed. He climbed down from the horse and gave the animal a pat on her side.

  Well, there was his morning.

  Chapter Three

  “I know,” Gen was telling Rose Watkins one evening a few days after the party as the two of them climbed side-by-side staircases to nowhere at Hard Bodies, the gym where they worked out far too seldom, in Gen’s opinion, and far too often in Rose’s. “I don’t drink like that normally. I’m not planning to do it again anytime soon. You don’t have to be a mother hen.”

  Rose’s hair was blue this month, a bright, bold blue one might see in a box of Crayolas, and it had grown out a bit from the chin-length bob she’d sported for most of the summer. Now, it was just long enough that she was able to pull it into a tiny, perky ponytail at the back of her head for the sake of workout comfort. Rose’s exercise ensemble consisted of a pair of black spandex capris and a T-shirt that sagged off her left shoulder, exposing a bit of a rose tattoo just beneath the strap of her exercise bra. Rose’s left eyebrow, pierced with a silver barbell, quirked up.

  “I’m not being a mother hen. I’m just, you know, wondering. You didn’t seem like yourself. As your friend, I’m allowed to wonder.”

  “I guess,” Gen said sullenly. She kicked the stair-climber up to a higher setting and wiped the sweat from her face. The exercise felt good. Exhaustion always helped to clear her anxiety, calm her thoughts.

  “So?” Rose prompted.

  “So, what?”

  “So, what was bothering you? Jeez, it’s like pulling teeth. Just come out with it already.” Rose took a long slug from her water bottle and then fixed her gaze on Gen.

  “It’s Kate,” Gen said finally. “Or, actually, Jackson. Kate and Jackson.”

  “I thought you liked Jackson,” Rose said.

  “I do!” Gen threw her hands into the air for emphasis, then had to grab the rails on the stair-climber to regain her balance. “I do. I love Jackson. And I’m so happy for Kate. I am. But …”

  “But?” Rose prompted.

  “But now she’s busy all the time! With him! Probably having lots and lots of really great sex, and I can’t just … just barge in to her place anymore like I used to, because she’s happy and all coupled up and she’s moved on, and I’m left all by myself downstairs with no one to talk to, thinking about the fact that I’m not having great sex.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “I know!”

  Rose considered for a moment. “Okay, let’s take those points one at a time. One: How busy can she really be? Jackson’s a chef. He works crazy hours, including nights five days a week, sometimes six. I’m thinking it’s not actually, technically, impossible to spend time with Kate.”

  “Well …” Gen grumbled.

  “Two: She has not moved on. Moving on suggests that she’s done with you, me, and all of her friends, and she’ll be doing nothing except having great sex exclusively from now on. When, in fact, I think she’ll need to emerge from time to time, if only for hydration.”

  Gen shrugged. “Hydration is important.”

  “And three,” Rose continued. “You could have great sex. There are plenty of men out there you could have great sex with.”

  Gen took a slug from her water bottle, breathing hard, sweat making her face gleam. “Name one.”

  “Well … I saw you talking to Ryan Delaney for quite a while at the party. A solid nine on the hotness scale. The dark hair, the deep brown eyes, that firm, muscular cowboy body.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Not to mention the manliness factor of the whole ranching thing.”

  Gen tsked. “He’s not a nine.”

  “Why not?”

  Gen glared at Rose. “I don’t know what your criteria are, but if that man doesn’t score a ten, I don’t know who would.”

  Encouraged, Rose sped up her pace slightly and waved an arm at Gen. “Well, there you go!”

  “No. There’s no ‘there you go.’ You know what Mr. Ten On The Scale and I were talking about all that time?”

  “Uh oh. What?”

  “Lacy.”

  “Ah.”

  There was no need to explain. In the years that Gen, Rose, and Kate had been close friends with Lacy, each of them had, at least once, experienced chatting up an attractive man only to have him inquire about Lacy.

  “The man makes my palms sweat. My palms were actually sweating.” Gen shook her head to emphasize her own pathetic state. “There I was with my sweaty palms and that dry mouth thing—because apparently my body can’t even function when I’m around him—and he’s asking me what Lacy’s interests are, and if she’s seeing anyone, and what’s the best way to talk to her. Gah!”

  “Aw, honey. So what did you tell him?”

  “I said that I talk to her about shoe sales and The Bachelor, but I didn’t think that was going to work for him.”

  Rose laughed. “Good one.”

  They climbed side by side in silence, panting and sweating companionably.

  “She’s not interested, you know,” Rose said finally.

  “I know!” Gen shook her head. “God, what a waste.”

  Rose slowed her machine, came to a stop, and climbed down. She looked up at Gen, who was still pumping away. “You know what you need, you need a hot artist to come to Cambria and sweep you off your feet.”

  Gen sighed. “You know, I really do.”

  Rose’s comment about the hot artist didn’t solve the issue of Gen’s nonexistent love life, but it did spark an idea.

  Gen needed to rebuild a reputation in the art world if she were ever going to return to New York and become a player there. She needed to generate some buzz, gain some credibility. That was hard to do in an out-of-the-way town like Cambria, because the kinds of artists who had major influence didn’t live here. She could call them on the phone, e-mail them, deal with them via Skype, but it wasn’t the same as being able to schmooze with them over lunch or cocktails.

  You need a hot artist to come to Cambria, Rose had said.

  That was just what she needed—a hot artist. But not sexy hot. She needed an artist who was my-career-is-about-to-take-off hot.

  An artist whose career had already gotten traction would not bother with Gen and Cambria. But one who was likely to emerge soon—but hadn’t yet—just might. If she could somehow spot an artist like that and bring him here, maybe create an artist-in-residence program through her gallery, she could have her name associated with his—or hers—when they eventually did get showered with fame and recognition.

  It was a gamble, of course. If she bet on the wrong horse, she’d have invested time and money for little return. But if it worked, she could make a name for herself nationwide before she ever left town.

  Gen thought about it as she drove home from the gym, still sweaty and hot from her workout. She thought about it some more in the shower, as the hot water soothed her aching muscles. Afterward, warm and comfy in her bathrobe with her hair wrapped in a towel, she opened her laptop and Googled artist-in-residence programs to learn what she could about what would be involved.

  She was still researching when Kate knocked on her door half an hour later.

  “Come in!” Gen called, not looking up from the computer screen.

  “Hey.” Kate leaned in the doorway. “You want to come up? Jackson’s working. It’s lonely up t
here.”

  “Mm, sure,” Gen said.

  When she had moved to Cambria about a year and a half earlier, Gen had considered herself lucky to be able to rent Kate’s downstairs space for such a reasonable price. True, the apartment was tiny, with a galley kitchen that allowed for only miniature appliances, and a single living space that had to double as bedroom and living room. But that presented no problem, as Gen was used to apartment living in Manhattan. Compared to her place there, this was positively cavernous.

  Gen had considered herself fortunate even before getting to know Kate. Afterward, she considered herself positively blessed. She and Kate had become close immediately.

  Kate, who owned Swept Away, a bookstore on Main Street, was in her after-work relaxed mode. She was wearing Levi’s torn at the knees and an oversized T-shirt that said Book Nerd, with a pair of glasses as the two Os. Her feet were bare, and her short, spiky, dark hair was askew.

  “You eat yet?” Gen asked her. “I just came from the gym. I’m starved. All those burned calories.”

  “I did,” Kate said, still leaning in from the door frame, “but we have some great leftovers. Jackson cooked last night.”

  “Ooh. I’m in.” There were definite benefits to having a chef living upstairs.

  Tonight’s leftovers consisted of herb-crusted leg of lamb and zucchini soup with crème fraiche and cilantro.

  “Jeez,” Gen said as she settled in at Kate’s dining room table and dug in. “This is what he cooks at home?”

  “I wish. No, not usually. He wanted to try some things out before doing them at the restaurant. What do you think?”

  “I’d order it.”

  Kate didn’t cook, and before Jackson’s arrival, the offerings upstairs had consisted mostly of Pop-Tarts and frozen pizzas. When Kate had offered Gen the so-called foods that made up Kate’s own diet, it usually resulted in a lecture on health and nutrition. Gen had to admit, this was better.

  “So, what were you working on so intently when I popped in?” Kate sat across from Gen at the dining table, sipping a glass of white wine.

  “An idea.” Gen took a drink from her own wineglass, then had another bite of the lamb. “Yum.”

  “An idea for the gallery?”

  “Could be.” She told Kate about her idea for an artist-in-residence program, but she didn’t tell her that she was considering it as a way to get back to New York. She rarely held anything back from Kate—they were like sisters—but this, she sensed, would cause some difficult feelings. How could she tell Kate that she wanted to leave? How could she explain that if all went well, the two of them might be separated not only by thousands of miles, but also by the giant cultural chasm that separated Cambria from Manhattan?

  “Huh,” Kate said, thinking about Gen’s plan. “How would that work? Where would this artist live? How would you pay for it?”

  Kate echoed the questions that were crowding around in Gen’s head. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s an interesting idea, though,” Kate said.

  “Yeah. It could be. It really could be.”

  “You could solve all of those problems. I mean, it’s doable,” Kate said. “There are a million rental houses around here, and if you could get one of your wealthy collectors to sponsor the program, you’d be all set. The rest would be … details.”

  “I think I even know the artist I want.” Gen munched on another bite of lamb and thought. “But the place. That’s the first step. I have to find a place.”

  Chapter Four

  It was time for Ryan to stop thinking about the run-down buildings on the ranch property, and time for him to start doing something about them. The main house wasn’t bad; no one would claim it was an architectural gem, with its 1950s exterior that was long past needing a new coat of paint, but structurally, it was in good repair, solid and warm and sheltering for the family within. The new barn had been built recently enough that it was in very good condition, but the older barn—the one built back in the fifties—needed some refurbishing. Or they needed to just tear it down.

  The guest house, though—that was the worst. The little one-bedroom cottage had plumbing problems, wiring problems, roof problems. Nobody had stayed in it for as long as Ryan could remember. Shame, too. The location was prime, with shade trees, rolling, grassy hills, and a creek close enough that you could just hear the rushing water—during the seasons when the water was high enough, anyway.

  There was no excuse for letting it go. The Delaney family had simply had other priorities over the years.

  But Ryan had ideas.

  Ryan’s ideas had gone mostly unspoken up to this point, because his father and his uncle were set in their ways, much like a mountain was set in the earth. They were about as immovable as the mountain on any given thing when it came to the running of the ranch.

  But now that Redmond was retired and Orin was slowing down, Ryan saw his opportunity to change a few things. Do a little tweaking. Put the Ryan Delaney touch on the place, as he’d been longing to do.

  Late in the afternoon, with the hazy sun slanting in through windows that were filmed with dirt, Ryan surveyed the inside of the guest cottage. He saw the dirt, the broken moldings, the disrepair.

  But he also saw possibilities.

  He adjusted the baseball cap on his head and poked around in the bedroom, the tiny bathroom, the closet. His shoes scuffed against the wood floor as he went from room to room.

  Wood floors. Yeah, they were beat to hell, but he could get someone in here to refinish them. He walked to the front window in the main room, wiped a clean spot with his sleeve, and peered out. Fantastic view. Oak trees and tall grass and, off in the distance, a strip of blue ocean.

  The best way, he figured, was to just get some workers going on it, and then tell his parents after the fact, when they started asking about the trucks and the hammering and the invoices. The dishonesty of that—the sneakiness—might have bothered him for a minute or two, but he knew they’d be pleased when the work was done.

  That’s how his family was. They had to be dragged toward progress, usually by the ankles.

  He wasn’t sure what they would do with the cottage once it was done. Breanna and her boys could use some privacy, no doubt, but the place was too small for them. Ryan himself sometimes longed to break away from the whole living-with-the-family thing, God knew. But he also knew he’d miss the busy bustle of the main house.

  If he could spin it to his dad as income property—get some tenants in the place, maybe even put it out there as a vacation rental—then the family would have a hard time arguing that there was no point to having the work done.

  Vacation on the coast, at a working cattle ranch. That had some potential.

  He pulled out his cell phone, scrolled through his contacts, and called Will Bachman, a friend who worked as caretaker at a big estate up the highway. He’d know some construction guys, some plumbing guys. Hell, better get some interior decorator guys—or girls, he guessed—on the job too, while he was at it.

  The crew Will had recommended to him had been on the job for two days before Orin noticed. That wasn’t anything unusual; the guest cottage wasn’t visible from the main house, and the crews had taken an access road to get to the site. Eventually, though, the noise and dust became obvious.

  “What in the hell you got going on over there?” Orin asked Ryan one day as the two of them were just coming in from the workday, Ryan dirty and sweaty, Orin considerably less so, since he’d cut back on his ranch duties.

  Breanna’s boys—Lucas, age five, and Michael, age seven—mobbed Ryan as he came in the door, as was their habit. Ryan lifted Michael high into the air and set the boy on his shoulders, and he picked up Lucas and held him under one arm like a log of firewood. The boys giggled with glee.

  “Just fixing the place up,” Ryan said, continuing the conversation as though he didn’t have a hundred pounds of squirming boy all over his body.

  “What the hell for?” Orin demanded. The l
ook on his face suggested that he was troubled by some irritating condition like poison oak or heat rash.

  “You seen it lately? Place is practically falling apart. It’s about time it got some maintenance,” Ryan said. He carried the boys over to the big leather sofa that stood in front of the stone fireplace. He dumped Lucas onto the sofa with a whump, then lifted Michael off his shoulders and deposited him beside his brother. Then he proceeded to tickle both of the boys until they were in helpless hysterics.

  Orin scratched at one ear. “Well, what are you havin’ ‘em do out there?”

  Ryan shrugged. “Fix the plumbing. Do a little roofing. Maybe some paint.” He left out a few details—like the new electrical system—that he thought would send his father into more discomfort than either one of them could handle.

  “Aw, hell,” Orin said.

  Ryan went through the usual coming-home routine with the boys, in which he tickled them until they screamed and begged him to stop, and then he stopped, and then they begged him to do it all over again.

  When the screams of “Uncle Ryyyaaannnn!” got to be too much, he patted them on the butt and sent them off to find their mom or their grandma.

  “I wish you’d told me you were going to do all that before you started,” Orin said, sounding irritable but not angry, as was his way. Orin never got truly angry, but he had a way of scrunching up his face and looking as though he’d just discovered his hat was full of bees.

  “If I’d told you, you’d have said no,” Ryan said as he plucked Michael’s jacket off the floor and hung it on a peg near the front door. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “Well, you’re not wrong,” Orin admitted. “I guess I don’t see the point, is all, since nobody ever uses the place. I don’t see why that old guest house would be a priority.”

  Ryan continued moving around the living room, straightening things up. He put away some Legos the boys had left out on the coffee table, scooping some off the floor and into their plastic bucket.