“C’mon, Kate. You know you’re better than him,” Olivia said gently. “You deserve more than a wanna-be rock-star like ‘Cree’ Malone, that you picked up at the grocery store.”
Kate flicked a finger around the rim of her glass with irritation. “First, I didn’t pick him up. For the record, it was the other way around. And second,” she said, pointing at the ceiling, “if you two have got Yente from ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ stashed somewhere around here to ‘match me a match’ or ‘catch me a catch,’ you can forget it. I don’t do blind dates. I pick my own disasters, thank you very much.”
Eve clucked and leaned in to Olivia with a dramatic sigh. “Darn. And we went to all that expense.”
Kate fake smiled at them. “Maybe you two should just be happy for me that I’m not spending my evenings alone, turning into some spinster schoolteacher. I am perfectly capable of setting boundaries, knowing what’s good for me and what, for heaven’s sake, I deserve.” She gulped a sip of vodka. “Besides, I can stop any time I want.”
“Hunh. I dare you,” Eve challenged flatly.
Kate gave a little snort. “What?”
“I dare you to stop dating. Take a break. Reconnoiter. Go cold turkey.”
Cold turkey? Phhhhftt! Of course, she could. It wasn’t like she had a problem. She could be alone. Entertain herself on a Friday night. Or...or a Saturday.
She could. She was almost sure she could.
Even as that thought formed, an adorable maybe twenty-one-year old drunk guy in a mechanic’s shirt and a bottle of beer in his hand, sidled up to Eve. “Hey, darlin’,” he yelled over the music, attempting to peer down the opening of her shirt. “D’you believe in love at first sight, or... should I walk by again?”
Eve sent Kate a slow burn and mouthed, “Watch and learn.” She turned back to him, dragged a look up and down him, then said, “No. And no.”
After a three-second beat, he said, “Well...a’right, then.” The mechanic chugged his beer and wandered off toward the front of the bar.
Turning back to Kate, Eve lifted her hands as if to say, See? It’s just that easy.
Olivia bit her lip to keep from laughing.
Kate twisted her mouth to keep from doing the same. “Are you implying that if I wanted to, I couldn’t—” she began, but she lost track of her thought as, across the bar, past the smoky haze, she caught sight of a cowboy whose back was to her. He seemed to be deep in conversation with someone in the shadows. Maybe her reaction was simply to his shirt, a familiar, fitted denim, hugging the contours of his strong back and arms. Or the way he stood, one knee cocked, like he used to just before a ride.
Maybe it was the vodka she was drinking.
But the Pavlovian tightening down low inside her, the slam of her heart against the cage of her ribs hit her as hard as always when she caught glimpses of men who looked like him. Men from the back. Men from the side. Men in shadows.
Like seeing a ghost.
Like all the times she’d thought she’d caught sight of her Grandma Chrissy after she’d passed, tottering down some street beside a stranger, or waving her frail arm outside a car window, or hearing her whisper in the middle of the night. And, for that split second, wishful thinking had her imagining the old woman could actually reappear.
But he wasn’t a ghost and he wasn’t dead—as far as she knew, though she’d made a point not to follow him or his career, not to be curious. No, he wasn’t dead. Just dead to her. And that couldn’t be him, anyway, she decided, studying the man across the bar. Because he was in Missoula or Denver or Albuquerque...riding on the back of some bull or making sweet forever with what’s-her-name and their—
“—you couldn’t...what? Kate?” Olivia was asking, but her gaze was searching out the corner that so fascinated Kate.
Dragging her eyes deliberately away from his doppelganger, Kate took another gulp of her drink. Maybe it was the sight of him that made her decide. Or maybe she was just tired of men of Cree’s questionable ilk. Whatever the reason, she blurted, “Okay. Fine.”
“Fine?” Eve jerked a confused look back at her. Olivia looked skeptical.
“You’re on,” she elaborated. “The dare. Just to prove you wrong.”
A small victorious smile—or possibly relief—passed between her two sisters and Kate felt herself shrink a little.
Job done. Crisis averted. All was right with the world again.
“No dating for one month,” Eve said, flattening her palm on the table.
Kate shrugged. “Done.”
“Two?” Olivia suggested.
“Don’t push your luck. If I win, it’s hands off me and my dating life. If I lose...?”
“We have Yente on standby,” Eve assured her.
“What about Cree?” Olivia glanced pointedly at the singer high-fiving the pretty girls near the stage.
Kate stared down at her empty drink. “Yeah, well... that is a shame. But some sacrifices just have to be made. I suppose I’ll just have to break his heart.”
And when she looked back, the ghost she’d glimpsed in the corner was gone.
It was nearly ten when Finn Scott opened the door to his ranch house to the sound of the low hum of the television. The place was a mess of moving boxes, some he’d never even unpacked from the last move. Most of the lights were turned down and the rest of the house was blissfully quiet. As he came through the door, Izzy McCallum, who’d been horizontal on the couch watching a show, sat up.
“Oh. Hey,” she said, yawning. She reached automatically for her hoodie, backpack and loose papers. Izzy, a blue-eyed twenty-year-old student, whose curly orange hair suited her quirky look, made a fruitless attempt to smooth down her wild mop. “How did everything go?”
He’d spent the evening haggling with Lodi Greenwall over the price of a bull. Not just any bull, either. The one that would be the foundation for his business.
“I think we reached an agreement,” he told her with a tired smile. Now it’s just a matter of money. “Thanks for watching the hooligans for me today. How were they?”
She got to her feet with a tired smile. “Honestly? They kinda missed you today.”
He inhaled sharply and turned away to toss his keys onto the entryway table. Guilt stabbed at him, as happened most days lately when it came to the kids. Despite being the weekend, this whole day had been consumed with business.
“And Cutter,” she went on, “decided tonight was the perfect time to practice his wall art—don’t worry, I used a magic eraser on it—and Caylee was a perfect angel—complete with glitter glued to her ‘wings.’ Of course, I took a picture.” She quickly texted him the photo and his cell gave a little buzz. “But they were really good for me. I fed them dinner, gave them both baths and they’ve been down, without a peep, since seven-thirty.”
He’d missed his small window of time with them tonight after the day he’d had, and he always regretted when that happened. Sometimes it felt like everyone was raising his children, but him.
He peeled off a few twenties and handed them to Izzy. He had her on a small salary, but today’s overtime and this evening’s meeting were extra. “You’re a lifesaver. Thanks. You look as tired as I feel. Go home.”
“About Monday,” she said. “I have a bio-chem exam at two, so I can’t pick them up after school, but I can meet you at the school playground and watch them while you have your parent-teacher conference at four-thirty. Does that work?”
It would have to. “Thanks, Izzy. We’ll make it work.”
She walked to the door and smiled back at him. “See you Monday, then.”
“Night. Thanks again.” He closed the door quietly behind her. For a moment, he just stood there, staring at the sparsely furnished room, still filled with unpacked moving boxes.
This place, his new home, looked like it had accidentally wandered out of the 1970s, and had never found its way back. Walls that weren’t covered in aging wallpaper were paneled with pine. Every room boasted a different—worse than th
e one before—shade of shag carpeting and the kitchen appliances were a god awful shade of avocado green. The bathroom faucet in the kids’ bath ran only on cold, and the barn roof leaked so badly the whole thing might actually be a tear down.
But none of those things mattered. This ranch belonged to him now, and a wave of pure gratefulness washed over him.
Only a month ago, the man who’d lived here for forty years, Frank Greevy—Finn’s bull-riding coach of the last decade—had died after a long illness, leaving a hole in his world he wasn’t sure he could ever fill. In a gesture that caught him completely by surprise, Frank had left this place to him, free and clear, in his will. Frank had never been married, never had children, but he had a special attachment to Finn’s twins. He supposed that was why he’d done it. So they wouldn’t be vagabonds anymore, chasing work and, lately, the occasional rodeo when money was tight. That Frank would leave him this place, this beautiful land, had been an unexpected gift he’d never be able to repay.
So, the place didn’t look like home yet. In time, they would fill it up with their own memories and make it feel like home. But right now, the house felt lonely. Probably because of what had happened tonight, he felt the emptiness here more keenly.
Bone tired, with muscles aching from every fence he’d repaired and every new post hole he’d dug, he needed another drink. He pulled a beer from the fridge and cracked it open. Leaning against the green-tiled counter with one hip, he sipped it, trying to push away the memory of seeing Kate and the idiot band boy calling her out in front of the whole bar.
Katie-Kat Canaday. My sexy red-haired lady.
His chest gave a squeeze and he took a quick gulp of beer. Seeing her again tonight after all these years—even from across the room—had caught him off guard. More accurately, the sight of her rocked him. Momentarily stole the strength from his legs as he stood, talking bulls with Greenwall. He’d literally had to shove a hand against the wall and turn his back on her to keep his balance.
Of course, he’d remembered Kate was from Marietta when he’d moved here at the beginning of August. But he’d hardly expected she’d still live here. She’d always talked about wanting to live in a big city somewhere. New York or maybe San Francisco. They’d talked about doing that together, in fact. Once. He’d expected her to do just that. But here she was, still living in Marietta, Montana, about as far from a big city as a place could get. And, like an idiot, like an abandoned dog who couldn’t let go, so was he.
The six years since their break-up in Missoula had done nothing to diminish the primal ache that always flashed over him like heat lightning at the sight of her. That shouldn’t have surprised him. She’d appeared in his dreams with some regularity since that awful day and he’d wake hard and aching with want. That ache was in him now, even thinking about her.
Her hair was still that red color women were always trying to get out of a bottle, but never could. And she wore her hair long now, not short like when he’d known her. Perversely, all he could think as he’d watched her, was how that silky hair would feel, brushing against the skin of his bare chest.
He let out a humorless sound that echoed around the half-empty room. That said just about everything there was to say about how well he’d gotten over her.
She hated him for good reason. He owed it to her to stay far away. But he hadn’t expected her to be tangled up with an idiot like the lead singer from that band. Maybe she’d changed since their time together. Maybe that tattooed freak was her type now.
Six years and the whole world had turned inside out. For damned sure, his world had. His life had spun like an off-balance top for a while after the divorce. But here, he sensed, things were different. Now that he’d settled in Paradise Valley—a place that took his breath away and had already settled into his bones like he belonged there—he’d decided that he’d found where he wanted to be.
A sharp knock at the door made him jump.
Izzy, he thought automatically, scanning the coffee table for whatever she’d forgotten. But he could see nothing. He went to the door and pulled it open. “What did you forget?” he was asking before he saw not Izzy, but a man in a black cap and 80’s style Members Only jacket standing at his doorstep.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Finn Scott?”
“Yeah?” A bad feeling crawled up the back of his neck and he had the impulse to slam the door in the stranger’s face. “What do you want?”
“Just this.” The man pulled an envelope out of a breast pocket and shoved the thing into Finn’s hands. “You’ve been served.”
He stared down at the envelope uncomprehendingly at first as the man took his leave and headed down the walkway. His insides gave a twist and he scowled after him, realizing he must have been lurking outside, waiting for him to come home so he could slap these papers in his hand.
He wanted to shout after him, tell him specifically where he could stick them. Because he already knew what they were. Though he wouldn’t have admitted this to anyone—that would have meant he thought of her at all—he’d been half-waiting for her to pull something since day one. He closed the door, with no gentleness, ripped open the envelope and scanned the court papers. “Motion To Modify Court Ordered Custody of Minor Children...”—Damn her!—“Plaintiff, Melissa Jamison.”
Jamison. Not Scott. So, sometime in the past four years, she’d managed to drag another sucker into her path of destruction. He actually felt sorry for him. For a moment.
As he read on, he found the kicker buried in the middle of a paragraph, three pages in. “Plaintiff intends to move to Hong Kong with her husband and seeks permission to take the children out of the country in the within custody modification.”
He braced a hand on the wall behind him with a foul curse. Hong Kong?
From around the corner, five-year-old Cutter, one-half of the dynamic-duo that owned him, body and soul, came stumbling toward him, rubbing his eyes. Without a word, Finn set the papers down, scooped the boy into his arms and hugged him fiercely to him. “Hey, Snip,” he murmured. The boy’s white-blond hair smelled of shampoo and sleep and Cutter’s own sweet fragrance. “What are you doing up?”
“Daddy,” Cutter said tearily against his neck. “I had a bad dream.”
He sifted his fingers through the boy’s sweaty hair. “You’re okay now. I’m here.” He started back with Cutter toward the boy’s room.
“There was a monster in my room,” Cutter murmured.
He nodded. “We’ll just see about that. No monsters allowed. That’s the rule, right?”
Cutter nodded fiercely and sniffled. He settled the child into his bed beside the one where Caylee slept, then knelt down beside him. “Here we go.” He checked under the bed, behind the curtains and crawled to the small closet and opened it. “All clear.” Then he reached for the jar of glitter Cutter’s twin kept on the nightstand between them for occasions such as this. He unscrewed the top and tossed a pinch of glitter into the air, thankful none of the hard-bitten cowboys he spent his days with could see him now. He’d never hear the end of that. “No self-respecting monster would dare come in here now.”
The glitter had been Caylee’s idea and seemed to satisfy Cutter’s feeling that magic was afoot and dragons had been slayed. He found himself wishing that glitter would work just as easily on those papers in the living room.
He kissed the boy, who was a miniature version of him, and rubbed his back until his small chest rose and fell with deep regular breaths. When he was sure that neither of them would stir, he went back to the living room and punched in a number on his cell. The hour was late and his old college roommate, now an attorney, Mark Erlewine, in Missoula, answered the phone, sounding groggy.
“This better be good, buddy,” Mark growled on the other end. “I have court in the morning.”
“She did it, Mark,” he said without preamble. “She served me with papers tonight. She’s trying to get them back.”
A deep sigh on the other
end. “Read me the caption and the first two pages of the complaint.”
He did and when he’d finished, Erlewine asked, “When’s the court date again?”
“At the end of the month. In Missoula.”
“The judge? His name should be listed on the stamp.”
He scanned down the document. “Corillo.”
On the other end of the line, his attorney made a strangled sound and fell silent, thinking.
“When you get quiet, I know I’m in trouble,” Finn said. “I am in trouble, aren’t I?”
“Corillo is ultraconservative. Big on family stability. And he favors mothers. I’m sorry to hear she’s filed a motion to reconsider, but I can’t say I’m actually surprised. This kind of thing happens all the time. Situations change. People change their minds. And if, by trouble, you mean are you at risk of losing full custody? Well, yes. She’s their mother. If she’d signed over all rights to them when she gave you full custody three and a half years ago, this would be a different story. We can argue abandonment, but it’s a risk. A big one, considering your situation.”
“My situation?”
“Look, I know what kind of father you are, but your life, from the outside, has a tangle of loose ends. You need to show stability. Roots, even.”
“I just signed the final papers on a small ranch I was lucky enough to inherit here in Marietta. I’m only doing the rodeo thing temporarily to earn enough money to get that going.”
“The ranch is good. But one card trumps the rest. If you were married...stable, things might look different to a judge like Corillo.”
“Married? He can’t discriminate against me for being single. Can he?”
“No. Not technically. But that doesn’t mean he can’t rule against you. We could file for dismissal at this hearing and might get it. But we might not. My best advice? Find a wife, Finn. And find one fast. Get yourself looking settled. If you don’t, your crazy ex may just get what she wants.”
A Cowboy to Remember Page 15
