Wyoming Legend

by Diana Palmer

  “Maybe he’s right.”

  “Do you need another wet cloth?” Janey asked.

  “That would be very nice, if you don’t mind. I’m still sick to my stomach.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  The little girl jumped up and went into Karina’s bathroom. She came back with a wet washcloth. She folded it and put it over Karina’s forehead. She frowned. “You’ve got a fever, I think.”

  “I think so, too. Janey, you shouldn’t be in here, you might catch it,” she said worriedly.

  Janey sat down beside her on the bed. “I never catch anything,” she said brightly. “Not even the flu.”

  “I wish I could say that.”

  “If it’s what Billy Joe had, you’ll be better in no time,” she replied. “His only lasted a day.”

  “I hope mine does,” Karina said. “We’ll miss skating at the rink tomorrow if I don’t bounce back.”

  “That’s all right,” Janey said firmly. “You get well first. Skating can wait.”

  Karina peered out from under the washcloth. “I know how much your lessons mean to you...”

  Janey looked sheepish. “Yes, well, you mean more,” she said, and flushed. “You’re my friend.”

  Karina fought tears. “You’re my friend, too,” she said softly.

  Janey bit her lip. “I wish it was you instead of Lindy,” she said miserably. “l don’t understand why Daddy wants to marry her. She’s just mean, all the time. She’s so hateful to him.”

  “Nobody understands love,” Karina said wisely.

  “Have you ever been in love?” the little girl asked.

  Karina laughed. “Not really. Unless it’s with skating. It’s been my whole life for a very long time.”

  “You and Paul are going to win the Olympics,” she said. “I just know it.”

  “We have to make the team first,” she replied. “There’s a lot of work between now and then.”

  “It’s mostly just practice, though, isn’t it?” Janey asked. “And the way you two skate together is beautiful. It’s like watching a fantasy movie.”

  “That’s very nice. Thank you.”

  “Mrs. Meyer is really good at coaching.”

  “She is. She was an Olympic coach for years and years.”

  “But she quit?”

  Karina nodded. “Her skaters didn’t like classical music and what they thought of as old-fashioned choreography. So they jumped ship and went with younger coaches who liked contemporary music and uninhibited moves.”

  Janey made a face. “I don’t like some of the new music. It’s noise.”

  “I totally agree,” Karina said. “I much prefer classical. But in the short program, everybody has to skate to a specific set of moves and corresponding music. It can be a real challenge.”

  “You don’t get to choose your own music?”

  “Well, for the free skate, we do. But the short program is geared to give everyone a flat playing field, so that everyone has to fit a routine into a certain style of music.” She laughed weakly. “It’s actually a lot of fun.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Chad thinks you’re doing great,” she added.

  Janey smiled. “He said he thinks I can pass my first test. I’m really excited. I love the dress Daddy got me for the competition.” She made a face. “Lindy said it looked awful and it was a waste of money.”

  “It looks beautiful and your father can certainly afford a skating outfit without going broke.”

  “Do you have one?” she asked. “A skating dress?”

  “I have the one I wore in...” She hesitated. She didn’t want to talk about the last Olympic Games, in which she and Paul had competed. “The one I wore in my last competition with Paul,” she amended smoothly. “But I want a new one for the next venue, so I’m having one made.”

  “Is it expensive, having one made?”

  “It is. But the dress sets the mood of the skating,” she replied. “My mother used to make all my costumes.” She smiled sadly. “She had such hopes for me. She’d have been at every event, cheering us on. She loved Paul. So did my dad.”

  “How did they...how did you lose them?” she asked.

  “They died in an airplane crash. Together.”

  Janey winced. “That would have been awful. I mean, losing both of them at once. At least I still have Daddy.”

  “Your father loves you. He’s a great parent,” Karina said with genuine feeling.

  “I think so, too. No matter how busy he is, if I’m in a program at school, he’s always in the audience. So is Burt.” She sighed. “Lindy never comes. She says it’s a waste of valuable time.” Her eyes twinkled. “So she stays here and watches those audience participation shows instead. Lame.”

  “I’m sure whatever you do at school is better than that,” Karina said. “I like history and science programs.”

  Janey brightened. “I like nature shows, you know, like about wolves and bears.” She caught her breath. “I still can’t believe you attacked a grizzly bear to save Dietrich,” she added, shaking her head. “Weren’t you scared it would charge at you?”

  “I was too worried about Dietrich to think of that. He was so sick.” She grimaced. “I’m so glad he’s okay.”

  “Me, too.”

  Karina frowned. “Where is he?”

  “Billy Joe took him home with him tonight, because he thought we’d all be away until late.”

  Karina sighed. “We would have been. I messed it all up.”

  “Not really. Lindy went home. That made me and Burt very happy,” she said mischievously.

  Karina laughed. “Bad girl.”

  “She’ll be back, though,” Janey said sadly. “She worms her way back into Daddy’s life, every time.” She shook her head. “Maybe men like women who treat them like animals. Do you think?”

  “I honestly don’t know that much about men,” Karina confessed.

  “You know about Paul.”

  “Well, yes, but I’ve known him since we were kids.”

  “He’s really nice.”

  “I think so, too...”

  * * *

  THE FRONT DOOR SLAMMED. Loudly. Janey got up from the bed just as her father knocked and then opened the door. He looked like ten miles of rough road. He was glowering.

  “Feeling better?” he asked Karina.

  “Yes, thanks, a little bit.”

  “You shouldn’t be in here. In case it’s contagious,” he reminded his daughter.

  “I’ve been nursing her,” Janey said. “Somebody needs to.”

  He drew in a breath. He appeared very out of sorts. “I guess so.” He noticed the orange juice. “Burt came out of hiding, did he?”

  “Lindy threw his favorite pot at him and dented it,” Janey said.

  He grimaced. “We’ll have burned eggs for a week. He’ll swear the dent is why he can’t fix them anymore.”

  “Eggs?” Karina asked.

  “His favorite pan is the one he uses to scramble eggs,” he explained. “It’s from France. I bought it for him last Christmas. I swear to God, I think he’d sleep with it if he thought nobody would notice.”

  She laughed. “My mother had a cast iron griddle that had been in our family for generations. She made homemade rolls and biscuits and scones. That’s what she used to bake them on. She swore than no other sort of cookware would produce the same results.”

  “Did she look like you?” he asked unexpectedly.

  “Yes. But her hair was paler than mine and she had blue eyes.”

  He cocked his head, smiling oddly. “Do you favor your dad at all?”

  She laughed. “Not really. He had dark hair and green eyes.”

  “I look like my daddy,” Janey said proudly, smiling at the tall man.

 
He grinned at her. “Yes, you do.”

  He pulled a pharmacy bag out of his pocket and put it on the bedside table. “Forgot to mention that I phoned Roger after we left his office and asked if you needed something for the nausea. He said this would do the trick. And he said to take Tylenol for the fever. Antibiotics don’t work on viruses unless there’s a secondary infection.”

  She laughed. “I did know that. This isn’t my first experience with a stomach virus. I’ve had them in cities all over America.” She sighed.

  “All over America?” he prompted.

  “When you compete in ice skating, you go where the venues are. Other skating clubs host various competitions called sectionals. Then there’s a competition for the eastern and western divisions, then there’s Nationals. If you score high at Nationals, you get a shot at the Olympic team.”

  He stared at her. “That what you and your partner are aiming at?” he asked, and he was seeing doors closing. If she planned to compete, it would mean a lot of travel.

  Karina stared at him and felt a pang of misery. “Well, yes,” she confessed reluctantly.

  “You can’t work here and travel all over the country competing,” he pointed out.

  Janey wore a look of sudden anguish. The thought had just occurred to her, too.

  Karina bit her lip. Suddenly her Olympic dreams were being overwhelmed by the family she’d never had. Janey and Micah had become that family, without her even realizing it until now, right now.

  He drew in a breath. “How long?” he asked.

  “Excuse me?”

  “How long before the first competition?”

  She wasn’t sure. Since she and Paul had placed so high at the last world competition, the national figure skating authority might waive some of the competitions and let them compete at Nationals. The next Nationals would be just before the Olympics, and that competition would determine if she and Paul could get a slot in the pairs figure skating roster. But Paul had wanted them to compete at Grenoble and Lake Placid. That would be sooner than she liked.

  “We have two international competitions that we want to enter,” she said after a minute. “Nationals aren’t until next January. It will mean a lot of practice. A lot. I’ve been off the ice for months, and I’m having to relearn all the moves I used to do without even thinking about them.”

  He relaxed a little. So there was time. Time for what, he wondered suddenly. He was engaged. Lindy was a royal pain. Karina was too young for him. She worked for him. Janey loved her. She was nurturing, gentle, sweet. There was that young partner who was buff and handsome. He blinked. His own thoughts were strangling him.

  “Well, it’s nothing we have to talk about tonight,” he said finally. “I’ve got half a dozen calls to return. Need anything else?”

  She picked up the little pharmacy bag. “No, but thank you. And thanks for the meds. I’ll pay you back.”

  “Patching up the hired help goes with the job description,” he teased, making light of it. It also reminded him that she was an employee. Not fair game.

  She felt those words painfully, but she smiled and pretended that she didn’t. “Okay.”

  He shrugged. “Get well. She’ll drive us both nuts if she’s away from that skating rink for very long,” he added, indicating Janey.

  “I know,” Karina laughed.

  “You. Out. Go watch a movie,” he told his daughter.

  “Awww, Daddy,” she protested, following him to the door.

  “You can’t get sick. School Monday.”

  She made a face.

  “Study tonight and if she can’t take you to the rink tomorrow, I’ll take you,” he volunteered.

  “You mean it?” she asked, excited.

  “You bet I do.”

  She hugged him hard. “Thanks, Daddy.”

  “Anything for my best girl,” he teased, kissing her dark hair. “Now, scat.”

  “Okay. Call me if you need me, Karina, okay?” she said.

  “I will. Thanks, sweetheart.”

  “Just yell. One of us will hear you,” Micah added. “Need more juice?”

  She shook her head and smiled. “This is still nice and cold. I love orange juice.”

  “Burt squeezes oranges to make that,” he said. “He doesn’t like premade juices, is how he puts it,” he chuckled. “Get some rest.”

  “I will.”

  He paused at the doorway and looked back at her. She was very pretty in that modest blue gown. She reminded him of a fairy princess he’d seen in a movie once. He ground his teeth together. She worked for him. He was engaged.

  He had to keep reminding himself of those two things. He went out and closed the door.

  * * *

  KARINA FINALLY MANAGED to drift off to sleep. But she was feverish and she fell back into the same old nightmare, the one that had dragged her out of a sound sleep not long ago. She saw her parents there, in the wreckage of the plane, torn and twisted, pale, dead...she screamed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SHE WAS TRYING to get up, to get help, but her leg was broken. She sobbed as she felt again the pain that had been agonizing. Her parents were surely dead. But if they weren’t, if there was still a chance...why couldn’t she get up?

  She moaned. Someone was calling her name. She felt hands pulling her up, hands on her shoulders, big warm hands. Comforting hands.

  “Wake up!”

  She gasped and opened her tear-filled eyes. Dark eyes looked back into her own, from a hard, dark face.

  “What happened?” Micah asked.

  She swallowed, took a breath and swallowed again. “I was there. In the snow. The plane crash.”

  “The one that killed your parents,” he guessed.

  “Yes.” She drew up her knees under the covers and leaned her forehead against them. “My leg was broken. Help didn’t come until late the next morning. I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t help them.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Good God,” he whispered reverently. “I didn’t realize you were there overnight with them.”

  “It was horrible,” she sobbed. “They were so pale. So still. Dad was still strapped into his seat. Mama was thrown out of it. She was twisted up in the wreckage. She looked...like a broken doll.”

  “My poor girl,” he said gently. He drew back the covers, picked her up and sat down with her on the edge of the bed. He held her tightly. “Let it out. You just need to let it out. I’m here. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

  She sobbed. It was new, having someone want to take care of her, even for just this little time. Paul had comforted her. So had Gerda. But it wasn’t like this. Micah was strong and tender, and the way he held her made her feel as if nothing in the world could ever threaten her again. She nestled close to him, her cheek against the soft material of his shirt, and let the tears fall.

  “When I crashed my own plane, and my wife died, there was nothing I could do to save her. I tried. God, how I tried,” he gritted. “The doctors said, after the autopsy, that there was fatal internal damage. Nothing I did would have helped. But I carried the guilt, that I survived and she didn’t. I know how it feels.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “I’m sorry for yours,” he replied softly. “The only consolation I had was that we didn’t take Janey with us. I love my daughter. I was fond of my wife, but the feelings I had for her didn’t last much longer than the honeymoon,” he added ruefully. “She wasn’t happy living on a ranch, and I couldn’t cost my workers their only means of support by selling up. She got even in the worst way. Boyfriend after boyfriend. I didn’t even care enough to be jealous.”

  “My parents were married for a long time,” she said. “They were happy together. Neither of them ever cheated on the other.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe it works out for some people. I had a
raging desire for Lindy. I thought, hoped, it would make up for some of her more unpleasant traits. Not sure it has.”

  The mention of Lindy made her uncomfortable. “Don’t you love her?” she asked.

  “What is love?” he scoffed. “An illusion. I’ll take cold hard facts any day over feelings.” He shifted her in his arms. “Have you ever been in love?”

  “Yes, with Roger Dantry when I was in fifth grade. He moved away and broke my heart. Since then, I’ve just loved skating,” she added with a tiny laugh.

  As the tears dried up, she started noticing things that had slipped past her senses. He smelled of expensive cologne and soap. He was wearing the same shirt and slacks he had on earlier. Hadn’t he been to bed at all?

  “What time is it?” she asked drowsily.

  “Three in the morning,” he said. He kissed the top of her head. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

  She laughed softly, involuntarily. He felt so good close to her. She loved the strength of his big body, the tenderness of his hands on her back, his lips in her hair.

  “Why are you still up?” she asked.

  “Lindy called,” he muttered. “Made me mad. So I worked instead of slept.”

  She let her head fall back into the curve of his arm. “You work too much,” she said, searching his dark eyes. There were equally dark circles under them. “You should turn your phone off at night and let people call you at a decent hour.”

  He smiled gently. “Should I, then?”

  She smiled. “You should.”

  He drew in a long breath. His eyes were appreciative on the pert rise of her breasts under the thick silk gown. She was enticing like that, with her pale hair long and waving around her pretty face. The gown was cut straight across at her collarbone, but the lacy insert revealed delicate contours, the color of the inside of a conch shell. He wondered how it would feel to hold her with that bodice lowered.

  She felt shivery at the way he was watching her. Involuntarily, her body reacted to his interest. She caught her breath and arched just slightly, on fire with needs that came on like a lightning strike, out of nowhere.

  “Yes,” he whispered, as if she’d actually spoken.