Living With Lies Trilogy (Books 1, 2, and 3 of The Dancing Moon Ranch Series) (41 page)

"Then why aren't you with him now?" Sean asked.

Justine shrugged. "You figure it out."

Sean surprised the hell out of her by walking up to her, putting his hands on her shoulders, and saying, "The man's a fool. You've changed. You've made me change too, but you've never really been happy here, have you?"

Justine shook her head. "It's lonely at the top. My sister has it all."

"Well, I've laid it all out for you," Sean said. "The ball's in your court now."

Justine smiled, sadly. "Unfortunately," she said, "it's bouncing in the wrong court."

The following week, Justine reread the letter she'd received from the college board, expressing their admiration that she'd come forward after so many years, and their regrets that the board decided they had no choice but to rescind her position as valedictorian.

They also informed her that several years back, the professor in question had been dismissed on ethics charges involving sexual encounters with other coeds, and that she wouldn't be required to give details of her incident with the man. Her explanation in her letter was sufficient. Justine was tempted to hold a match to the letter, along with the copy of the one she'd sent to the college in which she described, in perhaps more detail than she should have, the incident with her professor, but decided to leave both letters in the folder, a reminder that actions had consequences. She slipped the folder back into her filing cabinet and shut the drawer, hoping she hadn't made the biggest mistake in her life.

She picked up the little bronze figure and studied it. She could imagine Sophie chasing a butterfly at the cabin in the mountains, in spring when flowers were blooming and butterflies were around. She'd never been in the mountains that time of year because she'd never liked being out like that. But when she thought of those three days with Brad and Sophie, and their fairy tale family, and Sophie calling her Mommy, she realized she'd never been happier in her life.

She also realized she'd never find that kind of happiness where she was now, but maybe somewhere there was a happy medium, a place where she could have some of both. But for the life of her, she couldn't imagine where it was.

***

Three weeks later, as Brad stood staring out the front window of the great room at the lodge, he could still picture the rear end of Justine's silver Jag barreling down the road. He also pictured Elliot kissing her before they drove off. She'd done nothing to stop him, and Elliot was smiling afterwards, like he'd just scored a home run. He would have by now.

If he'd had any balls at the time, Brad thought, he would have gone out there and positioned himself between Justine and Elliot and set the man straight.

"You're messing with my woman, you bastard," he should have said to Elliot before announcing that he was marrying Justine and she was off-limits to him.

Justine had been ready to give up the corporate life, and she would have been good with Sophie. For him, he had no idea what to do with a little girl who was so pissed with him for not marrying Justine that she'd managed to maintain a five-year-old cold shoulder from the time they'd left the ranch. When Sophie spoke to him, it was in exaggerated politeness.

"Would you like macaroni for lunch, honey?"

"Yes, please?" End of conversation.

"Would you like Daddy to tuck you in bed?"

"No, thank you." Back turned to him. Buffy under her arm. Go away Daddy.

"Sophie, honey, can we talk?"

"I'm talking to Buffy." Scoot under the table with her bear and blanket.

"Honey, you have to understand that Justine has a very important job a long way away from here so she can't be your mommy."

A pair of cobalt-blue eyes glaring at him said it all.

He turned from the window and looked to where Grace was ushering Sophie and Ricky out the back door of the lodge so she could take them to the stable, where Jack had horses ready for them to ride to Whispering Springs. The kids had on their swim suits under their clothes, and Jack would be monitoring them in the pool.

The week before, when Brad announced to Sophie, impulsively, that they were going to spend a few days at the ranch, Sophie warmed to him some, but once at the ranch, she was more uncommunicative than when they were in San Francisco.

Justine's absence screamed at both of them.

"I want Mommy to tuck me in bed here," Sophie said their first night there, and he knew exactly which Mommy she was referring to. Sophie had only one mommy now, and that one was two-hundred miles north, looking down through her glass ceiling at the underlings below her, sleeping alone in her upscale condo, on a king-size bed with designer sheets. No. Not sleeping alone. Sean Elliot would have expected fringe benefits for all he'd promised and delivered to Justine by now, if he wanted to keep her there.

You're not a whore...

I got to keep the Jaguar...

Sex for success. Justine had it all now. She'd made it to the top rung of the ladder. Page, Tarlow and Elliot, it would be. But, he also knew, from the moment he saw Sean Elliot hone in on her that day, that Elliot wanted Justine in every possible way, in his business, in his bed, in his life. "Hell," he muttered under his breath.

"Meecham," Sam called to him from the check-in desk. Brad looked over at him. "You've got a call. He says his name is Russell."

Brad crossed the room. He hadn't heard from Hayden Russell in a couple of weeks and wondered if he'd uncovered anything new. He took the phone from Sam, and after acknowledging the man, listened while Russell relayed a barrage of information.

Harrison Patel and his brother hired someone to run down Yvette... all three men in custody... Elsa Moroz was Harrison Patel's sister-in-law... divorced from Patel's brother...  took her maiden name... aware of the plot... took Sophie away to keep her from Harrison Patel... went to the police and told all...

"You okay?" Sam asked, after Brad hung up.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Brad replied, still trying to digest it all. Now the way was clear for him to have full legal custody until his adoption of Sophie would be finalized. The fact that Yvette had been married when she conceived Sophie necessitated the adoption, but it was just a matter of time until it would be final. "Yeah," he said again, this time smiling, "Everything's okay."

"Then you and Justine worked things out?" Sam asked.

Brad gave a pessimistic shrug. "I haven't had any contact with her since she left with that bastard, Sean Elliot."

Sam looked at him, dubiously. "Have you tried to contact her?"

Brad shrugged. "What's the point?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because you love her," Sam said. "Or because you can't get your life on track without her. Or maybe because you've figured out that your daughter knows better than you who'd be the right mother for her. Or because you'd have a woman who'd stay with you, for better or for worse. Take your pick."

Brad let out a cynical laugh. "She's in her corporate tower now, and there's no place for a lowly writer and his kid there."

"Maybe not there," Sam said, "but wherever you are."

"Is there something you know that I don't?" Brad asked. "Has Grace heard something from her?"

"No one's heard from her since she left," Sam said. "Grace is a little worried, but not surprised. Justine never contacted her much before, only when she needed a place to stay, for whatever reason, always having to do with men. So Grace figures she's settled in, hopefully living alone, though that hasn't been Justine's pattern in the past, but if she came driving in here right now in her silver Jag, we'd know something happened."

Brad wondered if Justine had stood by her resolve to be the woman she wanted to be. He'd seen an amazing change during the time he'd known her. He also saw a women who'd been turned off by men fall in love, and he'd been the recipient of that love. Although she'd never said the words, he knew it was because she believed it was best for Sophie that she be out of their lives and not complicate things by throwing her love into the mix.

But now, what seemed best for Sophie were the things Justine could pass on to her through life's experiences, seedy though they might have been. Sometimes the best advice comes from those who've fallen and picked themselves up and gone on, all the wiser for it.

He realized he was becoming sickeningly philosophical, and would sound like a complete ass if he verbalized any of this to Sam, so he settled on saying, "If she came driving in right now in her Jag I might..." he started to say
ask her to marry me
, and said instead, "reconsider things."

"Like marrying her?" Sam asked, completing his original sentence.

"I don't know," Brad replied, in all honesty. The idea had been steadily growing, like an obnoxious weed, and no matter how he tried to kill it, it just kept growing. In his head he also had a kind of mental equivalent of an old world pharmacist's scale, with one side of the scale weighing the reasons not to marry Justine: she had a past that could come back to haunt them. And the other side weighing the reasons to marry her: he loved her, Sophie loved her, she loved Sophie, she knew how to handle Sophie, she knew how to handle him when the mind terrors came, though that wasn't happening much anymore, and when it did, he thought about how she'd been with him at the cabin, which tipped the scale heavily on the
reasons to
side.

"I don't know," he repeated, though he was beginning to think he did know, if she happened to come driving in. "What about you and Susan?" he asked.

Sam had said nothing about their marital problems since Brad and Sophie arrived three days before, and Brad had been afraid to ask. The male bonding had pretty much come to an end earlier. But now it was coming back.

"I hired a PI like you suggested," Sam said, "and it's like I thought. He saw them from a window in the stairwell of the building next door. They were going at it in the workout room with the bed in it."

"Sorry to hear that," Brad said. "What's your plan now?"

Sam sucked in a long breath, let it out slowly, and said, in a weary voice, "Start divorce proceedings. I just wish there was some way to protect Ricky from it, send him away somewhere until after the shit hits the fan."

"Yeah, kids complicate things," Brad said, "but it'll all work out. Hang in there."

Excusing himself, Brad went to the cabin to whack away on his latest novel. He'd started writing shortly after he returned to San Francisco with Sophie, which surprised him. He hadn't expected to get much done while she settled in, but she'd been withdrawn, so he filled his days by writing, while Sophie talked to Buffy. But after three weeks, he'd become increasingly concerned that Sophie could slip into some imaginative world she'd created and not come out.

Thus his impulsive decision to pack the car with his laptop, and Buffy, and Sophie's blanket, and enough clothes for a week, and give the Hansens double rent to open the cabin again. But once there, Sophie started communicating with everyone at the ranch, except him. It was damn frustrating, especially since things had been going well between them there at the ranch earlier, just before
Mommy
left. Then Justine took off with that bastard, Sean Elliot, and everything went to hell in a hand basket.

An hour later, Brad returned to the lodge to wait for Jack to come back from the spring with the kids. With any luck, Sophie would be excited about the voices in the mountain and the horseback ride and the whole adventure and want to tell Daddy all about it. Without luck, she'd ignore him and tell Buffy. Sam was still at the check-in desk doing paperwork, and he acknowledged Brad with a nod when Brad came in.

Brad went over to the bookcase and noted that there were a few more of his books on the shelf and wondered if they'd just come in with a box of books from the local secondhand book stores, or if Jack or Grace specifically picked up his books.               Not caring either way, he stepped to the front window of the great room and peered out to find a tan SUV making its way up the driveway, its top rack piled with what looked like boxes covered with a blue tarp.

"You expecting guests?" he asked Sam.

Sam looked up from what he was doing. "No," he replied. "It's probably someone who saw our sign on the road and thought we were still open. I've talked to Jack about taking the sign down during the off months, but he's been busy and so have I."

The driver of the SUV pulled to a halt out front. "You want me to go send them off?" he asked Sam.

"No," Sam replied. "We always hand out a brochure hoping they'll come back."

Brad turned from the window, and a few moments later, the front door to the lodge opened, and a woman stepped inside. It was some moments before it registered in Brad's brain who the woman was, but when it did, all he could do was stand and stare. And Justine stared back, evidently as shocked to see him there, as he was to see her. She was wearing jeans and a white cable-knit sweater, with a white and brown wool scarf around her neck, and he was certain she was the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth.

Justine was first to speak. "Hello Brad. I didn't expect to see you here," she said, setting her handbag down. "Will you be staying long?"

Her words were cordial. Incidental. One guest greeting another. Not a woman who'd stripped naked and shared the most intimate moments possible with a man.