Luck Be A Lady (Destiny Bay Romances-The Ranchers Book 5) (22 page)

“Hi, Sadie! It’s me,” she called, knocking.

“Come on in, the door’s not locked.” Sadie was in stretch pants and a big sweater. She leaned back, yawning, and used the remote control to turn off the television. “Tammy, your mother’s here,” she called.
“Well, how was the—?”

That was as far as she got before her head had
turned far enough around to see Monty coming in be
hind Kelly. Her face froze in stark terror and no sounds came out of her throat.

“Thanks so much for taking care of Tammy for me,”
Kelly said brightly, ignoring the trauma all around her.
“Come on, honey.” She motioned to Tammy to hurry. “We’ll be going along now.” She glanced at Monty.
“Monty here wants to have a word with you. Now Sadie...” She stood over her friend and looked stern. “You hear him out. You owe it to yourself.” Leaning
down, she planted a kiss on Sadie’s shocked face. “Bye now.”

Grabbing her daughter, she took off, closing the
door firmly behind her. “And if that doesn’t do it,” she muttered to herself, “I don’t know what will.”

Chapter Ten

Kelly had made up her mind. She’d been agonizing about her decision for days. During those days she had not heard a word from Cody and didn’t
expect to.

Obviously it was over.

But she couldn’t just stay there wallowing in her misery. She had to be where people cared about her, where she was a part of something. There was only one place she could think of. She was going home to Destiny Bay.
 

She got a few days off from Sadie, grabbed her daughter and packed her into the car and took off for California. The moment they hit the freeway she began to feel better, and by the time the seven plus hour drive was over and she’d pulled up in front of her parents’ house, she felt a wave of relief. Her sister Trish was coming out on the front porch to greet them, and suddenly Kelly was sobbing. She was home.

                                   
###

It had been years since Kelly had been captivated—charmed like a snake being mesmerized—by the dashing Tim Stanton and had left Destiny Bay with him, against the advice of everyone, against her mother’s demand, against everything logical and trustworthy--and headed off with the exciting man who wanted her. As she looked back now, she knew everyone had been right. She’d been a crazy little fool. And she’d paid for it in spades.
 

But as far as her relationship with her family went, it could have been yesterday. Everything was just the same as it had been all those years ago. She was family. They were family. There was too much love between them for it to be any other way.
 

The next few days were like Christmas, seeing old friends and family, luxuriating in the interest and affection of everyone who hadn’t seen her for so long.
 
She and her sisters stayed up the first night talking until dawn. There was so much to remind each other of, so much to explain.
 

There seemed to be a problem between her parents. She didn’t get the details, but there seemed to be some friction she didn’t remember having ever noticed before. It made her uneasy. But they were both loving to her, and she didn’t have a chance to get to the bottom of it.

The highlight was a massive bonfire picnic on the beach where it seemed like everyone she’d ever known showed up to give her a hug and urge her to move back. It was so much fun--she could almost pretend that she was seventeen again.
 

But even more important to her was the talk she had with her sisters at the café, Mickie’s on the Bay, that had always been a hangout for Carringtons of all stripes.
 

Mickie herself was married to Tag Carrington, a cousin of Kelly’s, and she joined the three sisters in a long lunch and heart to heart confab over just what Kelly should do with her life—and her daughter’s future.
 

“Okay, sweetheart,” redheaded Mickie said at one point, “Why do you have such a haunted look in your eyes?”

Kelly shook her head. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve got decisions to make and I came home to unscramble my brain so I could maybe make them.”

Mickie shrugged. “Sounds like a plan. Why don’t you run some of your thoughts past us and let us throw out some suggestions? It never hurts to get outside opinions on things that trouble you.”

Kelly sighed, shoulders drooping, and her sister Trish reached out and squeezed her hand.
 

“Just tell us what you’re comfortable telling, Kelly,” she said. “We’re here to help you, not to find out all your hidden secrets.”

Kelly smiled at Trish. “Okay. Here goes. I…I feel like I’m sitting on the edge of a blade. Should I jump this way, or that way? Either way has its pluses and minuses. Nothing I can think of will be easy…or even right. So…..”

She talked about Tim, how it had been since he died, and about Tammy and how much she loved her softball team. How she herself loved her job at Sadie’s, how she’d taken over the coaching duties for Tammy’s team.
 

“To Tammy, Las Vegas is home."
 

Mickie nodded. “How old is she? Ten?” She nodded again, thinking hard. “It’s definitely time to choose. You wait much longer and it will be a painful wrench to take her away from everything there and move her here. If you’re going to do it, better do it soon.”

Kelly shook her head. “She lost her father so young. To her, Las Vegas, her friends, her softball team, her school—that’s home. I hate to rip her away from all that.”

“But you also have to think long-term," Mickie said earnestly. "Where is she going to have the most advantages, the most support? You’ve got to consider what it’s like to be raised here in Destiny Bay. You know what I mean. You and your sisters were the beneficiaries of a lot of love, a lot of respect. The Carrington name means something here."

Kelly nodded slowly. “I never realized how lucky I was,” she said softly. “I was crazy to walk away from it all just to follow Tim. But when you’re seventeen, life looks so simple. All you want is someone to love, someone to make you happy."

Wow. Had the years really made a difference in that? Not likely. She was still chasing the same dream
s.

"The more you give up to get that, the less likely you’ll have it in the end," she murmured musingly.

“Ouch. That seems a bit gloomy.”

Kelly tried to smile. “Yes. I don’t really mean it. At least, I don’t think I do.”
 
She sighed. “I still have a lot of thinking to do.”

Her sister Candy shook out her blond curls and grinned happily. “So it’s decided. You’re moving back here. Right?”

“Uh…maybe.” Kelly tried to smile, then looked into the gazes of each of her companions in turn. “There’s something else. Something I haven’t told you about.”

Mickie cringed. “Uh oh.”

Trish groaned.

Candy put her hand in front of her eyes.
 

Kelly took a deep breath and blurted out, “I…I think I’m in love.”

They all three groaned in unison.

“He’s a man who won’t ever leave Las Vegas. Not ever.”

Mickie was the first to sober and look at her seriously. “Okay. That’s a pretty big road block, isn’t it?”

Candy closed her eyes and pretended to be tearing her hair out. “Back to the drawing board.”

Trish piped in, agreeing. “There you go. Throw everything we’ve said so far out the window. If you’re in love, and he’s right for you, and will make you happy, you gotta do what you gotta do.”

“Is
he
in love with
you
?” Mickie asked perceptively.

Kelly looked at her and shrugged, her huge eyes back to being haunted. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

They all pondered that silently. That was indeed the question. And it was one Kelly would still be mulling over when she and Tammy said goodbye to Destiny Bay and began the long drive back to Nevada.
 

                                                      
###

Cody sat astride the big black stallion that was his pride and joy. His late afternoon ride had taken him up into the hills and he was looking down at the ranch below. His ranch. His dream.
 

Ever since he was a kid, this had been what he’d wanted out of life. A place of his own. Horses. Trainers. A structured program. A chance at greatness. A way to prove to the world what he was made of. Now he had it.
 

Poker was his craft, his talent, his livelihood. But ranching was in his soul. His heart was full as he looked at the property that spread out beneath where he sat. He’d done it. Years of planning, years of saving, working, years of agony. But here he was, king of all he surveyed.
 

Why wasn’t that enough?

Years before he’d set a path toward this, and now he’d arrived at the goal—a winner. So why did it feel so empty?

He couldn’t have done it without Monty, but that was where the luck had come in. Monty was one casino boss in a million. With anyone else, it would never have been possible. He was grateful. He was thankful. He was proud. But was he happy?

For some reason there was an empty feeling in his heart, a hole in his happiness. A gaping lack of something about the size of the space a young woman would take up. A young woman named Kelly. The yearning for that woman was killing the joy.
 

What the hell?

Okay, so something in him needed Kelly. Too bad. It was quite possible he never would have her. They’d tried. He’d gone half way, hadn’t he? And it hadn’t worked. There was too big a gap between their worlds. Maybe if he’d told her about this, about his ranch, about his dreams…..
 

But no, he hadn’t wanted to do that. Something in him rebelled against that. If she couldn’t take him as he was, if she needed something else to make him acceptable to her, he didn’t want her. She had to accept him on his own terms.
 

Or was he being a jerk? Was he asking too much? Was his pride more important than his feelings for the woman? His soul writhed in his body and he cried out into the wind, one agonized shout, filled with anger and frustration--and just a bit of loneliness. His horse moved restlessly beneath him, not sure what was wrong. He regretted the yell and leaned close to his neck, the silky mane hitting his face as he whispered sweet words to the nervous animal.
 

He might as well calm down. It was what it was. But what now? Could he go ahead and enjoy all he’d accomplished? Could he find true happiness without Kelly?

Why not? He’d never needed a woman that badly before. He would forget about her soon enough. Wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t he?

He pushed his knees into his horse’s sides and gave him a slap. “Let’s go boy,” he urged, “Come on,” and in seconds they were flying down the hill. Going too fast. Maybe he would break his damn neck. And then there’d be no more problem.
 

Hah.

                                                          
###

Kelly's trip home had been refreshing in many ways, but it hadn’t answered those fundamental questions that she needed to decide on her own. Still, she knew one thing. She knew what she had to do. Maybe she wouldn’t ever have Cody for her very own. Maybe she wouldn’t even have him as a lover ever again. But she
could sure do something to guarantee he didn’t get beaten up by Jasper Cramer again. She was going straight to Monty. If Cody wouldn’t protect himself,
she’d do it for him.

She’d thought the whole thing through again and
again. She knew she was taking a risk, but she didn’t
see any other method of handling it. From her point
of view, Cody knew Jasper was into something ille
gal, and Jasper—for she was sure it was Jasper, hav
ing sensed the tension between the two of them, having seen him give orders to the tough who’d been in on the beating—had used physical force to persuade Cody not
to tell anyone. At least that much was on the surface. But Kelly was pretty sure there was more.

The better she’d come to know Cody, the more she
realized he was not the sort of man to be scared off by gangster tactics. His not reporting Jasper had very little to do with the beating or the threat. The puzzle was
to find out his true motivations.

Possibilities slipped in and out of her mind as the days went by. She could hardly think about anything else. Tammy, softball, Sadie, the nursery—everything
dimmed around her, and her thoughts were focused on
Cody and what had been going on at the casino.

It could be, she decided at last, that he didn’t think
he had enough proof to go to the authorities. Or
maybe he was afraid he’d lose his job. The other possibility was that Monty was the power behind things, so maybe it was his loyalty to Monty that was holding him back. It could even be—and this was where she choked up and felt fierce denial grow inside her— that Cody was somehow involved himself.

Just a few weeks ago she would hardly have cared
which explanation fit. Breaking the law was
breaking the law, and protecting criminals was wrong. She still believed that. But now she could see that there
might be circumstances under which right and wrong
were not black or white.