A Weaver Holiday Homecoming Read online

  She was looking at him again. Her amber-colored eyes measured. “Mr. Clay—Ryan—there’s something about Chloe you need to know.”

  He knew enough. She had a tender little heart that he hoped she never had reason to toughen. But, of course, she was only six years old. Life would add calluses sooner or later. “A dollar’s not much, I know—”

  “It is to her.” Mallory moistened her lips again. “And it was very kind of you to return it. I already put it back in her piggy bank. The gift certificate wasn’t necessary, though.”

  He shrugged it off. “She talked about the game at the diner. My uncle owns CeeVid.”

  She looked blank.

  “The company that produces the video game.”

  “That’s here?” Her eyebrows shot up. “In Weaver?”

  “You really haven’t been here long at all, have you?” She couldn’t have been if she didn’t know about the company. Aside from the hospital, it was basically the major employer in the area that, until Tristan established it, had been more traditionally comprised of primarily ranchers and farmers.

  “We still have boxes to unpack in the bedrooms,” she admitted. “But still, regardless of your family connection, it’s a much too valuable gift for her. And I don’t want her thinking that a person should be rewarded like that for trying to do a good deed.”

  No good deed goes unpunished, he thought cynically. “She’d have bought it herself at some store in Braden if she’d had enough money left from whatever it was she bought you.”

  Her lips twisted a little. “All right.” Her voice lowered. “If you must know, I’ve already gotten her the game for her birthday.”

  “Then let her use the gift certificate on something else from CeeVid. If you want to take her over to them—you can’t miss it. It’s the multistory building out near the highway if you were heading to Braden. Anyway, she can shop for something on their Web site if you don’t want to go to the store there. Consider it a birthday present if you have to, because I’m not taking it back.”

  She sighed hugely. “For crying in the sink,” she muttered.

  At the phrase, something inside Ryan’s head clicked into place.

  “You do want your way, don’t you,” Mallory was still muttering as she slipped past him into the hall.

  “Cassie,” he realized aloud. “That’s who you remind me of. Cassie Keegan. Hell. You’re related to her, aren’t you? No wonder you seemed familiar.”

  Mallory went still at his words.

  She’d come to Weaver for the express purpose of meeting Ryan Clay. She’d continually debated the decision until she’d convinced herself she was doing the right thing.

  So why was she practically shaking in her boots now?

  She’d never expected to meet him and feel anything…well…like what she was feeling.

  The wrinkle in his forehead that had been there every time he looked at her was gone. “We worked together for a while. She didn’t talk much about her family, though.”

  Ryan couldn’t know that he’d just confirmed another piece of the puzzle that had been her sister’s life. “Cassie was my sister.”

  The wrinkle returned. In spades. “Was?”

  She hesitated. The sound of the leaking water dripping into the bucket under the sink seemed loud. From downstairs, she could hear her grandmother and Chloe talking in the kitchen, along with the clatter of pots and the squeak of Kathleen’s sturdy shoes on the creaking hardwood floor.

  She also could hear in her head Ryan’s mother’s voice. And the pleas as well as the caution when it came to her son’s state of mind. Rebecca Clay was desperate to help her son and believed that Mallory could help him find his path again. Rebecca had also gone to great lengths to assure Mallory that no matter what, her position as Chloe’s mother would not be threatened in any way.

  “Mallory,” Ryan prompted.

  She swallowed again. “I didn’t expect this to be so hard,” she admitted, as much to herself as to him. “Cassie…died.”

  He frowned. Muttered a soft oath. “On a case?”

  “You mean work?” She shook her head, thinking of the strange company that her sister had worked for. And how difficult it had been to glean information from HW Industries about her sister and her coworkers. “No. She died in, um, in childbirth.” Her mouth felt dry as she gave him the barest of explanations. “With Chloe.”

  His eyes were already a sharp blue. But his gaze went even sharper. “I thought you were her mother.”

  “I am.” She picked at a loose thread on her sleeve. “Legally.” Emotionally, too, which was something Mallory truly hadn’t expected when everything she’d planned for her life had taken a ninety-degree turn courtesy of a four-pound, twelve-ounce infant. “But she’s my niece by birth. She…well, Chloe knows Cassie was her birth mother. I’ve never kept that a secret from her.”

  “Her birthday is soon.”

  “Next Saturday,” she confirmed.

  “She’s going to be seven?”

  Her throat tightened even more. She nodded silently. Willing him to get to the finish line before she did, but afraid in a way, too, that he would.

  “I worked with Cass nearly eight years go.”

  “I know.” Her sleeve was beginning to unravel. She shoved the long thread up inside the knit and folded her hands together, only to pull them apart again. “She mentioned it.” Only his first name, though, which had added to her challenge considerably.

  He was watching her closely, his face oddly pale. “What else did she mention?”

  The muscles in her abdomen were so tight they ached. “She said you…that you worked together once. That you were friends. And that you were a good man.”

  But his lips twisted at that. And his eyes were suddenly consumed by a hollowness that was painful to witness. “And did she tell you that we slept together, too?”

  Lying was out of the question. “Yes.”

  Even beneath the dark, unshaven haze blurring his jaw, she could see a muscle flex there as he absorbed that. “Why, exactly, are you here in Weaver, Dr. Keegan?”

  Mallory pulled in a steadying breath. He already knew. She could see it in his face.

  But it had been a long haul for Mallory to reach this point. A journey that had taken years and more turns than she could have dreamed of.

  She had to say the words.

  She looked up at him. Meeting that shocked, hollow gaze with her own. “So that my daughter can meet her father.”

  Chapter Three

  Even braced as Ryan thought he was, hearing Mallory’s husky words was like taking a blow straight to the solar plexus. “No,” he said flatly. “Can’t be.”

  He and Cassie had slept together—what? A handful of times? His brain searched through memories. Sifting. Discarding.

  Even less than a handful, he thought.

  Twice.

  The first time when she’d gotten his tail out of a sling by maintaining his cover that had been about to blow during an identity-theft sting, and the second time a few weeks later after they’d shared a few drinks following a debriefing they’d both attended.

  “Obviously, without Cassie, I’ve had to speculate some,” Mallory allowed. “But a test would confirm—”

  “No,” he said again. He stretched out his arm. Some portion of his mind recognized that he was backing away from her, as if to keep her and her impossible claim at bay. “I don’t need any tests. I’m not—you don’t want me to be her—” Christ. He couldn’t even say it.

  Her eyebrows were pulling together but the only thing he could see in her amber eyes was concern. And—oh, hell. Compassion.

  He didn’t want it. Didn’t deserve it. “I’ve got to go.” He turned on his heel and was halfway down the stairs before she could react.

  “Ryan, wait. I’m not expecting anything. But please stay.” Her shoes sounded on the stairs behind him. “Let’s at least discuss it.”

  He passed Kathleen, who was holding a round tray filled wit
h mugs, and Chloe, who was carrying a plate of Christmas-tree-green frosted cookies. He took in the details as he reached the door, even though their faces were almost a blur.

  A second later he was outside. On the porch. Down the snow-covered walkway that bore dozens of footprints heading both to and from the house. This time, his were spaced more widely apart.

  He knew he’d left his coat inside but he didn’t hesitate. Just yanked open the squeaking door of the pickup truck and twisted the key that he’d left in the ignition. He gunned the engine and shot down the narrow street.

  Yeah, he was running.

  So what?

  If the women in that house knew what he was—who he was—they’d thank him for it.

  With only a bare regard for the stop sign at the corner, he turned at the end of the street. The Sleep Tite parking lot was half-full when he passed it. The parking lot lights that were draped with metal Christmas tree figures were just flicking on to glow against the lengthening afternoon.

  He had no destination in mind, other than away, but when he passed the hardware store, an oath blistered his tongue and he swung the truck around and parked it.

  The Christmas shoppers were out in force. Even the aisles of the hardware store were crowded when he went inside. It was either the expression on his face or the purpose in his stride that fortunately kept the more familiar faces from trying to stop him to shoot the breeze. He found the repair clamps, bought a couple and headed back out to his truck.

  “Ryan!”

  He jerked to a stop, recognizing his father’s voice even before he turned to see Sawyer Clay walking along the sidewalk, Ryan’s mother on his arm.

  Another downside of small-town living.

  Running into people when you weren’t prepared, every time you turned around.

  “Dad. Mom,” he greeted when they reached him.

  “Where’s your coat?” his mother asked, after she’d tugged his head down to plant a kiss on his cheek.

  He had no intention of explaining that one, so he just held up the small plain brown paper sack from the hardware store. “Was just running in and out.” It wasn’t a lie, so meeting his gray-haired father’s gaze wasn’t entirely impossible. “What are you two doing in town?”

  “What everyone else in town is doing,” Sawyer drawled. “Taking their wives shopping. It’s either Christmas presents or a dress for that shindig in a few weeks.”

  Rebecca made a face at him and batted his arm with her leather-gloved hand. “You said you wanted to come with me.”

  “Only to keep your spending in check.” But there was a smile in his voice and an amused tick at the corner of his lips that belied his words. “Haven’t seen you for a few days, son. How are things out at J.D.’s?”

  J. D. Clay was his cousin whom he’d been helping out. Or maybe he should say that she was helping him out, by giving him something productive to fill the endless days. She’d moved back to Weaver a few months earlier and started up her own horse-boarding operation, and rather than stare endlessly at the walls of his motel room every day, he’d offered his assistance. So far, he’d begun repainting her old barn, fed and groomed horses and shoveled a mountain of horse manure out of their stalls. Tasks that were a million miles away from the career he’d left behind.

  “Between Jake and his boys and Latitude’s recovery, I’ve hardly seen her,” he admitted. Latitude was an injured Thoroughbred that J.D.’s brand-new fiancé, Jake Forrest, had owned until he’d signed over ownership to her barely a week ago.

  “Her shoulder is doing well,” Rebecca inserted. She would know since not only was she still practicing, but she ran the hospital where J.D. had gone when she’d dislocated her shoulder after a tumble from a horse. “Doesn’t hurt that she and Jake are clearly head-over-heels for each other.” She dashed her hand over Ryan’s shoulder. “Is everything all right? You look…distracted.”

  Distracted didn’t begin to cover it. But talking about Mallory and her claim was the last thing he intended on doing.

  “He’s in a hurry, Bec,” Sawyer inserted. “That’s all.” But Ryan still recognized the speculation in his father’s eyes.

  “Of course. We won’t keep you out in the cold, sweetheart. But will we see you tomorrow for Sunday dinner? I’m on kitchen duty this time.”

  The Clay family members generally rotated around the big family meal every Sunday. Whoever could come did, and whoever couldn’t, didn’t.

  But he’d made a point of avoiding the meals since his return to town.

  And now, he could see the shadow of disappointment in his mother’s eyes even before he’d formed an answer. From the corner of his eye, he could see the mechanical Santa positioned inside the front window of the hardware store waving merrily.

  “Maybe,” he said, instead of the refusal that was ready and waiting on his tongue.

  She smiled, so clearly buoyed by a shot of hope, yet so clearly trying to contain it. “Well.” She patted his shoulder again, then tucked her hands around Sawyer’s arm. “You know where we’ll be. Now go on before you catch your death of cold.”

  Like the solid unit that they’d been for most of his life, his parents stood close to each other, watching as he headed to his truck. When he got inside and tossed the paper sack on the seat beside him, they waved and smiled, and he lifted a hand before backing out of the parking space.

  He drove back to Mallory’s house only to sit, engine idling, at the curb. His hands clenched the steering wheel. He was looking at the house—two-storied, sharply gabled roof, narrow porch running across the entire front—but his thoughts were turned inward.

  If Cassie had gotten pregnant, why hadn’t she told him?

  They’d both worked for Hollins-Winword, though she—an expert in foreign languages—had been in a support position to Coleman Black, rather than in the field like Ryan had been. Their paths had crossed occasionally. Never more closely than when she’d voluntarily interjected herself into that sting to save his bacon. She’d been smart and gutsy and engaging and he remembered genuinely enjoying her company, brief though it had been. And he was damn sure that her feelings toward him had been no more involved or deep. He hadn’t loved her. She hadn’t loved him.

  He pinched the pain behind the bridge of his nose.

  It was hard to believe she’d died bearing a child.

  Not any child.

  Chloe.

  He jerked and started when someone knocked on the window beside him, and stifled a curse over his own edginess.

  Mallory stood on the curb. This time, she was wearing a long, beige wool coat with a hood pulled over her head. She looked more like she belonged on the cover of a magazine than standing on the curb in little Weaver, Wyoming.

  She was holding his leather coat.

  “You came back,” she said through the window. “I wasn’t sure you would,” she added, stepping away when he pushed open the door and got out.

  He sorely wished he could just give her the paper sack with the repair clamps and be on his way, but some deeply buried streak inside him made him stay. “Does Chloe know? About…who…her father is?” It was a cowardly way of phrasing it. He knew it. She knew it.

  But he gave Mallory credit for not pointing out that particular fact.

  She just shook her head and held out his coat. “She doesn’t know anything. And, to be honest, I prefer it that way. Until…until—” She broke off. A line of worry bisected the smooth skin between her eyebrows.

  He dropped the paper bag on the hood of the truck and took the coat, pulling it on. “Until?”

  She let out a soft, huffing breath that sent a vaporous cloud between them. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know any good way of doing this,” she admitted. “Telling you. Telling her. But Chloe’s welfare is my primary concern. And if you…if you’re not…well, if this is going to cause her any harm—” She shook her head, breaking off again. “I wish there was a manual for situations like this,” she murmured.

  “I doubt it
would cover someone like me, anyway.” He shoved his hand through his hair and was relieved that it wasn’t shaking, because everything inside of him was feeling pretty damn unhinged. “Keep watching out for your daughter,” he said abruptly. “That’s what a good parent does.”

  She was nibbling at her lip and, despite everything, he got distracted by their well-defined softness all over again. “Don’t tell her,” he added doggedly.

  “Not yet,” she clarified.

  That wasn’t the “not ever” that had been whispering through his brain. “Do you want support money or something?”

  Her head reared back, the hood slipping off her shining hair. “That’s what you think this is about? Money?”

  He lifted his hand, peaceably. “I’m sorry.” And he was. “I’m not trying to offend you. Just…to understand what it is that you do want.”

  The offended glint in her eyes slowly softened. She pushed her hands into the side pockets of her coat and rocked on her feet.

  He immediately recognized the motion. Chloe had done the same exact thing in the diner.

  “I want my daughter to know she has a father.” Her gaze didn’t meet his. Instead, it was focused somewhere off over his left shoulder.

  “Lots of kids don’t have a father around.” Some were better off, too.

  The corners of her lips curved downward. “Did you have your father around?”

  He’d had two, actually. His mother, believing her relationship with Ryan’s natural father was over, had married Tom Morehouse, who’d raised him until he’d died when Ryan was seven. A few years later his mom and Sawyer reconciled and had never been apart again. “Yeah. I did.” He sighed. The paper sack crinkled as he held it up. “The repair clamp you need,” he said. “I brought you a few extra.”

  She blinked a little, obviously surprised. “Thank you. I was going to run to the store before they closed, but—”

  “Now you won’t need to.” He jerked his chin toward the house. “I’ll put it on if you want.”