Lone Star Nights

by Delores Fossen

  “You’ll have to be more specific,” he snarled. “I deal with lots of different kinds of shit.”

  Bernie stood then, tugging off his glasses and dropping them onto the desk. He was about the same age as her father, but it was night and day in the apparel arena. Bernie was wearing conservative clothes similar to hers. Actually, the jacket was identical to hers.

  Something that made her frown.

  “Mason-Dixon doesn’t have anything to do with the letter Dixie Mae left the two of you,” Bernie clarified.

  “The old bat left you a letter, too?” But her father didn’t wait for them to confirm it. “She left me six fucking cats. Six! She arranged to have her driver drop them off at the club this morning. Them, and their litter boxes, which hadn’t been cleaned in days. They’re going to the pound as soon as I leave here.”

  “No,” Cassie practically shouted, and it got everyone’s attention. “Grandmother loved those cats.”

  Her father’s fisted hands went on his boney hips. “Then why the hell did she leave them to me?”

  Yet another of those questions that Cassie couldn’t answer. Maybe Dixie Mae had indeed gone insane.

  “I’ll take the cats,” Cassie volunteered. “Just give me a couple of days. I’ve got my own problems to work out.” A laundry list of them, and that list just kept growing.

  Her father looked at her. Then at Lucky. “Did you knock up Cassie or something?” he asked Lucky.

  While Lucky was howling out a loud “no,” Cassie fanned her hands toward her clothes. Then toward Lucky’s. “Does it look as if we could be lovers?” she asked.

  Her father did more glancing and shook his head. “Guess not.”

  It was yet something else that made her frown. Maybe she needed to start shopping at a different store.

  “So, you’ll take the cats?” her father clarified.

  Cassie nodded but didn’t have a blasted clue how she was going to make that happen. Her condo in LA didn’t allow pets. Still, the shelter here in Spring Hill probably wasn’t no-kill, and she couldn’t risk her grandmother’s precious cats being put down—even if it had been a lamebrain idea for Dixie Mae to leave her pets to a man who’d been on her bad side since she’d given birth to him.

  Her father moved closer and gave her the look. The one he’d been giving her since she was a kid. “Just know that I expect something other than cats from Dixie Mae’s estate. Whatever she had, I get half.”

  “I’m pretty sure you won’t,” Lucky spoke up. “Dixie Mae didn’t like you, and she always told me that she had no intention of giving you any money. She wanted her money to go to Cassie.”

  “Cassie will share,” her father insisted. The look intensified, and suddenly she was six years old again and getting sent to her room because she was acting too prissy.

  Lucky moved in front of her father, getting right in his face. “I’m thinking that’ll be Cassie’s decision.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Her father started out, then stopped when he was right beside her. “If those cats aren’t gone in two days, they’re going to the pound. The goddamn things are chewing the feathers in the girls’ costumes.”

  That seemed very minor compared to being given children, but as Cassie had always done with her father, she held her tongue. And took a few steps away from him. She’d spent her entire adult life trying not to get embroiled with him and his smutty lifestyle, and she didn’t want to start now.

  Cassie didn’t say goodbye to him. She merely shut the door once her father was gone and then whirled around to face Bernie. Now, here was someone she would confront. Except Lucky beat her to it.

  “Say it’s not true,” Lucky demanded. “Tell me that Dixie Mae didn’t give us custody of some kids.”

  Bernie sighed, causing his pudgy belly to jiggle. He pulled open his desk drawer, cracked open a bottle of Glenlivet and downed more than a couple of swigs. “She did indeed leave Cassie and you custody of two children,” Bernie confirmed.

  Of course, the lawyer had already told her that, but hearing it face-to-face gave Cassie a new wallop of panic. No. This couldn’t happen now. She couldn’t lose it in front of Lucky. In front of anybody.

  Lucky, however, didn’t seem to notice that she was cruising her way to a panic attack. He was apparently coping with the anxiety in his own way. By cursing a blue streak in an extremely loud voice.

  “How the hell could you let Dixie Mae do something like that?” Lucky yelled. “You should have stopped her.”

  “Really?” Bernie challenged. “You believe I could have stopped Dixie Mae? Were you ever able to stop her from doing something she insisted on doing?”

  “No, but that’s beside the point. Dixie Mae and I differed on rodeo stuff. Business. If she’d mentioned giving me custody of some kids, trust me, I would have stopped her.”

  Judging from the groan that followed, Lucky knew that was a partial lie. He would have indeed tried to stop her, but Dixie Mae would have just found a way around it.

  The same thing Cassie had to do in this situation.

  “Neither Lucky nor I knew that Dixie Mae had anything to do with any children,” Cassie started. “When did it happen? How did it happen?” she amended.

  “I’m not sure of all the details,” Bernie answered. “Until Dixie Mae showed up here, it’d been years since I’d seen her. She said she wanted me to do the paperwork because I was local.”

  Local? Cassie figured there was more to it than that. Maybe Dixie Mae’s usual lawyer didn’t handle situations like this. Or maybe her grandmother had just tried to be sneaky because her lawyer in San Antonio perhaps would have contacted Cassie to let her know something fishy was going on. And this definitely qualified as fishy.

  “Dixie Mae said a couple of months ago an old friend of hers got very sick,” Bernie continued. “This friend was taking care of her grandkids and asked Dixie Mae to step in for a while.”

  All right. There was the out Cassie had been hoping for. “You can contact the grandmother and tell her to resume custody.”

  Bernie shook his head. “The grandmother died a short time later, and the grandkids’ parents aren’t in the picture. They’re both dead. That’s why Dixie Mae took over legal custody.”

  Lucky shook his head, too. “Well, she must have hired a nanny or something because Dixie Mae never had any kids with her when she came to work.”

  “She did have a nanny, a couple of them, in fact,” Bernie went on. “But they quit when they butted heads with her so Dixie Mae arranged for someone else to watch them temporarily. She didn’t give me a lot of details when she came in and asked me to draw up papers and her will. And right after we finished with it, she got admitted to the hospital.”

  Cassie latched on to that. “Maybe there’s something in her will about Lucky and me being able to relinquish custody to a suitable third party.”

  Lucky tipped his head in her direction. “What she said. Find it.”

  But Bernie didn’t pull out a will or anything else. “The will didn’t address trusteeship of the children, only the disbursement of Dixie Mae’s assets. I’m not at liberty to go over that with you now because she insisted her will not be read for several weeks.”

  Cassie doubted there was a good reason for that. But she could think of a bad reason. “This was probably Grandmother’s attempt at carrot dangling. If Lucky and I assume responsibility without putting up a fuss, then we’ll inherit some money. Well, I don’t want her money, and I’m putting up a fuss!”

  “So am I,” Lucky agreed. “Fix this.”

  Bernie looked around, clearly hesitating. “I guess if you refuse, I can have Child Protective Services step in.”

  All right, they were getting somewhere.

  Or maybe not.

  “Of course, that’s not ideal,” Bernie went o
n. “The children could end up being placed in separate homes, and foster care can be dicey.” He scratched his head. “Dixie Mae was so sure you two would agree to this since it was her last wish.”

  Her grandmother had no doubt told Bernie to make sure he reminded them of that a time or two. Especially after what Dixie Mae had said to Lucky: A man wouldn’t be much of a man to deny an old dying woman her last wish.

  “I smell a rat,” Lucky mumbled.

  So did Cassie. Dixie Mae had practically duped Lucky into saying yes, and the old gal had figured Cassie wouldn’t just walk away, leaving him to hold the bag.

  Damn it.

  Cassie couldn’t just walk away. But that didn’t mean she was giving up without a fight. She wasn’t in any position to raise children. Especially not with Lucky.

  Heck, who was she kidding?

  He’d probably be a lot better at it than she would be. At least he wasn’t an emotional mess right now and hadn’t just checked out of a glorified loony bin. As a therapist she probably should have considered a better term for it, but loony bin fit. Too bad she hadn’t had her grandmother there with her so she could have had the chance of talking Dixie Mae into making other arrangements for the children.

  “How do we get around this?” Cassie asked Bernie at the same moment Lucky said to him, “Fix this shit. And I don’t mean fix it by putting some innocent kids in foster care. Fix it the right way. Find their next of kin. I want them in a home with loving people who know the right way to take care of them.”

  Good idea. Except Bernie shook his head again. “I started the search right after Dixie Mae came in. No luck so far, but I’ll keep looking. In the meantime, Cassie and you can take temporary custody, and if I can’t find any relatives, I’ll ask around and see if someone else will take them.”

  That wasn’t ideal, far from it, because “asking around” didn’t seem to have a deadline attached to it. “How long would we have them?” she asked.

  “A couple of days at most,” Bernie said.

  Perhaps that was BS, but Cassie latched on to it and looked at Lucky. “Maybe we can figure out something to do with them just for a day or two?”

  Oh, he so wanted to say no. She could see it in his eyes. Probably because he didn’t want to stay anywhere near Spring Hill. It was no secret that Lucky had a serious case of wanderlust. Along with the regular kind of lust.

  “Two days is too long,” Lucky said, obviously still mulling this over and perhaps looking for an escape route.

  Two days, the exact amount of time she had to do something about those feather-chasing cats at the strip club. Cassie tried very hard not to think bad thoughts about her grandmother, but she wished the woman had gone over all these details before she’d passed away.

  “You’ll need to work out something faster than two days,” Lucky insisted. “I’ve got to be at a rodeo day after tomorrow.”

  Yes, she had things to do, as well. Things she didn’t want to do, but she wouldn’t be able to wiggle out of them the way that Lucky was trying to wiggle out of this.

  “I can try,” Bernie said, not sounding especially hopeful. Too bad, because Cassie needed him to be hopeful. More than that, she needed him to succeed.

  “I’ll call the Bluebonnet Inn,” Bernie added, “and get the girls a room there.”

  Lucky seemed to approve of that, but Cassie wasn’t so sure. She, too, had planned to stay at the Bluebonnet Inn, mainly because it was the only hotel in Spring Hill. That meant Lucky would likely expect her to be with the children 24/7.

  But Cassie wasn’t having this all put on her shoulders. Nope. She was packing enough baggage and problems as it was so she’d also get Lucky a room at the inn.

  “Where are the children?” Cassie asked.

  Bernie checked his watch. “They should be here any minute now.” He pushed a button on an old-fashioned intercom system. “Wilhelmina, when the Compton kids arrive—”

  “They’re already here,” Wilhelmina interrupted. “Want me to send them back?”

  “Sure.” Bernie took his finger off the intercom button and drew in a long breath, as if he might need some extra air.

  A moment later, Cassie saw why.

  The air sort of vanished when the door opened and Cassie saw one of the children in question. And this time, she wasn’t the one to say that one all-encompassing word. It was Lucky.

  Shit.

  They had apparently inherited custody of a call girl.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THERE WERE ONLY a handful of times in Lucky’s life when he’d been rendered speechless, and this was one of them.

  The “girl” walking up the hall toward him was indeed a girl. Technically. She was female, nearly as tall as Cassie, and she was wearing a black skirt and top. Or perhaps that was paint. Hard to tell. The skirt was short and skintight, more suited for, well, someone older.

  “This is Mackenzie Compton,” Bernie said.

  Cassie blew out a breath that sounded like one of relief. Lucky had no idea what she was relieved about so he just stared at her.

  “This isn’t a child,” Cassie explained, relief in her voice, too. “So obviously there’s no need for us to take custody.”

  Right. “What Cassie just said,” Lucky told Bernie.

  However, Bernie burst that bubble of hope right off. “Mackenzie just turned thirteen.”

  Maybe ten years ago, she had. But she wasn’t thirteen now. “Can she prove that?” Lucky blurted out.

  Mackenzie didn’t say a word. Didn’t have any reaction to that whatsoever. She just stood there looking like a both-arms-down Statue of Liberty who’d been vandalized with black spray paint. She had black hair, black nails, black lipstick and stared at them as if they were beings from another planet. Beings that she didn’t want to get to know.

  Good. The feeling was mutual.

  But thirteen?

  “I can prove her age,” Bernie supplied. “I have her birth certificate and school records.” Bernie handed him a folder. “Her sister, Mia, is four.”

  Four. Well, hell. Now, that was a child, though he still wasn’t convinced Mackenzie was a teenager. Maybe if she scrubbed off that half inch of makeup, there’d be some trace of a girl, but right now he wasn’t seeing it.

  However, he was seeing something. An extra set of legs. Either Mackenzie had four of them, a pair significantly shorter than the ones wearing that black skirt, or her little sister was hiding behind her.

  Mackenzie took one step to the side, and there she was. A child. A real one. No goth clothes for her. She was wearing a pink dress with flowers and butterflies on it, and her blond hair had been braided into pigtails. She had a ragged pink stuffed pig in the crook of her arm.

  If there had been a definition of “scared kid” in the dictionary, this kid’s photo would have been next to it. Mia was clinging to her sister’s skirt, her big blue eyes shiny with tears that looked ready to spill right down her cheeks.

  Lucky took a big mental step back at the same time that he took an actual step forward. He didn’t have any paternal instincts, none, but he knew a genuinely sad girl when he saw one, and it cut him to the core. He went down on one knee so he could be at her eye level.

  “I’m Lucky McCord,” he said, hoping to put her at ease. It didn’t work. Mia clung even tighter, though there wasn’t much fabric in Mackenzie’s skirt to cling to.

  Mia. Such a little name for such a little girl.

  “Do either of them...” Cassie started, looking at Bernie. But then she turned to the girls. “Either of you, uh, talk?”

  Mia nodded. Blinked back those tears. Her bottom lip started to quiver.

  Well, hell. That did it. Lucky fished through his pocket, located the only thing he could find resembling candy. A stick of gum. And he handed it to Mia. She took
it only after looking up at her big sister, who nodded and grunted. What Big Sis didn’t do was say a word to confirm that she did indeed have verbal communication skills beyond a primitive grunt.

  “The girls have had a tough go of it lately,” Bernie said as if choosing his words carefully.

  Lucky added another mental well, hell. He’d probably said hell more times today than he had in the past decade. He’d always believed it was the sign of a weak mind when a man had to rely on constant profanity as a way of communicating his emotions, but his mind was swaying in a weak direction today.

  And he didn’t know what the hell to do.

  “Where have they been staying since my grandmother’s death?” Cassie asked. “Gran passed away two days ago.”

  Good question, but Lucky didn’t repeat himself with another what she said.

  “With Scooter Jenkins,” Bernie answered.

  Lucky had to do it. He had to think another hell.

  “You know this man?” Cassie asked him.

  “Scooter’s a woman.” At least Lucky thought she was. She had a five-o’clock shadow, but that was possibly hormonal. “She’s one of the rodeo clowns.”

  Spooky as all get-out, too. While Scooter had worked for Dixie Mae as long as Lucky could remember, she was hardly maternal material. Nor was she exactly Dixie Mae’s friend. The only way Scooter would have taken the girls was for Dixie Mae to have paid her a large sum of cash.

  “Ten grand,” Bernie said as if anticipating Lucky’s question. “The deal was for Scooter to keep them until after the funeral and then transfer physical custody to Cassie and you.”

  Since Scooter was nowhere to be seen, that meant she’d likely just dropped off the kids. Lucky would speak to her about that later. But for now, he needed to fix some things.

  Apparently, Cassie had the same fixing-things idea. “Why don’t Bernie and I go in his office and discuss some solutions?” Cassie said to him. “Maybe you can wait in the lobby with the girls?”

  Lucky preferred to be in on that discussion, but it wasn’t a discussion he wanted to have in front of Mia. Not with those tears in her eyes.