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“Thanks.” He opened the door.
“Colson?” Hyacinth Birmingham said from a distance.
But not for long. Colson backed into the conference room as his mother-in-law approached.
Hyacinth stalked inside, her nose in the air. “I didn’t know you were in town.”
Nina was right on her heels.
“Thank you for showing Mrs. Birmingham in,” Resa told her. More like blasted her way in.
Nina splayed her hands, stepped out and shut the door.
“Is Cheyenne with you?” The woman, a San Antonio blue blood, was positively irate.
And Resa wanted to bolt for the door herself.
“I was going to call you.” Colson’s tone attempted to soothe.
“How long will you be here? When can we see Cheyenne?”
“I’m the foreman at Resa’s ranch until Christmas Eve. We’ll set something up soon.”
Hyacinth’s fists clenched. “Almost all month. Why haven’t you called us?”
Oh dear. “Colson just arrived Sunday and it was all very last-minute,” Resa interjected. “I’m certain he’d love for you to see your granddaughter.”
Why was she defending him? Because she didn’t need this kind of drama in her store? Because she’d seen the evidence that he was a good father?
Both. But also probably because it was happening all over again—she was being drawn to him.
“Who’s watching her while you’re at work? What about school?”
“She’s with Annette and they’re staying brushed up on her preschooling, so she’ll be ready for kindergarten next year.”
“Of course.” Hyacinth looked toward the ceiling. “A woman she’s no blood relation to.”
Colson’s jaw tensed; his eyes turned steely. “Are you offering to preschool her?” His voice dripped with sarcasm.
If only Resa could melt through the floor.
“Of course not. But she could stay with us. We keep a nanny on staff.”
“Absolutely not.” He swallowed hard. “I like having her near and she loves Annette, who’s actually a teacher.”
“Just wait until Nigel hears about this.” Hyacinth propped her hands on her hips. “I can’t believe you plan to keep Cheyenne away from us. How dare you—after you killed our daughter.”
Resa swung her gaze to Colson.
All color drained from his face.
* * *
“It’s not like that, Hyacinth. I can assure you.” Colson clenched his teeth. “I was just trying to get Cheyenne settled in. You know it’s hard for her to adjust to change.” And she’s scared of you. Actually, truth be told, he was, too.
“Well, having her grandparents near would lessen the change.” Her nose went higher in the air. Still snooty.
“Mimi. Let’s go already.” Hyacinth’s other granddaughter, Jasmine, now nine or so, flounced into the conference room. Hands on hips, tapping her Gucci-clad foot, she was the spitting image of her mother—Felicity’s sister, Lucinda—in looks and attitude.
“I’m sorry.” Nina rushed in. “She got away from me.”
“Jasmine.” Hyacinth glared at Nina. “I told you to stay with the nice lady.”
“It’s okay, Nina. Babysitting isn’t in your job description.” Resa smiled at her flustered employee, then turned to her customer. “I’m sorry, but my floor manager has work to do.”
Hyacinth tugged at the hem of her thousand-dollar jacket. “I didn’t have any choice other than to bring her. The nanny just up and quit. With no notice.”
Colson had a pretty good idea why. He slipped his phone from his pocket. “Jasmine can play a game on my cell while you and Resa talk furniture.”
“Puhlease. I’ve got my own phone.” The little girl crossed her arms and perched on the edge of the sofa, as if she didn’t plan to stay long.
He couldn’t risk alienating a wealthy client like Hyacinth by giving her rude grandchild a tongue-lashing. If she left the store unhappy, half of Texas would hear about it. Besides, he needed to stay in her good graces. Make her irate enough and she just might try to take Cheyenne from him. Especially if the truth got out.
“I’m excited about your desk and I’m glad you’re here.” Resa pulled out a chair. “I’ve got some ideas I wanted to run by you.”
“Maybe I should come back once I get a new nanny. Come along, Jasmine.” Hyacinth patted her immovable hair, tucked in a perfect chignon at the base of her neck. He’d made the mistake of calling it a bun once.
The little girl spewed out an exasperated sigh and flounced to the door.
“Call me, Colson.” Hyacinth pursed her lips. “We’ll expect a visit tonight.”
“Aren’t you taking Cheyenne to the Trail of Lights tonight?” Resa asked.
Huh? Was she giving him a reprieve?
“I was so busy with my parents’ renewal service, we missed the parade,” she added. “But the lights are on until New Year’s. Why don’t you join us, Hyacinth?”
Did she just throw him under the tractor?
“Oh, I don’t know.” His mother-in-law pinched the high-dollar fabric of her skirt. “Nigel and I don’t usually bother.”
“I’ll arrange a hayride for us. Bring Jasmine along.”
“Excuse me.” The girl rolled her eyes. “I’m too old for baby stuff.”
“Well, I’m not.” Resa shot the child a wink. “We’ll see you there, Hyacinth?”
The older woman’s mouth opened, closed, opened again.
At a loss for words. Something he’d never seen. He needed to take lessons from Resa on how to handle her.
“I’m bored, Mimi,” Jasmine whined.
“All right.” Hyacinth took her by the hand. “I guess we’ll see you tonight.”
“You can’t make me go,” the girl wailed as Hyacinth ushered her out.
When the door shut behind them, Colson blew out a big breath. “That’s why I haven’t called them. I don’t want Hyacinth turning Cheyenne into a snooty copy of herself.”
Or discovering the truth. “Felicity had her faults, but she was nothing like the other women in her family. They’ve seen Cheyenne exactly three times, and Hyacinth only clamored for more because she had an audience today. Cheyenne’s afraid of her.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “I kind of am, too.”
“Me, too.” Resa giggled. “But I don’t mind taking her money.”
Colson squeezed his eyes closed, tried to block out the image. “I didn’t kill Felicity.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“You’d be in jail if you did.”
“She was taking a horse I’d recently broken for a ride. We had an argument and she took off. The horse threw her.” Clear as the day it happened he could still see Felicity lying there, her neck at an odd angle. “I should have known the horse wasn’t safe.”
“You couldn’t have known. Horses are unpredictable. Not even you can read their minds.”
“I shouldn’t have argued with her. Not with her on the horse. I probably agitated him.”
Resa’s slim hand touched his arm. “It’s not your fault.”
He met her gaze. Her hand fell away. His guilt didn’t budge.
“Why did you give me the perfect excuse to avoid Hyacinth tonight and then insist she come along?”
“If you don’t arrange for Cheyenne to spend time with her, the woman might get ugly about it.”
True enough. She might take him to court. Which might lead to DNA testing. Which would prove he had no claim on Cheyenne.
“This way, your daughter will enjoy herself, even though Hyacinth will be there. I figured it was better than a one-on-one situation.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“So are you and Cheyenne coming?”
“We’re in.” It went against all his plans of keeping Cheyenne away from her biological family. But Resa obviously hadn’t caught on—even though Cheyenne was a miniature version of her. “We’ll meet you there.”
“See you around seven?”
“We’ll be there.”
“In the meantime, don’t you have a ranch to run?”
“The feed store.”
“Oh yes. Sorry.” Resa rolled up the blueprints, stashed them in a cardboard tube and tucked it under her arm. “I’m done here, so let’s just go there.”
He followed her out. He had to keep the Birminghams happy. And clueless. His gut did a sick twist. If they somehow learned the truth, Hyacinth would stop at nothing to get custody of Cheyenne. To let a nanny raise her. To add the child to her possessions.
Over his dead body.
But Resa couldn’t learn the truth, either. A delicate tightrope stretched taut underneath him. And the wire kept shifting under his feet.
* * *
Despite Colson, his dad and Annette surrounding her, Cheyenne had gone silent and withdrawn when she’d seen Hyacinth.
Resa absorbed all Colson’s tension. Cheyenne’s discomfort was her fault.
Hyacinth reluctantly sat on a hay bale and paid more attention to the damage the straws supposedly made in her pricey pantsuit than to her granddaughter. Jasmine had pulled a no-show. Probably a good thing. Resa’s friends Landry and Chase, along with his parents, made up the rest of the crew. Putting some space between Resa and Colson.
The ranch truck pulling the wagon rounded the corner and they got the first glimpse of the lights. Cheyenne audibly gasped and seemed to forget all about her grandmother.
Nigel Birmingham, just as down-to-earth as his wife was snooty, focused completely on his granddaughter. “There’s a cowboy boot bigger than would fit any cowboy I’ve ever known.” He was clearly intent on soothing her with his heartwarming, silly running commentary on each display.
The little girl giggled, obviously at ease with her grandfather.
“Except Big Tex. You ever been to the State Fair of Texas?”
Cheyenne’s eyes widened. “Daddy took me this year. Big Tex is really big and I was scared of him cause he talks. But Daddy says he’s just a big old statue with a recorded voice and they take him apart and put him in a truck once the fair is over.”
“I think somebody stole Big Tex’s boot. What do you think?”
She giggled again.
“Which one’s yours, Resa?” Nigel asked.
“The nativity.”
“Ah.” He grinned. “It’s nice.”
“Do you have one?”
The wagon hit a pothole, jostling them a bit.
“The angels overlooking the nativity.”
“We have a display?” Hyacinth whipped around to face her husband.
“For years. It doesn’t cost much. You can’t have a nativity without angels, and it makes people happy. You can’t put a price on that, dear.”
