“About that...”
She looked at him for a long second or two before saying, “What?”
“Well,” he said, shifting position slightly in his seat, “I was just thinking that maybe one week here won’t be enough time. I mean, for Caroline. To get to know me, my place—hell, Texas.”
Isabelle frowned, and her stomach jumped with a sudden eruption of nerves. “We agreed on a week, Wes. I have work. Caro has school. We don’t live here.”
“You could.”
“What are you saying?” Her heart jumped into her throat and the hard, rapid beat thundered in her ears. Was he saying what she thought he might be saying, because if he was, driving down the freeway doing eighty miles an hour was an odd time to be saying it. “You want us to live here?”
“Sure. The house is huge, plenty of room, Caro could go to school in Royal and—”
He kept talking, but Isabelle had stopped listening. There was no mention of love or commitment or anything else in that little speech. He wanted them in his house, her in his bed, but he was no closer to intimacy than he had been five years ago, so Isabelle did them both a favor and interrupted him. “Wes, it’s really not the time to talk about this.”
His mouth worked as if he were biting back words clamoring to get out. Finally though, he said, “Okay. But you can think about it.”
She could practically guarantee she wouldn’t be thinking about anything else. The fact that he could just bring up the idea so casually, though, told Isabelle more than she wanted to know. He wasn’t looking for family. For love. He wanted her and Caro to be a part of his life without strings. Without the ties that would make them a unit.
Maybe she’d been fooling herself from the beginning.
“Okay,” he said, still frowning, “we’ll table that discussion for now. Instead, you can tell me if you got a chance to look through the toy catalog I gave you yesterday.”
He went from frowning to facile in the blink of an eye. She’d forgotten he could do that. Isabelle used to be fascinated by the way he could switch gears so easily. If he saw himself losing one argument, he’d immediately change tacks and come at it from a completely different direction, and pretty soon, he had exactly what he’d wanted all along.
Now, he was doing it to her. Isabelle was going to keep her guard up around him, because he was her weakness. She couldn’t let him see that she loved him, because one of two things would happen—he’d either back off as he had five years ago. Or, worse yet, he’d look at her with pity.
She wasn’t interested in either.
“I did,” she said, deliberately cheerful. “You’ve got some great things, Wes. If you’re serious about donating, we’d love to add anything you can spare.”
He reached over and took her hand, holding it in his much larger one. The heat of him swept up her arm to puddle in the center of her chest, wrapping her heart in the warmth of him. God, she wasn’t going to be able to protect her heart, because it was already his.
“Just tell Robin what you need. She’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks.” She couldn’t stop looking at him. Maybe she was storing up memories, Isabelle thought. Maybe a part of her knew that this couldn’t last and was instinctively etching him into her mind so that years from now, when she was still missing him, she could pull these images out and remember.
She only hoped it would be enough.
* * *
The following evening, Wes realized that he was in the middle of the very situation he’d been avoiding for years. He had a woman and a child in his home, and instead of feeling trapped, he felt...good.
But then, this wasn’t permanent, was it? That thought didn’t bring him the rush of happiness he would have expected. When he’d suggested to Belle that she and Caroline could stay with him, she hadn’t jumped at it, had she? So he was still looking at saying goodbye to them all too soon. His guts twisted into knots. Isabelle had only agreed to be here for a week, and four of those days were already gone.
And instead of being at home with them right now, he was here at the Texas Cattleman’s Club for a meeting. Shaking his head, he lifted the crystal tumbler in front of him and took a small sip of his scotch. Usually, he enjoyed coming into town, sitting in the lounge, talking with friends, joining in on plans for the future of the club. But tonight, he knew Isabelle and Caroline were back at the house, and he caught himself constantly wondering what they were up to while he was stuck here.
“Your head’s not in this meeting,” an amused voice noted.
Wes looked at Clay Everett and gave him a nod. “Good catch.” Clay was a local rancher with brown hair, green eyes and a permanent limp due to a bull-riding accident. Like Wes, Clay was a driven, stubborn man.
“So what’s more fascinating than painting the club restrooms?” Tom Knox asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Toby McKittrick said wryly. “Everything, maybe?”
Wes grinned and gazed at each of the men in turn. Tom looked the part of the ex-soldier he was, with broad shoulders, lots of tattoos and the scars he carried as a badge of honor. He was a man to be counted on.
Toby was taller, leaner and just as stubborn as the rest of them. A rancher, he was loyal to his friends, tough on his enemies and didn’t take crap from anyone.
“Yeah, got better things to do than sit here and listen to a lot of nonsense,” Wes said, idly turning the scotch glass in damp circles on the tabletop.
“So I heard,” Tom said with a knowing smile. “Isabelle’s back. How’s that going?”
“The word is,” Clay offered slyly, “our boy Wes here is practically domesticated.”
“No way,” Toby put in with a laugh. “The woman who could put a leash on this man hasn’t been born yet.”
“Not what I hear,” Clay said, taking a sip of his beer.
Great. Even his friends were talking about him, wondering about what was going on. He supposed bringing Isabelle and Caro back to Royal had been inviting the gossip, but what the hell else could he have done? Eventually, he knew, the talk in Royal would move on to some fresh meat and he and his problems would fade away. All he had to do was make it that long without popping someone in the mouth.
And he didn’t have a damn leash around his neck.
Wes nodded as he lifted his glass to the other men. “Good to be with friends who know just how to aim their shots.”
They all took a drink and Toby said, “Damn straight. What’re friends for, after all? And since we’re such good friends, maybe we should go back to your place with you. Let Isabelle know that when she gets tired of dealing with you, we stand at the ready.”
Giving him a smile, Wes shook his head. “Yeah. That’ll happen. I don’t think so.”
Clay grinned. “Worth a try. When do we meet your daughter, then?”
Wes shot him a look. He shouldn’t have been surprised, since half the country had been talking about him, thanks to Maverick and Twitter. Still, it seemed weird to have someone ask about his daughter so easily.
“Soon,” he said. “Hopefully. Her mother and I have some things to work out first. Which I could be at home doing if I wasn’t here listening to the old-timers gripe about too many changes.”
“The girl’s a cutie,” Clay told him. “Saw pictures of you three in the grocery store.”
“What?” Wes just looked at his friend and waited.
“Yeah, those tabloids by the cash registers? There you all were at the ice-skating rink.” Clay shrugged. “Headline was something like hashtag Deadbeatdad No More.”
“Great. That’s terrific.”
“Hey,” Toby said, “it’s better than saying you’re still a crappy father.”
“I didn’t know I was a father,” Wes pointed out.
“Yeah, we know,” Tom said, holding both hands up i
n mock surrender. “We’re just saying that everybody else seeing the three of you looking like a family is going to take the sting out of that whole Twitter nonsense.”
He had a point, Wes told himself. And if the pictures were in the tabloids, they’d be showing up other places, too. Magazines, newspapers, online. Teddy Bradford would see them and maybe rethink his position on the merger. One of the reasons Wes had brought Isabelle and Caroline back to Texas with him was to take the pressure off the scandal.
So why was he feeling a little guilty about all of this now?
Wes scanned the room, noting the members who were here and wondering about those who weren’t. Hell, it was a pain in the butt to have to come to redecorating meetings, but if you were a member you should damn well show up and do what needed doing.
The club had been the same for more than a hundred years. Typical of the wealthy, men-only clubs of the day, the TCC had mostly been decorated with masculine comfort in mind. Hunting trophies along with historical Texas documents and pictures dotted the walls. Dark beams crossed the ceilings, which were higher now, thanks to the renovations done after damage incurred by the last tornado. The furniture was dark leather, a blaze burned in the stone fireplace and the thick rugs that were spread across the gleaming wood floor were a deep red.
Of course, since female members were admitted to the club several years ago, there’d been some changes, too. The child care facility was the most monumental, but there were smaller, less obvious changes as well. The walls were a lighter color, there were fresh flowers in the meeting rooms and the quiet hush that used to define the old place had been replaced with an abundance of feminine voices.
Wes had no problem with female members and neither did his friends. But the old guard still wasn’t happy and usually fought the women on every change they tried to institute. Even something as stupid as what they were dealing with tonight—the color of the restrooms.
Wes focused on a trio of women across the room who were even now arguing with two older men whose faces were practically purple with suppressed rage. Shaking his head, Wes looked at his ex, Cecelia Morgan, and her pals Simone Parker and Naomi Price. The three of them together were surely annoying, but he’d always thought of them as benign, somehow. Now though, he had to wonder if the trio of Mean Girls were behind the Maverick business. Yet even as he thought it, Cecelia spouted off about the color of the walls in the women’s restroom as if deciding on Springtime Peach was the most important thing in the world. Could she really be behind the devious attack on him?
While she propped her hands on her hips and glared at the older man in the leather chair, Wes could hardly believe that once upon a time, he’d been involved with Cecelia. What the hell had he ever seen in her? Sure, she was gorgeous, but she and her friends still seemed to be locked into high-school behavior, living up to their nickname, the Mean Girls.
As he watched, Simone Parker, with her bold blue eyes, long black hair and body built to wake the dead, leaned into old man McGuire, shaking her finger in his face. Right beside her was stunning Naomi Price, with brown eyes and long reddish-brown hair. Naomi had a self-satisfied look on her face as she watched Simone battle with the old man. Cecelia, though, gave a glance around as if she were looking for a way out.
Briefly, her gaze met Wes’s, and she must have read the disgust on his face, because damned if she didn’t look embarrassed to be a part of the scene playing out in front of her. But thankfully, Cecelia was no longer Wes’s problem.
As if he could read Wes’s mind, Toby sighed and said, “Those three should have grown out of that nonsense after high school.” He paused, then added, “Especially Naomi. That’s just not who she is. Not really.”
“I don’t know,” Tom put in. “The three of them have been bothering people in Royal for years. Maybe it’s just become a habit for all of them.”
“Then it’s one they should break,” Wes said, taking another sip of scotch.
“Agreed,” Toby muttered darkly.
“All right now.” Parker Reese, pediatrician at Royal Memorial hospital, spoke up loudly enough to be heard over everyone else. “Can we cut to the chase here? Let’s get the decisions done so we can get out of here.”
Normally, Parker was quiet, approachable, but not overly friendly. The crowd quieted, the club’s president, Case Baxter, took over and the Mean Girls subsided into silence.
“Well, damn,” Wes muttered. He might actually get out of this meeting in time to tuck Caroline in and read her a story. “It’s a miracle.”
“Yeah,” Toby said, “I’m thinking we owe Parker a beer.”
A couple hours later, he was home in bed, waiting for the woman he couldn’t get enough of. When the bedroom door opened and Belle slipped inside, he smiled. “Caro asleep?”
“Out like a light,” she said, “still clutching her doll to her chest. She hasn’t come up with the right name for her yet, but she’s working on it.” Belle eased under the covers and moved in close to Wes, laying her head on his shoulder.
The big bed faced the fireplace, where a nice blaze was going, sending out flickering light and shadow around the room. He tucked his arm around her and held her close, thinking this just couldn’t get much better.
A shame he had to shatter it. Holding on to her, just in case she tried to pull away, Wes said, “I spoke to a specialist in Houston today.”
She stiffened in his arms, but only tipped her head back to look at him. “About...?”
Wes scowled. “You know what about. Caroline.”
“Wes, we agreed that we’d decide on specialists together.”
“I just talked to him, Belle,” Wes said, stroking one hand up and down her back. “I didn’t sign our girl up for surgery.”
Seconds ticked past, and he watched as anger drained away to frustration, then to simple curiosity. “Okay, fine. What did he say?”
“That he couldn’t tell me anything without examining Caro,” Wes admitted, “which I knew already. I was just asking some general questions. To satisfy my own curiosity.”
“And did you?”
“Yeah.” He smoothed one hand through her hair, letting the silky tendrils slide through his fingers. “I wondered, what do you think about getting her a cochlear implant in only one ear?”
She frowned up at him and waited, so he continued.
“We could start out with one, let her go for a few years, see if there are more advancements made in the meantime, and then later on we can include her in the decision making. If she wants to get a second one, then we do that. If not, we don’t.”
He looked into her eyes and hoped she saw that he was only trying to figure out the best thing for Caroline. It wasn’t easy to know what to do, and he figured all parents felt the same. Different issues, maybe, but no one had a game plan that would let them see the future. To know which path was the right one to take.
“When she’s older, Caroline can tell us what she wants to do. But meanwhile, we make sure she doesn’t lose too much ground.”
Isabelle was quiet for so long, Wes half wondered if she’d just zoned out. But then she reached up and ran the tip of her finger across his lips. “You surprise me, Wes.”
“Yeah?” He kissed her fingertip. “How?”
“That’s an excellent compromise from a man not known for making them.”
He gave her a wink. “I’m a great businessman. I know how to make deals that everyone can live with. Ask anyone.”
“I don’t have to ask.” She gave him a wry smile. “I’ve seen you convince people to do things they had no intention of doing, and it looks like you’ve done it again.”
“Yeah?” He smiled. Wes wasn’t trying to fast-talk Belle into anything, but he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t going to do everything he could to help his child, either.
“Yeah,” she repeated, a
nd turned, bracing one arm across his chest as she looked at him. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself. Somehow I convinced myself it was all or nothing, but it’s not. We can ease into the implant situation and see how Caro responds.”
“Exactly.” Wes pulled her over to lie on top of him and skimmed his hands down her back to her behind. She sighed and briefly closed her eyes before looking at him again, and he thought he’d never seen anything as beautiful as this woman.
“We can’t get into the specialist until next week.” He stared up into her eyes and watched as a layer of frost dazzled their surface. Belle never had been an easy woman, and he could see clearly that she was willing to dig her heels in.
“We won’t be here next week,” she said quietly.
“You could be. Stay.” His hands gripped her hips to hold her in place, because he could tell she wanted to slide off him. Hard to argue with a man when you were both naked and pressed together. Which was exactly why he was keeping her right where she was.
“We’ve been through this already, Wes,” she said. “Why should we stay?”
He watched those eyes of hers, felt himself drowning in them, and every instinct he possessed warned him to take a huge mental step back. To ease away. Let her slide off his body and put some distance between them. But he couldn’t do it.
He knew he had to give her a reason to stay, and so he offered the only one he had. “I’m not ready for you to go.”
She went still, her hands on his shoulders, her mouth no more than a breath away from his. He waited what felt like forever for her to speak. When she did, he released a breath he hadn’t realized had been caught in his chest.
“Okay,” she said softly. “We’ll stay a few more days. To see the specialist.”
A few more days wasn’t forever, but it would do for now.
“Deal,” he said, then rolled over, taking her with him, holding her body beneath his as he bent to take her nipple into his mouth.
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