Stranded with the Groom

by Christine Rimmer

  Justin cut the air with an arm, a brutal, final gesture. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “But you have to listen for a moment. You have to let me—”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I don’t have to listen to you. Who are you to me, besides the man who destroyed the woman who gave me life, the woman who raised me the best she knew how?” He scooped up the two snapshots and turned for the door, stopping before he went out to deliver one last command.

  “Clear out your office. My man will be in Monday morning, nine sharp.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Katie’s phone rang at nine Tuesday night. She picked up the remote extension and checked the display before she answered it: Addy.

  “No, thanks. Not right now,” she muttered, and let her machine get it. She settled back in her favorite chair, and heard the sound of Addy’s voice coming from the kitchen, as she recorded her message.

  Katie couldn’t make out the words, but there was something in the tone, something agitated. Something not right.

  With a sigh, she picked it up. “Addy? Are you okay?”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t good. Grim images invaded Katie’s mind: Riley, in an accident. Caleb having a heart attack. “What? What’s the matter?”

  “Darling, it’s Caleb.”

  She felt a hollowness below her ribs. “Has he been hurt?”

  “Not physically. No. It’s nothing like that. He… Well, he’s locked himself in his study. He’s been in there since noon. Nine hours. He won’t come out and he won’t let anyone else in.”

  “But why?”

  “Sweetheart, if I only knew. I called Riley over here a couple of hours ago, when I couldn’t get Caleb to open the door myself. Riley’s tried. Caleb wouldn’t let him in, either. Honey, it’s just not like him. He came home from that meeting and he walked right by me. He looked so awful. Not sick, exactly. But sick at heart. Kind of beaten down and gray in the face, his shoulders slumped and sagging. I asked him what was wrong, but he only shook his head and headed for his study.”

  “Addy, what meeting?”

  “The one for the ski resort project.”

  “Something bad happened at the meeting?”

  “Well, if it did, he’s just not acting his usual self over it. You know how he is. When things don’t go his way, he paces. He gets loud and he lays down the law. But he never locks himself in a room somewhere and refuses to come out. Plus, I’m sure he’s drinking. The times he barked at me through the door to go away, he was slurring his words.”

  “Have Riley call someone who was at the meeting and ask them what went on there.”

  “Oh, honey. Yes. Good idea.” Katie heard her speaking to Riley. Then she came back on the line. “All right. Riley’s taking care of that.”

  “I’ll be over as soon as I can get there.”

  “Darling, would you? I’m so worried. And you know how he adores you. Maybe he’ll open that door for you.”

  Addy greeted her at the front door, her face drawn, eyes grim with worry. She helped Katie out of her coat and hung it in the front closet of the huge two-story foyer as she blurted out what she knew. “Riley got through to Darrell Smart. At the meeting, Justin Caldwell took the job of project manager away from Caleb.”

  Katie’s heart lurched. “Justin…but how?”

  “Oh, it was something about proxies. And percentages of the partnership. Somehow, that Caldwell fellow got control over enough of the investors to be able to kick Caleb out. Caleb has until Monday to vacate the offices so the new man can take over.”

  Could this really be happening? Justin. Breaking her heart, then stealing Caleb’s dream.

  The question was there again, echoing through her mind. She said it out loud that time. “Why would he do such a thing?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest. But if that man were in this room right now, I’d go get Caleb’s best hunting rifle and shoot him straight through his evil heart. What did Caleb ever do to him, that he would treat my husband so shabbily—and for that matter, what did you ever do to him?” Addy answered her own questions. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing, that’s what. And now Riley’s in a fury over it. He’s insisting he’s going to Bozeman to confront Caldwell. Oh, I don’t know where we’re headed, I don’t know what to do.”

  Katie took the older woman by the upper arms, to steady her. “Slow down. We’re going to get to the bottom of this, I promise you.”

  “Oh, Katie. I’m sorry to drag you into this, but I must admit, I’m so relieved you’re here. I’m…well, I’m just a wreck.”

  Katie pulled her close and hugged her hard, then she took her arms again and met her eyes. “First, I’ll talk to Riley, get him to slow down a little. And then we’ll see if I can get Caleb to let me in.”

  Katie found Riley in Caleb’s den, off the study, pacing back and forth. He was hot under the collar and far from willing to slow down.

  “Good. You’re here,” he said at the sight of her. “Look after Mom, will you? I’m heading for Bozeman.”

  Katie grabbed one of his big, tanned hands and wouldn’t let go. “Please. Let me try to talk to Caleb first. Let me see if I can find out what’s really happened here.”

  Riley’s green eyes shone hard as emeralds. “I know what’s happened. That bastard worked you over, and now he’s done this. If there’s a reason he’s decided to come after my family, I want to find out what it is.”

  So, Katie thought glumly. Riley knew about her and Justin, too. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. Adele had never agreed not to tell Caleb. And once Caleb knew, Riley was bound to hear. “We all want answers.” She squeezed Riley’s hand between both of hers. “I beg you. Give me a chance to get to the bottom of this first. Then, if you still think you have to, you can go deal with Justin.”

  Riley made a low, angry sound. “Face it. Dad’s not letting you through that door.”

  “Just give me a chance. Please.”

  Riley swore low. “All right. But if he won’t let you in, I’m out of here.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No reason to thank me. He’s not letting you in.”

  She gave his hand one more reassuring squeeze and then relinquished it.

  Riley gestured at the shut door to the study. “Go for it.” He stood back and folded his muscular arms over his broad chest, his mouth set in a grim line.

  Riley was probably right. If Caleb wouldn’t open the door for his wife or his son, there was no reason to believe he’d let Katie in, either. But she had to try. She didn’t like the look in Riley’s eyes. If Riley took off after Justin now, who could say what might happen when the two met up. One of them—or both—could get hurt. She didn’t want that. Not for Riley. And, God help her, not for Justin, either.

  She marched over, raised her hand and rapped sharply on the door.

  Nothing. Complete silence from the room beyond. She glanced back at Riley. He still had his arms folded over his chest—and an I-told-you-so look in his eyes. She tried the door: locked.

  Riley muttered, “See, I told—”

  Katie put up a hand to silence him and called to the man on the other side of the door. “Caleb. It’s me, Katie. Won’t you let me in, please?”

  Dead silence from beyond the door. Riley uncrossed his arms. “That does it. I’m—”

  “Wait.” She pressed her ear to the door, heard heavy footsteps on the other side. She put up her hand again, for Riley to be still.

  The footsteps stopped. Caleb spoke from right beyond the door. “Katie? That you?”

  “Yes. Oh, yes. It’s me.”

  “Katie, I don—” He didn’t seem to know how to go on. And Adele had been right. It sounded as if he’d been drinking. His words came slow and slurred-sounding.

  “Oh, Caleb. Won’t you let me in?”

  Another pause, then Caleb growled, “Riley still out there?”

  She glanced at Riley again. He looked as if he wanted to bre
ak something, to pick up one of the bronze cowboy sculptures that decorated the den and hurl it at the wood-paneled wall. “Yes. He’s here.”

  “Tell him to go ’way. Can’t talk to ’im now. Only you, Katie. Jus’ you, ’kay?”

  Riley muttered more swear words. Katie only looked at him, pleading with her eyes.

  With another low, furious oath, Riley strode from the room.

  “Katie?” Caleb asked again.

  “It’s all right. Riley’s left. Now, won’t you please let me in?”

  Almost before she finished asking the question, the door swung inward.

  She gasped at the sight of the man on the other side. “Oh, Caleb…” His green eyes were droopy and bloodshot. His mouth hung lax. He looked a decade older than the last time she’d seen him. And the smell of too much Tennessee whisky came off him in waves.

  He gave her the saddest, most hangdog sort of look, and then he turned and trudged to his wide burled walnut desk and around to the back of it. With a heavy grunt, he dropped into his studded buckskin swivel chair and stared down at the papers spread on the desktop in front of him. A telltale half-empty bottle of whisky stood uncapped at his elbow. “I been…busy. Thinkin’. Thinkin’ and drinkin’…” He looked up, let out a low, rough bark of humorless laughter, and then leaned back in the chair. His chin drooped on his chest. He gazed mournfully at the scatter of papers in front of him. “How, I keep askin’ mysel’…how did it all go so wrong…?” Behind him, a picture hung askew on the wood-paneled wall, revealing his private safe, the door to which stood open. All the blinds were drawn and the only light came from the lamp on Caleb’s desk.

  Katie hovered before him, a million dismayed questions spinning through her mind. She pressed her mouth shut and kept quiet. She knew, in the end, he would tell her what she needed to know. There was no other reason for him to have let her in here when he refused to open the door to Adele or to Riley.

  He wanted to talk. And he’d chosen her to do his talking to. It was only a matter of waiting and listening—and applying gentle pressure at the right moment.

  Gingerly, she lowered herself to one of the two carved, leather-seated guest chairs that faced the big desk. Once she was in the chair, she realized she’d been holding her breath. She let it out with great care.

  Caleb shook his head. “Katie, Katie, Katie. Where the hell did it all go so wrong?” He raised his hanging head enough that she could look into those bleary eyes.

  “Tell me,” she said softly. “Just tell me. Everything. And then we can talk about what to do next.”

  He kept shaking his head. “Bad idea. To tell you. Yeah. Pro’ly a bad idea…”

  “Just tell me. We can’t work this out until you do.”

  “Hell. I don’t know…”

  “Oh, yes, you do. You know. It’s time to talk about it—whatever it is.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Uh-uh. No maybes. It’s time. You know it is.”

  He regarded her woozily. She looked back at him, waiting.

  At last, haltingly, he began to speak. “I was…a true husban’. I swear it to you. Never looked at another woman…”

  Suddenly she was recalling what Addy had told her a few days before and prompted gently, “But then Riley was born…”

  He grunted. “Tha’s right. Riley. Af’er Riley was born, they tol’ Adele she couldn’t have any more chil’ren. It broke her heart. Lo’s o’ kids. She always wanted that. For the longes’ time, she was…like a stranger in our house…in our bed. She jus’ ignored me. An’ Riley, too. Poor little fella. He was cryin’ all the time. I couldn’…take it. It got so I, well, I jus’ needed someone.”

  He said he’d met Ramona one night when he went out to a roadhouse to get his mind off his vacant-eyed wife and their poor, screaming baby. “Ramona was a waitress. A tall, black-haired beauty.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “Ramona. Damn my soul. Ramona.”

  For over an hour, his voice low and whisky-rough, the words sometimes slurring together, he told her the sad story of his own folly and betrayal. When the tale was told, Katie sat silent, hardly able to believe what she’d just heard.

  Justin was Caleb’s son. His son.

  Suddenly, everything was making sense. A hideous, awful, ugly kind of sense, but sense nonetheless.

  Caleb threw out a hand—missing the whisky bottle by an inch. In a sweeping, unsteady gesture, he indicated the papers scattered on his desk. “I’s all here. Righ’ here…you jus’ see for yourself.”

  Katie stood and bent over the desk.

  “See. Look here.” He waved a snapshot. “Ramona an’ me.” He dropped the picture and picked up what looked like a letter. “Her love letters. She wro’e me a hundred of ’em. Sen’ ’em here, to the house. Addy never knew. She wasn’ up for checkin’ the mail. She jus’ stayed in our room, then. Alone. I hardly saw her. Ramona wro’e me, love letters first. And then there were the ones that came later, the ones with the threats.” He scanned the desk and snatched up a small scrap of paper. “An’ this. The check I gave ’er. Jus’ like I tol’ you, cancelled. See?”

  Katie took it from his fingers. “Yes. I see.” It came to her, right then, as she stared at all those zeroes. She knew what she had to do.

  “I—I did care for her, for Ramona,” Caleb muttered. “But…she wasn’ Addy. Addy is…my love, my life. Never should have started up with Ramona. I know it, I do. And then, well, after Ramona disappeared, Addy got better. The years went by an’…I started thinkin’ it was maybe for the bes’, jus’ to let it be, not go stirrin’ up ol’ trouble.”

  A large yellow envelope lay at the edge of the desk. Katie took it and dropped the cancelled check into it. Then she gathered up the letters and the photographs and put them in the envelope, too.

  “What d’you think you’re doin’?” Caleb demanded.

  She hooked the envelope’s metal clasp. “I’m taking these to Justin.”

  He regarded her blearily. “Wha’ for?”

  “Because he doesn’t know the whole truth, and it’s time he did.”

  Caleb rubbed his eyes. “Hell. What good’s that gonna do now?” He was shaking his head again. “No point. Too late.”

  “Caleb,” she said softly. “It’s never too late to do the right thing.” Turning, she set the envelope on her chair, then she went around the desk and put her hand on Caleb’s sagging shoulder.

  He looked up at her, a lost look. “I…don’ know what to do.”

  She squeezed his shoulder. “First, and foremost, you have to remember that Adele loves you. And, though I know you’ve had your rough patches, Riley loves you, too.”

  “They’ll hate me. After this.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “They love you. I’m not saying it will be easy, getting past this. You’ve done wrong. Very wrong. Not only because you betrayed your wife, but also because of the way you handled it when Ramona told you she was having your baby. But now you’ve got to clean up the mess you made, as best you can. You’ve got to tell Adele everything. You’ve got to take the first steps toward making things right.”

  “Oh, no. I can’t.” His head hung down again.

  “Look at me,” she commanded. Slowly, he raised his bloodshot eyes. “Caleb, you can’t let this break you, can’t let the bad things you did once destroy your family now.”

  “But I—”

  “No buts. It’s the only way.”

  He tried to bluster. “I didn’ let you in here so you could tell me what to do.”

  “Yes, you did. That’s exactly why you let me in here.”

  He let out a hard breath that reeked of too much whisky. “Oh, no…”

  “Oh, yes. You need to do the right thing and you know it. You let me in here so I could help you to do it.” She touched his silver hair, pressed his shoulder again. “I’m going to go get Addy now. And you’re going to tell her. Everything.”

  He said nothing and she figured that was acceptance enough. She turned for the door.


  “Katie?”

  She glanced back at his hangdog face, his haunted eyes. “You’re a good girl, my bes’ girl.”

  “I love you, too. Put the cap on that bottle. I’ll be right back.”

  A half an hour later, Riley walked her to her Suburban. She had the envelope in hand, Justin’s home address and phone number scrawled across the front of it.

  “Thanks,” Riley said, and gave her a hug.

  “Any time.” She hugged him back, good and hard.

  When he pulled away, he looked doubtful. “You sure you don’t want me to go with you, to see Caldwell?”

  “Nope. I’ll be fine.”

  “Damn.” He raked a hand back through his dark hair. “What a mess, huh? And I’ve got a half brother…”

  “Yes. You do.”

  “That’ll be something to get used to—after I get through telling Dad just what I think of him.”

  She suggested gently, “Wait ’til he’s sober. For tonight, Addy’s going to need your strong shoulder to lean on once she’s through dealing with Caleb.”

  Riley swore. “At least what Caldwell did to Dad is more understandable now. If I were in his position, I might have done a lot worse.” He scowled. “But there’s still no excuse for what he did to you. I could bust his face in for that.”

  She put her hand on his arm. “No need to go hitting anyone. I can handle this. You watch me.”

  He almost grinned. “You know, I believe that you can.” He chucked her under the chin. “You’re a tough little tenderfoot.”

  “That’s me. Tough as they come.”

  He grew more serious. “When will you go?”

  She looked up into his face and for the first time, she saw the resemblance to Justin. In the shape of his brow and the strong, aggressively masculine jut of his jaw. So strange. Why hadn’t she noticed before?

  Riley was frowning. “Katie. You okay?”

  She drew herself up. “I’m fine. And I’m going to go see Justin right now. It’ll be near midnight when I get there. I’m figuring that’s late enough on a weeknight he’ll probably be at his house.” Plus, if she went right away, there was less of a chance she’d lose her nerve.