She frowned, obviously wanting to disagree with him, but after a few seconds she nodded. “Probably. I don’t know why I’m crying. He makes me so mad, but I know beneath that bluster he’s afraid.”
“Afraid of dying?”
“No. Afraid of living,” she murmured. “Meg used to say Red was like the Cowardly Lion. All roar and no nerve.”
Nathan didn’t believe that. “Casey, you don’t accumulate this kind of wealth—and make no mistake, this land is worth mega bucks—by not taking risks. And didn’t you tell me Red was one of the first to plant pistachios in this area? That took guts when nobody knew for sure if there was a market.”
“That’s business. I’m talking about emotional risk. Like the fact that he sent me away rather than deal with my growing up.”
She had a point.
“And how come he’s never remarried? He’s mentioned a few lady friends over the years—like Betsy’s previous owner, but they never seemed to last very long.”
Nathan tucked a strand of honey blond hair behind her ear and said, “I don’t know. My mom hasn’t remarried, either. Maybe they just never found the right person.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “Are you suggesting we try fixing them up with each other?”
Nathan pretended to be horrified. “Good lord, no. Wouldn’t that make you my sister?”
She snickered softly. “I was only kidding. Can you picture your mother living on the ranch? She’s more of a city person than you are, and we both know you’d be lost without a Starbucks within walking distance.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
“Plus, what would your sister and brother do without your mother around to mooch off?”
He frowned. That wasn’t a fair question. Nathan was sure there was some give and take in his mother’s arrangement with his siblings, although he had to admit both Kirby and Christine seemed inordinately needy for their ages, but obviously his concerns had tainted Casey’s attitude toward his family.
“Do we need to talk about them right now?”
Casey shrugged. “What do you want to talk about?”
They both knew what they should address—the state of their marriage—but the niggling ache in his temple made Nathan reluctant to tackle such a serious topic. He looked around, taking stock of where they were. A small island surrounded on all sides by mature pistachio trees.
“Are we in the middle of nowhere?”
“Pretty much,” she said with sigh. “I didn’t think to bring my cell phone. Did you?”
He shook his head. “It’s just us. Alone. Incommunicado.”
Something in his tone must have alerted her to his intentions because her eyes opened wide. “You can’t be thinking what I think you’re thinking.”
“Why not? The sun is warm. The ground looks soft.” A blanket would be nice…. His gaze returned to the object he’d noticed earlier beside the gate. “That isn’t a saddle blanket, is it?”
She turned to look over her shoulder. A few feet from the spot where the truck had been parked was a box of some kind with a red, green and white blob draped across it. Casey marched over to it. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said with a groan. “Red, that’s it. I’ve had it with you. I’m leaving this afternoon. I swear I am.”
Nathan followed after her, curious to see what Red had done this time. A folded tartan throw rested atop the arched handles of a wicker picnic basket. He picked up the blanket and opened the lid to find a bottle of wine, a corkscrew and two glasses.
“Curious.”
Casey, who was squatting beside the treasure, sighed. “More than you know. Red doesn’t drink wine.”
“What’s under the bottle? It looks like house plans.”
“For the house he and my mother were going to build for one of their kids?”
Nathan could tell that she was on the verge of crying again, so he tucked the blanket under his arm and took her hand. “Come on,” he said, taking the picnic basket in his other hand. “Let’s have a little wine before we start back. You don’t have to look at the plans.”
A few minutes later, they were both stretched out on the blanket in a clearing not far from the twin palms.
“You shouldn’t drink.”
“A sip or two won’t kill me. I promise.” He held up his glass to clink with hers. “To our first moment alone since I got here.”
She smiled apologetically. “You must think this is a loony bin, not a ranch.”
He tasted his wine. A Sonoma Shiraz. Not bad. “I’m a lawyer, not a judge.”
Her snicker made him grin.
“If you want to know the truth, when I first stepped around the side of the barn and saw you and Jimmy laughing and covered in mud, my initial reaction was— ‘Who is that gorgeous cowgirl? And why do I hate the guy with her?’”
Her cheeks turned a dusky shade of pink. “No way. You don’t get jealous, remember?”
“Apparently I do when the guy is my wife’s old boyfriend.”
Her lips made an attractive moue. Her studious pout, he called it. A kissable pout. “Jimmy and I are friends…barely. More like people who knew each other when we were kids and really don’t have time to know each other again.”
“Would you like to know him better? If you had the time?”
She lowered her glass. “Are you asking if I’d get involved with him? The answer is no. Not if I had a hundred years. I’m not the same person I was back then, and he’s not the same boy.”
“Good answer.”
“The truth.”
“I know. You’re the most honest person I’ve ever met.”
Something changed in her eyes. An awareness of him. Of them. A sexual frisson that had been missing between them lately. “Red might come back.”
“We’ll hear the dogs, won’t we?”
“Good point,” she said after downing the last of her wine. “Very good point. Brilliant even.” She set her empty glass on the wicker basket and moved to her knees. “Have you been saving up like the doctor said?”
Nathan poured the rest of his wine on the ground. “You don’t honestly think I have something going with Gwyn—”
She shushed him with her finger across his lips. “I meant…you haven’t been taking extra long showers without me, right?”
He let go of the guilt he felt about the occasional pull of attraction he had toward Gwyneth and took his wife into his arms. Together they rolled back on the cushion of soft, thick weeds, bird and insect sounds serenading them. The sun and breeze on his bare skin contributed to the keenest arousal he could remember.
Casey stripped off her clothes without shame or hesitation. Nathan moved a little slower because his fingers felt clumsy and thick. He was pretty sure the blame lay in his powerful need, not some residual effect from his head injury.
As if reading his frustration when his buttons refused to cooperate, Casey reclined in a sexy, cowgirl goddess way, her toes skimming his hard-on. “You can always leave your shirt on, you know. It’s the pants that count.”
“You could help. I have a concussion, you know.”
Her bottom lip poked out. “Aw…poor Nathan. Should I kiss it and make it feel better?”
Before he could reply, she was kneeling before him, both hands working to remove his belt. He gave up on his buttons and reclined on his elbows to watch. She unzipped his pants and bent down to drop a kiss on the tip of his penis, which was concealed by his navy-blue underwear.
“Feel better?”
“Not quite, but I’m getting there.”
“Me, too,” she said, eyelids lowered in a sexy, indolent way that turned up the flame of his desire another degree or two. She nudged him on to his back and stretched out on top of him.
His hands couldn’t touch enough of her fast enough. “You feel amazing.”
“Not quite, but I’m getting there.” Her quip was accompanied by a kiss.
Tongue and breath became one. The blood rushing through Nathan’s head broug
ht pain with it, but he didn’t care.
Casey wasn’t sure what was going on in her head. One glass of wine did not turn a relatively conservative person into an uninhibited exhibitionist, but she had to acknowledge there was something powerfully erotic about making love to her husband outdoors in the middle of the day. She hadn’t felt this turned on in way too long. Thanks to their baby-making regime, sex had turned into a programmed effort.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” she asked, leaning forward to give Nathan access to her breasts.
“Uh-huh,” he mumbled, tasting first one then the other. “Fun.”
She ran her fingers through his hair and dropped her forehead to his. “I love you, you know.”
“I know. And that makes me the luckiest man in the world.”
She closed her eyes and kissed him. “Good answer.”
His hands moved down her waist to her hips and he made her lift up enough to accommodate his hard-on. Smiling, she wiggled playfully, feeling the heat and desire build in her core. They’d picked up a lot of tips and techniques over the past months, but this wasn’t the time or place. They both knew what they wanted and couldn’t wait.
Nathan guided his penis in place as she lowered herself on him. His gratifying moan of pleasure made her sit back and grind her hips in circles, slowly picking up the pace.
His release came before hers but she didn’t stop, and when his fingers touched her most sensitive spot she let out a sharp whimper. The shivers of pleasure that followed eased her back to reality as she collapsed on his chest. “Oh, my goodness. Wasn’t that lovely?”
His chuckle was warm and soothing, like his hands that stroked her back and her hair. “Fabulous. I like this place. Maybe we should build a house here.”
The words were surprisingly rash for Nathan. She wasn’t sure what to say. But the reminder of their unsettled situation brought her back to reality in a hurry. Her father’s health had changed things. Even if Casey wanted to walk away and leave things in Sarah’s hands, she couldn’t.
“Today doesn’t come with any guarantees you’ll have time to fix things tomorrow, Casey,” her aunt had said at the end of her life.
It was time to talk. The sun warmed her shoulders but just thinking the word cancer chilled her from the inside out. She quickly drew on her clothes. “I shouldn’t have yelled at him. He’s right. It is his business, but I panicked when Doc told me. Red’s always seemed invincible.”
“I know. I’m really sorry, Case,” Nathan said, sitting up.
“I suppose that’s my little-girl memory talking. But living so far away I never got to watch him age. Seeing him for the first time in—what? Nine or ten months?—believe me, it was a shock. He actually looked his age. I thought it was just worry about the great turkey menace. I never dreamed he had prostate cancer.”
“You know it’s highly treatable, right? Janelle’s husband had it, remember? His doctor used robotic arms and computers to remove the tumor. Very high-tech.”
Casey vaguely recalled his former secretary talking about her husband’s speedy recovery, but Janelle’s hubby was at least ten years younger than Red.
“She also said most patients don’t have to rush into treatment because this is a slow growing cancer.”
“Knowing Red, he’s had the symptoms for years and has toughed it out. Doc said Red went to Stanford for a second opinion and those doctors told him the same thing—surgery, but Red has put off treatment until this turkey thing is resolved.”
Nathan pulled on his pants. “Um…about the turkey thing…”
Casey got to her knees and started cleaning up. “I know. A complication we don’t need at the moment, but, obviously, I don’t have any choice. I have to stick around and help.”
“‘Stick around’?”
“Dad wants Sarah and me to head the antiturkey committee. We’re not against turkeys, of course, we just don’t want them setting up shop across the road. I know my father, and Red will never start treatment if he thinks he has to micromanage a war.”
Nathan didn’t say anything as he tied his shoelaces, so Casey added, “I wasn’t sure if I could work with Sarah. I know this sounds childish, but a part of me resented her because it’s almost as if she ended up with my life. She married my high school sweetheart. She’s the only person my dad seems to listen to. Plus, she’s pregnant and I’m not. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
She jumped to her feet and answered before he could. “Silly. I know. Ridiculous. Especially given Red’s health. I’m just going to have to suck it up and be a team player, right?”
When she looked at Nathan, her knees started to wobble. The brooding expression on his face was one she associated with the courtroom.
“I…I know this isn’t what we planned. I’m supposed to be getting us settled in our new apartment, but I can come home on weekends.”
“You can’t do it, Casey,” he said flatly.
She stepped back. “I beg your pardon?”
“There were two things I wanted to tell you in person. One was that Gwyneth is in town, and the other pertains to the firm’s client list. GroWell, the company that plans to build across from your dad, is one of our clients. One of our biggest clients. I’ve already taken steps to distance myself from the case, but you know the rules of professional conduct as they pertain to conflicts of interest as well as I do. Every client is entitled to feel that he or she has the undivided loyalty of his or her lawyer until the case is settled.”
“But isn’t every parent entitled to feel the same loyalty from a child he or she raised, supported, sent to college so he or she could argue in court any case that might adversely affect the quality of said parent’s life?”
“This company pays my firm hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to make sure they are allowed to build on land they own. Land that is already zoned for agriculture, I might add.”
She struggled to control her temper. “The land is surrounded by acres and acres of row crops like tomatoes and peppers. My father has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in nut trees that would be ruined by the pollution your client’s company gives off.”
“That isn’t true. I only had time to glance at Eric Mathers’s notes before I figured out that this was the same company your father is trying to drum out of town, but I remember seeing the facts on the projected pollution—”
Casey stopped him. “Oh, please, Nathan, don’t start. You know as well as anyone that you can’t believe the figures a company like that gives to the planning department. Of course they’re going to make them look innocuous. Haven’t you listened to anything I told you while I was working at the land trust?”
His shoulders went rigid. “You haven’t asked your old boss for help, have you?”
Casey crossed her arms. “Didn’t you just tell me I’m not supposed to discuss this matter with you?”
“I said you can’t be actively involved.”
“Right,” she said, the wine roiling in her stomach. “I’m just going to walk away and let my father, who may be dying of cancer, handle this alone.”
His posture softened and he held out his hand. “I didn’t mean… Of course you… I…”
Casey could see the frustration on his face, but she couldn’t work up any sympathy. She’d never appreciated anyone telling her she couldn’t do something. Heck, that was one reason she’d become a lawyer, because her father was against the idea.
“You’d better hope Gwyneth is as good as you think she is because nobody down here wants your client to move in next door, and we’re prepared to do whatever it takes to keep them out.”
“We?”
“Yeah. Me and Sarah and all the members of NOTT. That stands for Neighbors Opposed To Turkeys.”
CHAPTER NINE
NATHAN LEFT the next morning with no true sense of where he and Casey stood on anything. They’d hoofed it back to the ranch house in silence. Red had left a note saying he was taking a nap and would be at his lodge meeting that nig
ht.
Nathan didn’t see his father-in-law again until Red delivered Nathan’s rental car, which had been sitting at the barn since Nathan’s run-in with the tractor.
“Drive safe and come back soon,” Red had said cheerfully as if his snit in the field had never happened. “And think about that offer of a pup. They won’t last long. They’re real cute. Just like their grandma,” he’d added, lovingly stroking Betsy’s broad, shaggy head.
“I will,” Nathan had said in return. Drive safely. The puppy was not an issue. The city was no place for a dog like Betsy—even if she did have soulful eyes that seemed to offer unconditional love.
His wife’s love, he’d decided last night, came with conditions. They’d slept in the same bed, but sleep was all they’d done. Nathan’s hope for a repeat performance of their lovemaking had been dashed when Casey told him, “I found two kinds of painkillers in Red’s medicine chest—horse-pill size and regular. They both say may induce drowsiness.”
He’d opted for the smaller, but as she’d predicted he’d been sound asleep not long after swallowing it. He’d made a halfhearted effort to talk her into accompanying him to Sacramento in the morning, but she’d shot down the idea.
“I have a mother, too, you know,” she’d said. “I plan to take flowers to her grave and have a serious talk with my dad about his health issues. I bought your mother a card and a very pretty robe when I was in Merced the other day. I got it at a department store that has branches in Sac so she can exchange it if she wants something else. The gift receipt is taped to the inside of the card.”
The beautifully wrapped box was sitting on the passenger seat beside him, making him feel guilty. Casey was a good wife. He could always count on her to help him out in little ways he never really gave her credit for, but now that he needed her help, she appeared to be taking her father’s side.
“When are you coming home?” he’d asked after Red and Betsy walked away to greet Jimmy, who had followed Red from the barn in his mammoth truck.
“I’ll probably be back to the apartment before you.”
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