She gave him a surprised glance. "A ranch?"
His grin widened. "Is that so hard to believe?"
"I thought…"
A moment later, he prompted, "What?"
She glanced at him again. "I just thought you'd probably grown up in Cherry Creek Village or somewhere similar."
"A silver spoon in my mouth?" He waited for her to look at him again. "Not even close."
She easily imagined him outside surrounded by wide-open spaces. He'd be as confident and as at home there, she thought, as he was in a courtroom. She did have trouble imagining him lounging indolently against the steps of a porch while he watched a sunset. He seemed to have too much energy, too much drive. It was easier to imagine him running or finishing up that last chore of the day before the daylight was gone. The thought made her smile.
Cole touched the corner of her mouth. "What's this about?"
"You. Being lazy enough to watch a sunset."
"I can be lazy with the best." He took an affronted tone that broadened her smile.
"That's what we did at my grandmother's farm, too," she said. "We'd sit on the porch at sunset. Nonna always had something to do. Beans to snap or corn to shuck."
"What about when you were with your parents?"
Cole instantly felt the change in her. Where there had been softness, she became rigid.
"I don't remember." Her voice was carefully neutral. "The Colonel—he's not the kind of man to notice a sunset."
"Once I thought the same thing about my dad," Cole said.
Her glance encouraged him to continue.
"I was supposed to inherit the farm. Dad had it all mapped out. I'd go to college. I was supposed to major in horticulture or agricultural economics." Cole smiled. "Actually, I almost did that one. Those ag economists are sharp. I just knew I didn't want to be a rancher."
"I loved my grandparents' farm," Brenna said. "When it had to be sold, it was awful."
Cole nodded. "Since I won't be around to take care of my parents' farm, I suppose we're looking at that someday, too."
"Don't you care?"
Cole met her gaze. "I care. But ranching is damn hard work. Unpredictable, with one certainty—if the weather can do you in, it will." He paused and looked at her. "And I couldn't ever quite figure out how to have what I wanted and please my dad, too. We had some terrible fights." Cole tucked Brenna more firmly against him as they strolled through the park while the evening dusk gave way to night. "Once I even walked out on him. Told him I wouldn't be back."
Brenna's hand tightened around his.
"You fought with your dad?" Cole asked, sensing he had struck a nerve.
"All the time," she admitted, glancing up at him. "I left, too." Cole didn't have to ask when. He knew. The worst year of my life was when I was fifteen.
"Damn all those pictures," she said softly. "Damn him for bringing it all back now."
"What, Brenna?"
"I don't want to remember," she whispered.
"Maybe it's the only way you can forget. Just get it up and out and gone," he returned, his voice as soft as hers.
She glanced at him, and the torment in her eyes made him gather her close. Within his arms, she felt small, feminine, and fragile as a newborn lamb. Within his arms, she felt … perfect. "You can talk to me, fair lady."
Surprisingly, she did. "I never measured up to his standards. The night I left home, it all started because I stayed out too late at a girlfriend's house."
* * *
"Brenna, get in here." Her father's imperative command had come from the living room.
She sighed and adopted a relaxed don't-give-a-hoot posture. She'd rather die than let him know she bled a little inside each time he spoke her name in that particular tone. She sauntered into the living room and leaned casually against the doorjamb.
"Hi, Dad. Where's Mom?"
"She's gone to bed." He folded the newspaper and set it aside. "Stand up straight and come here, young lady."
Brenna moved away from the doorway and stood in front of him, but she kept her posture deliberately slouched.
"Where have you been this time? You're an hour and twenty-seven minutes late."
"I've been at Sally Peterson's." She met his gaze, then added, "Studying."
"Studying?" He picked up an envelope from the table and withdrew her report card. "Here are the results of your studying, Brenna James. English F, history F, phys ed, A, algebra D, science F, home ec C. I shudder to think what your grades would be if you didn't study."
Brenna folded her arms across her chest and waited for him to finish. These "talks" followed a pattern that had varied little since she was in the first grade. Her gaze fixed on the wall behind him, and she let his angry words wash over her without hearing anything, simply knowing Michael was valued and she was worthless.
Once Brenna had overheard an argument between her parents as her mother tried to explain the constant comparisons did neither child any good.
"Brenna's a normal child—not gifted like Michael. Just a child," her mother had said.
"Neither of my children are just children," her father had answered. "Brenna is capable of doing anything, anything, that Michael is. She's just lazy."
That hurt. Brenna pushed aside the memory and waited for the next part of the Colonel's talk—the part where he told her excellence counted. Lives depended on excellence. It wasn't enough to do your best if your best didn't keep other people from dying.
He surged to his feet and slapped her. "You'll show a little respect when I'm talking to you." He grasped her arms and forced them down her sides. "You will pay attention. You will stand up straight," he commanded, one of his hands at the small of her back and the other on her shoulders. "Now, do I have your attention?"
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
Rather than give him the "yes, sir" she knew he wanted, she remained stubbornly silent.
"I've had it with you, young lady," he said, giving her a shake. "You're disobedient." He grasped her arms with one hand, unbuckled his belt with the other.
"What's all the shouting in here?" her mother asked from the doorway.
"Tell her," the Colonel commanded Brenna. "Go ahead, tell her."
"I'm lazy," Brenna said dully, watching her father. "And disobedient. May I be excused now?"
"No, you may not be excused!" He pushed her toward the kitchen, where he expected her to obediently bend over the table.
For years it had ended like this. Brenna closed her eyes as she stumbled forward.
In a little while, it would be over. Just a little longer. Years of tension snapped.
She whirled around. "No! Not this time."
"No? You tell me no?" His face twisted with fury.
"John, stop!" Brenna's mother cried.
He struck with the belt. Brenna lifted her arms. Too late! With a snap, the tip stung against her cheek.
She ripped the belt from his hand and threw it across the kitchen. He grabbed her. She slipped past him and ran toward her room.
His voice followed her. "I never wanted you."
"John!" her mother cried.
"It's the truth. Not from the day you told me you were pregnant."
"You don't mean that. You can't."
"We'd be better off without her. My God, Michael doesn't give us a bit of trouble and she gives us nothing but."
Better off without her. The words echoed through Brenna's head as she slammed her bedroom door. Never wanted you. Without conscious thought, she pulled a suitcase from under the bed. Better off without her. Tears blurred her vision as she opened the suitcase and began throwing clothes and belongings inside.
The door opened, and Brenna flinched. Escaping the Colonel in the small room would be harder. But, she would not submit to another beating. Not now. Not ever. Instead of her father, her mother stood in the doorway.
"Oh, Brenna. Oh, baby, no."
Brenna wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. "I'm not staying, Mo
m."
"You can't just leave. Where would you go?"
"Nonna's," Brenna replied with sudden decision. The farm had always been her favorite place.
Brenna's mother stared into space, then nodded. "Okay. Maybe that is best." She left the room.
Her reaction puzzled Brenna. She assumed she'd have to fight both of her parents. She stared at the contents of the suitcase a moment longer, then began organizing more neatly. A quarter-hour later her mother returned.
"Nonna is expecting you," she said. "I called Greyhound, and a bus leaves for Philadelphia in an hour. You can get a connecting bus in the morning." She touched Brenna's cheek. "Are you sure this is what you want, baby?"
Brenna nodded.
Her mother helped her finish packing while they both cried, then drove her to the bus station. During the last moments before the bus came, her mother tried to give her a passbook for a savings account.
"This was for your—for college. But you need it now."
Brenna looked with blurred eyes at the insignia on the outside of the book. College? Right. She had as much chance of going to college as Michael did of flunking out of school. Another reminder that she had failed. She hadn't come close to the excellence the Colonel demanded. Hadn't even tried. For the first time in a long while, she wished she had.
Tears filled her eyes as she shook her head. "I can't, Mom. Dad would…"
Her mother's eyes welled with tears. "I wish I could do more for you." She shook the passbook for emphasis. "This is yours. Any time you want it, you call me." She gave Brenna a fierce hug. "I've made so many mistakes. I can't take away what I let happen. I wish…"
Brenna returned her mother's hug. "Me, too, Mom."
* * *
"It was the last time I saw her," Brenna finished, her eyes feeling gritty from unshed tears. "Two months after I went to Nonna's, Mom was killed in a car accident." She swallowed and gripped Cole's hands. "Six months after that I came home from school one day. Nonna always took a nap in the afternoon. That day, she never woke up."
Dusk had given way to darkness, and sometime during Brenna's story, Cole had directed her to a bench beneath a huge silver maple tree. He had wrapped his arm around her and kept her close while she talked. She'd never felt more vulnerable—or safer.
She risked looking at him. His gaze was focused unseeingly on the night, his expression pensive. She held her breath, waiting. For what, she could not have said.
He finally looked down at her, and a sad smile touched his lips. "You make me feel like my dad was a saint," he said. "I think you'd like him."
Relief whispered through her. She wasn't sure what she wanted from Cole, but she knew she couldn't have borne his pity.
"Thank you," she whispered, pressing her cheek against his.
"For what?"
"Being here."
"You're welcome." He made sure his voice was calm. More than his next breath, he needed her to know she could trust him, wanted to prove to her that he'd never use his strength or his anger against her. Carefully, he held her, making sure none of the rage he felt toward her father was transferred to her.
He brushed his cheek with hers, and in passing, she gave him a quick kiss. Her lips were inviting. Soft. Unable to resist, his lips returned to hers, not deepening the kiss, teaching both of them how sweet the mere touching of lip to lip could be. He sensed she wanted more. Hell, he wanted more. But for now … for now, this was more important.
Take it slow, he cautioned himself. He'd be gentle, and he'd cherish her the way she deserved.
Two hours later, Brenna lay in bed without sleeping. Either Michael or Jane had put the photographs and papers from her mother on the dresser. Brenna's gaze drifted to them, unable to make out more than the rectangular shapes in the dark. She hated the feelings all this looking into the past had evoked.
The dark teardrop of a crystal hanging in the window was her only memento of those months she had lived with Nonna. Brenna remembered that her grandmother had hung it in the window of her room the night she had arrived at the farm.
"Something pretty to look at," Nonna had said. "Sometimes to find the good things in life, you just have to be standing in the right spot to see them. And sometimes, you're already standing in the right spot. You just have to pay attention."
Brenna was standing in the right spot to know just how special a man Cole Cassidy was. She felt an undeniable flicker of hope in her heart. He was perfect for her.
She was not perfect for him.
When he called the following morning to invite her to go sailing on Sunday, the truth that would push him out of her life remained stuck in her throat.
She knew she should turn him down, but she didn't.
* * *
Chapter 8
« ^ »
"There are better places to sail," Cole said after they climbed into his Jeep, his sailboat in tow. "Next time we'll get started sooner, and we'll go to the mountains." He flashed her a smile, then squeezed her hand. "At Lake Dillon there are a dozen secluded coves to explore."
Brenna smiled at him. "That sounds nice."
Next time. However alluring that promise was, she didn't dare hope for a next time. If she had a lick of sense, she would make sure the man never asked her to go sailing or anywhere else after today. When she was with him, their worlds didn't seem so different, nor did the differences seem that important. She liked him, darn it, and she hadn't expected to. She certainly hadn't wanted to.
Who was she kidding? She loved being with him. Loved the way he looked at her—as though she was the only woman he had ever seen. Loved the way he listened to her—as though what she had to say was important. Not only had he listened to her, he had held her as though her pain hurt him, too. How could she resist that?
Lame excuse though she knew it was, she fell back on her sister-in-law's take on the situation. "Let it happen, Brenna," Jane had advised. "Don't be looking for trouble where there might be none."
During their short ride to the marina, his manner was more relaxed than she had ever seen it. He obviously loved sailing, revealing an endearingly boyish aspect to his personality.
When the boat was in the water, Cole pulled the cover off the sail, readying the boat. He moved with easy confidence, his smile telling her all she needed to know about how he felt.
Then he extended a hand to her, and murmured, "Welcome aboard," as she stepped in. She took the narrow seat in the bow, and they moved away from the shore, Cole maneuvering the craft with the smooth coordination of having done so hundreds of times.
Brenna trailed her hands in the water. Cool. Too cool for swimming, but not by much, she thought, enjoying the rush of exhilaration that came from the water's contrast to the warm sun.
Cole let out the sail, which instantly filled with wind. As soon as they had moved into less crowded water, he raised the sail further still, and they picked up speed at a rate that surprised Brenna. Fresh air, beautiful colors, penetrating sunshine. Life didn't get much better than this. She smiled and lifted her arms into the wind.
Cole grinned at her enjoyment and found himself making comparisons he'd promised he wouldn't. Susan had tolerated sailing, but she usually found a dozen other things to do when he asked her.
"I love this," Brenna said, lifting her face into the wind. "Does your boat have a name?"
"It doesn't meet the minimum size requirements to have a name," Cole said, his tone and expression deadpan.
"That's stupid. You mean some rule says you can't name—"
He laughed, and she looked at him.
"That wasn't nice, Cole." She flicked water at him. "So why doesn't it have a name?"
"I never thought of one that seemed quite right."
"No lost loves?"
"None that mattered."
"No favorite celebrities?"
"I can't see naming my spinnaker the Mickey Mouse. And His Honorable Justice John Marshall seems … ah … a little pretentious."
"Ah," she agree
d. "I can see how that could be a problem. Who is John Marshall?"
"He was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during the early 1800s."
"One of your contemporaries, huh?"
Cole aimed a casual swipe at her head, at the last moment smoothing his hand over her hair.
"So what else, Counselor?"
"John Marshall was the author of The Life of George Washington—all five volumes. And he established the right of the Supreme Court to have the final say about the constitutionality of any law." Cole met her gaze. "Enough?"
"More than. Is there a quiz later?"
"Nah," he returned. "You'd ace any test I could think up."
Little did he know, Brenna thought, a sliver of fear pricking her, reminding her of the promise she'd made to herself. Tell him the truth or back off before you get hurt.
"Ready to hear what I know about Mickey Mouse?" Cole asked. This time, Brenna laughed, as much from a release of her tension as from his earnest expression. "Yeah. I am."
Cole's face lit up, like a little boy trying to think of just the right thing to impress a teacher. "His dog's name is Pluto."
"I didn't know that."
"Honest."
"I'm surprised you have any room up there for any fun stuff," she said, gesturing toward his head, "after hearing about John Marshall."
"My grandmom used to tell me, 'It's a funny thing about brains. They never seem to get full.'"
Brenna chuckled. "Mine is stuffed with all sorts of useless stuff."
"Baseball trivia."
"I'll have you know there's nothing trivial about baseball."
"Not compared to the junk in the tabloids—you know, the aliens having lunch with the First Lady and the aunt's grandmother's daughter who bore her sister's twin sons."
Brenna laughed. "That's possible?"
He joined her laughter, then cupped her cheek with his palm, his own laughter fading.
"What?" she asked.
"It's the first time I've heard you laugh. Really laugh." He rubbed his thumb against her cheek. "I love it."
Brenna's throat grew dry. Her breath caught when his fingers caressed her skin as he pulled his hand away. One moment stretched into two, and never had she been more aware of another person.
CASSIDY'S COURTSHIP Page 8
