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Becca’s voice was less bold than it had been and her cheeks appeared pinker. “After all the hubbub had died down about the horse, did you ever take a call from Brig . . . a call for me that you never told me about?”

Ian’s lips pursed into a frown. “He told you about that, did he?” Ian asked, pulling himself up to his full fifty-four inches. “I figured he would, should have expected it.” Ian rubbed the silver stubble on his chin. “Yeah, Missy, he called, more than once if I remember correctly.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Ian leaned against the door and had trouble meeting Becca’s searching gaze. “We thought about it,” he admitted.

“We?”

“Yeah, Martha, Dean, and I. We considered it, talked a lot about it. More than you might guess. But Dean, well, he insisted that we shouldn’t bother you about the fact that Brig kept calling—said that after all you’d been through, you didn’t need to talk to him and start the trouble all over again.” Ian shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

“Someone should have asked me.”

Ian nodded his agreement. “That’s what Martha and I thought, but Dean disagreed. He was absolutely certain that anything Brig might say to you would only . . . well, open old wounds.”

Becca lifted her chin. “I was old enough to care for myself.”

The old man flushed with embarrassment. “I know, Missy. I know that now, but at the time we were all a little shaken up. Martha and I, we never felt comfortable about it.”

“Is that why Martha quit so suddenly?”

Ian’s faded eyes darkened. “I don’t rightly know.” He considered her question. “Maybe it helped her with her decision to move in with her daughter. Leastwise, it didn’t hurt.”

“Did Dean speak with Brig?” Cold suspicion prompted her question.

Ian thought for a moment and then shrugged his bowed shoulders. “I can’t say for certain—it’s been a long time. No, wait. He must have, ’cause right after he told me he’d taken care of Brig, we didn’t get any more calls.”

“How many calls were there?” Becca’s heart was thudding expectantly. Brig hadn’t lied.

“Can’t recall. Four—maybe five. Dean was afraid you might take one yourself.”

“So he told me not to answer the phone, in order that he could ‘protect’ me from nosy reporters,” she finished for him.

“Is that what he told you?”

Becca nodded, her thoughts swimming. Why would Dean lie to her? “So Dean was the one who made the final decision.”

“Yeah. Martha and I, we agreed with him.”

“Why?”

“He was only looking after you . . .” His statement was nearly an apology.

“I know,” Becca sighed, trying to set the old man’s mind at ease. “It’s all right.”

Ian gave her an affectionate smile before leaving the tack room and shutting the door behind him. Becca bit at her lower lip and stared sightlessly into the trophy case. Why would Dean hide the fact that Brig had called?

Swallowing back the betrayal that was rising in her throat, she tried to give her brother the benefit of the doubt. Surely he had only wanted to protect her, in his own misguided manner. But that had been six years ago. With the passage of time, Becca would have expected him to tell her about the calls. Why not tell her after the shock of the race had worn off? Was he afraid she would relapse into her depression? For a fraction of a second Becca wondered if there were other things that Dean had hidden from her. Was he responsible for the money missing from petty cash? And what about the roofing contractor he had suggested, the bum who had run off with her down payment for a new roof on the stables.

“Stop it,” she chided herself. She was becoming paranoid. Though she didn’t understand her brother at times, she couldn’t forget that he had been the one who had helped her put her life back together when it had been shattered into a thousand pieces six years ago at Sequoia Park.

Still troubled about the fact that Dean had purposely lied to her, Becca left the tack room and tossed aside the fears that were beginning to take hold of her. She made her way upstairs to the office and tried to concentrate on the books. Though she had been gone for little over three days, she knew that the bookkeeping would be far behind, as it was near the end of the month. It was time to start organizing the journal entries for month-end posting. She opened the checkbook and realized that several checks were missing. What was happening? No entries had been made for the missing checks. A new fear began to take hold of her. Was someone at the farm stealing from her? But the checks were worthless without a proper signature: Rebecca’s or Dean’s.

“Dear God, no,” she whispered as the weight of her discovery hit her with the force of a tidal wave. She sat down at the desk, her legs suddenly too weak to support her.

The sound of a pickup roaring down the drive met her ears. She recognized it as belonging to Dean. She waited. It wasn’t long before his boots clamored up the stairs and he burst into the room, smelling like a brewery and slightly unsteady on his feet. His boyish grin was slightly lopsided.

Becca thought he looked nervous, but mentally told herself that she was just imagining his anxiety.