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“Thanks, Rafe.” Jolie touched his arm. “There’s a lot of resentment against the Maxwell name. Maybe someone just wants to scare me into leaving. But if he does come back, I’m ready.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Rafe muttered. “You’d be much better off at the ranch or with Thea and me, but I can’t make that decision for you. Keep safe.”
BY THE TIMEshe got home from the clinic on Friday, the motion-detector floodlights were installed.
By midnight on Friday, Jolie knew that from now on, Dolly and Sadie would need to be locked in the barn at night, because the motion sensors workedperfectlywhenever the llama or ewe wandered by.
At eight o’clock the next morning, Mandy was knocking on her door.
“I want to stay here with you,” she said simply. “I’m not going back, so don’t try to make me.”
“What’s wrong? Did Matt say something to you?”
Mandy shook her head. “He was really nice. But I feel like I belong here.” She brought in her duffel bag and tossed it in the bedroom she’d used before. “Something seems to be bothering him and I just don’t want to be in the way.”
Jolie frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“This morning he barely spoke to anyone, just grabbed a piece of toast and said that he had to go to work. When I told him I was moving back here, he said he understood. Then he took Annie and Charlie to his sister-in-law’s place in town.”
“He doesn’t usually work on a Saturday.”
“He said he had some problems to deal with. Somebody called him this morning, and he was even grumpier after that.”
Jolie thought about her own sleepless night and wondered if he’d had the same problem she had. But dwelling on a relationship that was over served no useful purpose.
If he doesn’t want me, it’s his loss,she’d decided by four in the morning.I don’t need anyone—especially him—making me feel like I don’t measure up.
And with that came a healthy dose of anger.I deserve better.
“We missed your exam this week, Mandy. I need to go to the clinic for a while this morning—want to get it over with?”
Mandy made a face. “The only good parts are that I get to hear the baby’s heartbeat, and that each time means I’m closer to being done.”
“You never know about these little guys. Sometimes they decide to come a few weeks early, so we need to go shopping for you.”
“Really? Like the crib and everything?”
“And everything. This afternoon we could take a drive to Bozeman, if you’d like.”
“Wow!” Mandy’s face glowed with excitement. “It suddenly seems real, like this is really going to happen.”
Jolie eyed Mandy’s baby bump with amusement. “Believe me, no one could doubt it.”
Something stirred in her memory as they headed out to the SUV. “You mentioned that Matt got a phone call this morning, and he wasn’t happy. Do you know who it was from?”
“Someone named...” Mandy frowned. “Frank? Fred?”
They were both buckled in and Jolie had just turned on the engine, when Mandy added, “No, it was some building inspector guy named Phil. They argued a long time, and Matt kept saying something was unfair—even illegal.”
Matt was the last person on the planet Jolie would ever suspect of taking shortcuts or doing substandard work. So why was he having problems?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“WELL, WHAT DO YOU THINK,Mandy? Are you set for when your baby comes?” Jolie turned off Coyote Creek Road on Thursday afternoon and headed back to the clinic. They’d gone to the cabin for lunch, and Jolie had had to tear Mandy away from the room they’d been setting up for the baby.
Mandy’s eyes sparkled as she patted her baby bump. “I can’t believe it—a beautiful crib, the changing table, and the clothes—everything! It’s all amazing!”
Maybe she had gone just a little overboard for the girl, Jolie thought, but it had been such fun shopping for baby things, for the first—and probably only—time in her life. Seeing Mandy’s joy had made every cent worthwhile.
