Home To Texas - Ransom My Heart Part 22

"I don't know," she said softly.

"I just don't seem to be able to plan right now." She patted the mare and then pushed the reaching nose away with her hand, stepping down from the bottom rail to look up at. him.

"You want to stay for supper? It'll be potluck, I'm afraid. Whatever I can find in the kitchen. I don't usually take a nap in the afternoon, but I can't seem to catch up."

"I know. I slept the clock around at Jenny's."

"Mandy seems to be the only one who's not been affected," Samantha said. Together they watched the little gift climb up the fence rails to entice the mare to come to be rubbed by her small fingers.

"Maybe we're just getting old," Samantha said, smiling at him. "I feel old, about a thousand years or so, but I'm not sure it's entirely due to the trip."

"I know," she said.

"It seems that everything has changed."

"That's not necessarily bad."

He thought about that, his eyes on the child who had succeeded in

getting the mare to do exactly what she wanted.

"Maybe not," Chase said finally.

"But it may take some getting used to." He looked at her then,

wondering if she could really understand what he was feeling.

She nodded, holding his eyes. And then she cleared the emotion from

hers and asked, "When do you carry the rest of the money to the kidnapper?"

"Sat.u.r.day. I'm meeting him at Crosby's."

"That seems ... a little public."

Chase shrugged.

"Keeping the arrangements under wraps didn't make it successful before.

In and out. That's what I've always preferred.""You be careful," she said.The words moved in his memory. She had told him that the night he'd walked outside this house to find Rio waiting for him. The night Mac's truck had exploded.

"I will," he promised softly, just as he had before.

"How about supper?"

"Maybe some other time," he said, fighting the desire to stay. Fighting the need to walk into this house and make everything like it had been before. But that hadn't been what her invitation had implied.

"You got an itch, Chase?" she had asked him tauntingly in the mountains.

He needed time to let her know that it was more than that. It always had been, of course, but he wasn't sure he was in control enough right now to make her understand.

He wanted her too badly, wanted them both too badly, to chance s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g it all up by a lack of control.

"I need to let Jenny know where I am," he said.

"We had some words, and I left in kind of a..."

"A McCullar tantrum," she finished when he hesitated, and her voice was amused.

"Too much like my daddy, I guess."

"You don't have to be," she said gently.

"That's only as far as my temper's concerned, Samantha.

I didn't mean anything else. I'm not like my father in anything

else."

"He never made it right about Rio," she said.

Another illegitimate child who had grown up without a father. Had that

been what had gone wrong in his half brother's life? Was that some

part of the reason Rio had done what he'd done?

"When your mother died," she continued, "he could have married Rio's

mother. There was no reason for him not to." Chase shook his head.

He had never found any resolution to his feelings about Rio, for the

childish jealousy and the grief and anger for the pain his father's

philandering had caused his dying mother. He didn't want to talk about

his half brother. Maybe his thirst to make sure Rio paid for his part

in what had been done to Mac was more what Jenny had meant. Crawling

into the grave. Living in the past.

"I'm not like my father," he said again.

"I promise you that, Samantha."

"I know," she said.

"I know you're not."

"I want you to think about what we should do."

"Do?"." she questioned.

"About Mandy. What's the best thing for her."

She nodded, eyes searching his face.

"And whatever you decide..." He took a breath before I he said it, wanting to mean it, still wanting to do the right thing.

"I'll go along with it. With whatever you think is best."

He turned away from the fence and began walking b to the yard where he'd parked Sam's truck. Mandy c running toward him and caught his hand. He stop[ standing there holding his daughter's tiny hand in his one. Just do what's right for her, he thought again.

"Next time will you push me?" Mandy asked.

"I.

next time you come? If your arm's all better?"

"The next time I come," he promised. His gaze lif to find Samantha still by the fence, watching them.

squeezed Mandy's hand and then released it. He opeJ the door of the pickup and climbed inside.

"Bye, Mr. McCullar," Mandy said, waving to him, though he hadn't even started the truck. He fought the u to get out and hold her, to settle the small warm body n to his as it had been during the crossing of the ridge beh the mining camp. To keep her safe. Instead, he lifted right hand and then, taking a breath, he turned the key the ignition. She was still waving when the dust trail truck left behind obscured his vision. Or maybe that something else.

SAMANTHA HAD ALREADY put Mandy to bed, tucking between sun-dried sheets and reading The Velveteen Rat for about the millionth time. They both knew it by he but the familiar ritual was important, especially after turmoil of the last few days. As far as Samantha could t the kidnapper had kept his word.

"As if she were my of daughter." She found herself wondering about his chi about their relations.h.i.+p.

From there her thinking turned naturally to Cha "Whatever you decide... What's the best thing for her Because she knew Chase, she knew that whatever she cided was best for Mandy, he would agree to. A man his word. A man of honor.

The kind of man she wanted Mandy's father to Maybe that was why there had never been anyone else.

NO one else had ever measured up to Chase McCullar. Not in her eyes. And, she admitted, no one ever would.

The best thing for Mandy."? She knew what she believed that would be. Having a family, a real family. A mother and a father who lived together. And maybe later... She realized that she had never before allowed herself to think about having other children, but now the images seemed to explode in her head, the feelings they evoked pus.h.i.+ng under her heart, making her body too full as it had been when she had carded Mandy. Another baby. Chase's baby. And this time... Except he had never said he wanted that or wanted her, she thought. Never said it, maybe, but in the mountains his body had betrayed his desire. Healthy adult male brushed like a warning through her mind, but she ignored it, and in response she felt the hot sweet ache move inside her own body. Never forgotten, those powerful feelings had deliberately been denied and buried in the routine of her busy life.

She remembered them now, allowed herself to remember.

The caress of Chase's hands over her body. Slow. Unhurried and un hurrying She s.h.i.+vered with the force of the memory and crossed her arms over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, rubbing her hands up and down her upper arms.

She was still standing in the doorway of Mandy's room, stating unseeingly into its darkness. She could barely make out the small bulge of the sheet where Mandy lay, already asleep. Safe. Safe again, thanks to Chase.

She turned and walked out, pulling the door almost closed behind her, leaving only a crack so she could hear if her daughter called. She went into the kitchen and began taking the dishes she had used for their simple supper out of the drain tray and putting them back into the cabinets.

Chase had built those, too. She touched the smooth surface of the door, feeling the solid strength of the oak under her fingers. Nothing fancy. Just strong and solid and dependable.

Except he hadn't been. One aberration out of all the years she had known him. She had told him the truth. She had known how Mac's death would affect him, but still... What he had done had been so out of character. Maybe Jenny had been right. Maybe for a little while Chase had died along with his brother.

She put the cup she was holding down on the counter and walked to her bedroom. She stood for a moment in that doorway, looking into the moon-touched darkness of the room, thinking about that night. Remembering. Whatever you think is right... The phone interrupted, shrilling loudly enough into the stillness that she was afraid it would wake Mandy. She hurried into the living room and grabbed it before it could ring again.

"h.e.l.lo," she said. It would be Sam, she had thought as she ran, calling to check on Amanda. But the voice that spoke to her wasn't her father's. It was familiar, its accented English almost as pleasant as the handsome face she was visualizing as she listened. Seeing him in her mind's eye just as she had last seen him, standing in the narrow street of the mining camp in the mountains of the Sierra del Carmen.