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Yes, definitely. Now.
“Donny!” she called. “Enough. Put Cochise away and—”
“That was nothing,” the boy said. “Watch this!”
He urged the palomino into a tight, circling canter, kicked his feet out of the stirrups, then swung himself around in the saddle until he was mounted backward.
Really frightened for him now, Cassie made a move in his direction. “Stop that right now.”
“But, Mom—”
Josh caught her arm. “Cassandra—”
“I said stop!”
Donny pulled the horse to a halt, slipped front-ward again easily, then began walking Cochise toward them.
Cassie’s facial muscles froze as he approached. She spun around, understanding that radical change could come to her life in a heartbeat. She searched Ethan’s face for any glimpse of recognition. His eyes were on Donny, but she couldn’t spot the slightest shift of interest in him.
“It looks like you’ve got a daredevil on your hands,” she heard Meredith say mildly.
Obviously feeling thwarted, Donny slumped in the saddle like a beaten warrior. “I can’t do anything around here!”
Cassie turned back to him. “Put Cochise away and go inside,” she snapped. The last thing she wanted was for the boy to come any closer. “Feed Ziggy and take your bath. We’ll talk later.”
As though sensing Cassie’s tension, Meredith spoke up, offering a light laugh. “Kids! They can really make you want to pull your hair out, can’t they?”
“I’m sorry,” Cassie said, her heart starting to settle at last as her son headed off toward the horse barn. She pulled in a deep breath. “We were discussing the property…” The words rose clear and steady from a throat she would have sworn was paralyzed.
“Yes, we were,” Ethan said. Nothing showed on his face. Nothing had to. The too quiet, too silky timbre of his voice said it all. “I thought we might agree on a price for the property fairly quickly. But now—” his eyes followed Donny’s departing figure “—it appears there may be something else we have to negotiate.”
CHAPTER FOUR
BY THE TIME ETHAN PULLED into the parking lot of his hotel, he was ninety-nine percent certain he had a handle on the situation.
He had a son. A son he’d never known existed.
But that didn’t mean his world had to be turned upside down.
This sort of thing happened sometimes. People made mistakes, lost control. You couldn’t always erase what you’d done. Sometimes, no matter what you planned, you had to live with the consequences of your actions. Hadn’t he learned that years ago, the hard way?
So here was a new challenge. A big one. But he knew he’d find a way to manage it. So what if this was Cassie’s turf, and she had the home field advantage? They could still work this out. Calmly. Reasonably. He’d call his attorney, see what his options and responsibilities were. Cassie didn’t need to worry. He had no desire to play daddy. This didn’t have to impact his game plan for the future. Not one damned bit.
Yanking off his tie, Ethan threw it onto the passenger seat. He caught his eyes in the rearview mirror. Who do you think you’re kidding, Rafferty?
Just that quickly, his life was on a different track, like a train careening off its course. He had a kid, a twelve-year-old handful by the looks of it. A child who was so much a younger version of Ethan that he could have been looking in a time-traveler’s mirror.
Unwanted emotions churned through him, feelings he couldn’t even put a name to.
My son.
Mine.
He sat in the silence of the parking lot, listening to the ticking of the car’s engine as it cooled. For just a few moments, a hard knuckle of anger sent a jolt through his body.
Why had Cassie kept him in the dark all these years? How did she dare? By what right…?
Restraint shattered inside him. Only one way to find out.
Ethan threw the rental car in Reverse, heading back toward the I-10 and the Flying M Ranch.
WHEN HE STOOD AT THE ranch’s front door, he was a little calmer, but not by much.
There were questions he wanted answers to, but he wasn’t likely to get them if he came charging in full of righteous indignation. Conquering the impulse to pound his fist on the thick wood, Ethan drew a huge breath and knocked with all the practical determination of a traveling salesman.
He wasn’t expecting Cassie to answer. A housekeeper had led them to the backyard earlier that afternoon, but when the door swung wide, it wasn’t either woman.
It was Donny.
For a moment Ethan was completely tongue-tied, something that rarely happened to him anymore. He felt slightly breathless, as though he’d been jogging. Worst of all, he couldn’t seem to stop staring.
The boy, either uncomfortable under Ethan’s scrutiny or simply impatient, shifted. He jerked his chin up in acknowledgment.
“Hey,” he said without any particular grace. “You’re the guy who was here earlier.”
“Yes,” Ethan answered. “And you’re Donny.” Named after Cassie’s old man, he supposed. He wondered what would happen if he added, “And I’m your father.”
But of course he said nothing like that. Instead, he gave the boy a smile. “Are your parents home? I’d like to speak with them.”
“Dad’s staying at River Bottom. Mom’s in the Torture Chamber.”
Josh was staying at his parents’ old place, instead of here with Cassie? What did that mean?
Ethan lifted one brow. “Your mother’s in the Torture Chamber?”
“It’s just a gym, but that’s what she calls it. She hits the hot tub almost every night, but she should be out soon.”
Ethan enjoyed a fast, private fantasy about how Cassie would look relaxing in bubbling, steamy water up to the swell of her breasts. He might be furious with her, but when he’d first seen her this afternoon, it had pained him to accept the brutal truth. Over the years he had convinced himself that she meant nothing to him anymore, but his body, his senses, seemed to have remained infatuated.
It annoyed him that just the sight of her could still pack that kind of wallop. He shut those thoughts down before they could take hold. “Can I wait?”
“I guess,” Donny answered with a shrug.
The kid led him across the oak-floored foyer, into what Ethan remembered as the living room. It looked the same as when Mac McGuire had been alive. Lots of heavy furnishings, a high-end Western theme courtesy of Neiman Marcus. Leather and suede and beaten iron.
Ethan moved to the center of the room, then turned toward his son. Donny was slipping into a denim jacket. The dog Ethan had seen earlier came up to join them, and the boy leaned down to give its head a scratch.
“I gotta go,” he said. “You can park it here until Mom gets out. Will you tell her I’m going for a walk? We’re just going down to the pond. I like to look at the moon on the water while Zig chases frogs.”
Something in the boy’s tone made suspicion blossom in Ethan’s mind. Before he could stop himself he asked, “Is that really where you’re headed?”
Donny’s posture developed a distinctly offended stance. His jaw looked rock solid. “Dude, are you calling me a liar?”
Not a very good start, Rafferty. Ethan raised his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry. I was young once, and too many details always made my mother suspicious. You need to keep it simple.”
Hot color swam in Donny’s cheeks. There was a long moment of silence while the boy nibbled at his bottom lip uncertainly and swept his gaze over Ethan.
Finally, he said awkwardly, “Okay, I’m going down to the barn to see my new horse. I’m just hanging out with him, though. No riding in the dark, no messing around trying to teach him tricks. So Mom doesn’t need to freak out. Tell her that. But only if she asks where I am. Deal?”
“Seems fair.”
As though satisfied, Donny nodded and snapped his fingers at the dog. “Come on, Zig.”
Before he could get to the doorway, Ethan called out, “Hold on a minute.”
Donny blew out an audible sigh as he turned. Were all twelve-year-old boys like this? How would Ethan know? He’d never spent much time around children, so he had virtually nothing for comparison.
“Would you mind telling your mother I’m here?”
The boy left the room, and Ethan heard him tromping heavy-footed down the hallway.
A few moments later, he heard Donny shout, “Mom! You got company!”
Ethan couldn’t hear a response over the sound of Donny talking to the dog and his boots returning to the living room. His hands were shoved into his pockets, but just before he turned to leave with Ziggy at his heels, he seemed to remember his manners.
“You want anything?” he asked. “Water? Iced tea?”
Answers, kid. That’s what I want. But all Ethan did was politely decline. In another moment, the boy banged out the front door, and he was alone in the Flying M’s living room.
The place was tomb-quiet, as though brooding about the crisis threatening its owner. He’d only been in the ranch house a few times, and he’d forgotten how big it was. Impersonal and stiff in spite of the massive fireplace and warm, earthy colors. Back in Colorado Springs, he’d built an entire cabin for himself that wasn’t much bigger than this room.
No wonder Cassie had decided he wouldn’t fit in here. It was true.
To keep himself occupied while he waited, he roamed the room, trying to admire Tim Cox paintings and Remington sculptures that spoke of wealth in a Western world. The Flying M must still be doing all right. Mac McGuire’s little girl didn’t seem to have lost her father’s fortune over the years.
Of course, she’d had a husband to help her.
A long bookcase stood against one wall. Ethan stopped in front of it, remembering that trophies had been displayed here once. Now it was full of memorabilia and framed pictures.
He studied the lineup of photographs. Cassie’s father, astride a black stallion. A shot of Josh Wheeler, shaking hands, accepting an award from some organization. His parents were here, too—a younger version of Josh standing between them in cap and gown.
Gradually the pictures became more current, and Ethan immediately realized that it had been a mistake to wander over here.
Josh with Donny astride his first horse. Cassie and a younger Donny opening Christmas presents in front of a towering fir. School photos. Vacations. There was one of the three of them at a football game, the confident young family linked together by laughter. Josh Wheeler’s arm was draped around each of them. Cassie’s head lay against his shoulder and a gap-toothed Donny grinned up at them both.
The three of them. Tight-knit. Loving. Perfect.
To his surprise, Ethan felt a cold hand seize his heart as he replaced the photograph. The pure pain of time lost exploded within his chest. Twelve years of missed opportunities. Twelve years of memories from a boy’s childhood that could never be re-created. Ethan’s son didn’t know him from Adam.
Deep inside, there was the cruel, bleak knowledge that Donny had grown up calling Josh Wheeler “Dad.”
Ethan moved away from the bookcase. Now that he knew about Donny, how difficult would it be to make things right? How long would it take? And what was “right,” anyway?
His gut told him with dark certainty that, whatever lay ahead, it was bound to be hard and painful for everyone.
He looked at his watch. It had been ten minutes. What was keeping her? Did she think if she stalled long enough he might go away and never come back? Was she afraid to face him? Or was she simply making him wait to show who was in charge here?
Whatever her reasons, it only made him more angry. And more determined than ever to get some answers.
CASSIE PLUCKED THE headphones out of her ears and slid her iPod into the basket beside her therapy pool. Then she slid lower into the tub until the hot, bubbling water tickled her chin. A satisfied sigh escaped her lips. After a day like today, she needed this. Not just to soak away her body’s stiffness, but to calm her nerves and soothe the tension that made her every muscle feel as though it had been attached to a live wire.
She lifted her bad leg, letting it rest against the side of the tub. The flesh was crisscrossed and puckered with surgical scars even after all these years. That night in the barn, everything had shattered Humpty Dumpty style. The pieces had been put back together again, but the doctor could only do so much. It wasn’t pretty, and no matter how diligently Cassie worked out in this room, it never would be.
With a frown, she slipped her leg back under the hot water. She had never allowed herself extended forays into the deep end of the pity pool, and there was no reason to start now. Forget aches in the winter and pain when she stood too long in one place. Her body was whole. She’d been so incredibly lucky.
Lucky.
She drew a shaky breath and, for the first time in ages, let her mind run freely over the night of her accident.
The time spent in Bandera’s stall was still a blank to her, and what came afterward at the hospital was no more than flashes, snapshots of pain and fear. A nurse trying to keep her awake. Vital signs. Her father weeping over her.
Most of the memories refused to mesh, but the sound of the doctor’s voice had somehow sliced through her haze. Asking permission to take her leg if it proved necessary to save her life. She had felt her insides shut down with the shock of that possibility, with the fear that even if she lived she would never be the same.
By the time Ethan had come to her, she had known what she had to do. They couldn’t marry. It would be so wrong to tie a virile, exciting man like Ethan Rafferty to a cripple. Their plans of travel, adventure, of starting a new, exhilarating life together—all of it disappeared like smoke as she lay there feeling the pain medication take hold. Dreams were fine for those who had some hope of attaining them. But starting that moment, she didn’t have that hope.
He had kissed her, an achingly gentle touch of his mouth against hers. She’d fought to stay conscious, to ignore the sweet, rough purr of his voice promising that everything would be all right. She had made herself concentrate on her breathing. One slow, even breath. Another.
And somehow, she had told him to go. She’d told him that she blamed him for what had happened. That he wasn’t right for her.
That she never wanted to see him again.
Now, it seemed so foolish to think that had been the end of it. Twenty-four hours later, when she had awakened to find her leg still intact, though permanently damaged, the doctor had informed her that she was pregnant. She might have managed to keep Ethan from throwing his life away, but hers had been altered forever.
Looking back, she remembered being terrified momentarily at the idea of becoming a single mother. Yet at the same time she had felt something light and airy travel through her.
Ethan’s child.
It didn’t matter that her father was horrified and angered by the news. It didn’t matter that her pregnancy would make the long, torturous months of therapy that lay ahead that much more difficult. Her heart reeled with the sweetness of it, willing to snatch at any crumb. The blaze of light within her was too beautiful and dazzling to be extinguished.
Slipping her hand beneath the water in the tub, Cassie ran her fingers over her submerged belly, remembering the way it had looked when she had been carrying Donny. It seemed like only yesterday that she had held her son for the first time, and Ethan’s imprint on that tiny face had been so clear.
Not once had she ever regretted the decision to have her baby. From the moment of his birth, Donny had become the fulcrum upon which her life was balanced. And never, ever, would she allow Ethan’s reappearance in her life to change that.
All her protective instincts were humming. She would find a way to handle this latest development. Josh would help her. Together they would protect Donny from anything Ethan might have in mind. She just wished she knew what it was.
Cassie inched down again, until the curve of her neck rested against the back of the tub. She closed her eyes, concentrating on taking deep, calming breaths, wishing her mind would stop ping-ponging back and forth with a dozen possibilities.
Maybe, as Josh had suggested, they were worrying needlessly. Who could guess what Ethan had in mind? He had come back to Beaumont on business. Obviously he had plans for the future. Wasn’t it possible that he had no interest in establishing a real relationship with his son? Were they contractually obligated to sell that Jackalope land to him?
