Then another thought occurred to her.
Cal had taken Sin with him.
He had let himself love that dog – whether he'd admit it or not – so he hadn't cut himself off from love entirely.
But that left a big leap – from letting himself love a dog, to letting her love him.
* * *
Cal backtracked when the doorbell rang barely a minute after he'd entered the rental town house. Almost like someone had been waiting for him.
Christina stood under the outdoor light, the harsh shadows making a travesty of her practiced smile.
"Hello, Benning. May I come in?"
He shrugged and turned away, letting her decide whether to follow. She did, closing the door, then backing up a step as Sin charged in from the back. Cal had paid a bundle to have a Sin-sized doggy door installed so he could access the fenced backyard. And that was on top of practically having to buy the furnished unit to get permission to have a dog.
"What a sweet doggy."
Sin gave a slow swish of his tail, more like a cat's stay-away lashing than his usual happy greeting.
"What do you want, Christina?" Cal crossed to the built-in minibar.
She sat on the love seat, stroking one palm over the cushion next to her in invitation. "Is that any way to greet me? After all we've been to each other."
He sipped the Scotch he'd poured over ice. What do you want, Stepmother?"
"That's not funny," she snapped.
He sat on the straight-backed upholstered chair across from her. Sin leaned against the chair, casting doleful looks at Christina. Cal wondered what she'd do if she knew she was sitting in Sin's favorite spot. He hadn't changed the no-furniture rule, but he'd not only spotted dog hair on the cushions, he'd seen Sin looking out the nearby window, and that could only be accomplished by sitting in that spot.
"That's our legal relationship. And that's the only one we have."
Today's meeting with the board, the corporation lawyers and Christina's lawyers had gone for twelve and a half long – sometimes acrimonious – hours. He was more tired than after the hardest all-day session at the Flying W. What he wanted to do was take off this suit and throw a stick for Sin for a while. Forget all the legal and financial wrangling he had to go through to get this company off his hands.
A transformational process…
That's what that woman from the Wyoming flower shop had said fireweed was good for helping someone get through.
It had been a strange conversation last month. No, the month before. God, it seemed as if he'd been mired in meetings forever.
Ms. Markham had efficiently put through the cal to the flower shop. Only then had he realized he had no clue why he was calling. It wasn't as if he'd intended to send flowers to – to anyone. He'd sputtered out something about Dave Currick telling him to call.
"Currick? … Currick? Oh, yes, Indian paintbrush."
"What?"
"Indian paintbrush," she'd repeated firmly, as if that explained everything. "Wedding bouquet. What wildflower are you interested in?"
"Wildflower? I'm not interested in any wildflower."
"No? I thought perhaps that was why Dave Currick suggested you cal. He was so interested in Indian paintbrush, and wanted to know all about its properties. The essences of flowers have great benefits, you know. Each flower, especially wildflowers, can aid you in different ways, help with different situations. Although Dave Currick came at it from the other end – having a wildflower he was interested in, and then finding out the properties of its essence met his needs exactly. He was quite struck by that. So if there was a wildflower you had a particular association with or—"
"Fireweed." He'd had no intention of saying that, but it came out.
"Ah, fireweed. Such an interesting choice."
"I didn't choose—" he'd started. He'd thought Dave was nuts when he'd gone on about this flower shop before Cal's departure, and now he wondered about his own sanity.
"No, of course not. It chose you. Ah, yes," she continued, not letting him speak, "fireweed is excellent for a transformational process. That's to be expected, given its ability to grow and bloom after a fire. It's quite remarkable the way it can help you break old patterns by facing your fears. It breaks down the resistance so many people have to change, especially deep change. And of course it brings more stability by deepening your connection to the earth."
Nonsense – had to be. What the hell did flowers know about his life? He'd rallied enough to demand suspiciously, "Do you know Taylor Larsen?"
"No. Should I? Is that who you would like to send fireweed essence to?"
"No. I, uh … no. Send it to this address." And then he'd heard himself giving the office address for Bennington Chemical. At the last second he'd made it in care of Ms. Markham instead of in his own name, but still, he'd been shaking his head at himself ever since.
"You're right to shake your head," Christina said. "It doesn't have to be that way, Benning."
Cal stared at her. What on earth had she been talking about while he'd been thinking about fireweed and Taylor?
"I've wondered where you were all these years. Wondered how things might have been if I'd made a different choice. We can find out now what we've been missing. There's no reason we can't."
"Yeah, there is," he countered, up to speed now. "Because I don't have any interest in knowing."
"I don't believe that. Not after … well, let's just say I'll never forget, and I'm sure that you won't, either." It was a beautifully delivered speech, with her head tipped down as if she were shy, combined with a slow survey of his body that was decidedly not shy.
"And I'll never forget the lessons you taught me, Christina."
She smiled, obviously not catching his undertone. "I knew that if I could see you, it would be all right. Because we understand each other. We have something between us." With fluid grace she shifted to sitting on the coffee table near him. "Is that why you wouldn't let me be at the meeting today, because when you see me…?"
She ran her nails over the fabric covering his thigh. Sin yawned loudly, and Cal almost laughed. "I excluded you from the meeting to avoid this scene. Give it up, Christina. No matter how hard you try to vamp me, the plan's going through."
"You don't believe I've come here just for you, Benning? You didn't used to be so humble." She tilted her head back, offering her lips.
"Even if you came here just to have sex with me, never thinking it might influence me to halt the plan and leave you in charge of Bennington Chemical, it's no sale. I'm not interested."
It took her a long moment of studying his face to see the truth of his words. Then her facade crumbled.
"I worked too hard to let you give away Bennington Chemical. It's not yours to give away – it's mine!"
"Wrong. Read the will."
"You're cheating the stockholders. You can't do this."
"I'm the main stockholder, and the others agree the long-term benefits outweigh the loss of immediate income. A very good lawyer drew up that plan, and you'll find I can do this."
"You're punishing me! You're being spiteful and vindictive, just because I chose your father over you."
"Christina, this has nothing to do with you."
Her expression shifted and he knew she didn't believe him. In fact, she'd become more convinced of the opposite.
"Benning, what we had was so good. If you two hadn't been so much alike, your father never could have won me away. Actually, it was like falling in love with you all over again."
She moved in close, running her hand from the middle of his chest up to the opened collar of his shirt.
He hardly noticed.
If you two hadn't been so much alike… You're just like your father… Your father thought nothing of crushing people in order to get what he wanted. He rolled over them or used them as it suited his purposes. And that's what you intend to do.
But he hadn't done that. He was turning the company over to the employees, just like
Taylor had urged him to do. So why had Christina's phrase opened the wound over Taylor's words?
"I never stopped wanting you," Christina said. "We wouldn't have had to stop if you'd been more cooperative back then."
"What about that little vow you took with my father, something about forsaking all others."
"You are still angry at me," she said with a pout. "You know that's not how the real world works."
"You mean people keeping their vows, and marrying because they love somebody instead of for money and power? A couple years ago, I would have agreed with you. But now…"
"Now. Yes, right now, Benning. That's what we can have." Christina stood, wrapping both hands around his free hand and tugging.
He couldn't even see the woman in front of him for the memory that filled his mind.
Taylor holding a candle up into a darkness all around that included him. Holding that candle up to cast its light. While her other hand protected the flame from the gusts and drafts and sighs and storms that threatened it. Holding that delicate flame up so he could see it, so he could see her, even when the candle sputtered and the wax burned her. Even when he was part of the crosscurrents that buffeted the fragile fire and threatened to extinguish it.
Holding up her heart to lead him, if he let himself follow its light.
A man who'd had a woman who truly loved him, until he drove her away.
His own thoughts. His own assessment of his father, of the man Christina and Taylor had said he was like. As different as they were, he'd never doubted the ability of either Christina or Taylor to read people. To read him.
Christina had used the ability to manipulate him.
Taylor had used the ability… Taylor had…
He stood, some half-formed notion of following the light motivating him. He'd forgotten Christina, until she rose, too, and started to guide his hand to her breast.
"Now," she murmured in a throaty voice. "Now can be our time."
He jerked his hand free and stepped away.
"Not our time – your time. To leave."
* * *
Cal was back.
But that was all Taylor knew. Just the bare word of it from the stool-sitters at the café when she'd gone for a takeout salad for lunch.
"I see Cal's back in town. Saw him driving through like he was heading to the Flying W 'bout nine," Hugh Moski had said to her, clearly expecting that she already knew and would fill in more.
"So I hear." She paid her bill in a hurry and returned to her office.
She considered, as she dropped off Lisa's order in the outer office then headed inside to hers, asking Lisa if she knew anything, or could find out anything. She considered calling Matty. She considered calling the foreman's cottage. She did none of those things.
Had he come back to pack and go for good? He could have asked Matty to do that, though asking for help had never been his forte. He could have hired someone or he could have sent some underling to do it, though letting anyone else into his private space had never been his way, either.
So she could see him coining back to pack up what was important to him, and heading out. Without a word to her? Maybe.
That would hurt.
Nearly as much as his going for good would hurt.
But she would survive, and she had Cal to thank for that knowledge. Cal had dragged her out of her own self-protective shell as surely as she'd kicked him out of his cave by making him go back East. It was an important lesson. If only for that, she would never regret loving Cal Ruskoff.
Eventually she'd get over the pain. She was sure of it. Because no one could go on hurting this much forever.
But she wouldn't get over it this afternoon, and not while he was back in town.
She packed the files she'd failed to open once in the past two hours into her briefcase, shut down the computer she hadn't looked at and tidied her desk. She'd reached the outer door before she stopped. Who was she kidding? She turned around and dropped the briefcase on her desk, then headed out again.
"I'm leaving, Lisa."
"Do you feel okay? Is there anything I can do?"
"I feel fine, and there's nothing you can do. Thank you. Why don't you close up the office and take the rest of the afternoon off, too."
Taylor shut the door behind her before Lisa could answer. With her head down, she was almost to her car when she became aware of another presence in the parking lot. Her heart slammed hard, then seemed to reverberate in her chest with the force of the blow.
Cal.
She knew it before she looked up and saw him leaning against the passenger door of an unfamiliar pickup beside her car. He wore his old jeans, old boots, the familiar hat and the plain leather belt. Only his shirt indicated a change. It was new, dark blue and good quality. But he'd rolled the sleeves up in his customary way, and he had his arms folded across his chest, at complete ease.
She heard a steady thumping and wondered if it was her heart, and if he could hear it, too.
"Hello, Cal. I heard you were in town."
"We've been waiting for you, Taylor."
His gesture to the open window explained the "we." Sin sat there looking out the window. He'd grown, his coat was fuller, lustrously healthy. She realized it was his tail wagging against the seat that was making the rhythmic sound she heard.
At least one of them had clear feelings about this reunion.
"Why didn't you come into the office?"
"I didn't want to interrupt your business."
So he wasn't here on business. But she'd known that. And at some level she'd also known he wouldn't come into town and slip away again without seeing her. He had too much honor.
He pushed off from the truck door and was opening it. "Let's go for a ride."
She shook her head. "Say what you have to say here and—"
"I have something to show you."
"Cal, I don't—"
"I don't like to remind people of their debts, but if it takes reminding you that I took this mutt off your hands, and I pulled you out of a blizzard—"
"All right!" If he was so determined to do it his way, she simply didn't have the energy to fight him. She just wanted this done.
They were turning into the Flying W before he spoke again. "I told Matty she needs to hire a new foreman."
"I see. Well." Taylor cleared her throat and blinked fast.
"Thank you for telling me directly, Cal. For not letting me hear it through the grapevine, or just letting time pass until it was obvious you weren't coming back. I do appreciate that."
"You've got it wrong, Taylor. I'm staying."
She blinked again, but for a totally different cause. "I'm buying the Bartuck place on the north end of Lewis County. I'm quitting as Flying W foreman because I'm going to run my own ranch. I'm following your advice about Bennington Chemical. The employees are tickled. A couple of the stockholders are ticked, but that's okay. Your colleague in Connecticut's working out. And every legal type I've encountered has been real impressed by your work. Said they couldn't believe someone with that ability was holed up in Knighton, Wyoming."
"I'm not holed up. I'm living my life. A good life."
"That's what I told them."
She glanced at him, but his profile remained impassive. His next words did nothing to sort out her confusion.
"Christina came to the place I was staying in Connecticut last week."
"Christina? Your…"
"Stepmother? Ex-fiancée?" he supplied. "Yeah, that one."
She looked straight ahead. They passed the cluster of Flying W ranch buildings that included his house – his former house – without slowing. "What did she want?"
"She wanted to get back together."
"Oh."
"Don't be an idiot, Taylor."
An immediate flame of justifiable anger consumed her. It felt good after trying for so hard and so long to be understanding and rational. She jerked around to face him. He was grinning. That only made her angrier.
"A lot of nerve? Yeah, I do. But you're not showing the sense I know you have if you think I'd consider Christina for a second." The smile was gone and his voice had changed when he spoke the next words. "And you don't know me as well as I thought you did."
Taylor swallowed, trying to hold down the hope that kept rising up like bubbles that refused to burst.
"If it comes to that, you didn't listen to what I told you about Christina, either," he said with the old bite in his voice.
With that pointer, she said, "She came to see you because she wanted you to stop the agreement with the employees. To keep the company and let her run it."
"Yep. That's exactly what she wanted. But that's not what she got. I signed the papers before I left. There'll be more before it's all over, but the deal's in place. Just the way you laid it out. I think the employees are considering you for employee of the year – or sainthood."
"It was a fair agreement – nobody was cheated."
"No. But the current employees of Bennington Chemical aren't accustomed to being treated fairly."
Another legacy of his father, she supposed. She wasn't a violent person, but if the man hadn't been dead, and she could have gotten her hands on him … well, she supposed entities better suited to doling out justice than she was were probably taking care of Laurance Whitton.
"Christina said some other things, too."
Taylor wasn't going to give him another opening to accuse her of idiocy, so, she bluntly asked, "What?"
"She told me people don't keep their vows, and they don't marry for love in the real world – they cheat and scheme all in the name of money and power, and love is just another weapon to be used in that war." He shot a look at her, then pretended he needed to watch the road ahead. "I said I would have agreed with every one of those statements a few years ago. And then I started to tell her that now I wasn't so sure. Then I stopped."
Her heart had lurched with unshakable hope until those last three words.
"What stopped you, Cal?"
"Because I was sure." He braked the truck, then sat staring straight ahead, the engine still running. "I'd seen all those bad things in the real world, but I've seen the good ones now, too. One's no more real than the other."
MATCH MADE IN WYOMING Page 21