But then, he had no real right to an opinion at all on her relationship with her ex or anyone else. Dammit.
At least she didn’t seem pleased to hear from the man.
And Laurie wasn’t. Pleased never entered her mind when she heard the voice of her ex-husband on the phone. Of the words that she did think of, dammit was about the most polite.
“What do you mean, my mother gave you this number?” She was dumbfounded. But it sounded just like something her mother would do. Dammit.
“No,” she told him. “Of course I don’t mind you knowing where the girls are. But how was I supposed to tell you when you moved out of your apartment and had your phone disconnected months ago?” She’d tried for two weeks to track him down last spring to remind him of Carrie’s birthday, because she knew he never remembered either girl’s birthday.
“Your mother didn’t have any trouble finding me.”
“Well then, she’s a better bloodhound than I am,” Laurie muttered.
“You can’t fool me, Laurie, I know you too well. You were trying to hide my daughters from me.”
“Hide them,” she cried. “Oh, Jimmy, I’d tell you to grow up, but it’s more than obvious by now that you never will.”
“If you’re not trying to hide them from me, then what the hell are you doing in Wyoming, of all places, and why are you mad because your mother gave me your number?”
“I took a temporary job up here, if you must know, because raising two daughters is expensive. I buy them new clothes, and the next thing I know, they’ve outgrown them. Funny how that works, isn’t it? I guess if I didn’t feed them, they wouldn’t grow. But then they’d complain. What’s a mother to do?”
“Very funny. Who was that man who answered the phone? Are you shacking up with some cowboy up there in the wilds of Wyoming?”
Laurie bit back a groan. “He’s my boss. It’s his phone number my mother gave you. That’s why I don’t appreciate her giving it out.”
“Put the girls on,” Jimmy said. “I want to talk to them.”
“What are you going to say to them, Jimmy? What are you going to say to Carrie when she asks why you forgot her birthday?”
“God, were you always such a nag? No wonder we got divorced. I’ll get her something and send it to her. Now put her on.”
“I’ll go get them,” she said, knowing the girls would be thrilled to talk to him. “But if you hurt them, so help me, I’ll make you sorry.”
“When have I ever hurt either of them?” he protested.
“Every time you forget a birthday or Christmas. Every time you promise to call or come by and don’t. Every time they go months without hearing from you, thinking that means you don’t love them anymore.”
“Of course I love them, Laurie,” he wheedled. “They’re my babies. I wanna talk to them.”
She told him to hold on, and put the receiver down on the counter, then went to find the girls.
They were with Trey in Katy’s room, giving him advice on diaper changing.
“Girls,” she said, “your daddy’s on the phone.”
“Now? But Mama,” Amy protested, “we’re right in the middle of changing Katy’s diaper.”
“I’ll help Trey do that,” Laurie said.
“Come on, Amy.” Carrie took her sister by the hand. “We gotta talk to him.”
Well, Laurie thought, as Amy reluctantly let Carrie lead her down the hall, so much for them being thrilled to talk to Jimmy. If she were the spiteful sort, she would be glad they weren’t eager to talk to him. But she wasn’t spiteful. Not usually, anyway. It hurt her to see their ambivalence toward the one man on earth they should adore.
“You all right?” Trey asked her.
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” she said ruefully.
“It’s them. Don’t get me wrong, Jimmy’s a lousy father and always has been. But it doesn’t seem right that there’s so little between the girls and him. They’re so young, and I’ve tried so hard not to poison their minds against him.”
Trey peeled the tape off first one tab then the other and secured the diaper in place. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. Kids are always sharper than we give them credit for. And more resilient, too, if we don’t get in their way. From what I see, those are two of the most well-adjusted girls around.”
Laurie smirked. “From what you see, those are the only girls around. But thank you,” she added sincerely. “You’re a nice man, Trey Wilder.”
Trey winked at her. “That’s what all the women tell me.”
She laughed, as she was meant to. Then she sobered. “No, I mean it. Here you are, listening to my problems, when you’ve got falling beef prices, cattle thieves in the next county and a trespasser in your cemetery.”
“Just everyday life on the ranch.” He stuffed Katy’s tiny arms through the short sleeves of a miniature T-shirt, then tugged the hem down over her little belly. “There you go, sweet pea.”
“You’re so good with her, like you’ve been taking care of babies all your life.”
“Oh, God,” he said with an exaggerated shudder. “You should have seen me the first week or two. I was afraid I was going to break her, or cause her some kind of emotional trauma that would scar her for life.”
“Who was it who told me kids are resilient?”
“Yeah, well, she’s not a kid yet,” he said. “She’s just a baby.”
“And she doesn’t know if you do something wrong. All she knows is that you love her, keep her warm and fed and comfortable. And you do it very well. I’ve never known another father who loved his daughter so much.”
Trey didn’t know whether to stick his chest out and pound on it in pride, or turn his head away so Laurie wouldn’t see the flush he was sure was staining his cheeks at her praise. Or weep because he felt so damned inadequate about raising a baby girl to womanhood. What did he know about being a woman? How was Katy to find her way in the world with only him to guide and teach her?
“How do you do it?” he said.
“Do what?”
“Raise children alone. The single-parent thing.”
When she smiled, her eyes were sad yet somehow brave. “One day at a time. Sometimes one minute at a time. And my next minute is to go back in there and deal with their father.”
Laurie turned and went back to the kitchen just as Carrie finished speaking with her father and handed the phone to Amy.
Trey stood over Katy’s crib and watched Laurie head back to the kitchen.
He admired her. It was an odd feeling. He was a man raised with a strong, healthy respect for his fellow man, and for women. But there were few women outside his own family that he could say he truly admired. None that he’d ever had a close relationship with.
Not that he had a close relationship with Laurie, he thought with chagrin.
“What do you think, sweet pea?” he asked his daughter. “Am I out of my mind for wanting a woman who plans to go home in three weeks?”
And then there was that other question, the one Jack had asked him earlier, before lunch.
Was he really going to let her go?
Chapter Ten
When Carrie and Amy finished talking to their father, Laurie took the phone again and caught him before he hung up.
“I wanted you to know,” she said, “that we’ll be here another two or three weeks. If you want to call the girls again, the best time is a weekday morning.”
“All right,” Jimmy said.
“So, what day shall I tell them you’ll call?” Oh, that would make him mad, she knew. He hated to be put on the spot.
“Looks to me like I need to be calling every day,” he said heatedly. “What the hell is going on up there? Riding horses? Falling out of trees? How bad was Amy hurt?”
Laurie rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “What did she tell you?”
“She said she sprained her wrist.”
“That’s what she did.”
“My God, woman, she could have been k
illed.”
“Girls,” she said to the two little faces watching her with eagle eyes. “Go wash your face and hands in the bathroom.”
“Can I take off my bandage?”
“All right. And get your hands clean with soap this time, both of you, instead of wiping the dirt off on the towel,” she called after them as they trooped down the hall.
“Oh, Mama,” Amy called back, “you’re such a kidder.”
Laurie bit back a laugh, but heard from down the hall that Trey let his loose. Where did kids come up with these expressions?
“Are you going to answer me?” Jimmy said in her ear.
“I don’t recall you asking me a question.”
“You’re letting those girls run wild up there. The next time they might not be so lucky to end up with just a sprain.”
“You’re right, of course,” Laurie said. “I’ll lock them in the closet until they’re twenty-one so nothing can happen to them. Don’t you dare tell me how to take care of my daughters,” she hissed. “You didn’t want them. You didn’t want to help raise them.”
“I have rights.”
“You have nothing when it comes to them that I don’t grant you. Not as long as you choose not to pay child support.”
Laurie gritted her teeth and made herself take three slow, deep breaths. She wasn’t handling this right. She had to give Jimmy the benefit of the doubt on this one. She remembered how terrified she’d been hearing Amy scream, seeing her lying in a small heap beneath that tree. Jimmy had never heard of one of the girls being hurt before, because they hadn’t been. Amy’s blithe news had scared him, that was all. He was merely taking it out on her. There was no reason she had to reciprocate.
“Oh,” he said, “so that’s what this is about. You want money.”
“What what is about?” Laurie struggled to keep from shouting. She didn’t want the girls to hear her arguing with him. Besides, there was no reason to raise her voice. “You called here, remember?”
“Yeah, but I’ll bet you knew I would. I bet you put your mother up to giving me the phone number just so I’d call and you could badger me for money.”
Calm. She would stay calm. “Jimmy, say good night and hang up now.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what I’m going to do. Good night, Jimmy.” She hung up the phone.
Trey found her there a moment later with her hands on the receiver where it rested in its cradle, her forehead pressed against her hands.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
Laurie groaned and raised her head. “As all right as usual after having to go through one of those conversations.”
Trey studied her face and feared he might need to revise his earlier thought that she had no feelings left for her ex-husband. There were plenty of feelings etched across her face just now.
“He gets to you, huh?”
She sighed and turned away from the phone. “He knows all the buttons to push. He makes me crazy.”
“Look, I know it’s none of my business, but it seems to me that if you react this strongly to talking to him on the phone, there must be some feelings left between the two of you.”
“Feelings?” She nearly laughed. “Oh, yeah. They run the gamut.”
Trey felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.
“Animosity, indifference, mistrust, disappointment. Yeah, we’ve got feelings between us. And those are just mine. His are a lot more volatile.”
“Does he want you back?”
Laurie saw the uncertainty in Trey’s eyes. He’d been coming on to her for days, and now he was wondering if her feelings for Jimmy were the reason she kept pushing him away. He couldn’t be more wrong, but should she tell him that? Wouldn’t this be the best way to make sure nothing happened between the two of them during the short time she had remaining on their agreement?
“Or maybe I should ask if you want him back,” Trey said quietly.
From down the hall came the sounds of running water and laughing girls.
“I should let you think that,” Laurie told him. “It would simplify things between us.”
“Would it?” He advanced on her.
Laurie held her ground. “If you thought I still cared for Jimmy, you’d quit coming on to me.”
He took another step. “Would I? Or would I do my damnedest to make you forget him?”
Now he was making her nervous. “Trey, stop it.”
“Why? You’ve as much as told me you don’t have feelings for him. Why should I stop?” His voice lowered, turned to velvet. “Why should you stop me, when you know you don’t want to?”
Laurie’s emotions were about to seesaw for yet another time this day. She could feel herself weakening. She’d spent the day amid the chaos of a large, loving family, argued with her ex-husband, worried about her daughters, and now all she wanted to do was give in to Trey’s dark voice and steamy promise and shut off her mind with hot, meaningless sex.
But she’d never had meaningless sex in her life. It simply wasn’t in her to have sex for the sake of having sex.
She wasn’t altogether certain she’d ever had what could be termed hot sex, either.
But if she gave in to Trey, the act would be hot, she was sure, and it would not be without meaning. Not with him. She cared too much for him. She greatly feared her heart was at risk. If she made love with him, she would be surrendering part of herself, and she could not afford to lose any more pieces. She’d lost more than enough of her self-respect, her courage, her independence to a man once, and had only recently regained those missing parts of herself. She wasn’t ready to surrender anything to anyone.
“I told you I wasn’t ready,” she said to him. If her voice came out harsher than she intended, that was all right with her. Let him think she was angry with him.
Trey heard the harshness in her voice and assumed it was anger. Justifiable anger, he admitted. But he knew he could still change her mind. Without much effort he could have her in his bed, where he’d wanted her for days and days.
But it wasn’t only her anger or the little girls down the hall that caused him to back off. It was a cold dash of reality.
What the hell did he think he was doing, pressuring her this way? He’d lost all common sense. She was making him crazy was all he could figure.
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Do me a favor. The next time I get out of line, just pick up a heavy skillet and conk me on the head.”
Laurie knew that if she laughed, all her efforts would have been wasted. She was safer, much safer, if he thought she was angry. So she merely nodded, then said she was going to check on the girls.
Because the day at headquarters had been so exciting, there was no way Laurie could convince the girls to go to bed early, no matter how tired they were.
She was a little concerned that neither of them mentioned their father all evening. Instead they talked about the four young boys they’d met, Jack and Lisa’s baby, Aunt Donna and the sheriff with his badge, his gun and those cool handcuffs on the back of his belt.
But finally, thirty minutes past their usual bedtime, Laurie had them bathed and in bed.
“How’s your wrist?” she asked Amy.
Amy held up her unbandaged wrist. “It’s okay as long as I don’t bump it.”
“Do you want me to put the bandage back on?”
“No.”
“You’re sure? Maybe just for tonight?”
“Nah, I’m just gonna go to sleep, so I won’t be bumping it.”
“All right, then. But if it hurts in the night, you come and get me, okay?”
“Okay.”
Laurie heard their prayers and kissed them good-night, but before she could turn out the light and leave, Carrie stopped her.
“Mama?”
“What, honey?”
“Do you want us to tell you what we talked about with Daddy?”
Laurie’s stomach tightened. “Only if you want to tell me.”
/> Carrie shrugged, and Amy copied her.
“We just talked,” Amy said. “That’s all.”
“Okay,” Laurie said. “That’s fine, then.”
But Carrie wasn’t ready to let the subject go. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Well, of course you can.” Laurie sat on the side of the bed and smoothed the hair from her elder daughter’s face. “What is it?”
“It’s…it’s about Daddy.”
The knot in Laurie’s stomach twisted tighter. “What about him?”
Carrie hesitated and looked away.
“Come on, honey, you know you can ask me anything. Did he say something that upset you?” Oh, damn, she shouldn’t put thoughts like that in the girls’ heads. If they were upset, they sure hadn’t shown it. Until now, with Carrie’s hesitation.
“How come Daddy lies?”
The knot in Laurie’s stomach turned to ice. “What do you mean? What makes you think he lied?” I’ll kill him, she thought. I’ll cut out his tongue and throw it down the garbage disposal and then I’ll hang him by his heels until he dies.
Carrie shrugged and picked at a thread on the blanket. “He said that if you hadn’t brought us to Wyoming, he would have come to see us this weekend and taken us to the zoo.”
“And bought us cotton candy,” Amy added.
“But he wouldn’t have come, would he, Mama?” Carrie asked. “Not really.”
Laurie’s heart ached. She had done her best to keep from tarnishing her daughters’ affection for their father. Now, it seemed, he was going to destroy it himself. No matter how she felt about Jimmy, she didn’t want the girls to think badly of him. She truly didn’t. They should be able to love their own father with a full and free heart. Whatever she said now, she needed to weigh her words carefully. Because while she didn’t want them to stop loving Jimmy, she would not allow herself to be caught lying for him, either, because then her girls would not trust her.
Finally she said, “I don’t know, honey. He might have.”
Carrie shrugged. “Maybe.”
“But we’re glad we came to Wyoming,” Amy said with her irrepressible grin.
“Yeah, Mama, we’re glad,” Carrie confirmed.
Laurie smiled at both of them. “Me, too. Now how about some sleep, okay?”
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