by Isla Bennet
PEYTON MENTALLY STUMBLED, just for a second, no doubt feeling as blindsided as old Coop had been a few minutes ago. He glanced around at the stares—a few curious, most accusing.
Then, as if they’d all become one, his audience centered their group stare on Valerie.
Even Lucy turned slightly to spy the reaction over her shoulder.
“Jeez …” Valerie muttered, daring a look at him. “Want me to tell them to go easy on you? It’s a limited-time offer.”
“No, I can handle it.” He was about to thank her but she was already jogging up the kitchen stairs, probably to rid herself of the horse smell that hung over her like a halo.
“Now where did Lucy run off to?” Dinah asked.
“She didn’t run. She’s hiding in plain sight,” he said, pointing, “right there in front of the television.”
Dinah glanced at him apologetically, then smoothed an invisible wrinkle from her apron and called, “Lucy, c’mere for a minute.”
Nothing.
“Lucy Olivia Jordan!”
The woman may as well have shouted “abracadabra” judging the way the girl jumped to her feet and buzzed into the kitchen with her toffee-brown hair flying behind her and a mix of mortification and irritation on her face.
“Diiii-nah,” she said in what resembled a genuine whine. “I don’t like that.”
“What, cutie patootie? You’ve a beautiful name.”
Peyton agreed. Anna Christine and Lucy Olivia. His daughters.
“Aren’t you going to introduce your papa to the gang?” Dinah’s tone was cheerful, but it sounded more along the lines of “Introduce your father now or else.”
Lucy’s shoulders drooped and she added a put-out frown for emphasis. “Fine.”
“Very good. Only the most mature girls your age can properly introduce folks.”
The girl considered this, then fixed her posture and pasted an almost serene smile on her face. “Everyone, this is my father, Doctor Turner.” She hesitated and whispered to him, “Do you want them to call you Doctor Turner or Peyton?”
He was hit with the urge to tell her to call him Dad. It would be a million times better than what she’d gotten by with calling him so far, which was “he” or “him.” “Peyton’s fine.”
“You can all call him Peyton,” she continued in a deep, slow tone, mimicking what she thought was mature. Turning to him, she summoned him closer to the group with a hurried wave. “Peyton …”
Did his name feel as weird for her to say as it did for him to hear her say it?
“Uh … Peyton, this is my cousin Cordelia. Her dad owned Battle Creek Ranch before Mom did.” She indicated a tall, slender woman with nearly black hair and a dimpled smile.
Cordelia shook his hand, and when he met her green eyes he could tell that she was more than well versed on him. This one was probably Valerie’s closest friend, a title he himself had had a lifetime ago. “Welcome back to Night Sky, Peyton.”
Her voice caught him off guard. It was authentically throaty, kind of hoarse but no doubt feminine.
“This,” Lucy said, tugging one of the men forward, “is Cordelia’s husband, Jack Merriman. He and Delia help Mom run the ranch. And next to you is Cordelia’s mom, Dinah Jordan. And these are the other ranch hands.”
Peyton shook hands, exchanged greetings and tried to brush off the reproving glare from the dark-skinned, flannel-shirted man Lucy introduced as Will Aturro. The others were Ripley Pascal and Steven Underwood. And, of course, Cooper Calhoun, who made a show of jutting out his chest and talking with a toothpick in his mouth.
“Intros done,” Lucy said to Dinah, the pretense of maturity deflated. She returned to the family room as quickly as she’d come.
“Need a hand with the food, Mama?” Cordelia asked, with Jack at her side.
Peyton had survived in cities and towns and communities all over the globe knowing he didn’t belong. Getting through dinner with people in his hometown shouldn’t be much different. Except that these people already had deep-seated, unfavorable preconceptions about him.
Just another obstacle to get over in order to be in Lucy’s life.
That was all the motivation he needed to approach the group of men who stood near the breakfast bar discussing something that sounded like bull semen.
In the sea of flannel and denim and boots, he was more than noticeable in a slate-gray chambray shirt with rolled sleeves, black trousers and shoes that still had a polish to them despite the time he’d spent standing around the stables with Valerie.
“Ask me about it, the gal’s off her mark with that ninety-day experiment she’s talkin’ about. Need a good hundred ten, twenty days. Best odds for high conception.” Coop tossed a glimpse in Peyton’s direction. “Hey, there, Doc—Peyton,” he amended. “Just talkin’ shop here. Don’t really need a doctor’s opinion. Not one who doesn’t know his way around a ranch. Now, if you were a country vet …”
The others smirked a little but eased back to allow Peyton room to enter the fray.
“Calving season’s damn important on a cattle ranch,” Will said to him, crossing his arms.
Peyton hitched his chin at Coop. “What’s Valerie off her mark about?” He didn’t need anyone to spell out for him the fact that they’d been discussing one of her decisions.
“Timing,” the old cowboy said. “This year she wants a shorter season. I say it’s a fool thing to do. And she knows how I feel about it.”
Peyton considered his response carefully, trying to strike a balance between not offending Coop and not undercutting Valerie. “Yeah, a longer season raises the odds for conception if you’re after maximum numbers.”
“Of course.”
“A shorter season’ll give you more time for management—health programs, nutrition, marketing. Maybe she’s after more control and quality of the cattle, and not out to win a numbers race.” Peyton lingered a few moments, watching Will, Ripley and Steven exchange sidelong glances. “Of course,” he said to Coop, “I’m not a vet. Just a doctor.”
Without waiting for a comeback, he stepped away from the group and found Lucy parked in front of the television, statue-still.
“What’re you watching?” he asked in an admittedly lame attempt to strike up a conversation. He looked up in time to see Jennifer Aniston strut across the screen bare-assed with a soda in her hand. “Okay, what are you watching?”
Lucy studied him as if inspecting an alien. “Are you serious? This is The Break-Up. It’s an oldie, but I like Vince, so …”
“What’s it rated?”
Again with the alien-inspecting look. “I dunno. PG, PG-13. Something like that. What’s the big deal, anyway? I’ve seen it before.” She curled her lip. “And I’m not a baby.”
Peyton resisted a sigh. Would everyday conversation with her be a battle? He pulled up an armchair and sat, asking, “Can I watch with you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. She’s not gonna flash her booty again, if that’s what you’re hanging around for. Just so you know.”
“I’ll live.” For a minute or two they sat silently with the noise from the movie and the hubbub from the kitchen filling the air. “Lucy, I need you to tell me the truth about something.”
She continued to sit wordlessly.
“Lucy, your hearing aid is in. I know you can hear me.”
She automatically reached up a finger to push aside her hair and touch the device that sat behind the shell of her left ear. A clear tube was attached and led to her ear canal. “Mom told you about … the meningitis?”
Peyton nodded. “About you and Anna—”
“I don’t want to talk about her.” The words were sharp-edged.
“Just let me say this. I’m sorry that happened. Please believe that, Lucy.” After she nodded, he went on, “What were you doing in my grandfather’s house today?”
“I was sketch—”
“The truth this time,” he said firmly.
Eyes stuck on the television, she said, “I said
I was sketching. Gramps lets me come in and draw whenever and he doesn’t freak out about it. So could you not?”
Peyton needed to ease up. Now wasn’t the time to push the issue, not with her already on the defensive and dangerously close to causing a scene with the house full of people.
“I’m gonna help Dinah with dinner,” she said abruptly, hurrying to the kitchen where Dinah was filling ramekins with honey.
His daughter successfully avoided getting within ten feet of him until it was time to sit down at the dining-room table.
Valerie, freshly scrubbed and dressed in jeans and a cream-colored sweater that appeared as soft as a baby chick, returned in time to butter biscuits, telling Dinah, “That’s enough standing on your feet. Have a seat now, and thank you, Di.”
Without a peep of protest Dinah untied her apron, patted Valerie’s cheek and found an available chair in the quickly filling dining room.
Peyton washed his hands at the sink before offering to help Valerie serve.
“Didn’t you hear? You’re the guest,” she said.
“This guest is able-bodied and willing to help out. Let me.”
Her gaze slid over him—unintentionally, judging by the flustered way she looked away and started briskly slathering a biscuit with butter. “Then you can start carrying out the stew. The bowls are along the breakfast bar.”
They worked quietly, bringing to the table steaming bowls of stew and baskets of biscuits, bottles of wine and glasses of fruit juice for Lucy and Dinah, whose simple palette had “never acquired a taste for all that fancy wine.”
The two available seats left were as far from each other as they could be. Part of him was glad no one got the notion to try to be funny and shove them together. That wasn’t what this was about. This, him being on Battle Creek Ranch, sitting down to dinner with Valerie and Lucy and their family and friends, was about him getting an idea of what lives they led and finding out whether following his gut and battling for a way into his daughter’s world was for the best.
“I’ll always find a way to be with my little boy.”
In a flash the dishes of food in front of him disappeared and all he could see was his mother’s bloodshot eyes, her shaky half smile, half grimace as he tugged her away from the high school campus before anyone else could catch her hanging around—with a half-empty bottle of booze jutting out of her pocket.
Someone bumped the table and he was back, in the here and now, and he could breathe again.
His gut twisted at the thought of seeing on Lucy’s face that same crushing look of fear he’d lived with for over half his life.
Once the eating started, conversation returned with a vengeance. People talked over each other, laughed, bumped elbows. They looked at home here, in a sienna-colored dining room with tall windows and three simple chandeliers hovering over the length of the trestle table.
Dinah was a fine cook, and Peyton told her so.
“Aw, Dinah, I’m wondering if you keep inviting people over and cooking for school fundraisers and church get-togethers just so you can collect compliments,” Will teased, spreading honey over his biscuit.
“She can cook, bake, grill. A triple threat,” Steve added.
The satisfaction in her eyes was obvious. Yes, she loved the compliments but her cooking stood up for itself.
Peyton couldn’t help but compare this chaotic, easygoing meal to the almost hostile supper he’d had at his grandfather’s house last night, before he’d driven to the ranch. It had been Nathaniel, Jasper and him at the table, and between bites of his gourmet meal Nathaniel had pelted Peyton with questions about his career—pointedly ignoring any mention of Doctors Without Borders.
Lucy chatted almost nonstop to Cordelia and seemed to be making a conscious effort to avoid meeting his eyes, as if she could feel when he was looking her way and knew when to tap her cousin on the shoulder and start chatting away again.
It was Valerie who remained relatively quiet, as if she were fading into the background. Coop must’ve noticed, because he said, “Val, it’s a good thing you’re lettin’ him into the fold.” He pointed across the table at Peyton. “A little gal like Lucy needs her daddy around.”
For the first time since they’d started eating, Valerie acknowledged Peyton.
“We’re figuring things out,” she said mildly.
“What finally blew you back to Texas?” Coop asked him. “Folks around here’ve got good memories, but so long as you got your head on straight now, you’ll be all right.”
Quizzically, Lucy tipped her head forward and drew her brows together. Peyton could tell she was hungry for information, as if she knew Coop had alluded to something big but was not exactly sure of the details.
Had she never found out about how he’d reached the breaking point and had nearly ruined his life?
Carefully, he said, “I needed a change of pace, thought it was time to come home.”
“Bet you were about to shit yourself when you found out you’re a daddy,” Ripley chimed in, then winced in contrition at his language.
“Like Valerie said, we’re figuring things out.”
“What’ve you been up to, rich boy like you, for—what was it now?—twelve, thirteen years?” Coop pressed.
Peyton should’ve anticipated the questions to hit like someone emptying a magazine from a gun. “Work. There’re always people and places in need of aid.”
“Are you an explorer or a doctor?”
“Both,” Lucy supplied around the spoonful of stew in her mouth. “He’s a missionary for Doctors Without Borders. A surgeon.”
Peyton’s head jerked toward her and she swallowed hard then hunched over her bowl. He hadn’t discussed his work with anyone except his grandfather, Jasper and Memorial’s chief of staff—and all had agreed to keep it under wraps for the time being.
He hadn’t even told Valerie, mainly because she hadn’t asked.
But Lucy knew. And now he knew why.
She hadn’t been sketching in his grandfather’s study—that he’d already known. She had been snooping in his belongings and must’ve found his personal files.
And she’d fought tooth and nail to lie her way out of it.
“A missionary?” Cordelia asked. “Religious or …”
“Secular,” he said, still watching Lucy.
“When’d you decide to do that?”
“When I left Night Sky. I started as an assistant to a Christian group—nothing more important than the guy to clean up, fetch supplies, deliver food. But I figured out what I was meant to do, and joined a non-religious group after that.”
“Meant to do? What does that mean?” Valerie asked. “No one’s predestined for anything, at least I don’t think so. It’s about free will. It’s about choices. You chose to leave, so please don’t make an excuse about it being meant to happen.”
“Well, it’s noble any way you slice it,” Dinah said.
Conversation was divided again, with Jack asking him about the countries he’d visited while Lucy eavesdropped, watching him with a look of open interest.
Suddenly Coop said, “Val, the McClintocks’ve got connections to a horse trainer you shouldn’t pass up. A real-live horse whisperer. You’re gonna want to give him a call. I can get the info from Dwight down at the body shop. No problem.”
“Why would I need a new trainer? Pete’s my go-to guy. You know that.”
Coop emitted something that was a cross between a cough and a laugh. “C’mon now, Val. Pete’s okay, but you’ll need somebody that can handle a horse like Brute. Take my advice, will you?”
Peyton noticed that the other conversations had grown softer, as if everyone at the table were half listening.
“I’ll take your advice, Coop, when I ask for it.” Valerie stabbed her fork into her bowl, and it came away with a carrot slice speared onto it.
The old man snorted and ignored the warning look Dinah sent him. “It’s all that liberal independent woman stuff cloudin’ your judgment,
Val. Now, here I knew you when you were just a young’un, back when your folks died in that car crash in Pittsburgh and you came here to Rhys.” He took a swig of wine. “I had a hand in keepin’ this place afloat.”
“It was barely doing that when I inherited it. They helped me turn it around.” She indicated Dinah, Jack and Cordelia. At his offended expression she said, “So did you, Coop. But when it comes down to it, how I run this ranch is my decision. You don’t have to agree, but please respect that.”
“First all that nonsense about a ninety-day calving season, now this. Hanging on to that horse without getting him properly trained is a mistake. He’s dangerous.” He pointed at Lucy and said to Valerie, “Let your little girl ride that gelding and chances are she’ll end up with a plot right next to—”
The man snapped his mouth shut and his leathery skin took on a crimson shade, but it was too late.
“That’s enough!” Dinah snapped at the same time that Jack shook his head at Coop and Peyton shot out of his chair, sending it clattering against the hardwood floor.
“Stop! Stop it!” Lucy dashed around the table to Peyton. She grabbed his wrists and he realized then that his hands had formed fists. “He didn’t mean it. I know he didn’t. Coop cares about us.”
Coop pushed away from the table. “I-I’m sorry. Val, listen …”
“She’s listened to you enough for one day, Coop,” Cordelia said. “I’ll walk you to the door. Get to the bunkhouse and try sleeping off all that wine.”
He said nothing as she took his arm and led him out the dining room.
“He does care about us,” Lucy said, her voice colored with panic. She released Peyton’s wrists and took her seat next to Cordelia’s vacant chair.
I care about you, too, he wanted to say. Was it true? He didn’t want the attachments that came with fatherhood, yet he’d helped her with homework, shared a meal with her and had almost put his fist in a man’s face to defend her. She was a consequence of his recklessness, but he wasn’t about to abandon her the way his mother had abandoned him.
Somehow, without him even realizing it, the child had spellbound him. Didn’t she know? Couldn’t she tell it was tearing him apart to be an outsider in her life?