"You"re right," she agreed, and went into the kitchen to call.
Emma sounded wide awake when she answered. "Ca.s.sie? What"s wrong? You sound like you"ve been crying."
"It"s been a difficult evening," she said, putting it mildly. "Do you have a few minutes?"
"For you? Of course. What"s this about?"
"Custody of Jake."
"I"m coming over," Emma said at once.
"You don"t have to..." Ca.s.sie began, but she was wasting her breath.
"I"m on my way," Emma said, then hung up before Ca.s.sie could argue.
Ca.s.sie looked up to meet her mother"s worried frown. "She"s on her way."
"Good. I"m sure she"ll have sensible advice."
"I don"t need sensible," Ca.s.sie said. "I need the advice of a legal shark who takes no prisoners."
Her mother managed a faint grin. "Then you"ve called the right person. Our Emma didn"t earn her reputation in Denver by being anybody"s patsy."
Ca.s.sie was startled by the observation. "How do you know so much about her reputation in Denver?"
"Ever since she took that case here, the paper"s been running stories about how tough she is. I have to admit I was surprised. When you were girls, you gave her an awful lot of grief, and she took it without so much as a whimper."
"Maybe that"s what toughened her up," Ca.s.sie said.
She was beginning to feel the first little hint of optimism by the time the doorbell rang. Emma swept in with eyes blazing and a determined jut to her jaw. She gave Ca.s.sie a fierce hug, then plunked her briefcase on the dining room table and pulled out a chair.
"Start at the beginning. I want to know everything Cole said to you."
As Ca.s.sie talked, Emma took notes, never once flinching, not even when Ca.s.sie summed up that night"s conversation and the proposal that was Cole"s alternative to a custody battle. When Ca.s.sie had concluded, Emma sighed and rubbed her eyes.
"We can give him a fight, if that"s what he wants," she said, then clasped Ca.s.sie"s hand. "But I won"t lie to you, he has a good case. I don"t think he could get sole custody of Jake, but he could certainly get visitation rights and perhaps even some form of joint custody. You have absolutely no grounds for accusing him of being unfit, especially since he never had a chance to demonstrate his parenting skills."
Ca.s.sie drew in a deep breath. "Then I have no choice. I have to marry him."
"That"s up to you, of course." She touched Ca.s.sie"s cheek. "It doesn"t have to be a fate worse than death, you know. You do love him."
"A lot of good that does."
Emma smiled. "Not that you could prove it by me, but I"ve heard that love can perform miracles."
"Well, I"m certainly about to put it to the test, aren"t I?"
Cole took a room in a hotel while he awaited Ca.s.sie"s decision. When news of his return reached his father, Frank Davis came striding into the hotel lobby demanding to see him. At the commotion just outside the door to the hotel coffee shop, Cole glanced up from behind his newspaper and sighed.
"Over here, Dad," he said.
His father crossed the small lobby and headed straight for his table. He sank down opposite Cole. "It"s about time you got back here. Why aren"t you at the ranch?"
"Do you even have to ask?"
"Are you planning on staying in this place?" his father asked, glancing around at the shabby furnishings, the tiny coffee shop that had only a handful of scarred tables.
"That depends."
"On?"
"What happens this Sunday."
His father regarded him with exasperation. "Stop talking in riddles. Are you back here to stay or not?"
"I"ll keep you posted."
For just an instant his father looked older than his years. He looked defeated. "I suppose I might as well put the ranch on the market. I can"t manage it anymore on my own."
Cole scowled at him. "Don"t pull that with me. You recovered from that heart attack years ago. You could run the whole state if you were of a mind to, never mind one little cattle ranch."
"Fifty thousand acres isn"t little," his father said heatedly. "It"s a demanding job, and I just don"t have the heart for it anymore. Not if there"s no one to leave it to."
"Leave it to your grandson."
"How am I supposed to do that? The boy doesn"t even know we"re related. If it"s left up to his mother, he never will."
"That will change," Cole said grimly. One way or another.
"Oh?" His father"s expression brightened. "You going after custody?"
"No. Not the way you mean, anyway."
"What then?"
"I"ll tell you on Sunday." He would know how this was going to play out by then.
His father struggled to his feet, looking disgusted. "You"re wasting time, Son. I would have had this settled long ago."
"Probably so," Cole agreed. "But for once I"m doing things my way."
And they"d better work out, he thought, or he"d never hear the end of it.
For once Ca.s.sie wished the preacher"s sermon would go on and on. Instead, Pastor Kirkland spoke for only a few minutes, citing the late-August heat and lack of air-conditioning as the reason for his brevity.
"No point in talking if no one can hear me over the fluttering of those fans you"re waving," he said. "You can all give thanks to the Lord for that and we"ll call it a day."
The congregation laughed appreciatively, sang one final, rousing hymn, then began to file out. Ca.s.sie was one of the last to go. When she reached the church steps, she spotted Cole at once, leaning against the fender of his car, his eyes shaded by sungla.s.ses and the brim of his Stetson.
"You"ve made up your mind, then?" her mother asked, clinging to her hand. "There"s nothing I can say to change it?"
"Nothing," Ca.s.sie said grimly. "This is what I have to do."
As she crossed the street, she wished she could feel one tiny little surge of joy, one little spark of hope, but Cole"s somber expression wasn"t encouraging. He was there to make a deal, not a love match.
He opened the car door for her without speaking, then got into the driver"s side and started the engine. He glanced her way once, then focused on the road. Not until they were parked in a secluded spot along the river did he face her.
"Well?"
"I"ll do it," she said. "I"ll marry you."
He responded with little more than a nod of satisfaction. "Will next weekend suit you?"
Ca.s.sie bit back a cry of dismay. What had she thought, that he would allow her time to plan something lavish? Had she honestly expected him to let her carry out the charade that this was the wedding of her dreams, the start of a happy life for two people deeply in love?
"Fine," she said tersely.
"At the church or at town hall?"
Ca.s.sie didn"t think she could bear either one. "At home, in the garden," she said, ready to fight for that much at least. "I"ll speak to Pastor Kirkland about it."
"What time?"
She had always dreamed of a wedding at sunset with color splashed across the western sky. "Seven-thirty," she said, allowing herself this one romantic touch, even if it would mean nothing at all to the man beside her. She hesitated, then asked, "Will you be inviting your father?"
Cole nodded. "I can"t see any way around it."
"Anyone else?"
"No."
"I"ll want my friends there."
"Whatever," he said, looking completely uninterested in the details now that the decision had been made.
It seemed as if there was nothing else to discuss, not about the ceremony itself, anyway. But there was one thing-the most important thing-that couldn"t be ignored.
"Cole, how do I explain this to Jake?"
His hands tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. "Why not try the truth? It"s about time, don"t you think?"
"He"s nine. He won"t understand the truth, not all of it, anyway."
Cole sighed. "No, I suppose not." He turned slightly toward her, removed his sungla.s.ses and met her gaze directly for the first time all afternoon. "He needs to know I"m his father. We can tell him together, if you"d like."
She nodded. "That would be good, I think. And I want him to know that we loved each other back then," she said fiercely, regarding Cole defiantly, prepared to fight for that, too. "I don"t want him to think for a single second that he was a mistake. Nor do I want him to figure out that this marriage is nothing more than a bargain I made with the devil."
"The devil, am I? I"ve been called worse." For an instant Cole"s expression softened. "I suppose it won"t be much of a lie, telling him that we loved each other. Back then what we had was pretty special."
Her heart flipped over at the wistfulness in his voice. "Do you think...? Can we get that back again?"
He didn"t answer right away. Eventually he slid his sungla.s.ses back into place and looked away. "I honestly don"t know," he said in a voice devoid of emotion.
Determined now, she put her hand on his arm, felt his muscle jerk beneath her touch. "We have to try, Cole," she said urgently. "For Jake"s sake, if not our own."
Cole"s only response was to reach for the key and start the car, his gaze straight ahead. His silence told her all she needed to know. He was nowhere close to forgiving her. In fact, it seemed as if he might not even intend to try.
Sat.u.r.day dawned under a blazing sun. As wedding days went, Cole supposed this one was picture perfect, but there was none of the joy he"d once expected, none of the antic.i.p.ation. In fact, all he felt was an aching sense of loneliness, accompanied by the certainty that a few words spoken today at sunset were unlikely to alter that feeling in any way.
Refusing to dwell on his dark mood, he spent the morning working at his computer, then headed for Ca.s.sie"s. To her mother"s dismay, they had dismissed the traditional superst.i.tion about the groom not seeing his bride before the wedding and agreed that today was the perfect time to tell Jake the truth about Cole being his father. At least he would have a few hours to get used to the idea before the ceremony. Cole also intended to ask his son to be his best man.
When he arrived at the house, he was surprised by the whirl of activity going on. Flowers and chairs were being carried into the backyard, a small tent was being set up with tables beneath it. Lauren, wearing shorts, a T-shirt and rollers in her hair, was directing traffic. Cole grinned despite himself.
"You"d better hope there are no paparazzi around," he teased. "The tabloids would pay a fortune for this picture. You are not at your glamorous best."
"If you only came over here to hara.s.s me and get in the way, you can leave," she said, frowning at him. "Why anybody would insist on having a wedding in less than a week is beyond me."
"We didn"t want a lot of hoopla," he said defensively, aware that she must not know the whole story.
"Maybe you didn"t, but Ca.s.sie deserves a lot of hoopla, and, by golly, she"s going to have as much of it as we can pull off on short notice."
Cole withstood the icy glint in her eyes and the barely concealed criticism. One of the things he"d always admired about Lauren and the others was their fierce loyalty to each other. He"d never had friends like that...except for Ca.s.sie. Somewhere along the way, through no fault of his own, he"d lost that. Among the regrets in his life, that one was right at the top of the list.
He sighed at the thought and went in search of his bride-to-be. He found her in the kitchen getting a manicure. Pink flooded her cheeks when he walked in, but Gina barely spared him a glance.
"You"re not supposed to be here," she said, and went right on painting Ca.s.sie"s neatly filed nails a pale shade of pink.
Ca.s.sie cleared her throat. "Actually, he is. We"re supposed to talk to Jake, explain things."
"Well, you can"t do it now," Gina said briskly. "I"m not finished." She waved Cole away. "Go in the living room or out back and make yourself useful. I"ll let you know when she"s free."
Ca.s.sie shrugged. "Better do as she says. I"ve given up fighting with them."
Amused despite himself, he nodded. "Yes, I can see why it would be a waste of breath. Where"s Jake?"
"Hiding out in his room, if he"s smart," she said dryly. "Lauren brought him a tuxedo."