Calder Pride (25 page)

“He said he didn’t have a father, that he guessed he had never had one. He didn’t know why.”

This revelation gave Cat pause and made her uncomfortable. But she couldn’t allow doubt to set in and weaken her resolve. “His answer is hardly surprising, considering the subject has never come up before,” she said with deliberate indifference.

“He’ll have to be told about me, Cat.”

“Why?” she challenged. “It would only confuse him. He doesn’t know you. You’re a total stranger to him. Quint won’t understand any of it.”

“He’ll understand even less why you don’t tell him.”

Fully aware that her attitude was indefensible, Cat went on the attack. “Look around you, Logan. This is Quint’s backyard, as far as the eye can see in any direction. This is his legacy, his home, his future. He’s a Calder, with all the power, influence, and position that the name implies. I’ve given him that. And you want to take it from him, turn him into Quint Echohawk.” The scorn in her voice was rampant and cutting.

“I wonder if you would be quite so contemptuous if his last name was Taylor?” The look in his gray eyes was hard with mockery. “That was your dead lover’s last name, wasn’t it?”

Shock gave way to fury and guilt. Cat lashed out, the throb of both in her voice. “God, I hate you.” She turned her head to hide the tears that stung her eyes. “Why did you have to come here at all? We were happy. Content. Then you showed up and ruined it all.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

“But that’s what you’ve done. You’ve totally dis
rupted our lives, torn them apart. And you don’t really care. How can you do that?” she protested. “Haven’t I been punished enough? I loved Repp. Do you have any idea what it’s been like to live with the shame and the guilt of that night with you? Or how hard it was to face my family and Repp’s parents when I learned I was with child because of that night?”

“If I had known you were pregnant—”

“But I didn’t want you to know.” Anger blazed in her green eyes. “Don’t you understand that I didn’t want you in my life? And I don’t now!”

“What you or I might want doesn’t enter into it,” Logan replied. “Quint is the only thing that matters now.”

“Yes.” Her voice grew firm with decision. “And if you truly wanted what was best for him, you’d walk way.”

“I’m not convinced that would be best for him.” The peaked roof of the Calder home jutted above the skyline, the structure’s towering proportions making it visible for miles in the flat and empty landscape. Its size was a statement of its owner’s dominion over the surrounding plains, a dominion that implied power, wealth, and prestige, something that Cat had known all her life and none of which he could offer their son. But Logan had only to remember the hole in his own life to know that he could give Quint the one thing no one else could—a father.

“No, you would rather divide him,” Cat retorted, the sting of accusation in her voice. “You would always make him wonder if he belongs with you or here on the ranch with me. There will always be a conflict of loyalties and identity.”

“Not if we handle it right.”

She gave him a long, measuring look, then settled back in the seat, a sudden calm taking over her. “It
will be handled right, I can promise you that.” Something glinted in her eyes while complacency curved the line of her lips.

She sounded much too confident. It put Logan instantly on guard. It was obvious she objected to granting him visitation rights. But exactly what form the opposition would take, Logan couldn’t guess. Her ensuing silence made it clear she had no intention of telling him—yet.

Minutes later, he pulled into the ranch yard and parked in front of The Homestead. Chase swung the ranch pickup alongside him. The instant his grandfather switched the engine off, Quint scrambled out the passenger side of the truck and ran up to Cat.

“We followed you all the way home, Mom.”

“I know.” She smiled. It faded a little when she saw the curious glance he darted at Logan, but he didn’t ask what he was doing here. Cat was suddenly very thankful that Quint was not a naturally inquisitive child, always wanting to know the how and why of things.

Watching them, Logan studied the picture they made together. Her love for the boy was evident in the warm look in her eyes, the easy smile they shared and the loving and familiar way she touched him. Nothing in her manner or tone of voice conveyed to Quint any of the tension or the turmoil of the moment, leaving Logan in no doubt that she would go to any lengths to protect Quint.

But the picture of mother and son stayed in his mind, even after they went inside and Cat sent Quint off with Jessy to get ready for bed, promising him she would be up later to tuck him in.

He followed Chase into the spacious den. Cat paused inside the wide doorway and swung back to close both doors, all grace and motion, her skirt swirling softly about her legs. When she turned back,
Logan saw the battle light in her eyes and the sparkle of confidence. His glance drifted to her lips, laying softly together with just a hint of smugness in their line. But it was their taste he was remembering.

“Brandy?” Chase asked as he splashed some amber-colored liquor in a snifter for himself.

“No thanks,” Logan walked over to one of the high-backed chairs facing the desk and folded his long frame into it.

“You don’t drink much, do you?” Chase put the stopper back in the crystal decanter.

“Only a beer now and then.” Logan didn’t bother to add that his mother had been an alcoholic. He couldn’t remember a day when she hadn’t been drunk or nursing a hangover. As a result, he had fought shy of hard liquor, even as a youth.

Brandy snifter in hand, Chase crossed to the desk with a stiffness of gait that spoke of arthritic and aching joints. He lowered himself into the armchair behind it, then glanced at both Cat and Logan, idly swirling the liquor in his glass. “Were the two of you able to come to any decision on your way here?”

“There was no decision to make,” Cat declared airily, coming to stand near a corner of the desk, her body angling slightly toward Logan.

“Cat has indicated an unwillingness to grant visitation rights,” Logan replied evenly.

“Why should I?” Again her voice held that note of breezy unconcern.

“Because I am his father.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re not.”

Logan came out of his chair with a rush, at last realizing her game. He stopped a foot away, towering over her in his anger. She tossed her head back, meeting the hardness of his gaze with cool defiance.

“Wait a minute,” Chase broke in sharply. “You
said very clearly at Sally’s that Logan was Quint’s father.”

“I should have said he
claims
to be Quint’s father,” she corrected smoothly. “If he wants to prove otherwise, he’ll have to take me to court.”

“Are you prepared to perjure yourself?” Chase demanded, disbelief and anger warring in his voice.

“It wouldn’t be perjury, merely a lapse of memory.” Her lips curved in a taunting smile. “Regrettably, I had too much to drink that night. I don’t remember anything about it too clearly, certainly not the man who ultimately took advantage of my weakened condition.”

“As I recall, you were the aggressor that night.” Logan’s voice vibrated with the control he placed on his anger.

It was not the sort of information she wanted her father to hear. She came back quickly to cover it. “And I have no memory of that at all.”

“Cat, you’re not using your head,” her father put in. “Don’t you realize how costly a court fight will be?”

“I know. But fortunately money won’t be a problem for me, although it could put a strain on your wallet, couldn’t it, Logan?” she challenged. “It’s quite possible you’ll have to finance it. In fact, you may even have to find a better-paying job somewhere else,” she murmured with honeyed sarcasm. “Because I promise you, my attorneys will come up with so many cross-petitions and postponements that it will be years before you see the inside of a courtroom.”

“You’re determined to get me out of here, aren’t you?” Logan’s eyes were cold with anger.

“Yes, I want you gone—far away from me and from Quint. It’s what I’ve wanted all along,” she shot back.

“That’s enough!” Her father’s voice cut hard
across them. “Answer me one question, Cat. Is he the father of your child or not?”

“I told you—” she began, all cool and arrogant, her eyes still on Logan.

His hand slammed the desk as he rose from his chair. “Don’t give me any of your carefully rehearsed speeches for the judge. I want the truth!”

“Yes, he’s Quint’s father—for all the good it does him,” she addressed the last to Logan.

Chase straightened to his full height, his dark gaze boring into her. “Your mother and I did a good job of spoiling you.” It was one of the rare times he had ever mentioned her mother. The surprise of it drew Cat’s glance, but it was his look of disgust that held it. “But I never guessed you had grown so selfish that you can’t bear to share your son’s love with his own father.”

She paled a little at his harsh censure. “But he’s my son—”

“And if you truly wanted what was best for Quint, you would marry this man and give your son a name and two parents,” he stated, his mouth coming together in a tight, white line.

“An excellent suggestion,” Logan murmured, and the sound of his low voice was like an intimate caress sliding over her skin, stimulating her senses and her much-too-vivid memory of that night. She didn’t want to remember the strength of those hands, the gentleness of them or—most of all—the raw and heady sensations she had felt under their touch.

Cat turned from the memory, and from Logan, worried now that her father actually meant what he said. “My son has a name—the best one of all. He’s a Calder.”

“He’s illegitimate, a bastard. Maybe that isn’t the harsh stigma it once was. But as long as he stays around
here, that’s the way he’ll be defined when he becomes a man—the Calder bastard. People may not say it to his face, but I guarantee they’ll say it behind his back.” His words carried an unmistakable ring of truth.

Cat tried to deny them. “You’re wrong.”

“I wish I were.” His shoulders slumped a little with the heavy sigh that claimed him. “One thing I do know—if you marry Logan, the circumstances of Quint’s birth will be forgotten.”

“But—” She looked at Logan. His eyes had gone from stone-gray to smoke, disturbing in their intensity, tripping her pulse. “—I don’t love him.”

“There you go again, Cat,” Logan taunted softly, “thinking of yourself first.”

“You must have felt something for him once,” her father pointed out. “Or you wouldn’t have a child upstairs now.” She opened her mouth to protest that, but he stopped her with an upraised hand. “And don’t give me that nonsense about being drunk. You may have been drinking, but something tells me you weren’t so drunk that you didn’t know what you were doing—or who you were with, although I don’t doubt that you might have tried to convince yourself otherwise, both then and now.”

She went hot under the shrewdness of her father’s gaze. “This entire conversation is ridiculous.”

“I’m not so sure about that anymore.” He eyed both of them thoughtfully. “Your mother and I had a lot less going for us than the two of you.”

“But you loved her,” Cat argued.

He shook his head. “At the time I married her, we hadn’t seen each other in sixteen years. She was a stranger. I couldn’t be sure what my feelings were. I only knew how much she had hated me. Still, it worked out for us. There’s no reason it can’t for you two.” He sat back down. “We’ll keep the ceremony
simple, just the minister and Jessy and me for witnesses—”

Cat broke in angrily, “I am not going to marry him.”

He glanced from her to Logan, a questioning arch to one eyebrow. “What are your feelings?”

“I’d marry the devil himself if it meant having my son with me,” Logan answered simply, holding Cat’s gaze in silent challenge.

“Then you’d better go find the devil, because I’m not marrying you,” she flared. “The whole idea is so preposterous I can’t believe you would even consider it, Dad.”

“Unlike you, I’m thinking of Quint,” her father fired right back. “Marriage is, after all, a partnership that requires mutual respect, tolerance, and a shared goal. If there is affection as well, then it’s all the better.”

“If you believe that, then why haven’t you married Sally Brogan?” She spoke curtly because inside she was shaking. “I’ll tell you why—because no one can take my mother’s place in your heart or your life. Can’t you see that I feel the same?”

“Is that the reason, or are you afraid?” Logan’s half-tilted smile mocked even as his eyes burned into hers.

Stung, Cat retorted, “Certainly not of you.”

“No, not of me,” he agreed. “You’re afraid of a lot of things, but I don’t happen to be one of them.”

The conversation was taking a turn she didn’t like. “I’m not listening to any more of this.” Turning with an impatient swing of her shoulders, Cat started toward the door. “There isn’t going to be any wedding, shotgun or otherwise. And that’s final.”

Her father’s hard voice came after her. “You will marry him, or I will seek custody of Quint myself.”

She wheeled around, her heart catapulting into her throat. “What does that mean?”

“Precisely what I said—I’ll take Quint away from you myself,” he replied.

“On what grounds?” Cat demanded.

“Does it matter?” her father countered. “I can claim anything—that you are an unfit parent or emotionally unstable, whatever I choose. Then it’s simply a matter of bringing in a bunch of expert witnesses to back it up.”

“But it wouldn’t be true,” she protested.

“I never said it would be,” he reminded her. “I only said I would do it. And there isn’t a judge in this whole state that doesn’t owe me something. I would win, Cat. We both know it.”

“How could you do that to me? You’re my father.”

Regret clouded his eyes. “I don’t want to do it, Cat. But if that’s what it will take to force you to do the right thing for your son, I’ll do it.”

“No.” The small cry was wrenched from her.

“You’re going too far, Calder,” Logan declared, a telling roughness in his voice.