“I assume you’re talking about Mom and you exclusively,” she said evenly, watching him.
“Who else would I be talking about?” he asked with a bland look that made her scowl.
“Haven’t a clue,” she said, struggling against a leaden need to throw her tired body into his arms and absorb some of his strength, the way Vicki ran to her father for comfort.
“Mother said you’re trying to talk her into a June wedding,” she said, deliberately changing the subject to one less troubling. “Again.”
“Yeah, well, sooner or later she’s going to get it into her head that I’m not giving up, no matter how many jumps she puts me over.”
Karen felt the skin of her face pulling into a frown. “Are you saying that my mother is deliberately keeping you… uh—?”
“Dangling.” His voice blended a wry humor into the firm declaration.
“Now, that’s flattering,” she grumbled.
His eyes crinkled as he dug into a drawer for a wooden spoon. “I’m in love with your mother, Karen. I’ve been in love with her for years, but I’m not blind to her faults.”
“Faults? My mother?” She clucked her tongue. “Shame on you, sir.”
His grin flashed. “A stubborn streak a mile wide,” he said in his rough baritone as he pulled open the door to the fridge and took out a gallon of milk. “A tendency to fuss over the smallest things, a penchant for worrying about people she loves.” The door closed with a quiet thump as he added softly, “And a deep-seated fear that if she lets herself love me, she’ll lose me.”
Karen rubbed at her suddenly cold cheek. “Because she loved my father and he died, you mean?”
“Smart girl. Excuse me, woman. I’ve spent five years proving to that woman she’s stuck with me, no matter how hard she tries to drive me away.”
“But Mother loves you.”
“Sure she does, but that doesn’t mean she can keep herself from testing me.” He measured the cocoa by his own mental rule and added milk before turning on the burner. Only then did he turn to look at her. “She’s a special lady, my Sylvie. And dammit, she’s going to marry me if I have to toss her over my shoulder on June 1 and carry her to Judge Patrick’s chambers kicking and screaming every step of the way.”
Karen laughed at the image of her impeccably groomed mother dangling upside down over Frank’s broad shoulder. “If you do, promise me you’ll give me enough notice so that I can find a ringside seat.”
“You got it,” Frank said, grinning as he stirred the cocoa that was already beginning to smell sinful. He would make a wonderful husband for her mother and a great stepfather, she decided, watching him lift the wooden spoon to his well-shaped mouth for a taste.
At least, she was pretty sure of that—though she’d heard someone say once that he’d been a real hell-raiser as a young man. Abandoned at an early age by his teenage mother, he’d grown up in series of foster homes—until he’d slugged one of his foster “fathers” for taking a belt to one of the other kids. After that, he’d lived on his own, supporting himself by working in one of the silver mines that had been prevalent in the area thirty years ago.
Though he was nothing like the image she held of her own gentle, intellectual father, he’d knocked around enough in his early years to acquire a rough sort of charm that Karen found endearing. Add to that the fact that he was sensitive, funny and a whiz at making her mother blush, and you had one terrific man. Even dressed casually in jeans and a luscious burgundy-and-cream cable-knit sweater that probably cost more than she made in a month, he exuded a quiet air of authority that had nothing to do with his well-padded bank account. Immediately she thought of Cassidy and waited out the fast little flurry of pain that always accompanied thoughts of him.
“So how’s it going?” he said, turning down the heat before leaning against the counter and crossing those huge miner’s arms.
“Do you want the truth or a soothing evasion?”
He lifted one silvered brow. “Let’s go for the truth first.”
She dropped her fork onto her plate and pushed it away. “Vicki’s miserable, I’m miserable, and Rags is driving everyone crazy with his own version of misery.”
Raised from a tiny pup on the ranch, the sensitive shepherd had developed signs of severe homesickness almost immediately. Night after night he sat in the backyard and howled. When he wasn’t howling, he was barking or trying to dig himself an escape route under the tall redwood fence. Sometimes he barked and dug simultaneously.
Sylvia had already received two complaints from neighbors and a not-so-veiled threat to call Animal Control from old Mr. Hornutt on the corner. They’d tried bringing Rags into the house, but the independent canine hated confined spaces and nearly wore himself out pacing from the front door to the back. It seemed he was only happy at the ranch.
“You neglected to mention Cassidy.”
Karen swiveled to the side and hooked her sock-clad toes onto the rung of the chair. “Cassidy is…like those big old boulders on that ranch he loves so much. It would take an earthquake to move him so much as an inch.”
“Obstinate, is he?”
“You have no idea,” she assured him with a heavy sigh.
A twinkle appeared in his sky blue eyes. “Oh, I think I have a glimmer,” he said before reaching into yet another cupboard for a bottle of very old, very expensive brandy that her mother kept just for him.
“You think I’m being too hard on him?”
He poured the now steaming chocolate into the cups. “What I think is, I’d be ten kinds of a fool to answer a question like that,” he said as he rinsed out the pan and upended it in the drainer.
“Coward,” she accused with a fond smile.
“Absolutely.” He added a generous amount of citrus liqueur to two of the cups, then, bottle poised over the third, lifted a brow in question.
“Sure, why not?” A nice little alcohol buzz might let her sleep through the night for once without dreaming of Cassidy.
“Not on duty tomorrow?” He poured the same amount into hers before corking the bottle and returning it to the cupboard.
“I’m working swing this month,” she said, thanking him with a smile as he set the steaming mug in front of her. The rich scents of chocolate and citrus curled upward, and she inhaled with pleasure.
“Lovely,” she murmured after taking a sip.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said with a dip of his silvered head.
“Welcome,” she managed to say before treating herself again. The taste was both tart and sweet—and just a little wicked. Exactly like Cassidy’s kisses.
Seconds ticked by, unnoticed, until finally she realized Frank was watching her. No, measuring her. She lifted her brows and tilted her head.
Frank seemed oblivious to anything but her. Finally he sighed heavily and straightened those big shoulders. “Karen, did you know that my company had the listing on the Barlow ranch before Cassidy bought it?”
She shook her head, puzzled that he would bring that up now.
“He still had his army haircut when he showed up with everything he owned in the back of a third-hand pickup and a chip on his shoulder the size of Pikes Peak.” Frank wrapped his big hand around the mug and brought it to his lips for a quick sip. “He had no credit, no friends to recommend him and, sadly, not nearly enough cash to cover the down payment Sue Ellen Barlow was demanding for her daddy’s place.” His mouth twitched. “I took one look and told myself I’d be crazy to waste my time trying to put together a deal that didn’t have a chance in hell of getting past a reputable loans officer.”
She must have looked bewildered because he chuckled. “I quoted him a down payment that he could afford, made up the difference from my own pocket and swore Charlie Too Tall down at the bank to secrecy.”
“You did what?” she blurted out, her mug frozen halfway to her mouth.
“I took a calculated risk, nothing more.”
She blinked, trying to understand. From the family
room came the sound of music. Vivaldi, she registered absently. “Why?” she asked finally.
“Now, that’s a question I asked myself a lot during that first year when it came time for him to make his monthly mortgage payment.”
“He was late?”
Frank shook his head. “Not once, but I suspect there were a lot of months when he had to choose between eating and meeting his obligation.”
She stared at him, seeing the kind eyes and the strong features. “But the risk…you must have had a reason.”
“He had hungry eyes.” Something flickered in his own eyes, and for an instant, his jaw tightened. “Nobody had to tell me he’d had a rough time as a kid. Or that he was desperate for a place of his own, a piece of earth and sky and security where he could put down roots, a place no one could take from him.” His smile was sad. “It’s hell growing up knowing no one wants you.”
“Oh, Frank,” she whispered, deeply touched, for him, for Cassidy—and more than a little confused. “Does Mother know what you did?”
“No one knows, except Charlie and me—and Cassidy.”
That threw her. “When did you tell him?”
“I didn’t. He found out a few weeks before you two were married, when he went to the bank for a second mortgage in order to finance some renovations on the house.”
“He was angry?”
“You might say that, yeah,” Frank drawled before lifting the mug to his mouth again. “Had this notion I felt sorry for him, and his pride wouldn’t let him accept charity.”
Karen rubbed her toes along the chair rung. “Men and their pride.”
Instead of grinning as she’d expected, Frank responded with a frown. “Sometimes, when a man’s had a lot to overcome, pride’s the only thing holding him together.” Absently he rubbed at a thin white scar along his jaw.
“Did you feel sorry for him?”
“No.” She heard the trace of annoyance in his deep voice and knew he’d put it there deliberately. “I told you I understood him, but what I told him was the truth, too. What he got from me was a loan, nothing more—with enough interest tacked on to have him sucking in hard.”
I’ll bet, she thought, seeing Frank in a new light. “And?”
“And he chewed on the furniture for a while, added a couple of points to that interest and told me to write it up as a separate note.” He grinned. “Made me a tidy bit of change on that cowboy of yours.”
She smiled, but it seemed he wasn’t finished. “I’ve made a fortune on reading people—what they say they want and what they really want. Cassidy wants you. I’d stake every penny I made on that.”
She held the mug to her cheek and wondered if she would ever be able to talk about her failed marriage without feeling sick inside. “Then why am I sitting here talking to you instead of out at the ranch where I belong?”
He arched a brow. “Good question. Got an answer you’d care to run by me?”
“A lot of them, some that even make sense.” She took another sip and held her breath against the intoxicating heat sliding down her throat. “He just wore me out, I guess. I got tired of defending myself for wanting to do what I could to make the world a better place.”
He nodded. As practically a member of the family, he knew all about the problems that had led up to their separation.
“I have pride, too, Frank. Maybe more than I should, but I simply couldn’t stay with a man who held me and my goals in contempt.”
“Are you so sure he did?”
“He…he told me I reminded him of his mother and that he hated her.” She felt her stomach lurch as she revisited the scene in the den in her mind. “He used our daughter as a weapon to blackmail me into doing what he wanted, and when that didn’t work he threatened to take my daughter away from me.”
“And you can’t forgive him for that?”
“No. Yes.” She frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Poor kid, you’re really hung up on the guy, aren’t you?” He slipped the words out so softly that it took her a moment to react.
When she did, it was with a bleak smile. “Does it show?”
“In neon lights.”
She drew a shaky breath. “All I was asking was that he bend just a little,” she said in a small voice.
He regarded her in sympathetic silence for a long moment, then picked up both mugs. “It’s just an observation, Kari, but it seems to me Cassidy was doing nothing but bending from the moment you decided to go back to med school. And he’s been bending ever since.” He paused by her chair to drop a kiss on her hair. “You might want to think on that some when you get to feeling lonely.”
Chapter Thirteen
Cassidy had just turned off his computer on Monday morning and was thinking about the week just starting out when the phone rang, demanding his attention. Since it wasn’t yet 6:00 a.m., he figured the call was important. With a scowl, he snatched up the receiver before the second ring.
“Sloane here.”
“Cass, it’s Rio Redtree.”
He’d met the Grand Springs native a few years back when Rio sat in for Bren Gallagher during one of their poker nights. Never one to warm to a stranger quickly, Cassidy had found himself liking the younger man immensely by the end of the evening. Since that time, they’d spent many a night glaring at each other across a steadily mounting pot. More often than not, to Cassidy’s chagrin, Redtree had gone home with more money in his jeans than he’d brought while Cassidy’s pockets tended to be all but empty.
Curiosity surfaced in his mind as he leaned back in his chair and made a stab at massaging away the hard ache at the base of his skull that was his constant companion.
“How’s it going?” he asked, because it was expected.
“Can’t complain. And you?”
“Overworked.” And missing his wife so much he was sick with it.
Redtree chuckled. “There is that.”
“You got a reason for calling a hardworking rancher in the middle of the night?”
“Like you were asleep.” The other man cleared his throat. “Something’s come up I think you ought to know about.”
Instantly alert, Cassidy narrowed his gaze. “I’m listening.”
There was a brief hesitation, as if Rio was searching for words. Cassidy felt the first prickling of concern and sat up straighter.
“It concerns Vicki, mostly,” Rio confided finally.
Fear stabbed deep. He warned himself not to bolt before he knew where he was heading. “Concerns her how?”
“Easy, Cass, it’s probably not serious, but—”
“Answer the question, Redtree.” He heard the threat in his voice and made a conscious effort to control himself as he added, “What do you know that you’re not telling me?”
Rio’s sigh did little to stem Cassidy’s growing alarm. “Vicki’s class was here at the Herald last week on a field trip, and while the other kids were learning about computer pasteup and design, she slipped away to talk to me. Said she recognized me because I played poker with her daddy.”
Cassidy heard the crunch of gravel outside and glanced at the clock. Billy was a few minutes early. The other hands wouldn’t be arriving for another half hour or so.
“Go on.”
There was the sound of rustling paper before the other man continued. “It seems she’s decided I should do an article on the effect of divorce on little girls and dogs.”
Cassidy indulged in a curt oath that had Rio chuckling. “Yeah, well, I told her that it might be a better idea if she wrote it, seeing as she’s had experience.”
Because he was alone, Cassidy let his head drop. “Why do I think I’m not going to enjoy this?” he muttered, digging harder into the knotted muscles of his neck.
“You have a fax machine, right?”
Cassidy already knew where this was going. “Yeah.”
“Hold on a minute while I get a pencil.”
Cassidy heard drawers opening and Rio muttering. “Okay, what’s the n
umber?” he asked when he came back on the line.
Cassidy recited the digits, waited until Rio repeated them before asking a little too brusquely, “She didn’t, uh, cry or anything, did she?”
“Like a bubbling little fountain,” Rio said cheerfully, earning him another rude comment. “But I had her laughing again before they left.”
“Hell, Redtree, I didn’t think you had a sensitive bone in that pitiful wreck you call a body.”
Rio’s chuckle would have been infectious—if Cassidy wasn’t busy bracing himself to read his daughter’s words as soon as they spilled out of the fax. “Funny what living with a good woman can do for a man, ain’t it, Sloane.”
Cassidy closed his eyes on a knife-thrust of pain. “What is this, Redtree, a damned conspiracy to rub my nose in my own stupidity?”
“Something like that, yeah. Is it working?”
“It’s working.”
“Going to try to get her back?”
Cassidy thought about lying. A man had his pride. “I’m considering it.”
“Want some advice from a man who’s been there?” Redtree’s voice was subtly altered, as though he was grinning.
“Might as well, since I figure you’re gonna give it whether I want it or not.”
Rio laughed. “Well, hell, you’re smarter than I figured.”
“You gonna tell me or insult me?”
Cassidy heard a long-suffering sigh that had his teeth grating together.
“Get yourself all duded up, buy her a coupla dozen roses and maybe some candy—to get her in the mood, you know. And then, get down on your knees and grovel. Works every time.”
* * *
Karen woke a little before noon, still groggy from the aftereffects of a long and stressful weekend as a resident-on-duty. Exhaustion still buzzed in her head, and her arches ached.
Just over seven more months and her days as an ill-paid, overworked resident would be at an end. Then, after surviving the worst, she could look forward to private practice as a better-paid, but still overworked doctor.
With a heartfelt sigh, she sat up and threw off the covers. Though her bedroom was the smallest of four on the second floor, she’d chosen it because its two dormer windows looked out on the snow-capped Rockies marking the western horizon. It was the same view she’d had from the master bedroom at the ranch, and it didn’t take much thought to realize why she favored it.
The Parent Plan Page 17
