Star Bright (11 page)

“By the time Dad got done with it, it was a pretty fancy horse stall. I know it sounds strange, but it wasn’t really. They converted a birthin’ stall, and they’re quite large. Mom liked to work in the stable with my father, and back then, they couldn’t afford a babysitter, so a confinin’ area for us kids was the only solution. Less than two years after Clint was born, Quincy came along. I came a year later, Zachary two years after me. Life can’t end for a woman just because she has four little boys. It was kind of cool, actually. We had a big space to play in, and she kept tons of toys in there to keep us entertained. When one of us cried, no tellin’ who’d come, sometimes my mom, sometimes Dad, and sometimes one of the hired hands. Hooter—he’s Clint’s foreman now—used to take his breaks in there with us. He got me hooked on chocolate Hostess Cup Cakes—those ones with the cream centers? I still love ’em to this day. And Jerome—he’s Samantha’s foreman now—got me hooked on his Blue Buzzard Ranch Chili. Do you think he’ll give me the recipe, though? Hell, no. He’s gonna take that recipe with him to the grave.”

Rainie was quickly coming to realize that Parker loved to talk. He also had a tendency to flit from one subject to another. But she was so fascinated by his stories that she didn’t mind. Her initial uneasiness began to dissipate. If he intended to grill her about her past, he was taking his own sweet time in getting around to it.

“You gonna eat?” he suddenly asked. “The food will get cold.”

“Oh.” Rainie dished herself up a small portion of the chicken fried rice and a few snow peas. “Mmm,” she murmured appreciatively after taking a bite. “So, Hooter and Jerome have been with your family for a long time?”

“Long before Clint was a twinkle in my father’s eye. In fact, all of my dad’s original crew is still with us, some still workin’ at his place, some workin’ for us kids. When each of us branched out on our own, we inherited one of his most trusted hired hands as a foreman. He wanted us to stand on our own two feet, but he didn’t want us to be without an adviser. I got Toby, one of the best horsemen you’ll ever encounter. He’s the fellow you saw that first day, comin’ up to the house to tell me you had arrived.”

Rainie recalled the paunchy, slow-moving man she’d seen. She took a bite of chicken fried rice. “He’s still able to work with horses?”

“Don’t let his looks deceive you. The old codger can move like greased lightnin’ when the notion strikes him. He’s like a second father to me.” He flashed her one of those heart-stopping grins. “That’s fittin’, I guess. He’s my godfather. When I was a kid, he made me recite my catechism while we did stable chores together. I learned the Apostles’ Creed at the business end of a pitchfork.”

“It must be nice to have so many people in your life that you’ve known since childhood.”

“It is nice,” he agreed. “I sort of take it for granted, though. It’s how I grew up. My dad started out poorer than a church mouse, with only this spread as an asset. He was dumber than a rope about quarter horses and had to count on the knowledge of others to get his start. Later, when he became successful, he never forgot the people who’d helped him get there. He treats ’em like family, and in turn, they’re as loyal as family. If this place went tits-up tomorrow, Toby would stand by me to the end.”

Having experience with only the corporate world, Rainie was more accustomed to a dog-eat-dog mentality. “I can’t imagine.”

“Around here, it’s the norm,” he said with a laugh. “Not to say I don’t have new employees who’d leave in a blink. But mostly I try to hire people I think will stay on, and then it becomes my aim to make it so good for them here that they’ll never consider quittin’.”

Rainie remembered his refusal to pay her less than what he felt was fair.

“Bein’ a good boss is one of the things that my dad drilled into all of us. ‘When the clover’s high, share the pink,’ he says. And he’s not just blowin’ smoke. Right after I got off on my own, I felt rich, havin’ the workin’ capital he gave me in my bank account. And trust me when I say spendin’ it wisely didn’t come naturally to me. That was somethin’ I had to learn. First crack out of the bag, I bought myself a brand-new Ford pickup, tricked out like you wouldn’t believe. I was so damned proud of that truck. When my dad saw it, the first thing he asked me was, ‘When did you last give your hired hands a raise?’ Truth was, I hadn’t given anyone a raise yet, not even Toby. Dad let me know in no uncertain terms that takin’ care of my employees came first. New rigs and luxuries for me always had to come second. I felt guilty every time I looked at that damned truck until I was able to give Toby and all the others an increase in wages.”

“You’re very fond of him, aren’t you? Your father, I mean.”

Cheek bulging, he nodded. “More than fond of him. My dad is—” He broke off and wiped his mouth with the paper towel. “Well, he’s indescribable, one of the best men I’ve ever known.” Sighing with satisfaction, he tossed the napkin on his plate and rocked back on the chair. “Enough about me. I’ve talked your ear off. What’s your father like?”

Here they came, the personal questions she’d been dreading. Only he’d caught her off guard, and Rainie couldn’t think how to dodge the query. She decided that giving him tidbits of information would do no real harm. “My father passed away when I was seventeen.”

His expression went suddenly solemn. “Ouch. That’s mighty young to be losin’ your dad. It must have been really hard on your mom.”

“She was no longer with us when he died. We lost her to ovarian cancer when I was twelve.”

“So you were left all alone at seventeen?” His dark eyes filled with appalled incredulity. “Shit. That must have been rough.”

Most people tried to console Rainie with platitudes when they heard about her parents’ deaths, but Parker said nothing more. Instead he stared at the desktop as if he couldn’t conceive what it must have been like for her. His silence touched Rainie in a way that artfully phrased condolences never had.

“It was lonely,” she heard herself say. “It still is. After my mom died, my father became my whole world. Though he loved me and tried to go on because of me, I don’t think he ever got over losing her. They were—” She broke off. Her parents’ relationship was difficult to describe. “I don’t know. What they had was special.”

“In other words, they were truly in love,” he supplied softly.

Rainie gave him a questioning look. It struck her as an odd thing for a rough and rugged man like Parker Harrigan to say.

“It was the same for my folks,” he explained with a smile. “Nowadays, a lot of people think all that crap is only for storybooks, but even though I was young, I can still remember how it felt in a room when my mom and dad were together. It took him years to get over her death.”

“Daddy never got over losing my mother. I can’t remember now when he started drinking, only that one day I realized he was drinking way too much. The alcohol eventually destroyed his health. The last thing he said to me as he lay dying was that he was sorry.” It occurred to Rainie that she was sharing more than tidbits of information with Parker Harrigan, but somehow she couldn’t stop the words from coming. “He was in such pain that I was relieved when it was over, but at the same time, I wished he wouldn’t leave me.”

He nodded. “When we lose a loved one, our feelin’s can get as tangled as line wire. Who’d you live with after he died?”

“I was in my senior year of high school, and he had enough left in the bank to arrange for the housekeeper to stay with me until I graduated and the house could be sold. The proceeds from the sale went into a trust fund to cover my college education, and I began my freshman year the following September.” Rainie fiddled nervously with a button on her blouse. “I actually do have an undergraduate degree in accounting. That much wasn’t a lie.”

“As long as you can do the work, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the degree. Why couldn’t you live with someone in the family after he died? Surely you had an aunt or uncle or grandparents.”

“My mom was an orphan and grew up in foster homes. My father cut ties with all of his relatives before I was born. I don’t know for sure, but I think his family disapproved of my mother. Daddy would never talk about them. He just looked angry when I asked questions. So after he died, I had nobody.”

Rainie’s throat went tight with the admission. She pretended interest in her meal, but her appetite had vanished. Looking back on those years immediately following her father’s death, she wondered if she ever would have fallen for Peter if she hadn’t felt so horribly alone.

“It’s hard for me to imagine havin’ no one,” Parker observed. “I don’t know my mom’s side of the family very well, but my dad’s side makes up for the lack. I’ve got uncles and cousins out the yang.”

“I tried to find my grandparents after Daddy passed away, but none of my letters of inquiry were ever answered. I can only assume they’re dead—or maybe they just don’t care to meet me.”

“They might be dead, I reckon.” He pushed erect and collected his eating utensils. As he strode back to the coffee room, he said over his shoulder, “Seems more likely to me that they never got your letters, though. You’re only twenty-five. They’re probably not that old.”

Rainie listened as he rinsed his plate and fork. When he returned, he paused by the desk to gaze down at her for a moment. “You should try to find them again.”

The time for that was past. Rainie couldn’t even telephone her best friends, let alone risk trying to contact long-lost relatives. Lorraina Hall Danning was dead.

And she had to remain dead.

As Rainie settled into a work routine at the ranch, lunch hours with Parker became commonplace. One day it would be hot pizza, the next take-out Italian or Texas barbecue. Parker paid extra for the food to be delivered because the ranch was so far from town. He always ordered enough for Rainie to join him. At first, she protested. Then she offered to pay for her share. His response was that she could make it up to him with overtime. Only whenever he caught her in the office after hours, he reminded her of the rancher’s philosophy: What didn’t get done today would wait until tomorrow.

Rainie was guarded during their mealtime conversations. Parker, on the other hand, seemed to say whatever crossed his mind. He talked almost nonstop, skipping from one subject to another, and though she said very little, silences were rare. Once, when he realized he had been droning on and on without pause for several minutes, he laughed and said, “Sorry. It can go two ways with ranchers who spend most of their time with animals. We’re either the silent type, or our tongues are tied in the middle and loose at both ends. I love my horses. Don’t get me wrong. I never feel lonesome when I’m with them. But when a human ear is available, I’m a motormouth.”

Rainie didn’t mind. At home, she had only Thomas for company, and the cat wasn’t a great conversationalist. Listening to Parker’s ramblings every day at noon was something she began to enjoy. When he wasn’t in the office, which was most of the time, she played music on her computer while she worked, but the moment he showed up, she muted the speakers so she could enjoy his stories, which ranged from tales of his childhood to present-day information about his family members, whom she hadn’t yet met.

“You never say much,” he noted one afternoon. “Is that because I bore you, or are you just shy about speakin’ your mind?”

“You don’t bore me,” Rainie replied. “I’m just not much of a talker, I guess.”

He seemed satisfied with her answer, and Rainie thought that was the end of it.

Only for Parker, that wasn’t the end of it. It seemed to him that she often bit her tongue to keep from contradicting him. That bothered him. It bothered him immensely. He came from a boisterous, brutally honest, and fun-loving family that enjoyed a good argument. Sometimes someone would say something inflammatory just to stir the shit and get a heated debate started. Parker had a tendency to do the same when he was trying to make up his mind about his stance on an issue. To his way of thinking, there was no better way to sort his thoughts on a subject than to hear someone else’s opinion, and the easiest way to get diverse feedback was to get people riled up. His little sister, Samantha, never hesitated to state her opinions. If Parker said something to irk her, she thought nothing of standing toe-to-toe with him and yelling to get her point across. It was the Harrigan way. Maybe his family was dysfunctional, but Parker didn’t think so. He always came away from family get-togethers feeling good, and people in dysfunctional relationships usually didn’t.

Parker worried about Rainie. It couldn’t be healthy for her, emotionally or physically, to hold everything in all the time. It also troubled him to think that her reticence might be due to fear of him. Each day after lunch, he pondered the expressions that he’d seen flicker across her pretty face during the meal. At times, when he brought up a controversial subject, her cheeks went pink with what he felt certain might be anger, but she’d never once challenged him. What was she afraid of, anyway, that he’d cloud up and rain all over her for thinking differently than he did?

One day at lunch, Parker deliberately brought up a subject that he thought would piss her off. He knew it was perverse of him, but he had to see what her reaction would be. “So how do you feel about women who dress provocatively and then scream to high heaven when they get raped?”

She froze at the question with a French fry caught between her front teeth. Damn, she had beautiful eyes. Sometimes when Parker looked into those hazel depths, he found it difficult to look away.