Cade's Loss: California Cowboys 1 Read online

  Then he sauntered on out of the barn, and Cade hung his head between his shoulders and closed his eyes. What no one seemed to understand was that he didn’t want to let go. He’d lost more in the last six years than most people lost in a lifetime. He couldn’t let go of one more thing, or he might have to let go of himself for good.

  5

  Nina had spent most of the last two days digging through the records of treatments that had been given to the grazing land. Ty set her up in a small room off the main barn and left her alone to do the work. At the end of day two, she emerged in the late afternoon, her back unable to sit in the hard wood chair any longer. She stretched, trying to work out the cricks in her back, then decided to go to the main house to see if there was something she could snack on, and maybe help Lynn with dinner. The guys took turns stopping in to help out with the evening meal, but Lynn did the majority of the planning and coordination in the kitchen.

  Nina stepped outside into the hazy California day, the faint scent of the ocean in the air as she walked across the compound toward the big ranch house.

  “Katherine Marie!” Lynn yelled as she walked onto the front porch.

  Nina reached the bottom of the stairs just as Lynn prepared to head down.

  “Have you seen Katie?” she asked, a dish towel in her hands, and flour dusting the front of her dark T-shirt.

  “No. I’ve been in the office all day. Is she missing?” Nina’s heart pulsed a little faster inside her chest. The ranch was big, and Katie was very small.

  “She was supposed to be playing in her room while I finished up the biscuits, but when I went to find her, she wasn’t there. I’ve looked all over the house.”

  Nina turned to look across the compound at the dark interior of the barn. “Maybe she’s visiting the horses? I’ll go check there and my cabin.”

  “Thank you, dear. She’s usually so good about staying where I tell her to, I’m surprised she would leave without asking first, but she is only four. They sometimes do strange things when we least expect it.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Katie was still missing. Ty had been called and was on his way in from the east acreage, where he’d been doing some branding. Vaughn was at the house trying to keep Aunt Lynn calm, and Cade and all the available ranch hands were out on the property looking high and low.

  Nina felt sick. There were at least a hundred ways for a child that small to get gravely injured or die on a ranch the size of the Jenkinses’. Having grown up on a farm herself, Nina knew that it was a double-edged sword. Endless days of exploring nature, being surrounded by animals both young and old, and eating food that was fresh and came directly from the source. But it also meant machinery that was big and dangerous, trees to fall from, ponds and rivers to drown in, and sometimes, strangers passing through empty lands who weren’t good people.

  Nina’s heart thudded hard in her chest. The idea of someone touching that beautiful child was more than she could take. “Vaughn?” she called into the front door of the house.

  “Yeah! Did someone find her?” He came running to meet her in the foyer.

  “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. No one’s been back yet. How is Lynn?”

  Vaughn shook his head of sandy hair, almost the same shade as Cade’s but wavy and thicker. “I got her to take a couple of shots of whiskey, trying to calm her down. She thinks this is all her fault.”

  Nina shook her head. “She’s four, and four-year-olds do unpredictable things. But I’m going crazy myself with the waiting. I’m going to hike around some, see if I can find her. I know Cade and the men were using ATVs and trucks, so maybe I’ll see something they might not.”

  Vaughn nodded. “Okay, but make sure you have your phone with you. We don’t want to end up with two missing people.”

  “I will,” she promised. They exchanged numbers, and Nina stopped off in her cabin to grab a bottle of water and a jacket. She was determined to stay out until they found Katie one way or another, and it would be getting dark in not too long.

  She started off heading toward the small stream that flowed past the gate into the compound, and traveled east, into a stand of trees, then farther into the grazing acreage.

  The late afternoon breeze was warm, and the low sun in the sky behind her gave the fields a golden glow. She traveled along the stream as it widened, and in a mile or so worked her way into the stand of trees, smelling the wet earth below and the cottonwoods that swayed above.

  “Katie?” she called not too loudly. “Are you in here?” A scurrying greeted her, and she watched as a squirrel scampered up the trunk of a nearby tree before it got to a branch above and chattered at her in irritation.

  The water trickled softly, and Nina thought that if she were a four-year-old, this would be the first place she’d come to hide out, but there was no sign of Katie, and so she continued on, out into the open grasslands, where she could see a few head of cattle in the far distance.

  The wild grasses this close in weren’t grazed regularly, so they were long, up to her knees in some places. She wiggled her feet in their Converses and wished she’d worn boots instead. But there was nothing to be done for it now, and she didn’t intend to stop until that tiny child was found.

  “Katie!” she called, cupping her hand around her mouth. “Katie!”

  As her voice carried away on the wind, she heard it—a small sound, like a radio playing off in the distance. She stopped, holding stock-still for a moment as she listened intently.

  There it was again. And it was most definitely not a radio, but much more like the voice of a little girl.

  She started running, working back toward what was now big enough to be a creek, her heart racing as the sound of what had to be Katie’s voice got louder and louder.

  “Katie?” she called as she approached the creek. “Katie, honey, are you out here?”

  She broke through the edge of the grasses before the earth curved down into the water that crept along Jenkins land toward the ocean, and there, sitting on the bank, her jeans hitched up to her knees, playing in the mud with a stick, was Katie.

  Nina stopped to catch her breath and compose herself for just a moment, watching the little girl sing a song to herself as she drew things in the dirt in front of her.

  “Katie?” Nina asked again. This time, Katie turned to look at her with big eyes.

  “Tell Daddy I’m not coming home until he gets me my Chwistmas pwesent,” Katie said, her voice full of sadness.

  Nina walked closer, then sat down on the ground a couple of feet away from the four-year-old, who had tears and dirt smeared on her chubby face.

  “Oh my God, honey. We’ve been so worried about you. Why don’t you want to come home?” she asked.

  “’Cause I been wanting a mommy for a long time, and if he won’t get me one now, then he has to get me one for Chwistmas, so I’ll just wait here until he does.”

  Nina’s heart swelled with sorrow aching in her chest. She knew that Katie’s mother was no longer in the picture, but she didn’t know how or why, and she’d had no idea that it bothered the child.

  “You know,” she said with a smile. “Not everyone has a mommy and a daddy. Some little boys and girls don’t have either, but that’s okay. What matters most is that they have grown-ups who love them, and you have lots of those.” She took her phone out of her pocket and quietly texted Vaughn—I found her. We’re close. Bringing her home soon.

  “But I want a mommy like Aunt Lynn had. Aunt Lynn said her mommy was young and pretty, and she would take her shopping for fancy clothes. And when I go to town with Daddy, all the other little girls have mommies.”

  Nina’s phone vibrated in her hand, and she glanced down.

  Vaughn: Where are you? Cade and Ty are on the way.

  Nina: A mile east of the entry gate. Past the grove of trees.

  “But you know what?” Nina asked Katie, inching closer. “Not all the other little girls have an Uncle Vaughn or an Uncle Cade or
an Aunt Lynn. They only have one mom. You have three extra grown-ups to love you.”

  Katie pulled her stick through the dirt a moment and thought on that. “Do you know where my mommy is?” she asked softly.

  Nina’s heart cracked a little bit, and she cleared her throat before answering. “No, honey, I don’t…do you?”

  “Daddy says I came out of my mommy’s tummy but that she needed to go take care of other things, and so he told her it was okay and he would love me so much that it was enough for two peoples.”

  “I see,” Nina said, even though she really didn’t, because she couldn’t imagine what sort of problems a person might have that would cause them to abandon their child.

  “But I wanna know where she is,” Katie continued. “’Cause all the little girls on the TV have mommies, and all the girls at Aunt Lynn’s coffee shop have mommies, and Aunt Lynn had a mommy.”

  Then Katie broke Nina’s heart in two. Looking at her with eyes shiny with tears, she asked, “Can you be my mommy? ’Cause you look just like a mommy should, and you’re pretty.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Nina scooted closer and reached her arms out to Katie, who crawled into them and up on Nina’s lap. Nina rubbed her nose on the top of the little girl’s head, smelling the sweet sweat of a baby and the strawberry of little girl shampoo. She took a breath and pondered what to say. How to answer such a desperate plea.

  “I can’t be your mommy, hon, because I’m only visiting here for a few weeks.” Katie shifted in her lap, looking up at her with a little frown. “But I can be your very special friend. Kind of like a big sister. And I can be that always, even when I go back home.”

  “But if you go back home, how will I ever see you?”

  “We can write and email, and you can ask your daddy to Skype so we can see each other on the computer screen too. How would that be?”

  Katie nodded, burrowing in deeper to Nina’s hold. “Are you anyone else’s special fwiend?”

  Nina smiled. “Nope. Just yours. Only yours. For always.”

  “Katie bug,” a deep voice said behind them.

  “Daddy!” Katie squealed, leaping off Nina’s lap at the same time. Nina turned to see Cade and Ty standing behind them, both a little pale and worse for wear, but bleeding relief.

  Ty crouched down, and Katie jumped into his arms, laying her small head on his shoulder. He began murmuring things to her and ambled a few yards away.

  Nina stood, brushing off her jeans, and then looking up into Cade’s gaze, which was soft and warm.

  “Thank you,” he said, running a shaky hand through his hair. “I can’t tell you…we thought…” He exhaled a shuddering breath.

  “I know,” she answered, the horrendous unspoken possibilities racing through her like a rush of ice-cold water.

  “She’s okay?” he asked. “I heard some of what you were talking about. You’re really good with her. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Don’t thank me. I didn’t do anything. And yes, I think she’s okay, just has questions, I guess? Probably things that are bound to come up as she gets older.”

  Cade nodded, and she was struck again by how much he loved his family, his brothers, his niece, his aunt. The fear and worry he’d had was written all over his face, in the stiff posture of his shoulders and the way his eyes kept darting to Ty and Katie a few feet away.

  He stepped closer, his voice low. “She wasn’t a bad person,” he said. “Katie’s mom. But she wasn’t ready, was hardly able to take care of herself, much less a baby.”

  Nina nodded.

  “She was five years younger than Ty, only eighteen, and she came to town intending just to stay for the summer. She and a friend were traveling the country after graduation, not sure what they wanted to do next. She got a job at Lynn’s coffee shop in town and met Ty. They were having fun, but that was all.”

  He sighed, running that hand through his hair again, steadier this time, but still weary.

  “When she found out, Ty said he’d support whatever she wanted to do. He was ready to marry her if that’s what she’d asked. But she didn’t. She said she couldn’t bring herself to terminate, but she knew she couldn’t raise the baby either. When she brought up adoption, Ty said he’d do it—raise a kid on his own from day one.”

  Nina’s heart swelled at the thought of a man in his twenties taking on a baby alone—but not really alone, because he had Cade and Vaughn and Lynn. They were an odd family, but a family all the same, and she’d meant what she told Katie—there were a lot of grown-ups who loved her very much.

  “He’s doing a great job,” she told Cade as they started to walk back toward the drive that led to the house. She could see both Cade’s and Ty’s trucks parked haphazardly in the road.

  “He’s a good dad,” Cade said, pointing to a big rock in her path so she wouldn’t trip. “He had a great role model. Our father was one of the best. He was always here for us, always on our side, even when that meant telling us we were fucking up.” He grinned, and her heart softened like warm wax. Then she looked to the north and saw the massive ranch house standing like a sentinel on the crest of the hill. Rich landowner, her bruised heart reminded her. Rich landowner who wants to pretend he never slept with you, her head echoed. Right.

  “You must miss your dad a lot.”

  He nodded, eyes on the ground in front of them so that she couldn’t see his expression. “Every day. Every single day.”

  Cade’s shoulders were stiff and his neck hurt as he drove Nina the mile back up the drive to the house. The adrenaline of the last couple of hours was leaving his body, and the hangover was intense. He’d been a few miles out, checking on the fence repairs some of the ranch hands were working on, when he’d gotten Lynn’s call. And while he’d worked to be the voice of calm and reason, the idea of something happening to Katie had nearly flattened him where he stood.

  Then Vaughn had called him to say that Nina had taken off on foot to help look, and his fucking heart had lodged in his throat so tight, he wasn’t sure it would ever go back to its rightful spot.

  And now everyone was fine, but Cade still couldn’t shake the image of the two of them—Katie and Nina—lying at the bottom of a rocky cliff somewhere, bleeding, or worse, tied up in the back of some drifter’s van as he sped away down Highway One. He took a deep breath as they pulled into the compound, trying to shake the horrible feelings that were still ricocheting through him.

  “Thank you for the ride,” Nina said, her hand on the door handle.

  “Thank you for finding Katie.” He shook his head. “That sounds ridiculous. Thank you is hardly adequate for something like that.”

  Nina turned a sweet smile on him, and his poor beleaguered heart gave out completely. “Thank you is just fine. Someone else would have found her soon, but I’m glad I could help.”

  She started to get out of the truck and his arm shot out without his permission, his hand landing on the soft skin of her wrist.

  “Are you coming in for dinner?” he asked, sounding like a total dumbass.

  “I honestly don’t have much of an appetite at this point,” she admitted. “All that stress sort of killed it.”

  “You need to eat something, though. Just a little. I think Lynn’s got some leftover soup in the freezer we can warm up if you want.”

  She watched him carefully for a moment, then finally nodded, and he realized he could breathe again.

  Ty pulled up with Katie just as they were getting to the door, and Lynn rushed past them, tears streaming down her face as she snatched Katie from Ty’s arms, cooing and snuggling the tired little girl as she took her upstairs. Ty followed, exhaustion etched into his features.

  “Everyone okay?” Vaughn asked as Cade led Nina into the kitchen. Nina climbed onto a barstool at the counter while Cade opened the refrigerator and began digging in a drawer.

  Cade was quiet, waiting for Nina to respond. But when she didn’t, he finally popped up, looking at her, one eyebrow raised. “I do
n’t know. Are we?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Yes, we’re fine, and so is Katie. I think everyone’s a bit shaken up, but beyond that, it’s all good.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Vaughn said. “I’m heading into town. T.J. and I are going to Brewsters’ for oyster night.”

  Cade frowned. “Thought you and T.J. were on the outs?”

  “Nah, it’s all good,” Vaughn said, not looking his brother in the eyes.

  “I still don’t think—”

  “Drop it,” Vaughn commanded, his voice uncharacteristically harsh.

  Cade put his hands up in the air in surrender. “Sure thing. Have a nice night.”

  Vaughn nodded sharply, muttered good-bye to Nina, and was gone before Cade could blink a second time.

  “I take it T.J. is an on-again, off-again girlfriend?” Nina asked as Cade opened a cabinet and pulled out a wineglass.

  God, how to explain Vaughn and T.J. “Not so much, which is part of the problem. They grew up together, the two of them. The Warners own the property to the north. T.J. and Vaughn have always been like, I don’t know, soul mates or something. But he won’t go there with her, and I think she’s tired of being his bro. She wants to be his girlfriend, and even though I know he loves her, he just won’t take the plunge.”

  Cade held up the glass. “White or red?” he asked.

  “Red, please,” she answered, with a beatific smile that made his damn heart squeeze.

  He kept his back to her as he poured the wine and talked softly. “You uh, scared me when I heard you’d gone out looking for Katie.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, I just wanted to help…”

  He turned, setting her glass on the counter before pivoting to the refrigerator and pulling out a beer for himself.

  “I had these images of the two of you at the bottom of some ravine, or tied up in some creep’s van.” He laughed, realizing he sounded like a crazy person. “Sorry, I guess the stress got to me for a few minutes. Don’t pay any attention to me.”

  He heard the stool she was on slide across the wood floor, and the next thing he knew, she was standing next to him, her hand on his wrist where it rested on the refrigerator door.