A Conard County Baby

Relief at having this chance to prove herself gave way to determination to succeed. Somehow, some way, she was going to do this job right.

In the meantime, she decided to scrub the makeup from her face, put her hair in a ponytail and don one of her few pairs of jeans. The rest of her clothes would be useless here, utterly out of place. Regardless, pretty soon nothing would fit. It was getting hard to button her jeans. She’d have to do something about that.

It was time to make the rest of her transformation.

* * *

Downstairs, Cash went into his office and started his computer. He closed his financial files and began to search the internet for Hope. If any of her story was true, he’d find the important pieces here.

It didn’t take him long. Hope Conroy was a well-known name in the Dallas newspaper. Her engagement photo with a handsome man only a few years older than she was blazed across nearly the entire top of one page. Beneath was a detailed and saccharine description of her, her fiancé—definitely touted as a man with a bright future in politics—and their families. In one swoop he picked up enough information to get a pretty clear picture that she wasn’t exaggerating about scandal. These folks wouldn’t put up with it.

She was mentioned surprisingly often, appearing at charity balls, participating in various volunteer activities, none of which had much to do with the underside of life except for one large homeless charity where she sat on a board.

There was more, raising his eyebrows with each revelation. Money, more money than he could imagine, colored every word. He knew girls who wanted to be barrel riders, not girls who participated in dressage. But Hope had, for a while.

He nearly put his head in his hands when he finished reading.

He had hired a twenty-four-carat, hot damn, for real Texas princess.

Chapter Two (#ulink_06fbb766-c6f9-53e8-8737-7eac0fb8ac3d)

Just about the time the school bus would drop Angie at the end of the driveway, Cash emerged from his office. He discovered Hope standing nervously in the foyer, dressed in clothes that looked better in these parts even if the designer label on her jeans didn’t. No makeup, which to his way of thinking made her prettier, and the ponytail at least softened the too-perfect hair.

A damned Texas princess. The thought was still rolling around in his head, and he was wrestling with the possibility that he had just made a big mistake. He’d picked up that she’d come from money, he just hadn’t guessed what kind of money. If she started filling Angie’s head with stories of trips to ski in the Alps and parties on private yachts, he didn’t know what he was going to do. His daughter already owned enough discontent to fill half the Pacific Ocean.

Unfortunately for Angie, she was a rancher’s daughter, not the daughter of a billionaire. She had to make peace with that somehow, at least until she could leave for college. Of course, it would be a state college, not some place like Radcliffe or Vassar, but it would give her a leg up if she didn’t want to stay here. He suspected she wouldn’t, and that was okay. But he had to keep her expectations and dreams on enough of a leash to at least get through high school in one piece.

He seriously doubted that Hope would be the one to do it.

As she turned to him, he spoke without preamble. “Angie’s going to walk through that door any minute. So I want something clear.”

She questioned him with a look from moss-green eyes.

“I read up about you in the papers. Not many people enjoy the advantages you had, and my kid never will. I don’t want you filling her head with fairy-tale dreams she can never have.”

“Fairy tales don’t always have happy endings,” she said. “Trust me, the less I talk about my past, the better. All those advantages? They turned into a prison and they’re gone now. At this point in time, your daughter has a brighter future than I do.”

He liked the spark he saw in her then, a brief flash of anger, and a whole lot of clear-eyed determination. “Okay, then.”

“I’ve got a lot to learn,” Hope said after a moment. “Maybe Angie and I can learn together.”

He wondered what she meant by that, but before he could answer, the door flew open and Angie stormed in. A dark-haired girl, she wore jeans and a sweatshirt emblazoned with the name of a band. She hadn’t even got inside and she was already looking for a fight. Fire filled her dark eyes, and she slung her book bag onto the floor. It slid until it hit the wall.

“That school sucks,” she announced before anyone could greet her. “Some of the boys smell like cows and manure. The teachers are stupid. The whole place is stupid.” Then her flashing eyes landed on Hope. “What’s this? Your girlfriend? Or my keeper? Either way, I don’t want her here.” She glared at Hope. “Get out of here. Now.”

Then she ran up the stairs, leaving her bag where it had fallen, punctuating her rant by slamming the door upstairs hard enough to make the windows rattle a bit.

The sound of the girl stomping around in her room overhead became all that filled the silence.

Hope cleared her throat. “She’s very pretty.”

“Pretty is as pretty does,” Cash remarked. “There you have it. If she has any other mode of communication, I haven’t seen it. Still want to take this on?”

“I want to try,” Hope answered without hesitation. She gave him a wan smile. “I understand anger. I’ve been living with enough of it for several months now. She just lost her mother, you said. Well, I lost my innocence, so maybe we’re not very different.”

“You’re handling it a lot better.”

“Only because I’m older and well trained. One mustn’t make a scene, you know. Not that I think Angie shouldn’t be permitted to express herself. God knows, bottling it up does no good.” She sighed. “Show me around? I need to know where things are and what your rules are.”

“I don’t have a whole lot of rules,” he said, waving her toward the kitchen. “I’d like some courtesy in communications, but basically, as long as it isn’t dangerous, no rules. There are always snacks for her, Hattie, my housekeeper makes sure there are fresh cookies in the jar. I’d like Angie to get her homework done every day, but trying to police that only results in another scene like the one you just saw.”

“Do you have any reason to think she isn’t getting it done?”

“I asked the teachers to let me know.”

“Then I guess it’s safe to assume she is. What else? Especially the dangerous part.”

“No taking a horse out alone. She’s welcome to ride, but not alone. That infuriates her because she has to wait for one of my hands or me, and she’d rather die than go with me.”

“Well, I can ride with her if she wants. More?”

“If she rides, she has to take care of her mount afterward. We’ve been having a problem with that.”

For the first time, Hope looked honestly astonished. “Really? I took care of my horses. Part of the drill. Okay, I’ll make it clear, if she’s willing to ride with me.”

He paused as they stood in the kitchen. “I’m not a hard man, Hope. But this is my first experience of raising a child and I’m sure I’m fumbling. I don’t want to saddle her with limitations and rules, but she needs to pick up after herself, leave the bathroom usable by another person, and do her own laundry. I don’t have maid service.”

He thought Hope flushed faintly. “Did she have it before?”

“No, and that’s what makes this so strange.”

“More of her resentment,” Hope suggested. “It’s got to be hard to lose your mother. What happened, if I’m not being too nosy?”

“Peritonitis. Fast and hard, from what I understand, but I don’t have all the details. By the time Sandy felt sick enough to go to the hospital, it was too late. A matter of hours.”

Hope nodded and looked down. “She must have been terrified. Angie, I mean. To have that happen so fast, and it’s not even like a car accident. Her mom was sick—they should have been able to help her.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Cash contemplated that for a minute, realizing that he probably hadn’t spent enough time thinking of what his daughter was dealing with. He’d been too busy dealing with her. Ah, damn, another failure on his part.

He looked at Hope. “I know I’m asking a lot, but try to be a friend to her. Before you, I had two very grandmotherly ladies apply for the job. This time I wanted someone closer to her age. Someone she could feel closer to, if that’s possible.”

Hope nodded slowly. “I’d guess that right now the last thing she would want would be someone trying to stand in for her mother.”

“Hell, she doesn’t even want a father. But I get what you’re saying. I’m not expecting miracles, though I’d like to see her a little happier and a little more comfortable here. I’m not totally oblivious. She didn’t just lose her mother—she lost her home, her friends, her school. The school counselor is trying to work with her, but so far she’s just not talking. Well, except to yell at me.”

“I’m sure this is hard on you.”

“I’m not looking for sympathy,” he said frankly. “I don’t need it. That girl needs something, and clearly I’m not giving it to her.”