Lainie’s stomach lurched in the brutal silence.

“Twenty years have passed and it’s still so damn hard.”

Lainie actually felt her mother’s anguish over the phone lines. “I’m in a place where I can listen with an open mind. And a closed mouth,” she added.

Her mother let loose a half laugh, half sob. “I forget how funny you are. I miss that. You’re so like your father sometimes it makes me crazy. So determined to make your own way. So helpful to others at the expense of your own happiness.” She sniffed. “Do you know you even have his cowlick?”

Lainie closed her eyes. “You mentioned that a time or two when I was a kid.”

“I loved Jason. He was . . . everything in the world to me. He was my world. Without going into too much detail, we fought hard, we loved hard. We were happy. Even when he wasn’t around as much as I wanted, especially after you were born, we made the most of our time together.

“When Jason died . . . I wanted to die right along with him. Everybody mourned him. He became more famous in death than he’d been in life. Which pissed me off. I’d lost my everything, you’d lost a father, and all anyone could talk about was the lasting legacy he’d left on the bull riding community. Your grandma Elsa, God rest her soul, loved talking to the press about her only son. She was no stranger to tragedy, but I was. I’d never lost anyone important in my life. And I was so damn young. All I wanted was to hole up and mourn. In my own way. Not in public.

“But Elsa saw my grief as a weakness. She’d lived through heartbreak several times and figured I was being a drama queen by letting sadness consume me. She took over your care and I let her. I remember about a year after Jason died I finally woke up from my fog of misery.”

“I don’t remember any of that.”

“I know you don’t. I’m actually glad. Anyway, I’d met with Marcus a couple of times about a wrongful-death lawsuit. But mostly I was interested in setting up a foundation in Jason’s name, where any use of his likeness and his image would be under my control.” An edge entered her voice. “Elsa accused me of profiting from Jason’s death. But she didn’t understand that if I didn’t have legal protection in place, other people would profit. It wasn’t about the money. It was about retaining some goddamn dignity. I didn’t want to see the man I’d loved become a commodity. I wanted to ensure that his face wouldn’t end up on a commemorative f**king spoon or something.”

Lainie’s heart squeezed painfully at the raw anguish in her mother’s voice and the rare burst of profanity. How had she not known any of this? Had she really assumed her father’s death had no impact on her mother at all? How could she have been so clueless? So selfish? So self-involved?

Because you were a kid, and kids are notoriously selfish. But you’ve never given yourself a chance to have a decent adult relationship with her.

“Is that when we moved out of Oklahoma?”

Silence.

“Mom?”

“Yes. I needed a fresh start. Away from rodeo, away from the memories. By that time I’d fallen in love with Marcus. We both knew I’d never overcome the stigma of being Jason Capshaw’s widow if we lived in Oklahoma. And I didn’t want you to grow up a curiosity.”

Sharlene had succeeded there. No one in California had heard of bull rider Jason Capshaw or his tragic end. Since she’d been involved with rodeo, and with the questions she constantly fielded about her father, she had a better appreciation for her mother’s choice.

“You were unhappy. We’d left Elsa on bad terms because she’d threatened to sue for custody of you.”

“She did?”

“I hated that it’d come down to that. She cooled down—it took her over a year—and I agreed to let you spend summers with her. As long as she kept you away from the world of rodeo.”

“And I ended up there anyway,” Lainie murmured.

“When Dusty told me he’d hired you, but only part-time, I knew he’d taken advantage of your curiosity, your grief over your grandmother’s death, and your restlessness. I worried you’d schedule your life around those twenty hours a week in some attempt to relate to your father’s life on the road.”

“Maybe. Probably. I was flattered that he thought I was qualified. I feel like such a fool that Dusty had counted on that reaction from me.”

“He’s shrewd. He saw how much you were like Jason. I hoped after Elsa died you’d come home and we could talk about some of this stuff. When you went to work for Lariat immediately, I’ll admit I went off the deep end. I called Dusty and he was so f**king smug. . . . I called him every name in the book and hated how he was using you. I thought that if I encouraged you to go back to school . . . but you mistook my encouragement as an indictment of your abilities. I never intended that.” Her mother made an exasperated sigh. “Lainie, sugar bear, I seem to go about this all wrong with you all the time. I’d like to figure out a way to make it right for both of us.”

Lainie said, “Me too,” and for the first time, she meant it.

“As much as I’d like to see you, I won’t guilt you into coming to California. I know this won’t happen overnight, but can we stay in touch? Take it a step at a time?”

“I’d like that.”

“Are you going to talk to Hank now that you’re unemployed and unencumbered?”