Texas Redeemed (9 page)

His senses were
suddenly thrown like a switch, but stuck midway between being turned off … and
on.

Hell. That hadn’t
exactly come out of nowhere, if he was being honest. He’d been dreaming of this
same woman all night and could even now remember the actual feel of all that
rich dark hair fisted in his hands.

But it wouldn’t do
either one of them any good for his thoughts to go in that direction: straight
to a dead end.

“Where’ve you
been?” he asked her under his breath, sidling close.

“In the office.
Going over some paperwork.” She tossed her head in a leftward direction and he
assumed she referred to the tiny detached building nearest the main house that
he’d thought to be a tool shed.

“Oh, everyone,
listen now,” Dinah said over the din of conversation and laughter.

Peyton watched as
every adult in the vicinity quieted and turned toward her with full attention.

Except for Lucy.
She sat cross-legged on an ottoman, staring at whatever movie was playing on
the television in the ebony media suite. Her back faced the kitchen and even as
the adults started to move in that direction in a sort of herd, she remained
seated.

He’d bet his
father’s pocket watch that Lucy was no shrinking violet, that she was a
chatterbox who could talk a person into a stupor. Not at all like the
wallflower she was pretending to be now. But based on what he’d seen of her
today, he had nothing to support that bet.

It had pretty much
taken the Jaws of Life to get an explanation out of her when he’d found her at
his grandfather’s house—and even that was probably littered with half-truths.
The taking a taxi from school part made sense, but when he’d asked why she’d gone
there, she had insisted that she wanted to skip class and was in his
grandfather’s study sketching fashion ideas.

Well, she’d
admitted to her mother that she’d taken the trip to tell him to leave town. As
much as it stung, he recognized it as the truth. But what she’d really been up
to before she’d come barreling down the staircase was still a mystery.

After he’d gotten
her to crack open a book and get started on her homework, he’d looked around
the study and found everything where he’d left it—namely the chessboard that
sat on the table on top of the sketchbook Lucy kept there. This morning he’d
dropped a rook onto the board and it dangled halfway over the edge.

To get to her
sketchbook, she would have had to move the board and the rook would’ve been
shifted out of place.

She’d lied. And it
wouldn’t take him too long to find out why. That, he could promise.

“All right, all,”
Dinah was saying, “we’re having a guest for dinner. So try not to talk about
branding and calving through the
entire
meal.”

“Aren’t we guests,
too?” one of the men piped up with an easygoing chuckle.

“Why, y’all are
family,” Dinah said. “You, too, Coop.”

The older man she
called Coop only grunted and darted his eyes away as if a little embarrassed to
be singled out, even in a group of familiar faces.

“Now, then,” she
continued, “this evening Peyton Turner might be a guest, but we ought to start
welcoming him to the family fold. He’s our little Lucy’s papa!”

P
EYTON
MENTALLY STUMBLED
, just for a second, no
doubt feeling as blindsided as old Coop had been a few minutes ago. He glanced
around at the stares—a few curious, most accusing.

Then, as if they’d
all become one, his audience centered their group stare on Valerie.

Even Lucy turned
slightly to spy the reaction over her shoulder.

“Jeez …” Valerie
muttered, daring a look at him. “Want me to tell them to go easy on you? It’s a
limited-time offer.”

“No, I can handle
it.” He was about to thank her but she was already jogging up the kitchen
stairs, probably to rid herself of the horse smell that hung over her like a
halo.

“Now where did Lucy
run off to?” Dinah asked.

“She didn’t run.
She’s hiding in plain sight,” he said, pointing, “right there in front of the
television.”

Dinah glanced at
him apologetically, then smoothed an invisible wrinkle from her apron and
called, “Lucy, c’mere for a minute.”

Nothing.

“Lucy Olivia
Jordan!”

The woman may as
well have shouted “abracadabra” judging the way the girl jumped to her feet and
buzzed into the kitchen with her toffee-brown hair flying behind her and a mix
of mortification and irritation on her face.

“Diiii-nah,” she
said in what resembled a genuine whine. “I don’t like that.”

“What, cutie patootie?
You’ve a beautiful name.”

Peyton agreed. Anna
Christine and Lucy Olivia. His daughters.

“Aren’t you going
to introduce your papa to the gang?” Dinah’s tone was cheerful, but it sounded
more along the lines of “Introduce your father now or else.”

Lucy’s shoulders
drooped and she added a put-out frown for emphasis. “Fine.”

“Very good. Only
the most mature girls your age can properly introduce folks.”

The girl considered
this, then fixed her posture and pasted an almost serene smile on her face.
“Everyone, this is my father, Doctor Turner.” She hesitated and whispered to
him, “Do you want them to call you Doctor Turner or Peyton?”

He was hit with the
urge to tell her to call him Dad. It would be a million times better than what
she’d gotten by with calling him so far, which was “he” or “him.” “Peyton’s
fine.”

“You can all call
him Peyton,” she continued in a deep, slow tone, mimicking what she thought was
mature. Turning to him, she summoned him closer to the group with a hurried
wave. “Peyton …”

Did his name feel
as weird for her to say as it did for him to hear her say it?

“Uh … Peyton, this
is my cousin Cordelia. Her dad owned Battle Creek Ranch before Mom did.” She
indicated a tall, slender woman with nearly black hair and a dimpled smile.

Cordelia shook his
hand, and when he met her green eyes he could tell that she was more than well
versed on him. This one was probably Valerie’s closest friend, a title he
himself had had a lifetime ago. “Welcome back to Night Sky, Peyton.”

Her voice caught him
off guard. It was authentically throaty, kind of hoarse but no doubt feminine.

“This,” Lucy said,
tugging one of the men forward, “is Cordelia’s husband, Jack Merriman. He and
Delia help Mom run the ranch. And next to you is Cordelia’s mom, Dinah Jordan.
And these are the other ranch hands.”

Peyton shook hands,
exchanged greetings and tried to brush off the reproving glare from the
dark-skinned, flannel-shirted man Lucy introduced as Will Aturro. The others
were Ripley Pascal and Steven Underwood. And, of course, Cooper Calhoun, who
made a show of jutting out his chest and talking with a toothpick in his mouth.

“Intros done,” Lucy
said to Dinah, the pretense of maturity deflated. She returned to the family
room as quickly as she’d come.

“Need a hand with
the food, Mama?” Cordelia asked, with Jack at her side.

Peyton had survived
in cities and towns and communities all over the globe knowing he didn’t
belong. Getting through dinner with people in his hometown shouldn’t be much
different. Except that these people already had deep-seated, unfavorable
preconceptions about him.

Just another
obstacle to get over in order to be in Lucy’s life.

That was all the
motivation he needed to approach the group of men who stood near the breakfast
bar discussing something that sounded like bull semen.

In the sea of
flannel and denim and boots, he was more than noticeable in a slate-gray
chambray shirt with rolled sleeves, black trousers and shoes that still had a
polish to them despite the time he’d spent standing around the stables with
Valerie.

“Ask me about it,
the gal’s off her mark with that ninety-day experiment she’s talkin’ about.
Need a good hundred ten, twenty days. Best odds for high conception.” Coop
tossed a glimpse in Peyton’s direction. “Hey, there, Doc—Peyton,” he amended.
“Just talkin’ shop here. Don’t really need a doctor’s opinion. Not one who
doesn’t know his way around a ranch. Now, if you were a country vet …”

The others smirked
a little but eased back to allow Peyton room to enter the fray.

“Calving season’s
damn important on a cattle ranch,” Will said to him, crossing his arms.

Peyton hitched his
chin at Coop. “What’s Valerie off her mark about?” He didn’t need anyone to
spell out for him the fact that they’d been discussing one of her decisions.

“Timing,” the old
cowboy said. “This year she wants a shorter season. I say it’s a fool thing to
do. And she knows how I feel about it.”

Peyton considered
his response carefully, trying to strike a balance between not offending Coop
and not undercutting Valerie. “Yeah, a longer season raises the odds for
conception if you’re after maximum numbers.”

“Of course.”

“A shorter
season’ll give you more time for management—health programs, nutrition,
marketing. Maybe she’s after more control and quality of the cattle, and not
out to win a numbers race.” Peyton lingered a few moments, watching Will,
Ripley and Steven exchange sidelong glances. “Of course,” he said to Coop, “I’m
not a vet. Just a doctor.”

Without waiting for
a comeback, he stepped away from the group and found Lucy parked in front of
the television, statue-still.

“What’re you
watching?” he asked in an admittedly lame attempt to strike up a conversation.
He looked up in time to see Jennifer Aniston strut across the screen bare-assed
with a soda in her hand. “Okay,
what
are you watching?”

Lucy studied him as
if inspecting an alien. “Are you serious? This is
The Break-Up
. It’s an
oldie, but I like Vince, so …”

“What’s it rated?”

Again with the
alien-inspecting look. “I dunno. PG, PG-13. Something like that. What’s the big
deal, anyway? I’ve seen it before.” She curled her lip. “And I’m not a baby.”

Peyton resisted a
sigh. Would everyday conversation with her be a battle? He pulled up an
armchair and sat, asking, “Can I watch with you?”

She rolled her
eyes. “Whatever. She’s not gonna flash her booty again, if that’s what you’re
hanging around for. Just so you know.”

“I’ll live.” For a
minute or two they sat silently with the noise from the movie and the hubbub
from the kitchen filling the air. “Lucy, I need you to tell me the truth about
something.”

She continued to
sit wordlessly.

“Lucy, your hearing
aid is in. I know you can hear me.”

She automatically
reached up a finger to push aside her hair and touch the device that sat behind
the shell of her left ear. A clear tube was attached and led to her ear canal.
“Mom told you about … the meningitis?”

Peyton nodded.
“About you and Anna—”

“I don’t want to
talk about her.” The words were sharp-edged.

“Just let me say
this. I’m sorry that happened. Please believe that, Lucy.” After she nodded, he
went on, “What were you doing in my grandfather’s house today?”

“I was sketch—”

“The truth this
time,” he said firmly.

Eyes stuck on the
television, she said, “I said I was sketching. Gramps lets me come in and draw
whenever and he doesn’t freak out about it. So could you not?”

Peyton needed to
ease up. Now wasn’t the time to push the issue, not with her already on the
defensive and dangerously close to causing a scene with the house full of
people.

“I’m gonna help
Dinah with dinner,” she said abruptly, hurrying to the kitchen where Dinah was
filling ramekins with honey.

His daughter
successfully avoided getting within ten feet of him until it was time to sit
down at the dining-room table.

Valerie, freshly scrubbed and dressed in jeans and a cream-colored sweater that appeared as soft
as a baby chick, returned in time to butter biscuits, telling Dinah, “That’s
enough standing on your feet. Have a seat now, and thank you, Di.”

Without a peep of
protest Dinah untied her apron, patted Valerie’s cheek and found an available
chair in the quickly filling dining room.

Peyton washed his
hands at the sink before offering to help Valerie serve.

“Didn’t you hear?
You’re the guest,” she said.

“This guest is able-bodied
and willing to help out. Let me.”

Her gaze slid over
him—unintentionally, judging by the flustered way she looked away and started
briskly slathering a biscuit with butter. “Then you can start carrying out the
stew. The bowls are along the breakfast bar.”

They worked
quietly, bringing to the table steaming bowls of stew and baskets of biscuits,
bottles of wine and glasses of fruit juice for Lucy and Dinah, whose simple
palette had “never acquired a taste for all that fancy wine.”

The two available
seats left were as far from each other as they could be. Part of him was glad
no one got the notion to try to be funny and shove them together. That wasn’t
what this was about.
This,
him being on Battle Creek Ranch, sitting down
to dinner with Valerie and Lucy and their family and friends, was about him
getting an idea of what lives they led and finding out whether following his
gut and battling for a way into his daughter’s world was for the best.

“I’ll always
find a way to be with my little boy.”

In a flash the
dishes of food in front of him disappeared and all he could see was his
mother’s bloodshot eyes, her shaky half smile, half grimace as he tugged her
away from the high school campus before anyone else could catch her hanging
around—with a half-empty bottle of booze jutting out of her pocket.

Someone bumped the
table and he was back, in the here and now, and he could breathe again.

His gut twisted at
the thought of seeing on Lucy’s face that same crushing look of fear he’d lived
with for over half his life.

Once the eating
started, conversation returned with a vengeance. People talked over each other,
laughed, bumped elbows. They looked at home here, in a sienna-colored dining
room with tall windows and three simple chandeliers hovering over the length of
the trestle table.

Dinah was a fine
cook, and Peyton told her so.

“Aw, Dinah, I’m
wondering if you keep inviting people over and cooking for school fundraisers
and church get-togethers just so you can collect compliments,” Will teased, spreading
honey over his biscuit.

“She can cook,
bake, grill. A triple threat,” Steve added.

The satisfaction in
her eyes was obvious. Yes, she loved the compliments but her cooking stood up
for itself.

Peyton couldn’t
help but compare this chaotic, easygoing meal to the almost hostile supper he’d
had at his grandfather’s house last night, before he’d driven to the ranch. It
had been Nathaniel, Jasper and him at the table, and between bites of his
gourmet meal Nathaniel had pelted Peyton with questions about his
career—pointedly ignoring any mention of Doctors Without Borders.

Lucy chatted almost
nonstop to Cordelia and seemed to be making a conscious effort to avoid meeting
his eyes, as if she could feel when he was looking her way and knew when to tap
her cousin on the shoulder and start chatting away again.

It was Valerie who
remained relatively quiet, as if she were fading into the background. Coop
must’ve noticed, because he said, “Val, it’s a good thing you’re lettin’ him
into the fold.” He pointed across the table at Peyton. “A little gal like Lucy
needs her daddy around.”

For the first time
since they’d started eating, Valerie acknowledged Peyton.

“We’re figuring
things out,” she said mildly.

“What finally blew
you back to Texas?” Coop asked him. “Folks around here’ve got good memories,
but so long as you got your head on straight now, you’ll be all right.”

Quizzically, Lucy
tipped her head forward and drew her brows together. Peyton could tell she was
hungry for information, as if she knew Coop had alluded to something big but was
not exactly sure of the details.

Had she never found
out about how he’d reached the breaking point and had nearly ruined his life?

Carefully, he said,
“I needed a change of pace, thought it was time to come home.”

“Bet you were about
to shit yourself when you found out you’re a daddy,” Ripley chimed in, then
winced in contrition at his language.

“Like Valerie said,
we’re figuring things out.”

“What’ve you been
up to, rich boy like you, for—what was it now?—twelve, thirteen years?” Coop
pressed.

Peyton should’ve
anticipated the questions to hit like someone emptying a magazine from a gun.
“Work. There’re always people and places in need of aid.”

“Are you an
explorer or a doctor?”

“Both,” Lucy
supplied around the spoonful of stew in her mouth. “He’s a missionary for
Doctors Without Borders. A surgeon.”

Peyton’s head
jerked toward her and she swallowed hard then hunched over her bowl. He hadn’t
discussed his work with anyone except his grandfather, Jasper and Memorial’s
chief of staff—and all had agreed to keep it under wraps for the time being.