The Parent Plan Part 3. Paula Riggs Detmer

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СКАЧАТЬ rich scents of chocolate and citrus curled upward, and she inhaled with pleasure.

      “Lovely,” she murmured after taking a sip.

      “Thank you, ma’am,” he said with a dip of his silvered head.

      “Welcome,” she managed to say before treating herself again. The taste was both tart and sweet—and just a little wicked. Exactly like Cassidy’s kisses.

      Seconds ticked by, unnoticed, until finally she realized Frank was watching her. No, measuring her. She lifted her brows and tilted her head.

      Frank seemed oblivious to anything but her. Finally he sighed heavily and straightened those big shoulders. “Karen, did you know that my company had the listing on the Barlow ranch before Cassidy bought it?”

      She shook her head, puzzled that he would bring that up now.

      “He still had his army haircut when he showed up with everything he owned in the back of a third-hand pickup and a chip on his shoulder the size of Pikes Peak.” Frank wrapped his big hand around the mug and brought it to his lips for a quick sip. “He had no credit, no friends to recommend him and, sadly, not nearly enough cash to cover the down payment Sue Ellen Barlow was demanding for her daddy’s place.” His mouth twitched. “I took one look and told myself I’d be crazy to waste my time trying to put together a deal that didn’t have a chance in hell of getting past a reputable loans officer.”

      She must have looked bewildered because he chuckled. “I quoted him a down payment that he could afford, made up the difference from my own pocket and swore Charlie Too Tall down at the bank to secrecy.”

      “You did what?” she blurted out, her mug frozen halfway to her mouth.

      “I took a calculated risk, nothing more.”

      She blinked, trying to understand. From the family room came the sound of music. Vivaldi, she registered absently. “Why?” she asked finally.

      “Now, that’s a question I asked myself a lot during that first year when it came time for him to make his monthly mortgage payment.”

      “He was late?”

      Frank shook his head. “Not once, but I suspect there were a lot of months when he had to choose between eating and meeting his obligation.”

      She stared at him, seeing the kind eyes and the strong features. “But the risk…you must have had a reason.”

      “He had hungry eyes.” Something flickered in his own eyes, and for an instant, his jaw tightened. “Nobody had to tell me he’d had a rough time as a kid. Or that he was desperate for a place of his own, a piece of earth and sky and security where he could put down roots, a place no one could take from him.” His smile was sad. “It’s hell growing up knowing no one wants you.”

      “Oh, Frank,” she whispered, deeply touched, for him, for Cassidy—and more than a little confused. “Does Mother know what you did?”

      “No one knows, except Charlie and me—and Cassidy.”

      That threw her. “When did you tell him?”

      “I didn’t. He found out a few weeks before you two were married, when he went to the bank for a second mortgage in order to finance some renovations on the house.”

      “He was angry?”

      “You might say that, yeah,” Frank drawled before lifting the mug to his mouth again. “Had this notion I felt sorry for him, and his pride wouldn’t let him accept charity.”

      Karen rubbed her toes along the chair rung. “Men and their pride.”

      Instead of grinning as she’d expected, Frank responded with a frown. “Sometimes, when a man’s had a lot to overcome, pride’s the only thing holding him together.” Absently he rubbed at a thin white scar along his jaw.

      “Did you feel sorry for him?”

      “No.” She heard the trace of annoyance in his deep voice and knew he’d put it there deliberately. “I told you I understood him, but what I told him was the truth, too. What he got from me was a loan, nothing more—with enough interest tacked on to have him sucking in hard.”

      I’ll bet, she thought, seeing Frank in a new light. “And?”

      “And he chewed on the furniture for a while, added a couple of points to that interest and told me to write it up as a separate note.” He grinned. “Made me a tidy bit of change on that cowboy of yours.”

      She smiled, but it seemed he wasn’t finished. “I’ve made a fortune on reading people—what they say they want and what they really want. Cassidy wants you. I’d stake every penny I made on that.”

      She held the mug to her cheek and wondered if she would ever be able to talk about her failed marriage without feeling sick inside. “Then why am I sitting here talking to you instead of out at the ranch where I belong?”

      He arched a brow. “Good question. Got an answer you’d care to run by me?”

      “A lot of them, some that even make sense.” She took another sip and held her breath against the intoxicating heat sliding down her throat. “He just wore me out, I guess. I got tired of defending myself for wanting to do what I could to make the world a better place.”

      He nodded. As practically a member of the family, he knew all about the problems that had led up to their separation.

      “I have pride, too, Frank. Maybe more than I should, but I simply couldn’t stay with a man who held me and my goals in contempt.”

      “Are you so sure he did?”

      “He…he told me I reminded him of his mother and that he hated her.” She felt her stomach lurch as she revisited the scene in the den in her mind. “He used our daughter as a weapon to blackmail me into doing what he wanted, and when that didn’t work he threatened to take my daughter away from me.”

      “And you can’t forgive him for that?”

      “No. Yes.” She frowned. “I don’t know.”

      “Poor kid, you’re really hung up on the guy, aren’t you?” He slipped the words out so softly that it took her a moment to react.

      When she did, it was with a bleak smile. “Does it show?”

      “In neon lights.”

      She drew a shaky breath. “All I was asking was that he bend just a little,” she said in a small voice.

      He regarded her in sympathetic silence for a long moment, then picked up both mugs. “It’s just an observation, Kari, but it seems to me Cassidy was doing nothing but bending from the moment you decided to go back to med school. And he’s been bending ever since.” He paused by her chair to drop a kiss on her hair. “You might want to think on that some when you get to feeling lonely.”

      Chapter Thirteen

      Cassidy had just turned off his СКАЧАТЬ