Karen gave the already spotless bathroom sink another swipe with the pale blue towel before returning it to the old porcelain rod she’d found buried under a pile of castoffs in the barn loft. Then, for the next few minutes, she made sure all the other towels were lined up perfectly.
After leaving Vicki’s bedroom twenty minutes ago, she’d made one last tour of the house to make sure the doors were bolted, though she knew full well they were—Cassidy was meticulous about security for his family—and then she’d brushed her teeth until her gums were stinging painfully. She was stalling and knew it.
Walking carefully, as though the colorful cotton hall runner was strewn with ground glass, she made her way down the short passage to the master bedroom. After switching off the hall light, she opened the door and slipped inside. Illuminated by only the small reading lamp on her side of the large Victorian bed, the room was shrouded in shadows.
Cassidy was sitting up in bed with the sheet pulled to his waist, his reading glasses sliding down his nose, the way they always did when he was absorbed in something. He glanced up as she entered, watching her over the rims. It never failed to intrigue her at the difference those glasses made. He still looked ruggedly appealing, but his harsh features seemed gentler somehow when he was peering through horn-rimmed lenses—especially when he was reading to Vicki.
“Is she asleep?” Though his gaze was direct, his expression was remote.
“Yes, poor darling. She’s had a pretty rotten day, all in all.”
One side of his mouth edged upward. “All in all, she’s not the only one.”
“No, she’s not the only one.”
He hesitated, then closed the stock breeder’s magazine he’d been reading and set it on the night table. His glasses followed. Though he always slept nude, even on the coldest of winter nights, she saw that he was still wearing the white T-shirt, and she suspected, his briefs.
“Thanks for backing me up about school tomorrow,” she said as she went to the closet and slid it open.
“I didn’t do it for you,” he said to her back.
“I realize that.” She went to her tiptoes and reached to the second shelf for the spare blanket she kept there in anticipation of Colorado’s frequent sub-zero nights.
“She’s my daughter, too, Karen,” he said as she slid the door closed again. “Don’t ever forget that.”
“I don’t intend to. And if you’re suggesting I’d use her as a weapon against you, forget it. I wouldn’t do that.” Bristling at his arrogance, she turned to glare at him. “Like it or not, we have a responsibility to Vicki to be civilized about this separation.”
“Separation?” One black eyebrow rose in a lazy arch. “Thought you intended to divorce me.”
She told herself it couldn’t be pain in his voice. Not when his eyes were clearly rejecting her. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“You had a choice and you made it.”
Now live with it, she heard in the silence that followed. Her already raw emotions seemed to bleed a little.
“Get this straight, Cassidy. I do not intend to listen to one more snotty word about the choices I’ve made. Or my right to make them. Just as you’ve had the right to make yours.”
“What choices, Kari?” His voice was silvered with sarcasm. “What kind of choice does a man have when a woman comes to him with his child in her belly and all but begs him to marry her?”
Karen heard a gasp and realized it had come from her throat. At the same time she saw shame race over Cassidy’s hard features.
“I think it would be best if I slept on the couch.” She didn’t care that her words were brittle or that her legs were shaking. No matter what happened later, she intended to get through this with her dignity intact. “I’ll set the alarm on my watch to wake me up before Vicki’s up. So you see, wearing armor to bed was totally unnecessary.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She meant to shoot a pointed glance at his chest, but somehow her gaze ended up lower, at the distinctive mound made by the sheet. Even unaroused, Cassidy was impressive.
“Is that an invitation?” The angry red flush that appeared on his cheeks like the burn left by a vicious blow took her by surprise.
“No. An observation.”
Cassidy tossed off the covers and stood up. “Sure you’re not interested in one last time for the road?” he drawled, moving around the end of the bed toward her, his eyes glittering now with a barely controlled emotion she couldn’t have named if her life depended on it.
“For Vicki’s sake I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” she said, dying inside.
“Come on, sweetheart. Give the poor suffering sucker a break.” He reached out to take a lock of her hair between his callused fingertips. “I’ll make it good for you.”
“Stop it.” She tried to pull away, but he simply moved his hand to the back of her neck. Though his grip wasn’t rough, she knew all too well the strength in those long, sinewy fingers. With one twist of that powerful wrist, he could snap her neck. No fuss, no muss.
She refused to let fear take hold. Cassidy was responding to some inner need to hurt her. She could understand that. What she couldn’t do—wouldn’t do—was forgive him.
“Let me go, Cassidy,” she said firmly, putting as much steel in her tone as she could summon.
“I know what you like, Kari. All the places where you like to be petted, the spots where you want my mouth.” He brought his other hand up and used the pad of his thumb to trace her lower lip. His eyes glittered, and his breathing was ragged. “Lie down for me, Kari, and spread your legs.”
She felt a killing rage and hoped it showed in her eyes. “I hate you for this.”
“Go ahead and hate me. It makes it easier that way.” He bent his head, his intention to kiss her burning in his black eyes. She reacted instinctively, jerking backward and lifting her hand at the same time. Driven by fury, her palm hit his cheek with a loud crack, snapping his head back.
He reacted like a wild man, his hand snaking out to grab her around the waist. “You…bitch,” he growled. “I won’t let you destroy me the way she destroyed my father, saying she loved him, saying she loved me…and all the while she was cutting my old man off at the knees. Emasculating him inch by inch—but I’m not my father!”
Karen knew fear then, the icy, uncontrolled kind that took the strength from her bones and set her heart racing. She’d seen Cassidy angry before, but never like this. Never vicious. He was a man driven by something beyond his control.
Tormented.
“Let me go,” she ordered, trying to blank out her fear. “Or I’ll have you arrested.”
He flinched, but his gaze bored into hers. “Go ahead, Kari. But I promise you’ll live to regret it.”
“Nothing you could do to me would be worse than you’ve already done.”
“No? How about suing you for custody of our daughter?”
The room filled with a gray mist and began to revolve. She hauled in air and tried to force herself to concentrate. Dimly she was aware of Cassidy’s face twisting. Of his eyes changing, growing alarmed.
“Oh, God, Kari, I didn’t mean—”
“M-mommy?”
With a low cry, Karen jerked an anguished gaze toward the sound and saw her daughter standing barefoot and trembling by the door Karen had neglected to close. Ignoring Cassidy, Karen jerked away and went to her daughter, who was now as rigid as a statue, her skin parchment pale and her eyes dull with shock. Karen was afraid to touch her. Instead, she knelt in front of her, bringing them eye to eye.
“Vicki. Baby, it’s…it’s all right,” she managed to say with soothing calm despite the wad of remorse lodged in her windpipe.
“I…I don’t like it when D-Daddy shouts at you.”
“Daddy wasn’t really shouting, sweetie. We were just having a heated discussion.” She shot Cassidy a look. “Weren’t we, Daddy?”
It seemed to take him a moment to find his voice. When he did, it came out ravaged and abrupt. “Yeah, a discussion. Nothing for you to worry about, peanut.”
Vicki darted a stricken gaze back and forth between them several times, while her small white teeth worried her bottom lip. Karen had never seen her looking so desolate, not even in those sad hours after Goldie’s death.
“T-Tommy Secord said that when mommies and daddies fight, it means they’re going to get a divorce,” Vicki eventually said in a tiny voice.
“Sometimes, yes, but not always.” Karen felt her stomach begin to quiver, and she felt a vicious jolt of self-contempt. Thanks to her own selfish need to lash out and Cassidy’s outburst of rage, time had just run out.
“Are…are you guys gonna get a divorce?” Vicki persisted in the way of unusually perceptive children.
In the periphery of her vision, Karen saw Cassidy stiffen and swallow hard. “Yes, we are,” he said before Karen could force the words past her constricted throat. “But that doesn’t mean either of us will ever divorce you, sweetheart.” He moved then, going to kneel next to Karen. His body radiated tension, every muscle taut, every sinew lashed with restraint.
“Daddy’s right, darling,” Karen added, desperate to make Vicki understand. “We both love you very, very much.”
Vicki’s gaze mirrored a grief-stricken confusion that broke her mother’s heart. She looked so vulnerable in the fuzzy pink pj’s with her one rosy cheek still bearing the imprint of her pillow. “That’s what the daddies and mommies on TV say, and then they end up doing awful things to each other.”
Like now, Karen thought as a tearing guilt settled over her like a thorny shirt. “Vicki, sweetie, listen—”
“Tommy said his daddy went away because he didn’t love his mommy anymore. He said his daddy has a girlfriend who’s nicer than his mommy.” Her eyes pleaded with Cassidy an instant before she asked plaintively, “Is that why you were yelling at Mommy? ’Cause you don’t love her anymore?”
Cassidy dropped his head for a moment before returning his gaze to his daughter’s pleading gaze. “That’s between your mom and me, Vick,” he said softly but firmly. “What’s important for you to know is that we intend to do all we can to help you get through this.”
“But I don’t want you to get a d-divorce,” she cried, her voice soaked with the tears that were now streaming down her cheeks. “Please, Daddy, tell Mommy you’re sorry and you won’t ever yell again.”
“Oh, baby, don’t.” Cassidy took in air, then reached out to draw Vicki into his arms. “We can’t always have what we want.” For the first time since she’d been old enough to control her own actions, their daughter resisted her father’s embrace.
“Vicki, I know it hurts now, but it won’t always,” Karen ventured as she gently took one of her daughter’s hands in hers. The small fingers curled trustingly around hers, then gripped hard.
“Wh-what will happen to me’n Rags?” she asked in a small voice. The tears were running down her cheeks now, but, when Karen tried to wipe at them, Vicki flinched away.
“You’ll live part of the time with me at Grandma’s until we find our own new house,” Karen told her gently, lowering her hand. “And part of the time you’ll live with Daddy here at the ranch.”
“It’ll be okay, peanut,” Cassidy added, his voice thick. “Mom and I won’t ever walk away and leave you alone, no matter what.”
Karen heard the rough emotion in his tone and realized that his need to reassure her had come directly from his own experience as an abandoned child. For a moment she couldn’t speak. When she finally found her voice, she had to pull the words from deep inside, one by one.
“Vicki, listen to me. Daddy is telling you the absolute truth. We will never, ever abandon you.”
Vicki glared at her father, her eyes blazing, and yet so filled with hurt Karen had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.
“I don’t care what you do!” she cried before wrenching her hand free and bolting back down the hall to her room.
The silence that settled into the dimly lit room was painfully tense. Neither moved for a beat, then Cassidy slowly got to his feet. The athletic grace that had always characterized his movements was absent, and he looked older somehow, as he ran an impatient hand through his tumbled hair.
“Kari, I know there’s nothing I can say—”
“No, there’s nothing more either of us can say to erase the hurt we just caused an innocent child.”
With the economy of movement so characteristic of a man who rationed out his life in patterns of his own, he turned his back on her and strode to his side of the closet, his bare feet making no sound against the carpet.
“Why are you getting dressed now?” she asked as she watched him grab a pair of jeans at random.
“I’m going to sleep in the barn,” he said, jerking on the old Wranglers one long leg at a time. “First thing in the morning I’ll make arrangements to fly to Stockton to pick up the bull.”
Karen moved with stiff strides to the bed and sank down on the mattress. “I thought you were going to wait until the end of the month.” Not that she cared. It was just something to say. Anything to keep her mind from replaying the last few minutes.
“Vicki needs time to heal. She’ll do better without me around.” He zipped his fly, then grabbed a shirt, shrugging into it with savage movements. “I’ll be gone four or five days, depending on how fast I can make arrangements to ship him back.”
Karen managed a shaky breath. “I have a staff meeting at six tomorrow morning. It…it’s too late tonight to call the chief resident, but—”
“Keep your schedule. I’ll make sure Vick gets off to school all right.” He walked to the bureau and jerked open his sock drawer.
“No, I’ll do it,” she said, numbly watching him take out a pair of thick boot socks.
He closed the drawer and turned. She waited for him to make a scathing remark about her career. Instead he nodded wearily before sitting down in the old cane chair under the window to pull on his socks.
When he was finished, he simply sat, his elbows resting on his thighs as though he was suddenly too weary to move. “I behaved like an ass,” he said, lifting his head to look her way. “Nothing I can say or do will change that.” He swallowed, glanced down at the floor, then straightened his shoulders and stood up. “Set up the divorce any way you want. I won’t fight you.”
Cassidy saw the surprise on Karen’s face and wanted to fall to the floor at her feet and beg her to forgive him. But the memory of another time when he’d done that and more rose like bile in his throat, choking off the pleading words.
“All I ask is that you let her spend as much time as possible with me, and that you let me support her—and you—until you’re established in a practice.”
“I don’t want your money. I never did. All I wanted was your love.” She smiled then, a sad, beautiful, cold smile that ripped into him like sizzling shrapnel. “Thank you for showing me what a fool I was.”
“Don’t say that.” His voice was that of a man stretched on a rack of his own making. It shamed him, as did the look of numb disinterest she gave him.
Somehow he managed to hold it together long enough to leave the bedroom, to jam his feet into his boots in the utility room and slam out of the house.
Alone in the bedroom, Karen heard the violent sound and wondered idly if the door had splintered. Not that it mattered, she thought with a dazed detachment that seemed to be growing stronger with each breath she took. If the door was broken, that was Cassidy’s problem. At least that could be fixed, she thought as she got to her feet and forced herself to move toward the bathroom.
Behind the closed door, she reached inside the shower stall and turned on the water, adjusting the taps to a temperature that was just short of scalding. Then, standing frozen on the other side of the curtain, she waited while steam filled the tub and rolled over the curtain rod to cloud the mirror and clog her lungs.
Only then did she slip out of her robe and strip off her nightgown. Staring straight ahead, she stepped into the tub, gasping only when the hot water hit her bare skin. She stood it as long as she could, long enough to wash away the last of her childish dreams. Long enough to let the determination to drive Cassidy out of her heart take root. Long enough to sob until there were no more tears left to fall. Only then, when her skin was red and stinging painfully, did she shut off the water and step from the tub.
As she dried herself she marveled that so much heat could leave her so cold inside. Detachment. That was the key. Blessed healing detachment.
The sooner she left the ranch—and her place as Cassidy’s wife—the sooner she could start to get on with the rest of her life.
* * *
“Sweetie, you have to eat,” Karen chided gently when Vicki sat with her hands in her lap and stared down at the strawberry waffle on her plate.
“Not hungry,” the little girl muttered. Her lower lip was stuck out in a rare pout and anger radiated from her small body. Karen stifled a sigh. Explaining to the chief of residents why she wouldn’t be in today had been a piece of cake compared to dealing with a little girl who had inherited her father’s temper and her mother’s determination.
It was just past seven-fifteen. The school bus was due in three-quarters of an hour and Vicki wasn’t yet dressed.
“Sweetheart, I thought we’d talked all this out last night.”
“I’m not going to school,” Vicki declared mutinously. “You can’t make me.”
“Oh, but I can, Victoria,” Karen reminded her softly but firmly. “I can carry you out to the Rover in your robe and jammies if I have to. And I can sit in the classroom and make sure you stay there.”
“I’ll scream. Ms. Grant will report you to the principal and he’ll throw you out.”
“Don’t count on it. Ms. Grant is not only a good teacher; she’s also a mother.”
“I hate Ms. Grant,” Vicki cried, slipping from her chair. Before Karen could react, she’d turned and was racing through the mudroom to the back door.
Karen heard it creak open at almost the same time as Cassidy’s deep voice. “Whoa, there, peanut. It’s awful cold out there for just a robe and pj’s.”
“Let me go” came Vicki’s strangled cry.
“In a minute. First tell me where you’re tearing off to in such a rush.”
Karen closed her eyes, willing herself to ignore the rush of emotion evoked by the sound of her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s voice.
“Make Mommy let me stay home. She’ll listen to you.”
There was a moment of silence, then Cassidy spoke again. “Vick—”
“Tell her you’re sorry for what you said. Then she won’t be mad at you anymore and we can stay a family.”
Karen froze, her hand creeping to her throat. She thought she heard Cassidy sigh before he spoke again. “C’mon, peanut, let’s go get you dressed while I try to explain why that’s not going to happen.”
“But, Daddy—”
“Do what I say, sweetheart.” Cassidy’s voice was firm, and yet, Karen heard a note of terrible weariness, as well.
“Oh, okay, but you can’t make me go to school.”
Karen closed her eyes. Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn.
“Good morning.”
She opened her eyes to find Cassidy watching her from the open doorway to the mudroom. Shadows rimmed his eyes, and his shirt was wrinkled and flecked with bits of straw, as though he’d tossed and turned his way through the night. Vicki was standing next to him, her hand in his, and her chin angled defiantly in her mother’s direction.
“Good morning,” Karen returned quietly, folding her arms over her wildly beating heart.
His gaze skimmed her robed figure, then returned to her face. “You’re really taking the day off?”
“Yes. Tomorrow, too, if I need it.”
He nodded, one side of his mouth moving. His tan seemed to have faded overnight, and she couldn’t recall ever seeing him look so tired, so utterly spent.
“Vicki seems to think she deserves a day off, too,” she said, smiling at her sulking daughter. “We’re just on our way to her room to have a talk about that.”
Karen glanced at the clock. “You have exactly thirty-six minutes before she has to be at the bottom of the lane. Otherwise, she’ll miss the bus.”
Cassidy glanced down at Vicki’s glossy head. “Hear that, peanut? Time’s wasting.”
“Don’t care.”
Cassidy’s expression smoothed, a sure sign he was up to something. “If you hurry, you’ll have time to visit with the new foal before you leave.”
“Don’t want to,” she declared fiercely, but Karen noticed that her eyes were alive with curiosity, and her posture wasn’t quite as rigid.
“Prettiest little filly you ever saw,” Cassidy went on as though Vicki hadn’t responded. “Has a white blaze and three white feet. And the brightest green eyes.”
Vicki glanced up at her father with a look of outrageous disbelief. “Horses don’t have green eyes!”
Cassidy crooked one black brow and gave every appearance of looking surprised. “Is that a fact?”
“Oh, Daddy, you’re just teasing me, right?”
He tilted his head, his eyes crinkling, giving him an oddly boyish look. Karen felt something tear inside. “Am I?”
“I’d check it out if I were you,” Karen said, drawing the attention of both father and daughter. “Stranger things have happened.”
“No way,” Vicki declared, drawing her brows together.
Karen made a stab at looking guileless. “Guess you’ll have to prove us wrong, then.”
“Oh, pooh,” Vicki muttered, but she tugged on her father’s hand as though to drag him from the room. “Come on, Daddy,” she ordered when he just stood there, his gaze locked on Karen’s. His attempt at a smile failed miserably, as did her stab at hardening her heart.
“I called the breeder from the barn phone. He can have the bull ready to travel by midweek.”
She realized she was twisting her napkin and relaxed her fingers. “When will you leave?”
“As soon as I throw a few things in a bag. Billy’ll drive me to the airport.” He glanced past her at the window, as though making sure his ramrod’s old blue truck was still parked outside the shed. “The guy in California’s going to make arrangements for me to ride the same train that brings the bull back to Grand Springs,” he added as he looked her way again.
“When…” She stopped to clear an annoying thickness from her throat. “When will you be back?”
“Probably not before Friday.”
“Dad-dy. Hurry up!”
He glanced down at the scowling little girl trying to jerk his arm from his socket. “I’ll leave the breeder’s number on my desk. He’ll know where I can be reached in case you need me.”
Karen had to force herself to breathe. “I won’t,” she said, her voice mild but her meaning clear.
A shadow crossed his face before those privacy shutters slid silently, implacably in place again. “I understand.” His mouth slanted, and he nodded slowly, before letting Vicki drag him from the room.
After they were gone, Karen sat quietly, knowing that she was in no fit state to move just yet. Slowly, feeling as limp as the first batch of spaghetti she’d cooked in this same kitchen as a bride, she turned her head toward the window where another glorious spring day was busy being born.
Blue skies and sunshine and the end of a marriage, not necessarily in that order. The thought gave rise to a ridiculous urge to laugh, which she suspected would quickly turn to a sob. She took one breath after another until the urge passed.
She was still looking out the window when she heard the pounding of boot heels on the hall carpet. Seconds later, Vicki came barreling through the kitchen with her windbreaker in one hand and her backpack slung over one shoulder. The now neat braids showed a few irregular patches where the silken strands had snagged on Cassidy’s rough fingers, and the tips of her bangs were wet where she’d most likely swiped a washcloth over her face.
“I’ve got twenty minutes left,” she shouted as she disappeared into the mudroom.
The door slammed, and the sharp crack of wood hitting wood made Karen wince. Like father, like daughter, she thought, and had to fight to keep from breaking into a thousand pieces. Later, she told herself as she rose slowly to gather up the remains of the special breakfast she’d fixed for Vicki and herself.
She had just scraped the waffles into Rags’s dish and was opening the dishwasher door when she heard Cassidy walking down the hall. It occurred to her then that most likely she’d spent her last night under this roof, and she closed her eyes on a wave of pain before making herself turn to face him.
He was dressed for traveling in a wear-soft leather jacket, blue plaid shirt and reasonably new jeans. To her shock, he was wearing the rawhide belt with the turquoise-and-silver buckle she’d bought him for their first Christmas together. Though he’d professed to love it, she soon noticed that he rarely wore it. Too ornate, she’d figured out after a time. Cassidy had simple tastes and an aversion to pretense.
In one big hand he carried his best fawn-colored Stetson, an old army satchel in the other. He’d shaved, she noticed, then sucked in her breath at the sight of the handprint now purpling on his cheek, hidden earlier, she realized now, by his morning beard.
An image of his expression as his head had snapped back rose to taunt her. For an instant he’d looked shattered. Utterly bereft.
He deserved it, she told herself before an irrational guilt could take hold.
As though sensing the turn of her thoughts, he scowled. “Vicki’s still pretty raw,” he said, his voice strained. “Maybe you should call that shrink you took her to last time.”
“I already have—right after I called the hospital. Vicki has an appointment for tomorrow after school.” She reached for a towel to dry her hands, but in reality to keep him from noticing how badly they were shaking.
“Sounds like you have everything under control.”
“Not everything, but I’ve made a start, anyway.” She gestured to the pad covered with scribbles only she could read.
“Another of your lists?” he teased, only to have his words come out harsh and accusing.
“Yes, another of my lists,” she said coldly. “But after today, you won’t be bothered with my little quirks any longer.”
Cassidy shifted his booted feet and wondered if a man could choke to death on his own pride. He should be so lucky, he thought grimly as he glanced at the clock. It was time to leave, but he couldn’t make himself walk away.
“Kari, can’t we get past this? I’m…I’m willing to try again if you are.”
The gaze she turned on him was only mildly interested. “Why?”
Because I don’t want to be empty again, the way I was before I met you. “For our daughter’s sake.”
“Vicki would only suffer more if we tried and failed.”
He gritted his teeth. An urge to haul her into his arms nearly overpowered him before he mastered it. He could almost see her shedding her feelings for him. The way everyone else had. Everyone but Vicki. And maybe, after today, she, too, would start to despise him.
“You’ll miss your flight,” she said very calmly, as though it didn’t matter one way or another.
He wouldn’t beg. Not even for her. “Take…care of yourself,” he said, his voice suddenly raw.
“Goodbye, Cassidy,” she said before she turned away.
He left her then, carrying the image of that stiff, brave back with him as he slowly, painfully started to bleed inside.