Last Chance

by Jill Marie Landis

  Rachel waved good-bye and went back inside, anxious to speak to Delphie. She found her in the kitchen unwrapping the veal cutlets she had just purchased at the butcher shop. Before Rachel could say a word, Delphie said, "Now, don't go asking why I invited him here without consulting you first—"

  "How did you know that's just what I was about to do?"

  "I could see it on your face back there in the hallway. Never saw anyone trying so hard to look so unruffled."

  "What?"

  "I can't say whether Mr. Cassidy noticed or not. Hand me the butcher knife, please."

  Rachel walked over to a drawer and located the knife. She picked it up and handed it to Delphie, who began to cut the veal into pieces the size of large oysters. "We saw Mr. Cassidy walking toward the telegraph office. Ty waved to him and asked if he had decided when they were going on their ride."

  "Did Lane seem annoyed?"

  Delphie gathered the veal rounds together and set them on the butcher paper. "No. Just asked if I thought you would mind. I told him no, because I didn't see anything wrong with it and I didn't think you would either. He asked me when might be a good time, and I said that there was nothing wrong with right now, and that as long as he was coming by so close to supper he might as well stay. I told him what I was fixing, and that's when he said it was one of his favorite recipes."

  "And that's it?"

  Delphie nodded. "That's it." She handed Rachel a measuring cup. "Fill this with flour for me, would you?"

  Rachel took the cup and walked over to the kitchen cabinet. She opened the flour bin and paused with the cup halfway to the yawning receptacle. "Delphie, you've been with me six years, and in all that time you've never before taken it upon yourself to invite anyone to dinner."

  The housekeeper broke an egg into a bowl before she turned around. "I didn't think you'd mind. Do you?"

  "No. But why Lane Cassidy? You've seen plenty of my friends when you're out on errands and you know so many longtime associates of Stuart's…"

  "I never saw you look at any of them the way you look at Lane Cassidy."

  Rachel nearly dropped the cup of flour. "Don't be ridiculous."

  "Ridiculous? I know you like I know my own sister, and I haven't ever seen you look at a man the way you do him."

  Rachel knew very well that what Delphie had thankfully left unsaid was, "Not even Stuart."

  Distressed, Rachel handed Delphie the cup of flour and went to sit down at the kitchen table. She pressed her hands to her cheeks. What Delphie had hinted at was unthinkable, yet it would explain the way she had been feeling since she saw Lane last. Her mind raced back to the night he had asked her to dance. She recalled how easily she had acquiesced. No matter how much she had protested his impulsive kiss on her doorstep, the memory was still disturbingly haunting.

  "What am I going to do?" she whispered, not really expecting an answer.

  "You're going to go upstairs and comb your hair and put on a fresh blouse and come back down and serve cold tea on the piazza and be as cordial as you know how to the first gentleman caller you've had since your husband died. That's what you're going to do."

  "But, Delphie, it's too soon. Stuart's only been gone a year. I'm not looking for a relationship. Besides, someone like Lane Cassidy… it's impossible—"

  "You sound like Miss Loretta. If it's time to take off the black, it's time to start living again. What's wrong with sharing a meal?"

  "Nothing, I suppose."

  "Then why don't you get going? You look like you're about to regurgitate."

  "The McKennas will be furious if they get wind of this."

  "Do you care?" Delphie started to whip the egg with a fork.

  "No. But I've already had one scene with them this week. I was hoping to get through Robert's homecoming before we had another."

  "Robert has a homecoming every few months," Delphie grumbled.

  Rachel agreed. Robert's investments in New Orleans kept him away from home for months at a time, but he was good about returning as often as possible, and each time he did, the McKennas held a soiree. Loretta McKenna would welcome almost any excuse to host a crowd in her palatial home.

  Rachel stood up, watching Delphie deftly dip the pieces of veal in beaten egg and then dredge them in flour.

  "I don't think this is a good idea," she said.

  "He's only coming to dinner," the housekeeper reminded her. "Go up and change your clothes, and don't try to see beyond the chocolate pudding we're having for dessert."

  Figuring it was as good a decision as any she might come up with herself, Rachel took Delphie's advice and hurried upstairs.

  The dining room was aglow with candlelight. The sight of Rachel at the opposite end of the table reminded Lane that he didn't belong in this setting. She looked as nervous as he felt, and seemed to become more so as the evening progressed. A snow white expanse of linen separated them, but he knew that in reality there was more than a tablecloth between his world and Rachel McKenna's.

  His ride with Ty had been uneventful, except for when the boy had waved and called out to anyone he recognized. Although folks had waved back, Lane had read the censure in their eyes when they'd looked at him. Things had not gotten any better when they'd returned to the house.

  Rachel had ushered him into one of the wide wicker rockers on the porch. Ty chose to swing in the hammock. Together they all sat on the porch and watched the parade of late-afternoon traffic down Main. Rachel jumped up and down, insisting on pouring Lane more tea or rearranging Ty's pillows. Again, as he had that first night, Lane pictured Sheriff Stuart McKenna seated on this wide porch with his family. In his mind, it seemed a far more fitting picture than one with himself in the tableau.

  "More carrots, Mr. Cassidy?"

  He turned to Delphie, seated on his left, and shook his head. "I don't think I could eat another bite."

  "There's just a spoonful left…" she urged.

  Lane glanced over at Ty, who rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue, declining the last few carrot slices. Rachel was staring intently at Lane, so he asked, "How about you, Rachel?"

  She started. "I'm sorry. What did you say?"

  "Carrots?"

  "Oh. No, thank you."

  He took the blue and white china bowl from Delphie and scooped the last helping of carrots onto his dinner plate. "This is the best meal I've had in a long, long time, Delphie."

  "It's always a pleasure to feed a hungry man." She stood up and started into the kitchen. "We'll be having chocolate pudding cake for dessert. Everyone who's finished his carrots will, that is," she reminded Ty as she left the room.

  "I don't think I'll have any, Delphie," Rachel said. "Just some coffee, please."

  Lane studied her profile as Rachel turned to address the housekeeper. The pulse point at the base of her throat tempted him in a way he had never felt tempted. She turned back, caught him staring and blushed almost instantaneously.

  "I didn't think you'd mind having Delphie eat with us. We usually all eat in the kitchen because it's easier—"

  "You know where I come from, Rachel. There's no need to put on any airs around me. The kitchen would have been just fine."

  The table was not only covered with a fine linen cloth, but there was a bowl of flowers in the center. He would have staked his hat on the fact that Delphie had used the best china and silver. For some reason, the housekeeper had taken a shine to him.

  After dessert, Rachel suggested they go into the parlor where Ty amused Lane and her with his chatter before he decided to share his most treasured possession, a kaleidoscope, with Lane.

  Seated at opposite ends of a wide, comfortable settee near the fireplace, Lane and Rachel waited for Ty to come back from his room with his prize.

  "He likes you," Rachel said softly. Unable to sit still, she stood up.

  "He's pretty easy to like himself."

  Lane watched her walk over to a fireplace hearth bordered by potted plants. "Listen, Rachel, I can see that I'm ma
king you nervous. I'll go as soon as I've seen this thing of Ty's."

  "Kaleidoscope," she said absently. "Please, don't rush off. Ty enjoys your company."

  "What about you?"

  Her fingers were laced together as she held her hands at her waist. Confusion and uncertainty had filled her gaze when Ty came racing back in the door.

  "Here it is," Ty said, holding out both hands as he proudly presented the kaleidoscope to Lane. "Put it up to your eye and hold it to the light and turn it."

  Lane squinted his right eye, held the telescopelike object to his eye and stared at the multicolored configuration inside it as they shifted and changed. He laughed aloud, tipped his head back, turned toward a lamp on a side table and continued to twirl the scope.

  Inside the long wooden tube the colors danced and ran together, never still, ever changing, each pattern more intriguing than the last. He had never seen anything like it.

  When he lowered the kaleidoscope he found Ty beaming up at him and Rachel watching him with a puzzled look in her eyes.

  "I don't think I've ever heard you laugh like that before," she said.

  "There's a lot you've never seen me do," he said with a wink.

  "Can I see your gun again?" Ty wanted to know. "I showed you my best and most favorite thing in the world."

  Lane sobered immediately and glanced up at Rachel. He could tell that she wanted him to refuse. He still felt it would be better to let the boy see the gun under supervision than have him so curious that he picked up one of his grandfather's or someone else's when there was no one around.

  "Ask your ma," Lane told him.

  "Mama? Please?"

  Rachel crossed her arms beneath her breasts and stepped closer. "As long as you understand that you are only allowed to do this because Mr. Cassidy is an expert—"

  Lane bit back another laugh. "Definitely."

  "—and he knows what he's doing. You are not to touch a gun ever again unless I give my permission, young man. Do you promise?"

  Ty stood between Rachel and Lane. One suspender drooped off his shoulder, one knicker cuff had come unbuttoned and the pants hems hung unevenly. With eyes as big as silver dollars, Ty nodded solemnly. "I promise, Mama. Cross my heart."

  With the appropriate crossing and swearing over, Lane took his gun out of the holster, unloaded the bullets and held it out to Ty.

  "This isn't a toy," Lane said, staring at the gun himself, wondering how his own life might have been different if this weapon had not played such a dramatic part in it.

  "Where'd you get it?" Ty asked.

  Lane stiffened involuntarily. The Smith & Wesson held too many dark memories. The gun had once belonged to a drifter who'd happened along the Cassidy ranch with his brothers. When the man had attacked Sally Cassidy, she'd managed to kill him with his own gun. Then she'd turned it on herself.

  "I got it so long ago that I don't remember," he lied.

  "It's heavy."

  "Too heavy for you." Lane then pointed out the various parts of the gun, and Ty repeated them back.

  "Why do you carry it all the time?" Ty asked.

  "I guess I've been wearing it for so long I don't feel dressed without it."

  The boy leaned against Lane's thigh and stared up at him, his eyes as wide and blue as Rachel's. He glanced over at his mother before he whispered to Lane, "You really wear it to bed?"

  Lane winked at Rachel over Ty's head. "Of course."

  "Lane—" Rachel's tone held a warning note.

  Ty handed the gun back to Lane and earnestly asked, "Do you buckle it over your nightshirt?"

  "I don't wear a nightshirt," Lane said without thinking.

  Caught up in a child's curiosity for detail, Ty immediately wanted clarification. "Then what do you wear to bed besides your gun?"

  Lane glanced at Rachel again, and was relieved to find her biting back a smile. She shrugged as if to say, "Get yourself out of this."

  "Nothing," Lane admitted truthfully. His answer sent Ty into gales of laughter.

  Lane reloaded the gun and slipped it back into the holster.

  Ty stopped laughing and looked over at his mother. "You look pretty when you smile, Mama."

  "I agree," Lane said. Immediately her smile disappeared. She visibly froze, as if the least attention from him frightened the hell out of her.

  She stepped back toward the fireplace. "It's time you went to bed, Ty. Tell Mr. Cassidy good night."

  "Can Lane tuck me in and read me a story, Mama?"

  Rachel's forehead puckered into a frown. When she'd seen him last he couldn't read more than his name. "You've pestered Mr. Cassidy enough for one day. I'm sure he has to be going—"

  "I can spare the time for one story," Lane told her without admitting anything had changed.

  "Are you sure?" She was watching him closely, the concern behind her question echoed in her eyes. It warmed him to know she was trying to save him embarrassment.

  Ty was halfway across the hall.

  "A man doesn't have to know how to read to tell a good story," Lane assured her without revealing the truth as he stood up and stretched.

  "Don't let him talk your ear off, Lane," she warned. As he started up the stairs, he heard her call out, "Despite what Ty will try to convince you, he does have to wear a nightshirt."

  As he waited for the boy to untie his shoes and slip out of his clothes, Lane looked around Ty's room. Although not overlarge, it was filled with brightly painted furniture, picture books and stuffed animals of various shapes and sizes. A small leather horse that rolled on wheels stood in one corner of the room near a wooden train. Aside from the toys, which seemed to be everywhere, everything else about the room was clean and tidy.

  Lane couldn't help but think of the filthy pallet on a dirt floor near a grease-spattered stove that had served as his own bed when he was no older than Ty and lived with Auggie Owens, the woman who had taken him in when Chase rode off after the men responsible for Lane's mother's death.

  As Ty tossed his shoes aside and began unbuttoning his suspenders, Lane tried to remember what his own life had been like when he had had a mother to tuck him in, to keep him clean and wash his hair, to see to his every need—but there was nothing left of the memory except a yawning void.

  "I'm sleepin' naked," Ty announced as he stood beside the bed, stripped down to all but a one-piece undergarment.

  "Oh, no you're not."

  "But you do."

  "I don't live in a house with two women," Lane reminded him. "A man's got to take precautions when they're around, you know. There's a lot of things that you have to do when there's women in the house, like taking off your hat when you come in and wearing a nightshirt to bed." He picked up the nightshirt laid out at the foot of the bed and held it up. It was a miniature version of a man's. He handed it to Ty, who took it without argument.

  Lane stared down at the little boy, at his small but sturdy arms and legs, his tousled hair, his narrow shoulders. He had once been this small, this defenseless, this vulnerable to the whims of the adult who had become his guardian by default.

  A swift, compelling need to protect the boy came over Lane, one that scared the hell out of him. Chase had left him behind immediately after Lane's mother committed suicide—the ultimate abandonment. So when Lane left the Trail's End he'd vowed never to stay in one place long enough to set himself up for betrayal again. He'd thought his heart had turned to stone until these last few moments alone with Rachel's boy.

  Ty climbed up onto the bed and patted the space beside him. "You have to sit here."

  Lane sat down on the edge of the narrow bed.

  "Lean back. That's how Mama does it." Ty waited until Lane was sitting beside him.

  "Did you know my papa, Lane?"

  Lane crossed his arms and ankles, careful to keep his boots off the spread as he leaned against the headboard. A picture of Stuart McKenna stood on the table beside Ty's bed. He barely remembered the big, sandy-haired man who had questioned him af
ter his first shoot-out on Main Street.

  "I met him a time or two when I was sixteen."

  "He was the sheriff," Ty said, his pride more than evident.

  Lane had never done anything to make anyone proud of him. Lately he'd even been a disappointment to Boyd Johnson, so much so that the administrator had put him on six months' suspension.

  "Maybe that'll teach you to think before you take matters into your own hands," Boyd had said when they parted ways. "We can't afford an operative who is so impulsive he puts everyone else in danger."

  The censure had stung, but Boyd had had no other choice after Lane's actions in Tulsa had caused the death of an innocent bystander and severe wounding of two others.

  "How about a story?" Ty asked, bringing Lane back.

  During a long, well-embellished description of an imaginary chase that led Lane down into the Grand Canyon, the child fell asleep.

  The house was filled with shadows as Lane walked back downstairs. Delphie had long since finished in the kitchen and had gone to bed in her room on the first floor. The only light still burning in the house came from the parlor, and Lane let it draw him back to Rachel.

  When he found her alone on the settee, she looked tired, lost in thought. He wished he could give her back all the happiness she had once known. He leaned in the doorway, watching her for a moment.

  "Is everything all right between you and your in-laws? Did they get over the sight of me standing there in your kitchen?"

  "I try to get along with them, for Ty's sake."

  He had the same overwhelming urge to put the light back in her eyes as he had the night he'd seen her at the dance. He was beginning to think only one man could do that, and that that man was dead.

  "You may not be in black, but you're still grieving for your husband, aren't you?"

  Her look of sorrow was instantly replaced by one of incredulity. "Is that what you think?"