Page 20 of The Lost Book of First Loves
“You’re welcome. I’m glad you’re here.”
She slipped out the carved wooden door to the cabin before June could reply.
It was raining softly enough that she almost would have preferred to walk back to the ranch house. The air smelled delicious, of wet pine needles and the flowering wild roses that grew along the creek.
Oh, how she missed Wyoming and The Painted Sky when she wasn’t here.
Choosing Salt Lake City to attend the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah had been a wise decision, though. She wouldn’t have been able to survive somewhere back east.
Whenever she had been particularly homesick, she could take a short drive into Little or Big Cottonwood Canyons or drive farther into the Wasatch Back to be surrounded by wild nature.
Sometimes taking a late-afternoon hike on a mountain trail was the only thing that saved her sanity after spending hours in the classroom talking about tort law and jurisprudence.
Still, it wasn’t home. She had missed the ranch, her grandmother and most of all her father.
She missed him far more than she had missed the ranch. Since her mother’s death, Carson had been her only parent. Yes, her grandmother had willingly stepped in to help, but her father had been the one Ali had gone to first whenever she had a skinned knee, an academic disappointment or a broken heart.
He had been her confidant, her cheerleader, her best friend.
She thought she would have forever to enjoy his steady support, his quiet calm. But fate was vicious and unrelentingand had taken him far too soon, robbing her of her beloved father and the world of his awe-inspiring talent.
She sighed as she slipped into the passenger seat of Beckett Hunter’s pickup truck.
“That sounds like you’re carrying the weight of the world, Al.”
“Not quite. Just missing my dad.”
He gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Same here. The world doesn’t feel quite right without him in it.”
Beckett understood. He and her father had become close friends over the past five years, since Beck had moved to Wyoming. Carson had respected and liked the younger man and had offered friendship and compassion to a man who had come here broken and grieving.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, bringing Juniper Connelly home with you?” he asked as he turned around and headed back toward the house.
All of her misgivings rushed back. “No. I’m not sure of anything. But what else was I supposed to do? I didn’t feel right about leaving her in Seattle by herself, and I had no good reason to stay there after losing my internship.”
“I don’t expect she will appreciate that you brought her here under false circumstances.”
“Not false. I told her I had the space for her to stay and that I thought she would find it peaceful. None of that is a lie.”
“It’s not the whole truth, though. What if she’s angry with you for not telling her all of it?”
“That’s a risk I have to take. She’s not in any position right now to handle the shock of finding a long-lost sister and a father she didn’t know existed.”
She didn’t like thinking about her father having a love life at all before he met Ali’s mother, Sarah.
DNA didn’t lie, though.
“So what is your plan now that you’re home?” Beck asked as he drove toward the main house. “Are you ready for the bar exam in September? Have you been studying?”
Ali gazed out the windshield as the wipers beat away the afternoon storm. Something else she didn’t want to think about.
“Working on it. I still have a few months. I want to take the chance to enjoy the summer and to help Grandma with the ranch and the bookstore.”
“The ranch itself is a pretty well-oiled machine. Pat and Jo have always done a good job of keeping things running around here.”
“I know. I don’t plan to get in anybody’s way.”
“It’s your ranch now. It’s good for you to know the inner workings. You won’t be in the way. But you can’t lose sight of taking the bar, either. Why do all that work and not cross the finish line?”
