Stealing Time by Nancy Pennick Read Free Book Online Page B

do it? I’ll wait and
go whenever you say. I know I won’t be able to return until July
with Kathryn. I could help with Tyson, too.” Anna seemed eager for
an answer.
    “I can agree to one day as long as you wait
until Kate is there.” Drew raised his eyebrows at Kate. “Well?”
    “Agreed.” She took Anna’s other hand.
    Anna pulled them close and put her arms
around both of them. “You’re the two best friends a girl could ever
have. Now I have something special to show you. Drew, go find my
son and tell him it’s time—he’ll know what you mean—and Kathryn and
I will be right behind you.”
    After Drew left, Anna turned to Kate. “It’s a
surprise for Drew. Help me up so we can join them.”
    Instead, Kate stayed put. “First, I have to
ask you something. You don’t have to answer and can tell me it’s
none of my business, but what happened to Sue’s husband? The first
time I came for a visit, I thought she was married. It was my first
visit, and we were here for such a short time. But I remember a man
being here. No one ever mentions him.” There was a long pause. Kate
felt bad she broached the subject. “That’s alright. You don’t have
to answer.”
    “No, there are no secrets between us. I’m
just thinking the best way to tell the story.”
    “There’s a story?” Kate settled back, ready
to hear more of the family history.
    “Sue was never married. The man you remember
from that visit was just a friend.”
    “Brandon? Megan?”
    “Same father. His nickname was ‘The Wild
Thing’.”
    “Intriguing. Go on!”
    “Well, Craig, his real name, was something of
a ladies’ man, if you know what I mean. I think he dated every girl
in his high school class. Sue was always smitten with him. After
she graduated from college they dated on and off for a number of
years, but he was a wanderer. Never liked to stay in one place too
long. Guess he felt the same way about women. Her father and my
Daniel were always inviting rancher’s sons over to distract her,
but it never worked. Then when she was twenty-eight she got
pregnant. We thought we’d be throwing a huge rancher’s wedding, but
instead Craig disappeared. He resurfaced about five years later,
all apologetic, hat in hand. Sue took him back. He was around for
two or three years until Megan was born. And we haven’t seen him
since.”
    “Is he still alive?”
    “We think so. The girls mention him once in
awhile. They know it’s a sore subject with most of us here at the
ranch.”
    “The girls?”
    “Retta and Lucy.”
    Kate had to smile as she heard her third
cousins being called girls. They were far from girls, probably in
their eighties by now. They were her great-great Aunt Lucinda’s
daughters. “What do they have to do with this?”
    “Oh, sorry, I left that part out. Remember
Trevor?”
    “I believe Lucy or Retta told me their Uncle
Gilbert Hasting adopted Trevor when he was a young boy. He ran the
ranch for Lucinda after Gil passed. His family still lives at the
Circle H with them.”
    “Craig is one of Trevor’s grandsons.”
    “What?” Kate was surprised to learn another
Hasting had a life intertwined with the Jenkins side of her family.
She referred to the Hasting clan as the other side even though they
were all connected through her mother. Amy Hasting, Lucinda’s third
daughter, married Anna’s son, Dan Jenkins. That’s when the
connection began, and they all became cousins. Kate saw the two
families as an intricate design, woven carefully through time,
crossing paths intermittently.
    “Lucinda called it a scandal and said the
families shouldn’t be procreating.”
    “Tell me she didn’t say that!”
    “I think she said things she didn’t mean,
Kathryn. She viewed it as another Hasting/Jenkins connection she’d
have to be a part of—something she always longed for herself. First
me and Daniel. Then my son and her daughter.”
    “Daniel loved you, Anna. He never led her on.
Always remember that. That was