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divisions and its people, she could no longer ignore the doubts that niggled at her.
    “Miss Tavonesi?”
    Isobel Vargas stood framed in the doorway of the study, holding an envelope. Isobel and her husband, Rafael, had been with Nana from the beginning. They’d been part of making Nana’s dream come alive. Rafael managed the gardens, and Isobel served as housekeeper and personal assistant. Alana was pretty sure Isobel had also been one of Nana’s closest friends.
    “Perhaps this is not a good time?” Isobel said in her quiet, steady voice.
    “It’s always a good time to speak with you, Isobel.” Alana smiled and waved her into the room. The bluish circles under the older woman’s eyes told Alana that the stress of Nana’s passing had been hard on her as well.
    “Señora Tavonesi wanted you to have this.” Isobel held out her hand.
    Alana reached for the envelope. She tore it open and unwrapped layers of tissue paper. Inside was a small, smooth stone, wider at the bottom and tapering to a narrow top. She fingered the gray-green stone, then held it out to Isobel.
    “A charmstone,” Isobel said as she took the stone and turned it in her hands. “Some of these are more than a thousand years old. They’re used for blessings when entering a new land.”
    Isobel placed the stone in Alana’s palm and closed Alana’s fingers around it.
    “She loved you.” Isobel’s voice was a tender whisper. Tears pooled in the older woman’s eyes, and she wiped at her face with the back of her hand.
    “And you.” Alana swallowed down the lump forming in her throat and slipped the stone into the pocket of her jeans. “I know you miss her.”
    Isobel nodded.
    “I couldn’t have managed these past weeks without you,” Alana added, fighting back her own tears. If it hadn’t been for Isobel, Alana wouldn’t have lasted two days on the ranch, much less the past two weeks. The woman knew more about the details of running a household and managing the affairs of the ranch than Alana had known existed.
    A spark of protest fired in Isobel’s eyes.
    “Señora Tavonesi was a wise woman, Miss Tavonesi. Do not doubt her decisions.”
    “It’s not her decisions I doubt, Isobel.”
    Alana checked herself before saying more. Now was not the time to tell Isobel or anyone else that she didn’t intend to keep the ranch, but there was no way she wanted to be tied down by the responsibilities of a farming operation.
    Even if she wanted to keep it, even if she might consider giving up her sophisticated life, she knew next to nothing about managing a business. It’d be crazy.
    Isobel laid her hand on Alana’s arm. “Forgive me. My heart ran away with my tongue. It often does.”
    Isobel’s sincerity cut into Alana. Standing there in Nana’s study, surrounded by her grandmother’s life, by the world Nana had created and the people whose lives it served, she felt like a fraud. Alana had never done anything permanent, had never created anything that stood, anything that had lasted.
    She patted Isobel’s hand. “Please don’t apologize. I appreciate your help and your advice. And I need it straight up, no sugar-coating.” The smile she tried for wobbled.
    Mercifully, Isobel turned and lifted the stack of signed paychecks from the desk.
    “I’ll distribute these, Miss Tavonesi. Is there anything else?”
    “Yes. Please call me Alana.”
    She’d known Isobel from the first days she could remember visiting her grandmother; the formality felt awkward and unnecessary. Nana was from a generation and a culture where names and titles mattered. So was Isobel. But using titles around the house made Alana uncomfortable.
    “The staff already had lunch. Would you like for me to make you something, Miss Alana?”
    “Just Alana, Isobel. And no, thank you. I’m headed down to the barn. I saw an old easel I’d like to bring up to the house.”
    The last thing she needed right then was to sit around a table with the staff. She didn’t have