Mistletoe Cowboy--A Clean Romance, page 16
Willow whispered in Cody’s ear, “Be prepared for tears when the water hits her.”
Cody hoped the baby wouldn’t cry. He had little experience with kids except for Hadley’s twins now and then, and all he seemed able to envision, bathed in a stream of light through the stained glass windows, was another fantasy of himself with Willow in some church like this, saying their wedding vows, starting their life together.
He would have been better off spending his Saturday at the Circle H with Prancer. Why had Olivia chosen this particular weekend to go to Tulsa? Cody couldn’t wait for this ritual to end. Standing close to Willow was pure torture, especially since their last training session together.
He supposed from now on she’d avoid him, having given her heart, and her full commitment, to Thad. Cody had issues of his own. He hadn’t heard another word from Darryl Williams, but any day now he would get the state’s decision on Diva.
Dallas’s baby didn’t cry. When the baptismal water trickled over her head, she stared up at the reverend with blue eyes that were turning green like her mother’s. Lizzie had dressed the kid in a white lace gown, the same one her three other children had worn, its skirt cascading nearly to the floor at the baptismal font.
“Hannah Elizabeth Maguire, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” the pastor intoned, and Cody bowed his head in prayer, too. He wished the sweet infant every good thing in this life, few mistakes and that Hannah would never have to worry about being loved. Or cared for. In addition to his still-active rodeo career, Dallas had recently bought a share in the McMann spread. He, Hadley and Clara planned to further expand the ranch.
After the service, people gathered in small clusters outside the church to converse. Cody stood apart from Willow, wanting to ease this new awkwardness between them, but he couldn’t think what to say. Besides, she’d said it all. Or had she?
“Cody.” Willow suddenly spoke. “I know you didn’t want me to but, um, I spoke to Thad.”
His pulse jerked. “You what? I should never have told you about that, Willow.” Yet he’d thought she should know the kind of man she was about to marry. “Why in—heck did you do that?”
“Because... I didn’t act like it, but I had my suspicions, too. You were right.”
Cody ran a hand through his hair. There was no telling what Thad might do next. Maybe he’d move on from the horse to Cody himself, as he’d feared, to some trumped-up reason to wipe out any gains he’d made in his life since Navarro. Or what if Thad harmed Willow?
Her uncertain gaze held his. “Did I really do the wrong thing?”
“Not only for me—”
He didn’t finish. Lizzie had come over to them, carrying the baby. Dallas hovered at her shoulder, grinning. “Thank you both,” she told Cody and Willow. “I know that was short notice, but I’m glad you were able to come today. We’re having everyone over to the house now. See you there?”
Cody shifted. “I appreciate the invite, but I have chores to finish.”
“Hold on. Not before we take some photos,” Dallas insisted. “You need help later, I’ll pitch in.”
Dallas had kept his promise to share the work earlier that morning. He must know the chores were already done.
“Spend today with your family instead,” Cody told him. Dallas’s parents had made the trip from Denver for the special occasion. Last year his mother’s health had declined, but she’d gotten quite a bit better, and she seemed super excited to be able to dote on her first biological grandchild. She’d already taken to heart Lizzie’s other three kids.
But Dallas pressured Cody again to stay. “You’ll be on your own after next week when I’m off to the circuit again, so you and Hadley will be holding down the fort at Clara’s. Might as well party while you have the chance.”
Without really saying yes or no, Cody walked off into the hot summer sun, leaving Willow behind. That didn’t work either. She joined him with the others and the photographer, everyone passing the baby around for another picture and yet another until, finally, little Hannah Maguire was thrust into Cody’s arms. “You and Willow with her now,” someone said, and the cameras and phones documented the event for posterity. Willow even stood in Cody’s light embrace, a hand on Hannah’s head as if they were their own family of three.
Cody’s heart actually hurt. And he was angry with Willow for butting in on his behalf with Thad, risking herself, too. Obviously, she didn’t get how much Thad disliked him—and not because he’d set fire to a barn then gone to prison. Cody gave Hannah back to her mother. Loosening his tie, he said to no one in particular, “I need to get out of here,” but folks were drifting across the parking lot to their cars and Cody got swept along with them.
Lizzie and Dallas, the pastor, Clara, Dallas’s parents and half a dozen other people Cody didn’t know were in their cars as he reached his truck. Willow had stayed behind. “Cody, after you told me, I couldn’t keep from calling Thad out. I was astonished by his behavior, but I didn’t mean to make things tougher for you.”
“Never mind me. What about you? He can’t be happy with you for calling him out. And isn’t your engagement party next week?” He paused, making the decision on the spot. “By the way. I’ll be at Olivia’s on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, noon to one o’clock.” His lunch hour. “You should plan your training sessions for whenever I’m not there.”
“Cody,” she said again, but he hopped into his truck and gunned the engine.
He didn’t move from his spot, though, until Willow had started her car. By now they were the only two remaining in the lot, and he wouldn’t leave her there alone. A minute later, still debating with himself, he watched her drive off. If he didn’t show up at Lizzie and Dallas’s home on Tumbleweed Street, they’d wonder why he was so all-fired eager to go back to work when there was no work to be done. Or maybe they’d ask, as Dallas had, about him and Willow again. Neither of them needed to become the town’s latest topic of interest, especially when she was so determined to marry Thad. Cody could feel his still-aching heart break all over again.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“I CAN’T BLAME Cody for setting a new boundary,” Cass told Willow.
“That would probably please Thad—if he knew. I didn’t tell him.”
The day before the engagement party, she and Cass had gone into town to get their hair done. This was not Willow’s normal routine. She rarely even had her hair trimmed, but getting several inches chopped off felt freeing today, and Willow left the salon with her mood lighter. Last weekend’s christening with Cody had shaken her.
So had her talk with Thad about Diva.
Cass, who’d had highlights added to her hair today, glanced over as they walked toward the café. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Willow.”
She must not mean about Cody alone. Willow couldn’t pretend to misunderstand. “This, from the person who questioned my relationship with Thad from the start—then stabbed me in the back by standing up for him because you don’t want Zach to think badly of you.”
Cass winced. “You mean think worse of me than he already does?” With a scoffing sound, she waited for a car to pass before they crossed the street. “I don’t blame him for supporting his best friend, his best man now,” she added. “You have to admit, Thad had every right to be upset with you. So, for that matter, did Cody. One man who meddled, you think—”
“I know.”
“—another who didn’t appreciate your interference. And you keep saying you don’t have a thing for Cody.” Cass strode to the café’s door and yanked it open. The place was filled with noontime lunch customers. “Willow, I may have urged you to break up with him once, largely because of what that relationship was doing to your family, but I could always see that chemistry between you,” she murmured, “even then.”
They went inside the restaurant, but Willow no longer had much of an appetite. Tension always soured her stomach.
“From what you’ve told me,” Cass added, “I can imagine that spark is still there.”
Willow pulled Cass around to face her. She’d had enough. “You and I have been friends since we were in Barren Middle School, but you just stepped over my boundary. Maybe you should give some thought to your own problems rather than mine.” Willow knew she shouldn’t go on or it would seem like tit for tat, and childish, yet this also seemed to be her week for confrontations. “What kind of relationship could you and Zach ever have—as much as I’d like to see you together—when all you do is kowtow to whatever you think he must want? I told you, you need to figure this out, which first means doing something about Wanda.”
Cass stared at her in shock. Other people in the café were beginning to notice them, but Willow couldn’t stop. “She’s not a bad person. I was there, too, when you were a girl, and even I know that controlling your dad wasn’t possible. Wanda may have protected you then in the only way she could by agreeing with him, placating him, trying to defuse any volatile situation. Why not give her another chance to defend herself? Or are you going to dine out on your resentment of her forever?”
“How dare you. Look at yourself, Willow.”
“Oh. So you can accuse me about Cody, but I’m not supposed to mention your mother? And, of course, I shouldn’t bring up my own brother? Maybe I shouldn’t because you’d only stonewall me again anyway.”
People in all the booths and tables were definitely looking at them, glancing away then back again as if they were at the scene of an accident.
One of the waitstaff bustled up to them, carrying a tray of entrées. “Table for two?”
“I can’t stay.” This felt too uncomfortable and Willow turned away from Cass. “I forgot Mom needs me at home. As you might imagine, she’s beside herself about the party tomorrow.”
“Jean’s probably in a swoon by now,” Cass agreed, following her outside and leaving the curious gazes behind. “I’ll come with you.”
“I’d rather go alone.” Unfortunately, they’d driven together from the ranch. After all, Cass was their event planner, and she had told Willow this morning that she also had a dozen details yet to see to at the WB.
In silence they marched toward Willow’s car. Although she regretted speaking so bluntly and hadn’t meant to hurt Cass, this new gulf between them wouldn’t get closed today.
Willow had a sinking feeling that Cass had been right—maybe she’d responded with anger because she couldn’t face her own dilemma.
What was she going to do about Thad?
* * *
CASS USED TO dream about kissing Zach Bodine. Then one day her fantasy had come true, and she hadn’t been the same since. In California, she’d ended up making a fool of herself again, and here she was, back “home,” getting this party ready to fly.
After her quarrel with Willow in town, at the ranch Cass had taken care of those few last-minute party glitches, then decided a short ride might improve her mood. But as Cass walked into the barn, she saw Zach in the aisle. Too bad she hadn’t checked the area first. She was usually better at avoiding him, but today she’d been distracted. He gave her a quick look, then went back to coiling a rope. So, fine. He’d ignore her, too. Cass spoke anyway.
“Willow said it was okay for me to borrow a horse.”
“Take your pick.” He headed for the tack room, but Cass stopped him.
She’d already made a mess of her friendship with Willow. Might as well keep going. “Zach, I know you didn’t want me here in the first place, but I’ve tried to do a good job for your mother and Willow, to make her party even more than they asked for. Isn’t it time you and I straightened things out? Before tonight?”
His beautiful hazel eyes held hers. “Should I pretend I don’t know what you mean?” He glanced behind her at the ladder to the barn loft. Cass wondered if its second-from-the-bottom rung still creaked, as it had that long-ago day. “We’re talking, right, about that summer afternoon when I caught you up there, hiding from your father.”
Cass had been hired when school let out that June following her junior year to help Jean in the kitchen. The day had been hot, hazy, the air filled with the scents and sounds of the Herefords from the nearby pasture. Heart pounding, Cass had lain there on her stomach in the hay, looking down through the loft’s small window at the WB drive where her father’s rattletrap truck had pulled up with a screech of brakes moments ago. She’d had just time enough to run.
What had she done wrong this time?
“He was talking to my mother,” Zach remembered.
Alone in the loft, Cass had seen her dad gesticulating and raising his voice to shatter the lazy afternoon. When she’d first heard steps in the barn, then at the base of the ladder, she’d frozen. Had she missed seeing him cross the yard? For one thing, he hadn’t liked the idea of her working for Jean Bodine—he’d called her “uppity,” and claimed Cass shouldn’t take what amounted to charity, which shamed him. A man took care of his own, he’d said.
It wasn’t the first time her wastrel father had come looking for her. She supposed he’d drag her home, punish her somehow, take away the few privileges she had. Then the name-calling would begin...
But it wasn’t her father in the barn with Cass. To her relief, instead Zach had climbed the ladder. “Is he still here?” she’d asked, tears leaking from her eyes.
Now, years later, Zach caught her gaze again. “Things were bad that day,” he said. She could tell he was back there with her, recalling everything when she’d still been called Cherry rather than Cass. “I only came out here to help you then. I didn’t expect to...”
She knew what he meant. For years, she’d been his little sister’s friend, a fairly constant presence in the WB’s kitchen, a frequent overnight guest, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks who went riding with Willow on a borrowed horse. He’d mostly ignored her except to tease her now and then, as he had his sister. Then Cass—Cherry’s—thin frame had begun to fill out, her auburn hair had a new gloss and her body seemed to change every day. Boys at school began to notice her. But until that day, Zach never had.
He’d handed her a handkerchief. His mouth looked tight, but he wasn’t angry with her. He swore under his breath, using her father’s name, and said, “Wipe your eyes, baby.” He meant it in a kind way, but she used the cheeky tone she always did when she felt uneasy.
“Don’t call me a baby.” This was clearly a new situation, though, and to her surprise he didn’t call her out as he normally would. He hunkered down in front of her to trace a faint line down her cheek with one finger, and she felt his touch from the roots of her hair to her bare toes. “You wait here,” he said, “until he’s gone. Mom will take care of him. I’ll stay with you. I won’t let him find you.”
Outside, below the barn loft, she finally heard the truck door slam. A second later, her father tore off down the drive, his loose tailpipe rattling. She didn’t move until she was certain he’d turned onto the road. He’d be even madder—whatever his reason—by the time she got home. She wished she never had to leave this ranch. She’d never talked like this with Zach before. Just worshipped him from afar. Did he know she had a wild crush on him? A stalk of hay had caught in his sun-gold hair, and those hazel eyes held hers. Looking as if he cared about her.
Without thinking, she reached up to remove the hay, and Zach went very still.
“Don’t,” he said. “Not a good idea.”
“What?” She was holding the piece in her hand. Zach covered her fingers with his.
“Touching,” he muttered. “Neither of us needs that kind of trouble. You should go before I—” He didn’t say the rest. He must have read in her gaze that she’d been in love with him since she’d turned fourteen. For three years, she’d followed him around like a puppy, hung on his every word, imagined that one day he’d really see her, hoped he would feel then as she did.
Without stopping to consider her decision, she rose up to meet him halfway. She kissed him first, and for that one moment she no longer believed her father might be right about her, that she wasn’t the sort of girl a man took home to his parents. That she could never belong on the WB. “Zach,” she whispered against his lips, and he’d deepened the kiss. For a long time they’d held each other close.
The memory of him talking softly to her that day would never leave Cass. And when he’d framed her face in his hands and looked so deeply into her eyes?
Now she gazed at Zach in the barn aisle, the hayloft above them, the remembrance carved, apparently, in both their minds. And on Cass’s heart. She’d never even told Willow.
“What started out that day with me feeling bad about your father ranting and raving at the house,” he said, “ended up being something very different. My fault,” he added.
Cass tried not to react but failed. “I can’t disagree. The very next day you turned your back on me, treated me like some pariah.” He’d avoided her from then on. “I don’t think we ever spoke five words to each other after that.”
“I’m sorry, Cass. I made you feel worse than he did.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“What’s my excuse? There’s not one except I was a twenty-one-year-old kid,” Zach said. “You were going into your senior year of high school. I already had my life laid out in front of me, trying to show my dad he could trust me with the WB. I handled that badly, didn’t I?”
“I guess you did.” She paused. “Maybe so did I.”
And to her amazement, he gave her that same look he had ten years ago. Maybe Willow was right, and Zach didn’t dislike Cass as she’d thought... Or as he’d wanted her to believe. She’d seen a glimmer of that the night she came to stay after seeing Wanda. What if he still felt the same tug and pull between them that Willow must feel with Cody? For an instant she wondered if Zach would kiss her again now, too. He didn’t, though.
