The Renegade Cowboy Returns

Gage snapped his gaze away from Chelsea, realizing he had been staring. “I’ll have the Aztec salad and a margarita, please.”

Both women stared at him.

“Not hungry, Gage? Planning on eating the snake later?” Chelsea asked.

“Snake!” Blanche exclaimed. “Don’t talk about snakes. I can’t stand ’em!”

Chelsea smiled at Gage, enjoying her jest at his expense.

“I might eat the snake,” Gage said, handing the menus to Blanche, “but I’m a vegetarian.”

“Oh,” she said, clearly rattled. “Well, I’ll put your order in. If you two need anything, just give a shout.”

Gage smiled at Chelsea. “Don’t be mad. It really was harmless.”

“Then why did you shoot it? Just to watch me hop around?”

He smiled again. “No. From where I was standing, I didn’t know what kind of snake it was. I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

She looked at him with suspicion. “Why are you so certain it was harmless?”

“Because it was just a—”

“I hope you’re not still talking about snakes,” Blanche said, plopping their drinks on the table. “I’m telling you, I hate nothing as much as I hate them!”

“It’s all right,” Chelsea said, “the only snake around here right now is him.”

“That’s not fair,” Gage said, as Blanche went off in a cloud of disapproval. “I was trying to save you.”

“From a harmless snake?”

“What if it had been a rattler? Would you rather I’d just called out, ‘there’s a snake next to you so be careful’?”

Chelsea’s face reflected a mixture of emotions. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“All right.” He raised his margarita to her and said, “To us being good housemates.”

“I think not.” She didn’t raise her tea glass.

Nodding, Gage glanced around at the life-size posters of Tempest Thornbury. Now that he looked at them more closely he could see that they were actually oil paintings done in careful detail, probably from photos of some of Tempest’s Broadway gigs. “She’s beautiful, huh?”

“Yes. But it’s kind of a sad story, don’t you think?”

He shrugged. “Everybody’s got one, right?”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. But nothing I share with anyone but friends.”

She gave him a wry glance. “Okay.”

“So what’s yours?”

Chelsea shrugged. “It’s not very interesting.”

“Yeah?” Gage watched her sip her tea with pleasure. She made everything look graceful. Even leaping into the creek she’d been graceful. He could watch her for hours, and if she lost her top again, then he could watch her for days, he was pretty sure.

“I’ve taken care of my mother for years. That’s about it.”

“What about Dad?”

She shrugged again. “Died young. Don’t remember him.” She glanced at Tempest’s paintings. “It wouldn’t be so bad to leave your roots and go do something exotic and fabulous, would it?”

“Takes a special breed of person, I’d guess. I’m much more of a homebody than that.”

Chelsea laughed out loud. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her phone. “I made notes about you, Texas, when I called back to Diablo to find out about you—after the snake incident. According to Sabrina, you’re Jess St. John’s cousin, who is married to Johnny Donovan at Rancho Diablo. You rodeoed most of your life, happiest on the circuit. You’ve never had much of a love life because the road is your life. Apparently, you mentioned once that you’re never in one place for more than two or three nights, so there was never any point in calling a lady back.” Chelsea slid her phone back into her purse. “I’d say you didn’t lack for adventure. In fact, somebody like her,” she said, indicating Tempest, “is probably exactly right for you.”

He shook his head. “You’d be surprised, but life catches up with people.”

Blanche placed their artfully plated food in front of them, and Gage got hungrier just looking at it. “This looks great.”

“You won’t find better in Tempest,” Blanche bragged, “although all the restaurants here are pretty good, I’ll say that. If you’re a foodie, you’ll find you don’t want to stray far from town.”

She went off again, pleased with her story.

“I like Blanche,” Chelsea said. “She’s happy.”

Gage dug into his salad with gusto. “And proud of what she does.”

“So what caught up with you?” Chelsea asked as she bit into her steak and moaned. “I could cut this steak with a spoon, it’s that tender.”

“I’m sure if you placed a call back to the ol’ homestead, you know I wasn’t exactly aware that I had a daughter.”

Chelsea’s eyes grew round. “All I asked was whether you were safe to live with. I didn’t inquire as to your love life.”

Gage grinned. “Not curious at all?”

She didn’t say anything.

“We’ll work on our relationship,” he promised.

“I want to drive by and see the Tempest place,” she said suddenly, catching Gage off guard.

“Ah, the mystery writer’s curiosity at work. Feeling the blockage move?”

She wrinkled her nose. “My creativity isn’t blocked.”

“Jonas says it is. Jonas says you haven’t been able to write in three months. He said—”

“Jonas doesn’t know everything.” Chelsea ate more of her steak wrap, carefully not looking at him.

Obviously, she no more wanted to talk about her problem than he wanted to discuss his. “I’m game for a late-night run to a ghost-infested family home.”

Chelsea’s gaze met his. “Good.”

“Guess ghosts don’t bother you like varmints do?”

“I’ll be fine, thanks.”

He polished off his margarita, thinking that for such a hot night, he was in danger of getting frostbite from his companion.

Maybe she’d warm up to him if they could scare up a ghost or two.

* * *

“IT’S KIND OF A SAD little place for such a lively person,” Chelsea observed, peering at Tempest’s house as Gage stopped his truck in front of the small, two-story white wood structure. Long neglected, the paint flaked and the front porch sagged. Even in the falling darkness, she could see that the roof hadn’t been repaired in years.

If visiting a haunt like this didn’t stir her creativity, maybe nothing would. A shudder ran through her. She’d loved ghost stories as a kid—she’d grown up on them, courtesy of her mother. “I probably learned storytelling at my mother’s knee,” she told Gage. “This house has secrets.”

“Just looks like a deserted old house to me.” He got out of the truck and went up to the porch. “Nothing exciting about a building that needs to be torn down.”

She looked in a dirty window. “You have no romance in your soul.”

“You’re probably right.” He joined her in spying. “Looks like no one’s home, Chelsea, if you’re just dying to take a peek inside.” He pushed the front door open, and pointed to several firecrackers that had been lit and left on the porch, probably by pranksters around Halloween. “Watch where you step.”

She followed him in. “Pee-ew. Doesn’t smell like a place a star grew up in.”

“She was Zola here, remember. Cupertino or something.”

Chelsea looked around at the moldy, sagging furniture. Everything was in a state of decay and disrepair, and she felt sorry that the house had been abandoned. “It looks like she just left everything behind.”

“Nothing here was what she wanted.” Gage kicked something under the sofa.

“What was that?” Chelsea demanded.

“Nothing.”

“It was,” she insisted. “You have to be honest with me.”

“A small mouse,” Gage said. “A little on the decayed side.”

“I’m okay with mice,” Chelsea said, walking past him into the kitchen.

“I don’t know what you think you’re going to find in here, unless it’s your next cliffhanger,” Gage said, batting some cobwebs away from his face. “These spiders are bigger than in Texas. And you know there’s probably scorpions in this place—”

“You know what your problem is,” Chelsea said, looking back at him. “You don’t know how to relax.”

“This is relaxing?” Gage moved a fallen tile away from where she was about to step. “If we want to see rotten, we could do it at Dark Diablo.”

But this was where Tempest had grown up, and from here she’d gone away to seek her fortune. Chelsea could feel the ghosts of disharmony and discontentment shrouding the small house. “Whatever made her leave, it was ugly enough for her to hide herself away once she made her bundle.”

“We don’t know that she made a bundle.”

“She made enough to live in a villa in Tuscany. Blanche said Tempest is still in demand.”

“Yeah,” Gage said, “Blanche was blowing smoke up your skirt. She was giving you the Tempest tale, to make their little town seem a bit more exciting. I bet no one named Tempest ever even lived here.”

“Then who’s that?” Chelsea asked, her scalp tightening just a little.

Gage picked up the picture that lay on the kitchen counter, long forgotten. It was of a small girl with threadbare clothes and spindly arms. He turned the photo over. “Zola, five years old.”

“See? Blanche was telling the truth.”

He set the photo back down in the dust. “Can we go now? I’ve spent quite enough time with Zola Tempest, thanks.”

Chelsea followed him out. “Guess there’s no need to lock the door.”

Gage shook his head as he got into the truck. “Well, hope that helped.”

“Helped what?” She speared him with a look of distaste as he pulled from the drive.

“You know.” He pointed to his head. “With the…storytelling wheels.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Chelsea said, irritated. “Listen, the thing about writer’s block—which I don’t have—is that it’s the Unspeakable Thing That Must Not Be Mentioned.”

“Your own ghost,” Gage said.

She sighed. “If you must.”

He laughed. “And ghost-hunting helps?”

“I do like mysteries and hauntings,” she said stiffly.

“So an exorcism would be like a superboost to your creativity. Or a séance!” He ignored her gasp of outrage. “We could do one, Chelsea. We could get the Callahans out here, and we could sit around and burn candles and wait for Tempest to come screaming out of a closet or something.”

“You are so odd.” Chelsea turned her head, not about to give him the pleasure of knowing that he was getting to her. His needling annoyed her, and he knew it, and he was the kind of man who loved to devil a woman to death, until she finally gave up and gave him what he wanted.

Sex, in most cases. She’d be willing to bet her best pair of heels.

“It’s not going to work,” she told him.

“What isn’t?”

“This pathetic attempt to scare me so badly that I’ll just jump into your arms like a silly, spineless heroine.”

“I’ll have you know that there are lots of silly, spineless heroines who liked my arms just fine.”

“Well, you can keep your stories,” Chelsea said. “Enough with shooting the poor harmless snake and trying to spook me with talk of séances. You’re not fooling me.”

“Good to know,” Gage said, amused, and Chelsea told herself right then and there that if Gage Phillips ever tried to kiss her, she was going to give him the fattest lip of his life. Pow! Right on his too-attractive, laughing, storytelling kisser.

In fact, she hoped he did try to kiss her.

She really did.

Chapter Four

About four the next afternoon, when Chelsea was making tea and desperately wondering why her heroine wasn’t cooperating, she heard the sounds of Gage’s own issue, loud and clear.

“I don’t want to be here,” a girl said.

“You didn’t want to be in Laredo, either, sweetheart. So here you are,” Gage replied.

Chelsea dried her hands on a dish towel, telling herself she wasn’t eavesdropping shamelessly.

“I didn’t want to come,” the voice said—obviously that of Cat, the surprise daughter.

Chelsea couldn’t imagine what it must be like to discover one had a teenage daughter. Gage hadn’t said a whole lot about his ex-wife—and Chelsea hadn’t wanted to pry. But from the words being spoken outside, he and his daughter had a lot to work out.

“You may not have wanted to come,” he said, “but I wanted you here. So take your bag inside, please.”

Bravo, Dad, Chelsea thought.

“There’s a nice lady inside who you’ll like, so let’s go meet her,” Gage added.

“Lady? I thought you said we were going to be alone. That’s what you told Mom—that it was just going to be me and you,” Cat complained, her voice getting high.

“That’s what I said,” Gage said, “because it’s what I thought at the time. The owner of the house made other plans, and that’s beyond my control. Please take your bag inside.”

“You told Mom there’d be no girlfriends,” Cat insisted. “You said this was an appropriate place for me to be.”

Chelsea heard Gage sigh. “Trust me when I tell you that this lady and I are not romantically attached. I just met her yesterday. Either you take your bag inside right now and quit acting like a child, or I’m going to let you sleep on the porch, Cat.”

Chelsea froze, waiting for them to come in.

When they did, she realized just how full Gage’s hands were with his new daughter—and why Cat’s mother needed a break. Cat had long black hair to her waist on one side, her head shaved on the other. She had a nose piercing, an ear cuff and what looked like a bar through her other upper ear. She had two lip rings, which gave her sort of a snakelike look.

But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst was the stare Cat leveled at her, as if she hated her on sight.

“Hi,” Chelsea said, recognizing she would have to tread carefully. “I’m Chelsea Myers, the upstairs roommate.”

“You’re not going to boss me,” Cat said to her.

Chelsea blinked. “You’re right. I’m not.”

“Cat,” Gage said. “You and I don’t really know each other, but let me tell you something you should know. I don’t tolerate disrespect.”

Cat glared at her father. “You didn’t tell Mom the truth. She always said you were the least honest man she ever met. I guess I know who I can believe.”

Gage sighed. Chelsea saw no reason to explain what Gage had already told to his daughter, so she said, “I made cookies. Does anybody want some cookies and maybe some tea? I’m sure you’re hungry after—”

“‘Does anybody want some cookies?’” Cat mimicked. “Betty Crocker to the rescue.” She set her black duffel on the floor. “Quit staring at me,” she told Chelsea.

Chelsea was about to reply, wanting to head off the explosion she could tell was about to blow from Gage, when the screen door opened and her mother blew in.

“Hello!” Moira Myers exclaimed. “Goodness, the wind is picking up out there!”

Cat stared at Chelsea’s mother, shocked, it seemed, by someone else’s appearance taking center stage. Moira was dressed in hot pink from head to toe, from her sparkly tennis shoes to her calf-length skirt, to the short-sleeved sweater with a pink poodle on it. She even had on hot pink lipstick. Her white hair stood out in cotton candy tufts from her head, liberated from the plastic scarf she usually wore on windy days. In her hand she carried a cage with two lovebirds in it.

“What are you?” Cat asked.

“Cat!” Gage finally exploded.

“Mum, come in,” Chelsea said, going forward to hug her. “You look lovely.”

“She looks—” Cat began, swallowing her words on a yelp. Gage seemed to finally have had enough of his daughter’s sassy mouth.

“Fiona Callahan helped me pick this out. Do you really like it, Chelsea?” Her mother smiled beatifically. “I love shopping with Fiona. She’s so much fun! She made me feel ten years younger.”

“Mum, this is Gage Phillips,” Chelsea said, “and this is his daughter, Cat.”

“Hello,” Moira said, shaking each of their hands. Cat actually offered hers, either because her father had gotten it through her head that he was about to make her life miserable, or because surprise at Mrs. Myers’s appearance had rendered her temporarily unable to carp. “It’s so nice to meet you! And how pretty you are, dear,” she told Cat in her lilting Irish accent. “Would you be so kind as to step outside and get my suitcase off the porch, please? You look like such a nice, bonny lass indeed.”

To Chelsea’s surprise—and Gage’s too—Cat went to retrieve the bag. “There, now,” Moira said when she returned a second later, “let me see. I know I’m forgetting something. I’m always forgetting something, aren’t I, Chelsea, love? Oh, I know,” she went on, not waiting for Chelsea to answer. Chelsea would have said she’d never known her mother to forget anything, but Moira didn’t seem to need any response. “This is for you, dear,” she told Cat, handing her the cage with the two beautiful lovebirds inside.

“Really?” Cat took the cage, astonished. “I mean, I don’t like birds. I hate birds. I bet they’ll give me allergies.” She stared at them, seemingly fascinated. “They’re ugly. And it’s stupid to have things in a cage.” She looked at her father. “Can I keep them?”

Gage looked at his daughter with some exasperation. “If Mrs. Myers has given you a gift, Cat, then I think you should say thank-you. And then you should ask Miss Myers where the best place to keep them would be.”

Cat glanced worriedly at the two women. “Um, thank you,” she said to Moira, as if she wasn’t certain how to express gratitude.

“Let’s find your bedroom upstairs. That will be a lovely place to keep them, I’m sure,” Chelsea said, starting up the stairs. Cat followed, not protesting any longer, carefully carrying the birds so they wouldn’t be jostled.

Thanks, Mum, Chelsea thought. Once again, I have a feeling you saved the day.

“This is my room?” Cat asked.

“Yes,” Chelsea said. “I think your birds would be comfortable right here near the window. Not too close to feel the sunshine, though.”

Cat gently set the cage on the shelf near the window. “Your mom is weird.”

Chelsea smiled. “My mother is eclectic. I like that about her.”

Cat looked at her. “You like your mother?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I don’t know.” The teen shrugged, watching Chelsea warily as she sat down on one of the twin beds. “You’re not supposed to like your mother.”

Chelsea smiled. “I love my mother. She’s my best friend.”

“Wow,” Cat said, “you’re a bigger loser than I thought.”

Chelsea smiled again. “I’m going back downstairs. If you’re hungry, join us. I need to get my mother settled in.”

“I don’t want to join you,” Cat said, following her down the stairs. “I’m only coming because my dad says I have to.”

“That’s fine,” Chelsea said. She was pleased to see Gage and her mother seated in the front room, chatting comfortably. He seemed genuinely interested in her, and Chelsea told herself that anyone wearing that much hot pink had to make people smile. “Mum, can I get you some tea?”

“You can, daughter.” Mrs. Myers excused herself and followed Chelsea into the kitchen. “Quite the fun situation you’ve got going here.”

“I suppose so. It’s really just going to be me and you, though. There’s a lovely creek, and the town is so pretty—”

“I think you’re going to have your hands full.” Moira took the teacup Chelsea handed her, drinking appreciatively. “Ah, no one knows how to make a proper tea except you, daughter.”

“You taught me everything I know, Mum.”

Cat came into the kitchen, obviously hungry but not wanting to seem as if she was. She glanced at Mrs. Myers’s cup. “If that doesn’t have eye of newt in it, could I have some?”

Chelsea laughed. “You never know around here, Cat. You’ll have to go on faith.”

Cat took the cup she handed her, slurping it down quickly.

“Oh, she’s hungry,” Moira said. “Chelsea, where are your manners, love? Bring out the frog-toes cookies and give some to Cat.”

“Gross!” the girl exclaimed.

Chelsea shook her head. “Mum,” she gently remonstrated, handing Cat a plate with three cookies on it. “There’s more, but you don’t want to ruin—”

“My mom said this was going to be a backwater and that I’d probably have to eat some gross stuff, but I’m not eating frog toes,” Cat said. “And you can’t make me.”

“These are homemade chocolate chip cookies, and you don’t have to eat them if you don’t want to.” Chelsea smiled at her.

“You’re both weird,” Cat said, snatching the plate. “Why’d you say there were frog toes in the cookies?” she asked Moira.

“You mentioned eye of newt,” Moira said, her tone pleasant. “Which of course brings to mind Shakespeare’s Macbeth. You know it, I’m sure. ‘Eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog…’”

“My mom is not going to be happy that I’m living with a bunch of weirdos,” Cat said, taking out a tongue piercing and laying it on the side of the china plate. “Mmm, these are pretty good.” She seemed pleased by the cookies, eagerly polishing them off.

Gage hadn’t come into the kitchen. Chelsea figured he’d probably run for the hills, or maybe to the library for a How To Be a Father on the Fly parenting book. “Will you take this plate to your dad, Cat?”

Cat looked at her. “I don’t—”

“Sure, and that’s a good girl, now,” Moira said. “What a lovely lass you are, Cat.”

Cat took the plate and left the kitchen, looking bemused, if not surprised, at the praise.

“Now I see how you got me through my difficult teen years,” Chelsea said. “Have I ever apologized for being a handful?”

“Chelsea, love,” Moira said, sipping her tea, “if anything, you’ve always been an angel. I owe you apologies for saddling you to a life that wasn’t like the other girls’. You could have done a lot more, if you hadn’t had me—”

“Mum!” Chelsea exclaimed. “Don’t say it!”

“Oh, well. It doesn’t matter anyway, does it?” Moira asked, taking a bite of a cookie. “I rather thought the eye of newt question was clever from the lass, didn’t you? She’s older than her years.”

Chelsea shook her head. “I don’t know what to think. I guess we’ll see what happens.” She thought about Gage, wondering about last night. After their visit to Tempest’s house, he’d brought her home and said good-night—and promptly bunked on the sofa.

It had rained all night, a vicious storm that cut the power—and Chelsea hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d huddled in her bed, staring out at the rain washing the windows in sheets, wondering why she was thinking about Gage when she should have been thinking about her plot.

“He’s a handsome man, Chelsea. D’ya fancy him?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Mum, we’re from opposite ends of the earth, trust me.”

“Ah, well. So it goes.” Moira grinned. “Fiona said she was pretty certain the two of you might take a shine to each other. I guess she’d be wrong this time, eh?”

“Definitely,” Chelsea said. “Don’t let the Callahan myth blind you to the fact that Gage isn’t the kind of man I need in my life.”

“What do you need? Do you know?”

Chelsea thought about Gage walking her through an old, falling-down house, making sure she didn’t step on firecrackers and dead mice. She thought about him shooting a snake that wanted to take a swim with her. “I need someone boring,” she said. “I want stable and boring.”

Moira laughed. “Then that handsome rascal wouldn’t be the man for you.”

“That’s right,” Chelsea said. “When I meet stable and boring, I’ll know.”

* * *

JUST GAZING AT HIS DAUGHTER gave Gage a little bit of the willies. What had Leslie been thinking, letting Cat look like this? Do this to herself?

Chelsea and her mother hadn’t seemed too disturbed by Cat’s appearance. Maybe it was a girl thing. He was definitely out of his league with girl things, so he let his worry over this girl—his daughter—and her wild appearance go for the moment.

He didn’t know what to say to her. What had come so easily for Chelsea and Moira didn’t come easily for him. The two of them sat on the front porch swing, miserably not speaking.

“Guess you were surprised about me,” Cat said.

Gage nodded. “It’s a good surprise, though.”

Cat shook her head. “No, it’s not. Mom says you’re just an itin…itin—”