A Conard County Baby

He was, he admitted, totally at a loss. When Sandy had left him, Angie had still been in diapers. In one fell swoop, he’d lost wife and daughter to distance. He couldn’t make as many visits as he might have liked because of the demands of work, and Sandy had moved all the way to Arizona. He still felt guilty about that, but over the years as Angie had distanced him, even during his visits, the guilt had become easier to live with. Now she was in his house and broken connections, or at least damaged ones, stared him in the face.

He quite simply didn’t know how to reach her.

Which brought him to this moment in time. Leading a strange woman, a pregnant runaway, home in the hopes that she might be able to at least keep the girl safer. That maybe she could reach Angie at least a bit.

That she could somehow find a way around all his screwups as a father. Because he really did hold himself responsible for this. Clearly he’d failed in some essential way, and blaming it on distance didn’t excuse him. He wondered if he was missing some basic instinct or knowledge. Wondered what he could have done differently, how he could have changed things. No answers arrived.

He reminded himself that his daughter was still grieving her mother. That was killer all by itself. But in the meantime, he had to do something. He couldn’t just leave her alone for long stretches of time to brood and hurt and fuel her anger. She needed someone, and he was working long hours. The ranch demanded almost all he had in these hard times and didn’t leave a whole lot of room for so-called bonding experiences. Not that Angie would let him get that close.

His life had turned into a snarled mess. He wasn’t blaming his daughter for it, but she was a problem he couldn’t evade. He had to help her somehow.

Hence a young woman from Dallas. He just hoped he hadn’t misjudged Hope Conroy, because she was the first person to answer his ad who wasn’t even older than he was. He felt he needed someone closer to Angie in age, someone who might actually be able to be her friend instead of her guard.

Although Angie probably wouldn’t note the difference. He could hear what was coming already.

* * *

The ranch was beautiful, Hope thought. As they at last turned into what she supposed must be his driveway, she took in the wide-open space with its backdrop of high mountains. They were turning purple as the afternoon sun sank toward them.

There weren’t a whole lot of cattle in sight but she still saw clusters of them scattered like a natural blessing in the open fields. They looked fat and happy.

The house itself rose two stories amid a stand of tall trees. White clapboard gleamed in the sunlight and a wide porch covered the entire front side. Wooden chairs dotted the porch and to one side hung a wooden bench swing.

Inviting. More inviting than the perfect showplace in which she had grown up with its manicured lawns and tall pillars, as if it were trying to imitate an antebellum plantation.

This house looked as if it belonged, and apart from it, the fences provided the only sign that man was here.

She pulled up on the gravel beside Cash’s truck and climbed out. No sound greeted her except the soft sigh of the breeze. It was chillier here than at home, but she found it invigorating.

Cash approached her. “Welcome,” he said. “Let’s go inside and get you settled. You have bags, I presume?”

“I’ll get them.”

“I’ll help.”

Hope opened her trunk, revealing her set of matched Louis Vuitton bags. She thought she saw his eyebrows lift, but it was hard to be sure under that battered cowboy hat.

She’d never thought about that luggage before, but she thought about it now. Those bags shrieked status and money as they were intended to do. She actually felt embarrassed by them. Boy, her worldview was undergoing some radical shifts.

She followed him willingly up the steps, across the porch and in through the front door. She tugged her rolling carry-on and hung her personal care bag over her shoulder. Cash hefted the two larger ones as if they weighed nothing at all.

Inside she was surprised by a large foyer with heavily polished wood floors and a wide wood staircase leading upstairs. Clearly this ranch had known some good times. Either that or someone was very much into carpentry. He led her up the stairs.

“My housekeeper comes three times a week so I’m not asking you to clean or cook.”

Hope was glad to hear it because she’d never seriously cleaned or cooked in her life. Yeah, she’d done bits of both, especially when she wanted to try out her baking skills in high school, but mostly all of that had been taken care of. Something else she was going to need to learn. She wondered if the housekeeper would help her.

At the top of the stairs, they turned right and he showed her into a spacious but simply furnished room. There was a bed, a rocking chair, a bureau with mirror. Small rugs scattered the floor with color, while everything else was fairly plain, even the curtains.

“This is yours,” he said, putting her bags down. “Take your time. The bathroom is that way down the hall, and Angie is right across from you. I’m at the other end.”

He glanced at his watch. “She’ll be home in an hour.”

“I’ll be ready.”

“She won’t be.” Then he flashed a crooked smile and vanished, closing the door behind him.

She sank onto the edge of the bed, looking around herself, thinking about how rapidly life could change. The rape, her escape and flight, and now her first real job. Until this moment, the majority of her thoughts had been focused on getting away and trying not to think about the horror Scott had inflicted on her. Now, in a strange room in a strange place, she realized her challenges had only just begun.

Relief at having this chance to prove herself gave way to determination to succeed. Somehow, some way, she was going to do this job right.

In the meantime, she decided to scrub the makeup from her face, put her hair in a ponytail and don one of her few pairs of jeans. The rest of her clothes would be useless here, utterly out of place. Regardless, pretty soon nothing would fit. It was getting hard to button her jeans. She’d have to do something about that.

It was time to make the rest of her transformation.

* * *

Downstairs, Cash went into his office and started his computer. He closed his financial files and began to search the internet for Hope. If any of her story was true, he’d find the important pieces here.

It didn’t take him long. Hope Conroy was a well-known name in the Dallas newspaper. Her engagement photo with a handsome man only a few years older than she was blazed across nearly the entire top of one page. Beneath was a detailed and saccharine description of her, her fiancé—definitely touted as a man with a bright future in politics—and their families. In one swoop he picked up enough information to get a pretty clear picture that she wasn’t exaggerating about scandal. These folks wouldn’t put up with it.

She was mentioned surprisingly often, appearing at charity balls, participating in various volunteer activities, none of which had much to do with the underside of life except for one large homeless charity where she sat on a board.

There was more, raising his eyebrows with each revelation. Money, more money than he could imagine, colored every word. He knew girls who wanted to be barrel riders, not girls who participated in dressage. But Hope had, for a while.

He nearly put his head in his hands when he finished reading.

He had hired a twenty-four-carat, hot damn, for real Texas princess.

Chapter Two

Just about the time the school bus would drop Angie at the end of the driveway, Cash emerged from his office. He discovered Hope standing nervously in the foyer, dressed in clothes that looked better in these parts even if the designer label on her jeans didn’t. No makeup, which to his way of thinking made her prettier, and the ponytail at least softened the too-perfect hair.

A damned Texas princess. The thought was still rolling around in his head, and he was wrestling with the possibility that he had just made a big mistake. He’d picked up that she’d come from money, he just hadn’t guessed what kind of money. If she started filling Angie’s head with stories of trips to ski in the Alps and parties on private yachts, he didn’t know what he was going to do. His daughter already owned enough discontent to fill half the Pacific Ocean.

Unfortunately for Angie, she was a rancher’s daughter, not the daughter of a billionaire. She had to make peace with that somehow, at least until she could leave for college. Of course, it would be a state college, not some place like Radcliffe or Vassar, but it would give her a leg up if she didn’t want to stay here. He suspected she wouldn’t, and that was okay. But he had to keep her expectations and dreams on enough of a leash to at least get through high school in one piece.

He seriously doubted that Hope would be the one to do it.

As she turned to him, he spoke without preamble. “Angie’s going to walk through that door any minute. So I want something clear.”

She questioned him with a look from moss-green eyes.

“I read up about you in the papers. Not many people enjoy the advantages you had, and my kid never will. I don’t want you filling her head with fairy-tale dreams she can never have.”

“Fairy tales don’t always have happy endings,” she said. “Trust me, the less I talk about my past, the better. All those advantages? They turned into a prison and they’re gone now. At this point in time, your daughter has a brighter future than I do.”

He liked the spark he saw in her then, a brief flash of anger, and a whole lot of clear-eyed determination. “Okay, then.”

“I’ve got a lot to learn,” Hope said after a moment. “Maybe Angie and I can learn together.”

He wondered what she meant by that, but before he could answer, the door flew open and Angie stormed in. A dark-haired girl, she wore jeans and a sweatshirt emblazoned with the name of a band. She hadn’t even got inside and she was already looking for a fight. Fire filled her dark eyes, and she slung her book bag onto the floor. It slid until it hit the wall.

“That school sucks,” she announced before anyone could greet her. “Some of the boys smell like cows and manure. The teachers are stupid. The whole place is stupid.” Then her flashing eyes landed on Hope. “What’s this? Your girlfriend? Or my keeper? Either way, I don’t want her here.” She glared at Hope. “Get out of here. Now.”

Then she ran up the stairs, leaving her bag where it had fallen, punctuating her rant by slamming the door upstairs hard enough to make the windows rattle a bit.

The sound of the girl stomping around in her room overhead became all that filled the silence.

Hope cleared her throat. “She’s very pretty.”

“Pretty is as pretty does,” Cash remarked. “There you have it. If she has any other mode of communication, I haven’t seen it. Still want to take this on?”

“I want to try,” Hope answered without hesitation. She gave him a wan smile. “I understand anger. I’ve been living with enough of it for several months now. She just lost her mother, you said. Well, I lost my innocence, so maybe we’re not very different.”

“You’re handling it a lot better.”

“Only because I’m older and well trained. One mustn’t make a scene, you know. Not that I think Angie shouldn’t be permitted to express herself. God knows, bottling it up does no good.” She sighed. “Show me around? I need to know where things are and what your rules are.”

“I don’t have a whole lot of rules,” he said, waving her toward the kitchen. “I’d like some courtesy in communications, but basically, as long as it isn’t dangerous, no rules. There are always snacks for her, Hattie, my housekeeper makes sure there are fresh cookies in the jar. I’d like Angie to get her homework done every day, but trying to police that only results in another scene like the one you just saw.”

“Do you have any reason to think she isn’t getting it done?”

“I asked the teachers to let me know.”

“Then I guess it’s safe to assume she is. What else? Especially the dangerous part.”

“No taking a horse out alone. She’s welcome to ride, but not alone. That infuriates her because she has to wait for one of my hands or me, and she’d rather die than go with me.”

“Well, I can ride with her if she wants. More?”

“If she rides, she has to take care of her mount afterward. We’ve been having a problem with that.”

For the first time, Hope looked honestly astonished. “Really? I took care of my horses. Part of the drill. Okay, I’ll make it clear, if she’s willing to ride with me.”

He paused as they stood in the kitchen. “I’m not a hard man, Hope. But this is my first experience of raising a child and I’m sure I’m fumbling. I don’t want to saddle her with limitations and rules, but she needs to pick up after herself, leave the bathroom usable by another person, and do her own laundry. I don’t have maid service.”

He thought Hope flushed faintly. “Did she have it before?”

“No, and that’s what makes this so strange.”

“More of her resentment,” Hope suggested. “It’s got to be hard to lose your mother. What happened, if I’m not being too nosy?”

“Peritonitis. Fast and hard, from what I understand, but I don’t have all the details. By the time Sandy felt sick enough to go to the hospital, it was too late. A matter of hours.”

Hope nodded and looked down. “She must have been terrified. Angie, I mean. To have that happen so fast, and it’s not even like a car accident. Her mom was sick—they should have been able to help her.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Cash contemplated that for a minute, realizing that he probably hadn’t spent enough time thinking of what his daughter was dealing with. He’d been too busy dealing with her. Ah, damn, another failure on his part.

He looked at Hope. “I know I’m asking a lot, but try to be a friend to her. Before you, I had two very grandmotherly ladies apply for the job. This time I wanted someone closer to her age. Someone she could feel closer to, if that’s possible.”

Hope nodded slowly. “I’d guess that right now the last thing she would want would be someone trying to stand in for her mother.”

“Hell, she doesn’t even want a father. But I get what you’re saying. I’m not expecting miracles, though I’d like to see her a little happier and a little more comfortable here. I’m not totally oblivious. She didn’t just lose her mother—she lost her home, her friends, her school. The school counselor is trying to work with her, but so far she’s just not talking. Well, except to yell at me.”

“I’m sure this is hard on you.”

“I’m not looking for sympathy,” he said frankly. “I don’t need it. That girl needs something, and clearly I’m not giving it to her.”

“I’ll try,” Hope said. “That’s all I can do.”

“It’s all I can ask.”

* * *

Cash excused himself, saying he needed to get back to work. The stomping from upstairs had ceased, and Hope could only guess what Angie might be doing. Sleeping? Crying? Or just fuming? Anything was possible, especially since she didn’t know the girl at all.

She hesitated, then decided to make a cup of tea and settle in for a while, awaiting the next development. The tea bags sat on the counter next to an electric kettle and a coffeemaker brimming with what smelled like fresh brew. At least she knew how to make tea, from her years at college. Beyond that, a kitchen was mostly alien territory to her, although she supposed she could have managed coffee. As a child she’d spent some time with her family’s cook in the kitchen, watching and messing with dough, but cooking a whole meal? No way.

Nor would she ever have needed to learn if she had continued her directed path in life. Scott could have kept her in the same style she’d been raised to. She’d have spent her future on the boards of various charities, raising a child or two with the help of nannies, making public appearances for Scott when he wanted her to. A smooth and seamless transition from one life of privilege to the next.

But it hadn’t turned out that way. Part of her was still reeling from the rape, but she had managed to lock that away in a tight box because she had more important things to worry about, like escaping that man and saving her baby.

Perhaps the biggest shock of all, aside from the rape, had been her own family’s unwillingness to believe her. She was their daughter; surely they knew she wouldn’t invent such a lie? How could the change in her have been so invisible to them—one day the happy fiancée of a man who was going places, the next absolutely determined to ditch Scott? Didn’t that mean anything to them?

Could people be so willfully blind?

Apparently so. Sighing, she sat with her tea at the wooden kitchen table. She didn’t feel comfortable enough yet to explore the house on her own. One didn’t do that in someone else’s house, even if they were now an employee.

Or did being an employee make it even more out of line? How would she know? God, she had a lot to learn.

She heard footsteps on the stairs and tensed, wondering if she was about to be faced with another ragefest, or if Angie would simply slip out the door. If she left, was Hope supposed to follow her? Apart from the matters she didn’t know about caring for herself, there were a lot of big blanks in this job description. Try to be a friend to the girl? That would depend on Angie.

But the steps crossed the foyer, and Angie was entering the kitchen. Hope hesitated, then said, “Hi.”

The girl didn’t answer. She headed straight for the coffeepot and filled a mug, topping it with cream.

Hope waited, half expecting the girl to disappear again. But she didn’t. Instead, she came over to the big table, put her mug down with an audible bang and yanked out a chair to sit. Clearly she wasn’t over her anger.

“So who are you and what are you doing here?” Angie demanded.

“My name is Hope. Your dad hired me because he’s concerned about you being alone so much.”

“If he cared, he’d spend more time at home.”

Hope didn’t respond to that. Angie still wasn’t looking at her, and her long dark hair concealed most of her face.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Angie snapped.

“I don’t think you do.”

“Yeah?” The girl looked at her, her eyes snapping with anger. “Then what good are you?”

Good question, thought Hope. “I guess that’s for you to decide. Your dad said he didn’t have many rules so it seems it’s up to you and me to work out something.”

“That sounds like him. Let someone else figure it out. Well, you can go, because as far as I’m concerned, I don’t need you.”

“But I need this job, at least for a while,” Hope said honestly. “I’d appreciate it if you’d help me out.”

Some infinitesimal shift took place in Angie’s expression. She didn’t appear to soften, but something changed. Hope tensed, wondering if she’d just made a huge mistake. Basically she’d given this child power over her, and if there was one thing she had learned, it was how the strands of power flowed.

“Where are you from?” Angie asked after a few seconds. “Not from around here. Your accent.”

“Texas.”

“You came a long way for a crappy job.”

“So it appears.”

“But you didn’t come all this way for this job.”

Obviously not, Hope thought, but how much did she want to say. She’d already been through her personal wringer explaining to Cash, and besides, this girl was young. She didn’t need the ugly details. “No,” she finally answered cautiously.

“Something wrong at home?”

That put Hope squarely on the horns of a dilemma. If she said yes, she was running away, Angie might get her own ideas about running. She picked her words carefully. “There’s a guy. He wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“Not a nice guy?”

“Definitely not.”

Angie nodded slowly. “My mom had a problem with one of those. She got a restraining order, but she was still frightened. For a while she wouldn’t even allow me to walk to school by myself.”

“That must have been scary for you.”

“Sort of.” Angie guzzled some coffee with little finesse. “Did you grow up on a ranch?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s the most boring place on earth. Take it from me. In a couple of weeks you’ll be begging to get out of here. There’s nothing to do, everybody works all the time and I’m not even allowed to ride a horse unless someone comes with me. Since nobody has time, I just sit here and watch the clock.”

“No friends yet to talk with?”

“No.” Angie’s face darkened.

“Well, I can’t do anything about that. But I can take you riding.”

For the briefest instant, Angie’s face brightened. Then the dour look returned. “We’ll see,” she said darkly. Then she refilled her mug and left the kitchen, clomping her way up the stairs.

Angie had revealed a lot, yet very little. Hope had plenty to think about as she finished her tea then stepped outside to take a brief stroll.

The rapid cooling of the afternoon surprised her. It hadn’t been that long since she arrived, but the sun was sinking behind the mountains now, and the air held a definite nip. She ignored it instead of getting her jacket and just walked around the house, taking in the setting and the expanses.

She could understand why Hope was bored here. No friends to spend hours on the phone with, no place to go, unable to ride without an escort. Yet at the same time there were beauties here that cried out for exploration. Some of the cattle had come close to the fence out back, and she walked over to them, ignoring the chill that was beginning to make her shiver.

One with big, dark brown eyes paid attention to her. Clearly a female, she watched Hope’s approach placidly enough, yet alertly. Hope reached the fence and stood still, waiting to see what would happen.

The breeze stiffened and bit into her back and neck. She wasn’t going to be able to stand here for long, but the cow interested her. Step by step, the bovine came closer. Hope wondered if she was expecting some kind of treat or was just curious. She couldn’t imagine what a cow would want as a treat.

Horses liked apples and carrots and sugar cubes, but a cow? She could have laughed at her own ignorance. How many cattle barons did she know? Quite a few, actually. Men who had made it and could spend a lot of time in the city while others worked their ranches.

Not like Cash. Her thoughts drifted back to him and what he had said about working so much of the time. Not one of the lucky barons, evidently. But then nothing about him suggested the softness of wealth and being able to rely on others to do a job. She would have bet he could do any job on this ranch himself, and probably often did.

She heard the crunching of dried grass behind her and turned to see Cash walking toward her. In the almost eerie light of a world still bright with the sun in hiding behind the mountains, she thought he looked part and parcel of this ranch of his.

“How’s it going and where’s your jacket?” He’d donned a denim one with lining.

“I just stepped out for a minute.”

“Clearly Texas girls don’t know how fast it gets cold here in the afternoon. Are you communing with my cows?”

She looked back at the big black one that had been watching her. “I’m not sure. She’s been moving slowly closer, like she’s curious.”

“She probably is. Cattle have more brains than most folks credit them. Did you see Angie again?”

“We talked briefly.”

“And?”

“There might be a chance for rapport. It’s too soon to tell.”

He flashed a small smile. “I’ll take that as a good sign. Come on, you need to get inside. I can see you’re shivering.”

For the first time she realized she was. Wrapping her arms around herself, she walked with him toward the back of the house. “So do you give cows treats like horses?”