Light the Stars

by RaeAnne Thayne

  "Why should I believe you?"

  "I don't care if you believe me or not! It's the truth."

  How much of her life had been spent defending herself because of something Quinn had done? She had vowed she was done with it but now she wondered grimly if she ever would be.

  What was Quinn up to? Just once, she wished she knew. With all her heart, she wanted to believe his sudden romance was the love match he had intimated in his e-mail.

  I never meant for this to happen. It took us both completely by surprise. But in just a few short months I've discovered I can't live without her. Marjorie is my other half—the missing piece of my life's puzzle. She knows all my mistakes, all my blemishes, but she loves me anyway. How lucky am I?

  Caroline was romantic enough to hope Quinn's hearts-and-flowers e-mail was genuine. Her mother had been dead for twenty-two years now and, as far as she knew, her father's love life was as exciting as her own—i.e., about as thrilling as watching paint dry.

  But how could she trust his word, after years of his schemes and swindles? Especially when the missing piece of his life's puzzle was one of her clients? She couldn't. She just couldn't.

  What if Quinn was spinning some new scam? Something involving Marjorie Dalton—and tangentially, Caroline's reputation? She would be ruined. Everything she had worked so hard for these last five years, her safe, comfortable, respectable life, would crumble away like a sugar castle in a hurricane.

  Caroline knew what was at stake: her reputation, which in the competitive world of life coaching was everything. As soon as she'd read his e-mail, she had been struck with a familiar cold dread and knew she would have to track him down to gauge his motives for herself—or to talk him out of this crazy scheme to marry a woman he had only corresponded with via e-mail.

  Her first self-help book was being released in five months and if her publisher caught wind of this, they would not be happy. She'd be lucky if her book wasn't yanked right off the schedule.

  That's why she had traveled all night to find herself here at nine in the morning, facing down a gorgeous rancher and his two cute little boys.

  But she wasn't going to accomplish anything by antagonizing Marjorie's son, she realized. She took a deep, cleansing breath and forced her expression into a pleasant smile, her voice into the low, calming tones she used with her clients.

  "Look, I'm sorry. It's been a long night. I had two connector flights from Santa Cruz and an hour's drive from Idaho Falls to get here and I'm afraid I'm not at my best. May I come in so we can discuss what's to be done about our runaway parents?"

  She wasn't sure how he would have answered if the cell phone clipped to his belt hadn't suddenly bleeped.

  With a grim glare—at her or at the person waiting on the other end of the line or at the world in general, she didn't know—then gestured for her to come inside.

  "Yeah?" he growled into the phone as the toddler in his arms wiggled and bucked to get down. Wade Dalton let the boy down, busy on the phone discussing in increasingly heated tones what sounded like a major problem with some farm machinery. She caught a few familiar words like stalling out and alternator but the rest sounded like a foreign language.

  "We don't have a choice. The baler's got to be fixed today. That hay has to come in," he snapped.

  While she listened to his end of the conversation about various options for fixing the recalcitrant machine, Caroline took the opportunity to study Wade Dalton's home.

  Though the ranch house had soaring ceilings and gorgeous views of the back side of the Tetons, it was anything but ostentatious. The furniture looked comfortable but worn, toys were jumbled together in one corner, and the nearest coffee table was covered in magazines. An odd assortment of circulations, too, she noticed. Everything from O—Marjorie's, she assumed—to Nick Jr. to Farm & Ranch Living.

  The room they stood in obviously served as the gathering place for the Dalton family. Cartoons flickered on a big-screen TV in one corner and that's where the little blond toddler had headed after Wade had set him down. She watched him for a moment as he picked up a miniature John Deere and started plowing the carpet, one eye on the screen.

  The older boy had vanished. She only had a moment to wonder where in the big house he'd gone when Wade Dalton hung up the phone.

  "Sorry. Where were we?" he said.

  "Discussing what's to be done about our parents, I believe."

  "As I see it, we don't have too many options. It's too late to go after them. I'm assuming they left about midnight, which means they've got a nine-hour head start on us. They'd be married long before we even made it to the Nevada state line. Beyond the fact that I can't leave the ranch right now, I wouldn't know where the hell to even start looking for them in Reno since my mother's not answering her cell phone."

  "Neither is Quinn," Caroline said glumly.

  "I can't believe Marjorie would do something like this, just run off and leave the kids. This is your doing."

  So much for their thirty-second ceasefire. "Mine?"

  "You're the one who's been telling her to reach for her dreams or whatever the hell other nonsense you spout in your sessions with her."

  "You don't thinking reaching for dreams is important?"

  "Sure I do. But not when it means walking away from your responsibilities."

  "Since when are your children your mother's responsibility?" she snapped.

  Again she had to force herself not to step back from the sudden fury in his eyes. She had to admit she deserved it this time.

  "That was uncalled for. I'm sorry," Caroline said quietly. "Marjorie has been caring for Nat and Cody and Tanner for two years. She doesn't see it as a burden at all."

  "Right. That's why she's been paying a small fortune to some stranger so you can tell her all the things wrong with her life and how to fix them."

  "That's not what I do at all," she insisted. "I try to help my clients make their lives happier and more fulfilling by pointing out some of their own self-destructive behavior and giving them concrete steps toward changing what they're unhappy about. Marjorie was never unhappy about you and your children."

  Before she could continue, his phone bleeped again. He ignored it for four rings, then muttered an oath and picked it up.

  This conversation was similar to the first, only Wade Dalton seemed to grow increasingly frustrated with each passing second.

  "Look," he finally said angrily, "just call the tractor supply place in Rexburg and see if they've got a replacement, then you can send Drifty over to pick it up. I'll be out as soon as I can. If we put the whole crew out there this afternoon, we might still be able to get the hay in before the rain."

  He hung up and then faced her again. "I don't have time to get into this with you today, Ms. Montgomery. I'm sorry you came all this way for nothing but I think we're too late to do anything about the two lovebirds. I'll warn you, though, that if your father thinks he's going to touch a penny of the income from this ranch, you're both in for one hell of a fight."

  "Warning duly noted," she said tightly, wondering how a woman as fun and bubbly as Marjorie could have such an arrogant jerk for a son, no matter how gorgeous he might be.

  She should cut him some slack, Caroline thought as she headed for the door. He obviously had his hands full, a widower with three active children and a busy cattle ranch.

  Just as she reached the door, an acrid scent drifted from the back of the house, stopping her in her tracks.

  "Do you smell something?" she asked Wade Dalton.

  "It's a working ranch. We've got all kinds of smells."

  "No, this is different. It smells like something's on fire."

  He sniffed the air for a second, then his eyes narrowed. He looked around the gathering room, his eyes on his youngest son still playing on the carpet and the notable absence of the older boy.

  "Tanner!" he suddenly roared. "What are you doing?"

  "Nothing!" came a small, frightened-sounding voice from the rear of the ho
use. "I'm not doin' anything. Anything at all. Don't come in the kitchen, Daddy, okay?"

  Wade closed his eyes for half a second then took off down a hallway at a fast run.

  This wasn't any of her business, she knew, but Caroline had no choice but to follow.

  Chapter Two

  Hot on Wade Dalton's worn boots, Caroline had a quick impression of a large, old-fashioned kitchen painted a sunny yellow with a professional-looking six-burner stove, long breakfast bar and at least eight bow-backed chairs snugged up against a massive, scarred pine table.

  She imagined under other circumstances it would be a pleasant, welcoming space, but just now the room was thick with black smoke and the acrid smell of scorched paper and something sickly sweet.

  Flames shot up from the stove and she quickly realized why—a roll of paper towels was ablaze next to the gas burner and already flames were scorching up the cabinets.

  Even more worrisome, the older of Wade Dalton's sons was standing on a chair he must have pulled up to the stove and his SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas were perilously close to the small fire.

  "I'm sorry, Daddy," the boy sniffled.

  "Get down right now!" Wade yelled in that no-argument parental tone reserved for situations like this.

  Though she sensed the rancher's harshness stemmed from fear for his son's safety, his words and tone still seemed to devastate the boy into inaction. He froze on his precarious perch until his father had to lift him off the chair and set him on the floor so he could get close enough to assess the cabinets.

  Wade picked up the burning mess of towels and dropped them into the sink then returned to survey the damage.

  Still, the boy didn't move, standing as if he didn't quite know what was happening. He looked ill, almost shocky, and he stood directly in Wade Dalton's path.

  This wasn't any of her business, Caroline reminded herself. Even as she thought it, she found herself moving toward the distraught little boy.

  What was his name? Tucker? Taylor? Tanner. That was it. "Tanner, why don't we get out of your daddy's way and let him take care of things here, okay?"

  He looked at her blankly for a moment, then slipped his hand in hers and let Caroline lead him from the room. She took him into the great room where his little brother was still busy with his trucks, unaffected by the drama playing out in the other room.

  She was going to ask if he had a favorite television show she could find for him as a distraction when she noticed his left hand pressed tightly to his pajama top.

  A grim suspicion seized her and she leaned down. "Tanner, can I take a look at your hand? Are you hurt?"

  His chin wobbled for a moment, then he nodded slowly and pulled his hand away from his chest. He made a small sound of distress when he spread out his fingers—and no wonder.

  Caroline gasped at the angry, blistering red splotch covering his palm, roughly twice the size of a quarter. "Oh, honey!"

  Her reaction seemed to open the floodgates of emotion. Tears pooled in his huge blue eyes and rolled over pale cheeks. "I didn't mean to start a fire. I didn't mean to! I just wanted to roast marshmallows like me and Nat and Grandma did with Uncle Seth when we went campin'. Do you think my daddy will be mad at me?"

  She thought that was a pretty good bet. Wade Dalton seemed mad at the entire world, as a matter of course. How would he treat his son, angry or not? That was the important thing.

  "I'm sure he'll just be worried about you," she assured Tanner, though she wasn't at all convinced of that herself.

  "He's gonna be so mad. I'm not supposed to be in the kitchen by myself." His tears were coming faster now and she knew she had to do something quick to head them off or he would soon be in hysterics. Action seemed the best antidote.

  "Let's just get your hurt taken care of and then we'll worry about your dad, okay?"

  He nodded and Caroline thought quickly back to her thin and purely basic knowledge of first aid.

  "We need to put some cold water on that," she told Tanner, her mind trying to dredge old lessons she'd learned as a girl. "Do you think you can show me a bathroom?"

  "Yeah. There's one right through those doors."

  She led him there quickly and filled the sink with cold water, then grasped his wrist and immersed it in the sink, though he wasn't keen on the idea.

  "I don't want to," he said, sniffling. "It hurts."

  "I know, honey. I'm sorry to make you hurt more but this way we can be sure the burn stops."

  "Tannoh owie?"

  Caroline looked down and found the youngest one had followed them into the small bathroom. Within fifteen seconds, she wasn't sure what held more interest to him—his brother's owie or the lid of the toilet, which he repeatedly flipped up and down with a nerve-racking clatter each time.

  Her repertoire of distractions was severely limited but she thought maybe she could tell him a story or something, just to keep him away from the toilet and away from his brother.

  "Hey, kiddo," she began.

  "His name is Cody," Tanner informed her, his sniffles momentarily subsiding. "He's two and I'm five. I just had a birthday."

  "Five is a fun age," she started, but her words were cut off by a loud and angry voice from outside the room.

  "Tanner Michael Dalton! Where are you? Get in here and help me clean up the mess you made!"

  Caroline took an instinctive step closer to the boy. What a disagreeable man, she thought, until she remembered that he likely knew nothing about his son's injuries.

  "We're in the bathroom," she called down the hall. "Do you think you could come in here for a moment?"

  Silence met her request for a full five seconds, then Wade spoke in an annoyed-sounding voice. "What is it? I'm kind of in the middle of something here."

  Suddenly there he was in the doorway, two hundred pounds of angry male looking extremely put-upon, as if she'd pulled him away from saving the world to ask his opinion on what shade of lipstick to use.

  This was his own son and she wouldn't let him make her feel guilty for her compassion toward the boy. Caroline tilted her chin up and faced him down.

  "We're in the middle of something, too. Something I think you're going to want to see."

  He squeezed into a bathroom that had barely held Caroline and two young boys. Throw in a large, gorgeous, angry rancher and the room seemed to shrink to the size of a tissue box.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  She pointed to Tanner's soaking hand, a vivid, angry red, and watched the boy's father blanch.

  He hissed an oath, something she gauged by Tanner's surprised reaction wasn't something the boy normally heard from his father.

  She had to admit, the shock and concern on Wade's features went a long way toward making her more sympathetic toward him.

  "Tanner!" he exclaimed. "You burned yourself?"

  "It was an accident, Daddy."

  "Why didn't you say something?"

  Tanner shrugged his narrow shoulders. "I was trying to be a big boy, not a b-baby."

  The sympathy from his father was apparently more than Tanner's remarkable composure could withstand. The boy's sniffles suddenly turned to wails.

  "I'm sorry, Daddy. I'm sorry. I won't do it again. I won't, I promise. It hurts a lot."

  Wade picked up his son and held him against his broad, denim-covered chest. "Okay, honey. Okay. We'll take care of it, I promise. We'll find your Uncle Jake and he'll fix you right up."

  Cody looked from his crying brother to their father's obvious concern and started wailing, from fear or just sympathy, Caroline wasn't sure. Soon the small bathroom echoed with loud sobs.

  After a moment of that, Wade's eyes started to look panicky, like he'd just found himself trapped in a cage of snakes—except she had the feeling he would have preferred the snakes to two bawling kids.

  Finally Caroline took pity on him and picked up the crying toddler. He was heavier than she expected, a solid little person in a Spider-Man shirt. "You're okay, sweetie. Your brother ju
st has an owie."

  The curly blond cherub wiped his nose with his forefinger. "Tan-noh owie."

  "Yep. But he'll be okay, I promise."

  "Uncle Jake will make it all better," Wade said, a kind of desperate hope in his voice. "Come on, let's go find him."

  He led the way out of the room. Once free of the bathroom's confining space, Caroline could finally make her brain function again. She considered the ability to once more take a breath a nice bonus.

  Wade carried Tanner toward the front door and she followed with the younger boy in her arms.

  "Look, you're going to have enough on your hands at the clinic," she said. "Why don't I stay here with Cody while you take care of Tanner?"

  It took a second for Wade's attention to shift from his injured son to her, something she found rather touching—until she saw suspicion bloom on his features.

  "No. He can come with us to the clinic."

  "Are you sure? I don't mind watching him for you."

  She didn't need to hear his answer—the renewed animosity in his eyes was answer enough. "Lady, I don't know you from Adam," he snapped. "I'm not leaving my son here with you."

  "Would you like me to come with you and then watch him in the clinic while you're occupied with Tanner's hand?"

  He frowned, obviously annoyed by her persistence. Good heavens, did he think she was going to kidnap the child?

  "No. He's fine with me. I'm sure there's somebody in Jake's office who could watch Cody while we're in the exam room."

  With Tanner in one arm, he scooped up the toddler in the other and carried both boys out the door, toward a huge mud-covered silver pickup truck parked in the circular driveway.

  Not sure what to do next, Caroline stood on the broad porch of the ranch house and watched as he strapped both boys into the truck. Wade seemed to have forgotten her very existence. In fact, a moment later he climbed into the driver's seat and drove away without once looking back at the house.

  Now that the first adrenaline surge from the fire and dealing with Tanner's burn had passed, Caroline was aware of a bone-deep exhaustion. She had almost forgotten her long night of traveling and the worry over Quinn's whirlwind romance with one of her clients. Now, as she stood alone on the ranch house porch with a cool October wind teasing the ends of her hair, everything came rushing back.