Big Sky Country by Linda Lael Miller

Author:Linda Lael Miller
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HQN
Published: 2012-06-09T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THINGS WERE RELATIVELY quiet around Shepherd Real Estate for the rest of the morning, and by the time Joslyn’s lunch hour rolled around, she had already explained to several callers that Kendra had been called away on personal business and wasn’t sure when she’d be back in Parable. She’d assured each one politely, evading all attempts to extract the exact reason for the sudden disappearance, that Kendra remained in contact with her office and any messages would be passed on.

Not particularly hungry, Joslyn was already looking forward to going back to work after the break. She’d missed having a job, she realized, missed the routine of keeping regular hours and, especially, the challenge of learning new things.

Heaven knew, she had plenty to learn about running a real-estate firm.

Lucy-Maude was waiting patiently when she entered the guest cottage through the kitchen door after crossing the lawn from the main house.

“Guess what?” Joslyn told the cat, washing her hands at the sink in anticipation of whipping up a sandwich for lunch, unappealing as food sounded at the moment. Skipping meals tended to play havoc with her blood sugar levels, and then she got edgy and had a hard time concentrating. “We’re moving.”

Like lunch, the idea of spending even a short time back in the mansion did nothing for Joslyn, but she could understand why Kendra wanted the place to be occupied during her absence. So many things could go wrong when a house stood empty—burst pipes, electrical fires and numerous other disasters that had to be dealt with quickly. And naturally, vandalism and burglaries were less likely to occur if someone was around.

Still, for Joslyn, the place was her emotional Ground Zero; it was there that all their lives—her mother’s, Elliott’s, her own and even Opal’s—had imploded. From that centerpoint, the calamity had spread, scorched-earth fashion, throughout the community of Parable and far into the surrounding area.

There had been so much sound and fury, not to mention years of fallout, that the aftershocks still rocked Joslyn—and certainly Elliott’s surviving victims—on the deepest level.

Troubled, Joslyn refilled Lucy-Maude’s kibble bowl, then made herself a turkey-bologna and lettuce sandwich on white bread, but two bites were all she could force down, despite her best intentions. Her throat squeezed shut and refused to let any more food pass, and her stomach threatened to rebel.

Once again, she asked herself what she hoped to accomplish by returning to Parable, anyway. Financial remuneration for Elliott’s theft had already been made, wherever possible—what else could she do?

Besides lusting after a certain cowboy-sheriff who probably equated her with those dim-witted heiresses who were always turning up on tabloid TV. Best not to think about Slade Barlow and how he’d almost kissed her in the living room of that charming old ranch house he was renting, and how much she wished he had…

Whoa, she thought, with a guilty grimace, rein it in, girl.

Bottom line? She was stuck here, at least until Kendra got back from the U.K., and who knew how long that would take? In the meantime, there was a business to run, a promise to be kept.

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