From the ranch hands Whit had located, Ace had learned that Buck had fired them all more than three months before his death. As to his reasons for doing so, the ranch hands didn't have much to offer, saying only that Buck had changed, turning meaner than was considered normal for even him, and had taken to sticking fairly close to the ranch.
In spite of all the extra work, Maggie had never been happier. She had Laura and she had Ace, the two people she'd grown to care about more than she'd ever expected to care about anyone again. The two people she was slowly beginning to think of as her family.
She knew it was wrong, dangerous even, to think of them in those terms. But she couldn't help it. She was sharing a home with them, cooking and caring for them, providing for their needs the same as a wife and mother would those of her family. And she slept with Ace. Shared his bed. Made love with him.
Granted, she'd told Ace from the first that she wasn't interested in getting involved in a relationship again and, later, that she wasn't interested in remarrying. For the most part, the last was still true.
Or was it?
She stole a glance at Ace, who, at the moment, sat slumped on the den sofa beside her, watching a movie, the fingers of his right hand laced with hers, his stockinged feet propped alongside hers on the coffee table. Did she want to marry Ace? she asked herself honestly. She mentally gave herself a shake and turned her gaze back to the TV. No. She couldn't think like that … not when he'd said nothing to make her believe he'd changed his feelings on the subject.
Yet, the question continued to niggle at her.
"Ace?"
His attention on the movie they were watching, he drew her hand to his lips. "Yeah?" he said absently.
"What will you do when you … well, when you finish up here?"
He moved his shoulder against hers in a shrug. "Go home, I guess." He turned to look at her. "Why?"
She looked quickly away and shook her head. "I don't know. I was just wondering."
He stared at her a moment, then turned to watch the movie again.
Maggie assumed he'd forgotten all about the question, until later that night, when they were in bed, and he asked, "Are there any nursing schools near Kerrville?"
She tensed, not daring even to breathe, knowing that Kerrville was his home. "I don't know," she said, praying her response came across with the indifference she tried to inject into her voice. "Why?"
He rolled onto his side and draped an arm over her waist, tugging her close. Pressing his lips to her temple, he murmured, "'Cause I was thinking you might want to consider transferring there and moving in with me."
She let the breath out slowly, her heart thundering within her chest. "I think there's a school in San Antonio, but I'm not sure."
He nuzzled his nose against her hair, then settled his head on the pillow next to hers and slid his foot between hers. "Wouldn't hurt to check it out."
"No. I suppose it wouldn't."
He yawned, then brushed his lips across hers. "'Night, Maggie."
She gulped, then whispered, "Good night, Ace." She listened as his breathing grew rhythmic, wondering how he could possibly sleep after making such a life-changing suggestion.
Sleep, for her, didn't come for hours.
* * *
At the sound of the phone, Maggie glanced up from the box of papers she was sorting. "Want me to answer it?" she asked Ace.
Sighing, he closed the drawer he was digging through. "That's okay. I'll get it."
Stretching across the desk, he plucked the receiver from the base. "Ace Tanner."
He listened a moment, a frown furrowing his brow. "Are you sure?" he said into the receiver, then listened again. He glanced toward Maggie, his frown deepening. "I don't know," he said slowly. "I'll have to do some checking and get back to you."
Replacing the receiver, he sank back in the chair, templing his fingers thoughtfully against his mouth.
"What?" Maggie asked, her curiosity aroused.
Dropping his hands, he shook his head. "That was the detective I hired to trace Star's family. He said the name 'Cantrell' was assumed."
"What!" Maggie cried. "But Star said—"
He patted a hand at the air. "I know. She told you her name was Cantrell. But the detective thinks she changed her name. He said he's traced her back to Las Vegas, but the trail dries up there, which makes him think she assumed the name there. He's following up on that theory now."
Maggie stared, unable to believe that Star had lied to her about her identity.
"What about Dixie?" Ace asked. "Wouldn't she have to have some kind of proof of Star's identity for her employment records? A social security number or something?"
Maggie pressed a hand against her forehead, trying to absorb the fact that Star had lied to her. "Yes. I suppose. Do you want me to call and ask her?"
Ace shook his head. "No," he said, rising. "It might be best if I talked to her in person."
* * *
Carrying the baby, Maggie led the way into the bar. Though it was still early in the afternoon, several customers already sat at the bar, nursing drinks, their eyes glued to the television anchored high on the wall in the corer. Donnie Gay, the announcer for the televised rodeo, was giving a play-by-play of a bull rider's eight-second ride.
Maggie spotted Dixie weaving her way through the tables toward them and offered a smile.
"Hey, Dixie," she said, as Dixie reached her.
Scowling, Dixie took the baby from Maggie's arms. "Hey, yourself." She glanced at Ace, gave him a quick once-over, then turned to Maggie without ever acknowledging his presence. "What are y'all doing here? Slumming?"
Surprised by Dixie's rudeness to Ace, Maggie glanced over at him. "Hardly." She turned to look at Dixie again. "Ace wants to talk to you. About Star," she added.
Dixie snorted. "Figured he'd get around to questioning me about her sooner or later." She nodded her head toward the hallway and her closed office door. "Let's talk in there where it's quieter."
She called out greetings to some of the guys at the bar, as she led the way to her office, with Maggie and Ace following behind.
She waited until they were seated on the sofa, then closed the door and moved behind her desk to sit down. Shifting the baby to her shoulder, she eyed Ace suspiciously. "Okay. So whaddaya wanna know?"
Ace leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. "The detective I hired says Star's name wasn't really Cantrell."
Dixie lifted a shoulder, seemingly unsurprised by the news. "I figured she'd lied."
Maggie gaped. "You did? But you never said anything." Dixie hooked a leg over her knee and settled the baby in the V she'd created between her legs.
"The girl was all smoke and mirrors. Shows up on my doorstep, carrying this beat-up suitcase and giving me this hard-luck story about a soldier she'd met in Vegas, who'd talked her into coming to Killeen. Claimed he was deployed before she ever got here, leaving her high and dry." She flapped a dismissing hand. "Hell, I've heard that story so many times, I could probably dance a tune to it."
"Are you suggesting that there was never a soldier?" Maggie asked.
Dixie shrugged. "Who knows? You couldn't pin Star down on anything. She'd feed you a line of bull you would swear was the truth and smile the whole time you were swallowing it."
Maggie gulped, suddenly feeling sick. "But what about her family? Star told me they were killed in a car wreck when she was a teenager. Was that a lie, too?"
Dixie lifted a shoulder. "Could have happened, I guess. Who knows for sure?"
"What about a social security number?" Ace asked, redirecting the conversation to the purpose of their visit. "Surely she had to give you some kind of legal ID, before you could hire her?"
"Oh, she had a social security card, all right," Dixie told him. "I wouldn't have hired her without it."
"And?" he prodded.
She shrugged again. "Probably a fake. They're easy enough to get, if you know who to ask and are willing to pay the price
."
Groaning, Ace fell back against the sofa, pressing the heels of his hands against his forehead. After a moment, he dropped his hands with a frustrated sigh. "Without a positive ID, we might never know who she really was."
"Any private detective worth his salt could do it," Dixie informed him. "It's just a matter of turning over the right rocks and crossing the right palms."
"I've hired the best there is," Ace informed her.
"Since when does a Tanner settle for anything but the best?" she asked him, then eyed him speculatively, "Even when the best was at home waiting on him all along."
"Dixie!" Maggie cried at the obvious slur.
Ace held out a hand to silence Maggie, but kept his gaze leveled on Dixie. "I'm sure you have your reasons for saying what you did, but know this. I'm Ace Tanner, not Buck Tanner, and don't ever make the mistake of confusing the two." Rising, he crossed to the door, muttered to Maggie, "I'll be in the truck," then slammed the door behind him.
"Now don't go getting your panties in a twist," Dixie warned Maggie. She jutted her chin defensively and lifted the baby to her shoulder. "I was only testing the man's worth."
Maggie dropped her head to her hands. "Oh, Dixie," she moaned.
"Doesn't sound to me like he's changed his mind."
Still reeling from Dixie's rudeness, Maggie lifted her head. "About what?" she asked in confusion.
"The baby. He's still chasing after Star's family. That tells me he hasn't changed his mind about keeping the baby."
"Not necessarily. In fact, he's asked me to move to Kerrville with him."
"The baby, too?"
Maggie paled at the question, not having considered that Laura wouldn't be going to Kerrville with them.
Sighing, Dixie rose and rounded her desk. "Well, there's always the chance that high-priced detective of his won't find any of Star's relatives."
Maggie drew in a deep breath, grasping at that possibility. "Yeah. There's always that chance."
Placing a finger beneath Maggie's chin, Dixie drew her face up. "Prepare yourself for the worst, but pray for the best. That's what I always say."
Maggie forced a brave smile. "This is going to work out, Dix. You'll see. This is going to work just fine."
* * *
The trip home was made in silence, with Ace frowning at the road ahead and Maggie staring at the windshield, her hands fisted tightly in her lap, trying desperately to push back the doubts that Dixie had placed in her mind.
She wouldn't give up hope, she told herself. She couldn't. Without hope, how could she survive? What would happen to Laura, if she were to give up? Who would care enough about the baby to see that she had a good home, a family to love her?
She stole a glance at Ace. She'd thought he cared, that he'd changed his mind about Laura, had grown to love her. Could she have been that wrong about him? No, she told herself. She'd seen proof of the changes over the last several weeks. Ace had warmed to Laura, bought her toys and silly little gifts. He'd even started helping Maggie with her care, feeding Laura her bottle when Maggie was busy doing something else or rocking her to sleep at night, while Maggie sat at his feet, watching, her heart nearly bursting with her love for the two of them.
She drew in a deep breath and forced her fingers apart. Ace loved Laura, she told herself firmly. He cared. This need of his to locate Star's family was probably nothing more than a formality, perhaps even a requirement he'd discovered he needed, before the courts would officially name him her legal guardian.
But she wouldn't ask him, if that was the case. Couldn't. If she did and he denied her suppositions, what would she have to place her hope in, then?
Forcing the tension from her shoulders, she reached over and laid a hand on Ace's thigh. At her touch, he glanced her way. She smiled and gave his thigh a squeeze.
"What would you like for dinner tonight?" she asked, hoping to return a sense of normalcy to what had turned into a nightmarish day.
* * *
Nine
« ^ »
Ever since the first night they'd made love, Maggie and Ace had slept together in his bed. It wasn't something they had discussed, an agreement they'd reached after laying down specific ground rules. It had just happened. When bedtime arrived each night, Ace would simply seek Maggie out and walk with her to his room, his arm draped along her shoulders. Often, but not always, they would make love before going to sleep, the mood of their lovemaking varying from a sweet and tender loving to hot and steamy sex.
After their visit with Dixie, they continued to sleep together … but they didn't make love any longer. Something happened that day, something intangible that left a barrier between the two that neither seemed willing to address. Yet, Ace still slept with his body curved around Maggie's, his head nestled against hers on her pillow, his feet twined with hers. He still held her hand while they watched television in the evening and dropped kisses on her mouth at moments when she least expected him to…
But he didn't make love with her again.
Though reluctant to approach Ace about the change in their relationship, Maggie worried about it, wondering at the cause, what it meant. She worried, too, about the change she noticed in his relationship with Laura. He seldom held her any more, and on those rare occasions when he did, it was because Maggie forced the baby on him. And he always seemed to disappear at Laura's bedtime, naming one task or another that required his immediate attention, thus avoiding rocking the infant to sleep.
More than the changes in her own relationship with Ace, Maggie was concerned over the changes she saw in his and Laura's. From the beginning, she'd hoped to convince him to keep Laura, raise her as his own, prayed, even, for that to happen. But with each passing day, that hope grew dimmer and dimmer, until one day it was snuffed out altogether.
The day it happened, Maggie was in the laundry room, folding a load of clothes she'd just taken from the dryer, when she heard the telephone ring. She paused, waiting to see if Ace would pick it up. After the second ring, she heard the muffled sound of Ace's voice coming from the kitchen and resumed her folding, knowing he had answered it.
"Montgomery?"
Frowning at the question Ace placed in the name, Maggie paused, listening.
"Dallas?" he said next, his voice carrying a note of surprise, then, "Damn. Here I had you chasing all over the country, when her relatives were in our own backyard the entire time."
Maggie fisted her hands in the towel she was folding, knowing it was the private detective Ace talked with.
"When you do," she heard Ace say. "Let me know. I'd think it'd be better if my brothers and I made the initial contact."
Squeezing her eyes shut, Maggie blocked out the sound of Ace's voice, not wanting to hear any more. The detective had found Star's relatives. There was no doubt about the purpose of the call. But knowing that and accepting it was a different matter altogether.
"Maggie?"
She stiffened at the sound of Ace's voice, unaware until that moment that he'd entered the laundry room and now stood behind her.
She gulped, trying to swallow back the fear that held her in its grip, her gaze fixed unseeingly on the dryer's control panel. "The detective found someone?"
"Not yet, but he knows now her name was Montgomery and he's narrowed the trail to Dallas."
Maggie dropped her chin to her chest. "You're going to give Laura to them when the detective finds them, aren't you?"
She felt the weight of his hands on her shoulders, the dig of his fingers into her flesh, as he squeezed.
"Maggie—"
She turned to face him. "Ace, please," she begged. "Don't do this. Keep her with you."
"Maggie," he said sternly, "I told you from the start that this was only a temporary arrangement."
She pressed her fists against her temples and shook her head, tears streaming down her face. "No," she cried, shaking her head. "You said you didn't know how to take care of her." She fisted her hands in his shirt and looked up at him.
"But I'm here, Ace. I'll take care of her. We both can. I'm not suggesting that we get married. I know you don't want that. But we can live together, the three of us. We can give her a home, a family."
He tightened his grip on her shoulders and gave her a hard shake. "Maggie, listen to me. I don't want any kids. I told you that. Mine or anyone else's."
"No!" she screamed. She pounded her fists against his chest, desperate to make him deny his words. "You love her," she sobbed. "I know you do. You can't just give her away to a complete stranger. You can't!"
At the word love, he stiffened, his fingers digging painfully into her shoulders. Gulping, Maggie watched his lips flatten, his face turn to stone, his eyes turn that hard, brittle shade of steely blue she remembered from the first time they had met. She wanted to reach up and touch him, lay a hand against his cheek … but she was afraid if she dared touch him, the razor-sharp edge of the mask he'd slipped into place would slice her finger to the bone.
Frightened by the change in him, devastated by it, she backed away from him, hugging her arms around her middle, as if to ward off a chill.
"I won't stand by and watch you give her away," she told him. "I … I can't." Choked by a sob, she spun and ran from the room.
* * *
Maggie folded the soggy tissue and blotted at the tears that continued to stream down her face. "I can't believe he's really going to do it, Dixie."
Dixie plucked a fresh tissue from the box and pressed it into Maggie's hand, her face creased with concern. "Ah, honey. I know it hurts. It's gotta. But there's nothin' you can do to stop him. By law, Ace can do what he wants to with the child."
Maggie shot up from the couch. "Law," she repeated, venom all but dripping from her lips at the word. "I'm sick to death of people using law as an excuse for their behavior. What about duty? Huh? What about love? Why doesn't anyone ever base their actions on either of those things? Why do they always have to fall back on what the law says? Why can't they listen to what their hearts say, instead?"
Five Brothers and a Baby Page 13
