Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 2 of 2: A Ranch for His FamilyCowgirl in High HeelsA Man to Believe In

by Hope Navarre

  He kissed her forehead. “Let’s get you home.”

  * * *

  AFTER A QUICK change into shorts and a T-shirt, Peter opened the trunk beneath the window in his bedroom. He and Cassie had known each other only six months, but Peter felt sure the time was right for a new phase in their lives. He also wanted to give Cassie another reason for recovery.

  He’d felt so helpless finding her crying on the beach. While insisting the solitude had been wonderful, she had stayed silent the ride home. At his gentle prodding, she refused to talk about the tears. Assessing what he could from watching her, he understood she wasn’t in pain, so decided the enormity of her ordeal was getting the better of her. With silence as the only balm to offer when he knew she needed more, he felt useless.

  Beth and Bobby saw him guiding her to the cottage and bolted out the kitchen door to ask what was wrong. It took Beth all of two seconds to realize Cassie was on overload. Ignoring his protests, she demanded Peter and Bobby go find something to do. She would put Cassie to bed. Peter didn’t like being shooed away like an errant child. He couldn’t bear to leave Cassie, especially distressed as she was.

  All this drama and the noon fire whistle hadn’t even sounded yet.

  Rummaging to the bottom of the trunk, he pulled out the small, powder-green steel lockbox. The key, lost long ago, no longer mattered. He sat on the bed, pushed the latch with his thumb.

  Passport. Social Security card. Birth and baptism certificates. Draft card. A thousand dollars in cash in an envelope. A pair of ugly gold cuff links given to him by his dad. In the corner of the box sat a small, purple velvet pouch cinched by a white silk chord.

  He opened the small bag. Dropped the contents into his hand. An antique solitaire engagement ring glittered in his palm. Grandma’s. She’d tucked the two-carat jewel in his hand a few years before she had passed away. “Save this for the love of your life, Peter. Use it well because I only have one to give you.”

  Grandma. Permed hair. Plump. Always smiling and wearing dresses with little prints on them. She and Grandpa used to play cards at the kitchen table and laugh all the time. Memories rose of warm, sweet homemade chocolate chip cookies melting on his tongue as he laid on the flower-hooked carpet in her living room watching Atom Ant cartoons with Gil. Or, riding to the movies in the backseat of Grandpa’s blue Buick, he and Gil eating gummy bears and drinking from juice boxes while Grandma argued with Grandpa that it was totally appropriate to take them to see a movie where a scientist father shrinks his own kids. All good stuff before life got crazy.

  As a widow, Grandma must have known her time was running short because when Peter was in his early teens, she’d already guessed Rudy was gay, so had given Peter her engagement ring. She made him promise to keep the ring as a secret between them. No need to get his mother involved. She must have known that the ring would have disappeared within a day had Mom gotten hold of it.

  He dropped the ring back into the pouch. “I’ll use this well, Grandma. Promise.” He smacked the air with a high five, like he used to do with her when he was young.

  Stuffing the velvet bag in the pocket of his black plaid shorts, he went to meet Bobby. They had a few things to discuss.

  Peter spotted Bobby chatting with Brian at a pine table on the outside porch of the clam bar that overlooked the docks along Lake Montauk. Two draft beers and a dozen clams on the half shell sat on the table.

  Bobby waved to him in one gesture then signaled to the passing waitress. “Thought I’d order some appetizers. Too early for a beer?”

  After this morning, a beer with lunch was a great idea. “Not at all.”

  He shook hands with Brian. “Nice to see you on the other side of the bar.”

  “I was telling Bobby that Dave has offered to host a fund-raiser at the restaurant to raise money to help pay for Cassie’s chemotherapy.”

  At nine thousand dollars a treatment, Cassie’s insurance didn’t cover all her expenses. Additional income would go a long way to relieve the financial stress Cassie faced, no matter how much Beth and Bobby helped. “Wow! What an excellent gesture. What can I do to help?”

  Brian shrugged as if he were asking Peter to accept a hardship. “Go fishing with a bunch of guys on the Lady Beth.”

  “How is that a fund-raiser?”

  “We catch the fish, Dave serves ’em up to folks who sign up and pay a specified cover charge. Cassie gets the proceeds.”

  “I’ll fish. Count me in! Give me enough time to clear my schedule at work.”

  Bobby laughed. “Just tell Doc you want off the same day as him. He already told Brian he’d join us.”

  Brian finished his beer, then stood. “Have to get going. Looks like this plan is taking shape. Let’s fish as soon as possible while the tuna are still running.”

  Peter looked at Bobby after Brian left. “You are lucky to have grown up in this community. What a great life.”

  Bobby nodded. “We manage to have our moments.”

  “Believe me, they’re far better than the ones I’ve experienced.”

  “We all have our war stories, Pete.”

  After the waitress brought Peter’s beer, Bobby said, “So, tell me. What happened with Cassie on the beach this morning?”

  Peter took a moment to sip his drink. “Nothing that I could grasp. I’m thinking it’s simply that Cassie is wiped out from the chemotherapy. I’ve heard that when a person is dealt a trauma, the enormity of its impact doesn’t hit sometimes until six months later.”

  Bobby stared into his mug. “It kills me seeing her so sick.”

  “Must be rough for a father to witness.”

  “No joke there. Cancer scares the hell out of me. It takes too many people down.”

  Peter lifted a clam to his mouth, chewed thoughtfully. “Then there are the survivors. Beth’s recovery is astounding. Few women survive that type of cancer in the advanced stage.”

  Bobby shook his head. “The worst two years of my life. I’d never been so scared.”

  “It’s funny how fear hits.” Peter wiped his hands on a couple of napkins. “I know Hodgkin’s lymphoma is curable, but treatment is such a crapshoot. Anything can happen. I get angry thinking this disease is feeding on the insides of the woman I love. I get scared that the worse could happen and I’d have to find a way to live without Cassie...after she has touched me so deeply. I’ve never felt more alive. Then again, I feel so helpless watching her battle this illness that I don’t want to let her out of my sight. I want to be there every single second for anything she needs just in case there is one simple thing I can do to aid her recovery.”

  Bobby grew still. “All that and you haven’t even dated for a year?”

  Why did everyone think that just because he and Cassie were newly dating that he shouldn’t feel strongly for her? “The short amount of time doesn’t matter, Bobby. Wouldn’t you feel the same way if Beth had gotten sick earlier on in your relationship or after you’d just met?”

  He released a breath. “I didn’t do so many things right back then. I’m a different man now. I see how I could have done things differently.”

  Cassie had told Peter how her mother’s illness had hurt her parents’ relationship. The last thing he wanted was to dredge up these emotions in Bobby with Cassie so sick, yet Bobby had brought up the subject. Maybe he needed to talk about it.

  “What did you do that was so wrong?”

  “I went to sea when Beth was sick.” Bobby sighed, clearly still shaken from the memory. He swiped a hand over his mouth. “You think Cassie is suffering? I never thought a person could be as sick as Beth was with her cancer.”

  Yeah. Not an easy thing to watch, especially if you didn’t know how to help. “Honestly, Bobby. I don’t know how you did it.”

  “What? Watch Beth be so sick or take off and leave her vuln
erable?”

  Peter shrugged. “Both.”

  The guilt pooling in Bobby’s eyes floored Peter. “I screwed up pretty badly.”

  “Hey. That was a long time ago.”

  Bobby sighed. “Time only seems to have made things worse. Our first ten years were flawless. Cassie was small. Everything meshed. Beth and I were solid.”

  “You two look solid now.”

  “Looks deceive. I think Beth and I are still fooling ourselves. Pretending everything is still the same when I hurt her so badly.” He hesitated, as if deciding whether he wanted to keep talking. “When Beth found out she had cancer, I ran like a scared rabbit. Couldn’t handle watching her waste down to nothing. Lose her hair. Suffer like she was.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a normal reaction for a disease that’s so difficult to beat?”

  “Maybe. But it doesn’t change the fact we’re not meshing like we were in the early years.”

  “Why can’t you get back on track after all this time?”

  “It’s taken me a while to figure out. But watching Cassie, I see that as much as Beth understood I loved her, and insisted it was okay that I sailed while she was sick since I had to earn a living for us, bottom line is, I wasn’t there for her. She learned to lean on other people for support when she needed me most. When they killed the cancer, it was as if her trust in me died, too.” He held up his hands in surrender. “I’ve never been able to get it back.”

  “Then why did Beth make us leave this morning? I’m Cassie’s boyfriend. I’m the one who should have stayed at the cottage.”

  “Who knows? Habit? Control? Beth is pretty stubborn about her independence. She’s built this infrastructure in the community. If she needs a thimble, she knows exactly who to call. And I’ll be damned if they wouldn’t deliver in minutes.”

  Peter sipped his beer. “You have to respect that type of reliance.”

  Bobby looked pained. “Nothing makes me happier knowing that Beth and Cassie have a safety net while I’m away. What I hate is that my wife doesn’t need me. She loves me. Sure. But a man wants to be his wife’s hero, you know?”

  Hell, yes, Peter knew. The situation had been different with his mother, but he had felt like shit running out on her, even though all facts pointed to the truth that it was time to go. He never wanted to feel so awful again. He wanted to be with Cassie every available moment he could get. Helping in her time of need helped him, as well.

  “I saw Beth greet you the day we met, Bobby. Her love sure looked pretty convincing to me.”

  “It’s just not the same. She treats me great, but we don’t take the opportunity to get away anymore. There’s always something going on that’s more important than time alone for us.”

  Peter laughed. “A lot of guys would prefer that.”

  Bobby shook his head. “I’m not a lot of guys. I suspect you’re not, either.” Conviction lit his face. “But I’m doing differently with Cassie. I’m sticking around.”

  “Haven’t you been able to patch these feelings up with Beth over the years?”

  Bobby tossed an empty clam shell back on the tray. He had taken off his sunglasses, the skin under his eyes whiter than his tanned face. His blue eyes darkened with concern under the brim of his Yankees cap.

  “Everything is too complicated at this point. I can’t say anything. How can I set us right? I can’t make her any promises. I’ll just turn around and sail on another fishing run, leaving her to rely on my mother and our friends again.”

  Peter held Bobby’s gaze. “I don’t know. Looks to me like you have a perfect opportunity here with Cassie’s situation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe if you tell Beth how you realized you abandoned her when she was sick, she’ll see you understand the mistake you made, and how you’re trying to do better by being around for Cassie.”

  “You mean, apologize?”

  Peter nodded. “Seems to me like a smart thing to do.”

  “Even though there was nothing I could do about running out on her at the time? I had to make money, man. Our expenses were insane.”

  “You felt that way then. Do you feel the same way now?”

  Bobby grew silent. After a moment he pointed a finger at Peter. “You’re good, buddy. Damned good.”

  Peter finished his last clam. “I grew up with someone who pretended the world around us was okay when reality was crashing down our door. I learned to view life as something you have to fix when broken.” He shrugged. “So? I fix my problems. As best I can. It helps keep my sanity.”

  The waitress came. They ordered another round of beers and baskets of fried clam strips and scallops.

  “I guess helping Cassie is easier for you since you’re a nurse,” Bobby said.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No. I panic every time I see Cassie, just like I did with her mother. It’s taking every ounce of willpower to stay put.”

  Was it easier because he was a nurse? No. It was easier because he’d fallen in love with an angel, and it was wonderful to ease her burden.

  “Sure, it hurts watching Cassie suffer, and yeah, my training helps me to know what to do for her, but the truth? I’m here for her because I’m madly in love your daughter.” He placed a hand on his chest. “Don’t get me wrong. I know it’s only been a short time, but I’ve never felt about a woman the way I feel about Cassie. I can’t imagine going another day without her in my life.”

  Peter pulled the ring out of his pocket and slid the pouch across the table. “Which brings us to another topic.”

  Bobby looked at him with incredulity. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Peter nodded. “Yes. It was my grandmother’s. She told me to save it for the woman of my dreams.”

  “You want to marry Cassie?”

  “Tomorrow isn’t soon enough.”

  “Don’t you think this is a little premature?”

  “Yes and no. I know we’ve just met, but I can tell you, more time isn’t going to change the way I feel. Come on. You’re her father. You know how special she is.” Peter tapped the table next to the ring, wanting to make himself perfectly clear. “I’ve fallen in love with your daughter so damn deep that I’d die for her to stop the hurt. I want to spend every minute of every day with her for the rest of our lives. I don’t want anyone telling me to go away from her ever again like Beth did this morning. That would surely kill me.”

  Bobby sat back in his chair. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PETER HAD EVERY intention of proposing to Cassie as soon as possible. Now that he had Bobby’s blessing, no time was better than the present. An hour after he left Bobby, his phone dinged with a text from Cassie inviting him to come back, and he couldn’t climb into his truck fast enough.

  He drove to the florist and bought her an armful of white and red roses, stopped for a tub of Cassie’s favorite raspberry sherbet and burst through the cottage door. He inhaled her perfume as if he were a drowning man and the scent were life-saving oxygen.

  “Cassie?”

  “In here.”

  He tossed the sherbet into the freezer and bee-lined for her bedroom. Despite the warm day, Cassie wore a cotton cap on her head topped with her pink hoodie. Fat white cotton socks covered her feet, leaving her gorgeous legs exposed all the way up to the pink plaid shorts that skimmed her thighs. She’d grown thinner since starting chemo, and he’d become accustomed to her hair loss with no problem. Those bedroom eyes and kissable lips were still in place and rocking his world. Right now, she never looked more beautiful.

  Her eyes lit up when she saw the roses. “Oh, Peter. They are gorgeous!”

  “They need water.”

  “Wait—let me smell them.”

  He bundl
ed the flowers into her arms then stole a gentle kiss, careful because her mouth was raw from the chemo. She hesitated to kiss him, then pulled away. She wouldn’t meet his gaze. Old photo albums lay scattered on the bed beside her.

  Something wasn’t right.

  “Reminiscing?”

  She winced. “Probably more than I should be.”

  Not sure what she meant, he took the flowers. “Let me put these in water for you.”

  “Vase is in the cabinet over the fridge.”

  It wasn’t until the water half filled the vase in the sink that Cassie’s meaning hit. A burst of dread froze him. He turned off the water. Closing his eyes, he let his chin fall to his chest.

  The old boyfriend. Here he was all pumped up to ask her to marry him, and she was mooning over the old boyfriend. For God’s sake. Would the dead not rest?

  He stuffed the flowers into the vase. No. It didn’t matter. Kyle was gone. He was here—alive, well and loving her. Cassie was feeling vulnerable. Peter wanted to be her hero. If she wasn’t sure of him now, she would be before he left here today. He’d never fallen so hard for a woman. His love would get them through her ordeal to happily ever after.

  She had to trust him.

  He was one man willing to believe in the fairy tale.

  When he returned to her room, she was smiling, but the happiness didn’t reach her eyes. He ignored that fact. He’d have her smiling genuinely in no time.

  “I know why you bought white and red roses,” she said.

  “Do you now?”

  She tapped her temple. “I know how you think.”

  “Already? That’s nice.”

  She ran a finger over the soft petals he placed on the nightstand. “These symbolize the balance of my red and white blood cells. A perfect recovery.”

  Damn. He was impressed. Sliding onto the bed, he couldn’t get her into his arms fast enough. “You guessed.”

  She laid her head on his chest. “They’re beautiful. I’ll enjoy them even more because you used something as delicate as roses to help boost my confidence.”