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She nodded and said sincerely, “Yes, of course. It’s wonderful having you here, Kent. Rhine will get you settled in and I’ll see you at dinner—which is a party to celebrate our fifteenth anniversary.”
He paused. “I don’t own any fancy clothes.”
“None needed.”
He looked to Rhine for verification before asking, “Are you sure?”
“I am.”
“Okay. Thanks, Eddy.”
She left them and Kent said to Rhine, “Need to get my horse settled in first.”
“Okay, stables are out back. Come on, I’ll show you.”
So Kent followed Rhine outside. On the way back to where he’d left his mount tied, they chatted about old times and old friends. “Is Jim Dade here, too?” Kent asked.
Rhine shook his head. “No. Jim’s in upstate New York now. Opened a restaurant there. Eddy and I visited him last summer. He and his place are doing well.”
James Dade had been in charge of the kitchen at Rhine’s place in Virginia City and Rhine had looked upon him as an older brother, too. He’d hoped to find Jim still with Rhine and now the prospect of maybe never seeing him again was saddening.
When they reached his mount, Rhine assessed the big stallion. “You don’t see many blue roans much anymore.”
Kent untied the reins and gave the strong neck an affectionate pat. “No. Have had him for a while now. Descended from Indian stock. Found him in a herd up in Montana. Broke him myself. Seems content to let me ride him, but I get the feeling that one day I’m going to wake up and find he’s lit out for Montana again.” The horse eyed him with the superior stare Kent had grown accustomed to as if acknowledging the accuracy of his assessment.
“Does he have a name?”
Kent smiled, “Blue, of course.”
Rhine chuckled and they headed to the stable.
After getting Blue settled into the fenced-in paddock and stowing the saddle in the tack room, Rhine told Kent, “Our head groom is an old cowboy named Cal Grissom. He’s off visiting his sister but will be back in a few days. You’ll like him.”
Kent saw Blue eyeing a beautiful Appaloosa mare. “That’s a good-looking paint.”
“Her name’s Arizona. She belongs to Portia.”
Kent watched Blue walking around the mare.
Rhine said, “I think Blue might be interested.”
“I think you might be right.”
Leaving the horses to get further acquainted, the two old friends resumed their walk to a breezeway that led to an adobe building with a red tiled roof that was set off by itself at the back of the sprawling property.
“Did you recognize Portia all grown-up?” Rhine asked as they entered.
“Took me a second or two, but I did.” He didn’t remember seeing a ring on Portia’s finger. “Beaus coming out of her ears, I imagine.”
Rhine chuckled, “Yes, but they may as well be fence posts for all the attention she gives them. She keeps saying she isn’t interested in getting married. Her sister is just the opposite, though. Left to her own devices, Regan would have men dueling in the streets for her affections.”
Kent found the information about Portia interesting. As a young girl she’d been stiff-backed and distant, and he’d given her the name Duchess just to tease her. But why didn’t she want to marry? Did she think herself too good for the average male, or was she one of those so called modern women who thought men were as useful as a one-legged stool? Regan on the other hand had been quite the pistol at age ten—open and gregarious. In fact, both girls had been handfuls at first: sassing the teacher, fighting at school, being suspended at school. No one knew how the other children learned their mother was a whore but the girls were berated and teased mercilessly—thus the fighting. And when some of the more sanctimonious parents decided they didn’t want the girls around their children, Eddy had taken them out of school and hired a tutor to teach them at home.
And now, they were all grown-up. Although he had yet to see Regan, he assumed she was as much an ebony beauty as her sister and aunt. Kent followed Rhine past a nicely furnished sitting room. “This is the family’s quarters. The kitchen and dining room are through that alcove. Eddy does the cooking. She says the staff have enough to do without waiting on us, too.”
Rhine led him into a hallway and stopped in front of a closed door. “We’ll put you in here. The girls’ rooms are through that door down there, and Eddy and I are in the suite behind that one.” The doors he referenced were at opposite ends of the hallway. “These three rooms in between are reserved for family guests, and since you are family...”
Rhine turned the knob and led him into a space that was large and airy. The bed looked big enough for his six-foot-three-inch frame to sleep in comfortably. There were thin drapes fluttering in the soft breeze from the open windows and a set of French doors that opened to the outside.
