13
Kacey just knew that letting Ben King into her life—her daughter’s life—would only break her heart.
Ben simply didn’t have room for a family—and maybe the best thing for all of them would be for him to walk away. Kacey stood at the door to the deck of the PEAK ranch, drawn by the lure of the ribs in the hickory smoker, the sounds of laughter in the yard, where her daughter stood with Ty, who had decided to forgive Kacey for taking his job and to teach Audrey how to rope the imaginary steer attached to a hay bale.
Miles played with his three-year-old, chasing him, scooping the little bull rider up, tossing him over his shoulder, grabbing his arms to fly him around the yard. Miles’s cute pregnant wife, Kelli, sat in an Adirondack chair, a hand on her rounded belly, and talked with Chet, who sat rubbing his arm as if he might have a stiff muscle.
Pete tossed out a Frisbee for Jubal to catch in a flying lunge. Gage and Jess filled the cooler with ice and tossed in cans of soda.
The perfect Sunday afternoon arched high and bright, the sky so blue she could dive in, the mountains in backdrop standing sentry and majestic over their day.
She could hardly believe that two weeks ago, they were wading through floodwaters and rescuing kids off mountaintops, with her trying to find her footing after discovering thirteen years of betrayal.
But maybe this team could provide a new kind of camaraderie—the kind she’d found in the military, only closer to home, with Audrey in her life every day. The place to build something safe. With these people, she didn’t need Ben to move forward.
“Ben just pulled up,” Sierra said from behind her. She held a bowl of potato salad and was heading outside, but nodded toward the front drive. “Just giving you a heads-up.”
“I figured he’d show up sometime.”
“It’ll be okay. Just tell him that you had a headache—”
“I’m not going to lie to him, Sierra. He deserves to know, to move on. We just don’t fit into each other’s lives anymore.”
Sierra shook her head, but Kacey cut her off. “We make much less sense than you and Ian do.”
“Not true. Ian sees me as his employee—he always will. More, what is a hippie’s daughter doing with a billionaire? Like that would ever work. He saved us both—”
“He kissed you!”
Sierra glanced outside, back to Kacey. “Ix-nay on the issing-kay. I don’t want the team to know. Besides, trust me when I say it was just a moment. He didn’t mean it.”
“But you did.”
Sierra lifted a shoulder, a contrast to her slightly reddened, still swollen eyes. “Again, imagine if he hadn’t cut this off before he became my entire world.” She made a face, something of horror in it, and Kacey laughed.
“Okay. Whatever. But Ben has never been my entire world—I made sure of that.”
“And now who’s lying? He’s been your everything since you were thirteen. You’ve just been living in denial for so long you think you can live without him. Or maybe you think you don’t deserve him.”
Kacey ignored that. “I can live without him. I have you, and”—she gestured to the team outside—“these guys.”
Ben came up on the porch holding a couple bags of chips, and the sound of his boots made Audrey turn.
“Yes, you do,” Sierra said. “But what about—”
“Mr. King!” Audrey exclaimed. “I didn’t know you would be here.”
“Audrey,” Sierra finished quietly.
“I don’t know yet,” Kacey said. “I agree she should know, but I don’t want to disrupt her life. You know she’s going to want him to stick around . . .”
And she couldn’t help but wince as Audrey came up on the deck and actually put her arms around Ben’s waist. He responded with a quick hug, and Kacey’s heart just about tore in half.
Sierra, too, said nothing. Sighed.
Audrey leaned back, looked up at Ben. “Can you teach me that guitar lick? I brought my guitar.”
A quick no died in Kacey’s throat when he nodded, and Audrey headed inside to retrieve her guitar.
Sierra stepped back to let her inside, and Audrey shot her mother a wide smile, her eyes shining. “Benjamin King is here!”
“Yes, he is.”
“Do you think he’s here to see you?” She grabbed her guitar case from where she’d parked it near the sofa. “Did you have fun last night?”
Audrey had been asleep on the foldout in the family room when Kacey sneaked back to Sierra’s house last night, her heart in her hands. And this morning she’d successfully dodged any questions as she helped Sierra prepare for today’s barbecue.
Now, she found a smile. “Great concert.”
“But the after party—did he try and hold your hand?” Audrey held her guitar like she might a teddy bear, one arm around the neck, the other hand on the handle.
“No, honey. I told you, we’re just friends.” The words came out almost without a hitch.
Audrey frowned, a shadow of disappointment across her face. Then, “It’s okay if he teaches me, right?”
Sierra’s eyes on her made Kacey nod.
And when Audrey opened the door, Ben turned, his blue eyes fixed on Kacey. No welcoming grin, no warmth in his eyes. Just a tiny twitch of his mouth, as if he wanted to say something.
Anything.
She gave him a tight nod, aching. But this was for the best.
Sierra went outside, and Kacey walked over to check the cookies Sierra had baking. The house smelled like something out of a storybook—homey, comfortable.
Ian was an idiot to push a woman like Sierra out of his life.
Kacey donned her hot pads and pulled the cookies from the oven. She felt ultra-domestic as she scooped them off the tray.
Jess came in as Kacey was finishing with the cookies. “Have you tried roping yet? Ty’s giving lessons. Ben already showed off. I didn’t realize he could rope.”
“He used to work as a hand on his grandfather’s ranch,” she said, not wanting to think about the cowboy in Ben, the way he seemed just as natural on a horse as he did onstage.
What didn’t he do well?
As if in answer, she heard the sound of a guitar, and she spotted Ben outside sitting on the deck, leaning over the instrument, his fingers flying over the fretboard.
She watched as he handed the guitar to Audrey. He leaned over her, positioning her fingers, one at a time, picking out the pattern for her on the strings.
“She bites her lip the same way he does,” Jess said quietly, also watching the pair. “How are they getting along?”
Kacey hearkened back to her conversation with Jess in the dim light of their bunk room. “I haven’t told her yet.”
Jess glanced at her. “I know it’s none of my business, but why not?”
“Well, look at him. He’s a big star. Has fans everywhere, and a life in Nashville. Imagine if you suddenly found out your father was someone famous. You’d feel like you’d have to compete with his fans, wonder if you were enough, if he’d choose you. And then there’s the fact that he would be in and out of your life, bringing chaos and media attention when that’s the last thing you’d need to live a normal life. Not to mention the fact that if he did pick you, you’d always know that you’d held him back.”
“Hmm,” Jess said. “I guess I’d think, ‘Wow! I have a dad.’ But you’re probably right.” She picked up the plate of cookies. “I think the ribs are ready.”
Perfect. Kacey turned off the oven and followed Jess outside, pasting on her game face. She didn’t have to make a big deal about last night—maybe Ben had already figured out that their worlds didn’t mesh.
From the sound of it, Audrey was catching on to the lick. Ben’s hands were now off the strings. He didn’t look at Kacey as she came out.
Fine.
Jess set the cookies on the picnic table covered by a red-checked tablecloth. Chet rolled up the ramp, with a friendly push from Pete. Gage carried the tray of ribs.
Miles propped his three-year-old on his neck, holding his legs. Ty came over, coiling up his rope.
Sierra took the ribs from Gage, added them to the table already filled with potato salad, watermelon, cookies, chips, and a cake with “Welcome Kacey!” in the center.
A truck pulled up behind them, and Kacey spotted Sam Brooks getting out. He waved a hand as he walked toward the house.
“I invited Sam because he’s just as much a part of us, now that we’re working with the Mercy Falls EMS,” Sierra said.
Kacey didn’t miss the flare of disapproval from Pete. He stuck his hands in his back pockets, looked away toward the mountains as Sam greeted everyone. Huh. She would have thought they would have gotten closer after the death of their father.
Chet cleared his throat. “It’s a new season, with Kacey joining us at our weekly barbecue. But it’ll be a good season, and until I’m back on my feet and Ty is back at the helm, she’ll be running operations alongside Miles.”
She smiled and maintained her military bearing when Ben glanced at her, his face blank.
“We don’t pray for dinner—we praise.” Chet gripped the arms of his chair, his voice rising. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters . . .”
In unison the team recited the familiar psalm, and the words awakened inside her, just like they had when Howard had spoken them. Now, as then, she found her mouth moving with the rest of the team.
“He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”
She glanced at her daughter standing next to Ben, the words innocent on her tongue.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
She closed her eyes against the picture of God, the Good Shepherd, using his weapons to protect her.
It might not have felt like God was with her on that mountain in Afghanistan, but she had discovered a measure of comfort—he’d brought her home, deepened her relationship with Audrey.
And she had survived the mountain, hadn’t she? That thought settled deep.
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.”
Yes, maybe she’d request a release from active duty, move home during her reserve term, and get on with building a life here in Mercy Falls.
Because this was more than enough, really, if she were to look around at the team, the friends she’d already made.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
And it would be enough for Audrey too.
They chorused an amen, and while the guys grabbed plates, Audrey went to put away her guitar.
“Honey, you should put that in the house when you get done eating.” Kacey reached for a paper plate but suddenly heard Ben’s voice in her ear, low and strident.
“We need to talk.”
She glanced at Audrey, then back at Ben. “Now?”
“Everyone’s busy eating,” he said. “They won’t notice we’re gone.”
So maybe she owed him an explanation. Kacey backed away from the table, headed toward the house, Ben on her tail.
Inside, away from prying ears.
She walked past the kitchen, toward Chet’s office. Ben came in behind her, and when she turned, he’d already worked up a lather.
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you stick around?” He shook his head. “I’ve been going through this all night. Was it Hollie? Or the music? I get it—I do. I know it’s not . . . it’s what sells, Kacey. And it might not be where I started, but it’s where I am now and—”
“Stop, Ben. You don’t have to justify anything to me.”
“You and Hollie were amazing out there. She’s a great performer—not a hint of stage fright.”
“Oh, trust me, she was practically shaking before we got on stage. But—”
“But you’re right. She needs you. And you put on an amazing show. I was so proud of you up there.”
Again, he just blinked at her. And it occurred to her that he’d never seen himself like she saw him last night. Small-town boy making good on stage. Living out all his dreams.
A thread of warmth slipped into her words. “You were brilliant. And not just your voice and your guitar slinging, but you. You glitter up there. You were made for the stage, Ben. I always knew it, and last night—I was just so proud of you.”
“I . . . I thought you left because, well, because I’d offended you.”
Oh. She let out a sound, something like a laugh. “No. I mean, I didn’t expect the songs to be quite so . . . I think I’ll need to take another look at what Audrey listens to.”
He made a face, then ran a hand behind his neck.
Her voice turned soft. “I loved ‘Mountain Song.’” She hoped he could see it in her eyes, how it touched her to hear the song he’d written for them. For Audrey. “I was caught in time. It was beautiful.”
“Then why did you leave?” Some of the anger had fallen from his expression, leaving only hurt.
It made her want to reach up, touch his face, run a thumb along a smattering of golden brown whiskers.
“Because I already realized that I can’t let you give this up. You’ve worked too hard to make a career.”
He looked stricken, and her heart went out to him, just a little. “I don’t understand. I said I’d stay.”
She stepped closer, reached out to take his hand, softened her words. “Ben, please. You have too much music in you to stay. We both know this.”
His mouth opened. The hurt was gone, replaced with an expression that hit her straight on.
She was right.
He blinked, looked away.
So she pressed in the truth.
“Think about it, Ben. You live in Nashville, and no matter how much you say we can work it out—and probably yes, you could fly back and forth. But in the end, your daughter is only going to feel like she’s making you choose. And she feels either guilty or resentful.”
“And is it too much to ask her—you—to move to Nashville?”
She drew in a breath. “Seriously? Her life is here. You want to take her away from her grandparents, her school?”
His gaze was sharp. “What are you saying . . . you’ve changed your mind about Audrey?”
She let his hand go. But he had to see the obvious.
“I don’t see how it doesn’t turn out badly. We just don’t fit in your life, Ben. I know you want us to, but you can’t see the sacrifices you’ll have to make. And maybe that’s what my dad saw—you’re bigger than this town, than us. And I need to . . . let you go.”
“No—”
“We have a family here, Ben. Your dad is here, and the team is great. We’re going to be okay—”
“I’m not going to be okay! I need you, Kacey. I love you—and Audrey. We’re a family—or we could be.”
And now he was simply being stubborn. Her voice slid to something low, blunt.
“And what’s that going to look like? You going to take us on the road with you—”
“Maybe. Or maybe I do quit country music. I can. I only did it for you, anyway. To show you that I could take care of you, become the person you always saw.” And now his beautiful eyes were filled with a sort of angry desperation.
She put a hand on his chest. “I know—and you have. Wow, you have. You’re this amazing, breathtaking man. Kind and protective—and yeah, of course I’ll always love you. But I can’t let you quit.”
He just stared at her, as if trying to sort out her words. So she found the ones he needed to hear.
“Ben, I don’t need you anymore. You’re free to go. We’ll be fine.”
His mouth closed, jaw tight.
Then he nodded. “Of course you will be.” He turned away as if to go, and she finally let out a breath.
There. Over. Good.
“But I won’t be.” He whirled back around, and she hadn’t taken a breath before he had his hand around her neck, pulling her mouth against his.
And then, all thought left her as he kissed her, such desperation in his touch that it shattered the tight control she had on her emotions, barreling right through her reasons, straight on to grab up her heart.
Oh, how she loved this man. She tasted her own tears as she kissed him back, her arms around his neck, losing herself in her hope of what-if, the fairy tale that she longed to be theirs.
He had backed her up to the wall and now braced his arms on each side of her head as he leaned back from her, meeting her eyes. His glistened, and she grasped his shirt in her fists, not sure if she should hold on or push him away.
Her heart thundered, her lips bruised, aching to kiss him again.
“Babe, I know you don’t need me. You’ve made this amazing life. You’re a hero, a pilot, an awesome mom, and frankly, I’m so blown away by you I can hardly find the words. But that’s the thing—with you I do find the words. You and Audrey are what’s been missing, all this time. We belong together, you and me and Audrey. She’s my daughter, and I love her. And I want to be in your lives.”
“What did you say?”
Kacey stilled, and by the way Ben’s eyes opened wide, he’d heard her too.
Audrey, standing in the doorway, holding her guitar.
Probably bringing it in the house, just like her mother told her to. With a groan, Ben leaned away from the wall.
Kacey broke away from him, headed toward Audrey. “Honey—”
“What did he say?” Her eyes were wide, her voice shrilling. She looked at Kacey, accusation on her face, then to Ben.
“We were going to tell you—” Kacey started, but Audrey wasn’t listening.
She had rounded on Ben. “You’re my dad?”
Ben stood there, let out a breath.
Then he nodded.
Silence thundered as Kacey watched Audrey’s reaction. Then her eyes filled, her jaw tightened. “You lied to me. You both lied to me.” She turned to her mother. “How long have you known?”
Kacey didn’t quite know how to answer that. “All your life?”
“Yeah, right—all my life. You knew that Benjamin King was my father. And yet you acted like he’d abandoned us—me. Like he didn’t want me.”
“No . . .” Kacey started toward her but Audrey held up her guitar as if it were a weapon.
“Of course I wanted you,” Ben said. “I just didn’t know—listen, it’s complicated. And we’ll tell you everything, I promise, but—”
“I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know. You lied to me for two weeks, acted like you were my friend, when all this time . . . What, were you trying to figure out if I was good enough to be your daughter?” She looked at the guitar then, and Kacey could almost see it in her eyes.
She flung the instrument at Ben. He barely caught it as it hit the floor, banging, issuing a sound of discord.
“I don’t want your stupid guitar. And I don’t want you.” Then she turned to Kacey. “How could you do this to me? I wish you’d never come back!”
Then she stormed back outside, slamming the door. It banged on the sill.
“Audrey!” Kacey started after her, but Ben grabbed her arm.
“I’ll go.”
But she shrugged him away, shaking. “Listen, I know you didn’t mean for her to find out this way—but this is exactly what I meant. Stay away, Ben. Before you make it worse. I’m her mother. I’ll fix this.”
Her words turned to poison in her mouth, but she followed her daughter outside.
Audrey wasn’t there.
In the driveway, her Escape fired up. She ran to the edge of the deck in time for her to watch Audrey peel out, dirt scattering as she hit the road.
“Yep, she’s definitely your and Ben’s daughter,” Sam said, coming to stand beside her. “Does she have a permit?”
She held out her hand, and he handed her his keys.
“Stay away, Ben. Before you make it worse.”
Ben came out on the deck on Kacey’s heels, the words like fire in his brain.
“I’m her mother. I’ll fix this.”
Yeah, well, he was her father. And he wasn’t going to let his daughter drive away upset.
“Kacey.” He didn’t know how many of the team had heard Audrey, but he didn’t care.
Enough secrets.
But Kacey had jumped off the porch and was headed for Sam’s truck without a backward glance.
He rounded on Sam. “Really?”
“I’ll call the station, get someone to intercept her. But I know Kacey as well as you do—she would have wrestled keys from someone. That or taken the chopper.”
Ben jumped off the deck, running after her. “Kacey!”
But she was ignoring him as she gunned the truck.
Down the road, Audrey had already kicked up enough dust to obscure her exit.
Nice.
He dug into his pocket, found his keys, headed to his truck.
“Ben!”
Pete’s voice caught him, turned him around. He had come off the deck, running at a fast clip toward him. “Don’t go.”
“Listen, this is my mess—”
“I think your dad is having a heart attack.”
Pete’s words landed a half second before he turned, raced back to the house.
Chet was hunched over in his chair, one hand across his chest. “I’m fine.” But his voice emerged strained, and he groaned at the end.
For a second, the physical therapist’s words flashed in Ben’s head. “He also has a higher risk of heart failure, as well as blood clots . . .”
“Get him in the house.” This from Jess, who turned to Gage. “Get me the portable oxygen unit from the rig.”
Gage took off across the yard toward the barn while Pete and Sam maneuvered Chet toward the house.
“I’m fine.” But his voice rasped with pain.
“You’re not fine, Dad,” Ben said, holding the door open.
“I’ll call for an ambulance,” Sam said as he pulled out his cell phone.
Ben grabbed his father around the shoulders, easing him up, and to his shock, Chet held on to him, let him lower him onto the sofa.
Jess knelt beside him, leaned him back onto a pillow. Gage came in, holding the portable tank. He pulled the plastic off the mask, handed it to Jess, who affixed it over his face.
“Just breathe, Chet.”
His father’s face tightened.
Sierra appeared with the first responder kit, and Jess opened it, dug out the stethoscope.
Ben stepped back, arms crossed, thunder in his ears as Jess listened to the heart.
She shook her head. “There’s no arrhythmia. Let me get his blood pressure.”
She wrapped the cuff around his arm, pumped it up.
Sam came through the door. “Ambulance is on its way.”
“I told you I’m—”
“Stop talking, Dad,” Ben said.
Chet looked at him.
Ben met his gaze. “Let us help you.”
Chet drew in a breath, closed his eyes.
Behind him, Gage was raising Chet’s feet onto a pillow and covering him with a blanket.
Ben went to stand on the porch and wait for the ambulance. Sam came out beside him. “He’s going to be okay. It could be angina, but we have to treat it like an AMI.”
“I know.” He pulled out his phone, debating a call to Kacey. Put it back. “I should have never come home. He doesn’t need me—he has you all. And I just made everything a mess with Kacey. And Audrey.”
“What are you talking about? Of course you’re needed here. Your dad needs you, even if he can’t say it. We can’t get him to shut up about you. And Kacey—well, she needs you, too, even if she says otherwise.”
Ben shook his head. “No, she doesn’t. I’ve never met a more capable person in my entire life. Everybody tells the story of how we rescued that hiker on the McDonald Loop—but it was Kacey. She kept him calm, stayed awake the entire night watching him. It didn’t surprise me at all that she’d earned a bronze star—she always knows what to do. But me, I just keep screwing things up. Kacey, my career, my dad—I don’t know why, but I just kept thinking that if I made something out of myself, I could prove to them all that I wasn’t—”
“The preacher’s kid who got his girlfriend pregnant?”
Ben looked at Sam, who raised an eyebrow. “Well, yeah, not to put too fine a point on it.”
In the distance, he could hear the ambulance whining.
“You know why I wasn’t there the night Audrey was born?”
“Yeah. You got in a fight with Cash Murdock. Who, by the way, is doing a nickel in Crossroads for possession.”
“Mmmhmm. But the reason I got in a fight with him.”
“Didn’t he spray-paint a word on Kacey’s car that, well, pretty much labeled her as someone who played fast and easy with her virtue? By my vote, he deserved that broken nose.”
“He did, but I was the one who . . . Judge Fairing was right to tell me I had no business proposing. I had nothing to give her, I was just this kid who thought too much of himself.”
“Aren’t we all at that age?”
“Yeah. But the problem was, I didn’t go after Cash for Kacey. I said I did, but it was because of the boots.”
“The boots?”
“When I was ten, Murdock’s had a pair of boots in the window for Christmas, and I wanted them. They were buckaroos—remember them? Taller shafts? And these were black and about a hundred dollars, so I knew it was a long shot, but I begged my parents for those boots. My dad wasn’t a Christmas gift guy, see. He’d rather go out on Christmas Day and treat all the veterans to a turkey dinner, or maybe make food baskets for the hippies out at the artists community. There were years when I got nothing but a pair of socks, fresh underwear, and maybe a chocolate Santa under our little fake tree.”
He glanced at Sam. “But that’s the thing. Christmas Day came, and I couldn’t believe it when I found boots under the tree. They weren’t quite the same, but they were shiny, if not a little worn. They had the same black leather—buckaroos. I was in love. Until, that is, I went to school.”
He could see the shiny lights of the ambulance glinting against the sunshine as the rig barreled down the highway to the turnoff.
“Cash wore the same pair of boots to school—except his were definitely new. And worse, he took one look at mine and told me that they’d been his, and his parents had donated them to the Goodwill. He even proved it—he’d carved his initials into the boot heel. I was mortified—and angry. At my parents for embarrassing me, and at myself. I should have never wished for something so expensive. I was so ashamed.”
“And knowing Cash, he made fun of you wearing secondhand castoffs. Which is why, when he spray-painted words on Kacey’s car . . .”
“I thought I was protecting her honor. But her father pointed out, rightly, that I was just protecting my pride.”
“If you feel any better, I was on board with the whole thing that night.”
“I know. But you weren’t the one who ended up in jail, staring at your sins. Ashamed again.”
“I was faster.” Sam grinned. “But I also had a good reason not to get caught. My mom couldn’t take any more stress in her life.”
“Yeah, well, no matter what I do, I can’t seem to get it right. I thought maybe I could be someone my dad could be proud of. Someone Kacey might be impressed by.”
Sam shoved his hands into his pockets. “What you have, and who you impress, does not make you who you are. And the crazy part is you taught me that. You gave up a football scholarship to play music. Nuts, right?”
Ben didn’t correct him, but he’d given up his scholarship because of Kacey.
Because he’d wanted, more than anything, to be the guy who did something right.
The ambulance turned into the drive, and Sam stepped off the porch to meet them.
Ben headed back into the house. His dad lay on the sofa, eyes closed, Jess holding his hand, the team huddled around him. Miles and Kelli were packing up the ribs, Sierra supervising.
“We’re going to the hospital with him,” Sierra said as she came up to Ben and put her arm around him. “He’s going to be okay.”
The EMTs—a man and a woman he didn’t recognize—came in carrying a stretcher. They took Chet’s vitals, asked the pertinent questions, then put him on a stretcher and called it in.
They started to wheel him out, but Chet reached out, as if for Ben’s hand.
He caught it, walked beside him, his throat tight. Please, God. He wasn’t ready to say good-bye.
“I’ll be right behind you, Dad.”
Sam came up beside him, held out his hand. “I’m driving.”
Ben pulled out his keys and got in the truck. “Keep up, Sam.”