CHAPTER THREE

      BODIE’S HOMECOMING WAS met with a sense of urgent misery by her grandfather’s sudden bout of indigestion. He took a dose of baking soda, an old-time recipe he’d learned from his grandmother, but it didn’t seem to be working.

      Bodie was worried enough to get him to their family doctor, who diagnosed something that stood her hair on end.

      “I think it’s his heart,” Dr. Banes said gently. “His blood pressure is abnormally high and he has a murmur. I’m having my nurse do an electrocardiogram. I need to send him to a specialist. We have a good one up in Billings, Montana, and he can do an echo, a sound picture, of your grandfather’s heart to see if there are clogged arteries.”

      Bodie’s expression was eloquent. “He gets a pension from the ranch he used to work for,” she said, remembering the Kirk brothers’ kindness in that act. “He’s just now eligible for social security, but it won’t start until January. He’s trying to get disability, too, but it’s a long process. We just don’t have any money, and there’s no insurance.”

      He patted her on the arm. “We can make arrangements about that,” he assured her. “I know you’re getting through school on scholarships and grants and student loans,” he said. “And you work at a part-time job near the college to pay for your expenses. I admire your work ethic.”

      “I learned it from Granddaddy.” She sighed. “He was always a stickler for earning things instead of being given them.”

      “He’s a fine man. We’ll do what we can for him. I promise.”

      She smiled. “Thanks.”

      “You can come in with him when we get the results of the trace we’re doing. Won’t be long.”

      “Thanks.”

      * * *

      ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, she went into the doctor’s office with her grandfather. The doctor was very somber.

      “I’ve had my receptionist make you an appointment with a heart specialist in Billings,” he told the old man. “Now, don’t start fretting,” he warned. “We can do a lot of things to help a failing heart. You’ll have options and you’ll be able to decide…”

      “What did you find?” the old man asked shortly. “And don’t soft-soap me.”

      The doctor grimaced. He leaned back in his chair. “I think it’s heart failure.”

      “Oh, no,” Bodie ground out.

      “I figured there was something pretty bad wrong,” the old man agreed, looking no more upset than he’d been all along. “I’ve had some pain in my chest and left arm, and a lot of breathlessness. That sort of thing. Will I die right away?”

      “No one can tell you that. I can tell you that it’s actually a fairly common condition at your age, and not necessarily a death sentence. There are medical options. Drugs. Surgical intervention if it will help.”

      “No surgery,” the old man said doggedly. “Nobody’s cutting on me.”

      “Granddaddy,” Bodie began.

      “Won’t change my mind,” Rafe Mays told her flatly. “I’ve had a long life, a good life. No sense trying to prop up a body that won’t work right anymore.”

      “You’ll have great-grandchildren one day,” Bodie said firmly. “I want them to know you!”

      He looked at her. “Great-grandkids?”

      “Yes!” she said. She glared at him. “So you’ll do what the doctors say, or else.”

      The old man chuckled. “Just like your grandmother,” he said. “My wife was like that. Ordered me around, told me what to do. I’ve missed that,” he added.

      “I’ll order you around more,” Bodie promised. “You have to try. Please. For me.”

      He grimaced. “Okay. But I’m not getting cut on. Period.”

      Bodie looked at the doctor with an anguished expression.

      “We can do a lot with drugs,” he replied. “Wait and get the results of the tests. Then we can all sit down and make decisions. Don’t anticipate tomorrow. Okay? I mean both of you.”

      They both nodded.

      “Go home and get some rest,” the doctor said, standing up. “You know, most bad news is acceptable when the newness of it wears off. It takes a day or two, but what seems unbearable at first will be easier to manage once you have time to get used to the idea. I can’t get that to come out the way I want it to,” he said irritably.

      “I understand, anyway,” Bodie assured him. “Thanks.”

      “Thanks a lot,” the older man said, and shook hands with the doctor. “I appreciate you giving it to me straight. That’s why I come to you,” he added, and chuckled. “Can’t abide being lied to and treated like a three-year-old.”

      “I understand,” the doctor agreed.

      Bodie followed her grandfather out the door. She felt the weight of the world on her shoulders.

      * * *

      IT WAS MUCH WORSE when they got home. Her stepfather was in the living room, waiting for them. It was unsettling to notice that he’d used a key to get in. It was her mother’s property. The man had no right to come barging in without an invitation, even if he did own the place!

      Bodie said so, at once.

      Will Jones just stared at them with a haughty expression. The way he looked at Bodie, in her well-fitting but faded jeans and sweatshirt, was chilling. She glared at him.

      “Got no right to barge into my home!” the old man snapped.

      Jones shifted his position, in Granddaddy’s chair, and didn’t speak.

      “Why are you here?” Bodie asked.

      “The rent,” her stepfather said. “I’ve just raised it by two hundred. I can’t manage on that pitiful little life insurance policy your mother took out. I wouldn’t even have had that, if I hadn’t been insistent before she got the cancer,” he said curtly.

      “There’s a really easy answer,” Bodie shot back. “Get a job.”

      “I work,” the man replied, and with an odd smile. “I get paid, too. But I need more.”

      More to buy his porno, he meant, because Bodie’s mother had remarked how expensive it was, considering the amount he bought. It turned Bodie’s stomach. She wanted to order him out of the house, remind him that it had been in her family for three generations, like the land. But she was unsure of her ground. Her grandfather couldn’t be upset, not now, when he was facing the ordeal of his life. She bit her tongue, trying not to snap.

      “I’ll take care of it,” she told her stepfather. “But the bank’s closed by now. It will have to wait until tomorrow.”

      “Oh, you can write me a check,” he said.

      She drew in a long breath. “I don’t have enough in my checking account. I’ll have to draw it out of my savings account. I don’t