Читать книгу Lone Star Nights - Delores Fossen - Страница 9

CHAPTER THREE

CASSIE HATED TO rely on profanity to express herself, but she didn’t know what else to say after the conversation she’d just had with Bernie Woodland.

Why in Sam Hill had her grandmother done this?

“Do I want to know what Dixie Mae’s lawyer had to say?” Lucky asked.

That was an easy question to answer. “No.”

Apparently, though, Lucky wanted her to expand on that a bit. And she would. But first, Cassie had to locate the nearest chair and sit down. Sometime during that conversation with Mr. Woodland, her knees had lost all their cartilage.

Lucky cursed. It was a much worse word than shit, and he dropped down in the chair next to her. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Cassie nodded, swallowed hard. “There’s no need to panic. It’s something we can work out, I’m sure.”

Though the lawyer seemed to have a different notion about that last part. Still, he was wrong. He had to be.

“What’s the favor Dixie Mae wanted us to do for her?” Lucky pressed.

Best just to put it out there and let Lucky work through his own version of panic. Then they could go to Mr. Woodland’s office and talk some sense into him.

“Apparently, my grandmother left us custody of some children,” Cassie said.

Lucky stared at her. Stared some more. Then he laughed. Not the hysterical laugh of someone panicking, either. He thought this was some kind of joke.

“Custody of some kids?” More laughter from him. It was so hard he appeared to get a stitch in his side because he clamped his hand there for several seconds. “Right. Like I’m daddy material.”

Cassie agreed with him on that point. Lucky was about as un-daddy-ish as a man could get. He was more the sort to practice making babies than to tend to them. That was something she hadn’t especially wanted to notice about him.

“Never took Dixie Mae for one to pull a prank like this,” Lucky added when he finally quit ha-ha-ing.

She hated to say this, but it was something he had to hear. “It’s not a prank. Mr. Woodland said Grandmother had him draw up papers, and she signed them the day before she died.”

Because Lucky was so close to her, just inches away, Cassie watched that sink in. Slowly. Word by stupid word. It didn’t sink in well.

A muscle flickered in his jaw. Then another. It didn’t take long for the shock and anger to set in after that.

Lucky snapped to his feet with military precision. “Those darn papers can just be unsigned. Come on. Let’s go to the lawyer and get this straightened out right now.”

If he hadn’t caught onto her arm and wrenched her from the chair, Cassie might have had trouble getting her legs to work. But Lucky had no such trouble. He lit out of there with her in tow while he fished through his jeans pocket for his keys.

Snug jeans.

That hugged his butt just right.

Cassie was dumbfounded that she’d even noticed something like that. Then again, she always noticed things like that when it came to Lucky. She made a mental note to talk to a therapist about it. Of course, she had plenty of other stuff to bring up considering her grandmother had obviously lost her mind and Cassie hadn’t picked up on that until it was too late.

“What kids?” Lucky snapped.

Throughout most of her life, Cassie had gotten accustomed to Lucky giving her heated looks. Or maybe that was just the way he normally looked when his attention landed on a woman. However, that kind of heat was gone now, and in its place was a whole lot of confusion.

“I’m not sure, but according to the lawyer, Grandmother had custody of them for the past several months.”

“Impossible. No one in their right mind would give Dixie Mae kids to raise. Any kids. What do you know about them? Who are their idiot parents? And why didn’t Dixie Mae ever mention anything about them?”

Three good questions. She had fewer good answers. In fact, Cassie had no answers at all.

“Mr. Woodland didn’t know. Grandmother didn’t give him any details, only that she was transferring guardianship to the two of us. He was going to call us when the children arrived at his office—which should be any minute now.”

Just saying the words aloud caused the anxiety to swell in her chest again. Her nerves were already prickling beneath the surface, what with Dixie Mae’s death, and her other problem, but the prickling was well on its way to being full-blown panic.

Breathe.

Not that guppy breathing, either. That would cause her to hyperventilate again. Nice, normal, slow breaths. At the end of a few of those, Cassie’s head finally began to clear.

“It has to be a misunderstanding,” she said more to herself than Lucky, but he latched right on to the idea as if it were a true beacon of hope.

“You’re right. And Bernie Woodland will tell us that.” Possibly a lie, but she needed a beacon of hope, too.

Lucky practically stuffed her into a sleek red truck and peeled out of the parking lot. Even though she didn’t need any proof whatsoever of his bad-boy reputation, she got it right away. He sped down Main Street, violating at least three traffic laws while getting the attention of every single female they passed along the way. Two gave him “call me” hand gestures.

Because Spring Hill was a small town by anyone’s standards, it didn’t take Lucky long to get to the lawyer’s office. Only a couple of minutes. He screeched the truck into one of the tight parking spaces and threw open the door in the same motion that he turned off the engine.

Cassie had to run to catch up with him. Thankfully, that was easy to do since she was wearing her traveling shoes and not her usual heels. She made it in behind him by only a few seconds. During those seconds, though, Lucky had already managed to get the attention of the receptionist, Wilhelmina Larkin.

Wilhelmina was sixty if she was a day but obviously still wasn’t immune to Lucky McCord and his crotch-framing jeans. She stood, twirling a coil of her hair around her finger and smiling in a coy way that made it clear she appreciated the view in front of her.

“I need to see Bernie,” Lucky insisted. His tone was hard enough, but he returned Wilhelmina’s smile as naturally as he drew in his next breath.

“He’s busy with a client right now,” Wilhelmina said.

The woman actually batted her eyelashes. Good gravy. If Cassie hadn’t already had enough to sour her stomach, that would have done it. With the way women threw themselves at Lucky, it could possibly turn out that these children in question might be his offspring after all.

Lucky leaned in, his hands landing on Wilhelmina’s desk. “Unbusy Bernie. We want to talk to him right now. It’s important.”

Maybe it was because Lucky quit grinning or maybe it was because he no longer sounded like the hot cowboy women drooled over, but either way, Wilhelmina nixed the eyelash batting and actually slid her gaze toward Cassie, apparently noticing her for the first time.

“Oh,” Wilhelmina remarked. “This must be about Dixie Mae. What’s going on anyway? Bernie wouldn’t get into it with me. Dixie Mae’s orders, he said. Dixie Mae thought I’d gossip about it. That’s what she said to Bernie—that I would gossip about it—so Bernie typed up the paperwork himself. Didn’t even know he could type.”

Lucky gave her a flat look, and Cassie thought he might repeat his order to see Bernie. He didn’t. He stormed passed Wilhelmina, heading up the hall. There were several offices, but Lucky seemed to know exactly which one belonged to Bernie because he opened the door without knocking. Bernie was with someone all right.

Cassie’s father.

Mason-Dixon Weatherall.

Cassie stumbled to a stop, her father’s and her gazes colliding like two unconnected burglars who’d broken into the same place at the same time. Instant guilt.

Well, guilt on her part anyway.

She’d distanced herself from him years ago because of the way he treated her, and he’d distanced himself from her because of the distancing. Cassie was betting, though, that her father felt no guilt whatsoever about that, what with his my-way-or-the-highway approach to life.

It was the first time she’d seen him in nearly ten years, and her immediate thought—once she got past the question as to why he was there—was that he looked so old. He was still dyeing his hair the color of crude oil, still wearing clothes straight out of the sixties, but there were a lot more wrinkles on his face than there had been during their last meeting.

Her father eased himself to his feet. “Cassie,” he greeted.

“Dad,” Cassie greeted back with the same caution of those two theoretical burglars.

Lucky volleyed some glances between them. “Does your dad have anything to do with this shit?”

“Do you?” Cassie asked her father.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” he snarled. “I deal with lots of different kinds of shit.”

Bernie stood then, tugging off his glasses and dropping them onto the desk. He was about the same age as her father, but it was night and day in the apparel arena. Bernie was wearing conservative clothes similar to hers. Actually, the jacket was identical to hers.

Something that made her frown.

“Mason-Dixon doesn’t have anything to do with the letter Dixie Mae left the two of you,” Bernie clarified.

“The old bat left you a letter, too?” But her father didn’t wait for them to confirm it. “She left me six fucking cats. Six! She arranged to have her driver drop them off at the club this morning. Them, and their litter boxes, which hadn’t been cleaned in days. They’re going to the pound as soon as I leave here.”

“No,” Cassie practically shouted, and it got everyone’s attention. “Grandmother loved those cats.”

Her father’s fisted hands went on his boney hips. “Then why the hell did she leave them to me?”

Yet another of those questions that Cassie couldn’t answer. Maybe Dixie Mae had indeed gone insane.

“I’ll take the cats,” Cassie volunteered. “Just give me a couple of days. I’ve got my own problems to work out.” A laundry list of them, and that list just kept growing.

Her father looked at her. Then at Lucky. “Did you knock up Cassie or something?” he asked Lucky.

While Lucky was howling out a loud “no,” Cassie fanned her hands toward her clothes. Then toward Lucky’s. “Does it look as if we could be lovers?” she asked.

Her father did more glancing and shook his head. “Guess not.”

It was yet something else that made her frown. Maybe she needed to start shopping at a different store.

“So, you’ll take the cats?” her father clarified.

Cassie nodded but didn’t have a blasted clue how she was going to make that happen. Her condo in LA didn’t allow pets. Still, the shelter here in Spring Hill probably wasn’t no-kill, and she couldn’t risk her grandmother’s precious cats being put down—even if it had been a lamebrain idea for Dixie Mae to leave her pets to a man who’d been on her bad side since she’d given birth to him.

Her father moved closer and gave her the look. The one he’d been giving her since she was a kid. “Just know that I expect something other than cats from Dixie Mae’s estate. Whatever she had, I get half.”

“I’m pretty sure you won’t,” Lucky spoke up. “Dixie Mae didn’t like you, and she always told me that she had no intention of giving you any money. She wanted her money to go to Cassie.”

“Cassie will share,” her father insisted. The look intensified, and suddenly she was six years old again and getting sent to her room because she was acting too prissy.

Lucky moved in front of her father, getting right in his face. “I’m thinking that’ll be Cassie’s decision.”

“We’ll see about that.” Her father started out, then stopped when he was right beside her. “If those cats aren’t gone in two days, they’re going to the pound. The goddamn things are chewing the feathers in the girls’ costumes.”

That seemed very minor compared to being given children, but as Cassie had always done with her father, she held her tongue. And took a few steps away from him. She’d spent her entire adult life trying not to get embroiled with him and his smutty lifestyle, and she didn’t want to start now.

Cassie didn’t say goodbye to him. She merely shut the door once her father was gone and then whirled around to face Bernie. Now, here was someone she would confront. Except Lucky beat her to it.

“Say it’s not true,” Lucky demanded. “Tell me that Dixie Mae didn’t give us custody of some kids.”

Bernie sighed, causing his pudgy belly to jiggle. He pulled open his desk drawer, cracked open a bottle of Glenlivet and downed more than a couple of swigs. “She did indeed leave Cassie and you custody of two children,” Bernie confirmed.

Of course, the lawyer had already told her that, but hearing it face-to-face gave Cassie a new wallop of panic. No. This couldn’t happen now. She couldn’t lose it in front of Lucky. In front of anybody.

Lucky, however, didn’t seem to notice that she was cruising her way to a panic attack. He was apparently coping with the anxiety in his own way. By cursing a blue streak in an extremely loud voice.

“How the hell could you let Dixie Mae do something like that?” Lucky yelled. “You should have stopped her.”

“Really?” Bernie challenged. “You believe I could have stopped Dixie Mae? Were you ever able to stop her from doing something she insisted on doing?”

“No, but that’s beside the point. Dixie Mae and I differed on rodeo stuff. Business. If she’d mentioned giving me custody of some kids, trust me, I would have stopped her.”

Judging from the groan that followed, Lucky knew that was a partial lie. He would have indeed tried to stop her, but Dixie Mae would have just found a way around it.

The same thing Cassie had to do in this situation.

“Neither Lucky nor I knew that Dixie Mae had anything to do with any children,” Cassie started. “When did it happen? How did it happen?” she amended.

“I’m not sure of all the details,” Bernie answered. “Until Dixie Mae showed up here, it’d been years since I’d seen her. She said she wanted me to do the paperwork because I was local.”

Local? Cassie figured there was more to it than that. Maybe Dixie Mae’s usual lawyer didn’t handle situations like this. Or maybe her grandmother had just tried to be sneaky because her lawyer in San Antonio perhaps would have contacted Cassie to let her know something fishy was going on. And this definitely qualified as fishy.

“Dixie Mae said a couple of months ago an old friend of hers got very sick,” Bernie continued. “This friend was taking care of her grandkids and asked Dixie Mae to step in for a while.”

All right. There was the out Cassie had been hoping for. “You can contact the grandmother and tell her to resume custody.”

Bernie shook his head. “The grandmother died a short time later, and the grandkids’ parents aren’t in the picture. They’re both dead. That’s why Dixie Mae took over legal custody.”

Lucky shook his head, too. “Well, she must have hired a nanny or something because Dixie Mae never had any kids with her when she came to work.”

“She did have a nanny, a couple of them, in fact,” Bernie went on. “But they quit when they butted heads with her so Dixie Mae arranged for someone else to watch them temporarily. She didn’t give me a lot of details when she came in and asked me to draw up papers and her will. And right after we finished with it, she got admitted to the hospital.”

Cassie latched on to that. “Maybe there’s something in her will about Lucky and me being able to relinquish custody to a suitable third party.”

Lucky tipped his head in her direction. “What she said. Find it.”

But Bernie didn’t pull out a will or anything else. “The will didn’t address trusteeship of the children, only the disbursement of Dixie Mae’s assets. I’m not at liberty to go over that with you now because she insisted her will not be read for several weeks.”

Cassie doubted there was a good reason for that. But she could think of a bad reason. “This was probably Grandmother’s attempt at carrot dangling. If Lucky and I assume responsibility without putting up a fuss, then we’ll inherit some money. Well, I don’t want her money, and I’m putting up a fuss!”

“So am I,” Lucky agreed. “Fix this.”

Bernie looked around, clearly hesitating. “I guess if you refuse, I can have Child Protective Services step in.”

All right, they were getting somewhere.

Or maybe not.

“Of course, that’s not ideal,” Bernie went on. “The children could end up being placed in separate homes, and foster care can be dicey.” He scratched his head. “Dixie Mae was so sure you two would agree to this since it was her last wish.”

Her grandmother had no doubt told Bernie to make sure he reminded them of that a time or two. Especially after what Dixie Mae had said to Lucky: A man wouldn’t be much of a man to deny an old dying woman her last wish.

“I smell a rat,” Lucky mumbled.

So did Cassie. Dixie Mae had practically duped Lucky into saying yes, and the old gal had figured Cassie wouldn’t just walk away, leaving him to hold the bag.

Damn it.

Cassie couldn’t just walk away. But that didn’t mean she was giving up without a fight. She wasn’t in any position to raise children. Especially not with Lucky.

Heck, who was she kidding?

He’d probably be a lot better at it than she would be. At least he wasn’t an emotional mess right now and hadn’t just checked out of a glorified loony bin. As a therapist she probably should have considered a better term for it, but loony bin fit. Too bad she hadn’t had her grandmother there with her so she could have had the chance of talking Dixie Mae into making other arrangements for the children.

“How do we get around this?” Cassie asked Bernie at the same moment Lucky said to him, “Fix this shit. And I don’t mean fix it by putting some innocent kids in foster care. Fix it the right way. Find their next of kin. I want them in a home with loving people who know the right way to take care of them.”

Good idea. Except Bernie shook his head again. “I started the search right after Dixie Mae came in. No luck so far, but I’ll keep looking. In the meantime, Cassie and you can take temporary custody, and if I can’t find any relatives, I’ll ask around and see if someone else will take them.”

That wasn’t ideal, far from it, because “asking around” didn’t seem to have a deadline attached to it. “How long would we have them?” she asked.

“A couple of days at most,” Bernie said.

Perhaps that was BS, but Cassie latched on to it and looked at Lucky. “Maybe we can figure out something to do with them just for a day or two?”

Oh, he so wanted to say no. She could see it in his eyes. Probably because he didn’t want to stay anywhere near Spring Hill. It was no secret that Lucky had a serious case of wanderlust. Along with the regular kind of lust.

“Two days is too long,” Lucky said, obviously still mulling this over and perhaps looking for an escape route.

Two days, the exact amount of time she had to do something about those feather-chasing cats at the strip club. Cassie tried very hard not to think bad thoughts about her grandmother, but she wished the woman had gone over all these details before she’d passed away.

“You’ll need to work out something faster than two days,” Lucky insisted. “I’ve got to be at a rodeo day after tomorrow.”

Yes, she had things to do, as well. Things she didn’t want to do, but she wouldn’t be able to wiggle out of them the way that Lucky was trying to wiggle out of this.

“I can try,” Bernie said, not sounding especially hopeful. Too bad, because Cassie needed him to be hopeful. More than that, she needed him to succeed.

“I’ll call the Bluebonnet Inn,” Bernie added, “and get the girls a room there.”

Lucky seemed to approve of that, but Cassie wasn’t so sure. She, too, had planned to stay at the Bluebonnet Inn, mainly because it was the only hotel in Spring Hill. That meant Lucky would likely expect her to be with the children 24/7.

But Cassie wasn’t having this all put on her shoulders. Nope. She was packing enough baggage and problems as it was so she’d also get Lucky a room at the inn.

“Where are the children?” Cassie asked.

Bernie checked his watch. “They should be here any minute now.” He pushed a button on an old-fashioned intercom system. “Wilhelmina, when the Compton kids arrive—”

“They’re already here,” Wilhelmina interrupted. “Want me to send them back?”

“Sure.” Bernie took his finger off the intercom button and drew in a long breath, as if he might need some extra air.

A moment later, Cassie saw why.

The air sort of vanished when the door opened and Cassie saw one of the children in question. And this time, she wasn’t the one to say that one all-encompassing word. It was Lucky.

Shit.

They had apparently inherited custody of a call girl.