Texas Redeemed (8 page)

In the hospital library yesterday she’d heard Manuel
address him as Doctor Turner. But from the way he’d been dressed she’d right
away pegged him as the hotshot
Nip/Tuck
doctor
type. Not the travel-all-over-the-world-to-help-people type.

Guilt singed her fingers as she hastily put everything
back, but she paused when she noticed the double frame peeking out from beneath
all the papers and pictures.

Stunned, she stared at her and Anna’s kindergarten
pictures. Had her mom given this frame to him, or had he taken it from their
house when her back was turned? Why would he want to have their pictures,
anyway? It wasn’t like he could actually care about his daughters. They were a
part of their mom—the best part, she sometimes said—and he’d left her high and
dry.

Unsettled, Lucy continued to straighten up, her curiosity
stirring more questions that probably wouldn’t get answered unless she admitted
all the dumb, impulsive—and illegal, if taking into account truancy and
trespassing—things she’d done today.

No point in getting busted when she hadn’t even done what
she’d come here to do.

It would be a close call, but maybe she’d be able to get
home without anybody suspecting a thing. Well, anybody except Jasper, who would
wonder why she had taken off with a stomachache. And Sarah, who was probably
itching to grill her about where she’d gone today. Could she pull it off?

Maybe,
Lucy
thought, racing down the wide staircase as quietly and quickly as she could,
just maybe
…

At the bottom step she almost toppled over, coming
face-to-face with her dad.

… or maybe not.

“W
HOA
… EASY NOW
, Brute,” Valerie coaxed with a
careful mixture of calmness and firmness in her voice as she pulled the reins
toward her stomach and shifted backward to slow her newest horse’s pace. The
sorrel gelding had a big stride and was better than most at roping and cutting
straight out of purchase, but he was still green and even temperamental.

At her command he stubbornly bucked, bouncing her once,
twice—hard—in the saddle, but she held fast and squeezed him with her knees
against his sides until he came to a full stop. The brim of her hat took away
some of the sting from the afternoon sun, but she still had to squint through
the brightness to see the hands who’d helped round up the cattle. With the land
moist from yesterday’s rain, the westward pasture slope was a good place to
push the cattle for fresh grazing.

“How’re you doing, Coop?” she called out to the ranch’s
head foreman, who’d taken four days off last week with complaints of a sore
back. Cooper Calhoun was in his sixties, and had worked the ranch in her
uncle’s era. He had good instincts and superb knowledge of the land, but was
set in his ways and not too keen on change—particularly the leadership of a woman
he remembered as a “young’un underfoot all the time.” Today she had been
reluctant to have him along, but he’d brushed off her concerns and insisted
that he wasn’t yet old enough to be put out to pasture.

“Better’n you, by the looks of things,” Coop answered,
guiding his horse toward her. Jack, Cordelia and three of their part-timers
approached, their horses’ hooves kicking up dust and dirt in their wake. “Ask
me, you’re playing with fire with that gelding. That’s a loose cannon you’re
sitting on.”

Valerie rolled her shoulders to relieve the stiffness
that had settled there. Brute wouldn’t get any more comfortable or experienced
with their routine if she didn’t take him out. The autumn cattle drive, in just
over two weeks from now, would be the ideal time to work him. But first he
needed to get used to the ranch, the herd, the environment and, most important,
the handler. “Loose cannon, hmm? Good thing there’s not a spark on my ass.”

The others chuckled, and Coop flushed deep rose in his
already ruddy complexion.

“Aw, now, don’t tell me you’re getting soft, Coop,”
teased Cordelia. “If there’s a horsewoman out there to tame a wild one, it’s
Val. Plus she and I’ve got something y’all don’t—female magic.”

The men made loud noises of protest and Valerie snickered,
watching them get riled up. She tipped her high-crowned hat back far enough to
wipe the sweat from her hairline. There was a decent breeze up in the
mountains, but her group had been steering horses and wrangling cattle most of
the day, which made for grimy clothes, sweaty skin and sore bums.

“Female magic works on male beasts of
any
species, especially the human
variety,” Cordelia boasted with a deep-dimpled grin.

Her husband lowered his head, embarrassed. “For goodness’
sake, Dee …”

She shrugged, feigning innocence. “What?”

“I think he’s trying to tell you that’s too much
information,” Valerie offered.

Cordelia angled her horse close enough for her to reach
out a hand and squeeze Jack’s biceps. He settled his blue-eyed gaze on her and
she lowered her lashes for an instant before turning her horse and riding away
from the group toward the remaining scatter of cattle that had yet to be
wrestled west.

The men followed, debating a different subject. Valerie
brought up the rear, cautious of her gelding but with her attention now split.
She watched her cousin ride off into the distance, her tangled black hair
flying, her flannel overshirt billowing in the wind. With one private look,
Cordelia and her husband had spoken volumes to each other. And despite the fact
that they were filthy and smelled of prime horseflesh, there was clear desire
in the look they shared.

What was it like to be that close, that in tune with
another person?

Part of Valerie wanted to know, but a larger part didn’t.
There was a unique layer of vulnerability in letting someone get close enough
to know you that well. And it was too dangerous to dabble with.

To focus her thoughts on the task at hand, Valerie leaned
forward on Brute and whipped the reins. “Daylight’s wasting, everyone. Let’s
finish up and we’ll have dinner at the main house. Dinah’s got stew and
biscuits on the menu for tonight,” she called out to the group as Brute carried
her past them.

The men whooped and hollered. There was nothing like the
promise of a hearty, hot meal to boost morale.

Another hour later, Coop led the way to the stables. The
sun was just starting to drop low in the sky and the warmth in the air was
disappearing fast. The floodlights, landscape lighting and lamplights were
already ablaze, battling the inevitable darkness with a soft yellow glow.

Valerie was looking forward to sitting down to dinner as
much as the others—maybe more. After seeing Peyton yesterday, she’d had
virtually no appetite and one hell of a restless night. It had felt good to be
outdoors today, dealing with animals. Animals, she could understand. Men, not
so much.

Certainly not the man who’d invaded her dreams last
night.

“Get it together,” she murmured aloud, leading Brute by
the reins to his stall where she would remove his gear and give him a brushing.

“Who’re you talkin’ to?” Coop asked from the next stall,
peering at her curiously under his battered cowboy hat. He held his horse’s
lead in one hand and halter in the other, apparently too invested in her
one-sided conversation to head to the tack room.

“Uh—n-nobody,” Valerie floundered, jumbling her words
into an unintelligible mess. She started for Brute but slipped a little on a
scatter of hay under her boot.

“I’ll be damned. That horse’s got you all spaghetti-legged,”
Coop declared, gathering the interest of the others.

“Not at all, Coop,” she rebutted with a steely look.
After a sleepless night followed by a day of hard work, her nerves were live
wires. “You’re more than welcome to head to the bunkhouse after you’re done
with that. Unless you want to stay for dinner.”

In other words,
Undermine
me again and you’re not welcome at my table.

“I’ll …” he gestured with the halter toward the tack room
“… just put all this away, then get washed up and meet y’all at the house.”

That was as close to an apology she was going to get from
Coop, who considered himself among the “last of the real cowboys.”

She watched him saunter off with hunched shoulders and a
bow-legged gait, then swiftly but thoroughly brushed Brute. In the barn, where
she’d gone to sweep up the loose hay that had found its way out to the stables,
Cordelia caught up with her.

“So, Coop getting on your nerves again?” her cousin
guessed in a conspiratorial whisper.

“No more than usual,” Valerie admitted, hanging her hat
on a hook then undoing her fishtail braid. “Just a lot on my mind …” Her voice
trailed off as she heard a meow close by. She stepped around Cordelia to see
Pisces, the gray striped barn cat Lucy called her “fur baby.” She knelt to
stroke its soft back and belly but it reared back in objection.

“Wonder what this one’s doing out and about in the
chill,” Cordelia said as the cat circled her feet, swiping its tail across her
legs. “On a night like this I figured Luce would’ve had it snuggled in here
with blankets and a bowl of warm milk.”

Valerie dipped out of the barn, trying to peer through
the deepening nightfall at the main house. It wasn’t like Lucy to forget about
Pisces. A feeling of unease scooted around inside her.

Jack turned the corner, got one look at her frown and
asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Maybe nothing.”
Maybe
everything.

Valerie tried to step around him with her cousin trailing
behind. But Dinah came rushing forward with her springy gray curls bobbing
around her plump face. “Lucy? Where—” Valerie demanded at the same time as
Dinah blurted, “I must’ve called you nearly ten times, but the pastures—”

“Tell me where my daughter is.”

“I can’t.” Dinah glanced from Cordelia to Jack and
finally to Valerie. “The school called. She didn’t show up to her last class.
Darlin’, she hasn’t come home.”

“Please … no.” Valerie’s plea was a dry whisper directed
at no one specifically. Who or what could she plead to when her heart was on
the verge of breaking? Between Battle Creek and the school downtown were
countless opportunities for something unthinkable to happen to a child. Danger
lived everywhere, even in a tight community like Night Sky. The worst kind of
tragedy that could strike a parent—the kind that cut a person fresh every day
even as the years fell away—had happened in this town.

She knew that better than anyone.

T
EARS SCALDED
V
ALERIE’S
eyes as she broke
through the circle of family and friends banding around her. Fear took up
residence in every cranny of her mind, and all those confused, concerned stares
didn’t help. They only cared—she knew that. But they couldn’t help her. No one,
not even Nathaniel Turner with all his wealth and power, had been able to help
when she lost Anna.

A hand snagged her shoulder, stopping her midstride. “Where are you going?” Jack asked. “Valerie?”

“To find Lucy. Why would you even ask me that?”

“You can’t do it
alone,” Cordelia protested. “I’ll call Chief Bishop—”

“Maybe hold off on that, Delia.” There was Lucy stepping out of the shadows beyond the stables.
And right behind her was Peyton.

Valerie was so numb with fury that she didn’t notice when Jack let go of her shoulder. The instant
anger must’ve rolled off her like radioactive waves because in a few short
moments nearly everyone had shuffled away from her.

It was almost too
outrageous to believe that Peyton had taken Lucy away without a single warning,
without Valerie having a clue.

Could he have left
Night Sky or Texas altogether with her?

The answer sent a
chilling sensation sliding down Valerie’s spine.

“You son of a—” Out
of the corner of her eye she saw Lucy’s mouth fall open in shock.

Jack interrupted
with, “Guys, let’s get a move on.” The ranch hands headed toward the bunkhouses
while he, Cordelia and Dinah set out for the main house.

That left Valerie
alone with Peyton and Lucy—and an anger so intense it seemed to take on its own
life. “Peyton, you
took
Lucy from school? That’s kidnapping.”

He started to
respond but stepped behind Lucy, put his hands on her shoulders and ushered her
forward a couple of paces. “Either let her have the cops throw me in lockup or
tell the truth.”

Lucy’s gaze
flickered to Valerie as she edged slightly backward. “Uh … Mom, he didn’t take
me from school. I left on my own. I wanted to see him.” Lucy turned slightly to
glance up at her father, and in that brief moment they resembled one another
uncannily with those piercing eyes and that identical sullen look … both so
beautiful that it hurt.

Like father,
like daughter,
some would say.
Look alike, act alike.
But Valerie
hated the thought of it. Just because Peyton had tried to throw his life away
and had ditched this town to do who-knows-what didn’t mean Lucy would be the
same way.

One thing she
wouldn’t do on her own was deliberately worry her mother.

“The truth, Lucy.
All of it.”

“I … um … took a
taxi to Gramps’s place.” At her mother’s staggered look she went on. “Gramps
wasn’t home, but like I said, I wanted to see my dad to … uh … tell him to go
away.”

Valerie dragged her
eyes from Lucy to Peyton, expecting to find offense in his expression. But he
continued to stand stoically.

“Please don’t be
mad at Jasper,” Lucy said. “I told him I had a stomachache and that he
shouldn’t call you ’cause you were castrating a bull today.”

At this Peyton
centered those sharp blue-gray eyes on Valerie, taking inventory from her
windswept hair to her dusty boots.

She focused on
Lucy, for the first time seeing not the daughter she thought she’d known better
than her own reflection but instead a person capable of lies and manipulation.
“Get inside and start your homework.”

“Already done.
He
made me finish it all at Gramps’s.” The venomous teenage attitude in her tone
wasn’t lost on Valerie, who was usually the target when doling out chores,
enforcing rules and, of course, making sure that homework wasn’t tossed by the
wayside.

“Then set the
table. The guys are eating with us tonight, so we’ll talk later. Believe that.”

Lucy didn’t object,
as if she’d been expecting the anvil to drop. “Sorry, Mom,” she said in a small
voice, sounding almost like the scared little girl who hadn’t understood why
she’d never see her twin sister again.

“Just go, Lucy.”

Stricken by the
bite in the words, she shook her father’s hands from her shoulders and ran past
the stables to the house. She didn’t even stop to greet Pisces, who’d slunk out
of the barn and was lingering nearby and meowing melodiously.

Valerie rubbed her
arms but not because of the evening wind. “Peyton, the point of her little
adventure was to tell you to go away. Did she?”

“No. Guess she lost
her nerve.” He moved only a few steps toward her, but even that was too close.
Close enough to make her fully aware of his height, the contours of his sinewy
body, the twitch of muscle in his jaw when he briefly gritted his teeth. “You
asked her to do that?”

“Did I ask my
twelve-year-old daughter to cut school and take a taxi across town?”

Peyton didn’t
appear contrite about the insult of his insinuation. “Maybe she got the
impression you don’t want me around and figured she could get the job done.”

She stood at a
momentary loss for words, feeling caught off guard and injured. “Keep
speculating, but try not to bust your ass jumping to conclusions.”

“Answer the
question.”

If Valerie could’ve
jabbed her boot heels down any harder she’d be knee-deep in the ground. “The
answer’s no. No, as in I didn’t give her that impression.” At least, she’d
tried not to, even though the knowledge that he was back had her taking
inventory of all she stood to lose. “Before she was even old enough to
understand it, I told her that you never knew I was pregnant. After all, how
could you? You were gone before I knew myself.”

She couldn’t resist
adding that last jab, but somehow making him feel uncomfortable—and she knew
she had by the way his mouth pulled into a tight line—didn’t make her feel any
more comfy.

“Is this something
that’ll always be in the way?” he asked, so gently she almost didn’t hear him.

Valerie searched
his face in the deepening twilight. His short, mussed hair looked dark under
the shadows. There was a touch of stubble across his jaw and cleft chin. His
nose was different—with a slight telltale crookedness that revealed he’d been
hit once or twice. But for a split second he resembled the boy he used to be.
“In the way of what?”

“Of me getting to
know my daughter.”

The mirage
shattered. Shouldn’t she be relieved though? Illusions—and expectations—were
far too risky, especially when it came to Peyton.

“Like I said last
night, I’m out to protect Lucy. Don’t give her all these high hopes built on
nothing or on promises you know you’re not going to back up. And try getting
ahold of me when you know she’s someplace where she shouldn’t be.”

He turned, hands
up, and took a few steps in the direction he’d come from. Then he pivoted and
shot back, “Check your messages, Valerie. The second Lucy gave me your cell
number I called. What the hell was I supposed to do? Bring her to you in the
mountains on horseback?”

As if he could.
Years of jet-setting, of riding fast cars and equally fast women, had probably
left him unable even to sit upright on a horse. Narrow-eyed, she said, “No, but
you could’ve left her at the house with Dinah.” At his blank look she
clarified, “Dinah, my uncle’s ex-wife. She lives with us and helps keep an eye
on Lucy.”

“Seems you and
Dinah’ve got your hands full if Lucy’s pulling stunts like this and racking up
detention hours. Is she a class clown or—”

Valerie wondered if
her color had risen enough for him to notice in the limited light. “Or what,
Peyton? A mean troublemaker like you?” She exhaled slowly, forcing herself to remember
to breathe. “I’m handling it, okay? And she’s never pulled a ‘stunt like this’
before.
”

“Before what?” The
way he said it told her he already knew exactly what she’d meant.

“Before you. First
a crying jag, then cutting school. What next?”

“Next I’ll make it
all better, just disappear and forget about Lucy? Forget about Anna?” His voice
cracked on Anna’s name, and she knew in her gut how affected he was.

That. That right
there. It’s how I feel every other second. It’s like a splinter to the heart.
“So where do we go from here? This—” she gestured at the expanse of land around
them “—is my world. Not yours.”

“Funny how that
didn’t matter when we were friends. I would come here and do chores just to be
with you. And after my grandmother died you’d visit my place just to be with
me. We were good together then.”

Were. The past.
Over. “It did matter, though. Evidently our friendship couldn’t hold up even
then.”

Peyton waited a
beat, then said, “The point is, we’re
here
now. In the present. I won’t
be kept out of Lucy’s life. Is my name even on her birth certificate?” At her
headshake he sighed roughly. “How long did you wait before telling her about
me?”

“I told her and
Anna about you when they were sick. That’s when your grandfather had found out
who they were.” She dug the toe of one boot into the ground. “Putting your name
on Lucy’s birth certificate is … fair … but aside from that—”

“Blaming me for her
behavior these past two days won’t convince me to turn tail and run. I’m her
father—”

This time she
interrupted, because the word
father
dripped with apprehension. “Out of
obligation, Peyton. Not because you want to be. Well, having no father at all
is better than having a terrible one. Think—
really
think—about the
circles your mother ran around you. You’ll see that I’m right.”

His eyes sharpened,
and there it was—only a flicker, but surely a trace of the explosive,
destructive man he’d become right before he’d run himself out of town. His
mother, in his life or not, was a hellhound he couldn’t break away from, and it
chilled Valerie to realize that the woman still possessed some sort of hold on
him.

“Lucy needs to know
I’m not walking out on her,” he said.

How close could he
get before he became
too
close? The good doctor didn’t seem even remotely
interested in healing their friendship. Probably because it was too damaged,
had been for too long … and was dead far beyond resurrection.

Maybe that wasn’t
such a bad thing, holding him at arm’s length. Despite all the measures he’d
taken to avoid tying himself down, he was unwavering about this. For now, at
least. Could he be some sort of father to Lucy without chipping away at Valerie’s
guard? Without adding to the guilt that had resurfaced full force the moment
she saw him outside the hospital boardroom?

She hoped to hell
that would be the case. “We can talk about visitation—”

Peyton looked ready
to shoot the suggestion down, but they were both cut short by Dinah.

“Kids, kids!” she
called, making her way along the stone pathway from the house. The aroma of
beef gravy reached them before she did. “Dinner’ll be done soon. You like stew,
hon?”

Valerie followed
Dinah’s expectant gaze to Peyton. The older woman referred to anyone as “hon”
and just about anyone under the age of sixty as “kid.” “Oh, Dinah, he’s not
stay—”

“In fact, I’d love
stew,” Peyton broke in. “Been a long time since I had a home-cooked meal.”

“We’ll fix that
straightaway,” Dinah declared with a decisive nod.

He extended his
hand to her, suddenly all charm and charisma. “Thanks for the invite, Miss
Dinah. I’m Peyton Turner.”

Dinah positively
beamed, beside herself to have another person to feed. “‘Miss’! Hmm, I haven’t
been called that in forever and a day. And I know just who you are, Doc. Your
name’s on the tongue of every gossip in town, thanks to Sully Joe who tipped
off Junie at the diner. Swear the reason it’s so hard to get a call through for
takeout is ’cause the woman uses the phone as a hotline.” Then she smiled.
“Never mind all that. My, my, you and Lucy have the same look. In the kitchen
when she told me you’re her papa, I tossed my oven mitts on the counter and
just had to get another peek. Goodness, same frown-y type mouth and those eyes
…”

“You’d rather eat
someplace in town, right, Peyton?” Valerie said.

“Actually, no.” He
offered his arm to Dinah, who took it without skipping a beat. On his way past
Valerie he added under his breath, “Try thinking of this as
visitation.
”

P
EYTON WAS AWARE
of Valerie the instant she
entered the house. She’d come in through the same mudroom entrance as he and
Dinah, though several minutes later. He half wondered whether she’d lingered
outside screaming and cussing in frustration with nobody to hear but horses and
cattle and that cat he’d noticed hanging around.

When she rounded
the corner to the kitchen that opened to a family room now crowded with people,
he could smell dirt and sweat—his guess would be human and horse—and underneath
it all, coconuts.