Eve leaned closer, her blue eyes filled with sympathy. “Does he still want you to leave medicine and be a full-time housewife?”
Had everyone in town heard about the things he’d flung at her last June?. Or simply a select few who’d gleaned the knowledge from one of the ladies providing the coffee? Either way, it didn’t please her one whit to know she was the object of gossip. Or, worse, pity.
“He wants me to postpone private practice until Vicki’s through school,” she admitted while making a valiant stab at nonchalance. “Although tonight, I thought he’d—”
Karen was interrupted by Martin’s return. “Your wine, ladies,” he said, setting each one down in turn. “Enjoy.”
He accepted their thanks with a slow grin that had Karen frowning at his back as he headed toward the bar.
“Something wrong?” Eve asked, brow wrinkling.
“Not really. It’s just that Martin reminds me of someone and I don’t know who,” she murmured, watching his broad back as he threaded his way through the milling crowd.
Eve lifted her glass and took a sip, then whirled in surprise as a pair of strong hands came down lightly on her shoulders.
“Hello, wife,” Rio Redtree said with a crooked grin that showcased his blindingly white teeth. “Miss me?”
“Terribly,” Eve murmured, her face lighting.
Averting her gaze from the exchange of heated glances, Karen reached for her wine. In spite of his eager words earlier, Cassidy hadn’t sought her out once tonight, she thought, taking a sip.
What’s wrong with you, Karen Sloane? a voice taunted. You’re an equal partner in this marriage, aren’t you? You don’t have to wait for your husband to do the asking. Muscles braced, she started to rise, only to be interrupted by a vaguely familiar baritone.
“Dr. Sloane?”
Startled, Karen glanced up to find one of the new interns smiling down at her. Though he’d only been at Vanderbilt six weeks or so, Chuck Zendajas had fully half of the eligible women on staff under the age of forty drooling over his astounding good looks.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said after exchanging remarks about the size of the crowd and the level of gaiety.
“Actually, I had the night off and everyone I knew was heading out this way, so I just followed the crowd.” His puppy brown eyes smiled down at her as he leaned closer. “Tell me, is it permissible for a lowly intern to ask a senior resident to dance, or am I risking my entire career by being so forward?”
Karen laughed. For all his wolfish behavior around the ladies, Zendajas was harmless. Still, it was Cassidy she longed to feel holding her in his arms.
“I’m sorry, Chuck. I was just going to find my husband.”
“In this madhouse?” He swept the crowd with a well-shaped, well-kept hand.
“It’s not so bad—”
“Tell you what. Dance with me just this once, and while we’re on the floor, you can keep a lookout for your husband.”
Why not? she reasoned. Besides, it was just a dance.
“Okay, but just one…”
Of course, Zendajas turned out to be a marvelous dancer, whirling her into a two-step with a devastatingly sexy charm. “Better get an unlisted number, or you’ll never get any sleep when you’re off duty,” she told him as they moved to the throbbing rhythm.
“Why’s that?” he asked, grinning down at her.
“Because I have a feeling you’re about to become Vanderbilt’s designated ‘most eligible bachelor.’”
He laughed and bent lower to whisper something in her ear. Whatever he said, however, was lost in the shock coursing through her as she caught sight of Cassidy standing at the edge of the crowd, watching her. Though surrounded by smiling, laughing people having fun, he seemed utterly alone, his expression stony, his eyes bleak.
Before she could break free and go to him, however, he turned and disappeared into the crowd, his broad back like an unbreachable barrier between them.
* * *
Cassidy was just congratulating himself on finding a quiet corner when he felt a rustling at his elbow. “You look like a man who needs a hug,” Sylvia Moore declared, grinning up at him with an older version of Karen’s smile. In spite of his sour mood, he found himself grinning back.
“Is that a fact?”
“Yep. It’s also a fact that I, myself, am in desperate need of one, so how about getting with it?”
“Yes ma’am,” he said as he leaned down to give her a hard squeeze. He’d always liked Karen’s mother. She had a resilience and strength about her that he admired. And at fifty-six Sylvia was still an extremely vibrant, interesting woman with the figure of a runway model and an innate sense of style that Karen had always envied.
Karen had been six weeks pregnant when he’d met Sylvia for the first time. He’d been tied in knots the night he’d stood at Karen’s side in her mother’s stylish living room, braced for the lash of a mother’s tongue.
Sylvia had simply sat there for a while, lost in thought. And then she’d left her chair and come to them. He’d willed himself to meet her gaze, grimly aware that he deserved whatever abuse she chose to dish out.
Instead, she’d framed his face in hands very like her daughter’s and solemnly welcomed him to the family. Just like that, he’d been accepted. She’d never once blamed him for his past sins.
It had taken him a few years to learn to trust that easy acceptance.
“Nice dress. Sexy,” he said, lifting a suggestive brow.
“Behave yourself,” she retorted with a laugh. “I’m too old to be sexy.”
“Guess that’s why Frank Bidwell’s been hanging around you like a lovesick puppy for the past couple of years.”
Sylvia’s face turned a pretty shade of pink, even as she offered him a reproving look. “Frank is too conscious of his dignity to be lovesick.”
Cassidy snorted. At last count, Franklin Bidwell owned half the county. As tough as an old boot, the man had clawed his way up from nothing. Along the way he’d left a trail of beautiful but disappointed girlfriends. According to the buzz Cassidy had heard here and there, Sylvia was the first woman his own age Bidwell had dated since he’d been in junior high school.
“I understand you’ve been keeping secrets, Mr. Sloane.”
He felt a clammy hand seize his heart. “Care to be more specific?” he hedged, careful to keep his voice even.
“Vicki tells me you’re a whiz at dressmaking.”
The sick pressure in his chest eased off. “I stuck more pins in my thumb than the darn hem.”
Sylvia laughed. “She looks adorable, doesn’t she?”
Cassidy nodded. “She tried to talk me into letting her wear lipstick.”
“Aha. Well, it is a tad early.”
“Try ten years early,” he grated, watching one of his hands whirling Wanda June onto the floor. Randall Whitehorse was a decent enough kid, even though he’d flirted with a bad crowd for a while, but just to make sure the kid had his priorities straight, Cassidy made it a point to catch his eye. He grunted in satisfaction as the young cowpuncher turned red and widened the distance between himself and Wanda June.
“Frank said you had a reputation as a hard-ass,” Sylvia said, watching the young couple spin into the crush of dancers. “I refused to believe it until now.”
“Watch your tongue, Grandma, or I’ll show you what I really am.”
Sylvia grinned, and the diamond studs in her ears flashed. “You don’t scare me, Cassidy Sloane. You talk tough, but you’re really a very sweet man inside.”
“Don’t count on it.” He scowled and thought about fighting his way to the bar for a cold one.
“Karen never would have fallen in love with a man who was cruel or thoughtless,” Sylvia said, suddenly serious. “Which is why I’m breaking one of my own rules to ask you to try a little harder to understand who she really is behind that confident front she’s so busy showing everyone.”
“I know exactly who she is
, Sylvia. Vicki’s mom and my wife.”
She exhaled slowly, as though preparing herself to do battle. “Karen loves being a wife and mother, make no mistake about that, but she’s also a doctor, and a good one.”
Cassidy heard someone call his name and looked up to see one of his fellow ranchers dancing past. “Lookin’ good, Rafe,” he called with a nod before reluctantly returning his gaze to his mother-in-law’s now somber face.
“Might as well get it all out, Sylvia, while you’ve got me trapped.”
Her mouth softened, but her brown eyes remained troubled. “I bought Karen dolls to dress, and she pretended they were patients. When she wasn’t tearing up my best sheets to use as bandages, she was dulling my kitchen knives on pretend operations.” Her lips curved into a fond smile that had Cassidy sucking in. “She gave up a lot for that dream, Cassidy. While her friends were spending hours on the phone with one another, Karen was in her room studying. She refused dates in order to study, lost boyfriends when she wouldn’t put herself at their beck and call. All because she was determined to be a doctor.”
Cassidy shifted and wished he could simply walk away. “I respect that, Sylvia, and I’m not saying she should give up the practice of medicine—just postpone it until Vick doesn’t need her so much.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that if she does, she might never go back to it? Or that even if she tries, she might be so rusty no one will invite her to join a practice?”
“So she can start her own.”
“It doesn’t work that way.” Sylvia’s voice came out sharp and impatient. “Cassidy, I’m begging you, don’t make Karen choose between her love for you and her love of medicine. Otherwise, she just might end up hating you.” Sylvia inhaled, released the breath slowly. “You could lose her, Cassidy. And once she’s gone, I’m very much afraid you’d never get her back. My little girl can be stubborn, too, you know. Especially when she’s been hurt.”
“Either way, I’ll survive.” He bent to brush a kiss over Sylvia’s cheekbone before excusing himself.
Five minutes later he was standing outside, staring at the threatening clouds, his gut knotted. Sylvia had been right. His marriage was crumbling all around him, tearing chunks out of both of them. Soon Vicki would be affected.
Why couldn’t Karen see that as clearly as he could? Why couldn’t she understand that he was fighting to keep them together the only way he knew how—the same way he’d fought for the ranch and the respect of his peers—by pushing and clawing and never backing down?
For the past few months he’d spent a lot of time trying not to think or feel or care. Karen had tried to talk to him a time or two. She’d come close to begging him to open up. To confront their problems head-on.
As far as he was concerned there wasn’t all that much that needed saying. Unless she came to her senses and made her family her first priority, things were just naturally going to get worse between them.
* * *
Karen had never been drunk in her life. Tipsy, sure—a time or two—but never “hammered flat and left out to rot” as Cassidy had called it once when one of the men had come home reeling and stinking of booze. The way he’d said it had made Karen shake her head and wonder what possessed a person to medicate himself with mind-numbing poison.
Now she knew.
Sometimes it was just too painful to be awake and aware.
Like now, she thought as she and Vicki stood in a small alcove off the main hall, waiting for the bearded kid from the Herald to finish adjusting the intricate dials on his camera long enough to take their picture. Using the blank white wall as a backdrop, he’d set up extra lights, reflective umbrellas and a tripod, then one after another, gathered the guests-of-honor together with some of those who’d received aid and comfort during the crisis.
Now it was Vicki’s turn to be in the spotlight. Pleased as punch, she clung tightly to Rags’s leash and watched the photographer with big eyes. Her friend, Elizabeth, hovered nearby, alternately making faces to make Vicki laugh or rolling her eyes.
“Hold still, Rags,” Karen muttered when the excited pooch all but knocked her over in his eagerness to explore his new surroundings.
“I got him, Mommy,” Vicki promised, tugging on her pet’s tail.
Rags immediately sat down on Vicki’s shiny black Mary Janes while at the same time letting out another exuberant bark, drawing laughter and good-natured wisecracks from Brendan Gallagher and the other men who’d been herded into the alcove with her.
As soon as the dance with the intern had ended, she’d found Cassidy and asked him to dance. He’d pleaded fatigue and suggested she ask someone else. Wounded, she’d done just that. But she’d been careful to pick someone safe, and so had chosen Frank Bidwell. Silver-haired, charismatic and charming, Frank had taken pains to make her feel like the belle of the ball.
It hadn’t helped. It had been Cassidy’s arms she’d wanted to hold her, Cassidy’s warmth she’d wanted to feel enveloping her, Cassidy’s deep voice murmuring to her above the sound of the music.
Damn the man, she thought, hugging herself in spite of the heat of humanity and the cloying smell of clashing aftershaves surrounding her. Now that she was nearly finished with her responsibilities to everyone else, he seemed to have forgotten he’d ever tried to hustle her away.
“Look, Grandma, we’re going to be in the paper again!” Vicki called when she spotted her grandmother entering the room on Frank’s arm.
From her vantage point just inside the door, Sylvia grinned. “I see, sweet soul,” she called in answer to her granddaughter’s greeting.
“A little farther to the left, Dr. Sloane, if you please,” the photographer called as he lifted his gaze from the viewfinder. “Yeah, that’s good. Next to your daughter and the dog. Okay, that’ll do. Now, if you guys in the back would just squeeze together a little more…yeah, like that. Great!”
“All right, everyone look this way.” The harried young man frowned into the viewfinder, then lifted his head. “Something’s wrong.”
Looking upset, Vicki glanced around anxiously. “Daddy’s not here.”
“Sure he is, Vicki,” Brendan Gallagher boomed. “Right over there holding up that there wall.”
Vicki swiveled her head in the direction of Brendan’s pointing finger. “Daddy, why are you over there?”
Grinning, Gallagher beckoned to his poker buddy, “Hey, Cassidy, you think you could get a little closer to your wife and daughter?”
Her heart pounding, Karen watched Cassidy straighten from his spot against the wall and amble toward the group. When had he come in? she wondered, watching him approach. Not even the expert tailoring of the suit could disguise the hard, well-muscled contours of his sinewy body. As for his shoulders, they seemed impossibly wide, sheathed in the dark material. In spite of the tension of the evening, she couldn’t help feeling a purely womanly thrill that he was her husband.
“Stand next to Mommy, okay?” Vicki ordered with an impatient scowl. “Put your arm around her, like you did in the parking lot.”
Karen felt a ripple of uneasiness that turned quickly to shock as Cassidy went instead to stand behind his daughter. He stared straight ahead until the photographer finished taking pictures. Without a word to anyone, he walked out of the room. Not once had Cassidy even looked at her.
Chapter Five
By the time they left the exhibition hall an hour later, the night air had taken on the chill of a knife blade in winter. The rain that had threatened all day finally began shortly before they reached the edge of town. Within minutes, the winter-rutted road was treacherously slick, and visibility had narrowed to the limit of the truck’s headlights. Even with the heater turned to high, Karen couldn’t seem to get warm inside.
Huddled into the suit coat Cassidy had insisted she wear, she rested her aching head against the seat and watched the fence posts whizzing past in the rain-drenched night. Behind her in the truck’s extended cab, Vicki and Rags were curled up toge
ther on the seat, asleep.
Next to her in the driver’s seat, Cassidy drove with his usual efficiency—and in a stony silence that tore at her. Never all that talkative under the best of circumstances, he’d said very little beyond the usual words of a man settling his family into the truck for the long drive home. Once, he would have cuddled her close on the bench seat, his hard thigh pressing hers, his arm a comforting weight on her shoulders.
How many times in recent months had the two of them ridden home in silence, resentment and hurt stretching between them? Too many, she decided, opening her eyes and directing her gaze his way.
From the first moment she’d seen him stretched out on the stark white sheets in an ER cubicle, his hard jaw clenched and his skin stark white under the tan and stubble, she’d been fascinated by his face. Not because it was smooth and handsome or even noble, but because it seemed to reflect a life lived on its own terms.
Cassidy wasn’t always a likable man—his manner was too abrupt and his sarcasm too cutting. But in all the years she’d known him, he’d never shaded the truth or broken a promise. As her mother had once told her, integrity went a long way toward smoothing a few rough edges in a man.
She still loved his face, she realized after a moment’s reflection—the angular slopes and chiseled lines, the blatantly masculine set to his chin, the determination untouched by the harsh ravages of wind and cold and a blistering sun.
And yet, there had been times when she’d sensed an occasional easing of the tight rein he kept on his feelings, a momentary lapse in the iron discipline that ruled him. At those times, she’d almost held her breath in an agony of yearning, hoping deep in her heart that he might actually begin to trust her with his feelings as well as his thoughts. But no, he’d always drawn back at the last second, almost as if he were afraid to make himself vulnerable to her.
In the early years, she’d tried desperately to understand his need to keep an emotional barrier between them. When she’d failed, she’d made excuses for his remote ways, assuring herself there had to be a logical reason for his reluctance to trust her.
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