The Girl with the Golden Spurs (15 page)

“Daddy…it’s me—Lizzy.” Hesitantly she leaned over him. “I’m here, Daddy.”

She brushed his cheek ever so softly with the back of her hand. “Remember you asked me to promise I’d come home, if anything happened.” She strangled on a sob. “Well, I—I’m home.”

Not knowing what else to say after that, she lapsed into silence. The only sound was the hiss and murmur of the machines.

She watched all the little lights on the various monitors flicker. The hospital felt so alien. Oh, if only she could say or do something to make him better. She felt helpless and awkward and guilty for being whole and well herself.

She leaned over his tanned face again, unaware that tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Daddy, I just wish I could talk to you. I wish… I—I…wish…that I could have made you proud of me…just once. But I never could. Everybody else always could. But Daddy, I wanted to. You’ll never know how much I wanted to. It was just that… Did you ever do anything you were ashamed of?”

His gaze flickered.

More words wouldn’t come. The pain of not being worthy of him was unbearable. Her shoulders slumped. “Now I’ll never get the chance to make you proud of me.”

When she finally left him, she found Cole waiting for her in the hall outside the double doors of the unit.

“How was he?”

“Worse than I expected.” She barely recognized her own voice.

“The same then.”

“Why do people get sick like that?”

“They get old. They wear out.”

“But he’s not old.”

“All it takes is one weak link. He pushed himself mighty hard. The ranch. The divorce.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re like chains. His vascular system was the weak link that broke and caused his swing to crash to the ground.”

“I want him like he was before.”

“We all do. But we’ve got to go on from here.”

“Do you think he’ll ever be all right?”

“I don’t know, Lizzy. Maybe.”

“Not knowing what will happen next isn’t easy.”

“But then that’s how life is. We don’t ever know what’s around the next bend in the road.”

N
ever before had Lizzy felt so helpless. Day after day as she sat in the ICU beside her father, who continued to stare up at the ceiling, she prayed for a miracle.

Please, God, make him well
.

One afternoon when her brothers were in with Caesar, Lizzy opened her eyes in the waiting room after saying such a prayer, Cole was there beside her. As always, he wore crisply starched jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt with the top two buttons undone at his dark throat.

Her heart leapt. “I—I didn’t hear you come in.”

His quick, gentle smile unleashed a torrent of unwanted emotion, so she closed her eyes again, hoping he wouldn’t see.

“I’m leaving later today,” he drawled when she trusted herself to look at him again. “Now that Hawk and Walker are here, I’ll be taking Sy’rai, Kinky and Vanilla back to the ranch.”

“You’re leaving?” The thought brought utter desolation.

“There’s a board meeting in a few days,” he said. “I’ll be back to fly you to San Antonio, if you want to go to it.”

“Of course. Thanks.” She forced a smile. “I feel so helpless here. If only there was something I could do for him.”

He slid a thick black briefcase across the floor toward her. “Your daddy wanted you in charge if something happened to him.”

She ran her trembling fingers over her father’s initials that were engraved in gold into the dark leather.

“He had these documents inside this case when he had the stroke,” Cole said. “I had the minutes and reports from all the board meetings from the past six months copied for you, as well. I also included some stuff about plans for the ranch museum’s opening. If you get through even half the papers, at least you won’t go to the meeting blind.”

“Thank you.”

He shrugged. “It’ll give you something to think about when you have time on your hands here at the hospital and are afraid you can’t do anything for him.”

She nodded.

“Sam told you that the ranch is searching for a new identity for itself,” he continued as he arose to go. “We’re redefining what we think the ranch and family should stand for.” He moved toward the doorway. “I think if you read this stuff—”

She barely heard what he said. All she could think of was that he was leaving, and she felt too overwhelmed by her father’s illness to face anything else. “I’ve never been to San Antonio without my father…alone.”

“You’ll be with me.”

“You’re the last person I should want there.”

“Just read one document at a time, and you won’t be so overwhelmed,” he said gently before he left her.

It scared her a little that he understood what she was feeling so well.

A norther gusted into Houston that night, snuffing out the last of the Indian summer. The skies above the glass skyscrapers and tall pine trees became gray and dark. In the late
afternoon when she left the hospital, the weather was humid and drizzly. As if her father’s condition, her mother’s remote unfriendliness, the dreary weather and the board meeting looming in the future weren’t enough to worry her, the front pages of every newspaper ran inch-high headlines about Cherry Lane’s mysterious disappearance.

The police suspected foul play. The last vehicle a neighborhood teenager remembered having been parked in front of the stripper’s place was a black truck. The kid had given them a couple of numbers off the license plate. The kid had been fascinated by Cherry because of her profession. He’d seen that truck there before—lots of times, usually late at night.

The morning three days after Cole had left, Lizzy and her mother were dressed to leave for the hospital when Gigi tapped on Joanne’s door. “That pesty detective is pacing up and down my living room again.”

Joanne snapped her purse shut.

Lizzy remembered the man too well. Detective Joe Phillips was a short man with an abrasive manner. Just mentioning his name was enough to make Lizzy’s mother bristle.

“The gall of that insufferable idiot! The moron actually thinks I had something to do with that bitch’s disappearance. I wish I had!”

“Mother!”

“Go on to the car. I won’t be long.”

“Don’t antagonize him.”

They descended the stairs together. When her mother headed toward the living room, Lizzy realized she’d forgotten her father’s briefcase upstairs. The board meeting was tomorrow. Since she wanted to go over several documents again, there was nothing to do but rush back up to her bedroom.

When she dashed back down the stairs again, her mother’s raised voice stopped her cold.

“I can assure you, Detective Phillips, I never met that awful woman. No, I can’t explain about that truck. No, I don’t know why someone scrubbed her apartment walls and vacuumed. Look, my husband’s ill. My driver’s waiting.”

“Did you ever speak to Miss Lane on any occasion?”

“Either accuse me of something or leave! I will not sit here and answer any more of your ridiculous questions without my lawyer present.”

“This will only—”

“Good day, Detective,” she said curtly.

“It’s only natural that you disliked her immensely.”

“I never met her. Good day.”

When her ashen-faced mother stumbled into the hall and caught Lizzy eavesdropping, Lizzy blushed and held up Caesar’s briefcase. “I—I forgot this upstairs.”

Detective Phillips stalked gloomily toward the front door.

“Disgusting little man,” her mother said.

“What did he want?

“Nothing really. A black truck was seen at Cherry’s place. He says the license plate of one of our ranch trucks happens to start with the same three numbers. As if that’s proof of something.”

“Who could have been driving the truck?”

“Who cares? He’s blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Cherry probably ran off with another lover.” She opened the kitchen door. “Oh, damn. Not more rain.”

On the porch Joanne’s hands shook so badly as she tried to open her umbrella that Lizzy had to do it for her.

“Horrible man,” Joanne said as her big black umbrella finally snapped open.

“
Did
you ever talk to her?”

Joanne didn’t answer immediately. “You’re as bad as that detective.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

During the silent drive to the hospital, each of them stared out their own windows at the rain-slick freeway. When they finally arrived, reporters charged their Lexus, screaming questions at her mother, who used her umbrella like a battering ram as she dashed through the middle of them.

Lizzy’s mother refused to leave Caesar’s side until late that night. By the time they got home to Gigi’s, Lizzy was exhausted.

To prepare for the board meeting, she had read and reread the thick stack of minutes in her father’s briefcase. Not that all the reports made sense to her.

But they would, she told herself.
I can do this!

A hand-written memo from her father to Leo Storm, the board’s CEO, had caught her attention. She’d gone over it dozens of times. And each time, her heart had raced fearfully.

If anything should happen to me in the near future, put
Lizzy in charge. Caesar
.

That was all. Still, something about the memo frightened her. It was as if he’d had a premonition, as if he distrusted someone on the inside of the ranching operation.

Why had he written it? Was it a power play on his part to get her home? Or did he really think she could do a better job than the others? Or was there some other reason? What if she let him down?

I can do this!
she affirmed, gripping her father’s note.

The next morning Lizzy still felt tired as she drank black coffee with her mother in Gigi’s bright yellow kitchen before she left for the airport to meet Cole.

“I want you to go home to the ranch after the board meeting,” her mother said, getting up from the little table where they’d been sitting together.

“What about Daddy?”

Joanne opened the dishwasher. “He’d want you at the
Golden Spurs. He wanted
you
to take charge. He wrote Leo a memo and he read it, at the last board meeting.” She began removing dishes. “And there’s Vanilla. She’s a baby. She needs you. If you’re going to stay in Texas, you need to wrap your mind around her care, the daily operation of the ranch, and the museum opening.”

Strangely, the thought of caring for Vanilla made Lizzy’s life feel more purposeful.

“I feel so unqualified.”

“Your father chose you.” Joanne opened a cabinet.

“But why?”

Her mother’s hands shook as she placed a stack of saucers onto a shelf. “If I knew that—” She broke off and, crossing her arms beneath her breasts, turned to face Lizzy. “Obviously I am the last person your father confided in.”

Lizzy couldn’t meet her gaze. For some reason Lizzy had always blamed herself for the inexplicable tension in her parents’ marriage.

“Mia was such a natural at everything I do so badly,” Lizzy whispered in an attempt to make peace. And yet, even as she said the placating words, she felt it was unfair she always had to praise Mia to win favor with her own mother.

Her mother’s jaw tightened. “Yes, she was, but she’s gone.” Just thinking about Mia seemed to soften her. She uncrossed her arms. “A lot’s been happening, Lizzy. Too much for me to go into right now. Your father was under a lot of stress. If only we could have put off that museum opening.” Her mother went back to the dishwasher and removed several glasses.

“You’re not telling me everything.”

“Maybe because I can’t. Or, maybe I don’t know how.” Slowly, carefully she set the glasses in a shelf.

“We were never close. I used to wish you’d talk to me the way you talked to Mia. I’d watch you two together. I’d hear
you laughing. Then when I walked into the room you both would go quiet.”

“Don’t—” Joanne sighed wearily and sagged against the counter. “Just go home to the ranch after the meeting. You promised him, Lizzy.” She drew a long breath. “This isn’t about you and me. This is about you and your father. He called me and told me that in our last conversation.”

“I thought your lawyer told you not to talk to Daddy until after the divorce.”

“How could we run the ranch or prepare for the museum’s opening and the celebration without talking? We talked. We were talking more and more lately. Maybe we didn’t have the best marriage, but surely it was better than anything he could have had with Cherry. I—I know this is ridiculous, but I was beginning to think maybe he was going to come to his senses before it was too late. Now, we’ll never know, will we?”

“He hurt you so much. Do you hate him?”

“When cops show up to grill me about vehicle license plates and I have to face those reporters at the hospital, I don’t exactly feel the same enthusiasm I felt the day I married him.”

In spite of herself Lizzy smiled. “I’m sorry.”

“Go home. That’s what he’d want. Take a look at the museum and see what Mark and Jim have been doing.”

“Mark and Jim?”

“Mark is the painter who’s doing the murals. Jim’s the sculptor. Walker hired them and was overseeing their work before he left.”

“Why did Daddy get mad at Walker?”

Her mother went back to the dishwasher and began stacking plates on the counter. She sighed heavily. “And…and if you wouldn’t mind too much, look in on my darling birds. Eli feeds them, but he doesn’t go inside the aviary and talk to them. They like to be talked to.”

Why wouldn’t her mother tell her about Walker?

* * *

The international headquarters of Golden Spurs Inc. occupied the top five floors of a tall brick and glass building in downtown San Antonio.

When Cole and Lizzy arrived by limousine from the airport, reporters rushed them as they tried to enter the building, asking the same tired questions.

“Mr. Knight, don’t you usually drive the black truck the police think was seen at Ms. Lane’s before she was discovered missing?”

When Lizzy shuddered, Cole shielded her with his body and grimly pushed past the screaming throng. Then they were in the reception area that was decorated with mirrors, huge paintings of the ranch itself, antlers and hunting trophies from all over the world. A full-size elephant and a giraffe stared at each other through a fake oasis of potted palms.

Cole pushed her into the elevator which was a gilded, glassy cage. As it shot upward, she continued to stare down at the giraffe and elephant in the trees of the lobby.

Only in Texas!
Lizzy thought.

“You all right?” Cole asked.

“A little nervous,” she lied, still staring down as the people and trees and even the elephant grew smaller. She was way past nervous. “Yourself?” she managed to add.

When she locked eyes with his, he didn’t answer. His mouth was tightly set at the corners.

“You can do this,” he finally said.

“Mind reader.” She smiled. “That’s
my
affirmation.”

He grinned. “Don’t tell me you’re into that self-help bullshit.”

She blinked innocently. “Not me!” She balled her hands into fists. “
I can do this!
” she said, winking at him.

In no time they were in the cherry-paneled boardroom that
looked down on the Alamo and a serpentine curve of the fashionable River Walk that was lined with tall cypress trees, posh shops, restaurants and bars.

Not that Sam, Uncle B.B., Aunt Nanette, Hawk, Walker and other members of the family, who were seated at a long table with Leo Storm, the CEO, even noticed the view. Everybody was talking rather heatedly until she entered. Then a hush fell.

Lavish refreshments had been set up on a long table by one of the tall windows, but no one had served himself anything other than coffee or a soda.

When he saw her, Leo moved across the beautiful room to shake Lizzy’s hand. Tall and as dark and fit as Cole even though he held a corporate, indoor job, Leo towered over her. As always he was dressed beautifully in a navy blue suit, Italian, 5probably. His silk tie was expensive and conservative, his perfect smile white and professional.

“I hope we didn’t keep you waiting,” she said.

He eyed his watch. “You’re exactly on time. We were enjoying coffee.” He pressed her hand again. “I’m so sorry about your father. I know how close you two are.”