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smile as wide as she remembered it; a feeling of great warmth exuded from him as he touched his hat and then enfolded her into a great big bear hug. It was Bill King, the man who had been the foreman on the Lord Ranch since Caroline had bought it some thirty years before. He was a man in his early sixties, a man of slight education, but with vast knowledge, great wisdom, and even greater warmth. She had been drawn to him the first time she’d seen him, and she and Barbara had looked up to him like a wise uncle, and he had championed their every cause. He had come with Caroline to Barbara’s funeral and had stood discreetly behind the family with a floodtide of tears coursing down his face. But there were no tears now, there were only smiles for Samantha as the huge hand on her shoulder squeezed her still harder and he gave a small shout of glee.
    “Damn, I’m happy to see you, Sam! How long has it been? Five, six years?”
    “More like eight or nine.” She grinned up at him, equally happy to see him and suddenly delighted that she had come. Maybe Charlie hadn’t been so wrong after all. The tall, weathered man looked down at her with a look that told her she had come home.
    “Ready?” He crooked an arm and with a nod and a smile she took it, and they went in search of her baggage, which was already spinning lazily on the turntable whenthey got downstairs. “This it?” He looked at her questioningly, holding the large black leather suitcase with the red and green Gucci stripe. He held the heavy case easily in one hand, her tote slung over his shoulder.
    “That’s it, Bill.”
    He frowned at her briefly. “Then you can’t be meaning to stay long. I remember the last time you came out here with your husband. You must have had seven bags between the two of you.”
    She chuckled at the memory. John had brought enough clothes with him for a month at Saint-Moritz. “Most of that was my husband’s. We had just been to Palm Springs.”
    He nodded, saying nothing, and then led the way to the garage. He was a man of few words but rich emotions. She had seen that often during her early visits to the ranch. Five minutes later they had reached the large red pickup, stowed her suitcase in the back, and were driving slowly out of the parking lot of the Los Angeles International Airport, and Sam suddenly felt as though she were about to be set free. After the confinement of her life in New York, her job, her marriage, and now the confusion of bodies pressing around her on the plane and then in the airport terminal after the trip, finally she was about to go out to open places, to be alone, to think, to see mountains and trees and cattle, and to rediscover a life she had almost forgotten. As she thought of it, a long, slow smile lit up her face.
    “You look good, Sam.” He cast an eye at her as they leftthe airport, and he shifted into fourth gear as they reached the freeway beyond.
    But she only smiled and shook her head at him. “Not as good as all that. It’s been a long time.” Her voice softened on the words, remembering the last time she had seen him and Caroline Lord. It had been a strange trip, an awkward mingling of past and present. The ranch hadn’t been much fun for John. And as they drove along the highway, Sam’s mind filled with memories of the last trip. It seemed a thousand years later when she felt the old foreman’s hand on her arm, and when she looked around, she realized that the countryside around them had altered radically. There was no evidence of the plastic ugliness of the L.A. suburbs, in fact there were no houses in sight at all, only acres and acres of rolling farmland, the far reaches of large ranches, and uninhabited government preserves. It was beautiful country all around her, and Sam rolled down the window and sniffed the air. “God, it even smells different, doesn’t it?”
    “Sure does.” He smiled the familiar warm smile and drove on for a while without speaking. “Caroline sure