Rumors: The McCaffertys

“Call him!” Mindy swiped at the top of her cone with her tongue.

“He won’t come.” Molly didn’t seem upset about it; she was just stating a fact. “You can have the rest,” she said, handing her mother the cone and bolting from the rig. She tore off across the wet grass to the swing set.

“Can’t you undo this yourself?” Nicole asked lifting the safety bar of the car seat.

“You do it.” Mindy smiled impishly, then, still clutching her cone, slid out of the car.

You’re spoiling her, Nicole told herself as she juggled the grocery sacks and carried them into the house. You’re spoiling them both, trying to be father and mother, feeling sorry for them because, they, like you, are growing up without their father.

Was it her fault? She had a lot of reasons for moving away from San Francisco, for wanting to start over. But maybe in so doing, she was robbing her daughters of a vital part of their lives, of the chance to know the man who’d sired them.

Not that he’d shown any interest when they still lived in the city. He’d never seen the girls for more than a couple of hours at a time and his new wife had been pretty clear that she saw his twins as “baggage” she didn’t want or need.

So Nicole wasn’t going to beat herself up about it. The twins were doing fine. Just fine.

Patches, who had been washing his face on the windowsill, hopped lithely to the floor. “Naughty boy,” Nicole whispered, but added some dry food to his dish, unpacked the groceries and watched her girls through the back window. They were playing on the teeter-totter, laughing in the crisp air as clouds began to gather again. Nicole pressed the play button on the answering machine.

The first voice she heard was Thorne McCafferty’s.

“Hi. It’s Thorne. Call me.” He rattled off his phone number and Nicole’s stomach did a flip at the sound of it. Why he got to her after all these years she didn’t understand, but he did. There was no doubt about it. She knew that he’d been her first love, but it had been years, years since then. So why did he still affect her? She glanced to the windowsill where she’d placed the bud vase with its single white rose—a peace offering, nothing more.

Sighing, she wished she understood why she couldn’t shake Thorne from her thoughts. She wasn’t a lonely woman. She wasn’t a needy woman. She didn’t want a man in her life—at least not yet. So why was it that every time she heard his voice those old memories that she’d tucked away escaped to run and play havoc through her mind?

“Because you’re an idiot,” she said and finished unloading the car. She remembered seeing him for the first time, the summer before her senior year in high school. He’d been alone, dusk was settling, the sky still glowing pink over the western hills, the first stars beginning to sparkle in the night. The heat of the day hung heavy in the air with only a breath of a breeze to lift her hair or brush her cheeks. She was sitting on a blanket, alone, her best friend having ditched her at the last minute to be with her boyfriend and suddenly Thorne had appeared, tall, strapping, wearing a T-shirt that stretched over his shoulders and faded jeans that hung low on his hips.

“Is this spot taken?” he’d asked and she hadn’t responded, thinking he had to be talking to someone else.

“Excuse me,” he’d said again and she’d twisted her face up to stare into intense gray eyes that took hold of her and wouldn’t let go. “Would it be all right if I sat here?”

She couldn’t believe her ears. There were dozens of blankets tossed upon the bent grass of the hillside, hundreds of people gathered and picnicking as they waited for the show. And he wanted to sit here? Next to her? “Oh, well…sure,” she’d managed to reply, feeling like an utter fool, her face burning with embarrassment.

He’d taken a spot next to her on her blanket, his arms draped over half-bent knees, his spine curved, his body so close to hers she could smell some kind of cologne or soap, barely an inch between his shoulder and hers. Suddenly she found it impossible to breathe. “Thanks,” he said, his voice low, his smile a flash of white against a strong, beard-shadowed chin. “I’m Thorne. McCafferty.”

She’d recognized the name, of course, had heard the rumors and gossip swirling about his family. She had even met his younger brothers upon an occasion or two, but she’d never been face-to-face with the oldest McCafferty son. Never in her life had she felt the wild drumming of her heart just because a man—and that was it, he wasn’t a boy—was regarding her with assessing steely eyes.

Five or six years older than she, he seemed light-years ahead of her in sophistication. He’d been off to college somewhere on the East Coast, she thought, an Ivy League school, though she couldn’t really remember which one.

“I imagine you do have a name.” His lips twitched and she felt even a bigger fool.

“Oh…yes. I’m Nicole Sanders.” She started to offer him her hand, then let it drop.

“Is that what you go by? Nicole?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed hard and glanced away. Clearing her throat she nodded. “Sometimes Nikki.” She felt like a little girl in her ponytail and cutoff jeans and sleeveless blouse with the shirttails tied around her waist.

“Nikki, I like that.” Plucking a long piece of dry grass from the hillside he shoved it into his mouth and as Nicole surreptitiously watched, he moved it from one sexy corner to the other. And he was sexy. More purely male and raw than any boy she’d ever been with. “You live around here?”

“Yeah. In town. Alder Street.”

“I’ll remember that,” he promised and her silly heart took flight. “Alder.”

Dear God, she thought she’d die. Right then and there. He winked at her, stretched out and leaned back on his elbows while taking in the back of her head and the darkening heavens.

As the fireworks had started that night, bursting in the sky in brilliant flashes of green, yellow and blue, Nicole Frances Sanders spent the evening in exquisite teenage torment and, without a thought to the consequences, began to fall in love.

It seemed eons ago—a magical point in time that was long past. But, like it or not, even now, while standing in her cozy little kitchen, she felt the tingle of excitement, the lilt, she’d always experienced when she’d been with Thorne.

“Don’t go there,” she warned herself, her hands gripping the edge of the counter so hard her fingers ached. “That was a long, long time ago.” A time Thorne, no doubt, didn’t remember.

She waited until she’d fed and bathed the girls, read them stories, and then, dreading talking to him, punched out the number for the Flying M Ranch.

Thorne picked up on the second ring. “Flying M. Thorne McCafferty.”

“Hi, it’s Nicole. You called?” she asked while the twins ran pell-mell through the house.

“Yeah. I thought we should get together.”

She nearly dropped the phone. “Get together? For?”

“Dinner.”

A date? He was asking her out? Her heart began to thud and in the peripheral vision she saw the rose with its soft white petals beginning to open. “Was there a reason?”

“More than one, actually. I want to talk to you about Randi and the baby, of course. Their treatment, what happens if we can’t find the baby’s father, convalescent care and rehabilitation when Randi’s finally released. That kind of thing.”

“Oh.” She felt strangely deflated. “Sure, I suppose, but her doctors will go over all this with you.”

“But they’re not you.” His voice was low and her pulse elevated again.

“They’re professionals.”

“But I don’t know them. I don’t trust them.”

“And you trust me?” she said, unable to stop herself.

“Yes.”

The twins roared into the room. “Mommy, Mommy—she hit me!” Molly cried, outraged, while Mindy, eyes round, shook her head solemnly.

“Not me.”

“Yes, she did.”

“You hit me first.” Molly began to wail.

“Thorne, would you excuse me. My daughters are in the middle of their own little war.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize.” He paused for a second as she bent on one knee, stretching the phone cord and giving Molly a hug. “I didn’t know you had children.”

“Two girls, dynamos. I’m divorced,” she added quickly. “Nearly two years now.”

Was there a sigh of relief on his end of the conversation, or did she imagine it over Molly’s sobs?

“I’ll talk to you later,” he said.

“Yes. Do.” She hung up and threw her arms around both girls, but her thoughts were already rushing forward to thoughts of Thorne and being alone with him. She couldn’t do it. Even though he’d tried to apologize for leaving her and she’d spent years fantasizing about just such a scenario, she wouldn’t risk being with him again. It wasn’t just herself and her heart she had to worry about now, she had the girls to consider. And yet…a part of her would love to see him again, to smile into his eyes, to kiss him… She pulled herself up short. What was she thinking? The kiss in the parking lot had been passionate, wild and evoked memories of their lovemaking so long ago, but it was the kiss on her cheek that had really gotten to her, the soft featherlike caress of his lips against her skin that made her want more.

“Stop it,” she told herself.

“Stop what?” Mindy looked at her mother with wounded, teary eyes. “I didn’t do it!”

“I know, sweetie, I know,” Nicole said, determined not to let Thorne McCafferty bulldoze his way into her life…or her heart.

* * *

Thorne walked into the barn and shoved thoughts of Nicole out of his mind. He had too many other problems, pressing issues to deal with. Besides Randi’s and the baby’s health, there were questions about her accident and, of course, the ever-present responsibilities he’d left behind in Denver—hundreds of miles away but still requiring his attention.

The smells of fresh hay, dusty hides and oiled leather brought back memories of his youth—memories he’d pushed aside long ago. As the first few drops of rain began to pepper the tin roof, Slade was tossing hay bales down from the loft above. Matt carried the bales by their string to the appropriate mangers, then deftly sliced the twine with his jackknife. Thorne grabbed a pitchfork and, as he had every winter day in his youth, began shaking loose hay into the manger.

The cattle were inside lowing and shifting, edging toward the piles of feed. Red, dun, black and gray, their coats were thick with the coming of winter, covered with dust and splattered with mud.

After a day of being on the phone, the physical labor felt good and eased some of the tension from muscles that had been cramped in his father’s desk chair. Thorne had called Nicole, his office in Denver, several clients and potential business partners, as well as local retailers as he needed equipment to set up a temporary office here at the ranch. But that had just been the beginning; the rest of the day he’d spent at the hospital, talking with doctors or searching for clues as to what had happened to his sister.

For the most part, he’d come up dry. “So no one’s figured out why Randi was back in Montana?” he said, tossing a forkful of hay into the manger. A white-faced heifer plunged her broad nose into the hay.

“I called around this afternoon while you were at the hospital.” The three brothers had visited their sister individually and checked in on their new nephew. Thorne had hoped to run into Nicole. He hadn’t.

“What did you find out?”

“Diddly-squat.” Another bale dropped from above. Slade swung down as well, landing next to Thorne and wincing at the jolt in his bad leg. His limp was still as noticeable as the red line that ran from his temple to his chin, compliments of a skiing accident that had nearly taken his life, though the scars on the outside of his face were far less damaging than those that, Thorne imagined, cut through his soul. “I talked to several people at the Seattle Clarion where she wrote her column, whatever the hell it is.” Slade yanked a pitchfork from its resting place on the wall.

“Advice to the lovelorn,” Thorne supplied. Drops of frigid rain drizzled down the small windows and a wind, screaming of winter, tore through the valley.

“It’s a lot more than that,” Matt said defensively. “It’s general advice to single people. Things like legal issues, divorce settlements, raising kids alone, dealing with grief and new relationships, juggling time around career and kids, budgeting…hell, I don’t know.”

“Sounds like you do,” Thorne said, realizing that Matt had maintained a stronger relationship with their half sister than he had. But then that hadn’t been difficult.

“I take a paper that prints her column. It’s been syndicated, y’know. Picked up by a few independents as far away as Chicago.”

“Is that right?” Thorne felt a sharp jab of guilt. What did he know about his sister? Not much.

“Yeah, she adds her own touch—her quirky humor—and it sells.”

“Since when did she become an expert?” Slade wanted to know.

“Beats me.” Matt scratched the stubble on his chin. “Looks like she could’ve used some pearls of wisdom herself.”

Thorne kicked at a bale, causing it to split open. Why hadn’t Randi come to him, explained about the baby, confided in him if her life wasn’t going well? His back teeth ground together and he reminded himself that maybe she didn’t know things weren’t on track, maybe this baby was planned. “Okay, so what else did you find out?” he asked, refusing to wallow in a sea of guilt.

Slade lifted a shoulder. “Not a hell of a lot. Her co-workers, of course, all figured out she was pregnant. She couldn’t really hide it. But none of them admitted to knowing the father’s name.”

“You think they’re lying?” Thorne asked.

“Not that I could tell.”

“Great.”

“No one even thinks she was dating anyone seriously.”

“Looks serious enough to me,” Matt grumbled.

Slade reached across the manger and pushed one cow’s white face to the side so a smaller animal could wedge her nose into the hay. “Move, there,” he commanded, though the beast didn’t so much as flick her ears. Wiping his hand on the bleached denim of his jeans, he said, “Randi’s editor, Bill Withers, said that she’d planned to take a three-month maternity leave, but he’d assumed she’d stay in town, because she told him that as soon as she was on her feet and she and the baby were settled in, she was going to work out of her condominium. She had enough columns written ahead that they’ll run for a few weeks. Then, she’d be back at it again, though she didn’t plan to start going into the office until after the first of the year.”

“So there was no trouble at work?”

“None that anyone is saying, but I get the feeling that there was more going on than anyone’s willing to admit.”

“Par for the course. Reporters, they’re always ready to snoop into anyone else’s business—they’ve already been calling here, you know. But ask them about what they know and all of a sudden the First Amendment becomes the Bible.” Matt snorted and picked up the used strands of baling twine. “Does anyone at her office know anything about her accident?”

“Nope.” Slade dusted his hands. “They were shocked. Especially the ones she was supposedly closest to. Sarah Peeples, who writes movie reviews gasped and nearly fell through the floor, from the sound of her end of the conversation. She couldn’t believe that Randi was in the hospital and Dave Delacroix, he’s a guy who writes a sports column for the paper, thought I was playing some kind of practical joke. Then once he figured out I was on the level, he got angry. Demanded answers. So, basically, I drew blanks.”

“It’s a start,” Thorne said as they finished up. The wheels had been turning in his mind from the moment he’d heard about Randi’s accident; now it was time to put some kind of plan into action. Slade forked the last wisps of hay into the manger. “I’ll catch up with you,” he said as he traded his pitchfork for a broom. “Pour me a drink.”

“Will do.” Thorne followed Matt outside and dashed through rain cold enough that he knew winter was in the air.

Once in the house again, Matt built another fire from last night’s embers and Thorne poured them each a drink. As they waited for Slade, they sipped their father’s Scotch and worried aloud about their headstrong sister and wondering how they would take care of a newborn.

“The problem is, none of us know much about Randi’s life,” Thorne said as he capped the bottle.

“I think that’s the way she wanted it. We can beat ourselves up one side and down the other for not being a part of her life, but that was Randi’s choice. Remember?”

How could he forget? At their father’s funeral in May, Randi had been inconsolable, refusing any outward show of emotion from her brothers, preferring to stand in an oversize, gauzy black dress apart from the rest of the family, while a young preacher, who knew very little of the man in the coffin, prayed solemnly. Most of the townspeople of Grand Hope came to the service to pay their respects.

She had to have been four months pregnant at the time. Thorne would never have guessed as they paid their last respects on the hillside. But then he’d been lost in his own black thoughts, the ring his father had given him the summer before hidden deep in his pocket.

John Randall hadn’t been a churchgoing man. Under the circumstances, the young minister whose eulogy had been from notes he’d taken the day earlier, had done a decent enough job asking that the blackheart’s soul be accepted into heaven. Thorne wasn’t certain God had made such a huge exception.

“Randi’s kept her life pretty private.”

“Haven’t we all?” Matt remarked.

“Maybe it’s time to change all that.” Thorne ran a hand through the thin layer of dust that had collected on the mantel.

“Agreed.” Matt lifted his glass and nodded.

The front door banged open. A gust of cold wind blew through the hallway and Slade, wiping the rain from his face, hitched himself into the living room. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over the back of the couch.

“Any word on Randi?” Making his way across the braided rug, Slade found an old-fashioned glass in the cupboard and without much fanfare, poured himself a long drink from the rapidly diminishing bottle of Scotch.

“Not yet. But I’ll check the answering machine.” Matt crossed the room and disappeared down the hallway leading to the den.

“She’d better pull out of this,” Slade said, as if to himself. The youngest of the three brothers, Slade was also the wildest. He’d left a trail of broken hearts from Mexico to Canada, if rumors were to be believed and never had really settled down. While Matt had his own ranch, a small spread near the Idaho border, Slade had put down no roots and probably never would. He’d done everything from race cars, to ride rodeo, and do stunt work in films. The scar running down one side of his face was testament to his hard, reckless lifestyle and Thorne had, at times, wondered if the youngest McCafferty son harbored some kind of death wish.

Slade stood in front of the fire and warmed the backs of his legs. “What’re we gonna do about the baby?”

“We take care of him until Randi’s able.”

“Then we’d better get this place ready,” Slade observed.

“The orthopedist called earlier,” Matt said, entering the room. “As soon as some of the swelling has gone down and Randi’s out of critical condition, he’ll take care of her leg.”

“Good. I put a call in to Nicole. I want to meet with her so that she can tell me about Randi’s doctors and her prognosis, rehab, that sort of thing.”

“Nicole?” Matt replied, his eyes narrowing as if struck by a sudden memory. “You know she mentioned that you knew each other, but I’d forgotten that you were an item.”

“It was only a few weeks,” Thorne clarified.

Slade rubbed the back of his neck. “I hardly remember it.”

“Because you were off racing cars and chasing women on the stock car circuit,” Matt said. “You weren’t around much when Thorne got out of college and was heading to law school. It was that summer, right?”

“Part of the summer.”

Slade shook his head. “Let me guess, you dumped her for some other long-legged plaything.”

“There was no other woman,” Thorne snapped, surprised at the anger surging through his blood.

“No, you just had to go out and prove to Dad and God and anyone else who would listen that you could make it on your own without J. Randall’s help.”

“It was a long time ago,” Thorne muttered. “Right now we’ve got to concentrate on Randi.”

“And that’s why you called Dr. Stevenson?” Obviously Matt wasn’t buying it.

“Of course.” Thorne sat on the arm of the leather couch and knew he was lying, not only to his brothers but to himself. It was more than just wanting to discuss Randi’s condition with her; he wanted to see Nicole again, be with her. The strange part of it was, ever since seeing her again, he wanted to see more of her. “Now, listen,” he said to his brothers. “Something we’ll have to deal with and pronto is finding out who the father is.”

“That’s gonna be tough considerin’ Randi’s condition.” Slade rested a shoulder against the mantel and folded his arms over his chest. “Just how long you plannin’ on stickin’ around, city boy?”

“As long as it takes.”

“Aren’t there some big deals in Denver and Laramie and wherever the hell else you own property—things you need to oversee?”

Thorne resisted being baited and managed a guarded grin, the kind Slade so often gave the rest of the world. “I can oversee them from here.”

“How?”

“By the fine art of telecommunication. I’ll set up a fax, modem, Internet connection, cell phone and computer in the den.”

Matt rubbed his chin. “Thought you hated it here. Except for a few times like that summer after you graduated from college you’ve avoided this ranch like the plague. Ever since Dad and Mom split, you’ve spent as little time here as possible.”

Thorne couldn’t argue the fact. “Randi needs me—us.”

Matt added wood to the fire and switched on a lamp. “Okay, I think we need a game plan,” Thorne said.

“Let me guess, you’ll be the quarterback, just like in high school,” Slade said.

Thorne’s temper snapped. “Let’s just work together, okay? It’s not about calling the shots so much as getting the job done.”

“Okay.” Matt nodded. “I’ll be in charge of the ranch. I’ve already talked to a couple of guys who will help out.”

Slade walked to the couch and picked up his jacket. “Good enough. Matt should run the place, he’s used to it and I’ll pitch in if we need an extra hand. Thorne, why don’t you give Juanita a call? Maybe she can help with the baby. She’s had some experience raising McCaffertys, after all, she helped Dad with us.”

“Good idea, as we’ll need round-the-clock help,” Thorne decided.

“We’ll get it. Now, the way I think I can help best is by concentrating on finding out all I can about what was going on in our sister’s life, especially in the past year or so. I have a friend who’s a private investigator. For the right price, he’ll help us out,” Slade said.

“Is he any good?” Thorne asked.

Slade’s expression turned dark. “If anyone can find out what’s going on, it’ll be Kurt Striker. I’d bet my life on it.”

“You’re sure?”

Slade’s gaze could’ve cut through steel. “I said, I’d bet my life on it. I meant that. Literally.”

“Call him,” Thorne said, persuaded by his usually cynical brother’s conviction.

“Already have.”

Thorne was surprised that Slade had already started the ball rolling. “I want to talk to him.”

“You will.”

“I’ll keep on top of the doctors at the hospital,” Thorne said. “I’ll can do most of my business here by phone, fax and e-mail, so I won’t have to go back to Denver for a while.”

Matt held his gaze for a long second and for the first time in his life Thorne realized that his middle brother didn’t approve of his lifestyle. Not that it really mattered. “Then let’s just get through this,” Matt finally said, as if he suddenly trusted Thorne again, as he had a long time before.