by Fran Baker
Even now, with both of them up in arms over their son, desire for him flickered deep inside her.
He doused the flames with his icy demand. “Why didn’t you come to me? Write to me? Call me?”
Irritated with herself, she wrenched her chin from his fingers. “A million reasons.”
“Name one.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d believe me,” she confessed around a deep breath.
“All I’d have had to do was look at him to know you were telling the truth.”
Her eyes appealed to him for understanding. “I couldn’t take that chance.”
He regarded her dispassionately. “Name another.”
“I was afraid you’d try to get back at me through Tony.”
“How?”
“By taking out your anger toward me on him.”
“Hurting him, you mean.”
Jeannie nodded miserably. “Yes.”
Rafe exploded with rage. “For five years you deliberately hid my son’s existence from me, then you have the unmitigated gall to stand there and tell me you did it because you thought I’d hurt him—my own flesh and blood!”
“I wasn’t sure how you’d react when you found out,” she snapped. While his outrage now made her fears seem foolish in retrospect, they’d haunted her all this time.
He took a deep breath, controlling his temper by an act of will. “And how else did you justify keeping me in the dark for all these years?”
“Your political career.”
That made him pause. Running for the state senate was something he’d been preparing for since he’d gotten out of law school. Toward that end, he’d built a potent political base within the barrio, winning local battles over housing and better drainage on the low-lying West Side.
Now he wanted to cross the fault line from Mesoamerican presence to mainstream politician. He wanted to tackle the statewide issues, such as public education and health care, that affected Anglo and Hispanic alike. And even though the primary was still a year away, he’d already hired someone to raise the money and generate the name-recognition he needed to run his campaign.
This wasn’t exactly the kind of publicity he’d had in mind, however. And just thinking about the newspaper headlines alone—thinking aloud, really—was enough to make him groan. “The media would have me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if this story got out.”
“It wouldn’t be any picnic for Tony either,” she said pointedly.
Rafe nodded in agitated agreement, then nailed her in place with a hard stare. “This could have been cleared up quietly if you’d only gotten in touch with me when you found out where I was.”
Sick to her bones of all the deceptions, Jeannie told it like it was. “By then it was too late, and I was too bitter.”
“I had a right to know.”
“You had no rights as far as I was concerned.”
His hand slammed down on the tabletop, making her jump. “Who the hell appointed you judge, jury, and executioner?”
The door swung open at the loud crash, and Martha looked in from the dining room. Jeannie warded her off with a shake of her head, and the door swung closed.
Rafe paced the kitchen floor like a caged panther, cursing her father under his breath, mourning the years he’d lost with his son, trying to think how to handle this so that no one else would be hurt. His hair gleamed blue-black in the sunlight shafting through the sparkling windows, and his shoulders threw broad shadows across the shining wood floor.
Jeannie followed closely on his heels, wanting to reach out and cradle his head to her breast to ease his torment. She wished with every fiber of her being that they could go back to the beginning and make a fresh start, and wondered how she could undo the damage that Big Tom had done.
When he stopped abruptly, she collided with him from behind. And when he whirled on her, she fell back a step, feeling powerless to cope with the raw pain she saw in his eyes.
“You’re as manipulative as your old man.” His accusation pierced her like a well-aimed arrow.
She stiffened in shock and affront at the vicious comparison. She certainly didn’t blame him for feeling that way—his scorn was well founded in fact—but it still hurt her to the core that he thought she was capable of such machinations.
“That’s neither true nor fair,” she declared fiercely.
“He couldn’t have a son of his own, so he took mine.”
“He loved Tony.”
“You thought you could just kiss me off—”
“You kissed me!”
“Consider us even, then.” He closed the gap between them, and she could feel both the heat of his anger and the fabric of his trousers through her silk skirt. “You used me and I used you.”
Her gray eyes widened in dismay. Her throat went itchy and tight with emotion. Her heart ached at the way he’d just ground the kiss they’d shared at the gravesite under the heel of retaliation.
Rafe gripped her shoulders and shook her, hard. “When are you going to tell Tony about me?”
Jeannie twisted, but couldn’t escape his digging fingers. “When I feel he can handle it.”
“If you think I’m going to let another day go by without claiming my son, Señorita Crane,” he stressed with a mocking accent, “you’ve got another think coming.”
She felt a cold chill at the realization that he could take legal action regarding Tony. “But you can’t just pop into his life after ten years and expect to take charge.”
“I’m his father!” He released her suddenly, and she stumbled backward. “I have rights!”
She caught her balance against the back of a chair and drew herself up rigidly. “You have no rights—not like this!”
His blue eyes bored through her like a diamond-point drill. “Don’t bet the ranch on it.”
Maternal instinct transformed Jeannie into a tigress, turning her into as dangerous an adversary as he. “I’ll see you in hell before I let you turn Tony’s world upside down.”
“Fine.” Rafe spun on his heel and strode across the room. At the door he pivoted and fired his parting shot. “I’ll see you in court.”
Five
The special-delivery letter came three days later.
No sooner had Jeannie returned from taking Tony to school and sat down at the desk in the office—her office now—to write the last of the thank-you notes and to pay the vet and hay bills than she heard the mail truck pull into the ranch yard.
Her fine brows drew into a frown as she got to her feet and went to the window. The Circle C was on a rural route, which meant the mail was usually deposited in the box at the end of the drive. She picked it up when she brought Tony home from school. She really couldn’t think of a reason for the sudden change in routine … unless …
With a sense of foreboding so powerful it squeezed the breath from her lungs, she went out the door and down the porch steps to sign for the letter.
Jeannie stared at the creamy vellum envelope with the return address embossed in the upper left-hand corner for a long time before she tore it open. Her heart sank to new depths of despair as she read Rafe’s demand for parental visitation rights. This was just the beginning, she realized. Next he very well might try to take Tony away from her.
“Bad news?” Rusty had gotten a late start on riding herd that morning, claiming “Old Art,” as he referred to his chronic arthritis, had kept him up half the night. His spurs, which bore his initials in silver, jingled as he led his bay across the ranch yard on legs that had grown a little stiffer and a little less agile with every passing year.
“See for yourself.” Jeannie handed him the letter, then pressed her fingertips to her temples, attempting to ease a sledgehammer of a headache that gave new meaning to the word pain. She hadn’t been sleeping well, either, but not because of a physical problem. Every time she climbed into bed and closed her eyes, the emotions that Rafe’s kiss and subsequent statement had aroused in her came back to haunt her.
Obvio
usly they had a sexual chemistry that wouldn’t quit. He had only to touch her and she caught fire; he had only to tell her how he felt and she practically melted into a puddle at his feet. But she had to ask herself how much of their desire was rooted in nostalgia. She also had to wonder whether the question was moot now that he’d found out about Tony.
Jeannie realized that Rafe probably hated the Cranes with a passion. And with good reason, she had to admit. One had run him off the ranch, and one had robbed him of precious years of his son’s life. Now he was going to extract his revenge, and unless she wanted a messy court battle with Tony in the middle, she was going to have to pay.
Rusty’s bay snorted restlessly in the silence, eager to get moving. Dust clouded the horizon as cowhands herded prime beef toward the holding pens. A pregnant mare, her abdomen swollen to twice its normal size, munched tender sprigs of green grass in the pasture.
Nature quickened in spring, as did the ranchwork—sorting cattle, branding calves, and catching foals. Add to that the task of keeping up with Tony and the business of settling Big Tom’s estate, and Jeannie hadn’t had time to discuss what she had learned the day of the funeral with Rusty.
“You knew all along that Big Tom had sent Rafe away, didn’t you?” she whispered when he finished the letter and handed it back to her.
There was a short pause before he answered. “He didn’t come right out and tell me what he’d done, but it didn’t take long for me to figure it out.”
“Why, Rusty?” She choked on a sob, as always demanding from him the answers she couldn’t find elsewhere. “Why did he do it?”
As spare with words as he was in appearance, the old cowboy said succinctly, “He was trying to protect you.”
“In the long run he punished me—and Tony too.”
“He thought the sun rose and set in that boy.”
She hid her bitterness behind a sardonic smile. “He was so desperate for a male heir, he was even willing to overlook the fact that Tony’s father was Hispanic.”
Rusty seemed disinclined to speak ill of the dead. “Aren’t you judging him a little harshly?”
“Harshly?” Jeannie was in neither an understanding nor a forgiving mood. “By rights I ought to hate him.”
“There’s no hate in you—only grief.” He dropped the reins and gently gathered her into his arms, their embrace speaking volumes about the strong bond between them.
Big Tom had given Jeannie her first horse, but it was the red-headed Rusty who’d taught her to ride, then wiped her tears and told her to get right back up in the saddle when she was thrown. And it was Rusty, grinning as proudly as any father there, who’d taken her to those barrel-racing contests she’d competed in as a child and cheered her on to victory.
Her mother had thought the world of him too. Laurrinda Crane might have been Big Tom’s beautiful blond wife, but within months of his hiring on as ranch manager of the Circle C, Rusty Pride would have walked barefoot over barbed wire for the former debutante from San Antonio.
There had hardly been a day that Laurrinda hadn’t called on the cowboy to run some errand that her husband was too busy or too dad-blamed impatient to do. Once, years ago, when Big Tom had gone to a cattle auction, she had even asked Rusty to help her host an old-fashioned barbecue for the planning committee for the Bluebonnet Ball, one of the most prestigious social events of the season. Big Tom had gotten back in time to escort his wife to the ball, of course, but Jeannie would never forget how eagerly Rusty had danced attention on her mother the night of the cookout.
Laurrinda had counted on him more than ever toward the end. When the lump in her breast was pronounced both malignant and metastatic, it was Rusty—not Big Tom—who’d sat on the porch with her on a summer evening while she voiced her fear of dying. When the radiation treatments robbed her of her luxuriant hair, it was Rusty—not Big Tom—who’d told her that what was on a woman’s mind was more important than what was on her head. And when the breath left her body and they laid her in her grave, it was Rusty—not Big Tom—who’d taken her sobbing daughter into his arms and held her, much as he held her now.
Jeannie buried her face in his shirtfront and wept for the first time since the funeral—for the loving father she wished she’d had and for the lanky foreman who’d done such a commendable job of filling his shoes. She cried for hopes dashed and dreams shattered. And finally, because she was so confused and hurt and tired, she cried for herself.
“Feel better?” Rusty asked when the storm subsided.
“Yes.” Surprisingly enough, she did.
He released her and picked up the reins. “What now?”
“I don’t know.” She put the letter back in the envelope, then lifted her chin at a defiant angle. “But if Rafe thinks he can take Tony away from me, he’s wrong. If he tries, I’ll hire the best lawyers money can buy and go after him tooth and nail.”
“Spoken like a true Crane.”
Rusty was right of course. She sounded just like Big Tom at his worst. What she couldn’t control, she wanted to crush. But what was she supposed to do—lie down and let Rafe steamroll her in a court of law?
“All I want to do is keep my son,” she retorted in her own defense.
“Your son and Rafe’s son.”
Guiltily she glanced away.
“How did you feel,” he pressed, “to find someone you loved had hidden something so important from you?”
Betrayed was too pale a word for how she felt about Big Tom’s treachery. She longed to scream and release her pain, but what would that change? Nothing—nothing at all.
She regarded Rusty miserably as he mounted up with an effort. “What should I do?”
“I can’t tell you that.” He held the dancing bay in check and looked down at her with sage brown eyes. “But I can tell you this: Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
His piece said, Rusty reined his horse around and rode off to work the herd. Chronic arthritis or no, he had a job to do. And with Big Tom gone and both spring break and branding starting next week, it was up to him to continue teaching and shaping and molding Tony to take over the ranch someday.
But who better to show a boy the ropes than his own father? Especially if that father had won All-Around Cowboy honors three years running at the Circle C’s annual Fourth of July barbecue and rodeo?
After a moment of mental lip-biting Jeannie spun on her heel and headed toward the house. She had to see Rafe. Today. What Big Tom had done to them was wrong. Now it was up to her to do the right thing.
“May I help you?”
“Rafe Martinez, please.”
“Mr. Martinez is with a client right now.” The secretary had a Spanish accent that seemed to purr and a square face that might have been lifted from one of the friezes at Chichen Itza.
Jeannie realized she should have called first, instead of just changing her clothes, catching her hair back in a banana clip, and jumping into her car for an impetuous visit. But she hated to think she’d come all this way for nothing.
“Are you sure he couldn’t spare me a couple of minutes?” She let a note of urgency creep into her voice.
“Let me see if he can squeeze you in,” the secretary said, adjusting her black hornrimmed glasses.
But after consulting the appointment calendar on her desk, the dark-haired woman shook her head regretfully. “He has a luncheon meeting with his campaign manager in half an hour, followed by a court appearance this afternoon.” She turned the page and said with brisk efficiency, “However, I would be glad to make an appointment for you tomorrow”—now she glanced up inquiringly—“Ms.…?”
“Crane. Jeannie Crane.”
As if it had come unhinged, the secretary’s jaw dropped when the significance of Jeannie’s name sank in. She had obviously typed the letter that Rafe had sent via special delivery, which meant she knew the reason for the surprise visit.
Jeannie felt a blistering flush burst into flame upon her cheeks, but from years of habit she square
d her shoulders and lifted her chin to a determined angle. “Shall I wait?”
“Of course Ms. Crane.” The secretary, having recovered from her initial shock, indicated the grouping of sofa and chairs. “Would you like some coffee?”
“No, thank you.” Jeannie crossed to an armchair and sat down. She hated to place herself at a disadvantage by dealing with Rafe where his word was law, but Tony’s future happiness depended on his parents putting the past behind them and settling this out of court.
The secretary resumed typing, her fingers flying over the keys. Their castanetlike cadence played counterpoint to the accordion-based conjunto music coming from the radio on her desk.
Rafe had remained true to his roots by hanging his shingle on the west side of San Antonio, where the majority of the Hispanic population lived and worked and played. Jeannie had experienced a whole host of emotions as she’d driven along the streets, remembering that long-ago day she’d come looking for Rafe to tell him she was pregnant. Then the vast barrio had seemed like an alien nation; now it almost felt like home.
After parking her Ford Explorer at the only available meter, Jeannie had found herself behaving as if she belonged. During the walk down the long block to the two-story brick building that housed Rafe’s law office, she’d paused to window-shop when a pretty shawl in a small neighborhood store caught her eye. She’d smiled and said “Buenas dias” to two old men conducting a bull session in rapid-fire Spanish on the sidewalk. She’d frowned with maternal pique when a gang of teenagers who looked as if they should have been in school cruised by in a rolling boombox of a car.
Once inside the office, she’d been suitably impressed by the subtle south-of-the border ambiance. Hanging plants and huge trees rooted in whitewashed pots curtained the plate-glass window. Comfortable furniture in neutral colors and a handloomed cotton rug in the varying shades of the desert sand provided the perfect setting for a museum-quality collection of Mexican pottery and the vivid Diego Rivera prints that adorned the walls. Current issues of Texas Monthly and Ombre sat side-by-side on a tiered stone cocktail table.
