Why?
It was Mollie, the mind reader, the peacemaker, who took Danielle aside during breakfast preparations and ventured to answer that one-word conundrum rolling around in her head like a rock trapped inside a hubcap.
“I made Daddy promise not to tell anyone about who he really was.”
Danielle quirked an eyebrow at the child. “And why is that?”
“He’s been working so hard and we’ve been so swamped by reporters that lately it’s been impossible to be alone together for a minute. Grandma suggested this trip as a way of getting away from it all. A way of reconnecting to me...and his roots...”
When Danielle failed to respond, the girl picked up the thread of her thoughts and continued mending with words. “He just hates the way people treat him when they find out he’s a star, especially women. Daddy’s seen more gold diggers than California during the rush of ’49. For what it’s worth, Danielle, I know he didn’t mean to hurt you and...” She swallowed hard. “I didn’t, either.”
Mollie’s apology was but a ragged stitch in Danielle’s tattered heart. She forced herself to remember that the girl came by her duplicity naturally. It seemed the whole family. needed a lesson in ethics.
“No matter what the reason behind it, dishonesty hurts,” Danielle said softly. Years of Scott’s lies had made her leery of believing in anyone ever again, and she kicked herself for having to be taught that same lesson once more. “Do you know how hard it is to trust someone who breaks their promises? I can’t say I understand why your father lied to me, but in his defense, at least he never made any promises that he didn’t intend to keep. And that’s more than I can say for you, young lady.”
Mollie winced.
On a subconscious level Danielle questioned the conviction of her own words. Surely there were unspoken promises in the kisses she and Cody shared. Desperately she wanted to believe they were not the empty promises of a male moving from one conquest to another like a buck in a harem of does. Foolishly, she had hoped to be special to him.
Bracing herself against the wrenching in her heart, Danielle focused her maternal instincts upon the girl who stood in front of her with her head hung low. “Your father deserves better from you, Mollie. It killed him to have you publicly betray him like you did.”
“I know,” Mollie mumbled over a quivering lower lip.
“And what about my feelings? Do you understand what a terrible position you put me in? Your father thinks we both conspired against him.”
“But I told him we didn’t. First thing this morning I explained how it was all my own doing.” Caressing the silver belt buckle tucked away in her pocket, she considered how hollow her triumph was without her father’s approval. Mollie’s voice cracked with honest contrition. Clearly the price of getting one’s own way at the expense of hurting those you loved cost far more than she had anticipated.
“Can you forgive me?”
No more able to hold a grudge against Mollie than she could be angry at the sun for burning too brightly, Danielle opened her arms to the girl. “Of course.”
Stepping into the warmth of her embrace, Mollie let her tears fall. Between sobs she pointed out how preposterous it would be for Danielle to give up the best thing that had ever come into her life just out of stubborn pride. It was hardly fair to hate her father for being successful. Such news should be a boon to their relationship. If money had been an obstacle before, it was no longer.
What the girl lacked in age and sophistication, she more than made up for in warmth and genuine concern for those she loved. If anger could eat one’s heart out, clearly forgiveness had tremendous curative powers.
Danielle was as yet convinced that it would be easy to forgive Cody’s subterfuge, but life was never as simple as one wished it to be. Mollie’s explanation of her father’s peculiar behavior did make Danielle feel better. As she set about the task of getting breakfast ready, the weight that had lain upon her chest all night seemed considerably lighter.
After sharing a silent breakfast, Cody approached Danielle and asked if she would mind taking a walk with him. Eager for their parents to talk, Lynn and Mollie jumped up to clear away the dishes.
No words passed between Cody and Danielle as they made their exit. When they were far enough away from the wagons that no one could overhear them, Cody cleared his throat uncomfortably.
“Mollie told me she tricked you into keeping quiet about last night’s stunt. I’m sorry I jumped to the conclusion that you had deliberately deceived me. And I’m sorry that you had to find out about my celebrity status like you did. It was wrong of me not to tell you myself. God knows I meant to, really I did, but every time I started to, something held me back.”
Cody’s eyes were as open and honest as the sky overhead. Still Danielle remained silent and let him continue.
“I don’t expect you to understand, but it was so incredibly nice just blending in for a change that I didn’t want to lose that feeling. Not being treated like some pompous big shot...Not constantly being deferred to...I guess I was just scared that knowing who I was would change things between us.”
Her mind spinning in high gear, Danielle was thinking about how impossible it would be for Cody to blend in anywhere and about how right now she was feeling anything but deferential.
“How dare you try to feed me another slice of that bogus humble pie?” she raged when at last he finished speaking. “How dare you make me fall in love with you and then not even trust me with your name? How dare you try to show off and risk your neck in that stupid rodeo exhibition before I could even tell you how much I love you?”
She doubled up her fists and landed them upon his chest with all the force she could muster.
Never had Cody been more bewildered in his life. He thought he had heard her just admit to loving him, but it was hard to tell with her hitting him and yelling and all. Rendering her fists useless by grasping her wrists, he took her firmly in hand. “I’ve had about all the punishment I’m going to take from you, woman.”
His lips came down upon hers in a brutal crush. Gone was the gentleness that had marked their last kiss. In its place was a possessiveness that demanded complete surrender.
Danielle fought to keep her hands balled into fists, but it was useless. Of their own volition her hands climbed to the sturdy column of his neck as he deepened the kiss. As he probed all the sweetness of her mouth with his tongue, Danielle forgot all about fighting him. Weaving her fingers through his hair, she clutched him to her tightly, meeting each of his demands with her own insatiable lust. She could no more let go of him than she could stop the blood in her veins from running hot and fast.
She had not been wrong about the promises in this man’s kisses. Such promises could no longer remain unspoken.
“I love you, Danielle.”
Her heart soared toward the heavens with that admission. Still a single, stubborn strand of fear kept it tethered to the earth. Cody said the words she had been longing to hear, but had he really meant them?
“Well, you sure have a funny way of showing it,” she exclaimed petulantly. “Were you planning on simply riding off into the sunset, leaving me to believe you’re somebody you’re not? How can you possibly say you love me when I don’t have your complete trust? When our entire relationship is based on a lie?”
“Technically,” Cody informed her over a wobbly grin, “I didn’t lie to you. My name is Walker. Cameron is my stage name. And what you have to understand is that it isn’t just a matter of trust.”
“Just a matter of trust?” Danielle asked incredulously. “What is it, then? Your idea of a practical joke?”
“It’s the furthest thing from a joke.” The sigh that seemed to emit from the depth of Cody’s soul bespoke volumes of guilt. “One thing I have been frank with you about is that fact that I did love my wife. The truth of the matter is, I was afraid that if you chose to hook up with me, you’d be playing second fiddle to Rachael’s memory for the rest of your life. A wom
an like you deserves the only best. A man who’s still tied to his past is a bad risk. I figured you’d be better off if I just disappeared at the end of the trail and we went our separate ways.”
Danielle stood as still as a statue, certain that if he were to bump against her, she would crumble to dust at his feet.
“That’s your idea of doing me a favor?” The words tasted like chalk.
Cody didn’t have to answer; his eyes spoke for him. “Who exactly was this woman that you’ve put on such a high pedestal?”
Cody flinched at the bitterness in Danielle’s words. His mother had once made a similar comment. Rachael was a good woman, and I cared for her, but she had her faults. She wasn’t a saint, son.
“How long are you going to hold on to her ghost, Cody?”
“I don’t know.” he replied stiffly. His voice was as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel. “Since Rachael’s death, I’ve never let anyone else get as close to me as I have you. You’ve broken down a lot of protective barriers around my heart. And it scares the hell out of me.”
Danielle blinked and looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. “I thought I’d been degraded by Scott’s extramarital affairs. That doesn’t even compare to fighting a ghost over a man. And losing.”
Her words were not laced with self-pity but passion as she fought through the jungle of emotions that held Cody a prisoner in his own heart. “You’re dishonoring Rachael’s memory by refusing to continue living yourself.”
A savage look came into Cody’s eyes. It was the look of a wounded dog, bristling and ready to snap at anyone who came too close. “That was beneath you,” he said, spitting out the words as if they left a bad taste in his mouth.
“Well, Rachael might have been a saint, but I’m not. And I don’t know how to fight fair with a dead woman!”
Had Meathook ground him into hamburger beneath his hooves, Cody couldn’t have looked more hurt. The agony of his expression only served to make Danielle all the angrier. Even if it meant being cruel, she was determined to shake some sense into him.
“Just how long do you intend to continue milking your self-pity for another hit song about your poor old aching heart? You seem to think you’re the only one who’s been hurt in this world. I’ve told you things that I’ve never shared with anyone. Piece by painful piece, I dissected my very soul for you, and you didn’t have enough faith in me to tell me who you are! How could you of all people have the audacity to accuse me of withholding information your daughter chose to share with me simply because you won’t listen to her. Since Mollie and you are the only two living people in your world, it’s a shame that you can’t communicate any better!”
“Now hold on a damned minute—”
“No, I won’t hold on. Not one minute longer. I spent a whole lot of years kowtowing to a man who didn’t deserve my love, and I’ll be damned if I’ll make the same mistake twice. If you’d rather cuddle up with misty-eyed memories of Rachael than with a flesh-and-blood woman who is less than perfection in your eyes, then that’s your choice, not mine. Just remember, if you keep rebuilding those walls around your heart, don’t be surprised if it gets real lonely in there.” Without another word, Danielle turned on her old-fashioned heels and left him standing alone in the sagebrush smarting from her outrage.
In his whole life, no one had ever dared speak to Cody so bluntly, not even his outspoken mother. Except for the night she’d gone and gotten herself killed, Rachael had deferred to him on almost every issue in their marriage. Mollie had gone behind his back rather than stand up to him on the issue of competitive riding. And since he’d reached celebrity status, everyone else pretty much tiptoed around him like they were making their way through a minefield.
For someone who said he missed the honesty so seldom attached to his star status, when he finally got a good dose of it, he found it rather hard to swallow.
As the final leg of their journey got under way, everyone was aware of the strained relations between their wagon master and a certain den mother. Cody was frequently heard muttering under his breath about how he could certainly do without any more stubborn, inflexible women in his life, and Danielle seemed to be lost in a doleful world of her own.
That isn’t to say they were ever impolite to one another. On the contrary, they went out of their respective ways to avoid each another, and when that occasion could not be helped, they were civil to one another in the extreme.
No one was fooled by their false courtesy. Least of all, their charges. Lynn was reminded of the two cartoon gophers who were so polite that they couldn’t manage to step through a door without an interminable time of debating the etiquette of who should go first.
“It’s silly,” Mollie pronounced.
“Childish,” Lynn agreed.
“And the worst part is they’re simply letting their foolish pride come between them and their real feelings for one another.”
Extenuating circumstances added maturity to Mollie’s words. Both girls could see with the clear visage of youthful innocence that they were meant to be sisters. What they shared was special. Neither wanted to lose the other’s friendship, nor did they want to give up the very unique bond they had established with each other’s parent. In addition, Lynn could recite at length the emotional benefits of relocating closer to her young beau Shane. Her heart was swollen with the magic of first love, her mind crowded with the disquieting thought that she might never see him again. There had to be some way to hold tight to those things that had become most important to them. When all was said and done, there was but one conclusion that could be drawn: they were simply destined to be a family.
The only problem now was in getting their parents to see things their way.
Chapter Twelve
After two miserable days of trying to cut Danielle out of his heart, Cody finally admitted defeat. After a mere taste of her kisses, the woman owned him outright. She possessed every waking and sleeping minute of his life. He could no more choose to let Danielle walk out of his life than he could choose not to be Mollie’s father. There was no changing the fact that he loved her. That was just the way it was.
He swung out of the saddle, tethered Champion to the back of a wagon, and strode purposefully toward Danielle with the intention of setting things right between them. Mechanically putting one foot in front of the other, she was lost in her thoughts. When he stepped in pace beside her, she seemed oblivious to his presence.
Cody cleared his throat and repeated the thought that had been replaying itself over and over in his head. “This is stupid.”
Danielle lifted her head and leveled her cool aqua eyes at him. Giving him her best I-don’t-know-what-you’retalking-about look, she kept right on walking.
“Don’t pretend that you don’t know exactly what I mean,” he continued, lengthening his step to keep up with her. “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I can’t get you out of my head!”
Tilting her elegant chin up in the air, Danielle regarded him warily. Was this the same man who just a couple of days ago was espousing the theory of having to be cruel to be kind? At last she had come to terms with the fact that she simply couldn’t force her love on a man who refused to accept it. She would not allow herself to pursue a relationship with a man who didn’t want her.
Now he was having second thoughts?
From everything Cody had told her, Rachael had been fiercely possessive. As far as Danielle could tell, death had little effect upon the woman’s desire to keep Cody entirely to herself. Was it possible that she was finally letting go?
A glimmer of hope penetrated the haze of pain that enveloped her.
Rest assured, Rachael, I’ll never run you down. I don’t want to compete with what you had with this man. I just want to love him and let him love me back. And I want to be a mother to Mollie. 1 want you to rest peacefully.
“Are you listening to me?”
Danielle’s throat was as dry as the prairie. Her heart had been torn apart and stitched
back together so many times she didn’t think it could possibly be mended again.
She kept on walking.
“I’m hungry, exhausted, completely out of sorts. I’ve wrestled with this for the past two days, and I want you to stand still and hear me out!”
Danielle stopped in her tracks. She lifted her head to gaze into Cody’s eyes and saw the world reflected there.
Her own eyes shimmered with the vulnerability that so endeared her to Cody. For the life of him, she looked as if she were stepping up to the edge of chasm and preparing herself to jump. He reached out to catch her.
“I love you, Danielle. And I need you. I can’t imagine life without you.”
She couldn’t remember stepping into his arms, but suddenly that was where she found herself, wrapped up all warm and safe and happy, knowing without a doubt that this was where she belonged for the rest of her life.
Only one thing stood in the way of perfect contentment. Something Cody had said. Something most women would be willing to overlook for the chance to marry fame and security.
I’m afraid that if you chose to hook up with me, you’d be playing second fiddle to Rachael’s memory for the rest of your life...
Danielle wouldn’t go through life as a substitute for his deceased wife. On that account, Cody had been right on. She would not share her bed with a ghost. Not even if it meant losing the man she loved.
“What about Rachael?”
Cody looked at her clearly, steadily. “It’s time to let go of the past. Rachael would have wanted me to go on living. You were right. She wasn’t a saint. Maybe thinking she was just helped me to get past the pain of losing her. I realize now that she was, on occasion, too possessive, impulsive, even a little selfish. But she was never a petty woman. She wouldn’t have wanted me to grieve forever. Rachael would have liked you. I know she would be proud to have you raise Mollie as our daughter.”
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