Casey carried her coffee to the table and sat. “I already suggested that. She won’t do it. She thinks it’s too forward, especially since—her words, not mine—he’s moved on to greener pastures.”
“Old-fashioned lady.”
“Very. That’s why she keeps refusing Paul’s proposals. She believes it’s disrespectful to my dad’s memory to remarry so soon.”
“How long’s your dad been gone?”
“Six years. Massive coronary.”
Jess’s eyebrows rose. “Six years is a long time. She must have loved him very much.”
“She did. My dad was great. Always smiling, never too busy to talk—always on top of things, you know?”
“Like?”
“Oh...” She thought for a minute as she stirred creamer into her coffee. “A few years before he died, he had the house resided—vinyl soffit and fascia, new spouting and shutters—all that stuff. He wanted to make sure they wouldn’t have a lot of upkeep on the house when they were getting on in years. They both hated to paint.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Mmm, this is good, thanks.” Grinning, she finished her thoughts on her father. “And he always made sure there were Hershey bars in the cupboard, because he knew they were my favorite—Hershey’s with almonds. Now, that’s the mark of a good provider.”
Jess studied her frankly for a moment, then spoke. “Did your dad know your husband?”
Sensing the comparisons he must be making between her father’s rock-solid style and Dane’s flamboyant spending, Casey felt a flush creep into her face. “No, but that’s not what you really wanted to ask, is it?”
“No. I wanted to ask how your dad would feel about Dane——and about this situation—if he were alive today.”
There was no point denying it. “He’d be sick.”
Jess glanced over at the figures he’d been calculating and frowned. “Forgive me for saying so—and maybe it’s because I’ve been working with the books all night—but it’s still hard to imagine how any man could blow the kind of money cardiologists make. I can’t believe you’re not angry that he left you with a mess like this.”
Casey cupped her hands around her coffee mug. “Oh, I was angry. But I was also grieving for a man I cared for, and it just didn’t feel right to be hating him at the same time. I got over it.”
“Just like that?”
“Forgiving him was the right thing to do. He didn’t plan on dying. Just as he didn’t plan on leaving me in debt.” Casey took another long sip of her coffee. “As for how someone can mess up that badly... I guess you never saw the talk show on people who lost everything because they maxed out all their credit cards.”
He smiled. “I must have missed that one.”
“No doubt.” He’d probably never seen a talk show in his life. “In our case, all it took was a few European vacations, a Tudor home Midas couldn’t afford, designer clothes, five-star restaurants, rare wines, exclusive club memberships—” She broke off. She wouldn’t get into Dane’s failed investments; she’d already told Jess that Dane had never had a head for business. “Anyway, we had an image to uphold, and we upheld it.”
“Was he always into excesses?”
Casey averted her gaze. “Yes, but according to our attorney, who was Dane’s friend, as well, the spending got much worse after our marriage. Mr. Chesney said he thought it was because Dane felt insecure about the difference in our ages. I was a twenty-six-year-old nurse with an incredible case of hero worship when we married. Dane was forty-eight.”
“And you were together...?”
“Four years.” She watched his brow furrow and thoughts work through his dark eyes. “If you’re doing the math, that makes me almost thirty-two now.”
“I wasn’t doing the math. I was thinking that you said you’d gotten past your anger. But when I was in the den earlier, there was resentment in your voice. Or am I wrong?”
Again, why deny it? “No, you’re not wrong. But the person I’m still angry with is me. I’m just as responsible for what happened. I never questioned whether we could afford the things he wanted or not, I just helped him spend. When we met, I’d been paying back student loans, struggling to make my car payments—shopping on a shoestring budget. Then, suddenly, I didn’t have to anymore.” Casey met Jess’s gaze, so intent, so steady. “Looks like your first impression of me was right, Mr. Dalton. I am a gold digger.”
Jess shook his head. “If you were a gold digger, you would have sold this ranch in a heartbeat, and you wouldn’t be working as hard as any man I’ve known to keep us afloat.” Her surprise must have registered on her face, because he added, “Yes, I’ve noticed. But you’re losing weight, so you either have to slow down or eat more.”
That bothered her. “Do I look that bad?”
He smiled again, and she felt his mood shift to slight flirtation. “No, but your jeans are getting baggy in the seat.
“And why are you looking at my seat?”
Chuckling, Jess rose and rinsed his coffee mug, then walked back to the table and picked up his stock prices and papers. “Probably because I’m always behind you, scrambling to keep up.”
Casey shook her head. “No one works harder around here than you do.”
That smile remained. “You’re wrong, but if I’ve got you believing that, I’d better get back to it.”
Casey watched him leave, feeling almost foolishly pleased by the way the evening had turned out, and particularly good about his compliments. Jess wasn’t a man to throw them around lightly, so they meant something. They were sincere.
She was on her way past the den a moment later when she glanced inside and saw him at the desk, poring over the ranch’s ledgers again. If Dane had paid even a quarter the attention to their finances that Jess paid to Broken-straw’s, she wouldn’t be here right now. And suddenly—just for a moment—the thought of not being here made her a little sad. “Jess?”
Jess looked up.
“Just something else about my dad.”
He put down his work and looked at her expectantly.
“He was a big fan of the old West—of western films and authors. I think...I think he would have liked you.”
Jess didn’t say anything for moment, but then his tight smile and softening look told her he appreciated the compliment. “Supper was good tonight,” he said. “I liked the lasagna a lot.”
“Thanks. Maybe we can have it again soon.”
Then, happier than she’d been in weeks, Casey climbed the stairs to her room.
She dreamed of her mother that night. Grace Hamilton had driven to the ranch in Casey’s repossessed Lexus and knocked on the door. She was carrying a pretty basket covered with a pink-and-mint-green cloth napkin and she was saying, “You’re too thin, dear, so I brought you a nice lunch. Paul didn’t want it. But you mustn’t share it with that cowboy. It’s been only a year and a half since Dane died, and it wouldn’t be right.”
And she answered, “I won’t, Mom,” and her mother smiled and hugged her, and went back to the car, calling, “Good, because if you offer a man potato salad, he’s going to want more.” Then she slammed the door to the Lexus. Hard.
Casey vaulted out of bed, took a couple of steps, then stood there in the darkness, trying to clear the confusion from her head. What was she doing? Why was she standing in the middle of the—? Oh, yes...the dream. Then she heard the front door open and close, and knew it hadn’t been the Lexus’s door slamming that awakened her, it had been the sound of Jess’s bedroom door closing. Seconds later, his truck roared to life outside.
Hurrying to the glass, she opened the blinds and watched him back out, pull on his lights, then, in a spray of gravel, speed down the driveway.
Bewildered, Casey glanced at the luminous dial on her bedside clock. Where on earth was he going at this hour? What kind of business could anyone possibly have at 12:35 a.m.? Then a woman’s muffled name from a dream came to her, and Casey felt a painful tightening around her heart. Lydia.
Chap
ter 7
What the hell was the kid up to now?
Jess clenched the steering wheel as he tailed Ross up the dark, rutted dirt road, hanging back a little, praying his brother wouldn’t make a right turn a mile ahead and drive down into Babylon. The men down there played high-stakes, take-no-prisoners poker, and the women most men called “the ladies”—and others called something less kind—kept the drinks coming.
Jess had been there only once. And only because he had a sponsor. No one went to Babylon the first time without a regular who was willing to vouch for him. Right after the divorce, he and Slade Johnson had driven down through the deep pines and brushy undergrowth to that plush log club, with its randy pleasures and dangerous clientele. But even in his slightly inebriated condition, Jess had known Babylon wasn’t for him, and he’d dragged his butt home before he could get into serious trouble. Slade had been his sponsor. But who’d taken Ross?
The road climbed toward its apex, where the sky opened up, and the jagged outlines of trees began to show against the midnight-blue sky. Aspens and cottonwoods were fully leafed now, and the damp, clean scent of pines drifted through the open truck window.
Jess crested the hill, then swore, pulled off the road and doused his headlights. A sick feeling churned through his gut as he watched the faint red glow of taillights angling down to the right through the woods. And he knew his brother wouldn’t be visiting one of the small cabins with tassled lamp shades tucked into the woods below the main lodge. He was going to “the parlor” to play cards.
Fighting his anger and desperation, Jess jammed the truck into Park and turned off the ignition. He couldn’t have said he was surprised—not after Ross’s comment this afternoon about raising money. But, dammit—How many other times had Ross come here after everyone at Broken straw turned in for the night?
How long had his brother been lying to him this time?
Jess drew a frustrated hand over his face. He didn’t want to know this. And he wouldn’t know, if he hadn’t been staring out his bedroom window when Ross drove off. But, like a pimply kid dying to jump the prom queen, he’d been standing there, picturing the widow Marshall in her birthday suit, and contemplating another cold shower. After four weeks of listening to her sounds as she got ready for bed, smelling the faint fragrance of peach and hyacinth that crept under the crack between the adjoining door and the threshold, it was getting harder and harder to stay on his side of that door.
If it was the physical pull alone that drew him to Casey, there would be no problem. He’d just take a trip to town and find someone like Brenda who practically lived for sex and didn’t want an involvement any more than he did. But that was not the way it was anymore, because he’d gone and done something incredibly stupid. He’d begun to like his new ranch hand.
He liked her strength and determination—even her temper, because she didn’t flare up without cause. And she had a way with the men who worked for him. Old Hank Lewis treated her like a porcelain angel, and tall, lanky, pockmarked Pruitt watched his language and his raunchy stories when she was around. Not that Jess would have tolerated anything else. Catherine Marshall. was a lady, through and through; she deserved their respect.
The haunting cry of a coyote sent a foraging rabbit scurrying for the nearby underbrush and jolted Jess from his thoughts. Scowling, he jerked his gaze back in the direction Ross’s truck had taken. Why was he thinking about Casey at a time like this? He needed to concentrate on Ross—come up with a plan to keep him from getting in too deep with people even the local police didn’t mess with.
Did he make up some cock-and-bull story about an emergency at the ranch and hustle the kid out of there? he wondered. Or did he wait around till heaven knew when and confront him out here in the pines? The clock on the dashboard said it was already one-thirty.
After five more minutes of soul-searching and indecision, Jess sighed, cranked the ignition and turned the truck toward home. Dragging Ross out of there wouldn’t have accomplished a thing but ticking him off again and embarrassing him in front of his cronies. He was twenty-eight years old. Sick as it made him, Jess knew that if the kid wasn’t ready to quit gambling on his own, nothing Jess said or did was going to stop him.
The next afternoon, Casey plodded up the stairs, pulling the damp red kerchief from around her neck, the smell of horses and hay clinging to her clothes. What her aching muscles wouldn’t give for a deep, relaxing bubble bath and fifteen minutes in a Jacuzzi. But she was in cow country now, and luxury soaks were a thing of the past.
She glanced at her watch: four-thirty-five. She had time for a quick shower before starting supper. Jess had liked the lasagna she made last night. But this evening, she’d fix the two of them a real cattleman’s meal: thick, juicy steaks from the grill, baked potatoes with plenty of butter and sour cream, and fresh tossed salads.
Walking into her room, she tossed the red bandanna on the bed. Heaven knew Jess could use the protein. Where he found the energy to work like a maniac all day and patrol the ranch’s access roads at night was beyond her. At least she thought that was where he’d gone last night. He hadn’t been all that clear when she’d asked him earli—A fat manila envelope lying beside her red bandanna broke Casey’s thoughts and, frowning curiously, she walked to her bed and picked it up. It was sealed with tape, and her name—Mrs. Marshall—was clearly marked on the outside. Sitting on the bed, she peeled away the tape, opened the flap, then gasped when she saw the wad of bills inside. She counted it quickly. Then she shook her head in disbelief, and counted it again, more slowly this time. Twenty-four-hundred dollars? But where had it come from? Who would have—?
She smiled. Jess. He’d been poring over the books and weeding out cattle for sale for the past several weeks. She’d thought it was because he needed extra money to meet payroll and pay the myriad other bills that kept accumulating. But it had been for her. For her.
Almost giddy with joy, Casey tucked the envelope into her top drawer. There had been days, like today, when the work and heat got to her, and the mountains and hayfields and endless blue sky made home seem so far away. But now, the end was in sight, and within nine or ten weeks, she could be walking the mall with her mother again, or chasing her sister Lynn’s toddlers across “Grammy’s” lawn.
Casey grabbed a clean bra and bikini panties from the drawer and closed it. Despite the four years of thoughtless spending she’d shared with Dane, she’d never really considered herself a materialistic person. But now, all she could think of was that whoever said money couldn’t buy happiness had never been totally without it. It would never be the be-all and end-all of her existence, but life was certainly easier if you had some.
Shedding her jeans and tank top, Casey pulled on a robe, grabbed her clean underthings and hurried into the bathroom, smiling. Twenty-four-hundred dollars. She would bake an apple pie for dessert tonight, she decided, recalling that it was Jess’s favorite. It probably wouldn’t be as good as his aunt Ruby’s, but Jess had done something wonderful for her, and she would show him her appreciation. If she’d had doubts before, she didn’t anymore: this arrangement of theirs was going to work.
Jess swallowed the last succulent morsel of his steak and smiled. The woman could cook. He hadn’t had beef like this since his dad manned the grill. He started to rise to help finish clearing the table, but Casey pressed a firm hand to his shoulder and pushed him back down in his chair.
“Sit still. I’m spoiling you tonight.”
“You are?” An optimistic little thought made a quantum leap from the dinner table to his bed, and Jess grinned. “Not that I mind, but why?”
“Come on, quit kidding,” she said from the work island behind him. “You know why.”
Jess blinked. No, he didn’t.
“Ready for dessert?”
“I... Sure. Is that a new outfit?”
“Uh-huh. With the weather being so hot lately, and wearing jeans most of the time, I needed something cooler.” She laughed. “Although I do
look a little strange. I don’t think the color on my legs will ever catch up to the rest of me.”
Casey swept by him in the white one-piece shorts thing that had been distracting him all night. It had an elastic waist and left her tanned arms and long, flawless legs bare. Tiny gold buttons ran from the scoop neckline to just below her waist. When she bent low to replace his dinner plate with a slice of warm apple pie topped with vanilla ice cream—and her neckline sagged—the swell of arousal he’d been fighting all evening hit new heights. Right under his nose, the lacy edge of her bra came into view, and the golden tops of her breasts hovered only inches from his face.
“Hope you like it. It’s been a while since I made one.”
He loved it, he thought as she whisked away their plates, and he didn’t mean the pie. Jess gave himself a mental shake and tried to stop thinking like a man who hadn’t had sex in months. But he couldn’t move his thoughts in another direction. Her fancy salon cut was growing out, and her sun-streaked hair was different tonight...kind of long and shaggy around her tanned face, grazing her eyebrows and bringing out the deep cobalt blue of her eyes. She’d darkened her lashes with a touch of mascara, and they were long, silky.
“Hey, you’re not eating,” she scolded with a smile as she returned with her own dessert. “I thought apple pie was your favorite.”
“It is,” he said after clearing the tightness from his throat. “I was just waiting for you.”
“Well, I’m here now, so dig in.”
Jess took a bite, then smiled. “Excellent.” She positively beamed. And the pie probably was good. But right now he couldn’t taste anything. The clenching south of his belt buckle was taking all his attention. He could see himself undoing those little gold buttons one by one...unhooking her bra...running his tongue over the soft, graceful swells it hid.
The little devil in his pants made a good argument for following through on his daydream, and Jess straightened suddenly, startled that he’d let his imagination get so far out of hand.
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