One in Waiting (Reedsville Roosters Book 2), page 6
In the locker room after the game—they lost, of course—Leary zipped up his duffel bag and cursed when the phone at the bottom of it rang.
Whatever. Probably just Mom trying to find out what the final score was.
He could text her later.
He stalked past Hathaway, giving him a warning look, as he left the locker room. The phone rang again.
Nope. Not Mom. Mom would have called once and left a message.
Growling, he dropped the bag onto the hallway floor, unzipped it, found the bleating phone, and swiped it on by the fifth buzz. “Yeah?”
“Would you like to see your daughter?” the familiar, yet unfamiliar, voice asked.
“Who is this?”
“Ceria Probesco. This is Leary Marshall, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He checked behind him, caught Ren in the locker room doorway still clad in his towel and shower shoes and giving him a curious look. Leary zipped up his bag and started for the outside door. Ren could wait. “How’d you get my number?”
Leary put his shoulder to the door and pulled in a long draw of clean air as he stepped out of the stale field house and into the Mississippi humidity.
“It’s listed on your profile on the website for the physical therapy clinic you work at.”
Fucking Google. He cringed. “What were you saying about…my daughter?” A girl. Emilie hadn’t said it was a girl. Hell, Emilie hadn’t said shit. She’d asked him to leave her room, and in no uncertain terms, and he had. He knew intimidating her to talk to him wasn’t going to get him anywhere, and he’d figured now that he knew a little more about her whereabouts, he could follow up later. He hadn’t considered the interaction a dead end. In fact, just the opposite. If they were going to fight it out, he wanted it to be someplace where they could get everything off their chests without having too many open ears around.
“Would you like to see her, Mr. Marshall?”
“Well, of course I’d like to see her. Am I allowed to?” He dropped his bag on the sidewalk and leaned against the field house wall. Nothing to look at, really, beside the team bus parked beneath some tall trees and the driver hanging around outside it sucking on one of those stinking Camels.
“Of course you’re allowed to, at her parents’ discretion. It was an open adoption.”
“Right. Right. Wow. I didn’t know that. So, uh, does Emilie know you’re calling me?”
“No.”
“Is she going to be mad when she finds out?”
“I’ve been handling her affairs for a long time. She won’t be amused, but she generally trusts that I’m acting in her best interest.”
“How would this be in her best interest?”
“Because it’s in Alison’s best interest.”
“Alison.” He mouthed it again and again. It was like sweet candy on his tongue. “Alison.”
“She asks about you.”
“She knows about me?” Apparently, his brain couldn’t function beyond him miming back her words to her.
“In general terms. She’s old enough to ask questions, most of which Emilie won’t or can’t answer.”
Probably just won’t. “Bet she sees her a lot. Emilie, I mean.”
“No.”
The heavy metal door swung open, and Ren put his head out, locking Leary in his gaze. “What’s up?”
Leary held up a finger to bid him to wait. “What do you mean, she doesn’t?”
“She just can’t. That’s all I can say, really. There’s no really easy way to explain her situation.”
“And I imagine it’s none of my business.”
“Correct. I figured I’d extend the invitation to you for you to do with as you see fit.”
“Invitation to what?”
“We host an annual event here called The Camp Out. It takes place next weekend. If you’re in the area, you could meet Alison. She’ll be working the event this year. She asked to, and I couldn’t think of a good reason to tell her no.”
The door closed, Ren disappearing behind it. Probably went to finish packing up his gear.
“Next weekend, huh? Well, I’m about to start a five-game suspension, so I’m mobile when I otherwise might not have been. Just tell me how to get there. I’ll figure out a way to make it work.”
Ren came back, duffel bag in tow, and leaned against the wall near him.
“Text me your email address,” she said. “I’ll send you some information.”
“Doing it now.” He ended the call, pulled up the last incoming number, and texted the address to her.
“What were you thinking out on the field earlier?” Ren asked.
“I wasn’t thinking at all.” Leary shrugged and hauled up his bag. He started toward the bus, and then stopped. Should he even get on the bus? He could fly straight to Texas and spend the next ten days there. Otherwise, he’d be riding around with the team and watching movies on his cell phone while they played. He could go home—back to the place he and Ren shared in the off-season, but for what? To drive himself crazy with the monotony?
“For as long as we’ve played together, I’ve never once put a bruising on that guy, no matter how badly I wanted to. Somehow I don’t think you were defending my honor.”
Leary grimaced. “No.”
“What’d he say?”
“Something about Emilie.”
“I see.” Ren tipped up his chin and gnawed at his chapped bottom lip. He always forgot to put on balm before games.
Leary leaned in, dragging his thumb across Ren’s mouth. “It’s a shitty mess. I’m sorry.”
Ren sighed and kissed the back of Leary’s hand before letting it fall. “Who were you talking to on the phone?”
“Ceria.”
“Yeah? What’d she want?”
“Asked if I wanted to see my baby girl.”
“You mean the sixteen-year-old?”
Leary shrugged. “Can’t help but think of her as a baby.”
“And what’d you tell her?”
“I said yeah, of course. They’re having some event on the ranch next weekend. Said Alison’s going to be here. Would probably be a good way to not scare her, with all those people around.”
“I see.” Ren’s jaw grated side-to-side and he stared out toward the trees.
“Do you?” Leary skimmed his thumb pad along Ren’s jawline now, appreciating the strong contours and that bit of stubble he liked, and didn’t care if the bus driver could see them. He’d probably seen them doing worse.
“You’re going to go there—to Emilie’s.”
“I guess so. It’s a ranch, though. Might not be so hard avoiding her.”
“Do you want to avoid her?”
“Yes and no.” It was the no that frightened him, because he didn’t know if he wanted to be in front of her more so they could have the fight they so needed, or because he wanted to yank her close and kiss the anger off her face. That was another reason he’d had to leave her hotel suite. She’d walked out of that bathroom looking terrifying and beautiful all at once, and instead of screaming at her—demanding answers—he’d wanted to scoop her into his arms, lay her on the bed, and plead for her to just…just kiss him. Kiss all his hurts away and force him to forgive her.
The door swung open again, and instead of one head popping out, there were more than a dozen. The Roosters made tracks toward the bus. Wallace sidled over and eyed Leary. “I really don’t want to lose you for five games. Will you apologize to him?”
Ren nudged Leary’s foot—a just do it gesture, if he knew his boy at all—but Leary couldn’t. Just couldn’t.
“I can’t.”
“Come on, Marshall. Whatever he said to make you lob a punch at him couldn’t have been so bad you can’t suck this one up and be the bigger man.”
“And that’s where you’re wrong. He didn’t make a cheap shot. He cut deep.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to.”
Leary shrugged. “Whether he meant to or not, he did. So I’m going to take those five games off, like you said, and get my shit together.”
“I don’t like the way you sound. You make it sound like you don’t even care if you come back.”
“Sure, I care.”
“Do you?” Ren asked. He didn’t bother tamping down the suspicion in his voice.
“Of course I do.”
Wallace groaned and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. “That’s exactly what Lock said before he called it quits. Don’t do this to me, man. We were just starting to get a reputation for having turned the outfit around. I can’t lose another starter right now.”
“I’m going to finish the season.”
“And then what?”
“And then I’ll be thirty-six. Is that what you’re asking?”
Ren sighed. “Leary…”
“All I did was say out loud what we’ve all been pussyfooting around.”
“Let’s talk about it back at the motel,” Wallace said.
Ren canted his head toward the waiting bus. “You’re coming, aren’t you?”
Leary hadn’t planned to. He’d already had his mind set on striking out for the nearest airport and buying a plane ticket to…well, whatever fucking airport served Hill Country. So late in the day, he probably wouldn’t be able to get a flight out, anyway. “Yeah, I guess.”
He set his duffel strap on his shoulder and started for the bus. “Do me a favor and keep Hathaway out of my goddamned face,” he called back to Wallace.
Wallace grabbed his jiggling gut and ran past him to the bus, probably to ensure exactly that.
CHAPTER NINE
Emilie was in the corral picking out horses for the Camp Out’s trail riding when Ceria climbed up onto the fence and sat.
Shit.
Emilie gave Cinnamon’s nuzzle a rub and made her way over to her assistant. Ceria may have been a born and bred country girl, but she preferred spending her time out of the sun and behind her desk. She was a details person, not a ranch hand. She rarely ever wore decent enough shoes to be tromping around in the muck.
“What happened now? Did Uncle Sebastian take a turn for the worse and make his way toward the light?” Emilie draped her arms over the fence and looked up into Ceria’s expressionless mien.
“No. I haven’t heard anything about your uncle, but I’ll follow up later if you’d like.”
Emilie waved off the suggestion. “Just send Henri a text. That should keep things nice, terse, and impersonal.”
“Right. I actually came out to let you know you have a guest. I didn’t want you to be surprised.”
“A guest? Why is that news?” Emilie furrowed her brow. Guests weren’t unusual on the ranch. Sometimes, members of the Wayne family—relatives of the couple who’d taken her in as a teen—would turn up uninvited. They didn’t really need invitations, though, and Emilie didn’t mind that they came and went unannounced. She knew they were checking up on the property to make sure it hadn’t gone to pot yet, sure, but they were also checking up on her. They weren’t exactly discreet about it. Unlike her family, they didn’t beat around the bush. She’d thought their candor was refreshing when she’d initially met them all. She’d also thought it was strange that they were in her family’s extended network. They were just so different. So…humble.
“It’s not a Wayne,” Ceria said.
“Then who?”
“Before I tell you, you have to promise to listen to reason.”
“Usually when you try to extract such promises, it’s because you’ve been pulling strings behind my back.”
Ceria turned her hands over, palms up, in a “can’t argue with that” gesture.
“Is this a fireable offense, or am I just going to be pissed at you for a few days?”
“You wouldn’t fire me. You’d have to train someone else to do my job, and given that my job has no formal description, you’d be spinning your wheels getting them on board.”
“Don’t get cocky.” Emilie rolled her eyes and put her back against the fence. Picking out the horses always gave her such angst. She didn’t know why. They were horses, not people, but she always worried if she picked some over others, the ones that didn’t get picked would feel left out.
They were all excellent horses for young riders—gentle and patient. She just wouldn’t have enough staff available to handle them all. They were going to be stretched thin as it was with regular ranch duties piled on top of the Camp Out chores, and she didn’t like hiring temporary workers unless she had an experienced hand supervising them.
“Don’t get distracted,” Ceria said. “I can tell by the way your gaze is flitting around you’ve already tuned out of the conversation.”
“I’m operating on two frequencies today.”
“And everyday. Practice using one at a time. You should know who this guest is, though, so you’re not blindsided if you stumble across him while out doing chores.”
“Him? God, don’t tell me it’s one of my brothers. Or worse, Daddy.” Emilie sighed. Nearly every conversation she had with her father ended with the insinuation she should just grow up, already, and stop playing around at the ranching thing and hiding from the real world. Almost every time, she hung up on him to avoid giving the man a verbal middle finger. He didn’t need her hanging around. He had his sons who hung around with people who were actually impressed by the Beaudelaire name.
“Not a family member. At least, not strictly speaking. It’s Leary.”
“Leary?” She waited for the punch line or the “just kidding,” but it didn’t come.
A lump traveled down Ceria’s throat and she climbed down off the fence. Eye-to-eye with Emilie, she said, “Alison wanted to meet him, and given what happened at the hotel last week, I couldn’t not try to make the connection. I wasn’t going to withhold from her that I’d been in contact with him.”
“Fuck, Ceria.” Emilie gave her forehead a little thump against a fence slat.
“He wanted to see her, and she wants to see him. He has a much of a right to engage with her as you do, and the Waynes have been very generous with how much contact they allow you with Alison.”
“They’ve always considered her a bonus child. A blessing.” Emile tucked her chin atop the fence and blew out a sputtering breath.
“Paperwork or not, they assumed you’d want her back at some point and were prepared for that. They would have taken her without the paperwork. That happens all the time in our community. Holdover from bad times, I guess, when we didn’t really have a choice but to absorb other women’s children into our families and care for them until they could be returned. We were used to our families being pulled apart.”
“I can’t wrap my mind around that. It’s just not done amongst the sorts of people I grew up around.”
“Doesn’t matter. In spite of the long history between your families, your father would have wanted the legal Is dotted and Ts crossed. He wouldn’t have trusted a handshake agreement.”
“He certainly wouldn’t have.” Emilie was lucky Eleanor and Rick had stepped up. They’d learned from their parents which agency Emilie was working with, and they’d put in the application themselves. Well, on behalf of the entire Wayne family, it turned out. Emilie had the baby and finished her own “raising” by one set of Waynes while another raised her daughter one state away. Alison was so close, but so far away. Probably for the best.
“Leary will be here through the Camp Out.”
“Shouldn’t he be off playing baseball or something?”
“Apparently, he had some unexpected time off.”
Emilie sighed and shook out her nervous hands. “All right. Where is he?”
“Old lodge.”
“Is Mr. Ardent here, too?”
“Actually, yes. I don’t know what they did to finagle the time off. I should get in touch with the team owner’s daughter. She’d probably tell me. I met her at The Den. Very interesting woman.”
Emilie launched herself over the corral fence and started toward her truck. “All right. I’ll go talk to them.” Or be talked at, more likely. “Want to come along and make sure I don’t burn bridges or salt the earth?”
Ceria caught up to her at the driver’s side door, but made no movements to continue around to the other side. “Can’t. I’m due to be on a conference call with some Camp Out vendors in about ten minutes. If you can’t handle it, you know what to do.”
“Run and hide?”
Ceria shrugged. “Sure. I always find you, anyway.”
___
The fact that Emilie Beaudelaire ran a legitimate ranch had stunned Ren the moment he and Leary had passed through the gate in their rental car. The fact that she appeared to be a legitimate rancher, too, stupefied him.
She stood on the front step of the lodge with bits of straw in her hair, dust on her tanned cheeks, and a few rips in her garb. She looked like she’d put on any old thing that sorta matched that morning—as if she’d had no one to impress. That impressed him.
“Who is it? Ceria?” Leary called out from the bathroom. He’d jumped into the shower.
“No.”
“Who, then?”
“I won’t ask to come in,” Emilie said, pulling Ren’s focus back to the woman at the door. Not that she was so easy to ignore, because shit, he’d thought she was perfect before, but evidently he hadn’t seen perfect yet. “I just wanted to let you know I knew you were here.”
“Ren?” Leary called. “You still there?”
Ren gulped. “Uh, yeah. Emilie’s at the door.”
“Em—oh. Okay. Give me a minute.”
Emilie put up her hands. “I didn’t really want a confrontation today. I just wanted to say hi. I’ve got a lot of stuff to get done to get ready for the event coming up this weekend, and I’m short-staffed right now. A bunch of my longtime ranch hands got poached over the winter.”
“For more money or better jobs?”
“Promises of both, probably. I don’t beg people to stay.”
“Do you take them back if they return?”
Her crooked smile told him no.
“I grew up on a ranch,” he said with a shrug.
“Yeah? So you know how it goes more than just in theory.”
