Home on the Ranch

Chapter Four

“I want to go with you.”

Cage shook his head, ignoring Lucy’s mutinous demand. “Not this time, Luce.”

“Why not? I want to see Grandma.”

He wished Belle wasn’t standing at the kitchen sink washing up the pans she’d used to prepare Lucy’s breakfast. He wished she’d stop doing things he wasn’t paying her to do. She’d been under his roof for three days. He’d already warned her to stop dusting the shelves and mopping floors. They may have needed it, but when he’d come upon her doing the chores, he’d lit into her. More than necessary, he knew, but seeing her so at home in his house bugged him no end. He didn’t want her being helpful. Not unless it was on his terms. “I’ll take you to see her another time.”

“When?”

“A few weeks.”

Lucy’s lips thinned. “I haven’t seen her all summer.”

“And nothing’s changed.” Her eyes widened a little at his sharp tone. He stifled a sigh. Before Lucy’s fall, they’d gone every weekend. “Maybe this weekend. When Miss Day is off.”

The prospect seemed enough to satisfy his daughter. “Miss Day’s day off,” Lucy quipped. Her lips tilted at the corners, thoroughly amused with herself and he felt his own lips twitch.

God, he loved the kid. “Yeah.”

“Don’t make fun of my name,” Belle said lightly over the clink of dishes in the sink. “I grew up hearing every pun you could ever think of.”

“Day isn’t bad,” Lucy countered. “You oughta hear what people used to call my dad.”

Belle leaned her hip against the counter as she turned to look at them. The towel in her hand slowed over the plate she was drying. “Oh?”

“Yeah, Cage isn’t his real name, you know. Who would name their kid that?”

Cage caught his daughter’s gaze, lifting his eyebrow in only a partially mock warning. “Did you make your bed?”

Lucy laughed. But she took the hint and didn’t pursue the topic of Cage’s first name. She lifted her arms and he automatically started to reach for her to transfer her from the chair at the table to her wheelchair. But he caught Belle’s look.

How to protect someone in the long run by causing them pain now? He felt the humor sparked by his daughter drain away and instead of lifting her, he handed her the crutches that were leaning against the wall.

“Dad.” Lucy pouted.

“Lucy,” Belle prompted gently. “We’ve talked about this.”

He supposed that wasn’t surprising. If she’d taken him to task about the crutches, she’d probably done the same with his daughter. Understanding the reasons was one thing. Liking it another.

Lucy took the crutches. Belle set down the towel and helped the girl to her feet. With the crutches tucked beneath her arms, Lucy looked at Cage. “She told me not to pout around you ’cause you were too much of a marshmallow to hold out against me.” Then she shot Belle a look before awkwardly swinging out of the kitchen.

Belle’s cheeks were pink and she quickly turned back to the dishes.

Cage filled a coffee mug with the fragrant stuff she’d made earlier, damning the consequences, and watched her for a moment. She was wearing another pair of those thin, long pants. Jazz pants, he knew, because he’d had to buy some for Lucy for something her dance class had done last winter.

Today, Belle’s pants were as red as a tomato. She wore a sleeveless top in the same color that hugged her torso and zipped all the way up to her throat.

She’d have been about Lucy’s age when the accident happened. How long had it taken her to recover from her injuries?

He abruptly finished off his coffee. Learning that she’d been hurt in the same accident as his parents didn’t change anything. Gus Day had killed his father on a stretch of highway outside of Cheyenne, pure and simple. He sat the emptied mug down with a thunk. “Marshmallow?”

“She wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”

“She’s still young. She hasn’t learned the art of discretion.”

“She’s learned a lot of other things. If you’re worried that going with you to Cheyenne today will be too taxing, don’t. She’s up to the trip.”

He’d told Belle and Lucy that he was making the drive when they’d both stopped in surprise at finding him in the kitchen that morning instead of already out for the day as he usually was. “It’s business,” he said again. True enough in a sense. Personal business. The kind he wasn’t inclined to share, not even with Lucy. Not until he was forced to. “I probably won’t be back until late.”

Belle didn’t look happy.

“I told you that I can have Emmy Johannson come over to watch her.”

“And I told you that would be ridiculous since I’m staying here anyway. You want to have the argument you’ve been spoiling for now that Lucy’s out of range?” She shot him a look, her eyebrows arched, and when he said nothing, she deliberately dried another plate. Short of yanking it out of her hands there wasn’t much he could do about it. “I’m not going to twiddle my thumbs between sessions and lessons, Cage, but that wasn’t what I was trying to get at anyway. Has it occurred to you that maybe Lucy wants to be where you are?”

“She wants to see my mother. And this discussion is over.” Maybe he couldn’t keep her from washing the damn dishes, but he didn’t have to listen to advice unrelated to Lucy’s rehabilitation.

Belle shrugged and focused on the dishes again, seeming not to turn one hair of her thick brown ponytail at his decree. But her lashes guarded her eyes. And he damned all over again the turn of events that had prompted him to bring her into this house.

A timely reminder of why he was going to Cheyenne in the first place.

He rose and grabbed his hat off the hook. “Luce has my cell-phone number,” he said as he strode from the room. He thought he heard her murmur “drive carefully” after him, but couldn’t be sure.

Lucy was in her bathroom when he hunted her down to tell her he was leaving. He rapped on the door. “Behave yourself,” he said through the wood.

She yanked open the door, leaning heavily on her crutches. “What else is there to do,” she asked tartly. “You won’t let me go near the horses anymore.”

“When I’m sure you’re not going to go near that horse, I’ll consider it.”

“You’re never going to let me ride Satin again, are you?”

It was an old refrain and one he didn’t want to be pulled into singing. “Make sure you feed Strudel,” he said. “And do the exercises on your own that Miss Day says you’re supposed to be doing.

“I hate doing them. They hurt. And they’re boring.” Her face was mutinous. An expression that had been too frequent of late.

“I’m sorry they hurt, but I don’t care if they’re boring,” he said mildly. “They’re necessary.”

Her jaw worked. Her eyes rolled. Then all the fight drained out of her and she gave him a beseeching look. “How come you won’t let me go with you today?”

Dammit, he was a marshmallow where she was concerned. But not this time. “You got a problem hanging around here with Miss Day?”

Lucy rolled her eyes again. “Jeez, Dad. Her name is Belle. And no I don’t have a problem with her. Not like you do, anyway.”

“I don’t have a problem with Miss Day.”

“Right. That’s why you watch her like you do. You oughta just ask her out on a date or something.”

“I do not want to date Miss Day,” he assured evenly and gently tugged the end of her braid as he leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Behave.”

She grimaced. “Like there’s anything else you’d let me do? Say ‘hi’ to Grandma for me.”

He nodded as he headed out. If he did go by the care center, he’d pass on the greeting, but he knew there would be no reciprocation, which was the very reason why he would never want to date Miss Day.

“Have you ever been in love, Belle?”

The question came out of the blue and Belle looked up from Lucy’s leg. “Is the cramp gone?”

Lucy nodded, gingerly flexing her toes.

It was evening and they were back in the barn again. Cage hadn’t yet returned from Cheyenne.

“So, have you?”

Belle leaned back and grabbed a hand towel, wiping the remains of oil she’d been using from her palms. “Yes.”

“With who?”

Belle flicked Lucy with the end of the towel and rolled to her feet. The CD had ended and she exchanged it for another. “Howie Bloom,” she said.

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