Westin Family Ties

“I saw you across the street from the Priestly house,” he said after a moment. “I…I followed you.”

She looked behind him toward the street. “Did anyone else see me?”

“I don’t think so. You didn’t call Emma Kruger when you said you would. She got worried.” His gaze once again dipped to Cassie’s protruding belly and the silence between them stretched tight. “Cassie? Can I come in?”

Cassie. Not Laura, not anymore. “Yes, of course,” she said. As she stepped aside, she once again scanned the empty street before hastily closing the door and turning back into the room. And then her gaze met Cody’s again.

She’d wondered, of course. How would she feel when she saw him again? Would the magic between them be gone, a victim of their fight? She folded her fingers into her palm as she steeled herself for what came next.

But why, why hadn’t she dressed nicer that morning? Why hadn’t she washed her hair or stuck on some lipstick? For something to do, she took the blue scarf from around her neck and looped it through the strap on her oversized hobo bag, her fingers trembling.

He finally cleared his throat. “When is the baby due?”

“A little over a month.”

His voice grew hesitant. “Is it…mine?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know about it when you left?”

“You mean did I know I was pregnant when I told you it was time we start our family? No, I didn’t know.”

He swore softly, took off his hat and looked around the apartment. She knew what he saw. The place was a furnished dump, there were no two ways about it, but she’d arrived the day before in a panic and all she’d wanted was a refuge, no questions asked, four walls and a locked door.

“I don’t even know where to start,” he said, turning his steady gaze on her again.

How many times over the past few months had she scanned the faces of strangers, looking for him, wondering if he’d followed her, half-hoping he hadn’t, half-hoping he had? No one else looked like Cody Westin, though, not even his brothers, Adam and Pierce. There were family resemblances, to be sure, but Cody was the one a woman’s eyes strayed to. The perfectly balanced strong body, wide shoulders and clear-cut features all added up to a great-looking package, but it was something else, too, some sense of reserve and privacy about him that made a lot of women, women like her, melt inside.

Face it; he was so masculine it confused her. In fact at times during their marriage they had seemed like foreigners thrown together on the stagecoach of life, seeing each other, touching, but not speaking the same language.

“Do you know the police are looking for you?” Cody asked.

Her heartbeat doubled as her hands clenched at her sides. “I wasn’t sure. I guess it doesn’t surprise me. How do you know?”

“I spoke with Emerson Banner.”

Her heart leaped into her throat. “Did you tell him your name? Did you tell him mine?”

“Just our first names. He claims you had something to do with his mother-in-law’s death.”

Talking about Emerson Banner made the hairs rise on Cassie’s arms. “He’s a greedy, nasty man,” she said with a shudder. Those cold eyes of his had drilled into hers too many times for comfort. “His wife isn’t any better. They know I wouldn’t harm Mrs. Priestly. She was so kind to me. Did he tell you how worried she was the last few days of her life? Maybe I should have done things differently, I don’t know. I’ve tried to figure it out.”

The tears that welled in her eyes were unwelcome reminders of the stress that had been building since that night when Mrs. Priestly had sent Cassie to check out the garden. It had culminated two days later when she went to awaken the elderly woman and found her window open, a pillow over her face and signs of a weak struggle before she lost her life. The monitor had been disabled. Cassie had slept ten feet away in the adjoining room while Mrs. Priestly died.

“Banner also told me they caught you trying to steal jewelry,” he added.

She raised her gaze to his. “You believe him?”

“Hell, no, I don’t believe him. Of course I don’t.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“Nothing good.”

She had the distinct impression he was holding something back. “Just say it,” she coaxed. “I can take it.”

“Vera Priestly changed her will the day she died. She added you to her list of beneficiaries. You’re going to be a wealthy woman.”

Cassie inhaled dry air. “Why would she do that? Who told you this?”

“Her son-in-law, and who knows why she’d do it, but it sure provides a hell of a good motive for murder, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” she whispered. Yes, if she cared about money, which she didn’t. Still, to all the people in Cherrydell, especially the Banners, she must appear a penniless pregnant woman living in the shadows and desperate for every penny.

“Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on,” Cody demanded. “Explain why a woman who didn’t know you that well left you a fourth of her estate.”

His tone of voice cut through her anxiety. “Wait just a second,” she said. “You don’t understand what’s been happening here, and I’m not going to stand by while you speak to me like I’m a stubborn idiot.”

Cody pulled his hat back on in a way always guaranteed to start a slow throb in her groin. “Pack up your stuff. It’s only a couple of hours back to Wyoming. We’ll call Sheriff Inkwell when we get home.” He dropped his hands and turned to the door. “I’ll go get the truck—”

“Cody, stop,” she said.

He turned back to her.

“Just stop. You can’t just throw me in the back of your truck. I’m not a stray heifer. We’re going to have to have an actual conversation about this, unless you want to continue to ignore it.”

“I’m not ignoring it,” he said, “I’m trying to prioritize. We have to get you away from here. If I’m going to have a child, I’d rather it wasn’t born in prison.”

“If? Listen, Cody Westin, there is no if.”

“I’m not the one who ran away.”

“Have you forgotten why I left?”

“No, I haven’t forgotten. But things are obviously different now.”

“Because having a baby is no longer an academic question? It’s a done deal so you’re going to step up to the plate, right?”

He narrowed his eyes.

She sighed deeply. They were right back where they started, except now another human being was involved. “We reached an impasse, Cody, you know that as well as I do. I wanted a family. You wanted to wait. Indefinitely. You asked me if I wanted a divorce and I said I’d think about it.”

“And you ran away instead.”

“No, I left to think about it. I packed a bag and drove away. What choice did I have? It was your ranch, your family—”

“Yours, too, Cassie.”