Love at Any Cost (35 page)

Zane's smile eased into regret. “I wish I could, Mr. McClare, but I was so anxious to check out the drill site, I left my bags at the station. I really should check into my hotel and clean up.”

“Hotel?” Her father cuffed the man's shoulder. “Nonsense. I insist you stay on the ranch, young man. My wife and daughter will be happy to ready a guest room for you upstairs.”

Shock replaced the smile on the man's face—
and
Cassie's. “I really couldn't impose, Mr. McClare, after all I could be here for the next few months or longer.”

“And I'll be in your debt even longer than that, young man, if you're a tenth the miracle worker Lucas says. You retrieve your bags and hightail it back. Your room will be waiting.”

Zane shook her father's hand. “Thank you, sir, that's very kind. Well, I best be going, but rest assured I intend to focus my efforts on seeing that your days of dry wells are over.” He nodded to her mother and her, gaze lighting on Cassie with a veiled smile of interest. Her jaw tightened when she returned his smile with a stiff one of her own.
Oh, no, mister,
get that pretty-boy gleam right out of your eye.
Daddy's days of dry wells may be over, but if you're looking to dig anything but oil, yours are just beginning.

“What a nice young man,” her mother whispered when Daddy walked them to the door.

Cassie raised a hand. “Don't even start, Mama. In order for me to look twice at another pretty boy like that, he'll have to grow a wart and develop a slight-to-moderate case of lazy eye.”

Her mother's laughter warmed her spirits. “No he won't, Cass,” she said with a gentle pat. “God'll send a man who'll turn both your head and your heart without a cross-eyed stare.”

“By thunder, gotta feeling we're fixin' to turn a corner here.” Her father strode into the parlour with a broad smile. “Ginny, tell Teresa we'll be able to hire more help soon.”

“Oh, Quinn, I hope you're right.” Her mother hurried to give him a hug. “Even so, I've enjoyed helping Teresa in the kitchen again.” She cupped his face, eyes glowing with love, and Cassie wondered if she'd ever feel that way. “It takes me back to when we were first married.”

“
You
take me back to when we were first married,” he said with a brush of his lips to hers. “So,” he said with a wink in Cassie's direction, “hope you've been practicing your billiard skills in San Francisco, Sweet Pea, because suddenly I'm feeling mighty lucky.”

“Lucky, eh?” Cassie said with a chuckle, smile fading when thoughts of Jamie flashed in her mind. “Well, I hope your luck is better than mine,” she said with a cumbersome sigh. She followed her father to the knotty-pine game table he'd built for her, now sitting in front of the hearth. Her lips swagged to the left.
And Mr. Zane Carter's.

 28 

J
amie studied the chessboard with a keen eye in the cozy parlour of Mrs. Tucker's boardinghouse, wishing just once he could trounce his sister at chess. “I'm afraid the wrong MacKenna went to law school,” he muttered, his fraternal side proud his sister was such a prodigy at “the thinking man's game.” His competitive side? A wee bit testy at getting beat by a girl. His thoughts leapfrogged to Cassie, and his sour mood ebbed into the aching malaise that had engulfed him since he'd learned she'd gone home. Biting back a scowl, he moved his pawn, well aware when it came to strategy, Jess had him right where she wanted him.

Just like Patricia and her father.

Eyes dancing from the shimmer of the gas chandelier overhead, his sister eased her queen up to capture his pawn. “Checkmate!” she said with a glow that indicated she'd had a rare good day, made even better by a win over her brother.

Jamie relented with a smile, the little-girl grin on his sister's face more than enough to chase his shadows away. “I'll tell you what, Jess, you're going to cause quite a stir in college.”

The light in his sister's unusual ochre eyes dimmed
imperceptibly, although her smile never faltered. “
If
I go to college, dear brother . . . ,” she said, commencing to reset the board.

“Oh, you're going all right.” Jamie's voice lowered as he glanced at several gentlemen boarders who were preoccupied with newspapers while his mother chatted with Mrs. Tucker over needlepoint. “We've been planning this far too long, and your pro bono surgery is just the first step.” Excitement edged his voice as his gaze connected with hers. “Which, as I mentioned before,” he said with a flicker of a smile, “will be voted on next week.”

“But they may not vote in our favor,” Jess said, nibbling at the edge of her lip.

“Not to worry, Peanut.” He winked. “I have a strong suspicion they will.”

A wispy sigh floated from her lips. “Even so—a college education is expensive, especially for a mere woman.” Her pert chin dimpled in a dubious frown, voice dipping low to mimic Dr. Edward Clark in his widely respected
Sex and Education
treatise: “ ‘A girl could study and learn, but she could not do all this and retain uninjured health, and a future secure from neuralgia, uterine disease, hysteria, and other derangements of the nervous system.' ”

“Balderdash,” Jamie growled under his breath. “I'll wager you could show Dr. Clark the error of his ways in one game of chess.”

She gave him a patient smile that made her look older than sixteen despite the youthfulness of pale cheeks framed by lustrous black curls. “Dr. Clark's ill-spoken words may be fallacy, James MacKenna, but the expense of a college education is not.”

Jamie repositioned his chess pieces with a grunt. “You let me worry about that.”

Her frail hand lighted upon his with a tender gaze. “That's just it, Jammy,” she whispered, resorting to his childhood nickname as he had with her. “I don't want you to worry.”

“A little late for that now,” he grumbled in jest. “Where was your concern when you so handily stripped your brother of his male pride only moments ago?”

“Oh, pish-posh.” Her soft chuckles warmed his heart. “You let me win and you know it.”

“I beg your pardon,” Jamie said with a true note of indignation. “I'll have you know that James MacKenna does not throw a game for anyone, even a precocious baby sister.”

“Really and truly?” She clasped her hands, eyes a twinkle like a child at Christmas.

“Really and truly.” His gaze softened. “I would never lie to you, Jess.”

Her lips curved into the most beautiful smile. “I know.” She paused long enough for tears to well in her eyes. “Which compels me to ask something to which I need an honest answer.”

“Yes?” He slanted in, arms crossed on the table, pinning her with a mock serious gaze.

“Why are you so sad?” she whispered.

His skin chilled, puckers popping at the bridge of his nose. “Sad? What kind of harebrained question is that? You just obliterated me in chess, you little dickens.”

“No, not that,” she said softly. “You're not as happy as you used to be and lately you never . . . ,” she hesitated, teeth grazing her lip, “mention your friend Cassie anymore.”

His heart thudded to a dead stop as he stared, the mere mention of Cassie's name siphoning the blood from his face. “She's gone back to Texas,” he whispered, rising to his feet as casually as possible given the boulder in his gut. “Give me a chance to redeem my pride, kiddo—how 'bout a game of Persian Rummy instead?” Avoiding her eyes, he carefully lifted the chessboard to an ornate wood buffet and replaced it with a deck of cards from the top drawer.

“Why?” Jess asked with an innocence that stabbed. Just like the stab of Alli's loaded response when he'd finally gotten the nerve to pose the same question to her the week after Cassie had left.

“To heal from the damage you've done.”

The damage he'd done. To a woman he cared about. His eyes faltered closed for a split second as realization throbbed.
No, to a woman I love
 . . .

“Jamie?”

He blinked up at his sister, suddenly too depleted to hide the ache that he felt. “Because I hurt her,” he said, the admission all but stealing the air from his lungs. He proceeded to shuffle the cards, desperate to fight the awful malaise that always settled whenever he heard her name, saw her face in his mind's eye, remembered the awful decision he'd made.

“How?”

His palms stilled on the stack of cards. “I decided to court Patricia instead of her.”

“And that hurt her because she cares about you?”

He nodded dumbly, finally shaking off his stupor to shuffle the cards one final time.

Jess paused, the truth dawning in her eyes. “Oh, Jamie . . . and you truly care about her, don't you?” The words were uttered in awe.

“A great deal,” he said quietly, dealing thirteen cards to them both.

“Then why are you courting Patricia?”

He glanced up, wincing at the childlike simplicity of such a question. “It's complicated, Jess, but suffice it to say that Patricia is better suited for me.”

Jess's pause was longer this time, her voice a strained whisper. “And me?”

His fingers froze on the card he'd just flipped face up on the discard pile. “What?”

Her chin rose the slightest degree, a motion he'd noted well the rare times he'd led in a game of chess. “How much influence has Patricia's father wielded on my behalf, Jamie?”

He strove for nonchalance, studying his cards while a neck muscle twittered. “Some.”

“Because you're courting his daughter?”

“Partially,” he muttered, eyes still averted. “Your draw, Jess.”

“No.”

His gaze flicked up. “You don't want to play rummy?”

She blinked against a fresh sheen of moisture that pooled in her eyes. “No. I won't let you sacrifice your life for mine.”

Ice glazed in his veins. “What are you talking about?”

Her chin quivered despite the firm press of lips. “I won't have the surgery, it's as simple as that, even if they vote on it. Not if it means you courting a woman you don't even love.”

His jaw went slack. “You can't be serious—”

“Do you love her?” She angled in, fingers pinched on the table. “This Patricia?”

Heat singed the back of his neck. “I'm courting her, aren't I?”

“That's not an answer. And you said you would never lie to me, Jamie.” Her chin jutted higher as the moisture in her eyes glinted into anger, giving her the force of a woman rather than a little girl. She enunciated each word, voice climbing in volume. “Do-you-love-her?”

He slapped his cards on the table, gaze darting to where his mother paused in her conversation to send a cursory glance their way. “No,” he emphasized, “but I will.”

“Do you love Cassie?”

Blood gorged his cheeks. “That's none of your business, Jess.”

She banged a fist on the table, displaying a temper he seldom saw in his shy and gentle sister. “It is if I'm the reason you're opting for a marriage without love.”

He gripped her hand, eyes locked on hers with an intensity that fairly shimmered the air between them. “Don't do this, Jess,” he whispered harshly. “I need this surgery as much as you. Don't fight me when I'm giving you my all.”

His heart cramped when a tear dribbled down her cheek, and her words quivered as much as her lip. “It's not your ‘all' I want, Jamie,” she said gently. “It's God's.”

A heave ricocheted in his chest as he dropped her hand.
God. Always God.
First his mother and sister, then Bram and Cassie. “The Hound of Heaven,” as the tortured poet Francis Thompson proclaimed, an apt description for a God in relentless pursuit of a soul.
His.
A tic pulsed in his jaw. “How can you say that, Jess? What has God ever done for you?” he hissed.

“Oh, Jamie . . .” Her voice was a broken whisper underscored by the wetness that pooled in her eyes. “Don't you know?” She grasped his hand and lifted it to her lips for the softest of kisses. “He's given me you.”

He stared while her childlike gaze of adoration blurred before him, and in a violent rush of love, he lurched up from the table and knelt by her side, clutching her tightly. “I love you, Jess. Don't you know I would sell my soul to make you well?”

Her wobbly chuckle tickled his skin while he buried his head in her hair. “Your soul?” She kissed the side of his neck. “May I have that in writing, counselor?”

“Etched in stone,” he vowed.

Pulling away, she placed a frail hand to his jaw, the glow in her eyes nearly ethereal. “Good, because that's exactly what I need
you to do, brother dear—sell your soul.” She patted his cheek. “But to God, Jamie MacKenna, not to Patricia . . .”

His pulse jerked to a halt. “Jess, no, please—”

“Oh, yes, Jammy, because you have no choice. Either you break it off with Patricia before the vote, or I will not agree to the surgery at all, and Mama will back me up.”

Jaw gaping, he rose to his feet. “Tell me you're joking,” he said, his voice strangled. “If I break it off with Patricia, there will be no surgery. All my time, work, research—all for nothing.”

The light in her eyes seemed to intensify rather than dim. “Not for nothing, Jamie—in preparation for a miracle.” She reached for his hand. “And not just in my hip.” He shook his head and backed away. “I can't, Jess. This is too important for blind faith.”

The smile on her lips softened to tender. “It's only ‘blind' to those who don't believe, Jamie, but once we lay our will down for God's, it's amazing just how much we can suddenly see. Some say ‘seeing is believing,' but faith says ‘believing is seeing.' ” She tilted her head. “Will you do that for me? Will you merge your faith with Mama's and mine?”

Shame scalded the back of his neck. “I can't,” he whispered. “I have no faith.”

She started to rise and he lunged to anchor her, heart stopping at her grimace of pain. It quickly vanished when he cradled her close, her voice as pure and childlike as the girl he held in his arms. “ ‘If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.' ” She glanced up with a smile so full of love, it thickened the walls of his throat. “Promise me, Jammy, you'll lay your will down for God's so he can bring us the miracle we all so desperately need.”

Pulse staggering, he stared at his sister, his breathing shallow. Lay his will down for God's? Pry his fingers apart and let go, just like that? Trust a God he'd never trusted at all, just on a whim? His eyelids weighted closed. No, not on a whim. On a request from the sister he loved, the mother he cherished, and the friend he respected. The sting of tears burned in his nose when Cassie's image came to mind.
And the woman I want.