CHAPTER EIGHT
A NEW SECURITY hire was supposed to meet with J.C. to discuss his duties. But J.C. never showed up at the line cabin where the man was assigned. Ren was concerned enough to go looking for him. J.C. was punctual, always.
He knocked on the door of the cabin. Merrie said that Colie had gone last night to cook supper for J.C., so possibly they’d had a very long and passionate reunion and J.C. had slept late.
He was disabused of that suspicion when the other man finally struggled to answer the front door.
It was a J.C. that Ren had never seen before. His clothes were rumpled, as if he’d slept in them. He had a day’s growth of beard. His eyes were red and bloodshot, and he absolutely reeked of whiskey. That alone was alarming. J.C. never drank hard liquor.
Ren was at a loss for words. He just gaped at his security chief.
“She’s pregnant and it isn’t mine,” J.C. said, slurring his words a little. “And that’s the only thing I’ll ever say about it. She’s history. I never want to hear her name mentioned again or I’ll walk out.”
Ren ground his teeth together. He knew, as Merrie did, that Colie had never looked at another man since she’d been with J.C. She’d dated the accountant, just once, and everybody knew he’d taken her home early and played chess with her dad. And that had only been because gossip put J.C. in the arms of some gorgeous blonde in Denver.
God knew where J.C. had heard that Colie was two-timing him. The pregnancy was news, though. He knew that his security chief didn’t want kids, or marriage. Either J.C. had gotten careless or there really was another man in Colie’s life. Hard to believe that, though, considering how crazy she was for J.C.
“I can’t work today,” J.C. said apologetically. “Sorry. I had...a lot to drink.”
“It’s okay,” Ren said. “I’ll put him to work updating software until tomorrow.”
“I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
“Sure you will.”
“Damn women!” J.C. said icily. “Damn them all!”
It was like looking in a mirror. Not too many years ago, that’s what Ren was saying. He’d had his own bad experience with a woman and it had soured him so much that he’d almost lost Merrie. Here was J.C., walking in his footsteps.
But Ren couldn’t reach him. He didn’t want to lose J.C. He shrugged. “Life goes on,” he said philosophically. He smiled. “See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.”
J.C. closed the door and Ren went home.
Merrie looked up when he came into the living room. “Well?”
“He was so hungover, he could barely talk.”
“What happened?” she exclaimed.
“It all boils down to the fact that Colie’s pregnant and J.C. thinks it’s some other man’s.”
“Oh, dear. That’s not true. Colie’s so much in love with him, she couldn’t have slept with anyone else.”
“We know that. J.C. doesn’t. Or doesn’t want to.”
“Poor Colie,” she groaned. “And her poor father!”
“They’ll get through it,” he said. “We all have hard times. We survive them.” He pulled her close and kissed her warmly. “My treasure,” he whispered against her mouth.
She smiled and kissed him back.
* * *
COLIE AND HER father sipped coffee. His was strong and black. Hers was decaf.
“I want to go to Jacobsville,” she said. “Cousin Annie Mosby and her brother Ty live there. She said I was always welcome.”
“Honey, Jacobsville is bigger than Catelow, but it’s still small enough that people gossip...”
“I’ve got that figured out,” she said. “A little white lie. Just a little one. I was married and my husband died, and I’m pregnant.” She drew in a breath. “I don’t want people stigmatizing my child. I deserve it, but...”
“Stop that. God forgives everything.”
She smiled sadly. “I’m very glad, but a lot of people don’t forgive. It will be easier if I’m in a place where everybody doesn’t know how I got this way. It will be easier on you, too, Daddy,” she added when he started to protest. “I’ve caused enough harm. I can get a job in Jacobsville. There are several law offices.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “I’m sure. We can keep in touch through Skype. We can talk anytime you want to,” she added with a warm smile. “It won’t be like I’m gone at all.”
“Except for the burned toast,” he said, tongue in cheek.
“I’ll teach you to make it before I leave,” she promised.
* * *
SHE CALLED HER cousin Annie and told her what was going on.
“You come right down here to us,” Annie replied quickly. “We’ll take care of you. And there’s a job going at Blake Kemp’s old law office, with Darby Howland. Poor old thing, he’s got cancer and he doesn’t have a long time left, but he’s determined to keep the law firm going just the same. You’d love him. He’s forty, but he looks much younger and he’s a ball of fire. He’s looking for an assistant who can type and take dictation and work reception.”
“He might not want me...”
“I’ll phone him when I hang up and talk to him,” Annie said.
“I’m going to invent a dead husband,” Colie added quietly. “It’s a long, sad story. I did a stupid thing. Several stupid things. But I want my baby very much.”
“Of course you do. You can’t help it if the father is an idiot. Now get packed. I’ll send you an e-ticket. Your dad can drive you to the airport in Jackson Hole. There’s a nonstop to San Antonio, and we’ll have a car pick you up and bring you to us. Don’t fuss,” she added when she heard the protest. “You know we’re filthy rich. Just hush and come live with us. Ty will be happy to have the company, he says I drive him batty. He’d never say a word unless I forced him to. Honestly, it’s no wonder he won’t marry somebody. He never speaks!”
Colie laughed. She remembered Ty, who was something of a hell-raiser. He owned one of the biggest ranches in Texas and raised purebred German shepherds as a hobby. He didn’t like people very much, but he loved animals. He loved Colie, too. She was as much like his sister as his first cousin.
“All right. I’ll come. And thank you. Thank you so much. I’ve really made things hard for Daddy in the community, although he never said a word. I want to spare him this. An unwed mother, and it’s his own daughter, when he preaches morality...it’s more than I want to put on him.”
“He loves you,” Annie reminded her. “He wouldn’t care.”
“Yes, but I would. I’ll see you in a couple of days. My bosses here are letting me go without working a two-week notice. They’ve been so kind!”
“Mr. Howland says they’re a great bunch to work for.”
“They are. And I’ll miss my friend Lucy. But I can Skype her as well as Dad,” she added.
“Lovely electronic media,” Annie chuckled. “It does help us keep in touch. I’ll arrange it all and email you the details. Okay?”
“Okay!”
* * *
COLIE HAD HER things packed and ready. Rod hadn’t come home since Colie had been thrown out by J.C. She hoped it was because he was ashamed, but it was probably that he was too busy selling drugs. She really wished J.C. had listened to her. It might have been Rod’s salvation.
As it was, she was too afraid for her father to turn her brother in to the law. She’d seen something dark and cold in that friend of his, and she didn’t want her father to end up floating in a river because she’d opened her mouth. She hoped Rod would realize that she was leaving town to keep his secret.
Well, she was leaving it for a lot of reasons. One tiny part of her had hoped against hope that J.C. would finally cool down and call her, ask for her side of the story. But he didn’t. There was no contact at all.
She’d seen him at a distance in town the last day she worked. He hadn’t even turned his head in her direction. It was just as he’d said. She no longer existed for him. She wished with all her heart that she could feel that way about him. It would make her life so much easier.
Her father hugged her goodbye and fought tears as she walked away from him down the concourse, tugging her wheeled luggage behind her. It was a long way to Texas. But she really had no choice. She had to think of it as starting fresh, beginning a new life, leaving the old one full of pain behind.
It would be all right. She’d have her baby and everybody would think he had a father. His real father didn’t want him, but Colie would never tell him that. She’d invent a father who adored him, wanted him desperately, but tragedy had befallen him. It wouldn’t do for a child to think his own father didn’t care about him.
* * *
THE TRIP WAS long and Colie was sick most of the way there. A driver was holding up a placard at baggage claim with her name on it. He helped her retrieve her luggage from the carousel and carried it out to the limousine for her.
“I brought the super stretch, just for you, miss,” the driver chuckled when she gaped at the waiting vehicle. “Your cousin said you’d never ridden in one, and you needed something to cheer you up.”
“Gosh, this is a great way to cheer someone up,” she laughed. “I feel like a rock star!”
“Hop in. It’s not far to Jacobsville. Just about twenty minutes. You can even watch television if you like,” he added.
“Oh, no, I’ll look out the window,” she said. “I’ve never seen Texas before!” She noticed his curious look. “My cousins always came up to Wyoming for family reunions, when my mother was alive. This is the first time I’ve been out of Wyoming at all.”
“You’ll enjoy it here. It’s beautiful country. Lots of ranches. Like your cousin’s,” he added drily.
She laughed. “I’m looking forward to that, too.”
* * *
ANNIE WAS WAITING on the porch. She had blond hair and brown eyes. She was tall and willowy, very elegant with her hair drawn up into a bun, wearing a beige pantsuit with high heels. Beside her was her brother, Ty.
He wasn’t dressed up, unless you included the Stetson perched on jet-black hair, slanted over black eyes in a hard, tanned face. He was built like a rodeo rider, lanky but muscular, with long, powerful legs and big hands and feet. He almost never smiled. Unlike Annie, who ran to meet Colie and hugged her half to death.
“I’m so glad you came!” she told Colie. “It’s so lonely here,” she added with a glare at her imperturbable brother.
“I told you I’d let one of the dogs sleep with you, if you’re lonely,” her brother drawled in his deep voice.
“I don’t want a dog. I don’t like dogs. I like cats!”
He made a face. “Nasty, furry things that pick holes in cloth,” he muttered. “Damned Siamese terror clawed my curtains so bad we had to replace them.”
“They were old, and Santa is just a kitten.”
“Santa?” Colie asked.
“Santa Claws,” Annie laughed. “He’s a baby. I lost my sixteen-year-old Ragdoll a month ago. I needed something to help my heart heal, so we have Santa.”
Mention of the kitten reminded Colie of her cat that J.C. had given her, Big Tom, left behind with her father. She missed him already.
“All we need is locusts to go with that kitten,” Ty muttered. “Nice to have you here, cousin,” he added. “Maybe she’ll stop talking my ears off if she has you to worry.”
She laughed and smiled at him. He wasn’t the sort of man you hugged. “I’ll try not to get in the way.”
“You’re pregnant, she said,” he noted.
She flushed and gritted her teeth.
“I love kids,” he said softly, and he smiled. It changed his face entirely. His black eyes gleamed with warmth. “We’ll take care of you.”
She bit her lower lip and fought tears. “Thanks. Thanks so much.”
He shrugged. “We live in a damned hotel,” he muttered, indicating the huge mansion. “Two stories, eight bedrooms, five bathrooms...for two people! Our father was out of his mind to build something like that.” He waved his hand at it. “Could have had a nice big log cabin with an open fireplace...”
“Ignore him, dear,” Annie said, taking her arm. “Phil will bring your bags in for us, won’t you, sweetie?” she asked the driver, who beamed and nodded. “He always drives for us. I don’t trust anybody else at the wheel. Especially not him,” she added on a loud whisper toward her brother’s back.
“I’m a great driver,” he retorted.
“You’re a demolition derby in a cowboy hat!” she shot back. “You’ve wrecked two Jags and a Lincoln in the past two years...!”
“Not my fault,” he said doggedly. “I was hit, all three times.”
“Because you pulled right out into the road without looking!”
“Their fault for not knowing I’d do that,” he said, unruffled. “Show Cousin Colie to her room and then do you think Cook could scare up something to eat? I’m starving!”
“I offered to cook you lunch,” she returned.
“Real men don’t eat quiche,” he scoffed, glaring back at her with black eyes. “That’s all you can cook.”
“Well!” Annie burst out.
“I like steak and potatoes. You ever learn to cook something that doesn’t start with eggs, I’ll eat it. Hasn’t happened in fifteen years, but you never know,” he added, mumbling to himself as he wandered back toward the kitchen.
Annie laughed all the way upstairs. “Isn’t he the living end? I keep hoping somebody will finally notice what a great catch he is and marry him. But he doesn’t like most women. He says they’re too brassy and career-minded. He loves kids.”
“I’m so glad. I thought he was going to say something entirely different,” Colie confessed when they were in the guest bedroom, done in soft blues and grays.
“He’s not judgmental,” Annie said easily. “Neither am I.” Her eyes flashed. “Besides that, we’re a founding family here. Nobody, but nobody, gossips about us or our relatives. You’ll find that out when you’ve been here long enough.”
Colie let out a long sigh. “I’m so happy to be here. You don’t know how happy. It’s been pretty rough, even if I did bring it on myself.”
Annie put her arms around her. “You got mixed up with a man who doesn’t know what forgiveness is. That’s his problem, not yours. You just heal and thrive and show him what he missed.” She grinned. “We’ll love having a baby in the house! It’s like Christmas all over again!”
As if on cue, the pretty white Siamese kitten walked in the door, meowing.
“And speak of the devil, there’s Santa,” Annie said, waving a hand at the cat.
Colie laughed.
* * *
J.C. HAD TOLD Ren he’d be back at work the next morning. He wasn’t. With resignation, Ren went back to the cabin again and knocked on the door. While he sympathized with the man, there was work that needed doing and only J.C. knew how.
The man who answered the door was a stranger. J.C. Calhoun was immaculate. He was always well dressed, even in jeans and shirts, his nails were manicured, his hair perfectly combed.
But this man was a total mess. He was wearing the same clothes he’d had on the previous morning. His hair stood up in all directions. And he still absolutely stank of whiskey. Since J.C. never drank hard liquor, it was totally out of character. Especially two days in a row.
“What the hell?” Ren asked, aghast.
Bloodshot pale gray eyes looked into Ren’s. “What day is it?” he asked slowly.
“It’s Tuesday.”
“Tuesday,” he said icily. He groaned. “I can’t even get properly drunk, damn it!” he muttered. “That witch! She got pregnant by another man, and she was going to tell me it was mine, because I had more money than he did.”
Ren just stared at him. It was a well-known fact that Colie was passionately in love with J.C. If there was going to be a child, it was a fair bet that it belonged to the man denying any part in its creation.
“Colie loves you,” Ren said.
“Sure she does,” he said, slurring his words. “That’s why she shacked up with another guy while I was overseas. What a sweetheart! Just like that call girl I mistook for love eternal when I was younger. I can sure pick ’em, can’t I?” he ground out.
Ren took a breath. “J.C., she hasn’t even dated anybody else, the whole time...”
“Her own brother told me what she did!” he burst out. “Rod. My best friend!” He blinked. “My former best friend, anyway,” he added. “He met me at the airport, with the...the father of Colie’s child,” he hiccuped in the middle of the sentence. He blinked drunkenly. “She sold me out, Ren.”
The other man didn’t know what to say. He just stared at his security chief.
“I can’t work today,” J.C. groaned, holding his head. “I’m sorry. Really sorry. I know I promised I’d be back on the job today, but I...I just need a little more time. Okay?”
“Okay.” Ren put a hand on his shoulder. “Take all the time you need.”
“Thanks.”
Ren wanted to say something else, but he didn’t know what to say. He was overwhelmed by J.C.’s condition. In the end, he just smiled and walked away.
* * *
J.C. CAME BACK to himself slowly. He went back to work, went through the motions of living. But it hurt him, remembering what Rod had told him about Colie.
It hurt more when his sanity returned, and he started thinking rationally again. Rod, his best friend, had lied often when they were overseas together. He did it to get out of duties he didn’t like, pleading illness. He did it to make money. He laughed at J.C.’s outrage. A little lie didn’t hurt anything, he’d said defensively. J.C. and his sterling character. Once a cop, always a cop, he’d said, and not in a nice way.
So Rod was used to bending the truth. Colie, not so much. In fact, J.C. couldn’t remember a single time she’d lied to him. She’d even told him about her one other date, when she got even with him for dating, as she thought at the time, that glamorous blonde in Denver who turned out to be a married mother of two.
There was something else. Colie loved him. She nurtured him, took care of him. She cared enough to defy her father and all the ideals she’d been raised with, to move in with him.
As for her wanting someone richer, Colie had even refused to let J.C. buy her a dress to wear on a fancy date. She’d never let him buy her a single thing, except lunch once or twice. And she’d paid for lunch as much as he had. It was sobering.
There was going to be a child. At first, it was easy to think it was the other man’s. But he’d never heard of the other man, Barry, the one Rod had brought with him to the airport. There was something suspicious about the whole thing. The man was wearing designer clothes and handmade shoes; not someone local, because J.C. would have recognized him.
Rodney was wearing designer stuff, too. Funny how he’d missed that, until now. Gossip said that Rod was driving a new Mercedes, as well. No way he could afford that kind of high-end car, or clothing, on what he made as a clerk at the local hardware store.
The more he thought about it, the more it worried him. Colie hated intimacy. She even hated it with J.C., whom she loved. So why would she go to another man’s bed? He remembered how nervous she’d been the first time, that she’d bled. She’d kissed him back, held him tight, enjoyed the closeness even if she hadn’t enjoyed the actual act of sex.
A sharp breath escaped from his throat. Colie had been nineteen, raised by religious parents. She went to church every week, except when she’d lived with J.C. Would a woman raised that way actually be permissive? He’d never heard a whisper of gossip about her until she’d moved in with him. Rod had complained for years about his straitlaced, overly moral sister.
Dear God, what if she’d been a virgin? The pieces of the puzzle all seemed to fit. It would explain a lot. And J.C. had treated her like an experienced woman, making no allowances for her lack of skill in bed. If she was innocent, no wonder she hadn’t liked the first time, or the times that followed. He’d always been in a hurry. The women in his life had liked it rough and quick. But if Colie had been a virgin...
He picked up the phone and called her home. It had been almost three weeks since he’d put her on the porch like an unwanted package, in the freezing cold. She hadn’t even been wearing a good coat. He winced inwardly as he recalled her sad, tear-drenched eyes. He hadn’t given her a chance to defend herself at all, even to explain his accusations. He’d insulted her, railed at her, called her names, ridiculed her behavior in bed.
She probably wouldn’t even speak to him, but he had to try.
The phone rang four times before Reverend Thompson picked it up. “Hello?” he asked softly.
“Reverend, it’s J.C. May I speak to Colie, please?”
There was a brief silence, then the sound of the receiver being replaced. He recalled that the reverend used the hard-wired phone at home. He tried again, but the answering machine had been turned on.
He drew in a long breath. Well, he might have more luck with Rod. He wanted to question him about his airport performance, anyway.
* * *
HE STOPPED BY the hardware store, where one of his coworkers told him that Rod had taken a day off. Something about needing to go to Jackson Hole on urgent business. Just as well, the man remarked sourly. Rod didn’t do much when he was there, except to chat up women when he should have been helping customers.
* * *
J.C. STOOD OUTSIDE in blowing snow, grinding his teeth. Now what? He could go to the reverend’s house and demand to see Colie, but that would be unwise. He’d caused the poor man enough trouble already, by living openly with his only daughter. He wasn’t religious himself, but he knew how religious people looked at immoral conduct. It couldn’t have been easy for the pastor to get in the pulpit and talk against sex outside marriage when his daughter was living with a man and everybody knew.
He couldn’t track Rod down in Jackson Hole. He’d have to wait until the man came home and catch him.
He was frustrated. He needed to find Colie. Where the hell was she? Then he remembered. He checked his watch. She’d be on her lunch hour. He hadn’t gone near the cafeteria since they broke up, but he got into his SUV and drove there.
He looked around inside the crowded place, but there was no Colie. However, her coworker, Lucy, was having a salad and coffee alone at a table.
He pulled up a chair and straddled it. “Where’s Colie?” he asked abruptly.
Lucy paused with her fork in midair and just stared at him.
“Her father won’t let me speak to her. I can’t find her brother.” He was frustrated and irritated, and his voice reflected it. “Where is she?”
She put the fork down. “I don’t know, J.C.,” she said, but she averted her eyes.
“Yes, you do,” he returned. “You can’t lie to me, Lucy. I was a police officer for two years. I know a lie when I see one.”
She looked up and drew in a breath. “She made me promise I wouldn’t tell you,” she said after a minute.
“Is she in Catelow?”
She didn’t answer.
“I need to talk to her,” he said shortly. “I never even gave her a chance to defend herself...”
“Yes, I know,” she said, her tone icy. “You put her on the porch of your cabin with her belongings and closed the door. You put her outside like a dog that had misbehaved.”
He had the grace not to protest the accusation. He couldn’t. She was telling the truth.
He traced a pattern on the back of the chair he was straddling, his heart heavy, his mind busy.
“I did,” he confessed after a minute. “I lost my temper. Rod came to meet me at the airport and told me...” He hesitated. He looked up. “Is she really pregnant?”
Lucy’s face closed up. “That’s no longer any of your business. Colie’s gone, J.C. You might as well get used to it.”
“Gone where?”
“I told you...”
“For God’s sake, is it mine?” he ground out, his pale gray eyes lancing into hers. “Is she carrying my child?”
Her face grew hard. “What do you care?” she asked. “You told her you never wanted a child. So you won’t be having one.”
He looked confused. His regrets were plain on his face. “I made some mistakes.”
“You made a lot.”
He nodded. “I want to make things right, if I can,” he said quietly. “I’ve messed up pretty badly.” He managed a faint smile. “But Colie doesn’t hold grudges. She’ll forgive me.”
She lowered her eyes. She didn’t say anything.
The silence was revealing. He felt something cold touch him, inside. “Is she in Wyoming?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head.
He drew in a long breath. “Will you ask her if you can tell me where she is?” he tried another tack. “Just that.”
She looked up. Her expression was no longer hostile. It was sad. “It’s too late, J.C.,” she said after a minute.
“What do you mean, it’s too late?” he returned.
“You can’t say anything, do anything, that will make it up to her. Not now. It won’t matter if I ask her. She’d just say no, anyway.”
“Why are you so certain of that?” he demanded.
“Well, it’s like this,” she began, hesitating.
He felt cold inside. Empty. He felt a sense of premonition that was stronger than anything he’d ever experienced.
“Just tell me,” he said.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “She won’t talk to you because she’s married, J.C.”
He just sat there. His face paled under its olive tan. His pale, silver eyes looked blank. “She’s what?”
“She’s married,” Lucy replied. She got up with her tray. “I’m sorry. That’s what I meant, when I said it was too late. You can’t go back, J.C. Life doesn’t come with a reset button.”
She turned and walked away.
* * *
MARRIED. COLIE WAS MARRIED. She was pregnant and her child wouldn’t have a name. Her father would be even more humiliated in the pulpit with an unwed mother, who was his own child, sitting in a pew in his church.
Colie knew that. She was already guilty that she’d caused him so much pain. J.C. knew it, even if she’d never put it into words.
So she’d found someone and gotten married, to give her child a name. She’d put herself beyond J.C.’s reach, and she’d done it deliberately.
He got up like a sleepwalker and went outside to the SUV. He stood in the ice-cold wind, with snow blowing around him, and never felt a thing. Colie was gone forever. He’d thrown her away, like a used shoe. He would never have her in his life again. Never have that tenderness, that nurturing, that he’d craved even when he’d resented it.
Colie was gone, and it was his fault. Gone, with a child that might be his own child; a child who would grow up thinking another man was its father. A child he’d never know.
He knew what it was to be without a father. He’d left his behind at the age of ten. He’d blamed him for all the misery of the years in between. Now he was doing the same thing to a child that might be his.
Not quite. Colie had a husband. Hopefully, he’d treat her better than J.C. had. Did the man know she was pregnant? He dismissed that thought at once. Of course he knew. Colie wouldn’t lie, even about that.
He’d never misjudged anyone so badly in his whole life. He was ashamed, eaten up with guilt. His hot temper had cost him the one person in his adult life who genuinely loved him. Perhaps he’d done it deliberately, if subconsciously. He expected people to betray him. He didn’t trust anyone.
He should have trusted Colie. He should have gone after her, while there was still time to fix things.
Now, he was going to be alone for the rest of his life. As he got into the SUV and drove away, he thought that probably he deserved what he’d gotten. He probably deserved all of it.