Cowgirls Don't Cry. Silver James

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СКАЧАТЬ want her wearing black on this day, wouldn’t want her tears or her remorse.

      Movement in the doorway caught her attention, and her breath froze for a moment when she thought she recognized the figure ducking out. Impossible. There was no way that man could have been the same one at the hotel in Chicago. The hair prickled on the back of her neck and she got a shivery feeling. Her dad would have said someone was walking across her grave. She shivered again, doing her best to ignore the premonition.

      “Daddy...” Her voice broke, and she coughed to clear the frog in her throat. Feeling a bit stronger now, she tried again. “Daddy was full of sayings, most of them taken from Louis L’Amour books.” She offered Nadine a tentative smile. “We have a whole wall of them at the house, and I grew up on their truisms. Dad also had a tendency to tell me, ‘Shoulda, coulda, woulda, honey, just opens the door to regrets. That’s the worst thing a person can do—live a life full of regrets.’”

      She bit her lip and stared out the door where that mysterious figure seemed to be waiting in the shadows. “I should have been a better daughter. And I could have. Would I if circumstances had been different? I don’t know. But I do believe Daddy wouldn’t want me worrying about the past. He lived and loved life to the absolute fullest. We can honor him best by doing the same.” She glanced over at Boots and was puzzled by the look on his face. Something was going on, something he didn’t want to tell her. She’d pin him down soon.

      “Thank you all for coming, for being my dad’s friends. And thank you, Nadine, for your gracious offer of Four Corners. I never did learn to cook.” She glanced down at the speckled gray-and-black box that held her father’s ashes. “Hard to believe that a man bigger than life can be reduced to a little box like that. What’s left of his body might be in there, but his spirit is riding free. Nothing could ever contain it. Not a hardscrabble life and certainly not death.”

      Cass stepped away from the microphone and was immediately enveloped in a big hug from Boots. Within moments, they were surrounded by well-wishers, despite her resolve to get to the lobby area to see if her imagination was playing tricks on her. The hairs on her neck rose again, and she could have sworn someone was staring at her. As surreptitiously as she could, she scanned the room, but no one triggered the sense of her being...hunted. She shivered.

      “I need to get outside, Uncle Boots.” She breathed the words out in a rush and added a few “I’m sorry, excuse me’s” in her wake. Stepping into the balmy temperature of the early spring morning didn’t quell the feeling of being stalked.

      A man wearing a black Stetson caught her eye. He strode across the parking lot headed toward a massive Ford pickup. Broad shoulders tapered to a really fine pair of jeans—could it be the guy from Chicago? That wasn’t possible. No way, no how. The shiver dancing through her this time had nothing to do with fear.

      * * *

      Chance escaped before she recognized him. Traffic wasn’t heavy enough to curtail his thoughts, which left him wanting nothing more than a tall scotch and a cold shower. What in the world had possessed him to attend the memorial service? Who was he trying to kid? Cassidy Morgan. He was drawn to her like a honeybee to clover. Crossing paths with her in Chicago had been a fluke but now he knew where to find her.

      Her face as she eulogized her father was far too reminiscent of her expression in the hotel lobby. He’d probably bumped into her right after she received the news about her father’s passing. Chance didn’t do vulnerable but this woman had an inner spark that drew him like a bull to a red cape. He wanted her, plain and simple—even if there was nothing simple about this situation.

      His cell phone rang, and he punched the button on the steering wheel for the Bluetooth connection. He snarled into the hidden microphone, “What?”

      “Dang, bro. Don’t be biting my head off.”

      “What do you want, Cord?”

      “Cash and I tracked down that stud colt the old man wanted. You’re not going to believe where he is.”

      “Dammit. Does he want me chasing a horse or stealing a ranch out from under a woman who just buried her father?”

      “Whoa, dude. Back up there a minute. That almost sounded like you’ve developed a conscience.”

      Chance rubbed his temple and gave up trying to talk and drive at the same time. He pulled off and realized he’d parked a block from the Four Corners. How the hell had that happened? He jammed the transmission into Park and leaned his head back against the headrest on the driver’s seat. “Okay, Cord, so tell me where the damn horse is.”

      “Right here. The plot thickens, little brother. Ben Morgan bought that colt months before you headed north to track him down. He’s been under our noses all along.”

      He sat up straighter. “The ranch and everything on it is collateral. The colt, too?”

      “No clue, but Cash is pulling financials. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, the old man wants to accelerate things. Can you call the balloon payment immediately?”

      “Our father is a real SOB, Cord.”

      His brother’s ringing laughter filled the cab. “So what else is new?” Cord broke the connection before Chance could retort anything.

      He stared out the windshield. “So what’s that make us, big brother?”

       Four

      The screen door banged shut behind her. The room hadn’t changed one iota in her entire life. She stopped short as countless memories washed over her.

       Don’t run in the house.

       Don’t slam the door.

       No, you can’t bring that baby skunk inside.

      Boots sprawled in the worn wooden chair on the porch, Buddy at his feet. A small metal table separated his chair from its twin. Her father’s chair. How many evenings had she worked on her homework at the kitchen table, listening to the two men talk through the open window? She passed off an icy glass of sweet tea to Boots then grabbed a third chair, a refugee from some 1950s patio set, and settled into it.

      “What are you not sayin’, Cassie?”

      She’d put off this discussion for almost a week. So much for easing into the conversation. There was no way to soften her news, so she blurted it out. “I’m putting the ranch up for sale.” When Boots didn’t respond, she plunged ahead. “I don’t need the money. Not really. I want to set you up with a little place closer to town. A place where you and Buddy and a horse and some cows can live and be happy.”

      She gulped down a breath and continued. “It’s for the best, you know. I have a life in Chicago. A job. Friends. I left the ranch and never intended to come back, and I wouldn’t know what to do with it and...and...” Her voice trailed off as she raised her gaze to meet his. “Say something, Uncle Boots. Don’t just sit there staring at me like I’ve grown a second head.”

      “You can’t sell the ranch.”

      “Yes, I can. It’s mine.” She snapped her mouth shut. Maybe it wasn’t hers. Maybe her father had left the place to Boots. “Isn’t it?”

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