by Lisa Jackson
For minutes they were silent, their heartbeats slowing.
“Why did you bring me here?” she asked again when she could finally talk. She kissed his chest. “Besides the obvious reason, I mean.”
He pushed a strand of hair from her eyes so tenderly she thought her heart might break right then and there. “I thought it would be safer up here.”
“Safer?” She laughed, then her smile faded when she remembered another conversation they’d had. “You still think there may be a nut out there somewhere, planning to hurt us?”
“I don’t know for sure,” he admitted. “But I can’t take a chance.” He kissed the top of her head and told her everything he and Max had discussed.
Beth held him and listened, but she couldn’t help the smile that teased her lips. For no matter what else he said, no matter what theories Max or the private investigator or the police could come up with, one thing was certain: Jenner McKee cared. About her and about his son. There was no other reason he would go to such lengths to hide them. Slowly, whether he liked it or not, Jenner was beginning to accept the fact that he was a father.
She didn’t know where that realization would lead, but had to believe a major stumbling block was out of the way. So she listened. As Jenner stroked her hair and kissed her crown and explained just how many people in Rimrock had reason to hate his father, Beth smiled and wondered what the morning would bring.
Chapter Eleven
Beth never wanted to leave. Sighing contentedly, she stretched on the rumpled bedding. She and Jenner had made love most of the night and she had no regrets. Though he didn’t love her, she knew that he cared, and caring was a start—a large step in the right direction.
She pulled on her clothes and gazed through the dusty panes of the window to the lake where the rays of morning sun glinted on the ripples. Geese flew overhead in wavering V formations and ducks skimmed the surface of the water.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jenner walking with his crutches near the lake’s edge, and with him, dragging a stick, was Cody. Beth’s heart nearly melted when she saw Jenner pause and point to a squirrel racing in the branches of an ancient pine tree.
Rather than disturb father and son, she decided to go and explore the old lodge. On the second floor were bedrooms, some single, some double, some with several sets of bunks, which shared communal baths branching off the balcony. The third was filled with complete and odd-shaped suites tucked under the eaves. The place was dusty and there was evidence of mice in some of the bedding, but she found only one spot where the roof leaked. All the old lodge needed was some solvent, polish and lots of elbow grease.
On the first floor there were meeting rooms, a dining room, a sun porch, kitchen and baths, as well as the main hall and master suite. In the basement, there was a recreation room with an old pool table, the furnace room, laundry, a wine cellar and larders, now empty. Coal and wood chutes were strategically placed near the back of the lodge and a dumbwaiter connected the floors.
The lodge was a mansion out of one of the stories Beth had read as a child. She climbed back up to the first floor and went to the kitchen, where Jenner had a pot of coffee heating on a huge wood stove. Beth rinsed a cup under a groaning faucet, which delivered only cold water, then poured herself some of the strong brew.
With a feeling of contentment she hadn’t experienced in years, she carried her cup to the wide back porch and sat in an old cushioned swing. She rocked slowly as she watched Jenner and Cody by the lake. Jenner’s voice was muffled, but he spoke to the boy often, and when he did, Cody tipped his face up, his eyes round with wonder.
This was how it was supposed to be—father and son discovering the world together. Tears burned the back of her eyes as she realized how desperately she wanted this for Cody, how much she’d missed by not knowing her own father. Could she ever deny her son the right to know the man who had helped create his life? Even if things didn’t work out between Jenner and her, she couldn’t break this fragile bond that existed between these two.
As if he’d read her mind, Jenner turned. She felt her heart close in on itself as her gaze locked with his. She was aware of the breeze that tickled her neck and bent the grass near the water’s edge, but time seemed to stand still in that one instant. Cody, turning to follow Jenner’s gaze, saw her. He threw back his head and laughed, the joyful sound rising into the sky.
“Mommy! Mommy!” he cried in pure delight. “We find squirrels and birds and snakes!” His little legs started churning as he ran along the bank, then found the weed-choked brick path that led to the porch.
“Snakes?” she echoed as she placed her coffee on the floor and reached out to scoop him into her arms.
“Yeah! Rattlesnakes this—” he held his arms out wide “—big!”
“Rattlesnakes!” she gasped, her heart faltering.
But Jenner only laughed as he joined them. “No rattlers.”
“They were! I seen ’em.”
“If you say so, pardner,” Jenner agreed with a wink at Beth, and she relaxed. “Come on now, I’ll make you both some breakfast.”
Cody scrambled to the ground and tore into the lodge. His little feet pounded loudly on the floors, and Beth, still outside, could hear him running from room to room. “You’ve got yourself a good kid,” Jenner admitted when they were alone.
“So do you.”
“Do I?” His eyes held hers and he drew her into the circle of his arms, kissing her lightly on her forehead, her eyelids and her cheeks before his lips settled over hers and she sighed into his open mouth. Everything seemed so right up here—away from the rest of the world, just man, woman and child. No worries, no gossip, nothing but this tiny little family.
She broke the embrace suddenly at that thought. Family? They weren’t a family. She was a single mother with a two-year-old son, and Jenner was a die-hard bachelor content to be single. How could she ever think of them as a family? How could she delude herself?
Jenner, feeling her tense, held her even more tightly. “It’s all right,” he said against her ear. “It’ll be all right. I promise.”
“You do?”
“Mmm.” He kissed her crown again and she leaned against him, feeling his strong arms surround her.
It’ll be all right.
If only she could believe him.
They had so far spent three days at the lodge. Jenner had driven them into a small town where the post office, general store and hardware store shared one building. Beth called her mother and explained that they were together and getting to know each other. Jenner called Max, asking about the investigation and checking on the rest of his family.
During the day, Beth cleaned and cooked and spent hours with her son and Jenner. They explored the lake and the woods, startled owls and spied a fawn lying still in the undergrowth. A family of raccoons scavenged near the kitchen at night and it was all she could do to keep Cody from chasing after them, intent on catching one of the smaller masked beasts.
Jenner enthralled them both with the history of the lodge, though Beth suspected his stories of colorful past figures spending time here were embellished a little. Each night as they sat near the fire and Cody listened raptly to this stranger who was his father, Jenner seemed to thaw a little more toward his son. The brackets around the corners of his mouth disappeared and a kinder side of him emerged as Cody tagged after him all day long, his short legs keeping up with Jenner’s without any trouble since Jenner was slowed by his crutches.
“You may as well know that I promised Max I’d go back to the doctor and physical therapist,” Jenner admitted one night as they sat huddled together on a couch near the fire, stockinged feet propped on the broad hearth, Cody snoring softly as he lay in the crook of Jenner’s arm.
“What changed your mind?”
Jenner stared at the bright embers and scowled. “You did. You and Cody.” He turned to look at her and his eyes were as clear and blue as the lake outside the back door. “You know, I hate lik
e hell to admit it when someone is right and I’m proved wrong, but when Mavis wrote to you, she knew what she was doing.” His eyebrows drew together forming one thick line. “I guess I’d given up, decided that if I couldn’t ride and rope and brand and all that nonsense that seemed so important—” he waved his hand as if he was brushing aside an inconsequential fly ”—that I’d just give up. Then you showed up with this little dynamo and bang! My whole world was turned upside down. Everything I’d ever believed in...”
Her heart nearly stopped beating and she realized there in the shadowy room how much she’d come to love this rugged loner of a man, not with the silly schoolgirl fantasies she’d harbored all those years before, but with a love based on trust and understanding and the knowledge that he could stir her blood as well as her soul. Jenner was a hard man, a distant man at times, but he was honest and strong.
“Anyway.” He slapped his thighs and Cody shifted. “I guess I wanted to pour myself into a bottle and drown.” He slid her a glance. “Not a very practical plan, but it seemed to keep the demons at bay.”
“Did it?” she teased as he slung an arm over her shoulder and his breath whispered across her hair.
“Not very well. I never could seem to get enough booze. Kinda the same way I feel about you.” He kissed her hard enough to start her heart pumping with wild abandon. Her arms curved around his neck and she moved closer still, her breasts brushing his ribs through their shirts.
With a groan of frustration, he released her. “You’re going to get yourself into big trouble, lady,” he warned.
She winked at him. “I’m counting on it.”
“Are you?” A devilish light flamed in his eyes and he hauled Cody into his arms and helped the boy into his bed. Once satisfied that Cody wouldn’t wake up, he linked his fingers through Beth’s and they moved to the bedroom without his crutches, Jenner leaning on her, she supporting him, until they fell on the bed together and he wrested the shirt from her body. Slowly, eyes locked with hers, he made love to her as passionately as they had the night Cody was conceived, as savagely as their first night alone in the lodge together.
The next morning Jenner announced they had to get back. He’d called Max. Things were stable at the ranch and he was needed. Jenner grinned at that. “Yep. Max seems to think I can actually be of some help. One of the men quit last night and the Rocking M’s shorthanded. Can you believe it?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice catching. Of course he was needed. Didn’t she need him? Didn’t Cody?
Her heart was heavy as she packed to leave this mountain retreat, but she managed to hide her disappointment. Truth to tell, she, too, had to start thinking about the rest of her life as well as the rest of Cody’s. She needed to return to Oregon City and start hunting for another job, but that thought brought a lump to her throat.
Life without Jenner.
Shuttling Cody from the Willamette Valley to Rimrock where, as he grew older, he’d eventually hear the gossip and have to live with the rumors. Bastard. Unwanted. Mistake.
But at least he’d have a father’s love.
Certainly that was worth the risk and the heartache of facing the taunts leveled at him by other children and the gossips in town. Or was it? Instead of becoming simpler, her life was getting more complicated by the minute. Because of Jenner and the horrid fact that she loved him.
Cody chattered incessantly as they drove back to Rimrock, and with each mile that passed, Beth felt the tension in the cab increase. Her stomach clenched as they turned off the main road and into the lane leading to the Rocking M. The trees lining the drive seemed to bend in the wind and dry leaves scattered as the truck bounced over potholes. Dark clouds clustered in the sky.
“Home sweet home,” Jenner said sarcastically as he stopped near the garage.
Max stood in the doorway of the barn talking with Chester Wilcox. Hillary was riding Cambridge in one of the enclosures, her curls catching the late afternoon sunlight as Dani, holding the lead rope, coached her young charge. Cattle milled in nearby pens and the horses grazed in the dry fields.
“Maybe you should take me home first—”
“This’ll just take a minute.” He slanted her a glance and private little smile. “We McKees don’t bite... well, unless it’s in the middle of the night when things get a little rough and—”
“Enough. I get the picture,” she said, her blood swirling through her veins.
Cody, spying Hillary on her horse, clamored to get out. “Me ride!” he insisted.
“Oh, honey, not now—”
“It’s all right,” Jenner assured her, glancing at the heavy bellied clouds.
“I don’t think Hillary’s going to like it.”
“He doesn’t have to ride Cambridge. We can find him another mount. Come on, pardner.” And the two of them were off—father limping on crutches, son scampering through the dust as fast as his short legs would carry him. The dog, Reuben, was sleeping in a patch of weeds near the garage and he let out a quiet woof as Cody raced past.
Beth followed her son and leaned against the rails of the fence. She watched Dani and Hillary while Jenner stopped to talk with his brother and the ranch foreman. Cody was hopping up and down, demanding his attention, and Jenner, after a sharp word to the boy, picked him up and held him as naturally as if he’d done it all his life.
A natural father. She smiled to herself. Wouldn’t he die to think of himself, the rugged, lone wolf of a cowboy, now able to read a bedtime story, change a night diaper and kiss scratches and “owies” as naturally as if he’d been born to do it?
So caught up in her fantasy, she didn’t hear the sound of footsteps behind her until she felt a breath of chill air against the back of her neck. “So...you decided to come back, did you?” Virginia’s voice was cold.
“Pardon me?” Beth turned to face the censure that was Virginia McKee.
“I know what you were doing, don’t think I don’t. You think you’ve got your hooks in my boy but you’re wrong.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Sure you do,” Virginia insisted in a harsh whisper. “You thought by luring him away with sex and the boy you could make him change his ways, even marry you, but you haven’t got a chance. Jenner’s only interested in himself—he’ll never be tied to a family. And if you think you can pass off your boy as his—”
“Don’t even say it,” Beth warned, her temper snapping. “Jenner is Cody’s father and that’s the way it is, even if you’ve got a problem with it.” She stepped closer to the woman who seemed determined to hate her. “I don’t know what it is you have against me, and I really don’t care. You can think what you want. But when it comes to my son, you’d better be careful, because I won’t let anyone—not even you—hurt him.”
“Then why did you bring him here?”
“Because I had no choice.”
Virginia’s mouth twisted into a thin, wicked little smile. Behind her, Casey had come out of the house and was approaching, but Virginia didn’t stop. “You may as well know something about me. I’m a lot stronger than I look and I don’t back down easily. I was the one who insisted that my husband was murdered when the police were ready to give up and write the whole episode off as a nasty accident. But I proved them wrong.
“I know you came here because of Mavis—that old woman would do anything to convince herself that the McKee name isn’t going to die. She and I both know that Skye can’t give Max any sons, and Casey, well, that girl doesn’t know what she wants, but if and when she does get around to marrying, the children won’t carry the McKee name. So Jenner is Mavis’s last hope and she pinned that hope on you, as well.”
“Because it’s the truth.” Beth leaned closer to the older woman and held her gaze. “If you have a problem with me—a bone to pick—why don’t you just tell me about it?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” Virginia said, clearing her throat and straighteni
ng to her full height. “Isn’t it obvious? You bore a child out of wedlock.”
“Jenner’s child.”
“So you say.”
“He was involved, too, and I refuse to accept your double standard.”
“And now you’re back, trying to drag his name—our name—through the mud. The whole town will be buzzing.”
“Is that what’s bothering you?” Beth asked. “After all the scandal you’ve endured?” She couldn’t believe it. “There’s something more, isn’t there? Something else that’s bothering you.”
Beth saw the hint of a shadow in Virginia’s eyes—the flicker of a secret—but it quickly disappeared. “I just don’t want my son—a McKee—involved with poor white trash,” Virginia said and turned on her heel, nearly running into Casey.
“How could you?” Casey said as Virginia stopped short.
“This family’s name has been dragged through the mud too many times. I won’t allow it to happen again.”
“Is that it, or are you afraid that we’ll all finally come to terms with the kind of man our father really was?” Casey asked.
Virginia’s throat worked. “He was a good, decent, hardworking—”
“He was a crook, Mom. He deceived people and cheated them out of their money, then he tried his best to ruin his children’s lives. If you face facts, you’ll even realize that he tried to ruin yours, as well. It’s just that you turned a blind eye to all of his affairs and mistresses.”
“I won’t hear this... this blasphemy!”
“Maybe it’s time you faced the truth, Mom, and quit deluding yourself.”
“I don’t—”
“Of course you do! You always have. Oh, God, I’ve got to leave this place before I go out of my mind!”
“Don’t even talk that way. You tried leaving once before—”
“I was just a kid then, didn’t know what I wanted.”