intimately.
“I admire what you’ve done here,” she said.
He told himself the compliment didn’t matter even as he enjoyed hearing it. “I had good role models. Old Bill Smith was the foreman for nearly twenty years. He believed in using new technology if it saved time and money.”
“Any regrets about staying?” she asked.
He didn’t like the question. “I told you before. I’m content with my life.”
“I know, but I was hoping for something more.”
“A confession? I don’t have any.”
She tried to smile, but it wobbled at the corners then faded altogether. “Gee, and I have too many.” She took a step toward the door and paused. “Thanks for taking the time with Shane. I know you’re busy.”
“I meant what I said, Katie. I enjoyed his company. He’s a bright boy.”
“Not everyone has figured that out. You were one of the good guys back when I was Shane’s age, and it looks like you still are.”
He watched her walk away. Her hips swayed. Her curls danced. She moved into the sunlight like an angel of God returning home.
Jack blinked. Where the hell had that thought come from? Was he getting soft or something? No way was he interested in Katie. Except for occasional sex, he did not do relationships, and he wasn’t going to risk any entanglements, sexual or otherwise, with someone like her. She’d always been trouble and that hadn’t changed. Besides, he’d learned his lesson. Women didn’t stay with him very long. Why get all wound up about something that was bound to end?
He stared through the open door, saw her call for her son, then step into her Explorer. He ignored the unexpected ache in his gut, ignored the fact that it was mighty similar to the ache he’d felt when she’d left eleven years before. There was no way she still mattered. Not after all this time.
Even so, he would do his best to avoid her. Keeping his distance had always been the safest route. If he hadn’t known that when he’d been a teenager, he’d learned it in spades as a man.
Katie closed Shane’s bedroom door and sighed. Her son was finally asleep. Despite his usual quiet demeanor at dinner, the rest of the evening had been spent with him chattering about his time with Jack. How he’d helped with the oil change. How Jack had explained the different parts of the truck engine to him. How Jack seemed to
It broke her heart that her nine-year-old son worried that adults didn’t like him. Unfortunately she knew exactly where that fear came from. First from Shane’s father, who had walked out of his life before he was born and had never reappeared, then from her father, who couldn’t say a single pleasant word to the boy.
“Katie?”
Speak of the devil, she thought as she turned and saw her father approaching.
“Hi, Dad.”
Her father didn’t respond to her greeting. Judging by his closed, angry expression, he wasn’t going to.
“In my office. Now.”
She thought about protesting. She wasn’t a little girl any more. She didn’t like him ordering her around. Then she glanced at her son’s closed door and knew that if she got into it with her father here in the hall, Shane would hear everything.
“I would be delighted to join you for a few minutes,” she said lightly. “Lead the way.”
Aaron glared at her, as if suspecting sarcasm, then turned on his heel and headed down the hall. Two minutes later they were in his office at the back of the house.
A fire burned briskly in the fireplace and chased away the chill. This twenty-by-twenty room was her father’s domain and always had been. A large desk sat in the middle of the floor. Worn chairs flanked it. There were a couple of bookshelves, trophy animal heads mounted on the paneled walls and a large calendar featuring cattle opposite the desk.
The office was the place she and her siblings had presented themselves when they were in trouble or at report card time. Lectures and punishment came from this room, as did their allowances and chore lists. The kitchen might be the heart of the house, but this place was the heart of her father’s world.
Katie settled into the worn leather wing chair closest to the fireplace. While the night wasn’t especially cold, she found herself shivering. Her father took the seat behind the desk-his usual position in this room.
Katie closed her eyes for a second and breathed in the different scents. Leather, dust, wood smoke, the faint hint of cattle and horses. She leaned her head against the chair and smiled at her father. “I know you’re not going to lecture me about my grades or staying out late. I was actually a pretty good kid.”
Aaron’s hard features softened slightly. “That’s true. You paid attention to the rules. The boys and Josie were a bit of a handful. Of course Suzanne’s girls more than made up for you two, and then some.”
Katie laughed. Aaron spoke the truth. While she had been a practically perfect, probably boring child, her sister Josie and Suzanne’s daughters, Robin and Dallas, had been hellions. Especially Robin, who now flew helicopters for the Navy. The three girls had been headstrong, bright and fearless. Aaron adored them even as he resented Robin’s attempts to get him to modernize.
Her father rested his forearms on the scarred desk and met her gaze. “I want to know what you think you’re doing, going to the Darby ranch like you are.”
Katie hadn’t been sure what he wanted to talk about. The knot in her stomach had expected something about Shane. When she understood she was the one who had displeased him she felt first relief, then amazement that he still kept the ridiculous feud alive.
“You make it sound like I’m selling secrets to a Third World country,” she said, hoping to inject some humor into their conversation. “I’m a trained physical therapist, Dad. Right now Hattie Darby is one of my patients. I’m over there helping her recover from her accident.”
“You’re going to have stop treating her. She can find someone else.”
Katie’s mouth opened and closed. She didn’t believe she was hearing this. “Actually I don’t have to stop and she doesn’t have to find anyone else. Except for the hospital staff, I’m the only physical therapist in Lone Star Canyon. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to move back here. I knew that I would have plenty of work and could provide a necessary service. But I can’t settle in town and then hang out a sign saying No Darbys Allowed. I have a responsibility to myself and to the community.”
“That’s a load of horse manure, and you know it.” Her father glared at her. “You don’t need to work at all. You can live on the ranch just like before. I’ve never liked the idea of you being all on your own in Dallas.”
Not in this lifetime, she thought with a shudder. Not even on a bet. “Dad, welcome to the modern age. Lots of women take care of themselves. We live in cities, have jobs, we even drive.”
His gaze narrowed. “Don’t get smart with me, missy.”
Whatever nostalgia he’d felt at their shared past had faded, she realized with a sigh. As she watched, color rose in her father’s face. He was getting angry, and they hadn’t been talking but five minutes. Why did he have to make everything a fight?
She straightened in her chair and leaned toward him. “Dad, I appreciate the offer, but I’m not the kind of person who would be happy living here. I need to make my own way. I love my work. It’s important to me and it makes me happy.”
That made him think for a minute. “I don’t want you working with Darbys.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“We all have choices. You chose to come and live on the ranch while your house is being built. While you’re under my roof, you’ll follow my rules.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “You are the most stubborn, difficult man I’ve ever know. This is exactly why I’d never move home on a permanent basis, Dad. You make me crazy.”
Reluctantly he smiled in return. She watched the wrinkles deepen with his grin. Every time she saw him he looked a little older. He was still powerful and formidable, but she wondered how much longer it would be until he looked old and frail. She dreaded that day. Aaron was as much a part of her world as the sun or the sky.
“I need my work,” she said quietly. “I make a difference in people’s lives, and that makes me feel whole. Part of that work means helping Hattie. I won’t turn my back on her, no matter what you say. Can you live with that or do you need me to move out?”
