The Parent Plan

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Friendly’s mouth opened and closed, reminding Cassidy of a particularly unattractive bass. He glanced at Karen. The laughter in her eyes and the way she was biting her lip told him she was trying mighty hard to keep from giggling.

“Well, I, that is, of course we’re proud of her,” Friendly protested “Why, it gives the strongest man pause to think of her working so diligently in the emergency room, not even knowing her own little girl was trapped underground.” Friendly chuckled. “I reckon you know how lucky you are to have her.”

Cassidy’s control thinned. “Is there a point to this, Friendly?”

Before the councilman could blunder on, Karen leaned closer to Cassidy’s side to whisper urgently, “We’ll leave early, I promise.”

“Now, Kari,” he demanded, pinning her with a look that dared her to resist.

“But, Cassidy, we can’t just walk out.”

“Sure we can.”

“Cassidy, listen to me, please,” she pleaded, her gaze searching his. “More than anything, I want to be with you. But it wouldn’t be fair to the committee and everyone who’s worked so hard—”

“Forget it, Karen. I got the message.” His face closed up.

Karen wanted to scream in frustration. Just like that, he was once again the cold, angry man standing in the glare of rescue lights, his eyes rejecting her. But this time there was another emotion buried within those intimidating onyx depths, something that suggested an emotion far more complex than anger. It was a look she’d seen before, in patients suffering intractable pain.

Her heart contracted, and she felt the sudden, inexplicable press of tears against the backs of her eyes. Somehow she had to reach him, to make him understand.

“Cassidy, please don’t do this,” she whispered.

“Do what?” he challenged, making no effort to lower his voice. “Deny that I resent the demands other people make on my wife? Or the fact that you let them?”

Her body humming in ways she hadn’t felt for months, she leaned closer, deliberately brushing his arm with her breast. “Cassidy, it won’t be all that long before I’ve fulfilled my obligations and then we can leave.”

“Don’t kid yourself. We’ll be lucky if we get out of here before eleven.”

Conscious of the councilman’s curious gaze shifting from one to the other, she turned slightly to hide her face and whispered, “I want to make love to you, Cassidy, but—”

Brow arched, he deliberately took a step away from her. “I’ve heard that before, Kari, and ended up sleeping alone while you’re off on some emergency or other.”

Karen heard the resentment buried in his caustic words and felt her stomach constrict. Take a chance, Kari, she thought. Grab that thick, strong wrist of his and make a beeline for the truck. Maybe they couldn’t spend the entire night at the Fireside Inn, but—“Great party, isn’t it?” Friendly declared as he caught her eye again. Like all true politicians, it seemed, he couldn’t stand a lull in the conversation.

“Excuse me, I’m goin’ to find the bar,” Cassidy drawled. With that, he nodded to the councilman, then turned away to be swallowed up by the shifting currents of humanity.

“Did I say something wrong?” Friendly asked, his brow furrowed over troubled eyes that suddenly seemed more perceptive than she’d thought at first glance.

Reminding herself that Bill Friendly was her host, Karen summoned a social smile. “It’s not your fault. My husband hates to talk about Vicki’s accident, that’s all.”

“Understandably.” He cleared his throat. “Why don’t I get you something cold to drink, and then I can fill you in on the presentation ceremony.”

Karen bit off a groan. “Ceremony?” she asked warily.

Friendly held up a hand. “Nothing fancy, I promise. The VFW will present the colors, of course, and the American Legion marching band will play the ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’ then Hal Stuart will say a few words.” He sighed, then glanced around quickly before adding in a low voice, “Don’t get me wrong, Dr. Sloane, but I sure do miss Hal’s mama coming into City Hall every morning with that sunny smile of hers.”

Karen welcomed the distraction. Her cheeks were still hot as the result of the longing Cassidy had aroused in her. “Have the detectives handling the case uncovered any more leads?”

Friendly shook his head. “Not that I know of, but that young detective, Richardson, plays his cards pretty close to his vest.”

“I suppose that’s best.” Karen glanced around. At six-three in his boots, Cassidy had the advantage of height on most of the males in the room. Her spirits drooped even lower when she realized he wasn’t in sight.

“Shall we?” Friendly asked, offering his arm.

As Karen slipped her hand into the crook of the councilman’s elbow and allowed him to lead her through the throng, she couldn’t help thinking about the early days of her marriage when nothing short of a cataclysm would have pried Cassidy from her side.

Chapter Four

By eight-thirty, the formalities had been concluded, which for most of the attendees meant that the real party could start. Slim-Boy Brown and the Old Time Fiddlers tuned their instruments and a couple of slicked-up, freshly barbered and cologned cowboys eager to dance with the pretty ladies cleared a space near the bandstand.

With a whoop of excitement, one of Cassidy’s hired hands led a shy, freckled teenager onto the floor, and Slim-Boy shouted for the dancing to commence. Like a restless herd surging toward an open gate, couples spilled into the cleared area, some in jeans and boots, others in suits and sleek cocktail dresses, while friends and strangers alike cheered them on.

Across the cavernous hall, barbecued ribs and chicken sizzled on the grill of a huge old-fashioned chuck wagon while the caterer and her staff of gingham-clad cowgirls ladled up coleslaw and potato salad by the gallon. Nearby, bartenders in flannel shirts and derby hats served beer and wine to thirsty customers. As the bottles and kegs emptied, the noise level rose.

In the midst of the gaiety, Cassidy stood alone near the open doors of the main entrance, the silk tie he’d carefully knotted two hours earlier now wrenched free of the stiff collar, his patience thinned to tissue paper.

“Somethin’ tells me you’d rather be out chasing strays than proppin’ up the wall,” Travis Stockwell commented as he ambled Cassidy’s way.

Cassidy straightened, and for good measure, gave the knot of his tie another jerk. “You got that right,” he said as he saluted the younger man with the can of soda he’d been nursing for the past hour.

“‘Pears to me you’d do better to grab you one of these,” Travis advised, indicating the long-necked beer bottle in his big hand.

Cassidy gave it some thought. He hadn’t been drunk since the night of his father’s funeral. Now, on the rare occasions that he indulged, he limited himself to two beers. Eight years of watching his old man dive deeper and deeper into a bottle had made him cautious.

“Guess I’ll stick with the soft stuff,” he said, taking a swig. “Got me a mare ready to foal any minute now.” He’d been right to call Russell. Golden Girl had gone into labor an hour after they’d headed for town.

Travis nodded, one cowboy to another. “The bay?” he asked after taking a long pull on the bottle.

“No, the palomino, Golden Girl out of Goldenrod.”

“I’m guessin’ she’s a maiden, for all the worryin’ you’re doin’.”

“You guess right.”

Travis acknowledged that with an understanding nod. “Is that the mare you bred to that wild stallion I been hearing about?”

“Yeah. Took me two years to finally get a rope on that big white hellion. Bred him three times, last time to the Girl. Damn near lost two men trying to control him.”

Travis’s brown eyes gleamed. “Heard you set him free after he covered your mares.”

Cassidy nodded. He’d seen the stallion a time or two since, racing the wind across the wildest part of the Lazy S. As free as God made him.

“Word is you had a couple of sweet offers to take him off your hands, provided, of course, he was green broke.”

“One or two.”

“You figure he couldn’t be broke?”

Cassidy shrugged. “Didn’t seem right to try.”

Travis digested that in silence, then nodded. “You thinkin’ to sell the palomino’s foal?”

“Not unless I care to spend the rest of my life explainin’ my reasons to my daughter.”

Travis snorted over the sound of nearby laughter. “Yeah, I know what you mean. My sweet Virginia’s only a little past nine months and already she’s got me bustin’ my butt to make her happy. Peggy says I’m spoiling both my kids.”

Cassidy heard the note of self-conscious contentment in Travis’s voice and felt a sharp pang of envy. From rodeo gypsy to family man in the wink of an eye. A hell of a transition, he decided, but it seemed to suit Travis damned well. At least he had had a choice about becoming a father, Cassidy thought, then felt like an ass. Karen hadn’t gotten herself pregnant all by her lonesome.

“You still intending to take your family with you when the tour starts up again?” he asked during a lull in the music.

“Yep. Got me a honey of an RV and Peggy loves it. She’s got it all decorated real pretty, even has a corner fixed up like a nursery for the babies. Says it’s like taking her nest with her wherever she goes.”

Cassidy took a long breath. He and Karen had worked for days on the baby’s room, racing to get it done before Karen’s due date. Damn, if they hadn’t had fun, too. His heart ached at the memory of his new bride’s laughing eyes when he’d swung her off the ladder and kissed her senseless. They’d ended up making love on the floor amid paint cans and roller pans. He shifted, frowned. The hardness that had subsided started to throb again and he cursed the idiots who’d come up with the idea for this bash in the first place.

“Sounds like Peggy’s not planning on going back to work anytime soon.” Travis shook his head. “No way! She’s got all she can handle with me and the twins.”

Cassidy hid his jealousy behind a grin. “Guess it’s a toss-up who demands the most TLC, you or the babies.”

Travis chuckled. “You could say that, yeah. Course, me being the easygoing sort, I don’t take a lot of care. Mostly just the tender lovin’ part.”

After giving an obligatory chuckle, Cassidy took another sip of soda pop and let his gaze wander over the crowd. The dancing had started again, and he let his attention linger for a moment on one of the couples, friends of Karen’s from the hospital. Noah Howell and his wife Amanda. Both doctors.

The last time he’d done time in this suit and tie, he’d been attending their wedding. From the way they were squeezing up to each other tonight, their thighs rubbing in time with the waltz, he figured the honeymoon was far from over.

Give ’em another few years and the groom would be leaning against a wall and wishing he could go home while the happy bride was off on her own, gossiping with her friends. Like Karen, he thought as he shifted his gaze to the cluster of tables to his left where she was laughing with a sleek blonde in a filmy dress the color of wood smoke. It took him a moment to place the face. Olivia’s daughter, Eve, had come home for the funeral, and a few weeks later she’d up and married one of his poker-playing buddies, Rio Redtree.

Weddings and babies. Hell, it was an epidemic.

Karen said it was all due to the horrendous spring storm, and that a sociologist from Denver was doing a study to see if the increase in life-altering changes was the result of heightened emotions.

Emotions. Hell, he thought. It was sex that produced weddings, just like it produced babies. The hot, steamy kind of sex that took a man by storm and messed up all his well-ordered plans.

His body stirring once more, he watched Karen laughing at something Eve had just said and brooded on the long restless nights he’d spent lately staring at the ceiling, his body hard and aching to be buried in his wife’s soft warmth.

Before he’d met Karen, he hadn’t known he had any real tenderness in him. The women he’d cared enough about to take to bed had excited other things in him. Hot, turbulent needs that settled as quickly as they rose. Dark, angry emotions that set his teeth on edge, even as he exerted a will of iron to keep his hands from bruising and his need from galloping out of control.

But somehow, with Karen, the ferocity of his needs was tempered by the greatest contentment he’d ever known. Somehow, when he was holding her in his arms, his sated body still sheathed by hers, the accusing voice inside his head was silent, allowing him peace.

He’d been shaken right down to his boots to realize he’d wanted her love desperately, wanted something he’d stopped believing in on his tenth birthday. Wanted what he, himself, was no longer able to offer a woman.

He drew a breath and watched her lift her wineglass to her lips. He longed to feel that lush, sweet mouth on his, opening eagerly, her hands clutching at his shoulders as she made soft pleading noises in her throat.

Even now, when a part of him hated her for being so stubborn, he wanted her more than any other woman he’d ever known. His sweet wife, the mother of his child. The hottest lady in the room, bar none.

A need to hold her tore through him, as raw as a bloody gash left by a brush from a rusty barb. It wasn’t safe to let himself think about loving her. It would never be safe. The closest he came was a fierce desire to protect her and spoil her and make love to her so thoroughly she would forget to notice he’d never said those three little words that came so easily to her lips.

Lost in his brooding thoughts, it took him a moment to realize Travis had asked him a question. “Sorry, run that by me one more time?” he said as he shifted his gaze Travis’s way.

A strange look came and went in the other man’s eyes before Travis’s mouth sidled up into a smug half smile. “I was just asking if things are any better between you and Karen, but from the droolin’ you been doin’ just watching her across the room, I gotta figure they are.”

Cassidy scowled. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon you keep your figurin’ to yourself.”

Travis lifted the bottle for one long, last swallow before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Take the advice of an old married guy like me, Cass. Point those shiny Sunday boots of yours toward that pretty lady in blue yonder and ask her to dance.” He chuckled. “Better yet, hustle her on home so you can finish the evening off right, just the two of you.”