What Zed thought was neither here nor there.
Not so with Cade.
Another gust of wind kicked through the buildings, shrieking long and low before dying to silence again. A few flakes of sno
w drifted from the leaden sky that stretched over the surrounding peaks. She’d always loved it out here, had once considered it her home.
Obviously Zed disagreed with that particular fantasy.
It, no doubt, really chapped his hide that she, as the girls’ guardian, owned a quarter of the ranch. They’d worked out an arrangement when Bart had died, and any net income from the ranch was placed into an account for Mallory and McKenzie at the first of every year. She never touched the money, only thought of it when the bank sent her electronic statements every quarter.
As she cut between the pump house and grain silo, she spied a light burning in the window of the machine shed. Her insides tightened a bit and she wondered if she should have called first, warned Cade that she wanted to clear the air. But then she might have lost her nerve and she really needed to talk to him. Face-to-face.
Nearing the long building, she heard a steady clanging emanating from within. “Courage, Hattie,” she whispered to herself as she ducked beneath long, toothlike icicles that hung from the eaves and pushed open a wide door that slid on creaking rollers.
As soon as there was enough space for her to squeeze through, she stepped inside the cavernous shed where a tractor, combine, and disc harrow resided along with hitches, trailers, and other machines she didn’t immediately recognize. As she made her way along a narrow aisle behind the machinery, the smells of dust and oil filled her nostrils. Beneath it all, she detected the scent of diesel. “Hello?” she called, shivering a bit as the shed, if it was heated, was still cold enough that her breath fogged. “Cade?”
“Hey!” His voice echoed from the length of the shed and she followed the sound to find him standing on a step stool, leaning under the open hood of a large tractor. His hair fell over his forehead, and his sleeves were pushed up over his elbows. Grease blackened his hands and forearms, and streaked jeans that were nearly threadbare and spattered with paint.
“Trouble?” she asked as he straightened and tossed his hair from his eyes.
“Nah.” Grabbing a rag from the back pocket of his jeans, he climbed down the steps, wiping his fingers. “Maintenance.” His smile was a crooked slash and a streak of black was visible on his jaw. “Don’t let anyone kid you, it’s not ‘yearly’ maintenance.” He hopped off the ladder, still cleaning the grease from his hands. “It’s ‘all-year’ maintenance.”
“Ah . . .” As he closed the gap between them, she felt a second’s hesitation.
“What’s up?”
Here we go. “I came looking for you and Zed said you were out here. He, uh, wasn’t very glad to see me and let me know just how he feels.”
“Zed can be blunt.”
“That’s one way to say it,” she said, then waved off any further discussion about his oldest brother. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter what he thinks, not really; I came out here to clear the air and hoped that we could find a way to get along.”
“Aren’t we?”
“Come on, Cade. We’ve never really gotten along.”
He hesitated. “So, why now, Hattie?”
“I thought we needed to talk,” she started, wondering why her well-rehearsed lines had left her. “It’s the girls. When they saw you on the street the other day, when we were going to Wild Wills, they were really disappointed that you didn’t join us.” He started to explain, but she held out a hand to stop him. “That’s just part of it. Ever since Bart died, they’ve been searching for a father figure, I guess, and Dan’s tried his best to fill those shoes, at least as well as he could.”
“And now you expect me to . . . what? Take up where Dan left off?”
“No.” Wincing inside, she shook her head, as if denying what she was about to admit. “Listen, I’m sorry. This is coming out all wrong. I probably should wait to tell you, but I’ve waited so long, so, so long already, and now Zed has accused me and . . . Oh, God.”
She was withering inside, her confidence leaking away.
“Hattie?” He grabbed her arm, as if to steady her, and she closed her eyes. What a mess she’d made of things, of her life, of Bart’s. “What?” he asked. When she opened her eyes, she found his face close to hers, his breath warm, his pupils dark, his expression clouded with concern. “Zed accused you of what?”
Mother of God, she was such a coward, such a foolish, deep-seated coward. “It’s complicated,” she said, aware of the tense fingers clamped over her upper arm.
“Then you’d better uncomplicate it.”
The world seemed to shift at that moment as dozens of memories cut through her brain, memories of hot sex, warm winds, and cool water against her skin as she swam naked in the pond. With Cade. Beneath the wide Montana skies, smelling new grass and . . .
“Hattie?”
She blinked. Told herself to quit being a wimp. Felt sweat drip down her spine though it was cold as hell in the machine shed. Cade came back into too sharp of focus again. “Okay,” she said in a voice she didn’t recognize as her own. “There’s just no way to say this any easier or more succinctly.” She drew in a long breath and finally admitted, “The truth of the matter is that Bart wasn’t the girls’ biological father, Cade.” His eyes, so close, darkened, and his jaw slid to one side. Slowly, the fingers grasping her uncoiled. Mixed emotions crossed his face. Disgust. Anger. And guilt. He knew! Damn it, he’s known all along. Or at the very least suspected the truth.