A Woman's Touch

the side of the Cork women.“
    „That happens to be the wrong side!“
    „That’s a matter of opinion.“
    Kyle almost leaped after her to demand that she have dinner with him. After that he could coax her out to the house. He was sure of it. All he needed was a little time.
    But a shrewd jolt of common sense held him back. He would take her back into town and give her a night by herself in that flea trap of a motel. By tomorrow morning she would welcome the sight of him. When he invited her out for breakfast, she would probably trip over her own feet accepting.
    A smart man knew when to bide his time.

SIX
    Rebecca got up at dawn the next morning. She had stayed awake much of the night pouring over Alice Cork’s fascinating, insightful journal. Sleeping in should have sounded like a good idea but Rebecca was feeling too restless.
    She wanted to go back out to the Cork place. She needed to get more of a feel for Alice and her mother.
    It was still dark when Rebecca pulled out of the motel parking lot, but the first rays of light were creeping over the mountain peaks when she reached the old Cork house. She parked her car in the driveway, picked up the journal she had brought with her and went inside.
    Wooden floorboards creaked and something small with a tail scuttled furiously out of the way as Rebecca opened the door. The house seemed to groan with the accumulated weight of years of hard work and aloneness. Alice Cork had been strangely content here in her later years, Rebecca had learned. But the early years were a different matter.
    The loss of her parents and then the trauma of falling hopelessly in love with Glen Ballard’s father had taken their toll on Alice. Losing the baby had been another heavy blow. She had sensed somehow that she would never have another child. Kyle was right. Alice Cork had a way of knowing things.
    Rebecca walked through the house as she had yesterday afternoon, pausing to examine a faded photo, a handmade quilt, an old harness that needed repair.
    Finally she sat down at the scarred oak table and opened the journal.
    Old Hank at the store told me today that Martha Stockbridge has left Cale. No one is surprised. It was only a matter of time. Poor little Martha was no match far that black-haired devil she married. I knew the first time I saw her that she would never be able to cope with the Stockbridge temper. She was too timid and too young to handle Cale. He must have terrified her often during the three years they’ve been married. Everyone says the Stockbridge luck doesn’t do much good with women. But I know it isn’t a matter of luck. The Stockbridge men, like the Ballard men, are incapable of loving anyone or anything except their land.
    Rebecca glanced up from her reading, thinking about the young, timid woman who had been Kyle’s mother. Then she went back to the next paragraph in the journal.
    The boy is only two. He won’t remember his mother. That’s a pity because it means there will be no gentleness in his life. No softness. Nothing to counter Cole’s influence. But no one can blame Martha for leaving.
    What woman could stand against the Stockbridge temper and ruthlessness? Another generation of hard, arrogant Stockbridges has been hatched. I saw little Kyle with his father in town the other day. He looks exactly like Cale, right down to those terrifying green eyes. I see no trace of Martha in him. The Stockbridge men are a dynasty of dragons, and they breed true.
    A dynasty of dragons. Rebecca almost smiled, remembering how Kyle’s staff often termed him a dragon. It must be the green eyes and all that nonsense about breathing fire, she decided. But Alice had been wrong on one count.
    Neither dragons nor anyone else bred photocopies of themselves.
    She didn’t know what Cale had been like, certainly not a lovable man from all accounts. But Kyle wasn’t an exact duplicate of his parent. She knew him well enough to know that. After all, she had fallen in love with him. By definition, that made him lovable.
    Of course, that might also make her a woman of questionable intelligence, she reminded herself.
    The sound of hoofbeats caught her attention. Startled, Rebecca closed the journal and went to the door. She opened it to find a vision from the past. It made her wonder if Harmony Valley existed in some sort of time warp.
    Kyle was approaching astride a high black stallion. The big horse moved at an easy canter, and Kyle rode as if the animal were a part of