Lone Star Nights (26 page)

Lucky shook his head.

“Did you pay enough money for us?” Mia asked. “What one thing do you haveta do to marry Cassie?”

“No, we're not getting married,” Cassie answered Mackenzie.

Lucky had to give the same no answer to Mia coupled with a “heck if I know” to her second question. And Lucky was glad everybody had read his thoughts in addition to hearing every word he'd uttered in the past five minutes. Hell, he was already flustered and frustrated, and the meeting hadn't even started.

And the meeting got even worse when he spotted Mason-Dixon.

The man was sitting in the corner, literally as far away from the rest of them as he could get. Of course, it was his right to be there since Dixie Mae was his mother, but if Dixie Mae did come back as a ghost she might try to kick her son's butt right out of the room.

Cassie and Lucky took a seat next to the girls when they went into the office. Bernie was wearing jeans and a Beatles T-shirt today. Probably because he was planning to head to the Founder's Day picnic later. Lucky would still have to make an appearance at that as well, something else that would no doubt be flustering and frustrating. Painful, too, because it would push his memory buttons about his mother.

Well, maybe.

After Claire had said how she felt guilty about the accident, Lucky was starting to see things in a slightly different light. Yeah, he was still responsible, but it had still been an accident.

“You said there were surprises,” Lucky prompted Bernie when he just stood there, will in hand, and stared at them.

Bernie took a deep breath. “For the record, I tried to talk Dixie Mae out of this.”

Shit.

This was going to be
bad
. Bernie began to read.

“I, Dixie Mae Weatherall, revoke all previous wills made by me and declare this my last will. And we're not even going to get into that monkey crap about me being of sound mind because all that's somebody's opinion. Just in case it's brought up, though, especially by my so-called son, I've given Bernie a copy of a psych eval to prove I'm not crazy, just mean and opinionated.”

Lucky concurred on all points. Sane, mean, opinionated.

Bernie paused, looked at them. “I'm omitting some of the curse words, but they're here in writing if anyone wants to see them for themselves.” He glanced at Mason-Dixon. “She called you a few choice names.”

“I'll bet,” he snarled. “Just tell me what the old bat left me.”

Bernie took another deep breath and continued.

“To Mia and Mackenzie Compton and my granddaughter, Cassandra Weatherall, I leave my half of Weatherall-McCord Stock Show and Rodeo Promotions, which will be divided into thirds among them. My partner, Austin McCord, will maintain majority percentage in the company and act as the trustee until the Compton minor children are each twenty-one. Also in accordance with my wishes, Cassandra, Mia and Mackenzie will remain in the state so they can better deal with the operation.”

Judging from the way Cassie, Mia and Mackenzie stared at the lawyer, that was one of those surprises. But not to Lucky. This was exactly the sort of thing Dixie Mae would pull, and he wished that it was the magic bullet to keep them all here. But a will couldn't force something like that, and he was betting Alice wouldn't care a rat about Dixie Mae's will or wishes.

“What does it mean?” Mia asked, tugging on her sister's arm.

“It means we own part of a rodeo.”

Mia grinned. “Do I get to own a bull?”

“About 17 percent of each bull,” Bernie provided.

Mia's grin widened. “Cool. I want to own his leg. And Scooter's clown nose.”

Mackenzie gave an irritated shake of her head and an eye roll that only a big sister could have managed.

“‘In addition to the part ownership of the business,'” Bernie read on, “‘I leave Mia and Mackenzie Compton the sum of two hundred thousand dollars each to be placed in a trust fund and used for their college educations.'”

Lucky was glad Dixie Mae had obviously gotten so close to the girls and had provided something for them. Plus, the rodeo business would give them some solid income, too.

“Keep reading,” Mason-Dixon snapped.

Bernie smiled. The look on his face was too accommodating. It was sneaky like Cassie's earlier one. “‘As for my residuary estate, all my money and personal items will go to the person who has ownership of my six cats.'”

Yeah, it was a sneaky smile all right. Lucky didn't just smile, he laughed, and Cassie giggled right along with him.

“What?” Mason-Dixon howled. “She left those cats to me.”

“And you signed over ownership to Cassie.” Bernie held up a copy of the document. “Her ownership means she inherits the remainder of Dixie Mae's estate, and it's valued at...” Bernie paused, fighting back a new smile. “Nearly twenty million dollars.”

Cassie stopped laughing. Perhaps because she was in shock at her grandmother being worth that much. But no. Her eyes watered, and Lucky knew that she would trade every penny to have Dixie Mae back.

“What does that mean?” Mia asked.

“It means Cassie's rich,” Mackenzie explained.

“It means you're rich, too,” Cassie told Mia, “because I gave you one of the cats.”

Mia thought about that a second. “Do I still get the bull leg, though? And the clown nose?”

Mackenzie rolled her eyes again.

“That hellhound can't just write me out of her will!” Mason-Dixon yelled.

“There's more,” Bernie said, and he continued to read. “‘For my son, Mason-Dixon Weatherall, I bequeath him a truckload of merchandise that will be delivered to his place of business today.'”

Bernie stopped and motioned for the three adults to join him at the desk so they could read the last line of the will for themselves. Mason-Dixon made it there ahead of them and tried to push Cassie aside. She held her ground. Then, she broke down in hysterical laughter when she read the last line.

Lucky had to laugh again, too, and he blew a kiss up to Dixie Mae.

“The merchandise consists of one thousand jumbo-size dildos,” Dixie Mae had written. “Which my son can then use to go fuck himself.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“U
H
, I'
M
NOT
sure I can fit through the door,” Claire said, studying herself in the large mirror.

Cassie wasn't sure of that, either. The wedding dress was as wide as Claire was tall. It was beautiful, though, with yards and yards of pearl-white organza and netting, but Cassie wasn't sure even the aisle of a cathedral would have been wide enough to accommodate it.

“It'll fit just fine,” Livvy insisted. She wiped away another tear as she looked at Claire.

Cassie blinked back some tears, too. It had been an emotional morning what with Dixie Mae's will and Lucky's half-assed marriage proposal, and it was only going to get more emotional between attending the wedding and then saying goodbye to the girls.

“Riley'll be gaga when he sees you,” Livvy said. She was fussing with the veil some more when there was a knock at the door.

“No one with a dick can come in,” Livvy called out.

The woman opened the door and stuck her head in. “Good thing, then, I left my dick in Florida.”

Anna.

She'd made it despite what had apparently been a couple of flight delays. It had been years since Cassie had seen her, and it was obvious that Lucky's little sister was all grown up. Cassie could see bits of all three of her brothers in that beautiful face, but that was hands down a genetic copy of Lucky's smile.

Anna eased into the room, shutting the door behind her before she hurried to Claire for a hug. Or at least she tried. “Air kisses and hugs only,” Livvy insisted. “You'll ruin her hair and makeup.”

Anna obliged, making a show of the air kisses and hugs. And of the real ones she gave to Livvy. Then Anna turned to Cassie. Cassie wasn't even sure she'd remember her, but she obviously did because Anna pulled her into a hug.

“I understand Lucky proposed to you,” Anna said.

Cassie froze, but since Claire and Livvy didn't, she could only guess that this wasn't the first they were hearing of it. Cassie dismissed it with a wave of her hand.

“Lucky only did that because he thought it would help get custody of the girls.”

Anna nodded as if that were old news, too. Livvy nodded, as well. Claire shrugged. Cassie dismissed the shrug. Because after all, Claire had been the one to say that Lucky was in love with her, and clearly he wasn't. If he had been, he would have done more than just give her a blank stare when Cassie had told him that she loved him.

“Is it true you said you'd marry Lucky if he'd do just one thing?” Anna asked. “But then you wouldn't tell him what that one thing was?”

Sheez. Wilhelmina had blabbed everything. Thin doors and a blabbermouth were a bad combination.

Anna, Claire and Livvy all stared at her, obviously waiting for an answer. An answer she didn't have to give because there was another knock at the door.

“If you got balls, you can't come in,” Livvy said this time.

“I own a bull's leg,” someone answered. “And a clown nose.”

Mia.

“Oh, God. Sorry about that,” Livvy added.

Horrified that Mia might have heard what Livvy said, Cassie hurried to open it, and there they were. Mia and Mackenzie. Thankfully, they didn't seem as appalled as Cassie was over the balls comment. The girls looked perfect. Of course, she'd already seen them in their wedding clothes, but it was just as special to see them a second time. Cassie gathered them into her arms and kissed them.

“You two ready for this?” Livvy asked them.

Mia nodded. “Kenzie's been putting people in the seats.” She lifted her basket filled with gold stars. “And I'm going to throw these at people.” However, the moment Mia said the words, she glanced down at the stars. “There's a lotta magic wishes in here.”

Claire smiled. “And everybody will get at least one today. Especially me. Can we just get downstairs and do this before Riley changes his mind?”

There was zero chance of Riley doing that, but Mia took off as if to make sure that didn't happen. Mackenzie looped her arm through Cassie's. “Come on. I'll take you to your seat.”

They stepped into the hall, and Cassie nearly smacked right into Lucky. He, too, gave Mackenzie a hug and kiss. And Cassie got a look from him. A long, appreciative one as his attention slid from Cassie's head to her toes.

“There you are,” Livvy said, catching onto Lucky's arm and pulling him into the room. “Now, here are some things you need to remember when you walk Claire down the aisle...”

That was Cassie's cue to get moving. Mackenzie and she went downstairs where there were guests milling around, making their way into the living room for the ceremony.

“What's Mia doing?” Mackenzie asked.

The little girl wasn't hard to spot with her sparkly tiara, but Mia was racing out the front door. Alarmed, Cassie went after her with Mackenzie right behind her. Cassie doubted Mia was running away, and she wasn't. Mia hurried to a silver car where Aunt Alice was waiting.

Mia took out one handful of stars, as many would fit into her tiny hand, and gave the basket to Alice. “Magic wishes,” Mia told her. “I want to use them so Kenzie and me can stay here with Miss Cassie and Mr. Lucky.”

Alice's gaze flew to Cassie, maybe because the woman thought Cassie had put Mia up to it, but there must have been something in Cassie's expression that let Alice know otherwise.

Mia looked at her hand. “I gotta save these to throw at people.” Then she gave the basket another look, picked several more stars from her hand and added them to the hundreds that were already in there. “And I can give you my bull's leg and clown's nose.” She pulled off her tiara, added it to the basket.

“I can give you the money Dixie Mae left me,” Mackenzie said.

Her aunt shook her head. “I don't want your money. Or the stars.” She handed the basket back to Mia. “I just want my sister's children to live with me.”

There it was. Alice's bottom line—again.

“But what if we really, really, really wanna live here?” Mia asked. “What if being here makes us really, really happy?”

Another head shake from Alice, but it also looked as if she'd swallowed hard. “I can make you happy, too.”

“Yeah, but you can't do it really, really, really.” Mia looked ready to cry, but she took several of the stars and put them in Alice's hand. “I'll give you magic stars anyway.”

Great. Now Cassie was crying again. This time in front of the girls, something she'd sworn she wouldn't do.

“Hurry up,” Livvy called out from the front door. “We're about to start, and we need the star girl.”

Mia took off running, jiggling the basket and leaving a trail of magic gold stars behind her.

* * *

L
UCKY
WAS
PRETTY
sure he'd never seen Riley happier. Claire, either. And there had only been one mishap during the ceremony, when Ethan had tossed one of the toy cars a little too hard and it'd smacked Livvy on the forehead. Other than a few drops of blood, the wedding had been perfect.

But now perfect was over.

The thirty or so guests were already filing out of the house, all heading to the picnic grounds for the reception. Lucky and Cassie would soon follow, but first they had to say goodbye to the girls. Something they'd do as soon as the photographer finished taking pictures.

Della walked over to him, watching as the photographer posed Mia and Ethan in front of Claire and Riley. It was slow going because Riley and Claire kept kissing. Ethan kept trying to play with the cars he'd retrieved from the floor. Mia was darting out to retrieve gold stars, too. Cassie and Mackenzie weren't in the shot, but they were helping Livvy arrange the flowers around the couple.

“An engagement ring,” Della said to him.

“Huh?” Lucky figured he had spaced out and had missed whatever she'd said before that.

“An engagement ring,” she repeated.

So he hadn't missed it after all. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“It's the one thing you've got to do before Cassie will marry you,” Della clarified.

Oh, that. Lucky should have known. Clearly the gossip mill had worked overtime getting out the news of what Cassie and he had discussed outside Bernie's door.

If you want me to even consider marrying you, you have to do one thing
.

Maybe he needed to build a room with concrete walls for his next chat. If there was a next chat, that is. After all, Cassie's agent had brought her all of those offers.

“A bunch of people already suggested that,” he let Della know. “In fact, it was the second-most suggested answer.”

“What was the first?” Della asked.

“Saying I love you.”

“I just assumed you'd done that.”

He had, but Cassie had let him know that was wrong. He'd been doing a lot of wrong things lately and hadn't done much of anything except fail to fix any of this. He was losing all of them.

“Getting down on one knee?” Della went on. “I heard that talked about a lot as a possibility.”

So had he. Lucky wasn't opposed to that, but not for a marriage proposal. He'd rather spend time on his knees kissing Cassie in all the right places. Or rather one special place anyway.

Cassie turned, smiled at him, and he could have sworn that she had ESP or something because enough heat zinged between them that he almost forgot about having to say goodbye.

Almost.

Cassie finished whatever she was doing and made her way to Lucky. “They're a beautiful couple,” she remarked, and the silence—and the heat—settled between them for several moments. “Everyone knows what we talked about at Bernie's office.”

He nodded.

“And for the record, the right answer is
not
for you to wear chaps and spurs,” she added.

Lucky frowned. “Who suggested that?”

“Livvy. She said it could be the tipping point, that it always gets women hot.”

“Does it?” Automatic question. He would have been kicked out of the male club if he hadn't asked it.

“It worked for me,” she admitted, smiling. Then, frowning, added, “But it's not the right answer.”

Of course. It was just another bad suggestion, but it beat Hank's. The ranch hand had told Lucky that the thing he had to do was to knock Cassie up. All in all, Lucky had gotten some of the absolute worst advice of his life from people who were family and friends.

“Can I talk to you?” someone asked from behind them.

Alice.

Lucky had no idea how long she'd been standing there, but he hoped she'd missed out on the getting-hot-over-chaps chat. “Of course.” Both Cassie and he turned toward her.

Alice looked at the girls, smiled, but it wasn't the smile of a victorious woman who had just gotten exactly what she wanted. She opened her hand to show him the gold stars.

Lucky wasn't surprised to see them. What with the way Mia was flinging the stars around, every inch of the living room floor seemed to be covered with them. They were in people's hair, on their clothes. He figured some of the little glittered bits had worked their way into places he didn't want to know about.

“I suppose you'll be leaving town soon?” Alice asked, and it took Lucky a moment to realize she was talking to him. “Gossip,” she added in a mumble. “The consensus is you don't stay here much.”

“Not usually, but I'll be around for a while.”

Another nod. “Because of those bulls you're buying. The clerk at the inn said you'd want to work with the bulls yourself, that you're picky about that sort of thing.”

Now it was his turn to nod. If Alice knew that, then she probably also knew about the rift that had formed long ago between Lucky and his twin brother. Except it no longer felt like much of a rift. Logan had his business to run. Lucky had his. There was no reason they couldn't run those businesses in the same town.

“And what about you?” Alice asked Cassie. “You'll be going back to LA?”

“No. I'm selling my condo, though, so eventually I'll have to go back for the closing. But not for work. I've, uh, decided to pass on some recent business offers so I'll be staying around here. I might open an office here in Spring Hill since there's not another therapist in town.”

Finally, there was something the gossips hadn't gotten hold of yet. Probably because Alice and he were the first people she'd told. But that meant there was a silver lining in all of this. Cassie would be around so they could continue having sex.

And whatever the heck else was going on between them.

Alice's gaze drifted to the girls again, and she motioned for them to come closer. She didn't say anything until she had an arm around each of them. “I didn't reach this decision easily, and I'm still not sure it's the right thing to do. But if Cassie and Lucky are here, together, then I'll consider allowing you to stay with them. As long as it's what you girls
really
,
really
want.”

Lucky was so lost in the thought of sex with Cassie that the words didn't sink in at first. Even when they did, he was certain he'd misheard the woman. Until he saw the tears in Alice's eyes.

“It's what we want. Really, really, really, really.” But Mia didn't just say it. She said it while jumping around, squealing and eventually adding more
really
s.

No squeals of delight or jumping from Mackenzie, but she did bob her head in agreement.

“They were willing to give up everything they have to stay here,” Alice went on, speaking to Cassie and him now. “If that isn't love, I don't know what is. I love them, but they obviously love the two of you a lot more.”

“We do love them,” Mia volunteered. “But we love you, too,” she added.