Page 6

“What piece do you mean? I publish lots of pieces.”

His attitude didn’t fool her. “The one about living conditions among migrant orchard workers. Now, I ask you, who owns the largest apple orchard in three counties? The first paragraph is filled with innuendo, but then you get right down to brass tacks, don’t you—by naming my father!”

“Stephanie—”

“I’m not finished yet!” she shouted. In fact, she was just warming up to her subject. “You didn’t think any of us would notice, did you?”

“Notice what?” He crossed his arms over his chest as though he’d grown bored with her tirade.

“The date of the article,” she said, gaining momentum. “It’s the same day as my father’s heart attack. The very same day—”

“Stephanie—”

“Don’t call me that!” Tears rolled down her face. “Everyone calls me Steffie.” Roughly, she wiped them away, hating this display of weakness, especially in front of Charles. “I—don’t know how you can live with yourself.”

“If you want the truth, I don’t have much of a problem.”

“I didn’t think your sort would,” she muttered contemptuously. “Well, you’ll be hearing from Joan Lind.”

“Joan Lind retired last year.”

“Then I’ll hire someone else,” she said, turning on her heel. She marched through the office, slamming the low gate, which had only recently recovered from her entrance.

To her surprise, confronting Charles hadn’t eased her pain.

When she pulled out of the parking space, the tires spun and squealed. She felt suddenly embarrassed. She hadn’t meant to make such a dramatic exit. Nor was she pleased when she glanced in her rearview mirror to find that Charles had followed her outside.

CHAPTER TWO

With the hurt propelling her, Steffie raced home. In her present frame of mind, she didn’t dare go back to the hospital. Now wasn’t the time to make polite conversation with her sisters, or to meet her father’s doctor. Not when she desperately needed to vent this terrible sense of frustration and betrayal.

Charles’s treachery cut deep. They’d had their differences, but Steffie had never once believed he would purposely set out to hurt her or her family. She’d been wrong. Charles was both vindictive and unforgiving, and that was more painful than the things he’d said to her that last day they’d been together. That horrible day when he’d laughed at her.

She was shocked he still had the power to make her feel like this, but apparently his grip on her heart was as strong now as it had been three years earlier. The time she’d spent away from home, the time she’d given herself to heal, might never have existed. She was no less vulnerable to him now.

From the moment Steffie first met Charles, she’d been fascinated with him. Infatuated. In the beginning, she hoped he returned her feelings. She’d been attending the University of Portland, making the fifty-mile commute into the city every day. Her mother had died a few months earlier, so Steffie had decided against moving into a dorm, as she’d originally planned.

In her sorrow, she’d craved the comfort of familiar people and places. She was worried, too, about her father, who seemed to be walking around in a fog of grief.

Valerie was already living in Texas at that point, and although she’d come home often while their mother was ill, her work schedule had kept her from visiting much since.

Norah, who was in the university’s nursing program, used to drive to Portland with her. But Steffie would have made the hour’s drive twice a day by herself if she’d had to, simply so she could see Charles more often.

It mortified her now, looking back. Her excuses to see him had been embarrassingly transparent. She’d been so wide-eyed with adoration that she’d repeatedly made a fool of herself.

Her cheeks flamed as she recalled the times she’d followed him around like a lost puppy. The way she’d studied every word, every line, he’d written. The way she’d worshiped him from afar, until her love had burned fiercely within her, impossible to contain or control….

She didn’t want to remember, and as she so often had in the past, she blocked the memories from her mind rather than relive the humiliation she’d suffered because of him.

Her anger had cooled by the time she’d finished the ten-mile drive out of Orchard Valley to the family home. Once she arrived, the thought of going inside held no appeal. She needed to do something physically demanding to work off her frustration.

The stables were located behind the house. Valerie and Norah had never really taken to riding, but Steffie, who was the family daredevil, had loved it. The sense of freedom and power had been addictive to a young girl struggling to discover her own identity. Some of the happiest memories of her childhood were the times she’d gone horseback riding with her father.

She knew from Norah’s letters that he hadn’t ridden much lately and had left exercising the horses to the hired help.

The stable held six stalls, four of them empty, and a tack room at the rear. Both Fury and Princess raised their sleek heads when she entered the barn. Princess was the gentle mare her father had purchased and named for her several years earlier; Fury was her father’s gelding, large and black, notoriously temperamental. He pawed the ground vigorously as she approached.

“How’re you doing, big boy?” she asked, rubbing his soft muzzle. “I’m not ignoring you, Princess,” she told the mare across the aisle. “It’s just that I’m in the mood for a really hard workout.”