“Course it is,” Mia verified. “She wrote me a letter from the grave. She wrote one for all of us. Yours and Miss Cassie’s letters are in the house.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LUCKY WASN’T SURE how he got from the corral to the house. His feet were working just fine, but his mind was solely on what Mia had just told him.
The last time he had gotten a letter from Dixie Mae, she’d left Cassie and him temporary custody of the girls. Lucky hated to think the worst of someone who was dead, but he wasn’t exactly sure he wanted to read the letter that Della was holding up when he stepped into the house.
Cassie took her letter, not opening it but rather holding it to her chest. Lucky put his in his pocket. He’d read it, later, but he thought he first might like those Jameson shots that he’d been promising himself for days.
“Read mine! Read mine!” Mia insisted. She was bouncing up and down as if she were on a trampoline.
Mackenzie, however, was of a like mind as Lucky. She crammed hers in her pocket, too. Livvy had apparently already left, and there was a stash of bags in the entry. The cats were trying to get into them. Mackenzie gathered those up and went upstairs. Lucky would need to check on her soon, to make sure whatever was in that letter hadn’t upset her even more. Mackenzie certainly wasn’t smiling now.
Unlike Mia.
“Read mine!” she repeated. And Lucky hoped that joy would continue afterward. Of course, he couldn’t imagine even Dixie Mae squashing the joy of a four-year-old.
Since Lucky’s legs weren’t feeling too steady—probably from the bull ride—he went into the living room and sat down, with Mia scooting into the space right beside him. Cassie sat on the other side of her. Mia had already opened the envelope so he took it out and hoped for the best.
He unfolded the letter and saw the date. Dixie Mae had written it a week before she died. So not from beyond the grave after all. And it meant she’d given the letters to someone so they could be mailed. Bernie, probably.
“‘Dear Mia,’” Lucky read aloud. “‘I know you’re being a good girl for Lucky and Cassie, but they’ll still like you even if you mess up every now and then.’”
“Will you?” Mia asked. A two-word question coupled with a worried look that squeezed his heart.
“Of course,” Cassie said. Lucky echoed the same. It was something Lucky should have already figured out a way to tell Mia.
“‘You’re like Lucky’s twin brother in some ways,’” Lucky continued to read from the letter. “‘But being perfect all the time gets on people’s nerves and takes just as much of a toll on the body as messing up all the time. Understand?’”
Mia shook her head. It was well beyond her four years. But Lucky got it all right. It was the story of his life. The story of Logan’s, too.
“‘Just live your life, sweet girl,’” Lucky read on, “‘and keep making people smile. That’s your gift. Love, Dixie Mae.’”
Mia stayed quiet a moment. “She loves me?”
Considering that short letter had been filled with things that must have been confusing to a young child, it surprised Lucky that Mia picked up on that one thing.
Love.
Talk about him feeling another heart squeezing. Too bad Dixie Mae hadn’t told him about the girls sooner because it would have been nice to have seen her with them. It was obvious from this letter that Mia had given her some happiness in those last days of her life.
“Dixie Mae loved you,” Cassie assured her.
Mia smiled. “I loved her, too. She was sparkly.”
Yeah, she was. But since Dixie Mae had gotten so truthful with Mia, Lucky had to wonder what was in his letter.
And Mackenzie’s.
Hell, if Dixie Mae was going to hold up a mirror to Mackenzie’s face, Lucky didn’t want her alone when she read the letter. He stood to go to her room, but the front door opened before he even made it to the stairs.
Logan.
“Got a minute?” Logan asked, and he specifically looked at Lucky, which meant he had something that he wanted to discuss privately.
“I’ll go up to Mackenzie,” Cassie volunteered, and Mia and she went in that direction.
“Trouble?” Logan asked.
Lucky patted his pocket. “Dixie Mae sent the four of us letters.”
That put some extra concern on Logan’s face. “Trouble?” he repeated, no doubt remembering what’d happened the last time Dixie Mae had done something like this.
Lucky shook his head. “I think it’s just her way of saying goodbye.” Heck. He hoped so anyway.
“Do you think you’re too good sometimes to compensate for me being too bad?” Lucky asked.
Logan gave him a blank stare, and Lucky decided it was a good question to wave off. “You said you wanted to talk,” Lucky reminded him.
Logan nodded and seemed relieved about the wave-off. “The reporter Theo Kervin is in town.”
Lucky was certain he also had some concern on his face now. “Where?”
“Staying at the Bluebonnet Inn in the room next to Andrew. The clerk said now that she’s put a name to a face she’s pretty sure she saw him hanging around not long after Cassie arrived.”
Crap on a stick. Maybe Andrew wouldn’t let anything slip about Sweet Meadows. Lucky wasn’t at all convinced that Cassie would quit being a therapist, and having something like that on her “résumé” wouldn’t be good. Of course, Andrew had protected her by paying off Mason-Dixon and her mother so maybe the doc would make sure to protect her now by not spilling anything.
“Theo will talk to people,” Logan went on. “I can’t stop him from doing that, but I’ve put out the word that he’s looking to paint Cassie and maybe you in a bad light. That might cause folks to watch what they say.”
Or else it could make them chatterboxes. This was some of the shit that went with being a McCord. The money and power made some people want to take them down a notch.
“I’ve also told the hands to keep an eye out for Theo in case he tries to come here to the ranch,” Logan went on. “If Cassie wants to talk with him, it’s probably best if she does that elsewhere so that the ranch and the business won’t be brought into it.”
That was Logan, always thinking about McCord Cattle Brokers, but in this case his concern might be warranted. Lucky was also betting there was no way that Cassie would want to speak to this reporter, especially if the guy had any info about her stay in Sweet Meadows.
Cassie appeared at the top of the stairs. “Mackenzie isn’t going to read the letter so she and Mia are going to watch a movie in their room.” She gave Logan an uneasy glance. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine,” Lucky assured her. “I’ll come up in a bit.” And then he’d tell her about Theo, along with deciding what to do about reading his own letter.
“A couple more things,” Logan said. “Helene wanted me to ask you if you wanted her to find homes for the cats.”
“Not just yet. Though it might come to that if Cassie can’t take them with her to LA.” That was a reminder Lucky didn’t want, but he had to be realistic here. Cassie would leave soon. Even if she did go for a different career, it wouldn’t be here in Spring Hill.
Logan nodded. “Now to Riley’s bachelor party. He wanted to keep it local so I booked Calhoun’s Pub. It’ll be two nights before the wedding. I thought maybe you could arrange the entertainment, though.”
“Sure. But there’ll be no strippers from the Slippery Pole.” He’d had enough dealings with Mason-Dixon. Still, he’d have to find something bawdy and inappropriate—which Logan no doubt thought was Lucky’s specialty.
“Whatever you decide is fine,” Logan assured him. But his attention wasn’t on Lucky or the conversation. It was on the back windows. Logan watched as the hands moved a bull from the corral area into t
he pasture.
“I heard about the bulls,” Logan said. “A project of yours?”
“Just testing them before I buy them,” Lucky said as he made his way to the door and headed out into the backyard.
“How much does one cost?”
“The buyer is asking thirty grand each.”
“Are they worth it?” Logan said without hesitation.
“The Angus is worth more than that. He’s been trained well and will draw a crowd. Not sure about the Brahma. A lot of riders steer clear of them.”
Logan still didn’t seem to be listening, and Lucky thought he knew why. Logan was seeing dollar signs, and it didn’t take long to confirm that. “How much does it cost to buy an untrained bull and make him worth thirty grand?”
“Bulls are like relationships. Lots of factors to consider, but you could get a young bull from a good bloodline for about ten grand, maybe less. After you add in training and care, you’re probably looking at an average profit of ten to fifteen thousand tops.”
That was chump change considering what Logan made off his cattle brokering deals and what Riley made from the cutting horses, but his brother was no doubt thinking in bulk. Once, Lucky had as well, but somewhere along the way the rodeo promo business had eaten up his time.
“I’m not going to buy and train bulls for you,” Lucky let Logan know right off. But then he frowned. Saying things like that to Logan was practically a knee-jerk reaction.
“Of course. I knew you wouldn’t be interested, but I was thinking I could get someone else. Maybe even use the ranch for holding and training them. There’s plenty of space and acres of pastures we don’t use. A couple of the corrals could be converted into training areas.”
It was a good idea, and instead of completely nixing it, Lucky just put it on the back burner. It was possible he wouldn’t have any time to take on even a smaller version of a project like that now that Dixie Mae had passed and he didn’t have any help with the rodeo promotion.
Logan stayed quiet a moment, and Lucky figured he was already working out profit margins and such, but that wasn’t all that was on his mind.
“You asked Helene about my meds.” A muscle flickered in Logan’s otherwise unruffled jaw. “I have migraines, but I don’t want it to get around.”
Lucky couldn’t imagine why someone would want to keep that a secret, but he wasn’t in Logan’s head. Maybe Logan thought it would make him appear weak.
“Mom had them,” Lucky reminded him.
Lucky figured he was giving his brother old news. Apparently not, judging from the look of surprise. Maybe Logan had been too busy working the ranch with their dad to notice when their mother had taken to her bed for hours on end. But Lucky had sure noticed.
“That explains why Dad was worried,” Logan commented.
Now, that was news to Lucky. “Worried?”
Logan nodded. “It wasn’t anything he said specifically, just a gut feeling I got.”
Lucky wished he’d had gut feelings about his parents’ car accident. Hell, he wished he could go back in time and undo what’d happened to them.
Since that put a damper on his already dampered mood, Lucky was about to excuse himself and go back inside. But his phone buzzed, and when he saw the name on the screen, he stopped in his tracks.
Alice Murdock.
The girls’ aunt.
Lucky took a moment, gathering his breath before he answered it, and since Logan had been responsible for finding her, Lucky put the call on speaker.
“Mr. McCord,” she greeted. “How are Mia and Mackenzie?”
It was the right question to start with, but it still caused his chest to tighten.
“They’re okay.” Since he wasn’t sure what Logan’s PI had told her, Lucky decided to keep it at that.
“Good. Could you please give them my number so I can chat with them sometime?”
“Of course. Any idea when you’ll be arriving?”
“I’m finishing up a project now so it shouldn’t be much longer. I’m a field director for a nonprofit group that provides medical care in third-world countries, and once I have all of the staff back safe, I’ll catch the first flight to Texas.”
So, she had a job, one that sounded as if she hadn’t followed in her drug-using sister’s footsteps.
“Unless you think it’s critical that I come now?” she added.
“No. Like I said, the girls are fine.” Lucky paused, then proceeded to ask the question he’d had from the beginning. “Why don’t they know you? Why didn’t you come and get them when your mother died?”
Alice paused, too. “Because I didn’t know. My sister and I had a parting of the ways years ago. I just couldn’t be around her when she was using, and my mother enabled her. Not by buying her drugs or anything but by refusing to admit she was killing herself. I would check my sister into rehab, and before the day was up, my mother would get her out.”
Lucky hated to think that the girls had been through all of that. This woman could have maybe stopped it. Maybe. Then again, he was betting her sister wouldn’t have just handed over custody, even to someone who was more capable of caring for her daughters.
“My mother didn’t even call me when my sister died,” Alice went on. “Nor when she got sick, so I didn’t know about their deaths until the private investigator contacted me. Trust me, if I’d known those girls needed me, I would have been there for them.”
The jury was still out on that, but she was certainly saying all the right things.
“My brother’s getting married in a week,” Lucky explained, “and Mackenzie asked if she could stay for the wedding.”
“Of course,” Alice said without hesitation. “I can adjust my schedule for that.” Then she paused again. “I’m sorry, but I have another call coming in from Colombia that I have to take. But just tell the girls that I’ll see them in a couple of days. I can’t wait to bring them to their new home in Phoenix.”
When she ended the call, Lucky just stood there, staring at the phone.
“Are you okay?” Logan asked.
“Sure. This was exactly what we all wanted.”
And he hoped if he repeated that enough, Lucky would start to believe it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CASSIE SAT ON her bed, staring at the letter. It was silly not to just open it and see what her grandmother had written, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to see those final words just yet. She wasn’t anywhere close to a panic attack, hadn’t been close in several days now, but this might push her back over the edge.
After all, she’d had a lot of edge-pushing things happen to her today.
That kissing session in the hayloft. The run-in with Andrew. The tornado of confusion going on in her head when it came to the girls, and the rest of her life. Now, this.
She was still staring at the letter when there was a knock at the door, and Cassie knew who it was before she even opened it. Lucky. He was there, no doubt to figure out if he had a reason to be concerned.
“You want me to stay with you when you read it?” he asked, tipping his head to the letter.
What he didn’t do was come in, even though she stepped back so he could do that. Maybe because he was giving her some space. Too bad Cassie wasn’t sure if space was the way to go.
“No. I’ll be okay. I’m a little worried about Mackenzie, though,” she said.
Lucky nodded. “I’m checking on her next.”
And that was yet another reason why he probably wasn’t coming in. Lucky was like chocolate—she wasn’t to be trusted around it. Or him.
“Alice Murdock just called,” he added a heartbeat later.
Mercy, was that the reason for his concerned expression? “And?”
He took a deep breath as if he needed it badly, and
Cassie tried to steel herself for bad news. “She seems, well, great. It’s hard to gauge someone from a phone conversation, but she seems to want the girls, seems to be have their best interest at heart.”
“Seems?”
Lucky lifted his shoulder. “Seems is as good as I can get from what she said. She didn’t seem anything like her half sister, though.”
Cassie was going to take what he was saying as a red flag. Exactly what kind of red flag, she didn’t know yet, but she wasn’t just going to hand over the girls until she was certain this was the right guardian for them.
Except she might not have a choice.
The woman was blood kin so it was possible neither Lucky nor she would have any say in this. If Alice Murdock seemed suitable, then the courts would side with her. Not that it would come down to courts and such.
Her phone buzzed, and Lucky was still close enough to see Andrew’s name pop up on the screen. “I’ll go check on Mackenzie,” he said, getting out of there fast. Probably because he thought she needed privacy for this talk.
But no privacy was needed. Not for the talk anyway. She shut the door after Lucky walked away, let the call go to voice mail and opened the letter. It was handwritten and dated the same as Mia’s.
“Dear Cassie,” it read. “I figure you’re ass-kicking mad at me right about now. I knew it’d be a lot to ask, but I knew you’d do right by the girls. Right by Lucky, too.”
That brought Cassie to a dead stop and she scowled. She turned that scowl to the heavens just in case Dixie Mae was watching her. Of course, no matter where Dixie Mae was in the hereafter, she probably wasn’t watching. Her grandmother hadn’t exactly been a sit-around-and-watch kind of person.
“No, I’m not matchmaking,” Cassie continued to read. “I just think it’ll help Lucky if he’s got bigger problems than the ones festering in his own mind. Plus, he’s easy on the eyes. Don’t shake your head.”
Cassie stopped shaking her head.
“You know he is,” Dixie Mae had added. “Just don’t let the problems festering in your own mind stop you from seeing that. Anyway, I love you to Pluto and back ’cause if you remember, to the moon and back was never far enough for us.”
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