скачать книгу бесплатно
Cal came around the desk then, his hands fisted at his side so he wouldn’t touch her. “No, you need to be here. That much I can tell you. He made sure of that, Cassie. You want answers, well, then, go talk to Marcus. Make him explain things to you. That’s the only way you’ll ever understand.”
She looked at him, her eyes widening. “You do know something but you’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“It’s not my place.”
She put her arms across her chest. “I think you’ve already answered me. I remember enough about you to consider that you’d find this place extremely lucrative. Add this property to what you’ve acquired over the years and it all makes sense. You could finally establish yourself as one of the most powerful landowners in southwest Georgia. I want to believe you came back here to help me, but you’d certainly have a good reason to want revenge, too. I just have to decide which. And I’m gonna need some time to make up my mind.”
With that, she turned and pranced out of the stable, her silhouette darkened by the late afternoon sunshine.
The light from that brightness, pitched against the shadows of dusk, hurt Cal’s eyes. She had a point. He’d thought of a lot of reasons for accepting Marcus Brennan’s offer. And revenge had crossed his mind a time or two. But so had the possibility of finally making amends for breaking Cassie’s heart.
CASSIE OPENED THE DOOR to the dark study. The nurse sitting with her father nodded to her then got up to meet her.
“He’s sleeping, Miss Cassie. But it’s almost time for his dinner if you’d like to stay and talk while I feed him.”
“I’ll feed him,” Cassie said, the words sounding strange on her tongue.
Having to spoon-feed her once-proud father caused a giant lump to form in her throat. How had she let it come to this? She should have forced her way back into his good graces years ago. But she’d been too hurt to think beyond getting away from this place and the condemnation and hatred she’d seen in his eyes.
“Are you sure?” the nurse asked, her eyes full of sympathy and understanding. “My shift’s over at five-thirty so I can do it.”
Cassie glanced at the clock on the bookshelf. “That’s another hour. Why don’t you go on home? I’ll stay with him until your relief comes.”
“I’m not supposed to leave him without permission. Usually Teresa or Mr. Collins makes that call.”
Cassie’s anger resurfaced but she couldn’t blame the aide for doing her job. “I’m his next of kin and I say it’s okay. You can go and I’ll stay with him until the shift changes. Don’t worry, I’ll take full responsibility.”
Her father stirred at the whispered voices. “Gennie?”
The aide gave Cassie an apologetic shake of the head. “He’s always asking for her. Your mother?”
Cassie nodded, her silence holding back the dam on her emotions. Glancing at her father’s struggle with the covers, she whispered, “Go ahead and tell Teresa to prepare his dinner. I promise I’ll stay with him. I need to get used to doing this. I’ll go over his medication with the night-shift aide.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The woman gathered her things and went out the door, quietly closing it behind her.
“Who’s there?” Marcus tried to sit but fell back against the pillows.
“It’s me, Daddy.” Cassie hurried to the bed and stopped him from pulling the breathing tube out of his nose. “It’s Cassie. Just calm down.”
“Where’s your mother? I saw her. I saw her right over there.”
Shock jolted Cassie into action. “Daddy, it’s okay. No one’s here but me. I told your aide to go home. Teresa is bringing your dinner. Are you hungry?”
He seemed to realize he was in this room at this time. His eyes went from a vacant stare to a more lucid clarity. “I must have been dreaming. I thought you were your mother.” He shrank back into the pillows, his disappointment heavy in the air. “I forgot that she’s dead.”
Cassie couldn’t speak. The depth of his grief ate at her with a stinging that felt like fire ants biting into her skin. She’d allowed this to happen. She’d stayed away, hating herself, and hating the man he’d become. She’d let this estrangement rip them apart and now it had made her bitter and distrustful and her father so ill and grief-stricken he was dying a slow, horrible death.
He opened his eyes to stare up at her. “Cassie-girl, you came home. I’m so glad.”
Cassie inhaled a gulping breath. “Are you, Daddy?”
“Of course I am, girl. I told ’em to call you home. I have a lot to discuss with you. Not much time.”
She wondered if Cal already knew what her father wanted to talk to her about. She’d just have to keep digging until she found out. “What do you want to tell me?”
He let out a shuddering cackle. “So much. Too much.”
Cassie found a chair and pulled it up to the bed. “I’m here now, Daddy. You can tell me whatever you want.”
But did she want to hear everything he had to tell?
CAL CAME IN THE BACK DOOR and turned toward the long, sunny kitchen on the right. Teresa was in her usual spot in the little sitting room by the breakfast nook, watching the evening news. Her apartment was next to the sitting room. “Hey,” she said, never taking her eyes off the television. “Looks like rain tomorrow.”
“Yep.” Right now he didn’t really care about the peanuts and corn. “Time for his tray?”
She got up. “It’s on the stove.” She went over and pulled the foil off the mashed potatoes and tiny chunks of beef stew and gravy. “Cal, Cassie’s in there with him. She sent the day nurse home.”
Cal braced his hands on the long butcher-block counter. “She came to see me in the stables, wanting to know what’s going on. I can’t tell her so I hope he explains things.”
Teresa glanced across the wide central hall. “But he doesn’t realize—”
“I know that.” He lowered his head. “If I tell her the truth, she’ll go ballistic and think I cooked up this whole scheme. I’m hanging on by a thread here, Teresa.”
Teresa put the tray in front of him. “We don’t have a whole lot of time left. Before that man dies, the truth has to come out, and I mean all of the truth. That’s why you’re here. You can help her. You can make her understand.”
“Like I did last time when she needed me and…I wound up hurting her?”
Teresa leaned over the counter, her whisper carrying through the high-ceilinged house. “No, this time you won’t hurt her. You had your reasons back then. This time, you’ll stay and show her the man you’ve become.”
Cal hoped he could do that. “But what if she doesn’t stay? What if she leaves again?”
Teresa wiped her hands down her apron. “Then you’ll go after her, Cal. This has to end, one way or another.”
The door across the way opened and closed and Cassie came into the kitchen. She looked at Cal then turned to Teresa. “Is that my father’s dinner tray?”
Teresa nodded. “I was about to let Cal bring it in to you, honey.”
Cal reached for the food tray, but Cassie tugged it away. “I’ve got it.”
“I’ll sit with you, if you want,” Cal offered, hoping to find some common ground. “No, thanks.”
With that, she lifted the tray and walked back across the hall.
Cal glanced over and realized the door was shut so he rushed to open it for her. Their eyes met but her expression never yielded. She went into the room, leaving him to close the door.
Teresa lifted her chin toward the stove. “Your dinner is ready if you want to eat now.”
“I’m not hungry,” Cal said. “I’ll come back later.”
He walked out onto the back porch, the crisp gloaming hitting him with a refreshing burst. He wasn’t sure he could do this. How was he supposed to stay here and run this place knowing Cassie was around day in and day out?
I’ve made a deal with the devil, he thought. Marcus Brennan always had some sort of deal up his sleeve. And this one was a real kicker.
But he’d made the deal, taking a big risk, so he could see her again and hopefully make up for the past. Well, that day had come and now he wished he’d just stayed up the road on his own place. He’d been content there, happy to work his land in solitude. He could leave now and go back to that solitude.
But then, he’d be leaving Cassie with a mess on her hands and a dying father on her conscience. He couldn’t do that even if she did think the worst of him.
So he stood and watched the sunset settling over the pines and pastures, his memories as golden and glistening as the rays falling across the distant corn fields. He remembered the first time he’d seen Cassie standing up on the second-floor porch, her long blond hair tumbling around her face, her expression haughty and full of dare. He’d pegged her for the spoiled princess, a rich girl who had a powerful father.
Forbidden and out of his reach.
He’d fallen for her right then and there.
Then he remembered finding her later in the stables, tears running down her face, her vulnerable angst over hearing her parents fight making her even more desirable because she needed him.
Their first kiss out underneath that old oak tree had been magical, like a soothing balm. It had brought him home to a place he’d been searching for all of his life.
He wanted to be back at that place. But he didn’t know how to find it again. Cassie had grown up in the years she’d been away. It was obvious she was a sophisticated woman who’d done things her own way. Maybe she’d outgrown those intense feelings they’d shared back then.
While he’d been standing in the same spot, waiting to rekindle something that could never be.
The back door banged open. “Cal, we need to talk.”
He turned to find her standing there, her eyes dark with a boiling rage. “What is it this time?”
“My father told me that I need to talk to you about the future of this plantation. What did he mean by that?”
Cal let out a long sigh. “What else did he tell you?”
She stalked to the porch railing. “Not much. I tried to get him to eat but he kept pushing me away.” Her shoulders slumped. “He seemed desperate to explain things, but maybe not sure what to do or say. He got upset and told me to leave. He told me to find you and come back in there.”
Cal rubbed a hand down one of the massive columns supporting the house. “Welcome to my world, darlin’. Some days he makes perfect sense. Other times he rambles and gets so agitated, we have to give him a pill to settle him down. It took me months to figure out the records and books.”
Cassie placed her arms across her chest. “Is that what he’s talking about?”
“Part of it.” He glanced back inside. “If you’ll come to the cottage with me, I can show you everything. All the files are in my office and on my laptop.”
She shook her head. “I have to wait for the night nurse. Let me go back in with him for a few minutes, okay? Maybe he’ll forget that he wanted to see both of us.”
“Okay. I’ll wait in the kitchen. Teresa has dinner ready. Did you eat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Cassie, you have to eat.”
“I’ll grab something later.”
She opened the door, waiting for him. “Are you coming?”
He followed her. “It’s not like he and I haven’t gone over and over this. Sometimes, he comprehends things and sometimes he’s just not listening.”
“I noticed that,” she said, her head down, her expression grim. “He thought I was my mother when I first went in. Go ahead and eat and then come in. Maybe he’ll talk with both of us there and tell us what’s bothering him.”
He took her by the arm. “I have a better idea. Let Teresa sit with him a few minutes and you try to eat something, too.”
Teresa came out of the kitchen. “It’s on the stove and still warm. The sooner y’all eat, the sooner I can go to my room and rest.”
Cassie was too polite to make Teresa wait around to clean the kitchen. “Go ahead now. I’ll clean up.”
Teresa glanced toward the study door. “I’ll sit with him until the night nurse shows up. You need to eat your dinner.”
Cal watched Cassie’s face. She wanted answers right now. How could he explain all the workings of this place and make her see he was busting his tail to save it? Maybe it was time to just lay all the cards on the table and be honest. About the plantation, at least. But not about Marcus Brennan’s other ridiculous death-bed wish.
The exhaustion etching her face stopped him.
“Listen, you’re tired and it’s been a long day. Try to eat then we’ll go in and see him. After that you need to go upstairs and rest. We’ll start over fresh tomorrow. And I’ll be as honest as I can, about everything.”
He wouldn’t tell her about his own part in this, about all the things she didn’t know about her parents and what had happened on that fateful day so long ago.
What else could he do? He’d made the decision to go along with Marcus Brennan last desperate attempt to get his daughter back. Cal couldn’t stop it now. But he could tell her the truth regarding her heritage.
She would hate him even more, but he had to take that chance.
“Cassie, will you eat and then rest?”
She finally nodded. “I’ll rest after we visit him again, just to make sure he’s okay.”
“We’ll do that,” Cal replied, hating the defeat in her voice.
A few minutes later, they both sat staring at their half-eaten meals. Cal had talked to her about mundane things—the crops, the weather, a new foal that had just been delivered two days ago. She asked him about his mother—a subject he didn’t like to talk about.
Teresa came out of Marcus’s room. “I can’t get him to eat.”
“I’ll try,” Cal said, getting up.
“No.” Cassie pushed ahead of him. “Let me.”
Cal followed her into the room. “How ’bout we work together on it?”
She shrugged. “We can try.” Then she moved ahead of him into the room. “But the only way we can work together is to be honest with each other.”
Did she see it in his eyes? That he was holding back?
Of course she did. But Cal wasn’t ready to give up all the secrets buried on this old plantation.
CHAPTER FIVE
CASSIE TRIED TO COAX her father to take another bite of the beef stew. Marcus glanced at the spoon then back up at her. “I’m finished. Didn’t you hear me?”
