A Second-Chance Proposal

CHAPTER TWO

CATHLEEN SAT IN THE DARK of her office for several minutes. She had no idea what Dylan would do. Would he walk the eight kilometers back to Canmore? Start banging on her door, demanding a room? Or actually settle down in the barn, as she’d invited him to?

When she heard the sound of water rushing through pipes to the outside tap, she retrieved her towel from the deck, then cautiously made her way through the darkened hallway to the dining room. Through a clump of overgrown lilac bushes, the barn light glowed. Unless Cascade, the horse Dylan had given her as a wedding present, had developed an opposable thumb, he’d decided to take her up on her incredibly generous offer.

In her situation, most women would’ve kicked the bum out, she was certain. Which just showed what a tolerant, kindhearted soul she was.

Upstairs she showered and changed into a nightgown. After brushing her teeth, she was still too wound up for sleep. She needed to talk, which meant calling one of her sisters. Maureen, the eldest, had to get up early to work at her law firm in Calgary. But Kelly was on nights this week. Cathleen went back to the office and dialed the number for the local RCMP detachment.

She caught her youngest sister at her desk. “You won’t believe what just happened. Dylan’s back. He came by about an hour ago.”

“To the B and B?” Kelly sounded indignant. Then she turned suspicious. “He didn’t have the nerve to ask for a room, did he?” After a second of silence she added, “You didn’t let him have one, did you?”

“Not really. I did tell him he could sleep in the stall next to Cascade, though.”

Kelly laughed. “No way.”

“Why not?” From the gleam in his eyes as he’d watched her get out of that hot tub, he’d been in the mood for a roll in the hay. So let him have it.

“Only you would make an offer like that. Not that it isn’t better than what he deserves. What’s the going rate for one of those stalls?”

“For Dylan? It’ll be very steep, trust me.” She propped her bare feet on top of the gray metal filing cabinet next to her desk and slid down in her chair to get comfortable.

Even more than her bedroom, this study was her place. With a desk and bookshelves at one corner, and a sofa facing a fireplace in the center of the room, it made for a cozy retreat when the B and B teemed with guests.

“Truthfully, just knowing he’s out there makes me nervous,” Kelly said.

“I don’t know why.”

“That man broke your heart.”

Cathleen let her feet drop to the floor. “He did not!”

“Right.” Kelly sighed. “You agreed to marry him, but never cared that much.”

“I cared.” It was the most she was prepared to admit. “But Dylan showed his true colors the day he walked out on me. I’m just lucky I found out in time.”

Unlike her mother, who’d married their father and had three kids with him before she’d finally faced the truth.

“There are other reasons to be cautious….”

“Kelly, you know Dylan didn’t kill that girl.”

“Not on purpose—”

“Or any other way.”

“Cathleen, the demonstration was getting out of hand. Tempers were hot. There was probably some pushing and shoving between the oilmen and the environmentalists. The gun could have gone off accidentally….”

“No.” Regardless of their personal differences—which were mammoth—Cathleen knew Dylan was innocent on this score.

“You sound very confident.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? Anyone could’ve shot Jilly. You told me so yourself.”

“That’s true, but a number of factors weigh in against Dylan. Everyone knows he hates his stepfather so much he’d have done almost anything to stop him from drilling those wells. And running out of town the way he did sure doesn’t make him appear innocent.”

“Running away was stupid.” And how! “But it isn’t a crime.” Not against the law, anyway.

“No. But it made him look guilty. And it doesn’t help that he had an argument with his mother the night before he left. Did you know Rose sported a black eye the next day? I confess I used to like Dylan. But what kind of man hits his own mother?”

Cathleen hadn’t heard this story before. Probably everyone had thought they were protecting her. Which was ridiculous, because there was no way it was true. “Dylan would never hurt his mother.”

Her sister’s sigh made it clear she was losing patience. “Maybe, maybe not. The point is—”

“Kel, he couldn’t even find a room in town. It’s almost like there’s a conspiracy out there.”

Kelly took a moment to answer. “I’d think you’d be glad. This isn’t just about Jilly. People around here don’t like what he did to you, either.”

Oh, Lord. This was crazy. Yes, Dylan had been a jerk. But she didn’t want him ostracized for life. If people around town needed her to forgive him—which she wasn’t ever going to do, but she could pretend—before they could do the same, then so be it.

“I guess I’ll have to let him stay here, then.”

“Cathleen, that’s crazy, even for you. We’ve lived in Canmore all our lives, and God knows, the people here love you, always have. But if you let Dylan stay at your B and B, they’ll assume you’re trying to protect him. And Jilly Beckett was just sixteen years old….”

“It’s nobody’s business who stays at my place. And I’m the first to acknowledge that Jilly’s death was a tragedy, but Dylan wasn’t responsible.”

“Let’s say you’re right about that. What about the fact that you two were once in love? Won’t it be painful to have him around?”

“Don’t worry, Kelly. I’m over him. Why won’t anyone believe me when I tell them that?” Since when had her love life become a matter of town policy, anyway? It was bad enough that her sisters couldn’t seem to butt out of her business.

After the conversation ended, Cathleen went to the cabinet by the patio doors and poured herself a brandy. She was confused about a lot of things right now, but there were two points on which she had no doubt.

Dylan hadn’t killed Jilly. She would back him on this against all of them—the townspeople, the cops, her sisters…hell, even his own mother.

Their personal relationship, however, was a different matter. If he thought he could flirt and tease his way back into her heart, he’d soon discover he was wrong. His apology tonight hadn’t cut it by half. That man had walked out on her.

And she was going to make him pay.

DYLAN AWOKE COLD, STIFF and bad tempered. Through narrowed eyes he spied his roommate, a sturdy little quarter horse with a spotted coat. At the same moment, she turned her head to the side and focused one dark-lashed brown eye at him.

“Sleep well?” he asked, propping his back against the wooden wall. Pain stabbed through his left shoulder, and he brought up his right hand protectively. In her stall, Cascade snorted.

“Me, neither.” This wasn’t his first time crashing out on a stable floor, but he was definitely getting too old for this—

Plop, plop. Cascade didn’t even blink as she performed her morning purge.

Dylan wrinkled his nose. He’d worked with the smell of horses all his life. But usually he’d had his first coffee of the day before he did so.

He pulled himself upright, then gave Cascade a pat on her flank. “We’ll talk more later,” he promised. He brushed the straw from his jeans and put on a clean shirt from his backpack. Carrying both his hat and his shaving kit, he tugged open the barn door, then strained to close it behind him.

Outside he paused, pulling in lungfuls of the crisp mountain air and scanning the landscape. Cathleen’s property sat on the northern edge of Thunder Valley, tucked in a vee, with the Three Sisters Mountain to the southeast and Mount Lawrence Grassi to the southwest. North lay the Bow River, then the Trans-Canada Highway, which linked Canmore to the bustling city of Calgary, one hour east.

When the property had come on the market more than two years ago, Cathleen had immediately been taken by the possibilities of the house. He’d loved the land it sat on and that it was adjacent to the Thunder Bar M. He’d hoped to one day combine the two properties. But that was a distant dream now.

He rubbed his chin, then headed for the house. Looking up, he wondered which bedroom window belonged to Cathleen. God, the sight of her getting out of that hot tub last night was something he’d never forget. Trust her to have the nerve. They’d pulled some crazy stunts together when they were younger, and Cathleen had never been able to resist a dare. So that much hadn’t changed.

But, as she’d pointed out last night, lots else had. Maybe he should’ve hiked back to Canmore and tried to find someplace else to stay. He had to admit their reunion scene hadn’t gone as well as it could have. He’d kind of hoped she would yell at him and throw a few dishes around the place, then let him pull her into his arms and make it all up to her. But she’d been worse than angry. She’d been cold and aloof. How was he supposed to deal with that?

He stopped at the outdoor tap to brush his teeth and shave—a pain at the best of times, miserable when all you had was cold water. This day wasn’t off to the best of starts. He didn’t like his odds at being offered breakfast, but he’d settle for a good, hot cup of coffee. Hat in hand, he stepped up the painted boards of the porch steps—she’d replaced the former rotting structure—then knocked at the screen.

The wafting scents were tantalizing. Eggs and coffee and something baking.

He tapped on the wooden frame again. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” An elderly woman flipped the latch on the screen door. Her impossibly red curls were tied back with a turquoise scarf that matched her belted pantsuit. She had on bright red lipstick and a generous dash of perfume. “Cathleen said you’d be up any minute. You’re that man who ran out on her the morning of your wedding, aren’t you? Cathleen told me the story.”

He ran a hand over his face, expecting recriminations. None came.

“Sit down, son. I’ll make you some breakfast.”

Dylan scratched the top of his head, slightly bewildered. Why was this woman offering to cook him breakfast? And where was Cathleen?

He sat, though, after tucking his denim shirt into his jeans. It seemed wiser to go with the flow for the moment. No sooner was his butt in a chair than a mug of steaming coffee was set in front of him, along with a muffin and a sectioned grapefruit. He appreciated the coffee. Wasn’t so sure about the muffin. After giving it a prod, he tore off a smidgen and slipped it to Kip. The dog gobbled it as if it were a prime cut of steak.

“Um, thanks. Is Cathleen…?”

“She’s outside doing something with the hot tub. Checking pH levels and adding chlorine, I think. She’ll be right in. Now, how do you like your eggs?”

“Eggs?”

“Breakfast is—”

“The most important meal of the day.”

Sunshine suddenly blazed through the doorway as Cathleen sailed into the room. Just the pleasure of seeing the smile she blasted in his direction was reward enough for this bizarre homecoming of his. For a moment he let himself pretend that the past two years had been a dream. That they were married and that she was smiling because she loved him and was happy to see him.

Cathleen straddled the chair opposite his and rested her chin in her hand. “You two have met each other?”

Dylan glanced at the woman by the stove. “Sure have.”

“Good. Thanks, Poppy,” she added as the woman placed a muffin, grapefruit and coffee in front of Cathleen.

Dylan found the whole scene confusing. Cathleen seemed perfectly content to be waited on by her elderly paying guest. “I’ve never heard of a bed-and-breakfast where the guests served the owners,” he commented.

Cathleen held out her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “She wakes up before I do, gets behind the stove and then won’t budge.”

“I’m a born cook,” Poppy declared, dropping a pat of butter into a warmed frying pan. “And I need to test my recipes on someone. Besides, I’ve lived on my own for so long it’s wonderful to have people to cook for again.”

“No family?” Dylan asked.

Poppy’s inner glow dimmed. “Not anymore…. Now then,” she said briskly. “Something tells me you’re a sunny-side-up man.” She raised an egg over the frying pan. “Am I right?”

Generally he was a three-cups-of-coffee-and-nothing-else man, but he had to admit all this food smelled pretty damn good. Besides, a good breakfast might help compensate for his sleepless night. Between agonizing over the things he had said—all of them stupid and wrong—and imagining Cathleen alone in her bed, no wonder he hadn’t been able to drop off.

He eyed her in her casual riding gear—jeans and boots and a Western-style shirt—and couldn’t help mentally stripping her down to the outfit she’d worn last night.

She kicked him under the table just above his knee. He choked back a surprised grunt. The damn woman always had been able to read his mind too easily.

“I phoned Kelly last night,” she said.

The sister who worked for the RCMP. He didn’t have to think too hard to figure out what they’d been talking about. “So what did Kelly have to say about the investigation?” he asked.

“Doesn’t sound like there have been any new developments in quite some time.”

Cathleen sipped coffee, and he stared openly. She didn’t share Kelly’s perfect bone structure, or have especially pretty features like Maureen. Still, of the three sisters, she was the one who stood out in a crowd. Was it the model’s wide smile, her confident dark blue eyes, those long, luscious legs…?

“What’s this about?” Poppy asked, jarring him back into the here and now as she slid two perfectly cooked eggs onto a plate, along with slices of toasted multigrain bread.

After a few moments of silence Dylan realized that Cathleen was waiting for him to answer Poppy’s question.

“A couple of years ago there was a showdown on my family’s ranch. My stepfather was having some petroleum company executives over for a barbecue. I’d organized a group of environmentalists for a peaceful demonstration. But events got out of hand. People started yelling and shoving. Then someone lit off a firecracker. It exploded with a burst of light and noise, of course, and the next thing we knew, the daughter of one of the oilmen, Jilly Beckett, had collapsed into her father’s arms. She’d been shot.”

The sixteen-year-old’s stricken face burned against his eyes, as if branded there. He hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he felt his share of responsibility for leading the protest. Not that he’d had any idea a kid was going to be present.

The person he’d wanted to hurt—though not in a physical sense—had been his stepfather. The bastard had decided to allow several oil wells to be drilled on McLean property; or more precisely, he’d persuaded his wife that she should sign away her mineral rights for this purpose.

Dylan still cursed the day of their wedding. His mother had asked him to participate in the ceremony, but he never would have cooperated if he could’ve guessed the changes Max Strongman and his son, James, would bring to his life.

Even now his throat thickened with the resentments that had piled up over the years, the worst from those few weeks before his scheduled wedding to Cathleen. Was he wrong to blame Rose for allowing her new husband so much control over land that had belonged to her first husband, Dylan’s father? Dylan had been raised to consider the ranch his birthright, his and his cousin Jake’s. But Max had other ideas.

Oil, and the money he would earn through royalties, had been Strongman’s priority. Dylan could believe it, too, after years of watching his stepfather try to operate the three-thousand-acre ranch. Max had no appreciation for the beauty of the land and no respect for the creatures—either human or animal—who tried to live off it.

“The police never found the gun,” Cathleen said into the quiet. “And no one on the scene saw who shot Jilly.”

“Whether it was planned or not, the firecracker made an effective decoy,” Dylan added.

Poppy paused in between bites of bran muffin. A tangible change had come over her while she’d processed the information. The new wariness in her eyes was one Dylan understood all too well. Being a suspect in a murder case didn’t put him high on anyone’s popularity list.

Cathleen seemed to have picked up on Poppy’s altered mood, too. Typically, she addressed the situation head-on. “Some people assumed Dylan was guilty because he’d organized the demonstration. Plus, his differences with his stepfather were no secret. But no one ever found any evidence.”

She faced Dylan. “And since nothing new has turned up in the past two years, Kelly says she doubts anyone will ever be arrested.”

The look Cathleen was giving him now was almost sympathetic. “Even if Max is guilty, what can you possibly do about it?”

“I have no idea. But I’ve got to help my mother somehow.” He finished off the coffee and gave her a smile that he hoped belied the insecurities that kept him awake at night. “And I’ve got to clear my own reputation, as well. Cathleen, darlin’, I don’t expect you to marry a man with a sullied reputation.”

Poppy’s eyebrows angled upward with alarm. “Marry?”

“Oh, just ignore him.” Cathleen pushed her empty plate away. “He knows there’s no way in hell I’d be stupid enough to give him a second chance.”

Poppy snapped the dishrag, then folded it over the sink. “I’m going to my room to work on my cookbook for a while. Mind if I do up a vegetable pie for lunch, Cathleen? I need to make sure I’ve got the seasonings right….”

“Be my guest.”

Which, of course, she was. Damned strangest arrangement Dylan had ever seen. Not that his arrangement with the lady of the house was much better.

Getting up from the table, he prepared to load his own dishes into the dishwasher. Cathleen made no move to stop him. This was definitely a self-serve establishment.

“Any chance we could go visit my mother later this morning? Afraid I don’t have a vehicle, so we’ll have to use your Jeep. I sold my truck in Reno before I caught the plane to Calgary.”

“I suppose. But I have work to do, too. Don’t expect me to be your personal chauffeur for the duration of your stay.”

“I won’t.” Duration of your stay? Obviously, she was weakening. Now was the time to strike. “About this arrangement in the barn. I think you should know I kept Cascade awake with my snoring last night.”

Cathleen’s smile had a most unattractive edge of self-satisfaction to it. “Really?”

“I was wondering if I could bargain my way up to a box spring and mattress?”

She shrugged. “A few postdated checks ought to do the trick. I’ve got a queen-size bed available, in the southeast-facing room.”

“Great.” He’d get a mountain view, to boot. He had no idea why she’d changed her mind about his staying, but it was an encouraging first step. Right after the dishes, he’d make out a check, for whatever sum she demanded. Then he’d have to start working on a new strategy. One that would see him moving from the guest bed into hers.

It was a nice thought, if a trifle optimistic at the moment.

CHAPTER THREE

DYLAN HATED HIS MOTHER’S new house the moment he saw it. Cathleen held the steering wheel of her Jeep with both hands, even though she’d already turned off the ignition. He supposed she was giving him time to take it all in.

The modern, California-style stucco three-story, with its triple garage and red clay-tile roof, stuck out like a monstrosity. An affront to the neighborhood of rustic, A-framed structures built of natural products like cedar and stone.

“Looks like a bloody movie set. I’m surprised they don’t have fake palm trees lining the drive.” Dylan jumped lightly from the passenger seat, his right hand automatically reaching to his left shoulder, protecting his injury from the jolt.

“Hard to imagine anything more different from your home on the ranch, isn’t it?”

He just shook his head. The large, traditional log house where he’d grown up was practically museum quality. Generations of McLeans had taken loving care of the original structure, preserving architectural integrity during subsequent expansions and modernizing.

Dylan hung back, waiting for Cathleen to precede him along the brick path to the front entrance. A minute or so after she’d rung the doorbell, he leaned over her shoulder and pressed the buzzer impatiently several more times.

“I told you we should have called.”

Cathleen toed her brown riding boot against the edge of a raised planter. The row of small globe cedars planted within looked dry and spindly. That surprised him. His mother was a formidable gardener.

Still no one answered the door. Bored, Dylan opened the mailbox and began sorting through the letters and flyers.

“What are you doing?”

“Just passing time.” Leaning against the stucco wall, he noted the return address on one manila envelope, then replaced the package in the mailbox.

Cathleen stepped back impatiently. “Let’s go. She’s not going to let us in.”

“Not so fast.” Dylan hooked her at the waist, stopping her midstride. “Let me try the door.”

He put a hand to the pewter handle and it immediately swung open. He gave her a wink. “Well?”

“We can’t—”

As he pulled her over the threshold, a white cat made an attempt to dart outside. Dylan caught the feline with one hand, then nudged the door shut with the heel of his boot.

“Mom? I’m home!” His masculine voice was loud and incongruous in the sparse perfection of the two-story foyer. Archways led on either side to a living room and den. Ahead, polished wooden stairs coiled to the upper rooms.

He began to worry. Were the rumors right? Was his mother too ill to get out of bed? From what Cathleen and Jake had said, it didn’t seem likely that she was out.

About to march up the stairs, he paused at the sound of a door closing from one of the upper rooms. The white cat scampered out of Dylan’s arms and bolted around the corner.

Finally, a slender feminine form appeared at the top of the stairs. “Where’s Crystal?”

The white cat reappeared from its hiding place, zooming up the stairs to Rose Strongman’s waiting arms.

“There you are, precious. You scared me. I heard the door and was afraid you’d run outside.”

Rose began to descend the stairs. Dylan felt strange standing there; he wasn’t sure if his mother had even seen him. In a way it was good. Frankly, he needed the moment to gather his composure.

He’d always thought of his mother as delicate. But dressed in a silk housecoat wrapped tightly around a too-narrow waist, Rose Strongman, née McLean, was now fragile to the point of brittleness. She had to have lost fifteen pounds, at least, since he’d seen her last. Her auburn hair had gone gray, and her skin sagged in grooves around her eyes, nose and mouth.

The changes were nothing unusual for a woman in her seventies or eighties. But his mother was fifty-seven.

As she came closer, Dylan saw more. The trembling in her hands, the watery film over her pale blue eyes, the crooked line of lipstick tracing a once-smiling mouth.

His mother had hurt him badly when she’d told him that she held him responsible for Jilly’s death. The night before his and Cathleen’s scheduled wedding she’d said he had no right marrying a wonderful girl like Cathleen and tainting her future with his past. She’d intimated that they’d all be much happier if he just made himself scarce.