Finding Home Read Free Page B

roots all the way to her scalp. Growing up, she would have given her right hand to be Lakota or Cheyenne or Arikara. She could have even tolerated being Ponca, though that was Dickenson’s maternal heritage. “Yes.”
    â€œWhen’s the big day?”
    She concentrated on refraining from throttling the steering wheel. “We haven’t set a date yet.” Bradley had insisted that when they got married they would have a real wedding. Her secretarial job had barely managed to pay his tuition, and now, after nine months at the Lazy, her savings were all but depleted.
    â€œHe must have heard about your temper, huh?”
    She scowled at him and he laughed.
    â€œWhy haven’t you set a date?”
    â€œThere’s been a lot to take care of.”
    â€œLike what?” he asked. Colt Dickenson had never considered being nosy a character flaw.
    â€œDad let things slide a little after Mom died,” she said and wondered if one could be struck dead for exaggeration. She vividly remembered the day she had discovered he had not opened a single letter since his wife’s death two years before. Relatives had been ignored, neighbors had been snubbed, and bills had gone unpaid. The chaos that ensued was only matched by the guilt she felt for never having realized the situation earlier. And that guilt was only equaled by how bad she felt about her recent neglect of her fiancé.
    But Dickenson only glanced out the side window, seemingly unaware of her glaring shortcomings. “That must have just about killed him right there.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYour mom’s death.” He shook his head and turned back toward her. “To tell the truth, I’m surprised he lived as long as he did once Kathy was gone.”
    She glanced at him. Off in the distance, the Gradys’ craggy shelterbelt could be seen as a black, jagged line against the late spring snow.
    â€œHe thought she walked on water.”
    Casey opened her mouth to refute his statement. There had been dozens of times she’d been sure their marriage wouldn’t last another hour. She’d been even surer it was lunacy to subject oneself to that brand of misery, but that was before she’d witnessed her father’s broken life. Before she’d realized the “important papers” he warned her not to touch were nothing more than grocery lists and worthless doodles penned by her mother’s artistic hand. “She was . . .” She swallowed, punting. “She was always so—”
    â€œFull of life.”
    â€œYeah.” The word didn’t come out quite right. She’d planned it to sound cool and cosmopolitan, but her tone had a rough edge to it. “Yeah, she was that.”
    â€œStuff happens, right?” he said and shifted his arm a little, settling it cautiously against his ribs.
    â€œYeah, but . . .” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “. . . It was . . . you know . . . a long time ago now.”
    â€œSure,” he said and drew a deep breath. He sounded tired. “So I hear your boyfriend’s a doctor.”
    â€œFiancé,” she corrected.
    â€œRight. So what happens now?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œAce student like you, I always thought you’d be the one with the MD after your name. Or maybe a DVM.”
    Doctor of veterinary medicine. That had once been her dream, but Bradley thought she could do better. Large animal vets were notoriously overworked and underpaid. “Once Bradley gets his feet on the ground, he’ll put me through school.”
    Dickenson stared at her in silence for a moment before nodding and canting up his lips. “So then it’ll be Dr. and Dr . . .” He paused, lifted a brow in question.
    She scowled at him a second before catching his meaning. “Oh . . . Hooper,” she supplied.
    â€œSo you’re giving up your ranch and your name?”
    â€œI’m not giving