Unbreakable (36 page)

“Hey, Daddy.” She hitched a breath and swallowed, hoping to clear her throat. “You’re a guest of honor. You’re not supposed to be skulking back here where all the work’s being done.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” he asked, sidling up to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders, lifting a hand in greeting at one breezy, “Hey, Coach,” then another.

“Looks like it,” she said, forcing a soft laugh.

“And here I thought I was just looking for my girl.” He leaned
close, dropped a kiss to the top of her head as they both watched Arwen’s staff, along with Kendall and Everly, scurry around the kitchen with braziers of food—empty ones coming in from the parlor, full ones going back to replace them, longnecks and soda bottles heading for wash tubs of ice. “You and your brother managed a hell of a feat here. Neither your mother or I ever suspected a thing.”

“That’s the point of a surprise party,” she said, her laughter coming easier this time.

“The biggest surprise is everyone else keeping the secret. We’ve got some friends who seem to find it necessary to tell us the state of their dog’s bowel movements,” he said, causing Faith to cringe. “Them staying close-mouthed about this will become known as the miracle on Mulberry Street.”

“Well, I’m glad they did. It wouldn’t have been as much fun if you’d known.”

“I’m kinda curious, though. What in the world made you two choose this house?”

Her heart flipped. “Should we have gone to the country club? Or had it at home? Boone wanted to have it at home.”

“No, sweetheart. Relax. You didn’t do a damn thing wrong. I just never thought to see this house in this condition. Been a lot of work done here. A big expense.”

“Casper’s been doing some extra work for Royce Summerlin. Breaking horses.” As if those few hours a week would explain away the money poured into this house. Her father was not a stupid man.

“And a few ribs, I hear.”

“You talked to him?”

“I did.”

“When?”

“Earlier. Before I saw the two of you dancing. I think you two were more the belle and beau of the ball than your mother and I.”

“I helped him out with his budget,” she said because nothing else came to her.

“Is
that
all it was?” her father asked, a chuckle rising up his throat as he dropped another kiss to her head, leaving her to wonder if his intuition was as strong as her mother’s. “I saw him leaving a few minutes ago. I was kinda surprised to see him here at all, to tell you the truth.”

Had he seen him going upstairs with her? Coming down later alone? “It’s his house. Why wouldn’t he be here?”

Her father laughed. “No, Faith.
This
house isn’t his. This one’s…” He gave a low whistle. “This one’s something else.”

She didn’t think it a good idea to take credit when he had no idea she was the one who’d financed the renovations. “I guess.”

“Trust me. It is.” He pulled her with him out of the way of the caterers, stepping four steps up the staircase and sitting on the fifth. “I imagine that’s tough for him. Seeing it now. Remembering it then.”

“Did you know how things were when he lived here?” she asked, smoothing out her skirt as she sat beside him.

“Some of it, sure.”

“Was it as bad as rumors have it?” She didn’t need to ask. She’d seen enough. Casper had told her the rest.

Her father nodded. “Worse. Your mom and I had to come here a couple of times with Boone.”

“Why?”

“Usually Casper was in some kind of trouble. He needed help getting out.”

Because his mother wouldn’t have cared or offered. “What was his mother like?”

“Suzanne?” He shook his head. “Sad’s about the best word to describe her. Sad and self-centered. And not much of a parent.”

“I never saw her that I can remember,” she said, getting a whiff of freshly toasted bread as she breathed deeply to settle her nerves.

“I don’t think you ever would have. She spent her time at the truck stop. She wasn’t one to get involved in what Casper had going on at school.”

“That makes me hurt, thinking he was here all that time with no one in his corner.”

“He had your brother. And Dax. And your mother and me by extension.”

But he hadn’t had her. She’d been too young, too naive. She’d had very little clue as to the truth of his life then. Even now, she only knew what he’d told her from his adult perspective. Not what he’d suffered in the moment.

She’d been young, but she could’ve been a friend. “I wish I’d known him better then.”

Her father’s chuckle spoke to his protective nature. “I’m damn glad you didn’t. That boy raised more hell than Dax and Boone combined. No way would I have let my little girl anywhere near him.”

“I don’t mean I wanted to date him.” Though hadn’t she? Hadn’t he played into her fantasies of throwing off her straight As for a walk on the wild side? “I just meant…The things he’s told me…I don’t think he could’ve had too many people in his corner.”

“You’re right about that.”

And it made her so sad. “Can I tell you something?”

“You can tell me anything,” he said, turning a concerned frown on her. “Anytime. You know that.”

“I know. I just don’t want you to be disappointed in me.”

“I could never be disappointed in you.”

“You were. In the past.”

“I was, yes,” he said, sighing. “But more so in myself than in you.”

That didn’t make any sense.
“Why would you have been disappointed in yourself?”

“Because I failed you somewhere. I didn’t give you something you needed.”

Was he kidding?
“How can you even say that? You gave me everything!”

“Keeping your brother on the straight and narrow required a lot of time and energy, and that took away from what your mother and I had for you. But you seemed so confident, so happy. It was easy to let you do your own thing and think everything was fine.”

“Oh, Daddy. Don’t think that way. Everything was fine.” Emotion rose like fog, blurring everything around her as she remembered the past. “But I did want to be more like Boone. To have fun, and even get into trouble if it meant not keeping my nose stuck in a book all the time. He made it look so easy. Getting the same straight As without having to work for them. Even now…”

“What?”

“I want to be more like him. He’s doing what he wants to do. He’s struggling. I know that, but he loves his work, the ranch, his boys, his damn horse.”

“And you don’t love yours.”

“I don’t,” she admitted, shaking her head.

“Oh, sweetheart. You’re financially set. That money’s been
earning interest for ten years. Why not take it and do what you want to with your life?”

“Because I don’t know what that is.” She was thirty-one years old, and had no idea what she wanted to be when she grew up. How pathetic was that? “And using that money for me seems so selfish. I didn’t earn it. Or deserve it.”

“But it’s yours.”

“I’ve tried so many times to get Boone to let me pay off the ranch’s debt. But he won’t.”

“So you used your money on Casper instead.”

“I did.” She looked up to meet the loving gaze of the man who had always been in her corner, and then rushed out with, “I paid for all the renovations.”

Her father nodded, smiled, reached up to push a lock of hair from her eyes. “I was pretty sure from the start that you had.”

She waited for him to say something more, but when he didn’t, she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Are you mad?”

“Why would I be mad? It’s about time you did something good with it.”

“I didn’t want to tell you. Or anyone. He has no idea how I got it. I doubt he’d be happy to find out.”

“But you’ll tell him,” he said, his tone wise and knowing.

“I can’t.” It would kill her for him to know how stupid she’d been.

“Give him a little credit, Faith.” He got to his feet, gave her a hand, and pulled her up. “How you came about that money isn’t important here. It’s in the past. Done and gone. None of that can be changed. All that matters is that you spent it on Casper for the right reason. And that reason better be more than a place to have this party.”

She breathed in, breathed out, let go of the words that had been strangling her. “I love him.”

“I know you do.”

“Oh, Daddy.” She pulled in a sob, wrapped her arms around him, and hugged him close. “I didn’t think love was supposed to hurt this much. I feel like I’m bleeding with it.”

Beside her, her father smiled. “That’s how you can trust it, sweetheart. That’s how you know it’s the real thing.”

T
HOUGH
C
ASPER HAD
arrived late to the party, he’d been able to park right in front of the house. Perk of being the owner, he guessed, though more than likely all he’d done was block a path kept free from the street to the gate. And anyway, he only owned half. Faith owned the rest. And her car wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Bracing his arms on his truck bed, his beer dangling from one hand, he stood facing his past and his brightly lit present, but not his future because he’d just fucked all of that up. Except no matter his earlier musings, he’d come too far to accept that he ruined everything he touched.

He wasn’t going to buy that things between them just weren’t meant to be. He might be drunk, but he knew that wasn’t the case. They’d been perfect together. They
were
perfect together. So what in his old third-floor bedroom had gone so terribly wrong?

Seeing Clay headed toward him, he shoveled the question to the back of his mind. Then he circled the truck to lean against the other side, the side with the new sidewalk, with the newly sodded yard, with the white picket fence like a big toothy grin.

Clay raised a tentative hand. “Hey.”

Casper raised his beer. “Hey, yourself.”

“I can go,” the boy said, his steps faltering, jerking a thumb over his shoulder and glancing back. “If you’re busy.”

“I’m not busy.” He took a deep breath, cracked his neck side to side. “Just needed a break from the noise.”

“Band’s pretty dope. I mean, for being country and all.”

Casper smiled at that. The kid definitely had his feet planted in rock ’n’ roll. “It’s not the music as much as it’s all the talking. Sometimes, I just can’t stand talking.”

Clay was quiet for several seconds, his hands stuffed in the pockets of the dress pants he’d bought along with a white shirt and vest. He hitched his shoulders like he didn’t care either way. “Like I said. I can go.”

“Uh-uh. You come here,” Casper said, waving him over. “Talk to me all you want.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” He was done being a dick. “How’s Kevin today?”

“Better,” the boy said, bobbing his head. “Think he’s missing Bing and Bob, but there’s some cool dogs up at Mal’s shelter.”

“Good,” was Casper’s only response because his mind was drifting again to Faith. “You having fun? Country music aside?”

Clay shrugged. “House is pretty awesome.”

“Turned out okay, didn’t it?”

“You going to live here now?”

Was he?
“What do you think? Would you like that?”

“To live here?” he asked, his eyes going wide and staying that
way, his grin nearly reaching his ears. “Are you kidding me? Wait. Does that mean—”

“I don’t know yet,” he said, swallowing an emotion he thought might be pride, “but Greg says things look good.”

Clay gave a fist pump and a loud, “Sweet.”

“I wouldn’t be countin’ chickens or anything,” Casper said with a laugh. “I’ve got to make it through the approval process.”

“To foster me?”

“Or adopt you. If that’s what you want.” When Clay looked away, his throat working, Casper went on. “Having the house helps. Means I can prove you’ll have a safe place to live. Then there’s the ranch, making me a legit business owner, so the system knows I’m not a deadbeat. Plus I’ve got a few friends in high places to vouch for me.”

“Sounds cool,” he said, tossing back his hair, in control again, but only just.

Kids. Women were almost easier to understand. “You’ll have to go to school.”

“I know.”

“And you’ll have a curfew.”

“I figure.”

“There’ll be rules.”

“What kind of rules?”

Rules to keep you from turning into an asshole.
“Don’t worry. I’ll come up with some,” he said, watching Clay’s gaze shift across the yard. He glanced over, saw a vision in white walking toward him. A vision wearing his mark on her throat. A vision come to save him.

“I’ll get outta here,” Clay said, patting his stomach. “Think I’m ready for more cobbler.”

“I’m not cleaning up any puke from you eating too much,” Casper said, pointing at him with the hand holding the bottle.

“Yes, sir,” he said, his mouth twisting upward as he jogged away in reverse. Then he called back, “If I puke, I’ll clean it up,” before turning as Faith walked up on Casper’s other side.

He wasn’t ready for her, so he asked, “Did he just call me sir?”

“I think he barely stopped himself from calling you dad.”

That nearly sobered him. “I’m not his dad.”

“Which is probably why he stopped himself.”

“Hope I don’t fuck this up,” he muttered under his breath, more to himself than to her.

“You won’t. The changes you’ve made in him are amazing.”

She was really a fan of that word tonight, wasn’t she? “I haven’t done anything.”

“Oh, but you have,” she said, stepping closer, her heels clicking on the sidewalk, a
tick-tick-tick
counting down time. “He looks…happy. The first time I met him he looked like he’d lost all hope.”

“He’s a kid. What does he know?”

“You’re good with him.”

“He makes it easy,” he said, lifting the bottle because he’d changed his mind. He didn’t need her to save him.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” she said anyway, trying. But he wasn’t going to let her, so he stayed silent, leaving her to finally ask, “Do you want to come back in? Get something to eat?”

“Not hungry.”

“We could dance, or just have a glass of champagne and listen to the band.”

“I’m done dancing. I can hear the band from here. And if I’m going to drink, it’ll be Jack and it sure as hell won’t be inside that house,” he said, his gaze searching out Clay who was talking to Philip Hart’s kid of the same age.