The Cowboy's Bride

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “Thanks, but I’ve got to check on Patience and Trace and their mates.” Cisco tipped his hat at her and slipped out the door. Pearl said she had to do the same and headed out after him.

  When they were alone again, Cody turned back to Callie. Without warning, Callie’s heart was hammering in her chest. “What else did Pearl and Cisco say to you just now?” he asked.

  So, he knew they had been talking about him. Callie shrugged. “They were attempting to explain your bad behavior.” I don’t think they did.

  Cody stepped closer. Behaving just as unfairly as she had been, he used his height to force her to lean back slightly to look up at him. “I don’t see any reason to apologize on my own behalf, and neither should they,” he muttered in a low, disgruntled tone.

  Callie tilted her head and lifted a dissenting brow. Damn, he smelled good. Like soap and water and that wintry evergreen cologne he had always favored. “I think your Uncle Max might differ with you,” she pointed out calmly.

  The muscles in his bare chest and shoulders flexed as he folded his arms in front of him. “How so?”

  “Max was never rude to a lady.”

  “You think I’ve been rude?”

  She fixed him with a smile meant to dazzle him silly and perhaps coax him into her way of thinking. “In a word, yes.”

  “I suppose that means you would change me, and my behavior, if it were in your power.”

  “Probably,” Callie admitted frankly, no longer caring if they were headed for an argument. This needed to be said.

  “And how would you start?”

  She drew a breath and plunged on recklessly, sure Max would approve. “With the beard. I’d shave it off. You look better without it.”

  Cody touched a hand to his jaw. “How do you know? You haven’t seen me in years,” he muttered, running his fingers over his bushy, wheat gold beard.

  Callie released a wistful breath and briefly closed her eyes. “I remember your face, Cody.” She had dreamed it, night after night. And in those dreams, it was always the same. They were always together. Always happy and in love. She opened her eyes again. “All that beard does is cover it up.”

  “Fine.” Cody shrugged one broad shoulder uncaringly. His ocean blue eyes zeroed in on hers. “But let me make something very clear. You want my beard off, you’re gonna have to shave it off.”

  Chapter Six

  28:00

  Callie knew a challenge when she heard one. “You don’t think I’ll do it, do you?” she asserted softly, reading the cool derision in his eyes.

  Cody shrugged one broad, bare shoulder. “You said it, not me.”

  He had just thrown down the gauntlet one time too many, Callie thought. He would soon learn not to do that. She tossed a purposeful smile at him. “All right, we’ll do it, as soon as lunch is over.”

  “You cooked?”

  “Soup. And it’s great.”

  Cody made a dissenting sound. Not about to let him get by with that, either, Callie lifted a spoonful of the simmering concoction from the pot on the stove. Keeping one hand beneath the spoon to catch any drips, she blew on it gently, then lifted the spoon to Cody’s lips. “Taste it.”

  Keeping his eyes on hers all the while, he obliged. As the savory mixture melted on his tongue, his eyes lit up appreciatively. “Canned soup never tastes like that when I make it,” he murmured, perplexed.

  Callie smiled mysteriously. “I’ll warm some bread in the oven if you’ll set the table,” she bartered.

  “Deal.”

  As Cody set out the spoons and napkins, Callie dished up bowls of piping hot soup and carried them to the table. Unable to resist, she asked, “What did your Uncle Max think about your beard?”

  Cody filled two water glasses and carried them to the table. “He told me on more than one occasion that I looked like a heathen.”

  Callie slid the bread in the oven. “So he wanted you to shave it off, too?”

  Cody grinned ruefully at the memory. “He thought I’d have had better luck with the ladies if I had.”

  Callie sank into a chair opposite him and watched as he did the same. “But you didn’t.”

  “It suited me,” Cody said as he spread a napkin across his lap and began to eat.

  “You miss him, don’t you?”

  Briefly, Cody’s eyes were shrouded in sorrow. “Yes. I do.” He fell silent as the timer went off and Callie got back up to remove the bread from the oven. “I know it’s only been a few days, but I haven’t felt this way since my parents died in that earthquake.”

  And it was tearing him up inside, Callie thought as she sliced bread for them both and carried it to the table. Sensing he needed to talk about this, she inquired, “How old were you when that happened?”

  “Six.”

  Six. Callie couldn’t even imagine what his loss would have felt like. He had been so young...so much a child...a child in need of a parent. She lifted her eyes to his and asked, compassionately, “Where were you living at the time?”

  “Butte,” Cody replied without inflection, a faraway look in his eyes that was only one of the indicators of the pain he still felt over this. She watched as he blew out a weary breath and pushed on with his story. “My dad had a medical practice there and my mom was a nurse in the local hospital. They had gone down to Mexico City so my dad could demonstrate a new surgical technique he was working on to some doctors there.” For a second, Cody grew very still. Callie could see him struggling with his emotions.

  Shaking his head in silent regret, he went on, “They were in the hospital when the earthquake hit. Initially, they were one of the lucky ones and were able to get out of the building relatively unscathed. But a lot of others weren’t so fortunate.” Again, he paused, briefly closed his eyes. “Knowing my folks, they didn’t even think about it. They just went back in to deliver medical aid and comfort to whomever they could. Until their luck eventually ran out, too,” he finished sadly.

  Callie could only imagine the horror of what Cody had gone through during that awful time. Still, she wanted to help, even if all she could do for him was to listen. “How did you find out your parents were gone?” she asked carefully, wishing they had talked about all this years ago.

  “Uncle Max came to the house.” Cody shook his head, the pain he’d felt then apparently beginning to surface again. “I knew something was wrong even before he told our baby-sitter he needed to talk to us alone, because Uncle Max practically never left the ranch. But it was days before that would be confirmed for me.”

  Cody’s expression was so brooding and intent, Callie knew there was more.

  “He only told Patience and Trace what was going on. Everyone knew my folks had been caught in a collapsing building during an aftershock and were trapped in the rubble but me. For days I was shut out... feeling there was something terribly wrong... that it was more than just an unexpected communications problem that was keeping my parents from contacting us to let us know how things were going. But everyone kept cheerfully reassuring me that everything and everyone was fine.”

  “Only they weren’t,” Callie said, wishing she could do something to ease the tension in his tall frame and the hurt in his low voice.

  “No,” Cody confirmed grimly. “They weren’t.” He pressed his lips together. Again, he had a distant look in his eyes. “By the time the rescue workers were able to reach my parents nearly ten days later, they were both dead, and had been for some time.”

  “It must have been really hard on all of you,” Callie commiserated softly, knowing this was as much, if not more, than Cody had ever revealed about himself to her.

  “The worst thing was feeling shut out,” Cody replied bitterly. “Like everyone knew the truth of what was really going on but me.”

  Finished with her soup, Callie put down her spoon and offered what consolation she could. “I’m sure Max only meant to protect you.”

  The pain in Cody’s eyes faded and was replaced by a weary acceptance that tore at Call
ie’s heart. “Whatever his thinking at the time, his actions taught me not to rely on anyone but myself when it comes to discovering and dealing with the truth.”

  “So that’s why you’ve taken self-sufficiency to new extremes,” Callie observed.

  Noting Cody was ready for a refill on his soup, she got up to ladle him some more.

  “If you don’t let yourself rely on anyone else to bring you happiness, you won’t find yourself being disappointed. That was true then and it’s true now.”

  Callie put the soup in front of him and sat back down. This seemed a good time to get into his relationship with his whole family. “Surely, after you lost your parents, your brother and sister helped watch over you.”

  “There’s a difference—” He stopped abruptly and began to look annoyed with himself.

  “What?” Callie prodded when he seemed loath to go on.

  “There’s a difference between being watched over and included.”

  “And they shut you out?”

  Cody acknowledged this with a slight nod, explaining, “Patience and Trace were closer in age. They had played together from the crib on. After my parents’ death, the two of them were inseparable for years afterward.”

  “But they were not close to you,” Callie said, knowing that must have really hurt.

  Cody sighed. “I don’t think they deliberately meant to shut me out,” he said quietly at last. “They just assumed I was too young to understand or wouldn’t be interested in what was happening in their lives. Occasionally they let me tag along with them when they went off somewhere, but most of the time I was politely told to get lost.”

  “Because you were so much younger,” Callie guessed.

  “Yes. And couldn’t do what they did,” Cody allowed.

  “And that hurt you?”

  “I wouldn’t say hurt, exactly.” Cody withdrew into himself a little again.

  “Then what would you call it?” Callie asked gently, and was rewarded with only silence. But then, he didn’t have to tell her his parents’ death had had a profound impact on his life. She could see it in his face. “What were you like before your parents died?”

  “My memories are sketchy... I was only six...but I think I was a pretty happy-go-lucky kid. I remember being able to talk to just about anyone.”

  “And after?” Callie prodded.

  “After was not good. I was so hurt and angry for being excluded in terms of what was going on that, for a long time after, I didn’t talk much to anyone at all.”

  “Uncle Max must’ve been worried.” Just like I’m worried about you now.

  Cody shrugged. His expression was grimly nonchalant. “He told everyone more than once that it was just my way of dealing with grief and to leave me alone.”

  But that wasn’t what Cody had needed, Callie thought, then or now. Though there was probably no way that Max, a man who had never had children of his own, could have known that at the time. “And that was okay with you?” she asked as she gathered their dishes and carried them to the sink.

  Cody gave her a self-deprecating grin as he stood and followed suit. “To tell the truth, I was kind of like Zeus. So ticked off that I was not really fit for keeping company.”

  “What about Patience and Trace?” Callie collected the butter and jam and put them back in the refrigerator. “How did they cope with the loss?”

  “They moved on, a lot more readily than I did. Or maybe it was just that they were more caught up in the adjustment to ranch life than I was. At the time, we were all city kids. Uncle Max taught us all how to rope and ride and survive out on the range in a blizzard, just in case we ever got caught in one. He kept us pretty busy that first year, and every year after.”

  Callie looked at Cody and knew it was important she get him thinking about all he had instead of all he had lost. It was important, she thought, that she get him dealing with his grief, not surreptitiously, but out in the open. “I know Max made a lot of mistakes in his dealings with you, but the bottom line is...he loved you very much. And mistakes or no,” Callie continued thickly, “that ought to count for something.” Just like what I felt for you — and in some ways still do — ought to count for something.

  Cody drew a long breath, then fell silent, thinking, and the suffering in his eyes began to ease.

  Deciding some coffee would be nice, Callie rummaged through the pantry until she found some.

  Seeing what she was up to, Cody brought out the sugar and cream and set them both on the table. “What about you? How old were you when your mother died?”

  “Fourteen. She’d been ill for quite a while before that. Still, it was a shock,” Callie said as she carried the coffee and paper filters back out to the counter. “She and I were a lot alike.”

  “In what way?” Cody plugged in the automatic coffee-maker and pulled it forward on the counter.

  Callie took the water reservoir and added water up to the eight-cup line. “We tended to see things in black and white. They were either right or wrong. My pa and my brother Buck...” Her hands tightening on the water reservoir, Callie paused. She was all too aware they were headed toward dangerous ground. “Well, let’s just say they had a whole other way of looking at things,” Callie added finally. One 1 never could countenance.

  “Did your mother know what kind of man she had married?”

  Callie had thought about that herself endless times. “I don’t think so,” she allowed as she stuffed a paper liner into the filter basket. “Pa was always better when she was alive. He loved her. He didn’t want to disappoint her. And he had promised her he would run the hardware store she had inherited from her parents.” And he had, Callie thought, he’d run it into the ground.

  Cody watched her measure coffee grounds into the filter. “What happened to change all that?”

  “The insurance money he collected upon her death,” Callie said as she swung the basket holder shut. Pausing thoughtfully, she switched on the machine.

  Comfortable right where she was, she turned around to face Cody and stood there, leaning against the counter. “I don’t know if it was the grief or the gambler’s instinct that had been in him all along, but Pa had this idea that he could triple the insurance money in a weekend at Las Vegas, if he played his cards right.”

  Callie shook her head in silent admonition as she recalled, “Buck supported him in the scheme. After that, they had grand plans for moving to California and setting up some sort of fancy nightclub, with a private card room in the back.” Callie lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “So before I knew what had happened, they’d liquidated everything in the Boise, Idaho store, sold it and the house and packed what was left in a U-Haul trailer.”

  Cody braced a hand on the counter beside her. His look was unexpectedly gentle and understanding as he studied her upturned face. “You must have been scared to death.”

  Callie nodded as he looked deep into her eyes, knowing it was true. She had not only missed her mother. Buck and Pa had taken her from the only home she’d ever known. She closed her eyes briefly in remembered misery, then opened them and looked up at Cody again as she told him frankly, “I knew it was a stupid plan from the get-go. I tried to talk them out of it, but they told me to shut up. They weren’t interested in my opinion.”

  She swallowed, and because she needed something to do to keep her hands from trembling, she brought down a couple of stoneware mugs. “The first couple of nights Pa did increase his winnings. I mean they went up and down, but at the end of the night he had more than he’d started with. The third night he lost everything. We got kicked out of the hotel.” Just talking about that time made her stomach twist into knots.

  At Cody’s look of concern, she gave him a watery smile and ducked her head shyly. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” Especially when it embarrassed her so much.

  “Maybe because I need to hear it,” Cody retorted gravely.

  Noting the coffee had stopped brewing, he quickly filled their two mu
gs, then took her hand and led her over to the kitchen table. They sat down opposite each other. “What happened next?” he asked, reminding her that he hadn’t met her until three years later, when she was seventeen.

  Callie stirred cream and sugar into her coffee. She figured they might as well get as much as possible out in the open in case she had to tell Cody the whole truth later, because it was the only way to save him. “We drove up to Denver. I wanted us all three to look for work.” Callie paused, her lips tightening in disapproval. “But Pa and Buck weren’t interested in any more dead-end jobs. Instead, they worked out this pool hall scam and hustled enough to get us out of Denver.” Callie drew a steadying breath and took a sip of the aromatic brew. “From then on it was just one con or scam after another.”

  And the scams had gotten more complex and criminal with every turn. And for Callie that was an embarrassment and shame she would carry to her grave.

  Looking completely relaxed in his shirtless state, Cody folded his arms in front of him, leaned toward her and studied her intently. “You had nowhere else to go, no one to turn to?” Surely, he seemed to feel, she could have done something.

  Callie shrugged. “Buck and Pa were the only family I had left. I wanted to love them. I think maybe at one time I did.” But looking back, she could see she should have done something, too, even if it had meant carting herself off to the child welfare authorities.

  “But you don’t love them now?” Cody guessed, pausing to take a drink of his coffee.

  Callie couldn’t and wouldn’t lie to Cody about that. “You can’t love someone you don’t respect,” she replied quietly.

  He nodded slowly, put his mug down. “Do you ever have any regrets about what happened to us?”

  Judging by the look in his eyes, he was feeling as confused about being thrown together this way as she was. He liked it and he didn’t. Most of all, though, he wanted to find peace. As did she. They had both been carrying the burden of their breakup and sham marriage for too long. “I wish we’d waited till we were a little older to run off,” she said frankly. And thought wistfully, Maybe it would have worked out if we had. “What about you?”