Do you take this rebel?

by Sherryl Woods

Jake stared at her, clearly surprised by her offer. “You will?”

  “Of course.”

  “Grandpa said you wouldn’t. He said you were probably trying to keep me from being a Davis.”

  Cassie barely resisted the urge to tell Jake precisely what she thought of his grandfather. “That’s not true,” she said instead, keeping her tone mild. “To be honest, your father and I simply haven’t talked about it, but we will. I promise.”

  Jake studied her intently for a long moment, his expression troubled. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you and Dad gonna get a divorce?”

  Cassie was stunned by the question. “No. Why would you think that?”

  “Grandpa said you probably would and then I would live with Dad.”

  “Oh, he did, did he?” Her temper shot into the stratosphere. If Frank had been around, she might very well have clobbered him over the head with a cast-iron skillet. “Sweetie, your dad and I are working very hard to make us a family. That takes time, but it’s what I want. It’s what we both want.”

  “Promise?”

  She hugged him tightly. “I promise. Now go on upstairs and do your homework. I need to run out for a little while.”

  The minute Jake had grabbed a handful of cookies and a glass of milk, she snatched her jacket off a hook by the kitchen door and went to the barn. She saddled up a horse, because it was much faster to get to the Double D by cutting across their adjoining fields than it was to drive clear out to the highway and around.

  She had never been quite so furious. Even after learning of the role that Frank and her own mother had played all those years ago in keeping her and Cole apart, she had struggled to understand their perspective, but this was too much. This was an attempt to scare her son, to make it seem as if his family was about to fall apart and that the only person he could rely on was his grandfather.

  Her breath turned to steam as she urged the horse into a gallop that ate up the distance to the Double D ranch house. All she could think about was shaking Frank until his teeth rattled. Not that she could do it, given their difference in sizes, but she was darn well willing to give it a try. At the very least, she intended to give him a tongue-lashing that he wouldn’t soon forget.

  Oblivious to the fact that there were still lingering patches of ice on the ground, that snow had started falling again, she rode harder, her temper climbing.

  When the horse lost its footing, she wasn’t prepared for the sudden skid, the frantic attempt by her mount to stay afoot. The next thing she knew she was flying through the air, trying desperately to curl her body to protect the baby as the ground rose up to meet her.

  But she misjudged. When she slammed into the rocky ground, she broke the fall with her hand and felt the bone snap. The pain was excruciating. And for the first time in her life she fainted.

  Cole hated himself for falling in love with Cassie all over again. How could he be so weak that a woman who’d betrayed him not once, but twice, could still manage to steal his heart? He wanted so badly to accept the love she was offering, to move on, but a part of him insisted on fighting her every step of the way.

  It had to stop. They couldn’t go on like this. It wasn’t fair to either of them, nor to Jake.

  Cole came home after a two-day business trip to California prepared to let her go so they could both find some peace. He walked into the house to find the kitchen empty with no sign of dinner on the stove. He heard music from upstairs and gathered Jake was in his room doing his homework, though how the kid could think with that sound blaring in his ears was beyond Cole.

  He climbed the stairs two at a time, knocked on Jake’s door, then opened it without waiting for a response. He doubted his son could hear him over the music, anyway.

  Sure enough, Jake didn’t even look up from his books. Cole crossed the room and switched off the CD player. Jake blinked and stared at him, his expression brightening.

  “You’re home. When did you get here?”

  “A few minutes ago. Where’s your mom?”

  “Isn’t she downstairs?”

  “No.”

  The response seemed to make Jake vaguely uneasy.

  “Jake, what’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Did you two fight?”

  “Not exactly. I just asked her about some stuff Grandpa said. I think maybe it made her mad. Maybe she went to see him.”

  “What did Grandpa say?”

  “That you guys were gonna get a divorce and I was gonna stay with you. She said he was wrong.” Worry puckered his brow. “He was wrong, wasn’t he?”

  Cole bit back a curse. Given what he’d been thinking when he walked in the door, his father hadn’t been that far off—though only about the divorce. Cole didn’t intend to try to keep Jake. Now was not the time to get into that, though.

  “When was that?” he asked instead.

  Jake shrugged. “I don’t know. What time is it now?”

  “After seven. It’s already dark out.”

  “I guess it was about four. I went by Grandpa’s after school for a riding lesson, then he brought me home.”

  Three hours? Cole thought, his stomach churning. Why on earth wasn’t she back by now? He grabbed Jake’s phone and called his father.

  “Is Cassie there?” he demanded when his father answered.

  “Cassie? Why would she be here?”

  “Jake thought she might be heading over there.”

  “Maybe she just wised up and left you.”

  Cole let that pass. The most important thing right now was finding Cassie.

  “I’m going out to look for her,” he told his father. “If you give a damn about me or my son, you’ll help.”

  “Well, of course I will,” his father said defensively. “The snow’s been coming down awhile now. No telling where she might be. Car could have run off the road.”

  But when Cole went outside, Cassie’s car was parked behind the house where it always was. He checked the barn and saw that one of their horses was missing.

  He looked up and realized Jake had followed him outside. He was shivering just inside the door of the barn.

  “Is she gone?” Jake asked, looking as scared as Cole felt.

  “She took one of the horses,” he said. “I’m sure she’s fine. She probably took shelter somewhere when the snow started.”

  “Why wouldn’t she have turned around and come back?” Jake asked reasonably. “Or gone on to Grandpa’s?”

  He hunkered down in front of Jake. “I don’t know, pal. I need you to do something for me, though. I want you to go inside and call nine-one-one. Tell the sheriff we need some help looking for your mom, okay? Can you do that?”

  Jake nodded, his eyes wide.

  “Then call your grandmother and ask her to come out here and stay with you.”

  “I want to come with you,” Jake protested.

  “No, this is more important. You can be the biggest help to your mom by calling the sheriff. Now scoot.”

  With one last backward glance, Jake took off for the house. Cole saddled their second horse and rode off in the direction of the Double D. If it had had to snow today, why couldn’t it have been earlier so there would be clear hoofprints for him to follow? Instead he was forced to slow down and guess which way she might have gone.

  The temperature had dropped dramatically just since he’d gotten home. If Cassie was out here, injured, she wouldn’t be able to last long. The sense of urgency doubled, even as his progress slowed.

  “Come on, Cassie. Where are you? Help me. Give me some sign.”

  The distant, distressed whinny of a horse finally drew his attention. His own mount’s ears pricked up.

  “Is that Harley?” he murmured, and got a shake of a head and an answering whinny as a response. “Find him then. Let’s find Harley.”

  The terrain had grown rockier and slicker. His frustration mounted right along with his anxiety. He had t
o find Cassie. He damn well didn’t intend to lose her like this.

  With a sudden rush of understanding, he realized that he couldn’t lose her at all. What did the decision of a scared eighteen-year-old girl matter? If the decision of a twenty-eight-year-old woman was less understandable, even he could see that it had been driven by a fear just as deep-seated as the one she’d felt years before. Who was he to judge that?

  All that mattered, all that had ever mattered, was that he loved her and she loved him. Nothing had ever changed that. They’d just lost their way for a while.

  Now he had to find her and tell her that.

  A heart-wrenching whinny of an animal in pain cut through the air, closer now, just over the rise, if he wasn’t mistaken. He crested the hill and spotted them, horse and woman, both down, both way too still.

  “Don’t die, Cassie,” Cole pleaded as he leaped to the ground and knelt beside her. In its own show of concern his horse edged closer to its disabled stable mate. “Dear God, please don’t let her die.”

  He checked her carefully for injuries. The only obvious one was her broken arm, but she’d been here a long time. Could it be there was a more serious problem? He debated the wisdom of moving her, but the chances of anyone else coming upon them here were slim and time was essential. She’d already been out in the bitter cold for way too long.

  He bundled her in his jacket, then checked the injured horse. “I’ll get someone in here for you in no time,” he vowed, running his hand over the horse’s trembling flank. “You saved her life, you know. You told me how to find her. I’ll do everything in my power to save yours, too.”

  Then he gathered Cassie into his arms and mounted his own horse, heading for home as quickly as the weather permitted. She moaned softly while he rode. She was obviously in pain, but she was alive, and for the moment that was all that mattered. Once he got her to a hospital, he would will her back to life.

  The next hour was the longest of his entire life as Cassie fought her way back to him. When her eyes finally blinked open, her gaze wandered around until it locked on his.

  “I knew you’d find me,” she whispered hoarsely and then closed her eyes again.

  The next time she awoke, Cole was asleep in the chair beside her bed. His eyes snapped open when he felt her fingers against his cheek. Her color was better, her eyes clear.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Alive,” she said. “And grateful. Every time I tried to move, my arm hurt. I kept fainting.”

  He sighed when he met her gaze, then did what he’d vowed to do when he thought she might be lost to him forever.

  “Good, because I have something to tell you, and I need to do it now, before I lose my courage. If you want your freedom, Cassie, I’ll give it to you. Jake will stay with you.”

  She stared at him with an expression he couldn’t read, so he plunged on.

  “I didn’t give you a choice about marrying me before, so I’m giving you one now. I love you. I want you to stay, but if you want to go, there will be no custody battle.”

  There was no mistaking the sheen of tears in her eyes then, and for an instant he was terrified that his gamble wasn’t going to pay off, that she would go.

  “You love me?” she said, and there was a note of wonder in her voice.

  He shrugged. “Always have. I guess I always will. I just lost sight of that for a time.” He studied her intently. “So, Cassie, will you go or stay? You can have some time to think about it.”

  “I don’t need to think about it, not even for a second.” A smile blossomed on her face, then spread. “Since I think we’re about to have another baby, it looks like I’d better stay.” She rested her hand protectively on her stomach. “Now I can’t wait to know for sure.”

  “And if you aren’t pregnant, will you still stay?”

  “Yes, of course, because I love you and this family of ours. I was just beginning to wonder if you were ever going to figure out that we all belong together. I’d pretty much concluded that the media had gotten it all wrong all these years, that you weren’t half as smart as they were always writing.”

  “I was smart enough to marry you,” he said. “And to keep you.”

  She touched his cheek, her eyes shining. “Love me, Cole. Right here, right now.”

  He laughed at the urgency in her voice. “Sweetheart, you have a broken arm, bruised ribs. You were half-frozen when I found you.”

  “Then you can warm me up,” she said.

  Cole couldn’t resist the invitation. He closed the door to the room, then deliberately turned the lock. Then he nudged her over in the hospital bed until he could sneak in beside her and love her the way she was meant to be loved, with total concentration and finally, at long last, with his whole heart.

  Epilogue

  “Jennifer Davis, what have you been doing? Rolling around in the mud?”

  Cassie stared at her four-year-old daughter with dismay. They were having a party in twenty minutes, and Jenny was covered from head to toe in dirt. It was all over her clothes, even in her hair.

  “I’ve been baking cakes,” she announced happily. “For Grandma. See.”

  Cassie followed the direction of her daughter’s gesture and groaned. There were, indeed, a half dozen “cakes” on the backyard table, each with a candle stuck crookedly into the mud. The vinyl tablecloth was a mess.

  “I’m sure Grandma will be thrilled,” she said. “Now get in here and let’s see if we can clean you up.”

  Jennifer darted through the door and straight into her daddy’s arms. Cole scooped her up before he realized the condition she and her clothes were in.

  “Sweet heaven, now you need a bath, too,” Cassie said. “What am I going to do? The guests should be here any minute. Mother will be mortified if Dr. Foster finds half of her family looking totally disreputable.”

  “I don’t think your mother’s going to be all that worried about a little mud. We’re celebrating the fact that she’s just gotten a clean bill of health after five years. She’s a survivor, Cassie. Nothing else matters.” His grin turned wicked. “Besides, I think the doctor is long past being shocked by anything we do. He’s been asking her to marry him for the past four years. Clearly he’s accepted the whole package.”

  Cassie still couldn’t get over her mother’s long-distance courtship with the surgeon in Denver who’d saved her life. It was the happiest she’d seen her mom in years.

  Of course, she was still declining his proposal for reasons that eluded all of them. Cassie feared it had something to do with her, though her mother flatly refused to talk about it.

  “Take your daughter and get cleaned up,” she ordered Cole. “I’ll try to scrub up the picnic table. And if you can pry Jake away from his computer, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Don’t spoil my cakes, Mommy,” Jenny pleaded, eyes bright with tears. “They’re for Grandma.”

  Cassie sighed and went outside. A few minutes later her mother and Dr. Foster arrived, followed shortly by Frank Davis and the Calamity Janes. No one seemed the slightest bit dismayed by Jenny’s contribution to the food, least of all Cassie’s mother, who seldom took her gaze away from the doctor, anyway.

  “They look blissfully happy, don’t they?” Cassie whispered to Cole.

  He grinned. “Not as happy as the two of us, but yes, they do look as if they’re in love.”

  “Maybe I should give her a nudge, tell her to marry him.”

  “She’s a grown woman. I’m sure she knows her own mind. Maybe our news will help.”

  She touched his cheek. “It will certainly reassure her that there are no more bumps in the road for us.”

  A few minutes later Cole stood and announced a toast. “First to our mom,” he said. “You’ve proved just what a survivor you are.”

  He turned to Cassie. “And to my wife, who is about to make me a father again. Family and friends are what life is all about, and I can’t tell you how grateful we all are to be here together today.”
>
  To Cassie’s dismay her mother looked shaken by the news of the new baby. And Dr. Foster’s expression turned resigned. Cassie crossed the yard and confronted her mother.

  “Okay, what is it? You’re not sick again, are you?”

  “No, of course not,” her mother said at once. She glanced at the man beside her. “It’s just that we were considering getting married.”

  “Mom, that’s fantastic. I couldn’t be happier.”

  Her mother shook her head. “No, it’s not possible. You’re having another baby. I have to stay. And what Cole said about family. He’s right. We need to be together.”

  “Now, Edna—” the surgeon began.

  “Don’t,” her mother said sharply, cutting him off. “This is the way it has to be.”

  Cassie exchanged a look with the doctor.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “Then I guess we’ll just have to go about this another way. I’ve talked to a few people. I can move my practice to Laramie. I’ll be retiring in a few years, anyway, and this will be a good transition. If need be I can go to Denver and consult if something comes up with one of my patients there.”

  Cassie watched her mother’s eyes begin to sparkle.

  “You would do that?” Edna said to him. “You would give up your life in Denver?”

  He nodded. “I’m a lot like your son-in-law. I know a good woman when I find her, and I’ll do whatever it takes to hang on to her.”

  Cole joined them then, his gaze questioning. “A happy ending?”

  Cassie looked up at him and nodded. “For all of us,” she whispered. “Definitely a happy ending.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5325-8

  DO YOU TAKE THIS REBEL?

  Copyright © 2001 by Sherryl Woods

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.