Lone Star Nights (5 page)

The same thing Cassie had to do in this situation.

“Neither Lucky nor I knew that Dixie Mae had anything to do with any children,” Cassie started. “When did it happen?
How
did it happen?” she amended.

“I'm not sure of all the details,” Bernie answered. “Until Dixie Mae showed up here, it'd been years since I'd seen her. She said she wanted me to do the paperwork because I was local.”

Local? Cassie figured there was more to it than that. Maybe Dixie Mae's usual lawyer didn't handle situations like this. Or maybe her grandmother had just tried to be sneaky because her lawyer in San Antonio perhaps would have contacted Cassie to let her know something fishy was going on. And this definitely qualified as fishy.

“Dixie Mae said a couple of months ago an old friend of hers got very sick,” Bernie continued. “This friend was taking care of her grandkids and asked Dixie Mae to step in for a while.”

All right. There was the out Cassie had been hoping for. “You can contact the grandmother and tell her to resume custody.”

Bernie shook his head. “The grandmother died a short time later, and the grandkids' parents aren't in the picture. They're both dead. That's why Dixie Mae took over legal custody.”

Lucky shook his head, too. “Well, she must have hired a nanny or something because Dixie Mae never had any kids with her when she came to work.”

“She did have a nanny, a couple of them, in fact,” Bernie went on. “But they quit when they butted heads with her so Dixie Mae arranged for someone else to watch them temporarily. She didn't give me a lot of details when she came in and asked me to draw up papers and her will. And right after we finished with it, she got admitted to the hospital.”

Cassie latched on to that. “Maybe there's something in her will about Lucky and me being able to relinquish custody to a suitable third party.”

Lucky tipped his head in her direction. “What she said. Find it.”

But Bernie didn't pull out a will or anything else. “The will didn't address trusteeship of the children, only the disbursement of Dixie Mae's assets. I'm not at liberty to go over that with you now because she insisted her will not be read for several weeks.”

Cassie doubted there was a good reason for that. But she could think of a bad reason. “This was probably Grandmother's attempt at carrot dangling. If Lucky and I assume responsibility without putting up a fuss, then we'll inherit some money. Well, I don't want her money, and I'm putting up a fuss!”

“So am I,” Lucky agreed. “Fix this.”

Bernie looked around, clearly hesitating. “I guess if you refuse, I can have Child Protective Services step in.”

All right, they were getting somewhere.

Or maybe not.

“Of course, that's not ideal,” Bernie went on. “The children could end up being placed in separate homes, and foster care can be dicey.” He scratched his head. “Dixie Mae was so sure you two would agree to this since it was her last wish.”

Her grandmother had no doubt told Bernie to make sure he reminded them of that a time or two. Especially after what Dixie Mae had said to Lucky:
A man wouldn't be much of a man to deny an old dying woman her last wish
.

“I smell a rat,” Lucky mumbled.

So did Cassie. Dixie Mae had practically duped Lucky into saying yes, and the old gal had figured Cassie wouldn't just walk away, leaving him to hold the bag.

Damn it.

Cassie couldn't just walk away. But that didn't mean she was giving up without a fight. She wasn't in any position to raise children. Especially not with Lucky.

Heck, who was she kidding?

He'd probably be a lot better at it than she would be. At least he wasn't an emotional mess right now and hadn't just checked out of a glorified loony bin. As a therapist she probably should have considered a better term for it, but loony bin fit. Too bad she hadn't had her grandmother there with her so she could have had the chance of talking Dixie Mae into making other arrangements for the children.

“How do we get around this?” Cassie asked Bernie at the same moment Lucky said to him, “Fix this shit. And I don't mean fix it by putting some innocent kids in foster care. Fix it the right way. Find their next of kin. I want them in a home with loving people who know the right way to take care of them.”

Good idea. Except Bernie shook his head again. “I started the search right after Dixie Mae came in. No luck so far, but I'll keep looking. In the meantime, Cassie and you can take temporary custody, and if I can't find any relatives, I'll ask around and see if someone else will take them.”

That wasn't ideal, far from it, because “asking around” didn't seem to have a deadline attached to it. “How long would we have them?” she asked.

“A couple of days at most,” Bernie said.

Perhaps that was BS, but Cassie latched on to it and looked at Lucky. “Maybe we can figure out something to do with them just for a day or two?”

Oh, he so wanted to say no. She could see it in his eyes. Probably because
he
didn't want to stay anywhere near Spring Hill. It was no secret that Lucky had a serious case of wanderlust. Along with the regular kind of lust.

“Two days is too long,” Lucky said, obviously still mulling this over and perhaps looking for an escape route.

Two days, the exact amount of time she had to do something about those feather-chasing cats at the strip club. Cassie tried very hard not to think bad thoughts about her grandmother, but she wished the woman had gone over all these details before she'd passed away.

“You'll need to work out something faster than two days,” Lucky insisted. “I've got to be at a rodeo day after tomorrow.”

Yes, she had things to do, as well. Things she didn't want to do, but she wouldn't be able to wiggle out of them the way that Lucky was trying to wiggle out of this.

“I can try,” Bernie said, not sounding especially hopeful. Too bad, because Cassie needed him to be hopeful. More than that, she needed him to succeed.

“I'll call the Bluebonnet Inn,” Bernie added, “and get the girls a room there.”

Lucky seemed to approve of that, but Cassie wasn't so sure. She, too, had planned to stay at the Bluebonnet Inn, mainly because it was the only hotel in Spring Hill. That meant Lucky would likely expect her to be with the children 24/7.

But Cassie wasn't having this all put on her shoulders. Nope. She was packing enough baggage and problems as it was so she'd also get Lucky a room at the inn.

“Where are the children?” Cassie asked.

Bernie checked his watch. “They should be here any minute now.” He pushed a button on an old-fashioned intercom system. “Wilhelmina, when the Compton kids arrive—”

“They're already here,” Wilhelmina interrupted. “Want me to send them back?”

“Sure.” Bernie took his finger off the intercom button and drew in a long breath, as if he might need some extra air.

A moment later, Cassie saw why.

The air sort of vanished when the door opened and Cassie saw one of the children in question. And this time, she wasn't the one to say that one all-encompassing word. It was Lucky.

Shit
.

They had apparently inherited custody of a call girl.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HERE
WERE
ONLY
a handful of times in Lucky's life when he'd been rendered speechless, and this was one of them.

The “girl” walking up the hall toward him was indeed a
girl
. Technically. She was female, nearly as tall as Cassie, and she was wearing a black skirt and top. Or perhaps that was paint. Hard to tell. The skirt was short and skintight, more suited for, well, someone older.

“This is Mackenzie Compton,” Bernie said.

Cassie blew out a breath that sounded like one of relief. Lucky had no idea what she was relieved about so he just stared at her.

“This isn't a child,” Cassie explained, relief in her voice, too. “So obviously there's no need for us to take custody.”

Right. “What Cassie just said,” Lucky told Bernie.

However, Bernie burst that bubble of hope right off. “Mackenzie just turned thirteen.”

Maybe ten years ago, she had. But she wasn't thirteen now. “Can she prove that?” Lucky blurted out.

Mackenzie didn't say a word. Didn't have any reaction to that whatsoever. She just stood there looking like a both-arms-down Statue of Liberty who'd been vandalized with black spray paint. She had black hair, black nails, black lipstick and stared at them as if they were beings from another planet. Beings that she didn't want to get to know.

Good. The feeling was mutual.

But thirteen?

“I can prove her age,” Bernie supplied. “I have her birth certificate and school records.” Bernie handed him a folder. “Her sister, Mia, is four.”

Four. Well, hell. Now, that was a child, though he still wasn't convinced Mackenzie was a teenager. Maybe if she scrubbed off that half inch of makeup, there'd be some trace of a girl, but right now he wasn't seeing it.

However, he was seeing something. An extra set of legs. Either Mackenzie had four of them, a pair significantly shorter than the ones wearing that black skirt, or her little sister was hiding behind her.

Mackenzie took one step to the side, and there she was. A child. A real one. No goth clothes for her. She was wearing a pink dress with flowers and butterflies on it, and her blond hair had been braided into pigtails. She had a ragged pink stuffed pig in the crook of her arm.

If there had been a definition of “scared kid” in the dictionary, this kid's photo would have been next to it. Mia was clinging to her sister's skirt, her big blue eyes shiny with tears that looked ready to spill right down her cheeks.

Lucky took a big mental step back at the same time that he took an actual step forward. He didn't have any paternal instincts, none, but he knew a genuinely sad girl when he saw one, and it cut him to the core. He went down on one knee so he could be at her eye level.

“I'm Lucky McCord,” he said, hoping to put her at ease. It didn't work. Mia clung even tighter, though there wasn't much fabric in Mackenzie's skirt to cling to.

Mia. Such a little name for such a little girl.

“Do either of them...” Cassie started, looking at Bernie. But then she turned to the girls. “Either of you, uh, talk?”

Mia nodded. Blinked back those tears. Her bottom lip started to quiver.

Well, hell. That did it. Lucky fished through his pocket, located the only thing he could find resembling candy. A stick of gum. And he handed it to Mia. She took it only after looking up at her big sister, who nodded and grunted. What Big Sis didn't do was say a word to confirm that she did indeed have verbal communication skills beyond a primitive grunt.

“The girls have had a tough go of it lately,” Bernie said as if choosing his words carefully.

Lucky added another mental
well, hell
. He'd probably said
hell
more times today than he had in the past decade. He'd always believed it was the sign of a weak mind when a man had to rely on constant profanity as a way of communicating his emotions, but his mind was swaying in a weak direction today.

And he didn't know what the hell to do.

“Where have they been staying since my grandmother's death?” Cassie asked. “Gran passed away two days ago.”

Good question, but Lucky didn't repeat himself with another
what she said.

“With Scooter Jenkins,” Bernie answered.

Lucky had to do it. He had to think another
hell
.

“You know this man?” Cassie asked him.

“Scooter's a woman.” At least Lucky thought she was. She had a five-o'clock shadow, but that was possibly hormonal. “She's one of the rodeo clowns.”

Spooky as all get-out, too. While Scooter had worked for Dixie Mae as long as Lucky could remember, she was hardly maternal material. Nor was she exactly Dixie Mae's friend. The only way Scooter would have taken the girls was for Dixie Mae to have paid her a large sum of cash.

“Ten grand,” Bernie said as if anticipating Lucky's question. “The deal was for Scooter to keep them until after the funeral and then transfer physical custody to Cassie and you.”

Since Scooter was nowhere to be seen, that meant she'd likely just dropped off the kids. Lucky would speak to her about that later. But for now, he needed to fix some things.

Apparently, Cassie had the same fixing-things idea. “Why don't Bernie and I go in his office and discuss some
solutions
?” Cassie said to him. “Maybe you can wait in the lobby with the girls?”

Lucky preferred to be in on that discussion, but it wasn't a discussion he wanted to have in front of Mia. Not with those tears in her eyes.

“Please,” Cassie whispered to him. Or at least that's what Lucky thought she said at first. But when she repeated it, he realized she had said, “Breathe.”

Oh, man. Cassie looked ready to bolt so maybe her talking to Bernie was a good idea after all. While the two of them were doing that, maybe he'd try to have the kids wait with Wilhelmina so he could join the grown-ups.

Cassie and Bernie went to his office. Cassie shut the door, all the while repeating “Breathe.” Lucky went in the direction of the reception area.

Where there was no Wilhelmina.

Just a pair of suitcases sitting on the floor next to her empty desk. But there was a little sign that said I'll Be Back. The clock on the sign was set for a half hour from now. It might as well have been the next millennium.

Mia was holding on to the gum and pig as if they were some kind of lifelines, all the while volleying glances between her sister and him. Since it was possible there'd be some yelling going on in Bernie's office, Lucky motioned for the girls to sit in the reception area.

He sat.

They didn't.

And the moments crawled by. The silence went way past the uncomfortable stage.

Lucky didn't have any idea what to say to them. The only experience he'd had with kids was his soon-to-be nephew, Ethan. He was two and a half, and Lucky's brother Riley was engaged to Ethan's mom, Claire. Too bad Ethan wasn't around now to break the iceberg.

“So, what grade are you in?” he asked, just to be asking something.

Mia held up the four fingers of her left hand—the hand not clutching the gum but rather the one on the pig. Since he doubted she was in the fourth grade, he figured maybe she was communicating her age. So Lucky went with that. He flashed his ten fingers three times and added three more. Of course, she was way too young to get that he was thirty-three, but he thought it might get a smile from her.

It didn't.

He tried Mackenzie next. “Let me guess your favorite color. Uh, blue?” He smiled to let her know it was a joke. The girl's black-painted mouth didn't even quiver.

And the silence rolled on.

Oh, well. At least Bernie had said this so-called custody arrangement would only last a day or two, and they weren't chatter bugs. Mia's tears seemed to have temporarily dried up, too. Plus, Cassie was likely jumping through hoops to do whatever it took for them not to have to leave here with these kids. Lucky was all for that, but he wasn't heartless. He still wanted to leave them in a safe place. Preferably a safe place that didn't involve him.

What the heck had Dixie Mae been thinking?

“Bull,” someone said, and for one spooky moment, Lucky thought it was Dixie Mae whispering from beyond the grave.

But it was Mia.

Those little blue eyes had landed on his belt buckle, and there was indeed a bull and bull rider embossed into the shiny silver. Lucky had lots of buckles—easy for that to happen when you rode as long as he'd been riding—but he had two criteria for the ones he wore. Big and shiny. This was the biggest and shiniest of the bunch.

“Yep, it's a bull,” Lucky verified.

Mia didn't come closer, but she did lean out from sour-faced Big Sis for a better look.

“I ride bulls just like that one.” He tapped the buckle, and hoped that wasn't too abstract for a four-year-old. Of course, she had clearly recognized it as a bull, so maybe she got it.

And the silence returned.

“So, what was it like staying with Scooter?” he asked.

That got a reaction from Mackenzie. She huffed. Not exactly a sudden bout of chatter, but Lucky understood her completely. What he didn't understand was why Dixie Mae had left them with Scooter in the first place. But then, there were a lot of things he didn't understand about Dixie Mae right now.

“How about you?” he asked Mia. “Did you like staying with Scooter?”

She pinched her nose, effectively communicating that Scooter often smelled. Often kept on her clown makeup even when she wasn't working. The only thing marginally good he could say about the woman was that her visible tattoos weren't misspelled.

“Do we gotta go back with Scooter?” Mia asked.

Lucky wasn't sure who was more surprised by the outburst of actual words—Mackenzie or him. It took him a second to get past the shock of the sound of Mia's voice and respond.

“Do you want to go back with her?” he asked.

“No.” Mackenzie that time. Mia mumbled her own “No.” Judging from the really fast response from both girls, and that it was the only syllable he'd gotten from Mackenzie, he'd hit a nerve.

A nerve that affected his next question. “So, where do you want to go?”

Now, this would have been the time for both girls to start firing off answers. With friends, relatives, rock stars. To a goth store, et cetera. He got a shrug from Mia and a glare from Mackenzie.

What had he expected? Bernie had already told him their parents were out of the picture. Orphans. Something that Lucky more than understood, but he'd been nineteen when his folks died. Barely an adult, but that had
barely
prevented him from having to stay with a clown.

Though there were a couple of times when Lucky had called Logan just that.

More silence. If this went on, he might just take a nap. Lucky went with a different approach, though. “Is there a question you want to ask me?”

Mia looked up at her sister, and even though Mackenzie's mouth barely moved, Lucky thought he saw the hint of a smile. The kind of smile that had some stink eye on it.

“Have you ever been arrested?” Mackenzie asked. Yeah, definitely some stink eye. “Because Scooter said you had been.”

“I have,” he admitted. “Nothing major, though, and I never spent more than a few hours in jail.”

Except that one time when there'd been a female deputy who'd come on to him. But that time he'd stayed longer by choice. Best not to mention that, though. In fact, there was a lot about his life he wouldn't mention.

“What'd you get 'rrested for?” Mia asked.

Lucky smiled, not just at the pronunciation but the cute voice. Cute kid, too.

“Drinking beer.” Like Bernie had earlier, Lucky chose his words wisely. At any rate, beer or some other alcohol had usually been at the root of his bad behavior.

Mackenzie made a
hmmp
sound as if she didn't believe him. Lucky didn't elaborate even though there was no telling what Scooter had told them.

“Don't drink beer,” Mia advised him in a serious tone that made him have to fight back another smile.

The little girl came closer, leaving her sister's side and not even looking up for permission. She climbed into the seat next to him, tore the gum stick in half and gave him the bigger of the two pieces.

“Thanks,” Lucky managed to say.

Mia then offered half of her half to her sister, but Mackenzie only shook her head, grunted and deepened her scowl. Much more of that and she was going to get a face cramp.

“Is Lucky even your real name?” Mackenzie again. “Because if it is, it's a stupid name.”

Such a cheery girl. “It's a nickname. My real name's Austin, but nobody ever calls me that.”

Heck, most people didn't even know it.

“My grandpa McCord gave me the name when I was just three years old,” he explained. “I somehow managed to get into the corral with a mean bull. And despite the fact I was waving a red shirt at him so I could play matador, I came out without a scratch.”

Lucky, indeed. His grandpa could have just called him stupid considering the idiotic thing he'd done.

“What about the lady doctor?” Mackenzie asked, clearly not impressed with his story. She folded her arms over her chest. “Has she been arrested, too?”

“Can't say,” Lucky answered honestly. “But I doubt it.” Though something was going on with Cassie. Those
breathe
mumblings weren't a good sign.

“Is she gay?” Mackenzie continued.

“No,” he said, way too loud and way too fast. He paused. “Why do you ask?”

“Her shoes and clothes,” Mackenzie quickly supplied.

Lucky groaned. “It's never a good idea to stereotype people.” That was the second time today he'd given such a warning, though Mackenzie probably didn't have a clue what that word meant. She didn't seem the sort to work on building her vocabulary.