Backlash

by Lisa Jackson

“I don’t think so,” Colton replied.

  “Please, Dad—”

  “You know how I feel about this.”

  “It won’t take long,” Colton told him.

  Ivan hesitated, glanced at Cassie and swore under his breath. “I need a drink,” he said, his eyes narrowing on Colton before turning to Cassie. “I’ll be on the back porch.” With one last disparaging glance at Colton, Ivan strode stiffly into the kitchen, rummaged in the cupboards until he found his favorite bottle of rye whiskey and a glass, then stomped loudly outside. The screen door slammed behind him.

  “Is—is something wrong?” Cassie asked, not knowing how to break the ice.

  “You tell me,” he said flatly.

  “As a matter of fact, there is,” she admitted. “I—I was just over at your place looking for you.”

  “Were you?”

  She could feel the loathing in Colton’s gaze. His nostrils flared angrily, and disgust curled his lips. Why was he so angry? she wondered . . . and then it hit her. He knew. Somehow, some way, he’d found out! Frigid desperation settled in her soul. “There—there is no baby,” she admitted.

  “And you weren’t going to tell me.” His voice sounded flat, lifeless.

  “Of course I was. I just wanted to wait until we were alone.” She turned pleading eyes up at him, begging him to understand.

  The anger in his eyes died for just an instant, and Cassie’s hopes soared. “When—when did you find out?”

  “Last Monday,” she answered, watching in dread as his features hardened to stone.

  “Last Monday! A week—nearly a week ago! And you didn’t tell me? When were you planning to give me the news, Cass? After the wedding?” he demanded, his hushed voice growing louder, a vein throbbing in his neck.

  She reached for his arm. “No, Colton, I swear—”

  “Don’t bother,” he muttered, yanking his arm away from her in disgust.

  “But I called—I was just at your house, looking for you—”

  The back door flew open, and Ivan raced into the room. “What the devil’s going on?” he demanded, his eyes darting anxiously from Colton’s stiff spine to the tears rolling soundlessly down Cassie’s cheeks.

  Colton’s face turned to stone. He started for the door, but Cassie ran after him, catching him just as his fingers curled over the knob.

  Throat knotted, tears streaming from her eyes, she clutched Colton’s sleeve. “Wait—I can explain—”

  “I just bet you can!” He yanked open the door. Hot night air streamed into the room. “How do you think I felt when I told a friend of mine you and I were going to be married?” he demanded.

  “But—”

  “That’s right, I let Warren Mason know. Warren just happens to work at LTV labs. He was congratulating me all over the place, then asked who the lucky girl was. When I mentioned your name, he got real quiet, I mean real quiet.”

  “Oh, no—”

  “I asked him what was wrong, and he told me—reluctantly, mind you—that he’d seen your pregnancy tests. I was stupid enough to think he was going to congratulate me on becoming a father, but he didn’t. Instead he let it slip that the test was negative.”

  “Oh, God,” Cassie whispered.

  “There never was a baby, Cassie, and you knew it.”

  “Then why would I have the test done?”

  “To convince me,” he growled.

  “No—”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me last Monday?”

  “I wanted to—”

  “Did you?” Seeing her fingers curled into the folds of his denim jacket, Colton snarled, “Let me go, Cassie.”

  “I can’t—I love you.”

  “It’s over!”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Didn’t mean to what? Lie to me? Deceive me? Trap me into marrying you?”

  “I never—”

  Slowly, he peeled her hands off his jacket. “Save it, Cassie. Save it for someone who’ll believe it. Maybe the next guy you seduce!”

  She shrank back at his cruelty. “I can’t let go,” she whispered pathetically.

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  Wounded beyond words, she felt her shoulders begin to shake, her body droop heavily against the wainscoting.

  “Get out, McLean!” Ivan commanded, his voice a deadly whisper as he stalked into the entryway. His face was purple, his eyes bright, his fists clenched at his sides. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, but I don’t care. You get out and leave my daughter alone! If you ever so much as step one foot on this property again, I swear, I’ll kill you!”

  “Dad—no—”

  Colton’s gaze moved slowly from Cassie to her father and back again. “Like father, like daughter. Always swearing something that doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

  “No!” she cried, colder than she’d been since that devastating night when her mother, her eyes red with tears and her coat billowing behind her, had left through the very same door. “I love you!” she cried, and saw Colton’s shoulders stiffen.

  “Don’t, Cassie,” he rasped, shaking his head as if convincing himself that he didn’t care. “Just don’t!” His jaw set, he strode out of Cassie’s life.

  “Okay, Cassie,” her father whispered, his lips tight, “I think you have some explaining to do.”

  “What do you want to know?” she whispered.

  “Everything.”

  “Oh, Dad—”

  “Come on, now,” his voice was gentle, but firm. He wrapped one arm around her shoulders. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “Whatever it is, we’ll get through it,” he said as they listened to Colton’s Jeep racing out of the driveway. “Didn’t we before?”

  “This is different.”

  “Not so much. You’re hurt again, and I’m here to help.”

  Her heart felt as if it had broken into a thousand pieces. The sobs burning deep in her throat erupted, and she clung to her father’s neck, burying her face against the rough cotton of his work shirt. “I love him so much,” she sobbed, unable to stem her tears. “I’ll never love anyone else.”

  “Sure you will,” Ivan predicted, “sure you will.”

  * * *

  But she hadn’t. No man had ever touched her as Colton McLean had. No boy in high school or college had been able to break through the barriers Colton had built, stone by painful stone.

  Now, eight years after he’d left her alone and miserable, silly, futile tears slipped down Cassie’s cheeks to fall on to the eiderdown quilt. Regret filled her. Regret for a love that hadn’t existed, regret for memories tarnished by Colton’s hard heart, regret for the pathetic, lovesick fool she’d once been.

  She blinked, then squeezed her eyes shut tight, willing away her tears. She wouldn’t cry for him—she wouldn’t!

  Ignoring the hot lump in her throat, she braced herself for the future. No matter what happened, she’d be strong—stronger than she’d ever thought possible. Because, like it or not, Colton had walked back into her life.

  Chapter Four

  Colton stomped on the throttle. The old Jeep leaped forward, its wheels spinning on the gravel ruts that comprised the Aldridge’s lane. What had possessed him to drive here? And why, when he’d learned that Ivan wasn’t around, had he stayed?

  Cassie. Always Cassie. Damn, but he wished he could forget her. She’d changed, of course. Her innocence and optimism had matured with her. Though not worldly-wise, she now had a sophistication within her that she hadn’t possessed at seventeen. She knew her own mind, said what she thought and had developed a hard-edged sense of humor.

  All in all, she’d caught him off guard. He hadn’t expected to be attracted to her. In fact, he’d hoped that with time, he’d developed an immunity to her—that his infatuation at twenty-one would seem a simple schoolboy crush.

  Unfortunately he’d been wrong. Seeing her now as a beautiful young woman who seemingly could stand u
p to anyone, he’d been trapped by her beauty. Trapped. Again.

  “You’ve just been cooped up too long,” he rationalized, cranking the wheel as he nosed the Jeep onto the highway. The pain in his shoulder flared, and he gritted his teeth. “You need to get out more.” And away from this godforsaken scrap of scrub brush.

  From the time he’d been a child, he’d known he would leave—that he wanted more than ranching could offer. But for the past six months he hadn’t had many options. His wound had required several surgeries to repair the damaged joint and ligaments.

  “Soon,” he muttered, comforting himself with the thought that he could leave as soon as Denver and Tessa were back.

  Unless, of course, this problem with the horse was unresolved. And unless he could not get Cassie Aldridge out of his system.

  To change the direction of his thoughts, he snapped on the radio, only to hear a song from the past—a love song that had hit the charts that summer he’d been involved with Cassie—a song that reminded him of her.

  Angrily he punched a button for another station and contented himself with listening to the news. The windshield wipers slapped the rain away. The mailbox signaling the turnoff to the ranch flashed in the headlights. Colton slowed, then gunned the engine past the lane. He was too keyed up to go back to the blasted ranch.

  He needed a drink, and it was about time he showed his face in town again, anyway. Remembering a local watering hole, he drove down the main street and past a rainbow of flickering neon lights.

  The Livery Stable, a weathered plank building named for its original purpose, stood on the far end of town. Colton wheeled into the parking lot, braked, then cranked on the emergency brake and shouldered the door open. Ducking his head against the rain, he plowed through puddles to the front door.

  Inside, the interior was hazy with smoke. Customers lined the bar and filled most of the booths. Pool balls clicked, people chatted and laughed, and video games buzzed erratically. Colton strode straight to the bar and recognized Ben Haley, an old classmate of Denver’s, who owned the place.

  “Well, look who finally showed up,” Ben commented. A stocky man with flat features and a cynical smile matched only by Colton’s, he motioned to the nearest stool.

  “I thought it was about time.”

  “What’ll it be?”

  Colton eyed the glistening bottles arranged in front of a ceiling-high mirror. “Irish coffee.”

  Ben’s thin lips twitched. “Irish coffee,” he repeated, glancing at Colton’s shoulder. “Don’t you have enough reminders of that place?”

  “I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment.” Colton eyed the other patrons as Ben mixed his drink. “Has Ivan Aldridge been in?” he asked.

  Sliding a mug across the scratched surface of the bar, Ben nodded. “A couple of hours ago.”

  “Alone?”

  “No—Monroe and Wilkerson were with him. They come in for a couple of beers once in a while.”

  “Hey, Ben, how about another?” a young, curly-haired man at the end of the bar called.

  “Right with ya.” He glanced back at Colton. “Glad to see ya around, McLean. Just give me a yell if you need anything.”

  “I will.” Colton stared into the depths of his mug, swirling the hot murky concoction and wondering why, no matter what he did, he couldn’t erase Cassie’s image from his mind.

  * * *

  “So McLean’s lost his horse again?” Ivan asked the next morning. He kicked out the chair next to him and, cradling a mug of coffee in his palms, grinned widely. “Too bad.” Propping his stocking feet on the other chair, he leaned back and eyed his daughter.

  “That’s what he says,” Cassie replied. She flipped pancakes onto a huge platter and watched her father from the corner of her eye. His once-black hair was now steel-gray and thin, his tanned face lined from hours in the sun, and his light brown eyes a little less bright than they had been. Wearing a faded red flannel work shirt and dungarees held in place by red and black suspenders, he warmed his back near the wood stove.

  “Serves the whole lot of them right!” Ivan settled back in his chair as Cassie placed platters of pancakes, bacon and eggs onto the gouged maple table.

  “You’re glad he lost the horse?”

  Ivan’s grin faded. “I’m glad he’s havin’ some trouble. No reason for him to be back in Montana as far as I can see.”

  “He was wounded.”

  “Yeah, right, got his ass shot up in Northern Ireland—”

  “His shoulder.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s time he took off again. That’s what he’s good at, isn’t it?”

  Cassie, feeling a hot flush climb up her neck, sat at the table and stacked hot cakes onto her plate. “I suppose.”

  “You know!” Ivan waved his fork in front of Cassie’s face. “He can’t be tied to anything. He’s been back here six months, and no one in town has seen hide nor hair of him.”

  “I guess he’s been recuperating,” Cassie said, wishing it didn’t sound as if she was making excuses for a man she detested.

  “Yeah, well, he can do it somewhere else.”

  Cassie smiled wryly. “I’m sure the minute he can, he’ll make tracks out of here so fast, all we’ll see is dust.”

  “Can’t happen soon enough to suit me!” Ivan declared, spooning two fried eggs onto a short stack of cakes and pouring maple syrup over the whole lot.

  “So what do you think happened to Black Magic?”

  “Don’t know and don’t care.”

  “Dad . . .” Cassie cajoled, probing past the crusty facade of Ivan’s surliness. “What do you really think?”

  “How the hell should I know? He probably just ran off. The horse isn’t dumb, you know.” Ivan chuckled. “Maybe Black Magic got tired of Colton McLean and took off for greener pastures.”

  “Be serious.”

  “Okay, my best guess is that the stallion was randy, saw some mares and jumped the fence.”

  “The wires were cut.”

  Ivan’s brows inched up. “Cut?”

  “Snipped—just on the other side of the Sage. Where our property butts up to the McLeans’.”

  “So from that, Colton thinks I had something to do with it?”

  “That and the fact that there were tire tracks on the wet ground.”

  “Big deal.”

  “Colton seems to think it is. He came over here with his guns loaded!”

  “Did he now?” Ivan’s old eyes sparkled. “I hope you gave him hell.”

  “Well, I tried to throw him off the property, but that didn’t work.” She cocked her thumb toward a worn spot under the table where Erasmus lay hoping for a fallen tidbit. “Our watchdog here barked his head off, then turned over and whined for Colton to rub his belly.”

  Ivan chuckled, though the features of his face had tightened. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he said. “I’d have given McLean a piece of my mind and saved you the trouble.”

  “I handled it.”

  His gaze darkened. “He’s a bastard, Cassie. Always has been. Always will be. I haven’t forgotten what he did to you.”

  Cassie’s chest grew tight. “Let’s not talk about it.”

  Tenderness crept into the old man’s features. “Okay—it’s over and done with.”

  “Right.” But Cassie could feel his gaze searching hers.

  “Maybe the fence was just broken.”

  “He didn’t seem to think so. I thought I’d go check it out this afternoon when I get back from town.”

  Ivan shrugged. “Suit yourself. But if I were you—”

  “I know, I know. You’d stay away from Colton McLean.”

  “All the McLeans,” Ivan clarified, his expression hardening. “But especially Colton. He’s as bad as his uncle was.” Then, as if he, too, didn’t want to dwell on a past filled with pain and betrayal, he turned his gaze to his plate and tackled his breakfast with renewed vigor.

  They finished the meal in silence, Cassie stil
l trying to dispel all thoughts of Colton. “You’re on for the dishes,” she reminded her father as she set her plate in the sink. “I still have to get ready.”

  “This is women’s work,” he grunted, but as Cassie cleared the table, Ivan grudgingly started rinsing the dishes and stacking them in the portable dishwasher that Cassie had purchased with her first paycheck from the veterinary clinic.

  “You’ll survive,” she predicted. “It’s time you got yourself out of the fifties.”

  “I’ve been out of the fifties longer than you’ve been alive.”

  She laughed, glad that the subject of Colton McLean had been dropped. “I have to stop by the Lassiter ranch to look at a couple of lambs, then I’ll be at the clinic. I’ll be home around six unless there’s an emergency.”

  “I’ll be here or over at Vince Monroe’s. He’s havin’ trouble with his tractor and wants me to take a look at it.”

  “You should’ve been a mechanic.”

  “I am,” he said, offering her a gentle smile. “I just don’t get paid for it.”

  “I don’t know how smart that is,” Cassie called over her shoulder as she dashed upstairs. In her room she changed into a denim skirt and cotton T-shirt, dabbed some makeup on her face and ran a brush through her hair. Yawning, she tried not to think about Colton. He’d already robbed her of a night’s worth of sleep, she thought angrily, remembering how she’d watched the digital clock flash the passing hours while she’d tried and failed to block Colton from her mind. But his image had been with her—his steely eyes, beard-covered chin, flash of white teeth.

  “Stop it!” she muttered at her reflection. She had work to do today, and she couldn’t take the time to think about Colton McLean or his missing horse!

  * * *

  “So what did Aldridge say?” Curtis asked, matching Colton’s long strides with his own shorter steps as Colton strode across the wet yard to the stallion barn. Sunlight pierced through the cover of low-hanging clouds.

  “He wasn’t there.”

  “So you don’t know any more than you did last night?”

  “I talked to Cassie,” Colton muttered, throwing open the door and frowning as he noticed Black Magic’s empty stall. A few soft nickers greeted him, and the smell of horses and dust filled his nostrils.