Marilou flushed, but remained silent, obviously intent on doing her part to make sure this reunion ran smoothly. His grandmother was staring hard at him. “You’d probably rather have a drink,” she said, “but I don’t keep the stuff, not after the way your grandfather drank himself into an early grave.”
“I thought you said you’d driven him away.”
“There’s more than one way for a man to run. He hid in a bottle. Maybe he figured that way he’d make life hell for both of us.”
Though regret flashed briefly in her eyes, her tone was all self-righteous indignation and harsh judgment. He wondered fleetingly if she’d always been this hard, this uncompromising.
“Tea will be fine,” he said at last, unable to take his eyes off the woman who reminded him so much of his mother. Unwanted memories were flooding back, along with all of the pain. Right this instant he resented the hell out of Marilou for having forced him to come, and he hated his grandmother and all she stood for.
“What’re you staring at, boy?” she demanded, when Elena had retreated. “Were you expecting to find me with one foot in my grave?”
“Your letter did say you were dying,” he retorted calmly, unwilling to admit the direction in which his thoughts had actually strayed.
“We all do.”
Instantly suspicious, he felt Marilou stiffen beside him as well. “But you’re not ill?” he said, his glance toward Marilou meant to convey I-told-you-so.
His grandmother thumped her cane impatiently. “Of course I’m ill. I’m eighty years old. I’m tired. I can’t keep up with things the way I used to. My bones ache from autumn right through spring. The doctor says my heart’s failing. The old fool. What else would it be doing at my age?” Her gaze narrowed. “Is that why you’re here? Did you come to pay your last respects? Don’t expect to dance on my grave too soon.”
Cal realized then that despite his natural caution, he had been touched by Marilou’s eternal optimism. In some secret part of himself he had dared to harbor one scant hope for a real relationship. It withered irrevocably under her cutting tone and the admission that she’d deliberately tricked him into coming. Stunned to discover how much it hurt, he got to his feet and grabbed his coat. “We’re out of here. This was a mistake. Come on, Marilou.”
“No,” she said softly, her gaze fastened on his grandmother.
He stood where he was and regarded her incredulously. “What is wrong with you? You can see for
yourself that the letter was some damned ruse to drag me here. This isn’t Little House on the Prairie, dammit. Not every family melodrama has a happy ending. Can’t you see that yet?”
He glowered at his grandmother, who sat rigidly, listening to his tirade with no hint of emotion. Her apparent indifference kept him going. “She’s just a scheming old woman who’s used to getting her way, and we’ve played straight into her hands.”
Marilou shook her head. “That’s not the way it is, is it?” she said pointedly to his grandmother.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, girl,” the old woman said, but her shoulders suddenly weren’t quite as stiff as they had been, and her tone lacked starch. Cal saw that her gnarled hands were knotted together tensely in her lap.
Marilou shook her head impatiently. “You two! I have never met two people more obviously cut from the same cloth. You’re both stubborn as mules. Can’t either one of you just admit that you need each other?”
“What makes you think that?” his grandmother demanded. “I’ve gotten along for all these years…”
“So have I,” Cal insisted.
“Terrific,” Marilou said, obviously beginning to warm up to the fight. Her words dripped sarcasm. “You’ve gotten along. Is that enough?” She turned to his grandmother. “If so, why did you write that letter?”
“I needed to get some things off my chest. That’s all.”
“You wanted him to come,” Marilou contradicted.
“No, she expected me to come,” Cal muttered in disgust. “There’s a difference.”
“I’ve learned not to expect anything,” his grandmother retorted, glaring at him. “Not from family.”
“Ditto.” Cal scowled right back at her.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Marilou said. “I am going into the kitchen to help Elena with the tea. When I come back, I expect you two to be behaving like civilized adults instead of a couple of spoiled brats.”
When she’d stalked out of the room, Cal felt suddenly bereft. Though she seemed to take some perverse pleasure in needling him, Marilou had at least served as a buffer. Now he was left with his grandmother all alone. He would have preferred facing something easy, like a firing squad.
She simply sat there waiting, dressed all in black as if she were all ready for a funeral. He wondered how many years she’d worn the drab mourning outfits. Had it begun when his grandfather died? Had she settled permanently into the role of bereaved widow out of some sense of guilt, guilt which had only been compounded when his mother ran off? He was still trying to figure out what made her tick, when he realized she’d spoken.
“What?”
“She’s an outspoken little thing, isn’t she?” his grandmother said with grudging admiration. “Where’d you find her?”
“Actually she found me. Your letter went astray. She saw that I got it.”
“I suppose I ought to thank her, then.”
“Frankly I’d prefer to strangle her.”
“You sleeping with her?”
He flushed angrily and began to pace. “That’s none of your business, old woman.”
“It is if you’re going to be staying under my roof. There is certain behavior I don’t tolerate. I don’t care how old-fashioned that makes me.”
“Who the hell said anything about staying here?”
“Well, where else would you stay?”
“We have a room in Cheyenne.”
“That’s too far away.”
“So, you’re actually admitting that you wanted me here,” he said, managing a wry grin.
She waved a bejeweled hand dismissively. “Oh, for pity’s sake, of course I did.”
“Then why couldn’t you just say that?”
“For the same reason you didn’t want to come, I expect. For all that we’re family, we don’t know each other. I find it difficult enough to trust folks I do know.”
“Same here,” he admitted reluctantly.
Piercing eyes regarded him intently. “You planning on sticking around long enough for us to get to know each other?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Everything in me tells me to take off.”
“Whitfields are not cowards.”
“My name is Rivers, grandmother. Have you conveniently forgotten my father?”
“You’re still a Whitfield, through and through. You might move on a bit too readily, but you’ve got gumption that your daddy never had.”
“How the hell would you know that? You said in your letter you ran him off before you ever had a chance to know him.”
“He chose to go, and he talked your mother into running with him. A real man would have stayed right here and proved me wrong.”
“A real man would never have let you dominate him, and I doubt you’d have tolerated that for very long. You’re a bully, Grandmother. I’ve known you less than an hour and I can see that.”
“Because you know all about bullying and getting your own way. I’d say we’re evenly matched. You have to admit that makes the prospect of sticking around into an almost irresistible challenge for a man like you.”
Cal suddenly caught the glint of amusement in her eyes and found yet more of the tension sliding away. He chuckled. “I do like a challenge,” he admitted.
His grandmother nodded toward the kitchen. “That one’s a challenge, too, isn’t she?”
“You could say that,” he admitted ruefully.
It would have been wrong to describe the sound she made as flat-out laughter,
but it was probably the closest the sour old thing had come in years. “Then I’d say you have your hands full, boy. You can’t let a couple of women get the best of you now, can you?”
He laughed at that. “No, I don’t suppose I can.”
“Good. You’ll take the room at the end of the hall. She can have the one next to me.”
“Then you’d damn well better be a heavy sleeper,” he taunted.
“We’ll just see about that. Now go on in the kitchen and drink your tea, then go get your things. I’ll see you at dinner.” She struggled to her feet. “I think I’d better have a nap now.”
For the first time he detected a slight unsteadiness before she determinedly straightened her back and marched off, leaving him to ponder how she’d managed to shanghai him into doing exactly what she’d wanted him to do. He wondered how Marilou was going to react to the news that they were moving in.
Why wonder, he thought disgustedly, he knew exactly how she was going to react. Even as furious as she was with him, he could have staked money that she’d be thrilled by this outcome. When it came to family, she was entirely predictable.
“Why aren’t you in there with your grandmother?” she demanded when he ventured into the cozy kitchen that was filled with the scent of apple pie and cinnamon. She and Elena were sitting at the table contentedly sipping tea and eating thick, fudgy brownies.
“I can see that you were in a real rush to get back to us,” he observed, pouring himself a cup of tea and grabbing one of the brownies.
“The señorita and I, we agree you need time to get reacquainted,” Elena said.
“Believe me, we already know everything we need to know about each other,” he said. “She’s an aggressive, manipulative, calculating woman.”
Marilou shook her head. “Interesting how you choose to use those words to denigrate her, when you’d find them essential in a business opponent.”
“I came here looking for a grandmother, not a tycoon.”
“Sounds sexist to me,” Marilou said.
“Okay, okay, we’re all agreed that this is going to be a fair fight among equals. Notice,” he said, dropping an impulsive kiss on her cheek, “that I included you among the combatants.”
“Not me. I’m just an innocent bystander.”
“Not anymore. If I’m moving in here, you’re coming along, which puts you smack in the middle of the fray.”
Marilou nearly choked at that. “We’re moving here?”
“Under this very roof, though with a very discreet distance from your bedroom to mine.”
He watched for some sign of disappointment but she simply stilled, and that flash of pain he’d put in her eyes last night returned to haunt him. He glanced sideways at Elena, who had busied herself at the stove, then finally shrugged. This was not the time to have a discussion about last night.
“I think maybe this is a bad idea,” Marilou said finally.
He stared at her. “What are you talking about? I thought this was exactly what you wanted.”
“For you and your grandmother, yes. I don’t belong here now. I should go back to Atlanta.”
“Absolutely not,” he said, immediately resorting to blackmail to get her to stay. “If you go, I go.”
“Cal,” she protested.
“No. That’s it. We stay together or we go together. I’m only doing this for you.”
“Dammit, Cal, I don’t want you to do this for me. This is your life, your family.”
“Right now, you are a part of that life.”
“Right now,” she repeated wistfully, staring determinedly into her cup. He wondered if she was aware of the salty tears that splashed into the tea.
Damn, why couldn’t he give her more than that? She was a woman who deserved happily-ever-afters, if anyone did. He should let her go so that she could find them. Instead, though, he knew that he’d never make it through the next couple of days without her there to badger him on.
“Please stay,” he said finally.
She gazed up at him then, her expression as close to helpless as he was ever likely to see it. It wrenched his heart to see her torn in two like that and to know that he was responsible. “I’ll stay,” she said finally.
In that instant Cal realized that he was, in fact, every bit as manipulative as his grandmother. Of all the damned things to inherit.
Chapter Twelve
Settling into the McDonald ranch life was a mixed blessing for Marilou. Though she loved watching the nonstop sparring between Cal and his grandmother, for the most part she had absolutely nothing to do. Though Cal invited her along when he toured the place with the old woman, Marilou always made her excuses and declined. She was determined that the two of them get to know each other without her around as the buffer Cal intended her to be. She offered to help Elena, but the energetic housekeeper flatly refused.
“You are a houseguest, señorita. It would not be right,” Elena said. “There are books in the library, if you wish to read. Or you could ride. One of the men would be glad to saddle a horse for you.”
“Maybe I’ll just go for a walk,” she said finally, grabbing a bright red jacket to ward off the bone-chilling wind that felt very little like spring.
Despite the brisk breeze, the sky was clear, and wildflowers were beginning to bloom. In no time at all, her lonely, depressed mood began to lift. After more than an hour of wandering, she came to an old tree that had apparently been toppled by lightning and never cleared. Drawing her jacket more snugly around her, she climbed onto the weathered tree trunk and stared at the sparse, magnificent scenery, thinking about how much had happened to her in the month since she had made the impulsive decision to go after Cal.
She’d been to places she’d only dreamed about, experienced things she’d only read about and, most amazing of all, she had fallen deeply, irrevocably, head over heels in love. Unfortunately the man happened to be a pigheaded idiot who was clinging to his self-imposed emotional isolation with the tenacity of a pit bull. Sooner or later she was going to have to accept the fact that while Cal might come to love her, he might very well never trust her…or any woman, for that matter.
As if she’d conjured him, he suddenly slid his arms around her waist from behind. He smelled of wood smoke and fresh air with the faintest hint of the after-shave he’d used hours earlier. He nuzzled the back of her neck, sending warmth catapulting through her.
“You look far too serious for such a beautiful day,” he accused gently. “What were you thinking about?”
“Oh, cabbages and kings.”
“Hmm, must have been me.”
She turned and grinned at him, rubbing her hand against his cheek. “Which are you, a cabbage or a king?”
“That’s probably a matter of opinion. Want to come for a ride with me? It’ll dust the cobwebs from your mind.”
She shook her head.
“How come?”
“I don’t ride,” she admitted reluctantly.
Cal stared at her, clearly astonished. “But you spent all that time around the horses in Florida.”
“Around them, not on them. Do you think Chaney was about to let me on one of your precious Thoroughbreds?”
“We have stable ponies, too. All you had to do was ask.”
“I guess the right time just never presented itself.” He reached for her hand. “Then that’s about to change. Let’s go, sweetheart.”
“Cal,” she protested weakly, though her pulse had already kicked in with excitement at the prospect of one more adventure. Life with Cal would always…
Life with Cal couldn’t be, she reminded herself sternly. There was only now, these next few days, and the adventure would be over for her. Maybe, though, when she got home and she would get out her camera equipment again. Maybe she would try to pick up where she had left off. The prospect gave her something to look forward to besides the loneliness.
“Let’s go,” she said, jumping to the ground. “I’ll race you back to the barn.”
“Have you forgiven me?” he said, his eyes riveted to hers.
“For what?”
“For hurting you the other night?”
“You were honest with me, Cal. It’s always better to know the truth, even if you don’t like it.”
“I wish…”
Her heart in her throat and tears threatening, she pressed a finger against his lips. “Shh. No matter what happens, I will always remember this time in my life. You’ve made these weeks special for me.”
“You are an incredible woman, Marilou Stockton.”
She wasn’t sure she could bear to hear another word. “And you are a man who promised to teach me to ride. Are you welshing on that promise?”
“Never.”
“Then show me how to get on one of these beasts. Who knows, maybe I’ll decide I want to become a jockey.”
“Sweetheart, as much as I adore your cute little figure, as perfect as I think you are, you are about five inches too tall and ten pounds too heavy to be a jockey.”
She frowned. “That is a problem. I could probably lose the weight, but there’s not much I can do about the height. I guess I’ll just have to settle for riding the range or something.”
“First, let’s just see how you do riding around this paddock.”
“Is that a note of skepticism I hear?”
He laughed. “You won’t catch me with that. No comment.”
“Wise man.”
Though it would have taken torture to pry the admission out of her, Marilou had to concede that Cal had been fairly close to the mark in analyzing her skill. She hurt in places that no lady ever discussed. For once, since the visit to Mrs. McDonald began, she was very glad that she and Cal had been banished to separate bedrooms. She would have hated like crazy to moan with pain the minute he tried to touch her. Not that he remained entirely aloof, but fortunately her lips seemed to be one of the few places not battered and bruised by this latest adventure. And Cal was a very inventive kisser.
My Dearest Cal Page 14