Heart Of A Cowboy: Creed's Honor / Unforgiven

“Sorry,” she told the dog, getting into step.

When they got back to the house, the downstairs lights were off, except for the one on the porch, and, Valentino at her side, Tricia climbed the front steps instead of taking the outside stairway, as she would normally have done. She wasn’t sure the door was properly locked; Natty had been overtired and she’d most likely forgotten, and Tricia and Carolyn had left the house by the back way.

Sure enough, the knob turned easily.

Suppressing a sigh, Tricia stepped over the threshold, as did Valentino. She took off his leash, wound it into a loose coil and stuffed it back into her jacket pocket. Valentino looked up at her questioningly and she smiled, turning to engage the lock on the front door.

She flipped a nearby switch and the chandelier came on, spilling crystalline light into the entryway. Tricia proceeded toward the kitchen, intending to secure the back door, which she’d left unlocked on her way out, but Valentino took a detour as they passed the stairs and trotted up to the apartment, perhaps looking for Sasha, though he might just as well have been hoping for Winston’s return. He’d become attached to that cat.

Natty was sitting at the round table when Tricia reached the kitchen, sipping herbal tea from one of her prized china cups. She wore a cozy blue chenille bathrobe, the front zipped to her chin, and her lovely silver hair, held back at the sides by graceful little combs, trimmed in mother-of-pearl, fell nearly to her waist, still curly and thick even after nine decades of life.

Seeing Tricia, the old woman smiled sweetly, and her cup made a delicate clinking sound as she set it in the matching saucer.

“I think Carolyn needs a friend,” Natty said, with a gentle smile.

I know I could use one, Tricia thought wearily. Diana was and would always be her closest confidante, but they lived in separate states as it was, and soon they’d be on separate continents.

“I agree,” Tricia replied, after securing the lock on the back door. She glanced toward the ceiling, and Natty read the gesture with an astuteness that was typical of her.

“Sasha is just fine,” she said. “She got through to her parents, via the computer, and she was so excited that she came downstairs to tell me all about it.”

“And that’s why you’re still awake?” Tricia asked, with an effort at a smile. She’d put in a long day at the community center, and she couldn’t wait to soak in a hot bath and tumble into bed for eight hours of semicomatose slumber.

“Heavens, no,” Natty replied. “I watched some television in my room—you know, to unwind a little—and I do like a cup of raspberry tea before I turn in.”

“You’d tell me,” Tricia said, “if you didn’t feel well?”

“I’d tell you,” Natty said, eyes twinkling. “You worry too much, young lady.”

Still wearing her jacket, Tricia went to stand beside her great-grandmother’s chair, and laid a gentle hand on one of the woman’s fragile shoulders. “Of course I worry,” she responded. “I love you.”

Natty reached to pat Tricia’s hand lightly. “And I love you, dear,” she said. Then she gave a small, philosophical kind of sigh. Her cornflower-blue eyes caught Tricia’s gaze and held it. “If anything did happen to me, you’d make sure Winston was looked after, wouldn’t you?”

Tricia crouched next to the old woman’s chair, her vision blurred by hot, sudden tears. Despite Natty’s advanced age, and her recent health issues, the thought of her passing away was almost inconceivable. “No matter what,” Tricia said, her throat thick with the same tears that were stinging in her eyes, “Winston will be fine. I promise you that.”

Natty rested one cool, papery palm against Tricia’s cheek. “I believe you,” she said tenderly. “But can you promise me that you will be fine as well? I’d feel so much better if you were married—”

Tricia gave a small, strangled giggle as she stood up straight again. She felt torn between going upstairs to Sasha—it was past the girl’s bedtime—and keeping Natty company in the dearly familiar kitchen. “I can take care of myself,” she reminded her beloved great-grandmother softly. “Isn’t that better than being married just for the sake of—well—being married?”

Natty chuckled fondly. Shook her head once. “I know you think I’m old-fashioned,” she said, “and you’re at least partially right. But it’s a natural thing, Tricia, for a man and a woman to love and depend on each other. Certain members of your mother’s generation—and yours, too—seem to see men as—what’s the word I want?—dispensable. I think that’s sad.” As tired as Natty looked, the twinkle was back in her eyes. “There’s nothing worse than a bad man, I’ll grant you that,” she summed up, waggling an index finger at Tricia, “but there is also nothing better than a good one.”

Tricia laughed. “Duly noted,” she said. “Shall I help you back to bed?”

“I can get myself back to bed,” Natty informed her. “Besides, I haven’t finished my tea. I may even have a second cup.”

Tricia was moving away by then, though her pace was reluctant, shrugging out of her coat as she started for the hallway and the staircase beyond, “If you need anything—”

“I’ll be fine,” Natty said, making a shooing motion with one hand. “You just think about what I said, Tricia McCall. Fact is, I’m not sure you’d know a good man if he was standing right in front of you.”

Tricia stopped, turned around in the doorway to the hall, narrowing her eyes a little. Like Diana, Natty wasn’t keen on Hunter. Unlike Diana, she’d never met him.

“If that was a reference to—”

“It was a reference,” Natty interrupted succinctly, “to Conner Creed.”

“I barely know the man,” Tricia pointed out, lingering when she knew it would be better—and wiser—to go upstairs.

“Well,” Natty said, rising from her chair and picking up her saucer and empty cup, apparently having decided against a second helping of tea, “perhaps you ought to make an effort, dear. To get to know him, I mean. He comes from very sturdy stock, you know. Granted, Conner’s dad was something of a renegade, and it looks as though Brody takes after Blue, but Conner’s more like Davis, and a finer man never drew breath. Unless it was my Henry, of course.”

The corner of Tricia’s mouth twitched. “Of course,” she said.

Her great-grandfather, Henry McCall, had been dead for decades, but thanks to Natty, his legend as a man and as a husband lived on. Their only child, Walter, Tricia’s grandfather, had died in a car accident, along with his wife, when Joe was still in high school.

Tricia’s dad had gone away to college the following year, then served a stint in the Army. Having met and married Tricia’s mother soon after his discharge, he’d gone to Seattle and tried hard to make a life there, while a still-spry Natty ran the drive-in and the campground for him. After the divorce, Joe had returned to his hometown and, at his grandmother’s urging, converted the second story of the old house into an apartment. He’d lived there until his own death, from a heart ailment, only two years before.