Accidental Heiress

by Lauren Nichols

  But once again, the look on Jess’s face was hardly what she expected. The brown eyes beneath his hat brim were troubled, and his jaw was grimly clenched. “Yeah, that’s a good sign. For me, anyway.” Then he seemed to shove his mood aside and smiled. “Come on, let’s go find you a hat.”

  “A hat?” she repeated.

  “Yep. A real cowgirl’s hat.” He scanned her hair and outfit, her tanned arms and legs, and she knew he liked what he saw. “White straw, I think, with a pretty feathered hatband.”

  Casey laughed. “Because...? Good guys wear white hats?”

  “Nope,” he said, molding her to his side as they crossed the street to Hardy’s boardwalk sale. “Because you look beautiful in white.”

  That night, standing in the kitchen, Casey thought that—except for two minor incidents—the day couldn’t have gone better if she had scripted it herself. First, there had been the tense scene with Farrell, and then Jess had had private words with Ross that ended with Ross stalking off. But Jess had sloughed off that dispute, too, and Casey knew he’d done it for her. He hadn’t wanted to put a damper on her day.

  Then they’d come home to a dark, clear sky littered with stars, and a night ahead that promised so much more. Jess was down at the barn now, checking on a calf that was recuperating from a broken leg. And Casey was waiting.

  Casey smiled at her reflection in the darkened window. She couldn’t bring herself to take off her new white hat just yet. The lovely leather choker was still at her throat.

  The back screen door swung open abruptly, and Ross strode into the kitchen, startling her and letting the door bang shut behind him. “Ross. Hello.”

  “Jess around?” he said through a scowl. “I need to talk to him.”

  “He’s down in the barn,” Casey replied reluctantly. She didn’t want to see the brothers get into yet another argument, and from the looks of him, Ross had had a few drinks tonight and he was in a quarrelsome mood.

  “Wait,” she said when he started to retrace his steps. “I—I need to tell you something first.”

  He stopped. “What?”

  Slowly, Casey took off her hat and finger-fluffed her hair where the crown had pressed it flat. She laid it on the kitchen table. She hadn’t had the opportunity to tell him about the phone calls yet, because he’d seemed to be avoiding the house. And this afternoon in town, Jess had stuck too close to her side for her to share the information. “Look,” she began hesitantly, “I hope you’ll forgive me for asking this, but...are you in some kind of trouble?”

  Ross sent her a black look and let out a belligerent blast of air. “Is that what Jess told you? That I’m in trouble again? Boy, that must be some boring pillow talk the two of you have going.”

  Casey blanched at his last statement, but didn’t comment on it. “Jess hasn’t said anything to me, but I’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to notice the friction between the two of you lately.” She paused. “But that’s not why I asked. A man has been calling here for you, and from his tone...I think you need to get back to him soon. He didn’t leave a number where he could be reached, but he said you’d know who he was.”

  Ross went beet red. “He’s been calling? And you just got around to telling me now? Thanks a lot. When they swing by to break my kneecaps, I’ll be sure to tell them I never got the message.”

  Casey’s blood ran cold. “I’m...I’m sorry. I didn’t want to mention it in front of Jess, and you haven’t been around the past two days. Ross, what can I do for you?”

  He turned to leave. “Nothing.”

  “Wait—there must be something. Do you want the money back that you gave me? I don’t need it right now.”

  That stopped him, and Casey saw the fear behind the hope in his eyes. “You would do that?”

  She nodded, although she regretted blurting out the offer without thinking first. Especially since she had to add, “But only on the condition that you get some help for your gambling problem. There’s a toll-free phone number listed in the phone book, and if you want I could—”

  “Forget it. Maybe you should stop trying to live my life, and get your own together.”

  “My life is fine, and I’m not trying to live yours. I just want to help you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because staying here this summer has made me think of you as...well, almost family.”

  “Family?” Ross chuckled, then shoved the screen door open and clumped out to the small back porch.

  Casey caught it before it swung shut. “Ross, don’t go.”

  “You think your life’s so great? Think it’s like a bunch of posies all tied up in a pretty pink ribbon?” He pulled a folded sheet of paper from the pocket of his jeans and stuffed it into her hand. “Well, you’re wrong.”

  A strange chill drizzled through Casey’s limbs; she didn’t have to open the note to know it was the one Jess had left her that first morning after they’d made love. The note she’d taken into the bathroom and never seen again. Now she knew what had happened to it.

  “We all like you, Casey, and I don’t want to see you get hurt any more than you’re going to be. But the only reason my brother’s bedding you is to keep this ranch in the family. We talked the night you moved into the nursery. I told him to keep you happy while we figured a way to get out of the mess I caused, and he didn’t say no.”

  The air left Casey’s lungs, and a fist closed around her heart. “No. Jess knows I’d never take Broken straw away. I-I even signed a statement agreeing to a two-year repayment plan, and—”

  “And it’s not worth the powder it would take to blow it to kingdom come. It’s not notarized, which means it’s not binding, which means you can still foreclose anytime you want. So don’t go buildin’ castles in the clouds and callin’ us family. There ain’t gonna be a happy ending.”

  Casey stood there trembling for a frozen moment. Then as tears began to gather behind her eyes, she let the screen door slam and walked quickly back into the kitchen. She grabbed a dishcloth and started wiping countertops that didn’t need wiping. He was lying. He had to be lying. Jess would never use her that way.

  The door opened again, then closed softly. Ross walked back inside, his blue eyes full of apology. Casey moved on to the table... wiping... hurting... wiping.

  His voice was low and remorseful, but she wasn’t up to assuaging his guilt; she had enough to handle right now. “Casey, I’m really sorry. I’m a jerk. I don’t know what gets into me sometimes. I shouldn’t have said those things.”

  He took a few steps closer. “In fact, they’re not even true—I made them all up. What’s true is, Jess climbed all over me about something this afternoon, and I just got mad and took it out on you.” He paused, swallowing. “I...I hope you won’t tell Jess what I said. He wouldn’t like it.”

  Casey nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She was too close to tears, and she knew that if she let them fall, they would never stop. Because Ross’s blurted allegations had had the ring of truth to them. He was only changing his story now because he realized he’d hurt her. Or maybe because it had just dawned on him that he’d put Broken straw at risk once again by telling her the truth.

  Taking the dishcloth to the sink, she rinsed it out and hung it over the rack to dry.

  “Casey?” Ross prompted hesitantly. “Are we okay with this?”

  “Yes,” she murmured over the lump in her throat. “We’re okay. I won’t tell Jess. Now I...I need to get some sleep, okay?”

  “Sure. I’ll see you in the morning?” He tried a lighthearted good-ol’-boy tone, but it quavered uncertainly. “We gotta get those cows up to the north pasture where the grub’s better, right?” He waited a few seconds, and when she didn’t answer, he said again, “Right?”

  “Right,” Casey replied.

  When Jess came in twenty minutes later, she was sitting at the table, smoothing the faux eagle-feather band on her straw cowboy hat. Coming up behind her, he slid her hair back and kissed her neck. She never mo
ved. Never smiled. Never turned to stroke his face, or offer her lips.

  He sensed it and came around to drag out a chair and take a seat across from her at the table. “What’s wrong?” he asked, concern lining his brow.

  Casey swallowed, looking at the clean, sharp angles of his face. She wanted to be in his arms so desperately her chest ached. But not like this. After some serious thought, she was convinced that even if Ross suggested Jess take her to bed to “keep her happy,” Jess would never have gone along with it. However, that terrible conversation had made her realize that she needed to know exactly where she did stand with him.

  “I love my hat and necklace,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jess answered warily, continuing to regard her as he waited for her to speak again. She obliged him.

  “What do they mean, Jess?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand—”

  “You know,” she said, rising to walk the floor. “What significance do they have? In high school a boy tried to give me his class ring once, which would have meant we were going steady. Then, later, Dane gave me a diamond that meant we were to be married.” She turned to face him, trying very hard to hold back her tears. “Are my hat and necklace just keepsakes, Jess? Something to take back home with me when I leave here? What is our relationship?”

  Jess blew out a long stream of air and met her eyes uncomfortably. “Casey...we said when we started this that—”

  “I know what we said then. But this is now, and I feel differently. I’m in love with you.”

  There was a brief flash of shock in his eyes, but then he composed his features. After a moment, he stood, walked soberly to her and gathered her close. “Casey, Casey...” He sighed into her hair. “I do care about you.”

  “But?” she murmured against his shirt.

  “But...I’ve been married. It didn’t work.”

  She stepped back to look up at him. “It didn’t work because you and Lydia were strangers, with absolutely nothing in common. You never established a closeness—you never fell in love. How could it work under those circumstances?”

  Then her heart fell to her feet as she watched Jess’s dark eyes cloud and slide away. And she knew in that instant that Ross had been right. There would be no happy ending. “What is it?”

  Releasing her, Jess ambled grimly around the kitchen for a moment, then leaned a hip against the work island in the middle of the floor.

  “I did love her,” he said quietly. “So much that I spent nearly every cent I had to keep her happy. To keep her here.”

  “But...you said...the two of you only married because of the baby.”

  “We did. But when she miscarried and we decided to give the marriage a shot, I gave it everything in me. I fell in love with her. Unfortunately, I was the only one who took the big fall.” He paused, casting about the room. “I was a mess when she left—but you know about that. The drinking, the carrying-on.” Jess lifted his candid gaze to meet hers. “But I’m over her now, and I don’t ever want to feel that kind of pain again. Casey, I can’t fall in love with someone who isn’t staying.”

  Casey felt a wealth of relief sweep through her. If that was the only thing standing in their way... “Then ask me to stay.”

  He shook his head. “Can’t. I did my share of begging in the past. My pride won’t let me do it again.” Before she could say that she would stay without an invitation, he went on. “And even if you decided to stay on your own, it wouldn’t last. It took Lydia less than three years to get over her infatuation with being a rancher’s wife. The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans novelty wore off in a hurry.”

  “I’m not her.”

  “No, you’re kinder than she was. Sweeter. But in other ways, you’re very much alike. I told you once that we can’t escape who and what we are. You and Lydia come from the same kind of background, and some roots run way too deep to be ignored. You’d eventually miss all the opportunities you had living in a city, all the artsy stuff, and a reason to wear your pretty clothes. You’d miss your family. It’s just the way it is.”

  “Are you looking at me at all?” Casey snapped, beginning to get angry. “My name is not Lydia, and the outfit I’m wearing was less than twenty dollars at Hardy’s. Jess, I’m not going anywhere.”

  He peered at her intently. “Oh? You can say that without a doubt, after less than two months?”

  She could have said it a lot earlier than that, but she’d been too afraid to admit it to herself. “Yes.”

  His voice dropped low. “Then why did you write that letter to the hospital asking for your old job back?”

  Casey felt her heart stop and her limbs go weak as she met his eyes. The letter. That was why he was having doubts. But she’d only written it to have something to fall back on if he couldn‘t—or wouldn’t—love her. Which now appeared to be the case. Or had she had another agenda that she wasn’t even consciously aware of? Had she written that letter and let him see it because she hoped he would beg her not to send it? Had it been some sort of subconscious manipulation to make him admit he needed her? If so, she thought, sighing, it had backfired badly.

  “I wrote it,” she said finally. “But I didn’t mail it.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  Jess’s grim gaze fell to his scuffed leather boots, then, after a long moment, met hers again. “Then maybe it’s about time that you did,” he said quietly. “If that position’s opening up as soon as you said...you need to let them know you’re interested.”

  Casey’s pulse roared in her ears as Jess straightened from the work island and walked to her. “Actually, this is probably for the best,” he said. “You’ll be good for those kids. And they’ll be good for you.”

  Casey stared back numbly. Her legs didn’t want to hold her up; her heart didn’t want to beat. Heaven help her, he really did want her to leave. He really was too afraid to love again.

  And he wouldn’t change his mind. She could see that in the set of his jaw, the unshakable resolve in his eyes.

  No longer caring whether he saw her tears, she walked back down the hall to the den, a watery glaze clouding her vision. Opening the desk drawer, she withdrew the letter and walked back to the kitchen. She handed it to Jess. “You can’t ask me to stay,” she whispered, blinking. “And I can’t mail this letter. So if you think this is the best thing for me...I guess you’ll have to do it yourself.” Then she turned away, hating the next quiet words that came out of her mouth. “I’ll see you upstairs.”

  No woman with an ounce of self-respect would sleep with a man after he’d told her he wanted her out of his life. But, fool that she was, she needed to hold him close. One last time.

  They made love so sweetly that night, with the windows open and a sultry Montana breeze carrying the fecund smells of wheat grass and sage into Jess’s bedroom. They touched and stroked, kissed and tongued. And there was a poignancy to each breathy murmur and whispered sigh. They took each other high on the wings of eagles, their spiraling passions building and cresting in a burst of sensation, only to have them begin again, each shuddering climax more magnificent than the one before. It was breaking dawn when they finally lay exhausted in each other’s arms.

  When Jess finally drifted off to sleep, Casey kissed him softly, then walked into her own room and closed the adjoining door behind her.

  Jess woke to the sound of Ross calling his name in the foyer and leaped out of bed. It took him a moment to get his bearings, and then he grabbed his jeans from the floor and pulled them on, tugging up his zipper on his way to the door. For the first time, he realized Casey was gone. Then he opened his door and saw her emerge from the nursery, and his heart fell. For just an instant, she met his eyes, then looked away.

  So it was over, then.

  Ross was halfway up the staircase, and it was obvious from his expression that he was confused that they’d come out of separate rooms. Jess looked blearily at Ross. “What’s wrong? Why are you—”
/>
  “It’s Monday morning,” he said quietly. “You wanted to move the herd at sunup.”

  Jess swore under his breath.

  “Hank and Pruitt are waitin’ down by the corral.”

  “I’m sorry. My alarm didn’t go off.” Probably because he and Casey had been so involved neither of them had set it. Turning to Casey, he said, “Stay here and get some sleep.”

  But she was already saying to Ross, “I’ll only be a minute. The food’s ready—I just have to pack it.”

  Jess saw a look pass between his brother and Casey and could have sworn Ross wanted to say something else. Then his brother’s uncomfortable gaze came back to Jess. “I guess I’ll see the two of you down there, then.”

  A few minutes later, Jess and Casey were scrambling downstairs, packing sandwiches and drinks and fruit, then hurrying out to the corral. Jess had to admit that part of him was glad they’d slept too late—it had taken care of the uncomfortable “morning after.” They hadn’t had to discuss it or deal with what they’d lost. He knew now—as he’d known last night—that they would not be together again. They would work the ranch until it was time for her to leave—either in a few weeks for a hospital position, or a little later for her mother’s wedding. Either way, once she left, he knew, she would not be coming back. Despite the gripping tightness in his chest, this was the best solution for both of them. She would never be happy here, and if he let himself love her, the devastation he’d felt at losing Lydia would be a mere fraction of what he’d feel when Casey left. He didn’t need that kind of hell again.

  It was a little before five when Jess rode in from the range, gritty with sweat and bone-tired. But pushing himself physically had had its perks. The work had gotten done, and he’d been so distracted by lowing, bawling cattle that he’d thought about Casey only half the time. When she invited the men to join them for a potluck supper, Jess knew she was having her own problems dealing with their situation. She was obviously uncomfortable being alone with him now.