by Neva Brown
“Hindsight sees things a lot clearer than foresight, doesn’t it?”
“You’re right, but strong-willed people seem to always press the limits with those who love them,” she said. “Of course, loyalty and love override all else when difficult decisions have to be made. J.D. was a prime example.”
Mattie Lou smiled more to herself than to anyone else in particular. “I remember in our younger years, I’d get angry at J.D. and call him stubborn and bullheaded. He’d roar with laughter and give me a bear hug, saying, ‘Mattie Lou, girl, that’s the only way I can keep up with you’. Life was never dull with J.D.”
Leila, not one to let Jordan’s attention stray from her for long, said, “Are you saying you received your inheritance long before your father died?”
“In part, but a sizeable amount came to me at J.D.’s death, but none of it is ranch related. To be honest, the Running S, grand as it is, still makes me restless and uneasy. I’m ready to get on back to Dallas then on to Hawaii.”
“Jordan, what a terrible thing to say in front of your mother,” Leila said.
Jordan smiled at Mattie Lou. “No, Mother has always understood my feelings about the ranch. That’s why she visited me once or twice a year but never insisted I come back here. Tres and his mother spent lots of time here. She loved the western social life and Tres took to the whole ranch thing like a duck to water.”
Tres watched the impatient expression mar the smooth beauty of Leila’s face as she placed her cup in the saucer with a slight clatter. He suspected having her predecessor mentioned had not set well, confirming his belief that beautiful women did not like each other.
Mattie Lou’s soft voice relieved the tension. “Jordan had a different calling. We are who we are and shouldn’t have to justify ourselves. What I really want to hear about is the possibility of your buying a home in Hawaii. I’ve never been there.”
Tres excused himself with the pretense of pressing work and left to search for Casey. He found her, with Raider at her side, leaving the stables where a groom brushed the horse she had been riding.
Tres congratulated himself on getting Casey to let the stable hands take care of the horses rather than her using her energy to groom them after she finished riding. That, and getting her to move to the suite upstairs, made him feel good.
“Morning,” he said, then brushed Raider’s head with a light touch before placing his arm around Casey’s shoulders and falling in step with her. “How did the ride go?”
“My balance is better and I’m in sync with my mount like I used to be. But I guess I’ve lost the enthusiasm it takes to train and practice for perfection.”
“Does it worry you?”
She shrugged. “It’s a different feeling. I enjoy riding, but I have no interest in spending hours day after day perfecting a turn, a stop, a whirl, and all those kinds of things.”
His shoulder brushed her intentionally. “Maybe your psyche is telling you it’s time to do something different.” The resurgence of that easy companionship from long ago could not be denied, but it now held an undercurrent that stirred his blood and made him want more.
Her gentle laugh made him and Raider both look at her. “Here I am twenty-eight years old and trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.”
Raider gave a soft whine, licked Casey’s hand, and trotted off toward Dan’s house.
“Is Raider being antisocial, or is it me?”
Casey chuckled. “Neither. Dan told me his wife brought the runt of a litter in from the kennels to bottle since its mother wouldn’t let it nurse. Raider’s mothering instinct kicked in and she took it for her own. He said as soon as his wife finishes feeding the pup, Raider licks it clean, picks it up by the scruff of its neck, and takes it to her basket on the porch.”
Tres gave Casey a hug. “What about you? Have you ever had the mothering instinct kick in?”
“Horses and books have kept me pretty busy until now. Not much time for thinking about mothering. But I’d like to have kids someday, when conditions are right.”
“What kind of conditions?” He watched the color in her face heighten and wondered what she was thinking.
“Oh, a husband and a home, a few little things like that.” Casey hesitated, then said, “I got the feeling Jordan and Leila had speculated about Melanie’s son being yours. Are you a father?”
Silence hung like a cloud around them. A hard edge colored his words. “Not that I know of. I can’t believe Melanie would keep something like that from me, even if we did part on bad terms.”
Neither of them spoke as Tres opened the gate in the hedge for them to enter the manicured grounds around the Mansion. Taking her hand, he guided Casey toward the entrance door to the solarium. “But after what Leila and Jordan said, I called a private investigator to check it out.”
Chapter 16
The automatic mist equipment shrouded the plants in lazy, swirling clouds of dampness that engulfed Casey and Tres as they entered the solarium. In the lee of a giant fern, Tres encircled Casey’s shoulders with warm arms and drew her into a snug embrace. As the cocoon of mist protected them, she lifted her eyes, only to allow them to drift shut as his lips brushed hers lightly then settled with urgent need on her lips, which yielded and reciprocated a message of unspoken desire long denied.
The sound of voices penetrated her senses.
“Jordan, we should just leave today and go back to Dallas and find out if Melanie’s son is your grandchild before we go on to Hawaii.” Leila’s voice carried across the mist.
“I guess you’re right. I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind since we saw him. If he’s a Spencer, he needs to know about his heritage.”
“With Melanie being divorced now, she and Tres just might get back together,” Leila speculated. “She’s certainly much more suitable for him than that little nobody, Casey. Just because she earned a college degree doesn’t change the fact that she’s just hired help. Nothing more than a prostitute.” Leila all but hissed. “It’s pretty brazen them living in the same house with his grandmother. You’d think . . .”
Tres placed his hand over Casey’s ears as she backed away and looked at him with wounded eyes brimming with tears. With a husky voice clogged with tears, Casey whispered, “What have I done?”
Slipping out of his grasp with the ease of a wraith, she glided through the door they’d just entered. Tres did not try to stop her but fought the rage that churned inside him. Not raising his voice, he said, “The plane can be ready in half an hour to fly you to Dallas. One of the men can take the rented car to the international airport near Midland and return it to the rental company.”
A gasp of horror escaped Leila as she and Jordan watched Tres materialize out of the mist in the solarium.
With his chiseled features hard as granite and eyes dark with rage, he watched, not realizing that in Jordan’s eyes he had become J.D. Spencer, Sr. Silence filled the room as the mist began to clear and the bright West Texas sun made the plants glisten.
Seeing her husband watching his son as if hypnotized, Leila squared her shoulders. “I’m sorry if I said something wrong. Things just seem amiss to me.”
Tres looked at her with hard, threatening eyes and in a cold, even voice, said, “You can’t help who you are, but you might want to rethink your meddling in my affairs.” Then he turned his attention to Jordan. “The situation you were discussing is being looked into in such a way that nobody’s privacy will be violated. I’d advise you to go on to Hawaii and get on with your life. I’ll let you know if you have a grandson.”
Casey let the pickup roll to a halt when the cabin on the rim of Dark Canyon came into view. She stared, disconsolate. They had made the cabin into headquarters for the crews working on the investigation and clearing the canyon. She stared at the large mess tent erected on the other side of the big Juniper near the cabin. She saw men coming and going from the tent to the cabin while others returned to heavy equipment they operated. Tears still
blurred her vision as she watched the activity. The cabin was no longer her special refuge like it had been in her teen years.
She tried to gather her fractured thoughts. She felt like the scab had been ripped off the wound her parents had inflicted so long ago, when they’d callously said Tres was out of her reach and she’d look like a fool if she pursued him. Her heart and soul, raw and smarting, made her want to cry out with grief and pain. Even though she had become a master at coping with pain, this hurt assailed her senses and the weight of despair paralyzed her.
Time lost meaning for her as she lay her head down on the steering wheel and let the tears flow down her cheeks as the inner tears flooded her heart and soul. Finally, with emotions exhausted, the pragmatic part of her brain took over.
Move, do something, urged the survival instinct that had goaded her to succeed so often in past years. Coherent thoughts refused to come, but she put the pickup in gear and drove.
Casey parked in the back driveway at the Mansion and entered the kitchen. “Rosalinda, please tell Mattie Lou I need to be away for a while. I’ll send her a note in a few days.”
The housekeeper did not comment on Casey’s tear-stained face. “I’ll send Lara up to help you pack things you want to take.”
In less than an hour, Casey drove away with all her belongings, not packed, but crammed into the back seat of the pickup or in plastic bags thrown into the sleeper section of pickup bed. She felt an imperious need run and hide to lick her wounds.
The sun slid low in the west as Casey checked in at a hotel in San Angelo. Her greatest desire was to get into a room and seek oblivion in sleep, but when she went back to the pickup to get clothing, she stared in horror, and in anger, at the mess she had made.
Totally out of proportion to the situation, an unreasonable fury washed in waves through her mind as she got into the pickup and drove to the super center of a famous discount store. Newfound energy, born of the rage she felt, propelled her along. She wheeled two carts to the luggage and storage container aisles of the store. She selected items to organize the chaos inside the pickup. Back at her vehicle, she worked in the waning twilight and then by the lights in the parking lot to sort everything. Work clothing and boots went into plastic containers none too gently. But when she started on the fancy, expensive evening gowns and elegant daytime wear, she folded them with care and placed them inside the best pieces of luggage or hung them in garment bags. Anger began to subside and sadness threatened to take its place as she caressed the silky garments. Anger sizzled through her again when she saw the jumbled mess of books.
Casey Mason, you have a doctorate in psychology and know full well that you are a victim only if you allow yourself to be. You made a conscious decision to pursue Tres, knowing the odds were against you all the time. Now get on with your life and without someone else planning it for you every step of the way. Do you realize you have never even had a place of your own and you are twenty-eight years old? You are pathetic. Now that you have established what a mess you are, what do you plan to do about it?
Voices and laughter of some late-evening shoppers made Casey aware of what she must look like muttering to herself and sorting all kinds of stuff out in a dimly lit parking lot. Concentrating on the project at hand, she finally had an overnight bag packed to take into the hotel, valuable things stacked neatly inside the pickup with the ordinary articles in plastic containers in the sleeper section of the pickup.
Back in her hotel room, securely locked away from the world, Casey fell across the bed. Weariness overwhelmed her. The last thing she remembered thinking before waking up shivering cold was that she had to go see Mr. Jones, the man at the bank who managed all her financial affairs, first thing in the morning.
The red glowing numbers on the clock showed four A.M., but Casey was wide-awake. She decided to shower and wash her hair before tackling the decisions that had to be made. As hot water poured over her, she made a decision to go someplace where no one knew her and be alone until she could decide what direction to take in her life. She fought to keep anxiety and sadness at bay, but cried anyway. Sobs shook her body. Wrapped in a bath sheet, she dried her hair, brushing it into gleaming, layered waves. With tears finally stanched, she expertly applied makeup to hide the ravages of her emotional upheaval. Dressed in a silk turquoise pants suit accented with silver and turquoise handmade jewelry, she slipped her feet into Italian dress pumps and took one last look in the mirror before starting the first day of her new life. A life where she would be making all the decisions on her own.
In the hotel coffee shop, she ordered breakfast and picked up the morning paper. Turning to the classified ads, she located the out-of-town properties for lease. Country places in the surrounding areas, condos on the coast, and vacation homes in the mountains of Cloudcroft and Ruidoso filled a long column. She perused the possibilities as she ate, forcing the grief and sadness to the edges of her thoughts as she listed steps she had to make before starting a life on her own.
By the time she arrived at her banker’s office a little after nine o’clock, she had a skeleton of a plan. The silver-haired Clyde Jones had taken care of financial affairs for her since she’d started attending A&M. Now he handled the money she inherited from J.D. and money from the Jody Witten settlement, each of them small fortunes.
With the pleasantries out of the way, Casey cleared her throat, ready to take her first step toward independence. “I need to disappear for a time and get my life together without the help and advice of my well-meaning family and friends. Can you handle all my financial business and relay any necessary messages for me for a few months?”
“Yes, we do this often for people who need to be out of the country for an extended period of time,” Mr. Jones said. “What are your plans?”
“I would like for my name not to appear on anything that can be easily traced. So I need you to lease me an SUV and get the pickup I’m driving back to the Running S Ranch. Then I’d like for you to lease an isolated house for me near Ruidoso. Can you help me?”
“It can be easily managed. We can lease an SUV in the bank’s name and hire a driver to deliver the pickup to the Running S. We can set up a blind account for you to use with the bank we do business with in Ruidoso. We have worked with a reliable realtor in Ruidoso several times. I’ll call him. He can tell me what he has listed that might be suitable. When would you want to move in?”
The speed with which her life was changing jangled Casey’s nerves. “As soon as possible.” The desperate need to be alone and get her life back to some kind of normalcy overwhelmed her. With clasped hands and clenched teeth she struggled to stop the shaky feeling.
The banker made short work of calling Ralph Kelly and telling the realtor their needs. After listening a moment, he said, “Let me put you on speaker phone so you can talk to Ms. Mason also.”
“Ma’am, I’m Ralph Kelly with Kelly Realtors in Ruidoso. I just told Clyde about a client who’s looking for a house sitter while he’s out of the country on assignment. He’s a freelance writer with a nice place a few miles out of Alto. It’s located on the southern slope of a mountain. It might be too isolated for you. But it’s a sweet deal. We’ve helped him before and he gives free access to everything just so long as the sitter replaces what is used like food from the freezer, firewood, and that sort of thing.”
“Would he consider leasing it to me?” Casey asked.
“His tax man advised against leasing. But the last time he just closed the place and left for several months in the winter, he ended up with lots of damage. So he just wants the place occupied if we can find someone suitable. I just sent you some pictures of the place. They should all ready be there on your computer.” Clyde Jones hit a few keys on his computer and turned it so Casey could see the pictures the realtor had sent.
The hip-roofed house, clinging to the side of the mountain, with glass doors and windows looking out onto an upper and lower deck, beckoned to Casey. A dense stand of pine trees protected the s
tructure on three sides. The front yard was landscaped with a variety of small trees and scrubs that complemented the one huge Pine towering like a sentinel over a zigzagged driveway. As pictures of the interior appeared, she marveled at the two-way fireplace that opened into both the open living area and a spacious bedroom. The kitchen gleamed with appliances, but appeared homey with its natural oak cabinets and an antique oak table and chairs.
Casey nodded to Mr. Jones. “I like it. If you can get me transportation today, I can be there by mid-afternoon tomorrow.” A tinge of excitement started in the pit of her stomach, then spread throughout her. Hopefully the author would approve and she’d have her sanctuary.
As the sun disappeared behind the mountain the following day, Casey said goodbye to the energetic Ralph Kelly, closed the door to the author’s gorgeous retreat, and watched through the windows as the helpful realtor drove down the crooked driveway back to the main road. He’d insisted on coming out and showing her everything, helping bring in groceries and boxes from her SUV. He’d even built a fire in the fireplace to show her all the gadgets that made it work efficiently.
Silence, disturbed only by the crackle of the burning logs, filled the welcoming room. A sad peace engulfed Casey. In her heart she knew this place, high on the south slope of a mountain, was her haven. Here her heart and soul would heal. Life would go on. She had met the challenge and accomplished a goal. She scolded herself for having such a feeling of emptiness as the adrenaline seeped away. Sinking down onto the couch, Casey stared into the flames as weariness numbed her senses.
She slept.
In the graying dawn, she awoke. Sometime during the night she had pulled an afghan off the back of the couch and rolled up in it. The flames in the fireplace had turned to embers. Silence reigned. Looking out the windows, she stared in astonishment. Snow had blanketed everything during the night. She was alone in a world of white.