Fortune's Second-Chance Cowboy Page 15

  Feeling protective of her, he took Chloe’s hand and guided her away.

  “C’mon, let’s see if we can find something sweet to take the bitter taste out of my mouth,” Chance urged, nodding toward some of the tables that were set up beyond the grills. Sasha had several different desserts arranged there, and there were still some left.

  Chloe looked around at the picnic gathering. Despite some of the differences of opinion that had been thrown out over the course of the last few hours, she was beginning to believe that maybe, just maybe, she could have it all. A career, a family that numbered more than just one other person and, most important of all, love.

  She slanted a look toward Chance, her heart swelling with hope. “Sounds like a good idea to me,” she agreed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Chloe, could I speak to you for a minute?”

  About to go with Chance to get some dessert, Chloe was stopped dead in her tracks by a familiar voice. The last time she had heard that voice, she was being reviled for having the nerve to crash a family celebration, pretending to be Gerald Robinson’s daughter. More things had been said, but Chloe had tuned them out, leaving the party soon after that.

  With effort, Chloe forced herself to turn around and face Sophie Fortune Robinson. Although she was doing her best to hide it, an awkward feeling immediately wrapped itself around her. The exact same feeling that she’d experienced at the dinner party when Sophie had cornered her only to give her a complete dressing-down. Gerald Robinson’s youngest legitimate daughter had been furious with her.

  Bracing herself for the worst, Chloe said, “All right, I’m listening.” Which was more than you did, she added silently.

  Looking rather uncomfortable herself, Sophie glanced in Chance’s direction. “Alone?” she requested.

  Chance took his ground. “I can stay with you if you want me to,” he told Chloe, deliberately not looking at Sophie. “Or I can wait for you over there.” He nodded toward the dessert tables. “Your call.”

  The fact that he had volunteered to remain with her and was willing to do whatever she wanted heartened Chloe. It also gave her the strength to face whatever it was that Sophie had to say.

  Chloe squared her shoulders. “It’s okay. Just don’t leave,” she added as a coda, afraid he might take this opportunity to walk away from the picnic and go back to the bunkhouse.

  “I’ll be by the dessert table,” Chance promised. And then he slanted a glance at Sophie before adding, “Within earshot if you need me.”

  With that, he walked away.

  Stepping over to an area that was temporarily devoid of any picnickers for the moment, Chloe told Sophie, “All right, we’re alone—or as alone as we can be at a family picnic.” She pressed her lips together, centering herself before asking, “What is it that you want to tell me?”

  It took Sophie several moments before she finally said the words Chloe never figured she’d hear.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Chloe didn’t know if she was being set up, or if she’d missed something. Sophie had looked almost hostile when their eyes had met that night at the dinner party. She assumed that nothing had changed. Or had it?

  “Excuse me?”

  “What I said to you the night at Kate Fortune’s ranch... Well, I was out of line and I’m sorry. But you have to understand, it was a huge shock to me.”

  “Finding out that Gerald Robinson was my father?” Chloe asked. “Think how I felt,” she pointed out.

  Sophie nodded. “All I could think of was how I felt. And it wasn’t just about finding out about you. It was finding out that the father I grew up adoring was nothing like what I thought he was. That the man I thought was so honorable couldn’t seem to remain faithful or true to anyone.” Her voice trembled as she spoke. “I was angry, I was hurt and I felt betrayed. And I’m afraid that I took it out on you.” She looked at her, clearly embarrassed. “And for that I’m very sorry. I shouldn’t have been angry with you. We were both in the same boat.”

  “Actually, we weren’t in the same boat,” Chloe politely corrected her. “Yours was a luxury liner. Mine was a leaky rowboat,” she said, referring to the fact that while Sophie’s childhood was spent in the lap of luxury, hers had been more of a hand-to-mouth existence because her father had deserted her mother.

  Sophie’s discomfort seemed to increase. “And that makes me feel twice as bad,” Sophie told her.

  “That wasn’t your fault,” Chloe pointed out. “That was your father’s fault. When my mother finally told me who my father was—that he wasn’t her high school sweetheart who was killed in a car accident before he could marry her, which was the story she’d told me all along—she admitted that she’d loved him a great deal. And she told me how devastated she was when he just up and left her.”

  Chloe felt emotion choke her, and she cleared it from her throat before she continued. “Anyway, that practically destroyed my mother—but she realized that she had to go on living because I needed her, so she pulled herself together and created a life for the two of us.

  “Because of the strength she displayed, my mother made me see that we each have the ability to be the masters of our own destinies. That means we can’t put the blame on some outside forces that might or might not come swooping in.”

  As Chloe spoke she saw the shift of emotion on Sophie’s face. Her expression went from sorrowful to hesitant and now hopeful. “So does that mean you forgive me?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Chloe told her, wanting to put the matter to rest.

  But Sophie wasn’t finished atoning for what she’d done. “Still, it took a lot of courage for you to come meet us the way you did, and then having me jump down your throat like that had to have made you feel just awful.”

  “Well, it didn’t make me feel good,” Chloe admitted. Since Sophie had apologized, she didn’t want the other woman to continue feeling badly. “But if I were in your place, maybe I would have said the same thing.”

  Sophie shook her head. “No, you wouldn’t have—but thank you for saying that,” she told Chloe as she hugged her.

  A smile bloomed on Chloe’s lips. It looked like she was finally being accepted, not just by one or two members, but by the whole family in general.

  It felt wonderful, Chloe thought.

  Disengaging herself from Sophie, she pointed behind the young woman. “I think someone’s waiting for you to get back to him,” she told her half sister.

  Sophie turned around to see that Mason was standing off to the side, patiently waiting for things to be resolved.

  “He’s been my rock through this whole thing,” she told Chloe. Releasing her, Sophie lingered a moment longer. “We need to get together again—soon,” she emphasized sincerely.

  “It’s a deal,” Chloe told her, relieved that Sophie no longer looked upon her as some sort of a troublemaking agitator.

  Chloe breathed a sigh of relief as she turned around to look for Chance.

  He was waiting for her exactly where he said he would be—at the dessert table.

  As she joined him there, Chloe had the impression that he had been watching her the entire time she’d been interacting with Sophie.

  When she approached, he said, “I guess you didn’t need rescuing after all.”

  “No, it turns out that I didn’t,” she told him. “Sophie came to me to apologize.”

  Ordinarily, he never asked for more information than was offered. But this time, he made an exception. Since he was in the dark about the whole incident at the previous dinner party, Chance asked, “What was she apologizing for?”

  Chloe filled him in on the details.

  “And she just apologized to you now for having a bad attitude?” he asked.

  “I think, in part, she was apologizing for accusing me of ly
ing about the whole thing. I get the impression that until the man’s numerous partners came to light, Sophie thought her father walked on water.” Chloe shook her head. “I guess it kind of goes along with the way my mother felt about him.

  “When she finally told me the truth about who my father was, my mother admitted that she’d literally worshipped him—right up to when he walked out on her and broke her heart.” Chloe frowned, thinking back over the years. So much made sense now. “I guess that’s why she never got married or even had a relationship. She couldn’t bring herself to trust another man enough to let her guard down.”

  Chance shook his head. He didn’t say what he was thinking. That in his opinion, after what Chloe’s father had done and all the people he had hurt with his behavior, Chloe’s father should have been horsewhipped—at the very least.

  “How many illegitimate kids did you say this man has?” Chance asked her.

  Chloe sighed. She honestly had no idea how many there were. It was an odd thing to admit about her own father.

  “The final count isn’t in yet,” she told him when she saw that he was waiting for an answer. “A couple of my half brothers are still trying to track down other potential siblings.”

  “Damn, that’s really one for the books, all right,” Chance commented.

  It certainly was, Chloe thought, growing quiet. Gerald or Jerome or whatever he chose to call himself now was still her father, but she felt no affection for the man, no desire to be protective of him. She did, however, feel protective of her late mother, and she felt that to criticize the man her mother fell in love with, even temporarily, was to criticize her, and Chloe wouldn’t allow that.

  When Chance commented on the fact that she had grown very quiet, she deliberately changed the subject by suggesting they find the boys to see how they were faring at the picnic.

  It took some looking, but when they did find all four of them, the teens were apparently having a good time, mingling with the younger people who had been brought to the picnic. They were also getting along with one another rather well.

  When she saw that, Chloe felt warm all over. She’d been right to talk the boys into coming.

  The way she saw it, the picnic, by almost all accounts, was a success.

  There was only one downside to the picnic, and it was only a minor by-product, affecting no one but her.

  She’d been riding high for almost the entire duration of the picnic. First because Chance had stayed, as she’d asked him to, and then because he had acted like the perfect hero, offering to stand by her. But now Chloe began to examine her feelings for Chance as well as what she’d hoped was her developing relationship with him.

  The conclusion she came to was that any way she looked at it, Chance was too good to be true.

  The phrase stunned her, echoing in her brain.

  She realized that these were the exact same words her mother had used to describe the man who was her father. The man who had ultimately just run out on her, disappointing her so badly that he had crushed her young heart and prevented her from ever venturing to love anyone again.

  That had to have been so emotionally crushing for her mother, Chloe thought. Even so, her mother had refused to crumble. Instead, she became a strong woman who had gone on to make a life for the two of them.

  Admittedly, Chloe didn’t know what she would have done if she’d been in her mother’s place. What she did know was that she never wanted to be in her mother’s place.

  Too good to be true.

  The phrase continued to echo in her head each time she looked at Chance. How could she expect a man like him to remain with her? To love her?

  She knew the inevitable answer to that.

  There was something she needed to do, Chloe decided, if she didn’t want to be hurt the way her mother had been. She needed to make a preemptive strike in order to save herself.

  * * *

  The thought haunted her for the next few days, growing progressively larger and larger in her mind until it felt as if there was nothing else on her mind except for that.

  “Miss Elliott? Are you okay?”

  Chloe realized that she’d allowed her thoughts to get the better of her—again. It had been happening to her for days. In this case, instead of listening to Will and responding, she’d drifted off.

  She looked at the boy apologetically. She couldn’t afford to jeopardize the progress he and the others had made by allowing herself to become obsessed with her personal life. That wasn’t fair to the boys, and it just wasn’t right.

  “I’m sorry, Will. I’m afraid I was just thinking about something.”

  “Yeah, I can tell.” A shy smile curved the boy’s mouth. “I asked you a question three times and you didn’t answer.”

  Chloe looked at him, appalled. “Three times? That’s unforgivable,” she told the teen.

  “Well, maybe it was two,” he admitted, shrugging his thin shoulders. “But you did look like you were really far away. Anything I can help with?”

  How far the teen had come, she thought. She was proud of having had a hand in his progress. She didn’t want to be the cause of its undoing. “No, but you’re a doll for asking.”

  Will flushed. “You’re not going to call me that in front of the other guys, are you?” he asked, clearly horrified at the possibility.

  She struggled not to laugh at the look on his face. “Your secret’s safe with me, Will,” she assured him, then, in case there was a question, she added, “All of your secrets are safe with me. You know that.”

  Will nodded. Their session was over and he had homework waiting for him, so he needed to go.

  “Yeah, that’s what you said when we started these things,” he said, referring to the sessions as he got up. And then he stopped to look at her. “Um, Miss Elliott, you know that goes both ways, right?”

  “I’m not sure I understand, Will,” Chloe admitted.

  Rather than just retreat, the way he would have a few short weeks ago, Will tried to explain. “What I’m trying to say is that if you’ve got something you want to talk about to someone, you can talk to me. I’m a good listener,” he told her. “And I won’t tell anyone anything. I promise.”

  She was tempted to hug him, but she knew how fragile teen egos were. She didn’t want him thinking she regarded him as a child. He was a budding adult. So she kept her arms at her sides and simply told him, “I appreciate that, Will.”

  Even so, she wasn’t about to tell him or any of the boys what was on her mind, especially since it involved Chance.

  “But there’s nothing I need to talk about,” Chloe said.

  There was something, though, she thought, that she needed to do. And soon.

  But it wasn’t going to be easy.

  * * *

  She’d agonized over it the entire day, until it was finally time for what had become a minor ritual: going out riding with Chance at the end of the day. She knew she couldn’t put this off any longer. Because the longer she did, the harder it was going to be for her.

  When Chance walked into the stable, expecting to go riding with Chloe as he did every late afternoon, he was surprised to see that although she was there, her horse wasn’t saddled yet.

  “You just get here?” he wanted to know. Even that was unusual for her. Punctuality was a thing for Chloe. She didn’t like being late.

  As he looked at her, he sensed the tension in the air and couldn’t help wondering what was wrong. Rather than push, he waited for her to answer.

  “Actually, I’ve been here for a while, waiting for you.” Every word felt as if she was dragging it out of her mouth from the very depths of her soul. And every word tasted bitter on her tongue.

  Her answer didn’t make any sense to him. He frowned. “But your horse isn’t saddled. Something wrong?” he asked,
subconsciously trying to brace himself.

  She didn’t answer his question directly. Instead, Chloe went on to say the hardest words that she had ever had to say. “I don’t think that we should go out riding together anymore.”

  “Okay.” He regarded her warily as he spoke. Still, he had to go on as if everything was all right. Because he really wanted it to be. “You want to do something else instead?” Almost every time they went out, they returned to end their day in the guesthouse, enjoying each other’s company to the fullest.

  He had a feeling that wasn’t going to be the case today, but he still had to ask.

  She shook her head. “No, you don’t understand. I don’t think we should do anything together—including what we do after we go riding,” she added, deliberately being vague because she didn’t think she could say anything more specific without breaking down. As it was, she was fighting back tears. Her throat felt as if it was closing up.

  She was looking away. Gently taking her face between his hands, Chance forced her to look up at him. “Have I done something to offend you?”

  “No, you’ve been perfect,” she cried, pulling back. Needing to put distance between them. “You’ve always been perfect.”

  It almost sounded like an accusation, he thought. One that just didn’t make any sense at all. “I don’t understand.”

  Tears were welling up in her eyes, and she looked away, not wanting him to see her cry.

  “Please, don’t make this any harder than it already is. I just can’t see you anymore.”

  “Did Graham say something?” he asked, trying to make sense out of what was happening. Was there some sort of nonfraternizing rule in place that he didn’t know about? If there was, then he’d quit. She meant that much to him.

  For the first time in years, he’d been able to get beyond himself, and it was all because of her. And now she was pulling back. It didn’t make sense to him, and he needed to know why this was happening.

  “No, nobody said anything, and it’s not anything you did.” Her voice cracked and she tried again. “Please, Chance, don’t ask me any more questions.”