My Dearest Cal (6 page)

Why had Cal gone to such pains to vanish from his Palm Lane home? Why did he clam up so whenever the talk turned to family? What sort of secrets had his family kept from him? Or had he been abandoned? Maybe that was why this whole discussion about a long-lost grandmother made him prickly as an old bear startled out of its winter slumber.

Whatever the case, she apparently wasn’t going to be allowed to satisfy her curiosity tonight. She’d promised to cut him some slack and she would. Not that he gave her much choice. His good humor had vanished sometime between her offer to cook and his return to the table. Aside from a few surreptitious glances in her direction, he ate silently, apparently
lost in his own thoughts. She could only hope they were about his grandmother. If his troubled expression was any indication, they had to be.

The minute the meal was over, Cal muttered a grudging thanks and stalked off into the night again. Chaney, with one last speculative look at Marilou, traipsed after him. Marilou was left with a huge stack of dirty dishes. And when they were done and neither of the men had reappeared, she was left with figuring out where she might sleep.

She found sheets that smelled of sunshine stacked in a closet in the upstairs hall. She grabbed a couple and began making up the bed in what appeared to be a vacant bedroom, as far from the master bedroom as she could get.

She’d seen the size of the bed in his room. Just the sight of it had done funny things to her insides. She’d made things worse by daring to test its feather softness before retreating guiltily. At the memory of the way that bed had made her feel, she felt a blush creeping into her cheeks.

Just then she heard the flick of a match and caught the scent of sulphur. Until that second she hadn’t even realized that Cal had come up the stairs. A faint puff of smoke from his cigarette drifted into the room.

“You look like you’re settling in,” he said, his voice dropping to a lazy, seductive tone that brought goose bumps to her flesh and set off a whole new flurry of doubts about her decision to stay. Visions of that bed down the hall stirred up a storm of sensations.

“This room seemed to be empty,” she said, keeping her back to him as she smoothed the pillow. “I hope it’s okay.”

“It’s fine, though there’s one down the hall you might enjoy more,” he said. “I’d be happy to keep you company.”

Her skin burned at the deliberately provocative invitation. “Thanks, but you probably snore.”

“You’ll never know till you spend the night with me.”

“I could always bug your room.”

He chuckled at the quick retort. “You know, most women would have been scared off by now,” he said. She thought she detected a very faint and very reluctant note of admiration in his voice.

“I’ve told you before that you don’t scare me,” she responded lightly, ignoring the rapid thudding of her heart, which contradicted her words. She turned to stare directly at him just to prove the point. “You’re all bluff.”

There was a quick flash of amusement in his eyes before they began a low, deliberate inspection. Her pulse hammered and heat rose through her before she finally shifted her gaze away. No man’s look had ever been so blatantly seductive. She would have picked up a magazine and fanned herself if he hadn’t been watching. Of course, if he hadn’t been watching, she wouldn’t have needed to. It was just more of his game and she knew it. Her body apparently didn’t.

“I wouldn’t call my bluff if I were you,” he warned, still not taking his eyes off of her. “You just
might get more than you bargained for, Miss Marilou Stockton. A lot more.”

After one last, lingering glance that made her knees wobble, he walked on down the hall. Marilou sank down on the edge of the bed and fanned herself so hard that the magazine she was using almost came apart in her hands. She had a feeling Cal’s touch would have the exact same effect on her senses. If she let this man get any closer, she’d never be whole again unless he were around to see to it. The prospect tempted, even as it unsettled her.

In the end it was the longest, most nerve-racking night of Marilou’s life. She heard the groan of Cal’s bed, the thump of his boots hitting the floor, then more creaking as he settled onto that feather mattress for the night. As the cool night breeze ruffled the curtains, she could swear she heard him breathing…but not snoring.

She eventually drifted into a restless sleep, but at 4:00 a.m. she was awakened by some faint noise. She listened, but all she heard now was absolute silence. Finally she abandoned any hope of sleeping, pulled on her clothes from the day before and crept barefoot downstairs. After an instant’s guilty hesitation in front of the automatic coffeepot, she gave in to her need for caffeine. She supposed for the moment she could make a case that she was still playing housekeeper, at least for the next few hours until she had Cal’s answer.

She wondered if his response, even a positive one, was likely to be enough for her now. Always readily
hooked by mysteries, was she going to be able to walk away from this one without knowing the ending or the secrets still hidden from her? Would she be able to forget so easily the man whose pain ran so deep that he’d chosen to shut out the world and let Joshua Ames run interference for him?

She sighed. Coffee cup in hand, she wandered outside. The air was chilly and the grass glistened with dew in the light from a full moon. She breathed deeply, entranced by the unfamiliar earthy scents. There was something raw and basic, something untouched by all the manufactured perfumes and air-conditioned sterility of the city. She stepped onto the cool carpet of lawn, feeling a childlike exhilaration as her bare feet met the dampness. Suddenly she remembered other mornings, creeping barefooted out of the house to get the paper without waking her parents, feeling as if the world was hers and hers alone at that silent hour before even the birds began to greet the dawn.

She went back inside for her shoes, then set out to explore, taking the path that Cal had taken the day before. As she turned the corner of the house, she was surprised to discover him on the track beyond the stables. Obviously the sound of his leaving had been what had awakened her. She started toward him, then stopped in the shadows to watch in wonder. All the gentleness she had suspected and that he normally worked so hard to hide was in full view now.

He was walking a horse, one hand on the lead, the other in constant motion, caressing in slow, calming
strokes as they went round and round the oval track. She could hear his low crooning, the soothing tone but not the words, and realized that she envied both words and touch.

Concern washed through her as she noted that his shoulders were slumped with exhaustion, his clothes haphazard as if he’d grabbed them hurriedly. She moved closer, saying nothing until he looked up and spotted her leaning against the split rail fence.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, sensing that this was not part of the daily routine. She slipped through the fence and began to walk alongside.

He directed a worried look at the horse. “She has colic. If she’s not better by dawn, I’m going to have to get the vet out here for her. Last night I thought she was through the worst of it, but Zeke called up at the house about an hour ago and said she was bad again. I just wish to hell I knew what caused it. It’s times like these I realize how damned little I know. Chaney says it could be anything, but I feel responsible.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Horses die from it,” he said bluntly, his growing concern etched on his harsh features.

With a sense of dismay Marilou looked at the mare, whose coat gleamed silver-gray in the moonlight. “She’s so beautiful.”

“One of the best. I’ve got a gorgeous stud picked out for her. If I’m right, her foal could be a stakes winner on the turf. If I can’t get her through this, though, it’s something I’ll never know.”

She could feel his frustration along with his compassion. “You don’t like not knowing things, do you?”

He shrugged, one hand automatically soothing the mare. “Who does?”

“I’m not talking curiosity. I mean control. That’s what’s bothering you now. This is a situation you can’t control.”

He grinned ruefully. “To tell you the truth, I never imagined I’d even be trying to control a situation like this. You should hear Chaney on the subject. He thinks I’m in over my head. Joshua thinks I’ve gone round the bend. He doesn’t comprehend anything that doesn’t involve software.”

“What about you? What do you think?”

“I think I’d be a damned fool if I didn’t admit that Chaney is absolutely right. Right now you couldn’t fill the first page of a diary with what I really know about horses. The only reason Chaney gave in and went to bed for a couple of hours was that he knows this morning could be worse and I promised to wake him if she developed a temperature.”

“In many ways you seem like an odd pair, but you have a lot of respect for him, don’t you?”

“Chaney managed this farm for years before I came along. Some of Florida’s top Thoroughbreds were bred here when it was in its heyday. There’s not much about horses and breeding he doesn’t know. I’m lucky to have him.”

“What did you do before?”

He grinned ruefully. “Which year?”

“Can’t hold a job, huh?” she teased, knowing instinctively that was far from the truth.

“Can’t settle down. I’ve bought and sold half a dozen businesses in the past twenty years. Making money gets to be a bore.”

“I suppose that depends on how easily you do it. I’ve never had that problem.”

“Why’d you pick the post office?”

“I had an ‘in.’ My Dad had worked there all his life. It’s steady work.”

“Could you walk away from it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is it something you care about passionately?”

“Passionately, no. But I like it.”

“Then why not leave? Try something you do care about.”

The thought of her camera equipment stored in a closet in her Atlanta apartment teased at her. He couldn’t know about that, and she wasn’t ready to talk about it. Not yet. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a housekeeping job in Ocala.”

Her heart caught, even as she knew deep down that he’d meant the question only hypothetically. She lifted her gaze to meet his and saw him studying her with that same intensity that had so unnerved her the night before. “What are the fringe benefits?” she asked, matching his light, bantering tone.

His lips curved in a faint smile. “A cautious woman. There’s a lot to be said for that.”

If he’d labeled her lazy or indifferent, she would
have been no more irritated. “I didn’t set out to be cautious,” she said with an edge. “It just happened.”

“Hey, why so touchy? There’s nothing wrong with caution. Most folks say it’s the sensible way to live.”

“My parents certainly thought so.”

His gaze rested on her consideringly. “Why does that make you so angry?”

“I’m not angry,” she snapped. She hadn’t realized that her voice had climbed, until the horse nickered nervously and pranced away.

Cal turned his attention to the mare, settling her down, then observed, “You don’t seem like a lady who’d be happy all shut up inside. I saw you out on the lawn earlier. You liked the way the grass felt under your feet, didn’t you?”

She shrugged, feigning indifference. “That doesn’t mean I want to spend my life barefoot.”

“You’re getting all prickly again, Marilou. I wonder why? Am I hitting too close to home?”

“Maybe so,” she conceded grudgingly. “Once, a long time ago, I had other plans.”

“What plans?”

“Oh, travel mainly,” she said, admitting to only part of the truth. “I wanted to see the world. When I finished college, I was going to take off and explore, try different things.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Things didn’t work out.”

“It’s been my experience that you can either make things work out or not. Blaming it on fate or whatever is just an excuse.”

She glared up at him, aware that her eyes were filling with tears. “You don’t know anything about it, Cal Rivers. You obviously just run from responsibility. I couldn’t.”

He ignored her charge and asked pointedly, “Responsibility to whom?”

“My parents.”

“Were they sick? Did they need your help?”

“They died.”

Refusing to look at him, she heard his sharp intake of breath, the low curse, then, “I’m sorry.”

His compassion surrounded her and, after all this time of having no one to lean on, made her want to move into his arms and draw on his strength. Instead she said simply, “It’s been a couple of years now. I should be over it, but sometimes it sneaks up on me and I realize I’m not.”

“Life can deal some pretty lousy blows. There’s no set timetable for recovery that I know about. How come you didn’t follow through on your plans after they died?”

“Because they had hated the idea. We’d been arguing about it the night of their car accident. It just seemed like the wrong thing to do once they were gone. Disrespectful, somehow. I guess in a way I envy you, being able to walk away without looking back. That’s what you do, isn’t it? You just take off whenever the mood strikes you?”

“That’s about right. Just so you know, though, I never turn my back on my responsibilities. When I sell a business, I make sure my people are taken care
of. I owe them that. Most of them wind up better off than they were before I came.”

“Do you think security is all you owe them? What about explanations, loyalty?”

“The best loyalty comes in the form of a steady paycheck. That’s the beginning and end of what I owe them.”

“You can just cut everyone off like that? You certainly vanished from Palm Lane like a man who didn’t want anyone following. I had the devil’s own time trying to track you down.”

“I believe in making clean breaks and starting fresh.”

“Breaks are never clean, not unless you make it a point to keep a real distance between you and the people around you. I’m not saying my way’s better, but it seems to me that yours is a stupid way to live.”

“Maybe so, but I’ve had a long time to get used to it.”

Marilou shuddered and then was filled with a deep sadness. “I’d never get used to it.”