Walker frowned. Was she scared of McQuillan? He couldn"t help recalling that night at the Boot Scoot Tavern, when the then-deputy had essentially manhandled Brylee after she refused to dance with him. Did Treat make a habit of pushing smaller, weaker people around?
"Isn"t that nice," Treat said acidly.
"Now, Treat, don"t-" Patsy protested lamely.
"I"ll be on my way," Walker put in, ignoring the chief of police and focusing on the lady. If he didn"t go, things were going to get ugly. "If you ever need anything, Patsy, call me. Dawson has my numbers."
Treat"s color flared, as though there were an overheated engine inside his head, fixing to throw a rod. "If Patsy needs anything-" he seethed "-I"ll be the one she calls."
People were starting to notice, turning toward them. Slade, Hutch and Boone, none of them fans of Treat McQuillan, started moving in their direction.
Patsy clutched Treat"s arm. "Take me home," she pleaded, her voice quiet and quick. "Right now. My boy"s been gone for a while, and I want to see him."
Treat"s Adam"s apple raced up and down the length of his neck like an elevator gone haywire, and his eyes bulged, but he finally gave in and, with stiff-spined dignity, squired Patsy toward the road, where his car was parked with lots of others.
Walker watched them go, troubled.
"Everything all right?" Boone asked, being the first one there. He might have been the bridegroom, but he was also the sheriff, and he took the job seriously.
"I hope so," Walker answered, finally turning to face his friend.
Slade and Hutch joined them. Slade had been the sheriff of Parable County before Boone took office, and Hutch was the type to go ahead and deputize himself whenever he thought there might be a need for reinforcements. Whatever their differences over Brylee, and the infamous wedding-that-wasn"t, Walker liked Hutch Carmody.
Treat and Patsy roared off in his fancy new police car, throwing up a plume of dust behind them.
Slade shook his head, quietly disgusted, and returned to the party.
Boone went back to his bride, as any sane man would have done in his place, which left Hutch and Walker by themselves.
An awkward development, to say the least.
Hutch laid his hand briefly on Walker"s shoulder, saying nothing, then turned and walked away.
Walker lingered a while, circulated among the other guests as best he could and kept one eye on Casey Elder the rest of the evening.
CASEY COULDN"T EVEN THINK about breakfast the next morning, so she sat at the table on the sunporch, her coffee untouched and her plate empty, watching Shane and Clare as they simultaneously bickered and consumed their oatmeal and fresh fruit.
So much for the brother-sister alliance.
Doris, in uniform and miffed because she prided herself on her cooking and got cranky when everybody didn"t choose to eat it, came and went from the kitchen with her carefully powdered nose in the air, her mouth tight and her eyes averted.
"I suppose you"d eat if Lupe had made breakfast," she said, sniffing, on one swing through with the coffeepot.
Casey smiled sadly, getting the reference. Lupe had been Casey"s grandmother"s housekeeper and cook, and Doris knew that Casey adored the woman. When she was younger, Lupe and Juan had been more like family than her well-heeled grandparents. Some of the happiest days of her childhood, in fact, had been spent on Lupe"s father"s truck farm, in the Texas hill country, where he and the rest of his gigantic family had raised various vegetables and sold them at farmers" markets and from various roadside stands throughout July and August and well into September.
Good-natured people, who spoke so little English that they always communicated with Casey through Lupe or Juan, the Garcias had taken Casey into the fold, treated her like one of their own, right down to the hoeing, weeding and harvesting.
She"d been proud to sell squash and tomatoes, lettuce and cabbage, cobs of corn still in their green husks, watermelons and asparagus and all the rest. If her grandparents, who traveled widely and chose to leave their sometimes unruly granddaughter in the care of the help, had known she was on the farm, wearing borrowed overalls and getting the knees grubby, digging potatoes and weighing produce and making change for pa.s.sing strangers, they"d have had a fit.
They hadn"t known, of course, until one day when Casey was twelve-not quite Shane"s age now-and they"d returned unexpectedly from a European cruise, after an outbreak of food poisoning struck down half the ship"s pa.s.sengers, who had to be hospitalized in Barcelona. Her grandparents, whom no mere stomach bug would have dared afflict, had cut the trip short and flown back to the States more than a week early.
Naturally, they"d expected their granddaughter-she of the incessant singing-to be in the mansion, eagerly awaiting their return.
Instead, she"d been manning one of the roadside stands with Lupe, and when one of the housemaids called to say they were home, demanding to know where Casey was, Lupe and Juan had rushed her back to Dallas in their old rattletrap of a car.
Her grandmother, who would not hear any explanation, had fired Lupe and Juan on the spot, and never mind their years of dedicated service. They were traitors, never to be forgiven.
Soon after that incident, Casey had been sent away to a New England boarding school, where she was completely miserable, sustained only by encouraging letters from Lupe. When Casey"s grandmother died suddenly a few months later, her grandfather had sent for her, intending to send her straight back to those hallowed halls of learning directly after the funeral.
But she"d cried and cajoled and, finally, her grandfather had agreed to let her stay and return to her old school, which, though stuffy and intolerant of red-haired girls who wanted to be country singers, was better than living among strangers far away.
That Christmas, she received her first guitar. But Lupe and Juan were still gone, and Casey was still lonely, so she threw her whole heart and soul into her music. Using a Dummies book, she taught herself to read notes, and she practiced chords on that guitar until her fingertips were raw, then, mercifully, calloused.
She sang along with her radio, alone in her room, copying the old-timers-Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, then Reba McEntire and Faith Hill and LeAnn Rimes and anyone else she admired, which added up to a lot of people. Then she started singing on the street, to her grandfather"s mortification, collecting quarters and crumpled dollar bills-and a whole lot of pennies-in her open guitar case resting at her feet on the sidewalk.
From there, she"d gotten bookings in grange halls and old folks" homes and high school gymnasiums, and she"d known even then, with her grandfather nurturing an ever-greater disapproval, that she had something special, that she was going to make it.
And she had. The breaks had finally started coming, barely noticeable at first. She"d played rodeos and, having lied about her age so many times that she believed herself, bars and nightclubs.
Her grandfather had finally stopped speaking to her entirely, though she still heard from Lupe and Juan, even now.
"Mom?" Shane snapped his fingers in front of her face. "h.e.l.lo? Mom?"
Casey chuckled. "Sorry," she said. "I guess I was drifting."
"How come you"re not eating?" Clare wanted to know. She could be bossy at times, that child.
"Because I"m not hungry," Casey answered patiently. By the time this day ended, she thought, these children would know she"d deceived them, and they might never be together, in exactly this way, again.
Tears burned behind her eyes, but she held them back. Even smiled, which took some grit. "We"re going out to Timber Creek today," she said. "All three of us."
Shane looked thrilled. "Can we take the dogs?"
"Not this time," Casey told her son with gentle regret.
Clare, not only older than Shane but female, and therefore more perceptive, studied her mother with frank concern. "What"s going on?" she asked.
Casey had to swallow several times before she could answer. "You"ll know soon enough," she said. "For now, let"s leave it at that."
"Mom," Clare demanded, "are you sick? Are you going to tell us that you"re dying of some horrible disease?"
"No," Casey was quick to reply. "It"s nothing like that."
"Then, what?" Shane wanted to know. "We"re moving? You"re going back on the road?"
Casey almost told them the whole story then, but words failed her. She didn"t like admitting that she needed anybody, but she needed Walker beside her for this one-that was for sure.
She shook her head. "We"re not moving and I"m not going back on the road," she a.s.sured Shane, who was visibly relieved. "I"m calling the crew together, after Labor Day, to record some songs and block out a new video, but that"s the extent of it."
She hadn"t heard from Mitch by phone or email since he"d stormed off after she"d turned down his proposal, nor had she received his letter of resignation.
Hopefully, that mess, at least, would blow over. She liked Mitch, and he was a good manager. Besides, the thought of starting from scratch with somebody new, after all these years, was overwhelming.
Mercifully, the kids stopped asking questions after that.
Casey retreated to her room and stepped into her ridiculously large-and full-closet. She would have known what to wear if she was going to sing for a president or any level of royalty, but how did one dress to tell her children that she"d been deceiving them since birth? No harmless fib, this. Instead, it was a lie so big that it had become a lifestyle, and Casey had lived it so long and so thoroughly that she didn"t know who she-or any of them-would be without it.
Black seemed too funereal and white too innocent, so she finally chose a green voile sundress that brought out the color of her eyes and complemented her red hair. Forswearing pantyhose-there was a limit to the suffering she was willing to endure, even in this situation-she slipped sandals onto her bare feet, squirted a little perfume at the hollow of her throat and called it good.
Studying her reflection in the mirrors above her vanity, Casey made a simple, motivational speech.
"Buck up, cowgirl," she said.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
THE KITCHEN OF THE HOUSE at Timber Creek Ranch was probably a quarter the size of her own, if that, Casey observed, sitting numbly at the large round table, with Clare seated to her left, Shane to her right and Walker straight across. Under any other circ.u.mstances, she would have enjoyed the cozy normality of the room, the pretty cotton curtains at the old-fashioned windows, the natural-rock fireplace where cheerful blazes surely snapped and crackled on winter mornings, the rustic plank floor dotted here and there with colorful handmade rugs. At the moment, though, she was so focused on what she had to say-what she was afraid to say-that her surroundings barely registered.
Walker"s gaze connected with hers, held. The impact reminded her of railroad cars coupling with a jolt.
The inside of Casey"s head buzzed, as though her brain were a wasps" nest, and her stomach bounced continually between her pelvis and her esophagus.
"Would somebody please tell us what"s going on?" Clare burst out, glancing from Casey to Walker and back again, speaking for her brother as well as herself, it would seem. As the older of the two, and a natural take-charge type, she often did that.
Shane remained silent, his gawky, youthful body stiff with tension. One day, Casey thought, those now-thin shoulders of his would be broad and strong, like Walker"s, but, for now, they were narrow and a little stooped, making the boy look all too vulnerable.
Casey opened her mouth to reply to her daughter"s question, but no sound came out. Not even a croak, though she felt a sc.r.a.ping sensation, as though she were trying to swallow a rusty hasp of the sort used to file horses" hooves.
Walker"s grin was slight, but encouraging. "It"ll be okay," he said, his voice gruff and gentle, both at once.
Casey swallowed, her hands knotted together in her lap, and nodded, but she still couldn"t get her vocal cords to work.
"Mom," Clare insisted, arms folded across her beginning-to-blossom chest, eyes troubled. "What?"
Casey looked at her daughter, her son and then Walker.
"This is hard," she finally managed. Tears blurred her vision for a moment, and she blinked them away.
"Go on," Walker urged quietly.
Casey knew he would speak up if she couldn"t, or wouldn"t, but it was her responsibility to tell her children the truth, because she"d been the one to start that first lie rolling. And then sustain it, with many, many other lies.
Clare and Shane seemed on the verge of panic, though, and there was no more time left, Casey realized with a painful start. The sand had all run through the hourgla.s.s.
So she blurted it out, starkly and far too abruptly. "Walker is your father," she said.
A thunderous silence fell, filling the room, pushing the walls outward. Casey waited for the roof to cave in, though, of course, it didn"t.
She could feel her own heartbeat, pounding in the hollow of her still-sore throat, and she forced herself to look squarely at her children, each in turn. Shane was not only unfazed, he was grinning, his eyes alight with wonder.
"For real?" he asked.
"For real," Casey replied softly, shifting her gaze to Clare.
The girl"s reaction was the polar opposite of Shane"s-the red in her hair seemed to leach into her face, making vivid pink circles on her cheeks, and her eyes were narrowed almost to slits. Her chin wobbled, and she immediately shoved back her chair, ready to bolt.
Walker stopped her by taking hold of her hand. "Easy now, sweetheart," he told his daughter, the words thick with affection and regret. "Give your mom a chance to explain."
Clare remained seated, but her whole countenance exuded defiance. "You lied," she accused, glaring at Casey. "You knew how much we wanted a dad, Shane and me, and you let us believe we were freaks, conceived in some laboratory-"
"Clare," Casey said miserably. "Listen to me, please-"
"I hate you!" Clare erupted, and this time, when she started to rise, Walker made no move to keep her at the table. She swept both parents up in a scathing sweep of a glance. "I hate you both-"
"No." Casey fairly whimpered the word. This was what she"d feared would happen. On some level, she"d known Shane would take the news well, but Clare would feel wounded and betrayed-by the person she"d trusted most.
Clare whirled, headed for the outside door, nearly tripping over a startled Doolittle in her hurry to escape her mother"s company and, by extension, Walker"s. She slammed the screen door hard and stomped across the porch, footsteps reverberating.
Casey started to rise, every instinct compelling her to go after her daughter, find a way to comfort the girl, make everything all right, but Walker put up one hand, like a traffic cop.
"Let her go," he said. "She needs a few minutes for this to sink in."
Casey, knowing Walker was right, slumped bleakly back into her chair.
Shane, still staring at Walker as though he"d just emerged from Aladdin"s lamp, genie-style, remained awestruck, oblivious, evidently, to his sister"s angry departure. "You"re really our dad?" he half whispered.
"I"m really your dad," Walker confirmed.
They heard a rig come up the driveway then, a motor shutting off, ticking and clicking as it went still. A car door closed, a dog barked.
Brylee, Casey thought. The poor woman couldn"t possibly know what she was walking in on.
Walker caught her eye. "I can ask her to leave for a while," he offered. "Come back later-"
But Casey shook her head. "No," she answered. "Brylee"s family, and she has a right to know what"s going on."
Walker gave a slight nod.
Brylee and her dog could be heard coming up the porch steps. Her voice came gently through the screen in the door; she"d spotted Clare, probably huddled in the big wooden swing.
"Hey," Brylee said softly. "What"s the trouble, honey?"