Even in the shadowy light, Cal could see Chaney’s disbelieving expression. “Just like that? You bought a whole danged farm just like that?”
“Just like that.” It hadn’t been quite that simple, of course, but pretty darned close. It had taken days of cutthroat negotiations, and even then his accountant had very nearly had apoplexy. If Joshua hadn’t been his closest friend, he’d have fired him. Instead he’d tolerated the nonstop arguments, then ignored them. Joshua still refused to set foot on the farm, preferring to mutter his comments about follies and muleheadedness via long-distance.
The ability to make decisions that seemed whimsical and impractical to others was one of the few real pleasures his wealth gave him. Maybe too much thinking would have made him overly cautious, would have kept him from the riskier ventures, which were often the ones that proved to be the most exciting challenges. He wasn’t much into introspection, but one thing he knew about himself: he did dearly love a challenge. Once the challenge faded, he knew it was time to move on.
Chaney rocked, staring thoughtfully toward the horizon. Cal waited, rocking rhythmically beside him and wondering why he’d never realized before that endless peace and quiet didn’t necessarily equate with boredom. If he’d had to analyze the way he felt right now, he would have said he was contented. It surprised him. Contentment wasn’t a state of mind with which he was all that familiar.
“A man like you, impulsive and all,” Chaney began, giving him a curious, sideways glance. “You must get yourself into a hell of a mess with women.”
Cal chuckled at the understatement. Whole gossip columns from Dallas to New York had been devoted to that subject. “I’ve been known to, my friend. I’ve been known to.” There wasn’t a whit of regret in his tone, though sometimes in the darkest hours of the night he had a few.
The old man’s gaze narrowed, and the rocking chair creaked to a stop. “You ain’t gonna have some woman coming chasing after you here, are you? Not that it’s any of my business, of course, but I’m not crazy about working at a place where some woman’s fussin’ and changin’ everything. Old man Courtney and I, we did okay here the last few years. Can’t say I was happy about the way he let business slide after his wife died, but we settled into our routine. I kinda got used to the way things were with just us menfolk around, you know what I mean?”
“I know, and that’s definitely not something you need to worry about,” Cal promised, thinking of just how good he was getting to be at severing ties. He was thirty-seven now, and he’d had twenty years of practice. There was no one looking for him and, sadly he supposed, no one he regretted leaving behind.
“When I move on,” he assured Chaney, “I never leave a forwarding address. Keeps life a whole lot less complicated.”
Chapter Two
It took Marilou Stockton exactly three days, four hours and twenty-seven minutes to trace Cal Rivers to the newly named and recently renovated Silver River Stables in Ocala. She would have found him sooner if she hadn’t taken time out between phone calls to sit on the sand under a palm tree for the first two days of her month-long Florida vacation. Those few hours in the sun had slowed her investigation down, but they’d definitely been worth it.
For the first time ever, her fair skin was developing a nice golden glow and, best of all, she could breathe again. She actually felt healthy instead of waterlogged, which meant it was time to take care of business. Once that was done, she could really get into some serious relaxing. The anticipation of day after leisurely day under these clear tropical skies made her hurry.
She gulped down her large glass of fresh-squeezed Florida orange juice and toast, sacrificing her lazy walk on the beach in favor of studying her maps and the directions she’d been given by Cal Rivers’ Palm Lane mail carrier. The carrier had turned out to be a woman in her twenties with a long memory and a talkative nature. She’d revealed that there’d been no forwarding address. Instead the mail was initially picked up weekly from the post office by a Mr. Joshua Ames, who’d had some sort of power of attorney. The mail had long since stopped coming, though, and so had this Mr. Ames.
“Too bad, too,” Priscilla reported to Marilou. “He was a real hunk.”
Since she didn’t go to see him, Marilou couldn’t attest to the man’s physical attributes, but she could swear that he was about as talkative as one of those monks who’d taken a vow of silence. The instant she’d mentioned Cal Rivers on the phone, he’d clammed right up. She wondered what a man had to pay for that kind of loyalty. The only thing she’d managed to extract was an unwitting admission that Cal Rivers was still in Florida.
Which meant that he probably had a Florida driver’s license.
Which meant that with a little resourcefulness—Priscilla had an old boyfriend who was a cop—Marilou was able to get his new address from the Division of Motor Vehicles. Once she had that, Priscilla had been more than happy to help her figure out the best route to take to Ocala.
By 9:00 a.m. on the fourth day of her vacation, with a renewed spirit of optimism, she was in her rental car and headed for Ocala. She figured it would take her three hours, four at the most, to actually meet Cal Rivers, senior face-to-face, hand over the letter for Cal Rivers, junior and be on her way back to the beach.
For the most part her calculations were accurate. The drive took exactly two and a half hours through terrain that changed from sand and palm trees to fields of green shaded by moss-draped oaks. She was so caught up in the dramatic shift from beach resort clutter to open spaces and Southern-style architecture that she missed the entrance to Silver River Stables and wound up going several fascinating miles out of her way. By the time she figured it out, she’d wasted nearly half an hour. In retrospect, she realized it was probably an omen.
Armed with more precise directions from a chatty gas station attendant, she finally found the discreetly marked gate. As she drove through, she noted wryly that the postal box was crammed so full of junk mail it was spilling onto the ground. Apparently this Mr. Cal Rivers had a thing about the mail. She ought to cart the whole batch up to him and dump it in his lap.
Then, again, that mail wasn’t her worry. The letter in her purse was the only one she was here to deliver, and the sooner she did that and got on with the rest of her vacation, the better she’d like it. If she hurried, she could still be back under that palm tree with a piña colada by midafternoon. With any luck, there was still time for an adventure or two before she went back to her humdrum life in Atlanta.
Marilou parked her car in the vast shade of a sprawling live oak. As she walked toward the house, she noted the fresh coat of paint, the geranium-red trim and the sweeping veranda with a couple of well-used rockers facing west. There was something comfortable and cared-for about the house that reassured her about Cal Rivers, until she spotted the row of empty beer bottles lined up along the railing. She hadn’t considered the possibility that the man might be an old drunk, an itinerant drifting from town to town only one step ahead of the law. Maybe that was why he’d vanished from Palm Lane and taken such care to cover his tracks. Her hand poised to knock, she hesitated for an instant, her gaze fastened on those bottles.
“Lady, this here’s private property,” growled a voice as rusty as an unoiled gate hinge. Marilou whirled around and found an old man dressed in dusty jeans and a well-worn, Western-style shirt. He regarded her suspiciously. “Whatever you’re selling we don’t want any.”
“I’m not selling anything. I’m looking for a Mr. Cal Rivers and his little boy.” She smiled. He kept right on glaring.
“Ain’t no little boys around here.”
“What about Mr. Rivers? Is that you?”
“Nope.”
“Is he here?”
His gaze narrowed. “What do you want with him?”
She could be every bit as discreet as Joshua Ames. She said primly, “My business with Mr. Rivers is personal.”
The man’s scowl deepened, carving ruts in his weathered complexion. Finally
he muttered something about knowing it was too good to be true, shoved a battered cap back on his head and stomped off, stirring up a trail of dust. She had no idea if he was going to get Cal Rivers or simply abandoning her here. Just as she was about to go off after him, she heard his voice again.
“I’m telling you I don’t know what she wants, boss. She wouldn’t tell me a danged thing. Said it was personal.” He mimicked her tone in a way that said he knew all too well that the word meant trouble.
“Okay, Chaney, I’ll take care of it,” a responding voice soothed. This voice, Marilou noted with a prompt and unexpected quickening of her pulse, was low and lazy and midnight seductive. This voice promised adventure and danger in spades. She instinctively grabbed the porch rail and held on.
The man who rounded the corner of the house suited that voice. He was tall and lean, the kind of man who wore jeans and faded plaid shirts and made them look more fashionable than Armani suits. His boots, however, appeared to be every bit as new as the paint on the house. The incongruity intrigued her. She studied him more closely, trying her best not to stare with her mouth agape. The man was gorgeous, especially to someone to whom the dark, brooding type appealed.
There was a faint hint of Indian ancestry in his coal-black hair and angled features, but it had been tempered along the way. His eyes were a startling, clear blue, and right now they were as cool and distant as a mountain lake hidden amidst pine shadows. He would make a fascinating subject, she thought at once, longing for her camera.
“I understand you’re looking for me,” he said, stopping several yards shy of the porch steps. His expression was wary, his stance forbidding. A less determined woman than Marilou would have taken the hint and scooted right back down the steps and out of his life. Marilou squared her shoulders and smiled, relieved when his features softened ever so slightly. However slight, it was an improvement over the old man’s wary antagonism.
“If you’re Mr. Cal Rivers, I am,” she said.
He nodded, but said nothing to invite further conversation. Southern hospitality, she thought, must stop at the Georgia border. Still, she plunged on.
“Do you have a son?”
“Nope.”
The single word, confirming what she’d already been told, left absolutely no room for doubt. She supposed he certainly ought to know, but it took her aback. “Oh,” she murmured, trying to readjust her thinking.
He grinned at her sudden confusion. “Am I supposed to?”
“Well, yes,” she said, a little awed by the transformation of his harsh features that went with that slow, lazy grin. The devil in that smile could lure a saint to sin. With her inexperience, she’d be no match for it at all. Still, it would be a challenge to capture those quicksilver changes of mood on film. “At least, I thought you would have a son. Maybe the letter’s meant for you instead.”
“What letter?”
There was more wariness than curiosity behind the question, which made her increasingly nervous. She hadn’t expected to feel as if she had to prove something, when she was just out to do a good deed. “The one I found,” she began determinedly. “I work for the post office, you see. The dead letter office in Atlanta, actually. Well, it’s a long story and—”
Suddenly her voice seemed to dry right up under his intense scrutiny. The full force of all that masculine attention was something new and decidedly disconcerting. She found herself rambling, despite her parched throat. “I’m very thirsty. The drive was longer than I expected and I didn’t want to take the time to stop. Then I got lost. Do you suppose I could have a glass of water or something before I tell you the rest?”
“Chaney,” Cal said curtly. The little man who’d been hovering in the background stomped off toward the back of the house. He was muttering under his breath again.
“He doesn’t seem to like visitors,” she observed.
“Chaney is highly suspicious of women who have personal business with me. He figures it’ll disrupt the routine around here. Judging from the last few minutes, I’d say he’s very astute.”
Marilou recognized a criticism when she heard it, but if he’d intended to chase her off with his sharp tongue and cool manner it was just too bad. When she didn’t budge, he said grudgingly, “I suppose you might as well sit until Chaney gets back. You look as if you’ve spent too much time in the sun.”
So much for her tan, she thought ruefully.
Taking his grudging offer at face value, Marilou chose the rocker that was farthest from the beer bottles. His gaze followed her, but he didn’t say a word. The silence, coupled with the thoroughness of his scrutiny, was definitely unnerving. Men didn’t usually look at her like that, as if she were mysterious and fascinating and dangerous. She supposed it made sense in this instance. After all, she had popped up here out of the blue and she still hadn’t explained why she’d come. No wonder the man was staring. It probably wasn’t a bit personal. That realization didn’t stop the fluttering of her pulse, though. With his gaze steady on her, it felt personal. When Chaney came back with a tall glass of ice-cold lemonade, she clung to it, taking a deep swallow. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for adventure after all, not if it involved blatantly masculine men like Cal Rivers.
“As I was saying,” she began, rushing now, wanting this over with. “The other day I got this letter. It had been sent to the wrong address. Palm Tree Lane instead of Palm Lane. I suppose it was a simple enough mistake to make. I still think the mail carrier should have been able to figure it out, but Priscilla says it must have come through on her day off.”
“Priscilla?”
“Your old mail carrier. Anyway, the letter wound up in Atlanta, because there wasn’t any return address, either. That’s what happens when a letter goes astray. It comes to me, or actually to my branch. I guess I should have thrown it out, but I just couldn’t. She sounded so pitiful, you see. I…”
“Slow down,” Cal advised, unexpected amusement again lurking in the depths of his eyes. “This isn’t an emergency.”
“But it could be,” she insisted. “I mean the letter says she’s dying.”
Cal looked startled. Even Chaney seemed taken aback by her announcement. “Who’s dying?” Cal demanded. “What the devil are you talking about, woman?”
“I’m sorry. I should have said right away. It’s your grandmother.”
The words had an incredible effect. His expression, which had been gently tolerant only an instant before, froze into icy disdain. “You have the wrong person,” he said, turning his back on her. The muscles across his shoulders tensed visibly.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said stubbornly, ignoring his reaction. “You did live on Palm Lane, didn’t you?”
When he didn’t answer, she got up and moved until she was standing in his line of vision again. “Didn’t you?” she demanded, catching the brief flash of confusion in his eyes before he shut off any evidence of emotion again.
“Yes,” he said finally.
“Then, see,” she coaxed reasonably, “it has to be you.”
“I’m telling you that I am not the man you’re looking for.”
Marilou lost patience with him. How could anyone be so stubborn and ornery in the face of the evidence? “I don’t know how you can say that, unless you figure that there was another Cal Rivers living in that very house.”
“Lady, I do not have a grandmother.” His voice rose to a defiant roar that carried on the still air.
“Of course you do,” she said impatiently. “Everyone has grandparents.”
“Mine are dead,” he declared with absolutely no emotion. “Gone. I’ve never met any of them.”
“But that’s just it,” she said excitedly. “Something happened a long time ago. I don’t know what exactly, but she’s sorry. Maybe everyone thought it would be better if you just thought she was dead. At any rate, she really wants to make it up to you, and she’s dying. If you don’t hurry, it might be too late.”
“I’m very sorry that this lady
, whoever she is, is dying, but it has nothing to do with me.”
Sensing that she was losing, and desperate not to, Marilou took a few steps forward until she was practically toe-to-toe with him. He looked miserable and uncomfortable, but he didn’t back up when she told him, “It has everything to do with you. Please, you have to see that.”
Cal tried to stare her down, and when that didn’t work, he demanded, “What is this woman’s name?”
“I…I don’t know. It wasn’t on the letter.”
“Then how can you possibly be so certain she’s a relative of mine? Do you think you know more about my family than I do?”
“No, but the letter was addressed to you.”
“Where does this woman live?”
“In Wyoming. I don’t know exactly where. It was postmarked Cheyenne, but it could have come from anywhere around there, I suppose. Mail from a lot of small towns winds up being postmarked from the nearest big city. There wasn’t any street address. That’s why I couldn’t send the letter back to her.”
Even though his anger was daunting, Marilou was watching his face closely. She saw the faint flicker of recognition, when she’d mentioned Wyoming. “I’m right, aren’t I? You did have relatives in Wyoming, didn’t you?”
He gazed off in the distance. “A long time ago, maybe. I don’t know,” he said, his tone distracted. Then his expression turned fierce again. “I think you’d better leave.”
This wasn’t going at all the way she’d anticipated. She felt tears beginning to well up in her eyes and realized she was going to make an even bigger fool of herself by crying. “I can’t,” she replied softly. “I have to see this through.”
“You have seen it through,” he countered impatiently. “You’ve done your job. I’m sure the post office will give you your bonus or whatever.”
Marilou was thoroughly insulted that he thought that’s what this was all about. “The post office doesn’t even know I’m here. If they did, they’d probably fire me.”
My Dearest Cal Page 2