Chapter Four
W ednesday morning rolled around way too soon as far as Beth was concerned, and her plans to meet Cal had changed twice already. First, when Cal had changed the time to eight in the morning. Second, when the hospital had called and asked her to cover a Tuesday night shift for a sick coworker. Savannah had offered to keep Sam overnight, Cal had offered to drive him to school and collect her for breakfast on the way, and Beth had gratefully agreed.
Which was how she came to be sitting in the cab of Cal’s work truck, with Sam squished between them, looking much the same as when she’d left him the night before, but in some ways rather different. “What are you wearing?”
Her boy grinned, lightning fast and all the sweeter for his simple joy. “Jett Casey’s winter gear from when he was twelve. I’m bigger than he was back then. And I got Cal’s belt from when he was a kid. Look, Mom. He made it.”
It was a brown leather belt, plain as they came, with a strong steel buckle.
“And it fits me just right.”
“Good job,” she murmured.
“Cal’s gonna show me how to make one.”
She slid the big man a glance. “Is he now?”
“He says they make great Christmas presents.”
“That’s months away.” Or was it? October, already. How had that happened?
“Are you going to sell the breeding herd to Cal?”
Too bright, this son of hers. She caught Cal’s swift glance and grimaced, but there was no point denying it. “It’s something we might talk about at breakfast, yes.” One of the Casey stud bulls had already been across her cows months ago on account of yet another broken boundary fence, so they were practically part of the Casey breeding program, anyway. “I’m sorry, Sam, but winter’s coming and we don’t have enough feed to get them through to spring. If I sell the herd to Cal, or his family in general, we won’t have to pay transport and auction costs. I’d ask a fair price and Cal would pay it.”
Sam nodded but wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“It’s not the only way out of money troubles,” Cal offered, after a pause. “You could ask for a loan.”
“With a bank? In addition to the two loans and the mortgage I inherited? Cal, I earn a good wage, I know that. And when I say it’s like a drop in the ocean of what is owed, I mean that I’m drowning in an ocean of debt. The ranch takes it all, and it was like that even before Red died, and I’m so damn tired —” Of trying to pretend that everything was wonderful before Red went missing … “Can we talk about this after we take Sam to school?”
“Okay.”
He and Sam exchanged a glance. Mutiny in Sam’s eyes, a warning in Cal’s. A warning her son heeded, and somehow that was the final straw.
She could feel the tears begin to gather, and why now ? Why did it have to be this man who always seemed to witness her undoing?
“Hey now, Beth Ann. Hey,” muttered Cal softly.
A small hand crept into hers and squeezed. “It’s okay,” her man-child murmured soothingly. “We’ll be okay. You’ll see.”
And that was her line, not his. “I’m so sorry. I tried so hard to keep it going.”
“It’s okay. Didn’t want to be a rancher anyway.”
This was news to her. She swiped her wet cheeks with her fingers and tried to get rid of the evidence of her fragility. “What do you want to be?”
“Happier.”
Dry as dust this child of hers. But her sob turned into a watery laugh. “What else?”
“Smoke jumper, emergency services pilot, paramedic, or a doctor. Gotta keep my options open.”
“That’s… really?” He’d never struck her as the studious type, and those careers required serious educational endeavor.
“I mean, I could be a rancher as well , but it’d be easier not to be, y’know?”
Another laughing sob left her. She knew.
Cal nodded to her boy. “Good job, kid.”
That was the crazy thing about some men, and this one in particular. He wasn’t the showiest pony in the paddock. More like a Clydesdale in a family full of thoroughbreds. But when things went sideways, people looked to Cal for direction and unwavering strength, and he delivered. He was a leader for the hard times, and Beth had a sneaking suspicion he had no idea how many people relied on his practical, steadying presence. “You’re a good man, Cal Casey.”
The creases around his eyes deepened as he smiled, bringing a boyish cast to all that work-etched masculinity. “How was your shift at the hospital?”
She didn’t bring the stresses of her job home. Or maybe she did and didn’t know it. She never talked about what happened at work, at any rate, but if Sam wanted to be on the medical frontline someday, maybe it was wrong to hide the realities from him. “I was part of an emergency team trying to save a man’s leg. They even got a specialist in halfway through, and it was amazing and exhausting, because I was trying to give the surgeons what they needed when they needed it, and half the time I’d be thinking which one… which one will you ask for next? I usually know.”
“Cal says you’re a hero every time you work a shift.”
“Hah, no.” Fresh tears threatened to fall, and she bowed her head to hide her face behind a fall of stringy fine hair. “But I like surgical nursing. I like being part of that team.” If she didn’t have the ranch … If she had a little house in Marietta and only had regular bills to pay …
Ranching had always been Red’s dream, never hers. For her, it had become nothing more than futile, never ending, overwhelmingly hard work.
Sam stayed silent until they pulled up at the school drop-off area. She went to open the door of the truck, but Cal was way ahead of her, and Sam scrambled out of his side in a tangle of limbs and an oversized schoolbag.
“You’ll take care of her, right?” Sam asked.
“You bet.” Cal knuckled up for a solemn fist bump and earned another swift Sam smile.
Was she jealous of the rapport Cal shared with her son? How mean-spirited could she be?
Plenty mean, or so it seemed. She met Cal’s gaze when he got back into the car and for a moment she truly thought he could see straight through her. All her feelings of inadequacy and failure. All her earnest parenting and never knowing if she was doing the right thing by her boy. Could he really see how often she floundered?
“Don’t fault him for wanting to protect you,” Cal told her as he drove toward Marietta’s Main Street.
“Are you going to tell me it’s a guy thing?”
“It’s a family thing.”
He never gave her the fight she was spoiling for. He always knew exactly how to disarm her, even when she was being a brat. Especially then.
He made her long to be a better person.
He deserved to have only the best kind of people around him.
Getting a booth at the diner at this time of the day was as simple as walking in and taking a seat. They had water, coffee, and fresh cutlery on the table within the first minute. Guess being a rangy cowboy who stood six-five in steel capped boots came in handy, Beth decided with a wry smile, and watched the waitress flirt while he ordered a pancake stack with bacon and syrup and blueberries. Beth ordered eggs and savory greens with her bacon, and looked around to find curious eyes upon them.
“What if people think we’re on a date?” she asked.
“Don’t care.” His well-shaped lips tilted ever so slightly upwards. “How bad’s your financial situation, Beth? Will you walk away with anything at all?”
“If I sell the ranch, I should be able to buy a place in Marietta once all the debts and mortgages have cleared. I thought I might have been able to hang on to it long enough for Sam to take it on, but if it doesn’t matter to him whether we stay or go…”
“It matters. But he doesn’t want to see you running yourself ragged in service to a failing dream, either. So.”
“Would you buy it? Could you?”
“Personally? No. I can’t afford to do it alone. Not enough capital—and that was always Red’s issue, too, and his father’s before him. They took on far too much debt and just couldn’t get ahead. And the bad years weren’t good to them, and you need a solid financial buffer in this industry, at least two or three year’s worth. You just do. And Red gambled. Are we up to admitting that? I can go either way—I’m more about wanting you to know that I don’t blame you for your current financial position at all. You inherited a bad hand.”
It eased a knot at the back of her neck to hear him absolve her. “I’m not that likely to want to talk about Red’s gambling any time soon but I know money went missing on the regular. I figured it was either that or—”
That or women.
But she didn’t say it. “I know he gambled.”
Cal nodded. “The Caseys will put together some kind of offer if you put it up for sale—we’d be mad not to. Seth and Maddie could likely bid on it themselves if it came to that. It’s good grazing country, Beth. You won’t be short of offers.”
“I kind of hoped it would be you. Just you.”
“Wish I could.” He looked at the table and traced the scar of someone’s carved initial with the edge of his thumb.
How had she never noticed the long sweep of his lashes before? Maybe they just got eaten up by the sheer forceful impact of that rugged, rough-hewn face.
“If one or more of my brothers end up with it, I’d probably be managing it, anyway. Don’t know if that helps ease your mind any.”
Only in so much as, yet again, this man would be doing the bulk of the work and asking little in return. “Don’t get me wrong, your brothers are impressive—individually and collectively—but ask anyone who the Casey rancher is, who the caretaker is, whose very heart beats for the valley, and it’s you . Don’t sell yourself short.”
His eyes blazed with unexpected fire, and she blinked at the sudden heat that started somewhere deep in her belly and headed south. She knew what desire felt like. She just hadn’t wanted to admit she might desire this man, before now. It had never hit her so hard before. It wouldn’t have been right.
Did that mean it was okay to want him now ? To actually confess to such a longing?
She’d spent so much time avoiding him.
“Want to hear a really dopey idea?” she blurted, and maybe it was tiredness or a long-held wish for safety and comfort, but she wanted her latest thought tabled. She had the sneaking suspicion his eyelashes and the strong cut of his cheekbones had something to do with it. “It could be worth considering.”
“I’m listening.”
She took a deep breath and dropped what little guard she had left. “Marry me.”