The Cowgirl in Question Part 16

"Your father and I couldn't get along. One of us had to go."

"Why didn't you send him him packing?" Cash asked. packing?" Cash asked.

"Asa would never leave his ranch. I had no idea how to run a ranch and you were his sons. Sons need a father."

"And daughters?" Dusty asked.

"So you just agreed to leave?" J.T. said.

"It was a sacrifice I felt I had to make," she said softly, her attention on Dusty. "As hard as it was for me. I felt your lives would be better without me than with me in town. I didn't want you torn between two quarreling parents like in so many divorces."

"So you're divorced?" Cash asked.

"No," she said. "That was another stigma we didn't want you to have to live with, and I knew I would never remarry."

"Marriage to Asa was that bad?" Rourke said from his spot by the door.

She smiled at him. "I knew I would never love anyone the way I loved your father."

"Uh-huh," Rourke said.

"So you went along with his plan to fake your death, right down to the memorial service and the gravestone at the cemetery?" Cash demanded.

She straightened. "It seemed like a way to put an end to it at the time."

"What about me?" Dusty demanded. Rourke could hear the anger and hurt in her voice. She sounded close to tears.

"Oh, honey," Shelby said, and took a step toward her but stopped as if seeing something in Dusty's eyes that warned her not to come any closer. "Your father and I got together to discuss a financial matter and..." She waved a hand through the air. "I know you're all angry and think we acted irresponsibly."

There were sounds of agreement around the room.

"Not to mention illegally," Cash piped up.

"But we love each other. You were all born of that love," Shelby said. "We just couldn't live together and that's why I went away, planning never to return."

"But you have returned," Rourke said.

"Yes." She looked across the room to him again. "I had to come home."

"Why now?" J.T. asked.

"Why not years ago, when we needed you?" Brandon said.

She shook her head, tears welling in her blue eyes. "I wanted to, desperately. But I never knew how long Asa and I would be able to stay together without killing each other. I couldn't do that to young children."

"So you waited until we were old enough to understand?" Rourke suggested, knowing there was a whole lot more to this story.

"That's partly it," she said, as if choosing her words carefully. "Your father and I need to work out some things."

"Financial things?" Rourke asked.

"It isn't what you think," she said. "It's between your father and I."

He'd heard enough. He turned and opened the door. If he hurried, he could catch Ca.s.sidy before the cafe closed.

"Are you staying?" he heard Dusty ask her mother as he headed down the hall toward the front door. He caught a glimpse of his father still at the dining-room table, steadily depleting the bottle of bourbon in front of him.

Rourke didn't catch his mother's answer. He didn't need to. Shelby wouldn't be staying. She was the kind of person whose first instinct when things went bad was to run away from it. Rourke knew now who he'd inherited it from.

ASA HEARD the front door open and close five times, heard several vehicles start up, heard angry voices in deep discussion out on the porch and figured Rourke and Cash had left. The other three were tearing him to shreds on the porch.

He poured himself another drink. Not even the alcohol was going to work tonight.

At the sound of her soft footfalls, he looked up. "How did it go?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

Shelby sat down heavily in a chair next to him. He pushed the bottle of bourbon toward her.

She had never been a drinker, so he was surprised when she poured a shot into the gla.s.s and downed it. She shuddered, eyes closed, tears beading her lashes.

When she opened her pale blue eyes, he felt a start, just as he had the first time he'd seen her. His heart ached just looking at her. He'd loved this woman all of his life, and not even the bad years or the long time apart could dull that all-enveloping love.

Nor could they have been more wrong for each other.

"You think they'll ever forgive me?" she asked.

"Yes," he said without hesitation. "They're just angry right now. They think you abandoned them."

"I did."

He shook his head. "You and I know that isn't true."

"I could have put up more of a fight."

Again he shook his head. "It wouldn't have done any good. You and I would have ended up killing each other. And imagine how many more children we would have had."

She smiled at that. "They are all so wonderful, aren't they?"

He started to tell her that wonderful wonderful wouldn't be the word he would choose for their pigheaded, contrary offspring, but he said, "Yes, they're wonderful. Dusty is the spitting image of you." wouldn't be the word he would choose for their pigheaded, contrary offspring, but he said, "Yes, they're wonderful. Dusty is the spitting image of you."

Tears welled again in her eyes. She discreetly wiped at them. "There will be an uproar when word gets out."

He nodded. "Why are you back, Shelby? I thought we had a deal," he asked, even though he feared he already knew, had known, the moment he saw her in town.

She reached silently to cover his hand with her own. As she squeezed his hand, tears spilled down both her cheeks. "You know why, Asa."

He nodded. Some secrets were impossible to keep.

Chapter Eleven.

As Rourke pulled up in front of the Longhorn Cafe, he felt a rush of relief at the mere sight of Ca.s.sidy inside the cafe. He'd made it just in time. She was putting up the Closed sign as he got out of his pickup.

The rush of feeling surprised him and he realized it wasn't just his temper he'd learned to control in prison. He'd put a lid on a lot of other emotions, as well.

Ca.s.sidy spotted him, seeming surprised, as she opened the door. After everything that had happened today, she was like a breath of fresh air.

"Is everything all right?" she asked, studying his face.

He smiled at her. "Could we maybe-" he glanced at one of the booths "-talk?" It surprised him how much he was hoping she'd say yes. He couldn't think of any other place he wanted to be right now than here with Ca.s.sidy.

She didn't hesitate. "Sure. Want something to eat or drink?"

"Coffee would be nice if you still have any or I could make some."

"You?" she asked with a laugh.

"I worked in the prison cafeteria before I got on at the ranch," he said. "You'd be surprised at all my talents."

Did she blush? She pointed him toward the coffeepot while she went to close the blinds. As she was closing the last one, he saw her hesitate and looked past her to see Blaze sitting in her office across the street obviously waiting for someone. Guess who.

Task completed, Ca.s.sidy turned back to him.

"Where do you want to sit?"

She pointed to a booth, waited as he slid in, then sat down across from him. Their knees b.u.mped. She jerked as if hit with a cattle prod. Or maybe she was just startled and he'd imagined the electrical current that shot through him.

"Did something happen today since I've seen you?" she asked, sounding worried.

"It's been quite the day," he said. He recounted what his brother Brandon had said about Forrest's gambling. He told her about his visit to the VanHorn Ranch and Kelly, leaving out how he'd gotten Kelly to talk to him. And finished up with his visit to Les Thurman at the Mello Dee.

"He told me you were right about the guys at the bar egging me on during the fight."

Ca.s.sidy nodded. Was that what he'd wanted to tell her? That she'd been right?

He looked at her across the table. "Ca.s.sidy-" The coffee machine shut off noisily.

It was a knee-jerk reaction. She started to slide out of the booth to go get the coffee.

"Let me," he said, and got up.

Slowly she lowered herself into the booth again. Her heart was hammering in her chest. What had he been about to say?

"Here," he said, returning with the pot and two cups. He filled hers, then his, and took the pot back.

She cupped her hands around the cup, needing the warmth. She was staring down at the coffee when he returned. She didn't look up until the silence was too much for her. "You were saying?"

He shook his head as if he couldn't remember or it didn't matter anymore. She felt her heart drop. She had a feeling it did matter. A lot.

"Mason VanHorn was at the Mello Dee," he said.

She knew about the bad blood between the families. Not what had caused it, just that Asa and Mason couldn't be in the same room together.

Rourke seemed to hesitate. "My father called a family dinner tonight to make an announcement." He drew away to stare down into his coffee but not before she'd seen that instant of vulnerability in his blue eyes.

So unlike Rourke, she told herself she must have imagined it. "What was the announcement?"

"He didn't get to it before my mother walked in."

She stared at him, not sure if it was some kind of morbid joke or she just wasn't getting it.

"You heard me right. My mother. Shelby Ward McCall. It seems her death was exaggerated."

Ca.s.sidy gasped. "But your brothers put flowers on her grave every Sunday."

He nodded. "I guess she and my father cooked up her death thinking it would be better for us kids to believe her dead than divorced."

"That's screwball thinking if I've ever heard any," she said, then wished she could bite her tongue.

He laughed. "My thought exactly." He shook his head, his gaze moving gently over her face. "I would suspect my father paid her to go, threatening to take us kids and leave her penniless. That sounds more like him. You want to hear the real kicker? Dusty is theirs. She's our biological sister. It seems at some clandestine meeting to discuss finances, Dusty was the result."

Ca.s.sidy wouldn't have believed it if it hadn't been Asa McCall. "Amazing." "Amazing."

Rourke nodded in agreement.

"Why did she come back if they had an arrangement?"

"That is the question, isn't it," he said with a shrug. He looked worried.

"Didn't she say?" Ca.s.sidy asked.

"Not really, but my father didn't seem all that surprised to see her."

"Maybe they're getting back together," she suggested.

Rourke let out an oath. "I hope not. I was pretty young when she supposedly died, but I remember how the two of them fought. I could barely remember what my mother looked like, but I remember their infamous arguments. My father said they had a love-hate relations.h.i.+p. I doubt that has changed."

She sipped her coffee. "Good." She motioned to the coffee when he seemed confused.

He nodded and they fell into an uneasy silence.