For the first time in his life, the wide-open spaces were closing in on him, so Cabot had decided to go into Blackwater Lake for lunch. Ty declined the invitation to come along, opting to hang out with the camp kids, so Cabot walked into the Grizzly Bear Diner alone. It was half past noon and the booths were mostly full. People here and there occupied the swivel stools at the counter.
He took his usual seat, the one where he’d been sitting when Kate had shown up in her wrinkled wedding dress. Michelle Crawford was there, just as she’d been that day to interview the beautiful stranger who’d ended up making such a ding in his life.
The diner owner gave him a big smile. “Cabot, it’s good to see you.”
“You, too, Michelle.” Even more, it was nice to see a friendly face. “How’s the family?”
“Good. Emma and Justin are planning their wedding.”
“I hope to get an invitation.”
“The whole town will get one,” she promised. “We have so much to celebrate.”
A year ago Michelle, her husband and their three sons had been reunited with the daughter/sister who’d been kidnapped and taken from them as a baby. She’d come looking for her family and found the love of her life in Dr. Justin Flint, who worked at the medical clinic in town. It was nice to see good things happen to good people. Cabot considered himself an upstanding guy, but he held out no expectation of rainbows and roses. It just wasn’t in the cards for him.
“Coffee?” Michelle asked.
He nodded. “And a burger.”
“Coming right up.” She wrote out the order and handed it to the cook working the grill behind her, then grabbed the coffeepot and a mug. “So what’s up with Kate?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Seriously?” Pouring his coffee, she glanced up quickly and met his gaze. Her own was wry. “You did see the helicopter, right?”
“Yeah. I was there.” He’d have been better off rounding up strays in an isolated canyon far away from what had happened yesterday. Especially the part where he’d talked to Kate in the barn. “How did you know about that?”
“Caroline called me.” She rested the pot on the counter. “We knew Kate was a big deal when her picture was on that magazine cover. But who sends a helicopter? That really makes a statement.”
“Yup.” He lifted his mug and blew on the hot coffee.
“I’m dying to hear about it. So, where is she?” Michelle persisted.
Cabot figured there was no point in beating around the bush. If he did, the woman would just call Caroline and jump-start Blackwater Lake’s very efficient information network. “She’s gone.”
“What?” The woman looked genuinely surprised.
“She left.”
“For a job.” Michelle studied him intently. “She’ll be back, right?”
Cabot shook his head. “For good.”
“Why would she do that? She loves this town.”
“How do you know?” he asked.
“You could just tell. And she said so more than once.” She frowned. “Everyone liked her. She’s not a stuck-up city girl who couldn’t stand being in a town where the closest mall is an hour away.”
Like his wife, he thought. “I didn’t realize you knew her that well.”
“Actually, I don’t because you kept her pretty busy at camp. But I heard. Sydney McKnight got to know her, though.”
A woman had just walked in the door and sat down on the swivel stool beside him. “Did I hear my name? Are you talking about me, Michelle?”
“I never miss a chance to talk about anyone, and everyone comes in this diner sooner or later. It’s gossip central. You should know that, Sydney.”
“Right.” Sydney looked at him. “Hi, Cabot. I haven’t seen you since the day Kate’s truck broke down. How are you?”
He’d been better but was glad she’d interrupted the conversation. Kate was the last person he wanted to talk about today. “I’m great. How’s business at the garage?”
“Good. We’re really busy.” The pretty brunette glanced from him to Michelle. “So, I’m dying to hear about the helicopter at your ranch yesterday.”
And here we go again, he thought. He looked at the two women, then sipped his coffee without answering.
Michelle had no problem filling the silence. “He was just telling me that Kate is gone and she’s not coming back.”
“She is?” Syd sounded surprised. “I don’t believe that.”
“Believe it.” Cabot remembered the anger and hurt on Kate’s face, the tear that had rolled down her cheek. He would never forget how she’d looked and his part in it. What he’d done was for the best, he repeated to himself. She would realize that soon enough.
“I don’t understand,” Syd said. “I saw her not that long ago, and it sounded like she would be here for the long term.”
“You probably misunderstood.” If there was a God in heaven, his hamburger would come any second now. Although when women were determined to get information, a man wanting to eat probably wasn’t going to stop them from asking questions.
“I’m sure I got what she was saying. She was very clear that Blackwater Lake felt like home to her.” The young woman looked puzzled. “That leaves only one possibility.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Michelle chimed in.
“Do I want to know?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“Probably not,” Syd said. “What happened with you two?”
“I’d like to know, too.” The diner owner stared at him.
The real answer was that it was his fault Kate wasn’t here. He couldn’t be the right man, couldn’t tell her what she wanted to hear. But that was better kept to himself.
“The simple truth is that ESPN sent somebody important to offer her a job. She took it.” He cradled the coffee mug between his palms and looked at each woman in turn. “End of story.”
“I don’t think so.” Syd’s dark eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing.”
Well, he’d slept with her, but he didn’t think that counted. These two were digging for relationship stuff and there wasn’t one between him and Kate. He’d been careful to make sure she knew that up front. Technically he hadn’t done anything but stick to the established rules.
“Not buying it.” Michelle shook her head as if he was dumb as a post. “She fit in here. I, for one, would never have predicted that she would, what with her being a runaway bride and all.”
“I wish I’d seen her that day,” Syd commented wistfully.
That was a sight Cabot would never forget. Along with her and Ty laughing together. The sight of Kate standing by the lake with moonlight shining in her hair. Memories of waking up beside her in his bed. The disappointment in her eyes when he’d trashed her romantic notions.
“I guess she changed her mind,” he said.
“Michelle is right. She fit seamlessly into Blackwater Lake, and not everyone does. People really liked her. She never played the cover-girl card, never acted like a diva. Always down-to-earth. I’d have bet money on her sticking around. Unless...” Sydney gave him a pointed look.
Cabot gave it right back. “What?”
“You’re the variable.” She toyed with the straw in the diet soda Michelle had set in front of her. “Something happened between you and Kate. What did you do to her?”
Nothing that he wanted to talk about, but he wasn’t going to get to wiggle off this hook that easily. Walking out was an option, but he was no coward. He might as well give them the facts so that when the story spread, and it would, at least the truth would be out there.
“The fact is, she got a job offer. ESPN wants her to do commentary on a nationally televised competition. It’s sort of an audition for the summer Olympics in a couple of years
. I gave her my blessing.”
He’d told her to go. If he’d understood the emptiness of her leaving, he wasn’t so sure he would have sent her away.
“I get it now,” Michelle said, shaking her head again.
“Me, too.” Sydney sighed, and the way she looked at him now was similar to how the summer-camp staff did.
The only way to describe it was pity. And the only satisfaction he got was that they stopped grilling him like raw meat. That was small comfort when he felt as if he was losing everything. When had this community, the one he’d always loved and counted on, started working against him?
The answer was simple. It had happened the day a woman with light brown, sun-streaked hair walked into the Grizzly Bear Diner wearing a strapless wedding dress and four-inch satin heels.
As badly as he wanted to put her down as being a runner, that wasn’t the case. After all, he’d given her his blessing to go.
Chapter Fifteen
Cabot left his house and headed down the rise to the camp compound. He was glad that only a few days were left until the last group of kids would be gone. Then he’d help Caroline and the counselors close everything down until next year. Equipment, linens and mattresses had to be inventoried and stored for the winter. Also, he always readied the stray cabin in case someone needed it.
And that made him think of Kate. Of course, it didn’t take all that much for his thoughts to go there.
Just thinking her name sent a stab of pain and loneliness shooting through him. She’d been gone more than a week, and the feelings of missing her just kept getting worse. Those flowery sayings about time healing all wounds was pure crap, in his opinion. Time wasn’t helping at all.
People in town thought he had a screw loose for letting her go. They were entitled to their view, but not one had a wife who’d walked out because she hated her life on his ranch. Ty was speaking to him again, but clearly he missed Kate and talked about her a lot, which was its own kind of hell.
Until that day when the helicopter had touched down and the kid had eavesdropped in the barn, Ty hadn’t even been aware of what was going on between Cabot and Kate. The irony was that he and his son were drawn to the same woman, but that was no comfort.
He walked into the dining room, empty now until dinner in a couple of hours. There were no warm bodies or noise in here, but it was still full of memories. Eating dinner with Kate on the patio. Watching the kids soak up every word about surviving in the wilderness. Cooking bugs. That made him smile, and it was about the only thing that could have.
“Something amusing?”
Cabot looked over at Caroline. He’d been so wrapped up in thinking about Kate that he hadn’t heard the woman approach. “No. Nothing’s funny.”
“We’re a little short-tempered this morning, aren’t we?” Her eyebrows lifted questioningly. “Did someone get up on the wrong side of the bed?”
If he’d known how empty his bed would feel without Kate in it, he would never have taken her there. Those memories were some of the most tormenting. And it wouldn’t do any good to bunk in the stray cabin to escape them because he’d held her in his arms there, too.
“I’m fine.” But even he heard the edge in his voice.
“Yeah. I can tell.”
“Everyone’s got an opinion, but no one is walking in my boots. Don’t start with me, Caroline.”
“Start what?” she asked innocently.
“Kate,” he all but growled. “I don’t want to talk about her.”
“Okay. So what are you doing here?”
“Just wondered if you have enough help for shutting the operation down after these kids leave.”
“We could probably use one extra pair of hands,” she acknowledged. “Seeing as we’re suddenly a body short.”
Accusation was in her tone, but he managed to ignore that. “Okay. I’ll bring one of the hired hands with me to help when the time comes.” He glanced out the sliding glass door leading to the patio. The kids were wearing bathing suits and drifting back from the lake with towels draped around their necks. “How about now? Are things okay, with one body short, I mean?”
“As good as can be expected.”
He knew how that felt because he missed that spectacular body, along with her sassy sense of humor and quick wit. But he wondered what Caroline meant. “What’s going on?”
“I’m bummed that the kids who came here for a ranch experience will get their money’s worth, but it won’t be as rich an experience as it might have been. If Kate was still here to teach survival skills, I mean.”
“They’ll get enough. It always was before she ever showed up.” In her damn wedding dress looking like a fashion-show refugee.
“What about Ty?” Caroline leaned a hip against one of the long picniclike tables.
“I don’t know what you’re getting at.” He’d come here to talk about camp shutdown, but this was wandering off the trail into personal territory. He was lost and no amount of survival skills would help him find his way out. “Frankly, I don’t think I want to know where you’re going with this.”
“Ask me if I care.” She was obstinate, no question about it, but the pigheaded look on her face was new. “Your son is hurting, Cabot, and you know it.”
“He’ll get over it.”
“Yeah. Life has a way of moving on, but it will change him. As you well know.”
“He barely knew Kate.” In fact, his son had known her longer than his own mother. “And I’m not sure what you want me to do about it. She left for a job.”
Caroline ignored that. “Kate wasn’t here a long time—I’ll grant you that. But Ty got a glimpse of what it would be like to have a mom. She was good to him and good for him.”
Cabot shifted his feet, feeling not only his own hurt and betrayal, but also his son’s. “I can’t force someone to stay. People move in and out of his life and I have no power to control who he does or doesn’t become attached to.”
“In most cases that’s true. But it’s different with Kate.”
“No, it’s not.” He already knew she was unique, but he would argue the point all day long. “She was always only temporary and Ty knew that. I talked to him about it.” Because Kate had insisted so that his son wouldn’t get hurt. Fat lot of good the conversation had done.
“She didn’t act temporary.” Caroline shook her head sadly. “And she didn’t feel that way. It’s just not the same without her here.”
Cabot knew exactly what she meant, but no way would he say anything to agree with her. It was better to let her believe he’d gotten up on the wrong side of the bed than confirm how miserable he was. And she would know. He couldn’t put anything over on this woman.
“She’s not irreplaceable,” he said defensively.
“You’re so wrong about that.” The stubborn look shifted into her eyes again, and around the edges he saw pity. “And if you don’t go after her, you’re a damn fool.”
“No. It would be foolish to chase after her just to get smacked down a second time.”
“That’s your father talking, Cabot,” she said gently.
“What are you saying?” As soon as the words were out of his mouth he knew it was a mistake. Walking out rather than listening to this would have been a better option. The only reason he didn’t was out of respect for this woman.
“When your mom left, you were just a vulnerable kid and your dad was shocked and hurt. Everything he was feeling got passed down to you. All the betrayal and bitterness. The wariness and lack of trust, even though he never stopped loving her.”
“It wasn’t his fault.”
“I know,” she said softly. “But the damage was done and he couldn’t help it. It’s just bad damn luck that your mom didn’t love him enough to stay and he couldn’t love anyone else and move on. He was a one-
woman man.”
“Yeah.”
“And to make matters worse, you finally took a chance and, as luck would have it, picked someone cut from the same cloth as your mother.”
“Dixon curse,” he said angrily.
“Maybe. Or it could just be you were young and stupid. Ready to settle down and decided to settle for her and called it love.”
Her words had a ring of truth. “And your point? I know you’ve got one.”
“I’m willing to bet that you weren’t really in love with Jennifer.” She met his gaze, and her eyes clearly said pay attention. “Sometimes you don’t get it until you fall hard and fast for real.”
“There might be something to that,” he conceded.
“The problem is, Kate thinks you were in love with your ex and still are. Pining for her like your dad did for your mom.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me.” Caroline shrugged. “We were in the kitchen together a lot. Women talk and she came right out and said it.”
Cabot knew Kate thought that and he hadn’t tried very hard to set her straight. On some level he’d assumed if she was under that impression, they could avoid a mess like he was in now. He no longer qualified for the young-and-stupid defense. He was older but definitely still not wiser where women were concerned.
“It doesn’t matter, Caroline. She still left.”
“Because you told her to go.”
“It was the right thing to do.” Although he wasn’t so sure he believed that anymore.
“Maybe. To a point. The truth is she has a career and obligations, but that doesn’t mean compromises can’t be made. Things worked out. It makes a person glad that you don’t work for this country’s diplomatic corps.” She gave him a wry look. “Kate did what you told her to because of what she believes, that there’s no hope of having a life with you.”
“She walked out. Nothing can be done now.”
“Oh, please, Cabot Dixon. If you really believe that, you’re as dense as they come.”
“I hope you don’t say that to your high school students.”
“It gets some sugarcoating and a gentler touch,” she admitted. “But the same message.”
The Rancher Who Took Her In (The Bachelors of Blackwater Lake) Page 18