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 number?” 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.
Three weeks down and a lifetime to go, she thought as she glanced at the thick packet of legal papers on the small desk between the windows. She must have signed her name two dozen times in the past weeks, each signature taking her closer to a final act of separation from the man she loved. And couldn’t have, she reminded herself as she climbed out of bed.
Without bothering with a robe, she padded across the chilly floor to the door. The second floor was wrapped in silence as she gained the hall and turned left, heading toward the bathroom at the end of the hall. Halfway to her destination, she was startled to hear a heavy footfall behind her. Turning quickly, her heart suddenly pounding, she was stunned to see Cassidy coming toward her from the direction of the stairs.
He was wearing a sky blue Western-cut shirt that she’d never seen before, and his jeans were clean, though far from new. His jaw was shiny from a recent shave, and he’d made an attempt to tame the unruly curl from his glossy black hair.
Her body responded before her mind, and desire was already racing through her as she stood frozen, unable to move. How long would it take before she stopped acting like a giddy schoolgirl with a crush every time they happened to meet unexpectedly? she wondered as she fought to regain her composure.
When the earth stops spinning or that untamed sex appeal that he exudes suddenly disappears, came the answer from the more primitive part of her woman’s heart.
Cassidy, too, stopped dead when he caught sight of her, and for an instant, she was sure she saw a naked look of longing flash across his carved-granite features, but when he spoke, his voice was as controlled as ever.
“I rang the bell,” he said, shifting his stance. “I figured you wouldn’t mind if I let myself in.”
Karen resisted the urge to huddle deeper into the oversize Broncos jersey that served as her nightshirt. She hadn’t missed the hot lick of arousal that had appeared in his eyes when he first caught sight of her standing there with her legs bare and the neck of the big shirt hanging over one shoulder. That, at least, hadn’t changed. Cassidy found her sexually appealing.
“Of course not. You’re always welcome in my mother’s house.”
He narrowed his gaze, but not before she saw a slice of frustration in those dark depths. “But not in yours?”
“You’re Vicki’s father,” she said evasively. “You’ll always be welcome in her house.”
His mouth slanted. “I came up to see if you were awake yet. I tried to be quiet, just in case.”
She couldn’t help smiling. Cassidy was too big and too impatient to be quiet—unless he was sleeping. And even then, he had a tendency to mutter disjointedly. Though she’d never managed to make out more than an odd word or two, the urgent tone of his rambling suggested that he was pleading with someone only he could see.
Early in their marriage, she’d tried to get him to talk about the problems that followed him so tenaciously into sleep. After a few abrupt but icy rebuffs, she’d let him fight his nocturnal battles alone. Now she wondered if the pleading words had been directed at the mother he claimed to hate.
“You didn’t wake me,” she assured him, endeavoring to make her voice as cool as his. “Or, if you did, it was time for me to get up, anyway.”
He nodded, then glanced back toward the stairs. Probably planning his escape route, she thought. These days they rarely managed more than five minutes of conversation before one or the other walked away. This time she decided to make it easy for him.
“Was there anything particular you wanted?” she murmured politely. To her surprise, he scowled and turned red.
“I had a call from Redtree this morning. It seems that our daughter has taken up journalism.” He reached behind him and pulled a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of his jeans. “She wrote this article after her class visited the Herald.”
Cassidy saw the quick look of puzzlement come into Karen’s still sleep-drowsy eyes as she took the fax. Though he kept his gaze resolutely fixed on hers, he was all too painfully aware of the familiar outline of her small, firm breasts beneath the thin covering of her orange-and-blue sleep shirt. One look and he wanted her with an intensity that could weaken him, if he gave into it.
“I was one of the chaperones for that trip,” she said, unfolding the paper. “I do recall seeing her talking with Rio at one point, but she didn’t say anything to me about an article.”
“Yeah, well, she wrote one.” Cassidy shifted, far too aware of the growing desire in his lower body. “Look, why don’t I make some coffee while you read it? We’ll talk when you’re finished.” And dressed, preferably in something that a nun might consider conservative, he added silently as he turned and beat a hasty retreat.
The coffee took four minutes to brew. She was back in six, dressed in old jeans and an outsize University of Colorado sweatshirt the color of a strawberry roan colt he’d once had.
The shirt he could handle. It was too baggy to do more than whet a man’s imagination. But those damn jeans—now, they were giving him big trouble. Something about the way they cupped her backside and caressed her thighs, he suspected, wrenching his gaze to her face.
He’d accepted his sexual need, but his craving for her affection and warmth just seemed to grow stronger the longer they were apart. He thought he’d had this leftover ache tucked safely away, but he’d been wrong.
For a lot of years he’d fooled himself into thinking it was strictly sex he wanted, and sex he offered. But now, even as his body stirred and swelled behind the barbed constriction of his button fly, he knew that he would take a vow of celibacy for the rest of his life if she would look at him with love in those pretty gray eyes just one more time.
Before either of them had a chance to speak, he picked up the mug he’d just filled with coffee and silently held it out to her. He knew her fingers would brush his, told himself he was braced to feel her touch. Even so, when her fingertips whispered against his, heat raced through him like a fever, leaving him weak and wanting inside.
“Thanks,” she said, drawing the mug to her so quickly a few drops slopped over the side and onto her shirt where the big C curved over her breast. His mouth went dry, and he focused his attention on tasting his own coffee. He waited until she took a greedy sip before suggesting that they sit.
“You look exactly the way I felt earlier.”
“Actually, I feel as though I just might shatter if I breathe too hard,” she said, pulling out a chair. “And you?”
“Like I’ve been kicked so hard my belly button got shoved into my backbone.” He took the chair opposite and dragged it back far enough to allow room for his long legs. Maybe, with the width of the table between them, the need to hold her would settle. Or maybe not, he realized as he tried to adjust his large frame to the medium-size chair.
Beyond the sunny bay window his mother-in-law’s garden was bursting with color and life. There were flowers on the table, too, yellow trumpety things with long stiff stalks like the ones Kari had planted beneath the bedroom window. One of the frilly petals had a torn edge, as though it had been attacked by some garden pest.
“Her penmanship is atrocious,” she said finally, breaking the silence.
“Especially since she printed most of it,” he drawled, his throat so tight it was a miracle he could draw breath, let alone speak.
Her smile was a ray of sunshine, but before he felt its warmth reach his cold face, it was gone, swallowed by the torment reflected on her face. “Imagine, promising to give up her allowance forever if we got back together.”
“Take my advice, and take her up on it. It might be your only chance.”
“You’re probably right.” Eyes downcast, Karen fiddled with the mug’s thick handle, turning it one way, then another. Since reading Vicki’s plaintive words, she’d been heartsick. A wry smile bloomed in her mind for a brief span at the layman’s terminology.
Heartsick. Heartbroken. Heartsore.
Words coined by poets to describe the feeling that now filled her to bursting. And yet, she knew that the human heart was incredibly resilient. Even hers.
And Cassidy’s? Had his past layered his heart with so much bitterness it was no longer capable of doing anything other than pump blood?
She hunched forward and pressed her hands around the mug. The daffodils were new, and she realized her mother must have picked them after Karen had seen Vicki off to school and gone back to bed.
“I’ll talk to her.” She lifted her gaze to his hard, unreadable, beloved face. “Unless you—”
“You read the article, Karen. I’m not exactly her favorite person at the moment.” His words were raw, his expression savage. “‘My daddy won’t let my mommy be a doctor and that makes Mommy sad. And he says I can’t be a rancher ’cause I’m a girl, which is the most special thing I can be.’” He shook his head. “Guess that pretty much sums it up.”
“Children see things in simple terms, Cass. When she’s older, she’ll understand.”
“Maybe. But she’ll always carry scars.” His mouth twisted. “How’s that for irony? I was trying to protect her from hurt, when all along, I should have been protecting her from myself.”
“Time will help her heal. That and knowing we love her.”
Cassidy saw the faith shining in his wife’s eyes and wished he had the same trust. But life had taught him a long time ago that trust was a trap. “Yeah, well, she’s not real sure about that right now, is she.”
Her face twisted and tears welled in her eyes. “I hate to cry,” she grumbled, wiping them away with hurt, stabbing gestures.
He slid his own rough, range-ruined hands from the tabletop and fisted them on his thighs. “You’re entitled.”
She glared at him across the fussy tips of the ridiculous-looking flowers. “Men always say that when a woman breaks down in their presence, but they never do it themselves.”
“Some do. Depends on the man.”
The fire was back in her eyes. For now, anyway. Fury he could ride out. It was the hurt that tore him apart. “What about you, Cassidy? When was the last time you cried?”
Across the table Karen saw a trapped look come into his eyes and allowed herself a tired smile. What was the use? Cassidy was never going to trust her with anything more than his scorn—and, maybe once upon a time, his affection. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”
An errant muscle jerked in his rugged jaw. “I cried. When my mother came into my room on my tenth birthday and said she was leaving.”
“On…your birthday?”
His gaze bored into her, as fathomless and cold as that hidden pit at the bottom of Devil Butte. “Why not? That was as good a day as any to tell me she hated my guts for killing my baby brother and couldn’t stand to be in the same house with me one more minute.”
“Oh…my…God,” she whispered. “That’s a contemptible way to treat your own child. Any child.”
He stirred, restless, as though desperate to escape, yet steeling himself to stay. He wasn’t sure why he needed to tell her about those dark times. He only knew he did. “It was only a damn practice game. A warm-up for the play-offs. I could have missed it, but I wanted to be there, wanted to show off for the girls who always crowded around to watch.”
He swallowed, and his eyes grew darker, bleaker, as if the memories were pressing closer. “Johnny wanted to stay home and watch cartoons. I threatened to beat him to a pulp if he didn’t shut up and do what I said.”
Karen saw the reflexive movement of one corner of his hard mouth and suspected he was reliving the scene in his mind. It staggered her to realize the enormity of the hurt he must have suffered, not to mention the terrible burden of carrying that alone and in silence for more than two-thirds of his life.
Fresh tears filled her eyes and she longed to go to him, to offer her comfort and her understanding, but she was afraid to move. Lindy was right. Cassidy needed to purge himself of this poison, and she would listen, no matter how his words sliced at her.
“I must have warned him a dozen times to stay on the grass. He had those stupid little trucks he was always playing with and a couple of books. One of the girls shared her potato chips with him.” One side of his mouth curled. His gaze was focused unerringly on hers, but she doubted he really saw her. “Johnny was crazy for potato chips.”
“Was he?” she asked softly, encouragingly.
He didn’t respond directly. The look in his eyes made her wonder if he’d even heard her speak. “I’d just hit a double to right and was doing a stupid victory dance on the bag when I heard brakes squealing. I knew then. I just…knew.” There was raw pain in his eyes now, and a terrible yawning grief that she suspected was only a small part of the agony he’d carried for so long.
“Let it go, Cassidy,” she urged, her voice thick with the tears she didn’t dare shed. “You’ve been in purgatory long enough. You don’t deserve to spend the rest of your life paying for a mistake you made when you were a child.”
His eyes turned hot with a depth of savage emotion that stunned her. “You don’t understand, Karen. My brother would be alive if I hadn’t been such a show-off.”
She schooled herself to be calm, the same calm she exhibited in the face of terrible suffering in the sickroom. “You were nine years old. Vicki’s age. How could you be expected to take care of yourself and your brother?” She inhaled swiftly, feeling a surge of anger at a woman who would neglect her own children so shamefully. “You were right to hate your mother.”
“I didn’t have to take Johnny to that field with me, but I did. And then I just forgot about him.” His chest heaved as he dragged in a great stream of air. “I loved my brother, Kari. I was supposed to take care of him, and I didn’t. It…changed me. Twisted things up inside.”
“Cassidy—”
“I tried to punish you for my sins, Kari. I know that now.” He raked his hair back, resettling the raven thickness. “I had no right to do that, and I’m…sorry.”
“The point is that you do know it. We can build on that.”
The look he gave her was so full of longing, so deeply emotional that she wanted to shout with joy. It was going to be all right! The burst of happiness died when he spoke again.
“It’s too late.”
“You’re wrong. It’s never too late.”
His smile was terribly sad. “That’s my sweet optimist.”
“But it’s true,” she exclaimed softly, desperately. “I know it won’t be easy. Change never is. You won’t be alone, darling. I’ll be there.”
His mouth twisted, and for an instant she thought that awesome control would crack. “I’ll always be alone, Kari. That’s my punishment.”
He slid his chair backward and stood up. It took her a moment to realize he was leaving. “That’s it? You won’t even try?”
“I have tried. For nine years I’ve tried. But it’s not in me to love you the way you deserve to be loved.”
“There you go again,” she said with plenty of impatient indignation in her tone. “Taking responsibility for someone else’s well-being.”
His eyebrows drew together in an ominous frown. God, how she loved the power of this man, she thought as she, too, got to her feet. “I’m not going to argue with you,” he declared in steely tones.
“Fine, then I’ll argue with you.” She settled her fists on her hips and glared at him. “I love you, Cassidy Sloane, and I’m not going to let you shut me out.”
He went rigid, and she sensed a savage struggle going on behind those black, forbidding eyes. “You don’t have a choice, Karen.”
“Oh, but I do. I can call my attorney right now and tell him not to file the papers.”
“Then I’ll file them,” he said, his face shutting up.
Shutting her out. “Like you said, our marriage is over.”
He let his gaze roam her face for a moment before he settled his shoulders into a rigid line. And then he was gone.
* * *
Karen waited until bedtime to have a talk with her daughter. She began by showing Vicki the fax and complimenting her on her writing skills. Vicki beamed, but her glowing smile dimmed when Karen told her that Cassidy, too, had read the article.
“Is Daddy mad ’cause I put in that stuff about him not wanting you to be a doctor?”
Karen passed a gentle hand over her daughter’s hair. She felt a fierce need to protect her child. But how? “No, sweetheart. Daddy understands why you wrote what you did, but I think it hurt him a little, too.”
“Oh.” Vicki’s big brown eyes grew wary.
“Which brings up an important point. I know Mr. Redtree promised to print what you wrote in the paper, and if you still want him to, he said he would keep his promise, but here’s something you might want to think about. Once it’s printed, people will know that you’re disappointed in your daddy, and your mommy, too. Your friends might even tease you.”
Vicki drew her eyebrows together in a poignant imitation of her father’s ominous scowl. “They’d better not. Specially that dorky Brooks Gallagher.”
“It’s something to think about, though.” When Vicki remained silent, Karen plowed on. “Particularly since you might come to change your mind about some things in the future.”
“You mean like what I said about Daddy saying bad things to you and all?”
“Yes, exactly.”
Vicki seemed to be struggling with something before she admitted in a little voice, “Maybe I didn’t really mean that.” She thought a moment longer, then added, “Guess maybe I don’t want Mr. Redtree to print it, either.”
“I’m glad, Vicki. Very glad. And I think that’s something you might want to tell your Daddy when you see him on Wednesday night.”
Vicki looked a little scared. “Maybe—” she hedged, then asked plaintively “—are you still mad at Daddy?”
Karen shook her head. “No. I’m not mad.”
The sudden blazing of hope in Vicki’s soft brown eyes tore through her. “Then we can go back to being a family again, right? Me and you and Daddy and Rags?”
Karen took a moment to reply. “Daddy and I can’t live together anymore, sweetie,” she said with a sad finality. “We disagree on too many important things.”
“Like you being a doctor ‘stead of just a mommy like he thinks you should?”
“No, Daddy admits that he was wrong about that.” Once she might have felt a great satisfaction in that. Now the validation he’d offered paled in comparison to the other things he’d said. Or hadn’t said.
“Then we can go home, right?”
“It’s not that simple, sweetheart,” she hedged, wishing her head wasn’t buzzing with tiredness and her mind wasn’t sluggish.
“Why not?”
Karen rubbed her aching temple and tried to focus her thoughts. “Remember when you dropped Grandma’s favorite piggy bank and broke it?”
“I was just a baby,” Vicki said defensively.
“Yes, and Grandma wasn’t angry with you because you didn’t mean to drop it. But that didn’t mean anyone could put it back together, either, because the pieces were too small.”
She could see Vicki struggling to understand, and the little girl’s efforts were painful to watch. “Well, Mommy and Daddy’s marriage is like that piggy bank, sweetie. Somehow it got broken, and now it can’t be fixed.”
Vicki’s chin trembled. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“What about Daddy? He’s real good at fixing the tractor when it breaks down.”
Karen cleared her throat. “In this case, not even Daddy can fix what’s broken.” But he could, a little voice reminded her. If only he wanted to do the hard work it would take to repair the damage done to him when he was scarcely any bigger than Vicki. “Do you understand what I’m saying, sweetheart?”
Though she still looked sad, Vicki nodded. “I guess so. But I still wish we could be a family.”
Karen smoothed a dark curl from her daughter’s cheek. “Oh, honey, I know you do, and I wish with all my heart that I could make that happen. But I can’t.”
“Is that why I hear you crying sometimes in your room at night, and Daddy gets this awful sad look on his face whenever I talk about you?”
Karen nodded, her eyes burning with tears she refused to shed in front of her daughter. “Daddy and I tried hard to make our marriage work. And when we didn’t succeed, it made us both sad.” She reached out to straighten Vicki’s thick bangs. “Most of all it makes us sad to know that you wish things could be the way they were. But they…can’t.”
Vicki looked crestfallen. “Not ever?” she asked plaintively.
Karen shifted her gaze to the night table and the framed photo of the three of them taken in happier times. A family on a picnic, snapped by her mother. Karen was wearing a halter top, shorts and a bemused smile. Cassidy had his shirt off and had just leaned down to give her a possessive kiss on her bare shoulder while Vicki looked on, radiant with good health and a child’s innocent joy.
A shiver had run through her then. A shiver ran through her now. A man who truly loved her would have fought for her and the life they might had together.
“No, sweetie,” she whispered sadly, “things will never be the same again.”