Ann Evans - That Man Matthews

Cody turned back to his desk, searching through the mess of paperwork for his plane ticket. He smiled at his father, whose faded-blue gaze gleamed with knowing concern. “Don’t say it, Pa,” Cody warned. He didn’t have time right now for a lecture about things he already knew.

“I didn’t say a word,” Walt Matthews protested.

“No, but you’re thinking it.”

“It’s still a free country, ain’t it? Man’s got a right to think whatever he wants.” Leaning heavily on one of the metal crutches that helped him get around, Walt came slowly to join him at the desk. “But I’m not one to stick my nose in where it ain’t welcome.”

Cody looked up with a laugh. “Since when?”

“Fine. Just don’t come looking for me to cook when Merlita up and takes a bus back to Chihuahua.”

“Damn! Where the hell is that ticket?” Cody complained as he threw down an empty envelope. “Someday I’m going to get this desk organized. If I miss this flight, it will be tomorrow afternoon before I can get another one out.”

“That might not be such a bad thing. Give you a chance to talk to Sarah.”

“Pa—”

Walt cut him off with a forestalling hand. “None of my beeswax, I know.”

Cody sighed. Might as well give in. He wasn’t going to get away from Luna D’Oro today without discussing Sarah. “It’s just a little harmless fun, Pa. You remember what I was like as a kid, don’t you? Always trying to pull a fast one on you and Mom and the bunkhouse crew? Nothing Sarah’s done is malicious. In fact, you have to admit that some of her pranks are pretty clever for a twelve-year-old.”

“That isn’t what you said last week when you turned on the air conditioner in the Rover and five pounds of rice flew out the vents and nearly scared you off the road.”

“Surprised, not scared.”

“Same thing.”

Cody rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to argue. Especially when Walt was probably right. Sarah—his sweet, precious baby girl—had turned into a royal pain in the butt in the past couple of months. Mouthy. Disobedient. With enough practical jokes in her bag of tricks to torment the family every day for the next ten years. And he didn’t want to even think about what her final school report was going to look like this year.

He stopped looking for the plane ticket long enough to glance at the picture he kept on his desk. Sarah, of course. The candid shot taken last year at the ranch’s annual cookout.

Pa’s camera had caught her pressed up against Cody, all smiles and girlish delight, hugging him with every bit of the strength and love she had in her. Nothing in that pert little nose and dimpled grin looked even remotely defiant. Her pale sunlit hair was made for angels, not devils. If there was any hint of the stubborn, willful behavior they’d seen lately, it was in the slight clef in his daughter’s chin. She’d inherited it from her mother. It was pure Daphne.

“Here’s your ticket,” his father said, rescuing it from beneath a pile of handbills advertising everything from horse auctions in San Antonio to Stampede Days in Laredo. He handed Cody the folder, and then another right beneath it. “And take this with you on the plane, too. Try reading it this time.”

Cody slipped the plane ticket into the inside pocket of his buckskin jacket. He barely glanced at the flyer his father had shoved into his hand. He knew what the old man was up to.

The flyer contained information about a parenting conference that had taken place two weeks ago in Austin. Struggling to understand what was causing the change in Sarah’s behavior, the two Matthews men had planned to attend, but at the last minute the deal Cody had made for Williston property had looked as if it might fall through. Walt had been forced to go alone.

He’d come back full of excitement and ideas and the flyer—with one name circled on the workshop list. A Virginia teacher and educational therapist named Joan Paxton had conducted a seminar on how to deal with kids suffering from attention deficit disorder. The blurb about her in the brochure was full of the kinds of things Cody hated most—sweeping praise from pompous-sounding academics and vague promises about what her lecture could accomplish. But Pa kept pressing Cody to contact the woman, see if she could give him some one-on-one advice.

Only one thing wrong with that idea, Cody had said. Sarah did not have attention deficit disorder. The flyer had been relegated to the read-when-I-get-around-to-it pile on his desk.

“I’m telling you, son,” Walt interrupted Cody’s thoughts. “The woman had every person in the audience taking notes. She knows her stuff. And if you’d talk to her, she might help us figure out what’s eatin’ Sarah.”

Anxious to be gone, Cody was hardly listening now. Absently he asked, “Why would she be willing to talk to me in particular?”

“’Cause I asked her to.”

That grabbed Cody’s attention. “What? You didn’t tell me that.”

“I went up to her after the workshop and told her how much I enjoyed her speech. We got to talking, and before I left she said she’d be happy to discuss Sarah’s problems with you.”

“How could you do that?” Cody asked. He dragged a hand through his dark hair, striving for patience. “Look, Pa. Sarah is my problem. I don’t want or need any stiff-necked, tight-assed schoolmarm telling me what’s wrong with my kid. I haven’t done such a bad job for twelve years that I need to call in reinforcements now.”

“I’m not saying you have. But what’s wrong with asking for a little help? And come to think of it, have you done anything about hiring a nanny yet?”

“I haven’t had time to call an agency.”

“You haven’t made time.”

Unfortunately that was true. Cody had stalled on that suggestion. The idea of hiring full-time live-in help to raise Sarah rubbed him the wrong way. Sarah was twelve, for God’s sake, not a baby who needed her diaper changed. Which was, by the way, the kind of thing Cody had done for her when she’d needed it. That and a lot of other things. Now, suddenly, he couldn’t handle his own daughter?

“You didn’t have help raising me after Mom died. I didn’t turn out so bad.”

His father shook his head. “No, but I shoulda worked harder on that ornery streak of yours.”

Cody grinned. “I got it from you, didn’t I?” He headed for the door. “I’ve got to go, or I’ll never make the plane. We’ll talk when I get back.”

“Son?” His father’s serious tone brought him up short. “Here’s something else you need to consider. How will you explain Sarah’s behavior to her other Grandpa, if he decides he wants to become part of her life?”

Cody felt his heart drop. He couldn’t admit it to his father, but that worry had been nibbling at him ever since Edward Ross had reentered their lives. So far, the Connecticut millionaire had kept a low profile, but if the old man ever decided to investigate the circumstances of his granddaughter’s birth…Cody shuddered at the thought.

“He won’t interfere in our lives, Pa,” Cody said in a determined voice, more to convince himself than his father. “He’s too busy hobnobbing with senators and movie stars. He doesn’t have time for twelve-year-old girls who only want to talk about horses and how soon they’ll get to wear makeup.”

“Don’t you believe it, son. What’s Edward Ross been doing with his time since he’s retired? His only child killed in a plane crash years ago. His wife dead, too. Then he finds out he has a grandchild—a girl who looks a heck of a lot like Daphne. You think he’s not gonna want to be a part of her life? A big part?”

The older man slipped one arm out of his metal crutch support and rubbed his hip absently. “You’re foolin’ yourself, son. Believe me, at that age, a man looks back on his life and starts thinking maybe he should have done things differently.”