The man he'd been four years ago when he had lost Ashley would be half way to Coldstream, Texas already, licking his wounds and blaming Ashley for all their problems.
But he'd changed, hadn't he?
What would the new and somewhat improved Reese Caldwell do about all this?
He reached for his cell phone.
The ranch manager answered. “Hi, Santos, is Clay around?"
"Right here, Reese, I'll get him for you."
He could hear him yell for Clay in the background. Santos was in his mid-fifties and had been with them for years, almost as long as Josie.
Reese was relieved Josie hadn't answered. He felt in no mood for more of her pointed questions and another lecture.
"Hey, what's up, big brother?"
"Big brother, huh? Right, Big Brother in the Orwellian sense?"
"Maybe. The jury's still out on that. I'll let you know someday."
They'd gotten into a minor dust up on the way to the airport. No surprise. Clay was likely still pissed at Reese for vetoing his idea for a huge feedlot. Reese wanted to keep the ranch's cattle as organic as possible, no growth hormones or antibiotics, and for damn sure no bone meal. Clay would think on it all and come around to Reese's way of thinking.
Today, all the details of running the ranch seemed smaller to Reese, less significant than in the past. He'd suffered from tunnel vision. Maybe, Clay had it right. The time had come for him to give up control and give Clay a chance to do things differently on the ranch, even if he made a few mistakes. “I need you to handle things for a while."
"It's about flipping time you do something about your woman. Bring her back down here where she belongs. Lori, Josie and I approve. Mom, Dad, and Aunt Pelly will, too."
Reese laughed. “Yeah, saying and doing are worlds apart, Brother."
"How long will you be gone, then?"
"Look, I don't know. At least a couple of weeks. Make that four weeks."
"Weeks? The hell you say?"
There was an awkward pause.
"You're never gone anywhere that long."
In his mind, Reese could see his brother now, rubbing his black beard stubble with the palm of his hand and squinting his gray eyes. He did that when presented with a puzzle. Clay was right, he rarely traveled. He'd been obsessed with the ranch for too damn long. All his life in fact. In the meantime, real life, the most important things in life, had passed him by. By contrast, Ashley had moved on and made progress with her life goals.
"You've been itching to get your fingers on the reins,” Reese said. “Now's your chance, little brother.” He smiled. Both he and his brother were strong-minded men, locking horns more than occasionally.
Even with their dad retired, a spread like the Triple C was tough to share. “Talk to Fredericks about that bull, will you? See if you can get the old horse trader to sell him to you at a reasonable price. And, Clay, I know you'll want to call in dozers and start that feedlot, but I don't want to come back and find concrete in the south pasture."
His brother laughed good-naturedly. “Right. I'll hold off on that. For a while.” The one word, right, carried a world of, ‘we're not finished chewing this particular bone'.
Reese laughed. “If Mom and Dad call, hell, tell them I'm okay."
Clay snorted. “Yeah, when Mom hears you've left the ranch for four whole weeks, alarm bells will ring, red flags'll fly."
"Just handle it. And take care of Aunt Pelly and Josie, will you?"
"Of course I will. Say hello to Ash for me,” Clay said.
"If she lets me back in the house,” he said.
"What did you do?” Clay demanded.
"Screwed things up pretty bad."
"Already? That's real fast even for you. Fix it."
"Easier said than done.” Reese hung up, then turned the car around and headed back the way he'd come.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter Ten
Ashley looked up from her spread sheets from work to check on Mandy. After Reese had stormed out, she'd driven to her office at Braxton, too, taking Mandy with her. She needed to work or she'd go stark crazy.
Stretched out on her tummy in her little girl blue jeans, cuffs rolled up, Mandy happily colored on a scrap of paper she recycled from her mother's discards. Every so often the little one would reach over and remove a tab or two from the filing cabinet drawers.
Could Mandy be responsible for the mysterious acts of sabotage she suspected? No, it was more than a child's innocent havoc.
She'd discovered some critical stats missing from her desk today. Numbers from the testing of the optical arrays and a series of microprocessors. And other documents from testing, which listed the exact data on the number of heat measurements per image.
Those tests were the backbone of making the mass manufacture and marketing of her IRT camera efficient and economical.
She bet by Monday, they'd be right back where she left them. A pattern had emerged. Her spooks expected a working mom to stay home on weekends. They were chauvinistic spooks.
"I'm hungry, Mommy."
"You're hungry again? You just ate breakfast."
She'd brooded and held back foolish tears while Mandy finished off her pancakes. Men. She wouldn't think of Reese now.
Not yet. Not so soon. It hurt too much. The pain threatened to take her under this time. How could he walk out on her this morning with hardly a word spoken? After the kisses they'd shared?
"Breakfast was a long ... long time ago,” Mandy insisted.
Ashley looked at her watch. The time approached twelve. Amazing. Closer to lunch than she thought. Leave it to Mandy's internal time clock to know.
"Tell me again who that man was?” her daughter demanded with suspicion beyond her years underlying the words and clouding her face.
"His name is Reese. Reese Caldwell. He lives in Texas."
Her eyes brightened. “He has horses then, right? I saw his hat. And all Texans have horses."
"Well, maybe not all."
"But he does?"
She sighed and grinned at her offspring. “Yes, honey he has horses, lots of horses."
"I like horses a lot."
"I know you do, lovie."
"I'm glad you bought my horse, Kernel, for me."
Mandy rushed on, “You wish the horse guy could be our full-time daddy?"
"Did I ... uh ... did I say that?” Mandy had inherited Ashley's excellent memory, retaining most everything a person said, especially things said in a weak moment. Still, Ashley didn't think she'd said such a thing to her child.
Mandy shook her blond curls. “No, you didn't say it in words. I just know things sometimes. He's nice. He smiled at me. A sad-clown smile."
"A what?"
"A smile like the sad clown at the circus makes."
Ashley's heart slammed and her throat clogged. “I see."
"Would he be a good daddy for us?"
After a moment, Ashley said, “Yes, I think he'd be a wonderful daddy if he tried it, sweets.” Ashley fought a lump in her throat. The mental picture of a ‘sad-clown smile’ on Reese's face hurt her. Her guilty conscious screamed she'd been unfair to him, hurt him. It'd been a hell of a choice she thought she made. Her lover or her child.
"Are you hungry, Mommy?” Mandy asked again.
"Okay. Okay. You win, my little noodle nag. Let's go home and eat."
* * * *
Half an hour later, they reached the neighborhood with their modest brick and stucco house, and Reese's fire-red sports car was once again crouched in her driveway.
Her heart lurched. The fancy car seemed disharmonious, needing something larger than her two-bedroom single story place to set it off properly.
Reese sat on the porch steps, his large, sexy hands resting across his jean clad knees. His Stetson hat rested on the brick steps beside him. He looked so handsome. No wonder she'd had so little faith his love for her would endure. She was as mismatched to him as the car to the house.
Mandy threw open her door and ran toward Reese, little legs pounding across the grass.
"Mandy,” she called. But it was too late. The little one plopped down by his side.
Horrified, she heard her little girl say, “You came back. Can you stay with us? Can we keep you?"
After a shocked pause, Mandy continued into the lull. “My mommy and I would like to hire you as our daddy. She says you'd do a good job,” the child said, all in a rush. “Don't worry. You don't have to be perfect. Mommy says everyone makes plenty of mistakes. We do."
Ashley groaned, and then blushed a hot flush.
Mandy never met a person she considered a stranger. As she spoke, her baby voice grew loud and no doubt carried throughout the neighborhood.
Emma gardened nearby.
Ashley felt her neighbor stop and look over, naturally curious. She waved to the other woman, self-consciously, a weak motion of her fingers.
Heavens, Reese's eyes were on her now, watching her, waiting.
Mandy caught sight of the neighbor by the property line's well-groomed privet hedge and bounced over to speak with her.
Ashley's eyes followed her tiny little girl. Cowardly, but easier than facing Reese's eyes as she should now.
"She's a little charmer,” he said.
"She loves to talk to people. Anyone who'll listen,” she explained.
"Perhaps because you deprived her of a father?"
Ashley's eyes jerked from contemplating Mandy to meet Reese's angry gaze.
"No,” she replied coldly. “It's her personality. She loves people."
Reese tensed. “Hellfire, that wasn't what I planned to say."
Not even close. He just hadn't had time to stop the angry, hurtful words before they flew out of his mouth. He stood and looked down at the ground, ashamed. Then back up. He saw the cost of his stupidity in her gorgeous green eyes. Stark pain. As he stood speechless, the pain flashed to indignant anger. He took a deep breath. Uh-oh.
"She's always wanted ... needed a father, yes."
The sarcastic smile Ashley gave him was a lame effort. It slipped away before it began. Never made it all the way to her pretty eyes to make them crinkle and come alive with joy as he'd seen in her smiles in the past. How a smile, an expression of joy, could be so sad—and pissed off all at the same time—Reese didn't know. A lump grew in his throat. He looked away from her.
"Mandy nags me about the lack of a father a lot. Asks questions."
"Who keeps Mandy while you're at work?” Reese struggled for something normal to say, some everyday words. He wanted to ask her what she'd done to them, to their love.
"Not that it concerns you, but until three weeks ago, I had a professional nanny who lived in. She was wonderful, but she left us to go to a more lucrative job. I haven't found a suitable replacement yet. Not just anyone can keep up with Mandy."
The lover of this morning was gone and she missed him with a dull aching in her mid-section. He'd been replaced by the businessman. She'd seen that side of him in the past, in passing, glimpses in his office at the ranch. Other views as he spoke to business associates on the phone. He could be all calm, cold efficiency, with no real fire. And no smiles, no more easy smiles from him.
"Do you take her with you?"
"Hmmm?” Ashley pulled herself back from her thoughts. He'd asked again about how she'd managed alone with her little girl. He seemed to need to know. “We do fine. I've taken her with me to work when necessary or worked at home while my neighbor played her at other times. My sister, Emily, watches her for me when she can. Mom still teaches full time, but she helps, too."
"You never leave her alone, unsupervised? You watch her carefully?"
Anger fired through her. How dare he? Her brows snapped together. “Of course I do.” She raised her voice. “I never leave her alone. I wait until she sleeps to shower!"
He nodded. “I should've known that, but I felt compelled to ask. Uh, what does your mother think of the choice you've made, Ashley?"
She felt her skin go white. How could this man hurt her so with a few words?
"Never mind. Forget I asked."
"Mom and Dad were concerned but not judgmental."
"This is all none of my business. You didn't sleep much after I called last night."
"No, I ... not much...."
"The tiredness I noticed in your eyes this morning is a deeper fatigue—something that took longer than one night to accumulate."
"I'm fine."
"Did you sleep at all last night?"
"I'm used to less sleep than most."
He walked to her and touched her hair. “Truce?” he asked.
"What?"
"Let's take some time to just talk about nothing. The routine. The day-to-day."
"And not speak of ... Mandy?” she asked.
"No. Not yet."
It was a reprieve. A temporary reprieve. She wanted that. “All right,” she agreed.
"We'll stay away from the painful things, the questions unanswered, and the accusations,” he said.
She nodded. It was enough for now that he was here. She wouldn't ask why or for how long. “Fine. How are your parents?” she asked, changing the subject, relieved to seek the impersonal in their conversation. The niceties were much safer.
"Fine, they're in Europe now. They took an early retirement from ranch work several years ago and spend a lot of time traveling."
Reese's stomach churned with anger. A truce was a sound idea. But he didn't really want to talk pleasantries with her. He wanted answers. But, for now, that would have to wait. She needed rest and he needed time to think. With Ash this tired and with his anger boiling just below the surface, they might say things that would hurt too deep to repair. Meanwhile, they had a Saturday to get through.
"I imagine your folks love Europe,” she said.
With little success, she stifled a yawn, the kind that crept up on a person after too little sleep. He smiled.
"Yes, they do. Look, Ash, I think you said there's a zoo near here. If you'll trust me with Mandy, I'll take her to the zoo. You can get some rest."
As he waited for her response, his gaze settled on the little girl, who'd just returned to her mother's side and looked up at him with large eyes wide. He felt a pang of emotion, envy, maybe, he couldn't be sure—at the picture they presented, mother and child. He winked at the little girl.
She giggled.
Ashley saw the handsome smile he gave Mandy and wondered if he'd ever smile at her that way again, so open and easy.
"Of course, I trust you,” she whispered. It was true. She always had. From the moment she first saw him, she knew he was a man a woman could trust with her life and with her children's safety—if he'd wanted them.
Perhaps she should be afraid that anger and a thirst for revenge could propel him to steal her daughter away. But she had no such fear.
Reese went down to the lush, fall grass on one knee, offering his hands to the small girl. Ashley's heart lurched. As she watched, Mandy gave Reese her tiny hand and her heart—just as her mother had four years earlier.
"We can go to the zoo?” Mandy asked.
"She's been listening,” Ashley said with a smile.
"That's right, munchkin. We'll go see the animals and let your Mommy get some rest."
"What's a munchen?"
Ashley smiled. Her heart filled watching the two of them.
"Promise me you'll rest.” The demand was all arrogant, know-what's-best-for-you-male again. Ashley felt a silly, childish urge to stick out her tongue. By hard effort, she managed to refrain from doing so.
"Yes, of course,” she managed a weak nod. “She hasn't had lunch,” she added.
Minutes later, while trying to strap a curious little girl into one of the small seats in the back of the Porsche, Reese heard Mandy say, “Mister Reese, you have to get my safety seat. Mommy always does when we ride in someone's car. I'm big now, though. Maybe I don't need one,” she said, obviously thinkin
g it through as she spoke to him. “I can sit in the front with you and push the radio buttons for you.” Her little eyes looked so hopeful and innocent. Reese stood there for endless moments, totally charmed by Mandy's monologue, before going to wrestle the elaborate safety seat from Ashley's car. Then his heart began to beat at warp speed. What if something happened to Mandy on his watch? What had he taken on so impulsively?
By the time he wedged the safety seat into the narrow backseat, the little girl was behind the car's steering wheel making surprisingly accurate engine noises. Suddenly the car's security alarm blasted the silence all to hell and the neighbor lady next door gave up her gardening and openly stared. “Shi—sheesh,” he said.
Ashley watched them from her window. He could see her, which made him nervous as could be for some reason. He didn't want to break her kid.
He finally managed to stop the car's security flashing lights and horn by putting the key in the ignition. Peace and quiet returned to the neighborhood.
Reese saw Ashley coming out and smiled with relief, not sure at all he'd have made it out of the flipping driveway anyway. Apparently, this busy little person was more important to Ashley than sleep. He smiled a grim smile. The hardheaded businessman he knew himself to be filed the information away for future use. Ashley's child could prove a powerful lever.
He just might get his stubborn lady to Texas yet. He knew the smile didn't quiet spread to his eyes as he watched Ash scoop up Mandy and secure her in the safety seat with practiced ease. Sickening guilt followed right on the heels of his strategic thinking.
Crap like that turn of thought was how he'd lost her four years ago.
"Going with us?"
"Yes,” she answered.
"I wanted to help with the buttons,” Mandy protested as her mother climbed in the front seat.
"Next time, squirt."
"What's a squirt?"
Through the rearview, he stole a quick glance at the little one. Uh, oh, she looked mad, her little arms crossed on her car seat armrest. “Little. A small drink of water."
He looked helplessly to Ash.
"Not little ... I'm a big girl. Kids at preschool call me little ‘cause they're all so much bigger than I am. I don't like it."
"I know, sweetie,” Ashley said, turning around in her seat to face the child, a sweet maternal look on her face.
The Horseman's Heritage Page 7
