Читать книгу My Montana Home - Ellen James - Страница 10

THE MAXWELL CLAN filled up two entire pews at First Methodist Church. Cassie’s attention strayed from the sermon as she sent a glance down the row of faces next to her. Robert Sr. sat in his customary seat next to the aisle, as if ready to make an exit at any time. He always gave the impression that God would have to wait on his schedule, not the other way around. Beside Robert Sr. sat young Zak, looking a little sleepy-eyed by now. And, next to Zak, sat Beth Peace, her eyes on the minister. Thea and her handsome husband, Rafe, took up the last seats in the pew. Thea didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the sermon, either. She kept turning to gaze at her husband. He gazed back just as adoringly. Someone ought to censor those two.

Cassie didn’t have to turn around to see who sat in the pew behind. Jolie and her own handsome husband, Matt Dawson. No doubt they were doing the adoring bit, too. Next to them would be Lily, who’d just turned fifteen, and ten-year-old Charlie, Matt’s kids from his first marriage. Cassie heard some whispers and a muffled laugh, and then Jolie’s voice shushing. It had been tough going at first with teenage Lily, but Jolie had won over both her stepchildren big time. She’d acquired a family as well as a husband.

And, of course, at the very end of the pew, right behind Cassie, would be Robert Maxwell Jr. Nineteen-year-old Bobby, trying to deal with the terrible troubles he’d caused this past year. The drunk-driving accident that had left his best friend, Dan Aiken, seriously injured…the volatile love affair that had left him with a baby daughter and a girlfriend who had declared categorically that she wanted nothing more to do with his charming unreliability.

The congregation stood to sing a hymn. As the organ music swelled, Cassie unaccountably felt her throat tighten. The gold and ruby and turquoise of the stained-glass windows seemed to waver through the tears that rose to her eyes. She told herself fiercely to get a grip. What was wrong with her? Just because she was surrounded by her family…the family that she wanted to embrace and escape all at the same time…that was no reason to start blubbering.

Cassie managed to get herself under control. The service ended, and the Maxwells filed out with the rest of the worshipers. The blue Montana sky stretched overhead, clean and brilliant, while a breeze stirred through the aspens beside the little white church. It should have been a time of peacefulness and contentment. But one of the congregants, Megan Wheeler, was walking away quickly, long auburn hair flying behind her. She carried a blanket-wrapped bundle protectively against her body. Bobby hurried after her.

“Shucks,” murmured Jolie by Cassie’s side. “I thought he was going to wait for the moment to be a little more opportune.”

“He can’t wait,” said Thea on Cassie’s other side. “Megan’s making her getaway.”

The three sisters watched as Bobby caught up to Megan and began talking to her earnestly. They were too far away to hear what was being said, but the body language was more than eloquent. Megan stood stiffly, angled away from Bobby, still holding her baby close to her body. Cassie knew how much the girl had been through this past year or so…loving Bobby, believing he loved her, giving in to his charm. She’d been terribly hurt at his first reaction to her pregnancy—his blustering denial of responsibility. Later—much later—he’d tried to make amends. He was still trying. But who could blame Megan for refusing to trust him?

Now Cassie studied Megan’s regal bearing. Over the past months she’d changed from a shy, hesitant girl into a confident and independent young woman. Jolie could be credited for a lot of that. When Megan had run away from her abusive father, Jolie had taken her in, offered her a roof and a job. Now Megan lived with Jolie and Matt, and still worked at the clinic. Although she saw her mother and her little sister, Lisa, quite often, she never talked about her father who was serving time in prison. And, with Jolie’s help, she’d won a scholarship to Montana State University in Bozeman. She’d be starting school very soon…starting a new life. A life, perhaps, that would not include Bobby.

Megan’s face had turned stony and implacable. She listened to Bobby for another moment. He made wide gestures as he spoke, no doubt promising grand reforms. Megan, clearly, was not impressed. She simply walked away from him…more slowly this time, as if she knew that Bobby wouldn’t follow her. He didn’t. He just stood gazing after her, a look of despair on his face. And then, rather belligerently, he glanced at the people who had been watching him with covert interest. He strode off in the opposite direction from Megan.

“We have to go to him,” said Thea.

“He needs some time to himself,” said Cassie. “She just shot him down all over again.”

“He wants our help, whether or not he’ll admit it,” said Jolie.

And so it was that Cassie found herself propelled between her two sisters, off in pursuit of the kid brother they all loved.

They found him on the slope behind the church. He stood with his head bent, his elbows planted on the whitewashed fence surrounding the graveyard. It was a stance evocative of despair and frustration, two emotions that Bobby’d had good cause to suffer of late. Not only had he apparently lost Megan, but his best friend was in a wheelchair. Dan Aiken had regained some movement in his arms, but no one knew if he would ever walk again. No wonder Dan’s family was threatening to sue for millions of dollars…no wonder Bobby looked so downcast.

Cassie’s natural instinct was to hang back for a moment, allowing Bobby some time to collect himself. That was what she would have wanted in his situation. But Jolie and Thea just kept nudging her along with them.

At last, it seemed, Bobby could no longer ignore his sisters’ approach. He raised his head and frowned at them. As always, what struck Cassie the most about her brother was the resemblance…his striking similarity to their mother. Beautiful Helen Maxwell, gone now fifteen years but still so fresh in Cassie’s mind. Bobby had Helen’s wavy black hair and fair skin. He also had her very intense dark eyes.

“What do you want?” Bobby muttered, glancing from Thea to Cassie to Jolie.

“We want to help,” Thea said in the soft voice she reserved for the brother she’d practically raised ever since their mother’s death.

“We’re your sisters,” Jolie said, her tone more brisk but nonetheless unable to disguise her affection.

Cassie said nothing at all, sensing Bobby’s emotions. Stubbornness, unease, a restlessness—the very same emotions she had known at Bobby’s age, when she’d been all of nineteen.

“Guys, just give me a break—all right?” Now her brother was trying to sound careless, nonchalant. He wasn’t succeeding.

Thea stepped toward him, resting a hand on his arm. “What did Megan say, Bobby?”

“Hell, what do you think?” he retorted. “She told me to get lost all over again. No surprise. No big news.”

“Bobby,” Jolie said, “maybe you’re moving too fast for her. Pushing for too much, without giving her reason to trust you.”

He turned away without answering. Cassie had to admit that maybe Jolie was right. Not so very long ago, Bobby had asked Megan to marry him. She’d flatly refused. He’d asked her again—she’d turned him down again. She’d told him that she didn’t believe one word of his love, his declaration that he was ready to be a husband and a father. “Grow up, Bobby Maxwell,” she’d said witheringly. “Grow up, but just leave me out of it.” And today, if Bobby had actually proposed again…fact was, Megan already had too much practice saying no to him.

“Bobby,” Thea said, her voice still gentle, “you know what’s really still eating at Megan, don’t you? The way you reacted that day—the day you learned she was going to have a baby. So what you really need to do is convince her somehow that, well, that you really are ecstatic about the whole thing.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Jolie said thoughtfully. “It’s Bobby’s entire history that has Megan running scared. Somehow we have to convince her that he really has changed—”

“Don’t you think,” Cassie said, “that this is between Bobby and Megan, and there’s not a whole lot we can do about it?”

“That,” said Jolie, “is a cop-out.”

Cassie gave a sigh. So maybe Jolie was right about that, too. But their kid brother’s “entire history” really was a complex snarl. His teenage years of drinking and rebelling against every possible sign of authority, especially if the sign happened to come from their father. It didn’t seem likely that three sisters, no matter how well meaning, could sort out Bobby’s problems.

Driven by that unaccountable restlessness, Cassie pushed open the gate to the little graveyard. She was drawn almost against her will to the granite headstones at the far end. They were just a bit bigger and grander than the ones surrounding them. Even in death, the Maxwell clan had always needed to proclaim its preeminence. Cassie stopped before one of these Maxwell monuments. Helen, beloved wife and mother… How inadequate the words seemed. They didn’t capture any of Cassie’s memories: Helen’s liveliness and irreverence, her ability to stand up to her dogmatic husband without ever giving a doubt of her adoration for him.

Cassie’s fingers curled against her palms as the old emotions raced through her, among them the grief and anger first experienced by a sixteen-year-old girl who’d lost her mother. Why did you leave us? If only you’d stayed here, alive and well…surely then Bobby wouldn’t have made such a mess of his life. Surely then I wouldn’t be so confused, wondering all the time about my own life…

Cassie took a deep breath. Impossible, of course, to expect that her mother would have been able to soothe every hurt, calm every fear. Now that Cassie was a mother herself, she knew that much for certain. But still the protests and the longings rose within her.

She’d hardly noticed that her sisters had come to join her.

“Will you look at that,” Thea murmured.

“Sometimes Dad shows a soft spot,” Jolie said, “in spite of himself. He was carrying those flowers earlier this morning, trying to hide them from us.”

Cassie gazed at the flowers that had been laid fresh on her mother’s grave. Daisies and violets with a few sprigs of sweet william. They had been Helen’s favorites. She’d always liked to say that the Maxwells had gotten too far above themselves, with their taste for roses and orchids. She would stick with the simple blooms…violets and daisies. It seemed that her husband, Robert Maxwell Sr., had not forgotten.

“Sometimes,” Cassie said in a low voice, “he can really get to you.”

“Talking about me behind my back?” came Robert’s gruff tone.

Cassie gave a start. Robert Sr. had appeared at her elbow, young Zak in tow. That would teach her not to get lost in her own thoughts.

“Hello, Dad,” Jolie said, apparently unperturbed. “Now and then we do admire your better nature.”

“Surprised you even think I have one,” Robert grumbled. “I know Cassandra doubts it.”

Cassie was starting to get that claustrophobic feeling, the one she got around her family.

“Dad, this is hardly the place for Zak,” she muttered. She took her son’s hand. “We’re going back to the ranch—”

“Running away,” Robert said disapprovingly. “Just as always, Cassandra. And this is a fine place for my grandson.” He took Zak’s other hand. The little boy went willingly with him, slipping away from Cassie. “It’s too bad,” Robert said to Zak, “that you never knew your grandma. She would have thought you were the best thing since glazed doughnuts.”

“Doughnuts,” Zak echoed with a quick, shy grin. “Really?”

Something twisted inside Cassie—a love for her son so boundless that it hurt. But there were other, less admirable emotions, too: jealousy and resentment. Worry that she could all too easily lose Zak to her father’s power and charm. Sadness at the fact that her father had never lavished on her the love and approval he gave to Zak. She glanced back at the gate, automatically judging the distance of her escape. A few strides, and she could be out of here, away from everything. Away from her father…

But then she saw Bobby. Her brother had stepped just inside the gate. He, too, was watching Robert and Zak. The expression on his face was shuttered, as if he was doing everything he could not to feel—not to care. Cassie could guess what he was thinking. Once upon a time, he had been the much-indulged Maxwell heir. In their father’s eyes, he had been unable to do any wrong. All expectations had been high. Until, of course, Bobby had started rebelling against the expectations. After that, his fall from grace had been swift, indeed.

Now Cassie gazed at her brother, and could imagine his own jealousy and pain. Robert Sr. had a new heir in whom to place his hopes, it seemed: William Zachary Warren, a Maxwell in everything but name…

“Zak,” Cassie said more sharply than she’d intended. “Come along. We’re leaving.”

“I don’t want to go,” Zak answered solemnly.

That earned him a glimmer of a smile from Robert. Cassie’s fingers clenched again.

“We’re not going back to the ranch, after all,” she said as calmly as possible. “We’ll head straight back to Billings.”

“I thought you were going to stay all day,” Thea said, drawing her eyebrows together. “I’ve planned a big family dinner for us.”

“That’s wonderful of you, but—”

“I was counting on it myself,” Jolie said. “Seems like we never get the chance to be together.”

“Next time,” Cassie said in a light tone. “We’ll plan on it then.”

“You’re always telling me that,” Thea said, the slightest hint of exasperation in her voice. “We’ll plan on it…we’ll do it later. Dad’s right, Cassie. You’re always running away. But I wish you wouldn’t anymore. I want…I’d like it if we could be a real family for once.”

Cassie stared at her younger sister. “A real family,” she echoed, not as steadily as she would have liked. “Oh, we’re that, all right. We have all the requirements—wounds that won’t heal, pain that won’t be forgiven…”

Thea gazed back, her own expression tight. “Are you implying, Cassie, that I haven’t forgiven?”

“You’d have every right to be angry at me still. Because you’re right, aren’t you? I did run away all those years ago. I left you with…with everything.” Cassie made a wide gesture. Only then did she collect herself, stopping before she could say too much. Her son was glancing with far too much interest from one sister to the other.

“Come on, Zak,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Wait,” said Jolie. “Just stay, Cassie. We need time together—all of us. Isn’t that true, Dad?”

He didn’t say anything, just stood there holding Zak’s hand and regarding Cassie with a look of disapproval. And that was when she knew she could not possibly stay—not for another minute. Not for another second.

“Zak, come here. We’re leaving.”

“I don’t want to go. I want to be with Grandpa.” And her young son burst into tears.

Robert shook his head, still gazing at Cassie with that look of utter disappointment. Now she felt truly desperate. Maybe she was a terrible mother, but she couldn’t seem to help what she did next. She grabbed her son’s hand and hurried him away from his grandfather. Zak cried the entire time.

She felt like crying, too.

IT HAD TAKEN less than twenty-four hours for Andrew Morris to become completely fed up with the splint on his right hand. The thing made even the most rudimentary of activities damn near impossible, so that tying a shoelace, starting the car, even eating a submarine sandwich became near feats of heroism. It also seemed to fascinate everyone who saw it. Andrew couldn’t count the number of times he’d been compelled to explain the tree-house incident—until, finally, he’d had enough of the sly winks and knowing nods he’d receive when the “redhead falling from a tree” reference was revealed.

So it was with absolute calm and resolve that he untaped the blasted splint and tossed it into the garbage. So what if his finger still hurt like blazes. He was through being a spectacle. Without the splint, running his new table saw was a glorious experience. It had been nearly twelve years since Andrew had had time to work with his hands. After finding that Hannah’s lawyer had unexpectedly been called out of town for most of the next week, Andrew had done some serious soul-searching about what to do with the hole in his schedule. Of course, he could fly back to Dallas to catch up on the Connell casework. But somehow, jumping back into his workaday grind hadn’t seemed so compelling. What had seemed compelling was the cupped and twisted decking on his grandmother’s back porch. Couldn’t let that go untended, if he wanted to help the resale value of the house.

Sunday afternoon, then, and he was having a fine time chalking lines and surveying and measuring those water-damaged boards. Time stretched out in front of him. The shadows of the past had receded, even here in Montana. He felt the late-summer sun warm on his back as he knelt on the porch.

The sound of a car turning into the driveway disturbed his reverie about wood screws and planking. He looked up, surprised to see Cassie Warren’s little hatchback. She climbed from the driver’s seat, and her son bolted out the passenger side. He was dashing away from her when she called his name in a warning tone.

“Zak!”

He skidded to a halt. She went over and talked to him in a low, intent voice. Mother and son faced each other. Both had their arms crossed, and both wore stubborn expressions. After a moment, the kid gave a shrug, followed by a reluctant nod. He whirled and sprinted to the oak at the back of the yard. In a matter of seconds he’d clambered up the now-replaced rope ladder and disappeared into the tree house.

Cassie shook her head wearily. Head bowed, she walked toward the guest house. But then she happened to glance up, and saw Andrew. She stiffened, the look on her face revealing that she’d much rather avoid him. He couldn’t say he liked having that effect on a woman.

After a moment she came toward him. “Hello,” she said too politely.

“Hello.”

She studied his right hand. “Amazing,” she commented. “Your finger healed overnight. Why, you don’t even need that splint anymore.”

The sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. “Miracles do happen,” he said agreeably. He sat back and took a long, enjoyable look at her. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse, a skirt that swirled pleasingly around her legs and sandals that showed she’d painted her toenails a bright cherry red. Her toes made him smile.

She crossed her arms and gave him a severe look in return. “I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said.

“Do what?” he asked.

She flushed. “Check me out,” she said. “You seem to be…considering possibilities.”

He thought about the kiss they’d started last night. That was what it had been—the merest of beginnings. Too bad he’d be in Montana only another week or so…

Once again the flush was making her freckles stand out in a very alluring manner. “Andrew,” she said in a repressive tone, glancing toward the tree house at the end of the yard.

“He can’t hear us from all the way up there,” Andrew said helpfully.

“Nonetheless…” She took a step away, as if about to leave. He didn’t want her to go. But something told him he shouldn’t feel this way. Something told him to put some distance between them, as he always did with women.

“Didn’t expect you back so soon,” he said, straightening.

Her face got a closed look. “Let’s just say that things didn’t go as expected with my family.” She stopped, as if thinking over her statement. “Actually, things did go as expected—only more so.”

“Sounds mysterious,” he commented.

“Oh, there’s nothing mysterious about the almighty Maxwells,” she said a bit grimly. “They have a long history of thinking they own the world, and everything in it.”

“Interesting,” he said. “You talk about them as if you don’t belong to them at all, as if you’re not a Maxwell yourself.”

She looked disconcerted, but then recovered. “I suppose that’s one of the hazards of being a lawyer,” she said dryly. “You pick up on the subtleties other people miss. Well, I’ll let you get on with whatever you’re doing.”

He definitely didn’t want her to go.

“Those are some pretty comfortable deck chairs over there,” he said. “And I’ll even make you some of my grandmother’s famous lemonade.”

She almost smiled at that. “Right. You’ll open a can of the frozen stuff, add some water and stir. Hannah always made her cookies from scratch, but not her lemonade.”

“So, are you game?”

She hesitated, glancing once again toward the tree house.

“Who knows,” Andrew said, “maybe some lemonade will lure him down.”

That seemed to do the trick. “All right,” she said. “I’ll stay…for a little while.”

A little while was fine.