Big Sky Summer Part 20

The bed creaked as Clare leaped into the middle of it and sat cross-legged, the way she liked to do, but her expression was snarky, not nostalgic. "Yes," she said. "Everybody there was either famous or related to somebody famous, and doesn't every Santa Claus wear a real velvet suit, trimmed in the best fake fur available, and pa.s.s out state-of-the-art iPads instead of candy canes?"

Casey sighed, let the gibe pa.s.s. She saw herself in Clare, recognized the trick of picking a fight in order to establish boundaries. "What, exactly," she began wearily, "do you hope to accomplish by being so difficult?"

"I'm letting you know that I'm unhappy," Clare said pertly. "We're having a dialogue."

"You've been watching too many Oprah reruns," Casey answered, perching on the edge of the bed, not too close, but not too far away, either.

"You might want to take in one or two episodes when you get the chance," Clare answered airily. "Oprah was always big on telling the truth."

Zing. Shot through the heart. Casey knotted her fingers together in her lap and silently counted to ten.

"What do you want, Clare?" she asked evenly when she was relatively sure she wouldn't lose it.

Clare rolled deftly onto her stomach, cupping her chin in her hands and bending her knees to swing her feet back and forth. She was wearing cut-off jeans and a skimpy top that ended a good eight inches above her waist. Casey didn't recognize the outfit, and was about to say as much when she spotted the tattoo.

It was just a tiny rosebud, nestled in the graceful curve at the base of Clare's spine-not a skull and crossbones, not a gang symbol or a four-letter word-and yet the sight of it stunned Casey.

"When did you get that?" she asked very quietly.

Clare looked back over one shapely shoulder, acknowledging the tattoo's presence with a nonchalant glance, and shrugged slightly. "Last year, in Vegas," she said blithely. "When you were doing that one-night charity gig at Caesar's, with Brad and Trace and everybody."

"You were thirteen at the time," Casey reminded her daughter. "Who signed the permission slip?" Even in Glitter Gulch, where practically anything went, minors couldn't get tattoos without the signature of a qualified adult. In short, a parent or guardian.

"You'll be mad," Clare warned.

"I'm already mad," Casey replied. "Who was it?"

"It was some reporter guy," Clare said. "I got bored hanging out in the suite while you were rehearsing, so I gave the bodyguards and Uncle Mitch the slip and went out for a walk. This man with a camera came up to me on one of the sky bridges and asked me if I was your daughter. I figured he already knew I was, or he wouldn't have asked me in the first place, and he looked nice enough, so I said yes. He told me he wrote for a real newspaper, not a tabloid, and we ended up striking a deal. He wanted an interview, and I wanted a tattoo. So we went into this shopping center, where there was one of those places where you can get body piercings and stuff-it was nice, Mom, and very clean, and there were loads of people around, so nothing was going to happen. They had these computers, and all you had to do was scroll through the different designs until you found the perfect tattoo."

Casey closed her eyes for a moment, imagining her thirteen-year-old daughter wandering around Las Vegas by herself, talking to strangers, finagling a tattoo. A shudder went through her. Not only had this happened, but she hadn't known a thing about it-until now.

Clare, apparently uncomfortable with the silence, launched back into the story. "Anyway, the reporter guy pretended to be my dad. I paid for the tattoo myself, of course-out of my allowance-and it hurt like anything-the tattoo, I mean, not forking over the cash. He asked me a couple of questions and that was that. No big deal. Plus, I was back in the suite before anybody even noticed I was gone."

"Excuse me," Casey said, standing up suddenly. Clare's new room came with an adjoining bath, cramped but blessedly nearby and, at the moment, it was a good thing.

"Mom?" Clare asked, sounding mildly alarmed. "Mom, what-?"

Casey hurried into the bathroom, lifted the lid of the toilet and threw up everything but her socks.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

WALKER WAS PRYING a pebble out of Mack's right front foot with a hoof pick when he heard his daughter's voice behind him. He glanced up, saw her standing in the breezeway, arms braced atop the stall gate, watching him.

"Walker?" she queried. Shane called him "Dad" these days, but Clare was holding out, unwilling to give so much as an inch of ground. It was as if she believed he and Casey could turn back the clock and set everything right, if only they weren't so all fired determined to make her life as miserable as possible.

Teenage girls. He hadn't had to deal with that particular species since Brylee was Clare's age, but now it was all coming back to him, and the prospect was discouraging. His sister hadn't even begun to snap out of it until she started college, which meant the snit-storms weren't likely to let up anytime soon-in fact, they were bound to get worse.

He sighed inwardly, straightened, lowered Mack's foot and turned in her direction. He couldn't blame the kid for being angry, of course-probably would have been pretty d.a.m.n furious himself, in Clare's place. Fit to be tied, as his dad used to say.

"What's up, shortstop?" He opened the stall gate, and Clare stepped back so he could pa.s.s. His little girl was turning into a big girl and, though it would take a while, he knew it was out there, waiting, the time when she'd no longer need him, or even Casey, in any real way.

It made him feel, well, optional. And he had n.o.body to blame but himself-and Casey.

"Mom just threw up." Clare looked genuinely worried, and somewhat guilty, too. Her color was high and her mouth was a mite wobbly, as though she wanted to cry and was doing her darnedest not to. "And it's my fault."

Walker frowned. "Your mom's had a hard day," he said, trying not to show his own concern. "Lots of stress-the media blitz, getting married, moving to the ranch." He paused, studying Clare's face. "How do you figure any of that's your fault?"

Clare swallowed, gnawed at her lower lip for a moment. A sheen of tears glistened in her eyes. "I got a tattoo," she said meekly. "It was a long time ago, but Mom just found out and-"

"And that tattoo is such an awful sight that your poor mama took one look at it and lost her lunch?" Walker asked lightly. He had his own theory as to why Casey might be feeling a little green around the gills, but it might be wishful thinking.

A third child. Wouldn't that be something?

Clare flushed, but a little grin tugged at the corners of her mouth, and she blinked away the tears. "Mom thinks I'm too young for a tattoo, and that's just plain hypocritical if you ask me, because she's got this tiny guitar on one ankle-"

"You are too young," Walker said after his daughter's voice trailed off into an uncertain, shaky-chinned silence. He knew about the little guitar, of course, and the b.u.t.terfly, too, though that was on a less obvious part of Casey's anatomy, a place he particularly liked to kiss. "Your mother, on the other hand, is an adult, legally ent.i.tled to make her own decisions. How is that 'hypocritical'?"

Clare's expression turned stubborn, but she backed down quickly enough. She knew how to push Casey's b.u.t.tons, Walker figured, but he was another matter. "Aren't you going to check on her?" she asked petulantly. "I just told you she was feeling sick, after all."

"I'm headed her way," Walker replied, resting his hands on his hips and regarding his daughter solemnly, "but I've got a few things to say to you first."

Clare's green eyes, so like her mother's, widened, and the thick lashes fluttered a couple of times. "What?"

"I realize that finding out that you're mine must have come as a shock, and you'll need a while to sort through all of it, but, mistakes or no mistakes, your mom has had your best interests at heart all along, yours and your brother's. Sooner or later, you're going to have to make a decision, Clare. You can rebel and make an all-around fool of yourself, like the poor, abused children of other celebrities we could both name, or you can make her proud. You can try to get back at her, or you can stand by her, the way she's always stood by you. So, which is it, cowgirl? In the long run, are you going to be an a.s.set or a liability?"

"Wow," Clare breathed after a few moments, looking amazed. "Coming from you, that was practically the Gettysburg Address. I'm used to cowboy-speak, like yep and nope and howdy and so long."

"Get used to dad-speak," Walker advised, firmly but not unkindly. "You can be as mad at me as you want to. You can yell and throw things and call me by my first name until we're both old and gray. But you will not make life harder for your mother, punishing her for whatever sins you think she's committed-not on my watch. Understood?"

Clare sighed, and she didn't answer for a long time.

"Understood," she said, conceding that round.

Walker returned to the house then, Clare and Doolittle following, and found Brylee and Shane in the kitchen, playing Parcheesi at the table.

"We need to go get the dogs, Dad," Shane said.

Walker gave a crisp nod. "In a little while," he replied, his gaze sliding to meet Brylee's. "Is Casey in our room?"

Brylee nodded.

Walker made his way past the dining and living rooms and into the corridor. After rapping lightly at the bedroom door, he stepped inside.

Casey lay in the middle of the bed, almost in a fetal position, fully dressed and shivering a little.

She looked so small and so alone that Walker's heart turned over, a slow, bruising process. Casey Elder might be world famous, and one of the strongest, most courageous women he'd ever known, but she'd been fighting her own battles for so long that she'd worn herself out.

Gently, he covered her with a quilt his grandmother had made before he was even born, and sat down on the edge of the bed, wanting to touch her but not sure he ought to.

"I hear you're feeling a little under the weather," he ventured when Casey didn't say anything.

"I'll be fine," she said, her voice so small he barely heard her. "Eventually."

"You don't sound fine, Casey Jones," Walker pointed out. "And you don't look all that terrific, either."

"Gee," she murmured with flimsy irony, "thanks."

Walker chuckled, laid a hand lightly on her shoulder, squeezed. "Anything I can do?"

"Shoot me," Casey groaned, then gave a strangled little chortling sound that might have been part sob.

"Not an option," Walker replied. "I'm a law-abiding man."

Pulling the quilt up over her head, Casey started to cry.

Walker sighed, methodically kicked off one boot, then the other, and stretched out beside her, gathering her quilt-bundled self into his arms, careful not to hold her too tightly. The moment was fragile, and so was his wife.

"Talk to me," he said.

Her voice was m.u.f.fled and croaky. "I'm pregnant."

Walker waited out a swell of pure jubilation. "Isn't it a little early to know that?" he asked gruffly. "It's only been-"

"I know when I'm pregnant, Walker Parrish," she said.

"And you figure this is a bad thing?" he prompted carefully. There wasn't much he was afraid of, but the thought that Casey might not want this baby scared the h.e.l.l out of him.

"Of course not!" she wailed, sounding for all the world as though she was still hoping he'd shoot her. How the devil was he supposed to know how she really felt when she acted one way and talked another?

Walker uncovered her face, which was tear-streaked and puffy around the eyes, kissed her red-tipped nose. "If it's a boy," he teased in a mischievous drawl, "can I raise him to be a bull rider?"

Casey laughed and freed one hand from the quilt long enough to slug him in the arm. "No," she said with rea.s.suring spirit. "He's going to be president."

Walker grinned. "And if this little stranger turns out to be a girl?"

"President," Casey reiterated firmly, finally snuggling up a little closer.

After that, the conversation lapsed into an easy silence.

Walker held Casey, stroked her hair and waited. He'd had a whole lot of practice at waiting for Casey Elder, he thought, and, most likely, he'd have plenty more of it in his future. He propped his chin on top of her head. No matter what the future might bring, he was in this for the duration.

He was just about to tell Casey that, straight out, when he realized she'd drifted off to sleep.

WHEN CASEY WOKE UP, afternoon was fading into evening, and she was still wrapped up snug in that time-softened, lavender-scented quilt Walker had spread over her earlier. When had anyone done that for her, seen to her comfort in that simple, homey way?

It had been years before, she realized, when she'd had a bad case of stomach flu and Lupe-dear Lupe-had looked after her. Slowly, things came into sharper focus.

Walker was gone now, and she wondered how long he'd stayed with her, holding her, letting her feel what she was feeling without any apparent need to hurry her through the crying jag. Walker's head had left an indentation in the pillow, and his fresh-air, meadow-gra.s.s scent lingered, too.

With a smile, Casey touched the crumpled covers next to her, where he'd lain, and even though the warmth of Walker's body was long gone, she got a sense of him, a physical vibration, just the same. She rolled onto her back, waited to see if her stomach would rebel and, when it didn't, she stretched out luxuriously, peeled away the quilt and got up.

The ranch house, while not huge, was good-sized, and she heard voices from the distant kitchen, laughter and the intermittent, happy barking of the dogs.

Casey padded into the bathroom she now shared with Walker, brushed her teeth, splashed cool water on her face, fluffed out her hair. Her T-shirt was wrinkled, but her jeans looked okay, so she didn't bother changing clothes.

When she reached the kitchen, brightly lit and ranch-house cheery, Brylee and Clare were there, with the three chocolate Labs and Snidely keeping them company. Shane and Walker were absent, and Doolittle must have been with them.

Casey greeted her dogs with head pats and the nonsense words that meant "I love you," at least to those of the canine persuasion.

"I see the rescue mission was successful," she said with a smile.

"Went off without a hitch." Brylee grinned. "And we didn't see a single reporter, either. They must have crawled back into their holes."

Casey chuckled. "Good," she said.

Clare's expression was more subdued, a combination of sadness and stubborn pride. What was going on in that complicated adolescent brain of hers?

"The cats are here, too," she offered. "I put them in my room."

Casey smiled. Could this child possibly know how much her mother loved her? Probably not, though that would change when Clare was grown-up and married, with children of her own.

Don't go there. She's still your girl.

"They'll feel safe there," she said of the cats. "In your room, I mean."

Clare nodded slowly. For a moment, she looked as though she might say something more but, in the end, she cast a brief glance at Brylee and went back to what she'd been doing when Casey came in-which was peeling potatoes.

Amazing.

"Are you feeling better?" Brylee asked Casey. Her tone was light, nonintrusive, but her eyes betrayed quiet concern.

"I just needed to rest for a little while," Casey said with a nod. "Are Walker and Shane around?"

"They're doing ch.o.r.es," Brylee replied. "Walker sent the ranch hands home early, since they've been guarding gates and patrolling the property lines on horseback most of the day."

Casey winced inwardly-nothing could prepare hardworking, down-to-earth people like Walker and Brylee for the kind of onslaught they'd experienced that day, and yet Walker was out doing ch.o.r.es and Brylee was making supper, which was probably business as usual.

"Can I do something to help?" Casey asked, mindful of her sad lack of cooking skills but still optimistic that she could at least learn the basics, given half a chance. She'd taught herself to read music, after all, along with a number of other useful things.

Brylee started to say no, caught herself, smiled warmly and scooted aside to make room for Casey at the counter, where she was dipping plump pieces of chicken in beaten egg, then rolling them in seasoned flour. An electric frying pan stood nearby, the grease inside it hot enough to bubble.