by Gayle Eden
It was there that Corey watched her mother’s face when Jordan talked about Finn and Andrea, talking about the lie that she was Alex Croft’s daughter, and the will conditions. Corey saw flashes of emotion that Sara tried to hide when Jordan relayed her words to Finn, that night of the funeral, and earlier that day.
When the other girls left, and before going out the door, Corey had looked back where Sara sat on the edge of the bed, staring out the window. She had said softly, “Do you feel sorry for him, Mamma? For Finn McCabe.”
“No.” Sara had said it, but in a tone, Corey doubted. “Finn McCabe intimidates and inspires envy, not pity.”
“But isn’t it strange, don’t you think, that even with a beautiful wife, all that money, sons, the ranch, things weren’t what they should have been? I mean, he shouldn’t have cheated on his wife, but—”
“I don’t know, Corey.” Her mother had finally turned and pulled down the covers. “Get some sleep, honey. If we get the chores done in time, we’ll all go for a walk by the creek and maybe picnic.”
“I will, Mamma.” Corey had left then, and came here, to her bed, but she sensed the faux smile and distracted way her Mamma had said that. Sara and Finn McCabe didn’t speak, and really, since the funeral, her Mamma had been off in her own thoughts more often than not. There was something there, something more that Corey wished her Mamma would talk about.
But then, if there was something between her Mamma and Finn McCabe once—that in itself was hard to imagine.
“Shoot.” Corey rolled over and pulled the quilt up over her shoulder. She was thinking too much lately. Too many things going on with people and before she could just ride out, rope steers, and forget all about anything else. There wasn’t Frank there though, to try harder for. And, she was noticing more than just other people.
She had caught a few of the hands looking at her when she worked with them, in ways that made her blush.
The older ones still treated her like a daughter, some younger like a kid sister, but she supposed there was no hiding you were female. In trousers and blouse, boots or not, the cowboys could not ignore it.
She didn’t exactly look through them either. The rangy ones or the brawny ones, Dakota with his warm brown eyes, Clyde who grinned sometimes and made her stomach tense. Even the Forman, Noah, handsome but quiet, soft as steel when he was bossing. Six feet tall, broad shoulder, long legs, and so handsome in that strong-faced way she’d have to be blind to not notice him. Of course, he was thirty-two, but he fit his well-washed denims in sinful ways, and honey or steel, his voice melted on the ears.
Sighing, Corey rubbed the palm of her hand over her itchy nipples. Of course, she knew she was a woman. It wasn’t like her body let her forget it.
* * * *
Sara steered the wagon off the road at the little church outside town. She was going to visit her father, Jim Douglas’s grave. It had been a busy few weeks with fall round up starting, and her brother Ryder arriving from Arizona territory where he’d first served as deputy in some small oddly named town, then finding better pay as foreman on a ranch. Now at twenty-eight, he was restless again and wrote her about drifting north. She had asked him to delay his decision and come to the ranch. Other than letter’s they’d exchanged since their father died, they hadn’t spent time together.
Sara oft thought that they probably knew each other inside and out because they had written. She told Ryder her heartaches and secrets and he had told her all the trouble he got into in earlier years, after their uncle died and the farm, too much in debt, had been sold. He had drifted then too, getting in fights and working a dozen jobs, from ship loading to the railroad. Something of a gambler, she gathered, living on luck. He’d been knifed outside Louisiana and left for dead. Taken in by some widow, regained his health, drifted west, and then settled in that odd little town.
But, Sara read between the lines, the things he didn’t say, and the woman he’d loved when he was living east. Sara didn’t remember her name, but she did remember Ryder worked hard for her, trying to settle and make a better living. Then abruptly he had stopped mentioning her. Moreover, when she’d asked, he written one line— she married someone else.
That was when Ryder seemed to never stay in a place very long.
Also of late, she’d been trying to prepare for a family shindig she wanted to throw, when Lottie and Hank brought Asher to the ranch after the round up. She loved her grandson. Hang the town; she was fed up with sneaking around and hiding his existence. She didn’t want Falon to be afraid of their scorn. The hypocrites. She would take on anyone who dared look down their nose at either.
Frank, being the biggest whoremonger in fifty miles, never suffered a whisper save for the pity he didn’t have sons. She was sick to death of the hypocrites and gossips in PineFlatts.
Asher would live with Lottie and Hank as long as they and he wished, but she was going to stop hiding that he had family. After some long, late night talks, Falon agreed. Sara knew Falon had wanted to see him more all along but couldn’t. Of late too, she’d sensed in Falon too, a kind of freeing herself.
Lordy, but the woman sure took a lot on herself young. Sara didn’t interfere when Falon had said she was going to care for the Christie’s. It was Falon’s choice. Still, she worried about that dedication to Ashley. And whether or not Falon would ever think it was okay to live her own life again.
She seemed to do so now, taking Alex Croft up on an offer a few days ago, to work in his offices in town. Sara was not sure what the man did yet, there seemed to be some sort of mess left over from the man who’d used the offices and worked on Andrea’s behalf. Falon, for all she loved the ranch, told Sara she needed to do something challenging. As far as Sara knew, Alex was also a lawyer, and he had told Falon he’d train her in anything necessary.
Sara had her wagon piled high with supplies, covered with a sturdy tarp, and it rumbled past and around the church. She hauled on the reins and set the brake. Her surprise and dismay masked as she looped the reins, seeing Finn McCabe standing there, hat off and in his hand, bright red and yellow flowers near his boots and lying on her father’s grave.
Drawing in a steady breath, Sara scooped the ones she’d brought up off the seat, and climbed down. Aware when his head lifted, holding his gaze a moment as she strode to the other side.
Squatting, she put the flowers down and brushed her fingers over the packed soil and grass. She stood again, allowing her eyes to skim over Finn’s handsome face and olive green chambray shirt, his denims. He held a dun hat, and his side arm. She looked past him to see a leggy, muscled, stud standing under the shade tree.
His own gaze was moving when she looked back, over the suede dress she wore, V-cut and sturdy buttons over her bosom, cinched waist and pleats in the skirt that ended at her calves, a split in the front to the knee showing her supple boots. She had gathered her strawberry hair up and wore a matching brown dyed cowboy hat. The dress didn’t feel like she was dressed up, but was comfortable for fall. Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered what she wore. She got the feeling Finn was remembering years ago when she’d laid herself bare on his bed.
“I didn’t know you came here,” she said more to draw his eyes off her body. Once those green ones met hers, it was worse. His skin was swarthy. Even with squint lines, the black lashes, molded lips, proud nose, all reminded her of the times she’d had hours upon hours to admire him, look at him, love him. Sara felt that slight tremble inside her, but had long since learned to hide her emotions.
The breeze disturbed silken silver and black strands of his hair, drawing her gaze up to it, then back down. She knew he couldn’t read it, but she remembered too, threading her hands through it, when his big muscular body was pleasuring her.
“I do sometimes,” he supplied in deep tones. This time his gaze moved beyond her to the wagon. “A lot going on over at your place.”
“Fall branding, and we’re planning a celebration afterwards. For my grandson.”
&nb
sp; His gaze told her he knew about Asher, and his nod came, though he said, “Morgan tells me your brother is visiting.”
“Yes. Ryder is helping with the round up.” Sara looked down at the flowers, moving an inch or two to view his supple black cowboy boots. This was the first conversation they had in years, and she didn’t know if she was angry, he dared to speak to her or not.
“Jordan’s been spending a lot of time over there….”
“Your daughter and Rose have become close friends. Corey too.” Sara lifted her chin.
He grunted. “Don’t hold nothing back Sara.” Meaning her stating right off that Jordan was his daughter.
Taking that as a laugh, she was suddenly mad. “She’s yours, Finn. It’s ridiculous to deny it, and a damn shame you didn’t treat her like your daughter over the years.”
“You want all the excuses, Sara, or you just latching onto something to throw at me instead of what you really should—”
—She cut him off, her hazel eyes hard and angry. “I’m not going to satisfy your imaginings that I’ve pined over something I did as a young girl. I wed and had children and built my own damn ranch. If you think I sat grieving my heart out, or envying you—or Andrea, you’re wrong!” She whirled around to leave.
“I envied Frank.”
She stopped and turned around to face him. “Don’t you say that, Finn McCabe.” Her heart beat out of her chest, her skin hot and emotions surging. “Don’t you ever say that to me.” Her finger pointed to her chest.
His gaze steady but his expression quiet, he murmured, “I hurt you, Sara. I betrayed—”
“You hurt me.” She nodded sharp. “You betrayed everything we had. Everything. But don’t you come to me now, now that your beautiful wife’s in the ground and Frank is gone, and act like it bothered you one damn bit. I deserve better than that, Finn.” She turned and again and strode to the wagon.
Finn had followed though, and before she could gather the reins, he covered them with his hand, and stared at her until she finally looked down. Bosom heaving and temper as hot as the pain burning in her throat, Sara wanted to strike him, to fall on him, and thrash out twenty some years of pain she’d just lied about.
“I made the mistake and I knew it two seconds after I made it. I knew it walking in and out of that church house. It does not matter why, but I made it and I by god lived with it. I take the blame for hurting you, and I do know how it hurt because of all you gave me, all you told me, and all that I made you want to believe in with me. I’m sorry is never going to change or make it go away, Sara. They were not lies. Nothing we shared was a lie. It was the only real thing. So real, that having it with Andrea never meant a damn. She didn’t care a damn for me, or that ranch—”
“I don’t care either, Finn.” She raised her eyes and stared ahead.
His fingers flexed over her gloved ones. “I should hope that you don’t, just to ease my own gut gnawing. But the truth is, neither Frank Landry nor me, deserved you.’ He pulled on her wrist, stepping up on the running board. His other hand was cupping the back of her head, knocking her hat off, as he kissed her, supple, and open, scorching. Then, dragging his lips to her ear and husking, “Sara, Sara, it never stopped. It never went away—not the knee-weakening burn you put in my blood.”
Struggling to turn her head away, her eyes watering and mouth tasting the fire in him she’d so craved, Sara rasped, “Don’t, Finn. Don’t.”
A slight tremble, the passion in him raw, he released her, but kissed her almost gently before stepping down.
Sara gathered the reins and he stepped back. She cursed the tears that blurred her eyes and betrayed her, just like the tremble in her own body. She made to turn the wagon, hearing him over the clank of harness rings, saying in parting, “There’s no lying between us, Sara, because we were only honest with each other. We couldn’t give that to anyone else, because together, stripped down, we didn’t need to speak a word.”
Sara was half way to the ranch before she pulled the wagon aside and found her handkerchief to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. Using some time to calm herself, and clear her expression, she wanted to beat something ten feet into the ground, at the same time, she wanted to curl up on her bed and bawl.
What she did some twenty minutes later, was head on to the ranch, head up, shoulders square, a smile for the hands who let her through the gate. There was the shindig, Corey’s eighteenth birthday, and her grandson was coming to the ranch. Damn Finn McCabe anyhow.
* * * *
Falon was dusting off books and placing them in shelves in the newly painted offices Alex Croft had taken over. They were beautifully bound books, smelling of leather and having gold embossed lettering. Working by the open windows, along the back wall, between the shelves, she relished the breeze wafting through. She had taken off the nip waist hip length suit jacket she’d worn. The skirt was a straight small bustled design, in dove gray, with pleats in the back below the bustle, for easy walking. Her blouse, a sheer white over the camisole beneath, so she was comfortable. Her hair was back in a twist.
The first week she’d started, it felt good to be dressing in more than just well washed housedresses that she’d worn as caretaker. Without guilt, her mind told her it was okay to enjoy the mental challenges of learning to be an assistant. Of course, before this week, they had dressed in old clothing, cleaned and painted, gone through boxes and stacks, trying to make sense of the mess the manager left behind. The deeds had to be checked out and other assets and holdings were sold off, when they did get it in order.
Alex was behind her now, his cheroot smoke wafting toward the window. She knew he was at the desk, his sleeves rolled up, shirt unbuttoned a bit, and more often than not trousers creased from sleeping on the brown leather sofa a few nights.
He would rare back in his chair, that cheroot in his white teeth as he plowed through correspondence with those he had been writing, to try to find out if everything was on the up and up. Most of the time he offered them a buy back, and she’d learned to write those letters, stating that due to family deaths and circumstances, Croft enterprises was dissolving.
Sighing, she finished the third row and turned, opening another trunk, squatting down and picking up one of the many trophies inside.
She read it and said aloud, “Yacht racing.” Picked up another, “Rowing…golf…Polo, tennis…You were a sporting man, Alex Croft?”
He let the chair drop to all four legs and pulled the cheroot from his teeth, standing, coming around the desk, but leaning his hips against it. His honey skin flushing, his mussed blond and wheat hair teased by the breeze.
“I must have brought that here by mistake. Don’t put those out.”
She grinned and smoothed her fingers over the surface. “My son loves ships, and anything to do with travel.”
“You talk about him openly now?”
“I’m tired of pretenses.” She glanced back up. “Or maybe, I always was, it just took maturing, finishing what I promised Ashley, before I could imagine saying, to hell with the town’s approval. I cannot take Asher away from Lottie and Hank, he loves them. But I’ll openly be in his life and he mine.”
Alex nodded, his amber eyes passing over the contents of the trunk. “All that, it could be a testament to how competitive the Croft’s are, it’s in the blood. Nevertheless, it is the same as in any rich young man’s toy box. An ivy league college collection.”
Reading a lot behind that, having spent some hours getting to know him, Falon saw no bragging or bitterness in that handsome face. In addition, Alex was a handsome man in his own distinctive way. His fair looks and well-bred bone structure—a muscular body that came from yachting and tennis and polo. He was not awkward on a western horse either, or dressed down in cowboy duds as he had done a couple of times. But, he could not hide his old money bloodlines and education, his eastern traits.
What she sensed in Alex though, was a man who grew up a lot on his own. Yes attending the right schools, knowing the ri
ght people, doing the expected things, even for his older sister—yet one who wanted to be free, to have other choices, to break out of the mold. One who didn’t have intimacy with his family, because they weren’t that way.
“Do you want to be a lawyer?” She glanced over her shoulder at the other shelf of law books she had unpacked.
“Not really.”
“What do you want to be, Alex?” Falon put the trophies back and went over to sit at the window, her arm hooked over the back as she regarded him with interest.
“I’m not Jordan’s father,” he said instead.
“I know that. Everyone knows that. You’d have to have made her awfully young for one, and for another, she looks like a McCabe.”
He nodded almost absently. “I like Jordan though. In many ways, I understand her. I saw her sent to the right schools and it was me she spent a lot of her holidays with, when Andrea didn’t want her here.”
He raked a hand through his hair, pulled away, and strode over to stand near that window, one hand above the sill as he looked out at the grassy stretch, that every building on the main town streets got a view of in the rear lot.
He went on, “The reason she and I are a lot alike, is because both of us took advantage of the opportunities afforded us, but we both knew we didn’t want to be what those before us had been.
If my father had lived, I would not be here right now. I would be in Europe or somewhere. Buying up more assets and land, hunting for an heiress with blue blood and connections. I would be called to the carpet every day and told I am not ambitious or ruthless enough—that I am a Croft, and hearing an hour’s recitations of both his and mother’s bloodlines. What it means to be a Croft, and told where I have fallen short. In some ways—I am free of that, because they died, I was spared it, and cut loose from all but the money. I sadly still didn’t know what, or who the bloody hell I was, or could be.”