Hard Lovin' Man

“Just that she met Lucas at a horse show when she was nineteen. I don’t know how old he would’ve been at the time, but I’m twenty-three, so you can do the math. They had an affair. A brief one. I was the by-product,” she added bitterly.

Though she would have liked nothing better than to end the explanation there, she took a deep breath and forced herself to go on, hoping that once they heard it all, they would allow her to leave in peace. “When my mother discovered she was pregnant, she contacted Lucas and demanded that he marry her. He refused. My mother had been dating another man off and on for a while, both before and after Lucas, and he agreed to marry her instead. I didn’t know until my twenty-first birthday that the man she’d married wasn’t my father.”

As she listened, Mandy puckered her brow in confusion. “Why did your mother wait until you were twenty-one to tell you the truth of your parentage?”

“She probably wouldn’t have told me then, but she had no other choice.” She sat up straighter, refusing to let the pain of Lucas’s rejection show. “Lucas didn’t want me, but he set up a trust fund for me that became mine on my twenty-first birthday.”

“You’ve known for two years that Lucas was your father?”

Lacey glanced at Sam, who had asked the question, and slowly nodded.

“So why did you wait until now to come here?” Merideth snapped peevishly.

Lacey narrowed an eye as she shifted her gaze to Merideth’s. “It took me that long to get past the hate.”

Silence hummed in the room for a full thirty seconds as the two women engaged in a stubborn staring match. Lacey was the one to break it. She turned to Mandy, her eyes darkened in anger. “My turn to ask a question. Why is it that no one, other than her,” she said, with a jerk of her head in Merideth’s direction, “seems to doubt my claim to be Lucas’s daughter?”

“I don’t doubt your claim,” Merideth cut in. “It’s your motive that I question.”

Lacey was on her feet, her eyes blazing, before Mandy or Sam could chastise their sister again for her rudeness. “If you think I’m here to claim a part of this ranch, you’re wrong.” She jammed a hand in her pocket, jerked out a folded piece of paper and slapped it on the desk in front of Mandy. “That’s my check for the twenty-five thousand Lucas put in trust for me, plus the interest it earned over the years. My only purpose in coming here today was to shove it down his throat and tell him I don’t need him or his money.”

Mandy rose, her eyes filled with compassion. “Oh, Lacey. I’m so sorry. Lucas was a—”

“Mom!” Jaime, Mandy’s son, burst into the room, his face pale, his eyes wide with fear. “Come quick. Billy fell off the top bunk and he’s bleeding really bad.”

Sam and Merideth jumped up and ran for the door, followed quickly by Jaime. Mandy snatched up the check and rounded the desk. She stopped in front of Lacey and grabbed her hand, pressing the check into it. “This is yours.”

Fighting back tears, Lacey tried to pull free. “I don’t want Lucas’s money or anything else that was his.”

Mandy forced Lacey’s fingers to curl around the check. “Believe me. I understand how you feel. But Lucas owes you a lot more than this.”

“Mom!” Jaime yelled from the hallway. “Hurry!”

Mandy squeezed Lacey’s fist between her hands. “God, I’m sorry to keep doing this to you, but Billy is one of Alayna and Jack’s children and our responsibility while they’re on their honeymoon. If you could wait for just a little while longer.”

Then she was gone, leaving Lacey alone in the office.

Lacey drew in a shaky breath as she continued to stare at her fist, still able to feel the warmth and compassion of Mandy’s hands around it. Her sister. Half sister, she corrected. She let her head loll back, closing her eyes as emotion rose to burn her throat.

Oh, God, she’d always wanted a sister, the support and love of a caring family. But why did she have to find it here, in the home of the man who had rejected her?

Gulping back the sob that threatened, she forced her eyes open…and found herself looking straight into the eyes of Lucas McCloud.

She knew it was Lucas in the portrait, though there was nothing that identified the man as such. The eyes that stared back at her were the same green as her own, the same green as Mandy’s. But the artist had captured a hardness, a coldness in his eyes that was lacking in Mandy’s…and she hoped in hers. Drawn by her first glimpse of the man who had sired her, she moved closer to the portrait.

He sat astride a stallion, black as midnight, who stood on the edge of a high cliff. Blue sky surrounded them, and nothing but sheer rock lay below. There was an arrogance, a wildness about both horse and rider, that she could almost feel. A shiver chased down her spine as she stared unblinking at the man who had shunned her.

She could see why her mother had given herself to him. He was handsome, dangerously so, and projected an image as big as the state he called home. She felt the tears burn in her throat, behind her eyes, in her nose. He’d rejected his own daughter without even knowing her, refused to give her his name when he knew full well that she was of his blood. Her fingers curled, crumpling the check within her clenched fist.

“Bastard,” she whispered. She threw the balled paper onto the desk and whirled, turning her back on Lucas McCloud as he had on her so many years before.

Mandy picked up the wad of paper from the desk and smoothed it open over her palm. “She’s gone,” she said, her voice heavy with regret as she lifted her gaze to look at her sisters. “And she left the check.”

Merideth caught her lower lip between her teeth. “It’s my fault. I was rude. Cruel.”

Sam slung an arm around her shoulders. “Nah, you were just being you.”

Merideth whipped her head around and gave Sam a scathing look. Chuckling, Sam hugged her younger sister to her side. “Ah, come on, Sis. You know you’re our balance. If left up to Mandy, we’d already be preparing the fatted calf and welcoming Lacey into the fold, while I’d be stuttering and stammering, trying to figure out what to do with her.”

Pensively, Mandy tapped the check against her palm as she rounded the desk. “Sam’s right, Merideth. It isn’t your fault. But we’ve got to find her. She’s a McCloud. There’s no questioning that.” She turned to look at her father’s portrait and drew in a ragged breath. “For whatever reason, Lucas chose to deny her.” She stared at the portrait a moment, then tore her gaze from the picture of the man who had made all his daughters’ lives a living hell, and faced her sisters. “But we’re not,” she stated firmly. “She’s family.” She drew in a deep breath. “But first we’ve got to find her.” Moving to stand before the window, she looked out at the darkness beyond, her brow furrowed. “Oh, my God!” she cried, her eyes suddenly widening.

“What is it?” Sam asked in alarm.

Mandy whirled. “She’s at the barn,” she cried, racing for the door. “Hurry! We’ve got to stop her before she leaves.”

Lacey’s horse danced nervously as she led him from the borrowed stall where Mandy’s son had placed him earlier that afternoon. “It’s okay, Buddy,” she murmured softly, tightening her grip on the lead rope. “We’re going home.”

She led him through the barn’s wide doors and out into the moonlit night. But once outside, the horse’s uneasiness seemed to increase. He reared, nearly jerking Lacey off her feet. She quickly put slack in the line, and kept her voice low and soothing as she tried to calm him. “Too much strangeness, huh, Buddy? But it’s okay now. We’re heading home.”

He snorted and tossed his head, prancing nervously around her as she slowly drew in the slack. When she was within reach, she stretched out a hand and rubbed his cheek, trying to calm him. Though he stilled, his head remained high, his ears pricked, his eyes wild and darting.

“There’s nothing out here that’s going to get you,” she soothed. “Come on, Buddy,” she urged and gave a gentle tug on the lead rope. “Let’s load you in the trailer and we’ll hit the road.”

He followed skittishly, keeping tension on the line while he danced from side to side behind her. At the rear of the trailer, Lacey paused to swing open the double doors.

And heard Mandy call out to her.

“Lacey! Wait!”

“Come on, Buddy,” she urged, panic surging through her. “In you go.”

But the horse balked, sitting back on his haunches and pulling hard against the lead. Frustrated, she slapped the end of the rope across his rump. “Come on, Buddy,” she cried, anxious to get away. “Get in there!”

At that moment, an armadillo darted from beneath the trailer and straight into the horse’s path. The gelding reared, pawing at the air, then bolted forward, while the armadillo scuttled off into the darkness. Lacey jumped sideways, trying to get out of the horse’s way, but the frightened animal slammed into her side, knocking her down. She hit the ground hard, grunting when her left hip took the brunt of the fall. With her face pressed into the dirt, she heard the dull thud of flesh hitting metal, then the horse’s scream of pain. Her heart in her throat, she clawed her way to her feet. Dragging her sleeve across her face to clear the grit and tears from her eyes, she saw her horse standing ten feet away. He was trembling, blood oozing from a long gash on his shoulder.

Her breath burned painfully in her chest. “Buddy,” she whispered brokenly. She limped slowly toward him, stooping to pick up the end of the lead rope. She straightened, lifting her hand to fist her fingers in his mane, then bent to examine the cut. “Oh, God, Buddy, what have you done?” she sobbed, and buried her face against his neck.

“Lacey.”

She felt a hand go around her shoulders while another gently pried the lead rope from her fingers. Sobbing, she was pulled into Mandy’s arms.

“He’s h-hurt,” she cried, trying to push away. “I’ve got to take care of him.”

“I know, honey,” Mandy soothed, refusing to let her go. “But Sam’s a vet. She’ll know what to do.”

It would have been so easy to cling, to let someone else take charge, to give in to the warmth and comfort she’d been denied so long. But Lacey had been taking care of herself and what was hers for too many years to relinquish the control to someone else. Especially a McCloud. She sniffed furiously and backed from Mandy’s embrace, wiping a hand beneath her nose. She turned and saw Sam kneeling beside Buddy, while Jaime stood at the horse’s head, holding the animal steady.

Gulping back the sob that threatened, she limped across the short distance that separated them and dropped to her knees beside Sam. “How bad is it?” she asked, unable to keep the trembling from her voice.