Ms. Miller wrapped her arms around herself again, still holding Becky’s empty bottle in one hand. “Never found? In a pond? A pond can’t be that big.”
“This pond is. You’ll see tomorrow. It’s a couple of miles across at its broadest point. And over thirty feet deep in some places.”
“But wouldn’t they have dredged…for the bodies?”
“Ms. Miller. I told you. I was four years old. I don’t remember the details that clearly.”
“And I’d imagine you don’t really want to remember.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just that most of us want to put painful events behind us. We try not to dwell on them. We get on with our lives.”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
Her gaze shifted briefly away—but she didn’t answer his question, just continued on with her own line of reasoning. “I’m only saying that it’s a little…farfetched, that’s all. The bodies should have turned up eventually. Maybe something else happened.”
He gave her a cold smile. “Are you suggesting foul play?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. Just telling you what I think.”
“You do that a lot. Say just what you think.”
Her chin went up. “You don’t like it?”
“Ms. Miller.” He let out a long breath. “I like it just fine.”
That took the wind out of her sails. “Well,” she said. “All right.”
Becky chose that moment to squirm and let out a low groan. A moment later, when the odor hit him, he realized what had just happened.
“Ugh,” he said.
Ms. Miller chuckled. Why was it she always got such pleasure out of seeing him at a loss?
“The time has come at last,” she announced.
He stood from the rocker and held out the baby. “You can do it.”
She pointed at the changing bureau. “No, you can do it. I’ll be here, though. For backup. If you really need it.”
Since the damn woman wouldn’t take her, he was forced to carry Becky over to the bureau and lay her down.
“You show no mercy, Ms. Miller.”
“Stop complaining. I’ll help if you really need it.”
And she did. That is, she supervised, though she made him do everything himself. It was not the most fun he’d ever had. But he got through it.
He carried Becky back to the rocker when it was done, and put her against his shoulder again. She cuddled up and sighed.
Ms. Miller said softly, “She’ll be asleep in five minutes.”
He rocked a little, holding his daughter close, enjoying the silence. It seemed a reasonably comfortable silence now. And Ms. Miller appeared to have forgotten all about how much she wanted to get away from him.
“Your father…” Ms. Miller began, after two or three minutes of quiet.
“My father what?”
“He sounds like a very troubled man.”
“Troubled.” Cord thought about that word, then let out a low, humorless laugh. “If he knew someone had called him that, he’d be insulted.”
“Why?”
“Men like my father are not ‘troubled.’ Men like my father are tough. You don’t go against my father unless you’re ready to fight till you plain can’t fight anymore. He’s tough in a business negotiation. And he’s tough on his family, as I think I’ve mentioned more than once—or at least, he was tough. Now, with the cancer, he’s…not the same. And the past keeps coming back to haunt him. He babbles about it, crazy stuff that doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“He talks about the boating accident?”
“Yeah. Among other things.” He slanted her a measuring look, wondering how much she could take. How comfortable with him she really was, right then.
The dim room, the warmth of the small body against his chest, the companionable silence they had recently shared…they all conspired to make him say more than he would ordinarily have revealed.
“They say I’m like him.”
“Like your father?”
“That’s right.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“People who know us both.”
“How are you like him?”
“Well, first in the obvious way. Rafe and I look just like him…or at least, the way he used to look.”
“And?”
“And I’m a damn good businessman myself. And then there are…”
She was leaning against the changing table. She stood a little straighter, curiosity gleaming in those eyes of hers. “There are what?”
“All the women.”
She pulled back—just marginally. “The women.”
“That’s right. He cheated on my mother. Repeatedly. With a number of different women. I’ve heard that from more than one source—including my father himself. And after my mother died, there was an endless string of girlfriends. None of them lasted very long. He didn’t have it in him to be true to any one woman. He used to make the papers, too, in his day. I remember the pictures of him, at this or that gala event—always with a different woman on his arm. Sound familiar?”
Had he wanted to get under her skin? Scare her off? Or maybe just remind her of exactly the kind of man he was?
He wasn’t sure.
But her reaction surprised him. She asked softly, with a tender sort of irony, “What are you tryin’ to say here, that womanizing is a genetic disorder?”
He stared at her mouth, thinking how much he wanted to kiss it. She’d been living in his house for less than forty-eight hours. And already he was wondering how he ever could have imagined he didn’t want her in his bed.
“I think I’m saying that a man learns what he lives.”
“And can’t a man learn from the mistakes his father has made?”
“That would be the ideal, I suppose. But this is the real world.”
“You are a cynic.”
“A realist.”
“A man can change, Cor—” she caught herself “—Mr. Stockwell.”
“We’ve just done a loaded diaper together. I think it’s time we got on a first-name basis with each other.”
She had her arms wrapped around herself again. “Maybe that’s not such a good idea.”
He gazed back at her steadily. “Nothing’s going to happen between us, Hannah.”
She gave him that wary-bird look of hers, from the side. “You’re right about that.”
“I…enjoy talking to you. In spite of how strongly you disapprove of me, I think you’re learning to like me a little, too.”
“You certainly aren’t lackin’ when it comes to self-confidence.”
“Be straight. Do you…like me a little?”
She took several seconds to answer. “All right. Yes. But that is as far as it’s going to go.”
“I think we already agreed on that point.” He glanced toward the baby on his shoulder. “She’s asleep…”
“Yes.” Her voice had gone whisper-soft again. “Out like a light.”
Carefully he rose from the rocker. He carried his daughter to her crib and gently laid her down.
“Hannah?”
She had tiptoed as far as the doorway to the playroom. She stopped, looked back at him, waiting.
“If your parents aren’t in Oologah, where are they?”
Her eyes had shadows in them again. “My parents are in heaven.”
“They’re dead.”
She looked down at those pretty, pale feet, then right back up at him again. “Since I was nine. After that, until I was old enough to take care of myself, I lived in foster homes.”
“And now you work for Child Protective Services because you want to help kids in need—as you once were.”
“Pretty classic, huh?”
“Understandable. Your job requires at least a four-year degree, doesn’t it?”
“That’s right. And I’ve got one. From OSU. It wasn’t easy. I had to work my way through, and I’ve only paid off the last of my student
loans a few months ago.”
“Good for you.”
She started to turn again.
He couldn’t quite let her go. “Just tell me…”
“What?”
“Your parents. How did they die?”
Her eyes sparked. With anger. Or maybe hurt. “What is this? You want us to be even? Your mother and uncle—for my mom and dad?”
“No. I’d like to know, that’s all.”
She looked at him for a long time. And then she said,
“My dad died in an explosion at the station. A careless customer and a lighted cigarette. He was standing right by the pump. My mother went six months later. They said it was pneumonia. But I knew it was a broken heart. There never were two people so in love as my mama and daddy.”
“You miss them.”
“Always. They were—”
Right then, a phone began to ring in the sitting room across the hall.
“It’s in your rooms,” Hannah said.
He felt bone-weary all of a sudden. “Probably my father.” At this time of night, who else would it be? Except Jerralyn, possibly, calling to tell him what a bastard he was.
“You’d better answer it,” Hannah said.
He nodded and left her, dreading what he’d have to deal with when he picked up the phone—and already looking forward to the morning.
He’d stop in at the nursery again good and early, before he went downstairs. Early enough to feed Becky her bottle. He’d probably end up having to deal with another smelly diaper. But he could handle it. He’d done it once and lived to tell about it.
And Hannah would be there, to help, if he needed her.
Chapter Seven
It was one of Caine’s nurses calling.
Cord said he’d be right there.
He spent an hour in the oppressive splendor of his father’s rooms, as Caine alternately dozed and ranted. It was more of the same, the facts of the past all mixed up with an old man’s guilt and sick confusion. He railed about the baby, the one he said had been born almost thirty years ago, about his twin brother and his long-dead wife, about how Madelyn had betrayed him—or maybe hadn’t betrayed him. How she’d run off with Brandon. Much of what he said was gibberish, impossible to follow.
He got going eventually on some long-ago land deal. Something that apparently had happened at the turn of the last century, during the time when the first Caine Stockwell, Cord’s great-grandfather, had been in charge.
Caine pulled on Cord’s arm and confided in a whining, raspy whisper, “Over sixty years had gone by. What was done was done. Why the hell couldn’t Brandon just leave it alone?” Something struck him as funny. He laughed, an ugly rheumy laugh. “Besides, Miles Johnson must have been a damn fool, easy to fleece as a lost baby lamb.”
Miles Johnson. Cord knew the name. He’d been Madelyn’s grandfather, and the first Caine’s contemporary.
“All right,” Caine muttered, closing his eyes, beginning to toss his head on the pillow. “He was a hard man, my grandfather Caine. He took what he wanted. He took the land. Miles Johnson should have watched his back…Miles Johnson was born to lose what he had.” The red-rimmed eyes were open again—and focused on Cord. Cord thought he saw madness in their depths. “You tell me. How many brats did he father? Seven? Eight? And how many are left now of that line? Hell. Weak blood.” Caine coughed, several times, lifting his head off the pillow, then finally dropping back with a weary, rattling sigh.
He waved one skeletal hand. “Deserved what they got, those Johnsons, hell if they didn’t. You hold what’s yours or you lose it, it’s a simple fact of life.” Caine muttered a few low words Cord couldn’t make out, then grabbed Cord’s arm again and demanded, “Didn’t we employ ’em, those Johnsons? We gave ’em work. Madelyn’s mother, Emily, didn’t she run the house for us? And then later, it was Madelyn herself. Little housekeeper. Sneakin’ off to meet with Brandon…always Brandon. I made her my wife. But she never stopped loving him. The witch. The sweet-faced, wide-eyed witch…”
The bony fingers dug into Cord’s flesh. “Brandon thought we should make restitution. Restitution. Hah. Hah, hah, hah…” He coughed, and the cough took over, the spasms racking his wasted frame.
“Easy,” Cord said. “Easy now. Breathe.”
The coughing fit passed. Caine flopped back to the pillows. “God. Hate this.”
Cord asked, carefully, “So you’re saying that Great-Grandfather Caine cheated Miles Johnson out of—”
“What?” Caine shot to a sitting position again.
“Cheated? I don’t like the sound of that word. No one was cheated. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, son.”
“Dad. You said—”
“Tired now.” Caine fell back again. “Hurting. Help me. The pain…” The old man’s eyes drooped shut. He groaned, rolled his head back and forth. “I need my medicine. I need it now.”
Cord rang for the nurses. They came within seconds. This time, Caine was calm enough to receive his dosage orally. Cord helped him, holding his head, placing the pills on his tongue, tipping the glass to his slack, pale lips.
“Stay with me. Need you…” Caine whispered as Cord gently lowered his head to the pillow once more. “My boy. Just like me. You’ll carry on. My blood. Stockwell blood. You’ll see that we always keep what’s ours.”
Hannah came to Becky’s room at seven the next morning to find Cord standing over the crib.
Cord…but somehow not Cord.
The clothes were all wrong, for starters. Western-cut slacks, and a tan sport coat, cowboy boots and a pearl-gray hat—a Stetson from the look of it.
He’d taken the hat off and held it in his left hand, against his lean thigh.
He stared down at Becky, a slightly bewildered expression on his face. Becky, awake and quite contented at that moment, gurgled and cooed and waved her little hands at him.
Hannah hesitated at the threshold and Cord glanced up.
One look in those eyes, which were exactly the right shade of blue—just not Cord’s eyes—and she knew.
“You must be Rafe.”
That mouth that wasn’t quite Cord’s mouth curved in a hint of a smile. “And you’re the new nanny.”
“For a few days, anyway.” She padded toward him across the starry rug, her hand outstretched. His grip was iron-firm, like Cord’s. And also, like Cord’s, strangely gentle. The only thing missing was the irritating shiver of awareness Cord’s touch always inspired in her. “I’m Hannah Miller.”
He frowned. “Hannah? Wait a minute. Aren’t you—?”
“—That annoying social worker I told you about.”
It was Cord, standing in the doorway to the hall. Hannah’s heart stuttered in her chest.
Rafe turned toward his twin. “’Mornin’.”
Cord replied with a nod. “Little brother.”
Rafe sent a put-upon glance Hannah’s way. “He’s eight minutes older. You’d think it was years.”
Cord, resplendent in linen slacks and a dress shirt of lustrous, cream-colored silk, entered the baby’s room. “You just get home?”
“A few minutes ago. I was going to go check on the old man first. But then I remembered that the baby was supposed to be moved in by now, so I came straight up here, to see if I could get a look.”
Cord moved closer to Hannah—too close, actually. “I think the new uncle wants to hold his niece.”
Oh, what was the matter with her? Just the touch of that blue gaze seemed to send little flares of excitement shooting along the surface of her skin. It was bothersome in the extreme. He moved even closer. Now she could smell that wonderful aftershave he wore.
He glanced down at her bare feet. “No cramping of your personal style this morning, I see.”
That irked her a little. “I told you, if it bothers you—”
“Did I say I was bothered?”
“Bothered about what?” Rafe asked.
Hannah felt her face flame. For a second
there, with Cord so close, she’d almost forgotten his brother was in the room.
“Nothing.” Cord’s shrug was easy, completely unconcerned. “Just a little joke between Hannah and me.”
Rafe looked from Cord to Hannah and then back to Cord. “I see.”
What, exactly, did Rafe Stockwell see? Hannah didn’t think she wanted to know. She changed the subject by moving toward the crib.
Rafe realized what she meant to do. He started backing away. “Uh…now, let’s not get too hasty, here. That baby’s a beauty all right, but I don’t know if I—”
“Give me that hat.” Cord pulled the Stetson from his brother’s hand. “And your weapon, too.”
Weapon? Hannah eyed Rafe with new wariness. Then she remembered. Rafe was a Deputy U.S. Marshall. A man with that kind of job would carry a gun as a matter of course.
Rafe grunted. “I’ve got sense enough not to bring a loaded weapon into a baby’s room.” He smoothed back the left front panel of his jacket, revealing an empty holster strapped to his side. “I’m clean—and if you’re going to put that baby in my arms, you’d better do it now.”
Cord let out a low laugh. “Before you turn and run?”
“I’m going nowhere.” Rafe held out both hands, palms down. “See. Not a quiver. Nerves of steel.”
Maybe his hands weren’t shaking, but the look in his eyes told Hannah the man could use a little reassurance. “Holding a baby is nothing to be scared of. And it’s good to practice a little, anyway.”
Rafe didn’t get it. “Practice for what?”
“Well, for the day when you have one of your own.”
Rafe shook his head. “Too dangerous. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just stick to apprehending federal fugitives and transporting serial killers across state lines.”
She held out the baby. “Come on. Here you go.”
Carefully, as if Becky’s small body were made of something so fragile, a sudden move might break her in two, Rafe took his niece in his big arms. He looked down at her and she smiled up at him.
“Well,” he said, shaking his head. “What do you know? It really is true. My brother’s a daddy.” He glanced over and caught Cord’s eye. The two grinned their identical grins at each other.
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