Jolene looked down at the check, then back up at her sister. “It’s so much.”

“Enough so that you never have to work again.”

Jolene shook her head. “I love teaching. I didn’t get into it for the money, that’s for sure,” she added with a smile.

Dulcie reached across the table and took her hand. “I’d hoped you’d say that. You’re a great teacher.”

Laci appeared then with a huge tray. “I made you samplers of all my favorites.”

They dug in, complimenting each dish and thanking Laci for her thoughtfulness.

After she was gone, Jolene asked her sister, “What about you? What will you do now?”

Dulcie shook her head, a faraway look in her eyes. “Russell has invited me to stay out at the ranch for a while.”

“How are things with the two of you?”

“I’ve never met anyone like him.”

“I’m sure he’s never met anyone like you,” Jolene said with a laugh. “I’m glad you’re staying for a while. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

Dulcie’s gaze locked with hers. “You were always in my heart and no matter what the future holds I’m never going to be more than a phone call away.”

It had clouded up again by the time Dulcie drove back toward the ranch. As she passed the Whitehorse Cemetery, she slowed when she saw the rainmaker’s truck parked beside the road.

She could make out his dark silhouette standing on the hill by Laura Beaumont’s grave. She saw him put the small bouquet of flowers by the headstone and turn to leave. Stopping the car, she rolled down her window as she waited for him.

Finnegan Amherst saw her but there was no longer any malice in his expression, just grief. “Maybe now she can rest in peace. Maybe we all can.”

“I’m sorry I misjudged you,” she said as he started past her car.

He stopped and looked back at her. “You do look like your mother. She was a beautiful woman. But she wasn’t strong. Not like you. She would have been proud of you and your sister...and sorry.” He nodded, tears shining in his dark eyes.

With a tip of his floppy black hat, he walked to his pickup and climbed in as large drops of rain began to fall.

Dulcie sat, thinking about her mother. Had the rainmaker been the love of her life? Or had it been Dulcie’s and Angel’s father? Or would Laura Beaumont have spent her life looking for that one man who would love her the way she so desperately needed to be loved?

The way Russell loved her, Dulcie thought.

The rainmaker’s pickup engine started, rumbling roughly, and he drove away, the metal pipes in the back of his truck clinking softly to the sound of the rain.