One Husband Needed. Jeanne Allan
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Male contact. Worth Lassiter was the first man she’d talked to since her husband had died who wasn’t related or trying to sell her something. Jamie had been her excuse for not socializing. The truth was, she couldn’t bear encountering Lawrence’s friends, hearing their expressions of sympathy.
Couldn’t bear wondering which of them knew the unbearable truth.
“Russ worried you wouldn’t come for the wedding. I’m glad you did. A man can’t get married without his only child being there.”
She spoke without thinking. “Russ could.”
“You call your father Russ?”
“I assume you disapprove.”
“We used to call our father Beau. He didn’t like being called Dad.”
“Used to?”
“He died some years back.”
“I’m sorry.” She genuinely was. No one understood better than Elizabeth how devastating the death of another could be. “You must miss him.”
He gave her a quick look of sympathy. “It’s not like with you. Losing a husband…Russ took it hard.”
“I doubt that.” Elizabeth dug her fingernails into her bag at Worth’s bald-faced lie. “Russ intensely disliked Lawrence and tried everything he could to keep me from marrying him.”
Worth’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as memories of a conversation he’d had two days ago with Russ flooded back.
The nervous way Russ had stuttered and stammered had convinced Worth that the older man had changed his mind about marrying Worth’s mother. Worth had been so relieved he hadn’t paid much attention when Russ finally spilled what really bothered him.
His relationship with his daughter Elizabeth.
The scene replayed itself in Worth’s mind with total, crystal-clear recall.
“I was real surprised when Elizabeth agreed to come to the wedding,” Russ had said.
Worth couldn’t imagine why and said so.
Initially, Russ had sidestepped the implied question. “She was such a tiny little thing. If I yelled at her, Elizabeth never cried, but her face would get all funny and her eyes red. I always wanted so much for her. Wished I could give her a perfect world.” He kicked a clod of dirt. “It’s been over a year since her husband Lawrence died, and she’s still mad at me.”
Worth gave the older man a quick look from under his hat brim. “Mad about what?”
Russ wouldn’t meet his gaze. “The funeral. Our best mare was about to foal. We’d almost lost her the time before, but I told Elizabeth I’d come if she needed me. She said she didn’t.”
“You didn’t go to your son-in-law’s funeral?” Worth had to work to keep the disbelief and condemnation out of his voice.
“I knew my ex-wife and her husband would be there. What could I have done they didn’t do? I’d just have been in the way. If Elizabeth wanted me there, she would have said so.” Russ’s defensiveness made plain he didn’t need anyone to point out how wrong he’d been. He already knew.
Worth’s mother once said men had more trouble than women when it came to dealing with death. She said men wanted to fix things, solve problems. Worth guessed the real reason Russ had avoided his son-in-law’s funeral had more to do with Russ hating his inability to make things right for his daughter than putting the needs of a horse before his daughter’s needs. “It’s not too late to tell your daughter you’re sorry you didn’t go.”
Russ rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve tried, but she won’t talk about it. She’s never said it in so many words, but I know she’s convinced I stayed away because I hated Lawrence. I didn’t hate him, but he wasn’t the man for Elizabeth.”
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Russ went on, “There was something about him. Like he was laughing at something the rest of us didn’t know. I tried to tell Elizabeth and her mother, but they wouldn’t listen.” Russ kicked another clod of dirt. “Lawrence was smart as a whip, and polite, too polite. He reminded me of a rogue horse, the kind you don’t dare turn your back on. Worried me sick when Elizabeth married him.” He uttered a short, bitter curse. “Whatever he was laughing at, he got the last laugh. Because of him, my daughter hates me.”
Worth should have given more weight to Russ’s comments instead of dismissing them as Russ’s guilty conscience talking. Russ was a good man who’d made a mistake. Worth wasn’t exactly perfect himself. Wanting life perfect for your family could lead a man into foolishness at times.
Families understood that and forgave the foolishness and loved the thought behind it.
Worth had assumed that if Russ’s daughter hated Russ, she wouldn’t be coming to the wedding.
Until meeting Elizabeth Randall, it would never have crossed his mind that she might be coming to stop the wedding.
Worth tried to view the situation through her eyes. Her father had disliked her husband, tried to talk her out of marrying him, and had not supported her at her husband’s funeral. He knew anger came with grief. Elizabeth Randall needed to blame someone for her husband’s death. She’d chosen her father.
Russ’s happiness over his upcoming marriage must be unbearable for her, so it must be that she’d come to destroy it. As her happiness had been destroyed.
Worth couldn’t let her do it. For her sake, for Russ’s sake, for his mother’s sake.
For his sake.
After all his years of patiently waiting, no skinny redhead with green cat eyes was going to ruin his plans.
They turned off the highway and crossed the river. Red, clay-like walls rose beside the road before flattening out to rolling ranch land. Colts stood timidly at their mothers’ sides. Darling from a distance, but they’d be huge monsters in a year.
In the backseat the bells on Jamie’s shoes jingled as he kicked his feet and chattered incomprehensibly.
Elizabeth’s hands grew damp. They must be almost there.
Slowing down, Worth Lassiter turned off the road and drove beneath an arched gate made from massive logs. Two wooden circles had been burned into the top cross piece. Elizabeth barely made out the painted words, Hope Valley, on a small sign fastened to the gate. Surprised, she blurted out, “I thought your ranch was called The Double Nickel.”
“It is. Named for Jacob and Anna Nichols, my great-great-grandparents. Anna named the area Hope Valley. She and Jacob were newlyweds who moved out west to build their home and their life here, and she was full of hope.”
Once Elizabeth had been full of hope.
He parked in front of a large, old-fashioned, two-story white frame house. A porch ran the length of the front of the house, one end shaded by an enormous cottonwood tree. Other buildings were scattered about the area, and a corral near a huge barn held a couple of horses. Further afield a half dozen mares grazed, their spindle-legged colts at their sides.
The ranch reminded Elizabeth of every ranch where she’d visited her father. The barn would be dark and gloomy with snarling, half-wild cats. There would be cows and more horses and dust and smells and noise.
She couldn’t stay in the car forever. Worth Lassiter had already gotten out. Elizabeth reached for the door handle.
He beat her to it, opening the door and blocking her way with his body. “Let me give you a little friendly advice, Elizabeth. If you have any issues with Russ, take them up with him, but don’t wreck my mother’s happiness because of them.”
His hat shaded his face, but Elizabeth had no trouble seeing the way his eyes steadily regarded her, almost in warning. A clipped voice had replaced the lazy, dark-honeyed drawl he’d been pouring over her since they’d met in the