by Karen Rock
Aunt Suzanna took it, a smile replacing her frown. “Good to see you, honey. Always thought you were a smart little thing. Reminded me of myself. Curious. Ambitious. Hardworking. I liked digging in the past, but you write stories about nowadays.”
“I do.” Cassidy ruffled the curious stray’s ears when he sniffed her legs.
“Don’t ever give that up,” Aunt Suzanna cautioned, much to Daryl’s chagrin. “It’s good for a woman to be independent. The world needs more like you.”
“Thank you.” The pleasure in Cassidy’s voice set off a warning bell in Daryl’s head. He had nothing against Cassidy working...just not a job that’d expose her to the kind of danger she described in her nightly bedtime stories. The kids ate them up, shivering under their covers as she described her life-or-death encounters.
It would become too real, however, if Cassidy resumed her hazardous career. She’d break their hearts by coming in and out of their lives irregularly, her life in constant jeopardy. They’d already suffered enough upheaval. Cassidy had found a local story to investigate. There had to be more in the area to keep her fulfilled professionally...
“Heard you lost some of your memory.” Aunt Suzanna waved them to a floral-patterned sofa before heading to the kitchen. “What can I get you two?”
“I’ve regained a bit.” Cassidy unzipped her jacket, shrugged it off and sat. He followed suit and glowered at Neil, who stretched his frame into an armchair, crossing his legs and folding his hands, totally at ease...as if he belonged here. The dog flopped across his feet with a contented sigh. “And I’ll have sweet tea if you’ve got it.”
“Daryl?” Aunt Suzanna called.
“Same.”
In the tense quiet, a grandfather clock chimed eleven o’clock and he held back a yawn. Before dawn, Cassidy had woken him when snippets of memory returned to her. His mind drifted back to her gentle hand shaking him from sleep.
“She begged me to return to Carbondale to take care of Emma and Noah,” Cassidy whispered, her hair mussed, her eyes wild. “I remember it! She’d wanted to escape for a little while and think about her future with you.”
His mind sharpened and he sat up, understanding now how Leanne persuaded Cassidy to come home, her concern for her niece and nephew a powerful motivator.
Cassidy’s eyes searched his, her disquiet clear, as she relayed her phone call with Leanne. But hearing his wife’s intentions hurt less than he’d imagined. She’d been ready to move on and so was he, with the woman who’d cared enough about his family to drop everything and come home to safeguard it.
Aunt Suzanna returned with refreshments, pulling him back to the present.
“You got your clock fixed.” Daryl accepted her offered glass.
She passed another cup to Cassidy, then hustled back to the kitchen. “Neil helped me.”
“W-what?” Daryl sputtered on his first sip and set his tea down on a coffee table.
“My grandfather was a watchmaker in Kaiserslautern.” The dog’s tail thumped at his new master’s voice.
“He’s been handy to have around,” Aunt Suzanna crowed as she returned, another glass of tea in hand for Neil. “And he speaks English so well.”
“Thank you, Aunt Suzanna.” Neil stood and waved a hand at the chair. “Please sit. I don’t mind standing.”
“You’re a dear.” She patted his cheek and sank into the tufted cushioned seat. The dog scrambled up onto gangly legs. It trailed Neil across the room to the front window.
“So how did you meet Neil?” Cassidy asked after another gulp of tea.
“I found him is what I did,” Aunt Suzanna announced. The lines around her eyes crinkled, deep with pleasure. “After I got the place organized, I began going through the boxes of family memorabilia I’d saved and came across Clarence’s war correspondence.”
“How come Pa didn’t have it?” Daryl watched Neil as he stared outside, his jaw and nose similar to Pa’s...
“Your father thought it best to store family items here to safeguard them from...” She stopped and cleared her throat. Daryl knew she thought of his erratic adoptive mother. During her bouts of anger, she’d destroyed many items in the house.
“And you found something that piqued your interest,” Cassidy interjected, smoothing over the awkward moment.
Aunt Suzanna shot her a relieved smile. “Yes. He’d written home about a girl he’d met in Germany. Seemed quite taken with her. He asked if we still had his grandmother, my sister’s, engagement ring. I knew it must have been serious, but we never heard more of her and I got to wondering why.”
“I would have been curious, too.”
Daryl shot Cassidy a surprised glance. Whose side are you on? he silently communicated. She wasn’t seriously going along with this farce.
She arched a brow, her expression as neutral as Switzerland. “Do you have the letters?”
Aunt Suzanna shook her head. “Turned them over to Neil’s attorney. When he’s finished with them, he’ll hand everything off to Boyd’s lawyer.”
“Would have been kind of you to let Pa in on everything first,” Daryl said as mildly as possible considering he seethed inside.
Aunt Suzanna gazed at him over the top of her bifocals. “Boyd wouldn’t have believed any of it, let alone agreed to find out more.”
“Did you search for the girl Clarence mentioned?” Cassidy asked, cutting the tension thickening the air between him and his aunt.
Aunt Suzanna nodded, eyes aglow. “Found her and her son, who was born eight months after Clarence returned to the States. Neil and I spoke on the phone. When he described the watch Clarence had sent him, along with correspondence his mother had, I offered to put him up, so he could meet his kin. Neil here doesn’t have one bit of family over there in Germany. Now, that’s a darn shame.”
“The shame is him going after our ranch.” Daryl shot to his feet and paced to Neil.
“It’s my inheritance,” Neil said calmly.
“Then how come you never contacted our family before?”
“I didn’t know if I’d be welcome until Aunt Suzanna reached out.”
Daryl stared Neil dead in the eye. “You’re not welcome.”
Neil reached down to stroke his dog’s head. “That might change. I’m hoping so.”
“Not as long as you’re demanding we dig up our family.”
Neil’s mouth tugged down in the corners. “A completely unnecessary step if Boyd would consent to a DNA test to establish our connection.”
Daryl glowered at him. It was a reasonable request, but he’d never go against his pa by siding with Neil on this point. “Either way,” he forged ahead, “we can’t just give you half the ranch. We’re struggling as it is.”
“I’m not trying to burden anyone,” Neil insisted. “I only want what’s fair.”
“What’s fair is you getting on the next plane and leaving America, buddy.”
Cassidy wedged herself between them and gently pressed on Daryl’s chest until he stepped back. “Let’s not lose our heads. Did you bring your birth certificate, Neil?”
He shook his head. “I forgot it in my excitement at Aunt Suzanna’s invitation. I only needed a passport to travel.”
“Is Clarence listed on the certificate?”
“No.”
Cassidy cocked her head and her green eyes sharpened. “Who’s listed as the father?”
“A friend of my mother’s who wanted to help her out and avoid me being tainted with illegitimacy.”
“And that was?”
Neil shifted his weight. “Frank Sterholdt. He died over twenty years ago.”
“What a shame,” Cassidy murmured. “Did he and your mother marry?”
Neil pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his glistening forehead. The dog woofed, as if sensing Neil’s unease. “Frank was alread
y married.”
“Yet he consented to having his name on the certificate...” Cassidy tapped her chin.
“He was a very good friend.” Neil’s voice rose, defensive. Adrenaline zipped in Daryl’s veins. Cassidy was onto something, her journalistic instincts zeroing in on a topic Neil didn’t want to discuss...possibly his real father. He’d share Frank’s name with Maverick’s private investigator. It might be the answer they needed to avoid the trial altogether.
“Indeed...” Cassidy’s phone vibrated in her pocket. When she pulled it out, she glanced at the screen and stood. “I’m afraid I have to take this. Thank you for the refreshment, Aunt Suzanna, and it was a pleasure getting to know you, Neil.”
She shot a warning look at Daryl, as if cautioning him to behave, donned her jacket and headed outside.
“Don’t you think he has the Loveland blue eyes?” Aunt Suzanna smiled affectionately at Neil.
“No,” Daryl said curtly and shoved his arms through his jacket sleeves.
“I suppose you don’t have them either.” Neil tucked his handkerchief away, composed once more. “But I believe you aren’t genetically related, yes?”
Daryl strove to keep the fury from his face at the reminder of his adoptive status. “I’m still more Loveland than you.” He softened his tone when he turned to face his relative. “Will you be standing with us or with Neil at the trial?”
“I’ll be on the side of truth,” she tutted, rising. “If Neil is a Loveland, we need to know and welcome him with open arms. It’s our family’s way, as you should understand better than anyone.”
She lifted her cheek, and he grazed it with an obliging kiss. “I’ll let Pa know. Take care now and call us if you need anything. Hear?” He donned his hat, scowled at Neil, then tipped its brim at his aunt before exiting.
Outside, he took several deep, bracing breaths of crisp air, processing his relative’s admonishment. He’d been accepted into the Loveland fold, no questions asked. Was he being too hard on Neil? He knew what it felt like to be alone in the world without a family. Then again, family didn’t—or shouldn’t—turn on each other like Neil.
“Will I have mercenaries with me?”
He whipped around at Cassidy’s voice and spied her a short distance away beside his truck, her back to him. His heart picked up speed. Had her editor called with an assignment?
“How soon would you need me in Nuevo León?”
His body clenched at the name. Nuevo León was ground central in Mexico’s violent drug war. Hired guns or not, Cassidy’s life would be in grave danger if she traveled there.
A dark throb of pain rose from his clamped jaw and exploded behind his eyes. His family might lose Loveland ranch if Neil proved his case, but it didn’t compare to losing Cassidy a second time.
He had to convince her to stay.
Tonight.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“WHERE ARE WE GOING?” Cassidy peered at the blur of orange and red trees as Daryl drove along an unfamiliar back road. A brilliant sunset exploded on the horizon, the light turning soft and purple. He’d been oddly quiet since visiting Aunt Suzanna, but the hand gripping hers was firm and the familiar rough, calloused skin reassuring.
“It’s a surprise.” His fingers tightened around hers. When he glanced her way, a smile played on his full lips.
“What kind of surprise?” Hardly anything stunned Cassidy given her career, but her jittery stomach and fast-beating heart had her on edge since her editor’s phone call.
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise,” Daryl drawled. His warm, teasing tone settled her nerves a bit, and she dropped her head back to rest on her seat.
Brenda’s assignment filled Cassidy with both dread and anticipation. A deep dive into the Mexican drug war, and the Nuevo León families caught in the crossfire, was the kind of story she loved best. Lots to expose about the suffering citizens held hostage by vicious cartels more powerful than the agencies protecting them. As happened often, the story’s outline formed in her mind, a plan to interview clergy, police, families, politicians and even, if possible, ex–cartel members or current ones willing to talk on condition of anonymity.
She’d have to leave Carbondale, Emma, Noah and—oh, Lord—Daryl, however, to do it. The country store was on secure ground now with the new hires proving themselves more than up to the task, yet she’d miss it, too.
A tearing sensation sheared her heart; it pulled in two directions. Her connection to Carbondale had deepened with new relationships, and no small part of that was Daryl’s patient acceptance and encouragement. While she’d begun a follow-up story to her displaced manufacturing workers piece, an in-depth look at the effect of automation on small, family-operated ranches, she wasn’t sure it’d challenge her. She couldn’t reach the pinnacle of her career reporting on small-town Westerners, let alone win a Pulitzer Prize.
Although in some way that kind of success had started as her father’s dream for her, it’d become hers. She couldn’t imagine coming this far and giving it up.
Could she still have a fulfilling and meaningful life if she stayed in one place and dialed back her schedule? Despite her happiness at Loveland Hills, the answer still eluded her.
Daryl’s blinker clicked on and they turned down a rutted dirt road. Her teeth bumped together as they bounced down the narrowing lane until it ended on an open field littered with scarlet leaves, some drifting lazily from the surrounding trees.
“Pretty!” she exclaimed, taken with the juxtaposition of red and green, the sky deepening to twilight.
“You haven’t seen anything yet.” With a wink, Daryl ducked from the truck and disappeared around back. The tailgate opened, then closed with a metallic clang.
Excitement pebbled the skin on her arms. If she returned to her job full-time, this might be one of her last nights with Daryl. She’d make the most of it. As she reached for the handle, the passenger door opened to reveal a beaming Daryl.
“Right this way, darlin’.” He helped her down, then led her across the meadow, her hand tucked inside his. A large picnic basket hung from his opposite arm.
The air was clear and sharp; the afternoon rain was gone, and the huge trees were washed clean. Soggy leaves gave way underfoot. Roosting birds called from a copse of pine trees. Nearby, water rushed over stone, the sound like tinkling crystal in the evergreen-scented air. It filled her with peace.
“I’ve never been here before.” Her voice emerged hushed. Deferential. As if they’d entered a grand cathedral and witnessed a miracle.
“I came across this spring last year when searching out more watering holes.” In the growing dim, Daryl’s even white teeth glimmered.
“I hear it, but I don’t see it. Oh—” Her exclamation fell from her rounded mouth as the ground dropped off ahead. A natural spring tucked in a narrow ravine materialized. “How beautiful,” she breathed. The first stars glimmered on its dark surface, diamonds on velvet.
“Not nearly as beautiful as you.” He stopped at the ravine’s edge, leaned close and captured her lips in a brief, heart-stopping kiss. Her hand crept around to the back of his neck to pull him closer, craving nearness, but he shook his head. “Not yet. Follow me.”
Carefully, he led her down the embankment, across the spring’s shallowest spot and up over the other side where the mountain protruded in a rocky ledge jutting over Carbondale. She gasped at the stunning, panoramic view. Ranch lands rolled out to the horizon, the distant town lights glowing softly in the early night, and emerging stars burst overhead in infinite numbers. Her soaring spirit expanded and shrank, as if she could touch the rising moon despite being just a speck on life’s canvas.
Daryl retrieved a blanket from the basket. He laid it on the ground, then tugged her down beside him. Her eyes widened as he retrieved a bottle of sparkling cider, a platter of cheeses, crackers and sliced apples, and d
ark chocolate brownies he must have picked up from the country store’s bakery.
He poured cider into champagne glasses, handed her one, then clinked his rim to hers. “Here’s to lovers everywhere—the have-beens, the are-nows and the may-bes.”
“And what are we?” She sipped the bubbling, slightly tart drink.
He ran the back of his knuckle against her cheek. “Are-nows, I’m hoping.”
“We should add a fourth category. ‘Always have-beens.’”
“Forever.” He fed her a piece of sweet apple with sharp cheddar.
Her mouth exploded with flavor, her heart with love. Daryl was a skilled rancher, a rugged cowboy and a doting, playful father. This romantic side, though, was one she hadn’t seen since college and the nostalgia of first love, forever love, burned in her chest.
“We believed in ‘always’ once before.” She broke off a piece of brownie and dropped it in his mouth. Warmth coiled inside when his lips closed around her fingers, the contact electric.
He rose over her and looked into her eyes. “We were kids then.”
“True.” She stared up into his beautiful face. “Some things haven’t changed, though.”
“Not this.” He threaded his fingers through her hair, tugging it slightly, and brushed his mouth against hers. The world spun as he intensified the pressure, kissing her all the way down to the blanket until his body rested against hers, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, feet tangling.
She gasped when his lips slid off her mouth to trace her jawline. “No one’s ever made me feel the way you do.”
“Don’t go to Mexico,” he said hoarsely, his voice a mere whisper against her ear. She shivered at the vibration followed by the sensation of his mouth teasing her sensitive earlobe.
“You overheard my call with Brenda.” She eased away.
His hands were gentle on her cheeks. “It’s a dangerous assignment.”
Her lips twisted. “Don’t worry, cowboy. It’s not my first rodeo.”
He chuckled, but there was a morose tone to his laugh. “I don’t want you at risk.”