The calamity Janes (12 page)

“Right here in town, ironically, though we were both in the same law school. Kit was dating Ryan’s sister, Adele. We met at a party during a school break.”

“That must have been awkward.”

She nodded. “It could have been, but Adele and I
talked. She said she wasn’t upset about it, so Kit and I started to see each other.”

“How long did you know each other before you married?”

“A year.”

“Then you got married when you got out of law school?”

“No, when he got out. I still had another year.”

“And Caitlyn, when did she come along?”

“Right after I graduated. Kit was already doing very well. He’d had a couple of high-profile cases that had gone really well—his career was on a fast track.”

“Did you consider staying home, instead of going to work?”

She frowned at the question, probably without any idea of how much she was giving away by that simple reaction. “No,” she said, her voice suddenly tight.

Ford was feeling his way now, trying to step lightly through what was clearly a minefield. “How did your husband feel about that?”

“He wasn’t happy,” she admitted candidly. “Look, I really don’t like to talk about this. I don’t see what it has to do with anything, anyway.”

He smiled. “It’s called getting to know each other, Emma. I ask you a few questions. You answer. Then you ask me questions and I answer.”

“Okay, then, you’ve had your turn. Let’s switch,” she said a little too eagerly.

Ford knew better than to pursue his own line of questioning, but he was satisfied that he was on the right track. Emma more than understood Sue Ellen’s plight. In one way or another, she had lived it. The thought made him shudder. Please, God, he prayed, let it have been emotional abuse over the work issue, not
physical abuse. But even as he mentally uttered the prayer, he had to wonder if the scars were likely to be any less deep.

When she woke up the next day, Emma was still shaken by her conversation with Ford the night before. He had come far too close to discovering the truth about her marriage. Even as wary as she was, she had found herself answering questions she normally called a halt to much sooner. In the end, though, she hadn’t wanted him to know just how rough a time she’d had during the months before she and Kit had finally called it quits. If Ford knew, he might pity her, and that was the last response she wanted from him.

To get her mind off her own problems, she left the house early in the morning and went in search of her brother. When she didn’t find him in the barn or stables, she saddled one of the horses and rode out looking for him. It almost didn’t even matter whether she found him. The physical exertion of riding combined with the rugged landscape worked like a balm to help her forget just how disconcerting Ford could be and how much she was coming to count on his presence in her life.

She was riding over the rough terrain of the foothills when she spotted Matt and several of the other men with the herd of cattle. Her brother saw her, waved and rode over.

“What brings you out here?”

“Clearing the cobwebs,” she said. “Besides, Matt, you and I haven’t had much of a chance to talk since I’ve been home. Even when you come by to see Dad, you don’t stick around.”

He bristled at once. “Meaning?”

“That you’re my brother, and I think you’re avoiding me. I want to know what’s up with you.”

He scowled at her. “Why does anything have to be up with me?” He took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh. “Dammit, Em, I don’t have time for this.”

Emma scowled right back at him. “‘This?’ What does that mean? I’m not cross-examining you. I’m asking how you’re doing. Is that a problem?”

Matt sighed. “Sorry,” he mumbled defensively. “I’m a little touchy lately.”

“No kidding,” she said, keeping her tone determinedly light. “Why is that?”

“Because Martha and Mom are nagging at me every time I turn around.”

“About?”

“Whether I’m happy, what I want to do with my life, et cetera, et cetera. I’m getting sick of it. I don’t understand why they can’t just let things alone. I’m working here for Dad. End of story.”

“Is it?” Emma asked mildly. “Is it the end of the story?”

“Not you, too?” he said, regarding her with disappointment. “Who put you up to this? Mom or Martha?”

“Nobody put me up to anything,” she chided. “Sisters can figure out all on their own when something’s not right. I’ve never seen you so short-tempered and moody before.” Suddenly she had a thought that nobody else seemed to have considered, or else had refused to verbalize. “You’re not involved with another woman, are you, Matt?”

“Good grief, no,” he said.

He was staring at her so incredulously that Emma was instantly relieved.

“Have you lost your mind?” he demanded. “When would I have
time,
for one thing? For another, I love my wife, even if she is a damned nag.”

Emma grinned. “Glad to hear it. Now let’s get to the bottom of what’s really wrong. Martha thinks you’re not happy working the ranch.”

“Martha has a big mouth.”

“Mom agrees.”

He frowned but resisted any temptation to criticize their mother.

“Are you unhappy?” Emma asked.

“This is what I do,” he said.

She regarded him with exaggerated patience. “That’s not what I asked. Are you happy being a rancher?”

“Okay, if you want the unvarnished truth, the answer is no. Are you satisfied? The bottom line is, I hate this but Dad needs me here, and that’s that.”

“That is not that,” Emma retorted. “Tell him. Do you know what you’d rather do? Do you want to go to college?”

“Emma, that’s a pipe dream. I have a wife. I have kids. And I have a job working for a man I can’t abandon as easily as some other people did.”

She winced at that. “Dad got over my leaving. He accepted Wayne’s choice.”

“Wanna bet? One of these days ask him about the blueprints he has stashed in his desk.”

“Blueprints?”

“For your house and for Wayne’s. He picked out the rise just beyond the main house for you. Wayne’s would have been about five hundred yards from mine, overlooking the creek.”

Tears stung Emma’s eyes. She’d had no idea. “I didn’t know,” she whispered.

“Of course you didn’t, because you were hell-bent on getting away and doing what you damned well pleased. I watched Dad die inside every time you left to go back to school, but even then he held out hope that someday you’d be back. Even when you got married, I think he thought you and Kit would settle here after you’d graduated. Not until the day you went to work for that law firm in Denver did he finally give up and accept the truth that you were never coming home.”

“I did what I had to do,” Emma said in her own defense.

“Yeah, and it’s made you real happy, hasn’t it? I see the haunted look in your eyes, sis. You’re on a merry-go-round and you’re miserable, but you just haven’t figured out how to get off.”

Emma had ridden out here today to help Matt face a few hard truths about his life, but he’d turned the tables on her. Now she was the one suddenly consumed with painful regrets.

“Perhaps you’re right,” she said softly.

“Well, when you get your own life straightened out, maybe then I’ll let you have a crack at mine,” Matt said, then turned and rode away.

It was just as well. Emma was pretty much speechless anyway.

“M
ommy, is Ford going to be my new daddy?” Caitlyn asked as she spooned cornflakes into her mouth on Sunday morning.

“No, absolutely not,” Emma snapped. After her disconcerting conversation with Matt, this was absolutely the last thing Emma needed today. She swallowed hard when she realized that Caitlyn’s eyes were brimming with tears. “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to yell.”

“I like him,” Caitlyn said with a sniff. “I want him to be my new dad. Besides, if you married him, we could live here.”

Emma didn’t have the patience or the words to explain all of the flaws in her daughter’s logic. What worried her most, though, was how eager Caitlyn was to claim Ford as a father. The two of them had only spent one day together, yet Caitlyn was already making up fantasies about him. That suggested she was des
perate for a replacement for the man who paid no attention to her back in Denver.

“Baby, you don’t really know Ford all that well,” Emma explained. “Before somebody can be your daddy, we both have to get to know him and make sure he’s the right person.”

“I
know
he is,” Caitlyn said, regarding her seriously.

“What makes you so sure?” Maybe her six-year-old daughter had insights that would help her see Ford in a new light. How pathetic was that?

“Because he was really, really nice to me,” Caitlyn began predictably. “And he’s cute, and he understood that it was really, really important for me to have ice cream even though we’d already had pizza.”

“Yeah, I can see why that would be a clincher,” Emma said wryly. “But there are more important things to consider.”

“What things?”

“Grown-up things.”

“But I get a say, don’t I?”

“When the time comes, of course you get to express an opinion,” Emma assured her. “Yours is just not the most important opinion.”

“Who gets that?”

“Me.”

“Maybe I should pick,” Caitlyn said, a frown puckering her brow. “You didn’t do such a good job last time.”

It was all Emma could do not to burst into tears. For her daughter to say something so matter-of-factly condemning her own father—and her mother’s judgment—spoke volumes about what she’d been through, about what the adults in her life had put her through.
Emma had always prayed that Caitlyn had been oblivious to most of it. Obviously she’d been wrong.

She reached for her daughter’s hand and pressed kisses to her fingers. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. But there’s one thing we should never, ever forget, no matter how mad or sad your dad makes us.”

Caitlyn regarded her doubtfully. “What?”

“If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have you,” Emma said softly. “And you are the very best thing that has ever happened to me. So every single day I thank God that your dad and I made you.”

Caitlyn seemed intrigued by the concept. “You mean like you’d make a doll? Did you put me together?”

Emma laughed. “No, it didn’t work like that. Someday I’ll explain.”

“I want to know now. I saw Pepper have her kittens in the barn yesterday. Was it like that?”

Emma had forgotten how many lessons there were to be learned on a ranch at a very early age. “Something like that.”

“I was inside you?”

Emma was beginning to regret opening up this particular topic. “Yes.”

“And Daddy put me there?”

“Yes.”

“How? By kissing you?”

“That was part of it.”

Caitlyn’s eyes widened. “Does that mean you and Ford are gonna have a baby?”

“Good heavens, no.”

“But he kissed you when he brought you home.”

Emma was clinging to her sanity by a thread. “It wasn’t the same kind of kiss,” she explained patiently.
“Now finish your cereal. I think your grandfather is waiting for you down at the barn. He wants you to help him groom your pony this morning.”

“I’m done,” Caitlyn said, suddenly eager, the disconcerting topic of making babies forgotten. She jumped down from her chair. “Bye, Mommy. Did Grandpa tell you I could have one of the kittens for my very own?”

“No, he neglected to mention that,” Emma said, already resigned to the inevitable. Maybe the prospect of taking home a kitten would make the break easier for Caitlyn when they went back to Denver tomorrow.

Caitlyn regarded her worriedly. “It’s okay, isn’t it?”

“It’s okay.”

Her daughter raced back and threw her arms around Emma’s neck. “I love you, Mommy.”

“I love you, too,” Emma whispered, but Caitlyn was already gone, the screen door slamming behind her.

A sound had Emma turning around to find her mother lurking in the doorway to the dining room.

“Out of the mouths of babes,” her mother said.

“I think she’s six, going on sixteen. What on earth is she going to be asking me when she’s a teenager for real?” Emma asked.

“The same things, only she’ll want to know because
she’s
interested in some boy. Now it’s because she thinks
you
are.” Her mother studied her with a penetrating gaze. “Are you?”

“I like Ford, Mom,” she said cautiously, hoping to dispel the hopeful look in her mother’s eyes. “As a friend.”

“He seems like an awfully nice man.”

Emma regarded Millie with exasperation. “You
would say that. He’s a pawn in your scheme, isn’t he? I saw the two of you the other night with your heads together. He wouldn’t tell me what you were talking about, but I know you. Don’t use Ford, Mom. It’s not fair to him.”

“I would never use anyone,” her mother retorted with indignation, then shrugged. “But if there’s an attraction there, I am not above fanning it.”

“Stay out of it,” Emma advised. “No good will come of encouraging him.”

“Because you’re too stubborn to see what’s in front of your face, I imagine.”

Emma sighed. “I am not having this conversation again. I’m going into town. Should I get Caitlyn and take her along?”

“Absolutely not. She’s fine with your father. If she starts getting in his way, she can help me bake cookies until it’s time to go to church. She seemed surprised when I took some out of the oven the other day. She said she thought cookies came from the store.”

“Some do,” Emma said tightly. “Caitlyn is not deprived just because I don’t bake cookies with her.”

“Did I say she was?”

“More or less,” Emma said. Her defensiveness was firmly in place, and it wasn’t even eight in the morning yet. “I’ll see you later.”

She left before she could get into a full-blown argument with her mother. One thing for certain, she couldn’t stay here much longer without all of the unspoken criticism of her lifestyle bubbling to the surface. She had to leave before there was a rift in the family that could never be mended.

“You look as if you’ve lost your best friend,” Ford said when he spotted Emma sitting in a booth at
Stella’s, an untouched cup of coffee cooling in front of her. “Can I help?”

“Not unless you can think of a way to convince my mother that I am not ruining my daughter’s life because I don’t have time to teach her to bake cookies.”

He could see how such an accusation might get Emma’s dander up. She was the kind of woman who needed to believe that she was excelling at whatever she tackled, motherhood included. Obviously she wouldn’t like her shortcomings pointed out to her.

“Tensions running high at the ranch this morning?” he asked, keeping his tone light.

“You could say that. I’ve always sensed that they disapproved of the way I was raising Caitlyn, but now that I’ve been here a while, it’s all beginning to come out. Before, my visits were so brief there wasn’t time to get into anything serious. Now the potshots are starting to fly.”

“It’s only because they care about you and Caitlyn,” he said.

Emma regarded him with obvious impatience. “I
know
that. That doesn’t make it any easier to take. To top it off, my daughter seems to think she should get to choose the next man in my life, because I didn’t do so well the last time.”

Ford bit back a grin. “Does she have any particular candidate in mind?”

Emma frowned at him. “As if I’d tell you.”

He couldn’t help it. He smiled. “Dare I hope that she picked me?”

“Don’t be so smug. You were convenient. Besides, it was the pizza and ice cream combination that did it.
And that was a one-time-only concession on my part. If you try it again, I’ll shoot you down.”

“She didn’t get sick, did she?”

“No, but that’s not the point. That’s a little too much indulgence for a six-year-old. Next thing I know, you’ll be plying her with hot dogs and cotton candy and ice-cream sundaes. She’ll want to move in with you.”

“A treat now and then can’t hurt her.”

“
Now
and
then
being the key words. Keep them in mind.”

“Are you really upset because Caitlyn had a good time the other night, or is the real problem that
you
did?” Ford challenged her.

He could tell from her startled reaction that his perception was right on the mark. “You did have a good time, didn’t you, despite worrying about what your mother and I were up to?”

“Okay, yes, it was nice to spend a relaxing day out with nothing more important on my mind than choosing shorts and T-shirts for Caitlyn.” She regarded him curiously. “How about you? Were you bored to tears? Men usually hate shopping.”

“I was in it for the company.” His gaze locked with hers. “You could never bore me, Emma.”

She looked shaken by his claim. “Don’t say things like that.”

“Why not, if it’s true?”

“It can’t be true.”

Ford chuckled. “You don’t want me to think of you as an intellectually stimulating, exciting, attractive woman?”

She seemed surprisingly puzzled by the description. “That’s how you see me?”
“Of course,” he said at once, then studied her. “Emma, how do you see yourself?”

“Oh, I suppose I’m smart enough, but the rest…I don’t know.”

“Trust me, you are exciting and attractive. When did you begin to doubt that? Was it your husband? What did he do to you, Emma?” He could barely keep the anger out of his voice. The man had obviously been a first-class jerk.

She gave him a faint smile. “Leaping to my defense, Ford?”

“Just speaking the truth. If he did anything to convince you that you were somehow unworthy or less than who you are, he was an idiot.”

“Thank you for saying that.”

“You still haven’t answered me. What did he do?”

“I don’t want to get into a discussion of my ex-husband.”

“I think you need to,” he said. “I think you need to talk about it. Have you ever told anyone what your marriage was like?”

“My friends know, more or less.”

“My guess is less. Did you keep it to yourself because you felt humiliated in some way? Failing at marriage isn’t that uncommon in this day and age. It doesn’t make you any less of a woman.” He looked directly into her eyes. “Unless, of course, you’re a perfectionist.”

That faint smile came and went again. “You got me,” she said lightly.

“Well, it takes two to make a marriage work. Whatever happened in yours, your ex-husband deserves his share of the blame. In fact, one of these days, when you trust me enough to tell me what really happened,
I have a feeling you’re going to realize that in this case, he deserves most of the blame.”

She gave him a rueful look. “Funny thing about that. Intellectually I know you’re right. Everything played out exactly the way it had to.” She tapped her chest. “In here, though, I’m having a hard time buying it.”

“Stick with me,” Ford said lightly. “I’ll work on convincing you.”

Something told him it was going to be worth the effort, that Emma Rogers would be a helluva woman once she believed in herself again. Right now, she valued herself only when it came to her skills as a lawyer. To give her a boost in the new direction, he leaned down and pressed a hard kiss to her lips.

“Gotta run,” he said, once he was satisfied that he’d stirred enough heat to get her attention. “I promised the pastor at the Methodist church that I’d come to hear his sermon this morning. I believe he’s talking about second chances.”

Apparently he’d rendered her speechless, because she simply watched him go, but the blush on her cheeks and the glimmer of hope in her eyes spoke volumes.

“Well, now, that was absolutely fascinating,” Cassie said, fanning herself as she slid into the booth opposite Emma. “I do believe I’m breathless just from watching.”

Emma scowled at her. “Leave it alone.”

“Why? The man doesn’t scare you, does he?”

“Of course not.”

Cassie grinned. “Liar. You’re scared spitless. You’re actually starting to feel something for Ford Hamilton, and that would be darned inconvenient, wouldn’t it?”

“Inconvenient doesn’t begin to cover it,” Emma muttered. “I don’t trust him. I can’t.”

“Ford?” Cassie said incredulously. “Why on earth not?”

“He’s a journalist.”

“So?”

“He’s in a position to do considerable damage to my client. He already has, by letting that picture Teddy took make its way into the Cheyenne paper.”

“By the time this case goes to trial, people will have forgotten all about that picture,” Cassie predicted.

“You can bet the prosecutor won’t have forgotten. I’m betting he’s already gotten a warrant for the original,” Emma told her friend.

“That would have happened anyway. Too many people knew Teddy took pictures that night and that there was a fight. Don’t you think a halfway decent prosecutor would have found out sooner or later and come after the film?”

“I suppose.” Actually, Emma acknowledged to herself, Cassie was right, though the prosecutor might have had less luck getting his hands on anything incriminating if none of the photos had been printed. She could have made a case that Ford had no obligation to turn over anything that hadn’t been in the paper. It might have worked.

“You’re not going to let that picture stand between you and Ford, are you?”

Emma sighed. “Not really. I did go out with him. We took Caitlyn to the mall over in Laramie and went to a movie.”

Cassie beamed. “That’s terrific. Give him a chance. I don’t think Ford is the kind of man who’ll let you down.”