Not with that distant expression back on his features, she feared.
"You do look like you're getting around okay on those," he said, instead of pledging his undying love, as some silly corner of her mind had hoped he had come to do.
"I've been practicing. I'm still not proficient but I'm trying."
"Does it hurt your ribs to use them?"
"A little. But it's worth it to feel mobile again."
Okay, maybe not as mobile as she thought. The shower had sapped her energy more than she'd realized and her knees were trembling a little with the effort to stay upright, so she hobbled to the bed and lowered herself down.
"You don't have to do everything by yourself. Call me next time. That's why I'm here."
"You're sweet to worry about me but I'm fine," she insisted. "A little weak but fine."
"I'm not sweet." He said the words so harshly she blinked. "I don't want you getting the wrong idea because things have maybe been a little different these last few days. The truth is, I'm bad tempered and pig-headed and impatient. I get caught up in a project and I lose track of time. I can be thoughtless and stubborn and I've never been one for much social chitchat."
"That sounds like a disclaimer."
He focused on a spot above her left shoulder. "I just wanted to make sure you knew these last few days have been outside the norm, that's all. And anything you might have said last night about…about feelings or anything else, I didn't take it seriously."
Ah. Now his words made more sense. "I was never more serious in my life. I haven't taken any pain medicine this morning. My brain is clear and unclouded. And my feelings for you haven't changed."
If anything, she thought, they had deepened with this show of awkwardness. How could a man so big and strong and confident in matters of his ranch be tentative and uncomfortable about this? she wondered.
"Caroline—" he began, his eyes a dark, intense blue. But before he could finish the thought, they heard what sounded like the front door open, then a familiar woman's voice.
"Wade? Caroline? Kids? Anybody home?"
Her gaze locked with Wade as she recognized the voice from her coaching sessions. What horrible timing for Marjorie and Quinn to return.
The honeymoon was over.
* * *
A week ago, Wade would have been doing handstands and jumping in circles to hear his mother's voice. But now he wished she would just go away for another week.
In their crazier moments, he and his friends used to cliff dive at a reservoir a few miles away and, talking with Caroline just now, he'd had that same shaky, pulse-pounding feeling he used to experience just before soaring toward the water.
"Caroline—" he said again, not sure what he intended to say.
"Later," she murmured. "Maybe you should go out and say hello while I finish dressing. I'll be out in a moment."
"I'll just go let them know I'm here then come back and help you out, all right?"
She nodded and he walked out in search of his runaway mother.
He found the newlyweds in the great room, looking at the display of family pictures on one wall.
Quinn Montgomery was tall, handsome and athletic looking, with a California tan and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. He stood with a casual arm around Marjorie and, even from here, Wade could see she looked a decade younger.
She had her hair styled a different way, lighter somehow, and there was a glow about her he was sure he hadn't ever seen before.
Both of them turned when he walked into the room. Marjorie stared. "Wade! I didn't expect to find you home at this hour."
"I do live here," he reminded her dryly.
"I know, but I assumed you would be out working." She looked around. "Where are the boys?"
"Seth went to the ranch supply store in town for some fencing and they decided to ride along."
"Are you sick? Is that why you're home at this hour?"
He didn't want to launch into a complicated explanation about Caroline's injury until she was there so he changed the subject by looking pointedly at her new husband.
Quinn Montgomery had his daughter's eyes, he discovered. They were the same warm brown and right now they were scrutinizing Wade just as intensely, with curiosity and a healthy mix of amusement.
"I believe your son is waiting for an introduction, Marjie."
His mother tittered—she actually tittered like some kind of teenager!—and threaded her arm through Montgomery's. "I'm sorry, dear. I don't know where my manners have gone."
She then performed a polite introduction as if they were strangers meeting at a garden party.
Wade had never felt so awkward in his life. Just how was he supposed to respond to the bastard who had eloped with his mother—especially when the bastard in question happened to be the father of the woman Wade…had feelings for?
"Montgomery," he said tersely.
Quinn Montgomery's smile also looked remarkably like his daughter's. "Dalton," he responded in kind. "You have a beautiful ranch here. I'd love to have a tour."
I'll just bet you would, he thought.
"We're very proud of it," he said instead. "The Daltons have been ranching here at the Cold Creek for four generations. We're one of the biggest cattle operations in eastern Idaho."
And we're not about to let some aging, slick-eyed Lothario swindle his way into a share of it, he thought.
"I'm afraid I know next to nothing about cattle ranching, although Marjorie has done her best to give me a primer while we were driving out here. She says you've built the ranch into a real force in the beef industry."
"We're working on it."
"And succeeding, from what your mother says."
Wade scowled. Was Montgomery's interest mere curiosity or something more sinister?
Whatever it was, he didn't want to talk about the Cold Creek's success—or lack thereof—with some total stranger, even if the man was married to one of the ranch's partners.
"So what are your plans, now that the honeymoon is over?" Wade asked pointedly.
His mother giggled. "Oh, it's far from over, believe me," she said with so much gleeful enthusiasm that Wade wanted to cover his ears. He absolutely didn't want to know that much information.
"Marjie, this whole thing is no doubt tough enough on your boys," Montgomery chided gently. "You're not making things any easier."
To his surprise, for a moment, Marjorie looked taken aback, then apologetic. "You're right. I'm sorry, dear," she said to Wade. "As far as our plans, we're going to have to work out the details but I told Quinn I still intend to help you with the children as long as you need me. We were thinking about selling my house in town and building a place of our own out here. That way we're close enough to help you but would still have a little privacy."
If it meant he wouldn't have to have her new husband underfoot all the time, Wade would build the place with his own bare hands.
Montgomery smiled. "There will be time to work out all these details. No need to rush into any decisions today." He paused. "Tell me, is my daughter still here?"
"I'm right here, Dad."
Wade turned to see Caroline standing in the doorway on her crutches.
"Good Lord!" Marjorie exclaimed, her eyes wide and horrified. "What happened?"
"I had a little accident a few days ago, but I'm feeling much better now and Jake says everything is healing nicely."
"Sit down before you fall over on those things," Wade growled. "You were supposed to get dressed and wait for me to come back and get you, not come trekking in here like Sir Edmund Hillary."
"I walked twenty feet, I didn't climb Mount Everest. That may have to wait a while."
She looked wobbly to him, her features pale and her weight leaning a little too heavily on the crutches. He shook his head but hurried forward and scooped her up, then set her carefully in the recliner.
He was rewarded with a blush. "You can stop babying me anytime now, Wade. I'll never learn how to use the crut
ches if I don't practice. You can't carry me everywhere."
"You think I'm going to let you kill yourself when I'm standing right here to help?"
"You're not always going to be standing right there," she pointed out. "I have to figure it out on my own sometime."
She changed the subject by looking past Wade to Montgomery. "Hello, Dad." There was a reserve in her eyes Wade wasn't expecting, though he thought he saw love there, too.
Quinn stepped forward and kissed her cheek. "Hello, baby. I was surprised to learn you were here at the ranch."
"Were you?" The coolness in her voice again surprised Wade. Since she'd come to the ranch, she'd been nothing but warm and friendly to everyone, from the ranch hands to Natalie's bus driver.
"There was no reason for you to come chasing after me. I thought I explained everything sufficiently in my e-mail. You shouldn't have been so concerned."
"When you decided to run off with one of my clients without a word to me beforehand, you really didn't have the slightest inkling that I might consider that a cause for anxiety?"
"Carrie—"
"No, tell me Dad. Why didn't you mention to me that the two of you were corresponding?"
"We knew you would be upset," Marjorie broke in. "Quinn knew he had done the wrong thing answering your work phone that day you weren't home but we had such a lovely conversation, neither of us wanted to see it end. There was nothing underhanded about it, it was just too precious to share with anyone at first, especially when we knew you wouldn't be happy about how we met."
Caroline said nothing to that, only gave her father a long look. There were undercurrents zinging between her and her father that Wade couldn't pretend to understand. He did know she looked upset, though, and for that alone he decided to step in.
Before he could, Marjorie did the job for him. "I'm starving," she said suddenly. "We've been driving all night and didn't take time for breakfast. Would anybody else like an omelet?"
Caroline shook her head but her father smiled. "An omelet sounds great. Can I help you make it?"
"No, no. Why don't you stay here and talk to your daughter? I'm sure the two of you have a great deal to say to each other. Wade, why don't you help me in the kitchen and fill me in on everything that's happened around here since I've been gone?"
That particular conversation would take far longer than the time needed to whip up a couple of omelets, but he followed Marjorie anyway, impatient to talk to his mother.
* * *
"Isn't he wonderful?" Marjorie asked as soon as they were out of earshot. "He's kind and thoughtful and by some miracle, he's as crazy about me as I am about him."
Wade shook his head. "What the hell were you thinking, to run off with a man you only knew from the Internet, a man none of us had ever met? For all you knew, he could have been an ax murderer. Or worse!"
Marjorie grabbed a carton of eggs from the refrigerator. "I'm not some desperate old lady who just fell off the turnip truck, Wade. You don't think I considered that possibility?"
"But you married the bastard anyway!"
She narrowed her gaze at him. "Be careful, son. That bastard is my husband." The steel in her voice might have been coated in velvet but it was still most definitely steel.
He sighed. "Let me rephrase, then. You considered the possibility that the man you were sharing a clandestine long-distance relationship with might have a criminal past but you went ahead and married him anyway. Explain how an intelligent, progressive woman like you claim to be can make that choice."
"Because I love him," she said simply. "Quinn is a good man, honey. I knew that right away. Yes, he's had some run-ins with the law but he's paid his debt to society and moved on."
He stared at her, his blood suddenly running cold. "What do you mean, run-ins with the law?" he asked carefully.
She made a careless, dismissive gesture, an egg in her hand. "Just that. He was a little wild in his past but that's all behind him now. And before you think I was some naive old bat who let myself be charmed by a handsome face and a smooth talker, Quinn himself told me of his past the very first time we talked on the phone. He didn't have to—we were only casual acquaintances at the time—but he did."
Wade couldn't seem to think straight with the rushing in his ears and he was suddenly filled with a bone-deep foreboding. "Mother. Exactly what did he do?"
"Oh, this and that." She whipped the egg beater. "Ran a few schemes that went bad, a little grifting here and there. He was a bit of a rascal in the past and the law finally caught up with him. But I'll have you know, he's turned over a new leaf and has been a clean, productive member of society since he was released from prison four years ago."
Prison? Prison? Just when he thought this situation couldn't get worse. Now he had the delightful added complication of learning his mother was married to an ex-con.
He let out a long, slow breath, so angry he didn't trust himself to speak. A criminal. His new stepfather was a criminal.
Why was he just learning about this now? Caroline had been in his home for more than a week and not once had she whispered a single word about her father's dubious past.
He had a right to know, damn it. She should have told him. He had trusted her, had told her things no one else in the world knew. With all they shared, how could she have kept this part of her life a secret?
The deep ache of betrayal settled in his gut and he wasn't sure which was more powerful, that or the fury seething through him.
His instincts had been dead on. A grifter. A scam artist. In Marjorie, the bastard had found a nice, juicy widow, then he'd wooed and wed her before her family could do a thing about it.
Caroline must have been in on the whole scheme. Otherwise, wouldn't she have told him about her father's past?
His stomach hurt suddenly like he'd been sucker punched, and he had to fight to press a hand there to help him catch his breath.
"Quinn deeply regrets the wrongs he did and has worked hard to make restitution," Marjorie went on, heedless of his turmoil. "Personally, I believe it shows a great strength of character to admit to his wrongs and try to repair the harm he caused. If you give him a chance, I know you'll love him."
She smiled as she added the eggs to the frying pan. "I'm sure you and the kids already love Caroline, don't you? She's such a sweetheart and she's so much like her father."
Yeah. He was finally beginning to figure that out.
Chapter Seventeen
By the time he returned to the great room, Wade was fairly confident he had the worst of his rage and hurt contained behind a vast wall of ice.
Even though he wanted to pick up his new stepfather and throw him through the big picture window, he forced himself to be polite.
He was also polite to his mother, even though his second impulse was to lock her in her room until she rediscovered her brain.
Caroline, he mostly ignored, even though what he most wanted was to grab her and shake her and ask her why the hell she had to go and make him feel again, just so he could bleed.
Finally, just when he thought he might explode if he had to pretend another second, Marjorie finished her omelet and smiled at her new husband. "Why don't we go bring in our luggage and then have a look around the ranch?"
Quinn agreed with alacrity, just as Wade would have expected. Eager to get an eyeful of his score, Wade thought bitterly, grateful he'd had the foresight to contact the ranch attorneys right after Marjorie's fly-by-night wedding to make sure the Cold Creek assets were protected.
Caroline and her scheming father wouldn't see a penny.
"They seem genuinely happy, don't you think?" Caroline said as soon as they left. Her tone conveyed a relief and surprise he didn't quite understand and couldn't take time to analyze.
When he didn't answer, she gave him a searching look and then her smile froze.
"You don't agree that they seem happy?"
"Oh, they seem delirious," he snapped. "It's a regular lovefest here at the Cold Cree
k."
Her smile slid away completely. "What's wrong?"
His fury finally managed to burn a hole in the ice covering his emotions and he couldn't stop it from seeping through, even if he wanted to.
"Were you ever going to tell me?"
At his low, bitter tone, her face paled. "Tell you…what?"
"About my new stepfather and his interesting little hobbies. Oh, and, I don't know, perhaps you might have thought to mention the time he spent behind bars."
She drew in a sharp breath and her features lost even more of their color. "Wade—"
"What? Did it slip your mind? After all, he's such a fine, upstanding citizen now."
She folded her hands in front of her and, through his howling pain, he saw they were trembling slightly.
"What do you want me to say?" she asked in a small voice.
"What's your game, Caroline? Your father is easy to read. He finds a wealthy but vulnerable widow and charms his way into her life. It's an old and familiar story but I'm afraid this time it's not going to work. My mother can't cash in her share of the ranch unless the other three shareholders agree and I can guaren-damn-tee that neither I nor my brothers will ever do that. No matter how clever he might be, your swindler of a father won't see a penny of Cold Creek money."
Her dark eyes seemed huge, bruised, in her pale face and he had a twinge of anxiety but quickly discarded it.
"Your father's role is easy to figure out. But what is your part in this little drama? What were you hoping to gain by all this? By coming here and insinuating yourself into my life, into my children's lives?"
"Nothing," she whispered.
"Oh, come on." He bit out the words and had the hollow satisfaction of seeing her flinch. "If you were purely innocent, why didn't you ever mention your father's past crimes? You hoped I would never find out, didn't you? Because you know that once I learned the truth, your little game would be over."
He wanted her to defend herself, to tell him he was crazy, to explain, but she said nothing, her mouth compressed in a tight line.
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