After a few minutes of idle conversation, his father gestured. “Why don’t you come out into the shop with me, son, and let the ladies talk. Your mother will give us a holler when dinner’s ready.”
Ordinarily, Jace was happy to hide out in the shop—it was filled with power tools, and what man didn’t like that? It was the letting-the-ladies-talk part that made him reluctant this evening. He didn’t want his mother taken in by Cassidy’s lines, but he couldn’t very well warn Rozena on the way out not to believe a word she said. All he could do was trust Cassidy to stick to the truth whenever possible.
As he followed his father from the kitchen, he gave her a narrow stare that he hoped conveyed that message. Then he grimaced. That was a stupid expectation. If sticking to the truth was possible, she wouldn’t be a habitual liar, would she?
Chapter 9
“I understand you’re a writer.”
Cassidy kept her smile in place even though her jaw clenched hard. She wished she’d given Paulette Fox any other reason in the world for coming to Buffalo Lake, but, no, she’d gone with one that was guaranteed to spark interest in everyone who heard it. At least, instead of being a huge, all-encompassing lie, now it was only a semihuge lie, because she really was writing, with pages, chapters and everything. She probably wasn’t writing well, but she couldn’t have everything, could she?
“Yes, I am,” she replied at last, mentally cringing in preparation for the next question.
“That’s nice. You enjoy it?”
“Yes.”
Rozena nodded thoughtfully. “Everyone should be able to make a living doing something they like. Where are your people from?”
“My—” Relief shivered through Cassidy. That was it? One simple question that could have as easily been asked of a doctor, a preacher or a prostitute? Obviously the interrogation skills in the Barnett family belonged to Jace. “My family lives in Pennsylvania.” As she answered, she wondered if Jace would compare notes with his mother and realize that was twice Pennsylvania had come up in her responses. Would he suspect that once, at least, she’d told him the truth?
“Pennsylvania. I’ve never been there. Ray and I have always planned to do some traveling once he retired from the garage, but that’s never going to happen. He may cut back on the hours he works someday, but he’s never going to quit completely. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself. More importantly, I wouldn’t know what to do with him.”
“Maybe Jace could give him some pointers.”
Rozena looked at her over one shoulder, her expression serious. “That boy,” she murmured. “It just makes me crazy to see him wasting his life like this. Things didn’t go the way he wanted. So what? You don’t just crawl off somewhere and be a bum for the rest of your life. I don’t know how he stands it…though I have to admit, I’m glad he gave up the police work. But if he would just do something besides lie around watching television all day….”
Cassidy smiled politely. “I’m sure he’ll find a job when he’s ready.”
“That’s what Reese said…six months ago.”
“People deal with things in different ways. Maybe he needs more time than you expected to get a handle on what went wrong.” Cassidy’s method of dealing with Phil’s death probably hadn’t been exactly conventional. Of course, unlike most widows, she hadn’t gotten the chance to cope. She hadn’t been able to plan and attend the funeral, to lean on family and friends, to focus on her grief, to accept and mourn, then rebuild her life. Her priority had been staying alive. She’d left the funeral plans to…well, whoever, and she hadn’t had anyone to lean on but herself. Instead of drawing strength from her and Phil’s families, she’d wondered if they would ever even know he was dead. Instead of mourning, she’d been learning the ins and outs of life on the run. She’d been cold, strong and focused during the days, but at night…for two years, she’d cried herself to sleep, wishing through the hurt that Phil was still with her.
“I suppose he can’t live like this forever,” Rozena said with a sigh. “I just don’t know what he might find to do, though. All he ever wanted to be was a policeman, ever since he was a boy. I hated that job. I know he was very good at it, but being good isn’t always enough. A mother worries, you know.”
She flashed an apologetic smile at Cassidy, who returned it. If she had a son, she would worry, too, she was sure, just as her mother worried about her. On the other hand, though, she’d developed something of a fatalistic approach to life in the past few years. What happens, happens. When it was her time to die, she would die. That didn’t mean she could come out of hiding, go home and start using her own name again. She had to exercise reasonable caution, but in the end, that was all she could do.
Phil had exercised reasonable caution, a small voice whispered in her head, and look what it got him.
Maybe her fatalistic approach was more a sanity-saving measure than a true belief, she thought wryly. If she laid the blame for everything on Fate, then she didn’t have to torment herself with the what-ifs, the could-haves and might-have-beens.
After a few minutes chatting on lighter subjects, Rozena turned from the stove and removed the apron. “Well, that about does it. All we need is for Jimmy and Kristin to get here—that’s my nephew and his wife, they run the ranch for us—and then we can sit down and eat.” The last word was accompanied by the peal of the doorbell. “Oh, great. If you’ll fetch the men—the shop’s through the door in the dining room—I’ll let them in.”
Cassidy walked into the dining room, circled the large table and went through the door tucked into the corner. It opened into a long narrow hall, obviously not original to the house, since the interior wall had once been the house’s exterior wall. At the end it opened into a large square room, brightly lit with half a dozen overhead bulbs, meticulously neat and filled with more tools than she could identify.
Jace and his father were standing on opposite sides of the central work table, with some kind of power tool laid out between them. She waited in the doorway until Ray finished speaking, then stepped forward. “Mrs. Barnett sent me to fetch you two.”
“Oh, now I’m sure she told you to call her Rozena,” Ray said, immediately heading toward her. “‘Mrs. Barnett’ would be…come to think of it, we haven’t really had a ‘Mrs. Barnett’ since my mother died. It’s just way too formal for folks like us.”
With a polite smile of acknowledgment, Cassidy returned the way she came with both men behind her. When she stepped through the dining-room door, she found Rozena and another couple standing at the far end of the table talking. Both newcomers looked at her with undisguised curiosity, making her wish for one second that she could slip back through the door, then take shelter for her reentry behind Jace.
Not that she needed protection from these people, she sternly admonished herself.
Not that Jace had any interest in offering protection.
Jimmy and Kristin Greenfeather were in their midtwenties, she guessed, and about the same height—around five eight—but that was where the similarities ended. He was obviously Jace’s cousin on the Osage side of the family, with black hair, dark skin and eyes, and was reed thin. Kristin was blond, blue-eyed and fair-skinned, and carried an extra thirty pounds or so. They were both, she discovered after the introductions and throughout the meal, very nice people…and very interested in her relationship with Jace. As were his parents.
It wasn’t her place to tell them that their relationship was entirely a matter of proximity. If his cabin wasn’t across the inlet from hers, she probably never would have met him. There wasn’t anything romantic between them—couldn’t be, not when he distrusted everything she said. Not when she would be leaving Oklahoma soon. Certainly not when getting involved with her could prove hazardous to his health.
She was glad responsibility for setting them straight didn’t rest on her shoulders—not only because it could be an awkward prospect, but also because…well, hell, deep down inside she kind of liked the idea of being
involved. Not the reality of it, just the possibility. These people who knew him well found it easy to believe that she could attract and hold on to a man like Jace. For a woman who had been as utterly alone for as long as she had, there was something very comforting in that.
After a wonderful dinner and an incredible strawberry meringue for dessert, Rozena and Kristin hustled everyone away from the table, then declared the kitchen off-limits. When Cassidy volunteered to help with cleanup, they brushed her off and left her alone with Jace.
“Want to see the horses?” he asked.
See the horses. Hmm, just the two of them, walking out to the corral in the cool evening dusk, away from curious eyes and sly smiles, alone in the night…. “Sure.”
Ignoring his mother’s declaration, he went into the kitchen, then returned with a handful of carrots. He opened the sliding door that led to the patio, then followed her out.
It wasn’t cool exactly, but not uncomfortably warm. All that was left of the sun was a tinge of color on the western horizon and stars were slowly appearing amid the clouds overhead. Lights shone from the workshop windows, making elongated rectangular shapes on the grass. When she glanced that way, she saw Ray, wearing safety glasses and bent over some task, while Jimmy watched.
The stone patio ran about half the length of the house, with a gas grill, table and chairs at the end nearest the kitchen and overflowing flowerpots and a small stone fountain at the opposite end. Halfway between the two, Jace turned onto the grass, making a beeline for the corral that butted up to the barn.
It was darker out here, with only the dim light from a bulb mounted above the barn door for illumination. Cassidy’s eyes adjusted easily enough, though, as the horses jostled for space along the fence.
Jace offered her half of a broken carrot. “Want to feed ’em?”
“Will they mistake my fingers for food?”
“Not if you keep them out of the way.”
He showed her how to offer the carrot, then steadied her hand as the nearest animal nuzzled it away. She wanted to jerk her hand back and wipe it on something—preferably something not hers—and go, Ewww, horse slobber. Figuring Jace would be amused, annoyed or both, she did neither.
“They’re beautiful,” she said softly, then shook her head when he held out another carrot. He fed one to each of the horses and for a moment the only sound was the crunching of powerful teeth.
“This one’s mine. His name is Rogue.” He petted and scratched the horse, blowing in his nostrils, damn near cuddling with him. “He’s twelve years old and seventeen hands.”
Years, she understood. Hands… “I assume that has something to do with how big he is.” When he nodded, she gave a shake of her head. “They should come in sizes that make sense—baby, pony, big, bigger, biggest.”
“Then Rogue would be ‘monster.’ Seventeen hands is big.”
She could see that, comparing him to the others. Of course, even the smallest seemed awfully big to her.
“You want to come back sometime for a riding lesson?”
The horse to whom she’d fed the carrot gently butted his head against her and she reached out to pet him. Was there a point to taking a lesson when she wouldn’t be around long enough to really learn anything? Even if she did actually learn, what were the chances she would ever have another opportunity to ride?
The point was, it would be fun, new, different…and a few more hours spent in Jace’s company.
“I’d like that.”
“Good,” he murmured before turning to lean against the corral fence. Raising one hand to scratch Rogue’s neck, he fixed his gaze on her. “My parents like you.”
“I’m a likable person.”
If his wry look was anything to judge by, he didn’t one hundred percent agree, but he didn’t say so. Instead he stuck to the subject of his parents. “Don’t do anything to hurt them.”
She wanted to take offense, to defend herself, to snidely point out to him that she was an adult and thoroughly capable of comporting herself appropriately. Another part of her wanted to remind him that, dinner aside, they were nothing more than acquaintances and likely to stay that way. Still another part wanted to weep that life had brought her to the place where a man could reasonably and legitimately make such a demand of her.
Her only response to his words was to hug her arms to her chest and to announce, “I’d like to go home soon. I—I need to get some work done tonight.”
Though she didn’t look at him, she could feel his gaze on her for a long time before he pushed away from the fence and gestured toward the house.
They returned in silence, and found Rozena and Kristin sitting at the kitchen table with cups of coffee between them. “We’re gonna head home, Mom. Cassidy’s got to work tonight,” Jace said as casually as if it was true.
“Oh, I was hoping we could sit a while and talk, but…I understand. Call your dad out here so he can say good-night, would you, son?” As he left the room, Rozena stood and slid her arm around Cassidy’s waist. “I’m glad we got a chance to meet, Cassidy. Maybe sometime we can get together without the men and just gab a while.”
“I’d like that.” Cassidy’s smile was half forced, half genuine. Rozena Barnett was such a motherly woman, and in the past six years Cassidy had missed that more than she could say. When she was a teenager, she’d looked forward to the day when she would be grown up and on her own, no longer just a daughter but a woman, her mother’s equal. She’d since discovered she would never be her mother’s equal. For wisdom, comfort and advice, no one beat a mother.
Jace returned with the other two men and the group gradually moved to the front hallway. Just before she and Jace walked out the door, his parents both hugged her, then him. “I love you,” she heard him murmur, first to his mother, then to his father.
A lump formed in her throat as she walked to the SUV. She couldn’t remember ever hearing a grown man tell a parent he loved him—not Phil, not her brother, not her father. Had they ever regretted it? When her grandfather died, had her father wondered if the old man had known how he felt? Had Phil ever wished he’d said it to his own parents before he’d disappeared from their lives?
She had never been one to say it a lot herself, except to Phil. She was struck by the irrational urge to ask Jace to stop at a pay phone on the way home, to dial her folks’ number, then her brother’s, then her sister’s, and blurt out the words in an emotional rush before hanging up again. Of course, she couldn’t. That was one of the things she and Phil had been sternly warned against. Phone records could be monitored. Any out-of-state calls could provide a starting point to look for them.
Not that the man who killed Phil had needed anything so inconsequential as phone records to find him.
She stared out the window, seeing little in the darkness, until abruptly she became aware that they weren’t moving. Blinking, she looked around but could see only shadows. Then the moon appeared from behind the clouds, glinting off the land, a broad creek, a pile of sandstone boulders taller than the truck. “Where are we?”
“My favorite of the Barnett eighteen-hundred-plus acres.” Jace cut off the engine, then climbed out. After a moment she warily followed, moving to stand beside him at the front of the truck. “This is where I spent most of my summers growing up. There’s a good swimming hole down there, and good fishing up that way fifty yards. Reese and I used to pitch a tent right here and stay two, three days at a time. We only went home for more food before coming back.”
“Didn’t your parents worry?”
He shrugged. “We’re only about a half mile from the house as the crow flies. Besides, I think my dad used to sneak out and check up on us.”
“Sounds like a great way to grow up.”
“Better for me than for Reese.”
Raising her brows, she looked at him, and he leaned back against the truck, crossing one ankle over the other. “Reese’s parents weren’t married. Uncle Del wanted to get married—hell, he wound up doing it fo
ur times—but Lena always wanted more than he could give, so she was in and out of their lives on a regular basis. Each time she left, they never heard from her until she popped up again. It was tough on Reese, not having a mother most of the time and knowing she didn’t give a damn about him even when she was here. That’s one reason he spent so much time with us growing up. My mom mothered him just like he was her own. It wasn’t the same, but it was better than nothing.”
“That’s sad. I don’t understand bad parents. With all the options available, why bring a child you don’t want into the world? Use birth control. Give him up for adoption. Learn to be a good parent.”
“You want kids?”
“I would love to have—” Too late she remembered telling him first that she liked children only from a distance, then that she didn’t like them at all. She had no doubt he remembered it, too.
If so, he gave no sign of it. He just continued to gaze at the creek. “Is there any reason you can’t have a couple?”
She couldn’t restrain a snort. “Yeah. No husband. No stability. No family to help.” And no future. How unfair would that be to a child?
“‘No husband’ can be remedied—find a guy, get married. Other than your fondness for lying, you seem stable enough, and a husband would qualify as family. Besides, who knows? He could have plenty of family of his own.”
Like him. Like Rozena and Ray, Reese and Neely, Jimmy and Kristin, and his grandfather, and Paulette Fox and Easy Rafferty.
The thought started a tingle low in her stomach and spread warmth through her. Deliberately she moved away from the truck and toward the pile of rocks, seeking to put some distance between them. She was about to step onto the first low rock, intending to climb to the top and sit on the sun-warmed stone, when Jace caught her arm and tugged her back.
One True Thing Page 16