Matchmaking with a Mission. B.J. Daniels
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looked up, a forkful of pancakes on the way to her mouth. “No, I’m just hungry.”
“Right,” McKenna said. “Like the way you’ve suddenly started holding your fork with your left hand?”
Eve looked down at the fork, then at the engagement ring on her left hand and smiled. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?”
McKenna nodded, smiling at her older sister across the table, the same table they’d shared since they were kids.
“I am doing the right thing, aren’t I, marrying Carter?” Eve asked with a groan as she pushed her plate away.
“You love Carter and he loves you,” McKenna said. “Be happy. And eat.”
“You’d tell me if you thought I was making a mistake?”
McKenna nodded, smiling. Carter Jackson had broken her sister’s heart back in high school when he’d married someone else. That marriage had been a disaster, ending in divorce. McKenna had no doubt that Carter loved her sister as much as Eve loved him. For months the poor man had been trying to win Eve back; finally at Christmas he’d asked her to marry him. The Fourth of July wedding was just weeks away now.
Eve pulled her plate back in front of her and picked up her fork. “I really am hungry.”
McKenna laughed and went back to studying the real-estate section of the Milk River Examiner. But none of the houses interested her. There was only one place she wanted, and even though she’d heard the owner had died recently, she didn’t see it listed. Maybe it was too soon.
“I’m serious,” Eve said between bites. “Just live in this house. With Mom and Loren living in Florida, it’s just going to be sitting empty.”
McKenna looked around the familiar kitchen. So many memories. “Dad doesn’t want the house?”
Eve shook her head. “He’s moved in with Susie, and they’re running her Hi-Line Café. He seems…happy.”
“Do you know if anyone has bought the old Harper place?” McKenna asked.
“You can’t be serious.” Eve was staring at her, her mouth open. “Harper House?”
“Did you leave me any pancakes?” their younger sister, Faith, asked as she padded into the room in a pair of pajama bottoms and a T-shirt and plopped down at her chair. “What about Harper House?”
Eve shoved the platter of pancakes toward Faith without a word and gave McKenna a warning look.
“Is anyone going to answer me?” Faith asked as she picked up a pancake in her fingers, rolled it up and took a bite. She looked from Eve to McKenna and back. “Are you guys fighting?”
“No,” Eve said quickly. “I was just telling McKenna that she could have this house,” she said with a warning shake of her head at McKenna. There was a rule: no fighting, especially when Faith was around.
The youngest of the three girls, Faith had taken their parents’ divorce hard and their mother’s marriage to Loren Jackson even harder. Because of that, both Eve and McKenna had tried to shelter their younger sister. Which meant not upsetting her this morning with any problems between the two of them.
“It would be nice if someone lived here and took care of the place,” Eve said.
“Not me,” Faith said and helped herself to another pancake.
“It’s our family ranch,” Eve said.
“That’s why I want a place of my own close to here,” McKenna said.
Faith shot her a surprised look. “Are you really staying around here?” Since high school graduation she and Faith had come home only for holidays and summer vacation from college.
“I think I’m ready to settle down, and this area is home,” McKenna said.
Faith groaned. “Well, I’m not coming back here to live,” she said, getting up to pad over to the kitchen counter to pour herself a cup of coffee.
“I don’t want to see this house fall into neglect, either,” McKenna told Eve. “But I want my own place. This house is…”
“Mom’s and Dad’s,” Faith said as she came back to the table with her coffee, tears in her eyes. “And now, with Mom and Dad divorced and her married to Loren and living in Florida, it just feels too weird being here.”
McKenna knew that Eve had come over this morning from her house down the road to cook breakfast in an attempt to make things more normal for her and Faith. Especially Faith.
“Where are you and Carter going to live after you’re married?” McKenna asked Eve.
“My house.” Eve had moved into what used to be their grandmother’s house when Grandma Nina Mae Cross had gone into the rest home. “We’re going to run cattle on the ranch, as always. It’s what put us all through college. It’s our heritage.”
Faith shot McKenna a look that she knew only too well. Here goes Eve, off on one of her legacy speeches.
The ranch had always been intended for the three of them. Since Eve had returned she’d been running the place and sending both McKenna and Faith a share of the profits.
“So what happens to this house?” Faith asked, clearly trying to cut Eve off before she got started.
“I guess if the two of you don’t want it, the house will just sit empty,” Eve said, giving McKenna one of her meaningful big-sister looks.
“That’s awful,” Faith said. “Someone should live here.”
McKenna watched her little sister run a hand along the worn tabletop and smiled. She didn’t know what it was about this part of Montana, but it always seemed to bring them back. She’d watched friends leave for college, swearing they were glad to be leaving, only to return here to raise their children.
It was a simpler way of life. A community with strong values and people who knew and looked after their neighbors.
She, too, had left, convinced there was nothing here for her, but here she was. And, like Eve, McKenna figured the day would come when Faith would return and want the house, since she seemed to be the most attached to it.
“If you want your own house, you could build on the ranch,” Eve suggested. “There’s a nice spot to the east….” Her voice trailed off as if she realized she was wasting her breath. McKenna had already made up her mind.
“Did I hear you mention Harper House?” Faith asked as if finally coming full awake. “My friend who works for the county said it’s going to be auctioned off.”
“When?” McKenna asked.
“This Saturday, I think.”
McKenna couldn’t help her rush of excitement. This was obviously meant to be.
Faith laughed. “You always liked that place. I remember when you used to sneak over there even though Dad told us not to.” She grinned. “I used to follow you.”
“You used to ride over there?” Eve asked with a shake of her head. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”
“We never believed that story about old wells on the place,” Faith said. “I think Dad didn’t want us around the people who lived there. They weren’t friendly at all. But they sure had a lot of kids.”
Eve shot a look at her youngest sister that McKenna recognized. It was Eve’s can-you-really-be-that-naive? look.
“Harper House was a place for troubled boys,” Eve said. “That’s why Dad didn’t want you riding over there. I can’t believe you did it anyway,” she said to McKenna. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?”
“Why didn’t Dad just tell us that?”