by Docter, K. L
His orthopedist wanted to replace his fractured hip, saying it would be harder to fix the longer they waited. The anesthesiologist was concerned he might not survive the surgery because of the risk of intubation with a pneumonia patient. The pulmonologist didn’t want to risk affecting his respiration so pain meds for the hip were out of the question while he battled pneumonia. He could O.D. on narcotics and stop breathing altogether.
The pneumonia had finally responded to treatment so the doctors decided it was time to address his hip fracture. Her dad’s surgery was scheduled first thing in the morning, which is why he wanted to see her and Amanda.
She could refuse—she wasn’t sure she was ready to put all of the pain behind her, not under these conditions—but could she live with herself if she ignored his request and he didn’t come out of surgery? Memories of sitting in the hospital with her mother, watching her die one small piece at a time, swept over her.
Her step faltered.
“You don’t have to do this, Rach.” The rumble of Patrick’s words steadied her as much as the warm knuckle that traced down her cheek.
She looked down at Amanda, her small hands enveloped by Patrick’s on one side and her own on the other. The way they stood together, they were almost a closed circle and that calmed her further. She glanced down the hall toward the waiting room where they’d left the bodyguard her father hired to protect her. “Yes, I do,” she whispered. “I can’t run anymore.”
Patrick gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m right here if you need me.”
That’s why she’d be okay. The man hadn’t left her side since he suddenly appeared on the heels of Katy’s phone call. She’d warned him she was calling Rachel about her father before actually doing it, and he’d dropped everything to protect her. As he’d done since the day they met. No matter what took place once she walked into Room 5, she knew she could trust Patrick to be there to pick up the pieces.
God, don’t let there be too many pieces!
She gently squeezed Amanda’s hand and wondered if she was making a mistake exposing her child to the man her mama knew.
She smiled tremulously. “Let’s go meet your grandpa, baby,” she said and started walking again until she reached his room. Without pause, her back straight, she opened the door and crossed the threshold.
The overhead lights were turned low and what seeped into the room around the closed blinds on the window were dim thanks to the dark storm clouds racing across the Colorado skies. Rachel hesitated. Was her father really expecting her? Maybe Katy was simply meddling, and he hadn’t really asked to see her. Her friend knew how Rachel felt about their break…and didn’t approve. She’d said as much more than once. Was this her way of forcing the issue?
Her free hand clammy on her skirt, she peered at the figure lying on the bed. “Dad?”
“Get in here, chickadee. I’m decent.” Her father chuckled, the sonorous sound from his twice broken nose so familiar it hurt. “At least, I’m covered up. I haven’t been decent since, um, well, you know me and dates and figures. Guess St. Peter’s going to have that date when it comes down to it.”
If he hadn’t spoken, called her by that ridiculous nickname she’d hated growing up, she would have turned right around thinking she’d entered a stranger’s room. Rachel didn’t want to think too much about her father facing St. Peter either, so she walked into the unit. The closer she got to the bed, the more shaken she became by her father’s condition.
From what the doctors told her about the infection he’d been fighting, she’d been prepared for the tubes and equipment, his pallor. But the affable teddy bear of a man who’d dragged her all over the country and made her life positively miserable—her words in one of her journals—had been reduced to a shadowy figure of a man she barely recognized.
A lifetime of anger and hurt simply melted away. She leaned down to kiss him on the cheek. “Hi, Daddy.”
The brightness of his dark chocolate eyes hadn’t dimmed, yet the last ten years hadn’t been kind. Deep lines, caused by pain and too many years in the sun, bracketed his mouth. She remembered her mother saying, with all of the bones he’d broken riding the rodeo circuit, he was likely to be in a world of hurt as an old man. It was clear the price had come due.
He ran a hand over his graying hair and grinned at her like they’d never been separated by angry words and ten years of bitter silence. “Had hoped to gussy myself up a bit before you arrived, but guess I fell asleep.”
“You’re still the handsomest man in the room.”
“Not anymore, chickadee,” he said, looking over her shoulder where Patrick hung back.
He lifted a tremulous hand. “Dixon Grey,” he said. “We talked on the phone. It’s good to finally meet you, Patrick. Thanks for taking care of my girls for me.”
Patrick leaned in past Rachel, their shoulders touching, and shook her father’s hand. “Mom and Dad have talked about you over the years, Mr. Grey. Glad to meet you, too.”
“Dixon,” he said, his gaze watchful. “Mr. Grey is too formal if you’re planning to marry my girl. I know your people are Catholic, so that’s one thing in your favor. Though a practicing Catholic man doesn’t play around with his woman without a couple of wedding rings between them.”
“Dad!” Rachel flushed as she thought about Patrick’s lovemaking. Where had her father learned such intimate details? Cook? Sprang? Or was her dad just fishing?
“What?” He raised a hand covered with tubes. “It’s not like I have a whole lot of time to dilly-dally around playing twenty questions, chickadee. Either the man’s intentions are good ones or they ain’t. My time may be short. It may not. But I’m making sure you don’t mess up with this one.” He fixed a stern eye on Patrick. “So answer the questions, son.”
Rachel was startled when Patrick responded. “I have nothing but good intentions, Dixon. Yes, I’m a practicing Catholic. And I’ll only marry Rachel when she’s good and ready.”
“That’s all I wanted to know.” Her father grinned. “Can’t blame a man for making sure our girls are taken care of properly when I’m gone. You can take care of them, right? You putting your troubles behind you at that construction firm of yours? “
“Yes, sir,” Patrick said. “We’re working on that problem.”
Her father knew an awful lot about what was going on outside his hospital room, Rachel decided. Memories rose up from when she was younger, the number of times he managed to dig out secrets she didn’t want him to know, like when she was fifteen and fell in love with a nineteen-year-old drover named Carson. She’d followed that blue-eyed cowboy everywhere, until her dad caught her and warned him off. It’s when she started to buck his control over her life.
She didn’t like that he believed she was going to marry the good Catholic boy he’d made her promise to find after the incident with Carson—maybe, if she’d listened, she wouldn’t have messed up her first marriage so badly—but the old man suddenly had color in his cheeks. She didn’t have the heart to naysay any of it and watch it all drain away.
Patrick had played into her father’s hands, but she had a feeling it was because he was trying not to upset him either. He’d been seated next to her when the doctors explained the necessity of keeping her father calm before he went into surgery. Thankfully, the way Patrick phrased his response, he hadn’t really lied about anything. He wasn’t going to marry anyone again, certainly not Rachel. She might have “kicked in his protective instincts” as Jack claimed, but that didn’t mean the man loved her.
Her father turned to Amanda, who was peeking at him from behind Rachel’s left hip. “Seems to me your mama’s lost her manners altogether, pumpkin. I’m your grandpa.” He held out his hand, but he was obviously already tiring because it fell to the bed an instant later.
Rachel was astounded to see Amanda step closer to the bed. The little girl covered his motionless hand with hers, right over his IV. “No, baby! You can’t touch—”
“The hell she can’t,
” her father croaked. He rearranged the tubes a bit, rolled to his side, and enveloped her hand in his palm. “Let me look at you, sweet pea.”
Amanda silently gazed up at her grandpa and he stared down at her like she was the Seventh Wonder of the World. “You’re the spitting image of your mama and grandma. All moonstruck hair and baby-doe eyes,” he said, a tear trailing down his pain-lined face. “Wish you could have met your grandma. She would have loved you.”
Rachel’s eyes filled at the love she saw in his eyes. Her heart ached at the thought that love might disappear if he knew Amanda wasn’t really her own. Remembering how much it hurt when he’d walked away when she was seventeen, she stiffened and took a protective step nearer her daughter’s back.
“Amanda, honey,” Patrick spoke up beside them, “why don’t we find your grandpa some fresh water to drink, maybe have an apple juice ourselves?”
Her gaze moved from adult to adult. Then, she nodded and pulled out of her grandfather’s grasp.
Taking the little girl’s hand, Patrick smiled at Rachel. “We may be gone a bit. We’re heading to the cafeteria to grab a snack.”
Rachel knew what he was trying to do, but she suddenly wasn’t ready to be alone with her dad. How did one recapture ten lost years? There was so much anger between them. “You don’t have to go all the way—”
“Take your time, Rach.” He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her close to settle his mouth over hers, like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to kiss her in front of her father. “We’ll be back,” he murmured.
Then, with a big smile for Amanda, he walked her toward the door. “Maybe they’ll have cookies, too. Would you like that?” Rachel watched her daughter nod, and then they were gone.
“That’s a good man you’ve got there,” her father said behind her.
Patrick was a good man, but she didn’t have him. She turned her back on that depressing thought and faced her father. “Yes, he is. He’s been there when I needed him.” She couldn’t think about the time when he wouldn’t be there anymore.
“Unlike me, you mean.” Her dad’s observation sounded sad and questioning at the same time.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to, chickadee.” He shifted on the bed so that he was lying propped on the pillows. He fumbled with the oxygen tubes in his nose before he spoke again. “You’re angry and have every right to be. I can’t take back what I did, wouldn’t want to, even now, knowing how things turned out. Don’t think I don’t have regrets, all the same.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” she asked, unwilling to deal with the past yet.
He grimaced. “Sorry. You hate that name.” He shrugged. “You’ve just always been my little chickadee. Hard habit to break. I’ll try to stop.”
“Chickadees are boring little birds.” Nothing special. Certainly not missed when they flew away.
“They’re cute as a button and so were you. And, just like the chickadee, you were curious about everything and everyone around you.” A ghost of a smile twitched on his lips. “No matter where we went, it took you less than ten minutes to investigate your surroundings, make friends. Cowboys. Rodeo clowns. Ranchers. You were always surrounded by a flock of people, all wanting to make you smile, bring you treats, and give you rides.”
“Oh.” Thought of that way, the nickname didn’t sound half bad. Almost tender. Emotions welled inside her alongside the memories. “Remember the time that old geezer put me on the back of that red bull when I was seven?”
Her father snorted with disgust. “Bull’s name was Killer Mayhem. He never broke out the gate the same way twice. Killed four riders in his career. You shouldn’t have been within ten feet of that animal, let alone set on his back. Seeing you there near gave me a heart attack.”
“The way you yelled, I thought for sure I’d get paddled like some of the kids on the circuit.”
“I loved you too much to raise a hand to you, girl.”
Rachel listened to the hiss of oxygen from the tubes inserted in his nose. “What changed?” she asked, her voice strangling in her throat. “W-Why did you stop?”
“Loving you? Darlin’ girl. Never stopped.” He grimaced, as if in pain, before he began again, noticeably weaker. “That’s why you’re here. So much to say before I die….”
She reared back. “You’re not dying!”
“That’s in God’s and the surgeon’s hands.” He stopped again, longer this time.
Concerned, Rachel was about to call the nurse for assistance when he smiled crookedly. “Stupid pills. Make me groggy. Still must…make peace. Tell you what I did. Just in case.”
Just in case? Her knees wobbled. Leaning on the bed, she took his hand. “We don’t have to—”
“Get the papers,” he said, waving to the other side of the room. “Top drawer.”
When she did as he asked, she found a folder with her name on it. Her new name. Her parents had named her Rachel Felicia Grey. Greg had insisted on calling her Felicia because it “sounds more upper crust.” When the divorce attorney asked her if she wanted to take her name back, she’d been re-born plain old Rachel James, eradicating Felicia and taking her mama’s maiden name.
She carried the folder back to the bed, afraid to guess what was inside. “What is this?” She held it out to him.
“My Last Will and Testament,” he said, refusing to accept the folder. “That’s your copy.”
“Dad! You’re not going to die!” She wouldn’t allow the idea to settle into her brain. She might not have seen him in ten years, but she’d been aware he was out there. Somewhere. She couldn’t think about a world without her dad in it.
“Not planning on dying, girl. Have every reason to live now you’re here,” he said with a small smile. “But I learned a thing or two about how things get done. I’ve learned to plan, with a small amount of success.”
He nodded at the folder clutched in her hand. “Open it.”
She did as he instructed and stared at the squiggly words on the page, her eyes suddenly awash in a blur of tears. She made a pretense of reading, but then a number jumped out at her. Ten million…her gaze shot to her father. “What…how…?”
He chuckled, but ended up choking on the laughter. When he stopped coughing, he shrugged. “Your great-aunt took good care of you, and what I have is just spit compared to her estate. But I want you to have something for Amanda if the James family doesn’t accept her into the fold. Something of her own.”
The air froze in Rachel’s lungs. Dear God, he knew her secret. “Why wouldn’t they?” she prevaricated.
“You told your great-aunt the little one wasn’t your blood.”
“Amanda’s my daughter whether she’s my blood or not!” The argument was out before she was able to pull it back. If he didn’t know her secret for sure before, he did now.
“Damned straight, she is which is why we took action to protect you both from the James family, as well as Amanda’s daddy.” His dark gaze grew tender. “I don’t mean to ruffle your feathers, girl. I already love her like my own. I’ve got half a dozen pictures of her on my desk. That animal you married doesn’t deserve to claim her.”
“Wait.” She frowned. “You have pictures of Amanda?”
“Have a roomful of you both.” He fiddled with his oxygen mask. “For ten years, I kept my promise to your Great-Aunt Amanda to stay away. But she’s dead and that promise is broken.”
Rachel was beginning to feel like she’d wandered into a cattle chute backward. She knew danger was coming, but she couldn’t see it. “What are you talking about?”
Her father took her hand. His fingers trembled, but his grip firmed, like he didn’t dare let her go until he’d finished. “I made a deal with your great-aunt. I leave you with your mama’s family and, as long as I get regular reports and photos, I stay away.”
“The day you left—”she stared at him in consternation. “You sold me? Like a ratchety old hor
se you didn’t want any more?”
“Sell you?” He snorted. “You think I took money from the snooty James family?”
“Then why did you leave me?”
He squeezed her hand. “Ah, little chickadee, you wanted so much more than I could give you. You’d set your sights on college. You wanted roots, a home of your own.” He let go of her hand and looked away at the closed window blinds, lost in his memories. “Your great-aunt wanted to give you those things, too. She had as many regrets as I did about how the family treated your mama when she ran off and married me.” He looked at her. “You were so angry all the time I figured you’d be happier with your mama’s family.”
Rachel tried to remember exactly what was said that day. Her dad had his final ride that afternoon, and she knew they were hitting the road to the next town. Again. She remembered her anger building before he came back to their motel room. She’d been researching local colleges on the internet, something she did in every town they visited her senior year, though she knew enrollment was out of the question. Their credit was nonexistent, and they’d never stayed anywhere long enough for a guidance counselor to help her find grants and scholarships. All she could see of her future was a succession of motel rooms trailing from one rodeo to the next with her father.
Then, he’d walked into the room and started spouting off something about yet another new job and she’d lost her temper. She didn’t remember much else but screaming at him until he turned around and left. “You were excited about some new enterprise someone convinced you would make tons of money. If it wasn’t Great-aunt Amanda, who was it? Or was that just a trick?”
A smile flickered across his lips at some memory. “I was excited all right. Ran into an old rancher I’d worked for years before I met and married your mama. He had a proposition for me. Wanted to expand his ranch operations in Montana and breed bulls for the rodeo. He had no family left, so he offered me a partnership if I’d run it for him.”
“That’s quite a proposition.” She was impressed. Her dad had always been respected on the circuit, both for his riding acumen and his animal husbandry. He’d been raised on a ranch before his father lost the property to bad management practices and back taxes when he was seventeen.
